Darker futures

My sister and my mom were away on Saturday, so I spent time with my dad. He took my grandmother to her hair salon and then took me to a place nearby. I was in need of a back-to-school haircut.

It was a small, old-school barber shop where men could be men. There was a TV with NASCAR on. The barber was smoking despite the "No Smoking" sign and said that we could have a beer or a soda if we wanted. He did a good job with my hair. His name was Rob, a fact I'm only taking note of because I might want to go back there. The price was fairly reasonable.

After that, we went to a new diner called Nelson's. It's run by a guy my dad used to work with (and his name is Nelson). I should have expected that the place would be all '50s style and that our waitress would be named Candy, but I didn't. Anyway, the food was good.

On the way home, we went to Blockbuster and rented It's Bad for Ya and The Dark Knight. That's some feel-good viewing right there. But it was fun to spend a night in and watch movies (with popcorn, to boot). I should do that more often.

Florida's Bright Futures scholarships pay for students' college tuition based on their academic performance. Like many others', my tuition is 100% paid, and I get some extra money for books. Even though that sounds pretty good, I've still had to borrow money for housing and meal plans. Spending two years in one of the most expensive dorms really made the difference. I wasn't even familiar with the concept of having leftover scholarship money deposited into your bank account, but it seems that this happens with most people.

So you can tell how pleased I was to get this in my inbox yesterday:

Dear Student,

The Florida Bright Futures program has undergone recent changes that will affect you as a recipient. This email is to ensure that you are aware of these changes, which are effective for the 2009-10 year, and understand that they apply to all students, "new" and "continuing". Please carefully review the information contained in this email.

1. The Bright Futures program will no longer pay 100% or 75% of your tuition and fees, but rather a fixed amount per credit hour. If you are a Florida Academic Scholar your award will be $126 per credit hour. There is no longer a stipend that accompanies this scholarship....

It concludes with, "Have a great year!" Yeah, I'll have a great year now that I have to worry about money more than ever in my life. Apparently my fine university used to charge $125.91 per credit hour, but it will now be charging $145.76. The amount they've offered me for Bright Futures isn't going to cut it. Fortunately, I have another scholarship, so I should have $599.36 left for whatever else I need, any unforeseen charges notwithstanding (and they probably are withstanding). Probably all of that money will go toward textbooks, and voila: I still won't have anything for my own bank account.

In eighth grade, I was taught how to budget (or at least make pie charts). I've never needed that skill. Even today, I don't. But rather than borrowing money for school ($[imagine your own number here],000 is enough), I'll now try getting by on the money I make at work and dipping into what's left of my savings if necessary. So, for the first time, I'll have actual income and actual expenses. I've crunched the numbers on those too, and it looks like I'll be lucky to break even. When rent, utilities, and this web site are all said and done, I'll have about $3.84 per meal. Why do I have to eat 90 times a month??

But really: how can I make some money on the side? eBay and craigslist are calling out to me.

Okay, a few posts ago I linked to a rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme by a printer or something. If you thought that was neat, this is going to blow you away: "Bohemian Rhapsody" as performed by old-school electronics. (Via waxy.org)

In the style of bash.org, here's a database of nerdy limericks.

For a while now, YouTube has had a system in place to automatically silence or delete videos containing certain copyrighted musical works. It was only a matter of time before a curious netizen would try to see how he could game the system. How much can you transform a song before it's unrecognizable to YouTube? See the interesting results.