DID YOU KNOW? Jon Bon Jovi's first professionally-recorded, commercially-released performance was as a lead vocalist on the track "R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas" from Christmas in the Stars: A Star Wars Christmas Album.
Today I saw this girl walking across the outdoor second-floor bridge from the auxiliary chemical engineering building to the main chemical engineering building. Most of the offices are in the former building and most of the labs are in the latter building, but there's one lab in the second building. Anyway, this occurrence would have been less notable to me if I hadn't had the following conversation with her yesterday, while standing in pretty much the exact same spot:
"Mister Maurer. How's it going?"
"Good, good. How about you?"
"Pretty good."
"Cool. How's it going?"
I was just excited that someone knew my last name within six months of making my acquaintance; I forgot how to have a conversation.
"Huh?"
"Oh, yeah, uh, how's it going?"
"Good!"
"Were you going to give me a hug or are you just stretching?"
In my defense, this is not a phrase that I use often. Two days ago I was walking over that very same bridge with my postdoc, and another grad student exclaimed "Yay! It's two incredibly cool people!" as she hugged both of us. I guess I have expected too much of everyone since then.
"Oh, I mean... I can give you a hug."
"So, what brings you over here?"
"Oh, just going to the bathroom."
"Hey, me too!"
I think that, usually, awkward pauses are inexplicable. In this case, I'm pretty sure we were simultaneously wondering whether it would be better to end on this unsettling note, or to continue dredging the bottom of the sea in an attempt to salvage this shipwreck of a conversation. She dredged on.
"Yeah! There's always like a mass exodus over here. I don't know if you noticed, but the bathrooms in Gilman are... kind of nasty."
"I know, right?"
"It's like they never clean them!"
"Yeah, I mean, the urin-- I mean, you probably don't have them in the girls' bathrooms, but they're just like giant slabs of marble sticking out of the wall! And I don't even know how they drain!"
This is about where I blacked out. The men's and women's bathrooms are right next to each other. I leave imagining the remainder of this encounter as an exercise for the reader.
30 January 2008
27 January 2008
Too narrow to contain
DID YOU KNOW? Gene Simmons was born in Israel, and immigrated to America at age 8.
I always get confused between "emigrate" and "immigrate." I think you say "emigrate from" and "immigrate to." But I'm not one hundred percent sure. This all started because of this one e-mail I got from MIT Hillel informing me that they were throwing a "Jew-au on Ice," presumably featuring ice-skating hula dancers, but no roasting pig, and they needed my input to vote on an advertising slogan for the party. The winning candidate was "It's getting hot in here, so immigrate to Israel with all your clothes!" And I have been confused since then.
I was on the Radke lab ski trip this weekend, and it was pretty awesome. I thought that I would take tons of pictures and write a proper, thorough blog entry upon my arrival at home, but actually, I only ended up taking one picture, of Colin attaching chains to the front wheels of his Honda Civic so that we could successfully navigate our way through the mountains to Incline Village, Nevada. Anyway, here's that picture.
When I got to the cabin, I found out that everybody else had also brought their cameras, although I'm not sure if they also had the intention of blogging everything. So I took no pictures, no pictures at all. And, really, I don't want to just tell you what happened, because showing is so much more fascinating than telling. So, like I usually do, I'm just gonna suggest some of the things that happened, giving the impression that my life is way too spectacular to be contained in any blog--even a blog as spectacular as this one.
Oh, here's another thing I can take a picture of, right now. It's the bracket from our second annual Radke Lab arm-wrestling tournament. We were having dinner, and I think we were making fun our lab undergrad, Bhushan, for being generally clueless about the concept of skiing, and also because he is an undergrad. It's kind of like how I continue to make fun of Ben for being 12 years old, even though he's actually 5 months younger than I am. Anyway, after a while, Bhushan, who had proven himself over the weekend to be prone to blurting, blurted out, "I could arm-wrestle anyone here!"
Professor Radke heard this and instantaneously accepted Bhushan's offer. It's impossible to tell if Professor Radke is serious or not, ever, unless you're giving a presentation at colloquium and he's asking a question, in which case the answer is "yes, he's always serious." Loddie then related a story about how the lab had previously had an arm-wrestling tournament, and they set up a bracket, even though they only had 4 people, and Mahendra was crowned the champion after three hard-fought rounds. If you know me, you know that I don't screw around, ever, so it was not three seconds later that I was already in the kitchen, grabbing a paper bag and scribbling a bracket onto the back of it. After fondue, Professor Radke began the festivities by utterly destroying Bhushan in the first of eleven rounds in an epic arm-wrestling tournament eventually won by Vasily, which would have really been more apparent from the beginning if he stopped wearing turtleneck sweaters every day and decided to give us some tickets to the gun show. His victory was slightly diminished by the fact that his one-year-old daughter hit her head on the arm-wrestling table moments before the beginning of the final round, and the dozen gathered onlookers were only slightly sympathetic to her cries as we watched Vasily crush Colin's arm as if it were a dandelion.
I mean, Colin did the same to me, so I'm two orders of magnitude weaker than Vasily.
So, that's how I spent this weekend organizing an arm-wrestling tournament with my principal investigator. I could tell you some other stuff, about how I was at the highest terrestrial elevation I have ever achieved thus far in my life, got some awesome views of Lake Tahoe, jumped out of a bathroom window into a pile of snow wearing only my bathing suit, shot the moon twice in a game of hearts, or made seven really great omelets and one abysmally bad one that ended up being served to Professor Radke. But I have a truly marvelous life that this blog is too narrow to contain.
I always get confused between "emigrate" and "immigrate." I think you say "emigrate from" and "immigrate to." But I'm not one hundred percent sure. This all started because of this one e-mail I got from MIT Hillel informing me that they were throwing a "Jew-au on Ice," presumably featuring ice-skating hula dancers, but no roasting pig, and they needed my input to vote on an advertising slogan for the party. The winning candidate was "It's getting hot in here, so immigrate to Israel with all your clothes!" And I have been confused since then.
I was on the Radke lab ski trip this weekend, and it was pretty awesome. I thought that I would take tons of pictures and write a proper, thorough blog entry upon my arrival at home, but actually, I only ended up taking one picture, of Colin attaching chains to the front wheels of his Honda Civic so that we could successfully navigate our way through the mountains to Incline Village, Nevada. Anyway, here's that picture.
When I got to the cabin, I found out that everybody else had also brought their cameras, although I'm not sure if they also had the intention of blogging everything. So I took no pictures, no pictures at all. And, really, I don't want to just tell you what happened, because showing is so much more fascinating than telling. So, like I usually do, I'm just gonna suggest some of the things that happened, giving the impression that my life is way too spectacular to be contained in any blog--even a blog as spectacular as this one.
Oh, here's another thing I can take a picture of, right now. It's the bracket from our second annual Radke Lab arm-wrestling tournament. We were having dinner, and I think we were making fun our lab undergrad, Bhushan, for being generally clueless about the concept of skiing, and also because he is an undergrad. It's kind of like how I continue to make fun of Ben for being 12 years old, even though he's actually 5 months younger than I am. Anyway, after a while, Bhushan, who had proven himself over the weekend to be prone to blurting, blurted out, "I could arm-wrestle anyone here!"
Professor Radke heard this and instantaneously accepted Bhushan's offer. It's impossible to tell if Professor Radke is serious or not, ever, unless you're giving a presentation at colloquium and he's asking a question, in which case the answer is "yes, he's always serious." Loddie then related a story about how the lab had previously had an arm-wrestling tournament, and they set up a bracket, even though they only had 4 people, and Mahendra was crowned the champion after three hard-fought rounds. If you know me, you know that I don't screw around, ever, so it was not three seconds later that I was already in the kitchen, grabbing a paper bag and scribbling a bracket onto the back of it. After fondue, Professor Radke began the festivities by utterly destroying Bhushan in the first of eleven rounds in an epic arm-wrestling tournament eventually won by Vasily, which would have really been more apparent from the beginning if he stopped wearing turtleneck sweaters every day and decided to give us some tickets to the gun show. His victory was slightly diminished by the fact that his one-year-old daughter hit her head on the arm-wrestling table moments before the beginning of the final round, and the dozen gathered onlookers were only slightly sympathetic to her cries as we watched Vasily crush Colin's arm as if it were a dandelion.
I mean, Colin did the same to me, so I'm two orders of magnitude weaker than Vasily.
So, that's how I spent this weekend organizing an arm-wrestling tournament with my principal investigator. I could tell you some other stuff, about how I was at the highest terrestrial elevation I have ever achieved thus far in my life, got some awesome views of Lake Tahoe, jumped out of a bathroom window into a pile of snow wearing only my bathing suit, shot the moon twice in a game of hearts, or made seven really great omelets and one abysmally bad one that ended up being served to Professor Radke. But I have a truly marvelous life that this blog is too narrow to contain.
24 January 2008
You can delight because you have a place
DID YOU KNOW? Yoko Ono's most recent album, Yes, I'm A Witch, features remixes of her work by Peaches, Le Tigre, Cat Power, and Craig Armstrong.
I see that the original title of this entry was "A little too perfect." I started it at 8:58 AM on Tuesday, I guess a little bit before I left for class in the morning, and I really have no idea what I was planning to write about, although I do remember that I was making reference to this comic from The Perry Bible Fellowship. I might have been thinking about Ina Garten's apple butternut squash soup, of which I had just prepared a five-quart portion the previous night, because I am poor at estimating the weights of squash at farmers' markets. The soup was indeed perfect; however, this metaphor would end with me melting Ina Garten's skin off, which is not something I've ever really considered doing.
Actually, I think I was planning to talk about a clue that Mike gave in Taboo on Sunday night: "It's Sam's favorite TV show." After a little bit of guessing, I finally arrived at Judge Judy, whose website I am not linking, because it's way less cool than it used to be. And, I mean, Mike's clue is a little too perfect, and perhaps did expose a cold, dark, robotic skeleton that I have attempted to keep hidden for far too long. But, apparently, not one that I have hidden very well.
Anyway, "a little too perfect" is also a pretty apt description of my life right now; as is this entry's current title, which comes from Sufjan Stevens' transcendent live-only track "Majesty Snowbird." Things have started to... coalesce. Man, that needs to go on my list of favorite words, right now. In case you're curious, it currently comprises thirteen words:
exacerbate
disarticulated
pestilential
lasciviousness
meander
conflate
convolve
coalesce
concatenate
ichor
shiksa
monotreme
inconsolable
But, yeah, this week has been excellent so far. I passed prelims, which is exciting because it helped me reëstablish confidence in my mad chemical engineering skillz, and also showed me how all of the courses I took in undergrad kind of... coalesce... into a coherent, unified set of abilities that, for the first time, I consider worthwhile and perhaps even employable. I'm also starting to settle into the ChemE department socially, too, which is cause for considerable celebration. Then, I started working in lab, and found out the first three or four months of my research will be spent under the tutelage of an awesome Spanish postdoc, which I think should be a great way to get into my project with a running start. Speaking of starting and running, my poop-sprained ankle has finally healed, although I'm going to take it easy until Monday before I start back into my marathon training. And I'm going to finish up my eighth serving of leftover butternut squash soup tomorrow for lunch. I can delight, because I have a place. A place, and soup. Surely Sufjan has never tried one of Ina Garten's recipes. I hope that when he does his New York album, one of the songs is about Ina Garten. She's kind of a folk hero.
But maybe best of all was Lauren's visit to Berkeley yesterday evening and this morning. In case you haven't noticed, I really like to put obvious inside jokes in my blog, so that the majority of my readership will feel excluded, so let me just say that this was total LOL time in my biscuit. What I was most proud of was the fact that I had, like, actual favorite places to show her. I was all, "Okay, we're gonna go to my apartment and play cow racing on the Wii." Then we met up with SVEN. You know, I'm not an MITblogger anymore, so I don't have to be all "SVEN '05." After grabbing some dinner, we headed to my favorite pub, Albatross, for some darts and Connect Four action. I mean, we didn't get to play Connect Four, but that is the reason that Albatross is my favorite pub. Some of my fellow ChemE's even obliged by showing up to make it appear as if I have friends, even though we've been drinking five out of the past six nights to celebrate the end of prelims. They are troopers. Then, this morning, we grabbed some pastry at my favorite pastry shop, the Cheeseboard, and on my way to lab I had like one story to tell Lauren about a tremendously ugly building on campus, which is the only thing I really know about campus, except how to get to my lab and the Bear's Lair.
The only thing missing from her visit was a trip to the vegan Japanese restaurant a few blocks from my house, because SVEN had other recommendations for dinner. I really thought Lauren might be The One. But, oh well, some people must live and die alone, without vegan Japanese food, even in Winesburg, Ohio.
Anyway, as a result of all these non-vegan successes, I was thinking about giving this entry a title about feeling at home in Berkeley, but I feel that I have already composed the definitive blog entry title on the subject of home. Project Runway is almost over, so I'll close this entry by saying that my title is perfect, my life rocks, and the Miss America pageant is now advertising itself as a reality show. The original reality show.
And, I hope I don't give anything away, but the purple comet star in Dreadnought Galaxy is perhaps one of the greatest self-contained gaming experiences I have ever encountered.
And, holy crap, Michael Kors just said "I love Amy Winehouse."
I see that the original title of this entry was "A little too perfect." I started it at 8:58 AM on Tuesday, I guess a little bit before I left for class in the morning, and I really have no idea what I was planning to write about, although I do remember that I was making reference to this comic from The Perry Bible Fellowship. I might have been thinking about Ina Garten's apple butternut squash soup, of which I had just prepared a five-quart portion the previous night, because I am poor at estimating the weights of squash at farmers' markets. The soup was indeed perfect; however, this metaphor would end with me melting Ina Garten's skin off, which is not something I've ever really considered doing.
Actually, I think I was planning to talk about a clue that Mike gave in Taboo on Sunday night: "It's Sam's favorite TV show." After a little bit of guessing, I finally arrived at Judge Judy, whose website I am not linking, because it's way less cool than it used to be. And, I mean, Mike's clue is a little too perfect, and perhaps did expose a cold, dark, robotic skeleton that I have attempted to keep hidden for far too long. But, apparently, not one that I have hidden very well.
Anyway, "a little too perfect" is also a pretty apt description of my life right now; as is this entry's current title, which comes from Sufjan Stevens' transcendent live-only track "Majesty Snowbird." Things have started to... coalesce. Man, that needs to go on my list of favorite words, right now. In case you're curious, it currently comprises thirteen words:
exacerbate
disarticulated
pestilential
lasciviousness
meander
conflate
convolve
coalesce
concatenate
ichor
shiksa
monotreme
inconsolable
But, yeah, this week has been excellent so far. I passed prelims, which is exciting because it helped me reëstablish confidence in my mad chemical engineering skillz, and also showed me how all of the courses I took in undergrad kind of... coalesce... into a coherent, unified set of abilities that, for the first time, I consider worthwhile and perhaps even employable. I'm also starting to settle into the ChemE department socially, too, which is cause for considerable celebration. Then, I started working in lab, and found out the first three or four months of my research will be spent under the tutelage of an awesome Spanish postdoc, which I think should be a great way to get into my project with a running start. Speaking of starting and running, my poop-sprained ankle has finally healed, although I'm going to take it easy until Monday before I start back into my marathon training. And I'm going to finish up my eighth serving of leftover butternut squash soup tomorrow for lunch. I can delight, because I have a place. A place, and soup. Surely Sufjan has never tried one of Ina Garten's recipes. I hope that when he does his New York album, one of the songs is about Ina Garten. She's kind of a folk hero.
But maybe best of all was Lauren's visit to Berkeley yesterday evening and this morning. In case you haven't noticed, I really like to put obvious inside jokes in my blog, so that the majority of my readership will feel excluded, so let me just say that this was total LOL time in my biscuit. What I was most proud of was the fact that I had, like, actual favorite places to show her. I was all, "Okay, we're gonna go to my apartment and play cow racing on the Wii." Then we met up with SVEN. You know, I'm not an MITblogger anymore, so I don't have to be all "SVEN '05." After grabbing some dinner, we headed to my favorite pub, Albatross, for some darts and Connect Four action. I mean, we didn't get to play Connect Four, but that is the reason that Albatross is my favorite pub. Some of my fellow ChemE's even obliged by showing up to make it appear as if I have friends, even though we've been drinking five out of the past six nights to celebrate the end of prelims. They are troopers. Then, this morning, we grabbed some pastry at my favorite pastry shop, the Cheeseboard, and on my way to lab I had like one story to tell Lauren about a tremendously ugly building on campus, which is the only thing I really know about campus, except how to get to my lab and the Bear's Lair.
The only thing missing from her visit was a trip to the vegan Japanese restaurant a few blocks from my house, because SVEN had other recommendations for dinner. I really thought Lauren might be The One. But, oh well, some people must live and die alone, without vegan Japanese food, even in Winesburg, Ohio.
Anyway, as a result of all these non-vegan successes, I was thinking about giving this entry a title about feeling at home in Berkeley, but I feel that I have already composed the definitive blog entry title on the subject of home. Project Runway is almost over, so I'll close this entry by saying that my title is perfect, my life rocks, and the Miss America pageant is now advertising itself as a reality show. The original reality show.
And, I hope I don't give anything away, but the purple comet star in Dreadnought Galaxy is perhaps one of the greatest self-contained gaming experiences I have ever encountered.
And, holy crap, Michael Kors just said "I love Amy Winehouse."
20 January 2008
Pants! Pants! Pants!
DID YOU KNOW? The word "ambiance" can also be spelt "ambience." Apple spell check does not like the latter, but, then again, they don't like the word "spelt" either.
I can't believe I have written three blog entries without mentioning the most spectacular drunk dial I have ever received. This one was from Esther, who called me a day after my birthday to alert me to the fact that she was "in a very fancy restaurant" and that a member of her dining party had noticed Senator Arlen Specter was sitting in a corner of this very same restaurant. We talked about a few ways she could immortalize this moment for me--for example, taking a cell phone picture of the back of his head as she went to the bathroom, or asking Senator Specter to sign her breasts, but I don't think any of that ended up happening. I got kind of afraid of what other diners were thinking, because it did sound like she was yelling into the phone (though her excitement was, of course, completely understandable), so I let her go without ever finding out what transpired between her and the senator. Anyway, I'm just glad that somewhere in the world, there is somebody who thinks, "Senator Arlen Specter? I need to call Sam. Right now."
"I sprained my ankle while taking a poop." I mean, it's more or less the truth. I've embellished the story a little bit; for example, I tell people that I was reading an article on corn ethanol, instead of looking at historical presidential election results on Wikipedia. And I'm not sure that my ankle is actually sprained, although it does feel a lot like the last time that happened. But, I mean, the point is that I'm limping, and the time that I started limping coincided with a movement of my bowels, so I feel like my statement is still valid. And if you have to have a story about why you're limping, and that story can't be "I got into a knife fight with Ann Coulter" or "I was injured on American Gladiators. By Hellga." I guess "I sprained my ankle while taking a poop" is one of the more colorful explanations you can have.
In other news, today I went to Buffalo Exchange to buy some more pants. I didn't find anything as life-changing as the $14 pair of Banana Republic black jeans that I'm currently wearing, but I did grab a pair of red corduroy dress pants (no, really) and another pair of H&M jeans. I guess buying H&M used from a thrift store kind of cancels out the fact that it's probably made in sweatshops. I don't know. Anyway, speaking of environmentally and socially conscious purchasing decisions, Buffalo Exchange has this thing where, if you don't need a bag, they give you a token worth the value of the bag, which you can drop into a bin and donate to the charity of your choice. I usually just take my backpack over anyway, because I have way too many plastic bags in my life, but today I was actually on my way back to campus to grab my backpack, which I had left in lab on Friday after prelims.
So today, I bought my red corduroy pants and my used sweatshop pants, and the cashier dude was like, "Want a bag?" So I said, "Yes," a little bit shamefully, because he looked like one of those people that only showers once a week and steals Naked Juice out of the dumpster behind Trader Joe's. Which is cool, but I feel bad hurting the Earth in front of people like that. Well, apparently, he said something else, because then he said, "You know about our tokens, right?" I thought he was just trying to lay a guilt trip on me, but then he just handed me a bag token and my pants. I guess the most plausible explanation is that he had actually said, "Got a bag?" but in my head, I have decided that he is just a renegade hippie, who refuses to give bags to any of his customers at Buffalo Exchange. Battle on, Xena.
So, that's how I donated five cents to the rainforest today. But, really, it is now one of my life goals to go to the rainforest and to visit the tree or spider monkey or whatever it is that my 5 cents ended up saving, because I don't think I have ever had a less comfortable bike ride than I did today, biking uphill on Telegraph Avenue, dodging cars, hippies, dogs, and burning incense, with my poop-sprained ankle, carrying a red corduroy pair of pants.
I can't believe I have written three blog entries without mentioning the most spectacular drunk dial I have ever received. This one was from Esther, who called me a day after my birthday to alert me to the fact that she was "in a very fancy restaurant" and that a member of her dining party had noticed Senator Arlen Specter was sitting in a corner of this very same restaurant. We talked about a few ways she could immortalize this moment for me--for example, taking a cell phone picture of the back of his head as she went to the bathroom, or asking Senator Specter to sign her breasts, but I don't think any of that ended up happening. I got kind of afraid of what other diners were thinking, because it did sound like she was yelling into the phone (though her excitement was, of course, completely understandable), so I let her go without ever finding out what transpired between her and the senator. Anyway, I'm just glad that somewhere in the world, there is somebody who thinks, "Senator Arlen Specter? I need to call Sam. Right now."
"I sprained my ankle while taking a poop." I mean, it's more or less the truth. I've embellished the story a little bit; for example, I tell people that I was reading an article on corn ethanol, instead of looking at historical presidential election results on Wikipedia. And I'm not sure that my ankle is actually sprained, although it does feel a lot like the last time that happened. But, I mean, the point is that I'm limping, and the time that I started limping coincided with a movement of my bowels, so I feel like my statement is still valid. And if you have to have a story about why you're limping, and that story can't be "I got into a knife fight with Ann Coulter" or "I was injured on American Gladiators. By Hellga." I guess "I sprained my ankle while taking a poop" is one of the more colorful explanations you can have.
In other news, today I went to Buffalo Exchange to buy some more pants. I didn't find anything as life-changing as the $14 pair of Banana Republic black jeans that I'm currently wearing, but I did grab a pair of red corduroy dress pants (no, really) and another pair of H&M jeans. I guess buying H&M used from a thrift store kind of cancels out the fact that it's probably made in sweatshops. I don't know. Anyway, speaking of environmentally and socially conscious purchasing decisions, Buffalo Exchange has this thing where, if you don't need a bag, they give you a token worth the value of the bag, which you can drop into a bin and donate to the charity of your choice. I usually just take my backpack over anyway, because I have way too many plastic bags in my life, but today I was actually on my way back to campus to grab my backpack, which I had left in lab on Friday after prelims.
So today, I bought my red corduroy pants and my used sweatshop pants, and the cashier dude was like, "Want a bag?" So I said, "Yes," a little bit shamefully, because he looked like one of those people that only showers once a week and steals Naked Juice out of the dumpster behind Trader Joe's. Which is cool, but I feel bad hurting the Earth in front of people like that. Well, apparently, he said something else, because then he said, "You know about our tokens, right?" I thought he was just trying to lay a guilt trip on me, but then he just handed me a bag token and my pants. I guess the most plausible explanation is that he had actually said, "Got a bag?" but in my head, I have decided that he is just a renegade hippie, who refuses to give bags to any of his customers at Buffalo Exchange. Battle on, Xena.
So, that's how I donated five cents to the rainforest today. But, really, it is now one of my life goals to go to the rainforest and to visit the tree or spider monkey or whatever it is that my 5 cents ended up saving, because I don't think I have ever had a less comfortable bike ride than I did today, biking uphill on Telegraph Avenue, dodging cars, hippies, dogs, and burning incense, with my poop-sprained ankle, carrying a red corduroy pair of pants.
17 January 2008
The tallest man, the broadest shoulders
DID YOU KNOW? Rosa Parks and her caretakers sued OutKast for $5 billion, claiming that Dre and Big Boi had used her name without permission. The case was initially settled in favor of OutKast, but then Rosa Parks hired Johnnie Cochran to help appeal the decision. As a result, OutKast has now "agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in creating educational programs about the life of Rosa Parks."
Man, I remember that I had a dream about the greatest episode of Judge Judy ever last night, but I don't really remember what was involved therein. I was thinking that it involved Judge Judy saying, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" but then on my walk to prelims this morning, I realized that this was actually something I saw on the preview for tonight's real episode of Judge Judy. Oh, I can't wait.
I've always been obsessed, for some reason, with superlatives. This has become particularly time-consuming in the age of Wikipedia. For example, I've spent hours reading about the Power Nine in Magic: The Gathering, trying to understand just enough of the game's rules system to comprehend the effectiveness of the cards. I can say basically the same thing about cricket, where I'm trying to figure out how batting average is calculated, because somehow Donald Bradman finished his career with a 99.94 batting average, although he missed the last ten... whatevers... of his career because the tears in his eyes made it too difficult to see the ball.
So the other day I was thinking about the highest note that anyone had ever hit. I forget why. I think that the one Verdi aria I have on iTunes came up in random. Yeah, my play history confirms that. Right between The Postal Service and Radiohead. Anyway, this got me into an afternoon embarrassingly spent watching Mariah Carey videos on YouTube, while wearing jean shorts (I mean, I was wearing jean shorts, not Mariah Carey, although that is also plausible, since it was the 1990's), and eventually led me to the whistle register article on Wikipedia. That led me to the article on Georgia Brown, and then I found the following YouTube video:
Which is just scary, I think.
Man, I remember that I had a dream about the greatest episode of Judge Judy ever last night, but I don't really remember what was involved therein. I was thinking that it involved Judge Judy saying, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" but then on my walk to prelims this morning, I realized that this was actually something I saw on the preview for tonight's real episode of Judge Judy. Oh, I can't wait.
I've always been obsessed, for some reason, with superlatives. This has become particularly time-consuming in the age of Wikipedia. For example, I've spent hours reading about the Power Nine in Magic: The Gathering, trying to understand just enough of the game's rules system to comprehend the effectiveness of the cards. I can say basically the same thing about cricket, where I'm trying to figure out how batting average is calculated, because somehow Donald Bradman finished his career with a 99.94 batting average, although he missed the last ten... whatevers... of his career because the tears in his eyes made it too difficult to see the ball.
So the other day I was thinking about the highest note that anyone had ever hit. I forget why. I think that the one Verdi aria I have on iTunes came up in random. Yeah, my play history confirms that. Right between The Postal Service and Radiohead. Anyway, this got me into an afternoon embarrassingly spent watching Mariah Carey videos on YouTube, while wearing jean shorts (I mean, I was wearing jean shorts, not Mariah Carey, although that is also plausible, since it was the 1990's), and eventually led me to the whistle register article on Wikipedia. That led me to the article on Georgia Brown, and then I found the following YouTube video:
Which is just scary, I think.
14 January 2008
Died in a prelims accident
DID YOU KNOW? News of Sir Edmund Hillary's successful summiting of Mount Everest reached England on the day of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
You know, I've never actually Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is shocking, because I have seen the one where they have to go back to San Francisco in 1986 and save the whales about 15 times. But anyway, I've read the Wikipedia entry for Wrath of Khan enough to know that one of its major themes is Kirk's midlife crisis, and how there was some test at Starfleet Academy and you're supposed to die during the test, but Kirk thought this was unfair, so he reprogrammed the test such that his adversaries would be afraid of "THE Captain Kirk," and then he didn't die.
Anyway, I feel like that is kind of my life so far; even through college, I pretty much did all my problem sets the night before they were due and studied for all my tests at the last minute. A lot of freshman orientation at MIT is focused around telling you how you need to budget your time amazingly well, because studying for everything at the last minute won't work like it did in high school. But, seriously, it does work, provided you're willing to spend a few sleepless nights every semester staring futilely at the Navier-Stokes equation entry on Wikipedia while you take pictures like this one with your MacBook.
But seriously, I was always worried that I was never really learning anything; I was just guessing what professors were going to ask on exams, or what they wanted me to write in my essays, or what problem sets I could punt without hurting my grade, or what data I could make up during an oral presentation without the professor noticing. And, I mean, usually, it worked pretty well. Sometimes it failed in spectacular fashion, like when I got a 26 on the 10.302 final. Man, that was a spectacular failure.
And when I got to grad school, I kind of felt like I didn't really know anything about chemical engineering, or at least as much about chemical engineering as the GPA on my final transcript from MIT might suggest. Like, seriously, everyone else would just be like, "blah blah blah fugacity is the nonideal deviation from blah blee blah" and I would be like, "I think the symbol is the letter f." So I wondered if I was like Captain Kirk, just kind of flailing my way through my education and my life until I finally ended up marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.
Studying for prelims, though. Seriously, I feel like I'm learning something, like if someone were like, "What's the Prandtl number?" and I could be like "momentum diffusivity over thermal diffusivity!" Okay, I did have to look that up on Wikipedia, but hopefully by Thursday I will know the answer without looking. Anyway, I guess that is really the ultimate goal of having prelim exams in the first place. So, you win again, Enrique Iglesia.
When I started this entry, I was convinced that the last line would be, "Man, the new American Gladiators is stupider than Jupiter," but there are now two things about it I like. One is Hulk Hogan's commentary and interviews--particularly his indiscriminate use of the word "dude," like it's still 1993. And the other one is the way that the gladiator explodes out of his or her tennis ball gun in Assault if the challenger hits the target. But other than that, I think it's a little too overdone, with the male gladiators wearing miniskirts and the "I'm a shark fisherman!" and the "You're a true warrior!" and "Mars, the Bringer of War" on the soundtrack. The original American Gladiators theme song is way better than anything Holst ever wrote. And, seriously, what's with the gladiators talking? They should just stand their with their mullets and look totally invincible, and do little victory dances when they tackle people.
Which is weird, because the reason that Iron Chef Japan is so much better than Iron Chef America is because it the Japanese show is so much more overdone. I think that the common link is that American Gladiators 1980 and Iron Chef Japan take themselves totally seriously, whereas Iron Chef America and American Gladiators 2008 definitely don't. So when Chairman Kaga rides into Kitchen Stadium on a white steed, carrying two clay dishes that he cast himself in celebration of the series's 2000th dish, it's pretty much equivalent to Mike Adamle treating Atlasphere like it is the all-time greatest test of athletic prowess. And it's awesome. But when the competitor is like, "I'm just gonna ride her like a bull! I'm gonna lightning through the Eliminator!" that's just lame. I'm not sure why.
I'd really like to start using the term "awse," kind of in an ironic sense, but I can't bring myself to write or say it.
Okay, well, the new Eliminator kind of rocks, too, but only the parts where you have to swim under a wall of fire and then hold on to the gigantic rolling pin. And seriously, I think this is the most fauxhawks I have ever seen in a single hour of television programming, ever. Anyway, back to process design.
11 January 2008
Every single molecule is right
DID YOU KNOW? Three-quarters of one percent of all of the energy used in the world is used to perform the Haber Process.
This is just one of the fascinating things I learned on my twenty-second birthday. Although I have spent at least eight hours of it relearning undergrad transport, it was still a fantastic day, not because of any one major event, but because of a bunch of little things, which convinced me that every single molecule in the entire universe somehow knew that it was my birthday, and that they all organized themselves in some sort of celestial harmony in order to make my transport-filled day as tolerable as possible.
1. It didn't rain for the 40 minutes when I went running this morning.
2. I saved 52% on groceries using my Safeway Club Card. Seriously, 3 pounds of onions for 1 dollar.
3. My cashier at Safeway was incredibly nice, and complimented both my Trader Joe's travel bag and my brass rat, and recognized me when I came back to buy the onions that I had earlier forgotten.
4. A new episode of 30 Rock was on, and the content of said episode has successfully convinced me that Tina Fey is actually a gnome that lives inside of my brain.
a. Parts of it were in German, and there was a big joke about the difference between kaufen and verkaufen, which I totally understood before it was revealed in English later in the episode, because I mix those up all the time.
b. Kenneth the Page spoke the line, "I've been sodomized!" which was very exciting.
c. Parts of it were set in the coal region of Northern Pennsylvania, and featured Alec Baldwin drinking Rolling Rock.
d. My all-time favorite senator, Arlen Specter, was name-dropped in a throwaway visual joke.
5. Judge Judy figured out that the defendant on her show was an alcoholic just by looking at her, and told her that, and it was amazing, because later on in the show that defendant was revealed to be an alcoholic. Or maybe it was the plaintiff. Anyway, point is, I finally realized that Judge Judy's brain truly is a truth machine.
6. I made tofu stir-fry for dinner, and it was as delicious as it usually is.
7. I found out Sir Edmund Hillary died, which kind of bummed me out, but he died in New Zealand, and it was already January 11 there, so now my birthday is not inextricably linked with Sir Edmund Hillary's death for all time.
8. One of the two eggs that I fried this morning was at least an 8.5/10. One of the reasons I could never become a vegan is that I am always in search of the perfect fried egg. I think the perfect fried egg should be like lava exploding out of a cloud. I'm not sure I get the metaphor, either, but I figure I will know it when I find it.
So even if I'm only finished outlining the tenth out of fourteen chapters in Incropera & DeWitt, and even if I have no idea what I'm going to talk to Professor Radke about at our meeting in 12 hours, today was definitely one of the best birthdays ever. Sorry, Chuck-E-Cheese party when I turned 7; Navier-Stokes and tofu stir-fry just totally just usurped you.
This is just one of the fascinating things I learned on my twenty-second birthday. Although I have spent at least eight hours of it relearning undergrad transport, it was still a fantastic day, not because of any one major event, but because of a bunch of little things, which convinced me that every single molecule in the entire universe somehow knew that it was my birthday, and that they all organized themselves in some sort of celestial harmony in order to make my transport-filled day as tolerable as possible.
1. It didn't rain for the 40 minutes when I went running this morning.
2. I saved 52% on groceries using my Safeway Club Card. Seriously, 3 pounds of onions for 1 dollar.
3. My cashier at Safeway was incredibly nice, and complimented both my Trader Joe's travel bag and my brass rat, and recognized me when I came back to buy the onions that I had earlier forgotten.
4. A new episode of 30 Rock was on, and the content of said episode has successfully convinced me that Tina Fey is actually a gnome that lives inside of my brain.
a. Parts of it were in German, and there was a big joke about the difference between kaufen and verkaufen, which I totally understood before it was revealed in English later in the episode, because I mix those up all the time.
b. Kenneth the Page spoke the line, "I've been sodomized!" which was very exciting.
c. Parts of it were set in the coal region of Northern Pennsylvania, and featured Alec Baldwin drinking Rolling Rock.
d. My all-time favorite senator, Arlen Specter, was name-dropped in a throwaway visual joke.
5. Judge Judy figured out that the defendant on her show was an alcoholic just by looking at her, and told her that, and it was amazing, because later on in the show that defendant was revealed to be an alcoholic. Or maybe it was the plaintiff. Anyway, point is, I finally realized that Judge Judy's brain truly is a truth machine.
6. I made tofu stir-fry for dinner, and it was as delicious as it usually is.
7. I found out Sir Edmund Hillary died, which kind of bummed me out, but he died in New Zealand, and it was already January 11 there, so now my birthday is not inextricably linked with Sir Edmund Hillary's death for all time.
8. One of the two eggs that I fried this morning was at least an 8.5/10. One of the reasons I could never become a vegan is that I am always in search of the perfect fried egg. I think the perfect fried egg should be like lava exploding out of a cloud. I'm not sure I get the metaphor, either, but I figure I will know it when I find it.
So even if I'm only finished outlining the tenth out of fourteen chapters in Incropera & DeWitt, and even if I have no idea what I'm going to talk to Professor Radke about at our meeting in 12 hours, today was definitely one of the best birthdays ever. Sorry, Chuck-E-Cheese party when I turned 7; Navier-Stokes and tofu stir-fry just totally just usurped you.
10 January 2008
Forecast fascist future
DID YOU KNOW? You could eat 500 Crayola crayons every day for a week, and it would still not be as toxic as drinking one glass of tap water in New York City.
I feel so attuned to the blogosphere today, because I am going to post about a quote that I read on another blog, and use the quote tag and everything. Usually I don't like to do that, because I don't like my blogs to be about anything other than myself, and it's unfotunately still rare that other people blog about me and my awesome life.
I was reading Slog this morning, because I often forget that new Savage Love is only posted on Wednesdays and I have to wait 6 days in between, and I came across the following quote from the Pew Research Center, as published in the New York Times. So, if you are using Turkey vs. Spam II Turbo to do research for your thesis, recognize that this is, at best, a quaternary source.
"Ahoy hoy."
"Hi, may I please speak to Mrs. Norma Haskell?"
"This is she."
"I'm calling from the Pew Research Center, and I can promise that this won't take more than..."
"Sorry, I've got some cookies in the oven. Have a nice day!"
"WAIT, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?"
"Bite me."
[click]
"Okay, so that's another 'I hate phone surveys... and minorities.'"
And then they just guess your race based on your last name, kind of like how MIT Hillel will give you Passover candy if your last name is "Maurer" or "Eyers" but not if it is "Zhou" or "Befekadu."
I mean, seriously, if you have a better explanation, let me know.
I feel so attuned to the blogosphere today, because I am going to post about a quote that I read on another blog, and use the quote tag and everything. Usually I don't like to do that, because I don't like my blogs to be about anything other than myself, and it's unfotunately still rare that other people blog about me and my awesome life.
I was reading Slog this morning, because I often forget that new Savage Love is only posted on Wednesdays and I have to wait 6 days in between, and I came across the following quote from the Pew Research Center, as published in the New York Times. So, if you are using Turkey vs. Spam II Turbo to do research for your thesis, recognize that this is, at best, a quaternary source.
Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews.Now, I mean, I took AP Stats like 7 years ago, so I'm just as fascinated as anyone else by the whole "how was every poll in New Hampshire for the past two weeks wrong by 10 points?" question. In this case, I'm just curious as to how the Pew Research Center knows the opinions of people who don't respond to surveys. Did they do a survey to figure that out? Like, it would be one thing if they said,
...historically, African-American candidates underperform from their polling numbers in elections that see a large turnout of less-well-educated white voters--a group that also tends to respond to phone surveys less frequently...Because that kind of suggests a correlation, by saying that a particular economic group often refuses to respond to surveys, and also tends to vote for black candidates less frequently, and it's also an observation that could be based on actual polling data and voting records. I think that's what they were going for, if you go back to the original Slog entry and read the quote in its full context, which does include some statistics. But I have been looking at that last paragraph for a while now, trying to figure out exactly what the last sentence actually implies as written, and seriously, all I can come up with is...
If you don't respond to phone surveys, you are probably a racist.Or maybe that is what they were trying to say. I mean, it might make more people start responding to phone surveys. I'm kind of imagining the phone conversations that would be used to generate that data point.
"Ahoy hoy."
"Hi, may I please speak to Mrs. Norma Haskell?"
"This is she."
"I'm calling from the Pew Research Center, and I can promise that this won't take more than..."
"Sorry, I've got some cookies in the oven. Have a nice day!"
"WAIT, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?"
"Bite me."
[click]
"Okay, so that's another 'I hate phone surveys... and minorities.'"
And then they just guess your race based on your last name, kind of like how MIT Hillel will give you Passover candy if your last name is "Maurer" or "Eyers" but not if it is "Zhou" or "Befekadu."
I mean, seriously, if you have a better explanation, let me know.
08 January 2008
One more cup of coffee
DID YOU KNOW? There was once a famous chemical engineer named Octave Levenspiel.
Man, starting a blog and starting my prelim studying almost simultaneously was really one of the poorer ideas I have had in my life.
I like the word poorer, because it rhymes with my last name, or at least one of the numerous plausible pronunciations thereof. I think I will use that as my mnemonic device from now on. Right now I use "Rhymes with MAR-er. Like someone who mars something. Like, puts a blemish on it." That's kind of a bad thing to be associated with when somebody is trying to remember how to pronounce your name. Then again, so is "poorer."
Right now I think Las Vegas has displaced BWI as my number two favorite airport on Earth. Number one will always and forever be Portland, Oregon, where I got laid over on my first trip from Berkeley back to Boston, and where I ate fries dipped into frosty while watching Jennifer Hudson win the Best Supporting Actress academy award and simultaneously blogging it. But Las Vegas is not bad either, with its very slow free wireless and potentially costly slot machines, even if I am watching Dr. Phil on television instead of Jennifer Hudson. Basically, Las Vegas is like a dirtier, less refined version of Portland, Oregon. The airport, I mean, although I guess the same could be applied to the cities, too.
Anyway, I got 24 hits yesterday and only 10 of them were for "DESHYPOTHEQUIEZ scrabble" (I don't know why I am encouraging this; I guess I want people commenting in broken English so it feels more like my MITblog), so I felt like I should blog something, at least, to take advantage of the free wireless here and satisfy my dozens and dozens of dedicated readers.
I actually had a really great flight from Baltimore to Las Vegas. Can I just say that H. Scott Fogler is my lover right now? Along with Lutrea, the friendly Southwest flight attendant who remembered that I wanted sugar and no cream in my coffee on her second free beverage service, and marveled at the complexity of the Ergun equation in the notes I was taking. Between my two cups of coffee and Lutrea's joyous smile, I was able to take 14 full pages of kinetics notes. But, of course, credit also goes to H. Scott Fogler. He wrote the most amazingly clear, witty, clever, thorough textbook that I have ever read in my life. I seriously think that it is not only the best reactor kinetics textbook ever written, but also the best textbook on anything ever written. And I mean that in the sense that no matter what you want to learn about, Fogler is the best textbook for that particular subject. Like, I think I've learned more about semiconductor processing from reading the first 200 pages of Fogler than I did in the EE class that I took last term, and I have learned more about One Hundred Years of Solitude than I did in AP English. Ursula is just like a non-isothermal CSTR looking for a steady state; that's all. Then she dies on Good Friday.
I'm really obsessed with seeing either famous people or people I have not recently made contact with in airports. It's extra bonus points if the person I see is famous only to me, and I will have to explain their fame to other people I make contact with. I will openly admit that this general life goal was directly inspired by the following exchange from Maura's blog:
Maura: "You look really familiar."
Shana: "Yeah, kind of like Q'orianka Kilcher...so...um....are you Q'orianka Kilcher?"
So for my first twenty minutes in the Las Vegas airport, I was convinced that the lady working at the jewelry stand was Aussie Rachael from America's Most Smartest Model, which I guess suggests some things about my cultural literacy as compared to Maura's. I walked by her like four times, openly staring at her, trying to figure out if that was really Aussie Rachael's signature haircut, but then she turned around and I realized that she was like 55. I have to go back that way if I'm going to get a burrito, so I'm kind of embarrassed about the whole thing now.
Anyway, this is way too long already for a placeholder blog entry. I would make a joke about Fogler calling me back to his (packed) bed, but by this point in my chemical engineering career, I have heard that so many times that I don't even think that's funny anymore. So, I am going to go get a burrito and get back to studying. The next time I get bored, you can look forward to an entry on the Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum in Easton, PA.
One thing that I do think is funny:
"How many atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"I don't know, how many?"
"NONE! They don't believe in 'em!"
Maybe I should close every entry with a joke.
Man, starting a blog and starting my prelim studying almost simultaneously was really one of the poorer ideas I have had in my life.
I like the word poorer, because it rhymes with my last name, or at least one of the numerous plausible pronunciations thereof. I think I will use that as my mnemonic device from now on. Right now I use "Rhymes with MAR-er. Like someone who mars something. Like, puts a blemish on it." That's kind of a bad thing to be associated with when somebody is trying to remember how to pronounce your name. Then again, so is "poorer."
Right now I think Las Vegas has displaced BWI as my number two favorite airport on Earth. Number one will always and forever be Portland, Oregon, where I got laid over on my first trip from Berkeley back to Boston, and where I ate fries dipped into frosty while watching Jennifer Hudson win the Best Supporting Actress academy award and simultaneously blogging it. But Las Vegas is not bad either, with its very slow free wireless and potentially costly slot machines, even if I am watching Dr. Phil on television instead of Jennifer Hudson. Basically, Las Vegas is like a dirtier, less refined version of Portland, Oregon. The airport, I mean, although I guess the same could be applied to the cities, too.
Anyway, I got 24 hits yesterday and only 10 of them were for "DESHYPOTHEQUIEZ scrabble" (I don't know why I am encouraging this; I guess I want people commenting in broken English so it feels more like my MITblog), so I felt like I should blog something, at least, to take advantage of the free wireless here and satisfy my dozens and dozens of dedicated readers.
I actually had a really great flight from Baltimore to Las Vegas. Can I just say that H. Scott Fogler is my lover right now? Along with Lutrea, the friendly Southwest flight attendant who remembered that I wanted sugar and no cream in my coffee on her second free beverage service, and marveled at the complexity of the Ergun equation in the notes I was taking. Between my two cups of coffee and Lutrea's joyous smile, I was able to take 14 full pages of kinetics notes. But, of course, credit also goes to H. Scott Fogler. He wrote the most amazingly clear, witty, clever, thorough textbook that I have ever read in my life. I seriously think that it is not only the best reactor kinetics textbook ever written, but also the best textbook on anything ever written. And I mean that in the sense that no matter what you want to learn about, Fogler is the best textbook for that particular subject. Like, I think I've learned more about semiconductor processing from reading the first 200 pages of Fogler than I did in the EE class that I took last term, and I have learned more about One Hundred Years of Solitude than I did in AP English. Ursula is just like a non-isothermal CSTR looking for a steady state; that's all. Then she dies on Good Friday.
I'm really obsessed with seeing either famous people or people I have not recently made contact with in airports. It's extra bonus points if the person I see is famous only to me, and I will have to explain their fame to other people I make contact with. I will openly admit that this general life goal was directly inspired by the following exchange from Maura's blog:
Maura: "You look really familiar."
Shana: "Yeah, kind of like Q'orianka Kilcher...so...um....are you Q'orianka Kilcher?"
So for my first twenty minutes in the Las Vegas airport, I was convinced that the lady working at the jewelry stand was Aussie Rachael from America's Most Smartest Model, which I guess suggests some things about my cultural literacy as compared to Maura's. I walked by her like four times, openly staring at her, trying to figure out if that was really Aussie Rachael's signature haircut, but then she turned around and I realized that she was like 55. I have to go back that way if I'm going to get a burrito, so I'm kind of embarrassed about the whole thing now.
Anyway, this is way too long already for a placeholder blog entry. I would make a joke about Fogler calling me back to his (packed) bed, but by this point in my chemical engineering career, I have heard that so many times that I don't even think that's funny anymore. So, I am going to go get a burrito and get back to studying. The next time I get bored, you can look forward to an entry on the Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum in Easton, PA.
One thing that I do think is funny:
"How many atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"I don't know, how many?"
"NONE! They don't believe in 'em!"
Maybe I should close every entry with a joke.
04 January 2008
So begins our Alabee
DID YOU KNOW? Holly Hunter actually played all of the piano pieces performed by her character in the film The Piano.
You know, like 3 separate couples from my high school got married on 07/07/07, and now I also know people who are getting married on 08/08/08. I feel like this sort of sets a deadline for me to get married by December 12, 2012. Failing that, I will get married on something like April 16, 2016, and say, "Oh, it's still 04/04/04. Mod 12." At least one my friends will be like, "Actually, according to Wikipedia, four is an unlucky number in most Asian cultures."
And I'll be like, "WAH WAHHHH. Thanks, Debbie Downer."
Anyway, save the date: April 16, 2016, I'm getting married in British Columbia. Looking a little further down the road, today I saw a picture of an adorable baby girl whose name is Ily. I'm actually a little hesitant to write this next part, because Statcounter tells me that half of the people who have visited my blog during its short yet colorful existence are not actually my friends, but rather people who googled "deshypothequiez scrabble," presumably after seeing it listed on Facebook's awesome Scrabulous application. So now I'm worried people will google "Ily baby name," read this entry, and get offended.
So the girl's name is Ily. Do you know why? It's not short for Ilona, as google might suggest. No no. It's short for "I Love You." Seriously? I'm sorry, that's totally the most absurd name for a child I've ever heard, and this is coming from somebody who has seriously considered naming his first son Gilgamesh.
Actually, you know, I had always threatened to do a baby names entry on Turkey vs. Spam classic, but never got around to it. So here we go.
First son: Gilgamesh, after the Sumerian god-king. I have long tried to think up a worthy middle name, but I'm not sure one exists.
First daughter: Malaria, after having a little too much fun with Baby Name Voyager. But her middle name will be Vaccine.
Second son: Copernicus Laser, after a conversation with Ruth about how Laser is the greatest middle name of all time, and makes more euphonious any first name with which it is paired.
Second daughter: Cleopatra Laser, proving Laser is just that awesome as a middle name.
Seriously, all of those are still light-years better than Ily. You might as well name your child Rofl. People will think it's just a misspelt version of Rolf, kind of like how people might think Ily is a misspelt version of Lily, or some other name that is actually pronounceable.
I mean, judge not lest ye be judged, but I think the worst part of Ily is that it's so short that she can't have a nickname. Unless she wanted to go with "Ill." Which might actually be worse. At least when I name my first son Gilgamesh, if he has friends, they can call him "Gil." Copernicus Laser doesn't really have that luxury, but I can't imagine anyone calling him anything other than Copernicus Laser Maurer.
Anyway, I'm probably just thinking about the future today because I started studying for prelims yesterday, which consisted of...
1) making a 16-inch-high stack of textbooks to read through before heading back to California on Tuesday
2) blowing my Christmas money repurchasing other textbooks that I misplaced when moving out of Boston. Seriously, how did I lose Fogler? PROTIP: if you buy the international edition, it will have all the same content, but will cost less than half as much, except all the page numbers will be wrong (I blame the metric system).
3) making a list of "known unknowns" about process design after reading through accounts of old prelims. Maybe my favorite comment is Vicky's "I found [one professor] puts unnecessary details in his questions to make them more interesting… for himself."
Anyway, I forgot the laws of thermodynamics again, so I'm going to spend the rest of the day in my bed rectifying that.
And so begins our odyssey.
You know, like 3 separate couples from my high school got married on 07/07/07, and now I also know people who are getting married on 08/08/08. I feel like this sort of sets a deadline for me to get married by December 12, 2012. Failing that, I will get married on something like April 16, 2016, and say, "Oh, it's still 04/04/04. Mod 12." At least one my friends will be like, "Actually, according to Wikipedia, four is an unlucky number in most Asian cultures."
And I'll be like, "WAH WAHHHH. Thanks, Debbie Downer."
Anyway, save the date: April 16, 2016, I'm getting married in British Columbia. Looking a little further down the road, today I saw a picture of an adorable baby girl whose name is Ily. I'm actually a little hesitant to write this next part, because Statcounter tells me that half of the people who have visited my blog during its short yet colorful existence are not actually my friends, but rather people who googled "deshypothequiez scrabble," presumably after seeing it listed on Facebook's awesome Scrabulous application. So now I'm worried people will google "Ily baby name," read this entry, and get offended.
So the girl's name is Ily. Do you know why? It's not short for Ilona, as google might suggest. No no. It's short for "I Love You." Seriously? I'm sorry, that's totally the most absurd name for a child I've ever heard, and this is coming from somebody who has seriously considered naming his first son Gilgamesh.
Actually, you know, I had always threatened to do a baby names entry on Turkey vs. Spam classic, but never got around to it. So here we go.
First son: Gilgamesh, after the Sumerian god-king. I have long tried to think up a worthy middle name, but I'm not sure one exists.
First daughter: Malaria, after having a little too much fun with Baby Name Voyager. But her middle name will be Vaccine.
Second son: Copernicus Laser, after a conversation with Ruth about how Laser is the greatest middle name of all time, and makes more euphonious any first name with which it is paired.
Second daughter: Cleopatra Laser, proving Laser is just that awesome as a middle name.
Seriously, all of those are still light-years better than Ily. You might as well name your child Rofl. People will think it's just a misspelt version of Rolf, kind of like how people might think Ily is a misspelt version of Lily, or some other name that is actually pronounceable.
I mean, judge not lest ye be judged, but I think the worst part of Ily is that it's so short that she can't have a nickname. Unless she wanted to go with "Ill." Which might actually be worse. At least when I name my first son Gilgamesh, if he has friends, they can call him "Gil." Copernicus Laser doesn't really have that luxury, but I can't imagine anyone calling him anything other than Copernicus Laser Maurer.
Anyway, I'm probably just thinking about the future today because I started studying for prelims yesterday, which consisted of...
1) making a 16-inch-high stack of textbooks to read through before heading back to California on Tuesday
2) blowing my Christmas money repurchasing other textbooks that I misplaced when moving out of Boston. Seriously, how did I lose Fogler? PROTIP: if you buy the international edition, it will have all the same content, but will cost less than half as much, except all the page numbers will be wrong (I blame the metric system).
3) making a list of "known unknowns" about process design after reading through accounts of old prelims. Maybe my favorite comment is Vicky's "I found [one professor] puts unnecessary details in his questions to make them more interesting… for himself."
Anyway, I forgot the laws of thermodynamics again, so I'm going to spend the rest of the day in my bed rectifying that.
And so begins our odyssey.
02 January 2008
Cruel to be kind
DID YOU KNOW? The highest-scoring word in French Scrabble is "deshypothequiez" played across three triple-word-score squares, for a total of 1797 points.
If you know me, and I mean, really know me, you know that I was inconsolable when I went to the Cheeseboard Pizza menu website today and learned of this awful new development:
I don't know why I went to the Cheeseboard Pizza website today, because it's closed this entire week, and also I'm in Pennsylvania right now. I guess it's been too long since I've seen the words "Roma tomatoes" used together in any context.
Anyway, even more troubling than this 11% increase in pizza cost is Cheeseboard's justification thereof. According to Cheeseboard, their decision is motivated by the increasing (or, as they say, "soaring") cost of cheese, which can be attributed to three sources:
1) the euro's strength relative to the dollar
2) growing demand for milk in developing markets such as China
3) rising cost of dairy feed, as corn harvests are increasingly diverted to ethanol production
I mean, I've always been skeptical about biofuels, mostly on the supply end--can you really grow enough corn or switchgrass or babies or whatever it is you want to turn into ethanol? But never before have I felt that biofuels are actively destroying my life.
Seriously, how can I even work on my thesis project for Radke anymore, knowing that any progress I make toward solving the nation's energy crisis will only increase the cost of Cheeseboard pizza? I am trying to think of a situation to metaphorically compare this to, but all I can come up with is Armageddon, where Bruce Willis has to lock himself in a box with the underground nuclear warhead so that he can manually detonate it and destroy the Texas-sized asteroid that is hurtling towards the Earth. I have seen Armageddon at least twelve times, because it's one of Sam's Mom's favorite movies, for reasons I will never fully understand.
I also read in Tech Review that tofu prices are skyrocketing across the nation as farmers grow more corn to turn into ethanol and fewer soybeans to turn into tofu. Seriously, first Cheeseboard pizza, and now tofu. If biofuels somehow make chocolate fountains more expensive, that'll pretty much knock out the holy trinity of my favorite foods, and I'm definitely going to drop out of grad school.
On the plus side, my usual meal of two slices and a beverage will now cost $6.50, giving me extra quarters for laundry.
If you know me, and I mean, really know me, you know that I was inconsolable when I went to the Cheeseboard Pizza menu website today and learned of this awful new development:
I don't know why I went to the Cheeseboard Pizza website today, because it's closed this entire week, and also I'm in Pennsylvania right now. I guess it's been too long since I've seen the words "Roma tomatoes" used together in any context.
Anyway, even more troubling than this 11% increase in pizza cost is Cheeseboard's justification thereof. According to Cheeseboard, their decision is motivated by the increasing (or, as they say, "soaring") cost of cheese, which can be attributed to three sources:
1) the euro's strength relative to the dollar
2) growing demand for milk in developing markets such as China
3) rising cost of dairy feed, as corn harvests are increasingly diverted to ethanol production
I mean, I've always been skeptical about biofuels, mostly on the supply end--can you really grow enough corn or switchgrass or babies or whatever it is you want to turn into ethanol? But never before have I felt that biofuels are actively destroying my life.
Seriously, how can I even work on my thesis project for Radke anymore, knowing that any progress I make toward solving the nation's energy crisis will only increase the cost of Cheeseboard pizza? I am trying to think of a situation to metaphorically compare this to, but all I can come up with is Armageddon, where Bruce Willis has to lock himself in a box with the underground nuclear warhead so that he can manually detonate it and destroy the Texas-sized asteroid that is hurtling towards the Earth. I have seen Armageddon at least twelve times, because it's one of Sam's Mom's favorite movies, for reasons I will never fully understand.
I also read in Tech Review that tofu prices are skyrocketing across the nation as farmers grow more corn to turn into ethanol and fewer soybeans to turn into tofu. Seriously, first Cheeseboard pizza, and now tofu. If biofuels somehow make chocolate fountains more expensive, that'll pretty much knock out the holy trinity of my favorite foods, and I'm definitely going to drop out of grad school.
On the plus side, my usual meal of two slices and a beverage will now cost $6.50, giving me extra quarters for laundry.
01 January 2008
The things they carried
DID YOU KNOW? When Senator Arlen Specter underwent chemotherapy, Senator John Sununu shaved his head as a display of solidarity.
And that's another reason I like John Sununu, other than the fact that he is an MIT graduate and the fact that his last name is Sununu.
I'm cleaning out my room today, which, I realize as I write this, kind of seems like a New Year's Day thing to do, but actually my only new year's resolution is to be the best chemical engineer I can be.
Here's a partial list of things I have discovered on my old desk.
1. my offer of admission to MIT
2. a letter from MIT Hillel, which promises on its envelope to help me "engineer Jewish renaissance at MIT"
3. a T token, which I will forever treasure, although the Charlie Card rocks
4. a minigolf scorecard from Bumblebee Hollow with the following scores:
Andrew: 65
Christine: 69
Joseph: 53
Michael: 77
5. a letter from Arlen Specter
6. a 10-pack of my favorite pencil
7. my mortarboard from my high school graduation
8. the beard I wore to dress up as my AP Chemistry teacher for Halloween
9. a pen paid for by the Gekas-for-Congress committee
10. a toothbrush
11. the case for a Peter Gabriel mix tape (I mean, an actual cassette tape) given to Sam's Mom as a present. I'm guessing that it predates my birth, because it doesn't have "Steam" on it
My progress has been impeded somewhat by my inability to throw out anything that has personality. Working mechanical pencil? Toss that mass-produced crap. Dried-up pen from DJ's Quick Stop in Wilmington, DE? That goes in the "nostalgia" box.
In other news, yesterday I got my monthly advertisement e-mail from Amazon, which bore the following subject line:
Amazon.com recommends "Separation Process Engineering (2nd Edition)" and more!
This is the life I chose.
And that's another reason I like John Sununu, other than the fact that he is an MIT graduate and the fact that his last name is Sununu.
I'm cleaning out my room today, which, I realize as I write this, kind of seems like a New Year's Day thing to do, but actually my only new year's resolution is to be the best chemical engineer I can be.
Here's a partial list of things I have discovered on my old desk.
1. my offer of admission to MIT
2. a letter from MIT Hillel, which promises on its envelope to help me "engineer Jewish renaissance at MIT"
3. a T token, which I will forever treasure, although the Charlie Card rocks
4. a minigolf scorecard from Bumblebee Hollow with the following scores:
Andrew: 65
Christine: 69
Joseph: 53
Michael: 77
5. a letter from Arlen Specter
6. a 10-pack of my favorite pencil
7. my mortarboard from my high school graduation
8. the beard I wore to dress up as my AP Chemistry teacher for Halloween
9. a pen paid for by the Gekas-for-Congress committee
10. a toothbrush
11. the case for a Peter Gabriel mix tape (I mean, an actual cassette tape) given to Sam's Mom as a present. I'm guessing that it predates my birth, because it doesn't have "Steam" on it
My progress has been impeded somewhat by my inability to throw out anything that has personality. Working mechanical pencil? Toss that mass-produced crap. Dried-up pen from DJ's Quick Stop in Wilmington, DE? That goes in the "nostalgia" box.
In other news, yesterday I got my monthly advertisement e-mail from Amazon, which bore the following subject line:
Amazon.com recommends "Separation Process Engineering (2nd Edition)" and more!
This is the life I chose.
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