Areas of Unrest

1 December 1999 - The Harpy Index

QOTD: "There is no shortcut to longevity; to achieve it is the work of a lifetime." - James Crichten-Brown

Reading: Katy Munger, Out of Time

Listening to: Christine Lavin, Future Fossils

Harper's Magazine has (or, at least, used to have; it's been years since I read it with any regularity) a feature called "The Harper's Index" which is a collection of odd statistics. I once read that compiling this monthly feature is one of the tasks they use their unpaid interns for. Despite that exploitation, I still found that this was often one of the more interesting things in the magazine. So I thought it would be interesting to attempt my own version.

In case anybody didn't know, a harpy is a (Greek) mythological creature with the head of a woman and the body of an eagle and particularly sharp, vicious talons. However, I suspect they just got a bad rap. In her wonderful book, A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Gods, Anne S. Baumgartner's entry for harpies defines them as "Goddesses of storms. Principal among them are Podarge the Swiftfooted, Aello the Stormswift, Ocepete the Swiftwing and Celeano the Dark. They have been depicted as hideous beasts by mortals who are afraid of thunder and lightning. Actually, they are winged women of an ethereal beauty." I don't really identify all that strongly with harpies, but I can never resist a pun. I supposed I could have titled this "harper's index" because I do play the psaltery a bit, but my puns on that subject have been worn out by the psalty-nuts mailing list.

Okay - I will get to the point. Here goes:

• Number of sinks in the lady's room on my floor of the building I work in: 8
• Number of those sinks which produce any running water: 3
• Number of those sinks which produce hot water: 0

• Number of pairs of shoes I own, not counting slippers: 25
• Number of those pairs of shoes I can wear since I broke my little toe Saturday morning: 3

• Number of independent countries in the world: 191
• Number of those countries I have been to: 28
• Number of remaining British colonies, er, overseas dependent territories: 17
• Number of those I've been to: 4
• Number of days of vacation I get per year: 20
• Number of years I have to continue on at Aerospace to get to 25 days of vacation a year: 6
• Number of years until I can retire, assuming I can afford early retirement: 14

• Average number of live concerts I went to annually from 1980-1993 or so: 12
• Number of live concerts I went to in two weeks at the Edinburgh Festival in 1998: 9
• Number of other live concerts I've been to since 1993: 1
• Number of concerts I am interested in going to in the next 2 months: 7
• Number of those concerts that don't conflict with other plans: 0

• Number of grocery stores within a half hour drive of my apartment (approximate): 7,453
• Number of those stores that sell Schweppe's Bitter Lemon: 0

• Average speed of cars on the 405 when I have lots of time to get to work: 75 mph
• Average speed of cars on the 405 when I'm running late: 9 mph

• Number of musical instruments I claim I can play: 5
• Number of those anybody who isn't deaf would be willing to listen to me play: 0
• Years of piano lessons I took (non-consecutive): 6
• Years of viola lessons I took: 2
• Average number of times per year I recycle my father's joke and claim that my best musical instrument is the stereo: 17

• Number of puns I tell or email people in an average week: 13
• Number of times somebody has actually requested that I send them a pun: 1

I should expand on that last item. Lance sent me email the other day. A friend of his back east knows a seventh grader who was doing a class project involving word play. Apparently, this child had specifically asked for bad puns. While I did pass along the URL for the International Save the Pun Foundation and throw in a very old, very bad shaggy dog story, I also commented that I felt I should be slightly offended by the request. I mentioned this to Milo and his response was, "face it, you're a unique corporate resource." I double-checked and was relieved that he didn't mention this under "communications skills" on my last performance review.