10 for 1

Basics of my last 10 days... Might elaborate on some later, but the highlight was obviously rioting after the Red Sox swept the World Series.

Friday - BFF's sister's birthday doober

Saturday - Journey up to Boston with Ian. Game 1 at Luis and Krissa's place.

Sunday - Loafing around reading day, Burdick's hot chocolate (mmm... chocolate...), magical meat place, then Game 2 with Luis and Krissa.

Monday - Burdick's, Sackler Museum (pictures are a little blurry because I couldn't use flash), hotel searching, pool at Boston Billiards and Bar with a couple of Ian's friends and their pool league doober

Tuesday - met up with people at the mall for lunch, went around Ian's former company's new office, saw I Heart Huckabees (liked this a lot... weird in a random philosophical way. Two words: existential spies. I found it very funny. Still don't know what about Napoleon Dynamite rubbed me the wrong way, but the people who tried to convince me that ND was good might like this one.), then Game 3 at Whiskey's

Wednesday - Mall to buy hats, took some pictures around Fenway, more pool at Boston Billiards while waiting for Game 4, watched at Boston Beer Works. Weirdest thing on the menu: fried pickles. Strange, but surprisingly good. Anyway, the important part of the evening: rioting (pictures are a little blurry due to lack of light when cops were chasing us). Ok, so we leave this bar, which is across the street from Fenway and the cops have the street blocked off so people won't rush the stadium in their riotous madness. They block off both ends of it, leaving this bar in no-man's land in the middle. We leave the bar and get herded into this parking lot next to it and they promptly close the gate behind us. We hang out with the riot cops for a while. They seemed pretty nice. But then we decide to head back toward the back of the lot, where we were supposed to be able to exit. There is another line of cops down at that end. We hang out with that crowd for a bit. Much rowdier than the first group. Try going up one of the side streets, then again get trapped between two lines of cops.

They finally allow us to leave out one end and we try to find Jessica (girlfriend of one of Ian's former coworkers). Get to her street which is completely jam-packed with people and find that the line of cops in that area is two buildings away from her building. Not only that, but there is another line of cops about a block away, which means her building is in yet another no-man's land. They, of course, would not let us through. Not that we actually got a chance to ask. A few other people wanted to try to get through, but they were told to go home. Before we got a chance to ask if we could go to the building behind them, the mounted cops come riding up, they start beating their beating sticks against their pads and shields, chanting, and then started marching toward the crowd. We ran away, but most of the crowd just amoebically shifted away from the police line.

Throughout all this was also people setting off fireworks in crowds of people, as well as many overly drunk people. The cops set off some flash bombs and smoke bombs to disperse the crowds, but for the most part though, it was just very happy people celebrating. No fighting or anything like that that I saw. Some huge concrete decorative spheres got ripped out of the ground and rolled around and a tree was falling over into the street. Anyway, lots of rioting, but no looting. Still, by far the best rioting adventure I've ever been on (also, only rioting adventure).

Thursday - wandered town in a haze, hung out in a library for a bit, napped

Friday - bought World Series stuff, went on a journey for candies, hung out with peoples, played scrabble and video games

Saturday - rolling rally day, way way too many people in a very small area. I heard the count was 3 million people along the 3-mile route for the rolling rally. Absolute madness. video games, trivial pursuit

Sunday - journey home

Back with a vengeance

Red sox won! Red Sox won!! So anyone interested as to why I've been missing this past week, I took a trip up to Boston with Ian to celebrate the Sox making it into the World Series. And even better than that, we got to do some rioting while we were there. Still haven't made it home yet... hanging out at my parents' place until they get back. Will update pictures and last week's adventures when I get home. That's all for now! Hope y'all had a good week. :) -J.

Birthday!

Happy birthday to Tom and my grammy. You are both old in your own, unique way. But also chronologically.

Birthday!

Happy birthday, Sonny! Woo! Hope you're enjoying your "cake." heh heh... :) -j.

Birthday!

Happy birthday, Lenny! woo! Happy and stuff! La la la.

World Series

I'm *speechless*. Wow.

When in doubt, pee on your neighbor

LOTD: Yahoo! News - Political Yard Sign Wars Wage as Election Nears:

In Ohio, two men were reportedly caught on videotape urinating on a Bush-Cheney sign, and in Madison, Wisconsin, someone burned a swastika into a lawn with a Bush sign.

Some people are working overtime to protect their signs. Mark Shemet of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, has had to replace two stolen Kerry signs in the last week alone. Pennsylvania Democrats have threatened to spread itching powder on signs to keep the opposition at bay, and an Illinois family last week covered their yard sign with petroleum jelly to repel thieves.


QOTD: "hey, want to go in halfsies on a house?"

GO SOX!!

Holy shmacks! Never been done before. This is statistics being thoroughly rejected. I don't know what to do. I even missed Gilmore Girls last night for this. What is the world coming to? Yeah, yeah, so I had 2 people recording. But that's ok. Woo!

Birthday!

Happy birthday, Mars-girl!

1 is not a prime number

So angry... must rant...

I was playing trivial pursuit with people at lunch today and one of the questions was, "What is the third smallest prime number?" And I said 5, but someone else in the group said that 1 counted as a prime because it is divisible by 1 and itself, so it should be 3. And trivial pursuit was wrong. I'm very disappointed. I still maintain that 1 is not a prime. The answer should be 5.

References:
Wolfram
Wikipedia
UTM's prime number researchers -- List of prime numbers

I can't believe:
1. someone tried to tell me I was wrong about math.
2. it was an engineer.
3. the engineer thought 1 was a prime number.

I can believe that Trivial Pursuit was wrong (the infamous moops). That wasn't the problem. It was also an old set, for which I could possibly give them leeway. But, honestly, in this day and age, no one who uses math for anything worthwhile would consider 1 a prime number.

A prime number is a positive integer that has exactly two positive integer factors, 1 and itself.

Yes, that's right. Exactly two. One and itself. That doesn't mean you can count 1 twice. That means one and itself, which is a distinct integer value that is not one. Dammit. I don't argue unless I know I'm right. I mean, I argue all the time just to be argumentative. But I'm rarely confrontational about it unless people are being blatantly stupid. And even less often than that, I won't tell someone flat out that they're wrong unless I know that they are. And this, I was right about dammit. One does not count as a prime number.

And see, the thing is... I can't even show him that he's wrong because this is so stupid to get worked up over. But I take math very seriously. When someone tried to tell me a few weeks ago (again, while playing trivial pursuit) that a heptagon wasn't a seven-sided polygon because sept- was the correct prefix, I had to just keep repeating myself until she flipped the card over. It's not about being right or wrong on this. It's about appreciating math and understanding it. Actually, it is about being right or wrong. And, today, math was done a disservice. A line was drawn between right and wrong and I stand proudly in the right quadrants defending math in all its glory.

EDIT: (Yes, I'm still worked up about this.) Ok, so I take it back. It's not ok that Trivial Pursuit got that wrong. The moops was a typo. They had the general answer right. In this case, this was an error. There was a fundamental misunderstanding of a concept. It wasn't even a missed fact-check. This was a question that they answered wrong. Stop letting 1 get away with masquerading as a prime number. Next thing you know, we'll be letting the fundamental theorem of arithmetic get away with using composite numbers. Heathens.

holy doober

These people can fly to the sun, but can't tell which way gravity goes?

$264 Million Thud Caused By Upside-Down Switch:

It appears that a gravity switch that should have triggered the two parachutes on the spacecraft was installed backwards, and the Moon's gravitational field was just not quite strong enough to trigger the opening.

Bosox!!

Woo how exciting! The game lasted just under 6 hours. I guess they're all earning their money's worth.

Anyway, this tagboard thing is giving me trouble. Actually, IE is giving me trouble. Everything works so happily either in firefox or in IE, but not together. I think it works now. Let me know if it gives you any trouble. Off to bed. -j.

Resume

I realized the other day that I have reached this point in my life where I no longer carry an updated copy of my resume with me wherever I go. I don't know what that means. It just seemed like a different world from the one I've spent the last decade in. At any given time, I would have two or three versions of my resume lying around depending on what kind of job I was going for. Now, I can't think of any reason why I might have a copy of my resume on with me, electronic or otherwise, unless I were looking for a new job, which I'm not. I remember for the first 6 months or so after I was hired, I would still carry my resume around with me in my portfolio. Why? I'm not sure. After the first week, I wasn't really considered a newbie anymore, so the bigwigs stopped asking me for it. I'm finally not looking for a summer internship, a part-time job, or a temp position. I am employed. I guess as my bro would say, I'm "all growsed up."

Ironic

I got nothing. Was going to update with something, but I'm drawing a blank on stories. I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock buzzing... And when I looked over, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "My alarm clock isn't working; it's not waking me up."

'nite all. :) -j.

QOTD: "Would it be ironic if, while waiting in line to get a flu vaccine shot, you caught the flu?"

Links

the super-alpha-uber-geek, GeekMan!
CapitalOne 2004 Mascot Bowl
TechnOtunes - MP3 watches - your time, your watch, your music
Good samaritan donates $2.6 million winning lottery ticket to help flood victims

Magnets

Hey all,
Ordering more yellow-ribbon car magnets with Sonny's unit on it. If anyone's interested, let me know. Ordered today, but if you get back to me soon, I can add more. -J.

Affirmative Action for Asian Americans?

Affirmative Action in Higher Ed for Asian Americans? (washingtonpost.com):
..."Beyond the Classroom," by Laurence Steinberg, B. Bradford Brown and Sanford M. Dornbusch, ... says "of all the demographic factors we studied in relation to school performance, ethnicity was the most important. . . . In terms of school achievement, it is more advantageous to be Asian than to be wealthy, to have non-divorced parents, or to have a mother who is able to stay at home full time."

PSA

So behind the times... I completely forgot to blog about national depression screening day last week. I thought it was the 9th (Saturday), but I think it's a moving holiday... so the first Thursday in October. I'm guessing for SAD, but I don't know if that's really why. In any case, even though the day has passed, you can still go check it ouit: National Depression Screening Day: NMISP and Mental Illness Awareness Week.

Uh, Gee, Thanks

Rehashing an old topic, there was an excellent Miss Manners column yesterday: Uh, Gee, Thanks --

Ladies have a hard time believing that other ladies do not want their weight favorably appraised. Being told that they have lost weight is no delight for people who have illnesses they don't care to discuss, thought they looked all right before or just don't like the idea of being monitored.

Both genders have trouble believing that there is anyone over the age of 18 who is not flattered to be taken for someone younger, however unbelievably. Professionals are told they look too young to hold their jobs, parents that they are too young to have children of the age that they clearly do, partners that one of them is too young for the other, and the elderly that they couldn't possibly be the age they claim.

Kudos to her for her response to the letter written in too.

Before:


After:

new news

So, we cleared up the branches in front of the house today. It was a fun little house activity with my sister, Chad, and Tommy coming out to do some chopping. Nice to know that my roommates both have hacksaws lying around the house.

Before:


After:


And re: Napoleon Dynamite. Tommy liked it too. Maybe I just didn't get it.

In other news, I got a new job. I had no idea personal tutors got paid so much. Over twice what I make at my regular job. Seven to eight times what I made at the tutoring center, even when I was the coordinator. My mind is boggled. Anyway, reading and lounging day, so I better get to it. :) -J.

P.S. Chad heard a gunshot about an hour ago and now I hear sirens. Go neighborhood. I live in the suburban ghetto.

Notice the shaking part:

And the poking part.

Napoleon Dynamitely bad

Ok, so I've heard a few people say in passing that Napoleon Dynamite was good. Specifically, Lenny told me I should go watch it. So, did the date night thing and ventured out with Ian to watch. Holy cow was that movie bad.

Completely unrelated to the movie, stupid kids who do not know how to be quiet should not be out at 10 o'clock at night unsupervised. Actually, kids should not be out unsupervised. But that aside, a group of 15-20 middle-school kids should not be in a theater causing a ruckus. A group of 15-20 middle-school kids should not be out anywhere in public together without supervision. That is just too big a group. Kids these days. I wish I had brought my poking stick.

Anyway, the movie. The plot was non-existent. The characters were annoying. The dialogue was bad. Consisted mostly of, "Idiot!" "I hate you for ruining my life." And something about killing wolverines or something... I don't remember exactly. There was little to no character development and each scene lasted anywhere from 2 to 6 lines of short 3rd grade level sentences and then a lot of silence or filled in with 80s music. There were a handful of funny lines/scenes, but they were few and far between. This movie made me very rage-y. I would recommend not seeing this movie.

Activity of the day: tree cutting. Ok, so I didn't really do anything, but I use my lack of height and branch cutting skills as my excuse. Chad and Yenny cut down some low-hanging branches today. They're all piled up on the lawn now. I'll take a picture tomorrow if I remember. The pile is almost a meter tall, but I might be exaggerating. Things in my head are so garbled, I don't even know what I've made up for my own amusement anymore. Which kind of is funny to me. But anyway, tree.

Went over to the parents' today and ate too much food. We have a distant cousin in town for the weekend. She's actually visiting her sister who just moved down here. They dropped in with my aunt and uncle and family time was had by all.

Some lady emailed Sonny looking for a physics tutor for her daughter. Anyone interested? Let me know and I'll forward info. Ok. Going to sleep. :) -J.

Do people really need this much help?

Do people need a book to tell them a guy isn't interested? He doesn't call you/ask you out on a date... He treats you like crap. He's not interested: Zero Calls, And One Cruel Answer (washingtonpost.com)

Fantasy Football is costing us millions

Taken from Yahoo:

How much does fantasy football cost businesses each day in terms of lost productivity?

a) $5.1M
b) $19.4M
c) $36.7M
d) $103.8M

For the answer please click here.

My blanket:


That's on a full-size bed. So it's almost the width of a bed. Getting there.

Not much going on

I feel bad for not updating. Not because I have stuff to write about and am missing prime blogging opportunities. Or because there are so many of you out there waiting with bated breath to find out what my next entry will be about. No, no. I feel bad for not updating because Sonny has and I haven't. And that means that people will go visit his site to read all the exciting stories he has from Afghanistan and he'll get more hits on his website this month than me. I can't very well let him get away with no competition.

Saw SPJ on Monday... the first time in well over a month. Did the dinner thing with him, ITP, and another Intwine boy. Got caught up on the latest gossip, or lack thereof. Watched Gilmore Girls on Tuesday night and then the Vice Presidential debate. Laughed at all the anger. Laughed and laughed. I don't know what it is about Cheney, but he has this scowl constantly plastered on his face. I don't know if he's just always angry, or if that's just the way his face looks. Maybe mothers around the world were right... If you keep making that face, it will freeze like that.

Last night, did the SNAME thing and hung out with the Pauls and the Bills. I don't know what it is with this group... The executive committee consists of: 6 Bills, 5 Pauls, 2 Bobs (and a Bo, who I'd like to call Bob, but I want him to take over my other job first, so I'm going to wait on that), and 2 Eds. Then there's TLD and me. Meeting was boring, but I did solve one of the google quiz problems by hand:

Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13)=6. Notice that f(1)=1. What is the next largest n such that f(n)=n?

Ok, I just googled that and there are some people with some lousy math skills. Well, not even necessarily math. Some lousy counting skills. As in, they forgot that 11 needs two 1s. Anyway, if anyone wants to bother coming up with a solution, I'll share answers. Other problems available on the google-blog.

Been skipping out on the gym all week. I'm a bad, bad person. Anyway, went running after I got back from the castle tonight. It is so nice out. I would estimate around mid- to low-50s. There are also not enough streetlights in my neighborhood. Which was pretty good incentive for me to run faster... ;) Don't worry. People knew where I was and when I'd be back. And I didn't have headphones on or anything. Very aware of my surroundings, etc.

Also been working on my blanket. Finally used up as much of the white yarn as I'm going to. Switching to blue today. Maybe I'll take a picture. Yeah, that sounds like something to do. Will put in the photoblog. It'll probably be done for this winter. Too bad I'm allergic to yarn, but oh well. I like making gigantic squares. It's fun. And actually... Don't tell anyone, but this one's a *rectangle*. It's big enough that it's not terribly noticeable, but when I started, it was 2stitches x 3stitches. I don't think the proportions stayed like that though because it doesn't look very rectangular to me.

Ok. This is enough. Off to blanket. :) -J.

Aw, how cute

LOTD: Toren van beren

The truth about football fans for truth

Man... These sports fanatics sure have a lot of free time. In response to the football fans for truth site (LOTD 9/22), slate.com had a response.

In other news, not doing so hot in the fantasy football thing these days. Maybe I'll start actually looking at which teams I pick. But really, who has time for that?

Saw Garden State this weekend. Liked it a lot. One part artsy, 3 parts crazy. Kinda sappy/touchy-feely at times, but funny throughout. Also went to a TJ football game on Friday and hung out with some class of '98 peoples. TJ won 10-0 against Falls Church. Very exciting... or something. Also met JL2's girlfriend(!). She seems pretty nice. Don't know much about her though... spent most of our IHOP time trying to keep sugar packets away from certain people in the group. Other than that, more football today. Tried Domino's doublemelt pizza. It didn't actually look like it would taste that good in the commercial. It sounded like a good idea though. Turned out, it tastes pretty good too. I approve.

Ok. That's all. I'm off. :) -J.

Dear Abby

Another reason to not like Dear Abby:

Who is right?
-- SLEEPLESS IN BURLINGTON, WASH.

DEAR SLEEPLESS: You are, of course, and your husband is acting like a baby.

Pottery Barn

Man, free advertising for Pottery Barn:

WashingtonPost: At another point, Kerry said that Powell "told this president the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it." This anecdote comes from Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack," but Woodward actually reported that Powell privately talked with aides about the rule that if "you break it, you own it." He did not say this to the president -- and it turns out Pottery Barn has no such rule.


So, first... isn't it, "You break it, you buy it?" Because if I own everything I break, why wouldn't I just go around breaking everything. I break you, I own you, right? The other thing... I can't imagine any of these people shopping at Pottery Barn. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I just don't think these people would shop there. I mean, picture this: John Kerry buying a custom-made candle village. Or: George Bush picking out a pretty clay planter. Teresa Heinz Kerry stopping by to pick up a nice, decorative throw pillow. Dick Cheney sifting through the discounted plate sets. Colin Powell matching a soap dish and toothbrush caddy? Please. None of these people would honestly know what the Pottery Barn policy is. I could picture maybe Edwards or the Bush twins shopping there, but that's about it.

I'm not sure where I was going with this. I don't think I had a point. Just found it amusing. So go read about the Pottery Barn Policy. :) -J.

Politics in the Office

Yeah, there was a debate on TV last night. Yeah, I watched it. No, I don't want to discuss it with you. Not you, you, I mean. People at work. During work hours. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mind discussing politics. It's a lot more interesting to me these days than it used to be. Especially since I actually have opinions and have a clue as to what's going on in the world around me. Yeah, that's right. Around me. ;) Anyway, I may not spend every second at work performing at my peak capability. But I also have no interest in listening to people fight about politics outside my office. I also have no interest in having someone come into my office and ramble on for 20 minutes about his political beliefs and opinions of the candidates. Just because I'm polite does not give you an open invitation to waste my time. Just because I'm not going to slam my door in your face does not mean you should camp out at my doorway yammering away thinking I agree with you. Especially when he's referring to topics covered in the debate last night, which he did not watch, and in which he is misquoting and/or misrepresenting both candidates. At least if you're going to annoy me, annoy me with facts. Now, get out of my office.

QOTD: "It's not fair that one candidate is a better debater than the other? One candidate used logic!"

Yo

Stayed up watching the debate, but glad I did. I feel very informed. Time for sleep though.

WOTD: vociferous - Making, given to, or marked by noisy and vehement outcry.