The World of Stuff .com

We’re number one!

May, June, and July have come and gone. Now it’s August. But I’d never know it if I hadn’t been looking at calendars and things. My friends and I have been carrying on as usual. Yesterday, we played some baseball until rain forced us off the field. We went to Nick’s house and watched Starship Troopers, had dinner at Friday’s, and hung out at Pompano Beach for a while. As it got dark, we were on the pier, which, unlike Deerfield Beach’s, is free to get on. Later we went to one of the lifeguard stations and shot the breeze for a while. Fun stuff.

I dressed for baseball yesterday, so I needed a light shirt that would be comfortable to wear for a few hours in the sun. But I was too ashamed to wear my ash gray University of Florida t-shirt in light of the announcement that UF is the #1 party school in the nation. That’s according to a recent survey of 120,000 American college students conducted by the Princeton Review. UF was also ranked (from least to most embarrassing): #13 Best Career/Job Placement Services, #7 Best College Newspaper, #6 Everyone Plays Intramural Sports, #4 Best Athletic Facilities, #1 Students Pack the Stadiums, #10 Dorms Like Dungeons, #2 Jock Schools, #10 Major Frat and Sorority Scene, #7 Lots of Beer, #17 Lots of Hard Liquor, and finally, #1 Students Study the Least.

From my limited experience, UF students do party a lot, so the #1 ranking is probably deserved. This past year, I knew some people who could talk about nothing but the last party they went to (which was usually the night before), the people who hosted it, who was there, exactly how drunk they got at it, the misery of having to be the designated driver, and how they almost threw up or blacked out and woke up in someone’s dorm room. This was usually followed by a discussion about how early they had to get up the next morning for class or how late they slept in while skipping class. And these people lived in the honors dorm.

If anything surprises me, though, it’s that UF has the 7th favorite college newspaper (presumably the formerly official Alligator). I thought I was the only person who liked the Alligator. Everyone I know hates it and doesn’t read it. The rest don’t really come as a shock… except maybe the Lots of Beer one. I thought my cohorts tended to prefer the classier stuff. Oh well. I bet the university will try to avoid a repeat of the more dubious rankings by cracking down even further on underage drinking and other such activities. They’ll have nothing to worry about from me, but I would do well to study more next year.

Here are 30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth. They look nice.

Wired reports that Volkswagen is going to be making a 235-MPG car. But I bet it’ll only get 200 MPG in real life. You know how cars are.

If you use BitTorrent, you might find this interesting. Glasnost is a test to see if your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent traffic. The test isn’t perfect, but it seems that AT&T isn’t messing around too much with me.