Whaddayaknow

If I'm not blogging regularly, it could only mean one of two things: either I'm busy or I have nothing to say. Well, it could be both, but I'm simplifying things. In this case, I am havin' a blast. I got home on Thursday night. I spent Friday night with my friends and most of Saturday with them as well. Today was a family day; my sister and I went with our parents to get a Christmas tree.

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.

Exams are exciting

Busy times again. Yesterday was the last day of classes. Some professors decide to have their final exams on the last day instead of during exam week, so I had two exams yesterday. I had studied a lot for them the day before, so they weren't too hard. I already know that I got an A in Statistics, which I thought would be impossible.

It kind of puzzles me that I'm still having to take classes like Statistics that really have nothing to do with my major. I tell people who go to other universities the kinds of classes I'm taking, and they're also puzzled, which in turn makes me mad. I don't want anyone to think I'm getting a bad education. I think I've touched on this theme before, but I'm too lazy to find the link.

The professor of my Data Structures and Algorithms class (the most important class I'm taking) says they don't have time to teach us computer science and computer engineering majors everything, especially when it comes to programming languages. He suggests that we go off and learn some languages on our own. It's not a bad idea, but I'd like to learn more than one language in school.

Isn't it obvious why there's no time? It's because the university, or whoever tells them what they have to teach, insists that students have well-rounded college education. The Dutch sisters I met on the train from Venice to Zagreb this summer were puzzled by that idea. I could see their point. If I wanted to have a well-rounded education, I would have gone to high school. Oh, wait, I already did!

Sure, it would reflect well on me to learn programming languages by myself (as I actually have). And sure, it's not the worst thing in the world to write essays about the spice trade on the Indian Ocean during the Middle Ages and early modern period (as I also have). But I daresay that time spent doing the latter when I should be concentrating on the former is not time well spent. And they wonder why they can't teach us enough of what we need to know...

Anyway, I have an exam on Saturday and my last one on Tuesday. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be going home yet.

Joshua reports on abuse of authority and endorsement of religion at California public school. He's started a letter-writing campaign to stop the injustice. I've been too busy to write a letter, but I hope to get to that soon if it's still necessary.

And here's A Flowchart to Determine What Religion You Should Follow. (Via Pharyngula)

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)

I've got time for trivialities

I went home this weekend. As with many things, it got me thinking.

At the risk of being really cheesy, let me mention that Wiktionary defines "home" as:

One's own dwelling place; the house or structure in which one lives; especially the house in which one lives with his family; the habitual abode of one’s family; also, one's birthplace.

That's the first definition of ten just for the noun. It's not helpful.

I believe it was Maniac Magee who said, "Home is where you sleep." Now that's more like it.

Why all this philosophizing, you may ask? I've noticed that some of my friends consider their homes to be their apartments here in College Town, USA, rather than the houses where they grew up, where their parents live, and where they go for holidays. I also caught an article in Unofficial College Newspaper last week that warned of the "Garden State moment" when you realize that "the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore."

Oh, Jordan, you say, isn't Garden State a great movie? I loveeeeeeeeeee it, just like I love drawing out silent letters! Less than three hundred thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-three. Yeah, well, I haven't seen more than, like, five minutes of it. I know, what a horrible person I am for never going out to the video store and renting your favorite movie, or for never consciously trying to find it on TV and taking a break from everything else in my life for two hours to watch it. Sue me.

Um, anyway, I hadn't been home for three months (my trip to Europe wasn't even that long), and I found myself stumbling around a bit, trying to remember how each door opened, where some things were, and the like. I'd still call the house my home—I did feel at home there, and I highly doubt I'll be living in this apartment after I graduate—but I couldn't help but wonder when the Garden State moment would come. Hopefully, it won't be until after I graduate. By that time, I hope to have a full-time job, a non-student apartment, a live-in girlfriend, and other things that can be described by hyphenated adjectives.

Need some dummy text for some sort of design? Check out the Dummy Text Generator. I've featured a similar site previously (December 23, 2003), but this one has more texts to choose from (including the opening of The Metamorphosis) and uses JavaScript magic so there's no waiting for new pages to load.

How to Bind a Paper Without Staples. I've already used this technique successfully, but only with scissors (instead of ripping the paper).

Things I'm thankful for

I have a roof over my head. I have shoes on my feet. I have plenty of clothes. I'm not starving. I'm in good health. I've never broken any bones. I've never had the measles, polio, or rubella. I've never gotten the flu.

I've gone to decent schools, where I've gotten a good education. I have a great job to pay for my schooling, with the help of scholarships and my parents. In fact, I'm in the black.

I had wonderful experiences in Europe this summer. I got to bond with my travel buddy, and with Esperanto, I met family members I otherwise wouldn't have known about and made a lot of new friends. And I didn't get robbed.

There are a lot of things I don't have to worry about. They make the things I do worry about seem trivial by comparison.

When I had to reinstall my operating system, it went pretty smoothly. My bus ride to and from campus isn't too long. I don't have a lab this semester, and I have no classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I've managed to control my weight. This blog seems to have quite a few readers now. And I have a pool at home.

I have good friends, people I can talk to about anything. You know who you are. I have a good family; they're always there for me. My parents aren't divorced, and no one in my family is mentally unstable. And I'm enjoying the company of my family today.

I guess I have it better than most people, and that is something to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

And now, some useful graphs, both via waxy.org:

How safe is the HPV vaccine Gardasil? Is it as dangerous as the disease it aims to prevent? Find out.

The Billion Dollar Gram: It's hard to visualize billions of dollars, so this graph compares some billion- and trillion-dollar values that are often bandied about.

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)

Hallowhatever

I'm kind of ambivalent about Halloween. On one hand, I like candy, but on the other hand, I don't like wearing costumes.

I never really have good ideas for costumes, anyway. Off the top of my head, I can remember that I've been a ghost, a nerd, a doctor, a Beatle, Fred Astaire, myself, and a dinosaur. I could explain some of those, but I don't really want to. The best costume was probably the dinosaur one from when I was little, but you can only pull that off at a certain age (especially because the costume was tiny).

I've always had pretty lame costume ideas, and then there was a time when I thought I was too old for trick-or-treating. For a few years, I would sit at home on Halloween night and hand out candy or just chill. One year, someone (possibly another kid who lived in my house??) started a rumor that I read a dictionary instead of trick-or-treating. Actually, I was watching a football game on TV, but I guess the truth was stranger than fiction. Better yet, that story made an appearance a few years in a row. So, yeah, I was a pretty happy child on Halloween.

I couldn't think of anything to be this year, but I figure it really doesn't matter as much as I get older. College students just wear costumes to make their wild Halloween parties more fun. I'm going to a non-wild party, so I feel I can get away with not wearing a costume. It's also a football party, this being a big game day, so I guess I could say I'm going as a football fan? In that case, I'm being myself for Halloween again.

After all, this isn't the first time I've watched a football game on Halloween. Really.

Readers of the Independent Florida Alligator may have noticed my name in the newspaper this week. I had a letter to the editor published on Thursday in which I pulled out and picked apart a previous editorial's passing claim that the words "one nation under God" cannot be considered broadly offensive because they're found in the Pledge of Allegiance. No follow-ups to my letter have been published, but the online version has attracted its share of vitriolically tangential double posts from pseudonymous capslockers.

I was pleased to see that my letter had been published and that some of my friends (and my boss) took notice of it. I had sent in an unsolicited column and at least one other letter to the editor in the past, both to no avail, so I didn't have high hopes that this one would be printed. But I knew I had to write it anyway. If I don't stand up for my rights, who will?

Finally, good things to know: 9 Ways Marketing Weasels Will Try to Manipulate You. (Via Get Rich Slowly)

The Gainesville experience

My parents came to visit my sister and me for the weekend. I hadn't seen them since the start of the semester two months ago, so it was nice. We had a good time going to some restaurants and doing some shopping. Usually, I'm the one who's visiting them, but they like Gainesville. It's a unique place.

Yesterday, I was walking through Turlington Plaza when a guy tried to get my attention. He was dressed like an extra in a biblical epic. I had seen him standing there many times before, and other UF students will probably know who I'm talking about. I wasn't really sure what his deal was, but I was about to find out.

The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a British accent. Next, I realized he was a Krishna guy. I wanted to be on my way, so I let him say what he wanted to say and get it over with. He said he only talked to the smartest-looking people. And so he told me, a smart person, a little bit about why his Hare Krishna beliefs made so much sense.

He said that people place too much importance on their physical bodies, and that even though I'm a good-looking version of George Harrison, I won't always be. He asked for a donation, and I couldn't think of how to get myself out of giving him a dollar. In exchange, he gave me, now a smart and attractive person, a book on meditation that had interviews with George Harrison and John Lennon.

With that, I had a chance to continue on my way. If his religion is so great, couldn't he have tried to win me over without schmoozing? In any case, I need to work on saying no.

Later, I missed my bus home and had to wait for the next one, which was, of course, late. It was dark by the time the bus arrived. I had already read most of the newspaper and done the crossword puzzle, so there wasn't much to do on the bus except look out the windows. I couldn't even do that because it was too dark, so I had to be content with listening to people.

During the ride, a guy started talking to the woman sitting next to me. He said he had been to one of her poetry readings on campus a few weeks before and wanted to compliment her on her work. She mentioned that she had one book out and was working on a second.

I was pretty sure that she was a particular woman I had read about several times in the newspaper, a local resident who had turned to a career as a poet to lift herself out of poverty. As soon as I struck up a conversation with her, I knew. She was missing some of her teeth, a detail I remembered from the articles. She had a pleasant demeanor.

I had wanted to buy a copy of her book ever since I had read about her, so I asked if she had any copies with her. As it happened, she did, so she signed one for me, and I gave her the money. Not long afterward, the bus reached my stop, so I thanked her and left.

Here's a browsable map of London from 1868. (Via The Presurfer)

See the first cell phone, digital camera, digital music player, and more: World's First Gadgets. (Via The Presurfer)

Smile

Sometimes you meet someone and the thinkable happens.

It starts out perfectly simply. You get along well and become friends. But then there's something else: their laugh, something in the way they move, or their general outlook on life really gets your attention. They don't have to be around to make you smile.

You see and talk to them often, and you want to let them know just how you feel. What do you do? Do you become a creeper? No. You just talk openly about it when you feel the moment is right. If they're really your friend, they'll listen.

And what if they say they don't feel quite the same about you? Do you stop being their friend? That's childish. At this age, you should know it's hardly the worst thing in the world. The truth is that you still have a good friend.

Like any friend, you want them to be happy, and the best way to help is to set an example. Smile: a good friend is forever.

And now, the links.

One of those sites that concisely answers the a question posed by its domain name: howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Apparently, baseball used to be pretty crazy. Here are the 10 Craziest Baseball Rules. (Via The Presurfer)

The fourth man

Recently, I moved into an apartment with a couple of friends. At the time, I wrote,

There was room for a fourth person in the apartment, but we ended up not finding anyone to join us, and they didn't assign us another roommate. We're locked out of the fourth bedroom, but we don't have to pay extra or anything.

And that was that... or so I thought.

One of my roommates hit me with the news on Thursday while I was studying on campus. Our fourth roommate would be moving in on Wednesday. I had to take a study break.

I was already used to our three-person arrangement, and I wondered what would happen if an unknown person were thrown into the mix. And then I got to worrying. And then I realized that I shouldn't worry because it wouldn't do me any good, and things would turn out fine. I like to think I get along well with people. My previous random and quasi-random roommate assignments worked out just fine, and our new apartment complex actually matches people up based on compatibility and common interests.

Which is good, because we got another notice yesterday that our new roommate would instead be moving in on Monday. It also said that there would be an inspection of our common areas about 24 hours in advance of him moving in, and if anything wasn't cleaned up, they would clean it at our expense. So it's been a cleaning day.

All they've told us about him are his name and phone number. Maybe we should call him to introduce ourselves and make the moving-in process easier for him. It must be hard to move in to a new place where everyone else already knows each other.

When you think of health care reform, think of my friend Joshua McGee, who reminds us that those who stand to benefit from it the most are real people like you and me... and him: Health Care Reform Beneficiaries Are Not Anonymous.

You know how broadcasts of pro sporting events include that warning against rebroadcasting or describing the game without express written consent of the league? Major League Baseball seems to be the most infamous for this. Some guy decided to write to them for permission to describe a game to his friend. Find out how things went down. (Via J-Walk Blog)