Question of the day.

Did I hear the morning news correctly? The Caltrain representative they interviewed actually suggested that if you're going to commit suicide, you should take pills from the drugstore instead of jumping in front of a Caltrain.

He didn't mention anything about how life is precious.

He didn't mention anything about getting help.

He didn't mention anything about how jumping in front of a train is an incredibly painful way to go.

No, he's pissed off that you'd delay thousands of commuters by stopping the trains and gumming up the tracks.

I wish it were a cold and not hayfever.

Because then I could look forward to getting better. And I wouldn't have to explain to people that I am not contagious.

Questions of the day.

Does the train ever really hit the car? Isn't more along the lines of the car gets in the way of the train?

Weekend Accomplishments

1. Finished "Winning the Loser's Game", which is actually a fantastic read and would have gone much faster had it not been required for this quarter's class.
2. Discovered that while you can caramelize sugar in the microwave, you probably should not. The reason being that microwave-safe bowls do not heat to the same temperature as the sugar, making pouring the stuff out onto the cooling sheet surprisingly difficult.
3. Spent a pleasant hour unsticking the sugar from my teeth. Happy memories of taffy. Would have been a happy memory of peanut brittle, except the store-bought brittle isn't quite so tough.
4. Shopped while fried. Apparently looked so pathetic several women offered to help me on two occasions, both time to take the shopping cart away from me.
5. Sent an electronic birthday card. Added an extra year to the recipient's age because I thought it was 2008 when I computed the difference.

One holiday I dislike...

...is Mothers' Day. Not because I disagree with honoring my mother, but because I disagree with the marketing tactics. If they're right, I'm supposed to indulge my mother with chocolate, chicken, and salmon (to name a few things), and she would very much like flowers, jewelry, chocolate, and electronics (cellphone, not a big-screen TV). And I can call her for free, but only if she's in India.

Maybe I'll get her that big-screen TV after all.

The hunt for the best gift.

In my opinion, the best gifts are "brilliantly useless". When you first take them out of the box, they seem pretty useless. They might waste your time, take up space, or go in the gift closet. They bear no resemblance to anything the recipient had on his/her wish list or registry. Their true value becomes apparent over time (which is why you should never, ever, clear out the gift closet). When they become valuable, they become really valuable. Not necessarily as valuable as, say, a bottle of water would be to you in the middle of the desert, but certainly valuable.

The best example of this I've received is probably a set of coasters. When I received them, I didn't have my own place, and we were inclined to set drinks directly on the furniture anyway. Now that I have my own place, they've become incredibly useful. They even match the decor, which is amazing, because I don't really have much of a decor, but they match what little there is. They get used quite often (although by the end of the evening we usually set the drinks directly on the furniture anyway; it's all in the company you keep).

I'm not sure what would be the best example of a brilliantly useless gift I've given. Possibly "The Field Guide to Stains", because I imagine it probably used up a significant amount of the recipient's time when first received (just flipping through the thing). As the years passed, it probably took up a significant amount of shelf space (it's rather thick). And eventually it because useful for obvious reasons.

For the next gift I give, I'm determined to make it as brilliantly useless as possible. I have already scrapped the first two ideas. The first because the technology is still rather new, and there's a good chance the item will become just useless in a short amount of time. The second I've almost scrapped, but not quite, because I haven't decided just how briliantly useless it will be. On the one hand, the recipient could be so incredibly well-organized and endowed with the right capacity that the item will never, ever achieve its full brilliantly useless potential. On the other hand, it could turn out to be as brilliantly useless as I think it could.

Life's a gamble, isn't it?

Chassis #5

I have replaced everything on this notebook except for the battery.
Let me tell you about chassis #5.
Chassis #5 is almost as lovely as chassis #1. It's clean, except for a bit of dirt on the F3 key. The keys are barely sweated on. There's hardly any hair in the keyboard.
Let's see how long chassis #5 survives.

Question of the day.

You mean, they didn't tattoo that on your rear end when you joined?

Answer of the day.

No.

Question of the day.

Am I studying hard enough for Saturday's midterm?

The best investment advice.

After years of research, trial, and error, I have determined that the best way to build your portfolio is to write a best-selling book about investment advice.

Question of the day.

The press asks a candidate for political office if he/she knows the price of milk to demonstrate said candidate is out of touch with average people.

What would happen if the candidate replied that he/she doesn't know because they're lactose intolerant?

Quiz Time!

You've driven up to the bottom leg of a T intersection. Cross traffic does not stop. You have a stop sign. You normally turn right to get to Safeway. You want to go to Safeway. But today, they've closed the right arm and put up cones and signs to that effect. What do you do?

A) Turn left, go around the block, and turn into Safeway using another driveway.
B) Turn right and mow down the cones in front of the police station. Ignore the shouts of the other drivers as they tell you you're going the wrong way. (It's OK. You're in a minivan, so the laws of physics and the road don't apply to you.)
C) Make a U-turn into oncoming traffic in front of the police station and go back the way you came. (It's OK. You're in an SUV, so the laws of physics and the road don't apply to you.)

Question of the day.

Isn't it silly that trans fats have turned saturated fats from evil to good?

It's delicious.

J should be getting her birthday gift soon. It will probably arrive a few days after the actual date. This is fine. This will be the closest I've gotten it in years.

How much did it cost to send it? $6.66. Will it arrive on time and intact? With a price like that, does it really matter?

Question of the day.

Where are my grades?

Question of the day.

What are chocolate covered strawberries but a race against time?

Statement of the day.

Isn't that the definition of insanity?

It's a website. I am trying to update something on it. It takes a long time to come back with a non-error. That is, it's an error and the thing didn't go through, but the page telling me that doesn't exist, so I get a page not found error. There are no other buttons, like "save" or "modify" that are relevant to my desired action. So I keep clicking the same button, "update", expecting something different will happen.

I'd stop clicking "update", except when I was clicking the other button for a different action, it also kept failing until it finally went through.

Things I didn't need this week because finals are on Saturday.

Team member bailing out of doing the presentation, even though he insisted all day that he was up to the task.

Kitchen flooding. The drain pipe thingy has decided it doesn't want to drain into the sewer line anymore. It has decided the floor is a much better place.

The knowledge that if I didn't have finals, I'd probably diagnose and fix the drain problem myself. It would just take a few hours and a trip to the hardware store. Instead, I have what looks like an expensive date with the plumber and no sense of accomplishment.

Sending e-mail to the wrong disti list.

Report, due Saturday, in less than decent shape, given all the questions we have for one of the teammates.

The real possibility that this quarter's projects could be rendered null and void for want of real communication.