Posts from — November 2006

Nice… Rapping Paper: wrapping paper with printed rap lyrics.

Anyone who changes their vote because John Kerry messed up a joke is an idiot. It’s amazing how many of the news stories (you know, from the liberal press) about the gaffe don’t include any of the lines leading up to the education comment. In context, it’s much more clear that he was intending to make fun of the President, and looking at the written prepared remarks, the transition is much more clear. He definitely screwed up, and should apologize, regardless (which he did). There are some other people related to the Iraq war who should apologize, too, to say the least…

I’m always amazed at how talented a vocalist Stephen Colbert is. On the Daily Show’s 2004 election DVD there was a clip of the correspondents singing the national anthem, and it was really excellent. In the last week or so, Stephen has sung with two guests on the show: Democratic Candidate John Hall (of Orelans) and Barry Manilow. Those links might not work too long, since Viacom is stupidly cracking down on youtube posts of their content, but that rant is for another day.

This post won’t have anything political in it, I promise.

Some thoughts, in bullet form…

• I went for a run today for the first time in a long while. I literally ran my errands… mailing a letter, picking up some paperwork for graduation, dropping off paperwork for graduation, etc. It was a good use of time, and it was a perfect day for it.
• Last weekend I went to DC to visit some friends from High School who live there (plus Patrick stopped by!). It was a lot of fun, though I don’t have any good stories to tell since most of them have turned out to be “you had to be there” jokes. Hopefully a few of them will make it up here in a couple of weeks.
• I had dinner with Jon Howard (a friend from Google, no relation to the Australian Prime Minister) on the way back in King of Prussia. It was a lot of fun to catch up with him.
• A lot of people who used to post on their journals don’t anymore. That’s too bad… I enjoyed reading.
• I haven’t stayed up late (like, after 4) in a long time. It’s probably related that I’ve been a better student this semester than most, but I do miss staying up late.
• On a related note, I miss coding with Tim and Humberto (independently). I was reading through some old journal entries today that made me realize that.
• Also looking back on old posts, I realize that I’ve stumbled into the right decisions a whole lot in the last 4 years. Things that seemed like inconsequential decisions have paid off much more than I expected, with huge effects on my life.
• I installed Ubuntu linux on my desktop, replacing Debian which had been there since late Freshman year. It’s pretty similar… perhaps I’ll write about it later.
• I’m going to be playing clarinet in Bethlehem Municipal Band (warning, music on page load) for their Christmas concert… assuming everything goes according to plan.
• This journal isn’t indexed by search engines, largely so that it doesn’t come up if you search for my name (like potential employers might). It’s not that I have all sorts of terrible things on here, I just like that level of privacy. The downside is that I can’t search through my old posts for something, which is occasionally annoying when I want to find something from years ago (this journal goes back to May 2003).
• I don’t use titles on many of my posts, which makes them even harder to find… maybe I should change that.