lame.

... OH S***.

O well.

I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell, Act III of Man and Superman
by George Bernard Shaw, 1902.

Honors Day & Scholarships....

So begins the long awaited rant about the state of affairs about things.

Today is Honors Day. I didn't go last time and so I got quite a lot of s*** for it, so I have to go this time. Yes, I'm sure you can give me 10 reasons why I should go, but I'll give you 11 explaining why it's a pointless waste of time.

Recognition is done rather incorrectly. This is kind of strange, but think about it. A dinner, a $5 brunch, some pepperjack cheese*, means so little to me and probably many many others. One day means nothing, especially when I'm not getting anything tangible out of it. This is not to say that I actually, really need anything tangible, because I have everything I need, but at least the an offer should be made.

So what's going to happen? I'll "dress up" so I don't look ridiculous, show up, and sit there for 2 hours while they parade people on the stage. I'm not sure if there will be any parading. I do know, for sure, that there will be a speech. Something about 'next leaders of America' and how we're probably going to 'help usher in the next technological (replace with ____logical) revolution' and 'cure cancer, AIDs, ADD all while exemplifying moral fortitude and impeccable ethical reasoning'.

And then? Then the eating begins. I'll pick at the food they may or may not give, only to realize I have to eat all of it and wolf it down 30 seconds after this realization occurs. Then a pat on the back and "good job!" and three pieces of paper, two trinkets, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The paper will definitely be lost in my home somewhere, along with every thing else. So what will come of this? Probably a vague memory of what happened and an uneasy feeling thinking about the pepperjack cheese they made me eat.

I have a better idea. My copy card has run out of money and I need to make copies for a paper I need to write. How about refilling that card with say.. $5? It's not much to ask. I'll forfeit my meal too. We're "honors kids" right? So you can trust us that we won't photocopy our buttocks and place images across campus. Or can you?

My bike's tire is flat. How about a new tube? That'd help. These things should be personalized. I like cookies. How about a box of cookies? A bicycle tube, a box of cookies, and refilling my copy card would probably cost less than $10. Mind you, I'll eat the HEB $0.99 chocolate chip cookies.

Let's move on to other things, assuming the Honors Day convention costs, I think, more than $10 (when lost revenues for other things are accounted for, etc, etc). I would really like an external DVD burner. Not because I need to archive my jdramas or anything (because I do ... :]), but I want one for backup purposes. Piece of paper? What would I do with that?

I could name a million things. OR I could just be handed say.. $50. I'd be good with $50. Refill my copy card, buy an external DVD burner, spend the rest on sugar and bicycle components.**

Being handed money.. sounds a lot like... a scholarship. Which brings me to part 2 of the rant... for another day (tomorrow...).

*: Which tastes horrible, but is the staple of these pretentious events.
**: The brain works on only sugar (and ketone bodies, but that's neither here nor there.)

Quite a lot has happened recently.

I have just been neglecting to clear my phone cache. Well, here goes.

Jonny sleeping over (witness protection). The extremely bright light is from my flashlight.

One of the many reasons I hate PCL is, in the middle of the 1st floor lobby, my wireless connection says "Very Low". Also, the floor under those chairs is not even, so everytime you move it sounds like a construction drill.

Aditya turns 21, dances with female hu-mahns.

Yesterday I realized that Easter sales for candy were going on, so I went on a hunt for Cadbury Creme Eggs. I was disappointed, so I binged on candy. Yes. You are looking at over $50 of candy.

UT in the night is a very quiet place. 3AM, returning from Patterson.

Hypocrites

Yesterday night, I decided to get some food at Wendy's. Two discussions will result from this experience.

Hypocrisy;

Apparently some PSA fest had just finished. "Basant 2007" or something like that. A group of them had just returned and were eating at Wendy's. I instantly recognized one of them. Rewind. Earlier this year, they were having some rally where they were raising money for some charity.

Yes, nice cause. Back then, one of them came up to me and guilt-tripped me into giving a dollar (or 5, I'm not sure how much I gave...). Yeah. Ok. Guilt-tripping me isn't that hard, and as you've probably noticed, I can guilt trip myself pretty easily. So I gave him a dollar (or 5..) and went along my way with a unshakable feeling that I'd just been jipped*. I'd soon forget, after a dispassionate (yet sufficient) lecture on chymotrypsin from Yin.

Fast forward, a couple of months. Same guy ordering Wendy's talking to his friends. So I decided on a social experiment. I quickly extrapolated where they might sit and sat nearby. YES. I was eavesdropping. But I had to know. Anyway, I heard he had bought some alcohol a couple of hours ago**.

But wait! What about the starving children and guilt-tripping random UT-students into donating money? Surely if you're that devoted to the cause, you'd forfeit your night of drunkenness to help those in need.

Perhaps next time someone tries to extort money out of money, I should tell them to 'screw off', but there's that chance that a request might be genuine. Perhaps I am too nice, but undoubtedly, my optimism in humanity presently wanes.

\\

Separation of Environments;

This is important, but I don't think too many people understand. OR Maybe they do, but are trying to suppress their nature? Or be more white? I have no idea.

There's a distinction to be made between areas of the house, clothing, behavior, etiquette, etc. The psychologists would say "ingroup" and "outgroup", and this is sufficient, so I'll use these terms as well. It is somewhat difficult to describe this, so I'll give some examples:

House:
1) Ingroup - Anywhere where there is carpet/wood. Take your damn shoes off. I'm serious. My bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, etc are all ingroup. With the sole exception that you're coming into my house to walk past the kitchen into the garage to fix the garage door opener because you can't get in from the outside, take your shoes off. I won't even say please. If you see a pile of shoes, you know what to do. In the unlikely case that we have nuclear winter***, we will burn the shoes first for heat, since I will not be leaving my house.
2) Outgroup - Stay on the tiles. If you find yourself being invited to ingroup areas, Congratulations! You're ingroup (in this aspect, anyway).

Clothing:
1) Ingroup - If I talk to you**** in any one of these pieces of clothing, you're ingroup - Pajamas, boxors, shirt off, pants off, completely naked. Enjoy!
2) Outgroup - If I talk to you in anything else but not the aforementioned articles of clothing, you're outgroup. Sulk in the corner.

Behavior:
1) Ingroup - This one is simple. Ask yourself - Would he be saying this to Dr. _____? If not, you're ingroup, else, not.

Etiquette: This one, is usually limited to food engagements, so I'll treat it as such.
1) Ingroup - See me shoveling salad with a fork (like rice from a rice bowl? any takers?)
2) Outgroup - See me ask for a chilled salad fork (which I will use with my right hand, stfu).
Many cases, neither will happen. I have no idea where you lie. Maybe Middlegroup.

Why is making this distinction important? Well, ingroup enjoys many privileges and outgroup, well, sits on the sofas near the tiled entrance (with your feet planted on the floor and not on the coffeetable) and bitter from the imposed tacit regulations, fakes apathy by reading magazines.

Outgroup girls would get very bored at the slew of IT, news, science, and technology magazines. Not that girls don't do science, just the ones I know are very indifferent about it. Tragic.

*: I had to look up how to spell this.
**: I know the exact amount, but can't release it - self-ID would be way too easy. Notice that by saying "he bought alcohol" but not focusing in on a particular PSA-member, I am making broad generalizations. Yes, they're not true, but the story goes on.
***: Which, I'm not so sure about anymore...
****: The talk distinction is important; I frequent J2 and Wendy's in my pajamas. "Deluxe Chicken Sandwich meal, please" does not constitute as talking.

Google Reader

Google Reader is infinitely awesome. In fact, I don't find myself on CNN or BBC news anymore, instead, reading briefs off an RSS feed.

In fact, it makes it so easy, I'll share interesting articles with you to the side (if you haven't noticed already...).

Articles that interest me, with my short attention span, are very likely to appeal to many.

Enjoy.
\\

All my tests are over, now I just have to wait for biochem and quantum statistics to come out. Meanwhile...

lol.

lolz.

That about sums up the weekend. Rather, Friday night.

I see that this map thing was a complete failure, having prison inmates leave me location markers and absolutely no one else leave anything.. :'(

In fact, this weekend has been quite unproductive. That will be fixed today. Karma Lounge still has my MC on their tab...

...

But they still haven't charged me yet.

I like this one.
IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.


Taken from: http://www.xkcd.com