Kate’s visit, part two

Let’s continue this story.

Sunday, January 10, got off to a slow start. I hadn’t been online much in the past few days, so I was surprised to hear that Ocala and other relatively nearby cities had recorded snow. Gainesville didn’t get so much as a flake.

On my list of places to visit was the Florida Museum of Natural History, located next to the Harn Museum of Art, where we had gone the day before. This time, we made it a group thing, with Andy’s dad driving Kate, Andy, and me to the museum.

I had been looking forward to seeing the museum’s butterfly garden, which is probably the star attraction of the whole place. I hadn’t been there since 2005, before I even considered enrolling at UF. I remember my first visit fondly, but apparently I didn’t actually like it that much. I noted at the time that I

could see butterflies flying around everywhere and stuff. Some were small, some were big, some were bright, dark, old, young, whatever. But there were a whole lot of them. I wasn’t at ease with the whole situation. Butterflies and colleges scare me.

This time, the weather meant that our trip to the butterfly garden was kind of a bust. The plants were all covered up due to the cold. Also, the butterflies were going into quasi-hibernation, said a random worker who was so bored that she decided to act as a tour guide for us. They were just lying around on the ground. She would pick one up and open its wings to show us, but some of them broke when she did that. They were dead.

To make up for the freezing-cold walk through the covered garden with dead butterflies lyin’ all over the place, they let us go into the Rearing Lab, where the butterflies (and moths, to be politically correct) are reared. It was there we encountered the mighty Atlas moth, the world’s largest. I remembered seeing one during my last visit, but I think it was a specimen. In the lab, there were a few just hanging out, and one was flying around. You could hear its wings flap. It was intense.

One of the guys at the rearing lab gave us some fun behind-the-scenes facts. He said they were keeping a lot of the butterflies and moths in the lab instead of letting them go out into the butterfly garden, where they might freeze to death. In lieu of fruit, many of them fed on sugar from Q-Tips soaked in—what else?—Gatorade.

After going to the museum, Andy’s dad treated us to dinner at Olive Garden. Kate seemed to like it, so that was good. I think it was a lot of food for her, so she took her leftovers home and I helped her finish them later.

The next day was Monday. Kate wasn’t ready by the time I had to go to work, so she decided to stay behind and meet me on campus for lunch. When lunchtime rolled around, she said she wouldn’t be able to make it (I think she was catching up on sleep), so she agreed to meet me when I got off of work. That would have been all fine and good, except I had to stay late because I’d just received the files for the new Multicultural and Diversity Affairs web site, and they had to go up that day.

So Kate met me at work while I was working late and got to see some of the typical things I do. She works with databases and programming and stuff like that, so it wasn’t unfamiliar to her. I was worried that she would be bored though, so we looked up things to do. It turned out that they were going to screen The Invention of Lying at the student union, so we decided to go to that. On the way there, I called my friend Natasha to wish her a happy birthday.

I liked the movie, and so did Kate. After that, she got an ice cream cone, and I helped her eat it while we were waiting for the bus home.

Kate actually posted this link on my Facebook page a while back. It’s a quiz called “Can You Guess Where My Accent Is From?” See if you can beat my score of 23.

Here’s a CPU-hungry but cool Flash animation about planetary orbits. (Via The Presurfer)

Thoughts on Russia

Christmas went well. My uncle came over for dinner with his girlfriend, whom we hadn’t yet met. I thought it was interesting to have a new person with us for Christmas dinner. I sometimes wonder what situations that are familiar to me would be like to an outsider, and I was pleased to imagine that an outsider would be happy with us and our feast. (Corollary: I worry a lot about what people think of me. Example: I shouldn’t have used the word “corollary” because people will think I’m a nerd.)

After dinner, my dad wanted to watch the video of the Christmas play that my sister and I were in a few years ago. Since our tapes weren’t labeled, we ended up going through (and getting sidetracked by) videos from our trip to North Carolina and the first youth group comedy night. Eventually, we did find the play, and we watched it. I forgot that everyone did a pretty good job with their acting (except for me because I played Santa Claus and had to wear a fake beard that kept riding up my face).

Yesterday, I went to the mall with my sister and our friend Kevin. I didn’t have a monthly calendar for next year, so I bought a calendar of vintage UF football game program cover artwork. I like UF football, and I like nostalgia. I didn’t even know there were programs for football games back in the day. Do they still have them? Are they only for the rich people in the boxes?

My friend Katja, or Katya, or Kate, who will be visiting soon, had a question for me about her native Russia. She wanted to know about my honest impressions of the country and how I imagine life to be like there.

The main thing that sticks out in my memory from what I’ve heard and read is that the police are said to be corrupt, and that they’ll stop your car and arrest you if you don’t give them money. Russia is also home to some illegal music downloading sites and some news sites with dubious stories. Vladimir Putin seems to be portrayed in the Western media as power-hungry, particularly since he’s become Prime Minister. So my overall impression is that Russia is a place where the rule of law is not taken very seriously. I think it’s also very cold.

I want to stress that I don’t have any ill will toward Russia or Russians. This is exactly the kind of answer Katja was looking for: maybe not factual but what I have been led to believe. I’m sure that Russia is a nice place to visit and that any of the bad things I mentioned, if true, are not too prevalent. If I went there, I doubt I would have to bribe the police, and it might even be warm. I know that some people have bad impressions of America (for example, South Koreans think our beef is all tainted due to maybe a single incident), but it’s really not a bad place to live (as long as you can get health insurance).

So, I’m curious. What impressions do my non-USA readers have about the USA?

Is it too late for a Christmas-related link? Read about Sweden’s tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve. (Via waxy.org)

This was pretty depressing to read. I didn’t realize that rape was so common and that women were so… aware of it. Schrödinger’s Rapist: Or a Guy’s Guide to Approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced. (Via mcgees.org)

Christmas 2009

So I guess they actually did spend twelve days celebrating Christmas back in the old days. That must have been fun. We’ve had three, pretty much. It started on Wednesday night when my grandparents came over and we had surf ‘n’ turf for dinner. We don’t have steak a lot, and I’d only had lobster once before, but I can’t remember where. It wasn’t too long ago. The archives don’t help, but they remind me that the dinner was quite bovine and homarine.

Also on Wednesday, my dad found an 1897 Liberty Head nickel in some change and gave it to me. I’d grade it as Very Good to Fine or thereabouts. Coin collecting is an expensive hobby unless you can scavenge through a lot of change.

After dinner, my sister and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which we had taped (omg you guys still use vhs vcr video casette tapes? what the heck) from a recent airing on the Disney Channel. Surprisingly, there were only three commercial breaks, and the credits were left intact. In fact, I don’t think anything was cut out from the film either. It was a Christmas miracle.

For Christmas Eve, we did the whole church thing and then went home and opened a few gifts. My dad got new cell phones for everybody. I’m evaluating mine and will let you know what I think about it later. Then we had another feast for dinner. It consisted of finger foods like wings, shrimp, and chips ‘n’ dips. What says “Merry Christmas” better than seven-layer dip? Maybe the desserts, but that’s it.

And today, it’s Christmas. The cell phone was my Big Present of the Year, but I also got some clothes and other things that are nice to have. Plus, I have more gifts coming in the mail from friends and family, so maybe we can stretch this Christmas out a little further. In a few hours, we’ll have dinner, which is the same as our Thanksgiving dinner because it’s too good to have just once a year.

And now, a special Christmas edition of Ask Jordon!

Shannon: Why exactly are you an atheist?

I didn’t ignore you, Shannon! I got this question months ago and have been working on a response. The result is a new page, Why I Am an Atheist. You can also find if you click on… can anyone guess? Yes, Articles! Good job.

I don’t have any Christmas-related links, so you’ll have to settle for these secular links that are destroying Christmas.

A song whose lyrics consist of sampled movie and TV quotes: The Golden Age of Video. (Via waxy.org)

Here’s another video with movie quotes: specifically, movie titles as spoken in the movies themselves. (Via waxy.org)

Some weather

The winners never say “It’s only a game…”

Remember how college football equals epic drama?

In September of last year, the Florida Gators suffered an embarrassing loss to Ole Miss at home. After the game, Tim Tebow, the Gators’ star quarterback, promised that no one would work harder than he would for the rest of the season. The Gators went on to win every game, including their conference championship and the national championship. The words of “The Promise” were etched onto a plaque outside the stadium. Tebow led the Gators through this season undefeated as well, for a total of 22 victories in a row.

The fun came to an end tonight as Alabama crushed Florida to win the conference championship.

I was watching at my friend Andrea’s apartment. All of us—she, her boyfriend, her other friends, and I—were on edge the whole time. The Gators never led in the game. A comeback looked less and less likely. Finally, the score was 32-13 in the fourth quarter, and the announcers were declaring it over. Alabama had possession and took a knee. Tim Tebow cried. He had already played the last home game of his career. The team’s hopes for a repeat national title were ruined.

A lot of thoughts were going around in my mind. I was tense. I could feel my heart beating in my stomach. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time, and I have had some pretty bad times. I thought about how I could cheer myself up. If I had a bottle, I would drink. If I had a girl, I would kiss her. But there was nothing I could do. I wondered if I was the only person in the room who felt this way. Everyone else seemed to be laughing it off. Maybe they were just coping better.

Rather than sticking around to watch more TV, we went out. I kept my sweater on over my Gators shirt. We went to the mall, where I couldn’t help but see tons of Gators merchandise for sale. We walked around for a little bit, I guess to get some milkshakes. I got one. Then we went to Target, where there was also tons of Gators merchandise in view. Andrea and some of the others bought cases of Dr Pepper, which happened to be the main sponsor of tonight’s game.

I felt like it was letting it get to me too much, but I didn’t want to say that because then everyone else would know it was getting to me too much. I think they all could tell, anyway. (If not, I’ve just blown my cover.) They took me back to my apartment, and to my dismay, I realized it was only nine o’clock. I had been counting on plopping right into bed, but it was too early. Oh, the world can be cruel sometimes.

I know, I know. This is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about. It is only a game. It’s an hour of bulky sociology majors trying to move an oddly-shaped ball from one end of a field to the other in short bursts. It’s not politics. It’s not love. It’s not like anyone died.

This is where I would rebut those potential criticisms and point out why it is in fact important, but I’m coming up short. All I know is that a lot of people had their hopes riding on this season, and that everyone who hates the Gators will have a field day. Actually, thanks to the magic of Facebook, I can tell that they already are. I guess that’s the worst part for me since I have thin skin. Being a loser isn’t fun.

Yes, this post is going to look stupid in the distant or not-so-distant future. But I don’t know which is worse: feeling sad about this or knowing that it doesn’t matter. When I’m feeling down about something, I want it to believe it’s important, so I’d rather not hear optimistic words of wisdom, even though they often are true.

Meanwhile, the struggle between emotion and reason goes on. So, in spite of myself, I’d like to offer the following. Feel free to hold hands with the people next to you and sing along.

We are the boys from old Florida,
F-L-O-R-I-D-A,
Where the girls are the fairest,
The boys are the squarest
Of any old state down our way.

We are all strong for old Florida,
Down where the old Gators play.
In all kinds of weather,
We’ll all stick together
For F-L-O-R-I-D-A.

Here’s something few people will be interested in: A Literary Appreciation of the Olson/zoneinfo/tz Database. (Via waxy.org)

Watch old movies you’ve never heard of at Classic Cinema Online. (Via Lifehacker)

Playing Russian roulette with the Black Jack Taco?

Recently, I was enjoying lunch at Taco Bell with a friend when she pointed out that the food I was eating wasn’t particularly healthy. Normally, that wouldn’t put me off too much—I knew where we were, after all—but I heard her out.

I was eating the new Black Jack Taco, which is a standard taco but with pepper jack sauce and a black (or very dark blue) shell. She said that there must have been a lot of food coloring in the shell and that it was carcinogenic—as in, cancer-causing.

Pish-posh, I said. It wasn’t like I was eating a lot of them. I had only had this exotic taco a few times.

It didn’t matter, she said. Even if you’ve only had it once, you’re not off the hook. If you’re unlucky, you could end up getting cancer from one drag of a cigarette, a single sunburn—or, apparently, a black taco.

Could it be true? And if so, how could the FDA allow such a thing?

I decided to find out what kind of dye was used in the Black Jack Taco and whether it was dangerous at all. But Taco Bell apparently had other ideas. Their list of ingredients of ingredients only mentions regular taco shells, not the dyes they use for some menu items:

Corn, Vegetable Oil (May Contain One Or All Of The Following: Soybean, Corn, Or Cottonseed Oil), Oat Fiber, TBHQ (Used As A Preservative).

A handy tooltip reveals that TBHQ is tertiary butylhydroquinone, but you probably knew that already. Wikipedia says it in fact may cause cancer in large amounts, but that wasn’t what I was trying to find out here.

Their Black Jack Taco page isn’t helpful either; it just gives nutrition facts and allergen information. (The taco doesn’t contain wheat. Yay?) Google searches turn up nothing but puzzled reviews and people saying, “It’s dye, right?”

I guess there’s no way to know what sort of food coloring is used without asking Taco Bell themselves. I could try, but it would probably be off the menu by the time they got back to me. In fact, it might already be off the menu now. Their special offers don’t stick around very long.

As for my lunch: I finished the Black Jack Taco without much hesitation, but I haven’t touched one since.

And now, the links:

Clips from one episode of The Jay Leno Show raise the question: Is Jay Leno a corporate shill? (Via waxy.org)

Yet another interpretation of the Super Mario Bros. theme music, this time by a band called Gameboys. It’s very well done! (Via waxy.org)

Modern times

If you watched the premiere of ABC’s Modern Family on Wednesday night, then you saw my childhood best friend in his first TV appearance.

I met Reid when I started kindergarten at St. Elizabeth’s, where we went to school together through the eighth grade. From the beginning, he could always make me laugh with his irreverent sense of humor. And it usually only went one way: I took pride in the rare moments when I could get him to laugh. Through elementary school, we spent a lot of time together, from the playground to each other’s houses.

One Friday after school, Reid and I were with a bunch of friends, and, using our imaginations the way kids do, we improvised a Star Wars/sci-fi parody. The next day, we all went to Reid’s house and reprised our roles in “Dumb Wars” for his video camera. Other videos soon followed, mainly starring Reid, me, my sister, and a couple of our other friends (shout-out to Casey, a WoS reader). We would meet at Reid’s house, come up with a plot, and then shoot it, using the house for scenery and anything we could find for props.

By the time we were in junior high, Reid was starring in children’s theater productions. Our class would take field trips to see him in plays like Sleepy Hollow and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the latter, he shared the stage with Dan Marino‘s son. Everyone thought that was cool. I was spending most of my time with other friends by then, but we were still friends.

After eighth grade, I didn’t see him very much. He went to an arts high school up in West Palm Beach. I would get invitations to his plays with the children’s theater, and I went to them when I could. I also made it to one of his school productions. Although I caught up with him at least once, contact was sparse.

Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been able to find out what Reid’s been up to since high school. Recently, he moved to California. Last year, I got word that he had starred in a (live-action) pilot for Toon Disney (now Disney XD, apparently). And a few weeks ago, I heard he’d be in a pilot that was actually going to air on network TV: a show called Modern Family. He was even in the show’s trailer, which I watched online.

I was thrilled to see the pilot episode on Wednesday night. The show is a mockumentary (my favorite genre) that follows the antics of an extended family. Reid plays Dylan, a high-school senior who comes to visit the teenage daughter, and hilarity ensues. He doesn’t have a lot of lines, and he’s only in a couple of scenes, but he’s got some good moments. I liked the show.

Reid told me he’s in a few more episodes for the season, so be on the lookout. In the meantime, you can check out his IMDb page, where somebody’s even started a discussion thread. The pilot episode is available (for now) on Hulu; you can watch it here. Or maybe you just want to watch his scenes (with context): 1, 2.

I’m really happy for Reid. He’s doing what he’s always wanted to do, and I’m sure that’s not the last you’ll see of him.

And now, the links:

Wikipedia has a list of tri-state areas. I thought it was kind of interesting.

passiveaggressivenotes.com features photos of funny notes posted for people to read.

Blue tape

During my freshman year, I was hanging out with some members of Gator Freethought after a meeting, and I mentioned my plan to start an Esperanto club. The president of Gator Freethought offered me a word of caution.

It’s a lot of work to start a club, he said. “There’s a lot of red tape.”

One thing that student organization presidents have to do is attend a training session at the beginning of each year. They mostly just go over the rules that you had to go over yourself to renew your club’s registration a week or two ago. But, in any case, there are a few morsels of new information.

As I found out at a training session on Wednesday, one of the new rules for this year is that organizations can bring “outside” food into meetings as long as it doesn’t have to be temperature controlled. Previously, clubs had to rely on the student union’s catering service for all their food needs. (Their pizza is the worst I’ve ever had, so that’s a welcome change.)

The woman explaining the new rules mentioned as an afterthought that we couldn’t bring non-Pepsi products to meetings.

Wait, what? Yeah. You should have heard the uproar in the room.

Apparently, since UF has a deal to sell Pepsi everywhere on campus and tout it as the official soft drink of the Gator Nation or whatever, student organizations—which, as the presenter stressed in another part of the program, are not part of the university—are bound by that sponsorship deal as well. Capitalism rears its ugly head, stifling consumer choice and common sense.

Where does it end? Are Coca-Cola’s Hi-C juice boxes out of the question? If I want to bring oatmeal to a meeting, does it have to be made by PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats? How much money is the university getting from this stupid deal, and could it be had without making personae non gratae out of those who have the good sense to spit in the face of its stifling provisions?

Since then, I’ve noticed that the ubiquitous Pepsi machines around campus say “Thanks for Choosing Pepsi.” Some choice we have, all right.

So, the university gives everybody some free web space. Not many people know about or take advantage of the offer because it’s not 1996 anymore, but I thought I’d put my own space to good use.

As viewed from a campus IP address (and forwarded to my screen by SSH tunneling):

And from off-campus:

A real ’50s instructional film: Dating: Do’s and Don’ts. It’s in color, too! (Part of the film is missing, hence the lack of an introduction.)

Famous films edited down to (about) five seconds: 5 Second Movies.

And finally, I know this site isn’t new, but I’ve never linked to it here before: Will It Blend?

PR blitz

I was sick last weekend (for the millionth time, I did not have the swine flu), and then I had a busy week.

Why was my week so busy? I’ve been preparing for the Esperanto Club’s first meeting of the year. Per a reader’s request, I’ll answer some questions about the club here.

The club is simply called the Esperanto Club. We sometimes use the qualifier “…at UF” to distinguish it from other Esperanto clubs. Our Facebook group is our online source of information. We post announcements and relevant links there. We typically teach the language at our meetings, but we’ll probably branch out to other topics once people get the hang of it.

For this year’s first meeting, Andy and I are going to talk about how we got around Europe with Esperanto. I wrote to my friend at a student-run newspaper asking her to write a story (she hasn’t responded), I submitted a short description for the newspaper’s “What’s Happening” column (it was published yesterday and will probably continue to run), I submitted a 500-word guest article to the newspaper (nothing has come from that, of course), and I submitted a description to the daily e-mail newsletter for honors students (it was published yesterday and will continue to run) and to the general university e-mail newsletter (which goes out on Mondays). Oh, and Andy and I manned a table at the Student Organization Fair all day Thursday.

Our presentation, “Breaking Down Borders with Esperanto,” will take place on Tuesday evening. On the off chance that a UF student or Gainesvillian is reading this and hasn’t heard of the event before and would be interested in going, here’s the event page with more details.

The New York Times has an interactive graph showing How Different Groups Spend Their Day. (Via J-Walk Blog)

After the recent death of John Hughes, a woman wrote about how she had been the Hollywood director’s pen pal when she was a teenager. A touching story. (Via waxy.org)

When could you tell your relationship was over? It Was Over When… (Via J-Walk Blog)

Yawn

Besides being a blog, The World of Stuff is a bunch of stuff. Over the years, I’ve added new pages that defy categorization. Nonetheless, I’ve been trying for a long time to keep each extraneous page one of a few neat, little boxes. It’s not working.

Currently, the navigation links are Blog, Archives, Geek, Writing, Video, Fun, Store, and About. Of these, the Blog, Archives, and Video pages are worth leaving alone. They do their job well. It’s the Geek, Writing, and Fun pages I’m most concerned about. They’re not very intuitive. (Would you expect to find Ultimate Cool Characters in Geek, Writing, or Fun? It’s in Geek.)

I’m thinking of splitting up those three categories into the following four categories. (The current category for each page is in parentheses.)

Articles:

• Free Your Computer with Linux (Geek)
• Finding the Day of the Week (Writing)
• Courtesy Autographs on US Currency (Writing)
• Tredici (Fun)
• Being Left-Handed (Writing)
• The Dvorak Keyboard and You (Geek)

Fiction or Creative:

• PLEASE READ THIS!!!1 (Writing)
• The Prisoners (Writing)
• Romeo and Juliet: A Sock Puppet Adaptation (Writing)

Reference:

• Using IRC on UF DHNet (Geek)
• Kalilić/Kalilich Family Genealogy (Writing)
• Donation Information for Free Content Projects (Geek)
• Fix for Ubuntu Hard Drive Problem (Geek)
• “Click Here” Around the World (Fun)
• Minor Scale Chart Thing (Fun)
• Ultimate Cool Characters (Geek)

Interactive:

• RTS-SMS (Fun)
• From Canada with Love (Fun)
• Fake Cyrillic Generator (Fun)
• Greasemonkey User Scripts (Geek)
• Ask Jordon (Fun)

If I were going to change up all these organizational things, which I probably will, then I’d also change the name of the About page to “Meta” at the risk of alienating the 98% of the population who don’t know what “meta” means. It’s because I have not only About Me, About the Site, and Donations, but also press coverage of the site.

As for the store… the store makes me sigh. No one’s ever bought anything from it. Looks like I’m going to need another way to effortlessly make money while promoting my blog.

By the way, all of the above is up for discussion; that’s why I’m posting it here. Let me know what you think. Ideas for effortlessly making money while promoting the site are particularly welcome.

Awesome video: a complete Goonies reunion. (Via waxy.org)

Roomba + camera + time = Roomba time exposure. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Here are some rare and interesting mental disorders and illnesses you’ve probably never heard of. (Via The Presurfer)

nm u?

This semester’s schedule has been pretty easy to get used to: class, work, lunch, class, work. The only thing that’s odd is living off campus. I can’t just go home if I have a free period. Moving from a dorm to an apartment is like moving from a summer camp to a house… sort of. I’m away all day, anyway.

On the bus, I pass by my dormitory of two years, Hume Hall. I notice that they’ve done some landscaping, and I wonder how they could have afforded it if there’s some sort of budget crisis going on. I also think about the friends I made there last year. Many of them have returned to Hume and tried to get rooms on the same floor. All in all, I made more friends there last year than I did the year before. They were mostly freshmen last year, but they felt like equals to me.

Work has been good. I’m still the Dean of Students Office webmaster, a job I got to keep over the summer thanks to the miracle of the Internet. This week, I finally got to meet the new graphic artist, who started while I was gone. I would e-mail her from Europe because sometimes I needed to work with images, and I didn’t want to risk installing the GIMP on the little netbook that Andy and I had bought.

The big project at work lately has been moving sections of the web site to their own subdomains per an organizational shake-up. Much of this was done over the summer by another webmaster in the department. The work was finally finished yesterday. Now the web site I’m responsible for is smaller, but this just marks another chapter in my webmasterdom. The Interim Dean of Students has some ideas for improving the web site, and I have some of my own. Can I say this stuff? Probably. I’m not giving away state secrets or anything.

One of my new professors says the key to success with schoolwork is to have it on your mind constantly. But at the end of the first week of the semester, that’s the last thing I want to think about. Last night, I did something I don’t do very much at all: I channel-surfed. Back-to-back Family Guy, car chases, Joe Biden eulogizing Ted Kennedy, The Land Before Time, a live-action show on Cartoon Network, an old college football game, news about kidnapped people, Tropic Thunder, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Al Jazeera, Craig Ferguson’s stand-up. Who says Friday night TV is a wasteland?

Sugar Stacks lets you see how much sugar is in popular foods. (Via The Presurfer)

Did you know you can easily create a book of Wikipedia articles? PediaPress makes it possible.

A ’50s-style instructional film: Facebook Manners and You. (Via The Presurfer)