Not quite the solution I was looking for

Do you ever get the feeling that you inadvertently caused the wrong solution to the right problem?

Allow me to explain. Singapore has a lot of great restaurants, but for reasons I haven't quite been able to figure out, service here is the worst of any major city I've ever been to, consistently. I've thought of a number of possible explanations - it's an extension of the local culture where people tend to act like robots and not pay much attention to anybody else; some wait staff are nervous about using their English with a native; I moved here from Paris and that's an impossible act to follow - but really, it's anybody's guess why. In any case, I've never experienced more cases of waiters hearing something other than what I really ordered (as I discussed here, or waiting on some people before others who've been waiting longer, or just plain ignoring hungry patrons. Along the way, I have also discovered that "Are you ready to order?" and "Have you already ordered?" sound just about the same with a Singaporean accent. I do know one unlucky waiter who will never make that mistake again after he asked me the latter and I heard the former and answered "yes". When he walked away, I got up and followed him and made very clear what I had heard!

But I digress. Among the numerous "good food, bad service" experiences I've had was a bratwurst place here. If you know me well, you're probably thinking I don't like bratwurst at all. And you're right, I don't. But this place also has - or at least had - the best pancakes in Singapore, as I discovered one morning when I was at that particular mall waiting for some store to open. Since the pancakes were terrific and that's hard to find in Singapore, I made a note to come back and have them again next time.

And I tried to. Oh, how I tried to.

But on my return visit, I placed my order, paid for it and went back into the seating area and waited. And waited. And waited. After about ten minutes, some other people turned up in the dining area. Ten minutes or so after that, their food came. Mine still hadn't. I asked the waiter where my food was, and he said he'd check on it. A few minutes later, he returned and said it would be out shortly. Around that time another party came in. We're now talking at least fifteen minutes after I had arrived. Next time I saw the waiter, he had their food. He once again said my pancakes were on the way. That was the last straw: I got up and went back up front, and politely asked for my money back. I got it, with apologies. That at least was nice. This is one of those places where you can see the grill right by the register, and - you guessed it - they had just poured my pancakes on the grill, after having served everybody else first! The sad thing was, I wasn't surprised.

This is where the wrong solution comes in. Last week, I had occasion to walk by the place again, and I happened to glimpse the menu. Something wasn't quite right, so I stopped and read the whole thing. Sure enough, I hadn't misread it or overlooked anything.

They no longer carry pancakes.

Well, that's one way to avoid repeating a mistake, I guess. But it doesn't really get to the root of the problem, does it?

Sorry, Teddy

Here's a little something I posted on Daily Kos a few days ago:

I have explained elsewhere that if I lived in Massachusetts, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to vote for Coakley. Does that mean I would vote for Brown despite his being a bigot and a shill for the insurance industry? I hope not, but...well, let's just say I'm very grateful I don't vote in the Bay State at this point.

That said, win or lose, I'm already sick and tired of the argument that health care reform depends on this particular seat. If Brown wins (or, more accurately speaking, if Coakley loses), then the Republicans will have picked up one seat, which will be the least senior seat in the upper chamber, and they will be highly unlikely to retain it in 2012, and they'll know it. The Dems will still have 59 seats, and Harry Reid will still be making Mister Rogers look like Malcolm X when it comes to strong leadership, and Obama will still be putting way, way, way too much emphasis on achieving bipartisan consensus with a party that has no real interest in such things. That will be the reason why health care reform fails again if it does, not because the Dems nominated the wrong person to hold the Massachusetts seat, still leaving them with the biggest majority either party has had since 1978.

My opinion hasn't changed a bit, except perhaps that Brown's extremely tasteless comment regarding what he'd like to do to Coakley with a curling iron would probably have guaranteed that I'd have voted for Snoopy if I lived in MA. I don't support him any more than I supported Coakley, and I sincerely hope he loses in 2012, but I'm not at all sorry we won't have to explain away having a senator on our side of the aisle who doesn't seem to have any qualms about destroying innocent people's lives for political gain.

"American Thinker" article on Martha Coakley

If you or someone you know votes in Massachusetts, please read this before you vote in the Senate election, and please think long and hard about the fact that even I would vote Republican in this case.

Yes, American Thinker is a conservative site. Yes, I noticed the insulting use of "Democrat" where it should be "Democratic" and the gratuitous swipe at Barney Frank (what I wouldn't give for him to run for Senate, by the way), and the rather odd comment about Louise Woodward that seems to conclude that she was guilty. But unfortunately, it gets most of the facts right. The seat will be up again in 2012, and if Brown wins, he'd probably lose next time to just about any other Democrat. If Coakley wins, as the article says, she'll probably be senator for life. And we are talking about someone who has no qualms about destroying innocent lives for her political gain.

Speaking of which, the 1980s daycare sex abuse witch-hunt has always been a favorite target of the "men's rights" crowd, partially because Janet Reno was behind one of the false convictions and partially because they always blame feminists when an innocent man goes to prison, as many did in this case. (A certain ex-girlfriend of mine - those of you who know me personally don't need a clue as to which one - actually told me once that a few false convictions were perfectly acceptable it it meant keeping women and girls safe from the bad guys. She probably didn't really mean to say it, but she did say it.) As I always say when this topic comes up, don't fall into the trap of guilt by association here. Smoking isn't good for you just because Hitler didn't do it, after all. Having a female senator who built her career on false convictions would only hurt our credibility against the "men's rights" crowd, if it comes to that.

Incidentally, one thing in that article really jumps out at me: "Periodic internet polls in Massachusetts show that more than two-thirds of the respondents think the Amirault family was unjustly prosecuted and convicted." When I first started following the Amirault case back in 1998 (I worked for a polling firm whose clients included Scott Harshbarger, who helped railroad the Amiraults and then ran unsuccessfully for governor), polls showed quite the opposite. Of course, Harshbarger lost that year, and Tom Reilly (who also had his finger in the case) managed to lose to Mitt "Divorce is mandatory in France" Romney for governor in 2002, so maybe there is hope. [CORRECTION: Reilly ran in 2006, not 2002, and he lost the Democratic primary to Deval Patrick. Thank God.]

The mother of all business trips, or As long as I'm moving...

Friday afternoon saw the latest of a series of altercations with the boss regarding why we weren't making more of an impact. I told him for the umpteenth time that he really needed to start taking the US market more seriously, since breaking through there will give us the resources to hit the ground running in almost any other country (and we definitely don't have that yet). This time, though, he listened. I'm not sure why I got through to him this time where I was never able to before, but I did.

He agreed with me. And then he asked me to write up an itinerary for a two month trip to the US, starting shortly after the New Year. So, in January, it's off to San Francisco for a few weeks, then Las Vegas for a conference in February, and probably at least three other cities. I don't know which cities yet, but I could be visiting as far afield as Boston. The idea of traveling with my boss for that long isn't the most appealing thing I've heard. But for reasons that aren't important here, it would have been a big mistake for either of us to try to pull this trip off alone (and I was deeply afraid he was going to try), so dealing with him will be an acceptable price.

Whatever the drawbacks, San Francisco is one of my favorite cities, I've never been to Las Vegas, and I haven't been "home" in over three years. So this was quite the early Christmas present. Stay tuned for more details.

Just what are the Christmas-in-the-tropics blues?

Since I got in a bit of trouble on Facebook for saying I had "the Christmas in the tropics blues" (and I truly am sorry I made my friends in Denver read that!), perhaps I should elaborate a bit here. There's a limit to how much I can do so without betraying some personal confidences, so I'll have to be circumspect. Here goes.

I like Singapore, and I like my job. In this economy, I like just having a job at all, if it comes to that, but for the most part I really do like my job in its own right. But sometimes a job can't help but make you feel rather blah, and I've been working my way through a case of that this week. (I was quite sick the week before that, so that probably has something to do with it.) And yes, while a 30 degree C/90 degree F December is a hard thing for a guy whose other homes have included New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Northern Europe to wrap his mind around, I'd rather cope with the weather here than in any of those places at the moment. My best wishes go out to those who are there now!

Here's where the circumspection (is that a word? it should be) comes in. Since I finished Part I of my novel last week, I finally got to work on Part II this week and it's off to a great start. But I wrote a really good line the other night that made for a rather stark revelation for me. It was something a lead character said about some of the choices he's made in his work- and personal-life, and after getting it down on paper I realized I was really thinking of myself. It made me think about my job and how things have gone in Singapore and certain decisions I've made since I've been here and the results thereof. And yes, it triggered a rather bad case of the blues. When I first came here, I wasn't at all sure I'd be here long, and if I had to guess as to whether or not I'd be at this company beyond the six month internship I had initially, I'd have guessed no.

But here I still am. For the most part, that's been all for the better. As I noted over a year ago, I'm a lot better off here than I'd have been at most other places I might have ended up working. The company has grown quite a bit, and things are looking very positive. Logically, I know this was about the best outcome that could have happened compared to the other places I looked into moving to.

Of course, not all in life is logical. I have always liked Singapore and I still do, but the place can be a bit oppressive in how businesslike and button-down it is, and it's also awfully remote from most of the people I care about. That has had its share of costs, and this week I accidentally brought a reminder of that upon myself when my art imitated my life. More than anything, I wish at some point I could have my career follow my life instead of the other way around. I guess there's no reason why that can't happen at some point down the road, of course. This too shall pass.

Yeah, I know this is one of the more self-indulgent posts I've ever put up here, and that it's also rather cryptic. Sorry about that. I just had to write it down for my own sanity at this point. And somewhat surprisingly, I do feel better!

Bess Lomax Hawes, RIP...and who knew?!

I'm sad to hear Bess Lomax Hawes died last week (I've been sick and also busy with other things, and hadn't kept up with the news), though I have to confess I'm a bit surprised she was still alive. Now, I know who she was, since her family is just as important to folk music as the Kennedys are to politics and because she was a member of The Almanac Singers. (That picture on the obituary, incidentally, is the only picture of them I have ever seen. It pops up every time they are mentioned. You'd think there must be at least one other one out there somewhere.) But somehow, I had no idea she wrote "Charlie on the MTA".

Actually, I had no idea anybody wrote it, if you will. I thought I read somewhere that the original version was a wire recording by an unknown male singer sometime in the 1940s. I suppose that could be true, actually, and the account I read simply didn't bother to mention that not only was the song's authorship known even if the singer of the earliest known recording wasn't, but that said author was a member of one of the most important families in American music. Strange omission, though.

I did know that she lived in Topanga Canyon back before it was taken over by rock stars (or even before there was such a thing as a rock star), because I've read about Woody Guthrie staying at her house on his last trip across the country, after he'd already been committed once. She apparently cut his visit short because of his habit of lounging around the backyard naked when she had little kids. How much more hip could a person be in the early fifties, huh?

Anyhow. There are a number of people I really admire for living a truly full life even if they never become household names, and she was one already. How strange that I didn't know that key part of her life story, though!

Every now and then, petitions do pay off...

Emma Thompson will remove her name from Polanski petition, and good for her! Already one of my favorite actresses...although my appreciation is tempered by the fact that she had to be talked into it. Still, great news.