Wanderings and Maunderings

It's been years since I watched a new anime that I felt was worth reviewing. There are several reasons for that, including but not limited to: 1) me not having a job, and thus losing the big block of alone time on the ferry where I was accustomed to watching TV shows from Netflix on my laptop; 2) teh_boy being old enough to want to watch anime with me at home, which limits my choices to things I know are age-appropriate for him, which basically means re-watching things I've already seen; 3) no, those first two are the big ones. The Devil Is A Part-Timer! is a single short season, at least the part of it that's available on Hulu.

This is a weird one, tough to classify. It starts out in the end days of a world-spanning war between demons and humans in the medieval fantasy world of Ente Isla, a war that the demons have all but won when there arises a HERO from among the humans. Born of a human father and an angel mother, the hero Emilia is the only person who can wield the heavenly sword that can defeat the demonic horde. She carves a mighty swath through the demonic army, destroying three of the four generals and setting her sights on the fourth, Alciel, and his master Satan. In the final battle, she fights the two demon lords to a standstill, but before she can strike the finishing blow, Satan opens a magical portal, and with the standard "I'll be back to destroy you all/tremble in fear for my return" blather, vanishes with Alciel to...modern-day Tokyo, where the pair of them discover that Earth's low-magic environment forces them out of their demon shapes and into puny human shells.

Forced to conserve their magic, Satan and Alciel rent a small, run-down apartment in a poorer part of town, and while Alciel sets up housekeeping, Satan goes to work part-time at "MgRonalds".

From this point on, what we have is a light-hearted slice-of-life story where Satan works hard at his job, determined to improve his status from part-timer to full-time employee of MgRonalds, and someday--dare he hope?--maybe even shift manager, all the while bringing various characters into his orbit, starting with his teenage coworker, Chi, who is impressed with how earnest and nice a person he is.

Oh, and interspersed with that, he has to fend off attacks from forces who have followed him to Tokyo from Ente Isla to take him out. These attacks come both from demonic former underlings and also representatives of the human forces, including Emilia the hero. Who finds herself similarly magic-poor and working telephone customer support for a local company.

The major tension of the story comes from Emilia, naturally, as she finds it nearly impossible to reconcile the hard-working, slightly naive "Maou Sadao" with the monster who laid waste to her world and presided over the demonic army that murdered her father. Especially when she sees that, whenever "Sadao" *does* gain any kind of magical power (which, they learn, can be harvested from the fear and despair of Earth humans), he spends it helping people and repairing the damage caused by the repeated attacks on his person and those around him.

It's this tension that made me want to review the anime. Because they never bother to explain why there's this huge difference, and while they dance around the idea that maybe Satan wasn't all evil (one of the angels who comes to attack him routinely uses torture to get his way, even on people who are nominally on the "good" side, and the Church of Ente Isla is modeled on the worst aspects of the Inquisition), they never actually close that loop, and we are left with no substantive reason to think that the Satan of Ente Isla is anything other than a monster.

Like a harem-anime, the show collects characters around "Sadao", each with their own special relationship with him, but in a neat subversion of the trope, all those characters (so far) are either reduced-magic demon generals who live with "Sadao", or humans from Ente Isla who've come to Tokyo to kill him, but have found reasons to put off the denouement--for now.

I liked this show, and I wish there were more of it. As I mentioned above, you can watch it on Hulu. (I have a Hulu Plus subscription; I'm not sure whether it's available to non-subscribers.)

Happily, I see that the light novels on which the manga and anime are based have been licensed in the States and the first two volumes are available from Amazon.

It seems Satan was sitting in his office when one of his lieutenants dashed in. "Boss! Boss! Something's wrong with the #6 furnace! We can't keep the temperature up!"

Satan wasn't too worried. This happened sometimes; Hell's infrastructure was over six thousand years old, and even Eternal stuff develops problems over time. But some adjustments, some tweaking, and they'd be back to roasting the wicked in no time. "I'm sure it's fine. We'll just go take a look, OK?"

But when they got to Furnace #6, it didn't look like anything was wrong. The fires were high, the valves were unclogged, but the lake of fire was visibly lower than it should have been. Still, most of the tormented souls looked to be in satisfactory agony. Except...out in the middle of the lake, there was one guy who'd stopped screaming.

"Turn this thing up all the way!" Satan called to the devils manning the furnace. "Get that lake boiling again!" The imps leaped to comply, but no matter how they worked the controls, the flames kept dropping. That guy out in the middle of the lake looked thoughtful.

"More fuel!" Satan roared, and loggers in the Amazon doubled their pace of deforestation, all to feed Furnace #6, but the lake of fire sputtered and went out. That guy out in the middle of the lake got a funny little smile on his face.

"More fuel!" Satan screamed, and around the world, a million bankers dropped dead, their black hearts scavenged to supplement the coal supply for Furnace #6, but the lava in the lake started to solidify. That guy out there started to grin.

"More fuel!" Satan shrieked, and all over the world, oil rigs ran dry as the oil fields were drained out from under them to pour life back into Furnace #6, but the lake was cool enough for the tormented souls to walk around on. Nobody was screaming anymore, and that one guy started to chuckle.

"More fuel!" Satan gasped, but there was no more fuel. Clouds formed overhead, and a single flake of snow drifted down, mockingly, in front of Satan's face. That one, solitary guy started to cheer.

Satan couldn't take it any more. He stomped through the growing snowbanks, grabbed the cheering fool by the collar, and shouted in his face. "WORM! HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?!?"

Around his chuckles, the guy managed to gasp out, "All I know is I'm a Mariners fan, and they must have just won the World Series!"

So a LinkedIn group*, of which I am a member, is running a thread on the "Seattle Freeze**", to wit: does it really exist, and why?

The comments are mostly people complaining that, yes it exists, and claiming that the problem is Seattle natives are unfriendly and mean. There are a few folks, both local and non-, claiming that they've never seen it, so it must not exist at all. And at least one person claiming that they grew up here and had lots of friends, then moved away and came back, and got frozen out, so the real problem must be that all the transplants have ruined the place.

Sigh.

The definitive answer is, yes, it exists. We know this because enough people have noticed it and commented on it that there's a name for the phenomenon. In this case, there is enough anecdotal evidence to be statistically significant.

And here, from a person who probably exemplifies the Seattle Freeze better than anyone I've ever met, is how the thing works, why the strategies for making friends elsewhere are the opposite of helpful around here, and what strategies will work instead. Sure, there might be an excess of projection (and, knowing me, a healthy dollop of pretension) happening here, but I promise, the takeaways and recommendations will be valuable anyway.

Note that the below are not really independent items; the Seattle Freeze is a messy tangle of interconnected threads. Hopefully teasing those threads out for individual examination will also make apparent the ways they aggravate and reinforce each other.

1) Introversion and seasonal-affective disorder. People in the NW have a strong tendency toward introversion, and this tendency is exacerbated by the climate and short winter days--we just don't get enough sunlight to be perky. What this means in the context of making friends is that for many of us, interacting with people burns our emotional energy, and our energy reserves are very low to begin with. As a result, we need our friendships to have a high ROI. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since human interactions are not a zero-sum game; it's very easy for a friendship to have a high ROI in both directions.)

2) Assumption of obligation. Some of the complaints I've seen on the LinkedIn thread are along the lines of, "I go out of my way to spend time with folks, and offer to help them move, and all kinds of helpful things". For a northwesterner, an offer like this comes with significant strings--if I accept help moving, I am accepting an obligation to help you move next time you need it, and thus if I don't think we're good enough friends that I would volunteer to help you move, your offer to help me is going to be off-putting. The fact that you may not expect reciprocity in this is not relevant; the obligation is part of my makeup. And in fact, if you make a point of saying you don't expect reciprocity, that just makes it worse, because what kind of advantage-taking asshole would I be to let you help me without any intention of returning the favor?

3) Motivational imbalance. Locals already have a bunch of local friends. The marginal benefit to a local of making an arbitrary new friend is considerably lower than the benefit to a transplant who doesn't know many people yet. This means the local is much less motivated to make this particular relationship blossom.

4) Requirement of common ground. This isn't really a requirement of establishing the relationship as much as it is a way to provide context for that establishment to occur. Because making friends takes more time, and because of point 3 above, locals aren't going to be interested in activities that are specifically tied to developing relationships. But if you can interact with the locals doing something they're already motivated to spend time doing, you end up with not only a captive audience, but also ready-made conversation starters.

5) Aversion to superficiality. This goes straight back to point one, but is important enough to call out separately. When side A of a potential relationship expects depth and a high ROI before accepting closeness and significant time investment, and side B expects and tries to push that closeness and time investment before depth, side A is going to feel pressured and defensive, and will slam the walls down even harder, because "obviously" side B is out to get something. Naturally, Side B (who honestly has no ulterior motive) is going to interpret this as rudeness and frigidity.

None of this is to say that the Northwesterner's approach to friendships is superior to the transplant's. They are just different. If the goal is to make some freaking friends, it has to be up to the transplant to understand the culture they've entered figure out how that culture establishes relationships, and adapt their approach commensurately. It'd be the same if I moved to a place without the NW reticence--I'd need to adjust my approach to the faster speed. Changing a regional culture isn't one of the options that's available to you.

So, if you are a transplant to the Seattle area, the best way to make friends is to go do the stuff you like to do. One great thing about the area is that no matter what that thing is, from skiing to surfing to dancing to hacking, there's probably a place you can go where you can do it and be surrounded by other folks who love doing that thing. Once you meet them, let them drive the speed of the friendship, because it's easy to scare the natives off by rushing things. It might take longer than you're used to, but it's still possible, and really not even all that difficult. Just remember it's not personal--how can it be, when we don't know you yet? :)

*Linked:Seattle, in case you're interested. The thread is still active, but a lot of the activity seems to be people who've had their feelings hurt and just want to complain, instead of folks who're actively looking for a solution to the problem. (ETA: things look like they've actually gotten more productive in later comments, and I don't mean just because more people are starting to voice agreement with my point of view. :) )

**The "Seattle Freeze" is the alleged social phenomenon whereby non-locals find it difficult to make friends in the PNW, and the harder they try, the harder they find it.

In late March, a friend of mine pinged me and asked me if I'd be interested in talking with another of her friends who is a partner in a startup that was looking to get venture capital and bring on some more people beyond the two principals who were currently doing all the work. I was, and I met with the guy, and we had a nice chat about his company, what they were trying to do, how I might fit into that, and how they didn't have any money to hire anybody until they got some funding.

I kept in touch for a few months, while continuing to pursue other job openings, but you know, that gets depressing and I'm looking for a very specific kind of opportunity that is apparently in very short supply.

So when we got back from London, I dropped the startup guy a line and said, "What if I come to work for you now and you pay me if and when you get funding?" (That was, obviously, the "job offer" I teased about a couple of weeks ago.) That way, they get help right away and start the learning curve for their new employee earlier, and I get a real project to work on and I can stop looking for a freaking job, which is maybe the thing I've ever done in my life that I hate the most. Everybody wins.

Long story short, they liked the idea in principle, but there are apparently issues with deferred compensation, and wanted to know if I'd be open to some other structuring of the deal. No problem for me, I have an obligation to myself and my family to not work for free, but I am largely indifferent to how that compensation actually happens. (I am extremely fortunate that our financial situation is such that I can even make an offer like this.)

Today, I met with both principals and, after an update on the status of financing and a couple of technical-interview-type questions (they had me navigating a binary search tree, which I apparently did OK with), they hit me with their counterproposal. They want to engage me as an independent contractor and have me port their iPhone app to Android. They'll pay a lump sum for the work, and when they get their funding, the idea is they'll bring me on as an actual employee.

Works for me; I know the tax situation as an IC can be weird, but thanks to M.'s stock options, we already have a good CPA, and I am sure he can get me through that. So I accepted the offer, and now I am employed (once we sign the contract and NDA).

Of course, I've never done mobile development at all, let alone for Android. So I'm hoping the work they've already done porting from WinPhone to iPhone is relevant and helpful, and I'll be ramping up hard on the Android UI.

I have taken a LARGE bite here; I hope I can chew it. :) But even if I crash and burn, I'll have developed (see what I did there?) a new skillset and my resume won't show the extended idle time it's currently racking up.

On a side note, the names of the principals are Steve and Tyler, so I was vastly amused to get back out to my car after meeting with them to find Aerosmith playing on the radio, and if you don't know why that's funny, I don't know why we are even friends, it's like I don't even know you anymore.

In the car on the way to day camp at his school, teh_boy was thinking about the rain cycle and speculated that there might be, somewhere on Earth, some water that had never been vapor. I said that, given that the Earth congealed out of molten rock, I thought it was pretty unlikely. He then asked me how the water got to the planet in the first place.

By the time I dropped him off, I'd gotten as far as the current estimate of the age of the Universe (~13.5 billion years), and how that age was determined, which involved a digression into Doppler shifting, from water waves through sound to light. When I picked him up this afternoon, I walked him through the stellar life cycle, fusion from hydrogen up to iron, and supernovae, and brought him home to the giant cloud-with-rocks-in that collapsed into our solar system complete with oxygen, iron and all those other elements that go into our everyday experience and started out inside stars.

Then I dug out a little battery-powered airplane I've had for like seven years but never had enough space to play with, and we flew that off the deck for a while.

M. was at school all day, so the original plan was I'd stay home and "work"--Wayne Roseberry has a test-planning book I promised to review, and Mobilligy has an iPhone app I promised I'd play around with and provide feedback. Seemed like an awesome opportunity to multitask.

But. M. is putting together some lovely parting gifts for some of the retiring school board members, and the frames we bought came with "protective" plastic corners that ripped the finish off the frames when we tried to remove them, so somebody had to return them and find a replacement solution. Also, we had some work done on the car yesterday, and we discovered this morning (when M. tried to drive teh_boy to school) that only my key was working (we found the problem yesterday, but we thought they'd fixed it, and since I drove the car home from the dealership, we didn't discover the problem was still extant until they were already late leaving the house this morning). So I added "revisit the dealership" to my list of tasks.

Got the frames returned, got the new frames in process, went to the dealership, couldn't find the frakking key. I'd had it when I left home, I'd had it at school when I traded cars with M., but I didn't have it anymore. Tore the car apart with the service advisor, still didn't find it. Told the service advisor I'd be back when I found it, set off to retrace my path. Searched the parking lot at the first frame store, nothing. Asked inside about lost-and-found, got nothing. Went back out to the car, took the huge wad of receipts from my earlier errands out of my shirt pocket, checked my wallet (which I usually keep in the aforementioned shirt pocket because if I sit on it, it throws my spine out of alignment and leaves me extra-susceptible to back sprains), and underneath the wallet was the damn key. Drove back to the dealership, admitted to the service advisor that I'd had the key all along, and waited for them to reprogram the car to accept the key. Went to Lowe's to pick up some irrigation supplies that I've been putting off acquiring for too long, got a call from the second framing store--the mats were ready to be picked up. (Already? Wow. Guess we shoulda went with them in the first place, but the big chain stores are nominally cheaper.) Picked up the mats and took them and the car back up to school to deliver them to M. (The students are all going to sign the mats for the departing board members, and then we'll frame them up with a nice picture of all the kids in front of one of the school buildings.) Could have, at that point, gone home and tried to get an hour's test planning and testing in, but I was going to have to come back in a couple hours to pick up teh_boy after school so M. could get to all her meetings (for an unpaid position, they do keep her awfully busy) anyway, so I asked if there were any other errands I could run in town instead. There were, so I wandered off, had some lunch, did the other errands, and made it back to school with only a few minutes to spare before dismissal. Took teh_boy home.

And that, Wayne and Steve, is why I didn't make any progress on your projects today. :) Tomorrow M. and I are going to Seattle to pick up supplies for teh_boy's final (probably) birthday party this year which is on Saturday, but Friday is looking pretty good.

Man, it's more work finding a job than it's going to be to do the job once I get it.

Harder, too. I'm no good at networking unless there's a MAC address involved.

But since we're on the subject (see what I did there?), anybody know of an available test manager position?

I can't relocate, so Seattle-area only, and Microsoft is off-limits at least until my non-compete expires in 2013, but other than that, I am wide open to opportunities. :)

Because it is the only TV option available, and because my DSL tops out at an anemic 1.5 megabits, I am a Dish Network subscriber. For the most part, it is innocuous and not egregiously more expensive than the value we get from it.

But occasionally, as was the case tonight, it intrudes upon my consciousness, and neither it nor I walk away happy with the interaction.

In January, Dish decided to give us a year of the Starz package for free. This is all well and good, and we've watched two or three movies that we otherwise would not have as a result.

Tonight, they called with an offer to replace the remainder of the year of Starz with three free months of HBO and Cinemax, which is similarly fine with me, which is to say I could not care much less.

Except with the HBO package, after the three months are up, it will automatically convert to a paid subscription unless I call them and cancel. (The Starz was set to softly and suddenly vanish away when the year was up.) When I heard this, I said, no, I don't want it at all if I have to call you and cancel it.

"You don't have to call," she said. "You can go to Channel 100 and make the change there."

"No," I said. "I don't want the package if I have to cancel it myself."

I believe she thought I meant I didn't think I could figure out how to navigate to Channel 100 and manage my account, because that's when she trotted out the question in the subject line above, after which I didn't say the first six things that popped into my head, including, "I'm more familiar with the Internet than you will ever be," "Honey, I built the Internet(1)," and "Wow, what an offensively condescending question, fuck you."

No, I just reiterated my preference to not be switched to a service that I will have to try and remember to opt out of, because even that level of effort raises the cost higher than the value I'd be receiving from the service. (I also know more about economics than she probably ever will.)

And now I'm using my "familiarity with the Internet" to see if there's any new information about a timeframe for faster pipes in my area, so that streaming might actually be an option soon(2).

Lesson learned, if the caller ID says "Toll Free", let it go to voicemail.

(1) Granted, that one is a bit of an exaggeration. But given a twenty-year career in networking and network services, it's at least in the neighborhood of the ballpark of true.

(2) Also, of course, to share my annoyance with an uncaring world. :)

Our email host is on Comcast's blacklist forever, apparently, and the workaround we have in place just got totally, instead of somewhat, unacceptable. So I spent the morning setting us up with a Google Apps account so we could use gmail.

Turns out, though, that you can have a Google Apps account OR a Google+ account, but not both. M. got a nice little web page warning and they will set her up with a new login for her Google+ account if she so wants, but I seem unable to generate that page for myself.

So I am on an undesired Google+ hiatus, and may never bother to return to the service. Way to go, Google, I thought I'd only be annoyed at the stupidity of one Internet giant this week, but you've made it two, and it's only Tuesday.

C'mon, guys. It's about convenience, convergence, and integration. Deliberate isolation of related services isn't a win for anybody.