Excerpt #3

From Breaking Eggs:
“’Why I let you pick the getaway car, I’ll never know,’ I grumbled as I slid into the passenger seat, trying to pull my legs in as I did so. A clown car might have had more legroom than this bucket did, and consequently, the simple process of getting in the car was slowed not insignificantly. Shorty had many talents, to be sure; I guess choosing a vehicle with due consideration to the dimensions of his partner just wasn’t one of them. Still, I wouldn’t have been on that job if it weren’t for what Shorty did back in Rio.”

Excerpt #2

From The Lotus Empire:
“The emperor’s dyspepsia notwithstanding, the mood in the imperial court grew ebullient as the winter months dragged on. The thought of being surrounded by endless kilometers of arctic tundra was, of course, easier to bear with minstrels at hand to play a favorite ballad or a warm goblet of glühwein only a clap of the hands away. And although the reports on the state of the empire offered little reason to celebrate, neither were they extraordinarily worrisome. But one day in March, a messenger arrived from the west.”

Bizarro-Post

First of all, I am blogging way more than I expected to during the design project. I guess that means it’s going pretty well. Less than two weeks left now!

I finally heard back from those MIT folks. Oddly enough, I was not admitted (sorry, Frances, I guess I can’t come to Boston for free). Apparently my application, which was good enough for Washington, Berkeley, Illinois, and Notre Dame, was not quite what MIT was looking for. Of course, the letter in the thin envelope said they had a very large number of qualified applicants, but what does that actually mean? In summary, I guess I would feel more annoyed or hurt if I weren’t already trying to choose between these other four very desirable grad schools. In fact, since I am going to be gone on tours a rather shocking number of days in March as it is, I’m almost glad I don’t have to figure out how to schedule in an MIT visit (no, Frances, that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to come to Boston). Mostly I feel kind of bemused about the whole thing. It just strikes me as kind of odd.

Speaking of odd, apparently the powers of my flatmate, Magic Steve, extend to electronics now. Magic Steve’s super-powers documented to date include super-climbing, super-stealth, realistic BATTLE DAMAGE!, and the ability to walk into a Vegas casino and win $20 off a slot on his first pull. But now there’s this electronics business.

The free television that Magic Steve and I share (see post “Hunting and Gathering as per my particular…idiom”) has always had this little problem where occasionally the color goes kind of fritzy and the screen turns mostly red. Fortunately, all that is required to fix this problem is a good thwack to the side of the TV. It’s actually kind of hilarious, having an appliance that requires you to hit it to make it work. Until I acquired this TV, I thought such things were fictions invented by screenwriters and authors for dramatic purposes.

Anyway, one day, after Magic Steve had set some Valentine’s Day flowers on top of our free entertainment center, the Fritz-daemon showed up and possessed the television. Magic Steve performed the usual procedure of picking up a bottom corner of the box and dropping it a couple of inches. The exorcism was successful. However, the Fritz-daemon conspired with Gravity to destabilize the flowers and send them toppling on to the back part of the TV. Immediately, the screen went dark, and Magic Steve feared the worst. Indeed, it seemed that Free TV might be dead. But later, it was successfully reactivated, and the Fritz-daemon has not been seen since. Apparently spilling about a liter on the back of our television doesn't kill it, but rather, exorcises its daemons. That said, I do not recommend trying this procedure on any of your uncooperative appliances or electronics without the aid of a trained Magic Steve. And there’s only one of those, so good luck.

And now, back to the top-secret project.

Excerpt #1

From Mr. Sasquatch Goes to Washington:
“What Sasquatch had learned in the woods of Washington state was not often relevant in Washington, DC. But one thing seemed universally applicable: if one went around turning over rocks, one was certain to find any number of bugs, squirming at the sudden transition from dank darkness to sunlight.”

Well, It's Been Several Months

Less than three weeks now until the project is due. That means this one will still be short. But I wanted to write it while I was thinking about it.

Recently, I thought to myself, I wonder how I can get closer to my goal of being polylingual? Is that a word? What I mean is, even more than multilingual. I won’t pretend that I could ever attain omnilingual status, but I want to learn MANY languages. Of course, a major restriction for me is that I don’t really have a lot of free time, as you know. This makes it difficult to do some sort of self-study with books at home, much less actually take college classes. Schade, nicht wahr? But then I realized an untapped time resource I had-- those thirty or forty minutes or so per day that I spend walking between places. Or for that matter, the time it takes me to do my grocery shopping. I could be listening to those handy language-learning audio programs! But I don’t want to spend a lot of money…

Hey, aren’t most podcasts free? And easy to get by simply downloading? And doesn’t iTunes have a library of thousands of them that is easy to search? Quick investigation proved my brain correct, so I subscribed to some likely suspects that looked like good Japanese resources. (I figured I’d start with that language since I probably have the greatest toehold in it of any of the smatterings of languages I know. More than Russian, that’s for sure. Of course, there’s still the problem of learning kanji.) Then I realized that I could use podcasts to educate myself on any number of different topics. The problem with chemical engineering as a major is that it doesn’t leave a lot of room in your curriculum for random electives, which is quite disappointing to a would-be Renaissance man like myself. Thus, I added “In Our Time” from BBC Radio 4 (this week’s topic: Chaucer), NPR’s “On Words with John Ciardi” segment (the etymology of the word “midriff”), and the weekly Piano Puzzler from “Performance Today.” And the Onion Radio News, just for fun. So now I will have even more random facts to toss at people. Insert your own punchline/quip here.

In my first post on this blog, I explained my innate distrust of fads, which is why it took me so long to get a blog in the first place. You may also note that in that first post I singled out podcasting and Facebook as the new fads, blogs having become old hat by that point. Actually, I am considering joining the Facebookers some time in the next few months. But what can I say? The convenience of listening to audio programming when I want to, with the help of my iPod mini, was just too good to pass up. Besides, it’s been several months since last summer. The Fad is now… I don’t know… Gmail’s integrated chat program? Video blogging? I’ll take public comments on this one.

And You Thought Sudoku Was Hard

I really did want to put a piece of art with this one, but the fact is that I am now working on the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) design contest problem, and it will continue to consume most of my free time until March 4. I can’t even tell you what it is about, as that probably violates contest rules (someone who will be working the problem later this semester could happen across my blog and get an unfair head start). How’s that for mysterious and super-top-secret. Let it suffice to say that the next month will be one of those periods where my posts are very witty, or at least very brief.

Today’s post is intended to bring to your attention a fantastic new puzzle for those of you who have more free time than I do (oh, irony). Samurai Sudoku (素毒の侍, I think) is particularly suited for those people who weren’t quite challenged enough by the 9x9 number game that has been sweeping the world in the last six months or so. It consists of five Sudoku puzzles that overlap at their corners. Just go look at the link. It makes a lot more sense when you see it. I did manage to finish one of these before The Project began, and I think it might have taken me over an hour, but unfortunately I did not think to time myself. Thanks to Liz Morel for bringing this to my attention.

America Monkey

Breaking news: I have been accepted with full support to the Universities of Notre Dame and of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). This leaves only the slackers at MIT, who have not yet notified me of their decision. In any case, it seems likely that I will be spending most of my weekends in March flying around the country to visit various schools. Good thing the decision deadline is April 15 for all schools.

And in honor of last night’s State of the Union address, today’s piece is François’s “America Monkey” (crayon, 2002). This little guy is the most patriotic monkey. The American ideals of freedom and liberty can be seen in his open arms. Imagine thousands of immigrants and huddled masses running towards those welcoming arms. It almost makes you wonder if France should have built us a giant monkey statue instead of that dame with the spiky hair. If we had a giant monkey statue, I bet the apes would at least do their part and keep the sand off of it in the future, which clearly would not happen with our present monument, as many prominent historians have noted.

“America Monkey” foreshadowed the “one state, two state, red state, blue state” divisions that appeared (or were hyped by the media) during the 2004 elections and offered a solution ahead of time: out of many red and blue pieces, one patriotic monkey. It’s heartwarming to see such a symbol of unity and friendship today.

However, there exists an alternative interpretation of “America Monkey.” Some art critics believe it represents a critique of American culture and politics, although it should be noted that it was not nearly so fashionable to criticize the president at the time of this work’s creation, January 2002. Additionally, the first piece in the Fran Clan series was titled “Australia Day Fireworks,” so “America Monkey” may also be an allusion to that work.