Canto LXII

Live blogging of the Oregon game! Here we go! It's something I've wanted to do for a while, and a late Thursday night game is the perfect opportunity. Although with all the late breaking news about Barry Bonds being indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice and A-Rod signing a new $275 million dollar deal, I wonder how much attention this game will garner in the sports media tomorrow.

Well, it's 8:52 PM, and I've turned on ESPN and they're still wetting their pants over the above stories. I'm almost done with my last little bit of homework I wanted to finish before the weekend. And the pre-game show has now begun!

8:55 - Funny story, today's colloquium speaker here at MIT physics was from Arizona. It was on the use of optics in Renaissance paintings. He basically said all Art History majors are stupid. And the only thing right now the talking heads can talk about is upset, upset, upset. Oregon is favored by only 12.5, which I think is pretty low if I was a gambling man.

9:01 - And now they're doing a stupid magic theme for the opening. Why not play a little Steve Miller with that?

9:02 - I think I'm going to go ahead and have the phrase 'I have a huge man-crush on Jonathan Stewart' saved in my cut and paste. That opening kickoff should have been stopped before the 20, but his balance let him keep going out to the 30. And then he rips off a 25 yard run past the 50! I have a huge man-crush on Jonathan Stewart!

9:05 - I wonder if Dixon is going to be a little rusty tonight. After the knee thing, I wonder how hard he pressed during practice. That O-line can give him plenty of time, though, so he can catch up. I agree with this 4th down play call.... YEEESSSSS!!!!! Nice read, and just a smooth jaunt into the endzone. And now a 2-pointer! Oh Snap!

9:08 - The reason I agree with that 4th down attempt is:
1) It's early, so there's plenty of time to recover
2) It's around the 40 yard line, so punting wouldn't gain more than 20 yards without a very nice punt
3) This offense can get a few yards just about whenever it needs it
4) And of course, it worked, so there's always 20/20 hindsight to rest on, too

9:09 - Who is Taryne Mowatt? Why is she introducing the Cats?

9:10 - Interception, along with some offensive pass interference that was not called! I think my Oregon Duck that plays Mighty Oregon is going to be running out of batteries tonight...

9:13 - Jaison Williams with a good catch over the middle! He only drops those in the 4th quarter. And followed up with a nifty reverse! I can't call it an end-around, even though the ball only changed hands once. There was motion one way, then the field reversed. And now an interception... Bad 'catch' there, and an unlucky bounce to the saftey.

9:18 - Bad tackling. Arizona is not going to win tonight constantly throwing underneath. A lucky run on a long 3rd down, and some bad missed tackles isn't going to win the game.

9:25 - Dixon does look calm, but that's only because that O-line isn't letting anything through. I have a huge man-crush on Jonathan Stewart, that was a really nice run to the 30. Crenshaw isn't chopped liver, either. Ohhh shit. I hope that isn't that bad.

9:29 - And the Brady Leaf era is here. Just get the 3 points, and lets see if Dixon can get back in the game.

9:39 - Nope. He's gone for the night, as are his Heisman hopes. Defense needs to step up now. Only gave up a field goal. The O-line and Stewart can get plenty done, but Leaf just isn't the same. Wow, terrible decision by Stewart. I know you want to make things happen, but half way back in the endzone on a kickoff isn't the place to do it.

9:45 - End of the first quarter. Leaf's looking good handing the ball off, and then faking out the defense with a terrible pump-fake that allowed him to gain 7 yards. Oregon already has more than 150 yards rushing. Looking like another highlight game for the O-line, but the defense needs to tighten up.

9:47 - Ugh. Not good. Not good at all.

9:51 - And there's the Jaison Williams drop on 3rd down we've come to know and love. Tedy Bruschi also on from my most hated team in the NFL. Not good few minutes for me.

9:57 - Shit shit shit. That zone defense isn't looking too good right now.

10:07 - The offense just isn't the same. I don't know if they can score more than 2 or 3 touchdowns for the rest of the game. Let's hope halftime can turn things around.

10:15 - I thought that was a block in the back on the first gunner there, but no, and the touchdown stands.

10:21 - Offense showing some signs of life. Getting a little more methodical. I agree that Stewart needs to be a big part of the offense now, but I don't think he's a 35 carry kind of guy. And not with the defense keying on him every snap. 3rd and long, and Arizona's coaching staff is going a little crazy.

10:26 - And that's just ugly. Why not just run the ball, take the FG, and be happy your offense found some traction? Annnnddd, shank you very much.

10:32 - Arizona's TV ad tells us they were Arizona's first university. Congratulations! And Jaison Williams faked the drop, to fool the defense, and picks up a huge first down out the mid-field!

10:35 - Jaison Williams waits for the ball, and almost has it incepted in front of him, then makes nice catch on the outside at the 20. And of course, Oregon's ad isn't much better.

10:38 - Nice blitz pick-up by Stewart, but with the extra time Leaf throws it right out the end zone. And just think if we had kick a FG the previous possession, we'd only be down 14, instead it's 17. Halftime. The real difference is the 2 INTs (one returned for TD) and the punt return. Oregon can get back in this. Back in 20 minutes!

11:05 - I don't really like only rushing only 3 on 3rd down, try and keep the pressure up, but they pick up a big personal foul penalty, and get a punt after a brief scare on 3rd and 25.

11:25 - Blogger just fucked me. Anyway, the defense is turning it on, but the offense still has a way to go. Still have the man-crush on Stewart.

11:42 - Thanks to ESPN for not showing that last play for a loss. Flutie finally notes that the defense has been playing pretty good.

11:43 - Dueling punters has been the story this 3rd quarter and the last half of the 2nd. I don't know if a Dixon for Heisman commercial is appropriate right now.

11:50 - Fake Punt!!! And #4 for Arizona is signaling the wrong way. WHAT?!?!

11:54 - God damn it. How did Arizona recover that? Seriously? There were 4 Ducks there, and no Cats. I've always wondered if a replay could overturn a fumble recovery call.

12:05 - How the fuck can you call that a fumble?!?! WTF? Did this crew not see last week's game between OSU and UW? He was standing right there, and still ruled it a fumble, despite the fact that he could clearly see that both the runner was down, then reached forward and lost the ball because he hit the ground. How on earth can you possibly see that otherwise? At least the replay did it's job, unlike last week. I guess the Pac-10 does have the worse refs.

12:16 - Touchdown!!! A very nice drive. That's exactly what they needed to do. Make Arizona stop you, and don't let Leaf kill your season. I might have a heart attack tonight...

12:24 - Missed facemask call on Nick Reed, showing off the Pac-10 officiating at it's finest. Of course, they missed a similar call (but less flagrant) against Stewart on the previous drive.

12:28 - After a tough failure to stop them on 4th down, they get a HUGE fumble. BUT, we have to watch more botched officiating instead. This is close, but it looks like it's going back to Arizona. The defense is trying.

12:38 - Crenshaw, not Stewart. This is suddenly turning into the season that could have been. I hope my man-crush is OK.

12:43 - Intercepted. That's about all, folks. Still 3 timeouts, so this is actually going to go a while, despite all the students on the sidelines.

12:51 - 14 seconds to go, 2 quick plays and that's about it. Let's see here, top 2 receivers, top 2 running backs, and our Heisman front runner QB are out by the end of this game. And that's just the skill players on offense. I guess we'll never know how that would have gone had Dixon not been injured on the Duck's third drive. The Ducks were in it all the way through the second half, but the offense never really got going, and the mistakes early in the 2nd quarter cost them the game.

12:56 - Bed time now, along with a vow to never do this again. On a related side note, are Pac-10 refs the worse refs out there? This was a terribly officiated game. Anyway, here's hoping the guys can mend up, and for a USC win over ASU.

Canto LXI

Well, it's late friday afternoon, I'm tired of this calculation and I need a distraction. To the Blog! Also, a bunch of guys around the office with whom I would normally be killing time with went to a day conference down in Providence, RI. I would have liked to go, but sadly I had to teach the ungrateful freshman today. They suck. I think I spend most of my time now complaining about them... Oh well, it makes me feel better.

Something I've been meaning to blog about, not so much from a good-news standpoint, but well, it's something new that's happened to us. And near as we can tell has a happy ending (so far, anyway). A couple weeks ago we started to notice some signs of mice. Things had gotten a little messy, probably enough crumbs and junk on the counter and floor for one of those little fuckers to scrape by. Also, it was starting to get cold so they were probably looking for some place warm to live after the summer. Anyway, after we noticed we cleaned up a little bit so they wouldn't have anything to eat and informed the landlord. When we first moved in I noticed some very old mouse traps (the sticky kind) under the oven, so I know that this would not be too surprising. And he said he would lay down some traps in the basement to catch the bastards, which I presume he did (although we have no verification to that effect). Anyway, we continued to see signs of mice for another week plus. Those little rat bastards. So at that point what to do? This sunday while shopping, we bought our own pair of mouse traps. After we got home, we cleared off everything from the kitchen counter, plus all the lower cabinets and drawers where we could see any possible signs of mice and moved them out. Then baited the traps with some peanut butter and left them out over night. I know people talk about building a better mouse trap, but why? I mean, the ones we have seem to work pretty well. I didn't think we were going to catch anything since these mouse traps must suck so much that we constantly need better ones, but then again, I'm not as dumb as a mouse. [My parents or brother should feel free to post about me and mouse traps at a younger age.] But sure enough, next morning, we had caught a mouse! And by caught, I mean broke it's spine with a steel spring and bar, because it was most assuredly dead by the time we found it. After the morning shower, I played a little something from The Doors In Concert.

I always feel that music should reflect the moments in life. Anyway, it's been 5 days since then and nary a mouse dropping to be found! I think that if there was more than one, they are now sufficiently scared of the hand of man.

I should note that I did feel some smug sense of power after this incident. I never "got" hunting until this monday morning. I'm not saying I'm going to go out and get a rifle to kill Bambi's mom or anything, but there is some thrill in vanquishing an opponent. Even a significantly lesser foe with no real ability to fight back.

On a happier note, a friend here in the CTP is teaching this fall, and in his class is one of the program managers for MIT Radio (WMBR - 88.1 FM). So we may start a 2 hour radio show once a week, along with some other friends of ours. My friend did one in college with a buddy and said it was great. I don't know what this would involve just yet, but sounds like a lot of fun. From 2-4 AM, which is apparently the kind of time slot we would receive. I've thought about doing this before, so here's my big chance before I die. My idea is to have a theme for each show, and play about 10-15 songs based on that theme, then talk about whatever related to that subject. Think High Fidelity, like playing the Top 5 songs involving dogs, for example. Then play things like 'Martha My Dear' by The Beatles (supposedly about Paul's dog), 'My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found' by The Fiery Furnaces, Given The Dog A Bone by AC/DC, etc... It could get more or less obscure depending on how things roll. But you get the idea. Does that sound like a program you would listen to for a while? If so, do you have suggestions for themes and accompanying songs? This would probably start up after the terms over, either December or January.

Canto LX

First big news. Steph's "drabble" has been published on the web! Find it here. So extra congratulations to her!

Also, this is something I've been meaning to post for a while (a month and a half or so). The greatest birthday card in the history of civilization. Hands down. Special thanks to Syd and Pete for this one.

Canto LIX

So it's halftime of the Oregon-USC game. Things are going well for the Ducks, and they're up 10-3. It's been rough going for the Ducks, with 2 bad special teams turnovers deep in their own territory and bad starting field position. But of those 2 turnovers, USC has only managed a field goal, their only points of the game so far. And the field position hasn't been good, but they have moved the ball. I agreed with the call to go for it on 4th down, but Dixon has been so good in this game (and all year really) just let him make the play rather than hand it off. It's pretty clear that USC's game plan is to shut down Stewart, as they have been pursuing strongly him on every play. So far, with 4 possessions in the first half, with the best starting field position being the 27 yard line, they've got 1 TD, 1 FG, a turnover on downs at the 14 yard line, and a 40 yard drive with a decent punt. That's a lot of yards, and in the second half they should have plenty of opportunities.

In other sporting news, I got into my first IM dodgeball game thursday night. (Yes, I missed the first 5 innings of game 2 of the World Series.) I missed the first set of games a couple weeks ago due to a schedule conflict with my frisbee team, so I was eager to show my stuff. Anyway, the format is 3 teams get scheduled, two teams play while the other refs the matches (best of 5), and you do a quick round-robin. Each game only lasts a few minutes. It's very intense. So what happens? We swept both series, and I never got out. Not even once. But that's not even the best part. Game 2 of our second series. We're down to our final out. Me. All alone, with our opponents entire team in. But did I panic? No. That's just where I wanted them. So I start working it. Taking them out. The first two went down quick. And the third soon followed. At this point, the two remaining guys on their team had the deer in the headlights look. A few nice dodges (and some dips, ducks, dives and dodges) with good throws and soon it was one on one. At this point, he was petrified of me. He just hugged the back while and I took my time. It took something like 20 throws to finally get him out because he didn't take any chances. But he knew he didn't stand a chance.

Ohh, the game's back on. Anyway, my shoulder is now in a new kind of pain and soreness. I put everything I had into getting those outs. Also, our office finally got shelving so things are starting to look nice in my new office. I'll post some pictures later.

Canto LVIII

So, as you can see there have been some changes. I'm still playing around a bit with all the settings and trying to get everything to link up smoothly. Someday, I promise. Anyway, here's a link to the homepage. But it's been another fun week. Truly joyous. sigh. Anyway, the Sox are rolling through the playoffs and look to be turning Cinderella back into a hand maiden pretty soon. Sucks to be you, Rockies fans! This weekend is going to be one of the biggest matchups in Autzen Stadium history, and you better believe that I'll be watching every second. There may also be a Big Lebowski viewing with a fellow Achiever.

Canto LVII

Okay, so 2 months is my break point. Well, it's been busy, but that can't fully explain away 2 months of ignoring my fan base. But as this is an update, I'll have to do a bullet list with short commentary. I doubt I'll be able to expand much more as that is what has kept me from posting sooner. I want to talk about too many things in too much detail, then I decide I don't have time right now, but in another day or two I'll have time and so on. So let's get down to business from where I last left off...

- Steph and I visited Portland for Sydney and Pete's wedding. Still didn't get to go to the ceremony, but the reception was a blast. It was so much fun seeing everyone and hearing stories. But in so many ways it was just like old times. It made me realize how much I miss everyone and just how special all the time we spent together was. I mean, I love where I'm at and what I'm doing now, but I still get nostalgic about The Cube. Who doesn't?

- After returning from Portland, we left a few days later to head down to Washington DC and Virginia to visit family, friends and see some of the sights. We had a great time, and Steph has lots and lots of pictures if you're interested. I do have one quick story. We were visiting the National Archives (which everyone should so every time they visit DC), and after hearing the guard talk about no flash photography and such, we get in line to see the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When we get to the Declaration of Independence, the person in front of us has a camcorder and turns on an extremely bright light on it so that it will show up better while filming it. We were stunned! I mean, this is a literally priceless document and national treasure that has already been so severely damaged by light that you can't even read most of it now, and he's just shining a bright light on it! WFT? After about 10 or 15 seconds of stunned looks from us, I speak up and ask him to not use his camcorder light on the, you know, invaluable document laid before us. I was freaking out for second. How can you do that to one of the most important documents in our history as a nation? AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

- Sadly, after that school started back up. I was hoping this term was going to be all research all the time. But I got switched and I'm now TA-ing this fall rather than next spring. And The Advisor is teaching a class, and to boost attendance, is making me take it. This is not what I want to do with my time, but I don't really have that much choice in the matter. Also, this is suppose to be the term where we start working towards a thesis. Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God. No, please no. What the hell am I doing? Actually, this really does deserve it's own entry, so I'll have to wait for a rainy day to talk about all this crap.

- I turned 27 = 3^3. Barring major advances in modern medicine, I don't think I'm going to make it to another N^N birthday, where N is an integer. Steph and I went out for a nice Italian dinner in the North End. I ordered a roast pork loin. I got back something that resembled the side of beef from the Flintstones. But it was delicious. And the following night, which was my birthday, a group of friends from school here went to a local pool bar and had a few beers and played a few rounds of pool. Very nice. All in all, a great birthday.

- At the beginning of this month, our building officially opened. There was a big dedication ceremony and lots of famous alums and donors were here seeing the place. Pretty much most of the work is done around here, so I guess it was the right time. The shelving for the graduate students in being installed this week and next, but we don't count for so much. Anyway, it was a nice party and a day off from real work. But the highlight of the day was meeting Steven Weinberg. Actually, this happened right when I first got in. I saw a friend, Ambar, near the entrance to the CTP, we were chatting when Eddie Farhi (the CTP director) walked by giving the Great Man a tour. Eddie said 'Here are some of graduate students. This is Ambar.' They shake hands as he says 'Hi, I'm Steve Weinberg.' 'And this is Eric Fitzgerald.' We shake hands as he says 'Steve Weinberg.' And just like that they were gone. I felt like saying 'Yes, I know who you are. And can I add that your theory of leptons, you know the one... Uh, the Standard Model. Yeah, that's great.' Did you know it's the most cited paper in high energy physics? I wanted to get my copy of his book signed, but I was too flustered by the whole thing. I met Steve Weinberg! SWEET!

- Well, I would like to talk about football some. Just the Ducks and the Pac-10. I don't really want to talk about the Jets except to say that they need to put Clemens in over Pennington. Give a Duck a chance! Pac-10 is looking scary this year. But it's very top-heavy, with 4 solid ranked teams, and a whole lot of not much under that. But with that said, ASU isn't going undefeated the rest of the way, and I doubt that there will even be a 1-loss team at the end of the season. But a 10-2 Oregon team going to the Rose Bowl wouldn't be a terrible thing. Looking around the college football landscape, can't say that anyone is looking too imposing, and a 2-loss Pac-10 team in the Rose Bowl should be favored. But these upsets are just crazy. I'm afraid to watch any Oregon game because who knows what will happen. Just don't start cheering in the middle of a game because the team in front of you in the polls lost... There's still a lot of football left.

- I'm on a frisbee team this fall. We haven't done that well, and I won't be able to play in the season-ending tourney this weekend, but I had a really good time. We run a mix of man and zone defense, and a switch between various offenses like a normal stack and a horizontal stack. I've never done any of this before, so it's been a real learning experience. But a lot of fun, and at least some exercise most weeks. So that's a plus.

- My brother visited a few weeks ago. He was on his way home after finishing up his masters in economics at the London School of Economics. So a few day layover in Boston on his way back to Portland to... live with our parents. Yes, he's living in my parent's basement. But we had a good time seeing the sights of Cambridge and Boston. We even did the whole Freedom Trail from the Commons to Bunker Hill. I think he appreciated more than the last time he was in Boston. That was something like 15 years ago, on a hot and humid day in July. Never a good time to sightsee outside in Boston.

- Teaching. Has sucked. I was thinking that I would be worried if one of my 8.01T students ran across this and realized how much I hate them for taking time away from doing work that I, you know, actually enjoy. But I don't care. I hate you hypothetical 8.01T student who reads this. I mean it. If you all died tomorrow, all I would think is 'sweet, the rest of the term is off!' I enjoy teaching when it's about a subject I find interesting and/or the students are interested. But I'm teaching Newtonian Mechanics to freshmen who need this class to graduate and could care less about the actual material. It sucks Big Time. Go to hell you little bastards. Did you know that many of them weren't even born in the same decade as me? Just creepy really.

- Other little things. Final Fantasy XII is on hold until winter break. I reached a reasonable place to pause, and took it. Blogging the Simpsons is on my mind, but I just need to find some time to do it. Again, maybe this winter? I've also started working on my own personal webpage, but I'll hold off on showing that off to the world right now. Although since I'm an MIT student, I'm pretty sure just about everyone here can figure out how to get to it right now. Time to lock that shit down. I'm using iWeb, but it's not giving me the control I would like. I have Dreamweaver, but I'm not really that comfortable with that much control. There has to be some happy medium right?

- I'll get to talking about work sometime in the near future. There's a lot of interesting things going on, though, and I'm really enjoying all of this right now.

Canto LVI

Last week we had a party to celebrate our DoE review (funding for MIT), and they served lobster! It seems weird to have a party to rejoice being done with our funding review with an excessive and expensive party with lobsters for everyone and free booze. But it was fun. The ocean is delicious.

And I had my final medical exam of the summer, and everything is OK. I'll admit having your testicles felt up to make sure you don't have testicular cancer is a little awkward, especially when it's over he says "everything feels great."

Have you seen the commercials for the CBS show "Cane"? All I can think of is: "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women."

This was followed by an exciting weekend of... house cleaning! Everything got cleaned up, and Steph spent both days in the yard weeding and trimming all the various plants. She filled up 3 and 1/2 barrels of debris. Not bad! And I also made delicious cookies. Delicious, delicious chocolate chip cookies.

Did anyone see the ESPN article on over/under rated teams? Oregon came in as the #3 underrated team over the last 10 years, behind just WSU and Boise State. And the Pac-10 was far and away the most underrated conference. I think we should really appreciate how good we Duck fans have had it the last few years.

What does a corporation owe it's employees? As an employee, I think you owe work towards your employer. Your employer owes you a paycheck, and maybe some perks/benefits (like heath coverage). If you leave, give 2 weeks notice. If you get laid off (for non-performance related issues), a severance package of at least 2 weeks. What else? A green cookie on St. Patrick's Day?

Canto LV

Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood is a great song. It's just a great song. No ifs ands or buts. When Syd was talking about how at least Psych acknowledges that it goes over the top, which makes it enjoyable. That's the thing about going over the top. You really only have 2 options: just pretend like you didn't do/make something outrageous or just keep on going. This song loves the fact that it's over the top. What's with the sax solo? God only knows. But that's some great slide guitar. Just a great song.

I just switched my toothbrush, finally getting around to it after my dentist visit a few weeks ago. So for as long as I've been brushing, I've used the hard or medium bristle toothbrushes. But lately dentists have been saying to switch to the soft kind. They clean your teeth just as well, only they don't scrape away at your gums. So I finally switched to the soft kind. And you know what? They don't clean as well. At least, when I brush my teeth it doesn't feel like I'm getting a good cleaning. Later in the day, my teeth feel about the same, and they look about the same (although it's only been a week so far). But the brushing experience just isn't the same. And really, shouldn't we enjoy brushing? Or else I may just give up on the whole thing. Let the chips (or teeth) fall where they may.

I don't know if you've noticed, but are you ready for some football?!? Right now the Thursday Night preseason game between the 'Fins and the Chiefs is on in the background while I type this. And I'm excited. And did anyone see the game last week between the Jets and Falcons? With Joey Harrington taking on Kellen Clemens? Two former Oregon QBs leading their teams in the NFL. Joey will be starting for Atlanta, but Clemens was looking real good for the Jets. If Pennington gets injured (and I don't want to jinx it), Clemens could impress.

Oh, and how could I forget such a great day in my life? Today, my office mate and myself performed our first hack. We picked up a mini-fridge from a friend for our office using a Zipcar. He found a small bottle of perfume on the floor, which we presumed to be from some woman who dropped it earlier. So after we dropped off the fridge in our office and then drove the car back to it's spot, we sprayed it down the hall as we walked back to the office. And then when we got the elevator, and it all came out. I think we emptied half the bottle in there. HACK! Sweet. I suddenly feel like I belong to the MIT community.

Canto LIV

Well, nothing much to say. The Simpsons, Season 10 is out. Steph and I watched the MENSA episode (with Stephen Hawking, the world's smartest man!) and the one where Homer becomes the mayor's bodyguard (with Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker!). Classic. We also finished up our 7 week journey (we skipped the weekend Ben was here) through all 6 Star Wars films. Man, Yoda really is annoying. Everything does not have to spoken backwards! Why, why?!? I think I'm more favorable to them overall now. Maybe I'm just getting soft. Soon we'll be starting up Babylon 5, Season 5. I'm now more than half way through FFXII. But as many of you know, I'm one of those Emerald Weapon completionist motherfuckers, so I'm ridiculously over powered right now. I can one-hit kill bosses. One weird thing about this game is that the Espers have crazy names. Oh sure, Shiva and Ifrit are in the game, but they're the names of airships. The Espers have names like "Cuchulainn, the Impure" or "Chaos, the Walker of the Wheel". I miss the regular names. Anyway, once I'm done, which is looking like a mid-September finish date, Blogging the Simpsons will start up. Should I put those posts here, or start a different blog?

Canto LIII

Okay, another week and here are some quick hits from the recent past. Firstly, let me just say that today's XKCD is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. For those who never played Final Fantasy VII, I just feel sorry for you. Still one of the greatest video games ever made. My current goal is to finish up FFXII by the end of this month (or over Labor Day weekend), but I don't know how that's going to work. It's a big game.

If you're looking for some short-term amusement, take a picture of yourself and go to simpsonizeme.com. Yes, it's a stupid Burger King shill, but fun none the less. Here's the results. I couldn't get the beard hair color different from the up-top hair color, so if you know how to get that, let me know.



Last night we grilled up some steak, corn, burgers, and veggie skewers. I must say, New England days aren't all that great; too hot and humid which makes me even more lazy than normal. But the evenings are great. Very comfortable temperature which promotes things like going out for ice cream and bar-b-queing. Lovely day yesterday.

But I think going inside and outside so many times last night may have let in a mosquito. Steph really wanted to finish up The Half-Blood Prince last night, and who can blame her with only a chapter to go. But it was midnight and I was tired and ready for sleep. Not a problem, I can fall asleep with her reading lamp on. But with the mosquito in our room, she was obsessed with finding it and killing it. I kept telling her it was just one stupid little mosquito and to ignore it, finish her book and go to sleep. But no. It was haunting her. She couldn't read with the mosquito in the same room. I had just fallen asleep when I get slapped in the back, only to learn that she 'just missed it'. Finally she went into the other room to finish the book, but getting abruptly woken like that tends to mess up trying to get back to sleep. Then she said she couldn't fall asleep because she was afraid the mosquito might be carrying West Nile Virus or some other disease and infect her in the middle of the night. This is ridiculous, and I had never heard her say this before. How does she sleep when we go camping? Anyway, neither of us got much sleep last night.

Also, for those who don't go over Wikipedia's This Day in History, Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima 62 years ago. And Tim Berners-Lee came up with the World Wide Web, which was first published at CERN on this day in 1991. We all owe so much pornography to him...

Canto LII

I'm going to put all my Harry Potter related thoughts into a different blog post, the one below this, so those trying to avoid spoilers will know to avoid that entry.

Well, it's been 3 weeks it looks like. Wow. I think I could keep putting this off indefinitely, but there's been a lot going on the last few weeks, so at least that should be something to keep the hungry masses yearning for more Eric satisfied.

Well, I'll admit, I've spent a lot time looking at sports. It's been a crazy few weeks. Oklahoma had to vacate all of their wins from 2005, including their Holiday Bowl victory over Oregon. And that was one of the least interesting stories! I'm not really sure if I agree with the NCAA on this one, it appeared that Oklahoma had done everything promptly when they found out about the shady car dealership employment, but I guess they said that due to "lack of institutional control" led to that oversight. Too bad. In the profootball world, training camps have started! Only 1 month left until football is back in our world. Oh the excitement. And of course, in other NFL news, Micheal Vick. Wow. Frankly, if half of the things in that indictment are true, our animal cruelty laws (which he is currently not under indictment for) are not nearly tough enough for what he deserves. Trial starts this November.

Ben was in town last weekend! Things we did: went to the Sox game (White Sox at Red Sox, the Red Sox won 8-5, powered by two 3-run homers, one by Manny and another by Mike Lowell.), went to the White Stripes (excellent concert, they played a lot of old stuff, Elephant or earlier, including the songs I quoted in my wedding vows, which was sweet. Sadly, due to a ticket snafu on my part (How was I suppose to know there were two areas of GA?!? What's up with that?), Ben and I were separated from Steph for the concert, and she wasn't feeling too good. But it was still cool.), and hung around in Boston. And now that I think about it, we didn't get cannolis. So really, that visit was a failure. We take people visiting us very seriously. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!

Steph wrote a piece of "drabble" fiction (100 words) called "Nemesis", which has been accepted for publication in an online literary magazine, Boston Literary Magazine. More details to come on when you can find her first official publication, but give her a big congratulations!

Well, work has certainly been really busy lately. I've got 3 different things going on right now, and I think I could spend all my time on any one of them and still be busy. It's been a bit of a balancing act, and I'm still working on my planning skills to figure out what needs to get done when. But slowly but surely, progress is being made!

We saw The Simpsons Movie Friday night. I was thinking as we saw it, am I too old? I mean, I just didn't want to see the midnight showing. This is The Simpsons Movie we're talking about. If this had come out in high school, I would have waited in line for hours for the midnight showing. And I knew some people who were going to the midnight showing at some of the various theaters. But honestly, I just wanted to get my usual nights sleep, and I had some stuff that I wanted to finish the next day at work. That's right, I was thinking about work and put it ahead of The Simpsons Movie. I must be too old. At least I saw it opening day... But I can highly recommend it (especially Spiderpig). Think of it as an extra-long good-but-not-great episode from season 9 or so. So that's totally worth it right there.

In other news, I've had several doctors appointments lately. I decided after I got back from TASI that I should get some checkups. My eyes have not been as sharp as they used to, and I've been thinking about moving closer to the front of the room to read the board better. Anyway, I still don't need glasses, but the Optometrist said I'll probably need distance glasses in another 5 years or so. Next up was the dentist. Still no cavities, and still haranguing me for not flossing. In 2 weeks is the full physical. Given my lack of exercise and poor diet, I can't imagine that's going to go well. But if I work out really hard the night before, that will undo years of bodily neglect, right?

Lastly, Final Fantasy XII is moving along slower than I had hoped because of all the other stuff going on, but the sooner I get that done, the sooner Blogging The Simpsons can begin. Steph and I watched the Original Trilogy (theatrical release) over the last month, and then last night decided to watch The Phantom Menace. First off, due to the damn special edition, there were definitely some problems with how I remember certain things. I hope to get that all straightened out in my head. But also, you can really see how certain scenes, like the Cloud City, really got brought to life with a bit of a face lift. I guess I can see what George Lucas wanted to do with the original trilogy, but ultimately, as an artist, you just have to say 'it is done' and move on. Also, Phantom Menace not as terrible as I remember, but there are definitely some weird & bad points. And child actors always suck. We have to remember this. Just because a few here and there don't completely suck, that's the exception, not the rule.

Canto LI

This post is all about Harry, so if you don't want to know anything, I wouldn't read anymore. I'll even give a couple extra spaces to make sure you won't accidentally see something you didn't want.



















First up, the movie. I thought it was OK. Not great, I don't really think any of the movies are great, with Azkaban being the best so far. The problem is that the books really do fill up the world that even a well done movie can't compare to. My excitement was mostly for the two scenes where Dumbledore decides to kick ass: when he "escapes" from his office from Minister Fudge and later when he duels Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic. The office escape was highly disappointing. He just grabbed onto Fawkes and burst into flames. It didn't show him taking out a few Aurors (although one was working for the Order) and knocking out Fudge. It could have been so much cooler. And the duel with Voldermort was OK, but it lacked a lot of the extra oomph that comes through in the book. In the book, Harry is basically just tossed about as the two most powerful wizards of this age fight it out. I really didn't get that sense in the movie. But I thought Umbridge was great, and even if some things weren't the same in the book, continuity wise it won't make much of a difference. Again, OK, not great. I'll probably see it again when it plays at the cheap student "theater" this fall at MIT.

On to The Deathly Hallows. Well, it's all over. The book does a really good job of conveying the tense and desperate situation that Harry, Ron and Hermione are in, even if it goes a little long in the we're-on-the-run chapters. I think my biggest problem with this book was Dumbledore. I really felt Harry should have had something major to overcome in this book in order to defeat Voldemort. Instead, there was no Benedict Arnold in Snape. And the "errors" that Dumbledore made with Harry, even Harry agrees with in the end. If he had known very early on that he was going to have to die when facing Voldemort, he might not have been able to do it at the end. Best not to think about it too much. Instead, Dumbledore was completely exonerated for his arrogance and personal flaws. I guess one could say that he died because of this, but ultimately he was right about everything and this led to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. This is what I'm complaining about with the resolution of the book: Harry didn't have to do much but get killed once, chat with Dumbledore, then cast Expelliarmus. It was just putting together all the pieces that Dumbledore had left behind for him. And Snape, who had been the most interesting character from a whats-going-to-happen-to-him standpoint, didn't really have much going on. Again, Dumbledore was completely right about him, and he sacrificed himself for Lily. Wouldn't it have been much more interesting if Snape really had been a Death Eater? Wouldn't that have made a much more interesting side part to the final battle? Instead, he was in love with Lily the whole time, but it was really unclear what his feelings about Harry were. I guess in the end he felt he had to do the right thing for Lily, but why? It turns out that even in his private talks with Dumbledore, he doesn't much like Harry. And 16 years is a long time to hold on to that guilt. It turns out that in the art of Legilimancy, the ordering goes Dumbledore better than Snape better than Voldemort. Really, Snape is better than Voldemort? It's not like this is one of those skills that Voldemort considers beneath him.

Ah, I'm not sure I'm explaining my frustration right, but I did really enjoy the ending. I know she's said she would kill more of the main characters, but ultimately she pulled back a little bit. And I really think that a honest flaw in Dumbledore, such as trusting Snape too much because he believes in his own ability to read people too much, would have made Harry's success all the more satisfying. But Harry in suburbia with Ginny, Ron and Hermione seems so quaint that I can't help but smile a little bit.

Canto L

So it's been more than a week. I kept telling myself to get around to doing this, but, well, you know... Stuff. But there's now lots of things to talk about! And some of it may even be interesting.

Blogging the Simpsons will start up in about a month or so (maybe to coincide with the release of Season 10), but right now I'm fully back into Final Fantasy XII mode. I'm really looking forward to doing The Simpsons, my plan is just to sit down, watch an episode, then write whatever I feel about it. What will that take? 30-40 minutes a night? I bet I can get through 5+ a week. Let's see here, 10 seasons is about 220 episodes, so thats about 44 weeks worth of material. That's almost a whole year's worth of blogging! You'll just have to keep coming back. I'm really looking forward to some of the more obscure episodes that I don't quote as frequently. Will it be like watching them new (even though, most likely, I will have seen it several times), or just a refresher? We'll find out together! Also, FYI, The Simpsons Movie is coming at the end of the month.

The Fourth was last week. We went out to the Arboretum with Steph's new camera and some friends. It was a lot of fun, and the weather cooperated while we were there in the afternoon. On our way home, however, it started to rain and wasn't looking too good for fireworks weather. So we stayed home and Steph did her homework for the class she's taking at Tufts this summer. And I played Final Fantasy. So no cool fireworks pictures, but maybe next year.

But the real big news was on Thursday, The Retrofits were in town! I went out to see Jake, George, Brud, and Dusty. Also with were Andrew, and their photographer whose name I forget. Actually, they were running late, but managed to squeeze in all of 4 songs. Due to some sort of scheduling snafu, it was Punk Night, so the next 3 bands (and the audience) were of a different flavor of music. While it may not have been their best gig ever, afterwards we had a great time. You know partying like rock stars? I'm not even sure you need to be a rock star to actually party like that, just somewhere in the music business. After parallel parking the passenger van with trailer in the North End (!! - you have no idea how awesome that is, people walking by actually applauded us), did some dinner at Boston Beer Works. Not the greatest place, but the kitchen is open late and they serve beer. Unnamed individuals went off to have sex in the van, but couldn't find it. Others went home with some women who were at the show, despite needing to leave very early in the morning to get to a show in North Carolina (!! - 14 hour car trip for a show at 9:30pm). They took a cab back to my place a 3:30am. We pretty much stayed up all night hanging out back at our place. Steph woke up around 3 or 4, and stayed awake for an hour. They decided just to leave at 5am, so around 4:30 everyone was slowly moving around trying to find everything and go to the bathroom, take showers, use the computer (internet access has been spotty for them), and so on. But they managed to leave around 5am, and even made it to the next show in freaking North Carolina. It was really interesting to see the dynamics of a traveling band at work. Who does what, who's angry at who, who's taking responsibility, etc. I sure hope they make it. If you haven't bought their CD yet, iTunes and Amazon.com both have it.

Anyway, I was in no condition to do physics that friday, but I had a great time. I miss those guys. It's good to cut loose every so often. I don't think I could live like that for more than a couple days (apparently they've been keeping that up for more than 2 weeks, and still had 2 more to go), but I had a great time anyway.

Also, last Thursday, July 5th, was one of the greatest days in the history of science. In 1687, Issac Newton published his Principia. It is considered the birth of modern physics formulated in terms of mathematics. He also started a long tradition of physicists leading the way in math, continued to this day in many areas of topology and geometry by String Theorists.

Not much other news. My parents got back from their European vacation in England and France. Sounds like they've got plenty of stories. Steph and I need to travel more. For the last 3 years, all of our vacation time has gone to visiting Oregon. Which is great, but there are other places to visit in this world. And now back to work...

Canto IL

Interesting news from the CDC. Here's the link for the survey, which is fascinating. I love statistics. I think if this whole physics thing doesn't work out, I'll dive into statistics for sports or population surveys and such. It's a lot of fun to see what's really going on in the world. The numbers don't lie.

My first week back, and I'm already behind. I've just been spending the last few days reading and trying to learn some stuff to talk about with The Advisor. I must impress him with all my vast knowledge... I spent the whole day today listening to music (Summer days + Allman Brothers = Awesome) and cleaning the house. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, bathroom, etc... I think I'll take the rest of the night off and watch The Big Lebowski or something else I can just be lazy with.

I've had an idea that I've been kicking around for a while and I submit it to the masses as to whether or not I should do it. Are you ready?

Blogging The Simpsons.

Basically, I would go back through and watch every episode and deliver some commentary and thoughts after each one. I've got seasons 1-9 so far, and 10 is coming out this August. So it would go at least that far. What do people think? Would that make for an interesting read?

Canto XLVIII

So I'm finally on my way home. I'm currently on the bus from Boulder to the airport, and I'll finish this on the flight home. But it won't get posted until tomorrow. It's like writing a letter to myself in the future! Hmm... What to write about? Not that much news either in my world or the world in general. I'm going out tomorrow to pick up the new White Stripes album (Icky Thump) and will probably listen to it at least twice before the end of the day. Maybe that's something to write about, a review. I'm excited either way, and we're going to see them when they're in town in July. I'm also trying to figure out what other CDs to get. I'm going to limit myself to less than 5. Unless something really good catches my eye. Steph's birthday is coming up this monday. I guess we'll go out for some nice food. She got a raise at work earlier this week, so congratulations to her!

And here's the rest of the story. First, a few things to complain about. Whatever number reason this is to hate the dorms: someone puked in our sink sometime Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I thought we had all grown past this. To the people who thought that a tiny baby would be a good idea to bring on an overnight flight: Go to Hell. You deserve it. I'll have to check my copy of the Inferno, but I'm pretty sure your going straight to Hell. The baby screamed, and I am not exaggerating, the entire flight. At full volume. In the seat directly behind me. By the end of the flight, the baby was coughing and horse after all that screaming. But continued to scream anyway. I don't blame the baby, but the parents who thought that it would shut up for the flight, they can go Hell. Where they will be forever tormented by all screaming unbaptized babies.

But I finally made it home. Lazy weekend followed. Went to the local shopping outlet for some groceries, picked up my CDs (I managed to talk Steph out of getting the Labyrinth soundtrack), and we rented Anchorman, which was pretty funny, Will Ferrell is always good for a laugh. Also, for Steph's birthday dinner we finally went out to this Greek restaurant near our house we've been meaning to try. Delicious and cheap! Next time someone visits, we'll have to go there. Hope you like lamb! (It's delicious!) She also got her birthday present, which is a Nikon D40 DSLR. And has been having fun playing with it since. She also finally submitted her first story for publication last night! She's going to keep working on it, and wants to submit it to 20 places in the next month. She's been working really hard lately and doing a bunch of things at home (like gardening, writing, photography, cleaning up, making dinners...), so I know she's planning on asking some of you to read over her story, so help her out a little bit.

Last night we had to do some BBQ because it was so nice out. The New England evenings in the summer really are quite nice. The days, being 85+ degrees and 70+ humidity, I could do without. But the nights are just great. So if you visit in the summer, we'll have to do BBQ. Also, I've moved into my new office. Steph came by and took some pictures with her new camera, but I think I'll wait a little bit and settle in before posting some pics. It's pretty sweet, though. I just need some bookshelf space for my books. Right now there are 6 stacks of physics & math books, all waist high, next to my desk. We're suppose to get a new bookcase in sometime soon.

Also, I think just about everyone saw this. I'm not saying anything. Just that I was an elder child.

Canto XLVII

So there's really not all that much new going on right now. I'm here at TASI getting my learn on. The lectures seem to be stepping up this week, and I've really been enjoying them. Although by the last afternoon lecture today, I could just feel my brain starting to tap out, I think I was asleep for maybe 10 minutes, and when I woke up, I was totally lost. I'll have to go through the notes tonight. But there was one rather great comment from Nima Arkani-Hamed. Much of his discussion revolves around the anthropic principle, which is basically saying that various constants of nature are "tuned" just right to support life. This has gained a lot of ground in the theoretical physics community (although remains highly controversial) due to two outstanding unsolved problems in physics right now: the Higgs mass (for those who keep up on such things, yes we still expect to find the Higgs at the LHC, this has to do with it's coupling to matter) and the Cosmological Constant/Dark Energy (the recently observed fact that our universe is just beginning to accelerate). Basically, the idea is that there is a huge multi-verse of many different universes with many different values of these various constants of nature, and we just happen to live in one of the universes that can support life. There are certain features and drawbacks to this, but before you dismiss it completely remember that the Earth you are sitting on is an anthropic argument. We didn't just happen to live on a planet that supports life, we could only live on a planet that supports life. Anyway, his lecture included a lot of examples of interesting "accidents" about out universe and situations that may seem to be "tuned". But one was particularly funny. The size of our moon is just such that it can block out our sun. In fact, it works to about one part in 10^3 or 10^4. That's an amazing amount of "tuning", even worse odds than the Blazers winning the Lottery! But he called this a case of mis-anthropic tuning, thinking about all the virgins who were sacrificed to "bring back the sun" or some other such nonsense. It got a good laugh. Well, they say it's not funny if you have to explain the joke, but maybe you learned something along the way.

I'm looking forward to being back in Boston. My parents are heading off across the pond tomorrow to visit my brother in London, and also visit Paris and some other parts of France. Two weeks of European vacation. I'm a little envious, Steph and I tried to see if we could work it in this year, but no luck. We'll make it there sometime. We've both been separately, but not together. Someday.

Canto XLVI

So as you may be able to tell, I've updated my blog! Well, adjusted some of the colo(u)ring (for those of the British persuasion) and updated the links and such. Not too exciting, but it's 90-something degrees out, which makes being lazy very easy. Right now sitting in front of a fan with my laptop in front of me, watching the Sox ticker (Bonds homered, but Sox are still up in the 8th). My web-surfing is slowing down after 2 hours, so I decided to go through the email, then hit up the blog. And since I don't have much to post about, decided to make up my own news. Like fixing up this blog. Oh sure, I could do some research, but the fan keeps blowing the papers around, and if you think I'm moving away from that you're nuts. I saw Pirates III yesterday. Disappointing. If you only saw the first one, stay there. If you saw the second one, like I did, hoping that it would continue the antics of the original, well, you know how that turned out. Basically I was just hoping for some sort of closure for the series since I'd already sunk (if you'll forgive the pun) 5+ hours into the series. So now I'm down almost 8 hours to Jerry Bruckheimer, with very little closure. Lame.

Happy Father's Day everybody!

Canto XLV

Well, I'm not one to usually do this, but this caught my eye while browsing the Oregonian earlier today. "Security setup records teen sexually abusing barn horse" really says it all, but I think the most telling line is "very concise, deliberate, well-thought-out plan." Concise?

Today, after a lovely morning lecture on open string field theory, we went out on a pub crawl in Boulder. Well, more of a Micro-Brewery crawl. We started just after lunch, and by the end were pretty much wasted. But good times all around. Sobering up now that I have a big bottle of water and took a shower. We hit up: Avery Brewing, Redstone Meadery (2nd time for me, if you recall), Boulder Brewing, and Twisted Pine Brewing. I've got to say though that nothing really blew my mind. I think the hoppy-revolution has hit Boulder pretty hard, and that's not really what I'm looking for in a beer. Even the porter at Avery was basically an extra-dark hoppy ale. I really enjoyed the light meads during the hot summer day. We walked about 7 or 8 miles today on sidewalks to get everywhere, and it was hot. The mead was the most refreshing. Weirdest beer of the day was the Chile Beer at Twisted Pine. It really did taste like there were little chiles in the beer. Long story short: if you like the hoppier-style ales, like IPAs and such, then this would have been for you. If you're like me, though, sometimes you just want a good Porter or Stout, and they can be so hard to find.

Anyway, I think tomorrow is going to be my day of rest & maybe get some work done in the afternoon. Right now, it's 10:30 at night, time to brush my teeth and go to bed. I've been posting so much this week because I'm bored without Stephanie. I miss home. And it's not just the nice bed, my own bathroom/shower, meals when I want them, the TV, or the sex. It's all of those things put together. Especially the last one. Maybe I am still drunk... Have a good night everybody!

Canto XLIV

So here's just a quick scattering of stuff while I wait for the cafeteria line to die down a bit so I can get some crappy lunch. I read the Silmarillion. Not a good book. And the worst part was the ending with the Deus-Ex-Machina conclusion. Does anyone ever appreciate this? Roughly the idea of the book is that the good gods beat down the bad god every so often. Yee-freaking-haw. Went for a long hike during the afternoon talk. The speaker was terrible, so I don't really feel bad about missing it. Well, I do feel slightly bad since I was looking forward to the topic he was "discussing", but incoherent mumbling into the blackboard while writing illegibly doesn't really do much for me. He gave some references for what he was going to cover, which is basically an invitation to not take notes. The only other speaker of note so far is basically one of the hugest nerds I have ever seen in a physics setting. And keep in mind this is in a room with 60 theoretical physics graduate students and another half dozen professors. That's how nerdy he was. Normally after a lecture we spend the time talking about whatever interesting points the speaker made, but this time we basically spent it trying to gauge how much lunch money he's lost over the course of his life, how many wedgies and/or swirlies received, etc. 'Now see here gentlemen, I gave you the requisite sum, there's really no need for this...' I don't want to go into further details, for fear of having my young physics career over before it really began, but there were many riffs on this nerd-theme. Feel free to come up with some of your own.

Canto XLIII

Well, school-wise, there's not much to say. Actually, there was one really interesting set of lectures (the ones by David Kutasov) on constructing Supersymmetric Quantum Chromodynamics (SQCD for short - physicists love acronyms) from an intersecting brane scenario in string theory. But I've promised this to be a more personal blog to keep those not so near me up-to-date on the comings and goings of my life and not a geek-driven physics blog. Also I don't think I could keep that up. Anything really cool will probably pop into the New York Times Science section eventually.

For the weekend I met up with Steph again. She had been up visiting her Aunts in Fort Collins, but came down to pick me up. I guess they went to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory and took the tour, and had a great time. The mint room was something else! She picked me up, and we visited a Meadery here in Boulder before heading back up to Fort Collins to stay with her Aunt. (I have discovered that whenever I type Fort Collins, I first type 'Collings' then have to go back and fix it. -ing is just too common of a suffix.) We watched Happy Feet, the animated penguin film, that night. Very cute, but I think I liked March of the Penguins better. Penguins are just sooo cute, animation doesn't really make them much cuter. Almost makes me want to do B-physics... But not really.

The next day we went for a run in the morning and saw a coyote up close and personal. He saw us and ran the other direction, occasionally looking behind him to make sure we weren't following him. But I guarantee that if I had had to fight him off, it would have been a 500-lb Siberian Wolf that escaped from the local talk show. (She gets upset at loud noises. Loud? That's the secret word for the day!) Ahh, season 4, greatest of them all. Anyway, after that adventure, we hit up the local microbrews. Fort Collins is well known for two major breweries, New Belgium and Budweiser. But we took the breweries less traveled and hit up: Fort Collins brewery (damn it! did it again!), Odell Brewery and Coopersmith's Pub & Brewery. All of them were quite good, some of the lagers in particular were nice and tasty. We then had dinner with Steph's Aunts & their dogs. Very cute and funny dogs, but constantly working for something from the table. She flew out this morning and is back in Boston, while I have to ride out the next 2 weeks worth of lectures all by my lonesome. There look to be some good talks, though, so hopefully it goes quickly. Of course, I'll keep everyone apprised of the situation.

I think I would enjoy getting into tennis, if the sport weren't dominated by cyborgs. I was really rooting for Federer today, if only to give him the calendar Grand Slam chance. They always show the career record of Rafa vs. Federer, but it's really skewed since they've met 12 times, 7 of them have been on clay, Nadal's strength. I thought Hard Court was suppose to be the dominant (most common) surface in tennis? They're even (2-2) on hard court, and the only time they've met on Federer's dominant surface (grass) he's 1-0. It's kind of ridiculous how dominant Federer has been, though, and at least it shows that the overall tennis cyborg can be beaten by the clay-court cyborg.

Canto XLII

Well, the week certainly has gone by. First some updates about TASI, the theory summer school I'm now attending. The talks have been a lot of fun, and talking about them afterwards with the other students very rewarding. I'm learning bunches. Of course, the more I learn, the more I find that I don't know much. Frankly, I feel like the only reason to come to these schools is if you already know everything, and just want a place to show that off. Maybe this is just playing into my fears that I'm the dumb one. I'm not sure who said it, but the quote goes something like "If you look around the table and don't see the sucker, then you're it." I don't see any suckers here...

In other news, Steph arrived for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. She came in Saturday morning, we rented a car, and after a brief stop in Boulder, went straight up to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). The first day, we just drove around the main road up to the pass, and did the basic motor-tourism Americans love so much. Saw a bunch of elk, a coyote, two bighorn sheep (very briefly, they ran across the road and straight up into the hills) and some smaller things as well. The scenery is quite nice. We were staying in a cheap hotel in Estes Park, the local tourism town. The next day (Sunday) we drove to the far side of the park and worked our way back across. We also did some nice hikes, both long and short as we went along. Among the interesting things we saw was a coyote hunting some field mice (not bopping them on the head). It looked exactly like our dog when she would chase down balls and other things. The coyote would jump in with both paws out, and nip at it with his mouth. Of course, he was actually eating them, but you could see where our dog got that from. The other cool thing we saw was a moose. When Steph and I moved cross-country, we visited many parks and did many hikes in supposed moose-country at supposed moose-time, but never managed to find one. But now we finally did. They're very cool, a nice lope to their stride and very casual. Next time we need to find a big bull moose, as this one didn't have the requisite antlers for the full moose experience. Monday morning we also went out for some hikes and finished up sightseeing in the west part of the park that we hadn't got to the day before. Here's a picture of me at the nicest place we hiked to, Calypso Cascades, in the Southeast corner of the park.

And here's part 32 of Stephanie's continuing series of me throwing rocks from places. I don't know what it is about rocks, but I love to throw them. You can also notice the hair growth, two weeks after the shaving.


Monday was, of course, our 2nd anniversary. Like I said, we had gone hiking that morning, and then returned to Boulder to a lovely little B&B we found online. Very granola if you know what I mean. But we enjoyed it immensely. We went out to dinner at Sushi Zanmai, which was also wonderful, then walked around town & campus a little bit and had ice cream at Glacier. I'm only providing these links so that if you find yourself in Boulder, you can retrace our steps. Or enjoy them on your own. Sadly, that was only for one night, and now I'm back in the dorms while Steph visits some of her family that live up in Fort Collins. I already miss the bed. It was a pillow wonderland.

Anyway, that's about all. A whole bunch of us from the dorm went down to the local coffee shop to "get some work done" because they have wireless. And now, everyone is actually getting work done, while I surf the web and blog. It's very depressing. Maybe I just need to get motivated. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I'm not the dumb one...

Canto XLI

Well, how about a quick hair update. It's already reached the comfy fuzz stage. The annoying, itchy & scratchy stubble only lasted a few days, so that was nice. I could really go without all the ZZ Top/Harley jokes. Although I did enjoy Joe's remark about stabbing hippies at Altamont. Damn hippies.

In other, non-hair-related news, I'm now in Colorado. After finishing up the TA junk (grading a final) & packing my office, the last week was pretty slow. By thursday afternoon, all the graduate students were just waiting for the long weekend. Because we're moving offices, there was a long weekend (5 days!), so just killing time until then. Today was the day to go back to work, unpack and settle into the new place. But not for me, and I got my Indian office mate to unpack for me and choose a desk. I'll settle in when I get back. This weekend, for Memorial Day, we had a BBQ with cricket. I've got to admit, cricket is kinda fun. But slow. However batting & bowling are fun. And the BBQ was tasty. Special thanks to Steph for making way too much food. Good times were had by all, and here's a link to some pictures. Please to enjoy!
So why am I so far away from home? There's a theoretical physics summer school (NOT a conference as I was emphatically told when I accidentally called them that in an email) called TASI held in Boulder, CO every year. So far the talks are pretty good. I've only fallen asleep in one of them (out of 8 in the first 2 days). Although I can already tell that 5 hours of lecture every weekday for 4 weeks straight is going to be way too much. Other down sides include that fact that I'm in some UC-Boulder dorm room. I HATE DORMS. I don't know how I lived through them for a whole year. God I hate them so much. The food is on a rigid schedule that would only be appreciated by the 70+ crowd (the dining hall closes at 6:30!), but not by a bunch of graduate students. And we're not allowed to drink beer outside, only inside our rooms with the doors closed. Lame. However, now that I'm further west, the Liquor Store has Black Butte Porter, and it's on sale! Delicious, except for the fact that I can only enjoy inside our smelly dorm room. There was a wine & cheese social the second night we were here. Well, there were some cheese cubes, a cake and other snack food. And 1 (one) box of Franzia Chardonnay. Not even a choice between red & white Franzia was made available. When that box ran out, someone went and got another one. It was quite the event. Anyway, today I got Intrilligated for the first time. A very pleasant experience. But it's going to be a long month of physics. Hopefully I learn a whole bunch and make this worthwhile. I guess it depends on how much I put into it. But with shitty wire spring mattresses and paper thin pillows, I'm not getting much sleep. I'm trying to "run" in the mornings, the altitude is going to make me amazing, but really it's more of a plodding motion. My legs were just two lead weights attached to my torso. But in a few weeks I'm going to be amazing. Amazing.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll try and keep you posted on how the talks go. Steph is going to be in town for our anniversary and we're going to go up to Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm hoping for some elk sightings, followed by a wolf sighting, followed by the wolf taking down a sickly/young/old elk.

Canto XL

I think if this were a real blog, the title would be "In which I shave my head", only now I've ruined the punchline for everyone reading this. Well, you'll just have to scroll down to the bottom and read all about it. First, in other news.

Frisbee playoffs were last week, and we played pretty well. We made our way into the semis where we lost to Mech-E. But overall a very good season, and I had a great time. I already miss frisbee. So in a 16-team tourney in which we were seeded #2, we played 3 games. The first was won by forfeit (apparently, 11 am is too early for undergrads). The second, we won, but it was close. The person running the whole thing came over and basically called the game at the end of the point, when the score was 9-7. We 'won' 9-8. But it turns out Discus, the God of Frisbee, has been seeing both Irony & Justice on the side, and in our next game, the same thing happened to us. We were given 5 minutes to play when we were down 3, and only managed to score 2. Another 9-8 game, this time not in our favor. There's always next year.

And last week, school is finally over. Sure, I handed in the last few assignments late and I just barely scraped through it this term, but it's all over now. I'm calling it senioritis. This was probably my last year taking classes, doing homework and all that garbage. Today I have to help grade the final for the class I'm TAing, and then my school duties are done! It feels great. I've been doing classes and homework and junk for more than 20 years. Wow. And now it's over. I'll be enjoying a cigar this weekend to commemorate it.

Okay, the only other news is the hair. First, a retrospective. I last had my hair cut in October, to my usual short length. Steph and I were going to take pictures once a week and keep track of how the hair and beard grow as a function of time (it's monotonically increasing!), but didn't stick to that too well. And since we didn't label the pictures, I don't know when they were taken; I can only roughly guess their chronological order based on hair size. But here's one I can accurately pin point, and comes roughly 1 week after Thanksgiving. Always gracious in victory.

Well, that's a little more than 1 month after the trim & shave. Here's a current photo to let you know how big it had gotten.

Well, I had just combed it out to make it seem bigger, but still, that's a lot of hair in just 7 months. First up is the bleaching. That's right, I bleached my hair. Actually, I have to admit it was fun, and I might try that again.


I liked the surfer look. But I certainly couldn't just stop there! I wanted to go over the top, and was going to dye it bright purple/pink. This, I must say, was a bit of a failure, and the picture makes it seem much more pronounced than it was. But it still looks kinda cool.

And now for the shaving. Well, this was an event for everyone to enjoy, and everyone got in on the act. On a personal note, let me just say you shouldn't really trust a bunch of theorists with scissors.

Finally, here's the aftermath of the initial shearing. Yes, that's my desk in the background. The umbrella was used to catch all the hair. Also, I'm modeling a new Oregon t-shirt which is kinda weird. It's a Skull-and-Bones, only with a Duck, and says Oregon. It's funny. Man, the alumni association should be paying me for all the advertising I do out here. I love to wear my Oregon shirts out here.

But why stop there? You can see that the hair is slightly mottled from the bleach/dye job and it's very uneven. So sunday morning I shaved it for reals. All gone.

My head feels very cold all of the time now and it just doesn't feel right. I shake my head and my beautiful locks no longer bounce with it. So I've been wearing my old hat.

And that's how it is. What a tale, huh? Hope you enjoyed it!

Ed. Note: I'm going to try and figure out how to get the pictures rotated correctly later. Just tilt your head or screen to the proper angle for now.

Canto XXXIX

And yet another 2 weeks. Well, at least this time I'll have a little something to talk about.

About a month ago my high school class started up a reunion webpage (it's a private site so I'm not excluding you by not including the link, you're already excluded). I'm not sure how I feel about this. There are 3 competing thoughts in my head:
1) I keep track of the people I care about, so who the hell are these other people?
2) The creepy stalker part of me (no small piece as we all know) just looks at all the different people and their bios judging them.
3) The actual point of this whole thing is that I would guess there are about a dozen or more people I am genuinely fascinated by and would like to see again, and this seems like a good venue to get that started.
There were a lot of people in high school I knew and would consider friends, but then we graduated, we to different colleges and work and moved and all that stuff and I never really gave many of them another thought. I feel like Homer when he's looking for his soul-mate. He looks around the bar, and they all tell him exactly what kind of friend they are. Chum, compadre, associate, contemporary, well-wisher (in so much as I don't wish you any specific harm). Who are these people to me now? Now it all comes flooding back. Man, I hated high school.

Anyway, this brings me my friday night. There seem to be at least 3 Lincolnites from the class of '98 in the Boston area, including myself. And so I went out with one of them for some beers (along with Steph and another Lincolnite from '97). It's weird. I knew this guy for 4 years. We would talk occasionally. I guess this would fall under "associate", we interacted enough at school, but not much outside. But it was fun. It's amazing how much has gone on in everyone's lives. We also went to see a movie, "Hot Fuzz". I can highly recommend this movie, if you liked Shaun of the Dead. Basically it was a kinda funny British movie for the first 1:15 minutes. Then for the last half hour to 45 minutes, it got real funny. They just decided to go over the top, and it was awesome. I suppose Steph and I will get around to Spiderman 3 later this week or next.

And then saturday rolled around. Cinco de Mayo. My goal was to get a bunch of grading that I've had stack up the last few weeks finished up. But when I first got in, I got an email with the subject "batting cages?" It was a beautiful day out, and of course it's only saturday, so there's still plenty of time to get it done later... It was a lot of fun, but now I'm in pain. I didn't realize what a total body workout it would be. I think this should be the new hit exercise. Basically, this involved three of us waiting in line with a bunch of kids up to about 12 year olds for the slow and medium pitch cages. Then being taken to school by those very same little kids. There was one kid there who couldn't have been much older than 6 or 7 - the pitches were coming in at the height of his head - and he still hit better than us. Of course afterwards, we had to get some ice cream so we went to the Wendy's down the block and each got a Frostee. Nice. But now I am in pain. I knew my hands and shoulders would be sore, sure. But my abs really hurt! It actually hurts to laugh & cough. What's up with that? Full body workout.

And saturday night we went out to a party in Watertown. Lots of drinks, good food and karaoke. I even tried my hand at it, after 4 beers. These are the things you do when you drink. "I am very sorry for... attempting to sing." But good times all around.

Sunday was mostly spent lying in pain on the couch. We went out for some breakfast at a diner near our place. And frisbee in the evening (who schedules frisbee games for sunday at 6pm?). We won, and are 5-0 heading into the playoffs this weekend. Not bad, except we only had 1 sub, so I basically played the whole game. So that's now compounding the pain from batting practice. I think I need to get younger... High school was 9 years ago!!!

So now I need to get everything done that I didn't do over the weekend, plus the usual work stuff during the week. Sigh. Sounds like somebody has a case of the mondays.

Canto XXXVIII

Emergency blog post! Today, sometime between 8:10am and 6:45pm Kermit was removed from our neighbor's porch. When I was walking home this evening, she was cleaning up the front a little bit and Kermit was no where to be seen. He's really gone. I'll see him next winter.

Canto XXXVII

And another 2 weeks have gone by! Well, not much has been up, unless you want to hear about me struggling with homework. Joseph was in town, so you should ask him how it went. Surely he will tell you what good hosts Steph and I are. We hit some pubs, saw some sights and soaked in some Boston/Cambridge. Nice. And Steph's sister and husband were in town the following weekend for an Anime Con. Sadly, I missed out on this fun. Wait, sarcasm doesn't come through in writing all that well. I don't like anime, so I wasn't not unhappy to miss out on this weekend-consuming event. But again, good food was had by all (they've visited enough that they don't need the city tour). Not much other news. I've got 2 weeks left in my Harvard String Theory class, and after that it should considerably ease up my work schedule, as one of my two TA assignments also ends that week. If I can just make it through the next 2 weeks, I promise some kind of awesome post. Super awesome. Just you wait.

Canto XXXVI

Ugh, it's been more than 2 weeks. Well, some of it was busy, some of it wasn't. And I saw the flurry of activity on other's blogs, which just made me feel the worse for not keeping up with the Jones'. Of course we can't expect to keep up with Syd. Not promising to be a better blogger or anything, but I like to hear what's going on with other people, so I hold on to some delusion that others like to hear about me every once in a while.

My big news is that I was accepted to go to TASI this summer, which is a physics summer school. It should be a lot of fun. The topic is "Sting Universe", and seeing how I want to work on stings in our universe, this should fit in nicely. Also, this is a good opportunity to meet other graduate students and professors in the field. It's for four weeks from May 28th-June 22nd, and it's in Boulder, CO. For those trying to figure it out, yes I'll be out of state for our anniversary. But that's why she's coming out to visit! And I'll be back in time for her birthday, so it should be all good. I'm really looking forward to this.

There's only a few weeks left of my last semester as a real student. After this I'll be happily sliding into the role of surly graduate student alternating between extemes of laziness while mocking those still taking classes/exams and business trying to publish/write thesis. I really don't care about my classes anymore. The only thing pushing me along is that I want to finish on a high note.

Other interesting things. Kermit is still hanging. If you look on YouTube, you can find a video for Kermit covering Hurt by Johnny Cash covering NIN. I think my biggest guilty pleasure song may be "Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)" by Styx. I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books right now, getting ready for the movie and final book coming out this July. I want them to be fresh in my mind, but not so fresh that I'm sitting in the movie critisizing every little piece. There's going to a great talk this wednesday on MiniBooNE, which I am going miss due to my stupid string theory class. But I'm very excited for the results, and will hear all about them later today. I ran labs for all my little 8.022 students. Actually wasn't too bad, got in a rythem and soon it was like my mind was somewhere else while my body performed the monotonous tasks around me. And tonight I'm running a review session for these same students for their mid-term tomorrow. It's on Ampere's Law, circuits and some other EM crap. So I'm opening with 100,000 Fireflies by the Magnetic Fields. I feel it's appropriate. Joseph is going to be in town this weekend, looking forward to hearing all the stories from the Left Coast. I miss the Pacific... Our frisbee team won the first game of the year, 12-9 (it ended due to the Gathering Darkness). Huzzah! Hmmm, what else. Nope, that's all!

Canto XXXV

I've just noticed that I've now made it out of Hell and into Purgatory. Only 66 more to go before I can finally start giving clever names to these posts! And my bracket is looking a little healthier. If the favorites continue their run tonight I'll be in great shape.

What a week. Been staying up late to finish up stuff, then sleeping in late and falling asleep in class. It's like I'm an undergrad again. But now Spring break is here! Yes, finally some time to work ahead! Maybe even do some "real" physics. There's plenty of stuff to do around the house, I don't think we've cleaned in 3 or 4 weeks and it's starting to show... Spring literally showed up this week, though. Both the usual Vernal Equinox, and we seem to be in a good thaw after last week's snow and everything just seems sunnier. It's up in the 50's and overcast. Spring is here, might as well get some spring cleaning done before the bugs start crawling in. The first spiders showed up earlier this week.

I plan on taking an easy weekend of cleaning and doing some errands on saturday, saturday night we're going to a concert, then being very lazy on sunday playing some video games and watching basketball. Time to kick back for a couple days. Next week should be fun for a change, just working on some stuff that I actually want to do.

Canto XXXIV

Well my bracket is in shambles. Not that I know much about college baskteball, but I should be doing better than people who pick based on mascots. Not good. My big sleeper bid was Louisville to the Final Four. With them in the second round, I think it's just about over for me. Oregon is getting pretty lucky this year in the tourneys, they seem to constantly be facing upsets and not the higher seeds. Hopefully they make the Elite Eight and shock the world by upsetting Florida. That would be awesome. So long as their 3 pointers keep falling, that's about all they need.

It's been crazy busy this last week and weekend. On friday I watched the Ducks game, but over the weekend I watched a total of 6 minutes of basketball. Saturday night returning late from the Institute, I watched the final 2 minutes of UCLA over Indiana, and Sunday watched the final few minutes of the blowouts of Kansas over Kentucky and USC over Texas. But next week is Spring Break, so I should be able to catch all of the Sweet-16 action. That's when it gets really good, right? No big Cinderellas this year, but the Ducks are still in it to win it.

Last week we had a bunch of prospective graduate students visit to see how cool it is to be at MIT. But we seem to be a pretty cool lot around here. The problem is that they visited as things are starting to get really busy. I've just got to make it through this week and everything will be alright. Spring break here I come!