Speaking of things getting lost in the mail, my current e-mail setup is not working, and I'm tired of it.

My personal e-mail account is one that I've been using for about 10 years now. Last year (actually, two years ago... jeez, it seems like last year), I had e-mail forwarding set up at my web host so that I could have a permanent and easy-to-remember address at my own domain name. That's all fine and good, but my e-mail provider's spam filters often bounce messages back to my web host, where they're kept in a "spam quarantine" for me to view and delete.

By not checking my spam quarantine religiously, I've missed out on correspondence from long-lost relatives, notifications from web sites, e-mail newsletters, plane ticket receipts that I needed to print out, and more. My e-mail provider thinks all of this is spam (probably in part because it's been forwarded through another server), and I don't have control over their spam filters... even though I'm paying $20 a year for their service. It's time for change.

I'd like to switch to an e-mail provider that meets the following requirements:

• I must be able to use my domain name with their service.
• Spam filtering must be very accurate, or I must be able to fine-tune it (or turn it off altogether).
• Must be cheaper than my current e-mail and forwarding costs of about $27 per year.
• Must have a POP server. (I prefer it to IMAP. I know, I'm a weirdo.)
• Not Google. (They already know what I search for; that's enough for them.)
• Not Microsoft. (I'm basically against everything they stand for.)
• Not my ISP. (I travel back and forth between home and school, ISPs get swallowed up by bigger ISPs, etc.)

I've come across a service that fits all of these requirements: it's Lavabit, which I think I had previously heard of (it used to be called Nerdshack). It was founded as a reaction to Google including targeted advertisements in Gmail. Or, as they put it on their history page, they "felt it was possible to create an e-mail service that was fast, reliable, feature rich and didn't achieve profitability by prostituting its user base to marketers." Their freedom-loving, no-nonsense philosophy is similar to my web host's. I like it.

Other perks are that they have an SMTP server; allow SSL connections to their POP, IMAP, and SMTP servers, as well as their webmail interface; and encrypt your e-mail on their servers if you have a paid account. I would have to have a paid account; they said I would have to have a $16/year personal account or a business account if I wanted to use my own domain name with their service. It's more than I'd like to pay, but it's less than I'm paying now.

I've been researching them online, and there are some criticisms of their service. Some people claimed that their support was limited. I can live with that, I guess. I think the benefits outweigh the costs. Has anyone else used their service? I'd be interested in hearing what people think. Unless somebody has a better suggestion, I'll probably sign up with Lavabit in a few days.

What do blind people see? The answer is more complicated than you might think, and there's hope for people with certain types of blindness. (Via The Presurfer)

In the past, I've considered using Amazon's online music store, but their downloader (which is required to get discounts on buying whole albums) is not free software. Now there's pymazon, a free replacement, so I might reconsider.

Back in the day, Soviet scientists tried to domesticate foxes. After 10 generations, the foxes were not only completely docile but also had colorings not seen in the wild. Humans may have domesticated dogs just as quickly.

We usually pick three consecutive days for Free Your PC, but there was a scheduling conflict, so we picked Monday, Tuesday, and today. On Tuesday, a guy who I think was from the Alligator asked Mark and me some questions about our club and what we were doing. (They haven't published an article about us, but if they do, it will probably be tomorrow.) Today, my friend Roxy, a journalism student, came to interview some of our members for an assignment, and I think at least one other journalism student did as well.

Also, both Tuesday and today, a photographer from the university's news bureau, which I had never heard of, came around to take lots of pictures of us helping out with people's computers. He said that one of his photos would end up on their web site with an informative caption. He was also interested in the club; he spent some time checking out our swag and asking questions. And, sure enough, I'm in today's photo of the day.

The first day is always the slowest because that's when people see the event going on and make a mental note to bring their computers the next day. On Monday, I think we maybe got one person during the four hours that we were out there. Tuesday was better. I expected us to be slammed on Thursday due to that article that hasn't been published yet, but it hadn't been published yet. Also, it was very cold today, and it's almost spring break. That could be why not as many people came out.

For this Free Your PC, I continued a tradition that I started last semester by making a CD of some of my favorite Creative Commons-licensed music. I think I burned 12 or 14 discs, and we gave out most of them. In case you're interested, here are the track listings and download links for both CDs.

Well, it's almost spring break. I'll be home soon, and then I get a week to max 'n' relax.

Really amazing statistics in video form: The State of the Internet. (Via Lifehacker)

The New York Times has an article on how Restaurants Use Menu Psychology to Entice Diners Trick You Into Buying Tons of Crap Food That You Otherwise Wouldn't Want. (Via Lifehacker)

Finally, more statistics and a vaguely spring-break-themed link: it's an infographic that's basically about how dumb we college students all are and how much money we're wasting going to college.

Anyway, I've always been good about going to their events until recently, so when they asked for volunteers for their next event, I obliged. With this one, they decided to branch out from their usual target group of students at the university. Instead, they were going to have a table at a charity concert in Levy County.

Today, three of us went out to Bronson (which, despite having less than 1,000 residents at the last census, is the county seat). The concert was the third annual "Bark-N-Purr" Charity Concert, put on by the county humane society on some field. We had received a map showing us where exactly to set up. We were shown on the map as "Get Corded!" In fact, the letter and everything else they sent were made out to "Get Corded!", including the exclamation mark.

It was raining a bit, and we didn't have our tent, so we called one of the co-directors of the group and asked him to bring it. He did after a little while, but he didn't stay. Then we set up. We were near booths for the Army, the Future Farmers of America, and a John Deere dealer. We were next to the Tupperware booth.

In general, there was a carnival-like atmosphere, with some bounce houses for kids, a sort of choo-choo train, and a few games. There was also a stage that had been set up, for the actual concert. They started with a prayer, I think, and then the national anthem.

Oh, and there was food. Hamburgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, wings, pulled pork sandwiches, french fries, other kinds of french fries, and... fried Oreos. I had to try some. They were surprisingly delicious: warm and breaded, with the Oreo inside kind of melted. I liked them so much that I got some more. That wasn't actually a good idea.

I spent most of the time manning the booth. The other two spent some time checking out some dogs that they had doing tricks in an area near the stage. The police also showed off their dogs, apparently. I didn't see. Ironically for a concert to benefit animals, pets weren't allowed, but I could see where they were coming from. I wouldn't want to have to clean up the field.

What we were really there to do was to talk to the people about organ donation. They were people with trucks, people wearing various types of camouflage, people with Confederate flags, people with American flags sticking out of their pockets. They were old, middle-aged, and young. One was even a beauty queen, the Clay County Miss Outstanding Teen or something like that. (She had a sash thing and a tiara.) They were also nice, for the most part (the Tupperware man helped us set up our tent).

We ended up giving out lots of swag. We even gave some to the Future Farmers of America for them to use as a door prize at their upcoming dinner. And before the headliner, some country singer, came on, we packed up and left.

I had been thinking of staying here after I graduate, but I'll have to think about it some more.

With Google phasing out support for the horrible Internet Explorer 6, a mock funeral is planned for Thursday. (Via Lifehacker).

Yahoo! Answers is full of stupid people asking stupid questions. Here are 20 of the dumbest. (Via J-Walk Blog)

And finally, a parody of Rachel Ray's show 30 Minute Meals.

The four of us set out with Gavin to George Washington University, which was only a few stops away on the subway. Unlike the University of Florida, GWU is an urban university with its city's street grid running right through it. We walked quite a few snow-covered blocks to get to the right building, which was at the edge of the campus. We got our first glimpse of the Washington Monument as we approached the building.

We arrived late. We checked in and got the t-shirts we had each bought upon registering for the conference. There were two designs to choose from. Mark, Kris, and Jennifer all chose one with a drawing with a pile of electronics and stuff, and I chose the other, which had the copyleft symbol.

All of the day's events were held in a particular lecture hall. First, some panelists were discussing net neutrality and similar issues. One of them was a guy from the FCC, which I thought was pretty interesting. I was still tired, and I was trying to warm up due to it having been extremely cold outside, but I tried to pay as much attention as I could. Next, there was a speaker who talked about fair use, an important but increasingly ignored part of copyright law. After that, there was another panel with speakers talking about open access, which I thought was especially interesting because I don't know as much about it as I do about other aspects of the free culture movement.

For lunch, the four of us followed Gavin and some other people to Potbelly Sandwich Shop, which is apparently a chain. This particular location was off Pennsylvania Avenue, just a block away from the White House. We were so close that I could get a glimpse of it. I wanted to steal away from the group for a little while to check it out, but I figured I wouldn't have time. I got a large sandwich and a cookie, which ended up being too much food. I ate it anyway, figuring I wouldn't have to eat as much for dinner.

Back at the conference, there was a keynote speaker, a panel about open educational resources, and then another keynote by Jonathan Zittrain, perhaps best known as the author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. (If that still doesn't ring a bell, he appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the book.) Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it to the conference, so he delivered his address via a video conference. I expected it to be boring since he wasn't actually there, but his presentation was easily the most entertaining. One of his main themes was to explore the different ways people have used the Internet to obtain information. At different times he brought up examples such as an old newsgroup posting, a Yahoo Answers question, and an Amazon Mechanical Turk task (all of which asked, "What's the difference between vanilla and French vanilla ice cream?"). And, like any good speaker, he answered questions at the end. It was as if he were actually in the room.

With that, the official events for the day ended, and we had some time to kill before the evening festivities. So the four of us decided to walk toward the Mall and see what we could see. It was really cold, and I didn't bring my gloves because they made it hard for me to use the camera that I borrowed from my dad.

It got dark by the time we reached the Washington Monument. After posing for some pictures there, we walked to the World War II Memorial, where we got a picture with Florida's pillar (which still had a bit of snow on it). It was very cold, and my hands were so cold that I felt like my thumbnails were going to pop off, but we continued toward the Lincoln Memorial, walking alongside the reflecting pool and trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) not to slip on the ice. The walk seemed to take forever. I actually saw some people walking on the pool, which had frozen over, and wondered if they had an easier time.

Finally, we made it to the Lincoln Memorial. It was lit up and still had a ton of snow on it. We made our way up the small section of the steps that had actually been shoveled.

You know how, in the movies, someone goes to the Lincoln Memorial and it's all quiet and there's no one around except for them and the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, which somehow inspires them or gives them a chance to reflect on whatever they want to do? It's not like that in real life. I mean, there are other people there, so it kind of ruins any moment you might have. But it is pretty quiet. There are signs asking you to be quiet, and it really feels like a religious shrine to Abraham Lincoln, as if he were some sort of god or something. The place looks like a Greek temple, after all.

We wandered around a bit. I read the text of the Gettysburg Address, which was engraved on one wall. We also went to the gift shop. We wanted to have our picture taken in front of the statue of Lincoln, so we got someone to do it for us.

By then, everyone was really cold, so we decided to head toward George Washington University's student union, where the after-conference festivities would be held. Fortunately, we weren't too far away, and we were even early. The plan was that everyone would meet to go bowling, but no one was really there yet, so we went to the restaurant next to the bowling alley. There were a lot of TVs there, and there happened to be a Gator basketball game on. We got to cheer on our school for a few minutes and then watch them lose. Then we got some food. I got some chicken strips and fries, which also ended up being too much food.

After that, we made our way over to the bowling alley, where Gavin and some other people from the conference were bowling. I didn't feel like joining them, so I just hung out until everyone was done. Then we went back to Gavin's apartment with him.

On Sunday morning, the four of us left Gavin's apartment and set out back into Washington. We had considered attending the second day of the conference, but we would only have a few hours there, so we decided to do a little more sightseeing instead. It wasn't at all cloudy that day, so it was warmer and more pleasant.

We started by going to the White House, which, it turns out, is next to the Treasury. The Treasury is much larger and more imposing, but it's the White House that always has tourists in front of it. We were at the front of the building, which doesn't seem to be the side where most people have their pictures taken. It's a lot closer to the street, though, so we got some good pictures. Then we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, passing by all the three-letter-acronym buildings (DoJ, FBI, EPA, FTC, IRS...). After what seemed like forever, we made it to the Capitol.

Before that, we were going through a parking lot in front of the capital. Since it was Sunday, there weren't many cars parked there. A Capitol police officer was hanging around in his car, waiting for us to jaywalk. We stuck to the crosswalk, though, so he went away. I guess they have nothing better to do when Congress isn't in session.

We got as close as we could get to the building, which wasn't very close since they had the staircases roped off. There was a police car up there too, right by that fountain. So we weren't very high up, but we had a great view of the field out in front and the Mall, which were still covered in snow. So, after taking a few pictures of ourselves there and seeing all that there was to see, we went around to the other side of the Capitol. On the way, I saw some people (kids, probably) sledding down Capitol Hill. I didn't think they would let you do that, but no one seemed to be stopping them.

We checked out the other side of the Capitol, and then made our way toward the Library of Congress, which the others wanted to check out. We had found out that it was closed on Sunday, so we couldn't go in, but we walked by it. From there, we went to the nearest subway stop and took the subway out to Greenbelt, Maryland, where we connected to a bus that took us to the Baltimore airport, where we arrived early for our pleasantly brief flight to the Orlando airport, where Kris had parked his car, in which we rode back to Gainesville, where Kris dropped me off at my apartment.

I wish I could have seen more stuff in Washington, but we were really there for the conference. I did get to see all the main touristy places and, for the first time in my life, snow. (It's wetter, colder, and icier than I imagined, but I like it.) The best part was that we'll be compensated for most of our expenses by UF's Student Government and by Students for Free Culture. Hopefully we'll be able to go on other trips in the future.

Check out my photos from the trip! They're posted on Facebook, but you don't need a Facebook account to view them. I was too lazy to include any of them here, although I know it would have gone a long way in breaking up the sea of text that is this post.

(Those of you with an eerily good memory may notice that this post's title is similar to one I used for another post about Washington, DC in January 2005. I think after five years I'm entitled to use it again.)

Many of Norman Rockwell's paintings were based on photographs that he staged. Here are some of them! (Via waxy.org)

There are some weird stadiums in the world. Here are twelve of them! (Via The Presurfer)

There are a lot of actions that demand the death penalty in the Old Testament. Here are all of them!

On Friday, I had to skip my classes and go into work early. It was raining, and I had brought a duffel bag with some warm clothes (and a camera) borrowed from my parents. As I waited for the bus, a pink Porsche SUV limo pulled up to the bus stop. One of the other people at the bus stop turned out to be in on it; she said our apartment was giving free rides to campus in the limo, presumably as a gimmick to get people to renew their leases. I was expecting to see a camera crew at any moment, like I'd end up in one of those commercials where they surprise random people by going to their house or whatever.

Anyway, we all got inside the limo, where they had granola bars, Rice Krispies treats, and bottles of water for breakfast. I expected to be lectured to about the benefits of renewing my lease, but nobody said much. It was kind of awkward, actually. The limo followed the route that the bus would have taken and dropped us off at the usual bus stop on campus. I thanked them for the ride.

After working at my job on campus, it was time to go. Kris, Jennifer, and Mark picked me up, and we drove to the airport in Orlando. It was the same airport that Mark and I flew to Europe from last year, so it brought back some memories. I didn't have much time to reminisce, though, because we were almost late. We hurried through everything until we made it past security, when we had a few minutes to get some food.

The flight was slightly delayed, but we got on eventually. I was seated between two people in the emergency exit row. It wasn't very comfortable, but I didn't mind much. I spent most of my time thinking about the trip and reading that day's issue of the Alligator. I didn't even get to finish it before we started our descent into Baltimore. I strained to look out the window. The clouds parted, revealing an endless, twilit landscape of barren trees and little neighborhoods covered in white. I had never seen snow before, and there it was—lots of it.

We landed at the airport. The runways had been cleared, but everything else was covered with a thick layer of snow. I became giddy. I didn't have much time to be giddy, though, because we were almost late. We hurried out of the airport to catch a bus to the nearest train station. We made the bus with a few minutes to spare, and then we made the train with a few minutes to spare. In the meantime, I did notice that the cold was a different, more tolerable kind of cold than what I was used to in Florida. It just felt like being inside a freezer. I guess there was no humidity.

The train took us to Washington's Union Station, where we took the DC subway out to Arlington, Virginia, where we met up with Gavin Baker, the founder of our chapter. He had graduated and moved to the DC area, and he let us stay in his apartment for the weekend. We made our way to the apartment (I also tried to run around in the snow and throw snowballs) and got settled in. Then Gavin took us back into DC to have dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant called Lalibela. Apparently there are a lot of Ethiopians and Ethiopian restaurants in the city.

It was a small place, and a lot of the table/booths were right next to each other. I was sitting on a bench next to another group of people. Still, it was pretty cozy, and Gavin had a suggestion for what to order. We got a communal dish consisting of some portions of various meats and vegetables served on a type of flat, doughy bread. We each had our own piece of flat, doughy bread, which we tore pieces off of and used to pick up the meats and vegetables. It was fun and delicious.

During the meal, Gavin surreptitiously showed us a Wikipedia article on his iPhone. He was almost certain that the guy I was sitting next to was Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer of the United States. I had read about him on some of my nerdy news web sites, so I was pretty pumped. I couldn't help but try to pick up on the conversation he was having. His friends were talking about his past job as CTO of DC and how he had been on the cover of a magazine. Definitely Vivek Kundra. We decided not to talk to him, though. More often than not, public figures want to be left alone.

We went right back to Gavin's, where we wound things down and went to bed. We had a couple of big days ahead of us tomorrow.

Speaking of going to bed, I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to continue this story next time. Soon, probably. In the meantime, here are some links:

Here's a spectacular NSFW animated short in which almost all of the scenery and characters are logos and mascots: Logorama. (Via waxy.org)

The webcomic xkcd is pretty funny, but I don't think anybody ever gets the punchline every time. Fortunately, we have Toby, Dave & Ian Explain XKCD, a blog in which the humor behind every comic is explained.

The photo was taken at last year's International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Liberec, Czech Republic. From left to right are Esperantists from South Korea, Togo, Ukraine, and Vietnam. And then there's me.

Another postscript: When I got home after seeing Kate off, I noticed that the dry erase board on the refrigerator still had a Russian sentence that Kate had written. I took a picture of the board and then went to put the picture on my computer. But... the camera wouldn't read my memory card. My last memory card.

It had already stopped reading each the others, most recently a few days before. It was now official: I really needed a new camera. My beloved Sony DSC-P73 was a brick.

I had been wanting to buy a new camera for a while, but now I really have a good excuse. My ideal camera is a compact point-and-shoot with manual controls. Oh, and it has to take good pictures. I don't ask for much, you see. But it turns out that new lower-end point-and-shoots have done away with manual configuration entirely, leaving me with no choice but to jump up to the next price range.

I didn't want to get a Sony again because I knew how much they love pushing their own proprietary formats, particularly their Memory Stick storage format for cameras. My dad pointed out that some of their new cameras also accept SD cards, which have apparently become the standard while I've been busy fiddling with Memory Sticks.

That made me feel a little better, and knowing that Sony products tend to give you a lot of bang for your buck, I had a look at what Sony had to offer. The DSC-H20 and the DSC-HX5V caught my eye. I liked the former because it was cheaper and had already been released. I liked the latter because it was smaller, didn't have a lens cap, took SD cards, and shot higher-quality video (in stereo, yet).

I've decided to go for the HX5V, but apparently it's not coming out until the end of March. Till then, I am cameraless, which kind of sucks because... I'm going to Washington, DC this weekend!!

That's right. I'm the secretary of the UF chapter of Students for Free Culture, and we've decided (sort of at the last minute) to make the trek to George Washington University for the organization's Free Culture Conference 2010 this weekend. We'll be staying with Gavin Baker, the legendary founder of our chapter whom I've never met (apparently everyone else who's going has.

It won't be snowing, but it will have snowed, so it'll be the first time I actually see snow. (what jordan u've never seen sno? what is wrong with you, dont u ever travel in the winter?? its not like its incovenient or anything...) I'm pretty excited about that. I should have enough warm clothes, but I think I'll need boots or something to actually walk through the stuff.

If you have a car, you may be interested in this: How to Decode Your Car's VIN. (Via Lifehacker)

Scientology Sucks is a contest in which participants submit videos of themselves pranking the Scientology cult. The submissions should be posted online tomorrow, and the winners (as judged by the judges) will receive cash prizes.

I got back to Gainesville yesterday evening. I missed most of the first half of the Super Bowl, and I was kind of bummed about that, but I don't really know why. It's not like I watch pro football the rest of the year, and I don't even like the commercials. Well, I like to think I don't, but I have a few favorites. I wasn't rooting for either team, but I arbitrarily bet my sister (for no money) that New Orleans would win 23-17. When they were trailing 17-16 at the end of the game and then got a touchdown, I was arbitrarily ecstatic, but then they went for two and got a pick-six, and the rest is history.

Ten years ago today, I joined Where's George?, a site for tracking where your dollar bills go after you spend them. I was heavily active during the first half of the 2000s, but my interest waned after that, and I haven't entered many bills into the system since then. I look fondly on WG as my first online community and the one I've participated in the most. I figured the least I could do would be to drop by and say hello on the forums, so I just did that, and I hope to hear back from some familiar faces... I mean, nicknames.

Speaking of things that happened ten years ago, my old school's time capsule should be opened soon.

In early 2000, when I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked me to write a message for a time capsule that our class would be making. So I wrote something like "People of the future, we are Mrs. Sgroe's fifth-grade class at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School in Pompano Beach, Florida..." Then she said that we would be making a contribution to the school's time capsule, so the extra details were unnecessary. She had me rewrite it with a couple of other people.

Later, we gathered in the school auditorium/cafeteria to seal the time capsule. But first, the principal opened the previous time capsule, which had been sealed in 1990. I don't think it was actually buried; I think it was just kept in a closet in the office or something like that. But it was probably for the better as the box contained some interesting finds: a Statue of Liberty foam hat, a Madonna poster from when she looked like Marilyn Monroe, some newspapers with articles about the cold winter of 1989-90, and a hand-designed t-shirt saying "We love the '80s, the '80s were the best!"

Oddly enough, I have no recollection of what anyone put in the new time capsule except for a picture of my class and the handwritten message. I guess the artifacts from the '90s were too banal for me to bother to remember. So when the faculty and students at St. Elizabeth-St. Joseph School, as it's now called, open that box in the office, it'll be a surprise for me and most everyone else.

(Well, I hope they still have the time capsule. The faculty suffered a large shake-up during the past decade, and it wouldn't surprise me if the new folks took their predecessors' old boxes of junk to the curb. That would suck.)

Wired writer Evan Ratliff tried to vanish. Here's an interesting article about his experiences forging a new identity and staying on the run from readers looking out for him.

My classes are all okay so far because I haven't done too much in them yet. Two of my four classes are taught by professors whose classes I've had before. Neither of them are really great, but I'd rather have a mediocre professor than one who might be terrible. I am risk-averse.

I'm not sure why, but I wasn't allotted any textbook money from the great State of Florida this semester, so I had to fend for myself. Buying my books from the university bookstore would have set me back $500, even if I got as many of them used as possible. Fortunately, I found much better deals online with Book Burro.

The books I did get were so cheap because they're all international editions. Apparently textbook companies sell identical copies of their books for lower prices in South and Southeast Asia. They all have warnings on them saying they're not authorized for sale outside those regions. For example:

If you purchased this book within the United States or Canada you should be aware that it has been wrongfully imported without the approval of the Publisher or the Author. [emphasis added]

"Wrongfully," in the eyes of the publisher, but not illegally. The first-sale doctrine prevents from publishers from dictating how their books can be sold after they are sold for the first time. This is why secondhand bookstores exist. The publishers would shut them all down in an instant if they could, but they can't, and the rest of us are better off for it.

Tomorrow Katja will be coming to Gainesville. I've been looking forward to this day for a while now, so I'm pretty excited. I've made a list of some things that we can do here in town, but it seems that she'll want to do a lot of relaxing. I'm good for that, too. It makes things less hectic for me. But who knows when I'll have time to blog next? Hopefully soon, but not too soon.

Peter over at Greatplay.net explains Why 2012 Will Not Be The End of the World.

Quizipedia is a fill-in-the-blank game with sentences taken from Wikipedia articles. (Via J-Walk Blog)

I like Tim Tebow because he's a good football player, but many people also like him due to his religious views and practices. He's very vocal about them, going so far as to cite Bible verses on his eye black. That the NCAA and a state university allow this constitutes an example of what can be called "Christian privilege." Atheist Revolution has more about Tim Tebow and Christian Privilege. It's written from a critical point of view, so the tone may surprise many Gator fans.

And on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to attend the wedding of my high-school friends Yamilee and Austin. Due to a mix-up, not many people actually showed up for the wedding, but the ceremony was very lovely and my sister, a bridesmaid, did a great job on her readings. (Aww.) It was a full Catholic Mass with a large proportion of non-Catholics in the audience, so they were standing when they were supposed to be kneeling and stuff like that.

Some friends I hadn't seen since high school were there, so I got to catch up with them at the reception. Haitian food was served (Yamilee is Haitian), and I tried some of it. Who knew goat could be so delicious? Oh yeah, and then there was dancing and stuff too, which I didn't partake in. I partook in the cake, though. Delicious cake.

From what I understand, Yamilee and Austin moved immediately after the wedding and now live where Austin has a job. Soon, they'll be joining the Peace Corps. So I probably won't see them for a while, but I'd like to if I can. And yeah, this is the first time I've ever been to a friend's wedding (as opposed to a relative's). I'm sure it will be the first of many... or, well, some.

Since then, I've started classes, but I'll catch you up on that later. Right now it's link time.

For your viewing pleasure: a color film of London from 1927. (Via The Presurfer)

Google's autocomplete suggestions give insight on the weird stuff that people search for. Slate held a contest to find the pair of queries that could be best classified as "more intelligent" and "less intelligent" based on Google's suggestions. And now there's Autocomplete Me, a blog devoted to showcasing bizarre suggestions that had presumably actually been used by real people.

The summer of '08 consisted mainly of me hanging out and throwing around baseballs with some of my friends, but that's not to say we didn't have big plans. My friend Nick, a history buff, floated around the idea of going on a road trip to see some Civil War battlefields, possibly the next summer, but that didn't materialize.

Now, it's official. Nick, Mike, and TJ asked me if I wanted to go with them on a two-week road trip in June 2010. They plan to visit Atlanta, Washington, New York, Boston, and Gettysburg. It won't be all battlefields, as I could have guessed. Nick and TJ plan to go to a pizza restaurant near Atlanta to see if they can eat an 11-pound pizza in an hour. And I'm sure that won't be the only crazy hap to happen.

I told my parents about the plans, and they didn't say I could go, but they also didn't say I couldn't go. I figure that if they let me go to Europe for two months with people they didn't know, they'll let me go up north for two weeks with people they do know. Ah, to be trusted. It is good.

It might sound strange that I want to go on this trip because I just said that I don't have enough money to go on another trip to Europe. But the projected cost for next summer's road trip is much less than what I spent on plane and train tickets before setting foot in the airport in May. We're talking apples and oranges here. Well, more like apples and... tiny apples.

Inevitable misreading: "Panoramic Europe-America '10?" I put spaces around the slash for a reason. No excuses.

Here's a video showing Every Nickelback Wikipedia Page Vandalism Ever. Warning: there's Nickelback music, so turn your sound off. (Via waxy.org)

This would be fun to try if I were good at making stuff: Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock. (Via Lifehacker)