Pick #22

The Lyndsay Diaries - Cowboy

Another Alhambra

This would be good if it didn't have all those people in it.

Pick #21

"Top" by Live off the Throwing Copper album.

How the Bible is like "Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options"

There is a publication that explains all the rules for trading options on the stock market. That pamphlet (or mini-book) is titled "Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options." You are sent a copy of that book every time you get cleared to trade options through a clearinghouse/broker. You are supposed to read it so that you know what is going on. It is full of complex ideas and confusing language. If you want to know what it is trying to say, then you have to ask your stock broker or someone else who is an expert in that area. Nobody actually reads the whole thing. Most options traders have a copy laying around somewhere.

See all the parallels with the Bible? Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, right? The written basis of Christianity. Name someone you know who's read the whole thing. Older versions especially were full of antiquated language that makes it hard to read and interpret if you aren't a biblical scholar. Sometimes it seems like it's contradicting itself. If you want a vernacular translation of what you just read, then you can only ask a couple specialists, usually pastors/priests/ministers/whatever you call them.

I guess one difference is that the Bible has many different versions and translations and is in all parts of the world and has been around for hundreds of years while CRSO has only been around in its current form for under a few decades, it has only one version, and only applies to US stock exchanges (however; to the best of my knowledge, most options trading is fairly similar).

Read "Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options"
Read (or search) the Bible

Budweiser Can on Firewood

A New Record

Today I set my personal record for most consecutive time spent at school. I got there at 7:55 am and left at 12:25am. That's a total of about 16 and a half hours. Dang.

First Bad Blood

Wow. I had my first altercation with someone in Tallahassee this weekend. It was with J & L, a couple who are engaged. You see, at my (luau themed) party this past weekend, I was wearing a grass skirt and no shirt. L gave me a titty twister. I told her that it is my policy to retaliate in kind in that situation, save for the first one (girls get a warning, guys don't). I don't know if she didn't believe me or what, but she did it again, so I grabbed a hold of her nipple-area and turned. You'd think that she might stop then, realizing that I was serious when I said I'd do it back. She didn't stop. Nor did I. During this time, I was holding a beer in one hand (or I could have maybe used that hand for defense), standing next to Ashley, while J was in another room.

The next morning around 8am, I got a phone call from J that went something like this: J:Do you remember what you did last night? Me: When? J: -refreshes my memory on the incident described above- Me: ya. J: That's unacceptable. I can't believe you would do something like that. I thought we were cool. I don't know what to say. Me: Apology along with explanation of my policy. J: I don't care about your policy, you just don't do something like that. Further expressions of anger and disappointment. After that phone call, I couldn't get back to sleep for about an hour, even though I was exhausted after being awake until 6:20 that night.

I would think that after being with J for 7 years, L would know that he would react like this and that she wouldn't have initiated a nipple grab, let alone kept going after I warned her that I do it back.

Monday after school, I went to J's office and L was in there too. I apologized in person. J told me to "keep my distance." I told him that I would honor his request until he told me otherwise.

I checked later on Monday and found that L had un-friended me on facebook. I think that's the first time I've noticed an un-friend.

Nipple-retaliation has ALWAYS been my policy, and I've NEVER had a problem with it before. It never crossed my mind that something this grave could be the result of minor horse-play. I guess I've never hung out with a bunch of engaged/married people before coming to grad school. It's something to consider.

Handicap Haters

This sign was at a state park. It was letting people know that there was rough off-road terrain ahead and that you couldn't pass in a wheelchair...but it's hilarious when taken out of context.

Pick #20

Tenacious D - Fuck Her Gently

wow, throwback to freshman year. still funny.

Best Night in a Long Time

Last night was pretty incredible. I came home from school, took a nap (turns out the nap was very important), and went to pick up Ashley for the FSU Circus. The call the FSUC the "Greatest Collegiate Show on Earth." It wasn't professional, and there were a couple errors made by the performers, but I think they did a fantabulous job. After the circus, we stopped by the baseball game across the street in time to catch the final out of the game with FSU winning 14-2. Then we walked around campus. Saw the picture of the streaker guy. Went to the union to check out the artwork and they were having Casino Night! I played roulette and taught Ashley how. We were both winning bigtime when her phone rang. Danielle said that she was locked out. I was having such a good time that it didn't matter that we had to leave. Ashley and I gave our chips to the guy next to us (who really appreciated it) then took off. When we got to her place, she opened the door to a dark suite and then turned on the light and

SURPRISE! A birthday party for me. I just laughed. I was planning on studying. That didn't happen. There were a good bunch of people there. I feel loved.

Lunching Lizard

Love to Hurt

When you get upset by somebody else, it is probably because they occupy some real estate in your heart. I'm not talking about that ass hat who cuts you off in traffic or the guy who's rude to the point of pissing you off. I mean internally upset. I mean the way that you don't cry at strangers' funerals, but you do at friends' and family's. I mean how you realize that you didn't care at all about a girl if you don't care that she left you. In order to feel hurt, there previously must have been caring in its place.

Continuous v. Quantized Age

Some people have a perception of age as quantized. Either you're 22 or you're 23. No in-between. I think they like to quantize age in order to rationalize the concept of age in their head. SO, on your birthday, you are all of a sudden one year older.

I like to think of age as a continuous concept, not a discrete one. I do fall into the trap of saying that someone is 54 years old, etc, but that really does make it easier to rationalize. For my personal life, though, I don't think that I turned a year older on my birthday. I turned a day older. Or even less than that. You get older with every breath. Time only moves in one direction (around this part of the universe).

When people try to make you "older" aka more mature/with more life experience as a result of having a birthday, I think they are just using an expectations operator...they are saying that at a certain age, you should have had this many of that sort of experiences (on average). If there weren't such a high information cost, they could much more accurately pin down what they're looking for by knowing all of your accomplishments, failures, and other life experiences (travels, deaths of those close to you, exposure to violence or culturally enriching experiences, etc).

So, maybe you do get older with every breath...but more importantly, you get older when you do something or when something happens to you. When you experience something. You grow up a bit after the first time you ride on a plane by yourself. Or after your first kiss. Or after your 100th test this semester is over.

Decemberists Show

Wow. I got pretty lucky with this one. This morning when I woke up, I had "On the Bus Mall" in my head, so I played it. Ashley asked who sang that song, so I replied "The Decemberists." She said "Oh, hey, they have a concert coming up sometime soon." I was all like "around here" then she was like "ya, and Melissa's going." I asked her to find out more about it and get back to me. I saw her by chance when I was dismounting my bike @ school today and she told me that it was tonight at The Moon. I found out a little more, got my free FSU student ticket, rock.

After meeting up with her this morning at school, I realized that I didn't have my 9am class...it was canceled and I forgot. I was kinda pissed, because my next class was at 1:25 and I could have slept for a lot longer. Upon reflection, however, I might not have known about the concert had I remembered that I could sleep in.

Anywho, I picked Ashley up and we met Melissa et al. at the show. BTW, I saw E. Claire there with her friend Erin. The opening band was "My Brightest Diamond." The lead singer woman has a pretty incredible voice. Kinda weird music. It didn't grab me enough to make me buy a CD.

The Decemberists opened with The Crane Wife Part 3, just like the new album. They are good live. All skilled musicians who can play all kinds of instruments. They had a bunch of music-making-things there that I'd never seen before. All of the special effect sounds were made with actual instruments (occasionally through some distortion pedals). Their set started around 10 and they said that they would play the last song at 10:55. That last song (which nobody seemed to recognize) lasted until 11:15. They walked off stage, came back for an encore, played some song I didn't know, then closed the night with the Mariner's Revenge Song. Talk about badass...they had a whale costume thing that came out on stage. It was evil looking with red glowing eyes.

They played a lot off the new album (as is to be expected at concerts, huh?). I haven't listened to the Crane Wife so much. Older stuff played included: "The Infanta" and "The Legionnaire's Lament." Both of those songs were really high energy.

I would DEFINITELY go see them again if they come anywhere near close.
What a great, unanticipated birthday present.

Pick #19

Nas - Hip Hop is Dead, the title track off his latest album. I'm normally not too big on Nas, but this is a pretty good album.

Church on Easter (and Christmas)

So, if I was forced to go to 50 weekly church services out of the year, I would skip Easter and Christmas. Some people only go then...in fact, there are so many of those people that churches get super crowded on those days. I wonder why that's when people choose to go. I mean, those 2 services are the same year after year. You already know what's going to be said before you even get there.

I've heard the Easter story and the Christmas story many more times than I've heard about Daniel in the lion's den. All 3 of them are good stories, but I'm probably a little rusty on the details of that last one.

I guess it's not the right attitude to have, but I don't really like all the interlopers that show up on those two days to my church. I haven't been going to church in T-town, so I'm surely not going to start on an outsider overload day.

Dosage diario de hierro

Escrito el 1 de junio, 2005 en Riobamba, Ecuador

Esta noche estaba comiendo la cena en un restaurante italiano con todo el grupo cuando mordí en algo duro. Pensé que era un hueso en mi manicotti (tenía queso, pasta y jamón). De hecho, fue...¡un tornillo! No mordí muy fuerte, no rompí los dientes ni nada...todo estaba bien. Mostramos el camerero quien dijo el jefe quien vinió para darme "mil disculpas." Aparentemente investigaron como llegó el tornillo en mi comida...era de un sartén...me muestró el sartén...luego me dio una botella de vino.
Como no me herí, no tuve un problema. Reí mucho y saqué fotos. Era un evento que pudiera pasar en cualpuier parte. No pienso que es así en el Ecuador porque es un país sucio o nada de eso. Comí el resto de mi plato.
La gente del restaurante era muy simpática. Ahora tengo el tornillo y voy a guardarlo como un recuerdo del viaje y esto [sic] aventura en particular.

The Music Genome Project

No, it's not the name of a band...It's actually an attempt to break down songs into their constituent elements, much like biologists can do with proteins. Check it out at Discover Music.

There is an associated internet radio site, http://pandora.com which will create and play custom radio stations for you (I haven't heard a commercial yet). All you do is give it a "seed" of an artist or a song. It uses information about that artist/song and other songs in its database to play "similar" songs in that radio station. It has awesome fast-forward & pause features when compared to other internet radio sites.

You should check it out.

Nasty Smokers

I hate it when smokers throw their butts on the ground. I was walking behind a smoking dude today and he was right next to a trash can and opted to throw the remaining portion of his fag on the ground instead of in the waste receptacle.

Seems like smokers don't care about their trash. They'll just flick a butt anywhere. On the sidewalk or the grass, out their car window, out of a building's window, in the toilet... Have you ever done a beach cleanup? Notice how about half of the crap you pick up is related to cigs? Likewise check the HC courtyard. Every once in a while, there'll be a beer can or a bottle cap. Sometimes a napkin or a to-go box. But there's ALWAYS cigarette butts. Sometimes smokers dispose of their butts in other people's yards or in green spaces. They'll even do it if there's a trash can (one of the ones designed for cigs) within 5 feet!

Nasty, nasty smokers. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Not only are you paying good money to destroy your health and mine, but you display blatant disregard for cleanliness.

P.S. I appreciate those exceptions to the smoker rule...the ones who go out of their way not to litter. They have pocket ash trays or they use a bottle or can at a party to dispose of their butts instead of throwing them on the ground.

Pick #18

Wilco - "I Can't Stand It" from the Summer Teeth album