Month: April 2005

You know, I could use a frisbee.

April 18, 2005 /

I guess I have a birthday later? Coincidentally, I am annoyed in general (though not necessarily in specific) by the practice of posting one’s Amazon wishlist to one’s weblog; it’s passive-aggressive avarice, and I don’t think anyone really deserves presents for putting words in a little box on a screen for ten minutes a day. If that.

So when I link to my own wishlist, you understand, it’s only for the benefit of humans who feel the need to buy me physical objects once a year but lack any helpful specificity of vision. I don’t actually want any things off there–it’s more like I don’t diswant them. What I really want is for you to come over on the afternoon of the third and play Ticket to Ride with us, and then once it’s dark and cooler we can go play frisbee by the river.

I have to go get some sackcloth and ashes now.

April 18, 2005 /

Colin Goggin! Seriously! I’m the number two egosurfing result for you, so write me already!

Also: Jason Zavada, father of the Zavada Gambit! Are you extant? You may remember me as one of the guys who stole everything you owned.

Pookie

April 17, 2005 /

He was a canine Houdini, absolutely brilliant at escaping whatever fences, gates or other barriers we could set up to keep him safe. He was brick-stupid about everything else: glass doors, bigger dogs, cars. Those two things in combination don’t make for a long life expectancy; it’s kind of surprising that he lived to be eleven.

Pookie was always nominally my dog, although Ian took care of him more often, and after we moved out he was really my mom’s. She found him, Friday afternoon, on the wrong side of the fence around Kelly Ridge. There wasn’t any real evidence of what exactly happened. Could have been a car, or another dog, or some unknown medical problem.

He was a shih tzu, the kind you see like little furry hovercraft on shows: glossy, legless, gliding. Pookie never looked like that. His fur was short, tangled and dirty; he smelled like a dog. He lived outdoors, and always seemed satisfied with that.

After Mom sold the house, Pookie spent much more time with Joe and his giant antisocial dog, Greg Brown, out on the ridge. I don’t know how Greg and Pookie first behaved around each other, but by the time I saw them together they were inseparable. Pookie was already nine, but he acted like a dog finally growing up: his body got thicker and more muscular, and he seemed more reserved, less goofy. Greg never let anyone he didn’t trust near his protege.

When he was wet he looked like a rat, but when his hair was just the right length he looked like those Chinese statues of lions. I’ve never met anyone more confident, or more trusting, or who spent his entire life in such a happy mood.

Pookie, leonine

April 17, 2005 /

Seriously, who wants to help me start a zombie store?

Ninety minutes later, I still don’t feel well

April 15, 2005 /

I gave blood for the first time at GSP, which was, hideously, almost seven years ago. I haven’t gone a year without donating since then. At my current job, I’ve given at all but one (I was sick) of our company-wide blood drives, which happen every two and a half months. I’m fairly experienced at these things. I always prep with lots of water, and I eat a decent lunch, sans french fries.

But dammit, it keeps getting worse. I used to get nervous and shaky, so I started bringing my CD player along, and that helped. Then I started getting light-headed and hot at the snack canteen; last time I had to lie down with my feet on a box and drink nasty Powerade. Today I took twice as long as usual, so they had to reseat the needle–a new and disturbing experience–and I didn’t even make it off the donation table before I almost passed out. Giving blood sucks!

Not gonna stop, though.

The DBC of CS

April 13, 2005 /

Social engineering at its finest: SCIgen uses a context-free grammar to generate comp sci papers entirely too much like those from which I’ve been expected to learn for the past two years. It’s a little scary how good the results are. I was able to read the entire abstract of my personal paper while nodding my head, although the first clause of the introduction (“Unified metamorphic methodologies have led to many unfortunate advances”) broke the spell.

Oh, right, the social engineering part is that they got one of their generated papers accepted to a conference. Well-played, humans who probably remember daylight!

The Kill Satan With Music Mix

April 8, 2005 /

Mix CD post. You’ve been warned. Also, this is actually version 1.1; I’m using 1.0 right now, but there are a couple of songs (Marilyn Manson and Rob D) that I need to cut out.

  1. Maroon 5 – Harder To Breathe
  2. Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American
  3. Jimmy Eat World – A Praise Chorus
  4. Lunatic Calm – Leave You Far Behind
  5. Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution
  6. Foo Fighters – All My Life
  7. Rob Zombie – Dragula (Hot Rod Herman mix)
  8. Beastie Boys – Sabotage
  9. The Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up
  10. Lo Fidelity Allstars – Battleflag
  11. Propellerheads – Spybreak

As far as I can tell, this works equally well on straight through or shuffle. The only constants are that the Maroon 5 song must be first, because it doesn’t fit anywhere else, and the Foo Fighters song must be sixth, because that’s about when I decide I should give up running forever and go home and get fat. There is no song in the world as good at making you run as “All My Life.”

If you think this is interesting, let me know; if I get a few requests I’ll post the mp3s.

Running post

April 8, 2005 /

You’ve been warned.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that I have a bad ankle–more specifically, chronic tendonitis, on the right. This is maddening because up until now, I’ve been able to overcome my physical defects by either waiting or just trying harder (see asthma, bad hair, being underheight, being underweight, being overweight, et al). I mean, even with myopia, I could at least squint without making the condition worse. Not so the gimp!

In an effort to prove that all of the above is untrue, I’ve actually been running more often recently, and surprised myself on Wednesday by hitting a Schrodinger Point. I always turn around after the fourth song on the Kill Satan With Music mix; since it takes longer to come back than to go out, this ensures a solid thirty-five-minute run. Normally I hit that mark before reaching an easily recognizable corner in Old Louisville, but last time I hit the corner first with an easy minute left.

That’s encouraging, and I want to see if I can repeat it, so I’m going to try again today. For the first time ever, I’ll be wearing my new ankle brace.

Oh, yeah, I should post the Kill Satan With Music mix when I get back.

Update 1930 hrs: To nobody’s surprise, I couldn’t! Repeat it. But the ankle brace did help.