If I only had a brain...

1. OH SNAP!
2. Italo Calvino, Golem, and so much more can be yours if you go to see Stranger than Fiction. I enjoyed seeing Dustin Hoffman reprise a role similar to the one he played in I *heart* Huckabees.
3. I enjoy 1920s era furniture: We've done gone streamline crazy, y'all.
4. I, much like Eddie Albert, am often cast as the friendly, good-natured buddy of the hero.
5. "Fred darling, I'd marry you for your money in an instant."
6. Folk Art is my favorite form of Folk Anything.
7. "Terminal E is far cooler than Terminal C." -- me to a stranger I met at the Houston airport
8. Am I the only person excited about the new Rocky movie?
9. Yay green bean rigamarole!
10. "I was a turmite. I be inside the gueen turmite. It lad eggs, and I be baby turmite one day. I like insects. Would you like to meet my seester?" -- lil kazoo

Hungry, Hungry Hippos

For the past two some odd weeks I've been fasting everyday from sunrise to sunset in celebration of Ramadan. Now I'm roughly halfway through it.

The hardest days have been Saturdays when there is a home football game during the day. On Saturday mornings we go play soccer against the Chinese or Nigerians, so I'm already feeling drained before we even leave to go watch the game. Then at the football game, there is a lot of standing and yelling going on out in what normally feels like 100 degree weather. The end result is an extremely taxing, but strangely gratifying, day.

The best days are when I can find the time to take long naps during the day. In a lot of ways I'm becoming increasingly nocturnal, but there is a period of time in the afternoon where I can be extremely productive. At any rate, my muslim friend Jonathan was right in making the observation that we spend a lot of time everyday in procuring, eating, or digesting food (or in the very least, food product).

During the day, my range of emotions extends from glum and sullen to confused and easily distracted. I have a very difficult time staying awake during lectures because of my erratic sleeping and inability to consume caffeine during the day. On the other hand, I generally feel less anxious during the day.

Once the night rolls around and I get some food into my nutrition starved body, I feel like there is no limit to what I can do physically. During the summer I started working out regularly with Jonathan, and so I originally wanted to fast during Ramadan out of deference to him. With the start of Ramadan, we decided to change our workout schedule such that we would be lifting in the evenings, so that we would have a chance to consume some protein before going to lift. We wait to eat dinner until after working out. The remarkable thing is that in the past two weeks I've been getting stronger in the gym. The gains almost seem radical. In the traditional benchmarks for strength, the bench press and the squat, I've blown by my previous bests.

For all the impressive strength gains though, I've never felt weaker when doing cardio exercises. When I bike to school or run or play soccer, I feel like I lack explosiveness and energy. It's most frustrating when playing soccer because I don't feel competitive in the least.

I hoped that fasting would help me regain some feeling of focus. To some extent that has happened, but I'm not completely certain. Feeling fatigued and slightly sick is quite a distraction after all. In general though, I feel different from the person I was. I have no sense of whether or not it is for the better. I'm more aware of my physical abilities and limitations, and everyday is a constant reminder.

The most subtle observation of myself that I've made during this time is in seeing more fully how my lack of a strong spiritual life is affecting me. I think that is the one aspect of my life that I've been in denial over for the longest time. I feel like I've been making strong claims without conviction to my own faith. It's seriously disturbing, but when I look around at my friends, in a superficial sense, there seems to be no sense of urgency or moral dilemna in regards to making a spiritual life for oneself. I didn't think it was necessarily a problem, because I felt so strongly that it was a private matter. That sentiment could not be further from the truth. I feel like I have to bring myself out of a deep and long abiding coma.

That subtle desire must be the true reason why I ended up fasting with two good friends. Doing this for any other reason would be disastrous.

What I look forward to most during Ramadan is yet to come. One of the nights during the last ten days is called the "Night of Power." Staying awake for the whole night in prayer on this night is akin to receiving three-thousand times the blessings. We're not going to necessarily spend the whole night in prayer, but we'll watch movies and have good conversation.

Resuscitation Instructor

Today, I received student reviews of my teaching from the sections I taught last spring.

Here are some random comments:

1) His strengths lie in his person; his weaknesses, nonexistent.
2) Button is very knowledgable, funny, and promptly responded to e-mails. Good at answering all questions, cares whether or not students understood the concepts.
3) First one I've ever had that could effectively communicate using the english language.
4) So nice, willing to help...
5) Jonathan was flexible...
6) Weakness: Long-winded; Strength: Spoke good english
7) He isn't well-prepared. It is rare if he finishes a problem w/ the correct answer...is likely he will confuse you. I like his grading style, and he's nice and funny.
8) Hard to follow. Always late.
9) He was great.

So there you have it, I seem to have opened to mixed reviews. The consensus clearly was that I showed a lot of concern and patience, although that did not always translate to being effective as a teacher.

So far this semester, I feel that I've been well-prepared for every recitation period. But the lab periods tend to be a nightmare because of the equipment or because of how the lab instructions are written.

Oh well...

The Sun Also Rises...

1. Being a T.A. for three sections of freshmen engineer students is hilarious.
2. I am going to observe Ramadan.
3. I'm having a week of strange coincidences.
4. Almost dropping an 85 lb. dumbell on your face is no laughing matter.
5. The Indians are complete garbage right now, and that makes me sad.
6. Who's the last MOID standing tonight?
7. Irish Car Bombs.
8. Ms. Kazoo never ceases to surprise me.

boom SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! BOOOM popopopopop

Friday night is fireworks night at Jacobs Field.

Almost One Year of Incessant Rolling

After quite the long hiatus, I'm back in College Station for another fun-filled year of getting kicked around hard in my classes and suffering through some rather intolerable heat (of the type emanated from my loins and otherwise).

A rather simple itinerary of the past two weeks:

1. I flew to Indianapolis, got picked up by Beth, and drove with her to Cleveland.
2. Surprised my brother at the AMC theater where he works with some help from his girlfriend Nora. We then all watched Talladega Nights (Shake 'n' Bake and whatnot).
3. Three Indians games in two days: a Friday night fireworks night special against the Royals won in the final at-bat by a Grady Sizemore triple to leftfield, a Saturday day/night doubleheader (first game's promo was "pick from a random smattering of the current season's other promos" and the second game's promo was a Drew Carey bobblehead giveaway). The Indians won all three games (and swept the series the following day).
4. Went to this nice Irish pub and restaurant by the name of Nighttown in Cleveland Heights to listen to some live jazz and eat fine food out on a patio complete with outdoor waterfall.
5. Rented Movies: I *heart* Huckabees, Mannequin, Waking Ned Devine, Keeping the Faith, and Made.
6. Ate far too many of my mother's egg rolls in one sitting.
7. Pushed Beth around on an adult-sized stroller (severely sprained ankle) through the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
8. Contracted some disgusting sinus/cold thing.
9. Drove to Bloomington, Indiana with Beth so that she could be present for her random assortment of orientation functions.
10. Watched too much Sex in the City.
11. Read books one through three of the Harry Potter series.
12. Flew back to College Station.

Ball of Misshapen Clay

1. I've long held the position that the best way to defuse an awkward situation is by sticking one's fist into one's mouth.

I present to you exhibit A:



2. I'm packing up my things and preparing to move away from the (now cut down) dead tree and the water sewage treatment plant for greener, livelier, and less odiferous pastures.

3. In packing up my things, one of the relics that I unearthed from the mounds of stuff that formerly occupied my room was a coupon for a free game at the Pisgah Lanes, courtesy of the Sunset Motel.

I'm glad I still have it because it is one of the few things that remain as a reminder of the wonderful time I had in the mountains of western North Carolina. At any rate, it's a reminder that I still like old timey toy stores, antique shops, and dances on Main St.

Going to North Carolina last summer really helped me to unwind from all the stress of living at home. Working out daily, playing video games all night, and going to Indians games is such a hard life.

I'm definitely paying for it now though. Video games all night has been replaced by late night experiments investigating how light interacts with matter. And Indians games have been dutifully relieved of their post by adventures in the machine shop. Luckily, I only have one or two cuts on my hands while working big, powerful lathes, mills, and band saws.

As my E&M professor from last Spring would attest, "When you live by the hose; you die by the hose."

4. Why are the Indians playing so bad? I personally feel that they got too complacent after last season and came to rely too heavily on their offensive prowess. They still hit very well (albeit in a streaky way). Such fundamental skills as good baserunning and solid defensive glovework and throwing are definitely not trademarks of the '06 Tribe. Furthermore, the losses of Arthur Rhoades, Kevin Millwood, and Bob Howry in the off-season have proved too costly.

Oh well, there's much to look forward to for next year. I like Fausto Carmona at closer. Maybe we'll get to see Andy Marte over at third (if they end up trading Aaron Boone as well, which I think they will).

But I will be devastated if the Indians let "Sophisticated" Ron Belliard walk in this up-coming off-season. I love that guy.

I get to go home for a week or so after the summer sememster ends in two weeks. I can't wait to make my triumphant return to the Jake. Whatever that means.

5. Now I know why I'm trying to be a physicist and not a machinist. Machining is difficult. I thought maybe the knowledge of being a good machinist would be passed down through the genetic code, since my grandpa worked as one at a tool and die company in Middlefield, OH. Sadly, that is not the case though.

My Dad on a Drive

Once upon a time, a local radio station in Cleveland used to play classic rock exclusively. Then one day, the dreaded format change occurred, and the radio station became a much edgier, hip haven for all things alternativo.

When I was in the seventh grade, I remember having a tournament basketball game across town. My dad drove me, and the car was virtually silent the whole way there and back, save for the radio pumping out its alternative-style tunes. I don't really recall if we won the game or not, I suppose there was nothing all that remarkable about the game. But on the way back from that game, a strange thing happened. The alternative music stopped, and some sex talk show started.

I should have realized that this would happen. After all, I had listened to this particular station late at night. But the shock was too much, and there seemed to be this odd implicit agreement between my father and I that if he could take it, then so could I. Things became uncomfortable in a hurry. Callers called in with the strangiest of sexual queries. I was astounded and dismayed, in the usual adolescent way. I could only imagine what my dad was thinking as the topics of lesbian experiences, sex toys, and group meet 'n' greets came up across the airwaves. No matter how awkward the situation in the car got though, I was definitely not going to be the one to give in.

I stayed strong until some jackass called in to complain about the effects of humping leopard print sheets. I lost it. For some reason, that was just too much to handle. I changed the station right away. Neither of us ever talked about it.

The above situation was pretty bad. As you can imagine though, things can get worse.

Naturally, as I got older and entered high school, my prurient interests merely enlarged in scope and size, aided and abetted by the worlds and vistas offered by the wonder of dial-up internet connection. My dad was driving me into downtown Cleveland where my school is located, and we were having our typical quiet car time. Out of the blue, he says, "I found some interesting pictures on the computer of a girl going down on a guy." I replied that this was very strange. He then said, "Don't ever do that again. If your mother were to find those, you'd be dead." Clear, concise, and to the point; this was typical of him. We then continued our quiet ride, and I had much to think and be ashamed about.

I learned to at least be very diligent when cleaning out any and all internet file caches.

Perhaps things can get worse than that.

When I was in high school, I spent one of my summer vacations working with my dad at a furniture store where he was the stock manager. The store was looking for extra help as it began remodelling. It was pretty hard work, but the experience was well worth it. One day, I had it particularly rough. We moved a lot of things. I probably broke a couple hundred dollars worth of merchandise. I was yelled at for something. Towards the end of the day, I had to move around a large stack of floor tiles. Per my usual doing the summertime, I probably didn't sleep too much the night before. So as the end of the day drew near, I was definitely ready to go.

I don't really remember what triggered what happened next. I just remember being very mad and upset and wanting to quit. But I didn't say anything. After closing time, I got into the car with my dad and started bawling my eyes out. I cried the entire way home. I didn't look once at my dad though. I was just staring out the window, trying to muffle any sound. I felt terrible, weak, and pathetic. But I would have felt worse if my dad asked me about it, and so I tried as hard as I could to not let him see.

Of course, it would impossible to miss the sight of your first born son crying his eyes out in the seat next to you while on a car ride home. But I guess he understood and knew not to say anything.

It doesn't seem to be in his nature to do otherwise. Although he was short on advice, he knew when to bail me out of trouble.

At any rate, I was fine by the next day, and the rest of the summer was an enjoyable one.

I had been thinking about what I'd be like as a father. I think that I'd be the type to say a lot of things and make a lot of speeches. When I get going, I can be long-winded like that. Over the course of three vehicular moments which may or may not have been pivotal in my formation from adolescence into adulthood, my father had a sum total of about six or seven words. I don't want to think of my dad as being afraid to talk to me, so I'm going to suppose that he knew what he was doing. Besides, there was much strength behind his silent messages. And he respected me enough to be able to figure it all out later. Truly, one can make his presence strongly felt and his message heard without any degree of loudness.

responsibility is like the sky.

'I told Bird it's like the sky, boy. Is what I told her. How about if I come and ask you what does the sky feel like to you? The sky ain't a feeling, boy...But it's there, friend. The sky is there. It's there, over your ass, every fucking day. 'Matter where you go, boy, look on up, and on top of every goddamned thing else she's there. And the day there ain't no sky...'
-- "Lyndon" by David Foster Wallace

larfing

NEWS YOU CAN USE!

so i read this, and i was like...why in the world am i going to the gym, when all i have to do is laugh some more....it's pretty simple, all i need is someone to tickle me for an hour straight.

and then that reminded me of what happened earlier. see, my uncle's car is sitting in our driveway behind my dad's minivan thing. and so, when my mom is also parked in the garage, it's really, tremendously difficult to back the minivan thing out.

so today, i was driving my brother to his baseball game, and i had to take the van and back it out with my mom's car still in the garage. 10 minutes elapsed without me being able to back the van out successfully...and that's when i looked at scott, who was in tears from laughing at me so hard, and i said, 'well it looks like i failed maneuverability.'

at that point, i also decided it would be easier to just drive the van through the lawn...but, scott talked me out of that. and then we tried looking at the directions to the baseball field, because i thought maybe mapquest knew how to get the van out of the driveway.

and then i called my dad using scott's cellphone....and told him that i was lost.

and he asked me what i meant...so i said that i'm in the driveway still.

and he said, 'what do you mean you're in the driveway?'

and then i said, "i've been trying to get out of the driveway for the past 15 minutes."

and then i tell him that the directions for getting out of the driveway are wrong...and at that point, he hangs up on me, walks to the driveway, and tells me to get the fuck out of the driver's seat....and so i do that, and he backs the car out in 10 seconds.

and scott is still crying from laughing so hard...and i'm laughing and sweaty for some ungodly reason...and it was a good time....cept i looked stupid. and i think my license is now invalid because i can't back out of a driveway.

this all occurred about a year and a month ago.

8 Things to Drink to

1. A tribute to Buehner, Martinez, and Martinez: the most fearsome threesome to encounter in an opposing lineup while playing the famed Super Nintendo game, Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Major League Baseball.

Nevermind that the game was Ken Griffey's; the fact remains that Jay Buehner, Edgar Martinez, and Tino Martinez collectively made their stamp on the land of video game folklore by being true mashers with no apparent holes in their swings. The format of the truly arcade style video game played well to their greatest strength: speaking quietly and carrying extremely large, wooden bats.

In order to provide lineup protection for a player of Ken Griffey's ability, it was necessary to have not one, but three, superbly talented batters in order to force pitchers to even think about giving young Kenneth a proper pitch worth swinging the ol' lumber at. Buehner, Martinez, and Martinez used their privileged position atop the bully pulpit of major league lineups to preach the goodness and moral fiber inherent to swinging away (at a pixelated baseball whose movement is restricted to only two degrees of freedom).

2. A tribute to tubing: the laziest way to enjoy the great outdoors.

During my latest trip back to the cornfields of Indiana, Beth and I went tubing down Sugar Creek, courtesy of the Sugar Valley Canoe and Fun Company.

Despite having to make a number of textile, taciturn, talcum-powdered, tarrytown-ed, troubadour-faced, Tarkentonian maneuvers; the journey down the Sugar Creek (although I much prefer the Little Potato Creek, the creek of ill-repute) was generally a leisurely one due to the easy moving current, sunny skies, and sparse population of annoying, fellow travellers.

3. A tribute to Facebook: When my little brother Facebooked me, it made official the fact that he is going to be in college and that my parents will be all to their lonesome for most of the year.

My parents were married for several years before having my brother and I; and during those years, as the photographic evidence suggests, they travelled the country quite a bit and did fun things (such as visiting the Corn Palace and dressing up in some interesting 19th century fare). I guess those fun things had to come to an end since Scott and I are quite the handful. Maybe things will change for my parents now that we're both out of the house. To what end, I'm not very certain (maybe that garden will come to shape and the last vestiges of the house's 70's past and style will be completely banished to postmodern oblivion), but for once, I might be curious as to their goings-ons.

My suggestion: College Station has a ripe, open market for the opening of an egg roll shop.

4. A tribute to the Egg Roll House: Even when I was an REU student at the cyclotron facility at TAMU, this local establishment looked to be firmly in the throes of foreclosedness. This building looks so closed and so sad. It is enough to make a grown-man with the personality of a twelve year old to openly weep in despair.

Seeing this place for the first time was like finally finding Paradise, only to find that it had been shutdown due to the ineptness of new management or because of a hybrid-super-disaster (hurricanadonamiquakelcano). An Egg Roll House is my Dream House, whether it be that the walls are papered in egg roll wrapper or that there are running egg roll taps throughout the house (a service provided by the local lumpia utility, to be sure).

But perhaps, now my calling in life is clear.

5. A tribute to crazy dreams: Indiana seems to bring about the best in crazy dreams for me.

In two nights, my brother's music video (a love ballad featuring mostly head shots of Scott) debuted on MTV2, the Indians had an AMAZING laser light and firework show, I got re-aquainted with an old, highschool friend of mine, and Britney Spears chased me around her palatial estate (presumably trying to make-out with me, but I'm not sure).

Sleeping in Indiana seemingly challenges the shape of possible topological shapes in my dreamscape. For instance, I had a dream that I was telling my Physics Grad friend Matt that I had a dream where Britney Spears tried to make-out with me. Upon telling him this though, Matt excitedly told me that he had the exact same dream. Then the next night, I had a dream where i was having a conversation with Matt and his girlfriend, and I told them that I had a dream where I was having a conversation with Matt about how we both had the Britney Spears make-out dream.

If I have a similar dream tonight though, I would have to say that my dreamcenter's originality has been seriously compromised and is thoroughly exhausted.

Since I taped Scott's music video as it debuted, maybe I'll be able to watch it in a later dream.

6. A tribute to Ben Folds: I was sad that I missed the chance to see him this summer at Bonnaroo, which seems to be his only U.S. appearance for the year.

I haven't had any dreams of making out with him, but I would like to move down to Australia and be his next-door neighbor. That would be really strange to be able to go outside and say, "Hey Ben Folds, I'm going to put some shrimp on the barbie so come by this evening."

7. A tribute to old-timey toy stores in small-town Indiana: For the low, low price of $9.99, I could have been the proud owner of a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man figurine.

To truly fire up the smoldering embers of my deep sense of sentimentality and mawkish attitude toward all things Ghostbuster, this particular establishment would have to proffer up the glow-in-the-dark stuffed version of my favorite marshmallow man.

So, instead, I opted for Major League Baseball by LCJ, the 1988 classic video game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. That particular season's Cleveland Indian lineup featured unforgettable stars such as Cory Snyder, Joe Carter, and Greg Swindell. This team should have contended for a pennant, in my highly biased opinion, and now I have the ability to make this dream of a star-struck five year old a reality.

The fact that Beth owns and operates a Nintendo Entertainment System out of her apartment and that she is my girlfriend is no mere coincidence.

8. A tribute to my knee: I politiely decline to reveal why.

Photodissociation Fragments

Button (the storybook bear with buttons for eyes, not the person) wakes up startled to the sound of banging on his chamber door. Luckily for him, everyone lying in bed is still clothed, albeit now awake and confused.

As the words from the man on the other side of the door fluttered through the air into poor Button's ear, Button was forced to hastily reconstruct the previous night's events the best he could. All the while, his severely intoxicated head persisted in the unnerving task of assembling the steady stream of virulent noise into a coherent message.

In the colloquia of the times, the message was this: "Jon, is my daughter in there?"

Last night the Hindenberg crashed. Nevertheless, Button flew to the door to meet his inquisitor face to face.

If the narrator were a man of substance and aware that being impolite will never become passe, perhaps he would have made the following sardonic remark: "Well hello, Mr. Cook. What can I do for you on this fine Saturday afternoon."

In lieu of that heroic remark came a wide-eyed, open mouthed, "Hi."

"Well you don't look very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

"Yeah."

"Jon, do you mind telling me what happened here last night?"

"Well, why don't you ask your daughter? She is right here."

"We are both men. So let's talk man to man."

In my nineteenth year, I received my first lesson in manhood. Men have talks like this. And if you fail to understand, any explanation that I can proffer is useless to you.

"Mr. Cook, your daughter and I drank too much, got really sick, and then passed out."

"Is that all that happened, Jon?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes."

Satisfied with me, he looked over at his daughter, clutching my comforter and terrified of what was to come. The following exchange forever remains a microcosm of my fatally frail condition and how the fates choose to toy with me in the worst of ways.

"Tonya, come on, you are coming home with me."

"No I'm not."

The sensitivity of my consciousness heightened a thousand fold in that brief amount of time, along with my undying desire to hide underneath a pile of old, winter coats for the remainder of this hunting season. I should have made my level of stress known by making audible the question that raged on the order of a hundred decibels within my head, "What do you mean you are not going home?" After all, I had just met this girl merely two weeks before. I was not ready to become this person -- not here anyway, not in this fraternity house, not in this bastion of male adolescence. No way.

And so, Mr. Cook began walking away but did not leave before making clear to me what I had already inferred. "Make sure she gets home, Jon."

I slumped in the hallway, the one with the atrocious wood panelling, with my head in my hands, wondering how I had allowed my life to veer in this surreal direction. My pledge brothers and friends surrounded me slowly, inquisitive as to the nature of this most recent spectacle; but I had no answers for them, and they had no answers for me either. Things had become Boltzmannian in scope.

VIDEO!

This past weekend we had a birthday party at the duplex. One of the physics grads, Matt, dropped by with his girlfriend. At any rate, I thought I was taking a picture, but apparently I was not.

White Square

The man hurriedly rushed throughout the kitchen looking for as many household poisons that he could find. He was sweating profusely with his brow pinched and furrowed in deep, detached, pensive concentration. His intolerable pince-nez beating against his chest with every step, the dull light managed to produce an irregular glaring and blurring at the top of his bald head. The veins and arteries were under great stress as the blood seemed to pulsate through his thick, muscled neck.
The doctor found some detergents and bleaches and paused momentarily to take a slight pleasure in the aesthetic topography of the plastic contained beauty. He rushed down to his bloodstained workshop and worried over his workbench, where he has labored for years developing and designing skillfully constructed prosthetics for the heart – his own pacemaker struggling to keep up with the doctor’s hurried and evil designs.
The doctor painstakingly went to work on his most recent project to blend these horrible, powerful agents into a purifying solution. Seemingly calling upon his own ritualistic past, the obscure, older gentleman finally knew the secret history of man’s sacrificial story.
The powerful cleaning agents aroused an awful feeling of nausea. The noxious fumes rose through the dark matter of the dimly lit room and through the membranes within his olfactory cavities. A lamp hung down from the ceiling as the only source of light for the room, and the table with its dark, black top, smeared with blood seemingly emanated from the darkness behind. As he continued to labor, his thoughts meaninglessly meandered from thought to thought, yet managed to return to the scene of his darkest desires.
He stood over his unconscious patient like he just woke up from a horrible dream. Unable to account for the past several minutes, he viewed the young, supple, pale white skin of the woman before him. Her tender, small breasts pointedly mocked the doctor’s shame of impotence and advanced age.
The doctor’s overbearing figure appeared as an awful contrast to the delicate instruments that he was constantly drawing and replacing from his small surgeon’s kit. He fell back into his awful trance as he continued through his work, only to wake up once more to a scene of blood soaked hands and mangled body parts.

We entered the Victorian mansion on Old Hickory Lane yesterday. We got the call to check in on this place after reports that a neighbor had heard violent screaming coming from the basement, continuously for the past three hours. After breaking down the door, I was overcome by the smell of chemicals; we proceeded down towards the basement, which was pitch black. My partner fumbled around in the dark to find a light switch. I immediately began vomiting. A young woman was spread across a table with flies occasionally swooping down to violate her corpse’s resting spot. The light also revealed a man in the corner of the room. He had shot his brains out.


*I wrote this about 2 yrs ago. The only thing I really like here is how dark it is. Whenever I write anything, it's normally all introspective and flowery.

Coulomb EXPLOSION!

1. Why is the Jolie-Pitt baby named after Neil Diamond's imaginary friend?

2.AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! BLITZKRIEG! BLITZKRIEG! BLITZKRIEG! BLITZKRIEG!

I miss the Ultimate Warrior. Why is it that what seemed awesome when I was little, seems ridiculously silly today?

3. In my lab we use a femtosecond laser. It produces a pulse of photons every 10^-12 seconds, so it deposits energy like Dhalsim from Street Figher II (in extremely fast, short bursts). In the experiments that we are running now, the laser interacts with a beam of hydrogen ions. In order to test the intensity of the laser before running an experiment, the professor intends on focusing the beam such that it turns a small spot of air in the room into a plasma which turns into a visible and audible spark.

I cannot wait for that.

4. The dead, creepy treen in my front lawn was cut down yesterday. I was extremely saddened to come home only to find the once friendly sight now strewn about the yard.

Chariot Races

At my high school, we would have a Latin Day where these chariot races were the main attraction. The layout of the campus is unique. There are multiple buildings around a central mall area, resembling a miniature-sized college campus. The best feature is the six-story tower that overlooks the campus, built in a gothic German architectural style by German Jesuits in the late nineteenth century.

I found this video. It's alright, with the exception that it seems as though the person recording is a bit impaired. But you can at least get a flavor of how fun this day is. The students are gathered around to watch their peers race around the mall in their homemade chariots.

NO SUBJECT!!!!

Let's drink till we can't feel feelings anymore.

For all y'all sentimental son of a b's (sorry for the harsh letter). Explore how lovey dovey and/or lonely and pathetic the internet is.

Ten Spot

10. Chocolate Truffles










9. Chief Wahoo Belt Buckle, this is an awesome stocking stuffer. How awesome would it be if the facial expression changed to reflect my mood?










8. I got posterized.










7. "Kamikaze wasn't called precision airstrike for a reason."
6. According to Pyramid Brewing Co., "Cold filtering should be left to the kidneys." This is the first beer coaster that I've ever come to question.










5. My Secret Chocolate Lab
4. Febrezzzzey










3. Mining Tooooooooools!










2. Next Steps
1. Our Lady Antipolo of Peace and Good Voyage, Pray for Us

VOIP! BAM! BOOP!

This past week, I've been recovering from one of the more bizarre occurrences of my young life. I vehemently wish, for the sake of my masculinity, that I could say that I was slapped by a high nobleman of the eighteenth century; that he challenged me to a life-ending duel, on the grounds that I had unfortunately impugned his high honor by whiling away my time in his daughter's chambers (or something). Per my usual though, even instances of assault upon my person end up being more farcical than tragic.

Last weekend, I went out to grab a drink or two with some of the usual suspect physics graduate students; in particular, Matt and Karie were there. Several of the physics graduate students who have been in the program longer live behind the Northgate area, where many of the more popular bars in College Station are located. At any rate, hanging out in their front yards as the night draws to an end provides for the right relaxing and comfortable mood a physics graduate desires, I suppose. And for that reason, those in the know call that region, "The Neighborhood."

Matt, Karie, and I were leaving The Neighborhood to watch a DVD. We were walking in opposite directions, as I was riding with Matt and Karie was driving herself. At this time, I noticed that a crowd of five drunk guys were walking in our general direction, looking for their cars to drive home after a long and eventful night of drinking. One of the five was clearly a bit more drunk. The term is "belligerent." He was telling his friends about how he wanted to beat some ass or some nonsense. Hearing that, I looked over at them from across the street and gave them my patented, skeptical, "What me?" shrug. I guess the belligerent one took umbrage to that particular look because he was litterally, "hop, skipping mad." And his woeful friends were trying desperately to hold this pistol-less Yosemite Sam back.

I simply said, "Go home and go to bed. It's not worth it."

As I got to Matt's car and opened the passanger side door, I realized that I had two individuals rapidly approaching me. The belligerent one was yelling for me to get out of the car (which, at no point, had I entered), and one of his very sober friends was wisely trying to head him off. The friend came up to me and apologized. Paying full attention to the friend and unaware of my surroundings, I replied that it was fine and that he should get his friend home. At that moment, the belligerent one transcended into "Pathetic Asshole" and gave me an open-handed slap to the face, across my eye and over the bridge of my nose.

Seeing nothing but stars and confused as hell, I slumped into Matt's car, closed the door behind me, and slumped over -- catching the blood with my hand as it ran profusely from my nose and worried about getting blood all over poor Matt's car.

After slapping me, the pathetic asshole was extremely shocked by what he had just done and started running away. His woeful friends huddled around his back and ran with him.

At this point, Karie drove up in her jeep, and Matt ran up to her to say, "Button got slapped!" So Karie jumped out of her car, left it idling in the middle of the street, and sprinted after them (all five foot-nothing and ninety-some pounds of her). She yelled at them and somehow intimidated the hell out of them. They must have thought she was a little drunk, crazy or both. One can only suppose.

Meanwhile, Matt, who had been a student of Tae Kwon Do, inexplicably had his boken wooden sword sitting in the back seat. Rationally, since there were one of him and five of them, he grabbed the boken and ran down the street after them. He caught up to the very sober one, who was absolutely petrified of Matt, and coolly gave him his phone number and demanded that the pathetic asshole call in the morning to apologize. Of course, he never called, but I appreciate the sentiment anyway.

Karie came back to check on me, and we inside one of the grad students' homes so that I could wash up. Matt came back, and we decided to drive to the grocery store so that I could ice down my swelling eye with its extraordinarily flattering contusion.

On the way out though, we noticed that the pathetic asshole and his friends were wandering around the streets, seemingly lost and looking for their car. We slowed down as we approached them and heard one of them say, "Keep walking." And with that, we drove off.

The above took place in a span of at most three and a half minutes. Bizarre.

We spent the night watching DVD's, eating Snickers Ice Cream Bars, and laughing about the lunacy of the night's events as I kept a frozen package of California Medley Vegetables on my sore face.

Fantastic Future Features

1. Stereoscopic 3D Post Viewer -- Words literally jump off the screen, into your eyeball, and peck incessantly until you look away or plead for mercy.

2. Specially formulated algorithms which keep inside jokes and bad puns to a very pleasurable and meaningful minimum

3. Financial News and Insurance Quotes: You gotta love that Allstate Guy.

4. Space and Time Transcendency -- Answer deep existential questions in a single sitting

5. "How We Rolled: Earth" -- Almost-real time view of Earth from above; all done in Crayola

6. Problem Set Generator -- OK, this is just a ploy to get someone else to do my homework for me

7. Koala Life Simulator -- Sleep for 20 hours, eat some leaves, and then hump something...anything.

Ohio is for Lovers

1. I think I'm getting paranoid. Lately anything could happen at anytime, and I'm going to be prepared for the worst; like all good Buttons should. Perhaps turning off my inner monologue would be somewhat helpful. Actually, cross that, I'm sure this is not my inner monologue's fault as much as it is the caffeine consumption. The more wired I become, the more annoying that little voice in my head becomes; and in an asymptotic behavior to boot.

The world just needs to chill for about fifteen minutes or so.

2. One of the more disturbing trends (or not, really) is the recent rash of awfully high-scoring Major League Baseball games. Note that as of this morning, I'm currently ranked 1541 (the 98th percentile) in the ESPN Baseball Challenge Fantasy League. I've got my sights set on the first place prize (1 plasma screen TV); and if I can't count on Roy Oswalt and the Astros to keep teams like the Brewers under 12 runs or the Jake Westbrook and the Indians to keep the Orioles under 18 runs, I'm going to find it difficult to continue my gradual upward ascent up the power rankings.

Some of the more astute observers are probably thinking to themselves, "But Jonathan, aren't you supposed to be studying for Physics exams and writing up excellent solutions to Physics problem sets?"

Well, yeah, that may be the case, but as long as I'm not spending long hours pouring over the bestiary of statistical trends and weighing the outcomes of such trivial match-ups as Eric Bedard vs. Jason Michaels with the wind coming in off the right field porch at Oriole park, I think I'll be just fine.

3. Without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, that sort of egregious waste of time is as disgusting as turdukenflomein...that would be a chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey inside of a buffalo; all covered with heaping, heaping amounts of lo mein. Served slightly chilled with a fine sugary glaze.

4. "Oh yeah, I speak perfect Korean."

I went out to lunch at Taco Bell with two of the Korean international graduate students yesterday. At one point, they started talking to each other in Korean and pointing at the plastic lid. During a lull in the conversation, I pointedly said, "You press those dots in so that you know which drink belongs to whom if you're carrying more than one."

Pleasantly surprised, the one said, "Oh, you understand Korean?"

Eh, maybe you had to be there.

5. "I want to take you down by the river,
where you can watch me undress.
I want to lay with you in the water,
we can float naked in the sunlight."

I hate it when I start considering terribly cheesy song lyrics to be provocative.

6. I *heart* topological humor.

7. "A Weakly Interacting System of Moviegoers?"

8. Getting into an Atomic and Molecular Optics research group means that I'm officially one step closer to developing the famed 'Shit Lazor'.

9. "It's not good to be naked in Cincinnati..."

-- The opening line to the Scorecard column in last week's Sports Illustrated

10. Come back next time to see where who will be naked next.

Back to Builder's Square Roots

Identifying my motivation is not always an easy task. In fact, motivation for any particular action is probably easiest when you are young.

In one of the more endearing stories concerning my childhood, I make a lot of dramatic noise, which proves to signify nothing, and act like quite the petulant toddler. Around the time my little brother was born, I got yelled at by my dad and sent to my room because I was bugging him while he was trying to do some work in the garage. I was really upset over this because I don't think I had ever been yelled at previous to this. At any rate, my response was to run up to my parents' room and steal my mom's big, red suitcase -- which I promptly filled with all the clothes in my dresser and closet. I then dragged the big, red suitcase down the stairs and left it on the landing by the front door. Realizing that the whole family was in the basement with my baby brother, I went down to announce my imminent and permanent departure from the household. Earlier in the day, I went grocery shopping with my mom and bought some fudgsicles. I didn't think it was very fair that I wouldn't be having any, especially since I was the one that requested them, so I also declared that I would be taking the fudgsicles with me. I waved goodbye to my baby brother, hugged my mom and dad, and then left forever.

When I was little, my best friend Jimmy lived next door. Without asking, I went over to his house and asked if it would be OK to live there from now on. He thought that was a fantastic idea, so I dragged my suitcase into the house, put my fudgsicles into their freezer, and then we plopped down in front of the TV to watch Dukes of Hazzard. Afterwards, we played a make-believe game of baseball where he was the Yankees and I was the Indians.

The next morning, Jimmy and I were eating fudgsicles out on the front step when I noticed that my mom was pulling into the driveway after working for the night at the hospital. Suddenly, I got really sad. So I ran home and gave my mom a big hug and told her how much I missed her. I went back to Jimmy's to grab my suitcase. I told him that he could have the remaining fudgsicles (I suppose it was only the just thing to do).

I must remark, with or without irony, that I suspect that I also felt a bit of shame for spending the night in the home of an avowed Yankees fan. Jimmy ended up not being the greatest friend. He would get me in quite a bit of trouble from time to time. One time he suggested that I eat two Flinstones vitamins. Everyone knows that more than one a day is harmful for little kids because of the danger of overdosing on iron, but who was I to resist its oh so addictive flavor.

I was always surprised by how little my parents seemed to care about and how little they mentioned the whole running away episode. I'm a bit disappointed that the story only seems noteworthy (or even footnoteworthy, for that matter) to me. Not until much later would I realize that my parents saw right through my dramatic call for attention. Clearly I was feeling neglected with the new baby around and all. More importantly though, I only went next door. I'm sure they also thought that I would cave pretty quickly. At any rate, I guess they knew what they were doing (I hope).

My runaway attempts always seem to play out more dramatically in my head than they end up actually occurring. Whatever the motivation for running away though, I always come running back. More alarming though is the fact that regardless of how bad I know running away will play out, I seem to fall into it so easily -- must be like riding a bicycle (a big and stupid bicycle, the kind with a rusty chain and two flat tires).

One can only hope that one day I will manage to prevent my attempts to sabotage the whole growing-up process. Maturation is hard enough to come by when you don't have some odd feeling of nostalgia for your own childish behavior. So cheers to my clingy, attention-starved, and emotionally unexpressive self! You have indeed served me well all of these years.

Crossroads of the Revolution

Punctuate your statements with a period.

I guess sometimes I opt to take an altogether different route. For instance, most people would say, "When life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade." Although, from time to time, I may subscribe to such a statement, I think I often would say something more along the lines of, "I'd much rather enthalpically create my own lemons out of the vacuum of this universe than wait for them to pop into existence on their own accord." Maybe others would opt for the more violent, "When life hands you lemons, throw them at the people you hate." I would humbly suggest though that this particular route is wholly unnecessary.

I can't come up with any solid reason or smoking gun or red-handed culprit when assigning the blame for my unnecessarily bad attitude. I can however come up with some shaky arguments based on seeming red herrings, false motives, or circular reasoning. As an aside, I think it's fairly humorous that at one time, i subscribed to the notion that circular argument could be a useful rhetorical device, rather than the fallacy that it truly is -- but I suppose that discussion is for another time.

Without further explanation or loss of generality, I would like to propose that I am fairly proficient at creating bad, awkward, or messy situations -- situations that I am wholly unable to get myself out of without recourse to some form of substance abuse. On the same token, or rather in my defense, I think I'm normally patient, in that I can make do with, rather than fight against, those situations which are immutably set in granite or etched across the cosmos. Like galaxies writ large across our sky, most situations, whether bad or good, are the result of some quantum fluctuation in the background of my life. And that's how we are brought up, believing that every little thing and piece of minutiae counts for something, no matter how trivial the pursuit or meaningless the midnight fling. At the same time, there exists the paradoxical knowledge that you can dismiss rote memorization by attacking and exposing the very root of every situation -- that is to obtain some wild sense of all that just happened.

At any rate, the matter still remains: What to do with all these damn lemons? How many lemons is too many? And when is the right time to walk away from all the lemon trees you senselessly choose to plant for yourself?

Well, I was told that a good experimentalist cannot be afraid of anything. How fucking romantic is that notion? So here comes the physicist, regaled in shining armor, to save the day. But I suppose there is much truth to that. If only I had more courage, I'd be willing to try every creative and conceivable angle at deriving a solution to every predicament which rears its ugly head. Maybe then I'd learn something, and at the end of that day, I'd lay my head on my little pillow with the smug satisfaction that for once I was correct.

Instead of becoming the active participant though, I sit somewhere in the middle of the crowd which wastes its time observing -- some of that crowd, I pray, actually hopes that some odd situation can figure itself out in time for my sanity to make a remarkable recovery.

But how likely is it that a problem can just figure itself out? It must be like magic sometimes -- this life that you are free to make remarks about or may deem worthy to make note of.

At any rate, why would a seemingly sane person choose to solve his problems by spinning up new ones on a whim? Regardless of what the state quarter may claim, don't search for the crossroads of the revolution by travelling through New Jersey. It's just a harmless idea, right?

This Week in Baseball

1.Weird dreams that I've had the past couple nights (x-zibits a through c):

a. I realize that I'm dreaming and so am really pleased with myself after punching out a car window and experiencing no pain.
b. Murphy Brown is a pregnant zombie.
c. Hulk Hogan is dead.

Those dreams seem a bit dated, don't you think?

2. Unbernzing is a one step process. Step One: Unbernzing.
Bernzing
Unbernzing

3. Eating healthy seems really expensive, especially considering that you can now purchase a McGriddle for one dollar. I don't even know why I try anymore. If Texas had any White Castles around, I'd just go binge eat myself into grease oblivion right now.

The thing is, I don't think the breakfast that I prepare for myself most mornings is all that healthy in comparison. Ok, that's a lie, the breakfast i prepare for myself most mornings is at least ten times healthier than a McGriddle sandwich.

At any rate, is it sad that I get pretty excited when I consume my daily recommended value of fiber? The way I figure it, all the fiber intake has to somehow counteract all the coffee consumption. That could be entirely way off base. At the very least, I'm sure the generic rip-off of Centrum Performance that I take every morning is boosting my health levels some. (I don't think health levels is an accurate metric of overall health. I think I just made the term up.)

4. I do like spinach a whole lot. That's a bit of a recent development.

5. Sorry Scott, but if I win this, I want Grady Sizemore to be my best man.

6. After one week of fantasy league play in ESPN's Baseball Challenge, I am in the top 95.8%. The Jobu Aggie Nation is currently ranked at 3127. I've got a long way to go to get to number one, but I've got my sights focused on it. Furthermore, I'm certain that what my team lacks in talent evaluation is more than made up for by my team's overall heart and desire. Let's not overlook that.

The first place competitor at the end of the season wins a brand new plasma tv.

7. Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time?
Albert Markovski: Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about.

8. I went to the super special spring Midnight Yell this past Friday (although coinciding with parents' weekend here, it was presumably meant to usher in spring football practices). I saw an aggie's dad wearing a Cleveland Indians jacket, so I gave him a thumb up sign and said, "Go Tribe!" Then he said, "Hey yah, we won today!" And then he gave me a high five.

I really like it when fans say "We won!" over "The Indians won today." I mean, I became verifiably excited when he said that and gave me the high five. God Bless America.

9. I'm starting to get worried about when my next set of midterms is going to take place. If I were a betting man though, I would place all my money on Good Friday and Easter Sunday as the most likely dates to have them. I can't imagine a better way to spend a religious holiday than in a classroom sweating and swearing over how much I don't know.

I probably shouldn't be gambling on Good Friday and Easter Sunday though, so I take all of that back.

10. I get hot-skipping mad (not so much mad as giggly) whenever I see the ad for "The Final Theory" atop my gmail inbox. And I see it there quite a bit since, well, 80% of all my incoming mail has to do with physics. The Final Theory is proof that people will believe anything and is ripe full of misrepresentations based on what most people learn in high school physics.

Since I don't want to end on that note though, take a moment to consider this interesting, readable article about a current problem in physics in regards to how we keep time. Basically, it explores the notion of the seeming paradox that as we keep time more precisely, down to a scale of 10^-17 seconds, general relativistic effects make it impossible to keep a uniform measure of time.

"At the level of accuracy of parts in 10^17 or 10^18, comparing clocks scattered around the world would be no more meaningful than comparing the rates of pendulum clocks on small ships scattered in the oceans, each bobbing in its own way and keeping its own time."

Throwing the Baby out with the Bath Water

In honor of defenestration being the Dictionary.com Word of the Day this past Sunday, let us pause to reflect on the great defenestrations of times long past.

de·fen·es·tra·tion (d-fn-strshn) n.
An act of throwing someone or something out of a window.

Things to Defenestrate Before the Close of yet Another Year:

1. A 1980's style printer
2. A clunky, 45 lb, supposedly portable laptop
3. A peck of hens (how many hens are in a peck?)
4. An albatross, uncaged
5. A donut-ham-hamburger (that would be a hamburger inside of a ham sandwich, using donuts as buns; courtesy of Jim Gaffigan)
6. One electron
7. A collection of Peter Frampton vinyl LP's
8. A bestiary of solved Electromagnetic Theory exam example problems
9. A One-Hundred Tonne Load Anvil
10. Twenty bowling balls (simultaneously or otherwise)

Things to NOT Defenestrate:

My keys.

Like a Kid on Opening Day

1. This walrus is as big as a walrus.

2. This person that is not my brother recently got a perfect score on the SAT. At any rate, the Scott Button that is actually my brother will be going to the University of Toledo next year. Scott was not available for comment, but my mother reports that he was indeed admitted into the pharmaceutical program.

3. I would say that I was disappointed in walk-on, senior starting forward Chris Walker of the Aggie Basketball team for this video, were it not for the fact that I would have made this also if the idea had come to me earlier.


4. "You smell so fucking pretty." -- Jay from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back



5. Grady Sizemore signed a 6 year deal worth over $35 million to live in Cleveland and play baseball. He's 23 years old. I figure have approximately 50 days left to accomplish the feat before I too turn 23. Grady re-upping with the Tribe is great news for the ladies of Cleveland also, apparently.

6. Technically, I passed my last E&M exam with a percentile score of exactly 60%. Amazingly enough, that score is somewhat respectable when taken relative to the performance of my fellow domestic graduate students.

7. Somehow I've managed to watch the following movies in the past week: Shaun of the Dead,The Weatherman, and V for Vendetta. All are very good. Shaun of the Dead is a comedic take on zombie movies. The Weatherman is a somewhat sad movie about a middle-aged man whose career is on the up and up, but his family life is ripe with crisis. And V is quite the action-packed thriller.

8. S is for Surprise
a)Sabies
b)Seagulls
c)Segals
d)Sangles
e)Sungles
f)Sagles

We'll feed sagles to sabies who play with seagulls on the seashore while watching the sangles play a tune about sungles and segals.

9. What is with Burger King these days? Their food makes me want to vomit everytime one of their ridiculous commercials come on. "Keep Bucking Chicken?" What does that even mean?

10. Go Tribe!

Strangely Patriotic

A wistful sentimentality and a false sense of accomplishment, ultimately just some window dressing to an altogether haphazard existence, conspire vindictively and fatally to warp reality beyond recognition.

During our last lecture, my E&M professor, frustrated with our poor performance on the previous exam, asked the class what he needed to do in order to make the class better. One of the international students quickly responded that we needed more time on the exam to finish the problems. To which the professor replied, "You could masturbate all night, and if it's not going to happen, well then it's not going to happen." Aside from the glaring reality that the poor international student probably did not catch all of the subtle nuances of the statement, I definitely thought it was one of the funnier things I had heard in awhile.

Frustration seems to be standard these days. I would like to go back and order up my life to come custom with bluetooth wireless compatability, side airbags, and perhaps some tacky ground-effects lighting.

When I was a grade schooler and I asked my dad for a word's spelling, his first response, invariably, would be to say, "Well, look it up." Some learning comes from rote memorization; while in other subjects, intuition comes at the heavy price of arduous problem sets and cranky, sleepless nights. Most unfortunately though, only a finite number of references exist. That's lame.

How much of myself is my own work? How much is cribbed from the canon of culture that biases opinion towards an ambiguous point of reference? Maybe it's deep inside of me, behind a left ventricle, that hint of originality and creativity. I'm fairly certain though that the notion was copied from somewhere -- most likely a music video or some movie or a documentary I just watched.

At any rate, in case you were wondering, my professor is right. You may perform the experiment at home, if you wish. But please wear your lab coat and goggles.

Word or Words

DOLLOP

dol·lop (dlp) n.
A large lump or portion of a solid matter: a dollop of ice cream.
A small quantity or splash of a liquid: a dollop of whiskey.
A modicum; a bit: not a dollop of truth to the story.

(courtesy of the one and only dictionary.com...but you are free to look it up in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, if you wish.)

At any rate, how does a dollop get to be both a liquid and a solid? Is it some sort of phase transition or some sort of duckbilled platypus (the classical analog for an electron)? Furthermore, I'm no physicist or anything, but how exactly does a dollop go from being a large lump of solid to a small quantity of liquid?

This is as confusing as that time we talked about ducks and decorated sheds in cultures and traditions. I bet a post-modern architect is beneath all of this dollop nonsense as well.

This blog entry contains not even a dollop of sense. I learned something today, please to explain.

Yawping Ad Nauseum

This is a picture that you will not find on the Wabash College homepage. In the very least, I would have never guessed during the months that lead up to my first year, that an activity anything like Chapel Sing existed at Wabash.



Before coming to A&M, I had never humped it and yelled with 44,000 before, but I had certainly humped it and yelled with 24 in a match of competitive screaming with the other pledge classes my freshman year.

In the month or so leading up to homecoming and Chapel Sing, you could walk across campus at night with the sounds of the school fight song being evacuated from the young and naive lungs of our new freshmen -- each house delivering the same fight song with its own cadence and own spirit.

With the scarlet, green, and white house colors that adorned our faces, we were asked to look fierce and yell loud. I, for one, looked absolutely ridiculous and scared shitless; but I most certainly loved every minute of it.

Bat Sh** Crazy

"Your solution, although brave, is not supported by logic."

Perhaps more debilitating words have been written as remarks on the margins of graded problem sets, but none can challenge the succint directness of that particularly phrase. Of course, this fate is better that writing a solution which is neither brave nor supported by logic, as is often the case -- for this remark was written on the problem set of one of my fellow graduate students last semester.

I seem to think about that a lot during an exam, especially when I have no idea how to approach any of the problems that appear on the exam. I wish I could get some bravery points though while writing an incorrect solution. At least that would boost my confidence a little bit.

At any rate, my Thursday night statistical mechanics exam went resoundingly well. And what a change of pace that is! Needless to say, I felt really great after the exam and went out to the Fox and Hound to celebrate -- as opposed to the commiserating that occurred after the Monday night E&M debacle.

The more I think about the Pokrovsky-ism that adorns the first line of this particular entry, the more I realize the potential broader application of the phrase. The ability for a person to take on the task of seeing through an illogical solution really shows their mettle -- and perhaps their gluttony for punishment.

Looking back on some of the solutions I have attempted in response to life's great problems, I wonder how brave I really was. For instance, how crazy or respectable could it possibly be that I made the choice to come down here for graduate school in physics? I don't think this was an opportunity that I made the conscious effort to create -- it was one that materialized outside of my willing cognizance. Making the decision to come down here required no bravery at all. It did require a knowing resignation to the fact that I am undeserving and am a largely lucky individual.

Sometimes though, a correct solution in physics, along with the best things in life, requires a lucky discovery. Perhaps though, a certain bravery exists in waiting that discovery out.

No Style Points

!. When did exams during the day become so passe? They're like the Encylopedia Brittanica of 2006. I hope next year pants go out of style. Those things itch like crazy.

2. Also, when did "Your gynecologist" jokes become the new "Your mom" jokes.

3. I'm a tool and read the most current issue of Details Magazine. Supposedly, Vin Diesel wants to make a trilogy of movies on the life of Hannibal -- movies where the hero "will speak Punic, a language no one has heard in 2,000 years."

And that didn't come from the Random Vin Diesel Fact Generator.

Judging by this picture though, I'm afraid that Vin Diesel's dopey smile managed to eat my dopey smile whole. He lead a rich and full life.

4. After March Monday's Midnight E&M Exam, I went to the Fox and Hound with another graduate student. After a few beers, he made the scathing observation that a girl who just walked into the bar clearly had fake boobs, fake hair, and a fake tan. That ladies and gentlemen is the Tri-Faketa -- a dubious distinction at best and a recognition of one's commitment to Sparkle Motion.

5. Nothing is going out of style faster than logic. Some family of supposed Baptists have been protesting the funerals of American soldiers who have died in Iraq. Their message is that God is punishing soldiers who defend a nation that harbors homosexuals.

Every now and then I see a bumper sticker that says, "Support Our Troops. Support Our President." And I've always wondered what other mutually exclusive things could you juxtapose together. My personal favorite is "Support Our Troops. Support Fried Rice," which seems to be in the very least a statement which promotes good nutrition for the soldiers. They get more support from fried rice than they get from the president, I suppose. I might be biased though since I grew up on the stuff. And perhaps I'm guilty of the prevalent Midwestern Half-Filipino bias that is running rampant in this country.

At any rate, I suppose these fellows protesting funerals would have a bumper sticker along the lines of, "You don't have to be Pro-Khomeni to be Anti-American." I think that's a difficult line to walk though, what with the sharp discontinuities in sense and all.

6. Pomeranians.

7. Voice Inflection.

I'd like to show you my private accountant.

I'd like to show you my private accountant.

I would like to wear a little green visor, a button-down shirt with those band things around the elbows, and a good pair of suspenders though. And yes, I would like to fill it up with petroleum distillate and re-vulcanize your tires, post-haste.

8. I would like to see a problem where you are asked to find the potential everywhere for a a potato of time-dependent charge inside of a grounded conducting cylinder which is cut in half by an oscillating infinite plane -- standing on the infinite plane are two conducting monkeys which are jumping up and down because they are right quick mad. For extra credit, stick your head in a microwave or jab a pencil in your eye.

9. I woke up the other night during the middle of an awesome thunderstorm. A flash of lightning woke me up, but the resultant thunder-crash was so loud and so immediate after the lightning strike that my first conclusion was that the waste-water facility next door to me managed to somehow violently explode -- bringing down the largest shit-storm to hit College Station ever. I thought the ground was shaking, but that could have just been my imagination.

Now that I think of it, waking up covered in the entire town's sewage does sound gross.

10. Baseball is America's pastime.

Lazy Park Days

Istamby was a man of the city.

He would often think to himself about the nature of personality. Strangers were the greatest curiousity of all, and Istamby spent a great amount of time sitting on park benches and watched the walking strangers of the city pass by him. Each stranger could be broadly defined through interests -- superficial ones such as fashion, sports, and entertainment. Each stranger could be more narrowly defined through personality -- the quick-tempered, the lazy, and the humorous. Istamby liked to target a person as they passed through the park and then go about pigeonholing the stranger into the smallest of pigeonholes -- until there was nothing left, in his mind, by which he could identify that particular park passer-by. Istamby would target a person and then follow him through the park and observe. He would follow him through the park until the person transgressed the park boundaries. At that specific moment, that specific stranger could no longer be the subject of Istamby's favorite pastime.

Speaking of pastime's, Istamby's father loved baseball. And Istamby's mother loved to dote on her one and only son. Istamby was born Miguel, but Istamby's father quickly noted (and quickly resented) that Istamby was of the idyllic and pensive sort. Perhaps this was a result of sitting by the tube while just a toddler, watching Sesame Street and some Mr. Roger's Neighborhood while snacking on the lumpia that always seemed to be around the house. Istamby's father would yell, "Istamby Buong Maghapon," whenever he caught the young boy dozing off or staring intently on the activity outside or in the television. "Why don't you want to take part? There is more to life than watching." Over time though, as young Istamby entered the awkward and rebellious phases of adolescence, the two parents came to agree that his role as an observer most assuredly trumped the risks of having a son who spent his time idly gallavanting about, getting into lots of trouble and being troublesome towards young girls. At least they could agree on that.

Istamby would walk out to the park everyday. He did not have a strict schedule to follow, but he would normally be out in the park by two in the afternoon. At that time, he would take out his lunch bag and unwrap the two lumpia that his mother would carefully assemble and place at his bedroom door every morning. Lumpia, as you might expect, is not a morning food. But, for Istamby, it was definitely a food that enhanced the meditative and contemplative process. Istamby liked his lumpia to be cooked early in the day, so that when he was ready to eat them, they would be slightly cold and soggy. This really managed to seal in the true flavor of the lumpia. Istamby would wait for the first suitable target of the day to enter the bounds of the park. When that moment happened to occur, Istamby would then take the first bite out of the lumpia. His digesto-meditative state proved to be full and satisfying at times only when the subject of observation was of particular interest.

As one would expect, after some time had passed with this activity, Istamby found that not many new people would come into the park on a daily basis. Many of the faces would begin to become familiar in a way. But Istamby would merely add to their story, and soon these strangers felt like old friends -- or at least according to Istamby's view of friendship. At times, Istamby would feel compelled to approach one of the park-goers. But, as often accompanies the ability towards astute observation, Istamby found conversation to be especially troublesome.

When Istamby was a schoolboy, all the children would eat their lunch at their desk. This was because the private Catholic grade school that he attended failed to be equipped with a lunchroom. Lunchtime would come, and the children would go to their lockers in the hallway to retrieve their packed lunches. Occassionally, some of the mothers would volunteer to organize a hot lunch, and fresh and hot pizzas would be delivered to the classroom, much to the children's delight. Istamby liked school mostly because of the teachers. He didn't get along so well with the other children -- though this was not at all his fault. Strangely, Istamby felt intimidated by his peers but thoroughly felt at home with the kindly nuns and layperson teachers.

Istamby sat in the park one day and noticed a girl. He drew a blank but continued observing anyway. She passed and left the park's confines -- leaving Istamby a dudgeon mess. "Completely uncharacteristic," mused Istamby as he continued to while away his afternoon in the park's sunny environ, "and yet, strangely compelling and absolutely necessary."

A kindly, old woman walked into the park and offered up some fresh lemon square snack to the boyish Istamby. "You sit here everyday young boy. You watch and muse yet yearn for nothing." Istamby smiled graciously for the kind gift and nodded approvingly in response to the seeming harsh criticism.

"Perhaps this is true, but I contend that I do in fact live for something of value -- although you may not agree."

"Your father would not approve of this behavior of yours. He loved you dearly though, in despite of your awful shortcomings."

"I've had a full day of sitting here. I'm going home to cook up some lumpia. You should join me, and we can discuss this further."

(Note: I had the idea for this character while on spring break. He's not too much unlike a Korean boy that I was classmates with in grade school. I definitely don't have time to develop the ideas here more, but I like the start that I've gotten off to.)

Koalas Gone WILD!!!

1. I have two midterms the week following spring break. The classical electrodynamics midterm will begin promptly on Monday the 20th at 7 pm. Not to be outdone, I have a statistical mechanics problem set due the same day, to be followed by my second midterm on Thursday beginning promptly at 6 pm.

Evening exams are wonderful, because then I still have the pleasure of sitting in on the lectures for both of those classes on their respective dates.

My koala friend will have to party twice as hard this year to make up for my party-deficient spring break.

2. Dictionary.com's word of the day for Saturday, March 11:

crapulous \KRAP-yuh-lus\, adjective:
1. Suffering the effects of, or derived from, or suggestive of gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous stomach.
2. Marked by gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous old reprobate.

I always thought crapulous was a word made up by not-so-creative teenagers (such as myself when I was a budding, young, barely legal teen).

3. The Gordone Awards Competition:

I was naive enough to think that I would have plenty of time over spring break to write a new, original piece of creative fiction for this English Department sponsored writing competition.

I could use some help in picking a submission from the small-ish body of work that I've compiled and posted on this blog. I could also use some help in revising said piece. So, any suggestions or insults would be greatly appreciated.

4. Earlier this week I woke up after 3 hrs of sleep thinking, "It's ok, I can go back to sleep because I conformally mapped my sleep patterns." Conformal mapping is a very useful tool where you map points from a two-dimensional space onto a complex plane, thereby making some complicated geometry easier to manage.

I hate it when I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about a physics problem. That's bullshit.

5. If I don't start learning physics faster, the next course I take might be called "automotive mechanics." And then I wouldn't have to worry about being assigned problem sets which are illustrative of nothing at all and which contain a numerous amount of onerous pathologies.

6. I came home from class yesterday and fell asleep by 5 pm. I woke up for about an hour around midnight, went back to sleep, and didn't wake up again until 11 am. It was awesome. Everything I could have ever hoped for, considering my physics consumption of late.

7. Thank God for my physics friends. Although my idea of a good time usually does not include poring over a single problem set with ten other physics students on a Wednesday evening for over ten hours straight -- it is often an illustrative and enligtening experience.

Who Got the Best of Jobu?

Because of my infatuation with concatenation and truncation, Jobu is perhaps my favorite nickname for myself.

And so, here is the first annual list of "The Best of Jobu":

1. No Jobu compilation would be complete without paying homage to the famed Voodoo character from the critically acclaimed, box-office smash Major League. This movie about the Tribe from Cleveland, those lovable losers who formally played in "The Mistake by the Lake," made Jobu a permanent fixture on the pop culture radar -- influencing the course of human history inalterably forever. In the words of that inimitable, aging pitcher from the aforementioned movie, Eddie Harris, "Hey Bartender, Jobu needs a refill!"

2.Jobu is the greatest southern rock act out of New Jersey that you've never heard of. Click here for more Jobu music.

3. Are you in the market for heavy-duty gimbals, super telephoto flash brackets, or double bubble levels? Are you a rugged individualists on the go, continually looking for the world's most perfect nature or sports action photograph? Well look no further than the Canadian photography engineering firm Jobu Design.

4. So I lied when I claimed to "make an excellent handbag." But I sure as hell sell an excellent handbag. At Jobu Handbags, you can not only purchase some of the world's most exclusive and elegant ladies' handbags, you can become utterly confused with foreign currency exchange rates while fighting to understand the true value of the British Pound.

5. Zum Gluck! It's Meggle Time baby! Try Meggle's new JoBu Erdbeer for a delightfully delcious, creamy strawberry trinksnack. Now only 299 Kilojoules per serving!

6. Jobu Dudley? What a n00b. Apparently if Branecki and I ever successfully mated, the product would be some sort of video game nut.

7. Try my not-so-secret anymore recipe for sausage and peppers. No, don't do that. Sausage and peppers sound gross -- no matter how kind this supposed Mr. and Mrs. Jobu sound.

8. Extra Heavy, XXX Strong Forged Shank. Deep Throat Bend. Cutting Point. Anti-corrosion Black Chrome. Titles for full-length, feature pornographic films? Nope. Owner Jobu Big Game Hooks are ideal for chunking and trolling. So target and rig that huge as fuck tuna all you want big boy.

9. Catch Your Dream. Jobu University. They'll deceptively weed your mind of roughly ill-smelling ideas -- or so Google's Beta translator claims.

10. Although our techniques are based on centuries old knowledge, it is our application of that knowledge that sets JOBU SHIN KAN Hoku apart.


That's all for this year's top ten in Jobu.

Zum Gluck! Remember the 3 R's. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Physics Fun

In celebration of the past Saturday morning's electromagnetic theory midterm and all the problem sets I've been scrambling to complete, here's a link to a short story that is referenced in an undergraduate thermal physics book, conspicuously found in a chapter entitled, "The Canonical Probability Distribution."

"Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney

Ball of Misshapen Clay

1. I've long held the position that the best way to defuse an awkward situation is by sticking one's fist into one's mouth.

I present to you exhibit A:



2. I'm packing up my things and preparing to move away from the (now cut down) dead tree and the water sewage treatment plant for greener, livelier, and less odiferous pastures.

3. In packing up my things, one of the relics that I unearthed from the mounds of stuff that formerly occupied my room was a coupon for a free game at the Pisgah Lanes, courtesy of the Sunset Motel.

I'm glad I still have it because it is one of the few things that remain as a reminder of the wonderful time I had in the mountains of western North Carolina. At any rate, it's a reminder that I still like old timey toy stores, antique shops, and dances on Main St.

Going to North Carolina last summer really helped me to unwind from all the stress of living at home. Working out daily, playing video games all night, and going to Indians games is such a hard life.

I'm definitely paying for it now though. Video games all night has been replaced by late night experiments investigating how light interacts with matter. And Indians games have been dutifully relieved of their post by adventures in the machine shop. Luckily, I only have one or two cuts on my hands while working big, powerful lathes, mills, and band saws.

As my E&M professor from last Spring would attest, "When you live by the hose; you die by the hose."

4. Why are the Indians playing so bad? I personally feel that they got too complacent after last season and came to rely too heavily on their offensive prowess. They still hit very well (albeit in a streaky way). Such fundamental skills as good baserunning and solid defensive glovework and throwing are definitely not trademarks of the '06 Tribe. Furthermore, the losses of Arthur Rhoades, Kevin Millwood, and Bob Howry in the off-season have proved too costly.

Oh well, there's much to look forward to for next year. I like Fausto Carmona at closer. Maybe we'll get to see Andy Marte over at third (if they end up trading Aaron Boone as well, which I think they will).

But I will be devastated if the Indians let "Sophisticated" Ron Belliard walk in this up-coming off-season. I love that guy.

I get to go home for a week or so after the summer sememster ends in two weeks. I can't wait to make my triumphant return to the Jake. Whatever that means.

5. Now I know why I'm trying to be a physicist and not a machinist. Machining is difficult. I thought maybe the knowledge of being a good machinist would be passed down through the genetic code, since my grandpa worked as one at a tool and die company in Middlefield, OH. Sadly, that is not the case though.

At the Witching Hour

A 67 year old Vietnamese farmer has not slept in the past 33 years. He came down with a fever once a long time ago, and since then he has been stricken with insomnia. Amazingly enough, he was given a clean bill of health, with the exception of some liver damage, last time he visited a doctor. The news story is slightly reminiscent of something out of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's brand of magic realism, and I'm frankly left perplexed.

My attitudes have changed somewhat over the years. And perhaps, after some statistical averaging, one could make the case that I've steadily matured in despite many fits and starts. Most notably, I used to think highly of staying up, burning the midnight oil, and working steadily through the night. But nowadays, I would only resort to such extreme study habits if the scenario posed was worst-case. In fact, even then, I would be much more inclined to give up and rely on some hours of good rest over desperate attempts to patch up some significant holes in a problem set or in my understanding of a subject.

In despite of the obvious deleterious health effects associated with such insomniac behaviors, I think a certain dark magic becomes apparent as the hours tend steadily forward through the night and toward imminent daybreak. Oftentimes, those moments are best spent with someone else, someone you really care about. But more often than not, those moments are spent fighting off devilish attacks schemed up by a beloved friend turned enemy. Spending late nights and early mornings alone is the most taxing. If finding myself during those times alone were possible, I'd think that I would have found myself at least a hundred times over. In the end, you find yourself chasing after ghosts summoned up by an indefatigable imagination.

Sometimes these long nights are caused by supposed dead ends. I think for a long time, I was consumed with the fear that I had been rendered immobile. Turns out, all I needed was some suggestion to get moving again -- but even then, sometimes not without a fight, for I'm a stubborn and obstinate fool among the worst.

Movies can show insomnia and early mornings spent with another without giving the slightest intimation as to the emotion proscribed by actual physical sense. An early morning after no sleep should be dewy, with a distinct bit of chill which runs up high into your nose -- setting up camp for an indefinite period. A distinct rumbling comes from below as hunger pangs set in. Your body has been running non-stop for an entire night and much energy was burnt on the laughter or the crying or the lonely, withdrawn thoughts and recollections. All of this sets the stage for an inimitable sense of enlightened thought and wisdom. With daybreak comes the closure. No words are necessary because all is known and common. Simple. Beautiful. Elegant. In the bleary eyed ranting and ravings of the sleepless.

My last weeks at Wabash, I found myself blacked out and intoxicated or interminably awake and sober. Maybe I'm the only one to find that fitting and appropriate, a properly defining moment.

I Shill for no Man

The temperature hovered in the mid-70s today.

I got my PowerBook back yesterday. The hard drive had some major character issues or something, and so the mysterious people at the local Mac retailer finally got around to replacing it with one that works. Unfortunately, I never got around to backing up the old hard drive. Although, I did figure out how to get the songs off of my iPod and onto the new hard drive (iTunes be damned). The fact that my PowerBook now runs on the Tiger Mac OS X is perhaps one of the more encouraging aspects of this whole ordeal.

Mac and Windows users alike can get a dozen or so useful open-source programs from the aptly named disc, Software for Starving Students. It includes such gems as OpenOffice, Blender (for 3D modeling, among other things), and also has a handful of games and whatnot. Also, if you're looking for a jankety open-source, genero-version of Mathematica, give MuPad a try.

While I'm advertising, I just have to say, "You gotta love that Allstate guy."

And speaking of guys, no product has a more biblical spokesman than Sweep n' Mop's own Saul Judah. Would you try this with your old-fashioned mop? Not a CHANCE!. So what if the product is simply a mop sponge with ridges -- the fact of the matter is that the voice behind this product may or may not be a successor to the throne of David.

Always Cooler

When antagonized, Alastair often could not find the right words to say. In his mind, he always felt like the coolest, toughtest, hardest guy that ever lived. And frequently, he rehearsed all the right things to say in order to strive towards that goal. But when the moment came to put it all on the line, Alastair oftentimes would crumple up like a well-engineered Volvo -- he would give just enough so that his inner psyche could remain intact and be found salvageable. That illusion of hardness could vanish in a puff, to be filled in an instant with the feelings of helplessness.

Nevertheless, in Alastair's mind there existed a distinct and distinguisable, well-cultivated sense of self. He worried over it endlessly and, at best, was only moderately satisfied.

For all these reasons, Amelia's long, drawn out, and complicated admission seemingly stung at his very soul. In place of words came out a disfigured and pained facial expression -- a beautiful visage now distorted and warped by outside blows and inner inablities.

A day earlier, Alastair caught himself walking down the streets of the city, feeling overwhelming pleased with himself. He considered his blessings and daydreamed of a life without misgivings. The kids, the wife, the beautiful home -- all these wonderfully placed and timed advantages stood well-ordered in a foundation built with care and patience. Truly, the scariest thing he or anyone could ever know is consistently, perpetually looming just over the horizon. But at long last, he felt that he was closer than ever to understanding his often wary and misunderstood father.

...Some More

• Alastair Templeton


• Alastair


• Lost in the Penumbra


• Bicycles and Such


• Amelia Buendia


• Regional Transit Authority


• Solitude


• Preponderant Dismissal

A Point for Participation

1.If you don't think I won't not put the song "Copacabana" on my cellphone and set an alarm to go off to that ringtone at some arbitrary time during an 8AM recitation period for which I'm the TA just so that I can make a surprised and excited face and yell out, "POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWER SURGE!!!!!! IT'S TIME FOR THE PHYSICS TRIVIA LIGHTNING ROUND!!!" then you have another coming.

Unfortunately, I'll probably need espresso beans to be injected into my heart in order to acheive that sort of excitement at eight o'clock in the morning.

2. Small point that is of interest only to me: Last week I answered a question correctly in my graduate level electromagnetic theory course. Prior to this, the only other time I've managed to speak in class was to make a dumb joke (well, a funny dumb joke maybe).

At any rate, graduate courses at a large, public university are distinctly different from the intimate and nurturing (read: intoxicating) environment that I was so accustomed to at Wabash College.

3. Getting a crazed expression on my face while shaking my head furiously such that my hair bounces fervently and shouting, "We'll be rich!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" never ceases to put me in a really good mood.

Consequently, other things which manage to make me smile include: A pantsless round of "Kings" with the physics grad students, lying down on the grass in the middle of campus with a loved one during a warm and sunny day in February, and a hot cup of tea (which apparently is "my cup of tea," now or something).

4. Two nights in a row last week, I had the same f'd up dream. In this dream, for some reason, my teeth became very brittle and delicate, like glass. Every time my mouth would open, chunks of teeth would just fall out of my mouth. I would try to keep the pieces in my mouth, but my mouth would then just fill up with broken shards of tooth. The second time, in the dream, I was hanging out with Scott, playing video games in the living room (a nobel pastime, if there ever was one) when my teeth started falling out of my mouth. I was crying and saying, "See, it's happening! Just like in my dream." But he only laughed at me, so I punched him, a lot.

At any rate, I feel this dream has a fairly reasonable and literal translation (I'm not original or abstract enough while in the dreamscape for anything but). When I had bridge work done on the lower set of teeth, my dentist made it sound like I habitually grind my teeth in my sleep. Ever since I left my mouth guard at home in Cleveland, I guess I've been worried about damaging the bridge while in my sleep.

5. My koala friend says hello.

6. "POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWER SURGE!!!!!"

7. Speaking of power surges, my powerbook has been in the local mac shop for two weeks running now. F' that noise.

8. When my roommate suggested getting a shot block for the party that's being held here tonight, I thought that he meant that I should be roaming the party dressed in 80's basketball gear (replete with thick headband, extremely short basketball shorts, and knee-high tube socks), slamming drinks out of people's hands, and yelling, "Not in my house! It's gametime baby, c'mon now." But no, he meant that we should have a large block of ice from which people could drink shots. I personally prefer the latter. Perhaps we can agree to disagree?

9. If physics graduate students Matt and Peter were in town this weekend, we could make for some pretty formidable shot blocking...that's all I'm saying.

10. "We could talk and not talk for hours."