This Side of Lost

It is good to be back on a college campus. There are several reasons for this (one of which I mentioned to the bigsteer alias in my TMGTW selection this week), but one of them is the atmosphere of a high-class, academic environment. Where else can I be exploring a building, and come upon a large, well-furnished room called The South Lounge, where there is a fireplace burning. Admittedly, it's a gas fireplace, but still. Nearby is a plaque, proclaiming the hearth as The Fire of Hospitality, lit in 1939 and has burned continually since, representing the hospitality of Indiana University. Awesome.

Things are seriously swinging into high gear in this town. Classes begin on Monday, and the whole town looks like St. Olaf during Week One on steriods. The campus dorms are already hopping, and on the way to campus this morning, I was seeing people moving in and U-Hauls all over the place. To say this is a college town is an understatement -- here, leases start when the school year does, the bus system changes their schedule at the beginning of September, and the police post billboards stating that DUI enforcement beefs up on August 27th.

Better run -- looks like it's going to rain and I don't have my umbrella.

In the midst of all the excitement moving to a new state and starting school and all, I've missed a few important dates...

Aug 24: Jen's birthday. Happy belated, friend. Was it really two years ago I made that mix CD? Glad you're still enjoying it.
Aug 23: My mom's birthday. Shoot. I knew I would forget this. The card's in the mail, Mom. Sorry!
Aug 22. Sigh. What do I call this day? The day my heart broke? The last day I knew true happiness? The day my life ended? Whatever. Anyway, it's been three years and you'd think I'd be over it. You'd think that, wouldn't you. You'd also have another think coming. It's a good sign that I didn't remember it until last night, I guess. Well, we'll keep hoping and see what this year brings...

That's all for now. I finally have orientation today, so it's off to make new friends. First day of school! I couldn't sleep last night, as usual. :) I love it.

I am the Rob Grace of SLIS at Indiana University.

(If you're reading this, Rob, please know I write this only with the utmost respect for you after getting to know you later on.)

Some of you perhaps remember Rob's behavior freshman year. I recall many a lunch or dinner in the old caf, sitting with some of the Kitt boys, and watching Rob walk by, tray held high, following or leading about 6 girls to a table. We'd wave him over, and he'd shake his head, with that little smile. What a mac daddy.

I never understood exactly what causes this behavior. I do know.

As previously mentioned, the gender ratio here at SLIS is heavy in my favor. Much like Kittelsby Hall at St. Olaf. So the chances of me running into and meeting girls here is much higher than the chances of me running into and meeting boys. It's not that I'm really expressly trying to meet as many girls as I can. I'm just being friendly and open... and I can't help it that I'm naturally going to gravitate towards beautiful women, can I?

So what is the result? One of my new friends here states that whenever she sees me, I'm surrounded by women. I can't believe this is true. But I'm gathering that perhaps it is. Not by any conscious doing of my own. Just by the combination of circumstances. When I think of the people I've met so far that I can name, I can think of nine that are female and three that are male.

Could this be what happened to Rob? He's a friendly guy, and certainly not adverse to the company of a pretty girl. And from what I know of him, he's not a player in personality. Could the same thing be happening to me?

Stay tuned...

Me: "I'm a picture of health."
Samantha: "You're a picture of somethin'."

Somehow it's the middle of October already. I'm not quite sure how this escaped my notice as it was occurring.

This is what dating an English major does to me, apparently...

Last night the Boston Red Sox completed the most historic comeback in major league baseball history. As silly as this may sound, I feel privileged to be witness to this. If I ever have a son someday, and he likes baseball as much as I do, I am glad I will have stories to tell him about some of the amazing things that happened in the 2004 season of the MLB.

I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a Red Sox fan today. Here's to you, guys. <tips hat> Good luck in the World Series.

David: "Like the other day? When I wanted to find out more about midgets? I Googled it."
Me: <pause> "Did you find good information?"
David: "Not really. Mostly porn."

I have done my civic duty. Please go do yours.

May righteousness prevail.

I just read online that my preferred candidate for the presidential election has decided to concede his race despite the provisional and absentee ballots in Ohio not having been counted yet. That's his choice, I suppose. But it makes for a sad day here.

I realize everybody and their cat will be posting today about this. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, I'm sure. Samantha and I had a pretty extended discussion over lunch about this (referencing, among other things, Atlas Shrugged -- my goodness, this woman is smart). Maybe I'm just too tired to be angry right now.

I said something in jest to her ("For the next four years, I'm just going to ignore the fact that we have a president, and attribute everything bad that happens to extremely bad luck"), but thinking about it now, maybe it's a good idea. I know nothing about politics -- I honestly don't know if anything the president, as a single entity, does has a direct effect on me. I don't know if anything I do, as a single entity, can effect the course this country as a whole takes.

This dovetails nicely into another conversation I had with Sam today, about grades and how much one should be concerned with it. How much worrying about grades or national politics is really necessary? Wouldn't my time and energy be better spent on things that I enjoy and feel to be important, like my family, my girlfriend, my friends, my music, my interests and passions?

I'm not pleased about the results of this election. But I think I have more important things to worry about.

So why do I still have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach? Hmm...

For the most part, I've been pretty content with the content of my courses so far. (+10 points for use of homograph!) And I've run across quite a bit of stuff that's been chuckle-worthy. But none so much as this.

The idea of a patent is interesting enough in and of itself -- that you have come up with something so original that you feel a need to call the US Government on your side to protect your interests in it is cool. What other people gauge as being this important is a great source of amusement.

Case in point: Mr. Steven Olson, who I'm proud to say is from St. Paul, MN, and his patent, issued on April 9, 2002.

Yes, this is an actual US Patent, and can be located if searched for in the official patent database of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Just plug the patent number into the search interface, choosing Patent Number for your search.

As you peruse this patent (and please do -- take a look especially at the original documents -- they contain pictures), think about this. A patent needs to satisfy three requirements: it must be 1) original, 2) useful, and 3) quote-unquote "nonobvious" -- that is, it mustn't be obvious to those "learned in the art." That's the language of patenting, by the way -- those learned in the art would be experts in the particular field the patent falls into.

These additional details once again just serve to increase the hilarity of this patent, in my opinion. Not only did Mr. Olson believe that his "invention" satisfied these three qualities, but a patent reviewer for the US Government did too! Who do you suppose they talked to who was "learned in the art" that told them "Oh, no, this is definitely outside the realm of the obvious!"

Here's some more crazy patents for your perusal. The things I'm learning...

"I lost a kind of virginity last night." - Chris, regarding the election

I need an aviary.

"Please explain to me why, as the School of Library Science, we cannot alphabetize the professors' mailboxes." - Samantha

Thanks to my mom (surprisingly) for sending me this one.

It should be noted that many of these do not stick precisely to the 5-7-5 form of haiku. Perhaps they should be titled "Pseudohaiku." But perhaps we don't really need to think about this that much -- I mean, we're looking at Transformers-based poetry, here. Let's not get too picky.

Haiku from the Transformers
by Shaun Clayton

Megatron

I am a small gun
Now I am a large robot
This makes no damn sense

Optimus Prime

I don't want to lead
I want to drive the open road
Country music, beer, yes.

Bumblebee

Stuck as a Volkswagen
I am small, weak, easily beaten
Bots call me lil' bitch

Starscream

I try take power
I scheme I plot I betray all
My parents didn't love me

Jazz

Bitchez love my style
Metal hos by the dozen
Envy of bot homeys

Grimlock

Grimlock smash smash smash
Smash smash smash smash smash smash smash
smash smash wind is nature's ennui smash smash

"My car has a huge trunk." - David Beal
"Yeah? You could fit, like, three people in there." - Me
"I had seven Mormons in there once." - David

I like making mix CDs.

Today is the feast day for St. Andrew, the first-called apostle and patron saint of Scotland. I also share his name, in case you didn't notice. So happy name day to me. Here's some more info on my namesake and his feast day:

• A BBC report about the first minister of Scotland's vision for St. Andrew's Day 2005.
• More about St. Andrew from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
• A page of Christian apocrypha and early Christian literature, including the Acts of Andrew, and the Acts and Martyrdom of Andrew.
• St. Andrew's Cross is a saltire or decussate cross (x-shaped), signifying the shape of the cross he was supposedly martyred on. The Scottish national flag has this cross in white on a blue background.
• St. Andrew's Lutheran in Mahtomedi, MN was the church of my youth. I always thought it was cool that I had the same name as my church. (Special organ link for David.)

And finally, single women, take note! St. Andrew's Day holds the key to your future. Here are some "peculiar marriage-related superstitions" that have attached themselves to this day:

• An old German tradition says that single women who wish to marry should ask for Saint Andrew's help on the Eve of his feast, then sleep naked that night; they will see their future husbands in their dreams.
• Another says that young women should note the location of barking dogs on Saint Andrew's Eve: their future husbands will come from that direction.
• On the day after Andrew's feast, young people float cups in a tub; if a boy's and a girl's cup drift together and are intercepted by a cup inscribed "priest", it indicates marriage.

Oops. Looks like the good ones were for last night. Oh well. If you consider yourself a "young person," try the cup floating trick tomorrow and tell me how it turns out. And also where you happened to get a cup inscribed "priest." 'Cause that just sounds cool.

Need a little help silencing the irritating cell phone talker next to you?

Here you go.

For those of you who have been begging to see a picture of Samantha and I (all none of you), here you go. This is the two of us in front of the big shiny thing in Millenium Park in Chicago. Excuse the terrible quality -- the Kodak technology used to digitize this image appears to be as old as the Windows 3.1 operating system. To see the actual analog picture (in which Samantha is even better looking, if you can believe it, and in which I don't look like a pixelated monster), you'll have to actually be in my physical presence.

Speaking of which. In 24 hours, I will be in Florida. (About time, too -- it got cold here in Indiana all of a sudden.) Then soon I will be in Minnesota. (It is also cold there, I'm guessing, but it has other qualities that make it advantageous over Indiana.) All of this maneuvering about means I may not be updating for a while. Tough tacos, as they say. So a Happy Holidays to you and yours, and I'll catch you on the flipside. Peace!

Suddenly there are a ton of movies I want to see. When did this happen? I hope 1) that there are some folks in MN interested in hitting the cinemas next week and 2) that Samantha will be interested in spending some of her financial aid before classes start. :)

If you're anything like me, you love signing your name. My signature at this point in my life has degraded from actually representing my name to being line art. Witness:

Signing things, like credit card receipts, always lends an air of authenticity. Apparently, though, I'm wrong. Check out one man's experiment. I was amazed and vaguely frightened.

Home (n.): 1 a : one's place of residence : DOMICILE b : HOUSE
2 : the social unit formed by a family living together
3 a : a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment; also : the focus of one's domestic attention b : HABITAT

What does it mean when one refers to one's home? For example, I sent my mom a note that I had made it home after a long day of travelling. She wrote back saying that she did not think I was home. Apparently our opinions differ.

I and many of my peers find ourselves in the unenviable place of being in between homes. We no longer live at the place or places we called home for the first two decades of our lives. But many of us have not necessarily founded places to truly call home for ourselves or our new families. The word 'home' then becomes used in several oftentimes contradicting connotations:

Chris and I, random meeting: "Hey, Chris, funny running into you on campus." "Yeah! I need to run to work, though." "Okay, I'll see you at home." "Cheers."

SLIS folks and I, before break: "Where are you headed for Christmas?" "Oh, I'll be going home." "Back to Minnesota?" "Yeah, that's right."

Samantha and I, last Monday: "Well, we've done the Mall of America. Where to now?" "Should we go home?" "You mean back to Bloomington?" "No. Well, at least not today." "<laugh> Right. Back to Stillwater then."

Home appears to be contextual. The term is imprecise by itself. I could be talking about my parents' place back in Minnesota. I could be talking about the limestone house on N Walnut Street. I could also be talking about being in the company of the person who is most important to me, wherever that may be. This last connotation is perhaps the most vague, but also perhaps the most correct.

They say home is where the heart is. I think that's probably the best I can come up with today. Without a definite physical place to call home, I must resort to other definitions.

In any case. I am home, in Bloomington, now -- having arrived last night. The winter break was fantastic -- one of the best in recent memory. I will detail the Christmas-related loot once the final tally comes in (I am expecting one or two more small items yet). Samantha and I are looking forward to a relaxing few days before classes start again on Monday. More, including highlights from the Minnesota visit, coming soon.

This is the coolest website I've found in a long time.

http://web.archive.org/

This is literally an archive of the entire public web. I'm not kidding. It says so on the page. I found an ancient copy of the St. Olaf web page (from 1996) that is so dated, it's hilarious. I forgot that people actually used image maps at one point in time.

Warning -- this could suck up a very large amount of your time if you're a nostalgia fiend like me...

The final count is in. This is what I received for Christmas:

• Alison Krauss + Union Station - Lonely Runs Both Ways. From my parents.
• Storyhill - Reunion. From my parents.
• The Simple Life - Season One on DVD. From my sister Alison. I suspect this is because it was $6 at Target.
• A small can of Old Spice Red Zone spray deodorant. From Alison. It seems small enough to be a trial size or perhaps a free sample. Alison was a thrifty gift giver this year.
• A Minnesota Twins 2005 calendar. From my parents.
• An orange t-shirt and a pair of boxers, both Banana Republic. From my family, although I have no doubt the idea was Alison's.
• A $50 Best Buy gift card. From my parents. It has been used to purchase 4 DVDs: Almost Famous, Blazing Saddles, Grosse Point Blank and Ever After (for Samantha).
• A toiletries carry case. From my sister Mary.
• A book called Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules That Changed the World. From my Uncle John and Aunt Marti.
• A book called Letters From A Nut. From Joseph. We tend to find similar things hilarious. This is an excellent example.
• A Nancy Pearl action figure. From Peter Pearson. Nancy Pearl was up until recently the executive director for the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. With Quick Shhh-ing Action!
• A glow-in-the-dark Devil Ducky. From Peter Pearson.
• A CD of They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song rarities. From Peter Pearson. For those of you who are familiar with Dial-A-Song, this is an ultra-rare collection of songs from the Dial-A-Song service, recorded straight from the phone, many of which have never been recorded anywhere else. Wow.
• A Storyhill T-shirt. From Samantha. Yes, you are correct -- these are not for purchase anywhere. She had it made for me. Yes, I have the coolest girlfriend in the world. :)
• Season One of the Transformers original cartoon series on DVD. From Samantha. I will repeat the above sentiment.
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on DVD. From my mom.
• A Book of Common Prayer. From David.

I think I came away from this holiday season with a superb mix of classy and silly items. Thanks, everyone.

Not a bad place to be, chillin' with Socrates and Homer...

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

create your own visited states map

Next stop: Boston? Spring break is coming up starting March 11th and we need a destination, and that sounds as good as any, what with two friends in the area (at Harvard and the New England Conservatory). How's that sound? :)

EDIT (6/9/2005) - Just for my own edification. :)

EDIT (12/25/2005) - Again, for the southerly states I claimed during my August jaunt. I will have them all someday...

EDIT (3/18/2007) - This has been effectively supplanted by the Where I've Been app on my Facebook page. So n'yah.

I've been tinkering with Movable Type (the software that makes this blog run) and I've finally convinced it to cater to my desires enough to produce a Master Archive Index, which lists all my posts by category. Check it out via the link in the left-hand column.

I like baseball. Do you like baseball? If so, would you perhaps be interested in joining a fantasy baseball league? If so, drop me a line... I am definitely interested in taking my baseball geekiness to the next level...

PS - Opening Day is only 59 days away!

I just got my weekly They Might Be Giants update in the mail, and it included a link to a Flash site about their upcoming children's project. Flansy specifically said "We invite you to post it on your blog" so here you go. I think it's so cool that my favorite rock band is writing children's material. If you thought my kids were going to turn out weird as it was, just take a look at what they'll be listening to ALL THE TIME:

http://www.hyfntrak.com/tmbg/AFF16018/

Dang! Why didn't anyone teach me how to do this?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/fold.php

You can bet I'll be attempting this at my first available opportunity.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

Conversation with Brian Winterman, librarian and rock star:
"Come on. You're a musician who writes evocative and sensitive songs." - Me
"Naw. I get those lyrics off the Internet." - Brian

Here's the recipe for the aforementioned brownies. Quote Adam Ragusea: "These are really f***ing good."

2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
8 tbsp butter
5 tbsp margarine
3/4 c. Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate and Cocoa
1 2/3 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 bag chocolate and peanut butter chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a medium-sized saucepan, melt chocolate, butter and margarine on low heat. Remove from heat when completely melted. Add ground chocolate and cocoa and mix. Add sugar and mix. Add eggs one at a time, mixing each individually. Add vanilla and mix. Add flour, salt and baking powder and mix (slowly!). Grease a standard 9 x 13 baking pan. Pour into pan, making sure it is evenly distributed. Bake at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes. Test with toothpick before setting out to cool -- if comes out clean, they're done. If comes out a little dirty, they're done well. :) (Optional: Sprinkle chips on top of brownies immediately after removing from the oven. Once melted, spread using knife.)

The Internet is a bizarre and wonderful thing. As I was chatting with Samantha this morning, I did something I frequently do: quoted homestarrunner.com. As I did so, however, I couldn't remember precisely which cartoon on the site it came from. I thought to myself (in typical library science major fashion), "I wonder if there's some sort of index or abstract for the site." After thinking this thought, I said, "Naw. The Brothers Chaps are too lazy for that sort of thing." But I typed the word (grumblecakes) into Google to see what it would find anyway.

What it found was a Homestar Runner Wiki. (For those of you unfamiliar with wikis, they are web sites that allow any user to make additions to or to edit any page on the site. Check out the Wikipedia, for example.) Of course the Brothers Chaps wouldn't, but there's an awful lot of people out there who have far too much free time and love Homestar Runner.

It's just so strange to have a thought about something, and then be able to call up some extremely detailed implementation of your idea -- as if it were somehow created in this infinite detail just as you thought it.

Clearly I'm not doing very well on my schoolwork. Alas. Here's a really long meme.

I love baseball. The Twins offense looked awesome yesterday. Sadly, John Smoltz's first game as a starting pitcher in years was awful. But I love checking the box scores and seeing the pictures and all that. Whee! And I'm finding baseball fans everywhere I turn around. This dude in my Coll Dev class was walking our way after class got out, and it turns out he was headed to Yogi's to watch the Cards. Awesome.

My Collection Development class is lame. I'm glad I'll be taking Nisonger's other class next spring. Maybe that'll make up for it.

Spring comes at just the right time -- after winter. It's been windy and warm here -- and Samantha and I have been out tossing a frisbee around. My feet are dirty and my arm is sore -- both good feelings.

Nickel Creek is coming to Bloomington. Again. Too much of a good thing. It's in the middle of finals week though... yikes.

My girlfriend is a cutie. And looks great in a skirt.

Viol3 (10:20:25 AM): http://catoftheday.com/archive/2004/June/18.html

wick98 (10:21:06 AM): Wow. What interesting markings.

wick98 (10:21:11 AM): And freakin' huge ears.

Viol3 (10:21:17 AM): it's a savannah

Viol3 (10:21:20 AM): or a bengal

Viol3 (10:21:37 AM): i spend way too much time doing this

wick98 (10:21:47 AM): *chuckle* Looking at cats online?

Viol3 (10:21:50 AM): http://catoftheday.com/archive/2004/May/26.html

Viol3 (10:21:54 AM): yeah


Viol3 (10:32:01 AM): oh my god

Viol3 (10:32:02 AM): http://catoftheday.com/archive/2003/June/15.html

Viol3 (10:32:08 AM): i'm going to explode

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

As if anyone's really surprised by this.

Apparently the Little 500 is the occasion for Public Intoxication Weekend at this school. Those of you from St. Olaf, think of Arbstrock. Or Cornstock at Concordia. I think there's one of these at every school? Feel free to comment with yours. For example, my driveway was blocked last night by a pickup truck and two squad cars, and three officers milling around with shirts that said Excise Police on the back.

Other observations:
* My roommate Chris is playing his guitar outside while listening to rugby games on the Internet on his Wi-Fi laptop. Technology rules.
* Paid rent yesterday -- only four months until I've been here for a year. Wild.
* Twins have won five in a row. Awesome.
* A card I received from my mother yesterday: A man sits at a desk and tells the man standing in front of him, "Down the fall, third door to your left. And I'm wearing women's underwear." Caption: The Too-Much-Information Desk.

Finally, a short bit of conversation as Chris and Dustin leave for the afternoon:

Chris: I think my Top Gun hat would be the best attire for the day.
Dustin: *nods solemnly*

"Why do things have to be hard?" - Me
"Because life would be boring otherwise." - Samantha

Samantha and I have casted an all-SLIS production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. You probably won't enjoy the rest of this post if you are not also a SLISzard.

Sometimes I'll hear something that speaks to my sensibilites about faith and belief. Usually it's not the standard stuff that people throw out there when talking about their faith -- usually it's something more abstract, more non-specific... usually something that doesn't actually mention God.

Here's one of those things. For full effect, find a recording of Ralph Vaughn-Williams' setting of it.

And other hilarious lists can be found here. My new almost-endless form of Internet entertainment. Enjoy.

The Spring Bike Auction is this Saturday (May 14). It's at the Jordan Parking Garage, lower level. Preview begins at 8 am and auction starts at 9 am. Cash and checks accepted.

I was supposed to tell someone else about this, and now I can't remember who. Someone help me out here.

EDIT: Oh, maybe it was Teri. Does that sound right?

Ladies and gentlemen, I treat you to a very interesting article by the dean of my school. In it, he discusses blogs. Do read for a fascinating insight to the dysfunctional relationship our dean seems to have with his own school.

It should be noted that he is speaking about a subject that a good number of his faculty and students are actually actively researching. Way to show support there, Dr. Cronin.

I'm now being aggregated (is that the right word?) by SLISblogs. Cool. Hi folks.

So I've been listening to Yahoo's Launchcast Radio quite a bit recently. The fact that I pay the SBC-Yahoo conglomerate through the nose for DSL has a few added benefits, one of them being the "Plus" version of said service -- no ads, higher quality sound, etc. It's an interesting service -- once you log in with your Yahoo account, you can rate artists, albums and individual tracks on either a four-star or a 100-point scale, and the site starts building a profile on you. The algorithm has its issues (like any program of this type), but it mostly does the job -- mixing artists and tracks you've told it you like with stuff you haven't rated, but it thinks you'll like.

All this uncontrolled music assaulting my sensibilities is akin to a period in my life when I listened to radio program called Freedom Rock every week. The summer after my freshman year, I lived on campus and worked during the week and usually drove home for the weekend. Freedom Rock (self described as "an hour of imported, independent and underground music") played every Sunday night at 8 pm -- right when I was driving home. I discovered a few bands I really like thanks to that program.

During that time, I started a hotlist -- a text file sitting in the home directory of my Unix account that I could update with the name of an artist whenever I came across something that piqued my interest in them. It would be the list I'd go to whenever I was at a headphone station in Barnes & Noble and every once in a while spurred a CD purchase. But mostly it was just a list of people to "check out at some point."

Anyway, I think now's the time to start it again. But this time, I can force my music inklings on the world! Ha. So here we go. This is what I've got so far. This post will be edited many times, hopefully.

The Hotlist

Thea Gilmore
Eddie from Ohio
Matt Nathanson
Avion
Butterfly Boucher
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers
Elliott Smith
Troubled Hubble
Greg Trooper
Aslyn

In which truth is spoken by a fictional character:

"It's an extraordinary thing about girls that they never know the points of the compass." - Eustace from C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair

I've been wasting far too much time reading webcomics lately:

* Penny Arcade: Video game humor and so much more. No continuity needed to enjoy.
* Ctrl-Alt-Del: Video game humor with more characterization.
* Questionable Content: Basically a romantic comedy. The characters make fun of popular trends and talk about indie music a lot. Features female characters with proportions that might actually be humanly possible. Lots of continuity.
* Diesel Sweeties: I think the title of the page says it best: pixelated robot romance web comic. Continuity not really needed for enjoyment.

I'll prolly add these to my sidebar. Prolly. Prolly isn't a word.

1. Choose a band/artist that nobody else has chosen yet.
Storyhill

2. Answer ONLY using titles of their songs.
If I Could

3. Are you male or female:
Old Sea Captain

4. Describe yourself:
I am a Lover

5. How do some people feel about you/or have thoughts about you:
All I Need

6. How do you feel about yourself:
Holding On

7. Describe your ex boyfriend / girlfriend:
What Was Wrong

8. Describe current boyfriend / girlfriend / crush:
She Holds My Heart Out In the Wind

9. Describe where you want to be:
Back Home

10. Describe how you live:
Steady On

11. Describe how you love:
After Dark

12. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
Spaces

13. Share a few words of Wisdom:
Let It All Go

14. Now say goodbye:
Gone Away

15. Now send it to everyone to see what their answers are (and back to me)!

July 15th is:

a) my birthday
b) the day before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released
c) the Ides of July
d) all of the above

If you guessed d, you're correct. I will be turning 25 soon. If you are of the gift-giving persuasion (and I know you are), you may be interested in perusing my new, improved wishlist. Now with things that you can't get on Amazon!

Samantha and I will most likely be celebrating this day at an event in the Chicago area. Apparently Chicago is the hub of all things Harry Potter, because there are not one, but two large events in honor of the book's release. I'm not sure how much y'all out there know about such things, but I could use some advice as to which one we should attend.

And yes, it is kosher to call it the Ides of July. The Internet told me so. And everything on the Internet is true.

Fans have the final vote for the last roster spot on the All-Star teams. Go now and vote for Minnesota Twin Torii Hunter, best defensive center fielder in the majors! (What, you don't want Derek Jeter playing, do you?)

In webcomic form:

This is gonna be such a library science nerd post. Is it okay to use the abbreviation if I've never typed the phrase information visualization before in my life?

Anyway. I've been playing around with a couple of interesting toys recently...

1) Google Earth. A free (albeit extremely computing power intensive) standalone program that integrates millions of satellite images of the Earth's surface with Google's mapping and search information. The resolution is pretty inconsistent, but you'll generally find highly populated areas in the Western world to have good detail. There are also a number of independent sites to support and accessorize it. Wow.

2) The Moodgrapher. If you're familiar with Livejournal at all, you know that you can add your current mood to your posting. This site aggregates data from LJ and produces graphs. Check out excited in relation to the release of the Harry Potter book on Saturday, and check out worried with the report of more blasts in London this morning.

!!!

*squees like a schoolgirl*

I own Nickel Creek's new album. And it is awesome. Being so rudely reminded of Nickel Creek's incendiary awesomeness has caused me to add a link to their website and a couple others to my left-hand column. It's different from their first two albums, but in a good way. And it will appeal to more general pop/rock sensibilities. (Read: buy this now.)

Quantum mechanics is weird. It's difficult to understand and even harder to explain. Like, try this: the position of an atomic particle can only be described using probabilities. So the particle is never in any one place -- it is "smeared out" over a range of possible locations depending on its particular set of probabilities. It will never actually be anywhere until it is observed, at which point it seemingly "chooses" a location.

Yeah, I can hear you now: Huh? It's strange stuff to say the least. So a guy named Schrödinger came up with an interesting (and somewhat sadistic) situation to let this play out. He proposed (note: he proposed, he never actually did this) to place a cat inside a box, and place inside the box a machine that would watch the radioactive decay of a one atom of an element. And when the machine senses that the atom has decayed, it would break a vial of toxic gas, which would instantly kill the cat.

Now, the element has a half-life of one hour, meaning that at the end of the hour, there is a 50% chance that the atom will have decayed, and an equivalent 50% chance that it will have not. So after one hour, the likelihood that the cat will be dead will be exactly the same as the likelihood that it will be alive. But we don't know until we open the box and find out.

Here's the strange part: According to quantum physics, until we open the box, the cat is neither alive nor dead. It is in an indiscernable state, and depending on your interpretation of quantum mechanics, it's hard to say what exactly the cat is. But we do know that until we make an observation, nature will not decide; we must be the cat's executioner or savior.

That's about the best I can come up with right now. Today's been a strange day.

Many of you are probably aware that I could be conservatively called "a man of habit." As it pertains to the current topic, this means that I like to have a schedule. I don't really have a very good one right now. Though I now have three jobs (more on that in a moment), the schedules relating to all three are still up in the air. This lead to a day where I wasn't quite sure where I was needed and when I needed to be there. I haven't exactly done much of consequence either (except buy a bookcase).

Compound this with the images of flooded streets, looting, carnage, disaster, utter ruin from New Orleans I'm receiving from the media. Yes, I know, as Samantha said to me, Americans act like we're the first people that things like this happen to. But it hits a little closer to home to know that the destination for my next Spring Break trip is now lying under up to 20 feet of water and will not likely ever be the same city again. I'm just sitting here with a worried look on my face, not entirely sure what to do or say.

I feel kind of useless right now. My only (and completely lame) hope is that I'll feel better once I get into some sort of regular schedule. And I'm not sure why this is affecting me so.

Anyway. Hopefully a less depressing post soon.

Upset at the president? Take it out by flinging his ragdoll-limp body through a nebulous grey void!

I found a Minnesota music wiki.

I bet you can guess what I spent the last two hours doing.

Yesterday was laundry day for us. We pushed about four loads through the broken-down washers and dryers in the basement of our building. But the guy next door had his own dirty laundry to air.

Our bedroom window looks towards the south, where another house continues the line of residential buildings on the east side of High Street. It's not surprising to hear the occupants out on their front lawn every once in a while, but we were pulled from our clothes folding yesterday afternoon by an inordinate amount of yelling. We went to the window to witness a man saying very loudly to someone (his ladyfriend, we assumed), "Bring me the generator!"

He must have received a negative response, because he yelled the same sentiment again, this time with language I don't feel necessary to repeat. Suddenly he broke into a tirade about how the woman never did a bleeping thing for him, blah blah blah. He then gets into his late-model Cadillac, tears off of the lawn where he parked and north on High Street.

Samantha and I looked at each other, slighly uncomfortable at having witnessed this, and made a few comments about the quality of this particular Bloomington citizen. Five minutes later, again we heard yelling, and found the dude back again, all up in his woman's face, saying something about "you think you're so holy!" He said the word 'holy' several more times in a mocking tone, then mimicked his previous exit, only with more lawn being torn up and driving off in the opposite direction from the first time.

Samantha and I kept coming back to this whacko several times throughout our evening, and each time, it became more ludicrous and more laughable. Admittedly we don't know what the situation was that led up to this confrontation, but clearly this guy was off his rocker, as the woman was not yelling back, and three kids that were also milling around did not vocally react. And he's doing this on his front lawn, on one of the busier thoroughfares in residential Bloomington.

We are still laughing at "Bring me the generator!" Seriously. What a jerk.