Robots are never surprised
On Saturday I turned 25 (a quarter-century, as people kept reminding me), and as if in some kind of cruel imitation of the way it feels to suddenly realize that you have to start being an adult, a few dozen people thought it would be funny to jump out and scream at me in unison as I (expecting nothing more frightening than a pile of steamed crabs) walked into Melissas house. And no hard feelings guys, but I really would have preferred the crabs. Of the many great parts to having a surprise birthday party, "having your picture taken in a state of embarrassed shock" is not high on the list. Check out this picture of me looking completely retarded, awkwardly admiring my new robot while dozens of people in antennae looked on expectantly, waiting for me to say something that would signal the end of the "SURPRISE!" section of the party, and allow them to get back to their drinks. Alas, I know no such signal, and so after an exceedingly long minute of blundering, they all filed out anyway, passing me along the way to shake my trembling hand or do the handshake-or-hug dance with me.
Silly robots.
On the up side, I now have my very own robot. It was created in the image of the robot on jeffish.org, and I love it. Its arms are made of dryer tubing and its heart is made of rainbows. Even though it is still at Melissas house, it calls to me in my dreams as it anxiously awaits the day I will bring it to my concrete box of a home and bolt it lovingly to my wall. I think that must be like some sort of erotic pleasure for a robot to be bolted to something. My robot will like it here, surrounded by concrete and steel. He will gaze down at me as I write papers and code, correcting a logical error here, scolding me for my bad posture there. "Back straight, feet flat on the floor!" my robot will say in his monotonous robot voice. "Check out that core dump ha ha ha." Some people will say I am imagining it and that I should act my new age, but I will know that they are just jealous that they don't have their own robot, and I will not invite them to my next surprise party, and if they come anyway, I will kick them out with a foot-mounted bat.
The party was planned by the beautiful Melissa, who did a fantastic job of lying to me for several months, but I guess I shouldn't hold it against her. She enlisted the help of many fine souls, who, with a little tin foil and a lot of love, transformed her house into a Intergalactic Spaceship/Discotheque Extrordnaire. The only rough point in the party was when one of our rowdier guests began to beat the shit out of an innocent oak tree, and we almost had to call the National Park service, but luckily we were able to calm him down with promises of vodka and Smarties.
djimison, collard_greens, and klu! took a lot of pictures, and I wrote a litte email to the party people to thank them for coming out and partying with me, and I tried to find the addresses of everyone who came out, but if you were there and didn't get this email, here ya go.
To: [party people]
Subject: congratulations to you, you big bunch of liars
Just kidding.
Not many people can say that they have a serious robot storage dilemma, but now I can, and that's what made this the best birthday evar! Well, that and the surprise bit. That was good too. If you've never experienced momentary profound confusion, the time is ripe for your first surprise party. Anyway, at some point, early in the evening, I was told (another filthy lie, no doubt) that, according to custom, the surprise birthday boy is supposed to make a speech. But then I poured myself a nice tall drink and conveniently forgot many of my problems - the speech primary among them. Well now that two days have passed and I am starting to remember things, I figure I should fulfill my responsibility, so those of you with things to do should skip to the end.
In the year of two thousand and four, at about this time, when I was still very new to Atlanta and I had never even heard of boiled peanuts, a bunch of you took me out to dinner on my birthday to a nice little place called Agave. Actually, "took me out" might be a bit of an exaggeration. I have to ration my praise here, you greedy bastards - you would have gone anyway. But you did pay for me and my championship series of margaritas, and I was touched that a bunch of complete strangers would take a chance on a rat-tag kid like me, even after I accused Dave of wearing a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, and, as I noted in a later email, "I could [have been] a complete dick".
Well, now you all know that I *am* a complete dick, and you decided to 1) buy me dinner and more margaritas at La Fonda on Friday, and 2) come to my party anyway, and for that I am very grateful. Even stranger is that I have managed to keep poor Melissa, my fantastic, beautiful, dangerously cunning ninja-partner/evil-nemesis, in the dark about my true nature. Good thing though, because if I hadn't, she might not have been inspired to throw such an awesome party. Incidentally, if you don't have a Melissa, I recommend you go out and get yourself one right away. But remember, they run petite.
In celebrating my somewhat dazed entry into my late twenties, I hope you all enjoyed yourself a tiny fraction as much as I did. From Hartmut's exciting battle with the tree, to getting beaten with a bat, this was a birthday I will not soon forget, and I owe that all to yous guys.
Well, that's about all of the self-effacing sarcasm I can muster, so that must mean this speech is over. It was a short speech, I guess. Thanks again to all of you who came out, and especially Anna for the amazing mac 'n cheese, all of you who brought booze, to Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, Mr. Eagle, Mrs. Kamin, Emmie, and Kendra, who all contributed to the setup and maintenance of the party, and of course Melissa, the lyingist liar of them all! Someday, I will repay the favor, so - I'm just saying, watch your step.
Cheers,
-Jeffrey Robert Crouse
P.S.: Just for the record: a lie of omission is a method of deception and duplicity that uses the technique of simply remaining silent when speaking the truth would significantly alter the other person's capacity to make an informed decision.
P.P.S.: It would be cool to make a Flickr pool of all of the pictures that people took. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that. Does anyone know?
Silly robots.
On the up side, I now have my very own robot. It was created in the image of the robot on jeffish.org, and I love it. Its arms are made of dryer tubing and its heart is made of rainbows. Even though it is still at Melissas house, it calls to me in my dreams as it anxiously awaits the day I will bring it to my concrete box of a home and bolt it lovingly to my wall. I think that must be like some sort of erotic pleasure for a robot to be bolted to something. My robot will like it here, surrounded by concrete and steel. He will gaze down at me as I write papers and code, correcting a logical error here, scolding me for my bad posture there. "Back straight, feet flat on the floor!" my robot will say in his monotonous robot voice. "Check out that core dump ha ha ha." Some people will say I am imagining it and that I should act my new age, but I will know that they are just jealous that they don't have their own robot, and I will not invite them to my next surprise party, and if they come anyway, I will kick them out with a foot-mounted bat.
The party was planned by the beautiful Melissa, who did a fantastic job of lying to me for several months, but I guess I shouldn't hold it against her. She enlisted the help of many fine souls, who, with a little tin foil and a lot of love, transformed her house into a Intergalactic Spaceship/Discotheque Extrordnaire. The only rough point in the party was when one of our rowdier guests began to beat the shit out of an innocent oak tree, and we almost had to call the National Park service, but luckily we were able to calm him down with promises of vodka and Smarties.
djimison, collard_greens, and klu! took a lot of pictures, and I wrote a litte email to the party people to thank them for coming out and partying with me, and I tried to find the addresses of everyone who came out, but if you were there and didn't get this email, here ya go.
To: [party people]
Subject: congratulations to you, you big bunch of liars
Just kidding.
Not many people can say that they have a serious robot storage dilemma, but now I can, and that's what made this the best birthday evar! Well, that and the surprise bit. That was good too. If you've never experienced momentary profound confusion, the time is ripe for your first surprise party. Anyway, at some point, early in the evening, I was told (another filthy lie, no doubt) that, according to custom, the surprise birthday boy is supposed to make a speech. But then I poured myself a nice tall drink and conveniently forgot many of my problems - the speech primary among them. Well now that two days have passed and I am starting to remember things, I figure I should fulfill my responsibility, so those of you with things to do should skip to the end.
In the year of two thousand and four, at about this time, when I was still very new to Atlanta and I had never even heard of boiled peanuts, a bunch of you took me out to dinner on my birthday to a nice little place called Agave. Actually, "took me out" might be a bit of an exaggeration. I have to ration my praise here, you greedy bastards - you would have gone anyway. But you did pay for me and my championship series of margaritas, and I was touched that a bunch of complete strangers would take a chance on a rat-tag kid like me, even after I accused Dave of wearing a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, and, as I noted in a later email, "I could [have been] a complete dick".
Well, now you all know that I *am* a complete dick, and you decided to 1) buy me dinner and more margaritas at La Fonda on Friday, and 2) come to my party anyway, and for that I am very grateful. Even stranger is that I have managed to keep poor Melissa, my fantastic, beautiful, dangerously cunning ninja-partner/evil-nemesis, in the dark about my true nature. Good thing though, because if I hadn't, she might not have been inspired to throw such an awesome party. Incidentally, if you don't have a Melissa, I recommend you go out and get yourself one right away. But remember, they run petite.
In celebrating my somewhat dazed entry into my late twenties, I hope you all enjoyed yourself a tiny fraction as much as I did. From Hartmut's exciting battle with the tree, to getting beaten with a bat, this was a birthday I will not soon forget, and I owe that all to yous guys.
Well, that's about all of the self-effacing sarcasm I can muster, so that must mean this speech is over. It was a short speech, I guess. Thanks again to all of you who came out, and especially Anna for the amazing mac 'n cheese, all of you who brought booze, to Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, Mr. Eagle, Mrs. Kamin, Emmie, and Kendra, who all contributed to the setup and maintenance of the party, and of course Melissa, the lyingist liar of them all! Someday, I will repay the favor, so - I'm just saying, watch your step.
Cheers,
-Jeffrey Robert Crouse
P.S.: Just for the record: a lie of omission is a method of deception and duplicity that uses the technique of simply remaining silent when speaking the truth would significantly alter the other person's capacity to make an informed decision.
P.P.S.: It would be cool to make a Flickr pool of all of the pictures that people took. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that. Does anyone know?