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Grades [Dec. 24th, 2006|11:39 pm] Well, Fall 2006 grades were posted, and I earned A's in both classes which should ensure that I earned the Master's degree with a 3.93. Whew. link 1 comment|post comment

Banana pudding recipe [Dec. 16th, 2006|11:23 pm] There was some interest shown in getting the recipe for the banana pudding Laura made the other night, so I thought it easiest to post it here. Ingredients: 1 can Eagle brand milk. 2 boxes of Vanilla instant pudding (and the milk it requires) 1 large tub of cool whip 4-6 large bananas 1 box of vanilla wafers Directions: Mix the pudding as directed. Add Eagle brand milk and half cool whip. Layer 1/2 wafers and bananas. Pour half the mix on top. Layer the remaining wafers and bananas and top with the rest of mixture Top with remaining cool whip Refrigerate and let set for a while to let the pudding soak into the wafers (the best part) We typically use the sugar and fat free instant pudding, fat free Eagle brand milk, and fat free cool whip to keep it relatively good for you. Also, for those who aren't as into straight cool whip as Laura is, you can either use a smaller tub of cool whip and mix it all into the pudding, or mix all of the large into the pudding to make it really light. link 1 comment|post comment

Done. Fin. Fertig. [Dec. 16th, 2006|11:09 pm] So, as usual, it's been ages since my last post. At least this time, I have something of an excuse. Specifically, I've been crazy busy trying to actually graduate. I had course projects in both classes that were due ~December 6, and I didn't really start either in earnest until the week before Thanksgiving. Whoops. Anyway, I managed to get them all turned in, although admittedly, it probably wasn't my best work. Regardless, on Monday I took my final final (which I just found out while writing this, I earned a 122/130 on), presumably forever and on Wednesday, proctored my last exam. So barring a paperwork snafu or my failing to get the required grade in my vision class, I should receive an MCS in January. Now I just need a job. In other news, we've finally bitten the bullet and procured a new car for Laura. It's a 2007 Honda Civic Sedan Automatic LX in the ever-neutral color of Galaxy Gray. It's relatively small compared to her old Taurus, but for the two of us, it's still relatively comfortable and roomy, and has a good bit of pickup. Rumor has it I may actually get to drive it sometime this decade, if I'm good... link 2 comments|post comment

Bugs [Nov. 20th, 2006|10:28 pm] I got an e-mail today informing me that a bug in Thunderbird I reported on 9/1/04 will yet again not be rated as blocking for the next Thunderbird release. Admittedly, it's a minor bug, but it's been 26 months :-) At one point, I looked into fixing it myself, but it appeared that without a good working knowledge of the base code, I wouldn't have a ton of luck, and I didn't want to devote the required time to familiarize myself with the base code. It got me wondering what all bugs I'd ever reported, and what their current status was. It turns out that despite my extensive use of the Thunderbird nightly builds for a couple years, I'd only ever reported the one Thunderbird bug. However, I'd filed 4 Gentoo bugs as well as reporting information on another. Reading my comments, it appears I was actually relatively knowledgeable. What happened to that? For my later reference (or, I suppose, really bored bugzilla-literate readers): RioUtil ebuild Teamspeak ebuild UT2004 Server typo dvipdfmx unmasked OpenSSH/Heimdal build bug link post comment

That's a winner! [Oct. 27th, 2006|10:52 pm] Go crazy, folks, go crazy! link 1 comment|post comment

Name tracker [Oct. 26th, 2006|06:42 pm] So, while reading a post by the Sports Guy, I found a link to the Baby Name Wizard, an interesting site showing US baby name trends since the 1880s (as reported by the SSA). After confirming that, like myself, most of my friends have names which spiked in the 1980s and have since been in rapid decline, I started looking for interesting trends. For instance: Mary was the highest ranking name for girls through the 1950s. It dropped to 2nd in the 60s, and continued falling rapidly from there so that in 2005, it was the 73rd ranked name for girls, perhaps indicating a more secularized, or at least, a relatively less Christian society. On the flip side, names like Charity, Hope, and Faith are more popular now than in the early part of the 20th century. Primarily Hispanic names, e.g. Jesus, Juan, Jose, etc., have risen steadily, especially since the 90s. Muhammad, relatively unheard of until the 1980s, is now making a strong showing. Over time the preferred spelling of some names has changed, e.g. Abbie vs. Abby, while other names show similar curves regardless of spelling, e.g. Megan, Meaghan, Meagan, Meghan. Anyway, just thought I'd share an interesting site. link 2 comments|post comment

Baseball Gods. [Oct. 21st, 2006|05:23 pm] So, it turns out I control the Cardinals' destiny. The only problem? I can't watch. That's right, over the last few weeks, the Cardinals have lost if I've so much as glanced at the TV. Games where I've not been able to watch for one reason or another, they seem to have things well in hand. I'm single-handedly responsible for the Cardinals' slide the last few weeks of the season. I sent the NLCS to 7 games. It was to the point where I would tune in to a game just in time to see the Cardinal reliever give up a 2-run homer or double off the wall or Edmonds/Rolen/Whoever hit a weak grounder with 2 on and 1 out for a inning-ending double play on the last scoring chance the Cardinals would have for the rest of the game. Any game I watched from the start was never even close. Now, I'm not normally a superstitious man, but when it comes to sports, I've long held a certain place in my heart for a lack of rationality. So now I have a choice to make. I can watch the Cardinals in the World Series potentially jinxing them, or I can not watch thus preventing the jinx, but possibly missing out on my beloved Redbirds winning the World Series for the first time since I was 72 days old. So for tonight, I'll skip game 1 and see how that goes. Cardinal Nation, you owe me. link 3 comments|post comment

You've gotta be fucking kidding.... [Sep. 28th, 2006|05:58 pm] So, last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart did a segment lampooning CNN's I-Report, a feature on CNN where people can submit photos/videos/etc. from stories happening around them. Not an amazingly stand-out bit, but moderately funny nonetheless. So today, imagine my surprise to see on the CNN website a link entitled "Jon Stewart's I-Report makes him a hottie" as well as "The Daily Show did it, how 'bout you". I click on it, and sure enough, it's the segment from last night, totally unedited. That is, in order to encourage people to file I-Reports, CNN posted a video of someone lampooning them which included a scene of Wolf Blitzer being tea-bagged... Really nothing to say after that. (The video is currently still up on CNN's main site in two places, though I can't figure out how to link to it directly. It's also available on comedy central's site) link post comment

Miscellanea [Sep. 14th, 2006|06:57 pm] A few things: First off, big congratulations are in order for one Kyle J. Veazey. Kyle was recently hired by the Clarion Ledger of Jackson, MS to cover the Mississippi St. beat. That is, he'll be covering an SEC school for the largest newspaper in the state. Quite the prestigious assignment and I'm sure the fine folks in Jones Mill are proud as can be, no doubt proposing toasts with bottled cokes and uneven bologna sandwiches. Sadly for his Oxford town brethren, it necessitates a move to Starkville, but hopefully he'll soon get used to the cow bells. Personally, I look forward to his egg bowl coverage to see if/how he slants it. (And here's hoping he one day makes it to the SEC East. :-P ) One of my favorite columnists, Bill Simmons a.k.a. "The Sports Guy", will be appearing on the Colbert Report tonight. I really have no idea what to expect, but I'll be watching to see if he gets nailed. Somewhat interestingly, last night's guest was Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame who Simmons wrote about during his big run. I watched Good Night and Good Luck a few nights ago, and ended up pretty disappointed. It's a show I'd really wanted to like, but the story line just wasn't there. Perhaps if I'd been alive then and actually knew all the details of the story I could have followed it better, but even with some familiarity with the story and people to whom they alluded, I was often at a loss. There also seemed to be a good bit of storyline that just didn't go anywhere, e.g. the married couple who were hiding their marriage. There was the setup, the climax, but no real resolution. This type of thing may work in "Family Guy", but not so much in an already confusing movie. As huge an uproar as the facebook changes have caused, I actually like them. Each time I login, I get a nice summarized list of what's up with the people in my lives (well, the subset who post such things on facebook). That being said, I tend to use facebook in a quite atypical way. That is, I don't post tons of personal details, pictures of me drinking, smoking, contributing to the delinquency of minors, and/or various other illegal things, or every intimate detail of what I'm thinking. As facebook has said, they're all about easing the flow of information and it seems like that's just what they've done. Nothing they've done has actually exposed any more information than was already out there, it's simply made it easier to access and highlighted what's changed. I mean, if you don't want it known that you've just broken up with a significant other, then don't put it in a public forum. The Cards are killing me this year. Every game I watch, they somehow manage to blow. Izzy and most of the Cards' hurlers have been inconsistent at best, and I'm sure Duncan's got ulcers the size of my fist. What's even more surprising or upsetting (take your pick) is that at 9 games over .500, they have the 2nd best record in the NL at present. In the AL, they'd be tied for 7th. All that being said, I still need to get to St. Louis and check out the new stadium. link 1 comment|post comment

Good...Ole...Rocky Top, WOOOO [Sep. 3rd, 2006|12:10 am] Well for those of you who don't keep up with UT Football, tonight was our first game of the season against the #9 ranked California Golden Bears, and after the abysmal 5-6 record last season, let's just say Fulmer had more than his feet held to the fire. Fortunately for him, the remodeled offensive staff lead by the prodigal coordinator, David Cutcliffe, fielded a team reminiscent of the Vols teams of old. They were bigger, stronger, and had more endurance than their counterparts. You could see them combining with the Knoxville heat and humidity to wear down the bears. The defense also came out looking strong, with the team speed we're used to seeing. Sadly, we put in the scrubs after getting up 35-0 roughly halfway through the 3rd quarter, and so the game finished 35-18. Would have been nice to hold the shutout, but I suppose I'd rather keep our starters healthy than risk it just for show. The only real downside to the telecast was the ESPN crew working the game. Paul McGuire and his knack for stating truisms just gets annoying too quickly. I mean, I don't listen to announcers to learn that every part of a person's body moves when he runs, or that the defense COULD have allowed points, but didn't. I'm no sportswriter, but even I can figure those things out myself, thanks. It really makes me long for John Ward. Or even Bob Kesling. So all in all, a good night. The rotel was hot, the Vols were rolling, and Neyland was loud and orange. In other words, it's Football Time in Tennessee. link 2 comments|post comment

Weekend Fun [Aug. 14th, 2006|02:25 am] I ventured to Holland, MI this weekend to enjoy life at Ben's boyhood home. We were joined by everyone here with the exception of Katy, who unfortunately had to be in Canada for work. Both sets of Hilldores (i.e. the elder and junior couples) were incredibly hospitable (thanks, if you're reading this) and everyone seemed to have a great time. Much to her (and my) delight, Laura was able to ski and even managed to make it over the wake without falling by the end of our trip. Since the skis were too small for my feet, I gave wakeboarding a go, and we'll just say the results were less than stellar. To my credit, Ryan, a certainly passable skier, was met with similar results, so at least there's that for me. :-) The jet skis were also a great source of fun, allowing me to act out some of my old Wave Race 64 moves. At least, the going fast in a straight line bits. I left the barrel rolls, hair-pin turns, and back-flips for next time. Sat. night the elder Hilldores were gracious enough to motor everyone to Saugatuck, MI and back via Lake Michigan for dinner and strolling through downtown. The lake itself was much cleaner than I'd anticipated, and was only the 2nd body of water I've ever been near across which I was unable to see (the first being the Atlantic Ocean). It was also the first time I'd ever seen the sunset over water rather than land. It drops past just as quickly though. Very good times. link 2 comments|post comment

So yeah... [Aug. 14th, 2006|02:01 am] It's been a while since my last update. In fact, so much has happened that I'm just going to hit the high points. I'll assume that if you want more info and you're actually reading this, you can either just ask me, or you already know. I'll almost certainly leave some things out, but them's the breaks as they say. In no particular order, I: Dropped the PhD program (though, not yet on paper). I'll be getting an MCS instead. Broke off the relationship with my adviser. No comment. Got married. Honeymooned in Steamboat Springs, CO. Watched the cards get swept by sub .400 teams..... Helped Doug move out and Laura in Endured the logistical nightmare of totally rearranging the house due to the above. Was a groomsman in Parke and Carly's wedding. Purchased a "special gift" for the Hilldore's while they were away. Procured our first new mattress and box spring set. link 2 comments|post comment

Chi-town and more... [Apr. 5th, 2006|11:25 pm] Ending the 20 month standoff, I finally ventured to Chicago, not once, but twice over the last couple of weeks. The first was to visit with Erika and Wayne, the second was to harass Payne. Both sets were in town for conferences, and apparently the conferences kept them so busy that they were able to spend several hours with me without pause. I hit up an (apparently) famous pizzeria with Erika and Wayne (Pizzeria Due, twice as good as Pizzeria Uno) followed by drinks at their hotel bar. Since it was actually light out when I made it up to see Payne (but as he'll no doubt claim, just barely), we hit up Millennium Park to see the giant reflective jelly bean, and to walk across possibly the stupidest foot bridge ever. It's literally about a 10 min walk to cross 5 bloody lanes of traffic. Oh, and the walking surface is comprised of just 2x4's nailed down like an oddly shaped, unnecessarily long, inclined deck. Thank goodness the sides were some sort of shiny, extra large, slanted, and basically useless form of sheet metal. Insert your own grumble about impractical artsy things here. Payne, of course, is still a pompous ass, though he denies it. However, shortly after a rather lengthy ranting argument against his being pompous we had the following exchange: P: "Do you have any idea what the current shortfall of healthcare providers will be like in 10 years?!?!" D: "Hmm, worse?" P: "Well, I would have said greatly exacerbated, but yes, worse". QED. Did a bit of tornado dodging a couple of nights ago. A few touched down in Champaign Co., but fortunately none actually hit near us. The only real negative effect we experienced was losing power for about 5 hours and internet for a few more. This was the first serious weather we've had since moving here, and the local TV definitely showed their experience. Statements like "Police urge everyone to stay at home, it's very dangerous to be out right now. I can tell you that as we were driving all over the county it was very dangerous and we saw several overturned cars" were rather common. They also found a large twisted piece of sheet metal and a license plate and showed them on the air as proof of the damage or something I suppose. The plate: "DA STUF 6". (See previous post re: stupid-ass personalized plates). My advisor has decided that I'm not nearly accessible enough via e-mail, and so I should inhabit my office for a good portion of the day from now on so that she can drop by at will. So now I'm stuck in my office, with or without something to do, from 10-4 M-F. Awesome. I'll likely be on Google Talk during those hours should you decide to break up my boredom. If you're lucky enough to have a friend who owns their own industrial strength DDR pad (we're talking metal frame, hand rail, etc.), I highly suggest drunken DDR. I assure you, it's an order of magnitude more fun than you'd imagine, at least for those watching who don't have to deal with the aftermath of the drunkenness. I won't get into the details other than to say that it turns out that patterned dancing is apparently easier while drunk than standing or walking. What's the proper thing to do when you've paid your money to the guy at the first window of a drive-in, but you can't pull up yet and the guy's just standing there with the window open waiting on the next car semi-staring at you? Do you just look away and avoid eye contact? Do you say something? Maybe give him "hey, how are ya?" nod? Rep. Cynthia McKinney of the great state of Georgia could use an asskicking. Seriously, she's stopped by a capitol policeman who doesn't recognize her, and she hits him? Ok, let's assume that she's right, and she was stopped based simply on her race. How is hitting the officer the proper way to combat that? Now she refuses to answer any questions as to what actually happened that day, but instead redirects all queries to her lawyer, or just totally ignores it. If you plan to be a press secretary or any other profession which involves not answering direct questions and you haven't seen the CNN interview she did with Soledad O'Brien, I'd highly recommend it. I mean, having her lawyer say "we don't know what happened because we don't know what allegations are being made" is just a classic. And referencing a 5 year old class action lawsuit against the Capitol Hill Police out of context? Just wow. And quoting Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution on her website (and linking to a story about the class action suit). That's genius. I wonder what it would take for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to look into this. Finally, the Cards have started the season 2-0 and Gammons has 'em playing the Yankees in the Fall Classic. So far so good. link 3 comments|post comment

Laptop et al. [Mar. 27th, 2006|05:02 pm] Right. So, my laptop is finally working, or more precisely, it's charging once again. Hopefully this will increase the frequency of my posts as I can once again use spare time before/during/after class to type these up. As Parke would say "mad props" to Ryan for the impressive soldering job to replace the power jack on the DC card. Finally he shows off more than his meeting scheduling skills. Unfortunately, he loses points for not informing me that Kim Labs is looking for someone to semi-replace him and that he's doing the interviews. Of course, since I don't have industry experience, he probably wouldn't hire me anyway. Also, a big thanks to the manager at Radio Shack for the help selecting the proper plug to fit the jack when the one we had didn't make a solid connection. In all of 30 seconds, he'd selected the appropriate one and was looking for it behind the counter. Finally, thanks to Doug for the use of his multimeter and the help with breaking down and reassembling (successfully) basically my whole laptop. Speaking of class, I'm typing this portion just before Linguistics 406 class. When I finished that last paragraph, I looked around and realized that no one was speaking English and that yet everything seemed entirely normal. It's funny how different things are in major university cities. (Knoxville was like this, though to a lesser extent). I did finally get word on my quals, and to neither my surprise nor my dismay, I did in fact fail. I'll admit it was a bit of a hit to the ego, but I'm not especially bothered with it. The whole "research" thing has never appealed to me (the PhD was to teach not to do research), and now that I'm doing a bit of it, I've found I really don't care for it. I'd much rather be assigned a project that's at least known to be possible, and have at it through coding. E.g. installing apache, mysql, and php followed by building the annotation system was much more interesting that the overall project for which they're being built. I suppose I came to this realization a month or two ago, but failing quals was sort of the last straw (or at least a decent excuse), so I've decided to drop the PhD and get an MS instead. Now I just have to tell my advisor. While normally I wouldn't feel too bad as it's my education, she's been quite nice to me and she's just getting started, so my leaving will literally halve the size of her lab. Opening day is quickly approaching and the Cards are getting ready to christen the new Busch Stadium. Unfortunately, they've already sold out (nearly?) all the games from now till July, at least other than singles and standing room only, so it may be a bit before I can make it out there. On a semi-related not, if you happen to work for/own a company who has tickets and you can get them, feel free to send them my way. (Shouldn't Morlok Technologies have a box or two?) The wedding is rapidly approaching, but fortunately, Laura managed to knock out a good bit over Spring Break. I think we're just a photographer shy of having all the 'necessities'. I'm still working on the honeymoon, but I'm at least making progress. Made my first visit to Chicago to see Erika and Wayne (who were in town for a conference). After fighting traffic, closed roads, and a massive amount of police presence, we managed to eat at the Pizzeria Due, which was pretty good, and we even managed to accidentally reenact the "me too" Sam Adams commercial. Since Stanifer is coming to the windy city for the AMSA conference this upcoming weekend, I may make a return trip if, as I suspect, he can't be bothered to drive to Champaign. Finally, my condolences to Minnesota Hockey fans. link post comment

Ask and you shall receive (though not necessarily in a timely manner) [Mar. 2nd, 2006|07:04 pm] So quals. Yeah...about those. They're unpleasant to a degree I'd rather not get into for fear flashbacks for all those who've taken them before. Let it suffice to say it was quite painful, and if my performance warranted even a conditional pass, I'll feel lucky. Hopefully they'll release the results soon (it apparently can take up to 1 month, though I'm not exactly sure why as the qual period is now over for everyone). Since quals I've spent most of my time reading a really inordinate number of papers and annotating data for the paper we're working on. Not exactly the rock and roll lifestyle, but it pays the bills I guess. (Although, I should note that due to a screw up in the Linguistic Dept.'s business office, it almost didn't pay anything). Assuming I can pass quals, we'll see if I can keep this up just long enough to get the Ph.D. I gotta say though, a 9-5 job that can be left at work is looking good. Also, anyone know of a school looking to fill a teaching position in the lower levels of CS who'd take someone with an MS? Also, per Laura, it needs to be below the Mason/Dixon or "she'll divorce me". Pointing out that we're not yet married didn't seem to help things. With the spring rapidly approaching, I hopped on over to stlcardinals.com (which sadly now redirects to the annoyingly named stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com) to check out the prices and seating in the new stadium. The old favorite bleacher seats will now run you $16. Not horrible, but still going up. I think the first time VZ and I hit it up (when he almost got us killed by pulling out in front of a semi) they were $9 each and that was just a few years ago. Also intriguing is the new Coca-Cola scoreboard patio & rooftop deck which is just above the hitter's blind and some of the center field bleachers. For $80 you get an all you can eat buffet including cokes and beer (Bud and Bud Light, naturally). The downside is you've got to buy tickets in lots of 4, and who knows how god-awful the view will be if it's not properly terraced. Still, imagine turning 21, going to Busch, getting smashed and watching the cards. Sounds like good times to me. So, I heard the olympics ended and we wound up 2nd in the medal count. Maybe it's because I was so busy with quals and working on the paper deadline (which we eventually decided to skip), but I was hardly aware that they were going on. We did watch the opening ceremony, which not surprisingly was just a bunch of weird artistic crap (I'm all for artistic crap, but dancing trees and dresses made to look like mountains, complete with trees on the side? It's like a tripy version of Fantasia, which I didn't care for) Finally, just a reminder, the date for our wedding in June 17. I've been meaning to send out a "Save the date" e-mail to everyone, but if you're reading this, you're likely already aware of my reliability (or lack thereof) when it comes to such things. link 3 comments|post comment

Still Alive [Feb. 10th, 2006|02:34 am] Yep. I'm still alive. Quals are in ~78 hours so I'm in uber study mode (obviously, as I'm writing this). I do apologize for dropping off the face of the planet, but if you've not heard from me recently despite, say, sending me e-mails or leaving messages on my wall, don't be offended, I'm not singling you out. I've basically ceased communications with anyone who doesn't: live within 500ft. of me. work with me warn me of burglars breaking in next door produce multi-lingual dictionaries or parsers have knowledge of one of my qual papers If you believe you fit one of these categories and have been erroneously cut out of my communication circle, please contact a customer service representative at hey_jackass@dparr.com As I'm sure you're curious, and my for future reference, the papers I've selected are: Guy Shani, David Heckerman, Ronen I. Brafman, (2005) "An MDP-Based Recommender System" JMLR, 6(Sep), pp 1265--1295. http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/v6/shani05a.html Noah A. Smith; Jason Eisner Contrastive Estimation: Training Log-Linear Models on Unlabeled Data ACL-05 http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/P/P05/P05-1044.pdf Page turners both, I assure you. Finally, regardless of the outcome, I hope to get drunk as soon as possible after my quals. So if you'll be on the UIUC campus on 2/13 around ~11a (or are willing to be), let me know. Still looking for good places to do so cheaply that early, so let me know if you've got them. Also, I have a meeting with my adviser at 2:30p that same day (I've warned her I may be drunk, which she's fine with as long as I'm coherent) so I think we'll try to spike my BAC just before then if possible. link 4 comments|post comment

Europarl [Jan. 29th, 2006|03:48 pm] Yeah, it's been ages, I know. I'm working on preparing for quals and various research. While manually aligning multilingual transcripts from the European Parliament (fun, let me tell you), I ran across this. It took place just after a close vote (164 for, 166 against) and I found it funny: Avilés Perea - Madam President, has my vote been counted? I was unable to vote electronically, since I do not have a card. My vote was "in favour". President - Indeed , if we add the two Members who have declared themselves , then the result of the vote would be .. .. Barón Crespo - Madam President, the Presidency has already declared the result of the vote. There is no room for amendments. President - Ladies and gentlemen, once again, we see it is essential for Members to bring their voting cards along on a Monday. No wonder things move slowly in Europe. :-) link post comment

Top Quote [Dec. 28th, 2005|06:42 pm] I just got back in CU so I'm still getting settled, but I thought I'd post the top quote from the Paris trip before I forget it. Anonymous Girl: Oh no! I have a spot on my shirt! It must be butter from the popcorn. Me: Hmm, actually, it looks like you're lactating. AG: No, I'm not sweating at all! link 3 comments|post comment

Skating with celebrities [Dec. 18th, 2005|08:30 pm] So apparently "Dancing with the Stars" was so popular, Fox has decided to expand. So now we get to see "Skating with Celebrities". Great. Also, I checked out the webpage and apparently they're using the loosest possible definition of "celebrity". For most of the couples, I couldn't tell who was the "celebrity" and who was the skater. Assuming this goes at all acceptably, I'm sure we'll be seeing "Rhythmic gymnastics with notables" next year. Thanks Fox. link post comment

Expert Procrastinator [Dec. 18th, 2005|11:50 am] Well, thanks to finals week, it's been a while since the last post. I had several good ideas, almost none of which I actually managed to remember until now, so, well, your loss. Here's what I've got though. The Matrix was on the other night while I was studying, and when they decided to kill Morpheus so that the codes to the city wouldn't be compromised, something occurred to me: why not just have them change the codes? I mean, I understand that perhaps it didn't seem feasible to rescue him, but the first thing they think of is, "well, better kill him"? They were already broadcasting their "pirate signal", it's not like a couple ms blip to say, hey guys, might wanna rotate the pass codes was going to get them tracked down. About 10 days ago, we got about 6-8 inches of snow, which I'm pretty sure is the most we've had since I've been here, and thus the most I've ever seen. Sadly, it was very powdery and not good for snowballs, but it worked fine for "sledding" which was accomplished thanks to a large cardboard box courtesy of Ryan. Probably the funniest part of the whole evening though was seeing group procrastination in action. With finals approaching, all of us really needed to be doing work of various types, and thus we were all pretty desperate to avoid doing said work. The conversations typically went like this: -Hey, let's go play in the snow!" -Uh, I can't, I have to (write a paper | finish a project | etc.)" -Hey, so do I, but c'mon!" -Oh, ok then." Amazingly, not one rejection from people who were actually home and yet everyone was actually able to complete their stuff on time. On the down side, we're desperately short of adequate hills here. My last final of the semester was on Thursday morning at 8am. Now, if you're reading this, you're no doubt aware that I am NOT a morning person, and as such, I abhor waking up early and going directly to an exam. And since I was having serious trouble forcing myself to study on Wednesday night, I thought that perhaps I could alleviate both issues by simply going to bed very early, then waking up at, say, my typical bedtime. So I formulated a strategy, put it into action, and assumed it would all just go to plan. So at 9:30 I was asleep in bed, dreaming away. Unfortunately, I awoke with a start at 11:10 with "Whiskey in the Jar" in my head (the traditional, not Metallica version) and found myself unable to return to my slumber. So at 11:40, I was up and studying, and I must say, surprisingly efficiently. I decided to study until 3, sleep 2-3 more hours, then get up and finish. So I kept on, and at 3, returned to bed. Unfortunately, I was still unable to sleep, so I tossed and turned till 4:15, at which point I decided to just screw sleep, and awake for the day. So I did, and surprisingly enough, things went ok (I got an 89, 2 points higher than my midterm). However, it threw my body into something of a meltdown, leaving me loopy for a couple of days. As Ryan said "Wow, the wit is totally gone. I can say anything and get away with it!" Oh well, at least that's over. Well, I went ice-skating last night. That makes twice in my life, and the first time since my freshman year. Fortunately, my innate grace and catlike reflexes kicked in and I managed not to fall for the duration (besting Laura who took the plunge with literally about 30 seconds left before they kicked us off the ice). As you might imagine though, the high-quality rental skates did leave me with a parting gift: a rather large, though not-yet-painful, blister on my toe. Still though, it was fun, and Ryan and Katy were both rather good skaters. Also, it should go on the record that though both were capable of putting me on the ice with a well-timed check or likely even darting in front of me, neither did. Thanks for that. To whomever it concerns, I'll be back in Henry County the night of the 21st, and yes, I do intend to attend the poker tourney on the 23rd at Greer & Greer. link 3 comments|post comment

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