Too much time on my hands

Here we are in the midst of winter break. What's there to do? Not a whole lot -- in the way of schoolwork, that is. I have no homework over the break, and it's amazing. Plus, I don't have work till next week, which is even more amazing (I only go to work one day a week, but give me a break here.) It's nice to have time to hang out with friends and, of course, blog. But a lot of it is about the relaxation: doing nothing in particular. Everybody needs at least a little relaxation now and then, and it's about time I've had mine.

I've also been spending my time playing with my new cell phone: adding contacts, The other day, I sent out an e-mail to my friends:

I was kidding (sort of). I've only gotten one reply, from Luke: "That's perhaps the most disappointing thing from you that I've ever read, Mr MySpace." So what if I have a cell phone and use MySpace? Why is that bad? Social networking sites such as MySpace can, when used properly, be useful. My MySpace doesn't have an animated star or background blaring music that starts automatically. Likewise, a cell phone is a useful tool, as I've found when my ride home from school doesn't show up. I don't think I'll be able to text message, go on the Internet, or make international calls without paying tons and tons of money, but that's not really the point. The point is that I keep in touch with people, especially when they need to talk to me or know where I am. And that's what having a cell phone is all about.

A few months ago, I mentioned having learned the Doomsday Algorithm for finding the day of the week based on a given date. It turns out that it's really simple. I've been trying it out since then, and I'm getting pretty good, if I do say so myself. Yes, it's a really nerdy thing, but the idea of finding the day of the week for any date really captured my imagination when I first heard about it as a little kid, and previous, futile attempts to learn a more complicated algorithm only made my desire stronger. So when I found out about the Doomsday method, I thought it was pretty cool. How is it useful? Well, it isn't, really, but maybe it'll save my life someday. I don't know.

Anyway, ever since I first read about the algorithm, I've been working on a page to describe it in a better way. I took a break from working on it for about two months, and recently, I continued from where I had left off. Now the page is finished, and I think it serves as a good all-around guide to the Doomsday Algorithm. I didn't want to put "Doomsday" in the title, though, because it's potentially confusing, and I know I'd get a lot of hits from people looking for apocalyptic material. I probably still will, but not as much as I would have. Anyway, without further ado, here is Finding the Day of the Week.

You can estimate pi by throwing frozen hot dogs. I think I know how to spice up a lame party now.

From the creators of BugMeNot comes RetailMeNot. Although the name doesn't make sense, it's a repository of user-submitted promotional codes for online stores. Try it out the next time you buy things online, and maybe there'll be some coupon codes you can use to save money.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is post #762.