esperanto

stick it to me

2008-06-05T15:30:00.001-04:00

top things i'm interested in outside of science:

wine
golf

good lord, and an ivy league grad student, to boot?

guys, i think.. i think that i'm whitey!

i am THE MAN.

absurd conspiracy theory of the day: 4/21/08

2008-04-21T14:28:00.003-04:00

according to alicia keys (and others):

gangsta rap was invented by the government in order to encourage black people to kill each other. pursuant to this, biggie and tupac were assassinated by the US government.

consider the biased evidence and decide for yourself.

what's next? the government created AIDS? uh oh...

logorrhea

2008-04-15T02:40:00.002-04:00

rehearsals are getting longer coming down to the wire. the weather is getting warmer and i want to get out and play some golf. this weekend i'm going to baltimore to see the mental notes concert, which is the last concert featuring people with which i have sung. i got 3 parking tickets in the past 3 weeks. i like my wine class, despite the long problem sets. i am glad that classes will be over soon. it will be nice to be able to do research on monday and tuesday again.

things i would do if i had no job #1

2008-04-08T22:11:00.001-04:00

sneak into office buildings and eat lunches clearly labeled for a certain person's consumption.

imagine the havoc.

passive agressive note: to who(m)ever is eating my lunch: please stop eating my lunch! it is my food!!!!!!!!!

another passive agressive note: THIS IS NOT YOU'RE FOOD! I BROUGHT IT SO I COULD EAT IT! GET YOUR OWN!

i would only do it for a few days, then maybe leave an applebee's gift card or something addressed to the person, then i'd move on to another office building. i'd be like a little office gremlin.

it's my favorite crayon

2008-04-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

you may be wondering why my blog is pink. but why? would you wonder why my blog was red? or blue? or yellow?

chicks don't OWN pink, man.

yup, that's me. changing commonly held opinions on gender chromatics, one blog at a time.

props of the day: 4/3/08

2008-04-03T17:23:00.001-04:00

props to the guy walking down the hall with "the imperial march" (aka darth vader's theme) as his ringtone. i should get that and make it the ringtone for when sarah calls.

screw scorpius

2008-04-02T16:38:00.003-04:00

sarah wants us to buy a share in a CSA. for those of you who don't live in towns with more than one "tobacco paraphernalia" store, CSA stands for "community supported agriculture". basically, it's an investment in a farm for a share of the produce. like buying stock, except the only green you see is in the form of spinach, kale, arugula, etc. all the farms are organic (meh), and some are biodynamic.

what is biodynamic farming? well, essentially, it's hyper-organic. plus they use the astrological calendar to determine harvest days. and they use the homeopathic and memory properties of certain herbs. from the wikipedia article (above):

Pests such as insects or field mice (Apodemus) have more complex processes associated with them, depending on what pest is to be targeted. For example field mice are to be countered by deploying ashes prepared from field mice skin when Venus is in the Scorpius constellation.

seriously?! seriously?

we are going to get one though (not the biodynamic one... i got a bad feeling out of antares this cycle), and we are going to have so many damn vegetables.

maybe this time things will be different

2008-04-01T23:46:00.004-04:00

hey gang:

a bunch of my students have started friending me on facebook, and there is a link to my blog on my facebook page. hello, cheme390 students! thinking that maybe this wasn't the greatest combination, i went back to some blog pages to see if there was anything objectionable. there wasn't, but it made me kind of miss my quasi-quotidian quips and quibbles. so, blog, what do you say? for old time's sake? why don't we give it another shot?

====

i found this program called "jester" yesterday, which after testing how funny you find a series of initial jokes, recommends some jokes that you may like. kind of like pandora for jokes. i don't think there's an incredible amount of data (or jokes), but i read some good ones on there. my favorite ones tended to be the completely non sequitur ones. ones where you never see the punchline coming.

example:
Q: What did the blind person say when given some matzah?
A: Who the hell wrote this?

i just laughed out loud at that one again.

====

i'm pretty busy this semester, with TAing (lots of work, completely blows my monday and tuesday out the window), my wine chemistry class (which i'll get into later), research, and a small part in "As You Like It" at the Schwartz Center (!). but i will try to add at least something on a pseudo-regular basis.

ps no this is not an april fool's joke. i can't say that i didn't consider it, though.

soon, friends, soon.

2007-03-21T15:14:00.000-04:00

i know. i'm working on it.

img from toothpastefordinner.com.

menu for today

2007-03-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

one can vegan lentil soup.
one ham.

mix, microwave, and enjoy.

let's not forget milli vanilli's "girl you know it's true"

2007-03-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

i've been thinking that the contributions that each of us makes to life in general, while they can be significant, are rather small.

here are some examples.

shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. he is the quintessential english playwright, yet his complete works can be bound in two volumes.

the beatles made 13 studio albums, the entirety of which one can listen to in about 9 hours.

einstein published three short papers in 1905, which can be read in about an hour.

two thoughts come to mind here.

(1) the number and size of one's accomplishments does not necessarily make them great
(2) a corollary: quality is of the utmost importance. if you're going to make something, make it great and it will be memorable.

but memorable to whom? and how many? is that important?

hey baby, wanna yiff?

2007-02-27T15:39:00.000-05:00

this weekend i went to a caddyshack party. i was the gopher. here i am dancing to kenny loggins' "i'm alright"

photocred: gg

or you could just call it "woodchuckin'"

2007-02-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

punxsutawney phil, the groundhog, comes out of Gobbler's Knob. Is this or is this not a porn title in the making?

stuff i think is neat, 2/21/07

2007-02-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

the gunk that builds up on the bottom of the computer mouse: just what is that crazy stuff? i mean i know it's a mix of skin and food crumbs and all the other stuff from my desk, but how?!
mitochondrial eve: she's our most recent mitochondrial common ancestor! all humans can trace their maternal lineage to her! she lived ~140,000 years ago in Ethiopia! read about her here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_eve
wiiplay: you should get it.

call the huac

2007-02-20T00:40:00.000-05:00

you guys, i am not a big fan of starbucks.

does that make me a bad american?

are you now or have you ever been a java-card carrying member of the starbucks party?

chili, will he?

2007-02-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

if you ever think that it is a good idea to try and eat every single different kind of chili at your town's annual chili cook-off, let me strongly urge you to be considerate of the consequences of such an undertaking, e.g. a bad case of the long farts. like 10 seconds or more.

snow ride, take it easy

2007-02-14T22:18:00.000-05:00

about 2 feet of snow fell here in the last 24 hours. damn. cornell was open this morning (when there was only about a foot on the ground), then closed up at 12:30.

i think all the kids went home and got drunk and went sledding.

just another day in ithaca.

continuing coverage from the chapter house

2007-02-14T02:03:00.000-05:00

is this the definitive rebuttal? we'll be on the scene.

and just in time for valentine's day. awwww.

story archives:

cornell undergrads are fucking obnoxious

cornell grad students are insecure and homosexual

blue bald

2007-02-09T00:32:00.000-05:00

hey you guys, would it be bad to wear a yarmulke around if you're not jewish, just to cover your recently developing bald spot?

or failing that, converting to judaism in order to wear said yarmulke?

and what's the deal with mustard? it's not musty!

2007-02-07T00:03:00.000-05:00

i am very easily amused.

so much so that i could never be a standup comic, because i would never be able to tell my a-material from my d-material.

pure blows

2007-02-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

guess who has to be at a meeting at 6:00 on sunday?

guess what happens 25 minutes into that probably hour-and-a-half long meeting?

if you guessed me and the kickoff of the super bowl. then you are right, but nobody wins. sucks for me.

breaking groundhog-related news

2007-02-02T08:27:00.000-05:00

YOU GUYS PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL DIDN'T SEE HIS SHADOW!

EARLY SPRING!

Phil's official forecast, from punxsutawneyphil.com

El Nino has caused high winds, heavy snow, ice and freezing temperatures in the west.
Here in the East with much mild winter weather we have been blessed.

Global warming has caused a great debate.
This mild winter makes it seem just great.

On this Groundhog Day we think of one thing.
Will we have winter or will we have spring?

On Gobbler's Knob I see no shadow today.
I predict that early spring is on the way.

you know what, you may as well have a groundhog predict your weather because it seems like humans aren't that good at it. cf. the debate on global warming.

and when we think about you, it makes me wanna fart!

2007-01-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

you guys should watch "jesus camp". it is a cool flick.

aleshanakarahaoooona!

times when it's good to be alone in lab

2007-01-27T20:20:00.000-05:00

when you're suddenly overcome by a desire to play turned over ice buckets as bongo drums and sing "cecilia" by simon and garfunkel.

toxic intermediates

2007-01-25T17:14:00.000-05:00

it is seriously detrimental to my simulation and research activities when after hearing of the presence of a "toxic metabolic intermediate" i cannot remove the britney spears song "toxic" from my brain.

lutz babies

2007-01-25T14:03:00.000-05:00

you guys, one of my best friends from high school had a baby the other day.

a girl. an eight-pound-eight-ounce human being. the offspring of neal lutz.

i HOPE YOUR MIND IS COMPLETELY BLOWN! because mine is.

can everyone just stop growing up for one second?

congratulations, neal and tara.

icbe summary

2007-01-23T00:22:00.000-05:00

for some reason the internet in san diego stopped working after day 2. i blame the cold weather and californians lack of knowledge of what to do when the temperature goes below 50. seriously, somebody's pipes froze and it was on the news.

anyway, tuesday was a free night, and we went to a brazilian steakhouse and ate 10 pounds of meat, then drank and sang karaoke all night. it was a good time.

wednesday i started to get sick, but about 3 hours in the hot tub made me feel better.

thursday i slept all day in various forms of transportation and hopped up on cold medicine ("pharming" as adam calls it), though i didn't sit near any quasi-celebrities on the way back. we got back at like 1230 am.

then i was supposed to go to ta training at like 830. sick as a dog: no sale. i'll go to the make up.

saturday i felt a bit better and we bought a 12 lb wheel of jarlsberg cheese to make fondue. it cost 70 dollars.

sunday i watched football while sarah was sick all day. everybody is freaking sick.

today was the first day of classes. i am a ta. scary. class is mwf 9 am and i have to be at all of them. super.

icbe 2007 conference blog - day 2

2007-01-16T17:17:00.000-05:00

so i'm sitting here in san diego, ca, in the lobby of the coronado island marriott resort. a muzak version of bonnie tyler's "angel of the morning" plays over the speakers, accompanied by soothing bird-like nature sounds. directly outside the front doors, a small pond is home to at least 15 flamingos. fucking flamingos! i'm also skipping a talk because i need a break from science. anyway, here's what happened yesterday.

i awoke at like 6 am. still on east coast time, i thought we had slept through something. as we didn't, i went back to sleep til 7 or so and we got some breakfast. 3 kinds of cut-up melons and assorted fruits, and some croissants i guess.

then i went to some talks. i drank a lot of coffee. like a lot a lot. i feel like at least 50% of my time at this conference has been spent drinking and urinating liquids. anyway, lunch finally came at 1230 (remember, still on east coast time). every meal here (except breakfast) is a three-course meal that is served as such. we have been receiving an impressive array of salads and at each meal there is at least one item on my plate that i simply cannot identify. also, until lunch today there had been shiitake mushrooms in every meal.

also every meal is cream of butter cheese fondue with rich cream for dessert. the food is quite rich, an adjective i might also use to describe someone who would actually pay to stay here.

the science is interesting and it's a great conference talk-wise and attendance-wise. but the internet doesn't care about science so i'll leave it at that.

after lunch there was another session and i had to stand by my poster for a few hours and talk to people about stuff. then we heard a talk from j. craig venter. you know, the guy who sequenced the human genome.

afterwards we went to a bar which was a navy dive bar (think top gun) and soon left to get 6-packs at the liquor store [that smelled like pot] and drink them in our hotel room with a bunch of other kids. and that was that.

san diego is a fun place, dude.

icbe 2007 conference blog - day 1

2007-01-15T17:10:00.000-05:00

conference blog - day 1

now in powerpoint bullet form!

freezing rain in syracuse on the way
30 car pileup on 81
car covered in ice
small plane syr->iad 1 hour (deiced)
no layover at dulles
expensive (crappy) starbucks sandwich
film: "the queen"
matthew lesko in the seat behind me?!?! wearing black suit with orange question marks
5.5 hours iad->san diego
san diego nice but somewhat cold (50s)
22 oz coronado golden ale
patriots-chargers game
wine and beer
keynote speech
chicken for dinner
22 oz coronado golden ale
beer with professors
soft, cloud-like bed

this stuff's made in new york city

2007-01-13T23:32:00.000-05:00

i just chugged a bowl full of salsa.

i may have been drunk.

routine maintenance

2007-01-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

when you're in one place for a while you get in a routine. get up, internet, breakfast, wii, walk to work, lab/office, walk back, eat dinner, wii, internet, bed is my current routine, and it's not so bad. anyways, while i was in pa, "blog" fell out of my routine. oops.

anyway, like EVERYBODY ELSE, i'm getting over being sick. thanks a lot, barrett. that's the last time i sleep with you when you're sick.

yeah.

you can tell lots of people are sick because lots of people are wearing their glasses instead of contacts. i try to change up the contacts/glasses days, but when i'm sick, it's definitely glasses.

in other news, i went to boston over new years with my high school confreres. highlights include the samuel adams brewery tour, erik chanting "1918" on a crowded T platform (while being muffled by brian), and candlepin bowling in southie. great success!

first post 2007

2007-01-03T00:08:00.000-05:00

yo dudes i am back from boston, where the internet was 12 dollars a night so we didn't get it.

if i were not sneezing uncontrollably i'd fill you in on the whole thing.

except i am.

so later.

tis the season 5

2006-12-26T15:06:00.001-05:00

...to celebrate boxing day by playing WiiSports boxing.

tis the season 4

2006-12-25T23:44:00.000-05:00

... to smell boilo-scented candles.

if you don't know what boilo is here is a rough recipe

750 ml grain alcohol
750 ml water
750 ml ginger ale
750 ml orange juice
1 lb honey
caraway seeds
cinnamon sticks
some other stuff

it is a local favorite.

ps the real name of the candle is "country christmas"

tis the season 3

2006-12-25T11:24:00.000-05:00

...to keep the dog from eating the plastic bag from the dog treats under the tree.

merry xmas

tis the season ... 2

2006-12-24T12:51:00.000-05:00

... to cut up the carpet when you're trying to cut wrapping paper.

i fricking hate wrapping presents. seriously. i like to give them. i hate to wrap them.

no-htm-el

2006-12-23T14:46:00.001-05:00

i tried to update a couple times and blogger wouldn't load in internet explorer? so i am using Opera and it is working. weird.

the wii internet channel is quite cool. you can surf the internet on your Wii! THE INTERNET AND VIDEO GAMES: TOGETHER AT LAST!

baxter has been freaking out lately. but only when brian is around. it's weird as soon as brian walks into the house he starts growling and barking like crazy. mind, brian usually only comes into the house after we go to dunkin donuts, which is like 1-2 am and my dad gets up for work at 4 (?!). even the other night, i let the dog OUTSIDE while brian crept into the basement, then let the dog back in, put him to bed. we get down the basement and brian starts saying something and baxter goes
fucking ballistic! then we got yelled at. "it's time to go to bed anyway". ridiculous!
last night i went to the schuylkill IU (mom's work) holiday party. at some point i sang "paradise by the dashboard light". more on that later.

'tis the season

2006-12-19T12:47:00.000-05:00

...to eat cereal with egg nog when you run out of milk.

can't blog, playing wii

2006-12-19T00:38:00.000-05:00

has it been a week already? my bad, yo. i pulled two all-nighters this week! one for school and one for nintendo! it is fitting that for my last assignment for what is likely my last class ever, i stayed up all night. but i did well on it, so it's all good. everything's coming up mantooth...

i'm getting a huge clue right now

2006-12-12T00:48:00.000-05:00

one day i hope i am rich enough to build a house that is a replica of the mansion in the board game "clue". one floor, with a library, study, conservatory, lounge, billiard room, hall, dining room, kitchen, and ball room. and no bedrooms. with random weapons distributed throughout the house. and an enormous envelope in the middle of the house.

or just the kpmb

2006-12-09T02:44:00.000-05:00

last night, i dreamed i was hanging out with my high school friends, and i let out a rip-roaring, earth-shaking fart just as erik's new girlfriend walked in the door. when we were introduced, i said "i'm tom and i know how to make a first impression." then i tried to justify it by saying that if farts were CO2, then i was the united states, but my other friends were at least western europe. this was in my dream.

good thing i never signed the kyoto protocol. the kyoto protocol of my butt.

stop, collaborate and listen. ice is back.

2006-12-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

it snowed today. and it's been bloody cold all week. so my walk back from school (i.e. a little over a mile down a pretty steep hill) has become somewhat treacherous.

when we went to montreal for new years last year, it was icy everywhere. like rather than salt the sidewalks, everyone just goes "fuck it" and walks underground. well they're french so they say "fait chier ça" or something like that. anyway, among the few top-dwellers, i saw some people with special things to clip onto their shoes, like cleats or old-school golf shoes sort of. perhaps i should invest in some of these ice shoe things. or wear my old-school golf shoes. or, you know, take the bus.

because you have nothing else to do

2006-12-07T01:31:00.000-05:00

i love mythbusters. they do some crazy stuff and some awesome stuff. but sometimes in their experiments they don't always run the proper controls, and sometimes come to conclusions that are not entirely correct.

your mission: find these experiments!

husband lies to wife, goes bowling

2006-12-06T01:42:00.000-05:00

i'm convinced that the plots of at least 50% of all sitcom shows derive from the episode of the flintstones that i saw this evening. from 1965.

it wasn't me.

2006-12-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

to the dude exposing himself to people in the ithaca commons:

quit it. you are making the cops think that you are me. even though i am taller than you (you are 5'7"-5'9"), the police still stop me in the commons and question me. the fact that we both sometimes wear "wire-frame glasses" notwithstanding, we are not very similar at all. also, don't do it wearing a bright red nantucket sweatshirt with a whale on it. then i'd be really screwed.

motivacation

2006-12-04T14:20:00.000-05:00

my internet access has been spotty the past couple days, particularly when i feel like updating my weblog, so sorry.

also sorry for the crabby post about my exam. it really wasn't that bad.

in the past week or so my life is beginning to emulate a skit from this year's department holiday party. it essentially details the ideal day of the grad student, which includes hunting for free food while completing no useful work whatsoever.

classes have ended, i've got one thing to do with a deadline (and it's not til next wednesday) and i'm ready for vacation. i almost wish dr. matt would give me some deadlines so that i'm motivated to get stuff done. or maybe i should be able to motivate myself by now?

2006-11-30T23:53:00.000-05:00

i'm taking an exam, so go away.

bathroom graffiti is why cell phone cameras exist

2006-11-29T01:48:00.000-05:00

this one comes from the men's room in korova, a bar in the commons.

the words above say, from left to right, weed, prozac, ecstasy, acid, nothing at all.

the face on the weed guy is nice, plus the acid one is just freaky. also this photo reminds me a bit of "the shining".i guess it's kind of hard to see, but it was funny around my second (or was it third?) appearance in the bathroom.

gravy injustice

2006-11-27T18:11:00.000-05:00

i'm back, y'all. it seems like most bloggers like to take time off from their internet pursuits and not tell anybody about it, much to the CHAGRIN and MALAISE of their readership. welcome to the internet; we're lazy.

but seriously (internet seriously) i was away for the weekend in plymouth, mass. HOME OF THANKSGIVING. my intake of gravy, stuffing, and assorted other fat and starch products was nothing less than spectacular. sarah's mom's a good cook.

also, luke and i submitted a proposal to risley to direct an evening of christopher durang one-acts, so i'm excited about that.

also, this morning the alarm clock went off and i meant to set it for another half hour, but i accidentally set the time forward a half hour. this caused some kind of rip in the fabric of reality, i guess, because i woke up (serendipitously) at the time that i meant to get up, only the clock said it was half an hour later, so i panicked only to see another clock and slowly put the pieces of my life back together.

you're kidding, right?

2006-11-20T15:31:00.000-05:00

from the wikipedia article:

Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world [1], at 3,812 m (12,507 feet) above sea level. Located in the Altiplano high in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia, at 16°S 69°W, Titicaca has an average depth of 107 m[2], and a maximum depth of 281 m. The western part of the lake belongs to the Puno Region of Peru, and the eastern side is located in the Bolivian La Paz Department.

[...]

Titicaca is fed by rainfall and meltwater from glaciers on the sierras that abut the Altiplano. It is drained by the Desaguadero River, which flows south through Bolivia to Lake Poopó. This accounts for less than five per cent of the lake's water loss, however, the rest is caused by evaporation as a result of the strong winds and sunlight at this altitude.

holdonholdonholdon.

lake titicaca... flows into lake POOPO? that is awesome.

degu yawns >> everything else

2006-11-17T01:44:00.000-05:00

i just saw a degu yawn and stretch. it is the best thing i will see all day and it is only 1:30.

reason # 238 i'm glad i have two hands

2006-11-16T02:43:00.000-05:00

it's really freaking hard to tie up an umbrella (you know, the little velcro or snappy thing that goes around after you close it) with one hand.

there are lots of other reasons. sorry if i offended any of you one-handed readers. but we're cool, right?

jesus was a chemical engineer

2006-11-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

and obviously knew about shear thickening!

watch this guy walk on a non-newtonian fluid.

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-walking-on-non-newtonian-fluid

screw murphy.

2006-11-13T23:44:00.000-05:00

i am notoriously bad at estimating the time it will take me to complete tasks. especially when it comes to the lab. and today i realized something. it's because i always look forward to the best case scenario.

one time, i drove to school in 12 minutes, ergo the drive takes 12 minutes. a miniprep takes 20 minutes if you're in a hurry, so to me it always takes 20 minutes.

in reality, things always go wrong. despite all the skepticism (some call it cynicism) that has been instilled in me by studying science, i rarely ever imagine that the things that invariably go wrong will always go wrong. somehow and for some reason i'm still an optimist. an esperanto, if you will.

update from the chapter house bathroom

2006-11-13T18:28:00.000-05:00

good evening. we've been covering this story since it first broke in september. at the time, all initial opinions from the chapter house men's room were that "cornell undergrads are fucking obnoxious." we now go live to a retort which sources say comes directly from a "fucking obnoxious" cornell undergrad.

while this report is unconfirmed, experts say that there is at least some truth to this claim. we will continue to cover this breaking story as it happens. stay tuned for the latest updates.

age ail? go lie ill.

2006-11-13T02:05:00.000-05:00

my parents were here this weekend and to my amazement they actually liked the apartment. as you may or may not know, they weren't exactly thrilled with the idea of me moving in with sarah, though i never got an adequate answer as to why.

so you can imagine that it was kind of stressful preparing for their first visit to our home. i think it went well though. we managed to play the role of responsible adults, at least for the weekend.

speaking of roles, galileo nearly sold out all 3 performances, and went quite well. if you came to see it, you are one classy guy or gal. if you were involved in it, than that goes double.

pope out.

baby-licious

2006-11-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

jonathan swift's "A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick." or just "a modest proposal" was written over 275 years ago but/and is still very very funny.

read it here.

navel maneuvers

2006-11-09T11:39:00.000-05:00

dude, you wanna smell something really gross? stick your finger in your belly button. wow. just wow.

high ate us?

2006-11-08T19:21:00.000-05:00

my brothers and sisters in funk:

i have not abandoned you. i've been busy with dress rehearsals for GALILEO (see sidebar), which you should all come and see if you are within 100 miles or so.

but tom, aren't rehearsals the same amount of time as before? and at the same time of the week as they have been the past 4 weeks?

yes. no more questions.

well, it is nice.

2006-11-05T02:04:00.000-05:00

the first time i said "i love you" to a girl, she said "that's nice."

when you say it, make sure you know she'll say it back.

we can call it "a space for me"

2006-11-03T23:28:00.000-05:00

hey you guys, i have an awesome idea.
first, we'll make a website. well, we won't actually make it. we'll let 13 year old kids design all their own web pages. with tiled background pictures of cars and baby animals and white text so what little actual information (besides surveys about whether the user prefers pepsi or coke, vanilla or chocolate) that's on the site is COMPLETELY ILLEGIBLE. oh! and they can upload high-angle pictures of themselves. and pictures of them drinking underage and getting naked! THEN once every kid in the whole goddamn country has it, we sell it to newscorp for 600 million bucks. how's that sound?

listing

2006-11-03T00:21:00.000-05:00

i'm insisting. be desisting
of activities consisting
of assisting with resisting.
should such actions be persisting
you may cease to be subsisting
and probably existing.

ringo starr not included

2006-11-02T01:16:00.000-05:00

the other day i was watching "the girls next door" (yes, i know.) and an ad came on for the thomas the tank engine steam engine system.

why, exactly, is this being advertised in the middle of a show in which the nudity is only barely obscured by the gaussian blurs? not that i'm complaining about the nudity, but this is either a waste of mony for the thomas the tank engine marketing department, or there's been a shift of E! programming between 9-10 to the 0-4 year demographic.

pope floats

2006-10-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

last night i dreamt that pope benedict xvi had died, and that i was at the funeral mass, which involved tossing the pope's corpse from the top of a high tower to make sure he was dead. is this foreshadowing about my role as pope urban viii in "galileo"? maybe i just have pope on the brain.

esperantoblogen über alles!

2006-10-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

somebody accessed my blog the other day via a google search from switzerland for the word "earfucking".

this is what my blog looks like translated into swiss german via google translate. i don't know if it's right, but it's fricking funny.

FEHLANWENDUNG DES FREIEN TACO?! ahahahahahahaha

for whom the taco bell tolls

2006-10-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

it seemed too good to be true. and it was. since nobody hit a home run to left field (and no home runs at all after the 7th inning) in game 3 of the world series, everyone in america is NOT eligible for a free taco from taco bell.

from the official rules:

As a condition of the offer, consumers agree: (a) to release, Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., Major League Baseball Enterprises, Inc., MLB Advanced Media, L.P., MLB Media Holdings, Inc., MLB Media Holdings, L.P., MLB Online Services, Inc., the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, and the Major League Baseball Clubs, and each of their respective shareholders, employees, parents, directors, officers, affiliates, representatives, agents, successors, and assigns (hereinafter, "MLB Entities") and Sponsor and their affiliates, subsidiaries, retailers, sales representatives, distributors and franchisees, and each of their officers, directors, employees and agents ("Promotional Parties"), from any and all liability, loss or damage incurred with respect to participation in this contest and/or the awarding, receipt, possession, and/or use or misuse of any Free Taco.

MISUSE OF FREE TACO?! how can you misuse a taco? you know what, on second thought, i don't want to know.

nice to mole you

2006-10-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

think of one thing. (~1.7 yoctomole of you)
think of ten of something. (16.6 yoctomole digits in the decimal system)
think of one hundred of something. (166.7 yoctomole senators)
think of a thousand of something. (1.7 zeptomole islands)
think of a million of something. (1.7 attomole dollar baby)
think of a billion of something. (1.7 picomole citizens of india)
think of a trillion of something. (1.7 nanomole of dollars for the iraq war)
think of a million billion of something (1.7 micromole bits of RAM on the google cluster)
think of a quintillion of something. (millimole of centimeters in a light year)

think of 602 sextillion (6.02 x 10^23) of something. it's the number of molecules in 18 mL of water, just over a tablespoon.

happy mole day!

what dreams may come?

2006-10-21T01:09:00.000-04:00

i don't worry very much in real life, so my anxieties play themselves out in my dreams. for example, the other day i dreamed that i was bald. yes, this is what i worry about. i'd say life is pretty good when the only thing you really worry about is having a shiny dome.

then again, i also dreamed about borat yesterday, so, whatever.

coprolalia is not a character in "king lear"

2006-10-20T01:21:00.000-04:00

coprolalia* is the uncontrolled and obsessive use of bad language.

and when you're in college (or a grad student) it's something that has to be put in check when you go home to visit your parents, grandparents, and younger siblings.

no saying "dammit" when you drop something. it's "darn it".
no saying "aw shitcocks!" when your team loses, it's "aw nuts!"
no saying "earfucking grandma's cat!" when you stub your toe. you just have to stay silent.

you gotta hold it in for the whole weekend. you've gotta say "crap", "butt", and "sugar". then when you get home, you trip over a pile of something, and the fucks come marching in.

♫ oh when the fucks
come marching in
oh when the fucks come marching in
oh shit i want to be in that motherfucker
when the fucks come marching in. ♫
bastard.

why is cursing so bad? why do we have to speak differently in different situations? also, since the king of the curse words, "fuck", has come into such widespread use nowadays, will another curse word show up that is worse? WHAT WILL THAT WORD BE?

=====================
*by the doubleyou, coprolalia means "babbling shit" in greek. it is NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES to be confused with "coprophilia", the thought of which sometimes makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

ps i am going to pennsylvania this weekend, can you tell?

everyone read this book right now

2006-10-17T16:58:00.000-04:00

click to download and read the e-book!

i do not know what it is about! BUT I AM INTRIGUED NONETHELESS!

3 seemingly unconnected statements.

2006-10-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

my upstairs neighbor jackie likes pop music. for example, right now she is listening to rihanna's "sos".

rehearsal for galileo started today. it was, um, different. but quite fun. i'm sorry to be cryptic but i'd rather not give you a play-by-play of the whole rehearsal. suffice it to say that it's good that nobody got a black eye.

um, one time at band camp, this kid named jeremy hedges swung his clarinet like a golf club and it totally flew apart and broke the shit out of it. it was awesome.

more advice from mr. t

2006-10-15T23:23:00.000-04:00

"If you want to polish your relationship and make it glisten, all you really have to do is listen"

degus in a jar

2006-10-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

sorry, forgot to update yesterday and thursday. here are some degus in a jar.

slippery bidness

2006-10-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

usually i am not the world's biggest fan of reality shows. i am, however, a fan of reality shows starring mr. t. i pity the fool is some quality television.

"show me some respect! watch my show from the beginnin'!"

and that's no jibba jabba.

deerly beloved

2006-10-11T03:44:00.000-04:00

from the vegetarian nuptials dept: i went to a wedding on saturday in lovely saratoga springs, ny. it was a vegetarian wedding so neil (my ride from syracuse onward) and i and sarah loaded up on meat at dinosaur bar-b-q in syracuse before neil drove me to saratoga springs. (gwuh?! what about sarah?! yeah, i was what you might call a "+1" for this particular wedding. it was totally cool though, it was all these barnstormer people from hopkins and i kind of know keelye (the bride) but certainly not enough to get invited to her wedding but i do know robin, who was invited, but not like "know" in the biblical sense or anything like that, i mean we had separate boy and girl hotel rooms [for the most part] and anyway sarah was totally cool with it.) anyway, the wedding was at a very nice place and the dj spun some fly tunes and the drinks and conversation were plentiful so it was a real good time. it's really great to have friends that you can just not see for like a year and a half, then pick up right where you left off. on a somewhat related topic, my current favorite synonym for drunk is "shit-canned."

from the close encounters with nature dept: as i was walking home from the lab just now (around 3 am, but don't worry it's not baltimore.) a whole bunch of deer jumped out of the woods and scared the ever-loving crap out of me. they ran like right in front of me. so i decided to update my blog before i fall aslzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

SRIRACHA

2006-10-10T03:23:00.000-04:00

spicy endorphin rush --> addiction? --> ouchy butt?

raptor attention

2006-10-06T11:09:00.000-04:00

today i was walking to school, and i was on campus when i looked over to see a huge [what i think was a red-tailed] hawk like 18" tall sitting on a sign. as i stopped to stare at it, it swooped about 5 feet in front of me, crossed the street, narrowly avoided being hit by a truck, and freaking grabbed a chipmunk off the ground and then totally started eating it! sadly, there was no one around to high five.

ümläüts ähöÿ!

2006-10-05T23:24:00.001-04:00

i watched "This is Spın̈al Tap" again yesterday. you should watch it. oh, if you can't see the umlaut on the n, make sure your browser is set to view in unicode. or, you know, just imagine that there is an umlaut on the n.

in conclusion, there are not enough umlauts and/or diareses in today's society.

ex post facto

2006-10-05T01:24:00.000-04:00

yesterday (10/3) was [my ex-girlfriend from high school whom i dated for like 3 years] shannon's birthday. i know this because one time i got in deep shit for forgetting what day it was. anyway, i was thinking. i know she's married (i know, right? yeah i wasn't invited.) does she have kids? IS THIS A HEALTHY TRAIN OF THOUGHT TO BE PURSUING?!

don't worry, she probably won't read this. jesus doesn't like the internet.

signs i'm not ready to graduate yet

2006-10-04T00:50:00.000-04:00

Carol J, Gorseling MC, de Jong CF, Lingeman H, Kientz CE, van Baar BL, Irth H. "Determination of denaturated proteins and biotoxins by on-line size-exclusion chromatography-digestion-liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry."
Anal Biochem. 2005 Nov 1;346(1):150-7.

literature citations from the journal "Analytical Biochemistry" and "Journal of Analytical Chemistry" (J Anal Chem) still make me giggle.

ain't that a kick in the head

2006-10-02T22:38:00.000-04:00

dude, did you hear about this?

in the tennessee titans vs. dallas cowboys game yesterday, a tennessee defensive player purposely KICKED A GUY IN THE FACE WHILE HE WAS ON THE GROUND WITH HIS HELMET OFF!

the guy needed thirty stitches! the 5-game suspension is going to cost haynesworth about 500 large. good!

my entry for the scottie pippen essay contest

2006-10-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

Why do we celebrate Scottie Pippen’s birthday?

A birthday is the celebration of another year of life. It is also a celestial event. On Scottie Pippen’s birthday, the earth is in the same position relative to the sun as it was on that fateful day forty-one years ago. That day, September 25, 1965, brought us one of the NBA’s greatest players. Today we gather to celebrate that day.

Scottie Maurice Pippen rose from the backwoods of Hamburg, Arkansas to greatness on and off the basketball court. But why do we, as Cornell graduate students, worlds away from the hardwood of the United Center, commemorate the birth of Scottie Pippen?

It is an opportunity to honor the sidekick. The second banana. The Robin. The man who lived in the shadow of greatness for years before he himself emerged from it a champion in his own right.

It is an opportunity to celebrate an original member of the 1992 Dream Team that dominated in Barcelona, and the 1996 team that killed the competition in Atlanta. A man who has more championship rings than fingers on his right hand. But as we all know, Scottie’s greatness did not end on the basketball court.

It is an opportunity to honor a man who is down to earth, and faces the same problems that we all do. When he had one too many beers before driving and ran a red light, he was held accountable for his actions. He was cooperative with the police and later the charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. Scottie was not above the law, he was the law.

It is an opportunity to celebrate a man who pays only for the services he receives. When service at a bar is not up to his high standards, he is not afraid to make himself known. The name “No Tippin’ Pippen” is a moniker he wears with pride.

This man is the quintessential human being. He has excelled on and off the court. The question, then, should not be “Why do we celebrate Scottie Pippen’s birthday?”, but instead “How can we not celebrate Scottie Pippen’s birthday?”

To conclude, I will cite another basketball great, the great Sir Charles Barkley. "Scottie Pippen is a role model. If all the kids grew up to be like Scottie, the world would be a better place." To all present I say let these words ring in your minds tonight and for the rest of the year, until next September 25, when we will convene again, to bask in greatness.

Also, fuck Toni Kukoc.

the same thing we do every night, pinky...

2006-09-29T10:21:00.001-04:00

i try to update daily, but usually i fail to on the weekends, or on random days. for readers, this weblog seems to be a cross between variable ratio and variable interval reinforcement scheduling. it's like a slot machine, only you don't spend any money, i don't get any money, and you don't get any money. so really it's not like a slot machine at all.

the question is if the reinforcement is positive or negative. OR IS IT PUNISHMENT?!?!?!?!

no fat chicks

2006-09-29T00:21:00.000-04:00

20 oz. of deep fried chicken breast (3 breasts total)
smothered in mozzarella cheese, way too many strips of bacon, a pile of mushrooms, and and amount of french fries that can only be considered excessive.

finish it in under 30 minutes and get a free t-shirt!

i have never eaten anything competitively before. i've drunk competitively, usually with good results. i often hearken back to the old times at city limits sports bar in baltimore, where the measure of a man was his performance in two-tiered chug-off tournaments. chugging 2 pints of beer in about 3 minutes is no small task, and i don't like to brag, but i was the best of the best.

so when i jokingly suggested getting a "fat chick" from benchwarmers of ithaca (god what an awful website), and was subsequently pressured into it by sam, sarah, and jonathan, i was confident. maybe too confident. but i wasn't the slightest bit worried that i couldn't finish the sandwich. after all, it sounds like a delicious enough sandwich if it were normal-sized.

then the thing came out and while i was not incredibly impressed with the size of the sandwich, i was impressed with the amount of french fries. probably a thousand french fries in all. at least 20 fries for everybody in the restaurant. it was ridiculous. i had to eat a pathway in the fries just to get to the sandwich. the sandwich was an island volcano about to erupt with cheesy and chickeny magma, surrounded by an ocean of starch, with a steak knife stuck through the middle for effect.

it was extremely hot. prohibitively so, especially since i had just had a cavity filled and was still somewhat sensitive to hot/cold. i dug in with fork and knife (lifting this monstrosity was positively out of the question). it actually was a tasty sandwich. it was a shame that i had to eat it as if it was going to run away. as promised, there were lots and lots of mushrooms, which was good. the chicken was way overfried and hard on the outside. i don't even remember seeing any bacon.

i ate the entire sandwich in about 20 minutes, moistening my palate with a beer and then switching to water. this left 10 minutes for the plate full of fries. i don't really even like french fries. and after sitting on the plate for 20 minutes, they were a big mound of dry starch. i think i got it down to about a hundred or so fries before my eating slowed to a crawl. eating was no longer fun. swallowing was painful. in retrospect, i think it was mostly psychological (think of when little kids say "i'm full up to here!"), but there was definitely a physical aspect to my condition.

my pyloric sphincter was the bouncer of a club that had just reached the fire code limit for capacity. if anybody else showed up at the door, they were going to get turned away and sent back where they came from.

i came extremely close, but ultimately failed. this is the worst kind of failure. the waiter offered that the t-shirt (the one that says "i ate a fat chick") was only $12. i did not buy it, because i didn't deserve it.

the rest of the night i was nothing short of comatose. i attempted to play some foosball at the bar, but i could hardly concentrate on the game. i was full. painfully full. as i played foosball i noticed the waiter smirking whenever he looked over. he had seen this before. pure schadenfreude. i went home and lay down for the rest of the night, still feeling it when i went to bed 2 or 3 hours later, vowing never to do something that stupid again.

after recovering from the initial trauma (it's been almost a week now), i am more determined than ever to eat a fat chick. i realized that my strategy had been all wrong. i did not respect this beast. i was neither mentally nor physically prepared for the trial that was ahead of me. my initial failure has taught me never to underestimate any challenge the reward for which is a free t-shirt.

i will go back, and this time i will be ready.
"i ate a fat chick" is a slogan that one day i will proudly wear.

RICNet stories, pt 2

2006-09-28T16:50:00.000-04:00

RICNet was so cool. everything was text based. there was a game called "Global Destruction" where you had to fire missiles at other players and kill everybody in a country to win.

also, when i first signed up, my friend gary sinton convinced me to put in my profile that i was a 27-year-old girl named "jenny". it was okay for a while until the elementary school band director from blue mountain attempted to flirt with me. after that i put the kibosh on jenny and resumed being my normal 12-year-old self. in retrospect, what did i expect was going to happen? but flirting with mr. o was just creepy.

real creepy.

damn near killed 'um! OR i hardly know her!

2006-09-27T01:08:00.000-04:00

i don't know what made me think of this, but about 10 years ago, i was using a 14400 baud (i bet you don't even know what a baud is) modem on RICNet, a BBS service run by the local newspaper. anyway, i was in a chat with brian, and we were talking about how return of the jedi was about to be broadcast on tv. i think it went something like this.

speller (that's me): dude rotj is on usa tonight!
careider (good pun, or his mom's initials? how about both?): mom is watching.
speller: she's watching it already? it's not on til 8!
careider: hello tom
speller: how is she watching if it's not on yet?
speller: tell me you rectumsnatcher!
careider: thats not nice to say
...
careider: you don't want me to tell terri about rs do you

rectumsnatcher?! what the hell? anyway, it turned out that "mom is watching" did not mean that brian's mom was watching return of the jedi, but rather watching our conversation in progress. and then typing to me. i called brian's mom a rectumsnatcher. this was a word that i had never used before and have never used since (until this post of course). there are no google hits for it as such and one hit in its hyphenated form. it's not like we were going around calling each other rectum snatchers. although at the time, beavis and butthead were calling each other "buttmunch" and "bungwipe" so it probably stemmed from that. anyway, yeah.

==============
epilogue: yes, by the way, my username was speller, because i was on the spelling bee team.

longeron
ulterior
somnolently
lapideous

the four words that were the bane of my 5th through 8th grade existence. then, in 8th grade, my then-arch-nemesis gregory phillips, II (YES HE USED THE ROMAN NUMERALS WHEN HE WROTE HIS NAME AND PROBABLY STILL DOES) won the county spelling bee. it was a dark day for yours truly, friends, a dark day indeed.

PS he got out the year before on "nonplus". so if you ever see him, ask him if he is nonplussed. that is, if he's even still alive. i feel like he's one of those people that have fallen off the earth. greg, if you're out there, drop me a line, we'll swap blogs or something.

i'm awfully glad i'm a beta

2006-09-25T10:28:00.000-04:00

dudes and dudettes who have subscribed to this blog either by google homepage or plain old XML, the link i had there before was a bit wonky, and since blogger upgraded to beta, they changed the atom feed setup. what does this mean to you? well, if you clicked to subscribe before, then do it again. i updated the links in the sidebar. if sidebars offend you, you may click the relevant links inside this very post.

sugar. baby.

2006-09-24T22:13:00.000-04:00

today sarah and i went to the cayuga nature center for the grand monarch butterfly release. in order to release them , we had to catch them from the butterfly house. i probably caught about 10-12 of them. now they are on their way to mexico. butterfly catching may not seem like the most masculine of activities, but so what? you wanna fight, fag?!

true southern

2006-09-22T14:22:00.000-04:00

so i'm taking this class in the theatre department called "speech and dialects for performance". basically, the class consists of sitting around and talking in different accents, and i just love it. anyway, we're working on genteel southern right now, and i'm having some trouble polishing it. is it pretentious and/or annoying to practice on strangers?

i'm still going to do it regardless.

ps imagine that all in a southern accent, i.e. it took 5 minutes to read.

pop goes the music

2006-09-21T10:22:00.000-04:00

yesterday i was listening to a classic rock radio station and i heard songs by led zeppelin, the doors, pink floyd, and the beatles all in a row. the songs were all great, doing all kinds of crazy things with the music. these bands were innovators.

who are the musical innovators of today? who will we be listening to on classic rock radio in 20 years? honest, i can't think of anybody.

breaking news

2006-09-20T09:52:00.000-04:00

from the chapter house bathroom bureau:

zero volume hats and non-zero volume pets

2006-09-18T18:04:00.000-04:00

kie: office, a locale that advisors like to bust into and make me go to seminar when i don't want to.
kiel: anxious about a brewing western blot
kio: kid loco - the wrong number (groove salad)

i just know you guys have been checking back here EVERY DAY TO NO AVAIL but when i tell you about what i did this weekend you will forgive me and perhaps return.

on friday, sarah and i became the proud parents of two (2) young degus. the degu, also called the chilean squirrel, looks sort of like a big field mouse with chinchilla-type ears and kind of a hairy tail. anyways, they are way too cute.

exhibits a & b:

so that was friday, going to the pet store and getting the tank, the food, the food dish, the hamster balls (very tiny, those), the exercise wheel, the dust for dust baths, and the bedding (for poops).

on saturday, sarah and i went for a walk and given that fall creek is in a constant state of yard sale, we unsurprisingly passed one on the way. long story short, i bought 2 SEGA GENESIS systems with about 40 games, 5 of which are sonic the hedgehog 1. i make no attempts to explain how this conglomeration came about (it was a package deal), but i also don't care. as long as i can play earthworm jim 2, i'm happy. i paid about 40 bucks for the whole thing. needless to say i spent a good part of the day on saturday doing the sonic code and trying to get all the chaos emeralds. i gave up when the reset button got stuck. anyway, i now have 2 segas and 5 sonics. does anybody want to buy a sega genesis?

that night we went to an extremely awkward party, where one of the guests was knitting (?!) a "möbius scarf". okay... so my response is "well, now all you need is a klein bottle hat and you'll be all set!" without batting an eye, she responds, "oh i already made one." well, that shut me up. talk about a one-sided conversation!

finally, on sunday we bought more degu toys, including wooden chew things, a log to peek out of, and some pvc pipe to climb around in. if there are three things that degus like doing, they are chewing, climbing and peeking.

degu!

2006-09-14T22:59:00.000-04:00

degudegudegudegu!

i want to get a degu.

for more info, visit www.degus.org

irony or at least strange coincidence if you want to be a jerk about it

2006-09-13T10:42:00.000-04:00

i was sitting in the office this morning clicking "random article" on wikipedia as i am wont to do at times, and this was the fifth article that came up.

yup. click the image to read the article.

the other articles were as follows:

flavius sanctus; USS Purdy; Ferguson, Missouri; and Sandra Douglas

looking for inspiration

2006-09-12T23:22:00.001-04:00

maybe i have blog writer's block. or maybe my life is just not that interesting.

here is a good summary of this situation from the one and only toothpastefordinner.com

while you're there reading comic after comic, check out drew's blog

where were you?

2006-09-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

i was in fortran class.
a class which i had likely slept through.
the class was in an instructional television classroom, so set into the table at every other spot there was a tv/computer monitor. at 9:50 all the tv's turned on to nbc news, showing the smoking pentagon, then showing the footage that we would all see another thousand times over the following three days. i went to the HAC lab, where i couldn't load cnn, msnbc, or any other news site. finally, i went to fark, which loaded really slowly and read the news.

after that i continued to organic chemistry class. it was clear that pretty much everybody knew what had happened by the silence in the room before class started. dr. klein had the unenviable task of informing any students who had not heard what had happened yet. then, resolvedly, he said, "but we must continue, so... let's talk about infrared spectroscopy."

drunk post 1

2006-09-09T01:41:00.000-04:00

yo dudes and dudettes:

i'm drunk. i can't feel my fingers. somehow, though, i'm typing OK.

you know what i hate? country music covers of rock songs. e.g. rascal flatts covering "life is a highway". you're in the car, right, and you turn to a station (usually on "scan") and you hear a familiar song. then you're like, "hey, i like this song". then you hear a fucking slide guitar and you're like whoa whoa back the hell up. what the hell is this shit? turns out, it's a country music cover of a beloved rock song. and there's nothing you can do about it. that's when you're tempted to just drive the car into the oncoming lane. jesus christ i hate that shit.

EVERYBODY PANIC

2006-09-06T20:49:00.000-04:00

ohmygodyouguys! you will NOT believe what they did on the FACEBOOK! they, like, added this, like, new feature, and it's like, totally stalkerish!! like, you can see when your friends update their profiles and everything! oh my god! what if someone, like, sees information about me that i willingly posted on the internet? this is a PRIVACY ISSUE!!!!1 they have totally gone too far! i'm totally never changing my profile again!

okay, i was being sarcastic. facebook put in this thing called a "News Feed", that updates whenever a friend changes his profile or writes on someone's wall or does something. immediately, facebook groups sprang up complaining about this, citing concerns that it was "too stalker-esque". one particular group has almost 400,000 members.

people. if you don't want people to see things about you online, DON'T PUT THEM ONLINE! how hard is that? seriously! the facebook admins have a right to change the site however they please. in fact, they could shut down the whole site tomorrow! it's their prerogative.

sell out, with me oh yeah

2006-09-06T15:45:00.000-04:00

so i put some google ads on the site. not to make money, mind (what do i get? 10 views a day?), but because google ads are always entertaining.

for example, because of my dairy entry, you can click to get a cow ringtone. A COW RINGTONE, PEOPLE! only, don't actually do that because it's one of those sign-up-for-a-free-ringtone-and-pay-9.99-a-month-for-the-rest-of-your-life deals.

like the smartest kid in special ed

2006-09-05T13:14:00.000-04:00

kie: oficina
kiel: pretty good for having gotten up at 7. also, satyaprakash keeps this damn office incredibly hot. so i'm also hot.
kio: soma fm - illinois street lounge - jack beaver - workaday world. this tune is the one you often hear in those old '50s instructional filmstrips.

i spent a few hours over the past few days reading my entire weblog, from the early days of spring sophomore year (when it was hosted on xanga), to its home on a linux box back in 334 in baltimore, to its eventual move to the far superior blogger. after sifting through some mundane entries about everything i did for many days and after literally hundreds of wonderfully awful puns, i picked out some of the entries that i liked the best.

click over on the menu under "are you new?" to see some of my favorite blog entries over the past 4+ years, most of which, except the recent ones, have some comments at the end from an older, wiser me.

i know that i've said that i don't like having favorite things, but "favorites" is the most appropriate word here. never mind the fact that out of 175 or so posts so far, about 40 are marked as "favorites".

the reasons vary. some posts tell a funny or life-changing story, some feature a deliciously dreadful pun, some give insight to my changing character and state of mind over the past 4 years, and some talk about poop.

it's not shakespeare, trust me, but it is what it is.

so if you want, have a click. i used a blogger hack from hackosphere to include only the titles of the entries in the archive page. thanks, hackosphere dude, this was exactly what i was looking for.