Cool thing of the day

The Blue Marlin, a "semi-submersible heavy lift ship".

This is a boat that carries things around through the ocean. Things like oil rigs and warships. That's really neat.

Today's Kook of the Day

There's stupid crime, and then there's impossibly, mind-blowingly empty-headed attempts at wrongdoing.

Exhibit A of the latter.

Dude goes up to City Hall in NY (of course it's NY) and tries to file the paperwork that'll make him the rightful owner of a hotel. They send him away. He returns and tries again. City Hall calls up the owners of the hotel, whose only real reaction is to laugh.

Happy New Year!

Cool thing of the day

Aerogel.

Silica aerogel can protect the human hand from the heat of a blowtorch at point blank range.

This means that if you put a slice of that blue wispy smokey-looking stuff on your hand, fired up a blowtorch, and aimed it directly at your hand? No big.

Ticketed again

I (finally) have purchased a ticket back out to the Wild West. Hope for good weather.

Also, I've emailed with a fellow St John's student who is looking for a housemate. It's probably not going to work out (they want to sign a lease through May), but, he said he has a friend who's living on-campus, who wants to move off-campus, but was told they couldn't, possibly because there was no one to fill the room. Er, okay. So he's going to talk to her (the friend), and hopefully one of them will get back to me, and then hopefully I can call up the housing office and say: "She wants to live off-campus. I want to live on-campus. You guys don't want to have an empty room. I see a very simple way for everyone to win." Awesome. (it's hard to type with crossed fingers).

Polar Bears

I like polar bears. For one, I like most all animals (notable exceptions: crickets and grasshoppers, most everything that lives in the ocean - they all creep me out). And polar bears are cool: they're big and mighty and you so don't want to mess with one. But at the same time they're cute. Often they look like they're smiling, they're furry, all baby bears regardless of species are cute, etc. See?Polar bears are neat.

They're also now a threatened species. The Bush administration readily chalks up the decline to climate change. Warmer weather = less polar ice = fewer bears. Obviously it's more complicated than that but it really comes down to warm weather being bad for polar bears. You probably guessed this from their name. Does this mean that the administration is starting to take notice of the serious problem and try to do something about the problem? Ratify the Kyoto Protocol? Push for stricter emissions regulations?

Well...no. It means that they're saying "Yup, that's a problem. Sucks to be a bear."

Again, everyone likes polar bears. Everyone's heard of them and there's a certain cool factor to them that many animals don't have. "Climate change" or "global warming" or however you want to phrase it lacks that; it's harder to connect on a personal level.

So here's to the mighty polar bear. The bear that shills for Coke and requires about 2kg of fat, every day, to survive. The bear that's at once graceful and terrifying; by far the mightiest animal in it's realm - until we muscled onto the scene. Maybe the fine Ursus maritimus has finally found it's match and it's us, our pollution, our waste and toxic gasses.

Here's hoping that more people start to wake up, and the polar bear has a better 2007 than 2006.

Back from a winter wonderland

Christmas was OK. Nothing stupendous, but it was nice to see family again. It would have been nice to have a bit more time, but thus is life. It was also great to get down to Maryland to see some relations on that side of the family, as I don't know when I last saw any of them (at least a year and a half ago, probably more). So, it was pleasant.

More personally, since returning to the US, I've decided to drink far less soda. I'm not going to even try to cut it out completely because I quite honestly like soda. But in England I was drinking almost soda and coffee exclusively, because juice costs more and doesn't last as long, and I'm not a big water drinker. So I've decided that I'm going to limit myself to an occasional treat, less than daily. Who knows how it'll hold up once I go back to school.

Also, I decided today as we were cruising out of suburban Maryland: America is just stupidly in love with our own flag, and I don't understand it at all.

Oh god want.

If Santa reads blogs, and it's not too late to send him a list: I can't begin to express how happy owning this t-shirt would make me.

Only in America, part XXVII

Last night I was on the train coming back to NJ (that majestic land across the sea, and by sea I mean "the Delaware river" and by majestic I mean "no actually it rather sucks") after an evening on the town with a friend.

We sat down towards the front of the car, with one seat in front of us. In that seat was Some Annoying Guy (SAG), wearing a white hoodie and listening to music on his phone without the benefit of headphones. I hate when people do that, and, at one point, when he started rapping along with it, I almost politely asked him to shut the hell up. For whatever reason, though, I didn't.

SAG stood as we approached his stop, and there was a loud thunk and that slight skittering noise - you know, you drop something, part of it goes sliding across the floor. I assumed he maybe dropped...I don't know, his phone, or a PSP or something. He's searching basically under our seat for whatever it is that tried to escape.

Victorious, SAG stands up, and the dude is holding a gun.

As in, he dropped a gun. On the train. Right next to me.

On average, I'd say I made two journeys on public transportation every day in London. I was in London for six months; that's about three hundred some trips. Know how often I saw a gun? Maybe four or five times, always firmly attached to police.

The first time I take the train back in the States? Someone drops a gun beneath my seat.

If you're going to be an idiot and carry a gun around, would you please have enough courtesy to carry the thing and not throw it around? Thanks.

In Retrospect:

I'd have loved to have more time in London.

But I'm really glad I came home when I did and did not, say, try to fly home on the 23rd or 24th directly out of London, as London is apparently swathed in a Stephen King-worthy fog that has grounded most flights for three days now.

Ouch.

Music to my ears, only it's kinda bad.

After eight and some months of sad, sad neglect, I've brought my violin back out into the open.

I honestly felt an incredible pang of guilt when I first opened the case and saw how out of tune she* was. Tuning wasn't actually that bad - I've never had too terrible of a time of it, other than the first 'high desert holy crap it's dry here' tuning - once I got the pegs unstuck. For a minute I was wondering if I'd have to take it up to Sam Ash or somewhere to see if someone with more skill could help out. Eight months of sitting under my bed, from winter (when the heat was on) to summer (hot and humid) to winter again had the pegs nice and stuck.

My fingers are embarrassingly sensitive now. Again, it's not as if I could have feasibly brought my violin with me to Europe, but still. I played for, what, fifteen years or so. For most of those years I didn't have, you know, feeling on the tips of my left-hand fingers. Then I stopped playing, and the last time my fingers felt like this I must have been 4 years old and just picking up a violin for the first time.

Unlike that time, when I was befuddled by how to even hold the bow, I've at least got a place to start this time. Vivaldi's (who was sort of a hack, IMO, but he's fun) Concerto in A Minor, allegro movement. It was an audition piece for something years ago, I believe, so I've still got the sheet music kicking around. I also have a recording of it on my computer, so that helps.

Now I'm seriously considering doing a (post-Christmas, as I'd be insane to do so now) a bargain hunt online. Fine tuners would, in fact, be nice to have, as would a mute, some sheet music I haven't played a hundred times, and a metronome. Or, for that matter, an electric violin so I could practice without inflicting pain on others.

Planes ahoy

I have a friend who's supposed to be flying out of Denver on Thursday, but seeing how they're predicting several feet of snow, that's looking rather unlikely. Meanwhile in SillyHatLand, a ton of flights have been grounded due to fog. This, I'm sure, has a large number of people extremely grumpy.

That puts my flight home in perspective. It was long and annoying, but at least I wasn't held up by weather. And I'm constantly sort of bewildered by how we have yet to learn to control the weather.

Before you read this, knock on wood.

It's been a good year. I know it's a bit premature, but I've been thinking, and you know what? It's been a good year.

Last year was not a good year. Last year, I screwed up the second half of my freshman year, spent my summer taking a class I didn't really enjoy, working a job I didn't really enjoy, and doing an internship that convinced me I didn't want to go into journalism. Then I went back to school and proceeded to make an even bigger mess of my sophomore year. I'd begun to realize that I had no idea what I was doing: no idea why I was at St. John's, no idea why I'd chosen St. John's, no idea why I'd even gone straight to college out of high school. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and therefore didn't know if St. John's would help me get there, which caused something of a motivation problem. So, predictably to anyone who wasn't me and therefore had there head in a clearer place, I got kicked out. "Goodbye," they said. "Go take time off. Figure yourself out before trying to take on great literature."

So, I went. And I moped. Cried a bit, too, and spent a few weeks wallowing in misery. Then I realized that, okay, not having a lot of fun doing this, and whether or not I like it, I'm not in school right now. So what now?

I didn't really believe it then, a year ago, but I've had a spectacular amount of fun in the past year. The highlight of course was being in London: it was someplace I'd always wanted to go and, incredibly, it lived up to my expectations. Ireland was less intense for me but still enjoyable. I travelled a lot within Ireland and it's an incredible feeling, to go, hop on a bus, go someplace. Spontaneously. I did a fairly large number of things that scared the crap out of me (from 'going to a foreign country where I don't speak the language' to 'finding a job and apartment on my own'), made decent work of those things, and definitely learned...something.

Even prior to going to abroad? When I was working for the IRS in a mind-numbing job, bored out of my mind in New Jersey? It was (in retrospect, in the long run) good for me. I almost didn't take that job, because...sweet jeebus, who the hell am I thinking it's at all right to work for the IRS? The bloated government abomination that chews through the taxes it collects like nothing else? And the commute was a bitch. But: the pay is good. I needed the money. So I sucked it up, went and spent eight hours typing numbers into a computer every day, and that was that. Did it necessarily make me a better person? Not really, but it did probably start to knock me off my high-and-mighty liberal horse a bit. Did it help me get to a place that I personally wanted to be? Yeah. Am I particularly proud to say I worked for the government, let alone the IRS? Not at all, but I did, I survived, and really? It wasn't a big deal. I'd first decided that I was going to go to Europe; the IRS job was a means to an end.

So, here's my resolution. I'm going to go back to St. John's and make the best of it. For all I know I'll get back there and Santa Fe and the college will feel like a heavy wet cloth draped over my face, in which case, I'll get through the semester and consider my other options. I'm going to get through the semester, though, and I'm going to do well. I'm not going to let "hey I screwed this up before!" get in my way, and I'm not going to scare myself off.

That's all for now, thank god.

Automotive culture

Americans drive a lot.

Granted, if I were in a proper city - Philadelphia, New York, LA - there'd be fewer personal cars on the road. More cabs and buses.

But suburban New Jersey is downright absurd in how you need a car.

I live less than half a mile from the Cherry Hill Mall. To get there from my house, you walk down my driveway, go a few meters to the corner and turn left, walk to the next intersection, turn right, walk two blocks, cross a four-lane road, and you're in the mall parking lot.

There's no safe way for a pedestrian to get into the parking lot, though. Your best bet is to bear away from the mall's entrance, go down the grassy median between parking lot and road, and cut across the quarter-mile of parking lot.

There's a Target across the road from the mall. The best way to get there? Walk up to the mall, down the road (including a dash across the on/off ramps to a local highway), across the movie theater parking lot, cross the drainage ditch where there's no fence, and come around from the back. A sidewalk? No, why would there be one of those?

In the past I grumbled about it, especially in the days before I got a license, but hey, it's convenient, right? Target's nice, because you can get pretty much whatever you may need in one shop. Ditto for the big enclosed malls.

But I think I've come to realize that there was a flaw in my thinking, and that is: You don't need that stuff. I lived for nearly a year quite happily with as much clothing as would fit in my backpack: a few pairs of jeans and black slacks, a couple button-down shirts, some t-shirts. Big flashy wardrobe? Not at all. Sufficient, and perhaps even easier? Absolutely. We're smothered with choice here, and it's...depressing.

So the CIA did kill princess Diana

Apparently the crazy conspiracy theorists were, in fact, right. It's been "concluded" that the CIA was tapping her phone.

I bet I can guess what's on the front page of the Daily Express over in Britain today (though, granted, if you're guessing what's on that particular front page, "Some boring stupid drivel about a dead princess" is a safe bet whenever). (And, looks like I'm right.)

Now, why would the CIA be interested in tapping her phone? Damned if I know: from the posthumous coverage of her life, she seemed rather dull.

The good, the bad, and the boring

The boring: Princess Diana is still dead. Also she wasn't pregnant. It's news to me that anyone thought she had been. Had I not just spent six months seeing certain British tabloids which to this day put her on the front page once a week or so, I'd also be surprised by the fact that people care.

The bad: A very well-written column from the Inquirer, point out that "civil unions" are not marriage, nor equal to marriage, and therefore saying that an arbitrarily chosen group of people are only eligible for civil unions is still rather discriminatory.


The good: How did I not know about this guy before this morning? His music is unspeakable awesome.

More reasons why America sucks

In today's installment of "America has fewer IQ points per capita than any other country in the world", we go to Texas. Surprised? Not I.

There are plans to build a mosque in Katy, Texas, which is a bit outside of Houston. Some locals take offense to this and are afraid that it will turn the bustling town of Katy (population 11,000 some) into a hotbed of terrorism.

Amongst the objectors is a man who lives next to the property in question, and if the plans go ahead, will hold pig races on his land. Because obviously, only godless terror-loving Muslims would be upset at that.

How the hell do people justify this "Islam = terror" mindset? Try that about any other religious group and chances are you'll be a very lonely person very soon. And, yes, a few unsavory people did adhere to Islam. But, firstly, the 9/11 attacks were not in any way about religion; they were about politics and poverty and the stupid sense of American entitlement that we've been waving around since WWII. Secondly, let's just take 9/11 as an example. I know there've been other attacks, but the average American thinks "Muslim terror" and probably thinks of that September. There were 19 hijackers on that day. Let's go ahead and assume that there was a "support staff", so to speak, of ten for each hijacker. So that gives us 209 people involved. I mostly just made that up, but I think it's probably a decent estimate.

Conservative estimates put the number of people who practice Islam at about .7 billion around the world, with about 1 million of them in the US (cite). Again, those are conservative numbers, and the actual ones are probably quite a bit higher. Regardless, even with the lowest numbers, that would mean that those 209 people coordinating the 9/11 attacks represent an absurdly tiny percentage of a hugely popular religion.

So forgive me if I'm missing something, but I personally think that the people in Katy aren't afraid of terrorism; they're just bigoted idiots.

The travails of travel

So late Tuesday afternoon I slung my pack across my back and made my way down to the train station, hopped on the Stansted Express, and chugged on out of London.

My RyanAir flight from Stansted to Dublin was fine - on-time, fairly smooth, not overly crowded. I got my bags, breezed through Immigration and Customs, and things were good.

At that point I realized I was rather hungry, so I went off looking for food. This was a quest complicated by A) my not having any euros on me, B) it being relatively late, and C) my preference for something not containing meat. After a few tries I finally found a shop that had a lone, sad cheese sandwich (white bread, two slices of processed cheese, two slices of tomato), and took pounds sterling. Not exactly high cuisine, but it kept me from passing out. I found two chairs next to each other in a relatively quiet area of the Departures hall.

It took a while but I managed to doze off - things quieted down around midnight - only to be abruptly woken by a sharp prod in the shoulder. I opened my eyes and there is a police officer standing above me asking for identification, which, while I didn't have anything to worry about, was a bit unsettling.

The next morning I did not, as I'd hoped, get on the 9:00 flight out of Dublin, so I had a few extra hours to kill before my 10:30 flight. First up: security.

I'll make it short. I'm now lacking in one 16-ounce Nalgene bottle, and the appropriate response to have something utterly benign confiscated by security should not include the phrase "molotov cocktail".

Live and learn, eh?

Thoughts on money

I'm in the final phases of packing up my life in London, as I depart tonight. (*sniffle*)

As I go through my wallet, weeding out old receipts (Hm, no, I doubt I need an ATM receipt from four weeks ago), I'm also restocking it. I have a very small stash of US bills that I had in my wallet when I first left for Ireland, so that gets taken out of storage.

And, seriously, American money is A) ugly and B) oddly-proportioned. Having all bills the same sized is just not a good idea.

I'm a bad American

Is it truly bad for me to be really, really hoping that the dollar continues to fall against the pound come Monday?

Like, a lot? I'm constantly checking xe.com, going "c'mon, c'mon, just a few more cents...let's break 2...c'mon pound!"

Also cool: I'm practically done all my holiday shopping. My loved ones shall be getting thematic gifts (by which I don't at all mean "ooh touristy crap".)

Cue emo tears

So I leave on Tuesday. I won't get home until Wednesday (because for some reason Continental has obscenely cheap flights to Newark, but only early-morning flights from Dublin), but still: Tuesday, I leave London.

I'd like to know how the hell that's possible. How is it December already? I just got here, didn't I?