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"Hard Liquor, Beer, Soda, Beer, Water, KegBeer" ~Words on the side of a liquor store in Hobeken
11:53 AM 0 comments

 
I'm definitely a member of the "internet for free" generation. For some reason paying for internet content just seems foreign to me after getting it for nothing for so long now. I always will go extremely out of my way to try and find things that are for free just to avoid having to pay for something that would have been free everywhere two years ago. I remember when I could pay my ISP fees simply by clicking myself on banners on my own site a few times a day. Now it would take something like several thousand clickthroughs to do the same.
10:44 PM 0 comments

 
One more thing about the airplne trip- We got a snack called "savory mix" on the front, in diamonds are what appears to be the contents. It starts out innocently enough with cheese and wheat. They seem kind of reasonable. The next two though are a little ridiculous. They are "low fat" and "butter". Who wants to advertise that these are a part of the snack they are supposed to be. And yet everyone just opened it up and started eating, without even bothering to look at what it was.
8:59 PM 0 comments

 
Back home again, after finishing my finals yestarday. I definitley had the strangest people sitting next to me in the last row of the plane. The guys both knew each other, and one had an italian mustache- the ones with the ends that are really fine and curl back around. He was the real character, going on about things such as when his wife sent him a playboy while he was travelling only after covering all the pictures in the magazine with pictures of her, and offering interesting tidbits such as the fact that strippers will come from hundreads of miles around when there is a tech convention in town, because they are too smart to spend their money at a casino, so instead they frequent the strip clubs. The thing that was weird with the other guy was that when he sat down, he reached into the back pocket of the seat in front of him, and found a book- not so odd- but it just happened to be a book that I had almost bought that very morning. And that was my flight home.
2:28 PM 0 comments

 
Oh yea... happy spring. I guess you kinda forget that the seasons are changing when you wake up and have to take an orgo test at 8 am after walking through the falling snow as temperatures hover barely above the single digits. No, I'm really not bitter- after all, it's over. Happy Spring! Yay!
9:03 PM 0 comments

 
I know I've made it big now with this blog. A quote from here was actually used as an away message for Eric, a space normally reserved for lines from his favorite movies.
10:58 PM 0 comments

 
Today has been a good day. I finished my research methods paper and turned it in. I turned in the notes I spent the last week copying for extra credit. We played quarters again with water instead of studying orgo. All the is left is three exams in the next 42 hours and I'm done. It was also decided earlier that from now on life in 3N will be a musical, a la "Buffy the Musical" with a small twist- everything has to be in Spanish. It certainly makes for some interesting conversations.
10:56 PM 0 comments

 
Wow, I'm now completely impressed with blogger's thoughtfulness when something goes wrong. They automatically store a cookie with all the info in your post so that if there is an error (such as their server gets overloaded briefly) your post will reappear, even though it should technically be lost. Go blogger!
11:42 PM 0 comments

 
Well, I just saw the first 34 minutes of "Once Again, With Feeling" the Buffy musical episode, and I'm quite impressed. Yes, I am actually beginning to watch it now on a fairly weekly basis with Brian next door, and yes I should have started watching when everyone back in Westfield was, but I guess it just wasn't my thing back then. Now it seems different, and the fact that I can view all the back episodes (graciously "borrowed" via a Gnutella clone) makes it seem more worthwhile (even if it does mean giving up a few hours of my life to watch several episodes). It is finals week, and what better way to goof off when I should be studying. Now of course I need to find all the songs too, which shouldn't be a problem I believe. If the episodes are out there, I'm sure someone has the songs individually too. Back to paper writing for me, cause there are still 2 and a half hours left for the last 17 minutes of the episode to download...
11:40 PM 0 comments

 
"... the electric field, not to be confused with the electric slide..." John, after way too much Physics
11:34 AM 0 comments

 
"Tengo que matar un squirrel y comerlo" ~The essence of randomness, by Brian
7:12 PM 0 comments

 
Brian: "John, do you think I'm pregnant, in your medical opinion?"
John: "Ummm... It's quite possible"
Yea, I know not much content as of late, but its finals week, and studying is consuming pretty much all of my free time.
12:33 AM 0 comments

 
Today was a Big Words day, and you know what that means...
3:39 AM 0 comments

 
"I don't need to teach any more, we're done" ~Final words of my systems physiology class' professor, which ended halfway through its normal scheduled time on the last day.
4:06 PM 0 comments

 
Tengo pseudo-companeros de cuarto borrachos. We went to a party at 912 Hamlin this evening, where green beer was on tap- yes, they really have a tap that comes out of the wall. Anyway, it was lots of fun, and we heard several Irish stories as told by people taking storytelling as a class. It was pretty impressive, and they actually will be getting credit for it in class. There was even a short sing-along. And there were many funny things said as well, the strangest one though came in response to our speaking spanish for half the night as follows:
"What language are you speaking?"
"She's speaking emphysema"
Yea, so that was a bit random, but all in all it was a good time, and Eric and Brian got nice and drunk and a bit rowdy on the walk home. And they all get to sleep in tomorrow while I have class at 10 am. I think I need an extra day in reading week...
2:11 AM 0 comments

 
Not to show my geekiness too much, but I got to rename a variable today. We were working a problem for Transport Fundamentals where there were two gammas, one uppercase and one lowercase. In addition, there were starred versions of each too. So in other words, our variables were little gamma, little gamma star, big gamma, and big gamma star (I would have put the symbols, but blogger doesn't seem to recognize them as anything other than "g" or "G"). So I renamed the big gamma to "rock" and then we got "rock" and "rock star", and everyone started laughing and the name stuck which was kinda neat in the way only a biomedical engineer can concieve. Special thanks to Jessica Krase, Sai Krishna, and Payam Roshandel for adopting its use.
10:48 PM 0 comments

 
An away message from [name removed to protect the innocent] that I just couldn't let slip away once I read the last line.
"Men are pricks. I hate men. They suck. Except the ones who are JUST friends . . . especially the gay ones. Yeah, gay guys and women. Those are the people I like. In fact, I think I'm going to become a lesbian. Women are so much better than men. Except for all my male friends who are reading this who should know I adore them as much as ever and am just on a rant. Men just suck as more than friends. Not that I would know that in comparison to women. I've only been a lesbian since 11 p.m."
12:40 AM 0 comments

 
Two quotes for today.
The first comes from a random conversation overheard in the Kellog building:
"I got sick in Vietnam... the cipro was awesome!"
The second comes from the Prime Minister of Ireland who spoke on campus today:
"I didn't really know Margaret Thatcher, so I can't say anything bad about her."
11:44 PM 0 comments

 
Everyday I respect my brother more and more for the was he handles things. It's sometimes hard to believe that the kid who was always the "kid" is starting to grow up and become a mature responsible young man. I know he still has issues with my parents, and could use a little help there some of the time, but otheriwse Im quite impressed. I guess I did a good job helping you grow up, ey dan?
2:10 AM 0 comments

 
What a beautfiul night we had yestarday. Mid sixties with a little bit of wind (ok, a lot of wind) but it was still wonderful. John, Eric and I played monkey in the middle with a frisbee next to the kellog building (because Deering was very muddy still) and had a great time. At one point Eric tried to do the whole cartoon like walk on a snowball and make it roll stunt, but endedup falling down pretty much right away. It was pretty funny though. We were out there for forty five minutes or so and lost the frisbee to the wind a number of times, including one where it blew all the way out into Sheridan where 2 cars proceeded to run it over prior to its recovery. Fortunately, it was none the worse for the wear- you can't even tell it got hit. And then today came, and there was such a big contrast- the temperature dropped into the teens and the winds got up into the 40 mile an hour range with gusts over 50, making going outside a challenge if you aren't prepared to be (jimmy) buffeted by the wind.
1:13 AM 0 comments

 
"We call her Jen with no pants" ~Tamica, on not that Jen
3:51 PM 0 comments

 
A response to Lindsay's realization posted earlier today.
"...No matter how much I worry about something... it doesn't change what is actually going to happen." I just couldn't let this one go without putting in my own two cents, even if this is an odd way to start a philosophical discussion [on two mutually read blogs]. Now to be fair, I don't know the circumstances, but I am definitely of the opinion that we can exert a little control over a situation, even when we are not directly involved. Take for example a sporting event and think of a teams reaction if no one cheered. The collection of individual voices most certainly can have a devestating effect if absent, then why shouldn't it also have an effect when present. Granted, this is not a great proof, since if p then q does not always mean if not p then not q, but in this example I feel that it is relevant.
Maybe Im just being optomistic, but I would at least like to believe that I have a modicum of control over my own destiny. Since Im not a big believer of predetermination, or lack of free will, I have to conclude that I can change the way events of my life would have otherwise unfolded. Take for example this post. It is a fact that at this point it has been written, but whether or not it will be read by Lindsay is another question entirely. Now I have options- I could wait and let external forces (read: others) control this event, or I could be proactive ranging from asking her to read it, all the way up to say, hacking into her lowly mac and having this post be the default page for her internet browser. Not that I would do that at all, but the fact that it is a possibility eliminates in my mind the idea that I can't control, at least to some degree, over the future of others.
Now, if we are talking about butterflys and hurricanes, I may have to concede this point (since regardless of myths, weather patterns tend to show remakable stability over time), but I believe that when it is on the level of people events that there is always something that can be done.
3:46 PM 0 comments

 
Northwestern just lost to Michigan in the Big Ten basketball tournament, how sad. We might still get an NIT bid though, which would be cool. Maybe next year we could even make it to the second round of the Big Ten tourny, a major accomplishment for our team.
5:27 PM 0 comments

 
Tests are finally over- now all I have to do is study for finals for the next two weeks before a was too short, but well deserved, spring break. Yea, I still have classes next week when most of the campus is finished, but it should be a much lighter week than the past few, which is always a good thing. Tonight is just for relaxing, going to listen to Jazz at Pete Millers, and other low key things.
5:25 PM 0 comments

 
"I can legally drink today... if they round up" ~Me on the joys of being 20 and a half today.
3:55 AM 0 comments

 
For the less fortunate of you who aren't receiving snow as I write- I'm sorry. It is really pretty right now the way all the naked tree branches are caked in a dusty white covering. It's nice to have a light to moderate snowfall every few days to really make everything look pure and clean again. We have not had enough of this the past few years. Instead, we tend to get a small number of large snowfalls, which just isn't as cool as the constant presence of snowflakes on your nose and eyelashes.
10:33 PM 0 comments

 
I was feeling ill earlier today. I also was supposed to be studying for my organic chemistry exam tomorrow. I wonder if the fact that I hadn't studied enough was making me feel sick (and thus hampering my further study efforts) or if it was something else. Now that I have gotten over the "I feel so bad that I can't do anything" part, and actually started to study, I feel better. I really wonder how much my anxiety causes a change in my overall health, or maybe I was reading too much into a stomache ache. Either way, deciding to get rid of all my other distractions (other than writing this of course) seems to have been a good way for me to feel better mentally and physically.
10:30 PM 0 comments

 
Making cheesecake is an ordeal that will not soon be forgotten. Imagine for a second that you and a few others decide it will be "dessert night," whereyou make a bunch of different things and then just pig out. Now picture one of them being cheesecake. The first thing that may come to mind is- how many people keep five boxes of cream cheese on their fridge? We certainly didn't, and thus began the long walk to Jewel at 10:30 at night. After a hour long excursion during which Brian and I purchased a lot of cream cheese, we sat down to make it. In what you might ask. Well, we had frozen two pie tins a while ago and figured we would use those. However, after getting home, we discovered that they crumbled to bits when we took them out of the freezer (and yes, they were meant to be frozen). So, I decided to make a crust based on the amazing pumpkin chiffon pie recipe given to me by Meg. Due to a craving for smores earlier in the year, I had the grahm crackers, and we even had almost all of the ingredients. We were only missing confectioners sugar, which I just left out and hoped it would still work. So we baked the crust to harden it, and filled it with the "not recommended" (as quoted from the cream cheese box) servings of fat in the cheesecake mixture. Then we realized that our recipe for the mixture was for 16-20 servings, and our pie tin might have been good for eight slices. So we made another crust half grahm cracker half oreo just to see if it would work, and baked and filled that one too. We still had leftovers so we just filled a third pie tine with the rest. Then we went to put them in the oven, and realized all three wouldn't fit, so we put the third one in my oven next door. The ones in brians oven started to burn a little bit so one of them is "as brown as nish" as was joked, the other is alittle dark around the edges, and the one in my apartment's oven came out nice and golden (likely because my oven couldn't put out enough heat to burn it). Then we took them out, cooled them down and put them in the fridge for 12 hours to let them get the right consistancy. And that was the ordeal of making a cheesecake.
As for everything else, well that was all we managed to get done, so they'll be plenty of more things to bake tonight, when we actually get to try the cheesecake.
4:39 PM 0 comments

 
"Yea, we have plenty of extra eggs" ~Brian, just before he dropped the remaining five eggs in the carton on the floor.
3:08 AM 0 comments

 
The months pass so quickly. Yes, this is sounding philosophical already. But already only 3 weeks left till Spring break, and a scant 5 till we get to spring ahead and enjoy the evenings again. Spring will come with all its fun and that day when everything becomes green. I can picture the day last year, walking through Foster Walker for an early morning class, all the buds on the trees were closed, and as I walked home about half the leaves were beginning to uncurl on the tree in the middle of the foster walker courtyard. I definitely got some strange looks as I just stood there watching the leaves open just a little. I was surprised how quick they can go from buds to mini leaves- it was only a few minutes for some to open. Granted they were not full sized leaves, but it was amazingly peaceful, beautiful, and pretty cool to watch, even if I did garner a few stares for standing and gazing at a tree from the middle of the path. I can't believe that day is almost here again.
1:23 AM 0 comments