The Original "Data"

Ah, vacation time. The classes part of my first term at Princeton finished last week: I've got one final to study for and two term papers to write by the week of January 23rd. I've been seriously procrastinating on my two projects, but that procrastination has included seeing lots of fun people, so I feel that it's been productive. (For the curious, project #1 is an extension of ecological inference to identify swing voters more effectively and project #2 is an algorithm to solve a specific type of Baron-Ferejohn bargaining games).

Last Friday, roommie and I threw an end-of-term game night party. I made potato latkes (with help from Chicklet who stopped by earlier that day) and roommate baked absolutely delicious 7-layer candy bars. So unhealthy, yet so good. Turnout that night was excellent, and after reminiscing about the term-that-was, we played cranium and taboo. Taboo was guys vs girls, and we think the girls won (despite being down a person), but we're not sure because Dave decided to surreptitiously add tallies to the boys' score throughout the match.

Saturday I drove down to NoVA, with a stop in Maryland for the Camp Wigwam DC-Baltimore reunion at Dave and Busters. I destroyed my (college-aged) cousin in several D&B "sports," including basketball, knock hockey, horse racing, and a WWII gunner game. I failed to shut him out though, as I did lose by 10 points in skee-ball.

Saturday night was a Holiday party, West Wing crew (the original cast) style. The hosts really showed roommie and me up with their 300+ cookie collection--about double what we made (see prev post). The White Elephant swap worked well for me (for the second year running), as I walked away with a DVD version of "The Goonies." I borught a "Nuns Having Fun" calendar, which induced much laughter from the crowd. (Who doesn't like Nuns on roller skates?) That night I stayed up late to watch the Goonies for the first time and discovered the namesake of my nickname on the Dean campaign.

Sunday was another double-event day, with me attending my first Pidyon Haben, as Abi and Josef had a baby boy one month ago. He was a very cute kid, but had some stiff competition for cutest kid in the room as Isaac and Eva's also brought their baby. Saw other MIT folk in addition to those two couples: I hope to have treo pics up by next posting.

After the Pidyon Haben, and a short stop at home, I crossed over to Maryland again for Kate and Jeff's holiday party. Met lots of new people, including a couple from Haveford who knew my friend Karen. The discussion ranged from the usual (politics) to the erudite (John Irving), and from the pop culture (movie posters) to the nerdy (Jay and Silent Bob movie posters).

Monday, with a visit to the Mellman Group, began my three days of trips into the city. I arrived at TMG a the perfect time--they had just finished a holiday bake-off, which meant lots of yummy food for me. We had a "Tech Cabal" meeting, where I recommended that they use more Google products (can't go wrong there!). Tuesday I visited J-Bird at his new hangout, Wake-up Walmart, which is having great success. I think I may have even found a new employee for him.

Tuesday evening, I was off to Enjanerd and ITP's new place, where I delivered what was apparently a "classy" gift, and received a much more edible gift in return. You can read all about my visit on Enjanerd's site; I don't have much to add other than I think their place is in a great location, and is an excellent place to live except for the 1950's-era dishwasher :)

Wednesday I conferred with Khicks about her new project and we took a short walk to Kramer books, where she perused books for her upcoming trip to Mexico. I cracked open "Yiddish with Dick and Jane" instead. I really need to brush up on my Yiddish, because I didn't know two-thirds of the words in the story. That evening, the West Wing crew had a group dinner at Il Radicchio (highly recommended), which included surprise visits from Jon (traveling from C-ville) and Sean (traveling a bit farther--from London).

Which brings us to yesterday, when I finally started to work on Project 1. (I had been doing small stuff on Project 2 throughout the week). I'm a bit overwhelmed since Project 1 requires me to go through reams of someone else's (mostly undocumented) code looking for bugs. Yay! (That's sarcasm, btw.) But thankfully, that task was interrupted by the need to go to Ted's party, which began at the Olive Garden. Saw Enjanerd and ITP again; ITP was none to pleased with the service--something about the waitress no knowing what "neat" meant and then just dumping out the ice. Since Ted treated (THANKS!), ITP didn't get any say on the matter of the size of the tip, which was probably to the benefit of our server.

The party moved to Ted's place where we played charades (what else), lightning charades and the surrealist game. The surrealist game is a very cool group game: one person has to describe one noun (e.g., a pocket) in terms of pretending to be another noun (e.g., a flagpole) and get the rest of the people to guess the first noun. The clues must be true of a single instance of the second noun. In our example, the good clues were:

• I'm a flagpole which allows you to keep things (like a flag).
• I'm a flagpole which allows you to keep small things.
• I'm a flagpole which is next to a clothing store.

And thus people guessed pocket. (Obvious, right? ;). Here's an exercise for the reader. The second object is penguin.

• I'm a penguin that is discolored.
• I'm a penguin that feels a lot of pain.
• I'm a penguin that has unbroken bones.

So what's the first noun?