Stitches!

"Well... well, I don't know whether you know what -- what stitches are?"
"It sounds as though you've been trying to sew your skin back together," said Mrs. Weasley with a snort of mirthless laughter, "but even you, Arthur, wouldn't be that stupid --"
"I fancy a cup of tea too," said Harry, jumping to his feet.
Hermione, Ron, and Ginny almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them, they heard Mrs. Weasley shriek, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT'S THE GENERAL IDEA?"

I love Harry Potter :).

Sixth Circle It Is

I saw this elsewhere and figured, what the hell:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Shocking, eh? Me? A heretic? Surely not...

The Week of Hell? So It Seems...

This officially marks the second shitty day of this week. But this isn't a 'I'm feeling like crap. Aww.' shitty.

Yesterday was nice. Calculus we did eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and I pretty much got it. Then Chemistry we did review, which is always good and reasonably effortless. Then CS David Smith told us about some really cool stuff he did back twenty years ago with programming and some other neat things.

And then, I went home. Now, this is generally a good thing. However, on this particular instance, I had to iron. So as I ironed, I decided to watch the recently-downloaded Babylon 5 Pilot. After having gotten through the better part of the first two seasons, that episode was shit. But that's okay. It still wasn't bad.

Problem is, then I got to working on my Chem lab. For over six hours. I didn't get much accomplished, since I got stuck on the second part, where my results weren't making sense. I also worked on it for about three hours this morning. Not to worry, the results still don't make sense.

Then, I ate dinner. At 1:30 in the morning. Oy. Finally, I was fortunate enough to wrap my day up with the last two episodes of Season 2 of Babylon 5. Which were spectacular. Especially Jack the Ripper. Yes, Jack the Ripper.

As for this morning - I woke up, worked on chemistry and accomplished nothing, and now I'm here in English. Later today I have my lab practicum. Yay for cheering my day up. And, to top it all off, in order to fix the vast problems with my research report draft, I'll probably have to rewrite a better part of it.

Just kill me.

Friends... Not Relationships...

It's funny, it finally came to me a few days ago. Earlier I thought what I was really missing was a relationship. But that's really not it. What I'm missing is friends. I have three good friends that I can think of. Really good friends, to whom I can talk about just about anything. And that's fine. But how many friends do I have overall? Four? Five? Not enough, that's for certain. The downside of moving twice in high school, I suppose, is the few friends I came away from there with.

It's funny, it used to be this would be exactly the kind of thing I wouldn't care about. But suddenly it matters. And as it does, I find myself with no knowledge of how to make new friends or strengthen friendships that are already there. < chuckle > The problems of apathy become crystal clear all of a sudden...

Eddie Izzard Rocks SOOOOO Much!!!

I just finished watching Definite Article, and I have confirmed that Eddie Izzard is abso-fucking-lutely amazing. So funny... I laughed myself hoarse. I've laughed myself hoarse with two things before this, pretty much - The Dinner Game (Le Dinner des Cons, for those who saw it in French) and Dress to Kill (again, courtesy of Eddie Izzard). The man can do comedy. So well. Yay :). Great end to an okay day :).

Thanks Giving!

So this is the day we're supposed to give thanks for stuff. So I need to thank my friends for being my friends, and my new friends for becoming my friends. One can never have enough friends. Or food. But that's beside the point.

As for who this applies to - you should know. If you don't, I've done something horribly wrong, and I'm sorry.

Clinton Leads the New Wave of Socialism

Oh, I just read the funniest sentence in my life:

"The international socialist movement, led by Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, is attempting to revive the disastrous policy of war socialism with which the current century began."

My, I needed that laugh. People who think Clinton was socialist are so cute and funny (and supremely idiotic, too, but that's beside the point).

Fortune Time!!

And today's round of fortune quotes:

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real
with the ideal never goes unpunished.
-- Goethe

There are more dead people than living, and their numbers are increasing.
-- Eugene Ionesco

Q: What's the difference between the 1950's and the 1980's?
A: In the 80's, a man walks into a drugstore and states loudly, "I'd
like some condoms," and then, leaning over the counter, whispers,
"and some cigarettes."

Happiness, n.:
An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
-- Christopher Lascl

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world
citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
-- Norman Cousins

I Wuv My Babylon 5

Jeesus... As I watch more and more Babylon 5, it just gets BETTER!! It's truly impressive how this series just keeps building and building and building... and I'm not even through the first half of the second season yet!!

Hate from Baby Jesus?

Assuming rain is baby Jesus's tears, I think I make baby Jesus cry. I haven't been able to have a walk under no rain since yesterday morning... I guess I've done something recently that makes it so baby Jesus cries every time His Holiness sees me. Sucky, I think.

Oh, also, I forgot. OMGWTFIHATERAINSOMUCH!!!!!

JFK Reloaded

Yeah, so some company in the UK made a game where you play Lee Harvey Oswald and attempt to assassinate JFK in a fashion as close as possible to actual events.

Needless to say, US reaciton has been less than kind. I found a neat little comment on that reaction:

"And it’s quite funny what winds them up. You’d think that starving half the planet to death and destabilising much of the world in pursuit of making its richest citizens richer would cause a certain amount of outcry but apparently not, that’s all fine.

What Americans really seem to hate is a computer game in which you try and blow mafia-linked womaniser JFK’s head off, playing as CIA stooge Lee Harvey Oswald.

[...]

For reference, John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 amid the Vietnam War, an historic event deemed acceptable for recreation, and less than 20 years after the US let off the only atomic weapon ever aimed at people, with 140,000 civilian deaths recorded."

This is from
http://spong.com/detail/news.asp?mode=news&type=n&cid=&pid=&vid=&prid=8020&n=JFK+shooting+game+%96+A+collection+of+hysteria

Aaahhhh.......

Finally, I have Internet back! The symptoms of withdrawal are quickly disappearing as the drug returns :p. Okay, I'm kidding, I wasn't *actually* addicted. Umm... right. Hi. Can I help you?

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Trailer is absolutely amazing.

So I went to see National Treasure today. It was a fun movie, with a reasonably well-done DaVinci Code-esque flair for clues leading to something. But you know what, what really paid the fee happened ten minutes before the movie even came on.

It was the trailer for The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wasn't expecting the trailer for that to be even remotely close to coming out. However, when those two words ('Don't Panic', of course) got on the screen, I literally went 'Oh my God!!!' as if I were a little girl who just saw her favorite boy band. Made my day. It really did.

May 6, 2005... The day of wonderfulnessness!!

US Citizenship... wtf?????

So I'm a US citizen as of this morning. Wtf? Apparently, my dad took the oath this morning. I knew nothing of this until today. Yes, I knew nothing of this yearlong process until today. And today I find out I'm a US citizen. This is really weird...

A couple of weeks ago, my parents sat down and asked me whether I would ever become a US citizen. I commented that, at least in the near future, I wouldn't want to, and listed my reasons (the draft, taking an oath to a nation I didn't particularly agree with most of the time, etc). And now I find out I'm a US citizen...

The other side effect of this is that my older brother is now the only non-USian in my family. This is inordinately weird. On the bright side, I can vote in the next election (and I will). On the 'wtf' side... Wtf?

Okay, I have to go get ready now. Calc quiz in an hour. That's gonna be fun.

Process for Escaping Smoking

Don't smoke the next cigarette. Repeat.

Life's Problems

Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
day as it comes.
-- Donald Kaul

As usual, fortune can be thanked for this spectacular quote...

MathType Upgrade? Fuck no...

The idiotic equation editor in Microsoft's Office offers to tell you more about MathType, a powerful upgrade to Equation Editor. It bothers you with this every session the second time you run the editor. It has a 'Yes' button, a 'No' button, and a 'Don't remind me again' (or something like that) checkbox.

Instead, I believe that, from a usability perspective, there should be a 'Yes' button, a 'No' button, and a 'Fuck No' button, the last one being the equivalent of 'No' with the 'Don't remind me again' checkbox checked. That would be nice...

Ok, So Don't Die

I posted and two minutes later, lo and behold, the guy shows up... Complain to blogger and everything gets fixed..? :D

Die Sears...

So I got up at 8 this morning to wait for some guy from Sears to come and finally fix our fscking washing machine. The time slot they gave us was very precise - 8 through fucking 12. So the overall result is, I've been sitting here all morning, not taking a shower so that I don't miss the door, and NOBODY SHOWED UP. Needless to say, I'm rather upset. Either the guy shows up in the next half hour or I go burn down the nearest Sears. Okay, that might be overkill. But I'm still slightly pissed.

Meanwhile, my English Research Report has me fearing that I wrote it totally wrong, and that writing it in the fashion that I'm supposed to write it would result in a paper with not enough substance to justify its existence. This is a problem. But hey, I'm good. Now if I could only make some more friends....

Sorry Everybody and Apologies Accepted

This is the funniest pair of sites I've seen in a while:
Sorry Everybody
Apologies Accepted

Hehehe. That, along with the T-Shirts from Hell, makes my week.

Wikipedia

A former editor of Encyclopedia Britannica did an article on wikipedia (Slashdot Article). The problem is, he missed the *point* of wikipedia entirely.

His argument is that Wikipedia cannot be good enough, namely because both people who are not knowledgeable and those who are can edit the entries. The result, as exemplified by the entry for Alexander Hamilton, was that the entry had gone from reasonably good to reasonably mediocre.

That's fine. But the more eyes you have checking latest edits and paying attention to changes, the more likely those articles will be fixed. What he seems to have done is an excellent example of completely worthless criticism. Sure, he used Hamilton as an example to make his point, but while he was at it, he could have fixed the entry. That's what makes Wikipedia great, that capability of fixing an entry that is wrong. And he would have improved it.

Naturally, his argument is more overarching than that particular entry, but precisely by not updating that entry, he proved why it is possible for mediocre writing and fact-gathering to get through - because people who could fix an entry, don't.

Moral of the story: If you find something you can fix to be better on wikipedia, fix it, don't just complain...

Middle East Again

My dad told a fascinating story today. Apparently, several years back, he saw a TV show where they were interviewing both Arafat and Rabin. And apparently, the question came up about what to do with Jerusalem. Arafat and Rabin basically said that they would be willing to share Jerusalem, but neither wanted it to be split in half or go completely to the other side. What a solution. Did it ever happen? Of course not. Rabin was shot, amongst other things. What can you say when you realize that both sides had people willing to compromise that way? What the hell is with all of this fighting?

It will only end when they want it to end. When both sides are tired of the fighting. Both sides claim to be tired, yet they still fight with no progress either way. Will the fighting end? Not in my lifetime, I think...

At A Loss for Words

Or at a loss for a voice, anyway. One thing you don't want to do at a party is lose your voice. As I found out today. Because it happened to me. You see, I went, with my older brother, of course, to the closing night party for Picasso. Problem is, about a fifth of the way through, I for some reason randomly lost my voice. There's a problem with parties when you can't talk - that parties are all about talking. Not being able to talk leads to lots of suckiness. I am 100% sure that I would have had fun had I been able to speak. Instead, I looked around looking a bit dumb. But, I still preferred being there to being here with nothing to do, I daresay...

Also, my older brother bought Encore (yay!), and there is one track everyone has to hear, whether you like Eminem or not (aside from Mosh, that is, but Mosh is one whose video you have to watch to really get the full impact) - Mockingbird. It's Eminem explaining to his daughter basically why her mom isn't around. Truly wonderful.

And that, I think, will most probably conclude the good aspects of this week. Tomorrow, I have to at least start working on my lab. Most likely I will go home for a while. And I will probably do nothing else. Yay... Ideas, anyone?

The Religion Virus?

I saw an amusing article on kuro5hin comparing religion to a virus (and explaining the analogy, of course). It's quite an interesting article, rather well-written, and certainly has the funny factor. Kind of reminds me of Smith's speech in The Matrix (then again, that was probably my least favorite part of the movie :p).

Coding Viruses for the Mind

Babylon 5 Rocks!

So much!! I just finished seeing Babylon 5 - In the Beginning, which basically explains what happened when the humans and Minbari first met. So wonderful.... Babylon 5 is by far the best series that I have ever seen (not the best sci-fi series, note carefully, the best series, period). This is probably because of the fact that the story of Babylon 5 was written before the series even started. Regardless, this series is genius in its purest form. Everything comes together so perfectly, the story ends in such a spectacular way (one of those 'What?? It's over? NO! KEEP GOING, DAMMIT!!!' moments), and you come away from watching the whole series with a general feeling of awe. Or I did, anyway. Awesome.

Ouch

Today really sucked... Classes weren't bad (except for the fact that my chem teacher decided that since we'd finished earlier than planned, instead of reviewing we would keep going), but then after classes... First of all, I came home, ate some dinner, and then went out and walked for an hour. Then I got home again, watched the tail end of Angel and all of Charmed. And then got smacked with this weird depression...

End result: Instead of going to see Picasso at the Lapin Agile as I was originally planning, I went walking on campus. For over an hour and a half. Walked mostly on East Campus, the dorm and the frats and the stadium. Stared a lot at the skyscraper next to the Bellsouth building, just watching the clouds hiding and showing the lights at the top. And then came home with my mom and her friend, who went to see the show, and had pizza, and here I am now. Most of the depression is gone, I guess, but the loneliness isn't.

It's funny, my mom's friend's son asked me what I did. And I answered the truth - a lot of nothing and the occasional walking. This is really the first time I actually haven't had a life. Usually I could program or read or whatever. But now I have no life whatsoever. Kind of scary. And very boring. And depressing, of course.

Today's LOL Factor

http://www.tshirthell.com/hell.shtml
Yay :)

Particularly amusing:
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=318
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=112
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=335

Arafat Dies

ABC News: Palestinian Leader Arafat Dies at 75

Well, Arafat is dead. He has been leading the Palestinians for a very long time. Now we'll see whether all that bullshit about his being an obstacle to peace was true (you can tell what I think). He was responsible, in part, for the Oslo Peace Accords. I doubt I need to remind everyone that the person who was assassinated for that achievement in peace was not Arafat, but rather Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister, who was killed by a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Like when Rabin died, this marks the passing of a great man who was willing to stand up for his people. Now we'll see how badly Bush's second attempt at peace will fail. The difference is, this time, he won't be able to blame Arafat. He'll be forced to blame another Palestinian. Because the Israelis are angels. Obviously.

< sigh >

Well, it is over now. The chemistry exam has come and gone. And I'm happy to say that this time, I have no illusions - I am 100% sure I failed. Certainly an improvement. At least I won't be disappointed :). Now, to hope I can recover by the time finals come around... (doubtful)

Republicans Are Funny, Daddy

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5652

Where do I even start? This is too priceless to comprehend. This is a conservative nutso ranting about how the blue states (the ones who consistently go Democrat) should be kicked out of the Union! That's right, *kicked out* by the mighty, self-righteous conservatives.

But hold on, it gets better. Due to the criteria, the list of states to be expelled includes California, Maine, and many of the other states with powerful economies based around cities. Now recall that California, if it were a country, would have something like the seventh largest economy on the planet. Alone. So basically the conservatives want to expel the states that make the US a rich and powerful nation and then try and achieve whatever their crazy goals are all by their lonesome.

They should go for it. I'll move to one of the free states if it happens.

Firefox 1.0 is out!!!

This is it!! Finally, Mozilla Firefox has hit 1.0!! Let the browser wars begin once more. Firefox is a free replacement for Internet Exploder, with such built-in features as popup blocking, tabbed browsing (opening multiple pages in a single window), and Find-As-You-Type (hit ' to search for links in a page as you type, hit / to search for any text in a page as you type). Go download it, I guarantee you will like it over IE. Did I mention that the amount of security holes in Mozilla Firefox is infinitely smaller than that in IE?

http://trillian.cc.gatech.edu/pub/mozilla.org/
firefox/releases/1.0/win32/en-US/
Firefox Setup 1.0.exe

Foxtrot and the Linux Kernel

Foxtrot and the Linux Kernel
Lol.

Already?

Already the Bush administration is on their way to pulling out of another treaty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1345460,00.html

Yes, militariization of space, how wonderful. Not to mention the fact that the US is offering its allies the protection of the weapons they are planning on putting up in exchange for help. What a wonderful idea - lock them in and, if they ever decide to pull out, blow all their satellites out of the sky. And the worst part is, with another four years of Bush, this can only get worse...

Why Do People Like This Exist?

"If your gay, you are seriously missing out on the love of a life time partner that will complete you and change you for the better. I know there are bad relationships and horrible things that happen to people that sometimes make you want to abandon the other sex completely but I also know that somewhere there is someone that would complete you in a way that can't happen with someone that is like you."

Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Sometimes, I am tempted to go beat these people into a bloody pulp...

British Newspapers

So It Begins?

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Nov/06/ln/ln10p.html

Someone is getting recalled to the Army who has already fulfilled his contractual obligation. The sound of an impending draft is growing ever more worrisome....

Open Source Politics

Fascinating article I caught off of slashdot.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041122&s=sifry

Very very interesting, highly recommended. It is a bit long, however, so make sure you have about ten minutes when you sit down to read it.

This is also an excellent site:
http://www.dailykos.com/
It's a blog, essentially, where a lot of really good political discussion happens. Interesting stuff.

Interesting take on those wonderful county and state maps:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

And, finally, something we should all support:
http://openvotingconsortium.org/
It's about time we got rid of electronic voting machines whose internal functioning we know nothing of, especially when the companies that make them are headed by rabidly right-wing nutters...

Wow, GA

Obviously, there are not only a few sane liberals in Georgia, but also a few insane ones.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041107-054014-5053r.htm

Also amusing on that page was something I noticed:

Lincoln...

Nov. 6, 1860 - U.S. presidential election, 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_6

Lincoln couldn't possibly have predicted the shit that's happening now....

Oh No 2

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1345402,00.html

This is looking worse by the day. A person who voted Republican because he's an evangelical Christian, even while he's been fucked over by the economy during Bush's presidency. Now there's a problem. And part of the problem is that there isn't a solution to the problem aside from appealing to religious voters. We need a Deus Ex Machina to just annihilate the government now and return to anarchy... It'll probably work out better for the next four years than this administration will...

Campanitas - Mis Llamitas

I finally managed to get ahold of one of the most spectacular guitar-like instrument pieces I've ever heard. This is, I believe, a Charango and a Tiple, but I can't say for sure.
http://theoldquarter.dyndns.org/files/campanitas.mp3
If you like it, you should buy the whole Inti Illimani album because it's awesome. It's called Imaginacion. But yeah, that is one great piece. The other amazing piece with cool cuatro playing this time is Illapu's Golpe Tucuyano. I envy them... :)

Odd Meetings, Relay Races, and Quotes

Wow, so John and I ran into some kid who was high. We were just talking and this kid randomly walks up to us and starts talking. I'm pretty sure my 'wtf?' face was on quite firmly, but he definitely wasn't seeing it. He informed us that he was intoxicated (I was tempted to go 'really? no shit! I couldn't tell...'). Then he talked to us for a few minutes (didn't really actually convey much of anything, but certainly spoke for that entire time) and then finally left with a couple of others. Needless to say, that was interesting :). I laughed about it for a bit after that. Ahh, amusing night.

In other news, IBM has retaken the fastest supercomputer title. This is the third switch in that title in the past month or so. It's almost as if they're playing a relay race. Quite amusing :)

And finally, a wonderful quote from Babylon 5:
Delenn: This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection, withdraw or be destroyed!
Captain: Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship.
Delenn: Why not?! Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.
- Ambassador Delenn, "Severed Dreams"

That's all for the moment. Check out http://en.wikiquote.org/ - it's pretty cool.

More?!?!?

It appears that the Texans are trying to make up for not being the dumbest in the country anymore, and are now changing Health book wording to specify marriage as between a man and a woman.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=229925
Nice.

The Perfect Concession Speech

Read it, folks. Pretty amazing. 'What must I do?'
http://www.felbers.net/mt/archives/000945.html

Anonymous Comments

Oh, by the way, I enabled anonymous comments a few weeks back, so you don't need a Blogger account to comment. So.. yeah, go for it or whatever.

Why?

Why is it that all the crap has to be concentrated in this week? Long (and unfinished) lab report, crap lab, bush wins the election, I find out I failed my calculus exam, I do badly on this week's quiz...
It just can't get any < rain starts pouring on my head >
Worse. You were about to say worse, weren't you?

The worst part is that it's not even over this week - next week is the next chemistry exam, which I'm virtually guaranteed to fail, since I don't understand 99% of what we've done since the last exam.

'Marshall - I can call you Marshall, right? Sit the fuck down for a minute.

Do you just fucking hate me? What have I ever done to you?'

Oh No

Here we go again. Four more years.

(01:21:11) Me: another four years
(01:21:15) Me: four years of secrecy
(01:21:24) Me: four years of war
(01:21:27) Me: four years of no allies

And four years of so many other bad things. Good fucking job USA. You just fucked yourself over. Again. Fuck 'God Bless America'. God Help America. And the rest of the world. We're going to need it.

Mosh

So I found possibly the coolest video on earth two days ago. You should download it and watch it because it rocks.
http://www.archive.org/download/Mosh/GNN_Mosh_bb.mov
Save this and then watch it. Absolutely amazing. And go vote if you're American, of course. Preferably for Kerry :p.