Because of some last-minute plans to go see a movie tonight, I haven't got time to write a proper Entry. Instead, here's some filler: the complete and uncut version of the interview I gave to the Dandenong Leader, January 7 2007.

Allow me to address your questions somewhat out of order, by giving you the brief history of how the Empire came to make these claims. After that, I'll answer your specific questions below.

Chompsville and Psyche both joined the Empire in mid June of 2000. At the time, we were enthusiastically accepting new colonies when anyone had one they wanted to submit, and the process was as simple as filling in a brief form on our website. The people submitting the colonies did not have to have any legal claim on the area, and in fact several of our colonies from that time were totally fictitious (as opposed to now, when only one is outright fictitious and the rest and merely implausible). Chompsville was initially ruled by John Raimondo, and Psyche by Mister Quack and Poida; none of these 3 are still citizens, sadly, and I have no way of putting you in touch with them reliably. Our original forms also did not ask any inconvenient questions about where exactly the colonies were, and at the time, none of us assumed anyone would ever ask, which is why the boundaries today are "mysterious."

Given that everything we do is a bit tongue-in-cheek, it's never seemed necessary to make our claims more concrete than they currently are. Some day, we may have a need, but that hasn't happened yet. We're generally content to leave things ephemeral and allow our citizens to fill in the blanks with their imaginations.

Q: Why have you claimed Dandenong and Springvale as part of your empire? Why are you interested in those areas? Have you ever visited the area? Do your colleagues live here?

I've personally never been to any part of Australia, although I'm told that the Dandenong area is quite beautiful. We don't have much interest in there per se, but someone once did and these days simple political inertia, combined with nostalgia, have kept our claims there. We do have some citizens who currently live within the boundaries of that location, but only one of them are current Senators (Raven, of Psyche).

Q: Can you tell me exactly where the boundaries of Chompsville and Psyche are?

Sadly, no, but rest assured this is not because I'm holding anything back from you. It's because nobody knows, including myself.

Q: When did you make the claim?

June, 2000. This was immediately after several Australian newspapers reprinted a New York Times article about us, which is why we had Australians signing up and submitting colonies.

Q: What legal moves if any have you made in claiming a stake to the land? Are you in the process of making any legal moves or have you tried any in the past? Have you ever had any legal challenges to your claim in Australia?

No to all questions. We lack the manpower and the money (and, arguably, the moral right) to make a physical or legal claim to that land, so it would be silly (and rude) of us to try. Our claim is purely on an intellectual level. We have never been challenged by the Australian government because I doubt strongly that anyone in that goovernment has ever heard of us. I would be extremely amused if they did some day challenge us, but I doubt they would see much need to.

Q: What is the relationship of the people of Chompsville and Psyche to you as Emperor? Do they have any special duties to you?

Citizens of all of our colonies are equal -- those in Chompsville and Psyche have no special responsabilities or duties. They have the same relationship to me that all citizens do -- I consider them friends and valued members of something I love. A few of the closest friends I have among the population are in those two colonies, but that's because of who they are and not where they "live." Were they to ever be given special duties, these would probably involve laughing at the North Americans while we freeze during the winter and ritualistically destroying copies of Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas."

Q: What are your reasons for establishing your empire - are your goals serious, is it a political or artistic statement, or is it just a bit of fun?

I see no reason to separate those goals. I have a tremendous amount of fun through the Empire, but at heart, I genuinely do dream of building something real and lasting. Whether what I build ends up being a nation, a state, a political movement or a club, the goal is to create something people enjoy and try, however unlikely, to make a difference in the world while doing it. If I were to be melodramatic about it, I might say that my goals are serious, my methods are artistic, and my statements are fun. Everyone should be so lucky.

Q: Is your website profile up to date? (Are you still a med student?) Is Eric Lis your real name or a pseudonym?

It is rigorously up to date, I am still a medical student, and that is, indeed, my real name. Anyone who wishes can look me up on the website of McGill University's medical school and see a link to the Empire in my personal profile. I don't hide who I am and I try to only do things I can feel proud of, including the Empire.

Sometimes I look back and I think that I've created more characters which I never got to play due to prematurely-dead games than I've created characters I got to actually play. This is, of course, absolutely true. Fortunately, creating the character is usually just as much fun for me as playing the character, and this is doubly true for single-session throwaway NPCs. Still, we mourn the countless forgotten character sheets who will never see the light of day nor the soft, loving touch of pizza grease and spilled soda.

Game: Covenant of Consequences (Vampire: The Masquerade)
Concept: Pacifist Methuselah
Age: Unknown (approximately 3500 years)
Apparent Age: Indeterminate elderly
Clan: Setite

Background: No living (or unliving) being still walks the Earth who recalls the birthdate, or indeed birth-name, of the vampire known as Veles Setovich. This is not because Veles is mysterious, or cunning, or because he has erased his own past, by simply by virtue of the fact that Veles has lived for so long that even he has forgotten where he once came from or what he was while his heart still beat. With his sire dead for longer than Christianity has been a religion and his last "siblings" having met the sun before Columbus could read a map, there is simply no being still functional and self-aware who can say where Veles came from. Veles recalls that he lived his mortal life in the lands which would one day become Northern Russia. His people worshiped the old Slavic gods and spoke a tongue which exists now only as intonations and curiously primeval phrases in other, younger languages.

Of his youth, Veles recalls some few facts. He remembers with relative clarity the cool summer's night when a stranger with scaled skin passed through his village. Claiming to be a servant of the great god Set from far to the South, the strange man took a handful of young men from the village and embraced them, then left to go farther North and left his neonates to fend for themselves. The exploits and atrocities of these neonates and others with similar stories persist to modern times in folklore and tales of heroes and monsters, and Veles himself earned his new(er) name by virtue of a century spent living in the guise of the ancient god of snakes and tricksters of his people. Forgotten in the inhospitable frozen wastes and far from the centers of civilization where most vampires thrived, Veles grew old and powerful for lack of equally powerful beings to challenge him; the perils which would ultimately end the immortality of countless other vampires in history missed Veles, and when at last the perils of the world began to find him, Veles had grown too resilient to die by their claws and fangs.

After some thousand winters in Russia, Veles set off South. From other kindred over the centuries he had long-since learned of the existence of his "clan" and their centers of power in the deserts. It was with some surprise that the ancient found that his clan, the Setites, were regarded with fear and mistrust at best by others. Veles had grown quite ophidian and could understand why he caused fear, but he grew ill at the idea that the blood which empowered him came from so tainted a source. Hundreds of miles short of Egypt, Veles turned away from his travel, vowing never to visit the lands his clan held for fear that their vilenes might taint him.

Finding himself in Greece at the dawn of the philosophic era, Veles settled into Athens and studied the ways of civilization. He began to grow fascinated by the city, where government had formed based on oratory and not on the rule of the mightiest sword. It was the emergence of the young mortal thinkers which truly engrossed Veles, and he found himself drawn to the notions of pacifism and peace espoused by the idealists. Veles had done many terrible things to survive over the centuries, but he had lived in a harsh land and been harsh to survive. Here, in civilization, it would perhaps be possible to live without killing, to feed only from the willing, and to evade enemies rather than fight. Lingering near the philosophers who had interested him, Veles began to gather around him a small circle of like-minded vampires, establishing a loose and primitive secret society dedicated to nothing more complex than living among humanity without taking the life of either kindred or kine.

Veles life of peace did not come easily, however, as rumours quickly spread far and wide of an ancient-blooded vampire who refused to battle. The promise of an easy and mighty amaranth drew dark-hearted vampires from surroinding countries, and Veles, unwilling to battle them even in self-defense, grew to rely more and more on Obfuscate and other talents, eventually withdrawing entirely from the world, acting through intermediaries. His small cabal grew to become the Humanity in Immortality Society, and Veles buried himself in obscurity, rousing only to teach his ways to the occasional promising neonate.

Current Sketch: Veles currently resides in the Russian countryside in a sprawling manor. He is guarded by a modest retinue of humans, primarily warriors disenchanted with various armed services worldwide, and guarded by ten kindred of varying power and age, including his own three childer. The human staff provide for the needs of the younger vampires and provide them willing blood, while the vampires in turn care for and feed Veles, who for centuries has been unable to persist on weak mortal blood. From his chambers, Veles works to subtly guide the world's kindred towards peaceful solutions to conflicts... a mission at which Veles fears he has been failing increasingly spectacularly for a long, long time. Veles acts as a guiding voice for the Humanity in Immortality Society, though only a handful of the members of the society even know of his existence. Veles occasionally reachers forth his power when rumours of his continued unlife are uncovered by one vampire or another, as Veles is keenly aware of what some would do to claim his old, old blood, or even simply eliminate the competition of another methuselah.

Veles' high humanity has made him highly resistant to torpor, and the ancient has thus kept pace with the world's advances far better than most kindred of his age. As is inevitable, however, Veles has found himself increasingly slipping into long sleeps lasting months or years, and most recently missed most of the 1970's. Veles fears what might happen if he falls into the endless sleep of some elders and is considering becoming more active in world affairs in an attempt to simply keep himself awake and concious. Most recently, the vampires of Montreal have extended to Veles an invitation to come and address them with his message, and he has decided to accept the invitation and leave the safety of his haven on the chance that he can spread the word of peace to a new city and to some politically-connected youths.

Roleplaying Notes: You are Veles Setovich. You are older than the world's dominant powers and very nearly older than recorded history, and you are the grandchilde of an Antediluvian. With such a background, few things stir you anymore. You believe, above all else, in peace and pacifism. Even faced with your own final death, you will not raise a hand to defend yourself -- although given your mastery of Fortitude, Obfuscate, and Presence, it is difficult to imagine what forces might be able to destroy you. You refuse to feed on an unwilling vessel, and since human blood is too thin to sustain you, this requires a stable of loyal, devoted vampires.

Above all else, you are old, and tired, and at times overcome by the belief that the world will resist the message of peace to its last breath. You walk slowly and hunched, and given the choice, you would rather rest your ancient (even if nigh-indestructible) bones than stand. You have a Russian accent which sometimes slips into something difficult to recognise and understand; intersperse your dialogue with snippets of Russian and instead of references to popular culture, cite ancient folklore as though you were there.

While you may not have much interest in speaking to most kindred, the cause of peace is more important than your own life, and if it appears that a vampire (or even an enlightened human) is genuinely interested and full of potential, you will quite happily sacrifice an entire evening simply to share with them your vision of what the world could be.

Plot Seeds: Montreal's Kindred are split between two would-be princes, one of whom is an old and powerful Setite. The Setite prince may not take kindly to learning that a three-thousand year old Setite who actively opposes the Path of Typhon is coming to his city. On the other hand, the other prince may not be pleased to learn that a methuselah of her rival's clan is coming to town either. If one or both princes decide that Veles is a threat, it could draw th city's vampires into open conflict with Veles' guardians or each other. As for the city's younger vampires not privy to the political maneuvering, the temptation of ancient and powerful blood encased in a pacifistic body may be too much to resist, and even a puny neonate might potentially be able to diablerize Veles with some cunning and preparation. Finally, Montreal is a city with an unusually high proportion of kindred who cling to the Path of Humanity. If Veles' message of peace is embraced by the city's majority, this may provide the impetus to spread the message of peace to other cities or it might turn Montreal into the most poorly-defended city -- and thus juiciest prize -- in North America.

Characteristic Dialogue:

• I am called Veles. This is not my name, but this is what everyone calls me, and so it must be true.
• To me, Rome is young. How could I care about petty local politics in the face of that?
• For us to grow mighty, we must take what we desire, but to survive, we must live alongside each other in peace. We can all live in peace but only one in every two neighbours can grow mighty.
• I miss the old country. There is still Russia but it is not the land where I was born. But it could be.
• The ways of Set are destruction and selfishness. I should bow to one who follows such ways? I think not.

An open letter to the film "Shark Attack"
Dear Shark Attack,
Today, I had the great pleasure of watching you. I was very pleased to have this opportunity, as I'm currently on a two-day vacation following a grueling final exam and few things make me happier in such a situation than doing completly pointless, useless things. I had a lot of fun watching you, for which I thank you. Granted, I spent the entire hour and a half playing minesweeper and solitaire, so I admit that you did not have my full attention. Indeed, if I'd been forced to watch you and not do anything else at the same time, I would probably have tried to open my own radial arteries with my stapler, but fortunately for both of us, this was not the case. Much as I enjoyed watching you, though, I feel that there are certain things I just had to say.

First, let me just suggest politely that, when trying to be a high-quality, entertaining and engrossing film, it helps if you have some actors, rather than just people you found off the street. Ideally, the people who appear in a movie have some training in playing a role, or at least have some innate talent which shines through like a diamond half-embeded in the living rock. A handful of skilled actors, preferably with recognizable names and faces, contribute a great deal to a film. Ernie Hudson and Casper Van Dien do not count, but I appreciated the effort.

On a related note, when a film is set and filmed in Africa, which has some truly beautiful landscapes and some genuinely lovely natural areas, I really enjoy getting to see some of the backgrounds. It adds to a film's realism and believability (and aesthetic beauty) to pan around and show me where we are, and I was very impressed at how you worked to make this happen. Some of your underwater shots, for example, were stunning. On the other hand, I generally prefer if such long pans and cut-aways are done when imortant things aren't being doen by the characters. When there is some action happening which is essential to the film, ideally, it would take place on screen. Similarly, fight-scenes are more believable when the camera holds a single point-of-view shot for more than one punch's duration. In a film entitled "Shark Attack" one would tend to assume that the camera might choose to linger, at least once in a while, on a shark attacking something, and while I can appreciate that this was clearly not the artistic direction you were interested, I felt it may have detracted slightly from my enjoyment. Art is such a subjective thing, after all.

In regards to your MPAA rating, I think it may have been slightly unfair for you to be assigned an R rating. As killer-animal movies go, I found you to actually be tastefully understated and low on gore. Your attempt to sell yourself without gratuitous nudity was very brave of you as well. It would probably have been fair to give you a lower rating, such as PG 14 or 15. That said, I think that in the interest of full disclosure, your rating should probably carry an additional warning label, such as "Caution: should not be viewed by people with education" or Warning: this movie may induce confusion and nausea in people who understand science." There are a handful of points on which I feel obligated to correct you. First, while I admire you attempt to show the viewer actual blood smears on the microscope, I feel you should know that the standard microscope does not display three-dimensional computer-rendered images of red blood cells. Even if they did, the red blood cells would probably be slightly more biconcave (or "doughnut") shaped than spherical or cylindrical, unless the blood came from someone very unhealthy. Second, when we do see the blood smear, the standard light microscope usually does not allow us to see what hormones are inside the cells. Hormones, you see, tend to be very, very small, quite a bit smaller than a red blood cell, and generally smaller than one can see on even a high-quality microscope. This is doubly true if the hormone in question is inside the red blood cell at the time. While we are on the topic, I regret to inform you that "steroid" is not a synonym for "hormone." Finally, while it is possible to take a sample of a hormone from a blood sample and determine what it is, one does not do this by culturing it. generally, when we talk about using cultures, we speak of putting a sample into a medium where it will grow and replicate efficiently. This is useful for testing tissues or bacteria, but as a rule, hormones are not capable of self-replication no matter how advanced a culture medium you use.

Lastly, and purely as a side-note, I really feel that if you're going to steal your story from another movie, you should probably try not to steal it from a summer blockbuster that comes out the same summer as you. I recognise that you were actually released one to two months earlier than Deep Blue Sea, but I strongly suspect that of the two of you, Deep Blue Sea went into production first and spent more time on the process. This suggestion is doubly true in your case, as the very last person in the world I would want to get angry and come after me with a lead pipe is Samuel L. Jackson.

Once again, I'd like you to know that I did enjoy watching you, if only for the Toho Effect. I hope that you can understand that my (hopefully constructive) criticisms all come from a deep admiration for you, in spite of the fact that I have now deleted you and will never watch you again.

Yours sincerely,
Eric

The pounce can be thought of as being one of the most complex motions the human body is capable of, requiring an incomprehensibly intricate interworking of multiple muscle groups and multiple perceptive senses. The pounce is one of the most essential evolutionary adaptations for any predatory species, and the success of countless animals can be directly attributed to how well they have developed the capacity to pounce (or perform some analagous function). Furthermore, by virtue of the speed and spontaneity of the pounce, this action is generally just a lot of fun, if performed properly.

It takes only two muscles to smile, but it takes at least six of the body's most powerful muscles to pounce, and this is without even counting the numerous muscles required to grapple a fleeing antelope and tear out its intestines. Three joints must be involved: the hip, the knee, and the ankle. For the pounce to be successful, the hip joint itself is of relatively minor importance; while the pounce is facilitated if the hip joint is extended during the leap, most of the propulsive force comes from the knee and ankle. Extension of the knee requires invocation of the mighty quadriceps muscles (rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius). Together, these four muscles for a single powerful tendon which attaches both to the knee-cap and to the front of the thigh bone, so that when they contract, the whole leg becomes linear with great force. Rectus femoris is secondarily a flexor of the thigh, but its force in this direction is countered by other muscles in the posterior thigh. The extension of the knee, however, provides only half of the force of the pounce, and equally (or even more) important is the gastrocnemius-soleus complex of the calf. The calf muscles flex the foot at the ankle, pushing down towards the ground and driving the rest of the body up into the air (or forwards into the target). The soleus muscle (literally "that muscle what looks like a dead fish") is composed or red muscle fibres and is used primarily to maintain the body's balance during standing, but it does contribute to the pounce. More important to the motion is the gastrocnemius muscle, which is indispensible to the whole process. Clearly, all of these muscles must operate efficiently and in the proper sequence to coordinate an effective pounce, and it is a testament to the complexity and efficiency of the hindbrain that animals such as the lion and the tiger can pounce with deadly efficiency even though they cannot perform such simple tasks as juggle or play the tuba.

fnord

The proper pounce requires much more than merely muscles, of course. Without a target, a pounce is nothing more than an awkward and clumsy plummet forwards. To isolate the target of a pounce, an animal requires deadly acuity of at least one and ideally several senses. Consider, evolutionarily, how we can observe adaptation to pouncing. In older, more evolutionarily primitive, or prey animals, the eyes are typically on either side of the head, which maximizes total field of view at the cost of the ability to see directly ahead. As we move up the evolutionarily ladder into predatory species, and particularly into the great cats and wolves, an animals eyes migrate towards the front of the head. To a small and cuddly bunny, it is more important to be able to see to either side and thus beware of every other animal nearby, but to a lion or jaguar, it is the frontmost line of sight which is most important to be able to see, because that's where dinner is. Observe a rat hunting wild lettuce and you will see that it directs most of its energy to looknig to the sides, in mortal terror of its natural enemy, Allen Funt. Next observe a cat stalking wild chew-toys, and you will see it staring ahead so intently that you can visualize the cross-hairs on its corneas. Indeed, in many predatory species, the whole sensory mechanism appears to be directed towards the pounce; wolves have the keenest sense of smell for objects directly ahead of them; cats will swivel their ears to gain maximum input from the front as they slink forwards; and many snake species (whose entire bodies, of course, are essentially pouncing muscles) have actually developed an entirely unique sense organ in their foreheads which allows them to see the infrared heat-signatures of their prey straight ahead. Pigeons, in contrast, are able to sense magnetic fields in all directions, which makes them very talented navigators but very poor predators. In humans, the eyes are oriented forwards and the fovea, the point of the retina with the greatest sensitivity, points directly ahead. The human ear generally does not rotate but it has adapted a highly-folded outer shape to focus and amplify sounds in mid-range frequencies coming from directly ahead and in front. The human nose is, of course, almost useless for hunting, but even this has adapted for pouncing, as the human nose has evolved to be smaller and less of a snout to minimize the chances of breakage when an ill-timed pounce sends one into a lamp-post.

Is there a cognitive component to pouncing? In all likelihood, the answer to this is both yes and no, depending on species. Clearly, there does not need to be an advanced cognitive component to most pounces among animals, because many animals which have never demonstrated particular intelligence or even cerebral cortex are quite capable of pouncing with deadly accuracy and efficiency. In higher predators, such as weasels, there probably is a small cognitive component to the pounce, because such advanced predators will pounce on specific tactically-significant or most-rewarding targets rather than merely any target which fits the apparent "prey-stimulus" profile (which in the laboratory may include plastic, wood, or hapless and non-nutritive researchers). In humans, there is most defintely a cognitive component; since most humans do not hunt and kill their food with their bare hands, pouncing is accomplished for the fun of it, which requires picking targets with great skill and care.

Sometimes I don't know how old I am.

March is a time of the year when I tend to think about birthdays. I know a lot of people whose birthdays are in March, including half of my immediate family and a fair-zed chunk of my extended family. The only single month when I know more people celebrating their birthdays is in May, when it seems as though the majority of my friends are celebrating, including me. Perhaps this year in particular, when a number of people I'm very fond of will be celebrating their twenty-fifths -- the so-called Silver Year, perhaps because it's the age where so many people begin to see the tarnish -- I find myself contemplating age and aging. I don't find myself with thoughts so mundane as whether I'm young or old, though... I get bogged down trying to decide if I'm an adult or still a child. Normally I would turn to those nearest and dearest to me for advice when faced with these sorts of questions, but none of my stuffed animals are providing useful feedback.

In conversation with a friend the other day, I referred to my classmates as "the kids." This was poetic liscence at best and an inaccuracy at worst; the mean age of my class is somewhere around 23-24, if we choose to remove the outlying forty-year olds. The mode age is 20, or possibly 21 this late in the year, because of the significant number of pre-med students, the students who entered medicine after only a single year of university, as opposed to those like myself who did three or more years of undergraduate studies or even Masters' and sometimes PhD's. None-the-less, when I think of my classmates, the phrase that comes to me is "the kids." This is in part because I'm used to thinking of students as being young, and it's in part because I spent most of my life getting into the habit of knowing my classmates were young'uns. So, the question is: on the verge of the age of 25, technically a graduate student, older than the majority of my friends, a legal adult, a veteran of voting, a bar-mitzvah and the ruler of a small country, am I a grown-up or a kid myself? And what does it mean if the music playing while I write this includes Weird Al Yankovic and the soundtrack from Muppet Treasure Island?

Webster defines "kid" as "a young goat" which is about as helpful as a pocket calculator to a Necron. It does, however, go on to list several other definitions, including (eventually) "a young person; often used as a generalized reference to one especially younger or less experienced." While I'm the first to argue against making assumptions about speciation, I'm reasonably certain that I'm not a goat, but when you think about it, I *am* a younger and less-experienced person in my current life-stage. Among my social circle I'm among the eldest and wisest, but in medical school, let alone the health-care system as a whole, I'm a precocious child ruining the walls with finger-paints. I may be older than some of the fourth-year students, but compared to them, who am I to say I'm a grown-up?

As an aside, of course, Webster reminds us that "kid" also means "to deceive as a joke." Make of that what you will.

Grown up must be more than age. Frank Lloyd Wright once said that "the trick is to grow up without growing old," a sentiment repeated many times by many thinkers and which made Bill Waterson rich. I've been an adult in the eyes of Judaism since I turned 13 and an adult in the eyes of the law since 18, but deep down, I still think of myself as a kid. When I take breaks from learning about acute lymphoblastic leukemia, it's to see what happened this week to Spider-Man. I'm a responsible, educated, and mature person, who just happens to have an easier time studying with my stuffed penguin next to me. I somehow picked up a lot of responsibility and common sense over the years and, I happen to think, a good deal more maturity than most of my, ahem, "peers," but I'd probably kill myself if I stopped being able to have a good time playing with my action figures once in a while. In many ways, I *am* still a kid... I go out in the winter to build snow-demons, and I don't think that just because I have the manual dexterity to button up my own coat means I've grown up. To me, and perhaps our culture in general, the phrase "grown up" implies seriousness, lack of imagination... what psychologists call "crystalized intelligence." Forgive me if I think it's over-rated.

What does it mean to grow up? At 5'4", I'm still "when I was little." At under 30, I'm confident I still qualify as "when I was young." As a student rather than a productive member of the workforce, I obviously have yet to become "what I want to be if I grow up." Will I feel differently when I'm thirty years old, working for a living, and holding human lives in my hand? I'd be a fool to assume that I won't, but on the other hand, I intend to fight tooth, nail, and rubber sword to keep it from happening. I don't feel like a grown up... I feel like a kid, albeit a very mature, sensible, perspicacious and literate kid. I can handle my own taxes and investments in between cartoons, thank you very much.

And, in case you were wondering, Webster actually defines "grown up" as "not childish or immature." To hell with that.

Positive feedback continues to come in regarding the quiz and answers which have passed for content for two full Entries now, so I figure I can milk the topic one more time. Here are ten of the questions which didn't make it into the quiz, for whatever reason, plus sufficient commentary to justify them as "informative." After this, unless I get some better ideas, I'll probably have to write my essay about how Confucianism can be used to justify the ethical imperative to conquer the world.

1: Eric's favourite Greek philosopher is
A: Socrates
B: Plato
C: Aristotle
D: Epistaxis
The correct answer was A
Plato always struck me as more of a novelist than a philosopher, and mostly he just repeated what other people had told him. Aristotle gave us The Politics, which I keep in my bookcase, but also wrote a number of treatises on ethics which I think we could have done without (and he furthermore personally set the science of chemistry back nearly 400 years). Epistaxis means "to bleed from the nose."

2: Eric owns replicas of all of the following rings except
A: The One Ring
B: The Ring of the King of Men
C: The Ring of the Witch King
D: Green Lantern's Ring
The correct answer was C
My GL ring isn't much of a replica, of course, but is official merchandise so it's close enough. I get much pleasure from the Ring of the King of Men although I feel it fails to live up to its name. I was briefly infamous at the JAC newspaper when people saw that my mere presence corrupted a copy of the One Ring from shiny metal to green corroded Stuff (you get what you pay for, with a ring that cost ten cents). I have always wanted a copy of the Ring of the Witchking, but they go for more than I'm willing to pay at my current income.

3: Eric collects
A: Smiley faces
B: Dice
C: Dust
D: Quotes
The correct answer was D
Contrary to popular opinion, I don't collect smiley-faced merchandise... I merely have two or three pieces I like very much, and several other items hidden away in my closet which were given to me as gifts but I hate too much to display. I don't collect dice -- I stop buying as soon as I have enough, which merely takes a while. I do collect quotations, and at any time there are text-files on my computer with literally thousands of unread quotes which I'm in the process of slowly going through, and mostly deleting without a second thought.

4: Eric has sucessfully used which of the following phrases on a final exam for a hard-science course
A: However, amongst a plethora of aardvarks...
B: ...which may be taken as evidence of the inferiority of humans.
C: The fact that he later comitted suicide, however, leads us to question the validity of his views on the sanctity of life.
D: Because God said so.
The correct answer was A
In my last semester at Concordia, I took a course on Behavioural Ecology, which was essentially animal psychology. The professor, a large and jovial Hawian-shirted hippie, gave bonus marks to everyone who could reference Douglas Adams in the term paper and use the phrase "a plethora of aardvarks" on the final exam's essay question. I rose to the challenge.

5: Eric briefly collected his own one-liners in a document entitled
A: This, I Command
B: Grand Theft Verbosity
C: Eric's Quotes
D: You Don't Have To Be Competent When You're Egotistical
The correct answer was D
This document was actually started, not by me, but by some CEGEP friends who thought I was wittier than I probably was. I still have a copy lying around somewhere, probably, but like any artist, I refuse to allow anyone to see a creative work I was involved with more than four years ago.

6: In his room, Eric keeps all of the following posters except
A: "As You Wish" Promotional Boba Fett poster signed by Jeremy Bulloch
B: Neuroimaging and genetics of Borderline Personality Disorder Research presentation
C: Promotional poster to an unreleased Babylon 5 space combat videogame
D: "As You Wish" Promotional Princess Bride poster signed by Cary Elwes
The correct answer was D
I doubt I would have much interest in a Princess Bride poster... it's not a movie that I feel lends itself to toyeticism. The Star Wars poster was won in an essay content years ago, and the Babylon 5 poster was won from a prize drawing when the company produing the game went under. The boring sounding one was, of course, home-made, and I really should get around to throwing it out some day. This question would probably qualify as "unfair" since I don't keep any of these posters on display; they're all safely wrapped up and sit in a corner of my room, where I can take them out to admire them without risking their being destroyed by daily wear.

7: Eric's collection of weapons includes
A: Nunchuks
B: A kukri
C: A cardboard tube
D: A blackjack
The correct answer was C
Closer to half a dozen cardboard tubes, actually, all of various weights and sizes for different occasions. Easy to find them free, after all.

8: One of Eric's first words was
A: Penguin
B: Stormtrooper
C: Doom
D: Shabbat
The correct answer was B
This is one of those "I wish I was joking" situations. I always was precocious.

9: Eric has never been paid to work as a
A: Editor
B: Webdesigner
C: Research assistant
D: Writer
The correct answer was A
I worked for four years as a research assistant and my most recent employment was, of course as a writer (in the employ of a psychiatrist, but still a writer more than anything else). I've owned two webdesign companies (though only one was ever profitable, and then not very). I've also worked in the quality control department of a drug company, but for the life of me I have no clue what my actual job-title was so couldn't easily include it here. I have never been paid to edit someone else's work (unless "editing" included "significantly rewriting").

10: With slight variation depending on time of day, Eric is most comfortable at
A: 12 degrees celcius
B: 18 degrees celcius
C: 22 degrees celcius
D: 26 degrees celcius
The correct answer was B
Hence the title "facultative psychrophile." As a general rule, at room temperature, I'm always uncomfortably warm. Except for first thing in the morning when my metabolism is still getting kick-started, I'd rather be between 16 and 20 degrees than at room temperature or in the ridiculous heat that most humans seem to look forward to. I'd rather be building a snowman than a sand-castle.

And that's it. I promise not to write anything more on the topic, unless asked really nicely and maybe bribed with a cookie.

I received a lot of positive feedback from people about the quiz posted last Entry, and I was pleasantly surprised by both the turnout (9 people at the moment) and by the reasonably high scores. The scores weren't earth-shatteringly high, of course, but then again, I had deliberately set out to make a bloody hard quiz. Coming as I do from a science background, I'm a big believer in the pricinple that a test should be *difficult*, the better to challenge the performer. I'm also a big believer in very generous grading, which is why I've made a point of praising people who seem self-concious that they obtained low scores. I'm reminded of my stats I class in my first semester of undergraduate studies. In the psychology department, few courses are as feared as stats I, because psychology students tend to be, by and large, slackers who simply didn't know what other program to apply to, and severe math-phobics besides. Stats I also has a notoriously his failure rate, for much the same reasons. The solution, according to some of the stats profs, is to make the tests very, very hard, and then upgrade everybody's score up by one or more letter grades. I got a final grade B+ in the class... and barely passed the exam. So too should nobody be at all embarassed by a low(er) score on a quiz like this, because, and let's be honest, the guy who designed the test is a bit of a bastard.

We should all be acutely aware that whatever the hosting website may claim, tests like this do not measure friendship. Some people I think very highly of did very poorly on this quiz, and at least one person whose identity I have yet to figure out (who fills in a quiz as John S? I mean, really? Maybe if I *knew* a John S it wouldn't be so annoying) who got among the highest scores. The people who got lower scores might have not known me for as long, or might only know me in a relatively narrow area of my life, or might simply have a poor memory like myself. None of these things measure if someone is a good friend, and in fact, at the time of writing this, some of the closest friends I have in the world haven't done the quiz and probably never will. Your friends aren't always the people who know where you've visited or what your favourite book is, but who know who and what you are. This test didn't measure that, nor would I want it to. If you made the attempt to fill it in, that already tells me a lot of good things about whether or not you're a friend, and that's all we need to know for tonight. I've seen some people take "how well do you know me" quizes much too seriously. I've also seen people deliberately superglue themselves to tables and cars, just to see how strong the glue is. I'm not saying there's *necessarily* a correlation between the the behaviours, but I wouldn't rule it out.

That said, the following are the answers to the questions, along with some brief commentary where it seemed appropriate. The answers themselves will be written in white font on the small chance that someone who has not yet but wants to do the quiz will be scrolling down; highligh the white area to view them. The commentaries will not be in white font... if you read an entire paragraph by mistake, you deserved to have the test spoiled for you. The answers are being posted for people because half the fun of asking any question is trying to understand your way around it, and when you're a student writing a test, you also ideally want to know why you got the answer right and/or wrong.

If you haven't written the test yet, skip past the following. If you're reading the AE version of this page, use the quick-links to Entry 333 above, and if you're reading the LJ mirror, you can just use page-down like a barbarian or something. Either way, try not to spoil the fun of the quiz for yourself if you still plan to write it... anybody posting a perfect score after 10:00pm EST March 6th will receive mockery instead of praise.

On with the show, this is it.

Question 1 (Easy): Eric's Favourite TV show is
A: Boston Legal
B: Babylon 5
C: Global frequency
D: Earthworm Jim
The correct answer was B
Boston Legal is my favpourite show currently on the air, and rightly so, since it combines brilliant writing with plots almost entirely driven by snappy dialogue and ethical debate. It also star William Shatner, which makes anything funnier. Global Frequency *might* have been my favourite show ever, based on the pilot, but like so many comic-to-TV conversions, it was never picked up and no other episodes were ever aired. Earthworm Jim is undoubtedly one of the best programs ever to air on TV, but it lacked a certain timelessness to it. Babylon 5 is the best program which has ever aired on television, period, assuming we make allowances for seasons 1 and 5.

Question 2 (Easy): Eric's Favourite book is
A: The Princess Bride
B: Good Omens
C: Revelations
D: Blade of Tyshale
The correct answer was A
Good Omens is my second favourite book of all time... whoever got the idea of combining my two favourite authors, Neil Gaiman and Terry Prattchet, deserves a medal. Revelations may be one of the funniest books ever, but since it wasn't meant to be, it doesn't count. Blade of Tyshale, by Matthew Woodring Stover, is *among* my favourite books of all time, but it suffers here and there and I probably could have cut fifty pages out of it, as well as made a couple of characters less annoying. I've never enjoyed any book more than I have the Princess Bride, even though I've read the Hitch Hiker's Guide more times and I've stolen more from The Ballad of Wuntvor to write my games.

Question 3 (Easy): Eric has traveled to
A: Prague
B: San Francisco
C: Jerusalem
D: Vancouver
The correct answer was C
The only place I have ever visited more than a day's drive from Montreal is Jerusalem, which as a middle-class Jewish boy I was more or less obligated to go to. The other three are places I would like to visit someday, for reasons discussed in various Entries in this Journal.

Question 4 (Easy): Half of Eric's blood is
A: Russian
B: Polish
C: German
D: Jewish
The correct answer was A
Possibly an unfair question, I identify myself as Polish because that's the only place any of my grandparents had any tendency to talk about. Despite this, I'm only 1/4 Polish, 1/4 German, and half Russian. All of my blood is Jewish.

Question 5 (Easy): The castle on Eric's coat of arms represents
A: Strength
B: Nobility
C: Irony
D: Deceit
The correct answer was D
The castle on the coat of arms is actually a chess piece, the rook. Webster's dictionary defines the verb "to rook" as to lie, cheat, defraud, and win by unfair means. Arguably, the rook does represent everything on that list to me, but first and foremost, it's deceit.

Question 6 (Easy): Eric is potentially dangerously allergic to
A: Peanuts
B: Oranges
C: Penicillin
D: Apples
The correct answer was D
Peanuts and oranges are practically my only sources of nutrients... my life would be very unpleasant without my beloved peanut butter, black currant and marshmallow sandwiches for lunch. I've got no problem with penicillin, but luckily I haven't needed it (as opposed to septra, which I was on for years). I'm allergic to apples, pears, kiwis, pineapples, and anything else non-citrus that grows on trees.

Question 7 (Easy): Eric attaches greatest significance to
A: May 8th
B: September 10th
C: October 26th
D: December 29th
The correct answer was C
Another question which was, in retrospect, a bit unfair, because it required people to really think about what my priorities are in life and what my general outlook and view of the universe is. May 8th is, of course, my birthday, which means almost nothing to me. December 29th is Game Day which means a lot to me but which isn't earth-shatteringly important. September 10th, my Rebirthday, is a day of incredible personal significance and meaning, and commemoration of it is a huge part of who I am today... but October 26th is Topin Wagglegammon, The Niftiest Day of the Year, and there's isn't another day of the year that means as much to me.

Question 8 (Easy): Eric's daily workout includes all of the following except
A: Cane-fighting
B: Krav Maga
C: Sit-ups
D: Push-ups
The correct answer was B
I do not know and have never practiced Krav Maga. Krav Maga requires that you have very strong and very durable bones, which I suspect I do not and have no desire to prove. Sit-ups are very good to help control abdominal pain and push-ups are good just to build a little bit of arm-strength if you're puny. I practice cane-fighting because I don't have space in my house to train with a quarterstaff, and besides, I just love canes.

Question 9 (Tricky): Eric worships
A: Forsteri and Eris
B: Eris and Loki
C: Yaveh and Forsteri
D: Loki and Yaveh
The correct answer was A
There's an important distinction to draw between "believe in" and "worship." I believe in the Jewish god, but I don't worship Him. I don't even believe in Loki, though this doesn't stop me from fearing him and offering him the occasional sacrifice. I do worship Forsteri and Eris earnestly and enthusiastically and I'm quite convinced that I've witnessed miracles as a result.

Question 10 (Tricky): Eric is now or once was fluent in
A: 2 languages
B: 3 languages
C: 4 languages
D: 5 languages
The correct answer was C
No mystery here. English, French, Hebrew, and Yiddish. By no stretch of the imagination have I ever been fluent in Latin, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese or any of the other languages I can read on a good day. I did not include Gibbering or Technobabble on that list, for obvious reasons.

Question 11 (Tricky): The one comic Eric makes a point of reading as soon as possible every week is
A: Army of Darkness
B: The Amazing Spider-Man
C: 52
D: Cable and Deadpool
The correct answer was C
The little gag with this question, which to my knowledge only one person spotted, is that 52 is the only one of those books published weekly. It is, none-the-less, my current favourite book on the market, at least until Alan Moore or Warren Ellis next print something interesting.

Question 12 (Tricky): Eric's alignment would probably be
A: Lawful Neutral
B: Chaotic Neutral
C: Chaotic Good
D: Neutral Good
The correct answer was D
I may not be a perfectly moral person, but I'm Good along the simplistic D&D axis. I don't consider myself to be orderly or chaotic intrinstically but, given that order is dominant in modern society, it's only natural I would act more chaotic. Everything in the universe, as far as I'm concerned, comes down to finding the proper balance.

Question 13 (Tricky): Eric has no
A: Illeum
B: Colon
C: Anconeus
D: Common sense
The correct answer was B
The colon is the large intestine. Stricly speaking, I do lack *part* of my illeum (the terminal end of the small intestine), but not the whole thing, and it's safe to wager that the people who guessed illeum probably weren't pondering anatomy quite that in depth. The anconeus is actually a tiny muscle in the arm, and mine works just fine. As to the matter of common sense, I have plenty... I just have the strength of will to sometimes ignore it, and the wisdom to know when I can get away with doing so.

Question 14 (Tricky): All of the following characters represent major facets of Eric\'s psyche, except
A: Clayton, the Deceiver
B: Sebastian, the Hunter
C: Ragon, the Monster
D: Virrar, the Villain
The correct answer was A
One of the two questions that the most people got wrong (in every single case, because they guessed Sebastian). Although Clayton is one of my all-time favourite characters, he isn't an Avatar. Perhaps he was created a bit too late, or perhaps he just didn't fit a needed role... I'll never know. More importantly, if Clayton was an Avatar, he wouldn't be the deceiver... The one thing Clayton did, above and beyond anything else, was Survive, in one way or another. Sebasian, the most commonly-guessed choice, is actually a major part of my personality, but doesn't come out to play as often as some others.

Question 15 (Tricky): Of the following, one of Eric's favourite actors is
A: Dan Akroyd
B: Bruce Campbell
C: David Warner
D: Brian Henson
The correct answer was C
I like Bruce Campbell, but he barely really qualifies as an actor. Brian Henson, son of the incredible and much-mourned Jim Henson, isn't an actor but a puppeteer, and more importantly, through no fault of his own, he could never possibly live up to his father. Dan Akroyd was only on the list because I couldn't think of anybody else was listening to Ghost Riders In The Sky from Blue Brothers 2000 at the time. I absolutely love David Warner and have great fun spotting him when he turns up in the strangest places.

Question 16 (Tricky): The title of Eric's will and messages to be delivered in the event of his death means
A: To Become A God
B: I Did Not See That Coming
C: A Better World
D: The End
The correct answer was A
The title of my to-be-released-posthumously document is, of coure, The Apotheosis File. The word translates as "the process of becoming a god." I don't think I'm going to ascend to godhood upon my death, despite what some other emperors may have assumed... but I'm a big believer in wishful thinking.

Question 17 (Unfair): The topic of Eric's honours thesis was
A: The formation of first impressions of warmth in manipulative individuals
B: Mental health of gamers relative to age-matched non-gamers
C: Neuroimaging and genetics of Borderline Personality Disorder
D: Psychological traits associated with proficiency at deception
The correct answer was A
The other question almost everybody got wrong. Only one person for this one correct, proving it to be pleasantly Unfair. Most people guessed C, which is the title of the paper I was paid to work on during the summer between my two first years of medical school, and the only article I've written which has thus far been accepted for publication. I've never worked on researching B (I was able to make that one seem like the best choice by the simple expedient of adding the words "age-matched" to the title), but I've always wanted to, and studying D is more of a hobby than a thesis. My actual honours thesis investigated how people form their first impressions of people based on reading a brief blurb about a manipulative individual... we failed to achieve statistical significance and proved nothing whatsoever, totally wasting a year and the lives of hundreds of trees.

Question 18 (Unfair): Eric's music collection includes all of the following songs except
A: A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End
B: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
C: Rake At The Gates of Hell
D: Look At All Those Idiots
The correct answer was B
Rake At The Gates of Hell is one of my all-time favourite songs, which has prompted much laughter from people who point out that it's technically Irish folk/fiddle music. Similarly, Look At All Those Idiots is a lovely song which has brought me much joy over the years. Option A was included because I thought people would assume I wouldn't have a double entendre among my song titles, but oddly enough that only threw off a few people. Despite my love of Tom Lehrer, the only comedian to ever teach mathematics at Harvard in his spare time, I have never felt inclied to keep a copy of Pigeons because I only like one line from the song.

Question 19 (Unfair): Eric's favourite species of weasel is
A: Mustela erminea
B: Mustela nivalis
C: Mustela sibirica
D: Mustela frenata
The correct answer was D
Imagine my shock when most people got this one right (presumably by lucky guess). Mustela Frenata is the common North American weasel, and is my favourite just because it's an amusing size and lives nearby. Novalis is my second favourite species, because they're tiny and adorable, but live primarily in Europe (where I don't live) and so are less amusing.

Question 20 (Unfair): Why?
A: Because it's there.
B: Because I can.
C: Because if I don't, who will?
D: Because of the wonderful things he does.
The correct answer was C
Im ein ani li, mi li, ve im lo ani, mi? If I am not for myself, who will be, and if I do not, who will? As I've observed in the past, I do not, strictly speaking, want to rule the world, and the last thing I want is that kind of boredom and responsibility. But, if I don't try to save the world, who else can I trust to do it right? If I don't, who will? Unsurprisingly, the correct answer was the one which ended in a question mark itself.

So, those are the answers. Thank you all for playing and for showing me what people seem to know and seem to not know. To paraphrase Monty Python, if you enjoyed doing this quiz half as much as I enjoyed writing it, then you enjoyed this quiz entirely too much. A future Entry might showcase some questions that didn't make it into this quiz, if there's audience interest, but it probably won't be another interactive test.

Normally, I'm proud of myself for being able to resist the memes that make the rounds of my friends' journals. I don't disaprove of memes per se -- there's something about a "contagious idea" which I just adore, in fact -- but somehow reposting such things has always seemed, not quite beneath me, but not truly appropriate to this Journal. That said, I did have fun myself filling in the questionnaires of other people, and several people I'm very fond of made a point of telling me they thought they would enjoy answering some of my questions. Looking back, this Journal was originally created with the intent of writing stuff that people wanted to see and answering questions people wanted to ask me, so it seems wholly appropriate for me to now bow to peer pressure.

Thus, below, you will find a score chart. The chart is itself a link to a Handy Dandy Quiz hosted by the ubiquitous and mostly-functional truefriendtest.com, and will take you to 20 questions about me. These questions have been divided up as 8 "easy" questions, 8 "tricky" questions, and 2 "blatantly unfair" questions, although some of them will be nigh impossible for people to answer unless they know obscure sci-fi actors, useless anatomical facts, mustelidae zoology and a lot more about me than I expect *anybody* out there to know. Anyone who manages to get even a decent score will have sufficiently impressed me that they can expect me to reward them with a hug, tea, and in at least one case, a Masterwork raspberry pie in mid May.

Create your own Friend Test here

It may surprise some people that I'm hosting this quiz on another website instead of writing the code myself. Normally I probably would have written it myself, but since I'm mirroring this system on (the semi-accursed) Livejournal now, I don't know how my form code would get messed up. it seems much easier to use an existing, verified system.

Some of the questions can be answered by searching the archive of this journal (assuming you're on the Aerican Empire version with its Handy Dandy Search Bar) while others require a little deductive (or even inductive) reasoning and some few require simply a genuine knowledge of things about me. I personally think the most amusing questions are the ones where people have to take what they know about me and process the data in an unusual way. It's good to have an excuse to consider the things we know about people and look at it from ninety degrees of normal. It's also good to take what we know about people, twist it around, dip it in caramel, grind it up with cocoa powder, add some marshmallow and sprinkle with spontaneous comprehension to make a lovely and confusing dessert, and sometimes it's the people who care for most who we most benefit from seeing in new ways.

The part I found fun about creating the test was, of course, coming up with the questions. Thinking of 20 questions was easy; I just thought it was a shame the system wouldn't let me ask 50. No, the challenge was deciding which question would be the best to ask. There are easy questions I could ask -- how old am I, what school did I go to, do I happen to have six fingers on my right hand -- but those aren't any fun, and they certainly don't pose people any sort of challenge. On the other hand, there are questions which nobody but me knows the answer to, like how many times I've been in love or what present I bought for my supervisor when I graduated Concordia; I could have asked twenty of those easily enough, but some of them are things nobody knows for a reason, and more importantly, people tend not to enjoy quizes unless they get a certain percentage of questions correct. Of course, I'm a terrible judge of what is and is not an easy question, and odds are good that several which I think are easy -- since I know the answer -- are actually pretty tough to someone who isn't me. After a few days, if I get a decent turnout of responses (I'm not expecting more than three or four), perhaps I'll write a post about which questions people seemed to have the most trouble with and what the correct answers were.

What's the point of life, after all, if we aren't trying to answer questions?

Anyone who spends any great length of time with me learns that there are three arguments in the whole of philosophy which I absolutely despise. First, I am violently opposed to the categorical imperative and I consider mockery of Kant to be an art for in and of itself. Second, I hate the fact that "I think, therefore I am" has become one of the foundations of Western thought when it is, in fact, grounded on the trobulesome assumption that there is a kind, loving, and non-manipulative god who created the universe. Third, I absolutely refuse to accept when the so-called "Golden Rule" is quoted to me, which happens depressingly frequently, and doubly so since I entered medical school. The whole principle of "do unto others as you would have done unto you" strikes me as a painfully backwards and counter-productive sort of rule, a confusion at best and a cruelty at worst. One thing which has always particularly bothered me is that Hillel, said to be perhaps the finest philosopher ever to carry Jewish blood in his veins, is often quoted as a proponent of this dictum. It has always bothered me that this might be true, but I never bothered to investigate it myself, and just assumed the worst of the man. Tonight, when I had a few minutes free between memorizing various hand muscles, I took a second to look up some famous Hillel quotes and dug up the following.

A student one day came to Hillel and asked him to summarize the wisdom of the entire bible as succintly as possible. With nary a pause for thought, Hillel replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary." Pretty heavy stuff for a man who didn't live past forty, and certainly a pretty good distillation of the basic idea of the Jewish faith. That said, strictly speaking, that's not the Golden Rule as we think of it, which more rightly comes to us from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law of the prophets." In some translations, this is translated as "this is the law of Moses" which I really think is just adding insult to injury.

Look at those closely, now. The goyyishe version is a positive command: do unto others. In what i consider to be pretty stark contrast, Hillel's version is a negative command: don't do unto others. In most situation, a negative command is considered to be a very poor way to teach people how to behave, because a negative command usually does not tell people what they should do instead. "Thou shalt not kill," for example, does not proscribe maiming, torturing, or forced viewing of Pauley Shore films, and you have to go through the whole of the Bible to assemble a clear picture of how to live based solely on negative commands. A positive rule is usually a better way to teach people how to act because it's generally clearer and easier to follow. "Do not kill" is, arguably, ambiguous, but "be nice and kind" does go a long way to ruling out anything involving hot pokers.

I say that this is normally true, because there are always exceptions. Hillel's negative rule is actually fairly clear. While he doesn't give an alternative moral behaviour to follow, Hillel does create a single rule which explains everything you ought not to do. If it's hateful to you (not merely if it's slightly annoying or mildly disruptive), don't do it to the next guy. What this does is go a step towards eliminating the Inquisitor's Loophole of the Golden Rule. Most people have never heard of the Inquisitor's Loophole, which argues as follows: Imagine a Christian inquisitor during the Spanish inquisition. His job is to torture heretics and non-believers. Torture might be hateful to the inquisitor, but the inquisitor is a good Christian who believes that only good Christians go to Heaven and everyone else burns in Hell. So, says the inquisitor, knowing as I do that only Christian escape eternal damnation, were I a pagan, I would *want* to be tortured to the point of conversion and then killed, because this would secure my place in Heaven. Right, well, off to work then. I sure do love my job. Rationalization being the mightiest of all human mental powers, the Golden Rule in its standard permutation allows truly horrific things to be done, secure in the knowledge that, what the heck, it's what *I* would want.

Hillel's rule is a little bit better. It's not so easily weaseled out of, for one thing. The inquisitor can't say that a hateful act for a greater good is worthwhile, because it's a hateful act and that's that. Obviously, the Hillel rule doesn't stand up to a determined rationalization much better than the Golden Rule; it's only a single additional step of logic for the determined sinner to conclude "this isn't really hateful after all," but at least it does require that one extra cognitive step, and lazy as most people are, some of the inquisitors would probably have failed to take it. Hillel's rule wouldn't stop the proseletyzers from wall-papering your front door, because not only is it what they would want done unto them, it's also such a small thing that they would never find it hateful. Most people put so little thought into the justice of their actions that neither rule will really stop a competent sinner from doing what they want, but that just goes to show how stupid it is to try to condense any philosophy into one line.

As the one final gap in both theories, of course, is the fact that, like most philosophers, they don't know when to stop talking. "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor" is simple, precise, and comprehensible. "That is the whole of the Torah" is pushing it, because obviously, and particularly given the fact that Hillel himself probably spent eight to twelve hours every day memorizin his Torah line by line, one dictum is not the whole of the book. He might have gotten away with it had mustache met beard at that last moment, but instead he continues, saying "the rest is commentary." Much of that "commentary" consists of people doing A) all sorts of exciting thing they found hateful and B) all sorts of things they should have found hateful and didn't. To me, this doesn't elaborate on the one rule so much as it appears to illustrate several thousand situations in which we're told that Hillel's rule doesn't really apply and we should go ahead and do what we want (or, in defense of the more noble characters, what we're obligated) to do. The funny thing about commentary is that a lot of it comes from the peanut gallery.

Sadly, Hillel would probably have felt that "beating the annoying student to death with his own tfillin" to be hateful, so he didn't do it. It's society's loss.

There's a post which I've been toying with, off and on, for over a year now. I've been back and forth debating if it would make a good topic. On the one hand, only one, perhaps two of the people who read this already know the story in detail, and it's defintely one of the lesser-known legends of my illustrious past which I think it's fun for people to know. on the other hand, oddly enough, I've always wondered if there was enough material to make for a good 9and more importantly, entertaining) read. Tonight, though, I find I have nothing else which has really captured my imagination enough to write about, and there aren't any current events I find any burning desire to write about, so now seems like as good a time as any. My only regret is that Bill and Walter cannot be here with me as I write this, because they would make it hard to type.

So anyway...

1999 was an interesting year to be me. Besides my Rebirth in September of that year and my discovery of my innate gifts for English, philosophy, and deception, the first half of the year saw my last few months of high school, the late golden-age of my time as an online RPG enthusiast, and the first inklings of the Chaotic powers which would soon bless my life. There were some disapointments, of course -- the moon, contrary to all expectation, was not blasted out of Earth's atmosphere, and the state of space-flight research was officially declared too far behind for there to be a deranged killer computer in space in time for 2001. The first half of the year was largely dominated, not by any of that, but by my first venture into politics. Since a lot of my academic life has been spent among over-achievers, I've known a lot of people who have been in student councils or class presidencies of one type or another, and from time to time I've actually joined in with them. The truth is, I make a terrible politician at the student level because my mind-tricks don't work on people whose primary political interest is "I want my friend to win." None the less, as I observed just recently, I have always strived to follow my dreams & schemes even in the face of knowing that victory is quite literally impossible, and my attempt to become president of my high school was one time when I did, in fact, fail utterly and spectacularly and love every minute of it.

This is the story of how a hand-puppet failed to become president of Bialik High School.

I didn't have a very large number of good friends in high school, but the friends I did have were very special people. Of the four of us, *I* was probably the least intelligent and widely read, which I personally think says a lot. It may not have been the perfect group of friends, but for four and a half years, there wasn't much more I'd have thought to ask for. It is with some irony that I reflect that today, I'm the only one of the four of us still in regular contact with all of the other three, which might say something about them, or about me, or might just be one-a-them-things. We were, unsurprisingly, the silly kids. We created an official silliness club and booked rooms to watch Monty Python during lunch hours. We got exemptions from computer classes because the teacher felt we already knew enough. On warm days, we would walk to the park and read from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. A significant portion of the zaniest adventures of my life took place with that group, including what is still known today as the Bill and Walter Debacle.

At my high school, the student council was made up of elected teams of two. Teams of two co-presidents, selected from the grade ten class, would be elected by the whole of the student body at the end of the school year and would assume rule during their grade 11 year. The presidents actually did have some small amount of power -- a truly great president might actually leave lasting, if small, changes on the curriculum or the way the school was run, although most presidents did little more than give input into the organization of holiday celebrations and school assemblies. As with most schools, the elections in our school were nothing more than a popularity contest... essentially guaranteeing that a creature like myself would lose, if I tried running. It was with some shock, therefore, that I listened to a suggestion put forth by one of my friends one say. We could run for school president, he said. We would lose, but it would certainly be exciting to try. There was some back and forth discussion about whether or not we really wanted to subject ourselves to that sort of process, but somehow the discussion evolved. If we as students wouldn't have a chance of winning, logically, we should run as people who might have more of a chance. There was a handpuppet in my basement; gray, long-haired, with expressive eyes, velcro on the hands to allow it to be wrapped around things and a long stick attached to one arm to allow it to gesture. In the basement of my friend's house was another, similar puppet, albeit white and wearing sunglasses. We couldn't possibly win an election anyway... why not run as hand-puppets, who *really* wouldn't have a chance of winning? It is something of a testament to who and what Eric 3.0 was that I actually went along with this plan.

What followed were some very silly months. We actually obtained the administration's permission to go ahead with the scheme. Posters were designed with clever taglines ("why not elect a REAL puppet government?") and the words "Vote Bill and Walter," in English, French, Hebrew, and Vorlonese, each with a small red sticker reading "avoid extravasation" which had nothing to do with the election but which was generally good advice. We promised the students a greater voice in school affairs; we promised clearer lines of communication between students and administration; we promised exciting and entertaining student assemblies; we promised to be the only presidential candidates who, if elected, would permit students to hit them with bricks. Campaign week itself was something wholly unlike any previous election at the school. Every day for the half hour before classes started, as students slowly arrived at the school, we stood outside, puppets worn proudly, with a portable tape player blasting Weird Al's "Dare To Be Stupid" on perpetual repeat. I still remember the words of encouragement students would give us as they walked past: "Are you out of your mind?" "You're nuts." "Get that furry thing away from me, you freak." "What are you on?"

The presidential debates, of course, were memorable. The whole school, some seven hundred students, crowded into the school gymnasium where the stage was. Seated behind large desks, the two opposing teams sat down... our opponents in suits, we in jeans while Bill and Walter wore ties. We gave serious, well-considered answers to questions, occasionally supplemented by brief hummed snippets of "My Friend, The Witch Doctor." Clearly unable to clap, Bill and Walter would politely hit the table with their hands, or sometimes heads, after their opponents gave a spirited riposte. In front of seven hundred people, we stood up proudly and promised that we were serious, forward-thinking candidates who just happened to have no internal organs and so had to be worn by local students to accomplish our goals. The best part of it was that after we would answer a question in debate, some of the students watching would actually clap -- not polite "we're glad you've shut up" applause but geniune signs of support. To some of the questions... not all, and not even a majority, but some... we got louder cheering than the normal candidates.

We lost, of course. Most of our grade and the year behind us voted for the other team because they didn't like us as people, and most of those in other years voted for the other team because, after all, who in the right mind would vote for a hand-puppet? The adminsitration refused even to take the chance of a puppet victory and refused to allow the names of Bill and Walter to be listed on the ballot; some of those who would have voted for us most likely failed to simply because they didn't recognise our real names, which were written instead. Officially, it was a crushing defeat, though the administration refused to allow anyone to know what the magrin of victory ahd been and would not permit anyone to look at the actual ballots themselves. We lost, completly, totally, and without any uncertainty... but, on the other hand, we stood up in front of our entire school wearing hand-puppets and promised to lead them boldly into the future where no puppet had ever gone before.

Sadly, all this was done in the years before I learned the value of keeping records of my mischief, and so few of the original Bill and Walter documents still exist. Some of the documents we plagiarized our platform and campaign from still exist, but the versions written and Signed by Bill and Walter themselves are long gone and mostly forgotten. So too, the Bill and Walter website, possibly the first website for which I ever wrote code, has been offline and irretrievable for more than seven years, though I've tried many a time to get to it via Geocities long-term storage or the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. All I have left now are my dim, mostly faded memories of the campaign, all of which still make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. My own memories are strengthened, from time to time, when I bump into someone who remembers the Debacle; sitting in my anatomy laboratory exam just this past year, one of my classmates, three years younger than myself poked me in the shoulder and asked if I was the person she remembered who tried to take over the school with a puppet. Which just goes to show, you never know what things you do with your life are going to aquire their own curious place in history.

Victory was impossible, but damn if it wasn't a load of fun to lose.