my mom sent me back to school after the break with some food for exams and so forth:
it was really nice of her to think of me, but come on--raisins? peanuts? honey?! i'll definately eat this stuff, but who are we kidding here? here is a more representitive sample of my diet:
please note the sea salt and tylenol. that will be all.
...is t-giving.
it may not have the clout of a christmas or a 4th of july, but more than any other holiday you know what you're getting into. you will eat a gigantic meal. there will be a football game on somewhere. pie will be served. thanksgiving makes no pretense of being about anything besides food. sure, there'’s that whole "“giving thanks"” aspect, but it'’s on your own terms. it isn't like you have to buy someone a greeting card to express your weakly held sentiments for you or lie to small children. not to mention that pathetic ball "drop" on new year's. i wish i could say i couldn't think of any worse misnomers propagated upon the american public, but obviously, i can. they should call it a ball "lowering," that thing eases it's way down the poll like an old man getting into a bath.
but i'm getting off-track. the important thing is that thanksgiving is great because it's about food. there isn't a whole mythology about the birth of santa claus or a flying bell that distributes eggs. it's also another thing that the rest of the country owes us for, which is nice.
the chicken is unrelated, i just couldn't help but think that more turkeys would avoid the gallows if they sported miniature steve austin jumpsuits. na na na na na na na na na.
as a casual to semi-casual observer of the country over the last few years i couldn't help but notice that a lot of stuff is being dressed up with orwellian epithets that have nothing to do with the qualities of the program or movement being named. i don't want to get into a whole big political thing here, but you know what i'm talking about: the "clean skies" act, tax "relief," the "patriot" act, the "no child left behind" act, "iraq," and so on. i think the biggest mistake opponents of these things make is actually using these handles--they were designed in a totally superficial way so that people who never paid attention to what was going on in the world would just hear the pseudonym and be in favor of whatever it was. and when people who oppose them actually refer to what they're opposing by its given name they hurt their argument by both disseminating the name and sounding like they're against the thing it describes (kittens or warm milk or whatever).
all the titles i just mentioned were invented by the same group of people, but the whole strategy of naming your idea the thing which it is not has clearly been catching on in other places. particularly in the ironically-named "intelligent design" movement--a creationism in sheep's clothing. these people just whipped out a thesaurus, substituted "design" for "create," and then added the word "intelligent" to offset the fact that they're crackpots.* what i don't get though, is why so many scientists, smart people who should know better, call it by its contrived moniker. don't call it that folks, you're helping them. that's what they want you to do. it doesn't need to be repeated, but the movement is not a theory distinct from creationism. the name and pseudoscience aspects are a facade. and propagating that facade by using their title and being all semantic about it only acts to their advantage. keeping in mind especially that the "controversy" is being disputed entirely on the rhetorical front (by reporters who don't realize it's ok to look things up) and among no real scientists.
that being said, i think this guy is onto something.
*general rule: any time someone feels the need to add a word like "intellectual," "principled," or a phrase like "rigorous criticism" to something you can prettymuch take for granted that they are totally full of crap. conversely, that goes for people who treat the word "intellectual" as a sneer too. those people are sneering because they're idiots.
10. i pronounce things wrong. davis=davies, euler="yoo-ler."
9. i'm always trying to write papers or give class presentations on topics from my other major. in astro classes try to push my talk towards physics and vice-versa. i get the feeling i might be unconsciously trying to give my professors the idea that the other subject is the one where i'm really an expert. like i can't be bothered to step out of my element as a major of the other subject, so i'm just talking about where this phenomenon intersects my already vast knowledge on the other side of the department. when i talked about quark stars (a theoretical type of neutron star) in an astronomy class, i felt compelled to cover the physics parts of everything. how interesting quark-gluon plasma is, how quark matter would have all sorts of interesting repercussions for field theory. then a year later in a physics class, i thought it would be interesting to see the other side of it: the physics of this theorized state of matter. and i couldn't resist briefly covering how great it would be if there were neutron stars made out of it...
8. i have no idea what is happening in condensed matter physics--probably the largest, most active field of physics research today. i know there's some stuff going on with super-conductors, and probably there's some near-chemistry materials development type-stuff. it just seems that whenever i think of the subject the same image from an electron-microscope photo pops up in my head--the one of the ring of atoms. i'm even taking a solid state class. still, i got nothin'.
7. i couldn't come up with a 7.
6. there are some things that i think i've "learned" like 15 times. i'm continually forgetting them and looking them up over and over. for instance, regardless of the context i can never seem to recall what ω means. i don't remember the definition, what a realistic value for it would be, or even what the right units are. i am pretty sure that it's somehow frequency-related but it usually escapes whether its regular frequency times 2π or over 2π. as far as the units and range are concerned ω=-3×10¹³ °K? ω=6.47 J·Hz²? ω=1 eV? they all look prettymuch the same to me. i mean, if i take a few seconds all these things come back to me, but something about those greek letters makes me viscerally uncomfortable. which is probably why i seem to insist upon writing it as "w."
5. same goes for eigenvalues, except that i know their significance and just always seem to make some stupid algebra mistake when calculating them.
4. every class i take is a struggle between homework ryan and exam ryan. homework ryan is a diligent and clever student who labors over details and finds creative solutions to difficult tasks. exam ryan couldn't tie his shoes if you gave him 3 hours--which you do. also, he can't remember how the hell you're supposed to find ω...
3. when it comes to physics, i can't walk and chew gum. more specifically, when i am listening to a professor lecture on something while writing on the board i can't hear a word they're saying. also, the verbiage seems to block my understanding of the equations they're writing. likewise, when i'm really focused on some physics problem i become unable to talk. it feels like i'm one of those old computers where you had to switch floppy disks in the middle of the program. "to activate 'talk' function insert disk 2 into drive a:, disk 1 'math' has experienced a critical error..."
2. until a few weeks ago when i started studying for the physics gre i didn't remember what sin30° (or the other basic trig functions were) offhand.
1. i am utterly incapable of drawing a circle. there is no limit to the problems this causes. if you don't believe me or understand why, look at this:
last summer's digicam purchase has paid dividends in the form of digiphotos. here are some of my favorites.
from a crazy august fair in connecticut. we went inside, the aquatic life was pretty underwhelming, though it was, as the sign promised, 'alive.'
i also bought some fries from this place. they were pretty underwhelming as well.
the aforementioned fries upset my stomach, preventing me from going on rides like this. my girlfriend is on it though. she's the hot one.
this is a patrotic mailbox made by one of my mother's students. i guess they love america or something.
here's a chicken i spotted in the stop and shop parking lot, just minding its own business. i guess the poulty in the rotisserie is local.
murry.
i just like this picture, i don't know why.
the furnace.
the carport. i cleaned it.
a cactus (plastic) on my automobile, the iron eagle.
about an hour down i-89 there is this antenna cheaply disguised as a tree. a tree with a perfectly vertical trunk that sticks up about 50 feet from the surrounding foliage. let's see a close-up.
oh yeah. there it is.
my personal favorite. at first glance an ordinary cat lounging on a table, yet on closer inspection an evil doppelganger cat is evident.
i had a dream that i was on a mission to kill whoever it was who made the foxwoods leprechaun commercial that has been running almost non-stop on nesn since st. patrick’s day. despite the fact that it was a secret mission, red sox nation, acting as a single cohesive unit and also somehow, totally in secret, sent me a sacred bat with which to carry out my sacred duty. in the dream, i did not find this mysterious. i woke up in the wee morning hours, tied a red bandana around my head, hooked the bat to the inside of my black overcoat, slipped on a pair of those fingerless gloves worn by dickensian orphans or homicidal maniacs and got into the back of a black limo that was to take me to my fateful destination. unfortunately, this is the point where i woke up for real. whether the subject of the “mercy killing” (as i’ll call it) is the leprechaun guy, marty of u.s. rv, or bob of bob’s nasal and extremely annoying furniture, i’m pretty sure that i’m not the only person in new england who has had this dream.
there was a period of my life, roughly 9-16 years of age, where I contracted no illnesses whatsoever. barely even a cold. those days seem now so far gone. for in the stretch of a mere year and a half i've gotten the sampler, a little bit of everything. listed chronologically, these are my health mishaps:
-stomach flu (the night before a final)
-stomach ulcer (probably brought on by fresca and following politics)
-sinus infection (probably brought on by the sox falling down 0-3 last year)
-wisdom tooth surgery
-pinkeye
and now, my crowning achievement:
-dislocated knee!
a few hours ago, in what was a truly bizarre moment in recreational softball history, i managed to injure my knee not while dramatically sliding into a base, not while making an amazing catch, but somehow as i was batting. yes indeed, while jumping backwards from an inside pitch as i simultaneously attempted to swing at it i was able to inflict probably as serious an injury on myself as possible given the relatively sedentary nature of batting practice. i feel that words alone are not sufficient to fully express how stupid a maneuver i was attempting. my right leg planted while my hips turned. instead of bending front-back, the joint went left-right and my knee made a crunching, popping sort of noise as i crumpled over.
most importantly, i completely deserved it. this is what a lifetime of flailing, uncoordinated movement gets you. what's really amazing is that it didn't happen earlier--somehow this was the first major injury i've ever sustained. it seems that all those years of taking two stairs at a time, losing my balance as i turn corners, playing squash without goggles, and general clumsiness had been adding up to that moment yesterday, and it finally all caught up to me.
every aspect of food service here has some kind of social component. since all the food is made to order, you usually stand around for a while as they make it. i feel bad for the cooks, since i know that i hate nothing more than being watched while doing something by the person who asked me to do it, and this is what they go through all day long. (it’s also why i don’t order stuff that isn’t on the menu. as much as they oblige, there can’t be anything worse than not only being watched making food for people, but being watched while you make someone’s special food, exactly the way they asked you to, like you’re following directions from these prissy kids.)
anyway, this whole look-at-people-while-you-wait thing extends to every aspect of the food preparation here, which of course, includes smoothies. so naturally, when i found myself in the uncomfortable position of waiting for my order to be completed i felt obliged to make small talk with the smoothie girl, apparently, a fellow student. as best as i can recall we exchanged about two sentences and some forced laughter. at this point the girlfriend, mistaking my social discomfort for flirting, made the frighteningly direct suggestion that she and i get to know each other better and walked off in a huff.
knowing that i would no longer be able to obtain smoothies due to this imbroglio, i was able, by recalling past evidence of my obliviousness to interpersonal signals from strangers to convince her that what she just stormed away from was not flirting. though she believed that i wasn’t, she maintained that the food service worker thenceforth referred to as “smoothie girl” was. i had my doubts, but i had to admit that it was possible.
and so began an uncomfortable standoff. occasionally encountering s.g. in dining halls, campus sidewalks and never at the smoothie dispensary i was forced into a lifetime of avoidance based on the embarassing memory. over time she grew into one of those miniature celebrities that people on the inside of an inside joke sometimes share (as in: “did you see crazy pigeon-feeding man today? he was wearing a newspaper hat!”). smoothie girl came to represent my girlfriend’s irrational jealousy; a walking reminder of the fact that i was way too boring to flirt with random food service workers and she was too blinded by my movie-star looks to realize it.
so when we encountered her, sitting a fair distance away at a table brunching, i naturally said, as per custom, “hey, smoothie girl is in line for waffles”
“is she holding hands with a girl?”
“yeah. hm. it’s probably some sorority thing…ok, now they’re kissing”
“waffle-line lesbians.”
“that’s hot. so i guess she wasn’t flirting with me after all.”
for how many years did it seem this day would never come? finally (as of 7-1-05), a car to call my own, and such a stylish one too. ok, actually, the above picture is a bit of a decoy. mine is a '97 ford escort wagon, but i challenge you to find a picture of one online, its total absence is a bit of an internet anomaly in my opinion. expect a 1984-esque purging of all 1997 black ford escort wagon owners carried out in the near future under the auspices of the war on terror. the current derth of photos is an obvious indicator of the bush administration's effort to wipe us from america's collective memory before they carry out the extermination.
-i recently spotted a large gregarious “girls gone wild” bus parked in an alley in downtown providence. no colleges nearby. no big sexy parties anywhere in the region upcoming. if they wanted the homeless guy on the corner to take his shirt off, i doubt the bus was needed.
-a few blocks away i got to witness two guys getting arrested. one of them was simply walking down the street and showed neither resistance nor surprise to the cop who screeched to a stop next to him and swiftly got him into the car. the next guy was pulled out of a dumpster by three policemen with guns drawn. i have no idea what they had done, but i think we can be sure that it wasn’t something that required a lot of planning. “ok, so afterwards you walk down the street in broad daylight while i try to blend in with some trash. i’m telling you, this one is fool-proof…”
-at dunkin donuts a few days ago i ordered at the drive-through and then realized that i was short a buck thirty-two (i really wasn’t, unbeknownst to me i had lost a twenty in my pants). so when i got up to the window i said i only had $5 so they should just keep one of the coffees. the woman looks at me and deadpans “just bring over the money tomorrow.”
“you’re kidding right?”
“no, seriously, just come back tomorrow with it.”
so the next day, i did, in fact repay them. there was a different person working there and she seemed sort of taken aback that i wanted to add $1.32 to the bill, but i held up my end of the deal and felt pleased with myself for not taking advantage of the kindness i was shown.
the next day, at a
an ambiguous poster of a suspicious-looking uncle sam with the nation's "honor." looks more like it's up to you, amigo.
there is a time after several days pass without posting anything on your blog when a week or so passes. and then you begin thinking "well, now if i'm going to post something it better be great to make up for my absence." you say to yourself "find some arty-looking pictures, write up one of those witty anecdotes that only you know how to write up so wittily and earn that period of unexplained absence." of course, you don't do this, and expectations go up and up. after a month and nine days this barrier is insurmountable (with or without my finals and crippling depression). instead, to simply break back in, i'm posting probably the worst post in the history of blogging just to get it out of the way. feel free to be underwhelmed*.
*whelmed is a word. it means submerged.
