Superhero stamps

They may be dorky, but the comic book fan in me can't help but recommend them: the new Marvel superhero stamps. They make a lovely package with the earlier DC superhero stamps. Buy 'em (I didn't have to, because Jennie gave me a set), enjoy 'em, and use 'em--or, if you're like me and can't bear to part with them, then just collect them along with all your other collectibles.

The drawings on the stamps are mostly from early renderings of the characters, but some appear to be later, slightly sleeker images. You get Spidey, the Hulk, the Sub-mariner, the Thing, Captain America, the Silver Surfer, Spider-Woman, Iron Man, Elektra (possibly the weakest drawing of the lot), and Wolverine.

As Stan Lee might have written, Excelsior!

I hate E*Trade

I really do. Here's why.

Saturday morning, in the course of catching up with various bits of online business, I decided to see how my E*Trade investments had done while I was in the air Friday. I'd checked on them once from San Francisco and several times while in Japan, but a few days had passed since I'd last looked in on the account, and I was considering ditching one of my stocks.

So, I logged onto my account and found: nothing. My account was gone. No money, no account, nothing. Just an empty space and an alert to call security.

I'm not going into details, but the amount of money and stock in the account was, for me, very large. I felt sick at the thought that someone had managed to steal those assets.

I called customer service. After waiting on hold, someone finally answered. I waded through the usual rapids of annoying security questions until I finally earned the right to be me. I then asked after my money. The nice man explained that it wasn't gone, but that I couldn't see it or access it.

I was less than thrilled.

I asked why I couldn't see my money. He said he couldn't tell, because he was not in the department that had made this happen. So I asked him to transfer me to that department. He could not, alas, because the people in that department don't work the weekend.

I had now progressed from sick to my stomach to less than thrilled to downright furious.

I asked for someone who could help me, but the nice man--who, to his credit, did stay nice in the face of hurricane-level winds of anger from me--said only the department that was closed could help me, and then not until Monday.

I hung up furious.

I called back yesterday to the only number I had: the number of the department that couldn't help me. I got a less nice woman who offered to let me join the ten- to fifteen-minute-long waiting queue for the department that could help. I had to get out and exercise, so I demanded to speak to a supervisor, my fury now in full flight. The woman kept trying to avoid the request, so I began repeating it over and over, adding only the question, "Are you refusing to transfer me to a supervisor?" She eventually agreed to do so.

When the supervisor finally appeared on the phone, I explained to her that I wanted someone from the department that could help me to call my mobile or that my next contact with them would be via my lawyer. She eventually agreed to consider my request.

While I was out walking rapidly up and down our street with Allyn and Kyle, who was visiting, my mobile rang. It was indeed a man from the department that could help. Before he would assist me, however, I first had to jump new hurdles of proof of my identity. He gave me lists of cars and asked which, if any, I had ever owned or leased. He asked about my brother's son. He asked things I had no clue they knew--and don't like them knowing, though for no particular reason. I answered all the questions.

At which point, he declared I had failed to prove I was me.

I was now yelling. I asked what questions I had missed, because I was quite sure I'd gotten them all right. He told me he didn't know, because they contracted with a third-party agency that provided the questions and told them whether I was me. He wouldn't tell me the name of the agency. He would only say that its software had rendered its verdict: I had failed to prove I was me.

I then told him that I was fine with not seeing my account online. Instead, I wanted E*Trade to close it and mail me a check for all the funds in it.

He refused, on the grounds that I might not be me and that someone might be waiting to receive the check. I pointed out that the address on the account had never changed, nor had the name on the account, and that all I was asking was that E*Trade mail a check made out to the account holder to the account holder's address. He refused again.

He offered me the option of faxing a letter to a number he would post in an alert on my account and including in the letter the information the alert would specify--but I had to do so within one hour, no longer, or we'd have to move to new, yet more painful layers of identity verification. I fought for a while but ultimately agreed. I was late to work because of the time necessary to write and fax the letter.

The alert was downright stupid. It required that I explain the activities that had caused the problem--but no one at E*Trade would tell me what those were. It further mandated that I sign the letter and include on it a photocopy of my driver's license.

So, had I actually hacked someone's account, I would have known the name and the activities, and I could have used any third-class forged license--we're talking a fax of a photocopy going to E*Trade--and any signature that matched the forged license to get access to the account again.

I wrote the letter. I guessed in it that my sin had been checking my account from Japan and California. I faxed it in and stated that I wanted someone to call me as soon as they freed the money.

No one did, but late that day, the account reappeared.

I agreed with Kyle that removing the account was a geek solution to a human problem: the account might be compromised, so hide it entirely. A considerate solution would have involved freezing the account and leaving a prominent note that the account holder should contact a specific number, a number with 24X7 service.

But no, that would be too nice for E*Trade, a company that clearly has no notion of how to be considerate.

As soon as time permits, I'll be shopping for a new online trading service.

Draft one complete

Last Friday, on the plane home from San Francisco, I finished the first draft of Slanted Jack. The book weighed in at 115,034 words, which was about five thousand above the contracted amount--a good thing, or so folks tell me.

As I predicted, I grunted in satisfaction, then started setting up for pass two. I'm doing it now.

I am pleased, but the book's not done. Unless the book disappoints me, something I won't know until I finish this second pass, I'll be much happier when I've finished it completely--but then, of course, I'll launch into the third one.

On an unrelated note, I now feel almost entirely rid of my jet lag, so I plan to resume daily blogging again.

Onward!

Gaining on it

Jet lag is still kicking my butt--witness no blog entry Monday night or Tuesday night and the fact that I got up and started working around 5:00 a.m. local time here in San Francisco--but I'm gaining on it. Last night I actually had two sessions of sleep over two hours long each, so with luck I will soon return to normal. Meanwhile, I'm fighting by forcing myself to get up early and so tiring out my body more.

I'm also gaining on Slanted Jack, whose end is so very, very near. I'd like to say that I whoop in satisfaction when I finish, but mostly I grunt and move to the next pass. Hey, we all celebrate in our own ways.

My new friend, jet lag

I've always been basically immune to jet lag. In April, Sarah and I flew home from Rome, ate dinner, and went to see the late show of Grindhouse. No problem. I routinely go to the West Coast, work until two or three in the morning (Pacific time), and get up at normal hours to work. Again, no problem. I come home from those same trips and follow my normal routines, and I barely feel any effects.

Even the trip to Japan didn't particularly affect me. I didn't sleep at all, had a longer flight there than the one home, spent tons of time on trains, subways, and walking as we wound from Narita Airport to the Grand Hyatt Intercontinental in Yokohama, but then had dinner in the hotel, went to bed at a normal time, and immediately resumed a normal schedule the next day.

Jet lag has never bothered me.

Until now, until this return trip from Tokyo.

Now, jet lag is my new friend and constant companion. I haven't let it affect my schedule--I'm still working long days, going to bed very late, and so on--and my energy, though not quite up to par, is generally fine, but my sleep sucks. I have trouble falling asleep, and I'm up every 45 minutes or so, until after about four and a half hours I give up and get out of bed.

I'm sure looking forward to being over it.

Of course, I'm not helping myself by leaving in the morning for a business trip in San Francisco, but so it goes; I'm committed to going.

I just hope I can sleep when I get there.

The best sushi I've ever had

I like sushi. In fact, I like it quite a bit. I don't love it, however, nor do I ever crave it--unlike, say, cheeseburgers, which I do crave from time to time. Gina loves and periodically craves sushi, and Jennie is not a big sushi fan but will eat it sometimes.

We consequently brought three very different levels of affection for this cuisine to our lunch at Kyubei restaurant (or Kyubey in many references) in Tokyo's fashionable Ginza district. We'd read great reviews on the place, heard it was hard to get into, and so set out to try it. One of the incredibly helpful, attractive, efficient, and generally most excellent concierges in the tenth floor executive lounge of the Grand Hyatt Roppongi had secured us a reservation and given us directions.

The directions got us close, but they were not enough to enable the taxi driver to take us all the way there. So, he dropped us on a nearby corner, and we set out on foot to find it. The day was hot, gray, overcast, and occasionally dripping on us, as if the sky were jogging in a huge old gym shirt and throwing off big gobs of nasty polluted Tokyo sweat on us. We walked the length of the street where Kyubei was supposed to be. No luck. We walked the length of the adjacent street. No luck. We went in a shop and begged for help, then followed the directions of the helpful clerk to a hotel at the block's end. No luck. We procured new instructions there. No luck. A passing man with a little English kindly took pity on us and led us proudly to a restaurant, which we entered with great hope--to find it was the wrong one. Amazingly, the kimono-clad hostess there ushered us down the block, under an awning, down a small walkway, through a traditional sliding door, and into the tiny foyer of the place itself. (Imagine an expensive restaurant in the U.S. offering a similar level of help to a neighboring competitor; you have to imagine it, because it won't happen.)

We were late, hot, wet, and though glad to be there, rather frustrated.

We then had to wait five or so minutes, Gina and Jennie sitting, me standing and taking up so much space I felt like the Hulk. Big fat gaijin, that's me. While we waited, we watched a small board emerge with a large, live shrimp on it, three strategically placed ice cubes slowing the glistening beast so it only occasionally twitched.

Finally, they showed us to three seats at the right end of the sushi bar. I counted 17 total seats, though later I learned the restaurant actually contained five floors of similar small rooms.

The menu was only in Japanese, and our sushi chef explained with way more English than we had Japanese that we had two options: nine or eleven pieces. Jennie chose nine; Gina and I went for eleven.

We were glad to be there, but our journey had certainly not helped our spirits.

It was all worth it.

The sushi was the best I've ever tasted, the best by a huge margin. We all agreed the meal redefined sushi's potential for us, transcended what we thought was possible. Everything was fresh, everything was delicious, and everything surpassed all the predecessors we'd tasted.

The toro (particularly good tuna, often belly meat) was beyond any I'd ever tasted in the US or Japan. The squid was flavorable and not at all chewy. The barely dead shrimp--yes, I ate it--was amazing, the best I'd ever had. As the meal proceeded, the chef realized I would trust him completely, as each time he asked anything, I pointed (politely, full hands) to him, bowed, and said I wanted his choice. He consequently made each dish the way he preferred, and each was magnificent.

Kyubei is expensive (something like $210 for lunch for three of us), very hard to find, and initially scary (remember the live shrimp?). Despite all that, I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you're in Tokyo and you love sushi, you have to go. If you're in Tokyo and you hate sushi, go anyway. It was amazing.

Why I didn't blog while in Japan

The answer is easy, if multi-part: Google/blogspot was both too smart and too stupid, and I was too lazy.

Google/blogspot was smart enough to detect I was signing on from a Japanese IP address, and so it switched all my prompts to Kanji, which I can't read. Posting and reviewing and inserting URLs and all the rest while having no English text was a huge pain, as I learned the one time I did it.

Google/blogspot wasn't smart enough to give me an option to say, "This computer should always blog in English." Or, perhaps, I failed to find that magic setting; I doubt it, but it's possible.

I did find the setting to switch the language, but it was a pain to get to and didn't stick across sessions.

So, with touristing, many hours of PT work, and writing every day, I was busy enough that I blew off blogging.

Sorry about that. I hope you resume reading. I'll try not to let this happen again.