May 2008 Archives

Oh, those silly undergrads. I parked my car next to the eating clubs last night (since my office is on the same street). When I returned after working late, I noticed something on my windshield...a piece of meat. It was a circular cut of Salami (I think? As a vegetarian, this is hardly my area of expertise). The best part, though, was that the prankster had cut out a smiley face in the meat. The meat was positioned on the driver's side of the windshield at about eye-level. I guess I was supposed to hop in the car, turn on the lights and be scared by the face? Well, not so much. Nice try, rookies.

Grad student 1, undergrads 0.

I've been in denial for a few weeks now. The signs looked ominous and the data was discomforting, but still I clung to the hope that things would start to go in a positive direction again. But, now, after the events of the past few days, I think it's finally time to admit that it's over.

My home-brew TiVo is dead.

(What? You thought I was talking about something else?)

I "called it" at 12:46pm on May 24. Cause of death: hard drive failure. *Sniff*. The MythTV-based DVR lasted exactly three years, as one of the first things it recorded was the Champions League Final of 2005. It blew out just before it could record this year's final, and two weeks of recovery efforts ended in failure.

Ah, well, I'll have to buy a new hard drive. I think I'll go with Ubuntu instead of Fedora for the Linux distro this time around, as Ubuntu seems to be the new standard. Hopefully this installation will be easier than the first go-round.

At the politics department picnic, they set up a moon bounce for the kids....and, of couse, the grad students. Three of us "kids" wanted to go on, but the rule was only two adults at a time, so I boon-bounced with TJ*, a 6-yr-old child of a faculty member. Once inside, I remember that I had my rubber RSI ball on me, so we started throwing that around and wrestling for it. After our time in the moon bounce was up, TJ wanted to go again, but we had to wait for the next group to have their turn. The following conversation ensued.

TJ: You should get a tatoo!
Me: Um...ok.
[We walk over the fake tatoo station.]
TJ: Get the pirate one!
Me: Ok.
TJ: Put it on your forehead.
Me: ...okay.

(I'm not a sucker for kids at all! /sarcasm) Thus I walked around with a pirate on my forehead for the rest of the day. I received some distressingly weird looks at the D-Bar later last night; I miss MIT, where no one would have batted an eye.

*name changed so I don't violate any Internet laws.

Our ISP's being a clown
So now I'm wearing a frown
A series of tubes?
One must need some lube:
For three hours my Net's been down

Maybe the fault lies elsewhere
And obama's behind this scare
There's no act too low
Where they wouldn't go
Since his wins are increasingly rare

No matter for this Hoosier state--
It's really a matter of fate
There's no better pal
HRC's our gal
Tomorrow night we'll win by eight!