DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The night I first saw Stomp, I felt that my world had subtly shifted. How had I survived all those years without experiencing something so powerful? I sat on the edge of my chair for the entire performance.

Today I discovered something that I think could have a Stomp-esque effect on my world: the Blue Man Group.

My brother turned me on to the Blue Man Group. I believe he saw them in a series of Pentium ads, which I’d never seen because I don’t watch television. But the BMG has been around for about 10 years, so I was shocked to have never heard of them.

The Blue Man Group is a sort of music/theater group. The music is percussive, incorporating weird homemade PVC instruments.

The most exciting news for me is that they’ve recorded a CD. My copy is on its way. Buy yours today — see links below.

Their website is worth visiting, but if you’re in a hurry, here are some highlights: music clips from audio (see the links on the right side of the page); funny print ads from a Chicago show; an interview from Amazon.com.

Update: the good folks at memepool point out that Blue Man Group uses Macs — so why are they shilling for Intel? Damn good question. It’s the myth of Pentium.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (CD)
• Amazon (DVD)
• Blue Man Store (CD+VHS)

This story is hilarious and explores one of the risks of growing a company too quickly. The text below was written by Bruce Schneier in his monthly e-newsletter Crypto-Gram. If your interests include computer security, privacy, or cryptography, you should read Schneier’s stuff — see the Crypto-Gram archives.

from Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram, 12/15/00

Social engineering at its finest: The Nov. 27 issue of The New Yorker has a story written by someone who quit his job to write, but discovered he never got anything done at home. So he strolled into the offices of an Internet startup and pretended to work there for 17 days. He chose a desk, got on the phone list, drank free soda and got free massages. He made fake business phone calls and brought his friends in for fake meetings. After 6 PM you’re supposed to swipe a badge to get in, but luckily a security guard held the door for him. He only left when they downsized almost everyone else on his floor — and not because they caught on; he went around saying goodbye to everyone in the office and everyone wished him well.

What did you see, she asked.

Nothing. Just colors, I answered.

Oh? Which colors?

Lots of green, I replied, and some purple.

She smiled.

Here is the most incongruous thing about Germany: there’s always a radio with American pop music playing in the background. So although I don’t understand more than every 6th word of the conversation, I can sing along with Beat It.

This may not be a universally German experience, I admit, insofar as it doesn’t regard soccer or automobiles or fizzy water or fatty breakfast spreads or beer or tile floors or fried sausages (or fried anything) or stores closed on Sunday or “coffee and cake” or eating Ricola in the car or gluten-free whole-grain conglomerations that have more in common with construction materials than bread or hiking or smoking (before, during, and after meals; in restaurants, in cars, and in desperation), or soup served by the “plate,” or warm Coke, or the national and pervasive disinterest in ice, or old-town downtown plazas with families of shoppers trodding under overcast skies across cobblestone courtyards among stores that are as likely as not to have English signage, or be selling shoes, and playing American pop music, which sort of brings us full circle.

Restaurants here confuse me. The service is free, in the sense that you don’t have to pay extra for it, but the water is not, in the sense that you do.

So we checked our two largest pieces of luggage, because we loathe passengers who not only carry on excessive numbers of items, but board out of turn and fill all nearby overhead compartments with the detritus of their travels. And we’re chronically early to the airport whenever we travel, which generally carries the disadvantage of burying our checked bags deep in the bowels of the aircraft.

This makes flight delays especially painful when one’s layover is whittled from a comfortable 90 minutes down to a panic-stricken 7 or 8… and of course it’s even worse when one is seated behind 40 rows of the sort of people who carried on five or six items and leap into the aisle to collect them as soon as the plane reaches the gate, the purser’s request to stay seated until those with tight connections can deplane ignored.

So, although we did make our connection (with, literally, 0 seconds to spare), our good luck did not: when we landed in Germany, we waited at the baggage carousel. We waited quite a long time.

And then a gracious clerk checked her computer. Good news, she said, your bags are safe. In Chicago.

We hope they’re enjoying a night off in the Windy City — dinner at The Berghoff, a view of the night skyline from the Sears Tower, a morning tour of the submarine at the Museum of Science and Industry. Perhaps our bags will even visit Michael Hayden’s light sculpture in the space tunnel between United’s B and C concourses at ORD.

But tomorrow I’d like to see my luggage again. I’d like to put on a fresh pair of socks, and perhaps change my pants.

And I’d like to remember never to fly to Europe via Chicago-O’Hare, for although I’ve now joined a huge community of international travelers, all of whom have had luggage delayed or lost outright in Chicago, I can’t say I value my membership in this particular group. I rank it right up there with my membership in the community of people who have had their septic system back up into the basement bathroom.

At least we had no trouble getting through customs… we had no bags to inspect.