I SAY I SAY I SAY

Heartwarming Olympics story: Canadians thank Norwegians by way of maple syrup

Best line: "I think that [maple syrup is] something that very representative of this country, aside from beavers."



Yeah I know, I ain't been around much. Sorry kids. I've been slacking in numerous areas of my life the past couple weeks, and I've decided to put a stop to it.




I'm sure you're all curious about my birthday evening, and I'll admit, it was your typical 21st birthday.




But it was in the middle of the week and I was trying to be responsible, so it was an extremely condensed 21st birthday, with all the happenings occurring between 9 pm and 1 am.



After that time, Emily walked me back to my room (During the walk we cut across the grass out by the reflection pools, at which point I apparently instructed Emily that "I don't wanna go in the water." I don't remember telling her this, but she insists I was adamant on the point, that I honestly did not want to go in the water. She said she assured me that we weren't going to.)



After she made sure I got to my room alright, she went off to her own devices, leaving me to mine. And it just so happens that about fifteen minutes later I went to the bathroom and locked myself out of my room.




But my neighbor CC found me sitting in that bewildered state, and put me to bed in her room on her futon. (Thanks so much CC) I woke up to find her poster of Vin Diesel staring down at me.




All in all I had a pretty excellent birthday, the weather was great, the company was great, even the end was great. Come on, there are worse things in life than waking up under the careful gaze of Vin Diesel.

All pictures courtesy of Emily's new digital camera. I have been helping her with her newfound obsession with photography.

I slept an hour and a half last night

Current π count: 698


I've been ridiculously happy lately for reasons as yet unclear to me. Yesterday I was eating pancakes and I was so happy about it I literally started crying and laughing at the same time. I don't know, don't ask me, they were apparently really good pancakes. Then I buttered my toast and ate all but the crust and finished my juice and then I was so full I had to grunt when I exhaled. Like that Cajun chef who used to be on PBS--you know the one, "L'il bit mo' butta, git in dat pot dere"

I think it might have something to do with the fact that I went to a very good play on Saturday, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, which ended up being extremely homoerotic even for a play set during wartime...but then I found out the playwrite was actually gay himself, so after that I felt it was pretty subdued, actually. Also I must consider that that most twenty-first of birthdays is soon upon me and I can then begin killing my liver as my Catholicism dictates (Wes branded my door with the title "PAPIST" in big angry black letters, and I'm waiting to see if anyone says anything)

But today I'm happy because last night about 12:30 am when I was getting frustrated on my differential geometry, there were suddenly a lot of noises coming from outside my dorm--people shouting and screaming and laughing-- and I looked outside and realized it was snowing--not stupid Georgia flurries --really honest to goodness snowing-- and I think I let out a veritable shriek of pure delight, and threw on my coat and some gloves and shoved my hat on my head and ran outside to romp in the snow with the others... and admittedly there wasn't a large accumulation of snow, this is Georgia winter we're talking about, and this Georgia winter in particular has been bad (it's back to 60 again on Wednesday) but when I was dancing around in it and catching it on my tongue last night, and when I woke up this morning to go to class, and everything was dusted and white and beautiful and sparkling, and when I thought about how I hadn't had snow-- real snow-- since I was twelve years old and that last winter in Illinois where all I wanted was a white birthday, I couldn't help but feel that it was enough, it was more than enough.



Also, here are two extremely attractive pictures of me taken by my buddy Daniel in the Math Lab.








Now I'm off to take a nap until 6, when I'm going to watch a man give a mathematical demonstration about juggling.

I think I know what you mean but watch what you say

Not dead, I promise...

So I was watching Conan O'Brien last night (I love that tall red-headed gangle creature with a pure affection) and I saw Rick Moranis on there promoting his new country western album. And all I could think was "Oh my god, we are all going to die." Because, you know, Rick Moranis fulfills a very important role in our society, which of course (as I'm sure you're well aware) is the role of the one who indoctrinates our children into how hilarious the consquences can be when one either dabbles in mad science or decides to mess around in the laboratory of another who dabbles in mad science , and if he's decided to give up on that in favor of country western music (albeit hilariously written, decidely geeky country western music), then, well, I pose this question for you: Who now is going to shrink and/or blow up increasingly minor characters in our most beloved sci-fi/family/comedy franchise?


So my roommate moved out at the end of last semester (nothing I did, I promise), and now I am in a deliciously private room at no extra cost to myself. Sure I live on the most inconveniently placed hall in the entire campus (fourth floor, furthest from any of the parking lots) and I admit, I was a bit miffed at first about being roped away up there in that glorified attic, but it had this unforeseen benefit of being a hall where people moved out and no one moved in. So there you have it. Private room achieved. But anyway, the point is that she took all the posters and paintings she had on her side of the room with her, so I have a very empty blank white wall going on here...so (inspired by a conversation with Habits) I decided to embark on a PROJECT.



Here is the idea: I am going to paste my walls with as much of π (the ratio, not the foodstuff) as I can before April 28th when the semester ends. So far I've put up about 300 decimal places, and it extends perhaps a fifth of the circumference of the room.



But here's the funny bit. I can print out π up to one million places. So counting that 300 goes about a fifth of the way around the room, I figured a million decimal places of π will wrap around the room 666 times. So apparently the mark of the beast is achieved through π. Who would have thought it? Leave it to me to figure something like that out.



Anyway, I don't plan on putting up a million decimal places of π. To acheive that before April 28th, I would have to put up numbers at a rate of 12,050 a day, which, let's face it, isn't gonna happen because I am extremely lazy and can only afford so much printer ink and paper. But it'll be fun nonetheless, and once I've wrapped it around a few times, I might start on that most golden of ratios φ instead.


(Also, my favorite Rick Moranis movie is definitely Space Balls. It made fun of the 80's before it was cool to make fun of the 80's.)