Summer again

Well, hello there. I'm home, and there hasn't been much to report.

Friday night, my last night in Hume Hall, was pretty quiet. I basically spent it with my friend Andrea, who was as bored as I was. She made some food for us, but I got hungry later, as people are wont to do. That's when I found out that all of the dining halls, convenience stores, and restaurants on campus had closed early. We went to McDonald's, where there was a touch-screen game system presumably for the kids as they munch on their Happy Meals. After eating, we took a whack at a trivia game that was too hard for us, let alone some little McNugget-gobbling brats. It took us about a million tries to beat the high score, and we were very proud.

On Saturday, my dad came and helped me moved out. We spent the night at my aunt's house, and then on Sunday, we took the long way home. I got home Sunday night and, well, here I am.

I've been working online, and that's been pretty okay. As a webmaster, I do most of my work on the Internet, so it's been basically like going to work, except I don't have to walk there. That would be a long walk.

Also, I just found out today that I got all A's and B's in my classes. Awesome. Let's celebrate with an edition of Ask Jordon:

Carlos: When are you coming out of beta? Flickr already did.

Well, my friend Luke, since this design looks so modern and Web 2.0 (is that still modern?), and because it's always subject to change, I thought a "beta?" badge would be appropriate next to the logo until I have it the way I like it. The only thing I'm yet concerned about is the line spacing. Do you guys think there needs to be more space between the lines here? I'll have to check it out on Windows and see what looks okay.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Reason, which coincides with that National Day of Prayer thing. Americans United for Separation of Church and State explains why the National Day of Prayer is a bad idea.

Here are lots of crazy McDonald's menu items from around the world. Find out where you can get McSpaghetti.

Earth Hour was March 28. Here are some photos of cities around the world in the dark.

10

I alluded to this last time, but it deserves its own post.

Two weeks ago, I responded to a personal ad. I do this sometimes. This time, though, it was different. We started e-mailing each other, but the conversation didn't peter out. We made the jump to instant messaging and Facebook. Today, we met.

It was a beautiful day: bright and sunny but not too hot. I waited at the corner of University and 13th, where a traveler and her dog were already sitting. The dog was friendly. Like a typical dog, it apparently liked to chew on things. It went to town on my hand. But I like dogs, so it was okay.

Just then, she appeared. My hand wet with dog slobber, we started talking. I was worried that it would be awkward at first, but it was just like we knew each other well. We headed toward the restaurant we had planned to go to only to find that it was closed for Easter. We went further down the road and found just about every place closed. This was something we hadn't planned for.

Alas, Ben & Jerry's was open. No one was there except for one employee. I washed my hands and we had delicious sundaes that we almost finished while talking about stuff.

Then we decided to walk through campus, which was basically empty because it was Sunday and Easter to boot. We made it to the Plaza of the Americas, where we sat at a bench under a tree and talked more—for at least an hour, I believe—until she had to go.

We will meet again.

And now, well, how about Ask Jordon?

Mr. Hi: How did the word "Hi" originate. Hello? I get the "H" but why "i"?

I was actually wondering this recently too. Wiktionary, which has recently become my online dictionary of choice, says of the etymology: "American English (first recorded reference is to speech of a Kansas Indian), originally to attract attention, probably a variant of Middle English hy, hey (circa 1475) also an exclamation to call attention." So apparently it comes from Native Americans, who picked it up from English? There's no citation.

Because of the economy and all that dumb stuff, we've been hearing a lot about large amounts of money. In particular, the trillion is having its day. But what does a trillion dollars actually look like? Find out! (And should it be "What do a trillion dollars..."? I think they both sound funny, but it seems like the former is correct!)

This is quickly becoming a popular site for people to share embarrassing, yet humorous, real-life stories in brief: FMyLife.

Given the product placement, this might just be a PR stunt disguised as an amateur project, but it's still cool. Basically, some folks put together an unbelievably fast computer. Watch for when they drop a DVD case from the window and start ripping the DVD at the same time. The rip wins. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Everybody hates Wednesdays

Well, maybe not everybody, but I do. Tuesdays and Thursdays aren't so great either.

Why? Because I have digital logic lab Wednesday nights from 7:20-10:10 PM. Never mind that it's a three-hour lab at night, but the pre-lab assignment takes much longer than that. Besides, I rarely have much of a clue how to do anything. It's about building circuits and stuff, you see. I can connect things on a breadboard, but I feel like I missed a prerequisite for this class because some basic things about building circuits that I thought were really important were sort of glossed over.

So when none of the things I made worked quite right, I should have known that I was forgetting to do something. Last night, I spent much of my lab wondering why the thing we had to build, a 4:2 priority encoder, wasn't doing what it was supposed to. I even rebuilt it just to make sure I didn't mess anything up. As the lab period was ending, I was the one of the last two people left, and that's when the TA got a good look and realized that I wasn't connecting the input to a resistor after the switches. I totally did not know I had to do that. But I fixed it, and it worked. I was in a celebratory mood for the rest of the night. I was still in a celebratory mood when I woke up.

As much as digital logic is the Bane of My Existence for Spring '09, the prospect of building things that work is kind of... ugh... cool.

Oh, and I actually sort of did miss the prerequisite for this class, but I have an equivalent credit. Plus, an advisor approved my schedule.

Guess which regular feature I only did nine times last year... It's Ask Jordon!

Joohan Park: My teacher said you were in her classroom before but I don't believe it.Her name is Mrs.Sgroe.Did you have classes with her when you were young?

Yes, Mrs. Sgroe was my teacher for 5th grade (1999-2000) and 8th grade (2002-2003) at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School in Pompano Beach, Florida.

This might be handy for some of you Americans who hate looking like tourists: via The Presurfer, it's How to Avoid Looking Like an American Tourist.

This might be handy for some of you Americans who hate using nonsensical units of measure: from the hilarious webcomic xkcd, it's a guide to converting to metric.

This might be handy for some of you Americans or non-Americans who hate not being able to take good photos at concerts: from Jenny of Cool Cherry Cream, it's Concert Photography Tips and Tricks for Non-Professionals.

Now it's time for me to eat dinner and then do hours and hours of digital logic homework worth 0.4% of my grade. I hate Thursdays too!

Dek kvin minutoj da famo

Yesterday morning, I was reading articles at the Alligator's web site when a headline caught my eye. Student... club... language... hm... sounds like me. Oh wait, it is! I immediately went downstairs to pick up a hard copy.

A month ago, my friend Mark and I were teaching Esperanto phrases at a "language cafe" on campus. Rebecca Deely, a journalism student, was there looking for a story. She was very interested by Esperanto and interviewed both of us. She suggested that she could submit the story to the Alligator, and that's all I heard about it for a month. I kept thinking about what quotations of mine she would use — we talked quite a bit — and the only one I could remember was "It's not a word game." I couldn't really remember the context, but it stood out in my mind, so I thought it could end up as the all-important article-ending quotation.

Ooh dang. Who called that?

I thought the article was good and positive, and it apparently did get a few people interested enough to join our Facebook group. It was also apparently Rebecca's first publication. Everyone wins! (By the way, the entire article can be found here for however long.)

Throughout the day, I was watching people read the Alligator to see if they would read our story. The placement could hardly have been better. It was an important issue, being the day after Student Government elections, so probably more people were reading it than usual. The front page story jumped to page 10, where it took up the whole page, and we were at the top of page 11. That's almost like being on page 2.

I got two copies for myself. I cut the article out of one and posted it on the door of my dorm room. More promotion for our upcoming event. And in fact, on my way home from class, I actually did see someone reading the story. I wanted to start talking to her, but that would have probably freaked her the heck out. "Hi, I'm the person you're reading about in the newspaper!"

Another Ask Jordon!

Cody - Natashas BFF: Why, on your Faq, do you have somebody set up us the bomb?, its someone set up us the bomb! =) Zero wing Rules

Sorry, but it's definitely "Somebody set up us the bomb." I know what I doing.

Check out this Multicolr Search Lab. Select some colors, and you'll get some photos from Flickr that contain those colors. It's pretty mesmerizing.

When you've got a word on the tip of your tongue, use Tip of My Tongue to get it out. You can enter some letters of the word, synonyms, and more.

And here are, according to someone, the Top 10 Amazing Prison Escapes.

Busy times

I've been busy with my new webmaster job. I started it on Monday, and it's been pretty nice. It's pretty easy so far, and I like it. If I ever get stuck on something, I can talk to my friend Mark, who works there as well. He's already been showing me the ropes quite a bit.

I've also been busy promoting my Esperanto club's first event, which I mentioned in my last post. That's taking a lot of my time. We had an executive meeting last night where we went over the presentation and some ways to promote it. My ultimate goal is for us to be featured in the main student newspaper before our event. That way we could get the word out to tens of thousands of people.

I hardly get any Ask Jordon questions anymore.

diana: why i am lefty?

This one comes from an IP address in Pakistan. But anyway, I have a whole book about this subject since I did a psychology paper on it in high school. It's The Left-Hander Syndrome by Stanley Coren, and it's quite revealing about why people are left-handed. I forget now, but I think he said it had in part to do with early brain trauma like a stressful birth. That's the book where he advances his controversial finding that left-handers die nine years earlier on average than their right-handed counterparts.

All political links today. Less than a month till the election, though.

A while back I blogged about Change Congress, the new initiative started by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons). Change Congress aims to have politicians, candidates, and other citizens state their support (or lack of support) for four key issues that they believe would help improve fairness and end corruption. They've sent a letter to every Senator and Representative as well as every Congressional challenger too. You can see their progress on their iPledge campaign page. Change Congress is looking to improve their low response rate by having citizens pester their members of Congress. Click "Pester Now" next to the name of your member of Congress to find contact information, a phone script, and a form letter.

News coverage about things that don't matter: Presidential Physiques of the Modern Age.

I've saved the best for last. John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd.

The informant

Toward the end of my senior year of high school, all of my teachers knew about my blog. They all happened to mention it to me out of nowhere. I had told a few of them about the site when it was relevant, but I didn't expect the word to get out as much as it did.

I've just learned that this blog was being cited at my high school's faculty meetings since at least my junior year. They apparently found it useful to get an unwitting student's perspective on their policies and the school in general. That's what Ms. Phillips, an assistant principal, assured Mr. Bell, the principal, when he found out that I had said something about his well-known propensity to talk a lot. Don't get mad, it's good information.

It's kind of odd to go back and look at all the stuff they've read about me. They read that I dismissed the new principal's motto as a platitude. In the same post, I said, "It's sometimes fun to see what policies are enforced at the beginning of the school year; usually, the dress code is on the administration's collective mind for a few weeks, and then they forget that you're showing too much skin, young lady." I also described the new tardy policy as "draconian."

Oh my God. Did I inspire them to enforce the rules more strictly? My peers would have been so mad at me if they had known.

During my junior year, one of my teachers puzzledly said to me, "Cruel Joke Soup for the Gloomy Soul"? And Mr. Gordon, the principal during my senior year, sent me an e-mail praising me for my "very fair and accurate assessment" of his reaction to the infamous food fight. But there must have been more than that. The teachers and administrators must have read my rants about their lame field trips and propoganda campaigns. I pointed out their glaring lack of knowledge of teenage slang and blamed them for things they didn't do (incidentally, a fellow student was responsible for that). There are hundreds of other examples. I was full of criticism.

Oh my God. Maybe that's why I wasn't valedictorian??

??????? !!!!

Is it too late to go anonymous? This is only my 988th post.

Oh well. Time for some Ask Jordon.

Tallie Hoe: So if I'm Christian, and I know that the Bible doesn't teach that there is a burning hell, does that make me not a Chrstian?

I don't know. It's all very confusing about who is a Christian and who is not. Everyone has a different definition. "He says he's a Christian but he's actually not. She says she's not a Christian but she actually is." Or maybe... "I'm a Christian, he's a Christian, she's a Christian, we're all Christians, hey!" To answer your question: don't worry about it. Just go out and help some people.

Here's the rarely told story of the Chicago Tribune's "Dewey Defeats Truman" issue.

The timeless bestseller A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates is back in print, and it can be yours from Amazon for only $81. You can preview a few pages from the book to make sure that you like it. Be sure to read the reviews too.

And finally, we have a video of a wind turbine exploding during high winds.

2008: A Personal Odyssey?

My friend Luke came over yesterday. We played guitars a bit, and he brought 2001: A Space Odyssey for me to borrow. I had seen the first half or so of it before, but I found it slow and boring. Now I'm older, and I have a larger TV, so I decided to give it another go today. All I can say is: what a film. It really is a work of art, the same way a painting is. It's painstakingly done and open to interpretation. You can't ask for much more than that in an artistic movie. Also, I have The Blue Danube stuck in my head.

I came across this list of 20 Ways to Attack Shyness. I found it especially useful because I am a dude who can sometimes be characterized as shy. From there, I found this other site called succeedsocially.com. Now, I am a dude who knows he has a problem and sometimes tries to seek help. I am also a dude who reads Dinosaur Comics to the point that it affects his informal speech patterns, but that's beside the point.

I am a cool guy. People I meet on the Internet can sense it right away. To them, I'm someone they want to discuss deep things and/or make out with. People I've gotten to know well in person know it's true too. It's the people I'm just meeting in person that I have a hard time convincing. I have a hard time showing the real me succinctly through my actions. I'm not very assertive. This I am working to change.

What else could I change while I'm at it? I mean, it's one thing to talk to people more when you're in a group, but it's quite another to get out more and clean up your appearance. We (well, some people) draw a line. Improving your social skills so people will like you is one thing; improving your appearance so people will like you is going too far. Why? Could it be that it really doesn't matter how you look? I've heard that, but I'm not sure if it's true.

On the one hand, Everyone Is Special® and You Shouldn't Try to Be Someone You're Not™. On the other hand, I'm kind of unkempt-looking. Which is better? On the Internet, no one knows I wear t-shirts and jean shorts every day. They can't see how frizzy my hair is, and I can go a few extra days without shaving. But they like me, or rather, they like my mind. In real life, am not very convincing. That's why maybe I need to get a haircut and get rid of my old clothes so I'm not tempted to wear them.

The Succeed Socially site lists two "dorky" hairstyles to avoid. One is that crew cut thing everyone had in the '50s. The other is "long straight hair that parts in the middle and goes down to around the bottom of your neck." That is my hairstyle. I like it because it kind of looks good on me. On the other hand, it's not very masculine, and I'm convinced it would look ridiculous on almost anyone else. Also, it's always frizzy. I've talked about it recently.

As for the clothes, I think I'd have to wear more collared shirts and explore the world of non-denim pants. I'd just have to dress a little more formally, I guess. I've tried buying those styles before, but I fall back on my more comfortable t-shirts and shorts. That's why I should get rid of them and make formal the new comfortable.

But however important looks may be, they are still secondary to actions. If only I had known that before I started to diet and exercise, I could have saved myself a lot of effort. Although looks can play a role in how we perceive others, a skinny person is not an attractive person. An assertive person is.

So maybe someday I'll have a girlfriend.

One Ask Jordon today:

danielle: what do you do if ur sister bullyin you and says she would be in jail for ur murder ?

Tell your parents.

Since tomorrow is The Fourth of July, here are some America-related links:

They're going to be rolling out a new citizenship test soon. Here are 20 of the harder questions. I got 100%.

Here's a list of controversial invocations of the "USA PATRIOT" Act.

The houses of Congress vote on a lot of bills every day. (Well, every day they're in session.) But they don't read the bills that go up for voting. So for any given bill, most members of Congress don't even know exactly what they're voting on. These are the people we're trusting to pass laws. A Read the Bills Act is in order.

Get awarded

On Friday night I went out to dinner with some people from Get Carded, the organ donor awareness organization I'm in. After we put on our end-of-the-year concert, there was nothing left to do but celebrate. So we went to On the Border, a Mexican place that I went to once about 5 or 6 years ago.

Not everybody was there, but some people I knew were. After we ate (good food, by the way), there were the obligatory photos. Michael, one of the co-presidents, had an award to give out. Printed on his computer, was the "Volunteer of the Year" award, and it was given to... me! I couldn't believe it. Actually, I kind of could, but it was still a little hard to believe. Apparently I was the only person who helped out at all of Get Carded's events this year. I also got a gift card for Moe's, which is this extremely popular Mexican-type place. Many people would envy the $10 in Moe's cash I now wield.

But anyway, I really appreciated the award (even though Michael and Jehan, the other co-president, forgot to sign it before they gave it to me). I have it hanging on the fridge now. Hopefully there will be some competition for the award next year. That would be great for the group.

UF's spring football game was yesterday. It's called the Orange and Blue Game after the school colors. The Gators split into Orange and Blue teams, and they played each other. They get a chance to show off their talent, and the fans get their football fix until August.

I figured it would be a pretty big thing, but I didn't know it was going to be on ESPN. Actually, by the day of the event, I did know. I had planned on watching it on TV, but I decided to go instead because it was going on about a block away and, as my roommate said, 50,000 fans would be mad at me if they found out I didn't go.

The game was pretty informal. There were 44 minutes of play, with no penalties or anything. (A referee did throw a flag once, but I think it was due to force of habit. He just picked it up without saying anything.) The coaches were just chilling there out on the field, watching each play closely. The players went pretty easy on each other, and there was no tackling the quarterbacks. (The team doesn't want to get hurt playing against itself, you know.) After each field goal or extra point, the kicker would try it again at varying distances, just for giggles.

The atmosphere was likewise relaxed. Even though the stadium wasn't packed to capacity, there were still a lot of people there, and I saw some people I knew. Everybody had a good time, although some people left early. I can't blame them. The sun was bright. Even though I was wearing a hat and the game lasted less than two hours, I got sunburned like whoa. But I'm glad I went. I had a pretty good time.

The final score was Blue 28, Orange 14. Also: The Sun 1, Jordon 0.

Yesterday evening (actually more like the late afternoon), I got inducted into the Phi Eta Sigma honor society. It wasn't anything big, really. They had a room that was way too small for all the inductees and their guests. Fortunately, the whole thing didn't last very long. They said a few words, and then they called each person up to get a pin. Then it was a free-for-all as people lined up to get their certificates. My family came to the induction, and then we had dinner. I had lunch with them again today (at Moe's) before they left.

So now I have an official-looking Phi Eta Sigma certificate and pin. I can wear the pin whenever I want to look important, and people will think I'm in some fraternity that secretly rules the world. They probably won't know that it's just an honor society that does community service every now and then.

Here's an Ask Jordon question.

Carol: Is it possible for you to see when someone is visiting your site? Like me right now?

As with most web sites, accesses to files on this site are logged, mainly for statistics purposes and my own amusement. I can tell which IP addresses have visited the site, and what browsers and operating systems they correspond with (although all of that information can be faked). When you submit an Ask Jordon question, your IP address and browser/OS information are sent as well. I can tell that your ISP is Verizon and that you're using IE 7 on Windows XP (if your browser isn't lying), but that's about it.

With regards to the story I posted last time about Illinois state representative Monique Davis, she has apologized -- though not publicly -- for her bigoted tirade.

Can't decide between Clinton or Obama? Here's a Democratic Primary Quiz (Flash).

Here are photos of 10 Interesting Abandoned Places.

5 years of The World of Stuff

Yesterday, I went tubing on the Ichetucknee River at Ichetucknee Springs State Park. In case it sounds moderately exciting, "tubing" just means floating on an inner tube. Which is not to say that it's boring. In fact, it's fun in a relaxing way. It's "chill," as the young people say. I was with some friends (including my roommate, Adam) and friends' friends who were girls. We had bought our own inflatable pool rafts (Adam got a giant seahorse), while the girls rented a large inflatable raft from one of the many tube rental places near the river.

We meandered down the river at a rather lazy pace except when we were paddling out of the way of fallen branches and things. The girls in their little boat decided to lie back and not pay much attention to where they were going, so they bumped into a lot of things and often fell far behind the rest of us. But they sang. They sang "Aura Lee" in serene three-part harmony. I asked if they knew anything by the Beatles, and they tried out a few lines of "Because."

After conquering the river, everyone left except Adam, his friend Stephen, and me. We were going to go to Ginnie Springs for even more tubing adventures, but it's privately owned, and the admission was more than we were willing to pay. Instead, we ate at Conestogas in Alachua and then got back to campus.

Hm... what else? Oh yeah. The World of Stuff is five years old today.

Don't look at me like that! You know I wouldn't forget. I've been looking forward to the day, actually. It's a milestone. Five years. Half a decade. It's pretty big. Of course, I can't forget about the chain of events that led me here.

In February 2003, I was a thirteen-year-old eighth-grader, and I had a problem. I didn't have a single web site. I had two: The Dvorak Keyboard and You and flipacoin.net. I decided to create a new site of which both would be a part. (flipacoin.net never fit in well and was finally spun off two months ago.) Since the new site was just going to be a collection of random pages, I thought the very general name "The World of Stuff" would be funny.

The original home of the site was free, ad-supported Angelfire space that my friends and I had used to advertise our two-off comic book series, The Superbuddies (hence "superbuddies" in the original URL). They weren't too happy about me wiping over the Superbuddies site, but I think they can agree that my site has been more successful than our photocopied comics that we had trouble selling even to our friends. (I still have a few copies of both issues; I found them recently, and they're pretty good. I should put the scans online here. Full circle??)

On Sunday, April 6, 2003, I decided the site was ready. After writing an introductory note on the main page, I made the following announcement on the "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Forum!" Forum at Where's George?:

Two days later, I e-mailed the link to five friends. And that was about all the publicity I had for a while.

Over the next few months, I made note of occasional updates on the main page. During the summer of 2003, the site moved to its own domain name and -- to keep people coming back -- evolved into one of those newfangled "blog" things. Over time, I found my style, and my posts eased into the format that you're familiar with today. But it became tedious to manually add posts to the main page, maintain archives, and update the RSS feed. On January 2, 2005, I started using the WordPress blogging platform, which automates those tasks and allows readers to comment on each post. I also strove to give the site a polished appearance. The layout was redesigned on October 16, 2004, and again on January 1, 2006.

When blogging was still new and exciting, The World of Stuff was mentioned in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in September 2003 ("Blog Stars") and by City Link Magazine in April 2004 ("Meet the Bloggers"). In the past four years, there has been a significant lack of press coverage. But news articles don't really matter. In fact, they did absolutely nothing to increase the popularity of the site. But it has become more popular. People have found the blog somehow (probably from here), and they've kept reading. They've post comments and e-mailed me, and I've responded. So we have this cool two-way dialogue going on, me and you.

While we're going meta, here's an Ask Jordon question.

natasha: What is the purpose of the numbers beside the months in your archives?

The archives page has a link to each month's posts followed by the number of posts made in that month.

And one more:

Carol: I'm new here but I'd like to know what you are majoring in.

Computer science.

Now, as I was saying, having a community of readers is a really cool thing. Sometimes I ask myself who I write for -- that is, whether I would still write if I didn't have an audience. I'm not sure whether I would. Knowing that other people are reading this gives me a sense of fulfillment. I like to entertain, inform, and provide a window on my life to others. I'm glad I've been doing it well enough that people are coming back for more.

Thanks for your continued readership and support over the past five years. I love you guys!

Oh, those orchestra members

Okay, so you know how I got a 15 out of 20 on my last physics test? (I mentioned it last time). Anyway, that was an unofficial score based on me comparing my scratch work to the answer key, which was posted online. A few days later, I got my actual score and it was... 13 out of 20. Something happened on the answer sheet, like I bubbled in the wrong answers, or maybe I forgot to bubble them in at all. You can be sure I won't let that happen next time.

In less disheartening news, I had a programming test yesterday that I think I did well on and a biology test this evening that I think I did very well on. We'll see soon enough, but I'm not going to make any guesses.

Last week, Sarah, a girl I asked out a few months ago but then she never talked to me again and I think she has a boyfriend, texted me, asking me to go to her orchestra concert. I thought it would be fun, so I told her I'd go. It was Thursday night, and the theme was Oscar-nominated film scores. Listed on the program was another member of the orchestra that I knew; the president of the club I'm in was a violin. (Yeah, he was actually a violin.) I got to talk to him during the intermission. I didn't actually talk to Sarah, but I waved to her, and she saw me and pointed me out to whoever was next to her. (This was before the concert, not during it.)

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what orchestra members do before they make that nice tuning-up sound? They practice. Individually. Think of that bit from "A Day in the Life," but for twenty minutes solid. (Also, how do orchestra members applaud if they're seated with their instruments? They slap their legs and stamp their feet.)

The orchestra played music from Gone with the Wind, Braveheart, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Goldfinger, plus others I had never heard of. (Just so you can make fun of me, let me add that I have never seen any of those movies! No, not even [insert your favorite one here]! I know, I'd better go to Blockbuster and rent it right this minute. 'Cause I totally rent movies all the time.)

Oh, I lied. I did see Lawrence of Arabia, which the orchestra performed a piece from. For the occasion, they brought out the actual Oscar statuette that the film won for Best Picture. It was being guarded by a huge guy with a baseball bat. After the show, people lined up to have their picture taken with the Oscar. I think a lot of people thought that the Oscar wasn't real (probably because the fat guy was so comical, pointing his bat at anyone who got near the thing, including the conductor, who, at the end of the show, could no longer resist the urge to go over and pick it up), but in the program, they thanked some collection in California that the statuette was on loan from.

Anyway, the concert was really enjoyable. It's pretty cool to actually see an orchestra playing. I can't remember if I had ever seen one before, but now I can say that I have. Also, I've seen an Oscar.

Now, a quick Ask Jordon:

Alexis: Okay I was wondering if I was going to go out with this guy i like when spring break is over?

I could give the standard Magic 8-Ball answer, but I'll try to be a little more helpful this time and offer actual advice. You sound like you're asking for a prediction, but you needn't be. Here's a tip. Take matters into your own hands. That way, you have a chance of getting the outcome you want.

With the war in Iraq entering its sixth year, I just want to know why the hell this hasn't happened yet: ImpeachBush.org.

This is similar to a link I posted four years ago. (I can't find the original post; maybe I didn't actually post it here.) Anyway, this news article lists some of the more famous extended family members of the presidential candidates. For example, Barack Obama is related to a number of Presidents; George W. Bush is his tenth cousin once removed. He's also related to Brad Pitt. Hillary Clinton is related to Celine Dion, Alanis Morrissette, and a few people who aren't Canadian singers. Do you have to be half-WASP to have such extensive family records? I want to run for President just so they can tell me I'm related to Chuck Norris.

Worst idea ever: Ten Cent Beer Night.