ouiiiiii!

I want a Nintendo now.

To be more specific, I want this game:

And if that means I need a Nintendo Wii, or whatever the heck it’s called, then I want that too.

Filed under: fun

nightmare

(21:28:33) Esther: man i just remembered what i dreamt last night
(21:28:46) Esther: you know how i agreed to tutor some kid
(21:28:55) BB: mmhm
(21:29:06) Esther: so i get to [Test Prep Center] and, turns out, there are like 17 students there who all need tutoring
(21:29:33) Esther: and then the GRE director comes in, all, ‘yeah, there were so many students we just turned it into a class’
(21:29:45) Esther: except they’re all expecting like one-on-one tutoring and i have no idea what to do
(21:29:58) Esther: oh, and the gre director is wayne brady
(21:30:30) Esther: but since he’s just walked in i decide to leave and let him handle the class instead and i go to his office and hide in there
(21:30:33) Esther: and that’s how i woke up
(21:31:45) BB: if that was real life, would you have gone and hid
(21:32:06) Esther: probably not
(21:32:16) Esther: b ut imean, that wouldn’t happen in real life either so who knows

So, Wayne Brady, let this be a warning to you!

Filed under: work

i could go on…

Yesterday I started my work-study job at the archive. It’s a position in the IT dept because I’m assisting the web developer. This is the first job for which I’m being paid for knowing how to do things with computers (and it’s work-study, so not really…”real,” either. But I can still kind of relate to Jen from the “IT Crowd” (though my interview was slightly more challenging than this one):

The most exciting part of my first day came at the very beginning, when they handed me a Powerbook G4 to use for my work. Yay for Macs! Exposé is truly amazing, especially with a 13-in screen. In fact, when I got home I tried to install a WinXP version on this here lappie, and it’s just pitiful, I’m sad to say.

Luckily, in the Info Studies building there’s a Mac lab filled with G5s sporting 1.5gigs of ram, so I can use those for almost all of my school-ish needs. Becoming and expert at OS X will be one of my secondary goals this quarter.

I only wish I had a Mac I could carry around with me and use wherever I am, i.e., my very own. Time to start scouring Craigslist, I guess!

Filed under: computer, work

fox on fire!

Firefox 2 is out! (And there was much rejoicing).

I know IE7 was released a few days ago, but come on.

Filed under: browser

how I spent my summer(s, and all those months in between)

It’s kind of weird to think about the last two years because on paper, at least, they seem like “lost” years. I don’t really have much to speak for them, because I never did anything long enough to accumulate any evidence (eg salary, book deal, Nobel prize, that sort of thing), but the first person to find references to my having done all these things in my previous blog entries will win a prize.

I mean, during the last two years, I’ve:

worked in a literary agency
worked in a law firm
taught high school students
taught college students
worked for a small Internet startup

learned to cook
learned how to install and use Ubuntu
learned how to play guitar badly
learned to program
learned ein bisschen Deutsch
learned to appreciate soccer

discovered “commuting”
discovered “telecommuting”
discovered web2.0
discovered ‘This American Life’
discovered Powell & Pressburger
learned to appreciate “graphic novels” aka comics
discovered PG Wodehouse
discovered Arrested Development
become politically aware

visited france and england
visited korea
visited the silicon valley
made it into grad school

sworn off fast food
developed minor astigmatism and early-stage carpal tunnel
spent approximately $800 and countless hours at myriad Starbucks’ and Coffee Beans across the Southland
watched practically every episode of “The Colbert Report”

You might feel that the list has been purposely padded with the mundane and unimpressive. I would have to agree. There’s indeed a lot of padding in there, mostly to make me feel more accomplished and less of a … wastrel. But, well, at least they kept my life somewhat enriched; I’m not likely to forget a lot of the stuff I did and learned during my two gap years. Makes the whole thing seem like less of a loss (except for the coffee thing. I mean, it’s flavored water!!) .

At least I had fun!

Filed under: fun, personal

happy minting!

After about half a lifetime of tinkering away, we’ve managed to release a new version of our site at themintpages.com. We’ve added a few new features which we think people will find useful, and we’ve done a lot of cleanup work.

Please visit! And enjoy!

Filed under: web2.0

“I hate you….nameless!”

I took the evening van for the first time today. It was really crowded at first, and when I told the driver where I wanted to go she warned me it’d take awhile. I didn’t really have many options, though, so in I went.

As it turned out, the front passenger was a driver trainer, and one of the riders taking up room in the back of the van was a trainee. Apparently trainees have to learn what every structure on campus is without the aid of a map or signs, at nighttime (makes sense), and then they have to take a test, so they were taking the trainee through a winding route through campus, quizzing him on what every street, building name, or parking lot number was. Essentially, I got a night tour of campus, at least from a car’s perspective.

Which actually made it a bit fun….I’d never seen the undergraduate dorm buildings before (or I did, but that was more than 5 years ago and I don’t remember them at all). And I had no idea there were so many freaking parking structures…..and they still charge $8 a day for parking??

The driver kept admonishing the trainee for not knowing most of the names of everything right away (one of the passengers kept yelling out the answer before he did, which I thought wasn’t so fair). Still, he’s a 4th year, so I don’t know if he has an excuse for not knowing anything. I probably shouldn’t judge, though.

Filed under: school

one of those days

Today in my GRE class we learned about algebra.

Three students walked in late.

One student walked in super late.

Two students left early.

The student who walked in late also left early.

And I ended class ten minutes before it was supposed to end.

Filed under: work

geronimo!

It starts with boring football, but just watch til the end.

Filed under: best thing, video

surprise!

From the Boston Globe:

A new book by a former White House official says President Bush’s top political advisers privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as “nuts” and “goofy” while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections.

The former official also writes that the White House office of faith-based initiatives, which Bush promoted as a nonpolitical effort to support religious social service organizations, was told to host preelection events designed to mobilize religious voters who would probably favor Republican candidates.

People who fell for the “Bush is Christian” thing were used. And if this book hadn’t come out, we *never* would have known it.

In the book, Kuo, who quit the White House in 2003, accuses Karl Rove’s political staff of cynically hijacking the faith-based initiatives idea for electoral gain

Oh, yeah that’s right, if you knew anything about Karl Rove, then you were all too aware of what was going on, and you fumed for the next 5 years, blood-pressure rising every time you saw your religion being hijacked by an bunch of filthy rotten hypocrites.

[Link]

Filed under: Uncategorized