Retraction

While at least one reader has demanded a retraction for my last post , another has brought to my attention the fact that the content of another recent post has been exposed as a hoax.

Reader Kathy emailed me the following:

I'm sorry to tell you that the 'lost' tribe are not new readers for Yajeev. They've been found since 1910 and if they haven't found the Land of Yajeev by now, well, it's time for a new advertising strategy!

I've been bambooozled and have, in my zeal, propagated the bamboozledness to the Land of Yajeev readership, and for that, I am very sorry. To read about the hoax that shook cyberspace, click here.

I also extend my sincerest regrets to the heretofore presumed-to-be-uncontacted tribesmen and tribeswomen. If you reply to this post with a valid Amazonian jungle address, I'll send down a coupla Land of Yajeev t-shirts. You're going to like the way you look in them. I guarantee it.


... on a separate note, the course I am teaching is drawing to a close, my wife and dog have officially moved to Connecticut, and I am soon to follow... as are several posts which are already written in my head (as my dad would say) ... I'm forecasting a surge in postages. No promises. Just predictions.

Welcome, new readers!

I learned yesterday via CNN that a tribe of Amazonian natives never before contacted by the outside world has been spotted and photographed by passengers in a small airplane flying over their thatched-hut community. The survival of this village is threatened by expansion of the a burgeoning illegal logging industry.

The indigenous Brazilians, mostly painted orange (one seemed to be painted gray) seem to have interpreted the flyover as a potential threat, brandishing bows and arrows, spears, and what appeared to be giant spit ball shooters at their aerial observers.

For better or for worse, I suspect that these tribesmen and tribeswomen will soon be exposed to the technology and advancements of the so-called "developed world". And, when they are introduced to the likes of the Chick Fil A chicken sandwich, underwear, Lost on ABC, Cedar Point roller coasters, the wheel, surely there will be no turning back to their old way of life (they'll have to tune in each week to see if the Losties finally get off the island). And, before long, they will certainly stumble across this great world wide web of communication I like to call the Bloggernet.

My goal is to make this blog as interesting and accessible for as wide an audience as possible, including the previously uncontacted. Because, beneath our clothing or protective gourds, we're all people with similar hopes and fears, frustrations and dreams. We all want to be loved. We all have the same experience of trying to pick the quickest line at the grocery store and having to wait as the customer ahead of us with eight items or less waits for a price check on their Kikkoman Soy Sauce or fruitlessly searches their purse or wallet for coupons they just know they couldn't have left at home. We've all had that dream of showing up for class on the day of the final exam naked (or gourdless) and having forgotten to study.

Orange-painted spear-wielding aborigines, may I be the first to officially welcome you to the blogosphere! I hope you'll find the Land of Yajeev to be your online home away from home! Please check out the archives for older posts and feel free to leave your comments whenever you feel so moved.

photos by Funai-Frente de Protecao Etno-Ambiental Envira via Reuters via MSNBC.com

Tell me, Brother, can you quantify?

Last night, Little Brother and I spoke on the phone to catch up with each other's impressions of the most recent installments of three of our mutual loves: Lost (the sci-fi drama about hapless plane-wreck survivors stranded on a desert island), Survivor (the reality series about hapless game show contestants stranded on a desert island), and Gilligan's Island (the TV Land comedy about hapless three-hour-tourists stranded on a desert island).

(OK, not Gilligan's Island.)

In order to demonstrate to each other that we are both still serious fans of Lost and Survivor, at some point during the course of these exchanges, the conversation inevitably degenerates into some semblance of the following dialogue (which has been abridged for readability):

Little Bro: Are you liking Lost?

Yajeev: I like it.

Little Bro: Do you love it?

Yajeev: Yeah, I love it.

Little Bro: How much do you love it?

Yajeev: I love it a lot.

Little Bro: Yeah, but how much?

Yajeev: How can I quantify it?

Little Bro: Well, who's your favorite character right now?

Yajeev: Sawyer's probably my favorite character, but Michael Emerson is my favorite actor on the show.

Little Bro: How much do you love Sawyer?

Yajeev: Yeah, he's great, Bro.

Little Bro: How great are the things he says?

Yajeev: They're the best. I loved when he warned Locke about harming "just one curly hair on Hurley's head."

Little Bro: That was the best! How much did you love that line?

Yajeev: I just told you: it was a great line.

Little Bro: Yeah, but how much did you love it?

Yajeev: A lot. I loved it a lot. How can I answer these questions?!

A few minutes later, the conversation turned to our favorite contestants on past seasons of Survivor.

Little Bro: How much did you love Frank in Survivor: Africa?

Yajeev: He was great.

Little Bro: Yeah, but how much did you love him?

Yajeev: Brother, I loved him a lot.

Little Bro: How much?

Yajeev (searching for some frame of reference): I love Frank as a Survivor contestant almost as much as I love Lost as a show.

Little Bro: Right. (pause) How much is that?

Yajeev: Uhhhh...

Little Bro: Wait--let me ask you this. How much did you love how he didn't know the meaning of the word "brunch"?

Little Bro proceeded to recount verbatim the conversations that took place during a Survivor episode he'd seen only once, on its original airdate in late 2001.

Yajeev: Yeah, that was great.

Little Bro: How great?

And so on.



This conversation has made it clear that when it comes to how much I like something, I have no clear method of quantitation, which makes my descriptions of the degree of like/love I maintain for a given television show or character or Survivor contestant vague and devoid of real meaning.

By contrast, most important traits can be quantifiably determined and so communicated. The piquancy of a chicken wing drenched in Louisiana Lickers sauce (my poultry coating of choice) can be conveyed in Scoville Heat Units (SHU) (Louisiana Lickers wings are a zippy 1,220 SHU on a scale of 16,000,000). Likewise, when I visit the doctor tomorrow and step on the scales, I hope to weigh in at about a slug (not this kind of slug) less than I did four months ago. Similarly, when I wish to express to someone how much of the enzyme invertase a given yeast culture secretes under conditions of glucose scarcity, I can give a near exact value: 4o0 milli-units of invertase per 1 milliliter of cells at an optical density of 1.0 in light of 600 nanometer wavelength (mU/OD).

Towards the end of being able to specifically delineate the degree to which a person, place, or thing is liked, I hereby propose a new unit of fondness: The philiac.

Of course, before this term can be introduced to the public lexicon, the scale must be calibrated. In order for this new unit of fondness to be useful, we need to be clear on what a philiac is.

Below are a list of things and people that I like to varying degrees and their corresponding philiac values.

The wife: 1,000,000 philiacs = 1 megaphiliac (1 Mp)
Coffee: 50,000 philiacs = 50 kilophiliacs (50 kp)
Watson Steve: 10,000 philiacs = 1 kilophiliac (10 kp)
LOST: 1000 philiacs = 1 kilophiliac (1 kp)
Frank on Survivor: Africa: 950 philiacs (950 p)
Monte Cello's pepperoni pizza: 800 philiacs (800 p)
Pittsburgh Steelers: 700 philiacs (750 p)
Yeast genetics and biochemistry: 500 philiacs (100 p)
Minnesota Twins: 350 philiacs (350 p)
Tomato soup: 50 philiacs (50 p)
Mowing the lawn: 20 philiacs (20 p)
Clipping my fingernails: 1 philiac (1 p)
Walking uphill half a mile: 0.1 philiacs = 100 milliphiliacs (500 mp)
Removing splinters: 0.03 philiacs = 30 milliphiliacs (50 mp)
Gram staining bacterial isolates: 0.005 philiacs = 5 milliphiliacs (5 mp)
Preparing radioactive waste for removal: 0.00005 philiacs = 50 microphiliacs (50 μp)
Using gas station restrooms: 0.000001 philiacs = 1 microphiliac (1 μp)

I know that I am not the first to attempt to generate a numerical rating system. However, the advantage of the philiac is that, by virtue of its nearly limitless span, the philiac allows a far-greater range and much higher resolution than do the more commonly used five-star or two-thumb systems-- consider, for example, the trillion-fold difference in likedness of the wife (1 megaphiliac) with that of using gas station restrooms (1 microphiliac).

It is the hope of this bloggist that the philiac will facilitate and enhance communication among those who love to rate and rank.