laissez-faire, bitch

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life signs

Move-in week for Oregon State started today. Corvallis is a busy place now. All the frats in my area have suddenly come to life.

Tomorrow I start my grad student orientation. I have already signed up for most of my classes. I need 1 more credit though, and the seminars I was recommended conflict with classes I need. I wanted to take EE's cryptography class, but it seems to have been cancelled.

The department picnic is Friday. That should be fun. I told the other grads at lunch I make a mean pan of peanut butter fudge, so I signed up to bring that. I need to get the supplies from the store though - I don't exactly have superfine cane sugar in the kitchen.

payback

I replaced all the lightbulbs in my apartment today with CFL bulbs. The store had them for a buck each and they are compact enough to actually fit in the socket, so I went all out. I'm keeping the old bulbs in a bag to swap back when I move out, because the CFL bulbs are supposed to last for years and they're too neat to leave behind.

I got the latest issue of Car and Driver. They had some cool stuff about the new Corvette Z06 and the Pontiac Solstice. However, there was an article I took offense to. The guy was talking about how hydrogen isn't a primary energy source, which is right. But then he said that solar cells don't make back the energy it requires to make them, and ripped on wind power too. I'm still very new to the renewable energy scene, but I've heard this energy payback rumor several times now. It's FALSE.

Even if it were true, do these people think it would stay that way? All you have to do is increase lifespan, increase efficiency, or decrease input cost, or some combination of the above. It's called technological progress, morons.

I'm probably going to finish rereading The Idea Factory tonight. Parts of the book hit a little close to home. The most depressing part is still ahead, so I'll be bummed out later. After this book I think I'm going to reread William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy - after Ghost in the Shell I'm hungry for more cyberpunk.

I'm recuperated from all my travelling and now I have too much energy. I wish I had a bike to burn it off. I should look into that before classes start.

summer's end

refit and resupply

I slept for 11 hours. It was called for.

My apartment is a dump and there's nothing in the fridge. Today will be spent correcting these issues.

I read half of The Idea Factory last night. It is good, but depressing. My undergrad view of grad school basically came from that book and Piled Higher and Deeper.

Fortunately, grad orientation starts on Tuesday so I have one more day left to myself. One week left until my classes start.

the seasoned traveler

I've had more than enough traveling for a while. I got up at 4:15 AM today. 1 hour drive to the airport. 4 hour flight. 2 hour layover. 3 hour flight. 2 hour drive. And when I pull into my apartment complex, I find that some dumbass has sprawled his huge Ford pickup across my parking space. After all that travel made me cranky, he's lucky I didn't slash his tires or something. Fortunately the owner drove off and I took my rightful place in parking space #5.

So, I'm back in Oregon. I certainly brought a lot of books with me. I think I am going to bed now because I was on something between Eastern time and Pacific time and today's travels have further confused things.

re-strung

I went to the print shop today to talk physics shirts. They told me they'd send details in a day or so. I started looking at colors as well - there won't be blue shirts in this run, but all the other popular colors are making a return. I have been convinced that red shirts would be a good idea (all you, Mikey) and of course green and orange are back. I liked the looks of the yellow and grey shirts last time as well. All of the shirts will be 100% cotton this time - I wasn't happy that last time some of the shirts were 50/50 polyester. This time I'm probably going to replace my 50/50's with full cotton shirts because I like the feel of the cotton shirts better.

I suppose that on today's news I can confirm a third run of Michigan State Physics T-shirts will be made, I don't have specific details yet though. I have to work out a timeline and get the production end running, and Jim has to start working some marketing magic. I'll throw up a website or something when I'm back in Oregon and have details. We're not taking orders just yet, but definitely drop me a line if you're interested.

Tomorrow I'm going over to Ann Arbor to hang out with some friends. I'm going to wear a Michigan State Physics shirt, of course. Tomorrow is also my last full day in Michigan before I fly home. It's very fortunate that I flew Southwest Airlines this time, because Northwest and Delta both went bankrupt this week.

After I return from Ann Arbor I have to pack everything up and get ready for another day on airplanes. I certainly did a good job of raiding my bookshelves - I won't have a shortage of things to read for a while. I'm wondering if I took full advantage of my week back in Michigan, but I think I did all I could for only having one week (especially for only having a car a couple of those days). I kind of want to hang around in Michigan some more, but my five month long summer is over. It was good to hang out with friends at MSU again, but it also felt clear that it's not for me anymore. Time to move on.

I finished watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I thought the series started off good, then got a little slow in the middle. Then the run up to the climax was pretty awesome, but the final episode was confusing and not quite satisfactory. I enjoyed the series overall though. Now I am trying to find Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. I found out the English version won't be out until November, but I can probably find a Japanese version (subtitled in English) to watch. Penny Arcade claims Advent Children is pure condensed awesomeness. I am inclined to believe it.

I am flying back to Oregon on Saturday morning. Next week is orientation week at Oregon State, and then my classes finally start. It's been a whole five months since I had classes - I am not sure if I am ready, but it's coming anyway. The next time I'll be in Michigan will be December.

major

i want a tachikoma

My MSU email is acting up at the moment, so I've pretty much switched over to Gmail wholesale. I can still read MSU email but it won't let me send email for some reason, so I'm just responding to all my emails with Gmail. On a side note, I have only been using Gmail for a couple of days and I've aleady accumulated 19 invites.

I got some weird email today. One of the PSM people I talked to thought I was in applied biotechnology, and emailed me demanding to know why I wasn't signed up for some molecular bio class. I replied that on top of my being an Applied Physics student, I haven't signed up for any class yet, because they haven't yet told me all the classes I need to take. However, my remarks were to be sent by MSU email and thus got held up. The PSM person figured out I was in Applied Physics and correct themself, so I just deleted my outgoing email.

I also got bored and Googled myself. I found that Oregon State now has a list of PSM students, including profiles. Unfortunately, they completely made the profiles up - I am quoted as saying that I want to be a 'technical advisor in the aerospace industry.' Right. They also spelled my name wrong. Excellent work all around. I told the PSM people that I would be happy to write a short blurb about PSM if it meant getting rid of the crap they made up.

Since I'm home for the week I can catch The Daily Show. (No cable TV in the apartment.) It seems that their popularity has made them bolder - the joke seem a little punchier, and they dropped quite a few F-bombs in the shows I watched. I still love my Daily Show though. Kurt Vonnegut was on tonight, but it wasn't really a great interview. I like a couple of Vonnegut's books, but many of the others are just him being a dirty old man and getting away with it.

SPS is starting back up at MSU. And what's this - it's not sucking? The change in leadership (read: Sarah left) seems to have done a great deal of good. My brother is apparently even standing in as temporary VP (until they hold proper elections). SPS even ordered good pizza for their first meeting. This is a huge deal in the context of SPS. In the past, SPS has been governed by apathetic inertia so great that they couldn't even order anything other than Bell's pizza. (It is the cheapest...and also sucks. To quote Timmy, you can taste the savings.) SPS usually ordered 8 pizzas for 7 attendees. SPS was once criticized for 'not spending enough money' by the department (because they do nothing), so at the next meeting they ordered 8 horrible pizzas and a 6' sub.

At the new meeting, they ordered Papiano's. And they had enough attendees to justify 8 pizzas.

This is a very positive step for SPS. In fact, with Jim as acting VP and Josh as acting president, they may even be interested in a run of physics shirts! I emailed the print shop quite a while ago about a new run, but they haven't responded. I clearly need to go out to the shop and get the facts in person. The physics shirts are far from dead, they're just...hibernating? Waiting for a triumphant return, perhaps with the rebirth of SPS from the ashes. SPS and the physics shirts, working together - who would have thought?

Jim came home today for our mom's birthday. He brought several full episodes of Top Gear, a car show on BBC. The show is fairly amusing and I like their picks in music. For example, playing Orbital's "P.E.T.R.O.L." for a race between the gasoline and diesel versions of the BMW M5. Or playing music from Master and Commander and Batman Begins while racing a van on the Nurburgring.

In return, I made Jim watch an episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Ghost in the Shell is a cyberpunk classic and I have been enjoying Stand Alone Complex.

Tomorrow I am going to be in East Lansing. Good times.

the mental projection of your digital self

I currently have six email addresses, two webspaces and this weblog. I think some purging is in order. Maybe I can set up some email forwards to cut down.