Word up to all my Humies

The weekend was nice. I "chillaxed" and "took it easy," as they say.

Friday was Gator Growl, the homecoming pep rally. I didn't go. It's apparently known for humorous, pre-recorded skits. Apparently one of them poked fun at those of us living in Hume Hall. Do "Humies" really prefer video games to sex? That's an unfair characterization.

I managed to get a ticket to the homecoming game after 25 minutes on the phone. It turns out that my seat (Section 23, Row 43) was way in the back of the lower level of seats behind one of the goal posts, so the section above me was giving me shade. It was good that I didn't get sunburned or even hot, but it was bad that I felt like I was watching the game through a letterbox. Plus, I was behind the handicapped section. The handicapped section! Way to sort out your priorities, ticket office. But I did have a full view down the field if I stood up, so I stood for much of the game. I also tried looking into the camera when the ball was kicked into the goal post. It was fun seeing a live college football game even if I couldn't see the yellow first down line or watch the commentators show pictures of the quarterback when he was 10 years old. I was just glad that we won the game, beating Vanderbilt 49-22.

Sometimes I get annoyed by really trivial things. Some people are apparently getting bored of the same smileys or emoticons day in and day out, so they've come up with some creative extensions, some of which I find annoying. I swear I've seen all of these in the wild.

<3 - A heart. This one is pretty common and not annoying. But it leads to...
<3333 - Many hearts. I assume they're stacked one on top of the other or something.
E> - A heart that goes the other way. Also, it's apparently been retouched with the Sharpen Tool.
XD - Your eyes are closed and your mouth is wide open, so you're presumably laughing. Hard to read as anything other than "X.D."
XDDDD - You have multiple mouths (or 56,797 in hex).
:] - You are a happy robot.
[: - You are an upside-down robot.
:B - You're a hillbilly?
>< ;; - I don't know.
:< - You're a cat. An indoor cat that eats Fancy Feast.
;_; - You're crying because you can't torrent your fansubbed anime episodes.
:3 - You have a cleft palate.

A guy decided to listen to Abba's song "Dancing Queen" non-stop during a multi-hour, solo road trip. Here's a video of the highlights.

There are "plenty" of examples of quotation mark abuse at The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

Check out Verizon's style book for deploying the "Can you hear me now?" guy. It's pretty detailed.