Canto LXXIX

Okay, this post is going to predominately be about our Belize trip, but first I just need to point everyone to The Daily Show from last week, September 3rd. This may be the finest Daily show I have seen in a long time. The opening is ridiculous, the middle bit is perfect, and the interview with Newt is pretty damn good. Election time always brings out the best material for them, but this really was something special.

All photos taken with my Canon PowerShot SD850. Cute little point-and-shoot thing. I got it especially for this trip, it worked great, and I'm looking forward to it serving me for a long time.

All the pictures can be found here.

We had a wedding to attend on Sunday in Eugene, drove up to Portland, and Ben came by to say hi for a couple hours. After something like 2 hours of sleep, we flew out Monday morning, August 25th at 6 AM. Not a lot of fun. Slept a lot on the plane. And Steph hates traveling enough as it is. But everything was on time, and we landed in Belize without a hitch, and our luggage made it as well. We did an all-inclusive package with a nice lodge in the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, The Five Sisters Lodge. So they picked us up and after almost 7 hours in two planes and a layover in Dallas/Ft Worth, we started a 2 1/2 hour car ride to the place. I can't say this was the best part. And the last hour or so was on a dirt road that was not all that level. When we finally got out, I stretched my back and I think every single one of my vertebrae cracked. But we found our room, and enjoyed a nice dinner.

Here's the pictures.

The next morning was our first day to tour Belize. We went to Caracol, which is the largest Mayan site in Belize. During their hay-day, there were between 100,000-150,000 people in this city. Belize City, the largest city now, has about 75,000 people to give some perspective. So times have changed a little bit. The Central Mayans (as opposed to the Northern Mayans with Chichen Itza and the Southern Mayans on the Pacific) were essentially divided between 2 principle powers, Tikal in Guatemala (which we visited and you'll hear more about) and Calakmul 150 miles to the north in Mexico (which apparently doesn't have much of a web presence). After a defeat at the hands of Tikal in the early 6th century AD, Caracol allied with Calakmul and defeated Tikal in 562 AD, so the Belizeans can rub it in Guatemala's face a little bit. But Caracol follows along the usual Mayan collapse along with Tikal, Calakmul and a host of others. The various major settlements have been inhabited since pre-1000 BC. Starting in the first few centuries AD, they began to really rise and became "cities", especially with the growth of agriculture suited to the jungle - slash and burn along with extensive irrigation terraces. The height of the classical Mayan period is from about 400-900 AD, where many temples were built, they kept lots of records of wars and kings and such, and even had a symbol for zero. And then... nothing. No further temples were built, no more records, and the cities began to be abandoned. And no one knows exactly what caused this. It's kinda creepy that a civilization with dozens of cities with hundreds of thousands of people just kind of vanished. Not entirely, the remnants are still around, and there are plenty of modern Maya around, but it's not exactly the same is it?

Again, check the pictures.

So Caracol. The name means 'snail shell' in spanish, after all the snail shells that were found in the initial excavation. The original Mayan name is Oxhuitza. It has a large plaza with the largest man-made building in Belize, the Caana which means Sky-Place. This was pretty incredible to climb, with very steep steps and just an amazing view of the plaza and surrounding jungle. Walking around, our guide pointed out a lot of the natural things to be found at the site like the various plants and insects. He showed us what they would have used for the various dyes from the different plants and which ones had medicinal bark, leaves or roots. It's pretty cool to hear about how much all the different plants were used and are still being used. The various temples and buildings I tried to annotate in the pictures, so that should help. For more on the ball game, try this link. Well, it was really cool. After it was all done and we were sufficiently sweaty, we got to swim around in a place called Rio on Pools. When we finally got back to the Lodge, not tired enough from the days exploits we did a little nature hike around the grounds. It was getting dark and Steph was afraid we would be swallowed by the jungle, but we managed to get back on time for dinner before it got too dark. Ah, and the nights there were spectacular for star gazing, but no pictures to show for it.

Canto LXXVIII

Okay, so we made it back from Belize, mostly safe and sound. Steph slipped on a rock while we were hiking to a waterfall and got a cut on her knee, and our last day there she got a little burned while we were snorkeling. But other than that, nothing but good times. We both need to go through our pictures and make some notes about everything. But I think that's a weekend project. For now, here's a little taste of what it was like.

Canto LXXVII

I'm old. Or at least, I'm starting to think of myself as grown-up. Which must mean that I'm old. I figured this wouldn't happen until I was at least 30, but certain things have come to light of late that have made me reconsider my own personal self-image.

A month ago, I attended part of my high school reunion. It was OK. I wouldn't call it great, mostly because many of the people that I'm still friends with weren't there, including my best friend who is my personal crutch/life preserver/flotation device/whatever in these kinds of social interactions. I'm not sure I've ever missed him more for an event than this. But he just had to go to Europe. Also, most of the people that I was friends with in high school and haven't seen in 10 years aren't the kind of people who would show up to a 10 year. Maybe at 20. But all in all, it's really just made me think about how much has happened in the last 10 years, 20 years of my life. Very retrospective, and not necessarily in a good way.

Also, another birthday isn't too far around the corner, which always brings out feelings of mortality and dread. Plus I've discovered that I'm never going to be a world-class athlete thanks to the Olympics. I think the Olympics really just highlight how much of a bunch of slobs the rest of us are. (Aside: Usain Bolt is a freak. There are no other words for what he has done. Freak.)

The other thing that has really helped me think of myself as old is our house. We rent out the first floor of a nice place, but the landlord does not take care of the yard. It's gotten really overgrown and such out there lately, and Steph really only takes care of her garden area, and not the whole place. (Not her fault, she spends plenty of time on that as it is - again this is really on the landlord.) So I finally went out there the other weekend and did 5 hours of yard work. I was in jeans and a long sleeved shirt because of the damn rose bush, even though it was over 80 that day. And I had a hat on, because you know I don't want to get sunburned. And with the gloves and clippers, I went to town on every damn bush and shrub that was getting too big. I even "trimmed the rose bush". Really. But the problem was, I looked EXACTLY like my dad does when he goes out to do some yard work. EXACTLY. And long ago I promised that I would never become that. Mostly because I hate yard work. There's a reason it had gotten so bad (besides our negligent landlord), and that's because I hate doing yard work. It was a punishment growing up, and I still think of it as that. Especially in 85 degree weather. Our neighbor took a picture of me cleaning up the shrubs on the side of the house, and if I get a copy I'll post it. But it's made me realize that I'm not a kid anymore. I was driving through Eugene on the way to Steph's parents house, and people were waving to me as though I belonged there. I was driving a mid-90s Volvo, had on a casual blue short sleeved shirt, the windows rolled down with some classic rock playing. I was my dad. And people in the neighborhood just assumed I belonged as well. I wasn't a kid, or an outsider. I'm just another white middle-class guy in the city.

In fact, one of the only really good news coming up is football season!!! Brett Favre is going to try and QB the Jets to a 5/6 seed and a first-round exit while the evaluation on Kellen Clemens waits another year. Sigh. But the Ducks should be good this year. My three big concerns, in order of importance:
1) QB. Costa's injured again, no one knows how bad. Will they give Roper a chance? Running this offense is not trivial, and the QB play is really important (duh - tell me something I don't know). We all know what happened last year after Dixon went down.
2) Defense, can they survive the inevitable bout of injuries that are going to hit? The defense itself will be good, but this is a question about depth.
3) Receivers. Jaison Williams as the #1 guy? Really? Does anyone trust him to catch an important ball in a two-minute drill? Someone is really going to need to step up, I know Bellotti has been recruiting a bunch in this area the last few years, hopefully that can pay off now.
Anyway, it could be a very good year, but the schedule is going to be rough. There's a stretch of 4 road games in 5 games that looks to be the big make-or-break area, with games @ USC, ASU & Cal. Yikes. But that's the time they can make a big impression nationally, right through October.

Anyway, yes we're in Oregon right now for a wedding. But the big news is that we're headed to Belize for a week, starting tomorrow! We're really excited. It's going to be amazing, and I hope to be able to post pictures daily because I think the place has wireless. But in any case, everyone will be hearing about this vacation for a long time to come.

Canto LXXVI

I feel a bit like Bart Simpson today. Well, after he sold his soul. The thing is, since I got back from Portland (more coming on that this weekend, I promise! maybe even pictures!), I have been hit by the God Damn automatic gates for the T. Three freaking times in just the last couple days! I think I've only been hit by them once or twice for the previous year or two that they've been up. Maybe I should start thanking them.

Canto LXXV

So my career has slowed down of late. But that's alright. We've had a few people visiting us, which is a nice change. I do the IM thing now, so I guess that's new. The big event in my life lately was a Diplomacy tournament 2 weekends ago, The Boston Massacre. It was a lot of fun. I did OK the first two games, help my own as England and Russia, but just got killed in the third game. I was by far the worst France. But looking at the scores, it's interesting to see different patterns. Like France, for example. The first round, France did OK, the second round, with people lulled into thinking it wouldn't be that good, France did phenomenal, and in the third round all the Frances did very poorly. I of course did the worst, but still. There were other circumstances. Anyway, looking forward to next year.

Our house has been a bit of an Inn the last month, which is nice. We get out more and do more things, but also eat a lot worse. I've gained almost 10 pounds in the last month and a half! Yikes! Part of it is the end of the school term, which means I'm no longer taking my squash class. That was nice because it forced me to exercise
a couple times a week. I'm still lifting occasionally and my office mate will play me in squash every now and then. But with reduced activity and increased eating out, it's nothing but bad news for the belly. I went in for a massage, and I got a deep tissue massage. I ordered this at the end of the school year, thinking it would be a nice way to end things, but due to scheduling, it didn't happen until last week. For those who don't know, deep tissue is PAINFUL. I was trying to 'be a man' about it, but man. I think I was even more sore the next day than I was when I went in. But the day after that, it felt pretty good. So now I'm not sure what to think.

The other big event is my High School reunion next weekend. Some of my best friends from HS won't be able to make it, so I'll be staking it out on my own, which sucks. I'm still not sure what to think or do or anything about this. It's going to be weird, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Canto LXXIV

So I'm just watching the NBA finals tonight. God I hate both of these teams. I find myself rooting for different teams at different times. But really, I just think we should let the terrorists win this one. You know, just let them have this one so they can think they're still effecting our lives. Well, the Celtics are up by 30 in the 4th, so thankfully this will all soon be over. Go Blazers!

Some good news, my program that I've been working on for the last two months or so is finally working correctly. (I think!) So things are moving along nicely at work, and I'm really excited for the project we're working on. And our office finally got a blackboard! So I think I'll get Steph to take some nice pictures of my office, desk, me hard at work and post them soon. I can really feel my productivity soaring. Like the Hindenberg.

We had a BBBQ over Memorial Day weekend, and I don't have many pictures, but here's a good one.
Sometimes life is hard work.

Canto LXXIII

Two in a row, baby! I felt this was funny enough to be it's own post, so if you haven't been here in a while, there's another new one right below this. This one is courtesy of my brother.

Here's a link to a Guitar Hero III review.

And the link to his whole repertoire if you're so inclined.

Canto LXXII

So after that flurry of activity, only to use up all my good material. But now I'm like the Phoenix, to be reborn after burning through all my stuff. So here's another quick-hit list of stuff that's been happening in the Land of Eric.

Yes, the ring is still broken. It's a little weird, but I think I'm just going to keep it that way. It is, after all, my wedding rings, chips and all.

A couple weeks ago, Steph and I saw a Who tribute band called Slip Kid with some friends of ours. They were a lot of fun! Just an all-out show. But it was up in Arlington, so the crowd was a little subdued, which is a little disappointing. The opening act was a solo performance by a David Bowie cover man. That was also pretty fun. The funny thing was after the concert I wanted to listen to David Bowie for the next few days, not The Who. I think it's just because I have all The Who stuff memorized, while David Bowie is only somewhat familiar with. I knew all the songs and such, but it's not ingrained in my memory like Tommy, Who's Next, A Quick One, My Generation, Quadrophenia, etc. is. And as a somewhat related side note, I couldn't be more excited for Who's Next on Rock Band. (I know I mentioned this a while ago, but it bears repeating.)

In other news, Stephanie and I are going on our Honeymoon! Yes, that's right 3+ years into our marriage, we'll be making our way to Belize for a week at the end of summer. We just bought the plane tickets and a guide book. Now it's the planning stages, like how many pieces of coral is it OK to steal and what's the most valuable ancient Mayan artifact that I could conceivably smuggle back into the States? We're both really excited. Not that our original Honeymoon on the Oregon Coast wasn't fun, but somewhere tropical sounds so nice.

There was a Cinco de Mayo party we went to, with much debauchery. Of course, any party where I end up on the floor while another man pours alcohol down my throat to 'finish it off' is perhaps a bit more than I'm used to. But good times were had by all (minimal hangover), and there was of course, more Rock Band. Cause that's how they do it in Mexico.

Also this last week I did some grading to earn a little extra cash, which will be applied to the aforementioned Belize trip. It was a bunch of papers for students of our quantum mechanics classes, and overall they were OK. I did this last year as well, and I think that group was better. Oh well.

Dates. I've been eating a lot of dates lately, and they're delicious. Everyone should go out and try some right now. But I don't see them on Syd's food chart... I'm not sure if I had ever really had them before this, but now that I have, it's all I ever want to eat again. Well, not really, but I have been eating a whole bunch of them the last couple weeks.

We saw Iron Man last night. It was pretty good, if you're into superhero action movies. And Robert Downey, Jr. is perfect for Tony Stark. A fun time.

I played basketball for the first time in my adult life last week. It turns out I suck at it. But then again, I don't think I've played since freshman year of high school in gym class. Suffice to say, I got taken to school. And now the guy who set this up wants me to come out to play so he can humiliate me again. Fun times, but I may do it anyway. It's good to get out of the office every now and again.

Our frisbee team ended the season 1-4, with our sole victory coming off a forfeit this final weekend. I don't think we're going to make the playoffs. And to think that last year we were a Juggernaut that went undefeated and made it to the quarterfinals. But again, it's good to get out of the office, especially when the weather's halfway decent.

Okay, and the last thing. I've been wasting most of my time lately playing some video games. This is somewhat rare for me, since after finally beating Zelda earlier this year, I just look at FF XII and think to myself no fucking way am I ever going to beat that game. Actually that's not true, I could beat it relatively quickly (<10-15 hours), but it would not be to my Emerald Weapon completionist satisfaction, which means an ungodly number of hours sunk into it. But after we got our new computer up and running, we looked through all the old software and stuff we wanted to install. And there was Diablo II. Now the graphics definitely don't hold up, but it's still a fun game. And I've been obsessed with it lately. Like every night when I get home, I play for an hour. Just to get my fix. It's very sad. And the problem is, with no really clearly defined ending, it just keeps going. You're always thinking how can I make my character just a little bit better? Where's the next way point? And this is why I don't play WOW. But now I feel bad, because one of you out there might read this post, think to themselves I haven't played that in forever, and give it a try. Well let me tell you, does a recovering crack addict tell themselves one little hit won't hurt them? Don't touch it unless you know you can stop anytime. But of course, if you do start playing again, let me know and we can meet on the open battle.net realm somewhere.

Canto LXXI

So there's a few things that I want to post about, but the first thing is going to be about my wedding ring. I love my wedding ring. Of course, I love the person that I'm married to, so that helps. But it's a beautiful ring. It's a tungsten ring inlaid with a band of gold. It's suppose to be nigh-invulnerable. It's made of freaking tungsten carbide! They make drills that go through steel out of this stuff. And mine broke. Seriously. Here's the photo.



I don't know how it happened. I was watching How I Met Your Mother last night and playing with it on my hand. Then it felt a little funny so I looked down, and there was this crack! And notice that the gold part is OK, it's just the tungsten. I really don't get it. I'm not a superstitious person, but this is a little weird.

I'm watching the Red Sox play the Angels right now, and Youk just hit a 2-run home run over the Monster to tie the game. That's not the interesting part, though. The man who caught the ball was balding, but still had a mitt. And not just any mitt. A pink mitt. Seriously. And I don't care if his wife had breast cancer and he bought this to support research. You're a grown man at the ball park. Already you shouldn't be bringing your mitt, and to top it off a pink one? I thought Boston was a tough town. Of course, the people who can afford Monster seats aren't exactly the most blue-collar. And Jacoby Ellsbury of Madras, OR hit his second home run of the night. Not bad. Did you know Madras is south of Portland?

So this weekend was a little crazy. Just lots of stuff to do. But it was all fun. Plenty of free food, played some Rock Band, went to my first Seder, frisbee. Just a fun time. And there was also the Smoking Club. This is a group of a half-dozen of us enjoying the finer things in life. Like a fine smoke and some Bocce Ball. It was a great afternoon on Marathon Monday.

And to end this post, something funny from last friday. My rather italian officemate came in friday morning and said 'You're a fan of The Who?' It just so happened that I was wearing my Who t-shirt that very day, and he noticed. This was followed up with him saying how much he enjoyed listening to them. He's a huge classical music fan, so this was a bit of a surprise, but The Who are awesome, and had now won a new fan. I felt compelled to find out more. So it turns out he discovered them the previous weekend. But what was the song or album that made him such a fan? Quadrophenia. No joke. I immediately asked if he had heard, you know, My Generation, Tommy, Who's Next. Nope, nope, nope. I gave him all the above, and let him know if he liked those to come back for some more.

UPDATE: So I went to the store where we bought our wedding rings. It turns out the company that made our indestructible rings, and thus guaranteed them, went under. Bankrupt. They no longer exist. Therefore we won't be getting a new ring from them any time soon. What the hell. The guy was kind of funny about it, and they said they can give me a good deal on a new ring (Hah!), but I was SOL about the ring. Shit.

Canto LXX

I knew there was going to be at least one day that I missed. But seriously, at least I'm trying. I miss everyone!

Anyway, today I have a quick-hits thing in mind. A few paragraphs on several topics about things that have been going on lately.

First up, I got a hair cut. And trimmed the beard. You may have noticed that in the Lebowski pictures the beard was not it's full, disheveled self. But rather than just cutting it all at once (like last year), I decided to phase it out over the course of a week. Here's the link, I recommend the slideshow. Let me know which you like best. I think I preferred the Fu Manchu.

Part of the reason I missed posting yesterday has been how busy work has been these last few weeks. It's actually really exciting! I understand what I'm working on, can talk somewhat coherently about it, and I'm doing useful calculations that are advancing a possible new result in my field! I think this is really the first time I can say that. Also, meetings with my adviser and the post-doc I'm working with have been a lot of fun and very fruitful. I must say that this is the most excited about work I've been in a long time. But that excitement has led to long hours of late. Not necessarily a bad thing if it leads to a nice result and publication, but I do miss seeing Steph for dinner. Anyway, I'll let everyone know how it goes!

[For those interested, my research is on constructing an AdS background solution in Heterotic string theory. There is a "No-Go" theorem in this subject, but as physicists like to say, a no-go theorem really tells you exactly where to go. They usually say something like "If you do X, Y and Z, then you can't get a xylophone." But then you should just say to your self, 'If I don't use X (or Y or Z), then can I still get a marimba?' Just slightly tweaking the no-go result often causes it to give you something very similar to what you're looking for.]

I've also been watching less TV lately. The best sporting season (football) is over, I really only watch March Madness and some NBA playoffs in basketball, and I'll watch the Sox if a game's on and I'm not doing something else, but I don't obsess over it. But I have been watching 'The Big Bang Theory'. I feel really dirty doing it. Like, really dirty. It's a terrible 3-camera sitcom. Sadly placed next to one of the greatest 3-camera sitcoms of all time, How I Met Your Mother (which I recommend for everyone). I'm only watching it because there may never be another time where a television show is about theoretical physicists. But the various stereotypes are ridiculously bad. First, it should be pointed out that more than 1/3 of the graduate students in the CTP are married, and another 1/3 or so have significant others. [Small, but somewhat representative sampling: my office. 1 married, 1 engaged, 1 steady girlfriend (going out 1+ years), 1 single - with the singleton as a first year grad student.] So 4 single, can't-get-a-date grad students/post-docs is pretty rare. Maybe they congregate, but that's not really my experience. They also have 3 Americans and 1 Indian. While the 1 Indian is correct, 3 Americans not so much. More Europeans, more Chinese. They also assume that everyone is some kind of uber-nerd. Trust me when I say this is not the case. I don't know anyone here who role-plays, has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics, or knows any more about Star Wars than I do (that may not be saying that much). We're total geeks - as in we know way too much math & physics. We talk in physics, relating various things that have nothing to do with physics in terms of physics or math and then laugh about it. But the geekiness ends there. They do capture (somewhat) that aspect of our lives, but even then it's only half-assed. Anyway, hopefully the show will be canceled soon and I can be free from this misery. I'm sure I have more on this, but now I'm all worked up. I have to get back to my real physics work. To The Action, Jackson!

Canto LXIX

And we're back for another round! Today I want to talk a little about my favorite game in the whole world, Diplomacy. Next year is the 50th anniversary of the game, and a new board is suppose to be released, which is good since it's out-of-print right now. But the other news in the Diplomatic world is that there's now a Facebook application that lets you play games. This was really cool and exciting at first, but I must say that it's not as great as it sounds. I'll go over what I don't like first:

1) There are several key rules that are screwed up. First and foremost is that you can't support a convoy, i.e. you can't support a naval invasion a la D-Day. This is really crippling for England, since they're are going to have an impossible time getting past the stalemate lines fast enough. The program also doesn't recognize the difference between friend and foe units when adjudicating, so you can self-dislodge. There was a painful moment in my game where I was using that fact to defend a space only to be forced to retreat from my own units! Also, disbands are handled at the same time as builds, which really messes things up. I need to know what's on my borders before I know what I should build. Anyway, there are probably more issues as well that I just haven't run into yet. Very frustrating.

2) The game I'm playing in right now, I'm not close to any of the other players (either proximity or on a personal level except for one), so it's hard to conduct, you know, diplomacy. There's a forum for sending messages and stuff, but it's woefully underused. This game is ultimately about negotiating and finding ways to interact with your friends and enemies to advance your own interests.

Those are my two big points. But I'm glad that there's a new forum for people to get introduced to this game. It's a lot of fun, and the more the merrier. But hopefully someone can work on this and make a better application.

With that said, I want to set up a play-by-e-mail (PBEM) game, that is run on one of the automated judge servers. The downside is that you need someone to be the Game Master who can't actually play. I've enlisted Stephanie for this, and she's (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to do this and promises not to divulge any secrets to me. So I'm looking for 6 other people who aren't in much physical contact with each other (i.e. in different cities so you can't conspire over a board together whenever you want) to start up a game. I think it will be moves every 3 days, adjustments over 1 day. Also, I would like to see high-volume emailing and negotiating. So don't say yes if you're going to check your email once a day and maybe get back to someone. 3 days is enough time to send out 1 or 2 emails a day for negotiating. I'm sure we're all good enough typists. Anyway, if you're interested you can post a comment telling me so, or just email me. Once I get 6 more, I'll email out and set this thing up.

Canto LXVIII

And we're back for day two of my week of blog posts. Today's post will be about my trip to Chicago a few weeks ago to visit a friend and go to Lebowski Fest. Well, I'm actually not sure how much there is to tell. They treated me real good, ate some great food, and had some good times bowling. Maybe I'll let a couple pictures do the talking.
Arg, it's really bothering me that I can't get these damn images to rotate correctly. I'll have to figure this out somehow. Anyway, here's me and a buddy out on the lanes.
And me relaxing with a beverage. You know, just enjoying my beverage.

Seriously, it was a great time. This is now the second time I've been to Chicago, and each time my hosts have been superb so they keep making me want to go back. It looks like they'll be visiting New England sometime this summer, so we'll have the chance to finally repay them in kind. What else did we do there? Well besides the food (which was excellent, if somewhat meat-filled), we went to the dollar theater for a viewing of I Am Legend, whilst the school teacher graded her tests. I don't know about that movie, a dollar seemed about right. I guess the DVD has some alternate ending and such. But I doubt I'll ever find out what really happened.

Monday morning, before flying back home, I went downtown to the Art Institute. There's something so pleasing about putting on some nice classical music (Beethoven) and wandering around the Medieval European through to Impressionism section. It just felt right. And I put on some Beck (Odelay) when I got to the Modern Art section. Which also felt appropriate. Again, as I said yesterday, I've been listening to a lot of music lately. But the American Art wing was closed for renovations, so no American Gothic, and Hopper's Nighthawks was in with the special exhibit on Edward Hopper which is touring the country right now. But I'd seen them before, so it was OK, if only a little disappointing. I remember being so impressed with Nighthawks when we saw it for the first time two years ago. It's an amazing painting.

Anyway, good times were had by all. I may have to do another Lebowski Fest. Maybe one will come to Boston. I can only hope.

Canto LXVII

So it's been a little while. Okay, more than a little while. But like the little fighter that could in Punch-Out, I have tapped "A" a bunch and I'm back! I've got a list of topics I want to hit up this week, and some pictures to share. So my plan is a new post every day this week. We'll see if I can hold myself to it.

Today I'm going to talk about music. Mostly because I've been listening to a lot of music lately, but I'm not sure if it's any more than normal. But I feel I must spread the word about a new band I found out about. They're called the 1900's, from Chicago. Here's their MySpace site, and you can give them a listen. A friend of mine from Chicago whose a grad student here gave me their album and now I'm completely in love with them. Sadly, they don't have their title track from the album Cold & Kind. But Bring the Good Boys Home is quite excellent. Just imagine two beautiful women singing in harmony the following lyrics:

"I don't believe I've ever told you
Something about my murderous mind,
That it's cold & kind and filled with hate,
Like strange attractors that keep their shape over time."

They're totally awesome. A nice hippie band, remind me a lot of Buffalo Springfield, only with the harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas. The only downside to finding a new band to love is that they have a limited selection available, and I just have to wait for the next album. Sigh.

Next up in my music scene is Guitar Hero/Rock Band. For those who have not played it yet, I just feel sorry for you. It really is a thrill, and I love playing the Bass/Rhythm Guitar. I can't help myself. It's even inspired me to pull my bass off the shelf and make some noise. Man do I suck, but who knows. In the same way I can bench my own weight now (unlike when I started as a slightly paunchy weakling 6 months ago), in a few months maybe I can actually lay down some fat notes. The nice thing about Rock Band, besides the collaborative effort, is that they're putting out new songs every week, so you can keep enjoying new material. They even put out a few Dead songs! Really, the only hole in the repertoire is no Zeppelin. But we all know that they're insanely protective of their music, which is fine, but it would be fun to play drums to "When the Levee Breaks"...

Canto LXVI

Valentine's Day activities! Well, it was a nice enough night. There were even flowers involved.

Steph and I met up after work to eat some food and see a show. Since the theater district is right next to Chinatown, it seemed like a logical place to have some food. There's been one place that Steph has wanted to go to for a while, so that's what we did.

As we walked in, there was no sound, but all the lights were on. We walked upstairs to the restaurant. Still nothing. There was one man at the counter, who quickly beconed us in, and walked us into the main dining area. Now let me tell you the reason we Steph wanted to eat here is that she's heard it's very opulent because it's really a converted theater/auditorium. And it really is, there's trim everywhere, lots of frescoes on the ceiling, a balcony, etc. And it was empty. Completely empty. Never a good sign when you're visiting a restaurant. So we were seated directly in the middle of this place that looked liked it belonged on the set of some 30s gangster film. I counted, there were about 60 tables, seating either 4 or 8 people. So on a busy night, this place can hold 300+, instead it was just dinner for two. It most reminded me of the opening scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. We kept expecting someone with a Tommy Gun to jump out and start shooting, and I was planning an elaborate fight scene and getaway. It was really weird. I think it's pretty clear that we interrupted a huge Chinese Mafia meeting. But the food was decent, and we made it to the show on time.

My Fair Lady was fun. Musicals aren't really my thing, but Steph really loved it, so you should ask her about it.

Canto LXV

Warning - lots of side-thoughts (and therefore parentheses).

After another less-than-exciting Christmas this year, Steph and I decided to splurge a little and upgrade our viewing world. (Personally, all Christmases are less-than-exciting after about age 6, 7 or 8. I mean, I just can't be that excited about the gifts I receive now. I'm grateful and enjoy them an such, but I'm no longer freaking out because I got a new bike or something. The really zealous passion is gone. Maybe if I had gotten a Wii.) We had an older DVD player from a few years ago (a 5-disc carousel - how is that useful for DVDs?!?), and it had a rather annoying habit of freezing or skipping. Usually all you had to do was open and close it and it would be fine, but it was really, really annoying. So I managed to talk Steph into spending a whole $50 for a new DVD player. I figure in a couple of years we'll be in the market for a sweet HD TV and Blu Ray player once Steph's become my sugar momma. (By the way, she's on her way - she interviewed for a job in the library next door to where she works, it went well, and we'll know more in a week or two. Fancier title and more $$$! That can only be a good thing for me!) But to go with our nice, new player, we also did the Netflix thing. I must admit, it's rather nice! We're only doing the 1 DVD at-a-time, unlimited in a month. But this is about as much as we can watch, since we just watch one on the weekend, mail it in, and the next one is here in time for the next weekend. I've been trying to use this as an opportunity to see many movies that I always meant to see, but never got around to. Thus far my contributions are Midnight Cowboy, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and High Noon. Steph has supplied Star Trek II, Star Trek IV, Spider and Mulholland Drive. I'll let you make your own judgments about that. But it's been fun and provoked some interesting discussion about the movies afterwards.

We've also been watching the HBO mini-series Rome, thanks to my officemate's special lady friend. It's really good! I may get annoyed about some of the inter-personal stuff and it's role in the larger historical events, but I can still say it's been a lot of fun to watch. It's like Star Wars, in that it's following 2 minor characters (Titus Pullo and Lucius Varenus vs. R2-D2 and C-3PO) that are center stage to the defining people and events of the age. Done with the first season, we'll get around to the second season soon.

In some technical news, I put together all the pieces for our computer, have a Windows XP boot disc (CD), but it's not working yet. I'm very unhappy about this. Our glorious new machine should be done by now! The problem seems to be the hard drive. I know we need to partition and format it before we can install stuff on it, but for some reason it never gives me the option to do so. I think I know what the problem is, but we don't have a 3.5" floppy drive to install the RAID drivers. So now we need to get a USB floppy drive or something like that. Sigh. It's almost done.

Canto LXIV

FUCK SHIT FUCK GOD DAMN IT FUCK FUCK FUCK

I just wasted 2 days of my life trying to fix an "error" in my calculations. I knew my earlier result was right, but then due to some additional thought, I realized I was doing it wrong. And then everything went to hell. But now I have realized what I was doing wrong the second time around, and have recovered the initial result I calculated. It turns out that 2 wrongs do make a right in some cases, which what happened when I first did the calculation, but that only fixing one of the wrongs just fucks everything up. But all better now. I just want those 2 days of my life back.

Canto LXIII

Alright, so it's been 2 months. Here's a recap, bulletin-style!

- Thanksgiving. Awesome. We made a "surprise" trip back to Oregon to see the family for Thanksgiving dinner. It really was a surprise, and we had a great time. The following week, we took off and visited a few people in the Portland/Eugene area, and also stayed at Black Butte. It was perhaps our most restful vacation back to Oregon, which was quite a change. If we didn't get to see you, so sorry, better luck next year!

- End of school. Finally. Our class did very well, coming 2nd in terms of grade average out of 7. Not bad for someone teaching his first real class ever, and someone who doesn't care (that's me!). Glad it's over, now I have until next September to do this thing we call "research". Time to Get Smart!

- Christmas. Well, with us having taken Thanksgiving off in Oregon, we stayed here in Cambridge. Christmas day, we had some people over (2 Indians, 2 Americans), and that was a lot of fun. But mostly it was about sleeping in and being lazy. I think our vacations this winter we by far the most lazy we've ever had. Not that we're complaining, it was very refreshing. When I finally got back to work, it was weird. I woke up in the morning with the alarm, but I was actually rested and ready to do stuff. Not sure exactly how long that lasted, since that feeling is gone now, but it was noticeably different for a little while. I miss vacation already.

- January. It's been both very cold and unseasonably warm around here. But there's snow on the ground now, so that's nice. I do like the snow. Not too much going on for me work/school wise. I'm getting better about budgeting my time, but still not great at it. The problem is, I find some interesting problem to work on, and I know I should only spend a day or two, but maybe it needs more than that? A week, maybe two. But there are plenty of other things that I need to read about, calculate, as well as non-research stuff that I'm doing like seminars and talks. That time-tuner from Harry Potter doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. I promise I won't kill my own grandpa! I just need a few extra hours in a day!

- More school. I'm taking a ceramics class, Basic Cups and Bowls. It's been a lot of fun! The lady teaching the class said it was the best therapy for stress that she knows. It's true, you start working with some clay on the wheel, and it's just fun. Among the other things I'm doing at work, I'm now the organizer for the Friday Lunch Club talks for the graduate students in the CTP. I'm trying to force them to actually practice giving talks, and there seems to be some success. The only way to become a better speaker is to actually speak in front of an audience. But they (my fellow grad students) were really only willing to do that if the faculty were un-invited. So I had to send out the email that said to many esteemed physicists (and some Nobel Prize winners) that they were not welcome at these talks any more. I tried to be polite, and I think it's for the best. I'm giving the first talk, in a little under 2 weeks, on February 8th. It's going to be on Bound State Quantum Field Theory, I'm really excited. I just learned about this topic last summer while doing a side research project. There was a retreat this week up in New Hampshire with the whole theory group and it was a lot of fun. The talks were pretty good, although I really feel someone needs to point out that after an hour or so, most people can't keep processing new material. There's a point diminishing returns, and when the speaker and the 2 interested people in the audience keep going on for almost 2 hours, it's a little hard. We need more, shorter talks, spaced throughout the day, rather than a few long talks.

- I've also been lifting with some regularity thanks to some friends, and I'm taking a squash class this spring. I've realized that I need a class or partners to make myself do these things other wise I'll just keep putting it off. Gotta stay healthy! Steph and I are trying to finish up Zelda - Twilight Princess, which we started a year late over Christmas. Then Final Fantasy XII for me, then I think I'm done. Seriously. No more. We also are finally replacing the computer that Tim willed onto us 3 1/2 years ago, and is now more than 5 years old. Yes, our home computer (not the one that I'm typing one right now, thank god!) is 1.3 GHz Pentium with 384 GB of RAM and a monstrous 40 GB hard drive. (Don't worry, we have an external 100 GB one as well, but it's hooked up through... USB 1.0!) But we decided to have an adventure with it, and are building our own. We have the case, motherboard, CPU, and RAM bought. We still need to get the hard drive and optical drive, but those should be in the next week or so. Then we'll take a day one of these weekends and see if we can't get it to work! There's always something so satisfying about doing it for yourself. Maybe with our tax rebate, we'll buy a nice flat-panel monitor. Will that help our economy, or the Chinese? And lastly, my 10 year High School reunion is now officially upon me. Lincoln '98 will be reunionizing this July 4th weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. How many crack addicts do you think we managed to produce?

Okay, well that's pretty much all my news from the last 2 months. Exciting, I know. Now to post some comments to let people know I'm not dead.