I ran out of websites to read. I figure the easiest cure is to create my own. Ok, I did that. Now i'm bored again.

Well two small points of good news. A, the IT test got regraded on a few questions, without the curve being changed, so now I have an A on it. Which is what I should have had originally, since it was just nitpicky and dumb, but that got somewhat fixed.

So I'm on a cleaning kick, its the combo of guests showing up tomorrow, the weekend and next weekend, and general final urge to do it. Amazing really, but hey, clean is good when I feel motivated to do it. Besides, there were a few weeks of backlogged dishes, so its important to get to the bottom of the stack so we can start again from scratch.

I'm glad the world likes the newly fixed phone, i'll be sure to upgrade my electronics in the future. Except I've lost my cable box remote again. Its handy nearly everything I watch is on NBC now.

There was yet again something I was going to mention. I called blue nile about my watch, they said it was in the 'we're looking at it department' and would contact me today or tomorrow. should be interesting at least, but boy are they slow! well, its past midnight so i can go to sleep. have more cleaning and general thursday stuff to occupy myself with. it should be fun!

So I finally got bored/annoyed at the piece of foam that had migrated onto the screen of my phone. So I dug out my trust torx-6 screw bit and disassembled my phone. I also did some cleaning while it was sitting on my desk. Overall much better, and it works fine after putting it back together. And I decided the phondom was a bit annoying, so its back to basic black for the moment. Its like a whole new phone, very exciting really. And I have a newfound appreciation for how complicated and small my phone really is. Most of the weight is the battery, most of the size is extra plastic to make it comfortable. Yay for electrical engineering.

As usual, I meant to discuss some other stuff, but i forgot what that is. so it'll have to wait.

So yay, my evening went well. I think Mitch's take on Chaircraft IV will be worthwhile, and I didn't need to bother doing it. I did writeup my IT stuff, which was only a pain in the neck, but its done.

I bought a cool pot and a strainer which is supposed to be for frying. It'll work great for pasta. And I got some handles! so I can stop burning my hands, or using towels. So much fun. And some silverware, because you know, Its about time I upgraded my silverware to at least the same level as a diner.

I like stores that have discounts off of their given prices. Of course they could have those prices all the time, but you know, its all about the expectation, and I like that.

My evening went well otherwise, so its good that way. I'm tired and its sorta late, so I may write more if I don't; need to help mitch with stuff during lunch. it'll be fun, assuming i stay awake from IT.

Nothing else is really exciting, but I added the super happy new fun picture section. Isn't that exciting? I'd say pretty productive for one day's work. I'm open to comments and such on it as well.

Nothing else is really interesting, We have boring fire inspections tomorrow (I guess our landlord likes us) sometime between 10 and 1, so i probably should wakeup for that. Otherwise nothing else is really happening, you know the usual monday stuff.

I started making alist of broken MINI stuff, its currently at about 7 things. (they're all pretty minor). Funny though, that i need to make it, so i don't accidently forget something. i'm sure something else is interesting, but i've run out of things to say, and i didn't do anything today except laundry and futz with pictures.

my hair's wet. isn't that exciting? might have to do with showering.

So amanda (mitch's girlfriend, i think i've mentioned that) aparently decided to convince some girl to call me, so she told me this to warn me of its occurance. funny how once i find someone more than remotely interesting online, the amanda 'have coffee with female' service comes through. i'll have to update as necessary on how this occurs.

i talked to my brother for 1:47 (it was on the cell) today. we didn't really say anything, i told him my thoughts on a gift, he seemed to like it, but i still don't know what i want. still a problem, and no suggestions from the floor yet. i think i'll probably end up going skiing with him sometime in dec, either in california or whistler (in BC). He also aparently in additon to making ice cream from scratch that ends up costing like $6 for 1 1/2 quarts is now roasting his own coffee. the upside of this is its actually cheaper, but still an odd idea. for anyone who complains i'm a food snob or too yuppie, there's always more options. (the funny part of course is he doesn't think FIJI is much exciting, so drinks water from his fridge that filters it)

Mitch brought back his snowboard from pittsburgh, so i guess we have plans of doing something snow related. I'm trying not to judge too harshly the idea of midwest skiing. maybe it won't be as awful as it sounds.

i listened to a mix tape today. its the first time i've listened to a tape in eons. it was sorta cool, a collection i got as a present from the guy who taught me to drive, a bunch of classical wind ensemble things. oh well, its monday tomorrow, that means i can go eat at subway and get pissed again. i also need to find out what to do with some precooked louis rich chicken strips that expire in the next week. i'm just not feeling motivated to do anything with them. i have roasted, italian and i think southwest. i should have of course planned this before i went to the market. i think a taco salad is a good idea for the southwest stuff, italian i dono, more pasta, even though i don't have any pasta since i made this week's fresh pile and only have frozen tortellini, and roasted seems to want some pitas, maybe i'll get them at the co-op. or maybe i'll just not talk forever about decisions based on chicken pieces. need to catchup on the sleep i gained last night. or catchup on sleep logic, either or.

So Shareef reminded me of something. I haven't ever gone to Rhode Island and taken a picture in front of Mr. Potato head. sad really, he for some reason asumed that's where Mike and I took the infamous 'we visited RI' picture. Not sure, but he has a good point that it'd make sense.

So i have nearly cleaned the dining room! its amazing, though now it looks really empty, need to find something to do with it once I finish cleaning tomorrow.

Umm, I got bored and went and got brown sugar to go with the bananas i bought yesterday. now i can have my special canadian treat of bananas in milk with brown sugar. so exciting! (its only canadian because i always had it in montreal, usually over passover)

Nothing else exciting to report. no, really nothing. i did send my thankyou note to interview guy. thanks for all reminding me. hrmph. (hrmph.org even!)

Well, so medtronic went well. I don't know (because I forgot to ask) when they'll get back to me, but this isn't a huge problem. When i send my thankyou email I may ask...Amazing how things suddenly perk up. Lets hope they stay that way.

So i went shopping, I got these cool looking premade kebobs. I think a combo of them being a bit odd and the george foreman, caused them to be steamed and generally mediocre. I guess I'll just make the white asparagus tomorrow and hope it all works out ok. oh, and more quiche. because we all like quiche. Like the greek spinach quiche. Which has of course as you'd guess feta. But it also has mozarella and provelone. The normal spinach you ask. Swiss. I obviously don't think like the quiche makers.

Nothing else exciting to report, but hey that's what weekends are for. Oh, i found good cheescake, I'm eating it now. Its good. nice how this works. And so I'm going to the springsteen concert on nov 9th, I drove by the CSU auditorium thing, the American Idol tour is coming on the 8th!. So if I hurry up, I can do american idol, MINI meet, and Springsteen. or not. I'll have to decide, maybe something more interesting can happen. Time for sleep now in any case since I didn't get enough last night.

I get the feeling I slept too much yesterday. (It ended up being about 12 hours if you're counting) Since I'm still awake, I figured I'd bring up two more topics.

I was thrilled to see Egg Nog available when I went shopping on wednesday. I figured I'd be healthy and try the light stuff, which was in a quart sized plastic 'quick chug' thing, for only $1.50. My excitement over the season starting was quickly squished by it tasting really bad. like fake custardy/watery/crap. Sigh, I'll have to find better stuff.

I know there was something else I was going to mention, but I've decidely forgotten already, (might have to do with the time). I think i'll just point out sleep is good, and works best when you actually do it. Oh, I know, I plan to go to the market tomorrow. I'm not sure why this is news. Hopefully the interview will allow me to do it, though if not, Saturday works fine for marketing (though I plan to clean the huge pile of stuff in the dining room). I think If the interview goes well, I'll be happy to reschedule a fair amount.

So have other random people stopped reading (Laura, Rachel?, (Gretchen??)) or did you just stop posting comments?

You never want to assume that life's looking up. You could be about to get a swirly, and be forgetting you're upside down. However, talking to medtronic at the info session, I managed to get them to let me take an interview slot (2pm tomorow, so I have to leave marketing early, but oh well). Amazing when things actually work out. So we'll have to hope from there.

And oh, In the 'meeting new females' dept, Amanda (Mitch's girlfriend) Aparently invited me to go to dinner at 'Tony's' (I don't know if this is Tony Romas or something else) on Sunday, with Mitch. Some sort of Hillel thing (odd I now get invited to Hillel and might actually go). Oh and I went out and played pool with Mitch and Val tonight. And umm, on the continued subject of Amanda, two of her friends are aparently sleeping over here next weekend. Mitch seemed to think it was necessary to ask me and Reefi if we cared if females were sleeping in the living room. Ha. Yeah well, being courteous is nice.

Hrm, I have some more cool pictures, I do need to find a way to put them up. (The best one is Mitch with a pair of jeans and boxers balanced on his head 'towel rap' style. He still isn't sure how this happened, he just sort of did it).

Anyway, its oddly late, we stayed up discussing cars and such, So I'll go to sleep now. Need to be all awake for medtronicy superness.

Well actually, I wasn't trying to 'steal' anyone's favourite berry, (though I recall a large discussion on michigan cherries, never blueberries until this more recent Maine kick). So if someone knows of something that's blue, and not a berry. Or not totally awful, then that could work too. Like umm, a glacier.

I was thinking of some other things, but nothing worth mentioning in here. I emailed the contact I had at guidant, he said umm, err we don't usually like people with a GPA below 3.5, even though you did well in grad school. He did say he'd forward my email to the people doing the interview, so we'll see if they actually got it, one would think they didn't, or they don't feel like contacting me, since I haven't heard anything. But hey, that's what makes it fun, I can go try and squeep an interview with medtronic at their info session tomorrow night!. Which annoyingly is at 6, the exact time band ends, so I need to leave that early. such problems.

Oh btw, FIJI is wonderful. I had missed it so. Its even good in random molson glasses from the distillery, since it was the only glass I had left that was clean. (I did feel like bottle drinking or plastic cup drinking). Oh, that's the other thing. If you recall my link to that web enabled fridge. The wall street journal reviewed it, nothing really interesting, except they said umm, yeah its not quite worth $8000, but maybe it would be worth $1500 over a normal fridge.

For your amusement for the evening, the link to the definitive "Are you pondering What I'm pondering" list.

So I downloaded the pictures of the drive from my camera. They're slightly interesting. Helen - if your mom thought your pictures were awful, she should see the ones you took.... Anyway I promise to have them up quite shortly, but I need to find a sane method for making a page for them. One of them is the picture of the Wilkes-Barre wegs, which I stopped for lunch at, got a sub (not as good as dibella's but we'll deal. At least the service is better then any subway ever) Its the first wegs I've been to with a view. Oh, and they have FIJI!! So I stocked up with 26 1.5 liters' and 4 6 packs of 1/2 litres. Should last me till december when I can stock up again. All is good in water land.

So aparently people actually still use chewing tobacco. I was at a gas station and someone asked for it, but also there's an add for copenhagen in maxim. How odd! personally, i'd need something more then 'Fresh Cope. It satisfies' to sell me on the stuff.

Oh yeah, the last topic. I'm bored, but I can go fight and try to get an interview or 10 tomorrow from guidant and medtronic. Maybe that will perk me up. Otherwise nothing exciting to mention from the drive or anything else really. Its just one of those nights for sleep early, and class tomorrow. Aparently I didn't even miss getting the tests in IT back, they're getting handed out tomorrow, so something fun to happen in the morning. I'm sure that simply will help me wakeup. or something.

EDIT: I completely forgot the topic I was going to talk about. (Blueberries). Since everyone seems to like naming their cars, and the offical name of mine should be tubamobile nimmt vier, I think I need a better name. (A prof's lincoln LS being named the silver bullet reminded me of how cheesy most car names are). Anyway, so all I could come up with during boring PA was snowtopped blueberry (or frosted blueberry?) or eggplant. I like the blueberry idea, but it seems sorta lame. I think I know why no Ads have Indi's in them, because nothing is naturally blue with a white roof. this is problematic. Any suggestions? (see I make it easy to leave comments.)

Yay for random Poe references. Boo for not enough comments. That's 26 entries and only 24 comments. Obviously people are not doing their job. If they're too lazy, then go find more people to read, then you all need to do less work. Minus reading, that's lots of work.

To err is Human, To cover it up Weasel. (I love dilbert)

So I had the exciting oportunity to ponder whether squirrels can run backwards. One of them was sitting in the street on the way to 'that guy who i made a damn page for and is unappreciative's' house, and had to decide if they could go backwards, as missing said squirrel by vering left could cause it (i didn't pick it up to check sex, I was driving!) (motoring, maybe, I had the windows and sunroof open, and the seats turned on high and heat aimed to my hands. It was a nice fall day, not my fault it was 44 degrees). So yeah, veering left would make it close to the right tire. However straddling it might make it run into the right tire, but would split my bets. I decided after much deliberation to go left and hope it couldn't go backwards. It didn't, but that didn't answer the original question. Odd how I had so much time to ponder this, but whatever.

Sweetest day: is a holiday american greetings (I'd link it, but there's this god awful popup, and worse a popup flash/java bear on the front page). created. They're an ohio company, so they decided to perk up business during october by creating valentine's #2. Its october 19th. It also seems to only exist in Ohio and Michigan. sad really. handy that I'm single and can avoid such holidays though.

So mommie testdrove the MINI today. She liked it, and was amazed with the roominess inside. And that it cost about as much as a VW. (ahem certain person.) I was going to say something else about the car. As usual I forgot. Do'h.

Klaus gave me change in the form of a roll of quarters!. Its so exciting, I can do laundry for two weeks without actively saving. So much fun. Anyway, time for sleep. I have the boring/long ride ahead of me, but all in all the visit was well worth it. so yay for that.

Well, So tomorrow is the not very big monday. But i need to decide what kind of glasses I want. You know, paper or plastic. Well ok, metal or plastic. The dilemma of fashion versus 'eurotrash' and someone put it. we'll have to see how it works out.

My suggestion for the evening, is person who needed his own damn version of the blog made should make a helen = english webpage. that way I can fully understand the subtitles of umrghj vs. ierghmh. Its currently very difficult as I'm sure you all know how difficult it is to distinguish the correct murmers, or decypher toothbrushing squeaks. so you know, help me out here.

So while waiting at barnes and noble (after discussing MINI with cute female who knew what it was!, but then ran away :-() I stumbled across a really cool book. I'm going to be quite tempted to continue reading it tonight, however I have to get up in time for glasses, as well as trying to squeeze into 'open' signups for the Guidant and Medtronic interviews. Those open at 8:45, and in theory, I can just stick my name in the 1 remaining space (2 for medtronic). We'll have to see. On the upside, there's a second book already out by Eric Garcia, (you can catch it off that amazon link) so after i read the last 200 pages of this one, I can go and find the next one! Yay!. ok, I'll go to sleep now. Its past midnight (or to read?...?) so the date will be right.

Ok, one more thing. Some people are under the impression I 'like driving' I think this needs clarification. I like 'motoring' in the sense of MINI's definition of it, random driving to fun places for the ride. I also like peaceful contemplation. I also really like curves, and pretty places. I dislike traffic, and I get bored after an hour or so of highway driving, unless I have a cool passenger. Make sense why I don't have urges to drive to incredibly far away places all the time, just hour away places? 4 hours is the limit before I get really bored, but that's still pushing it. now time for bed/book.

So I went out to breakfast, it was cool. I hadn't done it in so long I forgot how cool it was. And hey, an upper west side diner, albeit it logically out of place was even better then most places. Fresh squeezed OJ and cabot butter! ahh, life's good sometimes.

I helped mommie make salmon chowder for some pot luck thing she's going to tomorrow. My big contribution was chopping potatoes and the ocasional tasting and stirring. She seemed pleased that I helped, and she washed a pair of my socks in the regular laundry, so it was a fair tradeoff. even though I did plan enough socks for the week.

according to person who who won't be named, but made me make his own damn personal larger font blog page, I made the highlight of some guy in a yellow MINI with black bonnet stripes and a huge 66 on the side's day because I drove by him in Rhinebeck. He flashed, we waved (I dono if he could tell this). For future reference I've decided double blinking is an appropriate return flash for those ocasion 90 degree MINIs. The upside of the car not being as rare is getting to perfect my waving and flashing skills.

So i meant to get to bed much earlier, aparently mommie and klaus stayed up to discuss things and finish the chowder thing, so they were back when i got home. oh on the subject of home, i got bored and went up to saugerties and checked out my brother's old house. it looks housey. that was exciting for all involved. And to end the night, and the start of sweetest day, I hit 7777 miles on the way back home tonight, but no camera, sorry. Actually crap, I think I had the camera, it was just on the floor and I forgot it. 8888 will be more lucky anyway. I was tempted in honor of sweetest day to stop at Smiles on the way back as well, it seemed to be quite hopping around midnigght, but figured i'd wait to find marcus, or a girlfriend, either would be much simplier.

EDIT: I forgot the squeamish part. Squeamish.org is free, neither .net or .com are, but that still seems ok. Squeamish productions anyone?

Chris stole the computer to talk on MSN messenger of all things, So i feel asleep before I could get an update. But hey, its still the same day 9 or so hours later, So you can all be quiet.

Nothing exciting to report in NY land, but I did realize why NY was cool again, I continue to fit in walking everywhere as fast as possible. Its an amazing change to get rid of the slothing everywhere of the damn midwest. Oh, and krispy kreme, that's another good perk.

Seeing Jackie Chan's "The Tuxedo" is sorta cool too, so I reccomend it if you have $8 to waste (or $10 in manhattan). I'm hungry, so its off to one of the oddly large amount of diners up here, though not as many as drug stores. You'd think people were so lazy since there's one every block. There's not even that many Starbucks!

well, ok, no dead fish, just killed fish. Anyway, uneventful ride, But I did take some pictures, so when I get back to cleveland, I can put them up.

To answer questions, I broke the watch because It came unglued, it really didn't have anything to do with me personally. Its just dumb.

I didn't know your monday schedule, besides, its early, so I didn't want to assume you'd wake up. Oh and you never said you'd do it to me outside of blog land either, so I got confused.

So umm, yeah. I think I'll wash the car tomorrow, it seems like a good rainy day activity. Important to keep it shiny so I can take a train. I can't think of anything else really worth publicizing. Oh yeah, I figured out why the passenger's seat didn't get warm. Its heater appears to be broken. But i'll check that its plugged in tomorrow. Just another fun day in MINILand

quick update/edit:

On unrelated diner news, (or perhaps my new webpage) spittle.org and spittle.net are free! spittle.com is taken but one of those 'email address @' stupid things which generates like 30 popups.

Well I need to get to bed so I can drive scenic I-80. its my new favorite pasttime. On unrelated news, I didn't get any notice on my getting glasses on monday.... Hrm people? I finished cleaning my room, which will make it easier to pack. Stat is done, I mailed it in about 30 min ago, and I've gotten a lead on not having to pay for the shipping of my dumb 2 week old broken watch back. Maybe it can work out.

So hopefully I'll leave sometime tomorrow morning, and then it can get exciting from there. Maybe I'll have an interview or 14...

lookie! Well, so the offset iihs tests aren't available yet, (for those of you too lazy to click that link, its the crash tests for the MINI, it got 4 stars for everything, oddly also 4 rollover) Anyway, so I guess like the other people, I can print it out and show it to people who complain. I do realize of course momentum has to do with things, So I still don't plan on running into a "big truck" as mike would say.

I also have my new impression on females who drive wranglers. Mandy (the BME in MEM who started last year) who I'm working with (as well as radina) on the BIOMEC (wow that was too many capital letters) aparantly drives a rather beat up wrangler. (I didn't remember to look at the headlights to see how old it was, since they've looked the same for ~20 years) Its still quite amusing, as it drives like an old army truck, especially over the rickety bricks on 116th. And its a standard. It also of course made me realize that my car is pretty insanely solid. (Not as solid as say a merc, but well its cheaper).

I have managed to finish the dumb assignment for tomorrow, but it seems as If i'll still need to write it up, since it'll be much faster then explaining to mitch and reefi. oh well. At least I'll get an A in this class. Better plan for that then with IT, which I have the test in, and have yet to study. I was pondering doing that, but got sidetracked writing this and with the crash test. Oh, also amusing on the crash test, aparantly the dummy wouldn't fit in the back seat. go figure, since I can, at least long enough to crash into a wall at 40. Maybe the front seat guy was too damn big. Anyway, off to study IT before I fall asleep.

Oh, so next Monday, 10am, I have an appointment to get an eye exam and new glasses. Anyone in the greater townie area is welcome to come along, since aparantly its with some random guy on 82 who the klaus in law has been going to for 100 years. considering the umm, fashionability of klaus' glasses, I think bringing along selection help is good, especially as I'm so blind I can't tell what glasses look like when they're on. Any volunteers? Don't make me start begging.

can hold you and four supermodels, or you and three dozen rabid, incontinent weasles. Note I said average car. And yeah, so its a random quote, but it was funny, and not about my car.

So I found out today that Stat is cancelled for next week, of course this means 2/3 classes on monday are cancelled, so its all go to go back to NY!. Of course since you all know my schedule by heart, you know I'm now torn on skipping my two classes on friday, so I can drive thursday. Views? No one said anything recently, so I figure this will give you something to comment on.

There was something else amusing I was going to talk about, oh that wal-mart's not going to carry the new acclaim video game (handily for game cube) because its offensive. I don't see how a pimp and his poodle are offensive. stupid wal-mart/family values/middle america.

i need to get up dumbly early tomorrow (leaving at 8:35 for biomec) for the entrpreneurship project. it should be fun though, and i'm interested in the company. I really ran out of funny things to say. Today just wasn't very interesting. I dislike mondays for that reason. Oh I knew what it was, I got the tin mini sign and the clear 3rd brake light to be shipped to me today, as they aparantly arrived at the dealer's last week. so much excitement. maybe they'll be here tomorrow! oh wait, that's car stuff, and thus only interesting to some people. oh shit. thursday I have band... crappy. crappy stuff. And I'll probably miss it one more time, I knew there was something that I was forgetting. I'll have to just see. Ok, i'll probably write more tomorrow, I have to do laundry, so I'm sure I'll be bored, or out of quarters. Its a pain to collect 16 of them every week or so!

Well so I didn't get to sleep, ohh well. Anyway, I have more things to mention. 1. i got an email pointing out I was not judged cool enough by my co-mem students to be on the mem advisory council. I'll get over it, but blah on them. (there were 10 candidates, with 5 chosen).

On other related car news, this guy who I met at the Ohio MINI meet thing, has some more cool pictures on his website the narrative for the grand prix is especially amusing. He works for BMW finance, so he gets a few perks, I guess the tickets to the race were one of them, as well as seeing the Z4. I'll have to hope one's in the dealership when I go to pickup my MINI stuff, I really wonder exactly what that side blinker looks like. Ok, too much car stuff in too short a time. now i'm really going to bed.

So i managed to step on something while walking from the bathroom back here. Its like 20 feet. now my foot hurts. this is annoying. (its like a bruise thing not a sharp/pointy/give you tetnus thing)

On unrelated news, I futzed with the blog setup a bit, and seems most parties seem happy with it. this is exciting in itself. if there's more critisism, well get to critising.

since some of you read metafilter, i figure i won't mention stuff on it that often, but there was a link to www.iusedtobelieve.com which had a very funny collection of things people remember from their childhood. the best one i saw was 'i though teenagers had interesting conversations'.

nothing really interesting happened today, so i can't discuss much about that. in sheep news, i noticed that #5 exists, and talks, but goes for like $50 on ebay. (aparantly you need to buy a mattress to get him) #18, #7 and #70 are all also out there, suposedly #7 is new... I'm not sure if i really want to get into sheep collecting though. such a dilemma. Anyone else have views on replacing bouncing alien guy with a sheep for my buddy icon?

the new colander worked fine. thanks for asking. amazing how much easier it is to make pasta when nearly burning your fingers isn't an expected activity. i feel inclined to say more things, but i can't think of any. i'm irritated at my homework, but i think i can at least get a good jump on it. (maybe if i wear golf shoes it'll get holes in it, and deflate) and i need to wash my car. neither of these should be remotely interesting. i think i'll quit while i'm ahead. i'm sure tomorrow will continue to bring exciting events.

Somebody whined that they couldn't adjust font sizes. (It was previously set to have the text as 11pixels on your screen... is it really my fault if you're blind and can't read 15 pixels?) anyway, so in theory that kept things consistant. I went and changed it a bit, so you can adjust the size of the actual entry. If this screws up other people's readings (or makes the site look ugly) tell me. Perhaps I can find a middle ground. Oh, and my feet are cold. so i'm closing the window.

I just rethought this, now it'll only look remotely human if you have your text size set to what I think it should be (In my case large). that's even dumber then making it 15 pixels. Change your screen resolution if you want to read it.. or complain louder so i find a better solution. its going back to pixels.

Well, so I have lots to talk about, but I'm tired, so I will post this today, and deal with organizing correctly tomorrow. or maybe i'll just fake the time. being in control has its perks. Anyway, i sincerely appologize for not keeping track of mike's eyes. aparantly i should have stared more often. i guess i should continue to recruit readers with non-brown eyes so i can avoid such mistakes in the future.

so i had the concert at severance hall. it went ok, i messed up a few (several) times, and was most annoyed about a lame entrance that i had marked because i screwed it up during rehearsal this afternoon. also my music decided to fight back, so i for the first time didn't get it flat in time to play the notes on the 2nd page. fortunately guy next to me noticed this and played them. he said people 'always miss them' i tried to point out i had never missed them before, but i think he just thinks i'm lame, since he's in the 'unversity circle wind ensemble' and i'm just 'the thursday only guy with the silver tuba'

more about the concert later, but first the pre-concert activities. So I knew that the concert dress was black suit/tux and and a black bowtie. not a problem, so I dug around and found everything except the bowtie yesterday. i dug again today around lunch, and still no luck. deciding that i really did lose it, i figured i'd stop by wal-mart to pick one up, as well as get the colander, since mitch's still stinks. good news, i found a nice plastic colander with a matching bowl for what i though was $2.97 but it really was $2. bad news, aparantly this wal-mart has a whole selection of halloween underwear as well as pleather (labelled pleather) underwear, but nothing in the bow tie area at all. (the underwear was pretty damn bright, so i noticed it, quit asking dumb questions).

so i gave up on that plan, and figured i'd try marshalls, which is a few stores down. they again didn't have any bow ties, however i did manage to find underwear (which was good, since i had run out, and thus it postpones laundry slightly) and a helio clock that was cheap ($13) and includes a thermometer and a hygrometer. it gives it a chronograph look. oh and yeah, that picture has nothing to do with it, but that was the only helio clock i could find anywhere, so i figured i'd link it. the only odd thing is the thermometer goes from -30F to 110F. You'd think a clock that was labelled 'wall clock' and states in its warranty on the back 'this warranty does not apply to a clock which has been subjected to accident (including outdoor use). wouldn't sense a need for such a range, and might find it more useful to be more precise, but i guess its really cold where it was designed. or really hot. indoors. so after buying two things i didn't especially need but were both cheap. i came back and went to the rehearsal, where i asked all the other tubists (there's like 8 of us total) if they had an extra bow tie. none did.

after the rehearsal, (this was 5:30, had to be back at 7:30) i decided i'd check out kaufmanns, so i drove the 15 min out there, to promptly find out no, they didn't have any bow ties. so i drove another 10 minutes east to beachwood place, where i stumbled across dillards. they had bow ties, but only untied ones. i bought one, and the salesclerk said he had just learned how to tie them. i said i didn't know, but the internet would have to tell me as i needed it in 1 1/2 hours. (more like 1:15 by then). Even after telling him this, he neatly folded it in tissue paper and a gift box. i guess he wanted to be sure it wouldn't wrinkle on the way home or something. I stopped to get pizza at the food court and left. once i got back, i showered, and had 10 minutes left. i realizes my wrists aparantly swelled since high school, since i could no longer close the buttons. not to worry, as i just ignored them and printed out directions for the tie. i spent 10 minutes futzing with it, and the best i could get was umm, yeah it looked like a bowtie, that was on its 10th beer. oddly, no one commented on it at all, either because it wasn't a clip on, or messed up, so i guess they're afraid of me, or it wasn't as bad as i thought.

so i though that the car was finally just 'another mode of transportation' but the guy who mows the lawn on 116th stopped me to ask about it, amazed that it didn't say BMW anywhere on it, even though i told him they made it as a separate brand. i wasn't going to pop the bonnet and show him it actually does say it someplaces. then someone pulled up next to me (while moving...) and asked how it drove on the highway 'because his friend just got one' the questions people ask...

so back to the concert. i was entertained by the university circle wind ensemble because a. they're pretty good (though I think UR's by the end of last year's was similar, and they're mostly music majors with a few random people.) but they played festive overture and vaughn williams folk song suite. (which gary, the director for both them and my band said ralph wrong... ohh well). it was very fun to listen to pieces i knew well. the medina community band was interesting as well. the played the louvre suite thing by dello joio, which i hadn't played since sophomore summer of high school (maybe junior?) at SYMS at University of New Hampshire. ('band camp') sadly allyson hannigan wasn't there though. (she is here) but it brought back the memories to hear it again tonight. they played lots of marches. great for the head after a long day at 9:30 at night. the highlight of their playing was the final stars and stripes forever. in which 5 flute players grabbed piccolos and stood up. because you know, its hard to hear one piccolo playing that irritatingly screechily patriotic solo in a hall designed to be able to hear the heartbeat of the conductor in the nosebleed section. i think my ears are still in tact, since then the whole brass section stood up for the trio, i guess attempting to cover up piccolo hell.

wow, that was really long. so i think i'll stop. my hand hurts, (i tried to find a new wrist rest, but all i can find them on are these random yahoo shops, which charge $8 for it and $10 for shipping and look sketchy as hell, i figure i'll look again tomorrow). the other option is of course some sort of speech typing thing. but those seem very old. i'm more intrigued by attaching a firewire port to my neck. it'd be so much quicker, but i fear johnny mnemonic style troubles. that'd be sad for all involved.

Its interesting, even though I have no reason to stay awake, I end up waiting past midnight, so I don't accidently post this and make the same as yesterday's. how confusing would that be? and yeah, it'd be too much work to change the timestamp. and a bit dishonest. So i'm still annoyed about guidant, but my mailbox didn't have anything else "interesting" show up, so its at least continuing on the same vein. vane? vaighn? anyway.

i went to the market again today, but i drove this time, i think it took a bit over 15 minutes, which isn't bad at all. of course i kept forgetting to keep exact time, so i honestly have no idea. it was a much smaller ordeal then taking the rapid. and i saved $3, (and put all that expensive milage on my car, but anyway) i dono which i'll do next week. I didn't get anything amazing, but i did decide i was eating too much like a vegeterian for not being one. so i bought some steaks and some chicken, (to go with all the other vegeterian stuff i had). i was so bored this afternoon i made the steak and some rice pilaf that was sitting in the cabinet, as well as some asparagus i bought on a whim because they were small, (and $1.50) as i was walking out, which was past the veggie section.

i had a nice conversation with the bakery person over my mangy moose shirt. i explained it was friday, and people in maine are odd. she agreed, then we had a very weird conversation about maine and winter, which then ended with her deciding cleveland weather was really like texas. talk about worrying about global warming. everyone else is worried about a degree or two, she's thinking its 20 degrees. i nodded pleasantly and took my bread and coffee cake. (the quiche was already happily in its bag. just had to mention that, since a. its vegeterian and b. supports the real men eat quiche thing). not that i've had it yet, but i will soon enough.

nothing else great to report. so i have the concert with the fun but mediocre symphonic windows tomorrow, it should be ok, except i have no idea what i'm doing, so i expect to wander aimlessly a bit. also aparantly concert dress involve bow ties, so i looked for mine, which is lost. so i guess its another trip to walmart tomorrow before rehearsal at 4:30. handy, since i've been there like 5 times since i decided i wanted a real colander as mitch's strainer thing that hangs off the edge of the pot keeps causing me to nearly burn my hands and doesn't work well at all.

my hands hurt for some odd reason, so i'll end. just watching leno noticed the audience members he had talk about their stupid experiences were from of all places rochester ny, cleveland, and some place in iowa. (but not keokuk). very low odds of that happening. oh i really need to think of something funny, but i can't come up with anything off the top of my head, so maybe i'll post again tomorrow.

Dear Alan,

Unfortunately, the employer has declined your application to the following position:

Employer Name: Guidant Corporation
Job Title: Mechanical Engineer

I love how happily up and down my life can be. Oh well, we'll see how medtronic turns out, they haven't rejected/waitlisted/accepted me yet. And for a dumb on campus interview too. I guess I can hope to signup for the "open signups" if there's space left on the 21st. And guidant seemed so cool. I may start to take this personally, but somehow the unemployed populus who reads this may know this all too well.

I never understood the sad logic of getting ready to go somewhere, (like say Jillians) by showering and finding some nearly clean clothes, only to spend an hour or two there and get back smelling as val put it, like a bowling alley. i guess if there was some benefit besides losing horribly at pool, i could see doing it more often, oh well. it at least encourages laundry. on the amusing subject of jillians, i met val who was standing at the bar, the bartender asked us if we wanted anything, we both ordered beer (oddly the beer of the month is killians, so yay for $2 pints), he asked val for id, i took out my wallet to get some cash to pay, he said 'you're fine' to me. val's a year older then i am anyway. i guess i'm starting to get decrepit since i don't get checked, or something.

what else is interesting, oh dave called, aparantly he found some odd wineshop in emoryville (the place i went salmon fishing from) that has tons of old bottles. they have some $15 late harvest riesling that's a 1980. he figures its worth that much to see if its drinkable. should be a fun gamble. i also talked to him for like 45 minutes through csi, that i had allotted to actually pay attention. i hate when real people get in the way of my lame existance.

on the subject of real people, aparantly female type friend of mitch's was trying to get shareef a date with one of her roommates, i pointed out to mitch i was a much better target then shareef, we'll see if that works. nothing like trying all possible angles.

finally, i have a mustard problem. i can't seem to find any mustard that doesn't taste bland. even mustard labelled as 'hot' or 'spicy' or 'stupid' doesn't taste very mustardy, so i end up covering the poor hot dog (or whatever else is worthy of mustarding) with like 3 tablespoons of it. i guess this is why you can have mexican field workers who just chew on chilis for a snack, and if some dumb american tries the same thing their face starts burning, i've just managed to dull my mustard senses.

on unrelated blog feedback. the sweater i got is 'loden' though its much more of a brown color then what i'd call loden. and as far as gifts, its not so much a huge problem of communicating a list to mommie (or dave) as figuring out what i want. there's some dvd's i could use, however i'm already behind on watching ones i own. so any suggestions on things i need besides more sheep and sheets? (8's a generically lucky number for me, and hey I have brown eyes, so should my sheep). even though i have this odd habit of noticing people with blue eyes lately. i dono what that has to do with anything, especially since i can't think of one person who will read this with blue eyes, but hey if you have single friends with blue eyes, i have 3 lonely sheep with blue eyes. you know, as i preview this i realize i said odd way too many times. odd isn't it?

You know, I think this is causing me to lose sleep, since I need to ponder and wait to talk about something interesting, and don't want to go to bed if I can't write something at least mildly amusing. Now its all your turn to decide if this is pathetic, or positive. But keep it to yourself, you can complain about other things like pictures.

So Mommie called, at like 11:15, she said she was running late, so figured she'd talk to me. I'm not sure of this logic, as I talked to her for like 30 minutes, which made it even later, weird logic. Nothing amazingly interesting to report, except she got rear ended at the corner of All Angels and 82 last Thursday. car seems fine, but needs to get checked out, she says her neck hurts a bit, but nothing broken. Just one of those random occurances I guess. She also mentioned that at some point she'd get me a list of things she wanted as a gift, since I'm generally bad at planned giving. Of course I should reciprocate, (as she's far far worse then I am) but I can't think of anything i want besides sheets. Anyone have any useful suggestions? Need to think of something for dave and allie too.

So I'm newly impressed by Avril Lavigne, both because she was on letterman last week and leno this week, but she aparantly went snowboarding in the middle in a tank top and scraped herself up. the tough life of a rock star. At least she's happily bruised. On the subject of Conan, his help for the SAT's analogy section. nutrasweet:sugar::N'sync:talent

I was thinking of something else interesting (that always seems to happen) but can't find anything else, so i'll just discuss that I actually managed to poke together a resume and a vague cover letter, for the medtronic and guidant deadlines tomorrow. and oh crap, i just realized i have a law class. how annoying. I guess that means i get to wakeup at 8:15! crud. now i guess that's more incentive to go to sleep, so i can feel like i woke up early and was all productive, except that it'll really mean that i wokeup early, went to class, decided still that lawyers have 'issues' and came back here and went to sleep. oh, for those of you less in the know, do you think its pathetic someone used a webcam on the empire state building to zoom in on the dock in NJ to find the ship that had his MINI on it because he knew (from tracking it online) it was arriving today?

Well, yet again I didn't buy anything, except milk and water. (Ok i'll fess up to a piece of chocolate cake, it looked at me funny) So there goes updating my spending money. But I did have a few interesting thoughts. So the normal stairs to the apartment were getting their carpet shampooed today (i seriously doubt i spelled that right) which meant they gave us a nice sign saying 'use back stairs' which is fine, as half the time we use them anyway, but its just odd to rearrange your whole walking pattern. i guess in the name of clean carpet its worth it, but i think i got too much excersize walking around, or at least a mental workout.

So while walking around in circles to go to the front door to check the mail then walk back to the back stairs, i got the newest issue of metropolitan home (i'd make a link but i don't think it exists online). Besides it continuing to be more of an advertisement for making lots of money so you can spend $3K on a really cool chair, it had the most insane ad for an appliance ever: *boggle* I honestly have no idea why you would want that in your kitchen. especially from LG who seems to only be known as a cheap maker of cellphones. i'm obviously not the target market i guess.

There was something else i was going to mention, but i forgot, so i'll just continue on the theme that 'i need more pictures here' aparantly i need pictures of stuff. because you know, listening to my rambling before i go to sleep isn't exciting enough, i should have pictures, but not of anything in particular. anyone else seem to agree with this? contrasting opinions? too lazy to bother to post type opinions? I did clean off the cup collection, but after lunch and dinner it seems to have regenerated to the tune of 3. but i just threw one out. i will actually apply to guidant and medtronic tomorrow. that'll give me something interesting to discuss. oh i remember what i wanted to mention. bumper sticker: 'if you can't trust me to choose, how can you trust me to have a child?'

I'm sure this can be easily traced to my Engineeringness (or my ISTJness?) but I just noticed that I have a habit of collecting cleaning supplies. This is in stark contrast to bath supplies, as I have one bottle of shampoo+conditioner and a bottle of soap stuff. I counted 12 different cleaning things, one of which Mitch bought. This seems a bit excessive as there are 3 rooms besides my bedroom that I even think about cleaning, but I guess its just solutions for problems that exist. Toilet is dirty, get toilet cleaner, dow comes out with cool wipey things, so get those. Drain is grimey, so get slow drain stuff. spot on carpet, get carpet spot stuff, you get the idea. It just piles up! but I guess it means we get to live in a clean area... as if 3 guy's in their 20's don't have piles of dishes... never...

In other related cool news, (though not bragging) I got 230/250 on the manufacturing planning and whatever test. The mean was 200, SD 20, highest score something like 234! odd to actually beat those undergrad mediocre grades finally. Oh, and continuing on cool news, whiting toothpaste seems to actually work. I switched to it, and I think maybe I'm not destined to have yellowish teeth, now they're much closer to whitish, we'll see what happens in a few weeks. and I lost ~6 lbs since i got a scale. (I think that was a month ago...)

Nothing else interesting to report as I didn't buy anything today except food. well I paid the cable bill, but I dono if that counts as buying anything. So there's been continued complaints to have more pictures here, I'm not sure what that means, so if people have suggestions on what they'd like to see, (more pictures of scenic 116th place? the cup collection on my desk? (currently at 13 + mcdonalds + starbucks, i knew i forgot to do something)) more random links to places like mcdonald's website as if you care? let me know, because i'm going to sleep.

Since I've been complaining about Stat a lot, I figured I would explain why its boring and annoying. (But not useless). So say you make lightbulbs. (Not a big stretch as one of the professors works at GE's lightbulb plant). You want to test them, but you can't test everyone. Instead you have to test some. But how do you know if the ones you tested are a good representation of the total you're busy shipping? How many do you test? How do you know something is wrong or is it just a once every few million type problem you've caught?

Ok, so you want to answer all of these questions. Now sit down with a book and a pile of insane little equations and plug and chug. yeah, thrilling. then you end up learning that with 95% confidence, said lightbulb needs to be tested at a rate of 200 per batch, and will somehow still have way too many defects. Get the idea why this is useful, but anyone who wants to work in production and control is beyond me. its boring as hell and just generally well futzy.

so i didn't buy anything. but i did make macaroni and cheese. which normally is just cheese dumped on macaroni. i was getting fancy. so i had the organic natural macaroni stuff from the co-op, which i combined with an actual sauce. because Alton Brown on good eats said to make it that way. well without actually having key ingredients like flour (i think i left my wondra in rochester...) or evaporated milk, it got hard to follow his directions. so to end a long story, i combined it with the cheese and amazingly cool tellecherry pepper i got at the market, which ended up with a sauce that was liquid with the normal lumpy pile of cheese in the middle. it did however have much more taste and such then it usually does, so i'll call it a middle success. same messed up texture, better flavor, but lots more work.

time for bed, i'm sure that was more macaroni and cheese then you cared about. but if you have complaints, post a message or tell me. otherwise maybe tomorrow i'll go on about pierogis for three hours as after i finish said mac leftovers, there's pierogis defrosted that are lonely. (hopefully i won't burn them this time... but at least i can scrape off the non-burnt part and still eat them, much more effective then toast)

Ok, so I think I know a fair amount of arcane knowledge. However this does not translate very well into being good at trival pursuit, because I'm really bad at certain categories. In the most recent 20th Anniversary version I'm really bad at the literature and sports categories. Anyway, so after playing with Mitch and Reefi for about 3 hours, we ran through a box of cards entirely, and the only reason one of us won was because the question was a repeat of an earlier one. Rather sad really. but i guess it was a very productive way to waste an otherwise unplanned evening.

So cedar point is cancelled for tomorrow, with a combo of not doing the stat homework early enough and said female who was going to go with us being busy. (aparantly she actually does all the assigned readings for her classes, and thus must be insanely busy). I'm sure i'll manage to fill the time up with other things, like tending to my desktop cup collection.

nothing purchased to update, i'm sure this is depressing, but i did finally unpack my new tape measure, you'd think they'd have made some easy way to remove it, as it was just held on by its clip to the plastic and cardboard backing, but i had to spend a good 20 minutes cutting the thing off. i guess there were a rash of tape stealings or something, so they made good and sure it couldn't come off the backing easily. i'm obviously not in the correct department for such information.

time for sleep anyway. its cold out, so i can actually use my sheets and not boil. such a nice change. i think i'll move to alaska at some point, then i won't complain about the heat as often.

Anyone who notes the Towne MINI reference probably has too much free time.

So I went out to Panini's with Mitch, Shareef, Val and her friend Michelle. I'm not quite sure, but you know something's a bit wrong with my luck/skill/general anything when Mitch is busy collecting requests for phone numbers from Michelle who he doesn't even think is partially good looking (She's cute in a blonde hippie straight hair thin face kind of way) I guess I should ask more people about their piercings. Or not? Eh its so complicated. Or unproductive..... And we had a great conversation about how she cuts the heads off rats, and I discussed monkeys and their curious tendancies when put in cages. At least I think that was the conversation, I was a bit overwhelemed by curiously loud poorly EQ'd techno being spun by a DJ with about as much talent as said headless rat.

So besides trying to convince Mitch he should either start a date referral service to deal with all of these females who want to boink him, or just teach lessons in the skills, it was a pretty boring night. I did however get to go to the west side market again today, which was fun because I collected a minor plethora of different pierogi flavors. Who knew thai chicken was an option?

I also poked around Timken, and got complaints for not having pictures posted here. I guess that's reasonably productive, especially as I have nothing planned for tomorrow. Oh, the cup collection is now up to 11, plus the mcdonalds one, so I guess that could be my plan.

So for the consumption update, I got my nearly free courtesy of credit card coupons LL bean sweater today. Its not very exciting, but you know, I felt obligated to mention it. Sorta like you felt obligated to tell other people to read this, because you know it'd make alan feel more important, and less theoretically single.

Well since I didn't buy or get anything today (except groceries, but that's not very exciting) I'll have to talk about something more interesting.

The only remotely interesting thing I can think about is the new theory of automatic transmissions. No one wants to buy a new car with a manual if they can't drive it, because they're afraid they'll brake the car, and the salesmen have no incentive to steer them otherwise, because they're getting comission on the oddly overpriced optional transmission. sad lose lose situation.

I wonder what Christina Applegate is actually doing, since she's on leno. She also doesn't look any different then she did 10 years ago. how odd. update: she's aparantly obsessed with american idol. (she also is incapable of programming her vcr... but she seems to have brown hair with blonde highlights... too much hair dye from married with children)

Oh so the interesting stuff, I think I've fallen into a McLaughlinesque dating scheme. I can talk to a small pile of random Ohioans none of which are interested in me except for talking. how sad. but on the upside I can talk to them when they're not busy working, going to school, or whatever else they do the 23 hours and 55 minutes a day they're not talking to me. Well anyway, that's pathetic, but I can't think of anything else interesting to say. Oh Shareef says I have too many cups on my desk. I thought of taking a picture of this, but that's lame. so well there's 7 of them, but 3 are stacked in a pile. 8 if you count the mcdonalds one, but that's really not relevant. wow, this is long, so i think i'll quit. i have timken to go to and such tomorrow. stupid early wakeup crap.

Aparantly it was also Biff Henderson's birthday. I feel so uninformed.

not to steal words from people I've never met, but ramblestuffs is a cool word.

So continuing the theme, my new watch arrived today. (Handily between classes so someone could sign for it.) Still getting used to the amazing thinness and it having this habit of poking my arm with the wheel, but its a living. no compliments yet, but we'll see.

Ramblestuffs. Is it really my responsibility to tell people how wonderful my new website is? if people are complaining they didn't know about it, they should now tell other people its cool so that the word spreads. aka its your own damn fault. Now I need to think of something else fun to say, but I'm running out of things. Oh, I determined two new useful measurements today. A schlep and a Timex. A schlep is 4 hours, or approximately when I get tired, bored and hungry (I'm always thirsty) after driving. A Timex is a unit of watch measurement, and is equal to about $30. (Unless its a Wal-mart Timex in which case its about $.50, because you paid $29.98 for it, but its so lame you bought a watch at Wal-mart its only worth $.50)

everyone should go out and support tim hortons because as a person with direct canadian relatives, i feel the need to support random canadian donut shops. (just like i feel the need to not capitalize canadian). Time for bed. stupid meeting at noon tomorrow, even though we have no idea what we're doing in the meeting and I told the group to meet in the afternoon. i think 12:00 is a bit close to afternoon.

According to letterman
its Kelly Ripa's
Sting's
Mahatma Ghandi's
That guy who wrote american pie (I forgot already who it was)
according to a really old article at suite101.com (not worth linking) its don mclean, as well as donna karan's birthdays today. (I better finish writing this so its still the same day)

if this entertained you, you can race to be the first person to post a whitty reply.

Well ok, so the only interesting things that happened today was buying new sneakers. This isn't amazingly great, but its continuing on my good capitalist theme. I hadn't even really planned on getting them, but Mitch needed some, so I went to tower city with him, and then well, foot locker had a sale, and the sproing sneakers were worn, you get the picture. anyway. enough about consumption.

Ok, so what else... I had the excitement of having my computer crash and losing a paper entirely. I guess this hasn't happened in a while, so it was my turn. The upside of course is that I had only written half a page, which is why I hadn't saved. Perk or something.

I haven't gotten any more suggestions on if people like or dislike this blog thing. (aka my current collection of stuff I've bought) so I'll take the silence as liking it. Maybe i'll think of more creative things to put in it tomorrow. my fingers hurt currently, so its time for sleep. oh yeah, I need to leave ohio. I saw an ad on tv for visiting alabama. that's pretty umm, yeah. alabama. the perfect tourist destination.

Well ok, so I'll give the exciting update of today. The most recent excitement is while getting ready to eat my 'udon' (which looks very much like ramen) Is I managed to get my chopsticks separated almost exactly perfectly. This is a very rare occurance. Perhaps I'm really moving towards mastery of this essential asian trait. or not.

So I got a new flashlight (mostly through aaron's prodding) and my old led being broken. its quite cool, and capable of destroying keys since its finish is so tough. Need to stay at the head of the keychain lighting curve, so now I'm back there.

I need to decide what I'm going to do tomorrow. I have to choose between driving to Mentor to pickup the MINI tin sign. or doing laundry which is so badly backed up I think I need to go to the laundromat so I can do 6 loads. or finally, just sitting around and doing some applying for guidant and medtronic.

Anyway, enough excitement for tonight. Leave a comment if you feel like it, i'm sure it'll make it more interesting. maybe even then i'd be encouraged to continue writing in this.