If my love is your drug, GET TO REHAB
This is actually pretty fantastic.
I like how Canada needs to be explained.
I’m listening to Ke$ha at 4:30 AM. My neighbor has surprisingly not murdered me yet.
So I sawed about a foot off my hair this afternoon. First impulsive act of the year, eh? Long hair’s a pain on the buses.
Pics later when I find my camera.
Edit:
Cannot take a good picture to save my life.
Blog #[some really big number]
Haha, this is awesome.
It also led to about five hours on Wikipedia and miscellaneous other sites reading about Uranus. Uranus is my favorite planet.
Also there’s this little illustration, which I love ever so much because Uranus is on his side:
ALSO, Apollo 13 has to have one of the best soundtracks ever.
Okay, that’s all. Slow day.
This blog tastes like crap!
Christmas alone.
Yup.
Riveting.
On an unrelated note, bleaching my hair does not work. 90 minutes of bleach intensity does practically NOTHING. I think my hair needs to be lab analyzed for its weirdness.
Tomorrow is “Boxing Day” which translates to “Play Fallout 3 Incessantly Day.”
It’ll certainly be better than today was.
Today’s song: Sleepyhead (Neo Tokyo Remix) originally by, of course, Passion Pit
Blaaaaaaaah
Oh and look, it’s raining.
I may or may not be back for spring (read: late February) break; it depends on whether or not my mom wants me to go and visit her and her boyfriend in Arizona instead.
Who knows.
Blah.
Today’s song: Dynamite by Taio Cruz
HOLY LORD IT’S COLD
Today got colder than I thought it ever got in Vancouver. Here’s how my wonderful little night went:
1. Had to buy groceries at Safeway. Stood out in freezing cold (added bonus: wind chill!) still wearing exercise clothes (read: skimpy pants and shirt) and dinky coat waiting for the bus for about 20 minutes.
2. Got home and realized that my heat had, for whatever reason, failed to come on during the day.
3. Also realized that I left the window in the bedroom cracked (I need it opened when I sleep) and that the wind was blowing INTO my apartment, making it even colder than it should have been without the heat off. It was 45 degrees.
4. Curled up in blanket with space heater blasting for about twenty minutes before finding the courage to shower.
5. Surprise! No hot water.
6. Made noodles and tried not to freeze to death.
7. Remembered I had a microwave heating pad from my mom. Life got substantially better.
Today’s song: Everybody (Radio Edit) by Rudenko
Dear Cinnamon Toast Crunch: If I Could Have Your Babies, I Would
Okay, so this is like the fourth night in a row in which I’ve had a dream where some deep secret of the universe has been revealed to me, but I’m missing like one small connection I can’t remember upon waking up. I hate dreams like that! I think it’s the pills.
I am ridiculously excited about the giant impending musical analysis that will be occurring in approximately a month and a half. I literally have been waiting all year for it.
I also love R with all my soul.
What the hell else was I going to say?
OH YEAH.
Moscow friends: I shall be returning to Idaho from December 15th to December 20th. If you all are around, we should get naked together. I demand a Shari’s run, too, since they don’t have those up here ‘cause Canada’s dumb and doesn’t understand the importance of a pre-orgy Shari’s run.
Okay?
Cool.
Things that rule:
Muse. This video is surreal.
Half-Life. Even when condensed to 60 seconds.
Fallout 3. Because you should have just given him the sweet roll (probably only funny ‘cause I played it, but whatev).
Sorry. Not feeling very well and am also in a gaming mood.
Today’s song: My Humps by The Black Eyed Peas (shut up.)
Dataaaaaaa!
Must…analyze…all of this…
I found this via this interesting blog post (thanks, StumbleUpon!). I knew philosophy was a male-dominated major, but I didn’t know the gender gap was so large.
I’m going to have to screw with these numbers and come up with some interesting analyses. I LOVE this kind of stuff.
Today’s song: The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel
HOO-HOO!
Inspector Gadget theme.
Stuck in my head, going on nine ten hours now.
Shoot me.
Go go gadget insanity!
Today’s song: The Whip by Locksley
Random number generation is too important to be left to chance
I appear to be unable to form coherent thoughts that last for more than three minutes at a time today.
You know what that means…
RANDOMBLOG!
Had I the money and time, I would love to do a cruise around the world. How fantastically awesome would that be? I could totally make it happen in a year’s time if I didn’t have to pay rent, haha.
I want my new shiny to get here! I need a new electronic to fondle, never mind that it was a poor purchase choice. I’ll just have to learn to fondle live with the consequences.
Lady Gaga’s song Teeth has a freakish resemblance to Prisencolinensinainciusol in terms of the beat. I’m also in love with it. Go figure.
THAT IS ALL!
Today’s song: Teeth by Lady Gaga
My Internal Dialogue is in All Caps
So I had this super awesome statistics-related blog all planned out to post tonight, but a friend in Multivariate Analysis had to borrow my notes, so I figured I should wait until I get them back to make sure I don’t make any mistakes regarding the example I’m going to use.
So tomorrow. I promise. I also keep forgetting to update this more often than whenever the hell I feel like it; I apologize, I’m still conditioned from MySpace.
In the meantime, here’s a color sample of all the clothes in my closet.
Scary, huh?
Today’s song: Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event
The Periodic Table of Academic Disciplines
Alternate title: Claudia’s Bored
(Click to enlarge!)
(Source for list of disciplines/categories)
YES I KNOW it’s not exactly like the actual periodic table groupings, but I gave it my best shot. I tried to keep the general “this is how things are organized” patterns, but some of the disciplines just didn’t fit in anywhere else (anatomy, I’m looking at you). I didn’t keep the P-, S-, D-, F-blocks ‘cause they didn’t work out in terms of layout, but I kind of made my own blocks instead (take THAT, Mendeleev!). The groups, however, are still sorta there.
Group 1: Formal sciences, applied
Group 2: Formal sciences, more theory-based
Group 3: Physics
Group 4: Physics-related stuff
Group 5: More specific physics
Group 6: Physics and space-related stuff
Group 7: Chemistry and biology
Group 8: More specific biology
Group 9: Specific types of organism-based biology
Group 10: Earth-related stuff
Group 11: Climate-related stuff
Group 12: More earth (ground)-related stuff
Group 13: Applied sciences that don’t fit anywhere else
Group 14: Arts (and marketing and accounting)
Group 15: More arts
Group 16: More arts
Group 17: Written arts
Group 18: Humanities
As for the colors, they’re more related to the blocks I guess. And the periods generally go from most fundamental/basic/theoretical (at the top) to the more applied (near the bottom of the columns).
Yeah.
I love Red Bull.
Today’s song: Alejandro by Lady Gaga (another “why the hell didn’t I have this song yet?” day)
Vancouver, you’re silly
I live by a bunch of cemeteries. At the entrance of each one is posted this sign. Yeah, seriously.
Apparently, the story behind these signs involves the long-lived problem of people letting their dogs roam around unleashed, particularly in cemeteries. The problem started to escalate back in the 90s, so cemetery officials felt they had to do something about it, as dogs freely roaming about in cemeteries were bound to cause problems.
The husband of one of the management staff, after a rough run-in with a pissy dog owner, recalled that a close town had erected “camel crossing” signs in areas that were prone to speeding traffic. These humorous signs were effective in reducing traffic speed, so they attempted to apply the same logic to the “no unleashed dogs in the cemeteries” rule enforcement with these signs.
Cool idea, but if I were an elephant I would be holding a huge grudge against unleashed dogs for their causing me not to be allowed in cemeteries.
And I would never forget it, either.
[insert elephant graveyard joke here]
Today’s song: Take It Off by Ke$ha
Golb
DUDE I just found out that I have rare fingerprints (I guess technically we all do, but that’s not what I mean).
I have one radial loop and nine arches (tented and plain). I always thought whorls were the rarest, but that’s probably because I don’t have any. I also envy the people with whorls, ‘cause they’re the coolest pattern, I think.
OKAY THAT’S ALL!
Today’s song: U Smile (Ambient) by Justin Bieber & Shamantis (yeah, you know it had to happen)
The First Floor of Koerner Library is the Scariest Place on the Planet
So for the first time today, I went down to the first floor of Koerner Library (the entrance is on the third floor and the majority of the books I ever check out are on the fourth and fifth floors). But thanks to the desire to read Dr. Zhivago, I had to go down instead of up this afternoon.
And this is all I have to say: that is the creepiest motherfucking floor of any library I’ve ever been in.
Libraries are usually, to me, quite comforting things—they inspire one to write, they inspire one to read. They’re fun to get lost in and wander around until you find the obscure little corners full of shelves of authors’ works that sit largely unread by the general public (the structural equation modeling section, anyone?). In short, they’re motivating, quiet, wonderful things that serve to quench intellectual wanderlust.
The first floor of Koerner was none of these. I just wanted to sprint to Pasternak’s little corner, snatch up my book, and get the hell out. There was no one down there, however, save maybe two people. So ignoring the not-so-subtle drone of the building air intake wall (which you shall see), I took a short little video of the place.
The creepy vibe on the video doesn’t even reach 10% of the level it is in real life. Seriously. It was scary as hell down there. That humming you hear when I’m close to the vent is much louder in real life, too, and permeates throughout the whole floor at a level my camera mic can apparently not pick up. Check it out:
Oh yeah, and those wheel things on the sides of the shelves swing the shelves outward so people can get to the journals inside. The second time I’m zooming in on the vid is where a wheel is turning, but you can’t see it, unfortunately.
Gah.
Today’s song: Show Me Love by Robyn
Why is prevention measured in ounces?
Well, I can certainly tell I’m back in Vancouver, ‘cause my luck has taken a turn for the worse again.
I have two other people staying in my apartment. I got a knock on my door last night from the caretaker of the building who said “hey, the guy below you has a water leak in his ceiling, so the plumbers are coming tomorrow.”
It’s now tomorrow, and they’ve been here for six hours.
They had to take my toilet out, dig around in the sewer pipe for about an hour and a half, then they left my toilet in the hall while they went to get lunch, came back, sucked god knows what out of the sewer pipe, and then attempted to install a new pipe piece (that doesn’t fit).
Did I mention I brought Annabelle up here yesterday? Do you know how bad I feel about keeping her locked in the bedroom so she doesn’t sprint out of the apartment/fall down the sewer pipe (a valid fear—we had a cat that crawled under a fireplace once)? I hope the obscenely large sewer vac thing they brought in here didn’t scar her for life.
What joy. Welcome back, eh?
Today’s song: Worried About Ray by The Hoosiers
And so it begins. Again.
Blah, so I got back to Vancouver today.
We had to drug Annabelle for the car ride, but she was still freaking out in her carrier so I had to keep her on my lap the whole time. I guess the drugs made her unable to work her back legs, because at one point she kind of sank down into the gap between the middle seat and my seat with only her head and front paws sticking out. It was pretty cute. I don’t think she remembers any of it.
But yeah, I probably won’t be back to Moscow until summer (if at all, it depends on what I’m doing at that point).
Now we wait around a few days until my mom’s boyfriend gets here and they go sailing for a few weeks. It’s going to be an interesting few days when they’re both here in my apartment.
Woo.
Today’s song: Rude Boy by Rihanna
NEW GOAL
DUDE I would love to have this as my job:
The viewer comments are freaking great on this one.
Food styling’s where it’s at. Apparently to get into the career it’s recommended that you go to culinary school, though, so that dream’s pretty much shot. Either way, though…rockin’.
Today’s song: Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus (shut up, it’s fun to dance to)
Short Blogs for Short People
I told you this was short.
Today’s song: Suite pour orchestre No. 2 en Si mineur by Richard Galliano
A STATELY CHALLENGE
Holy crap, it’s a blog not posted at 1 AM!
So while I was doing research today (read: “as R was working hard running my code and I was just sitting there”), I decided to see if I could draw the US and all the continental states from memory. First I made a sketch to see if I could even get close, then I made an actual drawing with ink so you could see all my little screw ups (aka, the entire eastern seaboard).
Rough sketch = epic fail.
Apparently, in my mind, the Midwest is an even bigger expanse of nothing than it is in real life, the Great Lakes are a palm tree, West Virginia is a scribble, and New England is experiencing severe continental drift along the state border lines.
So I tried again, using just my rough sketch for reference, and I think this is substantially better:
The proportions (and some locations) really start to suck east of the Mississippi River, but at least I didn’t miss anything. Indiana and Ohio look crappy ‘cause I screwed up that general area and just went with it. The rest look crappy ‘cause I don’t know what they look like…in particular, I couldn’t for the life of me remember how the hell West Virginia is shaped, so I just kinda threw it on there where there was a gap in the states yet and called it good. Hahaha, Wisconsin is so deformed, but I got the Great Lakes right (edit: I also just realized I forgot to put the tail on the “g” so it looks like I wrote “Lake Michican.” You’d be surprised how often I forget to complete letters before moving on to the next one. Or maybe you wouldn’t, it is me, after all).
I’d try to draw Canada, but pfft. I know the names of the provinces and territories, I know where BC, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia are, but that’s about the extent of my Canadian geography knowledge.
I also have no idea when it was the last time I looked at a US map, Canadian map…or a map of anything aside from the bus routes, for that matter.
So there you go.
Conclusion: I like square states.
Waiter! There’s a dead and alive cat in my box!
HOLY CRAP, so I was screwing around on StumbleUpon this afternoon and I came across some random page of NASA’s. Multiple clicks later and I came to this.
I had totally forgotten that we’d attempted to do this in fifth grade. I say “attempted” because at 4 days prior to the competition we realized that we were short a motor (we foolish children and our lack of inventory-taking skills!) and thus were forced to withdraw. No, I don’t know how exactly we had the majority of our rover finished before we realized “hey, we kinda need a third motor,” but we did. Probably because one of our members had to quit because he failed like 5 reading quizzes in a row and he was the one in charge of our Lego kit. We would have won, too, ‘cause my transmission was killer and Daniel built an exceptionally awesome rock scooper (that’s a highly technical NASA term).
So yeah. Nostalgia.
I also found a random flash drive this afternoon that had this previously un-blogged-about album cover contained on it:
Also, I need to get super hyper again in time for my calc final. I don’t remember a single damn thing I wrote on my test on Monday, but I did pretty well.
So there.
Today’s song: Hemvägen (Live Nyhetsmorgon 2007) by Detektivbyrån
Homoscedasticity is not a sexual orientation
This week’s been like one long anxiety attack. I think my brain’s in one of those “I’m gonna spaz out for no reason” modes that involves near constant déjà vu-like experiences and a lot of general panic. Hooray. Hope this stops before BOSTON TIME!
I also had an extremely strange dream involving Matt, Maggie, Rebeca, and myself that centered around a large gym, a towel over which Matt was strangely possessive, an air vent, a promised orgy inside said air vent, and a lot of jealously/private making out. Matt was angry the whole dream, Maggie was on tranquilizers or something. It was…weird.
Also, read Lolita.
Today’s song: Overkill by Colin Hay
Calculus: taking it to the limit (yeah, the jokes won’t stop until the class is over)
Two things:
1) Happy birthday, mom!
2) Congrats to all who are graduating today, though I’m pretty sure no one who’s graduating this semester reads my blogs.
Haha, sorry, not much more to say today. Cleaned the apartment and did calculus practice problems for five hours.
Oh, and this. I miss this show.
Today’s song: Flippers by Art vs. Science
Eigenblogger 