Microserfs

We then got into a discussion of Nerd Schools and the end of the era of "single-dose" education - and of course this led to a listing of schools that had the best nerd reputations.

• Cal-Tec (Extreme nerds; the Jet Propulsion Lab is just up the hill and around the corner. The big rumor is that they had to institute pass-or-fail grading because there were too many GPA-related suicides.)

•CMU

•MIT

• Stanford

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (for undergrads)

• Waterloo

• UC Berkeley

• Dartmouth

• Brown - "Hipster nerd school with a good undergrad comp-sci program."

* * *

We drove up to Redwood City and played electronic darts at a bodega there . . . Karla, Ethan, and I. Ethan and I grew up in suburbia, and we're both pretty good dart players (those nutty rumpus rooms). Karla's never played darts before tonight.

Anyway, it was three darts per person, per round. Ethan put in four quarters and selected a four-player round. We asked him why, and he said, "You'll see."

Karla went first, me second, Ethan third, and then for the fourth round we had what Ethan called, the "Random Round" where instead of any of us trying, we'd each huck a dart standing on one foot, gulping a beer, throw it backwards . . . as silly as possible. Ministry of Silly Walks.

Needless to say, the Random Round won every single game, and always by a minimum of 100 points. It was scary.

Ethan said randomness is a useful shorthand for describing a pattern that's bigger than anything we can hold in our minds. "Letting go of randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make."

Ethan!

* * *

Identity. I go by the Tootsie theory: that if you concoct a convincing on-line meta-personality on the Net, then that personality really IS you. With so few things around nowadays to loan a person identity, the palette of identities you create for yourself in the vacuum of the Net - your menu of alternative "you's" - actually IS you. Or an isotope of you. Or a photocopy of you.

Kinko's again - photocopy yourself!

Karla noted that when photocopy machines first started to come out, people photocopied their bums. "Now, with computers, we photocopy our very being."

THURSDAY

Ethan was in business class and I was in coach. If it was Oop! paying, he'd be in the hold with all of the sedated pets.

Ethan vanished at the airport gate, and once in flight, the blue curtain came down and Ethan was gone until we arrived in Canada. I PowerBooked some code on ThinkC and so was able to remain productive. Batteries - the weight! They suck up gravity. They fellate the planet.

I got to thinking that nerds really like anything that smacks of teleportation: freeways; airport first-class lounges; hotel rooms with voice mail . . . anything that erases distance and makes travel invisible. Why don't airlines pick up on this?

Upon landing, standing in line at immigration in Toronto, Ethan asked me, "So, pal, how was life in the Egg Farm?" (referring to the chokingly full, cramped, and miserable realm of coach class; we can thank computers for perennially cramped planes). I said ''Lovely, thank you, Ethan. I took complimentary salt-and-pepper packets as souvenirs. I'll trade them for your Reuben Kincaid sleep goggles."

"Get real, pal."

At immigration, Ethan pulled out his passport and a whole whack of Iraqi banknotes tumbled onto the carpet in a dervish of cash - Susan had bought them at a San Francisco stamp store and stashed them in his passport as a prank. It was great; it was delayed reaction for the time two months ago that Ethan left an inflatable hemorrhoid doughnut on Susan's chair while some Motorola guy Susan had a crush on was visiting. Ethan looked at the doughnut, then at Mr. Motorola and said, "Oh - poor Susan. Such pain - you really can't imagine."

Back in Canada, Ethan was promptly whisked off to the cavity search room as I toddled off to catch my teensy connector flight to Waterloo. I had to pretend I didn't know him because I didn't want to visit THE ROOM either, thank you.

* * *

I was looking at the in-flight magazine, and at the end they had this map showing where the airline flies and it looked like a science-fiction map of how a virus transmits from one place to another. All these parabolic arches from city to city to city to city. If the Marburg virus ever does mutate and go airborne, we're DOOMED!

* * *

Canada: such a cold, cold country. In the plane I saw below me the blue moon's light on white snow; towers, poles, and lights and blinkings; a wide land that must be shouted across with electrons. And I got to thinking, towers are going to be obsolete, soon. All of these towers, dreaming of their own demise.

* * *