My cubicle runs on magnets. Those little rare-earth monsters smaller than your pupil that pull a couple of pounds each. I order them off the web. It’s like Magnetic Christmas when they arrive.

The company where I work, you see, decided last winter to build out the office with fancy new cubicles. I don’t like cubes, but I’ve worked in them before. I can deal. At least, I consoled myself, I’ll have some personal wall space to hang printouts and white boards and whatnot. And padded walls absorb sound nicely. I do value privacy.

So we worked from home for a week while the office got renovated. And came back to find this:

Turns out we’re the proud new owners of genuine Herman Miller designer cubes. My Studio Environments they’re called. No padded walls here. These puppies are all curves and rectangles and steel tubes and frosted glass. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’m confident the list price of just one would make a respectable down payment on a Lear jet. I give all props to our execs for going top-of-the-line. With all sincerity, this is an awesome company to work for.

Also, I hated these cubes on sight.

I mean sure, they have doors. That’s extremely cool. But they look and feel like plastic shower doors. In fact the frosted glass between cubes is quite a bit like a translucent shower partition. Nothing personal against my coworkers, but that’s not the mental image I need when I drag into work Monday morning. “Permeable privacy” the brochure calls it. “Parabolic sound reflector” is more appropriate, considering all the smooth, curved surfaces. “Alien spaceship,” “dog pound” and “cryogenic pod” have also come up more than once.

In case any of my company execs are reading this, let me be clear: the cubes have grown on me since then. Compared to neutral-toned cloth boxes, these are very stylish and pleasant to the eye. I appreciate now what the designer achieved. But they are, and shall always remain, quite absurd.

Riddle me this, Batman: How do you hang printouts on a glass surface? Tape? Suction cups? It took me awhile to figure it out: magnets. Put one on each side of the glass and the paper is pinned between them. This was a liberating discovery. Turns out magnets also work great to attach things to metal tubes and plastic cabinet doors. (In the photo below, pictures are hung inside the cabinet.) These rare-earth jobs are even strong enough to penetrate my pressboard desktop. I’m all about magnets now. They also make a fun stress relief toy.

Unfortunately they’re not strong enough to hold up a white board. Solution? Frosted glass and plastic doors make decent dry erase surfaces. I’ve worked double shifts where my cube looked like a madman’s room in a horror movie, covered top to bottom with half-decipherable scrawls.

No doubt Herman Miller and my coworkers would find that an apt comparison. Maybe I am insane. No one else in the office has blanketed their stylish glass box with scribbles and magnets and loose papers. Why is that? Am I a trendsetter or just a freak? Honestly, I can live with both.

I’m only getting started anyway. Along with our new cubes came these slick double-swing-arm mounts for LCD monitors. I didn’t attach monitors to mine. I screwed on more white boards. Magnetic, of course. Who else can rotate their white boards to any angle on three axes at a whim? No one, that’s who else! In fact I’m in the throes of what you might call a “cube mod.” The details will have to wait for another post, but it’s become one of those creative obsessions that won’t stop until my children notice their college fund is shrinking. I get the most satisfying looks of bewilderment from janitors and cubicle maintenance guys.

Yes, we have cubicle maintenance guys. I enjoy their visits. In fact I’m thoroughly enjoying this whole experience. Despite my initial misgivings, I couldn’t be happier that we moved into these weird overstyled beauties. Maybe rebellion is the mother of invention. Or maybe I need to get out more.

Nah, it’s definitely rebellion. Right?

The future makes me feel like a chick.

Let me back up. As you know, the comic strip is on vacation. A big reason is that we’re looking for a new house. (By “new” I mean “not antediluvian like our current one.”) My wife spends countless hours poring over real estate listings on the net, where searchable databases are updated throughout the day. She downloads all the particulars - lot & house specs, school & utility districts, et al. - the usual stuff agents want you to know. They include photos of each place. Sometimes there are adorable “virtual tours” in glorious Quicktime. Generally there’s a link to Yahoo Maps or some equivalent, affording a view from space of the domicile in its natural habitat.

How cool is that? We are totally living in the future here. Everything you want with a couple left clicks.

It ain’t enough.

I’m notoriously skittish about commitment. Buying a house is like adopting a dog: it’s hard to tell if it will bite you in the ass. Faced with this paralyzing decision, I turn to the old, frayed comfort of nerdity. To wit, I’ve got a bookmark list of alternate information sources. Between the photos on a listing, various satellite images and Google Street View, I can piece together most floor plans despite agents’ attempts to embellish them. From county property records I can apply exact measurements and even use Google SketchUp to model it in 3D. In half an hour I can take a virtual stroll around the place, or judge how our furniture will fit.

Dig deeper and there’s more. Worried about drainage problems? I can view the area’s contour lines to a one-foot resolution. I can pull up a catalog of flood plains and storm drains. Crime? I can list every complaint in the past few years within a thousand feet of the house. I can pull up the addresses of registered sex offenders (that’s a pleasant one). I can tell you traffic patterns. I can tell you if any endangered species live nearby.

I can peruse tax records on the current owner. I can read everything he’s ever done on the internet. If the house is near a traffic camera, I might be able to tell you what he’s doing right now. And it’s not even that time-consuming.

Face it. This future we live in is creepy, geeks-shall-inherit-the-earth stuff. And it makes me feel like a chick.

Specifically, this chick. If you don’t recognize her, that’s Theora Jones, a character in the 1980’s TV show Max Headroom. The cyberpunk series took ace reporter Edison Carter through a dystopian future in which the homeless are harvested, TVs have no “off” switch and citizens vote through overnight cable ratings. Heady, prescient stuff.

Carter handled the two-fisted legwork, but he got nowhere without Theora, his “controller.” She worked at the TV station and guided him by radio. There was nowhere she couldn’t go by clickity-clacking on her trusty computer. Ubiquitous security cameras gave her virtual omniscience. Internal schematics of every building were laid bare on her screen. She snatched control of locks and lifts and sprinkler systems. Her nimble fingertips touched everything. (Is it getting hot in here..?) This gal was a badass on the wires, not to mention easy enough on the eyes that twenty years later my hormones have yet to recover.

I, it should be noted, am not so easy on the eyes. (But I didn’t go on to marry Corbin Bernsen, so it’s a wash.) I do feel kinship though to swift-fingered Theora. How long before I’m able to clickety-clack into random security cameras or raise and lower barrier arms in parking garages? We’re halfway to Twenty Minutes Into The Future. And I like this power. It makes me feel more secure in my decision-making. Lucky I’m a good guy like Theora, right? I mean, aren’t I?

Come to think of it, I’m also in the process of selling my current house. It’s listed online and everything.

I’ll be right back. I just need to close the curtains.

Theora, is that you?

I wrote this little piece a couple of years back, after perusing a web site about historical publications. It’s all about depravity so I’ll call it NSFW, but it’s not graphic or anything. Some of the language might be hard to explain to your mom. Which is really ironic.

Seduction For A Nickel

Well, I did it. Subduing my curmudgeonly reticence, I made an account on deviantART. I wanted a gallery for pieces unrelated to Gordian Algebra, you see, and was too lazy to put together a whole new web site for it. Plus, y’know, community and like that.

Right now it’s mostly a handful of old pen-and-ink drawings from the paleolithic era. I’ll drop in more as the urge strikes. Have a peek and enrich the next two minutes of your life.

A lovable spirit passed on yesterday. John Archibald Wheeler was a theoretical physicist who walked among the pipe-smoking titans of yore. He was a colleague of Einstein and a student of Bohr, worked on the Manhattan Project and coined various terms like “wormhole” and “quantum foam.” Ever heard the theory that every decision creates a separate universe for each choice? John Wheeler sponsored that one.

He’s also a big reason I moved to Austin. In my halcyon youth I dreamt of becoming a theoretical physicist and the University of Texas was my first choice among affordable schools, with Wheeler and Steven Weinberg as the rock star names atop the bill. In 1986 I signed up for one of his courses. (It was for non-physics majors, but hey - this was John Wheeler.) It’s one of the few college classes I can confidently state will always influence me. Wheeler remains the most amazing example I’ve seen of someone geniunely in love with his work. He seemed to live in his own magical universe of graphs and equations we mortals could only strive to understand. His biggest joy was describing that universe to us. He’d give us photocopied notes with cute drawings and handwritten poems about light and time and quantum phenomena. He was a gleefully childlike old genius.

And old he was. He was in his 70’s at the time. He moved gingerly and looked like a spring wind might blow him away. He left in the middle of the semester to have heart surgery; but a day after he was released from the hospital he tottered into the classroom to say hello, excitement written across his pale face. He probably would have taken over from the guest lecturer if he’d had the strength.

Periodically since then I’ve assumed he’d died, only to learn he was still ticking away like an antique watch. I guess the spring finally unwound for the last time. But I have no doubt he’s soaring through that magical universe of high wonder and higher math.

Here’s to you, old boy! We’ll have to train up a hundred mad geniuses to replace you.

However sick dogs are, that’s how sick I am. No update for Monday the 11th, I’m afraid. First time I’ve slipped a date. I’d berate myself but I haven’t got the energy.

The update’s a smidge tardy today. I’ve burned through my buffer yet again and instead of drawing a new strip last night, I took my son to the Spurs-Mavericks showdown in San Antonio. (The game was awesome, if you’re inclined to care.)

Tomorrow here in Austin is Staple! The Independent Media Expo. I’ve written about it previously in the blog. I’ll be there in no official capacity except to browse and take in the panels. There’s a discussion on webcomics that interests me in particular.

If you’re in the area and thinking of attending, maybe I’ll see you there?

I’ve got a weird feeling. I feel I should say something austere and dignified, but my mind is curiously blank. I’m not sure what words apply.

Roy Scheider just died. You know Scheider, the actor who played the sheriff in Jaws. He was an A-list leading man for a few years in the 70’s and 80’s. His presence is somewhat iconic to me, I guess because I grew up watching his movies, but also because of the type of characters he played. He was the big screen embodiment of a man just trying to keep his head above water (sometimes literally). His best characters had grit and skill but were underdogs. He was great at bursting into scrappy little rants, usually ineffectual, but always cathartic to the audience. He was easy to cheer for.

He also put together a stunning piece of work in All That Jazz, Bob Fosse’s masterful musical that opened my young eyes to new avenues of storytelling. (And I don’t really like musicals.) Death and reflection were major themes in that film. I expect we’ll see endless clips on TV in the next day or two. What stands out for me, though, is the way he (and Fosse) brought his scrappy underdog character to life in amazing new ways. Suddenly he wasn’t Roy the feisty everyman battling for his humble slice of justice. He was Roy the shining talent battling his own self-destruction. He was a genius and an asshole and he celebrated and lamented himself in his own glorious imagination. Fosse’s outstanding writing, direction and choreography brought spectacle to the story; but Roy Scheider anchored it, kept it grounded, handed it to the audience with a shrug and a wink. Roy could do that, because he was Roy. He was never far from us.

I suppose it’s telling that his death affects me so quietly and deeply. Maybe I’ve always felt like the underdog, the self-destructive talent, the little guy trying to keep his head above water. Maybe he showed me I could celebrate and lament myself and still be a decent human being.

I dunno. It’s all wordless feelings. The kind where you want to visit the old pub you haven’t seen in years, and instead of talking, just raise a glass to the man. Maybe I should do just that.

Here’s to you, Roy. Nice job.

Last week the urge hit me: time to be non-antisocial. It’s a rare and delicate condition, trust me.

So I went to lunch with an old buddy of mine. His name is Chris Nicholas, known in some circles as “Uncle Staple” for reasons forthcoming. Chris is the writer for an indie comic titled You Chose Right the First Time. I remember when he first showed me some pages. As I recall they were clipped inside a three-ring binder. He was planning to Xerox them to sell at local shops, which seemed like a sketchy business plan to me, but it was plainly a labor of love and I wished him well.

Then something cool happened: His comic came out and got good reviews. He was hooking up with indie comic artists and writers. In what seemed like no time at all, he had masterminded a local gathering of comic creators that he called Staple! (2008 will be its fourth year running. Click the link to learn more.) He was on the ball and scoring.

I never mentioned this to Chris (though he may be reading now) but he’s a big reason I started Gordian Algebra. While I was twiddling my thumbs, he got off his ass and made things happen. When that fact hit me, I decided to get off my ass, too. And here we are.

So Chris, if you’re tuning in, now you know why I paid for your (oh so extravagant) lunch last week. You da man.

(Just don’t get used to it. I’m not made of money, y’know. Sheesh.)

Happy 2008! Whatever you did for the holidays, Opti-Man had more fun with Missile Toe and Bubble Lass.