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[05 Nov 2006|03:22pm] |
I'm seriously considering getting rid of this journal.
I never take any time to update, and in the back of my mind, it's like, an embarrasment to be a guy with a mostly dead journal... like all dead would be better somehow.
I never feel like updating. How rude and selfish of me.
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[12 Aug 2005|12:29am] |
So, I've settled my plans for Texas...
I arrive in Austin on the 18th.
I travel from Austin to Galveston sometime on the 21st.
I travel from Galveston to Austin sometime on the 24th.
I travel back to Chicago on the 28th.
Aside from those dates, nothing much is really set...
Hopefully, this will allow me to see plenty of everyone I want to see, since the two people from Dallas I wanted to see will be visiting Austin, and the person from San Antonio I wanted to see will probably be able to see me in Houston or Austin, and the person I wanted to see in Houston I can visit while I'm staying in Galveston, and I'll see the person I wanted to see in Galveston and there are a bunch of people I want to see in Austin. I think it will all work out.
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| Imperial Newts |
[12 Aug 2005|12:28am] |
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I finally completed my set of six Jim Woodring Imperial Newts art capsule toys today.
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[07 Aug 2005|01:11am] |
According to these people, one of the "fish" which might be visiting their new "fish hotel" in the Chicago River is the "white sucker."
Can't you picture someone saying, "Hey, white sucker! You're going to the fish hotel!"?
Just a thought.
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[06 Aug 2005|12:30am] |
This is from a discussion issued by the National Hurricane Center:
HOW LITTLE WE KNOW ABOUT THE GENESIS OF TROPICAL CYCLONES. SATELLITE
IMAGES DURING THE DAY YESTERDAY SHOWED A DISTINCT DISTURBANCE IN THE
DEEP TROPICS WITH ALL KNOWN FACTORS APPARENTLY FAVORABLE FOR THE
SYSTEM TO BECOME A TROPICAL STORM. SURPRISINGLY THIS
MORNING...VISIBLE IMAGES INDICATE THAT THE SYSTEM HAS BECOME
DISORGANIZED. UNEXPECTEDLY...THE LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION MOVED
NORTHWESTWARD TOWARD RELATIVELY COOLER WATERS AND LOST MOST OF THE
DEEP CONVECTION.
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| goin down to houston ... do the hot-dog dance |
[30 Jul 2005|03:27am] |
going to Austin first anyway...
I bought tickets; I will be flying into Austin on the 18th and flying out the 28th (of August).
I plan on bussing it to at least Houston and Dallas; maybe also Galveston and San Antonio if that's the only way I can see everybody.
We should hang out. Comment here or phone me.
I probably don't have a place to stay most of that time; if you would be delighted to put me up, let me know, otherwise, no big deal, I can do the cheap hotel thing.
I look forward to seeing you all there!
Matt
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| some stuff about hurricane names |
[30 Jul 2005|01:03am] |
So I wanted Juli to know that she's the only member of out nuclear family that could not have an Atlantic basin tropical storm or Hurricane with the same name as her in the next six years. (at least if there's no change in naming conventions.)
Hurricane Michael crashed in Newfoundland on October 20th, 2000. There was only light damage. There could be another storm named Michael in 2006 if it is an active season.
There could be a storm named Rose in 2009 if there is a 17th named storm in that season. That would be unusual: I think the only time that has happened (that there's been an 'R' tropical storm) since the naming of storms started was in 1995 (Roxanne).
There will almost certainly be a tropical storm Colin in 2010; this name was taken to replace the retired name Charley from 2004.
There was a tropical storm Matthew last year; it burst levees in Louisiana around October 10th. There may be another storm named Matthew in 2010. The name Matthew was first used in 2004; it replaced Mitch from 1998.
As far as Juliana is concerned, there are no current storm name lists that have Juli or Juliana on them. In 2010 there will likely be a Julia (to replace Jeanne). In the Northeast Pacific, the name lists for the near future include Juliette and Julio. There's a Julian for the Phillipines area. Hmm... also a Juliet for the South-West Indian Ocean. And there's a Julie (with an 'e', that's a different name) on the standby list of names for the South Pacific.
About these other name lists... there's a "Matt" on the name list of names for Northern Australian tropical cyclones. There's a "Rosie" on the list for South-East Indian Ocean tropical cyclones. And there's a "Colin" for the South Pacific tropical cyclones. And a "Mike" on the list of names for South Pacific tropical cyclones. But we wouldn't even hear about one of these unless it were unreasonably destructive.
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| Cds |
[30 Jul 2005|12:56am] |
I thought everyone would be interested in knowing which cds are on my rack of cds I'm playing over and over again over the last few days.
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Handsome Boy Modeling School - White People
Diplo - Florida
Aesop Rock - Float
Andrew Bird - & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
M.I.A. - Arular
Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
Lou Barlow - EMOH
Pixies - Trompe le Monde
Gorillaz - Gorillaz
Martina Topley-Bird - Anything
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| I need to be better organized |
[06 Jul 2005|03:52pm] |
timeline of related events:
Spring 2001: get passport in case I have to travel to Canada in the summer.
Summer 2001: Go to Ottowa while attending REU in upstate New York. Nobody checked any passports.
Fall 2002: Brought passport with me to Thompson center in downtown Chicago to get Illinois state driver's license.
Fall 2002-Spring 2005: Did not leave the country or make any plans to leave the country whatsoever.
May 5th, 2005: I request to be put on the waiting list for an invitation-only geometry workshop in Banff, Alberta, Canada, from July 9-14. Odds do not look especially good that I'll get invited.
July 3rd: I get an invitation to that conference. (Somebody cancelled.)
July 5th: I buy an expensive plane ticket for a flight July 9th to Calgary. Very expensive, by my standards. Some promise of reimbursement by the math department, but possibly $150 less than the full amount. No huge problem; that's a hit I can take.
July 6th, afternoon: I realize that I haven't seen my passport in three years. Casual searching begins.
July 7th, morning: I still haven't found my passport and it occurs to me that I might not get any reimbursement if I don't actually get to the conference... I'd heard that getting any kind of a temporary emergency passport takes at least a week... Sure, nobody checked any passports when I was in a bus full of students going to Canada three months before 9/11, but what are the chances I could get through without one now? I could show them, what, a computer printout of my invitation letter to this conference? Panic sets in. Comprehensive searching of boxes and drawers full of old documents begins. Furniture is moved.
25 minutes ago: I find the damn thing in a folder sitting in a pile of random documents on my desk. Crisis averted.
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[04 Jul 2005|10:58pm] |
So Christina just got back from spending the weekend in NJ. It's always great to have her here. I just deep fried some plantains. I'm trying to imitate something I tried at the taste, at this booth at the taste that had a picture of president Clinton ordering food at the same booth. The idea is to take a ripe plantain and cube it, and marinate it in a sauce made of chili and ginger and maybe garlic, and then deep fry the cubes. I can't get it to do like they had it. Still, if you're the kind of lazy person who deep-fries snacks before getting dressed in the evening, I'm sure you've had the delightful experience of deepfrying stuff in a saucepan while not wearing a shirt. Somehow it's delightful being hit with tiny drops of 300 degree oil. I love it, but I'll never be able to explain it. It does hurt, but not much.
I'm trying to learn java. I did a java project about four years ago in which I got java to output a file that, if read with a particular font, listed all the possible monosyllables (in the international phonetic alphabet) that could be considered pronounceable syllables to a speaker of modern American English, according to a model of its phonology that I worked out. I still have the file, but I'm completely incapable of reading the code I wrote that created it (no comments in the code, of course).
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[31 May 2005|10:14am] |
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Perhaps a person cannot live on bread alone, and perhaps there's nothing to live on aside from bread and crossword puzzles.
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[17 May 2005|01:51pm] |
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I'm doing nothing for my birthday tonight. But don't tell me that I'm doing nothing, because it's a surprise.
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[14 Apr 2005|12:58pm] |
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I had a long, strange dream with many crazy things in it. Among them: a shopping mall that was also a maze that changed shape as you traveled through it; a flabby, short indian man with extremely dark skin taking a shower; people complaining that the rules and regulations concerning their jobs didn't allow them to fly enough (like birds); a soft drink dispenser (like the ones at fast food places) that also blew snowflakes out into the room.
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[06 Mar 2005|05:18pm] |
I discovered something totally shocking about mathematica (ver. 5.1.0) today.
If you type in
(If[tf,{a,b},{c,d}]+{p,q})/.{tf->True}
you get
{p+{a,b},q+{a,b}}.
Under no conditions can you get it to evaluate that expression as
{a+p,b+q}.
I am totally not shitting you.
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[04 Mar 2005|09:34am] |
From the info box for the "My Buddy" menu on my new Sanyo phone:
"When My Buddy is set to On, Cool character will appear on the main LCD display for 30 sec. by opening flip. It will amuse you with funny animation!"
The "Cool character" is a little 3-d CGI polar bear. He runs around and then gets out of breath or sees stars in front of his face, and he marches across the screen wearing a cape and a pumpkin on his head. You can watch him eat a hamburger, or take a bath. I think it's totally great. Thank you South Korea!
I mentioned to this math guy I know (Ben Wieland) that my phone had a little bear on it that dances around. He quickly responded, without any particular irony, "I don't consider that a feature."
Well, I do consider this a feature, and it has greatly improved my satisfaction with my new phone.
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[14 Feb 2005|10:23am] |
Little Known Fact:
The day after St. Valentine's Day is a holiday known as St. Fu Day. Saint Fu is a little known Chinese saint. On St. Fu Day, it is appropriate to go up to happy couples and shout at them, "ESS! TEE! EFF! YOU!" (STFU) to remind them that it is St. Fu Day.
Just letting you know.
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[07 Feb 2005|02:58am] |
I don't understand that "blank is love thing," but anyway,
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[06 Feb 2005|05:47am] |
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Why doesn't one refer to one's body as one's "precorpse"?
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[04 Feb 2005|10:03am] |
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Here's a pickup line Brian should try: "Hey, did you just attack a red mold? Because you are suddenly very hot!"
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[31 Jan 2005|08:06am] |
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So I've really been enjoying "Venture brothers" and I keep on seeing things that references in it were based on and then understanding the references. For one thing, in "The Incredible Mr. Brisby," Brisby asks Dr. Venture his name and he reponds "Reading from top to bottom, Lisa ... Carol ... Fremont," while turning on the three lamps in the room. Then last week I saw "Rear Window" for the first time in years. Also, in "Ghosts of the Sargasso," Major Tom says, "I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much." Jonas Venture replies, "She knows! Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong! Can you hear me, Major Tom?" and then today, I downloaded some David Bowie on a whim, and found "Ground control to Major Tom," which contains exactly the same lines.
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pessimysticism's journal