M. Caspian's Blog, page 22

Buy Nothing June

Image by Thomas Galvez on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons licence

Each year I do Buy No Books June. It’s a chance for me to catch up with my own-and-need-to-read pile (currently I own at least 248 books I have never read.)

This June I’m going one further. I’m doing Buy Nothing June.

I own too much stuff. I feel a deep urge to get rid of as much of it as possible. Maybe that’s from listening to The Minimalists and reading minimalism blogs every week. But maybe it’s because I went to visit my daughter, took only my handbag and one small cabin bag, and didn’t miss anything I own. I had my Kindle library, my laptop, two changes of clothes, medications, and a paper journal. What more do I need, when you get down to it? And yet I look around me now I’m back at home and I see only extraneous things.

I have a long-standing dream of living in a tiny house. I really like this one, by Rustic River, even though it’s not technically a tiny house; it’s got a pretty big footprint, but it’s awesome!

Tiny houses aren’t much of a thing here in New Zealand yet, mainly because land prices are so high it makes sense to put as large a building on a section as possible to make resale value worthwhile, and also to make rates (property tax) seem relatively affordable in comparison. Also, the local tiny houses I’ve seen lack charm. I mean, look at the Chattahoochee. Look at it. Then look at the Kiwi ones. There’s no comparison.

But no matter my yen, there’s no way – NO WAY – I could currently fit my shit into a tiny house.

So, not only am I going to buy nothing in June (except food, utilities, transport etc) but I’m going to cull and dispose of one full bookcase of books, and clean out the garage. When I finish the month I will get rid of the bookcase. I can’t achieve miracles in one month. But I can make a start. And pin photos of tiny houses to my office wall and think about One Day.

 

 

 

 

Things are getting hairy

You may have caught the news this week that “Curious Guy” wrote in to Ask Amy pondering why women don’t shave their arms:

“I’ve seen many women who have a decent amount of noticeable hair on their forearms. Some women have dark hair on their arms, which is noticeable when wearing short sleeves. Even blond hair is very noticeable in the sunlight. I’m just curious as to why women would shave their legs, but walk around with hairy arms.”

Amy’s answer is classic, but ignores the fact that it’s really recent – historically speaking – that women don’t have to shave their arms to be considered properly presented to the world.

I own a copy of The Arts of Costume and Personal Adornment (1943) and it specifically instructs young ladies to remove arm hair with sandpaper, as to have any is “a mark of careless grooming” (p.32). 1970’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised doesn’t talk about hairy-legged women liberationists, it specifically mentions “hairy-armed women liberationists.”

For all the numerous problems with second wave feminism, let’s at least be thankful we don’t have to stock up on sandpaper at the drugstore every week.

**And a shoutout to the Hairy Legs Club on Tumblr.

The Holy Grail of Notebooks

I found it. The perfect notebook.

‘Radiant’ by Jon Bunting on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons Licence

It’s the Enigma notebook by Taroko Shop. Of course, it’s sold out now. And I only bought one, damn it. But they promise there are more coming. And I will be stocking up, believe me.

Earlier in the year I reviewed the Mystique notebook by Taroko Shop. I still really like this. It’s my everyday carry notebook currently; here it is inside my Hobonichi Techo cover. where it fits perfectly.

Over the last week it got rained on a lot, and although the ink ran, the paper did not buckle. I was impressed with the Mystique when I got it, and the only thing that could have made it better was to be made from Tomoe River paper. So that’s what Taroko Shop did.

The Enigma is made from 68gsm Tomoe River paper, which is thicker than the 52gsm used in a Hobonichi or the Nanami Writer/Crossfield. The cover is navy buckram, and it’s shipped in a sturdy cardboard slipcover. It’s 2cm thick, with 240 sheets (480 pages), and thread bound so it lies flat. The Enigma has exactly the same features as the Mystique – the printed metric and imperial rulers, the 2016/2017 calendar, and the handy keyword index page at the back, which I now understand how to use and it’s awesome! It’s got a 5mm dot grid, the same as the Crossfield’s cross grid.

It’s still thicker than a Nanami Seven Seas notebook, but thinner than the Mystique, due to the gorgeous thin TR paper.

Taroko Enigma on left, Nanami Writer on right

The paper quality is brilliant, of course.

Ignore the pink sticky notes; i had to use them to get my phone to focus on the white page.

The only pens that bled through were the black Sharpie and the Bic Mark It, which has alcohol-based ink designed to write on plastic, metal, and glass, so it basically bleeds through everything cellulose-based. Even so, you could still use the reverse of the page even if you’re writing in the Bic or the Sharpie. That’s really minimal bleeding, and so little shadowing of the other pens.

Basically the Enigma is perfect. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. It costs US$30 to the Crossfield’s current $26, but the shipping is much cheaper, and also the Crossfield is available maybe once every five or six months. If Taroko Shop can keep up a regular supply then I will be buying only these for the rest of my days.

 

Roundabouts and milestones

Wakatipu Heights, Queenstown by Tom Walter on Flickr

The Starbucks in Queenstown is my favorite Starbucks. There’s a tiny bench with stools at the front that gives you a 225 degree view onto Mall Street, Ballarat Street, and Camp Street, the main cross street in town. There’s no better place for people watching, even when its been raining non-stop for a week, like it has been since I got here. And it’s always exciting, because the intersection of Ballarat Street and Camp Street is a roundabout.

Apparently not many countries use roundabouts instead of traffic lights, although they’re faster for drivers, and even Americans are finally getting in on the act. Trivia of the day; roundabouts were originally called gyratory circuses, hence Piccadilly Circus, in London. No elephants, only traffic.

With roundabouts you’re supposed to give way to traffic on your right. That’s it. No light will tell you when to go. The driver judges for themselves when it’s safe to move. You look, you see; when it’s clear, you drive on. Time it right and all the traffic can move together, in a perfectly executed spin.

Add in 90% tourists and it doesn’t work quite the way it was intended. I watched fourteen near misses this afternoon in two point five hours. Drivers approached the roundabout and just kept on going, apparently not noticing the huge rented four wheel drives approaching at 50 kph on the drivers’ side. But I didn’t see one smash. Good reflexes, guys. I approve.

While I was sitting there I uploaded a book to Amazon and achieved a goal I set in January 2014 that I classed as ‘Audacious’: write nine stories (including Kraken) by December 2016, while working full time. Possibly I’m cheating? I hadn’t considered a few factors when I originally set the goal. I included co-written books in my count, short stories, and also stories published on Goodreads but not released on Amazon, like Char (although I do still have plans to rewrite Char and release it one day.) But I didn’t count my fic on A03, because it’s only a drabble.

Also – and this is important – my goal was about quantity, not quality. I’m a huge fan of both Andrew Grove and Bruce Mau.

Grove says, “Make mistakes faster.” This is my life motto, which is good, because I’m ace at screwing up. Luckily I’m also excellent at picking myself up after the debris has come to rest, and dusting myself off just in time to make a similar – but never exactly identical – error. Failure is not to be feared.

Mau advises, “Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.”

So that’s what I’ve been doing, and what I’ll continue to do. I’m writing. When it’s crap, I keep writing. When it’s good, I keep writing. I forget to read reviews now. It’s about the words on the page, and working improve to my capabilities. I’m enjoying playing with a variety of genres and pen names.

I thought I was aiming high beyond all reason when I said I would write nine stories, but I can do more before I hit my deadline. It’s only May: I have another seven months left in the year. I’ve got a book to release as soon as I get the cover through later in the month, and two big stories in progress. I have to write the sequel to my March release, and the rest of the series for the story I uploaded today, and I’m hoping the BDSM group will do another story event, as I’d love to contribute again. I have a lot left on the year’s plan, but unlike January 2014 now I have every confidence I can do it all.

 

Now get your kink delivered aurally

Photo by John Jeddore on Flickr, and used under a Creative Commons Licence.

Thanks to the BDSM group on Goodreads, and in celebration of National Masturbation Month, a section of Mine has been narrated by Sirly Eric as part of their Bedtime Stories collection, and you can listen to it on YouTube here.

And check out others in the series, like the delicious A Shift in Sands, by A. Phallus Si.

 

There’s something fishy going on, Florence

Florence Broadhurst was a visionary Australian designer of textiles and wallpaper in the 1960s and 1970s. Her designs have become popular again over the last ten years, maybe because of the publication in 2007 of a simply gorgeous book about her work and life.

Broadhurst’s famous Bamboo print. We had a knock off of this papering my family bathroom when I was growing up.

I’ve always been a fan of Broadhurst, and I found her very inspiring in my own textile work. This is my chaise longue upholstered in one of my fabrics.

See how it looks kinda similar to the bag down the page? Inspiration, baby.

Last year Broadhurst’s estate licensed her work, and I fell in love with the luggage range, but it was just way too expensive to even consider buying, because I hardly ever go anywhere. Until, this year, the pieces started appearing on clearance websites. I guess I wasn’t alone in finding them out of my price range.

So, seeing as how I am going to visit my daughter this week, and I released a book in March that earned a tiny bit of money, I decided to treat myself. And I bought a cabin bag.

 

Also in the back of my mind was that I plan to do a US road trip – tentatively summer 2017 – and it would be perfect for that, too (I pack light and only take carry-on).

I bought it from the Australian store Peter’s of Kensington, because their shipping is fast and everything is packed securely. And I followed the tracking number all the way to Auckland airport customs, where the bag stopped dead. A week later, it hadn’t moved. This was not right.

So I emailed Peter’s of Kensington, and a real person emailed me back, and gave me a contact in New Zealand, and I emailed them and told them it was cabin luggage in a big pink box. And they actually looked! And they actually found it!!

Here – finally – is the point of my story. This is what the package looked like:

Someone had ripped open both shipping manifest envelopes and removed the documentation. They’d removed the Australia post tracking sticker. They’d also opened the box and removed the packing slip. So there was no way for NZ Post to identify who they should deliver the box to. And the box had been inspected by customs, so it wouldn’t immediately be apparent someone had opened the box a second time.

I would chalk this down to a one-off accident, except at the beginning of the year I bought a wooden desk caddy from France. And I tracked the parcel all the way to Auckland airport customs, where the parcel stopped dead. The store contacted NZ Post who said it hadn’t been released by customs yet. And it never was. A week later it vanished. The seller refunded me, so no loss to me, but it still went…somewhere. And you can’t ask a CSR to look for a “medium sized plain white box” in a sea of plain white boxes.

If I didn’t hit a good CSR when I emailed, and if Peter’s of Kensington didn’t use bright pink boxes, I would never have got my pretty, pretty bag. I paid by Visa, so I could have done a chargeback. Again, no financial loss to me. And a high-volume overseas seller is unlikely to bother getting to the bottom of what happened.

So my question is, what happens to parcels that are incorrectly addressed and with no tracking details? Are they auctioned off for a fund raiser, as I know happens in some places? Or are staff allowed their pick of unclaimed parcels once a suitable time period has passed? And is someone at NZ customs, or NZ Post, deliberately removing all identifying details from parcels in order to make sure they have their pick of the good stuff? Or did someone just slip and their fingers ripped the document envelope by accident and the paperwork fell out? Twice.

These questions are interesting because Yixin Gan went on trial here last month. She ran a business shipping food from China to Tonga, via New Zealand. A man called Mosese Uele, who worked for a freight forwarding company and had access to secure areas, opened the parcels when they were in the bonded warehouse during the stopover, removed the pseudoephedrine – used to make meth – hidden inside, replaced it with actual potato starch, and perfectly legal goods were on-shipped. Uele already pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison, along with several co-conspirators. But Uele says Gan was the mastermind behind the whole thing, while she says she had nothing to do with any of it. Her trial ended up aborted due to juror shenanigans, and she’ll face a retrial later in the year.

If Uele could make drug substitutions, and someone could rip the documentation off my parcel, how secure from tampering is the whole system?

New Zealand has always been a trustworthy country. We’re fourth in the world for least corrupt place to do business. But just a few years ago we were #1. My bag is only a bag, but how many other parcels are going astray? I’ve always had a sense of security that if I ordered something online, the system would work, and I’d get it. I didn’t even have to think about it. But now I don’t necessarily think that’s the case any more. I used to trust that New Zealand was a basically honest place, but that blind faith has faded.

But I have my pretty bag – thank you team at New Zealand Courier Post! And I’m flying to see my girl! Woot!

Flat pack dreams

Last month I ordered a new desk.

I was listening the Beyond the To Do List podcast a couple weeks back and the host Erik Fisher said he had a desk for working at his laptop, and a desk for working on paper. That seemed like a really, really good idea to me. Since November last year I’ve been doing some journaling and planning by hand, but because currently the paper has to be directly in front of my laptop sometimes my fingers slip onto the keyboard and knock the letters G O O D R E A D S . C O M and I accidentally end up enlarging my tbr list instead of writing.

So I figured a space to actually write while not looking straight at my laptop would officially be A Good Thing.

Challenge: my existing desk is barely big enough for my laptop, and I don’t have room for two desks. So I ordered a new desk. A cheap desk. The kind that swoops around a corner, but is still compact.

I actually drove a not inconsiderable distance in order to buy a flat pack desk and take it home and set it up that day but I am apparently not the only human who wants a swoopy desk, and the store was sold out. Every branch was sold out. Even the floor models. Maybe Aucklanders are suddenly all going analogue. So I back-ordered the desk, and paid for it up front.

The desk had a matching credenza. And realistically, who can turn down a piece of furniture called a credenza? Not me, that’s for sure. So I bought one. Instantly I became the kind of woman who owns a credenza. Next I’ll be drinking red wine from a real glass, and putting on clothes not made of cotton knit and lycra.

I assembled the credenza myself. Last time I bought flat pack furniture I hired a guy who markets himself with an illustration of a Care Bear on his business card. But this was only one piece, and the box didn’t look so big. I figured I could do it. I’ve been assembling flatpack furniture since 1983. My first piece was a computer desk for my Commodore Vic-20. Wow, I got old.

 

A Commodore VIC-20 in a computer museum. because my life is now museum-able. Photo by MKFI on Wikimedia commons.

Anyway, what I learned was to ask, in future, when buying flat pack furniture, is what kind of hinges any doors have. Because my credenza has doors held on by two half-inch plastic nubbins. Sure, no one expects flat pack furniture to be handed down to your grandchildren, but I did expect it would last longer than the perishing date on plastic. Which, given the NZ sun, could be a couple of months. And I couldn’t be assed taking it back because;

a) New Zealand stores do not have the same generous return policies as American stores apparently do. I see people on You Tube all the time who buy makeup, try it for a week, and then take it back because they don’t like it. This must be Nirvana. Once I bought a chair and the legs fell off before I even got it home. Three store clerks argued with me for an hour before they begrudgingly gave me a credit note.

b) the credenza matches the desk. The desk I don’t have.

I called for an update on the desk’s ETA, and they have no idea. One man told me over the phone 8 May. I rang back to see if I could pick it up from a different branch, and that time they told me June. Maybe June. But the desk better arrive eventually because I am a sucker for matchy matchy. When I have a swoopy curvy desk – creating, in effect, a goddamn real life journaling nook – and a matching credenza, then surely I’ll instantly be a proper grown up and I’ll be able to deal with all the shit that currently leaves me spoonless by 8 p.m. and shoving pizza in my face before crying in bed, wearing my narwhal t-shirt, watching grav3yardgirl, and clutching my ventolin inhaler.

In many ways, this means waiting for the swoopy desk is far preferable to having the swoopy desk. While I’m waiting for it I can dream of my post-desk life, where I wake refreshed at dawn and eschew sugar-free energy drinks and triple-shot espresso, and instead start the day with fresh juice… no, wait, tea. White tea, brewed in silk organza tea bags. Where I work each day in two perfect three-hour blocks, taking a short walk at the beach between them, before doing admin and accounts when my energy wanes in the afternoon.

This is what’s gonna happen, right? Reality can fuck right off. *nods*

 

Not so punny

My April Beer of the Month is the HopWired IPA, from the 8 Wired Brewing Co. (yeah, yeah; it’s May: sue me.)

8 Wired say, “We’re pretty sure HopWired is the first bottled new world India Pale Ale made with NZ grown pale ale malt and 100% unique NZ hops.” Which sounds vastly impressive, but I don’t even care, because all I do care about is that this shit is delicious. Will drink again. Repeatedly. It tasted like tangerine and pineapple, with an amazing herby, earthy, peppery blast of hops.

The only thing I’m disappointed in is the name. HopWired? C’mon, guys, that’s not even trying. It’s a legal requirement that craft beers need titles to make you  groan. Beer names are akin to dad jokes.

Yes, that double IPA, by Brewmaster Jack, really is called Hoppiness is a Warm Pun. (image by @Brewmaster_Jack on Twitter.)

Puns get a bad rap. They’re seen as uncouth, easy, lazy, and cheap. Which is entirely unfair. Shakespeare punned non-stop. Paul Joel Freeman spent a whole book breaking down categories of puns into tables to explain why they’re funny (because that is a thing that makes them funnier, right?) But stick a pun on beer and all is forgiven (you could even say it becomes Rye Wit). A pint of Hoptimus Prime, anyone?

Hoptimus Prime by Ruckus Brewing Co. Photo by beer.underthelabel.com

 

Or Hoptical Illusion? What about Sweet Child of Vine? Hoppy Ending. That’s linguistic gold, my friends. I have a soft spot a mile deep for beer puns. Yes, even for this Bierbitzch beer mat.

Sometimes you just really need some Good Chit. Beer by Rogues Ales. Photo by beerstreetjournal.com

When you put it up against Hopothesis, Phantom of the Hopera, or Me, My Spelt, and Rye, HopWired lies on the drip-covered floor like a recalcitrant two-year-old, sad and forlorn, refusing to move. So, come on, 8 Wired crew. Drink more. Brainstorm. I require more groaning. Just don’t touch the recipe, because it’s perfect.

P.S. Personal favorite beer name of all time: 1.21 Gigahops.

Once seen you cannot unsee. Image by RblWthACoz on Beer Advocate

 

No Man’s Sky, aka: Once I have a gun like this one I can exploit resources that no other white human man has ever exploited before

The developer demo for No Man’s Sky came out this week. It’s great to see the entirely unproblematic joys of aggressive colonialism alive and well. This is the game the Sad Puppies would make if they were game producers.

Transcript as follows, but you should really watch it for yourself.

***

Interviewer Anthony Carboni: “So, No Man’s Sky. What am I doing. What do I do? What is the game, now, you know?”

Sean Murray (MD of Hello Games): “So, yeah, I wanted to show you a little bit. A big part of it is exploration. That’s the thing that most people understand. Right, like I can explore around these worlds, but what that means is really different to any other game. Right? If I land on a planet like this one, like, no one’s ever been here before, like literally no-one. So you use landmarks like this point of interest here, right?”

[Camera pans left to a huge stone monolith engraved with runes, standing in a clearing, surrounded by smaller upright rectangular stones.]

SM: “So this is a-”

AC: “Oh, that looks safe!”

SM: “This is a relic. So we can go interact with this and this is like a Korvax relic, right? It teaches you an alien word, and you can, ahh, you get these little bits of almost like interactive fiction, right, choose your own adventure.”

“No one’s ever been here before, like literally no one.”

***

 

 

SM: “…are you kind of a Kirk, or a Picard, right?”

AC: “Right.”

SM: “Do you go around being really respectful of these alien planets, that you’re going to, or do you-”

AC: “Yeah, that’s the respect gun that he’s using right there.”

SM: “Shooting some plutonium crystals.”

AC: “That’s the environmental respect gun.”

SM: “I should be using my mining laser, right. And that’s the other thing in the game. A big part of exploration is finding the resources on planets around you. You’re using those resources to build technology and to do things like recharge your shield, recharge your protection. That’s another big part of the game is survival. So you can be in, like, an extremely cold planet.”

AC: “Yeah, I notice every once in a while we’re taking-”

SM: “We’re taking damage, ‘cos we’re getting really cold now. So I can pop in here, into my weapon, and install some new technology. I’m using silicon and sulphur, and I can build this land disruptor. And now that I have that, I can start making some holes in the world.”

[shoots and vaporizes the size of a small hill]

AC: “Oh. Good. That’s a whole new level of respect for the environment.”

SM: “Right. So we’ve found some caves, right, and it’s nice and warm down here, so we’re out of the cold.”

[enters eldritch cave full of glowing floaty ruby lights]

Now I can start making some holes in the world!

AC: “Man, this looks so cool. I love this.”

SM: “So I knew that there was a cave down here, but that wasn’t just luck, ‘cos there are caves actually pretty much everywhere on this planet. They go on for kilometers. You just go down and start exploring.”

[fires at side of cave, vaporizing both rock and glowing floaty ruby lights, and creating a tunnel back onto the surfacer]

SM: “Once I have a gun like this and I’ve kind of upgraded myself in this way, I can find those, I can find resources that no one else has found before, or I can make my own little shelters. So, a big part of exploring as well is finding – and a big part of sci-fi – is finding like, new life forms, right?”

[encounters a field of giant crawling ticks]

SM: “So you can like scan these guys, and then you can name then. You can name the planets that you’ve been to, you can name the solar systems that you discover, name any creatures that you see, and if you do, then when other people come to those planets, they’ll see those same names. They’ll see whatever stupid name you think up…”

AC: “I’m just gonna name them all after me. Oh, that’s an anthony. What’s it eating? Oh, it’s eating an anthony. What planet is this? Planet Anthony.”

Sadly, this entity did not have a flag.

***

This is one game I’ll be skipping.

You know what I want? I want No Man’s Sky as designed by N.K. Jemisin. And with a different name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask nicely, boy

Photo by bixentro on Flickr, image used under a Creative Commons licence.

Yesterday I was listening to last week’s episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Helen Zaltzman’s The Allusionist, and I had an actual goddamn epiphany (last week’s episode because I am eternally tardy with my listening schedule).

Zaltzman was talking to Lynne Murphy, an American linguist, about the difference in the use of the word “please” in American English vs British English. Murphy has an interesting blog post on the topic from 2012, with a bunch of useful comments to scroll through.

“…I noticed myself and my English friends at our weekly gossip pizza get-together. If I ordered first, then I’d notice that everyone else had said please and I hadn’t. When my brother’s family came to visit a few months ago, I couldn’t stop myself adding please at the ends of their orders because they just sounded so terrible to me without them. And their orders were always without them.”

What it boils down to is that Americans don’t say please with a request such as a restaurant order, because they are acknowledging the egalitarian nature of the order-maker/order-taker relationship. The server is not doing a favor for the customer, rather, the customer is providing basic information the server needs to do their job.[1]

The British do say please when ordering at a restaurant, because they are acknowledging the egalitarian nature of the order-maker/order-taker relationship. The server is not a servant of the customer; the customer is indicating the server is a free individual just as the customer is, and they do not have the right to order their server around.

Same exact desire to show egalitarianism, two completely different approaches. Opposite approaches.

And let me tell you, in New Zealand, it’s exactly the same as Britain. It’s a hang over from colonialism and the class system. If you leave off the “please” when ordering a coffee, you are telling the barista they are your lackey, and they should shut up and make your beverage quick smart, before you flog them on your way out to ride to hounds, by Jove.

I was not aware there was a difference in the use of “please” in the US (it appears my American co-workers are not just all rude sods after all). To Americans, adding “please” implies a power imbalance, as in a child making a request to an adult. It’s not a mere throwaway marker of civility, but signifies much more.

So, the reason this is completely fascinating to me is because of begging for cock.

I dearly wanted to include a quote and a link to a fanfic to illustrate an multitude of examples, but in general fanfic writers dislike their work being used outside of fanspace, so I’m going to just make one up here.

Imagine your needy bottom has been teased beyond endurance, and wants cock, like, yesterday:

“I need your cock,” Bryan whimpered.

“Ask properly,” said James. He ran his finger around the rim of Bryan’s hole.

“Please, please, please,” said Bryan. “Please, I need your cum so bad.” 

Me reading this last week: Huh. So… James has a politeness kink. Ok.*shrugs* Weird, but whatever.

Me reading this today: omg, so James is forcing Bryan into performing a linguistic act acknowledging James’s dominance, and thereby highlighting the nature of James bestowing his cum on Bryan as a precious gift!

Which raises the question: How many nuances in fic have I missed because I had no idea there was a language difference in one tiny little six-letter word? AND WHAT ELSE DO I NOT KNOW?

So American and English people (or Scots, Welsh, and other assorted residents of the United Kingdom), what are your thoughts? Do you agree with Murphy’s observations on the nuances of “please”? And am I the only human on the planet who had no clue about this?

Photo by Margherita J.L. Lisoni on Flickr, image used under a Creative Commons Licence.

 

 

[1] Whilst acknowledging there is a lot of variation in language use within the US, which is not peopled by a single monolithic entity. Particularly it seems the southern states may use “please” more often.