Jolly good!

The flight to London seemed endlessly long. And it was filled with children. Actually, that part wasn't so bad, but it could have been. I managed to keep myself busy mainly by just thinking about stuff. That's what I often do to beat boredom. When I got tired of that, I watched several of the in-flight movies, viz. Frost/Nixon and Gran Torino. I didn't sleep. Basically, 2 AM jumped to 7 AM, cutting out some prime sleeping time. I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway because the plane was too noisy.

Anyway, we landed in the UK on Wednesday morning without a hitch, and the weather was typical: cold and overcast and slightly rainy. The four of us made our way into London before deciding to head for our own lodging; Mark and Dan went to a hotel while Andy and I trekked to Andy's relatives house in Mill Hill, Barnet, Greater London. After much frustration in trying to take the underground and overground trains, we made it to Mill Hill, and from there we asked locals how to get to the right street. Finally, we found the house and were greeted by one of Andy's relatives.

After settling in, we thought we would kill some time (and keep our jet-lagged selves from dozing in the afternoon) by taking a train into London and walking around a bit. But it was so cold that we didn't stray far from the station where we had gotten off. There wasn't much to see around there, so we went home but got kept taking the wrong trains. It was pretty confusing because some of the trains passed by our stop but didn't stop there. All the while, we were trying to beat the jetlag by not falling asleep. Even I was nodding off at that point.

Finally we were home, and we met more of Andy's relatives. There are three of them in all, parents and a son older than us. We finished the long day in a very British manner: by eating Indian food (which was delicious, by the way) and watching soccer on TV. Then we went to sleep. Ah, beautiful sleep...

On Thursday, Andy and I woke up well-rested and ready to see all the sights. We took a bus to Oxford Circus and planned to mosey down to the Palace of Westminster. I kept getting distracted by monuments off in the distance, and before we knew it, we were at a road lined with British flags and a lovely park on the opposite side. Toward the end of the road there was some kind of monument, so we decided to see what it was.

It turned out to be a monument to Queen Victoria, and behind it was none other than Buckingham Palace. We stuck around for a little while before continuing to Westminster.

We were getting hungry at this point, so near the Cenotaph and Downing Street we stopped at a cafe for sandwiches. And we continued on to Big Ben. It was pretty cloudy that day, so I didn't think the pictures would come out well, but it looks like they have.

We crossed Westminster Bridge to go to County Hall and the London Eye. We thought about getting on the Eye, but we decided to wait until the weather improved. So we went toward the Tower Bridge, crossing London Bridge and passing the Monument and the Tower of London along the way.

We couldn't actually do a lot of stuff at this point because it was getting late. We were also very tired, so we went home. Andy cooked some stir fry, and then we tried to make some Pasporta Servo contacts in France before we went to bed.

On Friday, we went into town again. The first thing I wanted to do was go to Abbey Road, famously shown on the cover of the Beatles album of the same name and home of the studio where they did most of their recording. As I had expected, there were a few fans there, and the wall outside the studio (also called Abbey Road) was covered in brand-new graffiti from visitors around the world.

The people there were also trying to get photos of themselves making the famous walk across the street, so I didn't feel so cheesy about trying to do it myself. Anyway, I wouldn't be able to live myself if I hadn't done it.

After that, we went to the London Eye because it was a sunny day. We stood in line for about a half hour, and the ride (or "flight") itself lasted as long, so it wasn't that bad. It was a great opportunity to see the city.

We had some time to kill before the meeting of the London Esperanto Club that we had planned to attend. So we went to Camden, near were it was supposed to be, and walked around a bit while having some fruit from a local market. We made our way to the London Irish Centre, where the club would meet, and sat outside because we were still early. I had never met other Esperantists before, so I was kind of nervous. Finally, we went in and had a seat near some of them. They were mostly older folks, and they welcomed us heartily. We chatted a bit, always in Esperanto, and then went upstairs for the meeting, also in Esperanto.

One of the members was compiling an Esperanto-English dictionary and showed us some entries he had come up with (and some he had decided to exclude). He was having some issues with trying to decide between British English and American English words, so it was fortunate that there were American visitors there. We talked about words and such, and when that was over, we introduced ourselves to the group and mentioned how we started an Esperanto club at our school. They weren't all old; the president was younger and an American, and another member was a Slovak who looked to be in his twenties.

We went downstairs to chat with the twentysomething guy (in Esperanto), and before we knew it, it was dark out and almost everyone had left. He treated us to dinner at a vegetarian Chinese buffet in Camden, where we talked about our Esperanto-related plans for the summer. Then he presented some of his Esperanto raps (oh yes, there is such a thing). By then, it was getting late, so we went home, whereupon I fell asleep.

We haven't planned anything for today, so maybe we're just going to take it easy. Before we leave, I would like to check out Westminster Abbey or at least go to a pub and have fish and chips. We'll see how things unfold...

I should be working

I've been to the movies a few times lately. I saw Star Trek with my friends the Friday before last and again just this Sunday night. I'm proud to say I'd never watched any of the shows or the other movies because otherwise I'd be someone who watches Star Trek. Anyway, from the perspective of a complete outsider, the movie was good enough for me to see twice without getting bored. My friends and I also went to the midnight showing of Angels and Demons on Thursday night/Friday morning. It was pretty fast-paced, and I liked it. I didn't read the book.

In my last post, I talked about getting a new memory card for my digital camera. Well, I've discovered another benefit of having a large memory card. If you've seen my videos, you've seen the handiwork of my digital camera. The quality is pretty good, but it only records at something like 16 frames per second, so any motion looks pretty jerky. (Mmm... jerky.) I recently remembered that my camera has a higher-quality video setting that I couldn't use with my old memory card because it didn't have enough space. My 1 GB card can hold over 12 minutes of high quality video at 30 frames per second. It looks like it's from an actual camcorder. I could reach 8 GB sooner than I think.

For my upcoming trip, I've got a computer, but the keyboard is pretty small. This would be a problem for picture-taking because I name all my digital photos and videos to include the date, the number in the sequence for that day, and a brief description. After years of doing this manually, I wrote a Bash script to help me automate the task. It prompts me for a description for each photo or video and then moves it to the proper folder. Here's the script if you're interested.

11 Extinct Animals That Have Been Photographed Alive. (Via The Presurfer)

Ah, Area 51, a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists everywhere. Some goings-on at the base have recently been declassified, so several people have gone on the record to talk about what it was like to work at Area 51 and what some of those "UFOs" actually were. (Via waxy.org)

Welcome back, Conky

For a relatively long time, I used Conky as a system monitor on my desktop. It's pretty popular among Ubuntu users and other Linux types. Eventually, I switched to Screenlets, mainly because they look snazzy. But since my Screenlets have been acting up lately (spontaneously losing their configurations when I log in), I decided I'd have enough of that. I've gone back to Conky and all its powerful features. To that end, I've spent hours on what I believe is a pretty sexy Conky setup. Click the thumbnail for the full-size version.

The wallpaper is from InterfaceLIFT. The semi-transparent background for Conky is actually part of the wallpaper. I made a transparent image with a black stripe down the side in the GIMP and overlaid it on the original wallpaper with ImageMagick, which will make things easier when I want to change the wallpaper later. As for the Conky configuration itself, it's pretty self-explanatory. Here's my .conkyrc, and here's a Bash script I wrote to make audio metadata from Rhythmbox look pretty whether you're playing a song, a podcast, an Internet radio stream, or nothing at all.

And now, the not-so-boring links:

The difference between Pixar's and DreamWorks' animated films explained.

Wrong Tomorrow documents predictions made by public figures and keeps track of whether they become wrong or right. (Via waxy.org)

NPR did an interesting story recently on how ants know when their fellow ants are dead. As with many such things, it has to do with a chemical, which you can use to really confuse them.

A sweet end

End-of-year things have been going on. Last Monday, I presided over the last Esperanto Club meeting of the year. Not a lot of people showed up, but I guess that can be expected since people had to study for exams and do more important end-of-year things. We had elections, but no one was challenged, so they were kind of pointless. Still, you've got to respect the democratic process.

Last Thursday, Get Carded had its year-end dinner at Bento Cafe, a hip Asian place. This year, they'd been awarding points to people for volunteering a certain number of hours at events. The member with the most points at the end of the year would get a gift card for the restaurant of their choice. I was the frontrunner all year, so Michael and Jehan, the guys in charge, already asked me what restaurant I wanted a gift card for. And on Thursday night, I was awarded Volunteer of the Year (defending my title from last year) with a gift card good for Chili's, Macaroni Grill, and a couple of other places whose names I can't be bothered to remember because I'm too lazy to take the gift card out of my wallet even though I could have taken it out and checked in the time it's taken me to write this.

Saturday night was a Gator Freethought party. I was only able to go to a few of their meetings this year due to scheduling conflicts, so I thought I'd make up for it by going to a party at the former president's house. It was fun; there were games, political debates, and s'mores. I wish I had gone to more of those parties.

Oh, and exams. My first exam was yesterday, a whole week after classes ended. I think I did well. My other two were today. In fact, the exams I expected to be harder were easier and the one I expected to be easier was harder. Is that ironic? It might be Alanis Morissette ironic, but I don't think it's really ironic.

For my discrete math class, we got to choose our own grade distribution (according to certain guidelines), so I took advantage of that by writing a program that would find the best grade distribution for me. I gave it a few possible values for my final exam grade and went for one of the distributions that weighed my final somewhat heavily but not as heavily as possible. It made getting an A pretty easy without the risk of getting a very bad grade if I somehow bombed the final. I shared my program with my classmates, and at least some of them used it, which was cool.

After that exam, which was my last, my roommate moved out, and I'm now left in a half-empty room till Saturday. But all is not lost. I planned a date with my new friend. We hadn't met for a while due to various things (mainly exams) getting in the way, but things worked out tonight. We went to Chop Stix, a pan-Asian place, for dinner, and it was delightful. I'd like to see her again before I go home, and I might.

And, well, that's basically it. I guess it's time to put this year to bed. I'll be moving out on Saturday, and I'll probably get home Sunday.

If world leaders were on Facebook, they would probably have a Facebook group for world leaders.

The Benny Hillifier makes any video sillier by substituting the audio with that sax tune from The Benny Hill Show.

You know you need to put your comic strip to bed when you reuse artwork and/or jokes from decades ago. Recently, Blondie and The Family Circus have been caught doing just that. (Via J-Walk Blog)

The 5th semiannual Ubuntu upgrade post

Ah, the thrill of the upgrade. The excitement of downloading all-new versions of your favorite software, and the very real possibility that your entire system could get hosed. After a series of relatively uneventful upgrades, I wondered when my luck would run out.

So Ubuntu 9.04 (insert codename that no one likes here) came out on Thursday. As I've been doing for the past few upgrades, I downloaded the alternate install CD (although I used BitTorrent this time).

Once I got that going, the actual upgrade went pretty smoothly... until the end, when Ubuntu said that the installation failed due to a broken package. It was Bonager, an old program I installed from a third-party .deb package and used for a while but wasn't using anymore. I went to Synaptic and it told me to try sudo apt-get -f install, but that didn't work. After some Googling, I found this, which got rid of the program.

sudo update-rc.d -f bonager remove
sudo rm /etc/init.d/bonager
sudo dpkg -P --force-all bonager

Thinking that was over with, I went to the Update Manager to see if there were any new updates since the release. The Upgrade Manager told me I had to do a partial upgrade, presumably because of the broken package mess. I started that, and it asked me to insert a CD. I hit cancel, and it continued for a bit but then stopped without explanation. I tried again, and the partial upgrade would start but then the window would disappear. I tried it on the command line (sudo apt-get dist-upgrade) and the reason was that there were more broken packages, presumably caused by the breakage of the first one. sudo apt-get -f install actually fixed the problem, and I ran the upgrade again on the command line without any problems.

The ordeal caused me a lot of grief, but at least there weren't sharks involved.

I like the new version of Ubuntu. There haven't been too many funky changes to trip me up, and there have been some little improvements here and there. You can now change gedit's syntax highlighting from the status bar; Rhythmbox's gapless playback allows songs to finish; Transmission allows bandwidth limit scheduling. As usual, Ubuntu has thrown in some new fonts, but I actually like them. They're the Liberation fonts, which are apparently metric-compatible with certain popular fonts. They also look pretty slick, like you'd find them in a book or magazine that was trying to look cool. And the new pop-up notifications aren't that bad. I just wish I could customize them. The little preferences app does nothing.

Some reviews I've read assert that subtle improvements have made the Ubuntu experience better overall, and I find myself agreeing. Maybe it's just my imagination, but OpenOffice.org and Firefox even seem a bit zippier. It's almost as if Firefox is saying, "Yes, Jordon, install as many extensions as you want!!"

Probably my favorite improvement is the inclusion of Ekiga 3.2, which has buddy list capabilities so you can actually see whether other people are online. At this juncture I'd like to renew my perennial plea for Ekiga contacts. You know, just say hi or something. I'm sip:jordon@ekiga.net. Pretty easy to remember. (It's also available for Windows!) I really wish there were something like a "Skype Me" forum for SIP users. I've even thought of creating something like that myself. Seriously, there must be some people who use SIP for fun, right? How are they supposed to contact each other?

Clerkdogs provides movie recommendations from former video store clerks. The recommendations are supposed to be all the better for it. (Via The Presurfer)

Here's a USA Sitcom Map showing the settings of sitcoms across the country. There's a whole map for New York City as well. (Via waxy.org)

Important things

My university is able to attract prominent guests all the time. Last year there were quite a few that I can remember: John Kerry, the MythBusters, Alberto Gonzales, Jack Kevorkian, Bob Saget, and Bill Nye. This year saw the likes of Ralph Nader, Joe Biden, John Roberts, Howard Dean, Zach Braff, and others. This year's crop didn't seem to be as interesting or varied as last year's, with one exception. I am speaking of Demetri Martin.

My roommate last year told me about Demetri Martin, and we watched some of his stand-up material. The dude is hilarious. His act consists largely of absurd one-liners, often with the accompaniment of music or drawings. And Wikipedia has just informed me that he is 35, which is weird because I would have guessed he was 25. The bowl haircut takes off years! (He's also been a correspondent on The Daily Show, and he has a new show called Important Things with Demetri Martin.)

When I found out that he was coming to campus on Tuesday night, I knew I had to go. And when I found out that my new friend whose name you haven't missed because I haven't mentioned it yet was going, I knew I had to go with her. So we met beforehand for dinner at the student union. She chose Taco Bell. Good choice. (What's the record for Wikipedia links in a World of Stuff blog post? I think it's going to be broken.)

Then we made our way to the basketball arena, where Mr. Martin was due to perform. Opening for him was a 2002 grad who was also associated with The Daily Show; he did a more conventional (but still very funny) stand-up act. Then, it was Demetri Martin's turn. He started by making some Martinesque observations about the decor. There was the obligatory drawing segment as well as the piano segment. He also made random remarks toward the camera operators, the sign language interpreter, and audience members. The Independent Florida Alligator captured some great nuggets for your reading pleasure.

He did a long show, and it kept going even when I thought it was about to end. Toward the actual end, as he was providing a light guitar accompaniment for his jokes, he delved into some of his classics. People called out for their favorites, and he obliged. Meanwhile, someone unwittingly added to the humor by knocking down the curtains and fake plants that flanked the stage. I was in stitches for the whole two hours; I can't remember ever laughing that much. My new friend seemed to have a good time too.

After the show, I accompanied her to her car, which was parked near my dorm. We were going to meet again tonight, but she had to go home for the weekend, so hopefully I'll see her again soon.

And now, the links.

The text of Wikipedia is made available under the GNU Free Documentation License because that was the only major free license in existence when Wikipedia was launched in 2001. Since then, Creative Commons licenses have become favorites in the free culture movement, leaving incompatibly-licensed Wikipedia out of the loop. Now, the greater Wikipedia community is voting on the possibility of dual-licensing Wikipedia and its sister projects under the GFDL and the CC Attribution-ShareAlike license, which is identical in principle but more practical for a wiki to use. If you had at least 25 edits on an account for any Wikimedia project prior to March 15, you can vote! Find out more at the CC blog. (Also, vote yes!)

The so-called EURion constellation is a pattern of circles that has appeared on banknotes around the world in recent years, apparently to help computer programs determine whether an image is of a banknote or not.

Finally, Thomas the Tank Engine Rap Remixes. Some of them are pretty good. (Via The Presurfer)

ZOMG XKCD

I heart xkcd. It could quite possibly be the webcomic to end all webcomics. I have this comic taped to my door. But I can't even remember how I found out about xkcd—probably between reading Slashdot comments and... adjusting my pocket protector or something. Snort. No, it was actually probably from my friends, a lot of whom read the comic. It's also practically a requirement for being a computer science major.

Anyway, xkcd mastermind Randall Munroe criticized the Dvorak keyboard layout in a recent comic and linked to my very own The Dvorak Keyboard and You in a follow-up blag post. It's so satisfying to see "xkcd linked here" on my Incoming Links (pictured above). This probably the best or most awesome publicity my site has ever gotten. So, when do the geeky girls start flocking to me?

Sheesh, I'm kidding.

I myself used to draw a lot of cartoons, some on paper, others on my computer. I drew stick figure comics with a friend. Weird superheroes too. I also had a whole series going that I did in MS Paint. No one has ever seen it. The characters were various flowers (with names like Flo Wer) and a rock. I don't remember too much about it, except that one time they got abducted by aliens.

I have a few examples of my work handy. This was supposed to be for my church youth group's newsletter in 2003:

I did another one, also intended for the newsletter, that had two kids taking a test. One says to the other, "What's the answer to the one that says 'Name'?" What a gem, I tell you.

And are beepers and pagers the same thing? I still don't know.

What do you do when you're trying to play Mozart on the guitar but you fail epically? Record one note at a time and splice the whole thing together. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Oh, those news anchors: What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks. (Via The Presurfer)

Someone found out about every street in the world and made a list of the ten most amazing ones: Top 10 Most Amazing Streets in the World. (Via The Presurfer)

Computers 'n' sports

As you may know, I'm the webmaster for the Dean of Students Office at my university. This week, I got a bit more experience with running a web server. The techie higher-ups wanted to move the website from a server at the DSO office (redundancy, anyone?) to a new server that they could have physical access to. Which isn't a bad idea, really, as they know more about this kind of stuff than I do.

Also, the old server runs Mac OS X 10.3 (redundancy, anyone?). That in itself is a reason to move. Do I really need fancy graphics on a web server? Think of how much more RAM and how many more CPU cycles the server software would have if windows didn't slither away as I minimized them. Do I need a graphical interface at all? And who thought shipping servers with GarageBand was a good idea? Why?

Anyway, the techie higher-ups gave me some pointers on moving the web site to the new server, which runs FreeBSD, a free operating system that deservedly enjoys wide usage among servers (including the one that brought you this page). In short, I learned a bit more about transferring and manipulating files via the command line in a Unix-like environment. It was a bit odd at first because I wasn't sure how much the guys would let me do with their machine. But before long, my co-worker Mark and I were editing configuration files, adding users, and changing the system's time zone.

And so the switch to the new server was made. A real test came yesterday when the formatting of the site started displaying incorrectly for some people. Internet Explorer 6, which some people unfortunately still use, was displaying pages on the new server wrong. For the technical types who are curious, I pinned it down to an XML declaration I had removed from the site on the new server because it conflicted with PHP's short opening tag syntax. (Yeah, you know PHP's short opening tag syntax, right?) So I edited php.ini to turn off short opening tags and added the line back, and IE 6 was placated.

For those of you who like sports, I saw Tim Tebow today. Who is Tim Tebow? He's possibly one of the greatest college football players of all time, having won the coveted Heisman Trophy between leading the Florida Gators to two national championships, all before his senior year. Men want to be him; women want to be with him. And probably vice versa in some cases. I wouldn't doubt it.

Anyway, he was on the North Lawn of the Reitz Union, where some girls were talking to him. I think they wanted to take their pictures with him. It's about the fifth time I've seen him around campus, but I never say anything to him. All I would really say is, "Hi, Tim Tebow, you're a great football player," but he's heard it all before. Still, whenever I see him, it brightens my day. Squee?

Audiobooks are awesome. Last month, I pointed out a collection of ridiculous soundbites from Barack Obama's autobiography, as read by the author. Well, it turns out that Bill O'Reilly wrote a novel and narrated the audiobook version himself. Why should you listen to these clips? Because you want to hear Bill O'Reilly describe various sexual acts, or just to hear him say, "I wish I were a lesbian." (Via waxy.org)

Fifty years ago, Buddy Holly died. Yeah, the guy mentioned the Weezer song. Anyway, he had a popular song called "Peggy Sue," which was apparently based on a real person.

Those of you in North America will probably find this familiar: Please stand by. (Via waxy.org)

In the spotlight

On Saturday, I was in a talent show with my friend Evan. I've talked a little bit about how I ended up being in it, so now I'll explain how it actually was.

I couldn't really find the place. I mean, I had directions, but it was in a part of campus I had never been to before, and I had to navigate my way through a maze of buildings. But I knew I was in the right area when Evan showed up with his ukulele. Eventually, we found someone who showed us where the auditorium was.

The Facebook page for the talent show had us listed as "Evan and Jordan [sic]" and then just "Evan and friend" for whatever reason. But we decided to be introduced as "Evan and Jordon." Meanwhile, the other acts started to show up, including Sweet City Action, an indie trio that I think I'd heard of. We introduced ourselves to one another and chatted a bit, I think. They let us borrow one of their amps, so we went with them to get their equipment from their cars.

Finally, it was time for the show to start. It was lightly attended, which was kind of a shame because there was some great talent. First was an all-female student a capella group doing a few songs, mostly new hits but also my sister's favorite jam, "I Want to Break Free." They were good.

And let's see, there was a dance troupe, and maybe some others. And then it was time for some sweet Sweet City Action action. They were doing folksy-type stuff, I think is something other than what their name would imply to me. But still, they did some good songs and I was impressed by how multitalented each member of the group was. During their set, they played guitars, bass, piano, violin, melodica, pots and pans... did I miss any? It was a fun set.

Then it was our turn. I had decided that I wouldn't need the huge tube amp I had lugged all the way from the parking lot, so I decided to use my own little amp that I brought. It seemed to be a good choice. After setting up, we were situated on the stage to do our own song, a song I wrote five years ago. I thought back to the last talent show I was in and how everyone ridiculed me for staying still on the stage. So I shifted a bit, but I think it was also due to nerves.

As I was playing, I realized that I was holding the pick sideways and that there was nothing I could do to fix it short of stopping the song. It's possible to play holding your pick the wrong way, but it's harder and less pleasant. But I persisted, shuffling here and there, looking around, and trying not to get too close to the mike, which was pretty sensitive.

Before I knew it, I was done with the song. For a brief moment, silence. I stepped back and said "Thank you guys" before the small audience applauded. Then we got our stuff off the stage and sat with Evan's girlfriend while enjoying the last act, a Hispanic duo from Tampa. They had the longest set by far, but it was good stuff.

Then the show was over, and there were free burritos for everyone. I had my share. I got several comments about the song being good, which I appreciated. Evan helped Sweet City Action take their stuff back to their cars and I, not having anything to carry, just chatted with them. One of them, I found out, plays the bells in the bell tower some days. You can take a class to learn how.

So, that was the talent show. No video, unfortunately. In a way, it was nice to play in front of an audience, and I wish I could do it some more if I had a band that would want to play my songs. And then we could record stuff too. Just what I always wanted.

Yesterday, I quietly launched RTS-SMS, my text messaging service thing for buses in Gainesville, after getting permission from the company that tracks the buses. I'm interested in seeing how popular my service can get with as little promotion as possible on my part. But I think I'll start plugging it soon.

Because there was football yesterday: here's a fun little video about how they draw the yellow first-down line on the screen.

The 'ship

"We're goin' to the 'ship! We're goin' to the 'ship!"

A month ago, the #2-ranked Florida Gators football team beat #1 Alabama to win the Southeastern Conference championship. All around campus, people were celebrating: honking their car horns, taking to the streets, running around in the football stadium. Winning your conference championship is a big deal, but this was something more. By being so highly ranked and winning such a big game, we were virtually guaranteed to be picked for the national championship game, and everybody knew it, particularly this guy from my floor who, during a postgame car ride, stuck his head out the sunroof and shouted that we were going to the 'ship while trying to elicit hoots and hollers from passersby.

Tonight, the Gators will try to win their second national championship in three years. The 2006 championship game (in January 2007) was held in Arizona, but this one will be closer to home, in Miami. I thought about entering the lottery for student tickets, but I would have automatically been charged $175 if I had won, and the tickets are non-transferable. This doesn't sound so bad except that I had no idea how I'd get there. (I would have had to hope that other friends with cars also got tickets.) So I will remain in Gainesville, six hours away, for the game. It's such a shame, too. I live down by Miami, and I saw Dolphin Stadium on my way back from the zoo on Monday. The Florida Gators' and Oklahoma Sooners' logos were hanging up on a giant banner.

If you were to come to Gainesville today, you would see that something big is about to go on. In anticipation of fans storming University Avenue like last time, the police department isn't allowing cars to park there today. There's a cage around the new alligator statue (which, incidentally, commemorates the 2006 championship) outside the football stadium. And my 8:30 class is canceled tomorrow even though the president of the university doesn't want classes to be interrupted (unlike two years ago, when he was apparently more lax about it).

Oh yeah. Yesterday was my first day of classes. They don't seem too bad yet, although we've hardly done anything. I have a friend I can sit with in each of my classes, and two of them are in the same room one after the other. I guess that's the good thing about getting big into your major.

In my last post, I mused about getting a Flickr account so I could share my photos with the world. Here's a pretty cool reason to have one: a guy allowed his one of his Flickr pictures to be used in Iron Man.

One of the great things about new things is that you can go back and discover things that are kind of like it that are really old. Here's the oldest known lolcat, from 1905.