Category - Music

It's summertime in The World of Colleges. All of my friends are either taking summer classes, traveling Europe, pursuing research opportunities at national laboratories, getting married, or working. Yes, working. I'm home for three months, so I figure I'd try to get a job that's close enough to walk to and that I could work at, say, most days of the week. I could always use the money.

I searched the Internet for extremely local job listings and found a place close by that was looking for someone to do easy but tedious work on their web site. As it happens, I love doing easy but tedious things, and I have experience with web sites. I got the resume ready (thanks Kirsten), wrote a cover letter, and shot them an e-mail. Response: "I have found someone for that position. Thank you." I told her to take the ad off the freaking web site so other people wouldn't make my unfortunate mistake of wasting time trying to apply. I did not use the words "freaking" or "wasting," but that's how I felt.

So I went around to some local businesses to see which were hiring. Then I went home and called them to see what positions were available. The pizza place wanted a chef, and the Thai restaurant wanted a delivery boy. Nope and nope. I haven't tried calling the others because I can't decide which one I would want to work at the least.

Ah, getting a job. It's totally worthwhile, even necessary. It can bring you security and happiness. But finding one is tough. You will get burned a lot, especially if you have little to no experience. And the longer you wait, the harder it gets. Good thing nothing else in life is just like that.

I need to come up with a clever idea to make money. One that doesn't involve writing a cover letter. Something really stupid yet clever that no one has thought of yet. Maybe I could just play the guitar on a street corner. Maybe I can start a business and Be My Own Boss™. I also need an outlet for my near-constant frustration. I mean, besides this blog. Something that doesn't involve complaining. I wish I could make art. Angry art. Sad art. Luckily, anything can pass for art these days, so I guess I could throw paint on a wall and call it art. But art isn't really my thing. I want to smash things or blow stuff up in a field. And I want to not clean up after it.

Maybe I can make a business out of smashing things. Send me $50 or the iPhone gets it.

On a completely random note, no one has ever bought anything from the World of Stuff Store.

By the way: Justin is in Rome for one of his classes, Adam is going to pursue a research opportunity at a national laboratory, and Jennipher is apparently engaged. I don't know her that well, but we're friends on Facebook.

This is cool if you're an independent artist: TuneCore distributes your music and videos to Internet music stores. You keep the rights to your songs and and all the money they make.

Big-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings has interviewed a former Jeopardy! writer. Carlo Panno reveals all the secrets about how the show was made, as well as some amusing anecdotes. Here's the interview: parts 1, 2, and 3.

Because you've always wondered: The Stories Behind 10 Famous Product Placements.

I went to a French restaurant for today with my sister and our friends Yamilee and Austin. The place was called Rendez-Vous, and it was located in Fort Lauderdale. I'd never heard of it, but then, I don't go to a lot of French restaurants. It was actually part bakery, as those sorts of places tend to be, and the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. (No snooty waiters who take offense at your butchering of the French language.) I had a crepe with chicken, spinach, and mushrooms. It was good. Apparently Yamilee and Austin eat there a lot. I think I should go back at least a few more times to try all the things that looked good on the menu, not to mention the desserts.

When I upgraded my operating system a few weeks ago, I got a new version of Rhythmbox, my media player. In the new version, a plugin is enabled by default that allows you to stream and download music from Jamendo, a site that allows artists to distribute their music for free and receive donations from fans. So I poked around and found some albums that I liked. Here are a few of my favorites. All are downloadable for free.

• Demo by MoOt. Though it's a demo, its six songs are more polished than some of the other tracks on Jamendo. This album consists of nice pop-type numbers that are -- dare I say it -- Beatlesque. Very catchy, imaginative, and well-done.
• I Don't Know What I'm Doing by Brad Sucks. The artist's name and the title of his album both suggest a lack of self-confidence, but this album of moody-sounding semi-electronic numbers has managed to capture my interest -- an achievement to be proud of. I think I'd actually heard of Brad Sucks, even, and his music sounds like stuff that may or may not have been on the show with zefrank.
• I've saved the best for last: The Heavens by The Heavens. It's a professional recording by experienced musicians -- and it shows. This new British group's four psychedelic rock songs show that kickin' it old school is cool. The final track, "Echo Serena," is -- dare I say it -- sublime. (Or at least lime. I'm daresaying a lot of things today.) Highly recommended.

Although I've run out of the space I've allotted for myself, I will continue to go on about The Heavens for a minute. Their songs are cool. Their album cover is cool. (Seriously. Look at it.) A reviewer on Jamendo says of "This Beautiful Machine" that its stereo separation is "straight out of 1966." The drums and bass on either side, with guitars in the middle, hearken back to the days before record producers decided they should always be the other way around. "Echo Serena" is one of the better expressions of love ever committed to tape. And The Heavens the first and only band (not counting my friends' bands) that I've friended on MySpace. That is no small thing right there. I look forward to acquiring their next record, whenever it comes out, even if it involves paying money.

And now, the links.

If all the humans on Earth died, our buildings and cities would fall into a state of disrepair. Here are some lovely pictures of what it might look like.

Here's a fun read: "40 Years in the Future," from Mechanix Illustrated, November 1968. According to the article, the world of 2008 will have such advances as computer-guided cars, vacations in space, the four-hour workday, domed cities, and plastic silverware. Big-screen TVs will allow us to shop and take college classes from our own homes. We'll also be able to get new hit movies on demand!

Wikipedia has a list of common misconceptions.

Oh hi.

On Wednesday, I studied for my programming exam with this girl. We had a friend in common, and I had been helping her study and work on projects. "Thank you so much," she probably said. "Do you want to unwind and have dinner tomorrow night?" I asked. "Sure!" "Like a date?" "... We'll see!" "Okay, call me." Note to self: never say "call me." Nobody calls you. I should write a list of things not to say. It would be a very long list.

On Thursday, shortly after I wrote my last post, my parents came over and helped me pack stuff up from my dorm room. That took about an hour and a half. I spent the night at my aunt's house nearby, and the next day, I was due to check out. I cleaned up a little bit, and the RA came to make sure that I left my side of the room reasonably clean and didn't forget anything in the drawers. She told me that by the end of that day, Friday, only three people on our floor would remain. She had me sign a form, and then she left.

It was just me and my roommate, Adam. After I took my room and mailbox keys off my keyring, we exchanged goodbyes, I thanked him for being a great roommate, and I left. My other remaining suitemate, Evan, wasn't in his room. So I went down to the lobby and returned my keys. It was over. That evening, I was home.

As I was taking boxes from the rented van in the driveway, a familiar car stopped in front of our house. It was my friends Nick, Mike, and TJ. They were headed to Clamsters to shoot some pool and have a bite. After filling my entire room with boxes, I joined them. I had a good time. We might have done something after that, but it all runs together in my mind. I forget. See, since I got home, I've probably spent more time with them than I have at home.

I definitely know what we did yesterday, though. Nick, TJ, and I started by seeing Iron Man. Nick had already seen the movie the day before, but he couldn't see it enough times. After that, we went to his house and played video games. Then we went to Hooters, where Mike met up with us. After standing around in the parking lot and wondering what to do, we decided to go to Clamsters again. Nick and TJ wanted Mike to talk to a waitress-acquaintance who he was apparently talking to the day before. He stalled until she left; then they got her phone number from another waitress. He wouldn't call her, so they texted her, and eventually, he left her a message apologizing for their stupidity. We drove around for a little while longer and then went home.

Nick had a little birthday get-together today. Mike, TJ, and I were there, along with a few other friends and family members. It was pretty crazy, actually. There are a lot of kids in his family -- mostly boys -- and they're wild. It's funny, though. Surprisingly, we didn't see Iron Man today, although I would have been willing to. Nick said he needed a break from it so he could forget some of the plot points and be surprised when watching the movie again. Probably not going to happen. Anyway, after that, we went to the Pompano Bowl to bowl for an hour. Then we had to split, and I went home.

I haven't been home for a while, so I've been noticing things that have changed both in my house and in the surrounding environment. Some are subtle: we got a new phone with a built-in answering machine and caller ID, or they painted this building over here some other color. Some are more drastic. They totally redid the interior of the Pompano Bowl. They installed blacklights, got some new artwork, and painted the walls purple. They put screens between the lanes, some of which were showing videos from the new video jukebox thing. And I don't remember a drinking section being there before. But so it was, in the lanes right outside Joey's (formerly Gary's) Sports Bar and Grill.

Things change. Some things never change. I'll admit that I was heaving a Hail Mary on Wednesday -- a date on my last night at school? Hardly a chance, and I knew it. If my personal ad doesn't work, I give up. And now, the links.

I put the "laughter" in "slaughter." You have to be pretty bored to notice some Words in Words.

Here's an interactive, visual introduction to black holes: Anatomy of a Black Hole (Flash).

From the Songs Everyone Knows But No One Knows the Names Of Dept.: "Powerhouse" is the "assembly line" music used in cartoons.

For the past few days, I've been studying for exams (and taking them). Now I'm done. So are a lot of other people. Over the past week, trucks, vans, and SUVs have been buzzing about and parking outside the dorms. People are moving out.

My differential equations exam was on Monday morning at the ungodly hour of 7:30 A.M. I couldn't get much sleep beforehand. I studied a lot, but I could have studied more. I needed a 56 on the final to get a B in the class. I estimate that I got the equivalent of 4 out of 7 questions right; if that's true, then I got a 57. Anyway, it's going to be close. I'm glad I did the optional assignment that will only be invoked if you're on the border between grades.

I had my last biology exam yesterday. It wasn't a cumulative final, which was good. I hadn't been doing as well as I wanted on the tests, whose average makes up the entire class grade. I needed a 100 on the last test to get an A in the class and an 88 for a B+. I just found out that I got a 90. B+ in the bag.

Also yesterday, I found out how I did in physics. Amazingly, I got a B+ in the class somehow. I received a breakdown of my grade. They gave me full credit for the in-class response questions (5% of the grade) even though I got some of them wrong. I did get an 85 in the final exam, as I had guessed. Even then, I still should have had a B, according to my calculations. They must have rounded up, which they said they weren't going to do. Oh well. I would have been happy with a B, but a B+ is welcome.

And today, I had my last exam: programming. I'm all but certain that I'll be getting an A in the class.

Last night, I visited my friend Andy, one of the people I'm starting the Esperanto club with. I didn't have to go very far because he lives down the hall. He plays the piano, and he wanted to know if I wanted to rock out with him. I had a lot of fun. He's really good at improvising on the piano. Besides discussing music, we also talked about computers. He said he needed an office suite to run on his Mac, and I suggested NeoOffice, which I recommend to all my Mac-using friends. For everyone else, I recommend OpenOffice.org. Both are free as in price and free as in freedom.

So, in short, good times were had by both. It reminds me of all the interesting things I've done that I haven't mentioned here. As I begin to pack up all my stuff and leave my dorm for the summer, I reflect back -- in no particular order -- on some Things I Apparently Didn't Mention.

1. As part of my college orientation over the summer, I had to spend the night in a real dorm room with a real roommate. My one-time disposable roommate was even quieter than I was, which, if you know me personally, might be hard to imagine. I had to do the talking. Anyway, his name was Amer or Ahmer or something, and he lives in my current building, so I see him every once in a while. Invariably he has earbuds in his ears. I don't know how people can walk around listening to music all the time. Open your ears, folks. You can do without your Fall Out Boy for ten minutes. (Seriously, it's getting bad. When I would volunteer for Get Carded in crowded areas, I would marvel at the proportion of people who listen to music while they're walking. At least one of my professors did it on his way to class.)
2. There was an old woman in my programming class. When I saw her on the first day, I assumed that she was doing a write-up or something to judge the lecturer, but she kept coming back every day. She looked like she was over 70. Way to go for her, taking a computer class in college at that age. Eventually, she stopped going to class, so I assume she dropped it.
3. At the beginning of the year, our RA, Shannon, made little name-tag-type things and put them on everyone's door. Although it took me about 6 months to realize it, each one was supposed to look like a little iPod with a different album cover where the screen ought to be. I had the most random album ever. Every day during the fall semester, I had this on my door, printed by a color printer without yellow ink:

   

   So random. When we got a new RA in the spring, she replaced our iPods (as I still didn't know they were) with blank CD-Rs with our names and hometowns written on them. Have you ever tried taping a CD to a door? Those things are heavy. Few of them lasted very long without falling. After a month, I gave up on trying to stick mine back on the wall and substituted my and my roommate's iPods, which had been placed inside the room when they were taken down. They've been up ever since. (My roommate's album was the Virgin Suicides soundtrack).

4. I was poking around the web site of one of my physics professors one time when I came across a link to a picture of his "famous sister." One of my physics professors, it turns out, was Sally Field's brother. And not the one I liked, either. I thought that was pretty weird. I did some Googling to make sure it was true, and I found some sites saying that Sally Field had a brother named Rick Field who was a physicist. I also found a university library catalog mentioning a video of Sally Field visiting her brother Rick at the university in 1982. Almost everyone I talked to about this hadn't heard of Sally Field or referred to her as Sally Fields. Sucks to be you, Sally Field. But I like you, I really like you. As for your brother, meh.
5. I took up a form of exercise called shovelglove in November, but I didn't really explain why. I did hint at it, however. There's this girl Ashley who lives on my floor, and she would come by to talk to my roommate, Adam. Adam works out a lot and would often hang around without a shirt on. She mentioned how she always seemed to encounter him while he was shirtless. So, one time, I had gotten out of the shower and I had a towel wrapped around me while I was combing my hair. There was a knock on the door, and I saw through the peephole that it was Ashley. Oh, no problem, I thought, since she sees Adam without a shirt all the time. So I opened the door, and she averted her eyes and said, "I can come back later!" Come to think of it, maybe it was the towel. I am not a fat guy, and I wasn't then, but it got me thinking about how I should probably work out.
6. In January, one of my suitemates apparently tried to overdose on pills. He had to go to the hospital for a while and withdraw for the semester. What I didn't mention was: he came back to the dorm to visit a few months later and seemed to be his same old self. He spent a few nights sleeping in the common room, and then I think he got kicked out.
7. Evan moved in to take his place as he had wanted to be roommates with Cameron. Evan really livened things up around this here two-room/one-bathroom suite-type thing. I already mentioned how he had a jacuzzi party by buying a kiddie pool, putting it in the bathroom, filling it with hot water from the shower, and inviting his friends. One night, he happened to catch Die Hard on TV, and after that, he started posting a "Die Hard Quote of the Day" in the bathroom. After he, Adam, and I rented Die Hard: With a Vengeance, we all got in on the act. They're still hanging up there. My contribution:
   Jeremy Irons: My only problem is that I went to some trouble preparing that game for McClane. You interfered with a well-laid plan.
   Samuel L. Jackson: Well, you can stick your well-laid plan up your well-laid ass.

My first year of college is over, and tomorrow, I'm going home. I've done pretty well in my classes. I've had fun. I've made a lot of friends, and I've learned some things. But I honestly don't mind not having classes for a few months. I could use a break. In fact, except for a friend's birthday on Sunday, I have absolutely no plans at all this summer. I think I'll try to get a job to make back the money I spent this year. I've already started working on the old resume. I'm also looking forward to sleeping in and not getting irreversibly awoken two hours early by someone singing in the shower or having a loud conversation in the hallway. The time for those things is no more. It's summertime.

But first, it's time to pack.

And throw crap away.

JungleCrazy.com lists some crazy Amazon deals. This is great for people who buy random cheap stuff online.

If you get an automatically generated e-mail with a return address at donotreply.com, do Chet Faliszek a favor and don't reply to it. He's the owner of DoNotReply.com, and his site gets innumerable e-mails every day.

From Lawrence Lessig, creator of Creative Commons, comes Change Congress, "a movement to build support for basic reform in how our government functions." He's trying to have politicians and citizens pledge to support increased honesty and transparency in Congress.

My roommate left for class yesterday morning around 10:30 or 11:00, as he usually does on Fridays. But he hasn't come back. I think he went home for the weekend. He might have told me about this, but it had to have been a long time ago, or I would have remembered clearly. I think Passover is starting.

In any case, I'm here by myself, and I've realized how boring it is without him. He usually has some nice music and/or the TV on. Or he might be on the phone with someone, or playing games on the Internet, or at least just studying or crunching data and graphs for his top-secret materials research project. In any case, he's usually there, and now, for a little while, he's not. It's hard to imagine that some people live like this all the time in their single rooms. I think I'd go crazy.

It's been a pretty stressful week. The culmination was last night, when I had a physics test. Yeah, a physics test from 8:20 to 10:10 on a Friday night. I studied a little more than I wanted to, which wasn't much anyway, but I wasn't completely lost on everything. I felt pretty good about it, in fact, but I was wary because I've gotten tripped up before. (I got a 60% on the first test and a 65% on the second one. I should have gotten a 75% on the second one, but I apparently bubbled in two of the answers wrong. Both of the scores I did get correspond to a grade of C+ in the class.) After last night's test, I went online to compare my scratch work to the answer key. Totally unexpectedly, I got an 85%, which will be very good for my grade -- provided I bubbled in the answers right.

Even though I have more work to do and more tests coming up, I've been taking it easy. I've been listening to music a lot today (even more than usual). With my playlist on shuffle, it's like Radio Free Jordon in here. Now that I have my own computer, I have all my music available on the go (except my record collection -- I'm leaving that project for the summer. Thanks to Luke for the shrink-wrapped copy of Double Fantasy. That'll make a pretty darn good digital transfer). It just occurred to me that because no one's around to overhear my music, I don't have to pump it directly into my ears. My laptop speakers aren't great, but I'd rather not have my headphones on all the time and go deaf.

I was going to do something tonight, but now I'm not. Yesterday, I asked a girl (previously mentioned) to dinner. She seemed surprised but pleasantly so. She said it was probably a bad weekend for it, but that it was okay. In what I am considering a first, she actually seemed to understand my intentions, probably because I made them as clear as possible without sounding like the completely blunt and naive person I was until shockingly recently. But she called me today and said she was going out with her girl friends tonight. I should have expected this. The semester is drawing to a close; everyone is stressed out; everyone is about to leave for the summer. Okay, how about Wednesday? "We'll see how the week goes." I don't want to have to wallow in feelings of failure all summer.

Speaking of which, I'd better get on that resume. And now, the links.

Do you believe in God? There's a poll going at YesNoGod.com. A breakdown of results by country is available.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Rate your local law enforcement officers at RateMyCop.com.

Check if a site is down for everyone or just you: Down for everyone or just me?

When we left off last time, Get Carded, the organ donor awareness group of which I am a part, was getting ready to hold their second annual Lifeapalooza concert for organ donor awareness. Last year, it seems, the first annual Lifeapalooza -- held in a ballroom in the student union -- received virtually no promotion, and as a result, the attendance was "like, 10 people." This year, we handed out lots of flyers around campus and advertised on banners.

This year's Lifeapalooza was last night at the Orange and Brew, a cafe on campus. Of the three musical acts (and several organ recipients as guest speakers), we expected a lot of people would come to hear the main act, which was a pretty popular group. We Get Carded volunteers had to get there about an hour early to help set up, but there wasn't too much to do. We just set up our tent and tables in front of the entrance so we could tell everyone coming in about the benefits of organ donation. I was given the task of counting people who came in: my job was to make a mark on their hand (so they wouldn't be counted twice if they left and came back) and click the counter thingy so its count would increment by one. Not a bad job.

Most people didn't mind having their hand marked. Some of them were confused because that's the kind of thing that's done at a bar or other drinking-type establishment. I had to explain to people that no, we're just counting people, so if you leave and come back, we won't count you twice. A few still wouldn't have it, though. Come on, guys. I'm making a little line on your arm with a marker. Oh yeah, that too. I started by writing an X, but it took too long, so I reduced it to a single line. Then, when I would explain that we were counting people, they'd look at the line on their hand and say -- dead serious -- "Oh, am I number 1?"

So that's how we spent a lot of the time. Eventually, the opening acts were done, so it was time for us to take everyone out of the Orange and Brew, give them a T-shirt and a glow stick, and have them form a human ribbon for our camera. We managed to get a lot of them out, although a lot of them stayed inside. (When I saw how many people remained inside, I realized how many people you could pack into the place.) After posing for the picture, they went back in to hear Umoja Orchestra, the main act. They're this big Latin ensemble. Not cogito ergo sum Latin, but Hispanic. I was told that they were like Santana, but they sounded like a more typical Spanish group, like music you'd put on if you were having tacos for dinner. (My family does this, okay?)

I didn't actually get to stay in the cafe for more than a few minutes because I had to man the tables outside with everyone else. But I could hear the music from within, and I could see people dancing. A lot of people were dancing to Umoja. It looked like they were having a good time. And I do think everyone had fun. I was glad to see that a lot of people came out, including some of my friends. Before the T-shirt thing, we counted 348 people. After that, we stopped counting; I don't think anyone came after that. (Later, somebody played with the counter and messed up the count; Mike, one of the co-presidents, would later claim that the attendance was "close to 500." He could be right for all anyone knows.)

After Umoja Orchestra finished, the show was over, and people left. We thanked them for making our year-end event a huge success. Of course, the real measure of success was the number of people who signed organ donor cards. Our tally at the end was 38 or 39, and we probably gave out even more cards than that.

It was 12:30 A.M., and I had class in 8 hours. After cleaning up, So, we took some pictures, and just before adjourning, Mike said that we'd probably go out to dinner in a few weeks to end the year. I'm looking forward to it. It's been really rewarding being a part of this group, and I'm looking forward to helping out again next year.

Okay, guys and girls, let's have a little discussion here. I want your input.

There's this girl who I have three classes with. In differential equations, we sit near each other. Lately, in physics (a large lecture class), we've been sitting next to each other. I want to ask her out on a date. Sound simple enough?

Problem: My previous four attempts at asking girls out have all ended in abject failure: either the girl either doesn't realize my intentions, or she just ignores me. (It's not my imagination; both of those scenarios have happened twice.) This time, I want to make absolutely sure that she knows what she's getting into: that is, that I would like to go on a date with her, not just a friendly thing. (I don't want to ease into it. I don't want to spend four hundred afternoons just "hanging out" with someone only to ask them out on a date and get rejected.)

I don't want to mess up this time. So I thought I might try to think of what I would instinctively do and then do the opposite. But then I thought I'd just ask the readers. Of course! Why didn't I think of it before? So, tell me, readers, how can I make it crystal clear to this girl that when I ask to go to dinner with her, I want to do so in a romantic sort of way?

Oh, life. It's a palooza. And now, the links.

Lots of things are transported by truck. Sometimes, trucks crash. Then: Truck Spills.

Here are some fun presidential facts. Some of them probably aren't true.

When you save all your gas receipts for years, you can make graphs. Some guy did just that. Here are his gas price graphs from 1979 to the present.

It's always been my life's dream to appear on Jeopardy!. Yesterday, I got my chance... sort of. Okay, not really.

They had a Jeopardy!-type game going on at my dorm (the nerd honors dorm), so I decided to check it out. Everyone was split into three teams: one had four people, one had about five people, and mine had three people. Not very fair, I know. But I played like a pro. (We scored as a team, but other than collaborating on the Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy questions, we played individually.) I had the whole confident attitude down, too. We played a whole game, right down to the Final Jeopardy. Up to that point, my team had a big enough lead to win no matter what. But we got the final question right anyway, thanks to my ingenuity.

The secret of Jeopardy! is that it's a learning game. The answers are things you don't know about things that you do know. If you can guess what the answer is trying to tell you about some very obvious thing, you will get the question. That's how I figured out the Final Jeopardy, which was: "This term still had 'work' on the end when Vinton Cerf & Robert Kahn, two of its creators, used it in a key 1974 paper." I guessed "Internet." And we were right. It's something you didn't know about something you know.

Even though I didn't win anything, it was still cool. And it turns out that the questions were taken from an actual episode of College Jeopardy!, so maybe I'd have a chance on the show.

Now, for your enjoyment, here's the video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1984 song "I Lost on Jeopardy."

Recently, a friend whom I mainly contact online asked me to be in his will. In the event of his death, I would be given the task of maintaining his web sites (with compensation). There would be an option for his son to take control of the sites when he turns 18, but that's something like 14 years away. Say he dies in 10 years. How are the lawyers going to contact me? I won't have the same address (I'm in college, plus, my family is moving), and I probably won't have the same phone number. What's more likely to stay the same? An e-mail address.

I've had my main e-mail address for 9 years now. My e-mail service is from company that I don't know much about. I pay them for premium service by the year, but when I renew early, the next year of service starts immediately. I don't think I can trust them to be around another 9 or 10 years. But I have to have some e-mail address for this will. What's the solution? E-mail forwarding.

My web host doesn't offer e-mail, but it does offer e-mail forwarding. So, I begrudgingly switched on e-mail forwarding for my domain name at a cost of $0.02 per day. I've used it before, but I never liked it. You send me an e-mail to a beautiful-looking address that I can't reply from. You expect me to reply from that lovely address, but you get a reply back from my ugly one. It's unprofessional. So what do you do?

At first, I wasn't sure you could do anything about it. Now that I have a compelling reason to use e-mail forwarding (lest I can't be contacted and my deceased friend's sites turn into a barren search-keyword wasteland), I decided to look into ways around this mess. My first source was to refer to my web host. Their FAQ says that if you want to send e-mail that appears to be from your forwarding address, you have to configure your e-mail client to do it.

Since I use the pretty amazing Thunderbird for my e-mail, I thought that there should be a good way to do it. I tried an extension that managed to get the job done, but it wasn't pretty. I could send e-mail "from" my forwarding address, but I had to type it in manually every time unless I was writing a reply. (The extension author's English also wasn't pretty.) I figured that Thunderbird should have something like this built in... and it turns out that it does.

Say you have a forwarding address that forwards to your real address. Adapted from instructions here, this is how you can send e-mail from your real address that looks like it's coming from your forwarding address:

• Go to the account settings for your e-mail address.
• Click "Manage Identities..."
• Click "Add..."
• In the "E-mail address" field, enter your forwarding address.
• Hit OK, OK, OK, etc. You're done.

Now when you write an e-mail, you can select either address from the "From:" drop-down menu. If you reply to an e-mail that was sent to your forwarding address, the forwarding address will be selected by default for you to send from. I'm not very good at deciphering e-mail headers, but it appears that your actual address isn't visible in messages that you send.

Now that I don't have any worries about using e-mail forwarding, I'm phasing in a nice-looking theworldofstuff.com address. Problem solved!

(I eagerly await the barrage of people saying, "use gmail use gmail use gmail.")

Fitna, the controversial film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, has just been released on the Internet. Watch it here to get an idea of the things religious extremism can do.

I don't think I get enough e-mail for this to happen: e-mail apnea.

National Geographic has a cool article on this new particle accelerator thing: "The God Particle." It's funny how many of their articles have nothing to do with geography.

Okay, so you know how I got a 15 out of 20 on my last physics test? (I mentioned it last time). Anyway, that was an unofficial score based on me comparing my scratch work to the answer key, which was posted online. A few days later, I got my actual score and it was... 13 out of 20. Something happened on the answer sheet, like I bubbled in the wrong answers, or maybe I forgot to bubble them in at all. You can be sure I won't let that happen next time.

In less disheartening news, I had a programming test yesterday that I think I did well on and a biology test this evening that I think I did very well on. We'll see soon enough, but I'm not going to make any guesses.

Last week, Sarah, a girl I asked out a few months ago but then she never talked to me again and I think she has a boyfriend, texted me, asking me to go to her orchestra concert. I thought it would be fun, so I told her I'd go. It was Thursday night, and the theme was Oscar-nominated film scores. Listed on the program was another member of the orchestra that I knew; the president of the club I'm in was a violin. (Yeah, he was actually a violin.) I got to talk to him during the intermission. I didn't actually talk to Sarah, but I waved to her, and she saw me and pointed me out to whoever was next to her. (This was before the concert, not during it.)

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what orchestra members do before they make that nice tuning-up sound? They practice. Individually. Think of that bit from "A Day in the Life," but for twenty minutes solid. (Also, how do orchestra members applaud if they're seated with their instruments? They slap their legs and stamp their feet.)

The orchestra played music from Gone with the Wind, Braveheart, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Goldfinger, plus others I had never heard of. (Just so you can make fun of me, let me add that I have never seen any of those movies! No, not even [insert your favorite one here]! I know, I'd better go to Blockbuster and rent it right this minute. 'Cause I totally rent movies all the time.)

Oh, I lied. I did see Lawrence of Arabia, which the orchestra performed a piece from. For the occasion, they brought out the actual Oscar statuette that the film won for Best Picture. It was being guarded by a huge guy with a baseball bat. After the show, people lined up to have their picture taken with the Oscar. I think a lot of people thought that the Oscar wasn't real (probably because the fat guy was so comical, pointing his bat at anyone who got near the thing, including the conductor, who, at the end of the show, could no longer resist the urge to go over and pick it up), but in the program, they thanked some collection in California that the statuette was on loan from.

Anyway, the concert was really enjoyable. It's pretty cool to actually see an orchestra playing. I can't remember if I had ever seen one before, but now I can say that I have. Also, I've seen an Oscar.

Now, a quick Ask Jordon:

Alexis: Okay I was wondering if I was going to go out with this guy i like when spring break is over?

I could give the standard Magic 8-Ball answer, but I'll try to be a little more helpful this time and offer actual advice. You sound like you're asking for a prediction, but you needn't be. Here's a tip. Take matters into your own hands. That way, you have a chance of getting the outcome you want.

With the war in Iraq entering its sixth year, I just want to know why the hell this hasn't happened yet: ImpeachBush.org.

This is similar to a link I posted four years ago. (I can't find the original post; maybe I didn't actually post it here.) Anyway, this news article lists some of the more famous extended family members of the presidential candidates. For example, Barack Obama is related to a number of Presidents; George W. Bush is his tenth cousin once removed. He's also related to Brad Pitt. Hillary Clinton is related to Celine Dion, Alanis Morrissette, and a few people who aren't Canadian singers. Do you have to be half-WASP to have such extensive family records? I want to run for President just so they can tell me I'm related to Chuck Norris.

Worst idea ever: Ten Cent Beer Night.

A lot has happened in the past week.

I had a physics test on Tuesday. I needed to study a lot for it, because I got only 12 out of 20 right on the first test. Luckily, my physics professors know how hard their class is, so a 60% is only a C+ (at my junior high it would have been a solid F). Still, I don't like C's or even B's. (Maybe I should mention here that you're allowed to have a handwritten cheat sheet for each test. I got a 60 with a cheat sheet.) So all the time I spent copying formulas and the answers to common problems paid off, because I got a 15 out of 20 - a B. I now have a B in the class. Yay.

I had a date planned for two Fridays ago, but it got postponed. A few minutes after sending off my last post, I rescheduled. We agreed Friday night.

On Wednesday, I did the whole "Are we still on for Friday?" thing. You know, where you... ask if you're still on for Friday. She said yeah, and that she'd like to bring a friend along. Oh crap. I try so hard to make my intentions made clear without looking like a jerk or a fool, but apparently I don't try hard enough. So I'm like, well, I think it should be just you and me... And she's all, oh, so it's like a date? And I'm, well, yeah... And she goes, oh, sorry, I'm not... whatever whatever. So I'm like, that's cool, you can bring your friend. And she's all, okay.

I was very disappointed about that. I've been trying all year, and I've still never been on a date. I talked about it to my friend Daniel, and he sent me some e-books on how to pick up girls and communicate with people and things like that. The one about girls caught my interest. It was from a guy in the seduction community, which I had only ever heard of on Wikipedia. Basically, it's a loosely-knit group of people who practice the art of picking up women. This one guy's recommendation was that you stand out and play hard to get. Well, everybody tells you to do that, but he explained it in detail. According to him, you have to say something crazy to get her attention, tell lots of interesting stories, and then act like you don't give a care about her. I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's basically it. If you do it like he says, then she's supposed to be begging for your phone number as you come up with excuse after excuse not to give it to her, only to divulge it finally after she's practically grabbing your arm. Or whatever.

Besides being awfully manipulative, it requires you to act like someone you're not, which is not only dishonest but also a lot of work. Although, I have to say, acting like myself isn't working well at all. There's got to be some sort of middle way where I can still be myself, but in a better way. I hope I can gleam some valuable information from the other e-books, which I haven't read too much of yet. The other one I've read most of is about body language. I find it interesting because I can't read body language at all. I'm hardly ever aware that someone may be using body language to convey feelings other than what they're expressing verbally.

There's just so much I have to think about. I could probably follow that one book to the letter and take a girl home every night, but I wouldn't like it. I probably should make a habit of approaching random girls -- I'm sure not meeting many as it is -- but how do I go about it? Should I continue to act the way I am even though it frustrates me in ways you can't possibly imagine? Should I pretend to be something I'm not? Should I actually change? Why should I even have to read these books anyway? It makes me feel like less of a man that I can't do these things myself. It's like I was born not knowing how to engage in social interaction.

Once I read an article or something that said how smart children are treated differently by adults. They don't spend as much time fostering the children's emotional and social development as much as they do with other kids because they think that the smart kids are just so precocious that they don't need their help. But it's not true. The result is that you have smart, neglected kids who can't do anything. So the article went. I wonder if I can find it.

So, maybe I need to practice reading body language and doing things like that. Actually, while I'm at it, why don't I go off on this tangent: Kissing sucks. Actually, I don't know whether it sucks, but here's what sucks about it. Being a good kisser is a great thing, and if you're not, everyone you ever love will hate you. That's a given. There are good kissers, and there are bad kissers (so I hear). But the thing is, you can't practice. I've never slipped anyone the tongue. How will I know what to do? Oh, easy, just read a book about it. Okay, but I'm thinking of the stereotypical comparison of learning to ride a bike. Imagine that you only learn how to ride a bike by reading a book. Then one day, the local volcano erupts, and you need to use your bike to make a speedy escape. You'd better make damn sure you read that book thoroughly.

Okay, so, I decided to go on the non-date which we still had scheduled. I got to restaurant in about half the time I thought it would take, so I was just sitting at a street corner for a while watching the cars and people go by. Behind me was the university, and across the street was the Outside World. A car came out of the university and slowed down as it passed me. The car was full of girls, about four of them. It looked like they were going to ask me for directions, so I got ready to point.

The one in the back on the passenger side spoke: "Excuse me, which way is UF?"

"...It's right behind you," I said, pointing backwards, but they didn't want to hear. They just kept going. Then I said something that they definitely wouldn't have wanted to hear.

Girls, man.

What is it about me that makes me like a human punching bag?

So, anyway, tonight we went to Tijuana Flats -- a "fast casual" Mexican place that I love -- for dinner, with the girl's friend, who I had seen around. We ordered, ate, and had some light conversation. It was rather uneventful, and I had a good feeling that I could have pulled off a nice evening without the extra friend there.

They said they were going to go to a concert afterward, and I didn't really want to do that, but when they said it was on campus, I figured I'd go along. It was at the student union, where there's an amphitheater in front of a lake. It's pretty nice. The first guy had a loud guitar, and he played drums with foot pedals. Other than his singing, he sounded like the White Stripes. The next guy was a little more talented; he played the acoustic guitar and was very rhythmic with it. Finally, there was the headliner: she was the woman who did a lot of the soundtrack for Juno, a movie I actually saw. So some of the songs, sung with her distinctive voice, were familiar. But they were all captivating and entertaining. Her name was Kimya Dawson.

She was very funny, and it turned out that the tour was a family affair: the first guy playing was her husband, and the second was a good friend who got a namecheck in one of the songs in Juno (which prompted his local newspaper to publish a story saying that an area songwriter's name would be mentioned in a song in an upcoming movie). At one point, she had people in the audience raise their hands to request songs. A big group of people raised their hands together, and they requested a song of hers and asked if they could go down and dance to it. She let them. There were about twelve of them, and as she did this moderate-tempo acousting number, they were swing dancing and generally flailing about randomly. Then she asked anybody who had ever dreamed of auditioning for Annie to come down and sing "Tomorrow" with her a cappella. A lot of people did. Finally, a huge number of people came down to dance to her final number, and they continued to swarm around her and give her hugs long after her set ended.

During the set, my non-date and her friend had gotten about four other people to meet up with them, so I was now in a large group. There were a lot of things going on at the student union (they have a whole program of things to do on Friday nights to keep kids from going to parties, I guess), so a few people decided they wanted wax hands. I don't know if you've heard of them, but it's where they dip your hand in wax and then it hardens and you buy it for ten dollars. After waiting in line for an hour even though I didn't want a wax hand, I realized that the night was winding down, so I decided to leave right then. My non-date seemed to understand.

Has anyone used Amazon MP3? The idea of having an online store with DRM-free music from all four major labels and many independent ones is big. Really big. I want to know what people's experiences with it are.

I quit eMusic a few months ago. It wasn't really for me. Between its monthly pricing scheme and narrow selection, I found myself in a rush to get my monthly allotment out of the way. I had the cheapest plan: $9.99 a month for 30 tracks. I'm not a voracious music fan who buys two or three albums a month; I just get a catchy song stuck in my head once in a while and feel the need to add it to my collection. Therefore, paying for individual tracks would be better for me. And, of course, no DRM. That's a must.

Unless you're downloading a whole album, Amazon MP3 charges by the track. They seem to be in the range of $0.89 to $0.99 (USD). Albums typically go between $5.99 and $9.99, but to get that pricing, you need to use Amazon's downloader, which is now available for the most popular Linux distributions as well as Windows and Mac.

(The only issue I would seem to have is that to get the special album pricing, you need to use a program that probably isn't free software. But I don't think it's that much of an issue because I'm already using proprietary wireless and graphics drivers as well as a proprietary BIOS. To shun Amazon's downloader would be hypocritical.)

So, have you used Amazon MP3? Did they have everything you wanted? Did you use it to discover new things? How is it on your wallet? Did you run into any technical problems? I want to know.

And now, the links.

Check out The Evolution of Tech Companies' Logos. Microsoft's original logo was groovy!

Scientology kills. Read all about it.

Here's a New York Times chart showing the adoption of new technologies over the past century. It's plain to see that people pick up on new technologies faster than they did 100 years ago.