Saturday, September 30, 2006

Comic Break


Special thanks to Jeff for introducing me to Achewood ("HUUUUUUUUUUUGS!" "Hug the #### out of them, Phillipe!"), because this is worthy of GARCIA Marquez. Or maybe Rulfo...

A camera that takes pictures of people the way they see themselves as, a cellphone that leads you a strange intersection with a man who's cleaning his teeth, and of course the RV that's always raining inside.



Jijiji.











And how about the real reason Meerkats are always on the lookout:







Images taken from:
www.achewood.com
http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Maybe the Idiocy Won't Last

There's hope yet.

Updates

Applications:
UT, Texas A&M, North Carolina, Maryland, Colorado.
DONE
(To Do: Washington, Minnesota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, New Mexico, Arizona, Arizona State, Indiana, Illinois, Penn State, NYU, Emory, Vanderbilt, Berkley, UC-Davis, Brown, McGill, British Colombia, Purdue, Georgetown, Georgia -yes, Georgia-)

Letters of Recomendation:
4/4 needed. DONE.

Transcripts: To do in mid-October.

GRE Order: To do in early October.

Labor Presentation: DONE.

MA Outline: Running behind.

Trade Presentation: Article read once. (Needed: 50 minute presentation in late November).

Just FYI.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Sunday, September 24, 2006

And just so you know...

And just so you know, darling... a copy of the poem is going up in my cubicle.

Sailing the Man-Made Seas

So I sort of disappeared this week. My biking partner crapped out on me for the 100 miles, so I'm reworking my cycling schedule to three or four days a week. But while he did crap out on me for biking, he brought up a new activity. He found a sailing club through the school, contacted the president, found their schedule, and set it up to where we (me, my friend K, and his roommate S) all drove to White Rock and sailed. It was stinking windy.
Luckily, none of the three of us tipped over.

There were five two-man boats, and a motor boat to assist in pulling the boats back upright in case they tipped. However there was an odd number of people, so one person had to sit out. I started out sailing with a fairly experience SMU-grad, and traded out with S to sit on the rescue boat and make sure everyone was alright. When it came time to trade, I was supposed to switch with K, but I figured since he was the one who dragged us all out here, I'd just go ahead and let him go.
It did give me the opportunity to learn how to flip sail boats back over (one poor couple tipped twice), and the hour that I had on the sail boat itself was rather fun. K wants to go back, and this club sails on Wednesdays and Sundays. So we'll see how long his interest keeps with this. He managed to get five weeks on the bike before he got tired of it, so I give it a good five weeks.
Either way, jumping from one side of a small ship to another, and trying to counterweight the boat into not tipping over is one heck of a ride (especially when you do that by leaning your entire body over the side and hoping that your feet don't slip out from under the straps on the bottom of the boat).

And seeing as I still have a year left at SMU, I might as well take full advantage of whatever opportunities are available through the clubs. When it doesn't interfere with my studies.
Was very nice to spend an afternoon on the lake, worrying about whether or not a boat was going to fall over on top of me, instead of worrying about the Cobb-Douglas production function.

My presentation in Labor went alright, but it chopped into a full week and a half of not working on the MA paper. Once I get the referee report done I'm getting back to that. My applications for UT and Texas A&M are pretty much in except for the rec letters, the essay, transcripts, and GRE scores. On tap to finish this week are Colorado, Maryland, and Washington.

Going to Boston to see the Ardilla on the fifth. I must brag a little. I had a stroke of genius for our one year. The week before our first kiss, we spent nearly every night together: talking, walking around campus, doing random things, and just getting to know each other. It was one of the best weeks of my life. So I sent her three gifts over the week: a fruit and cheese basket (hey, she likes to munch), a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear, and a bouquet of roses. Luckily for me, the last gift arrived at the same time a care-package for her arrived, and she got a loan problem worked out. Great day for her.
Well, I thought I was doing something sweet and romantic. Then she writes this knock out poem for me, and posts it on her blog. So I'm biased. But its wonderful. The form, the content... it's a real treat. I can only hope that my gift made her feel half as good as I do reading that poem.

My sister moved back to KC this past week, and I'm happy about that. Just having more family close by (closer than MA and WA anyway) is a good feeling.

Other than that I've been in the basement, or in the apartment reading.. writing... working... missing the squirrel.

In the words of Vonnegut: "So it goes."

Monday, September 11, 2006

The Joys of Biking


Joy of Biking #43.

Odd tan lines.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

"Here doggie, doggie."

The Rodenator is apparently a flame thrower specifically made to flush out and flash fry prairie dogs.

... awesome.

Anybody else remember that old PC Game that came out around the time of that scare about prairie dogs and rabies? That always started each game with this high pitched computer voice saying awkwardly, "Here doggie, doggie"? Where if you shoot one of the prairie dogs it would explode in blood Mortal Kombat style? This like that game... if it had a flamethrower.

You know some kid is going to put his eye out with this thing soon. Wait... no... he's going to kill himself.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Alyson Hannigan and Vladimir Putin

So I saw this face recognition thing on my sister's my space profile and decided to go to the web page and try it out. Simple enough. You upload a picture, it runs it, and tells you what celebrity the computer thinks you look most like.

I run a picture the Ardilla took of me last year, and I get:
1) Daniel Day Lewis
uh... sure. Okay. Irish. Why not?
2) John Mayer
Oh God.
3) James Blunt.
Time to kill myself.
4) Hillary Duff

... WTF?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!? I'M A DUDE! HILLARY FRIKKIN DUFF?!?!?! 70% facial feature match??? ... no kidding really?
Other notables: John Lennon, Hu Jintao (who the heck is that?), and Scott Bakula. yes... Scott Bakula.

Oh but this gets better. I'm playing around with this and I put up a picture from my sis' wedding of me and the Ardilla. It recognizes both our faces, and puts them up. The two top pics?
Alyson Hannigan and Vladimir Putin.

So she's a red-headed actress, and I'm an ex-KGB cranky Slavic politician...

... I really should smile more in photos.

Special thanks to IMDb (internet movie database) and the Economist for providing these two pictures of the two celebrities in question.

Goodbye to the Croc Hunter

Today is a very sad day.

I remember my freshmen year, walking into the lobby of the 6th floor, and seeing crowds of cheering dudes around the television. And of course... I would have to join as well as soon as I heard those magic words:
"Crikey, this is a cranky one! You're alright! You're alright!"

Even with the whole baby incident, you couldn't help but love this guy. I mean.. he was nuts, but he really had a passion for what he did, and life in general.

Rest in peace croc hunter.

BBC

Let me also add that I would watch his snake shows religiously to try and get over my fear of snakes.
Didn't work but... you know... it helped me get familiar with them at least.