All good things...

So school has started, and it's pretty awesome. Except for one thing.. I was in Thermo and I realized that this was one of my last physics classes. I'm down to three left to finish.

Of course, I only had to take 7 upper division ones to begin with, but it's still sad. There is a very unique element about physics, and hopefully I'll capture the essence of it in the next few lines.

Let's take a question in biology - How come highly charged molecules can't cross the cell membrane? Well, it's because there is electrostatic repulsion. Why is there electrostatic repulsion? [This is now a chemistry question] - Well, it has something (or everything) to do with Coulomb's law, which is now physics. Why do like charges repel? Well it has something to do with the characteristics of subatomic particles... (and I'm not completely sure of this answer). Why do these subatomic particles have this property?

At this point, people are often at an impasse. You can either go the atheist way ("I don't know") or you can be religous and say "God".

Pretty soon, it becomes obvious that all the Why? questions lead to physics, and many Why? questions in physics lead to one of two dubious answers. Take it as you wish. I'll flatter myself and giggle in a corner like a maniac.

Let's talk about something more interesting - how about THE MOST TERRIBLE GREYHOUND BUS RIDE EVAR. Yeah. Sounds like a plan.

Let's start with.. tutoring. I finished tutoring at 6pm and by the time I was done explaining DIT and walked back to Wankthorpe*, it was 625pm, with the Greyhound bus leaving at 750pm. I rested for a bit until the 800lb gorilla woke me up and it was late.

So I mooched a ride off Robert and arrived just in time to stand in line for 25 minutes to realize that the 750pm bus was full, the next one was at 1015pm. OK. Whatever. I don't really mind waiting somewhere as long as I can do something (electro homework), but what bugs me the most is that I kept having to guard my stuff. Almost everyone looks suspicious there.**

1015pm. Woohoo! The bus is here, 2.5 electro problems are done and I can finally get some rest, with a deathgrip on my laptop bag, of course. Fate hates me. By the time I got on the bus making sure my check-in luggage was actually under the bus and not in some dude's trunk, the only seat left was in the back, the three seater, wedged between two people.

Whatever. I can deal with that. Deathgrip + Eurobeat should keep me hibernating until 130am. Not so. In the darkness, I heard a voice*** - "So where you headin'?". I'll be painfully obvious, I thought. "Dallas. You?". "Colorado, gonna stay wit my bro for the week".

Undoubtedly, my first mistake of the night - asking him where he was going. I told him I was going back for a bed because I didn't want to sleep on the floor. Then he says "Heck. I'd rather sleep on a floor than jail anyday".

ONE MUST NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS. I thought of that one office episode, with Prison Mike. HEY! He could be in jail for insider trading.

Someone else asks - "Why'd they put you in the job, yo?"

Then he recants his story. He's 20, separated from his wife, who has both of his kids. He used to have an apartment where they were staying, but his wife's new boyfriend (who is 16 years old), decided to move in and "tell him how to run the place", so he "put a gun to his head". The arresting sheriff put him in handcuffs, but he struggled, and apparently beat up the sheriff.

Yellow Alert!

The he shows me his handgun, which.. he had on the bus, for some reason. By this time, the klaxons were already blaring and the council had evacuated through mini escape pods to a nearby support vessel.****

I was practically lifeless after that, minimal control. Only saying the right words so I don't get shot or something.

Oh and, the two drunk women throwing up in the bathroom created a pleasant aroma in the back of the bus.

It's just a forceful reminder.

All good things must come to an end. Like Physics! :'(
Crappy things linger. Like Greyhound.

*: I literally googled "a s***** place" and found this. Sounds aweseome; I'm sticking to it. It's my apartment. Or... is it austin? Both.
**: I often imagine families being part of a conspiracy to steal my stuff.
***: Sounds like a batman trailer.
****: There is always a support vessel when I travel, usually anchored to the side of the vehicle. No more details. This is somewhat classified (embarassing) to talk about.

Lolympics

Ancient Greece once decided to get together and hold the Olympics every 4 years to celebrate achievements of the human body and sportsmanship. The games brought unity to pre-Christian Greece and probably indirectly provided for peace.

It's time to hold a similar one, except now, with weapons. Every year, each nation should send one General to the Pacific with an array of weapons.

Then all the generals get naked and pummel a random pacific island one after another, to show off their might. One big military exercise. The Indians can test their nukes, the Americans - their ballistic missiles, the Chinese - their latest fingertrap, and the Japanese will just sit tight, spending billions on defense but not firing a single useful shot.

Spectacle for the world! I get to watch an island raise a couple of feet and the war hawks soothe their nerves. There's no need for wondering when/if North Korea will launch a missile. Just wait! It'll be June 9th of next year, and the next and next..

So less than a week left before the fun begins. Yeah. Can't wait. What an interesting semester to look forward to. Back to Japanese, Antoniewicz, Thermodynamics.

It is almost dawn. I can hear the early morning battle cries, ready to do war.

Bond

I've been watching a bunch of Bond movies. One of the highlights, after the witty sayings* and Q, are the girls.

Most of them are pretty ugly.** I'll list the 5 best looking ones.

1. Kissy Suzuki.
Yeah you saw this coming. Don't complain.

2. Solitaire

There's something mystical and awesome about her prophetic powers, but this is before she started practicing medicine on the frontier and became ugly. Sigh.

3. Corinne Dufour:

You only see her for max.. 4 minutes. Watch carefully. French women yeauz!

4. Kara Milovy

Cellos rock. Also that one part, where they're passing into the Austrian border-

Bond: We have nothing to declare!
Kara: Excceppt Cellooo!!

That part is kickass.

5. Vesper Lynd
There is something about the contrast between the skin tone and the hair/lipstick that is particularly alluring.

Of course, there are really really really ugly ones. Some on purpose (like Mayday), some, I don't know what the hell happened. Virtually everyone in License to Kill is ugly, and I suppose Aki balances Suzuki out somehow.

Somehow...

*: Witty, because I can never see them coming, although its usually after someone dies.
**: Lack of clothes is... a bad thing in my book.

I'm back.. but not really.

Well after a short hiatus, I will resume. Lots of things happened when I was gone. Tony Blair is no more (PM), Brown takes his place, upgrading himself from Chancellor of the Exchequer to Prime Minister.

That made me think - How come we don't have kickass names like that? What does a 'Chancellor of the Exchequer' even do? Never mind, I don't really care. It sounds cool.

We're in a serious need for cool titles. What the hell is a comptroller? Yes, yes. The UK has comptrollers too, but probably none as ridiculous as this one:




"Grandma".

You can't go from comptroller to governor! You should be chancellor of something first.

Maybe we need another Cold War to restore glamor and prestige back to the public office.

If you're wondering, I'm still off the grid. Don't contact me. I won't respond. See you guys when school starts.

喧嘩

Now that I'm done watching a bunch of chimpanzees cannibalize another chimp tribe (I knew it! Extra protein, my ass.*), I feel more at ease living in Plano, although with the recent torrential rains, it seems like this place is turning more into a rainforest.

You'd think that with less than two years to go, one would back down and fully realize the title of 'lame duck', but no. He's done it again and Libby is going back to his Northeastern home to sip on something pretentious. He should be in jail, but he's not. Who else, hmm..

How about.. Armitage, for actually committing the crime outlined here.
Rove, for lying repeatedly
Bush, for hiring these people
Cheney, for shooting someone in the face, and not disclosing proper documents, and profiting off the Iraq war, and... the list goes on.
Fitzgerald, for running back to his 'day job'

Amazing! It's pretty clear a crime has been committed, why is no one going to jail? Since when do loopholes keep people above the law? (Or pardons, for that matter.)

Also recently, WSJ has been taking a conservative spin on things, which is a little sickening. See here, here, and here.

Enough with sobering matters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBzM1eQdPfc

*: The neoconservatives are very closely linked to the chimpanzees. I wonder on how many levels it hurts them to hear that.

めんどくさい

Ethiopian food. That is Robert's hand, poised to pluck the egg.

They made us eat with Injera, which was so rubbery and sour that it made everything else unappetizing. Maybe we should have gone to the Clay Pit with those awesome fake LED candles.

Surprisingly, my bowels were ok after eating that (you can almost see the puddles of oil). Maybe it was the rain-filled drive home:

Looks like you're heading into some.. battlefield. You know, where you put all the forces of good on one side, bad on the other, and let them have at it. RAAAAAAAGH!

This was.. one week ago, and not much has changed. I was doing 80 in a thunderstorm because I thought my Honda would save me. It did. Thrice.

Most of the time I didn't even realize I was skidding until the episode was all over. In this last picture, my wipers were on full speed and visibility was at most.. 50 feet. That's a line of cars braking.

Whoa! What's going on?
"quando l'ultimo angelo ha sono la tromba"*

It's been raining almost every day for the last week, which is awesome. If it was a bit cooler, it'd be better.


The recent findings in England as well as the Glasgow airport bring to light what is probably one of the world's biggest religious hypocrisies today. Of course, not every Muslim is a carjacker or a suicide terrorist, but you should not blame the rest of the world for being prejudiced. By not protesting the fundamentalists or fanatics, by not understanding why certain countries have to take protective measures and by not acting up when your youth convert to the dark side, the Islamic elders should take nearly all the blame.

But, no. Instead of protesting against Brooks when he opens his mouth, or actively trying to shut down extremist factions (you know, that 2% that cause problems for the rest of us), or condemning honor killings , what are most protests about? The Danish cartoon and the Pope.

Free speech? I barely believe in it.

*: from The Omen. That was an awesome part, if you know what I'm referring to.