The Sun and the Alligator have provided an overview of last week's incident. To make a long story short, the student had been threatening people and was getting violent, so the police shot him in the head with an assault rifle after other attempts to subdue him failed. I'm not going to pass judgment on this one for fear of coming up on the wrong side of public opinion. I just hope it gets resolved before it can tarnish the value of my yet-to-be-earned degree.

I went in for an eye exam on Monday. I had been scheduled for one over the summer, but I missed it due to my trip to Europe, so I was overdue. The last time I went, the doctor said I was slightly farsighted and wrote me a prescription for glasses in case I felt I would need them. I knew my vision could only get worse, so I wasn't looking forward to this visit.

Imagine my surprise when the doctor said that my farsightedness had corrected itself. Apparently that's possible at my age. Another crisis averted... for now.

For your viewing pleasure, here's the archetypal Academy Award-Winning movie trailer. (Via waxy.org)

I had no idea that our governor was such a jerk. Here's how Charlie Crist deals with atheists. (Via Pharyngula)

Enter a number, and Number Gossip will tell you some fun facts about it. (Via J-Walk Blog)

I typically have Rhythmbox sort my songs in alphabetical order by title, and I've noticed some pairs of songs that have exactly the same titles. Out of 2,493 songs, there are 21 duplicates, which is more than I expected. (I didn't count different versions of the same song.) As you might expect, the titles are pretty generic. You probably haven't heard of all of the artists.

• "Because" (The Beatles, Dave Clark Five)
• "Changes" (Bridget Kelly, David Bowie)
• "Free" (Dubious Quip, Hobo Twang)
• "Goodbye" (Hootie and the Blowfish, Sean Fournier)
• "Holiday" (Persson, Weezer)
• "How Long" (Allison Crowe, Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band)
• "Intro" (Ampiphy, WhiteRoom)
• "It's a Beautiful Day" (MoOt, Persson)
• "It's Over" (Harbinger, Persson)
• "I Want You" (Marvin Gaye, Savage Garden)
• "Learn to Fly" (Josh Woodward, Foo Fighters)
• "Like This" (Girl Talk, STEEP)
• "Low" (Coldplay, Silence Is Sexy)
• "Mary Jane" (Alanis Morisette, Fatblueman)
• "My Love" (Petula Clark, Junior Walker)
• "Solar System" (Depressive Art, Jamison Young)
• "Talk" (Coldplay, Silence Is Sexy)
• "What's Going On" (Blind Mr. Jones, Marvin Gaye)
• "White Moon" (The Dada Weatherman, The White Stripes)
• "Woman" (John Lennon, Peter and Gordon)
• "You Can Have It All" (Yo La Tengo, Kaiser Chiefs)

Additionally, I have a couple of threebies (triplicates?):

• "Time" (Hootie and the Blowfish, Persson, Pink Floyd)
• "Wake Up" (Alanis Morissette, Josh Woodward, Smoke Fish)

If you have some time to kill, this may be fun to check out. How many duplicates do you have? Do you have more than three completely different songs with the exactly the same title? (My predictions: no one will answer, or people will include similar but not identical titles. Prove me wrong!)

And, while we're at it, here's some Ask Jordon.

Kate: What do you think about vegetarianism? Could you give up eating meat for some reason (and what could be this reason)?

I don't mind if other people are vegetarians, but I don't want it forced on me by anyone. Let me eat whatever I want, and I'll let you do the same. I don't care if the animals are mistreated or anything like that. If other people do care, then good for them, but I'm more concerned with human welfare.

I would give up eating meat if my life depended on it, but I can't imagine a situation in which that would happen.

From the American Museum of Natural History: a video that zooms out from the surface of the earth to the edges of The Known Universe. Watch it in HD! (Via Pharyngula)

A voice actor does a really good impression of Morgan Freeman: Morgan Freeman Talks About... Toilet Paper.

It happens to the best of us: Why It's Better to Pretend You Don't Know Anything About Computers. (Via Lifehacker)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Sunday night, I got the horrible news that a girl I went to school with for many years had been killed. I was stunned. I'll be the first to say that I didn't know her very well, but I knew her for a long time. I went to pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, and high school with her.

I just did a little fact-checking, as I like to do when I'm writing a post. I went through my pre-school yearbook (yeah, I have one) and found that she was in my sister's and my class. Now it's a little haunting to see the group picture. There we all are, captured for a moment in time. Who could have known back then her life would be cut short so soon?

She went to St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School from kindergarten through sixth grade. The memories from her last year stick out most for me. It's clear to me now that she wanted little more than to be liked. She had friends, to be sure, but I don't think she got the respect she deserved.

I didn't see her much when we went to Pompano Beach High School together. Probably the last time I talked to her was at a football game in my freshman year. Later, I heard that things were rough for her, although I'm not sure how much of what I heard was true. She gave birth to a daughter and loved her dearly.

In recent years, most of what I knew about her I gleamed from friends and from her Facebook page. Her "About Me" section began:

My name is Misha and before I get into anything you should know that you know absolutely nothing. No matter what you think, see, or heard, you no absolutely NOTHING about me...

I thought it was funny at the time, but it's true. I really didn't know her. So in a way, it might seem odd that I'm going on about this terrible thing that happened, but she was almost always a small part of my life. She was always there, and then, suddenly, she wasn't. It definitely has made me think about how it could happen to anyone at any time.

Misha had recently moved to Louisiana. According to some news articles and her obituary, she pulled over on the highway to check on another driver who had just been involved in a hit-and-run crash. After walking over to the other car, she herself was hit by a passing car whose driver has not yet been found.

I'm home now (that's how I have access to my pre-school yearbook; I don't carry it around with me at all times). I'm home because my friend Mark is joining the Navy, and he invited my sister and me to his going-away party, which is tomorrow. Misha's funeral and a candlelight vigil are also tomorrow.

I would like to go to the vigil if I can, but if not, I've at least been reminded about how fragile life can be and what a good example Misha was for all of us. In spite of all she had been through, she stayed strong and still went out of her way to a good deed that unfortunately led to her untimely death.

That wasn't brief, but I think it was just right.

The next day was the Kate's last full day with me. She and I had Krishna lunch on campus again. After lunch, she spent a while in one of the computer labs making arrangements for the last leg of her trip, a few more days in New York. Later, she joined me for my Databases class.

In the evening, Andy, Kate, and I had a good video chat with Kate's French-Canadian friend. We mostly used Esperanto, but we slipped into English sometimes because her friend was more of a beginner. After that, Kate said her goodbyes to Andy in case we didn't get a chance to see him in the morning.

Later, I tried figuring out how we would get to the Greyhound station by bus (it's conveniently not located along a bus route). After much frustration in trying to figure out the best combination of buses, which would have taken at least an hour and a half anyway, Kate suggested that we call for a taxi.

Kate woke up at 6:15 on Wednesday, January 20. Her alarm woke me up, but I lay in bed for a while, trying to go back to sleep. At 7:00, I got up and prepared her usual breakfast of bread and cheese. Even though she was packing her things frantically, I thought we would be late for our cab, which was arriving at 7:30. But somehow, she managed to pull it off, and we were early. She got another chance to say goodbye to Andy, and we went outside, where the taxi was waiting for us.

It was cold and foggy, and I couldn't remember the last time I was out that early. The drive to the bus station seemed very long. It was essentially a drive across town through some minor streets. Along one of the streets were statues of the planets in planetary order. I hadn't seen them since my visits to Gainesville as a child, and since I had moved here to go to college, I had always wondered where they were.

The cab driver made small talk, asking how we knew each other and what Kate thought of the country and things like that. I didn't really feel like answering questions, but I did my best. After all, being a taxi driver has to be one of the most boring jobs. At one point, he got a call on his cell phone, apparently from his son. "Not now," he said, "Daddy's got people in the car." I didn't ask him about it.

Finally, we arrived at the bus station. I had never been to a Greyhound station before. It was pretty much a large room with a ticket desk, some rows of benches, and a few other people. It didn't look fancy, but I should have expected as much. We were about a half an hour early, so I sat next to Kate for the last time, away from the TV that was competing for my attention.

We exchanged words. I could see the tears coming down from her eyes. I was starting to get emotional too. This was it.

The bus came. We shared one last kiss, and she got on.

She sat by the window where I could see her. I fought back tears. But she smiled.

She smiled, and I smiled back. The bus moved forward. I followed it through the parking lot until it stopped at the street. She smiled at me again.

The bus turned right and drove away.

I walked the other way, toward the nearest major road, where I could hopefully catch a bus to campus. Cars zoomed past me. It was still kind of cold.

I saw Firpo's, a diner that we used to go to when I visited Gainesville as a kid. At least, it used to be Firpo's. It was something different now.

Not far away was my bus stop. According to the bus schedule that was posted there, I had missed the bus by five minutes and would have to wait 55 minutes for the next one. I decided to keep walking instead.

One of my pet peeves is when people treat walking as a last resort, a mode of transportation for only the most destitute and desperate—worse, even, than riding the bus. People are always oddly fascinated if I tell them I spent more than 15 minutes walking to get somewhere, as if using my legs as nature intended were something I should be ashamed of. But what could be more beneficial? It's good exercise, it's entertaining, and you're actually getting something done.

So, I kept walking. I had never seen this part of town. It looked like a lot of other parts, with gas stations, small strip malls, and even some neighborhoods. I passed by a historic house. I had never heard of it, but it was apparently one of the oldest in the city, dating from before the Civil War. I never would have been able to read the historical marker if I were in a car or a bus.

I kept walking. On the opposite side of the road, there was a real estate agent's office with a marquee in front. I expected it to say something about houses, but it said:

LET GO OF
WHAT EVER HOLDS
YOU BACK

Walking further, I made it to University Avenue and started walking toward campus. This was the way I had walked with Kate when I first met up with her 12 days ago, and now I was making the same walk alone.

I made it to campus and to the building where I work. I had been walking for a little less than an hour. The sun had come up some more, but it was still early for me; I wasn't supposed to be at work for another hour. But I got started early.

My room seems quiet and empty without Kate here. All of her stuff is gone except for a few things that now decorate my room: the monthly calendar of St. Petersburg, a few more yearly calendars printed on single sheets of paper, a New York City subway map, a tiger-shaped bag containing coins from around the world, and a couple of record albums: a Soviet Beatles compilation album called A Taste of Honey and Paul McCartney's Снова в СССР.

On my desk, she left a sticky note that she had written on early in her stay. It reads:

Life is a movie
without
a happy end.

Last night I had dinner at Olive Garden with Nick, Mike, TJ, and some of their other friends, and then I went to my friend Michelle's new apartment to ring in the new decade. I had hardly seen her since our high school days, so it was nice to catch up a little bit. There were only a few other people there, most of them also from high school, so that was nice too.

You know how you always count down to the new year, and then it doesn't feel any different? Well, this time, it did feel a little different for me. I felt a little older, a little more mature. Even though I'm twenty years old, this is the fourth decade I've lived in. How curious. I was going to say the fourth consecutive decade, but that's implied. Hopefully.

Speaking of which, some radio stations are finally going to have to make a tough decision that they've been putting off for a while. I'm talking about the ones that play your favorite hits from the '80s, '90s, and today. I remember hearing that phrase during the '90s and wondering what they would do in the 2000s. Turns out that they decided to keep the phrase, repurposing "today" to mean the 2000s. But now that we're in the Te(e)ns, are they going to say that "today" encompasses more than ten years?

I haven't really done anything today. I'll probably just chill at home and watch the Sugar Bowl.

January 1 is a day when important things happen, including new laws going into effect. Starting today, blasphemy is illegal in Ireland. Yes, blasphemy, a victimless "crime" for which people are increasingly rarely prosecuted in most industrialized nations.

In protest against this senseless law that fortunately doesn't apply to me, I was going to add some arguably blasphemous images to this post. I've decided not to because (a) I don't want to make it seem like I'm picking only on some religions, and (b) I would fear for my and my family's safety due to the past actions of idiot extremists of a certain religion. I feel like a coward. Hopefully someday I will have more courage.

Props, then, to the much braver folks behind blasphemy.ie, an Irish web site that has illegally posted some arguably blasphemous quotations, including this one from George Carlin:

Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it.

Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you.

He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

Here are all 25 blasphemous quotes. (Via Pharyngula)

Speaking of dangerous laws, many great works of literature and film should have entered the public domain in the United States today. Under the copyright law that existed in 1953, all works published during that year—including The Crucible, Fahrenheit 451, Disney's Peter Pan, the first issue of Playboy, and the first James Bond book—should have entered the public domain by January 1, 2010. Instead, newer laws have locked them up until 2049.

Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has more info: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010? You may also be interested in reading about Why the Public Domain Matters.

Interestingly, Wikipedia says that the first issue of Playboy was undated, so it may already be in the public domain. That's currently the case for works that were published in the US without a copyright notice between 1923 and 1977. Does anyone want to look into the matter further?

• January 1 - The World of Stuff gets a redesign.
• January 5 - I go to Miami Metrozoo.
• January 8 - I celebrate my university's football team winning the national championship.
• January 9 - I go apartment hunting for my next year at school.
• January 31 - My friend Evan and I play in a talent show.
• February 1 - I introduce a text-message service for the Gainesville bus system. (I don't think it's working right now.)
• February 7 - I announce that I'll be going to Europe with some friends in the summer.
• February 24 - I vote in the spring Student Government elections.
• March 7 - I go to a Florida Panthers hockey game with friends.
• March 20 - I vote against allowing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Gainesville.
• March 21 - I take panoramic photos around campus and upload one of them to Wikipedia.
• March 27 - The xkcd blog links to a page on The World of Stuff.
• March 28 - I go tubing on the Ichetucknee with friends from my dorm.
• April 2 - I volunteer at Lifeapalooza, Get Carded's year-end event.
• April 4 - My friend Evan and I spend an evening in Jacksonville.
• April 6 - TWoS turns six years old.
• April 12 - My first date, like, ever.
• April 14 - A second date, seeing comedian Demetri Martin perform on campus.
• April 19 - I buy a netbook for our trip to Europe.
• April 23 - I'm named Get Carded's Volunteer of the Year again.
• April 25 - I go to Gator Freethought's year-end party.
• April 30 - A third and last date.
• May 2 - I move out of Hume Hall for good.
• May 26 - Andy, Mark, Dan, and I leave for our European adventure.
• May 27-June 3 - Andy and I stay with Andy's relatives in London.
• June 3-9 - Andy and I stay in and around Paris, first in a hostel in town, then in the suburbs with an Esperanto-speaking friend of his, and finally back in the city with a Esperanto-speaking host.
• June 10-11 - After arriving in Spain, Andy and I spend a day and night in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque Country.
• June 11-14 - I stay outside Madrid. Andy joins me, but leaves on the 13th to go to a funeral at home.
• June 14-18 - I stay with my old friend Laura in Seville.
• June 18 - After some confusion, including a chance encounter with Mark and Dan, I meet Andy in Madrid, and we head to Barcelona.
• June 18-25 - Andy and I stay in Barcelona, first with some Esperanto-speaking hosts, and then with our friend George and his family.
• June 25-26 - On the way to Italy, Andy and I stay in a small town in the South of France.
• June 26 - Andy and I make a brief stop in the tiny country of Monaco.
• June 26-27 - Andy and I stay in Pisa, Italy, and check out the Leaning Tower.
• June 27-30 - Andy and I stay in Rome. I also venture into Vatican City, where I have another chance encounter with Mark.
• June 30-July 3 - Andy and I explore beautiful Venice, Italy.
• July 4-7 - While Andy is in Switzerland with Mark and Dan, I stay in Croatia and visit relatives I hadn't even known about before.
• July 8-10 - Andy and I stay with Andy's cousin in Vienna.
• July 10-18 - Andy and I attend the Summer Esperanto Study near Bratislava, Slovakia, where I turn 20, have my first kiss, and go on excursions to Bratislava and Vienna.
• July 18-25 - Andy and I go to the International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Liberec, Czech Republic. During that time, I go on an excursion to Prague.
• July 25-26 - As Andy flies from Prague to London, I stay with Esperantist Chuck Smith and his girlfriend Judith in Dresden, Germany.
• July 26-28 - I stay with Chuck and Judith at their home in Berlin.
• July 28-30 - I visit Amsterdam.
• July 30-31 - After arriving back in London, I stay with Andy and George at George's Drury Lane dorm owned by the London School of Economics.
• July 31 - Andy and I meet up with Mark and Dan, and together we fly home.
• August 22 - I move in to my new apartment in Gainesville with Andy and my previous roommate, Ryan.
• August 25 - I have a band practice with my friend Evan and one of his friends, but nothing else comes of it.
• September 15 - I listen to two of the Beatles' remastered albums for the first time.
• September 15 - Andy and I kick off a new year for our Esperanto club by explaining how we spent our summer.
• September 23 - I watch my childhood friend Reid make his TV debut.
• October 5 - I meet our new roommate who has just moved in to the apartment.
• October 6 - I give a presentation and talk to a reporter at Florida Free Culture's Mind Mashup event.
• October 15-16 - I go with my friend Andrea and some of her friends to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens, and then we spend the night at her house.
• October 29 - I have a letter to the editor published in a student newspaper.
• October 31 - I spend Halloween with Andrea and some of her other friends.
• November 2 - I have to reinstall Ubuntu after an upgrade goes awry.
• November 8 - I post a semi-original video, The World of Stuff's first in almost three years.
• November 25-26 - I spend Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house.
• December 5 - I watch the Gators lose the SEC Championship Game.
• December 22 - I announce my plans to go on a road trip up the East Coast with some friends next summer.
• December 24 - I get a new cell phone for Christmas.
• December 25 - Christmas.
• December 27 - My sister and I join our friend Kevin in meeting Laura in Miami Beach.

I don't have to tell you that the 2000s have been a pretty terrible decade politically, economically, culturally... But it's significant for me because it's the first one I remember from beginning to end. Yes, I remember January 1, 2000. It was a Saturday. The ball dropped, and the world didn't end. Later, the Snorlax episode of Pokémon was on. I remember that, okay?

I read somewhere that people tend to reminisce about the decade that's two decades before the current one. It makes sense. In the '70s, they romanticized the '50s; in the '90s, we dug the groovy '70s (ask my sister about that one); and in the 2000s, we loved the '80s. I can feel a wave of '90s nostalgia coming on as my generation comes of age. I don't need to wonder what people will remember about the 2000s, but I do wonder whether they'll think of it fondly.

I almost suffered from reminiscence overload while compiling this post, but as if that weren't enough, my dad just went through all the digital photos on his old laptop and had me look at them. They range from 2000, when he first got a Sony Mavica (floppy disks, anyone?), to 2008. I hadn't seen a lot of them before, and others I hadn't seen in a long time, so it was fun to look back.

I'm not just looking back; I'm also looking forward. As cheesy as that sounds, it's true. My high school friend Yamilee (first mentioned here) is getting married on Saturday... I know, that's what I was thinking! January 1 would have made a great wedding anniversary, but hey, it's not my wedding. I will be going, though; my whole family's invited. In fact, my sister is going to be a bridesmaid!

So, that's it for the 2000s. (The media is still waffling about what to call the decade, often referring to it euphemistically as just "this decade" or "the decade," but I've long made up my mind.) 2009 was a good year for me, and I hope 2010 is just as good. See you in the... oh crap, what do we call the next one?

From Time: The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell.

From The Big Picture: The decade in news photographs.

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)

So, whaddayaknow, it's almost Christmas. As usual, I don't really want much stuff. I asked my parents for (i.e., bought with their credit card) a Creative Commons t-shirt. The money goes toward a good cause, and I can use my chest to advertise it. Sounds like a winning plan all around.

From the Stuff-Nobody-Cares-About Dept.: I used to use my own Update Notifier for my Greasemonkey user scripts. Almost everybody writes their own, but I've gotten tired of having to maintain it and figured that someone else would probably do a better job, so I'm switching to usoCheckup for my scripts. It has some interesting features that are too boring to describe here.

And hey, whaddayaknow, it's the end of the post already.

I've sleepwalked before, and I'm afraid of doing it again because it's really creepy. Case in point: sleep-emailing and other strange occurrences. (Via The Presurfer)

Watch as a woman attempts 21 accents in three videos: 1, 2, 3. She's pretty good.

Here's an interesting column that appeared in a UF student newspaper this semester: Social Media Emphasize Individuality. The author argues that when people we don't know very well pour their souls out in blogs and the like, it helps us understand that they're more than meets the eye.