The weekend, and me surprising myself

It's been an interesting weekend.

First of all, this was the week for scoring free food. Tuesday night we had our journal club and I scored half a pan of leftover lasagna. Friday afternoon was a Keck Fellows meeting and I scored a sandwich tray.

After I returned home, I walked over to Anup's apartment to hang out with he, Oliver, and additional first-year Indu. Anup still had lots of food and beer left over from his Super Bowl party a few weeks back, so we grilled some burgers, worked our way through the beer (much of which was mine originally, it turns out). They wound down sort of early that night, so I took off to Woodrow's and hung out there for a while before heading home and catching up on my sleep.

After visiting my aunt and uncle on Saturday and then indulging in some quality Metroid time, I picked up Jeff, and we dropped in at Woodrow's with the intention of not staying long. The rain had driven the crowds off, though, so we were there for most of the evening hanging out with Will.

At one point, a moderately cute girl came in and seemed strangely interested in the three of us. She later came back out and was chatting us up; she said several times that she thought we were really cool. She and Will seemed to have some common ground, so I backed off. Things seemed to be going quite well for him until she dropped a casual line about "her fiancé". She left us, and came back shortly later with her significantly less cute friend, and suddenly everything was clear.

I made a trip to Best Buy on Sunday to pick up a subwoofer cable (which will hopefully be coming in handy quite soon) and, deciding to embrace my guilty pleasures, picked up season 1 of the OC on DVD. I watched a bit when I got home before heading off to meet Will and his pals for his birthday.

They were at the Social which I had driven by many a time but never really paid much attention to. It was a very club-ish sort of bar, but not really a club. It wasn't really my speed. Apparently, Patrick Ewing was there, and I was suitably impressed, or something.

So Will's friends had been working on these girls there, and eventually, we realized that they probably weren't coming back to hang out with us and so we instead went off to meet them. These sorts of things are not my strong suit, but we started talking to one of the girls. She asked us what we did, and Will, as sort of a private joke, told her that we were MD students. I played along, because, hey, I'll never see these people again.

We got ready for a change of venue. I was saying bye to the girls when the one whom I had been talking to more (Lexi or Alexis or Lexis etc.; eventually, I asked her, and we settled on Alex) put her hand on my chest and told me they were coming with us. Interesting.

So I drove over to Woodrow's, and Will's crew and the girls joined us. Will was picking out songs for the jukebox, when Alex mentioned how much she loved music. She liked the Killers, so I went for my opening. She made reference to hanging out in the future, so, encouraged, I went in for the digits, and got them. She asked me to go ahead and call her phone so she'd have my number. It got to be time to leave, and I walked the ladies out. Alex gave me a hug and told me to call her. Excellent.

So, a brief aside. I know that stories like this demonstrate my naïvete and inexperience with such matters (though I like to think that's a charming characteristic), but this is, really, a big deal. I was totally out of my element, she was pretty cute, I managed to pull this off despite Will's friend that was chatting her up, she was cute, and she seemed pretty interested. No idea how I managed all of this, but hell, it sure is nice.

But there is that little misconception about my chosen career path. Damn it, Will, this is the last time I play along with your schemes. Hopefully, she'll understand. Certainly, it helps that I can blame everything on Will. This is a direct consequence of my own self-doubt, ironically. My life is hilarious.

Lt. Holly

I had e-mailed Holly on Tuesday about a potential beer date only to find her mostly occupied for the week. She was, however, going to catch this long-form improv comedy thing on Wednesday night with some friends, and did I want to come?

Of course I did. We swapped a few more e-mails on Wednesday. I was talking to Sabrina on my way to meet up with Holly, and Sabrina referred to her as L.T. Holly, which, of course, is very close to Lt. Holly, which I, at least, find funny.

So I met up with her and her friends to carpool to the thing, and was delighted to find only a couple in the car with her. We tried to hit up the comedy thing, but they had been running late, and coupled with our difficulty finding the place, we gave up and went drinking at Two Rows instead, which was fine by me. On the way over, there was some discussion of resteraunts, and Holly mentioned having been somewhere on Valentine's day, and my ears perked up. Interestingly, it had not been Unknown Quantity #1, but instead the heretofore unknown Unknown Quantiy #2.

Her friend mentioned that there were, in fact, two men vying for her heart (not including myself, apparently). Very interesting. We went up to Two Rows and started in on the dollar beers, and UQ#1 joined us. I was only slightly distraught to notice that he and Holly were holding hands, as I had for some reason, not been that into her that evening.

Rounds of shots were ordered; the girl half of the couple wanted vodka, so I suggested vodka gimlets (thanks David). Someone tried to make a toast to drinking, but I knew better (thanks David, I think) and said, no, no, we toast to Holly's grad school interviews this weekend. Points for me. The gimlets were a hit as well; more points, but not ninja points, mind you, because I've been falling down on my mission to spread that particular gospel as of late.

So we were leaving, and I was feeling rather resigned about whatever potential I had with Holly. She seemed a bit drunk, so I helped her to the car, and when we got in the back seat, she cuddled up to me because I was "comfortable". It's not the first time that's worked in my favor with the ladies. Matthew Ward, very comfortable.

They dropped me off, and she insisted that we would do beer next week, and also mentioned something to the effect of being sad that she was leaving Houston and such good friends.

So, the pendulum swings back and forth. The fact that there are two men in the picture is encouraging, kind of, in that it means that nothing serious is going on, so there's no reason I can't jump in with relative ease. I'm just trying to remember to chill the fuck out, which I often need to do in matters concerning womenfolk.

My car alarm's been acting up, so Thursday evening was spent in an interminably long wait at Best Buy while they messed with it, decided it needed to be swapped out for a new one, sent me to stand in line at customer service, and then installed the new one, with the time totaling out at two and a half hours.

It's been a long week for such a short week. I've been constantly on the go, somehow, though usually for good reason. I also had a two hour long talk with the boss today about my project. He was frustrated with me, at times, for things that I hadn't looked into or tried on my current project, but he made a concerted effort to be patient, and I learned a lot. Still, it was quite stressful and draining. If there's one thing that I don't get into in science, it's this feeling that I'm constantly under attack.

All that to say, I was thankful to get home on Thursday night, lie on the couch, and watch a freeshly recorded episode of the OC. It's the little things...

Test driving

This is absolutely beautiful.

I worked half a day on Monday, as, despite the holiday, I wasn't sure if we had a lab meeting scheduled or not, and most grad students seem to be devoted enough to give up their holidays anyway. I took off at noon-thirty to take Jeff around to test drive cars. He had, as long as I've heard him talk about cars, been eyeing the Mini Cooper S and the Toyota Prius.

We started out at a Toyota place on 59, where the salesman informed us that they had no Priuses available, and that he wasn't going to do anything to help us find one. We proceeded to the Mini dealership, and the difference was amazing. This man knew how to sell a car. He drove for a bit, and it was fun to see him show off what the car could do. The Mini, though too small for my tastes, is definitely a nice car—good acceleration, tight turning, stops on a dime. It made me want an expensive new car.

We grabbed some food and then set out to find a dealership with a Prius to test drive. We found one out on I10 that happened to have two in stock, because somebody's financing fell through. We arived at the dealership, and Jeff test drove the car. It felt a lot like my Camry. It was really cool, though. The key had a proximity sensor in it (like a toll tag/speed pass/key card), so you could unlock the door automatically when you got close to the car. Then, you didn't even have to use the key to start the car; you just hit the big power button on the dashboard. The gasoline engine doesn't start up immediately, and if the electric engine is charged enough, you can drive in electric-only mode. It also doesn't have discrete gears, but instead gradually changes as you accelerate. Jeff said it felt weird, like you weren't really accelerating, because the engine didn't really rev up.

Anyway, Jeff had a hard decision ahead of him until we found out that the dealership tacks on a $4000 surcharge because of the rarity of the car. When Jeff balked, the salesman moved into high pressure mode, saying that he thought Jeff had a certain level of committment when he agreed to let Jeff test drive the car. He tried to push a lease because he said he couldn't go down on the price. Eventually, he said that he'd knock of $2000 if Jeff would buy it that night.

Asshole salespeople aside, it comes down to a fully equipped, high-performance, stylish mini versus a nifty but still somewhat pedestrian car of the future. I think style has won out, even though the Toyota people have since come down in price.

The Mouse

Saturday was relatively uneventful. Susan and Jerry took me out to BJ's Brewhouse again. Once I returned to my place, I watched "Justice League" and "Teen Titans" (God bless the Cartoon Network), and then reacquainted myself with Metroid 2 (I've got a huge backlog of games I haven't finished) until around 10:00, at which point I figured that if excitement hadn't found me yet, I would have to go find excitement. I caught up with Will and Jeff, who picked me up (this was the weekend for not driving, apparently), and we grabbed some drinks at the Proletariat before heading off to Late Nite Pie. Life was good.

I played me some more Metroid on Sunday before heading to see Modest Mouse with Jeff at the Verizon. I am getting horribly spoiled. You put me at a show with more than a couple hundred people, and it's just not the same anymore. In addition to all the Johnny-come-latelys who didn't know much more than the new album, the Mouse just didn't hold up their end of things, either. Most of the newer material fell flat ("Float On", "The Good Times Are Killing Me", "The Ocean Breathes Salty", "Paper Thin Walls"), though flashes of their brilliance shown through, particularly on songs that involved loud guitars and/or yelling. "Dramamine" opened the set on a nostalgiac note that made me hopeful; "Broke" and "Doing the Cockroach", though not personal favorites, were good; and I was absolutely thrilled to hear them play "Interstate 8".

Still, I was ultimately disappointed when they neglected to play their wonderfully angry 10-minute version of "Cowboy Dan" (or any wonderfully angry 10-minute version of anything, or any version of "Cowboy Dan"), which they had done on most of the sets that I looked at from previous shows on the tour. Ward was sad.

We hit up La Tapatia after the show (thank you, Bryan and Lisa), and I once again had... flautas and a margarita. It was good.

Things have been a bit text-heavy lately, so here's a picture of the new CD rack:

School; recruiting; the Axis of Eating

So I'm in this machine learning class at Rice, and on Thursday we had to present our proposed projects. May I just say that, damn, I was on that day. I really enjoyed speaking to a mostly non-scientific audience. It made me think for the first time, seriously, that I might enjoy something like undergraduate teaching one day.

On to Friday. I spent the morning studying in the Coffee Corner. It's amazing how many people I run into when I leave the lab. Maybe I'll have to try to spend an hour working there a day or something. It's good, I think.

The less said about the test, the better. It wasn't the test I (or apparently anybody else) had prepared for: it was not much like the homework problems or the previous tests. Minor points from the lectures were major test questions, and major points were ignored entirely. Still, it wasn't a required class, so if I failed, it won't kill me. I might get bitched at by my PI or my committee, but I suppose there are worse things to deal with.

I took off with first year SCBMBer Oliver after the exam with the intention of starting the drinking early. We dropped by our respective dwellings to change and have the first beer of the evening. We proceeded to Woodrow's and began things in earnest with some of the other first years.

We picked the recruits up at the hotel and headed to Ninfa's (sweet, glorious Ninfa's), and I ordered up two of their fanciest margaritas (which were, strangely, mediocre) and a couple of flautas. One of the recruits was from Belgium and was going to go out with some of his countrymen at Baylor afterwards, so Oliver and I stuck around while he was waiting to be picked up. I had to more margaritas (the cheap ones, this time), and these were much better.

We joined up with the rest of the group at Woodrow's (and here I thought we would go some place interesting). Will was at the door, and he always seems to be able to tell when I've been drinking (apparently, it's the only time I look happy). Anup and Oliver had met a couple of U of H psychology (female) grad students when they were out the previous weekend and gotten friendly with them, so they joined us as well. I didn't drink nearly enough beer (though I was still going strong from the Ninfaritas) due to a full stomach, but I did what I could. Still, our bar tab was pathetically low.

After the recruits had dispersed, Anup, Oliver, their lady friends and I went to get food. Thanks to the guys, I now have a new resteraunt to add to my Axis of Eating (late-night eating, that is). In addition to Whataburger, Taco C/La Tapatia (actual choice depends on various factors), and Late Nite Pie, I now have the late-night Vietnamese glory of Mai's. Post-eating, Anup took his lady home, and Oliver and I took his lady back to her car in the village, where he obtained digits. Way to go, man.

May I just say, not having to drive was a beautiful, beautiful thing that I wish I could do more often. I didn't exactly cut loose (maybe I'll make Sabrina drive when we do our Waco shindig), but at least I got to drink four margaritas.

Smug supperiority

Although I often feel completely out of touch with the way the casual dating game goes, it's nice to see someone display such a staggeringly high level of incompetence that it makes me feel better about myself.

Stephanie has been talking to this guy on Jewish dating site JDate (don't get me started on that; it's another rant entirely) since before her last JDate excursion fizzled a few months back, but put off a date until after her midterm was over. I don't know much about him other than that he plays hockey, and that, according to Stephanie, "he's kind of dumb." You keep those high standards going, sweetie.

Anyway, she called me up last night to tell me she was finally going out with him. He originally invited her over to his place, but when she was uncomfortable with that, suggested a sports bar in the galleria. Let's break this down:

• Inviting her over to his place for a first date, while not inherently bad, is perhaps a little presumptuous.
• Picking a sports bar for a first date is a poor choice to begin with. Going for something small like drinks or coffee is probably fine, but a sports bar? Horrible choice.
• He picked a location convenient for him, rather than one that was convenient for her—he lives near the Galleria.
• Picking something completely and totally fucking generic and unoriginal. Honestly, the sports bar near him is bad enough, but no, he doesn't even go with the charming neighborhood place (and there are plenty of them); instead, he goes with some chain.
• He picks a place in the Galleria. I can see the Galleria as a date spot if you were going ice skating, but it just seems a profoundly bad idea to go to a resteraunt or bar there.

Now, for the mystifying things about Stephanie's response to this:

• Using JDate in the first place.
• She doesn't mind driving out to the Galleria for the date and doesn't understand why his selfishness is a bad sign.
• She invited Jennifer to go with her on said date.
• She's blissfully shoved aside the concerns about his intelligence and that she doesn't seem to like him much.
• She agreed to this despite her continual insistence that she likes neither bars (too smoky) or alcohol.

Honestly, there's only a little bit of jealousy here—nothing that can't be recognized as absurd and gently pushed aside. Ultimately, it's just me, continually mystified about the way people choose to live their lives. At least I can feel better about my own date planning abilities.

MW, not fixated

Valentine's day passed relatively uneventfully. There is a small Holly update. I swear that she's not a major fixation in my life, but this is probably the only thing remotely interesting going on right now (though I've got plenty of uninteresting rambling to follow!). I finally got around to writing her an e-mail thanking her for her company during my car fiasco (and apologizing for not doing so sooner), and, within the hour, she had called me to thank me for the e-mail, say hi, wish me a happy Valentine's day, and apologize for once again cutting out on a concert (replies: the whole point was for me to thank you; hi; same to you; I didn't take it personally, and there will be plenty of chances to make it up). Seems potentially significant...

One thing I've learned is that, miraculously, my instincts seem to be right in some broad sense of the word. I can usually tell that something is up; exactly what that is, what actions it demands on my part, and what extenuating factors may be affecting things is where the difficulty lies. I often do have to remind myself, though, that I'm not completely dense.

Consequently, I'll probably make another beer date for next week, once I'm done with this stupid exam. What was I thinking signing up for a class with an exam? I'm too old for this shit. Meh. Must. Get. Motivated. I did manage some studying tonight, but I'm going to have to step things up tomorrow and Thursday. God forbid that I don't have time to watch the O.C.

Modest Mouse is playing here this weekend, which is very exciting (which you might conclude if you know that they're my most-played band, according to iTunes, by a margin of several hundred plays). That should be enough to inspire me, but I get to go whether I do well or not, so it doesn't really work that way. Recruiting, round two, is also this weekend, and Friday night dinner has been scheduled at Ninfa's, which means two exciting things: Ninferitas and green sauce. Now that's inspiring.

I read an interesting article in Stereophile today about people who listen to music for its own sake versus those who use it as background noise. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with it, as it's a bit pretentious, but then again, so am I.

Finally, I wanted to thank Charlene for her continued work on my behalf.

In honor of today

Don't let this detract from the lengthy post/rant below this one, but, in honor of the date:



I felt that I should make sure to share that in a timely fashion. Make your own by clicking on the heart.

Another year, another uncelebrated Valentine's day. The problem with this particular holiday is that it looms so large. For those of us who are single, it can neither be celebrated, nor ignored, and any increasing attention to it just feeds its power. So I'll stop now.

Happy half-birthday to me. I usually buy myself a half-birthday/valentine's consolation present, but I've probably already done enough over the last month. If only that damned subwoofer would get here.

Happy Valentine's to all the special ladies in my life (you should know who you are). Thanks for your support, friendship, and good referencesl

Weekend extravaganza

Picked up the car on Friday, no problem. I then made the mistake of attending the most boring Keck seminar ever. The less said, the better.

Friday night, I met Graham, Char, and Jessie (Graham's lab, U of H) at the Black Lab (British pub, scene for part of my date with Amy back in December) for overpriced beer. There was a conversation about whether the pool hall from last weekend was a gay bar (it wasn't) and whether we were in Montrose, where the gay bars are located (we were). Kids, this isn't third grade. They're not girls you're going to get cooties from. Grow up. We headed to dive-ish bar Kay's next. The $5 pitchers of lone Star were more in my price range, and as the beer flowed, we talked about school, life, and mostly girls.

Char is among those who seem to really enjoy giving me advice one women (Kennedy is another). I've not decided if he gives bad advice that he's smooth enough to pull off, or good advice that I just find deplorable. Undeniably, he's got skills. Whether he knows his own secret, I don't know. Char and Jessie came by my place to pick up a CD (note to self: don't accidentally kick computer while burning a CD). Jessie said, with some wonderment in his voice, "Your place doesn't smell. And it's clean." This from a man who has a child.

Saturday night, Holly was feeling under the weather and backed out on the Rogue Wave show. Jeff and I went. The first band I won't even bother to name, but they were pretty thoroughly amateurish. The second band, Two Gallants turned out to be excellent. Rogue Wave actually had trouble following them, plus there was some interference from some girls who were high on either coke, meth, or ecstacy. They were dancing around like strippers, kissing each other, trying very hard to get other people to have the same fun time they were having. Some guys joined in in hopes of getting some action. At one point, they got on the stage. The band tried to ignore them, and when they got down again, moved some equipment to the front so as to defend themselves from future incursions. Towards the end of the show, a couple fo them started ramming people (including me). RW's set ended up being a bit lackluster, and they didn't bother with an encore. Jeff and I took off, made an attempt to catch up with Dan et al at Rudyard's, and ended up at the beautiful Late-nite Pie.

Jeff and I hit Soundwaves today in search of the Two Gallants album, and then grabbed some lunch at Niko Niko's and I enjoyed an excellent Greek salad and some humus.

Tonight, there was a dinner for Nathan's birthday at Mykonos I had the dalamathes (I'm sure I spelled that wrong). There was also some ugliness with people not realizing that it is, in fact, not difficult to split a check.

The girl that has a thing for me gave me a ride home, and I was on good behavior. It's kind of tough, though. I don't find her attractive, Sabrina can vouch for the hynotic effect that a little cleavage has on me. I swore off casual messing around with girls that I'm not attracted to after I realized that I didn't particularly enjoy it and it wasn't worth the occasional ensuing complications, but damn is it tempting when you're feeling lonely. Still, I'm trying to be good.

I've got an exam on Friday. Taking classes seemed like fun at the time (and I had to for my fellowship), but I can't help but feel I'm too old for this crap. Time to get busy. A least my graduate career doesn't hang in the balance on this one.

Shit luck. ("This building's totally burning down.")

Wednesday evening was not a bad night. It was just a night in which things didn't go particularly well.

As I mentioned last week, Holly Labtech had asked me to join her at the Proletariat Wednesday to see some local bands, and I agreed. I e-mailed her and offered to drive, and she told me she'd give me a call around 9:00. But then she called early, said that one of her friends needed a ride and that she would meet me there.

I drove to the Proletariat and started looking for a parking spot (which is a bit difficult around there, as there's no parking on some of the streets, or some sides of the streets). And then, my car died. The engine just shut off. By some happy coincidence, the place where I stopped and tried (unsuccessfully) to start it up again turned out to be a pretty good parking spot.

Now I should note that this is the first major trouble I've ever had with my car (turns out, something with the ignition coil). The car's 11 years old (6 of them mine) and has 150,000 miles (85,000 mine), so I can't complain to much.

I decided I'd give it some time to see if it would work, go in, grab a beer, and hear some music. Holly was there with two friends (one guy, one girl). I joined them. From across the room, I thought I saw someone familiar, but quickly dismissed that notion, because the chances of running into somebody from BCM there were pretty slim. But then, a few minutes later, there she was—the girl that has the thing for me that I've been avoiding. She was there to see a friend of a friend's band or something. Damn, my little hipster bars were supposed to be safe places. I feel kind of violated...

So we were watching the bands, and I noticed that Holly's male friend had his arm around the back of her chair. Later on, I noticed the opposite arrangement. They seeemed to be sitting rather close together. I think I saw his hand on her knee at some point. Was this the boyfriend? It was hard to tell. The actions weren't overtly SOish, but they were perhaps a step beyond simply friendly, too.

Holly had to get the girl she was with home by midnight (lest she change into a pumpkin), so I took that opportunity to go check on my car (no luck) and call a tow truck to get my car back to my apartment (since I didn't know where to take it yet). When she came back, we talked outside for a minute. I asked if the guy that was there was "the boy" (as I had previously heard her refer to the boyfriend), and she replied that no, that wasn't him; he was out of the picture after the last visit (and she was emphatic about that, at least). That, in and of itself, is somewhat good news, but I never got a clear answer about the boy who was there (and, being apparently local, is in some ways a bigger threat).

So my autoclub finally called, and told me a tow truck would be there within the hour (very prompt), and then the tower called and I told him to call me when he got close so that I could wait inside. So, back inside with Holly and unknown quantity #1. We played a little pool, and then I got a call from the tow truck driver. Holly volunteered to go with me to get my car towed (which was very sweet of her) as she lives across the street from my complex, so I rode back with her and the tow truck followed.

Now, what does all this, ultimately, mean? I haven't a clue. On the one hand, she and unknown quantity #1 could be an item; on the other hand, the renewed friendliness towards me and the emphatic statements about the ex could be indicative of better luck. We're supposed to be hitting up the Rogue Wave show on Saturday night, so perhaps things will be more clear then. I hope. Can't we all just wear little rings on our fingers that light up green, yellow, or red and indicate our relationship status? That would be really handy.

Car's supposed to be ready today, which is excellent. The place is on Main, and the train runs along Main, so I can just hop on there and pick up my car. Then, we'll see what the weekend holds...

More little bits

Google's new map service is absolutely brilliant. All other online map services are no longer worth using. Is there anything these people can't do?

The Super Bowl commercial for GoDaddy.com was actually a pretty funny piece of commentary on the "wardrobe malfunction" controversy (in addition to featuring an attractive, well-endowed woman). Ironically, it managed to create its own controversy when the NFL apparently requested that Fox not air the add a second time.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: people are too easily offended.

I wrote up some new music reviews over on the music page that I was kind of excited to write. If you ever enjoy that sort of thing, you should read them.

Fun With Statistics

I picked this one up in my machine learning/artificial intelligence class today.

Say you have 100 people, and you ask them to make a decision between two options. One option is correct and one option is incorrect. Each person on the committee is carefully picked because they make the right decision greater than 50% of the time. You ask them each to vote on an option, and take the majority opinion.

Statistically speaking, if they make their decisions independently of each other, they'll do astoundingly well at picking the right option—at least 90% correct, possibly more (I'm too lazy to work out the exact numbers).

However, we don't see these kind of results in the real world, because the committees influence each other's votes. The accuracy of the decisions plummet.

Working out the implications for democracy is left as an excercise to the reader.

Knowing how to spell is good

In programming, name variables after words you're capable of spelling.

Much confusion can result if you name something "occurrences" in one place and then forget how to spell it and type "ocurrences" elsewhere. Never could spell that word. And damned if I didn't manage to do it twice.

Oh well. Mystery solved.

Recruiting=free beer

Friday, I was assigned a recruit (CS major from Baylor, Robinson native, both of which seemed fitting) to take around to interviews, which had the side effect of helping me avoid actual work. I got free lunch and free parking.

That evening, we picked the recruits up and took them downtown to (shamefully) the Hard Rock Cafe. As per my standard recruiting weekend policy, I ordered the steak and a margarita. It was mediocre, but that didn't really matter since I wasn't paying.

We actually had two female recruits this time. One of them had family plans for Friday night, and our female hosts cancelled on us, which left the second female recruit as the sole girl in our party. She maanaged the feat of being completely unable to hold up her end of the conversation even after two hurricanes, which I suppose is impressive in some way.

There was a graduate school function at Slick Willie's pool hall in Montrose, which we took the recruits too. None of the females I haven't yet ruled out were present, which was disappointing, but an open bar tab cures many an evil. I think we rang up about $225. We'll have to do better next time around—in terms of location and partying.

Saturday we went out for a good lunch (and margaritas) at Pappasito's (I ate way too much) and then showed the recruits some apartments. After returning them to the hotel, I went to Susan and Jerry's for the standard laundry and dinner (which I didn't exactly need after the lunch) and wwatched A Mighty Wind with Stephanie and her friend Maria.

Sunday was spent Superbowl Party hopping. First year Anup and co. threw one party, with grilling, beer, and a creatively designed layered dip:



I hit up Brandy and Will's party for the second half of the game. Stephanie was there and made the mistake of trying to steal my seat. Dave/Thom/Win used to refer to that maneuver as the "seat Jew" (doesn't count as rascist if I'm quoting, right?). Never has the phrase been more appropriate. In the ensuing struggle, she ended up sitting in my lap. And she says she's not interested in me...

That was all pretty boring. I guess I should be trying to make my life sound interesting. I do have one other potentially sordid bit to share. Holly stopped by on Friday to return the bus pass I had loaned her (looking damn good, might I add), and asked me out on another non-date/date/whatever for Wednesday. Despite catching me in person, she gave me brief note she had written, in which she thanked me for the loan, asked me to hang out on Wednesday, and signed her name with a heart (the significance of which has been the subject of some disagreement). She's liberal, likes beer, has good taste in music, and, yes, Sabrina, she does like dick. The boyfriend is out of the country and she's moving away in a few months anyway—what harm could a little fun do?

DWT (Driving While Talking)

This new study caught my eye for a number of reasons. It says that a) people who drive while talking on cell phones drive like drunks and b) they drive like old people. Now perhaps my logic is faulty, but didn't they just equate driving drunk to driving old?

Consequently, either our DUI laws are too strict, or old people shouldn't be allowed to drive. Which option is better, I'll let you pick. On a related note, I've seen people who drive like old people. Those people should probably be arrested and sent to jail just like the drunks.

Additionally, the study states that hands-free devices don't improve the situation, and that having a conversation with a passenger is just as deleterious to one's skills. I am surprised about the hands-free thing; I think I'm more destracted without it, but I agree it's about the same as having a passenger in the car, or, probably, rocking out hard core.

Hopefully, this will either lead to a ban on passengers in vehicles, or a "Get Smart"-style cone of silence for the driver.

On an unrelated note, I drive (and sometimes even walk) past this corner with relative frequency, and it never seems quite as exciting as that article claims. Maybe I should be hanging out at that Taco C more often to pick up good blog fodder.

Shit.

The extent of my faith in humanity is probably far greater than it should be. Many things occur daily that should decrease it, but that I blithely ignore.

This, though, this will be hard to let go.

I came home yesterday afternoon and, to the left of my doorway, was a small pile of dog shit.

Let me put this in perspective for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of a visit to Ward's Palace of Love: I live in an interior hallway.

Yes, somebody let their dog shit indoors and didn't clean it up. Outdoors, that's one thing. That oversight is understandable, if improper. This was sheer laziness. Not only did somebody stand idly by and watch while their dog shit indoors in a common area, but they pushed it out of the way, up against the wall, with their shoe, leaving a smear across the carpet.

I think I was justified in calling the leasing office and telling them to take care of it. It is outside of my apartment, after all.

Yes, folks, not only do I live in a complex where peopel will steal my welcome mat and break into my car to steal my stereo, but they also won't think twice about leaving a pile of shit outside my door.

I decided to spare you the picture.

Various items

I found the results of this survey disturbing. I blame the parents.

Pitchfork has released their list of the best singles of the past five years. It's good reading: it makes me want to listen to stuff.

Death From Above 1979 rocks in a fashion in which I am always thrilled to discover in a new album.

That is all. I may very well have homework to do now.