Our first stop was the lighthouse, a short ride away. This would be our second visit to a lighthouse; we had visited the Hillsboro Inlet lighthouse in January. I couldn't help but compare the two lighthouses. Most notably, the Hillsboro lighthouse is only open to visitors a few days per year, while the St. Augustine lighthouse is only not open to visitors a few days per year. The former is still owned and operated by the US Coast Guard, while the latter is not.

The St. Augustine lighthouse is also more impressive overall. It's taller, and it has that classic conical lighthouse shape. We spent a while at the top of the lighthouse even though there were a lot of other people there. It was a nice day, and the breeze was strong but refreshing. After going back down, we checked out the adjacent museum and, of course, signed the guestbook.

Kate had wanted to go to the beach, so the next stop on our bicycle journey was Anastasia State Park. At the park, we ate some overpriced hamburgers and then went to the beach. It was a very wide beach with shallow water. After briefly going into the water, we decided to lie in the sun. I had grabbed a couple of towels from for us our host's bathroom (with his permission, of course), and I unraveled mine to find that half of it was labeled "FACE" and the other half was labeled "BUTT." Kate thought it was hilarious.

If there's one thing I hate, it's putting on sunscreen. It's greasy and smelly and makes a mess. So I didn't put on any sunscreen, and neither did Kate. Instead, we just lay. After a while, we were incredibly sunburned, and we decided to go back to our host's to relax. But a short stay turned into a long one, and by the time we went out on our bikes again it was getting dark.

I wanted to take Kate to see the scenic campus of Flagler College, so that's where we went. We spent a lot of time taking photos of the buildings (especially Kate, with her new camera) and then just talking. We were tired, having had a long couple of days. And it was pretty quiet, with only the occasional horse and buggy going by with an annoying tour guide and some family inside.

After a while, I thought we should head back; I didn't want to be out too late. At our host's place, Kate and I had some frozen dinners that we had bought at the grocery store. Not long after, we laid our sore, sunburned selves down to sleep.

Read about The Origins of 10 Nicknames. (Via The Presurfer)

Really interesting: Top 10 Codes You Aren't Meant To Know. I'll never think of stores the same way again. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Kate was a seasoned Greyhound pro by this time, but I had never ridden with them before. In fact, I would venture to guess that not many people have. Besides that it's inconvenient for a majority of Americans (i.e., the ones who have cars), I think there's a sort of stigma attached to bus travel in this country. I was about to find out whether there was any reason for that.

Our bus pulled up, and we made our way on. The bus seemed decent enough—there was a good amount of leg room—but we changed seats to get away from some people who were talking. (There are no assigned seats, but you can't sit in the very front. I don't even know why they have the seats there if you can't sit in them, but that turned out to be the rule in every Greyhound bus that I rode on. Maybe someone can enlighten me.)

The bus set off for Jacksonville, where we would have a brief layover. I had only made the trip from Gainesville to Jacksonville once, so it wasn't really familiar to me. You pass by Gainesville's cute little airport, and then for most of the trip you're traveling through small towns in the middle (or, to be fair, probably closer to the edge) of nowhere. You also pass by the Florida State Prison.

It was near here that I happened to notice the bus driver talking on his cell phone. We were driving through a small city—I guess it was Starke—but that was no excuse for his behavior. Still, I was feeling more non-confrontational than concerned. I decided to complain to Greyhound later, but even then I forgot. I think Kate did it. The driver talked for about ten minutes, and when he wasn't talking, he was singing. Why don't more people ride Greyhound??

To pass the time and try to ignore the merry bus driver, I continued reading Of Human Bondage, which I was eager to finish by the end of Kate's visit so we could talk about it. Kate was busy taking pictures with the new camera that I had bought for her. It was a Pentax K-x, a DSLR, and I agreed to give it to her as a gift to help offset the cost of her flying all the way here from Russia. She's a photography nut just like me, although she's more serious about it than I am. I don't see myself wanting an SLR anytime soon.

It wasn't long before we reached the Greyhound station in the metropolis of Jacksonville. It was a relatively large building with a number of "gates" that different buses could pull up to. (These were nothing more than a row of numbered doors, each of which corresponded to a bus-sized parking space outside.) We didn't have long to wait, and in the meantime a poster imploring runaways to call a particular hotline for help tickled my fancy. Stigma, stigma, stigma.

Next, we hopped on the bus heading for St. Augustine. We were going to be late meeting with our host. Kate had made sleeping arrangements for us via the CouchSurfing hospitality network, and our host had volunteered to pick us up at the Greyhound station in St. Augustine. When we arrived, he and his roommate were waiting for us in their vehicle. They took us to a restaurant for a late lunch.

The restaurant was located on the water, but the water wasn't the ocean. It was a marshy, tidal sort of thing with crabs and pink birds running around, and there was a marina nearby with lots of boats. The restaurant also had a pen with a couple of baby alligators in it, and Kate and I checked them out after lunch. Then we wandered around and checked out the boats. Our hosts gladly followed us around.

Then, they took us back to their place. They lived close to the historic part of Saint Augustine, near the possibly famous Bridge of Lions. Actually, the bridge seemed to be going extensive renovations, and the lion statues had been placed in storage. So for the moment it was the Bridge of No Lions.

Later, Kate and I started to explore historic downtown St. Augustine. Kate needed a certain filter for her lens, so our first stop was a camera store that our host had looked up for us. The place turned out to be pretty sketchalicious, selling nothing but the incongruous combination of electronics and beauty supplies. There were cameras and makeup everywhere. The guy at the store had the filter she needed, and he wanted an arm and a leg for it, but Kate managed to talk him down to a more reasonable price.

With Kate's camera safe from the harmful rays of the sun, we were free to meander around some more. We made our way to Castillo de San Marcos, the historic fort that was built by the Spanish. We didn't have much time to spend there before it closed, but I was determined to make every minute count. I had only been to the fort once before, and it had been undergoing renovations, so I didn't get to see much of it. This time, we were free to walk around the courtyard and the various rooms that opened up into it. We spent a long time sitting in the old chapel. Soon after, the fort closed, and we had to leave.

From there, we walked down historic St. George St. (Saint George Street, that is), which I find charming, even if it is touristy. As Kate was taking tons of pictures of the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States, a disheveled-looking man started giving me unsolicited ideas for cheap dates, one of which involved watching some owls somewhere. I couldn't help but stay and listen since Kate was busy taking photos. Little did I know that by this point she was just snapping unflattering pictures of me torturing myself to listen to this guy.

It was getting dark, and we called for a ride to get picked up. Our host took us to a store where Kate could buy some clothes; she hadn't packed a lot because she had been counting on buying stuff in the US. She didn't find anything she wanted at either of two stores, so our next stop was the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner (and, in our host's case, for future meals).

Back at home—the place felt like home since we had our own room—we prepared dinner. Well, really, the host and Kate did most of the work. Kate cut up the chicken, the host made a sauce and got a salad together, and I was eventually tasked with helping to make some couscous. Our dinner consisted of the sauce on top of the chicken on top of the couscous with the salad on the side. And man, was it good, especially after such a big day. The conversation was good too. It turned out that the host had also been a student at UF a number of years ago, and we had even taken one of the same classes with the same professor.

By this time, it was getting to be late, so we went to bed. We would have another big day in store for us.

Here's how fraudsters make fake credit cards. (Via The Consumerist)

This video is fun (if a little annoying) to watch, but the subject matter is interesting: The surprising truth about what motivates us. (Via Lifehacker)

If it sounds pretty dang halcyon (according to Google, no one has ever said that on the Internet), like the way you would imagine the young boys of yesteryear going down for a swim at the watering hole, it's not really like that. People tend to go tubing down the Ichetucknee River at Ichetucknee Springs State Park, which may or may not be pretty crowded. And a whole cottage industry of tube rental companies has sprung up around the park so that you can stop at some little place on the side of the road, get a tube for $5, and, when you're done, leave it at the park for Jimbo 'n' pals to pick up when you're done. Not a bad setup.

The park contains several entrances to the river—on-ramps, if you will—that determine the length of time you'll spend floating downstream (there being a single place for all tubers to get out). By the time we were all ready to go, only the entrance that was furthest downstream was still open, so our journey down the river would only last about an hour.

Aside: Do you know what makes rivers flow? Rivers are formed when water comes out of a hole in the ground—this is the source of the river—and then, thanks to gravity, all this water flows toward lower ground (downstream), like when water flows down the driveway when your dad is washing the car. The ground gets lower and lower till it reaches sea level, and, voila: the water enters the ocean. Fast rivers come from mountains and stuff because they're high up, and slow, meandering rivers are found in flatter places. This is all extremely obvious, but most of it no one ever told me outright, and it only really hit me when I was in maybe high school. Because, you know, I don't often sit around, thinking about rivers and stuff.

The drive to Ichetucknee Springs State Park was longer than I remembered, and we were even concerned about making it to the last river entrance on time. I realized that we'd be driving right by my parents' new house. Kate and I had been planning to spend a few days there, so I decided to call the 'rents and ask if the three of us could have dinner there on the way back from the river. Of course, they said it was fine.

We stopped at a place for some tubes. One of the good ol' boys noted that I was wearing a Beatles shirt and said I looked like I could be one of them Beatles; he added that he just seen one of their movies the other day, great movie, the one where John Lennon has the ring stuck on his finger and the crazy Indian cult is after him tryin' to kill him and all. Great band, they were.

There weren't too many people at the park, and the three of us made our way to the entrance farthest downstream. I was the only one who had actually gone tubing before, so Kate and Andy probably didn't know that getting in was the hardest part. We were standing a metal platform just above water level. The water was moving along pretty quickly, so it wouldn't be too easy to lay down your tube and get yourself in. Andy went first. He slipped on the platform and fell into his tube. Kate got into hers awkwardly. I got into mine like a pro, but the water was really cold, so I wasn't extremely pleased either.

Since the water was moving so swiftly, Andy hung on to a nearby tree branch to wait for me and Kate. After we all got together, he managed to help Kate reposition herself on the tube so that she would be more comfortable. And then we felt free to float along, enjoy the natural scenery, and relax.

In fact, you can't spend too much time relaxing because you have to watch where you're going. The river might not take you around turns so easily, and you can find yourself running into the edge where there are sticks and spider webs and who knows what. It helps a great deal to be able to steer yourself by rowing with your hands, even if it looks silly. So it was out of necessity that Andy and Kate picked up on the art and science of being a human rowboat.

After a while, we reached the end of the river. Well, not really, but we reached the point where we had to get off. The river was roped off and there was another platform off to the side where you had to go and get out. We left our tubes at the designated area and took a tram back to the section of the park where we had started. The trams came every few minutes, but they would be fairly full. Andy had the misfortune of sitting next to a chipper scout leader who was making jokes with everyone around him. Luckily, the ride didn't last very long (although I'm sure for Andy it did).

Andy and Kate wanted to swim in the springs from which the river sprung, so we drove to the upstream part of the park. It was closed to tubing at this point, but the springs—halcyon swimming holes, if you will—would still be open for a while. I had never been to this part of the park, so it was new for me too. There were a few springs. The nearest one was filled with people, and Andy and Kate decided to swim for a minute or two before getting out. I didn't go in because the water was too cold.

But Andy and Kate insisted that I swim, so we decided to go to the spring that was farther away. It was about a ten-minute walk through a wooded path, and only a few other people were there. We went into the water. It was extremely cold, and I swam around frantically, perhaps all the more frantically because I was still wearing my shoes. After a minute or two, I started to get used to it, but I still wanted out. So I got out, and I was afraid that I would be freezing since I didn't have a towel. Surprisingly, I was just fine. I guess it was because there was no wind. It was always windy in South Florida, and I always dreaded getting out of the pool.

We dried off and headed toward my parents' (and I guess also my) new house. I told Andy where to turn, but he missed the turn because he couldn't see the driveway for the trees. Seriously, the entrance is pretty discreet. The mailbox by the side of the road is pretty much the only indication that anyone lives there. But Andy turned around and made his way down the dirt driveway that looks like it could be long but is actually pretty short. And then, standing amid the trees, the new house came into view.

I had only been there once, when my parents were still checking out the place. Now the place already looked like home even though they had just moved in. (The fact that we had most of the same furniture helped quite a bit.) I checked out my room, which had a new bed and was filled with boxes, most of which I didn't have to pack (but I would have if I had had the time, honest). I felt at home pretty quickly. Andy and Kate chatted it up with my parents and grandmother.

Mindful of Andy's vegetarianism, my parents made spaghetti for dinner, and everyone was pleased with how it came out. After dinner, we watched a little football on TV, it being the start of the preseason and all. But it was getting late, and we were all tired, so we decided to go back to the apartment.

But before we did that, we stopped at the Ben & Jerry's on Archer Road to get a little ice cream. Andy had almost finished his ice cream before Kate decided what she wanted, and if you don't know them, then you won't be able to tell who I'm taking a jab at by mentioning that fact. After our dessert, Kate and Andy played a card game; apparently they just have decks of cards lying around for you to hang out and play. After that, we went home. Kate and I had a big day in store for us.

The Mohammed Image Archive is a collection of images of Mohammed, spanning the entire history of Islam, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. (Via Atheist Revolution)

Have you ever heard the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism? Here, in comic book form, is the story of the scientist whose bogus study set off a wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that has yet to die down. (Via waxy.org)

I felt terrible. The day before that, I had told her that I wanted us to be just friends. And since she would be coming to visit in less than a month, I didn't know how she was going to feel about me. I really wasn't sure whether we would have a good time at all. It was bad timing on my part, but is there ever a right time for that?

I started to read the book. It was a really large book, and I was worried that I wouldn't finish it before she got here. But I read a little bit every day on the bus to and from class. At first I wasn't sure how interested I would be in it, since it seemed to be just some guy's life story. But it got more interesting, and I started chugging along.

Kate flew in to Miami on August 1 and spent the week making her way up through Florida. During that time, we texted each other with details of what we had been up to, and she told me how much she missed me. I was sorry. I missed her too. It hurts me to even think about what I said to her and how she must have felt.

I still hadn't gotten close to finishing the book on Saturday, August 7, when Andy and I went to the Greyhound bus station to pick up Kate. This was where I had last seen her over six months ago. We (or, at least, I) had gotten emotional because I didn't know when we would see each other again.

The bus arrived late, so I killed some time by reading the book. Finally, Kate's bus arrived. She stepped off the bus, and Andy and I greeted her in Esperanto, the language we usually used with her. Soon she asked if we could switch to English, so English it was.

Before she arrived, she had asked us to take her out to lunch somewhere, and she wanted it to be a surprise. Andy and I had decided on Merlion, the quiet Singaporean restaurant where he had taken me after our abortive attempt to watch a Fourth of July firework show. It was quiet there indeed, but as we slowly worked away at our dishes, the place got more and more crowded—too crowded for the staff to handle.

It was a graduation day, and a number of people had decided to make Merlion the place to celebrate. Each of us tried the others' dishes. With her dish, Kate got the "communist soup" (meat, potatoes, and not much else). Our waitress was busy with who knows how many tables, but eventually, she gave us the check.

It was already getting late, but Kate said that she wanted to go to the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, so Andy dropped us off there and went home to take a nap. I had never been to the gardens before, so it was new for me too. The weather was getting terrible by this time, and it looked like it was going to start pouring rain any second. But we decided to set out and wander on (and sometimes off) the path, admiring the various plants all around.

Toward the end of our visit, not long before Andy was going to come back and pick us up, Kate asked if I was going to hold her hand. I did, and I felt more comfortable, like everything was right with the world again. We walked to a small gazebo and watched a fake waterfall for a little while. Then we headed back to the front of the park, where Andy was waiting to pick us up.

We got back to the apartment, where Andy had written (and I had helped sign) a greeting to Kate in Russian. She got a big kick out of it. Later, Kate and I watched Kurt Cobain About a Son on her computer. Soon after, it was night. It was a wonderful night.

And now, the links:

Icons of the Web is a huge graphic showing the favicons for a few hundred thousand of the most popular sites on the Internet. The size of each site's icon is proportional to the site's popularity. Yes, theworldofstuff.com is there—it's one of the smallest icons, but it's there.

The BBC talks to some guys who make cheesy knock-offs of popular movies.

Jordon: blogs about stuff
Kirsten: blogs about herself - and then some

Jordon: living the collegiate life
Kirsten: living in a cubicle

Jordon: lives in balmy Florida
Kirsten: lives in blistering Las Vegas

Jordon: is 21 and doesn't look like he has any wrinkles or gray hairs
Kirsten: has been 29 for seven years now and while she's avoided wrinkles so far, the gray hairs are creeping in

Jordon: knows html
Kirsten: knows html, more or less

Jordon: knows php
Kirsten: knows php when she sees it but doesn't quite know what to do with it

Jordon: is a coding maniac
Kirsten: sucks at all kinds of coding

Jordon: knows what algorithms are
Kirsten: barely has any rhythm

Jordon: listens to The Beetles
Kirsten: listens to angsty chick music

Jordon: will graduate college with a 4-year degree and some career direction
Kirsten: graduated with a 2-year degree in liberal arts and still has no direction

Jordon: went to Europe and was able to meet all sorts of people because of years of dedicated, self-motivated Esperanto studies
Kirsten: went to Europe and was not able to speak to anyone despite 6 years of French studies

Jordon: puts interesting links at the end of nearly every post
Kirsten: stayed up way too late and couldn't find anything link worthy, so is encouraging everyone to go to wikipedia and just keep clicking on "Random Article" until something interesting comes along

It's a quaint idea—having photos on paper? Ha! I've used digital cameras exclusively since 2002, and you know how printers are. So I've long been content to just gaze at my photos on a screen, but now I've figured that having my favorites on nice Kodak paper wouldn't be a bad idea—think of it as a paper backup. And you can't pin lots of thin, tiny screens onto your wall (yet).

(Aside: When I was packing up all the stuff in my room a few weeks ago, I found my old cameras with film still in them. My mom got the rolls developed, and I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures [and also my mom and dad at the new house, which they started moving into on Monday].)

There are oodles 'n' kaboodles of web sites that send you prints of photos that you upload, so it was hard to pick out one. But I had heard good things about HP's Snapfish, so I decided to give it a spin.

Uploading the photos was easy enough. Snapfish offers a choice of uploading the photos at full size or scaling them down to medium size and then uploading those versions. They recommend the latter for all but the largest prints, probably because it saves a great deal of time. I was concerned that the quality of the prints would suffer, but I decided to go with their recommendation. Uploading over 100 photos didn't take long at all.

I got 20 free 4x6 prints for signing up, and I was able to get free shipping (something they normally charge a lot for) with a coupon code I found on RetailMeNot. So I ended up paying $10.44 for 136 prints (about 7.7¢ per print).

The photos arrived in a small box that contained two envelopes (like the kind you would get from having your photos developed at the drug store, except without a slot for the negatives). The first thing I noticed about the prints was that the paper was kind of thin—not super thin, but they seemed thinner than the old film prints I would get from the drug store (unless my memory is failing me). It was Kodak paper, though.

The color reproduction was pretty faithful to my monitor. I'm not an expert on colors, but a particularly colorful part of one photo seemed to be oversaturated. I don't think this would be a problem in general, though. As for the image quality, it was great. I looked as closely as I could, and I couldn't see any JPEG artifacts from the resizing. In fact, I discovered that my 14-megapixel camera produces much clearer snapshots than my old (cheap) film cameras (with cheap film) did.

All in all, I would recommend Snapfish if you can use the coupon code for free shipping. Even without it, it seems to be a pretty good deal. Sometimes you just need that paper backup.

A relevant link: Photographer Steve McCurry talks about shooting on the last roll of Kodachrome film ever produced. (Via J-Walk Blog)

That was all fine and good for a while, but I figured that that 8% could really add up over the course of a lifetime. Rather than paying a periodic fee to maintain my current habit, I could just change my habits by—dun dun dun—spending my change. So, I decided that I should carry coins around with me. But how many? And which coins?

Whenever I go out, I usually don't make more than one transaction, so I'd only have to be able to produce 0-99 cents. Recall for that any amount of money, there's a minimum number of coins you can use to make it. (I'm talking about US coins here, and I'm going to assume that people only use pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, which is generally true.)

To make change with the fewest number of coins, you use a greedy algorithm: use as many quarters as you can without going over, then dimes, then nickels, then pennies. To make 44 cents, you would use a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and 4 pennies, for a total of 7 coins. You could also use 4 dimes and 4 pennies, or 44 pennies, but with those combinations or any others, you can't beat 7 coins.

So, I decided to carry around only the coins necessary to make any amount from 1 to 99 cents with as few coins as possible:

• 3 quarters
• 2 dimes
• 1 nickel
• 4 pennies

I'd never been one to carry change around, but since I started doing this, I've realized what I've been missing out on. When I go out for a drive with my friends, I can actually contribute to the parking meter. Recently someone asked me to pay for her bus fare, and I was able to give the exact amount. I no longer have to decide whether to tip a waiter $2 or $3. And, for those times when I've run out of singles or someone just needs change for a dollar: the quarters, dimes, and nickel add up to $1.

Coincidentally, today's links also have to do with money, although in a roundabout way.

An article about the services that come with those fancy credit cards: How to Make Visa Obey Your Every Desire... with ridiculous real-life examples! (Via The Consumerist)

From Slate: Heartwarming long-lost wallet stories happen more often than you may think. (Via Josh of mcgees.org)

1. Your first post: The World of Stuff Opens, April 6, 2003.
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most: [sic]. You could say I started writing this one in junior high, when I would keep track of my teachers' many slips of the tongue. In the post, I listed some of my favorites.
3. A post which had a great discussion: Tough one. We usually don't have those around here. The discussion on Brain Damage went on for a while, though.
4. A post on someone else's blog that you wish you'd written: That would have to be The Ultimate "0.999… = 1" Guide over at Greatplay.net.
5. Your most helpful post: My Sony DSC-H55 Digital Camera Review seems to have helped a fair number of people so far.
6. A post with a title that you are proud of: Man, what post title am I not proud of? Half the time they're clever as hell. Sometimes I think of them ages in advance. I was going through some old titles, and this one made me chuckle: A Turtle (And Also the Meaning of Life).
7. A post you wish more people had read: Any post with no comments. Seriously, I think if my every post generated a huge discussion, it would compel me to write more often. Not that I don't write a lot, but I used to write more often than I do now. One post I like that seemed to go under everyone's radar was By the Way... It brings back a lot of memories for me.

I guess this post should be called "Nine Links" because here are TWO MORE LINKS!!

Here are some Useless Fliers. (Via waxy.org)

Here's a pretty extensive article about the guy Nintendo named Mario after.

Kate: What are the main problems of the US, which really affect people's lives and need to be solved as soon as possible, in your opinion?

Well, we finally got universal health care (or health insurance, or whatever), so check that one off the list. I'll admit that I'm having a hard time thinking of other things. A lot of the things I care about don't have a direct impact on people's lives.

Are they still giving tax cuts to rich people? If they are, that's going to have to stop. If anyone needs tax cuts, it's the people who, you know, have nothing.

Eh. I don't know. Obesity, maybe? We have a lot of fat people here. But there's not much you can do about that. You can tell people that they ought to exercise, but you can't drop them onto a treadmill and make them run all day. You can tell them they should eat more vegetables, but you can't tie them up and force-feed them brussels sprouts. And anyway, it doesn't bother me that other people are eating however they want, and it shouldn't. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, as they say.

I hate brussels sprouts, by the way. I would empathize.

So, I guess I don't really have a good answer to your question.

Kate: What do you like most for dessert? :)

What don't I like for dessert? I'll eat pretty much anything. That said, I like pies. I think pecan pie is my favorite. My mom made one for my birthday, and it was great. Blueberry pie is also good too.

I had no idea green screens were used so much in TV and movies. Here's a four-minute video showing many a green screen scene. (Via The Presurfer)

Some guy spent 24 hours in a Super Walmart. (Before you get too confused, he replaces profanity with other random words.) (Via The Consumerist)

Q: Why is the drinking age 21 and not 18?

A: The Florida Legislature has the power to set the drinking age, and that's what they've decided is appropriate.

In other words, the classic because-we-said-so argument with which we are all familiar. (For the real answer, read about the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The history of alcohol purchase age limits by state is also interesting.)

Anyway, Tuesday was my 21st birthday. After I wrote my birthday blog post, I continued studying until the exam (except for a brief study break at Taco Bell). I was gradually joined with other people in my class, and we all sort of ended up commiserating. That's always fun. The exam itself was pretty challenging, but I don't think it was harder than the last one, which I got a pretty good grade on, all things considered.

By the time I was done with my exam, it was already 9:30. Andy picked me up, and we went to Gainesville Ale House on Archer Road. Andrea met us there. I picked the place because it was one of the only restaurants in town I'd ever been to that was open after 11 PM (the others being the Original Pizza Palace and Chili's). Plus, there would be a wide variety of alcoholic drinks to choose from if I so desired.

I so desired. I needed to unwind after that exam. After much deliberation, I decided to get a whiskey and soda (Jack and Pepsi, to be exact). I almost thought the waitress wasn't going to card me, but she did. To eat, of course, I got a burger. Since this establishment was half-bar, they had a trivia contest going on, with the questions and answers being announced over the speakers. The three of us put our heads together and got most of the questions right, although we didn't actually participate.

Andrea had the audacity to ask the waitress whether I would get a free desert. She said I could get a free slice of ice cream cake and brought one out. The three of us enjoyed it together. Andy covered my part of the check since he owed me money (it's a good thing he remembered because I didn't). Then, Andy and I went back to our apartment, where Andy had decorated the living room with balloons and other birthday decorations as a surprise. We threw the balloons around for a little while. After midnight had passed, I started working on homework.

I report my music listening habits to last.fm because I enjoy seeing the statistics. Here are some more statistics for last.fm users: The Obscurometer tells you how obscure your musical tastes are compared to others'. Apparently, my obscurity level is 30.1%, and my musical tastes are more obscure than 27.9% of all users.

This article does a great job of explaining how The RIAA and MPAA Have Failed to Understand a Cultural Shift. Everyone who doesn't understand why the RIAA and MPAA's tactics are wrong should read it.