You might want to stay away from me for the next couple of days, as my left arm is infected with influenza. That's right, I've once again taken the big gamble that is getting a yearly flu shot in the hopes that a bunch of nerdy medical people guessed the correct strain of the flu that will migrate over from Japan on the boat with the latest shipment of well-made vechicles and High Definition TVs. But in order to build up the antibodies needed to fend off this year's batch of winter illnesses, they had to inject me with deactivated viruses. Or at least they claimed they were deactivated. The truth is, science is still a little sketchy as to whether or not viruses are living organisms, and there's no way to kill something that was never alive. It's just a matter of time before viruses catch on to our little plan and start mutating a way to "play dead" so that the medical community uses them for flu shots. Then, after they're injected into every elderly person and college student (these are the only people who get flu shots, as these are the only people that get them for free), the viruses will spring to life and wipe out half of our population in one fell swoop. The good news is, the world will be rid of bad drivers and rabble-rousing teenagers. The bad news is, Florida's population will be reduced to zero and the economy will grind to a halt, since there will be no more market for bubblegum pop music or extreme sports video games.

If you'd like to learn more about the flu, and whether or not you too should get your arm infected before viruses rise up to take over the world, go here, where you can learn interesting facts like "in 1976, all flu shots were administered in black and white", and "infants over six months old can get a flu shot by traveling back in time to the 1980's".

In honor of our recent transfer back into Standard Time, and because my previous suggestion to "Fall Back" every week has gone mostly unheeded, I have a new plan for Daylight Savings Time.

When we "Spring Forward" in March, it is often said that we "lose an hour", and consequently when we turn our clocks back again in the Fall we are said to "gain an hour". However, when I put my money in the bank, I gain interest on my investment (unless I put it in the Bank of America, in which case I get charged a $5 convenience fee). I propose that when we gain our hour back in the Fall, it should have accrued some sort of interest based on the current rates. It's only fair. Imagine Springing forward one hour and then Falling back 1.13 hours. You could even elect not to turn your clock back in the Fall so that your hour could gain more interest, then next year Fall back even further.

It's revolutionary ideas like these that will one day lead our nation to greatness.

Yes, yes, another crappy week of NFL picks. I went 7-7 to bring my total futility rating up to 66-52. Lucas did a not-too-much-better-but-still-better 8-6, bringing him to 81-37. I am 15 games behind him. That's more than a week of games.

The washing machine upstairs has a turbocharged engine. When it goes into the "spin cycle", it cycles so fast that it violently shakes the machine in such a way as to cause the floor to shake, making an evening doing laundry feel like one of those old Godzilla movies where the monster takes a step and causes an earthquake.

As Anime Amy mentioned, we took in an evening of hockey at Webster Groves Ice Arena on Sunday night. Sadly, the Blast lost the game (I still think #13 was a ringer), but they're getting better and soon they'll be back to playing their old arch-nemeses the Eagles, who they played in every game of the regular season and playoffs last year.

And now the big news: Often times I use this webspaces to rant about television commercials. To this point, my complaints haven't had much of an impact, since Coors Light is still broadcasting their skimpily-clad twins and that annoying country singer still caterwauls about Ford trucks. But that ends now. The Festival has scored 4 tickets to a night of Television Preview, where I and three of my friends (if you're interested email me, as I may have an extra ticket or two. First come first serve, no guarantees) watch a number of prerecorded television programs and commercials that are being considered for next season and then proceed to offer our comments and criticisms of them. It all happens on Sunday night at 7:30, so keep watching this space for a full review of how I impose my will on the television-viewing public.

Saturday night I ventured downtown to the Soulard Ale House to see Lucky Boys Confusion. It was a surprisingly good show considering the cold drizzly weather and the number of drunk people there, but something needs to be said about one of the other bands playing.

Right before LBC came on, a seemingly-drunk British-sounding singer named Ian Jones and his band of aging rockers took the stage. Ian (who named the band after himself), wore a white suit and devil horns. It quickly became apparent that the music, nondescript rock, took a backseat to Ian's stage act, which consisted of removing one article of clothing after every song. First it was his jacket, which wasn't too bad, but then he tore off his shirt revealing a pasty-white and out of shape body with two nipple rings and a couple of pointless tattoos. Then he went backstage and removed his pants, replacing them with an American flag that he wore around his waist (and yes, it was a real flag. You could see the grommets on the edges that you hang the flag with). After the next song, he tore off the flag to reveal bright red briefs. It was completely repulsive, but apparently the drunk girls in front of the stage didn't think so, as they let him lean over and grope them during a song. He also went over and grabbed his guitarist's crotch during a solo. Yes, there was actually music going on all this time, although no one was actually paying attention to it.

It was sadly not the only time that I've seen a local band do a striptease during a show, apparently that's the thing to do if your band sucks and your music can't stand on its own. The St. Louis music scene: It really is just Nelly.

Overheard:

lightistoobright: do you have mental problems?

Alas, Swing Dancin' Amy is partially correct. Not that I have mental problems, but she was referring to my contention that if you turnd a square manhole cover diagonally it would fall right through. This was poorly-worded and should have read: "tilted a square manhole cover upright and then turned it diagonally so as to align the edge of the cover with the diagonal of the hole".

"You weren't supposed to help her..."

[shudder]

The only thing scarier than that movie is how badly I'm performing at picking the outcomes of NFL football games. I promise I used to be good at this. I'm 59-45, Lucas is a high and mighty 73-31, and here are this weeks entries, picked by my brain instead of computers or coins or monkeys...

PIT at BAL: PIT. I hate to say it, but the Steelers actually look impressive under Tommy Maddox. And the loss of Jerome Bettis shouldn't be too big of a deal, they still have the Fu'a'Ma'tu-Ma'a'a'aFa'la guy right?

DET at BUF: DET. I don't know why I do these things, but I'm picking the Lions. The Bills defense is horrible, and in order for me to win my fantasy football matchup this week I need Drew Bledsoe to perform poorly. Therefore it will happen.

TB at CAR: TB. I can't in good conscience pick Sal Fasani (or whatever the hell Mr. 4th-String-Panthers-Quarterback's name is) to win an NFL game. Between him and the aforementioned David Garrard, where do these players come from?

TEN at CIN: TEN. I wanted to pick the Bengals. I really did. Then I remembered watching them play the Falcons and Bucs and the fact that they more closely resemble the WashU second team than an NFL squad.

SEA at DAL: SEA. I'm down, I've got to take some risks. Everyone is picking Dallas and Emmitt Smith, but remember that Dallas is absolutely horrible and they're starting a rookie quarterback.

OAK at KC: OAK. The Raiders looked so good a few weeks ago, then Bill Callahan decided to stop running the ball. Poof! There goes his high powered offense. Time to get it back on track against the worst defense in the league.

CHI at MIN: CHI. I made the mistake of picking the Vikings way too many times this year. Here's what I don't get: they have purple jerseys yet Daunte Culpepper *still* throws about 4 interceptions per game. How hard is it to look for the open man wearing *purple*?

ATL at NO: NO. I'm not totally sold on Michael Vick yet. Nor am I sold on his slow-as-molasses receiving corps or Warrick "Can't Break a Tackle" Dunn. They could prove something to me in this game, though.

CLE at NYJ: NYJ. Yes, Lucas, I'm picking the Jets too. It's scary isn't it?

ARI at SF: SF. Thomas Jones? Marcel Shipp? You can't win without a running game, it's as easy as that.

HOU at JAX: JAX. Unless David Garrard makes another apperance, in which case all bets are off.

DEN at NE: DEN. Ha ha, poor Lucas. He sees "hmm...Patriots at home, coming off a bye, on a losing streak in need of a win, getting no respect", but as a longtime Pats fan I see "annual loss to Denver". The Pats have beaten the Broncos once in about the last 20 years, or at least that's how it seems.

IND at WAS: IND. Prediction: Washington players will get confused about who is actually starting at quarterback and there will be *2* QBs lining up under center for the first play of the game. From that point on Spurrier will settle for just his #1 golden arm...Chris Doering.

NYG at PHI: PHI. The Giants' fast defense could cause problems for Mr. McNabb, but their offense doesn't exactly strike fear into anyone's heart. And this is a Monday Night game, so it's gotta be a blowout.

Certain people convinced me that I needed to see The Ring. "It's very well done," they said, "go see it. So David and I took their advice. From what I gathered during the times when my eyes were not closed, The Ring was a scary scary movie. Not as much scary in a "look who just got hacked to pieces" way, but rather in a "building sense of foreboding and dread escalates into nightmarish sequence that is not as much gory as creepily disturbing". And of course there were the obligatory spooky little kids. From watching horror movies, I have come to realize that the scariest things in the world are indeed small children. The worst part is that children can never say anything in a normal voice. I won't spoil the movie, but for those of you who've seen it, why couldn't the little boy just say "the girl never sleeps, mom". Instead he has to whisper "she never sleeeepssss..." in this bone-chilling voice. And he was supposedly one of the "good guys".

If I keep talking about that movie, I won't be able to sleep tonight, so let's move on to another topic: manhole covers. For some reason, besides having an unhealthy obsession with stop signs, the city planners must have had some sort of manhole (or "personhole" for you "womyns rights" folks) obsession, because there are many places where there are at least 3 or 4 manhole covers all clustered together in a small group, as if they were huddling together for warmth or because they were scared of being alone in the Crime-iest City in the World. It seems that every time they repave the roads here they dump asphalt over one of the covers, remove just the piece of concrete covering the manhole leaving a large suspension-rending pothole, then decide that we actually need a different entrance to the sewers and dig another hole just to the left or right of the original. This ensures that there is no possible way to swerve around the numerous potholes to avoid destroying the alignment on my car. Unless the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are running our city (which I sometimes wonder about considering the way traffic lights work around here), I see no reason for so many manhole covers.

And for those of you who are interviewing with Microsoft: manhole covers are round because it's the simplest shape that won't drop through if oriented in a different way (tilt a square cover upright and diagonally and it would fall right through).

My Dear Dear Other Amy,
Unfortunately my name may be more common, but surprisingly in our little weblog community I am the only Chris (unless you read Rachel's roommate Christie's weblog, where she often refers to a past boyfriend named Chris in less than flattering terms, and I must keep reminding myself that I didn't do any of these awful things), while there are no less than two Amys. If you would prefer, I could prepend descriptors to both of your names and refer to you as "Swing Dancin' Amy" and "Anime Amy". The reason you got stuck with "Other Amy" rather than just Amy is that you had the misfortune of meeting me second.

In Fondness,
Chris

Now it's time for me to rant about tattoos again. In today's issue of Cadenza, there is a lengthy article about tattoos and body piercings at WashU. I'd like to take a look at some of the statements made in this article:

"...Den-E, a graduate student in the Art School. He would not say his real name, nor his last. They no longer define [him] and so they are irrelevant."

This is one of the most absurd things I have ever read. Your name is not something is supposed to define you. People don't hear my name and automatically assume anything about me (unless I tell them that I'm a CS major). But I hear the name "Den-E" and I automatically think "wacko art student". So it looks like you've had the opposite effect on yourself, Mr. E.

(Another student on why he chose to get a genital piercing): "I really wanted a piercing. And my parents are very anti-piercing".

Wow. Parents everywhere would be wise to read this and immediately try to force their kids into getting piercings, knowing that the kids will defy them by not doing it. This guy will wish his parents had done that when in a few years he looks down and sees an unnecessary hole in his...

"Megan Fishman, a junior, got a Chinese character on her lower back 'because it looks sexy' [Grammatical and spelling errors corrected for readability]...If you're wearing low cut jeans, boys wonder how low it goes.' She has no idea what her symbol means, in fact she's not even sure that it is a symbol. It just looks Chinese and is pretty."

So does Lucy Liu, but that doesn't mean I had her permanently affixed to my back. Also in the vein of people getting mystic symbols inked under their skin that have no meaning:

"Becca Morphew, a sophomore, got her Hebrew lettering because she thought that 'Hebrew is a deep language with a lot of history.' She doesn't know what the Hebrew says on her back either, but she knows it translates to 'Hope'."

If only it translated to "Moron", and for all this silly girl knows it very well might, it would be infinitely more accurate. Girls seem to mistakenly think that all guy find tattoos attractive, where I for one am repulsed by them. Partially because to get this tattoo I know the girl had to sit there for an hour getting stabbed with a needle and injected with ink, and the very thought of this makes me squirm around in my seat.

"These girls both agreed that they enjoyed what their tattoos implied about them. The list of adjectives included that they are perceived as 'sexy, ballsy, out-there, tough, strong, deep, and spiritual'."

Yes, it's very spiritual and deep when you have no idea what the symbol means and you've done it to "look sexy" because you saw that lead singer of your favorite indie-rock band with a tattoo. My list of adjectives of how I perceive girls who have visible tattoos is "trendy, shortsighted, unoriginal", and whatever the most complete opposite of the word "sexy" is.

The article then goes on to describe how poor oppgetting holes punched in your body or ink injected into your skin for eternity is a decision that you made, and now you have to live with the consequences. Just like you have a right to "express yourself" by joining the latest cultural fad, I have the right to judge you as a complete moron and follower for doing so. If you really want to "express yourself", try doing something worthwhile in the world. Those same parents who are resistant to your self-expression are the ones who will have to financially support your asses when you can't get a job because of the Chinese symbol for Sterility on your arm and the bolt through your nose. Maybe I'm intolerant and conservative, or maybe I just see that when everyone is "being an individual" in the same way, it's not too damn individualistic anymore.

I know I've probably offended a great many of you out there, but chances are I've offended you before and will do so again. I don't have any space for comments, but if you want to fire back you can e-mail me and I'll post your comments, even if you call me a dumbass.

It must be nice to live in a country where there are no copyright or intellectual property laws. In China, for instance, the 5th Harry Potter book has already been released, while in the US we have to wait at least until next year. Chances are that, unlike the Chinese version, ours will not feature, among other things, Gandalf the Wizard as Harry's grandfather or a hot-and-sour soup rain that turns Harry into a dwarf.

But if you are one of those people who just can't wait to read about Mr. Potter's newest adventure (and, like, when will he just ask Hermione out? Like, they are so, like, meant for each other!), there is a plethora of Harry Potter Fanfiction on the internet. Stories written by illiterate 10-year-olds are just as good as the real thing, I'm sure.

Yes, yes, my algorithm did even worse at picking the outcomes of various football games than I usually do. After a woeful 7-9 week, my record stands at 59-45. I'm approaching .500, and that's scary. I promise when I worked for Student Life I won the staff NFL Picks. Lucas went 9-7 to continue his yearlong pasting of me. He is a much-less-woeful 73-31.

I recently finished reading the book The Bourne Identity, which many of you will remember was also a movie early this year. I saw the movie before reading the book, which is usually the way to go because invariably the book is better than the movie. In this case it's just...different. And by different I might wildly different. If you look at the cast of characters on the movie page, for instance, only two of those characters (Bourne himself and Marie) even appear in the book, and Marie is similar in name alone. Which begs the question: why do an adaptation of a book when you're not even going to remotely stick to the plot? I like when movies portray things differently or add the visual quality to the action of a story, but they basically took the character of Jason Bourne and put him in an entirely different story with entirely different characters. Why then even use the Bourne name? Why not just go all the way and make a movie that people won't automatically write off as a "bad adaptation of a novel", which is usually what people think of movies based on books? I compare this to myself writing a screenplay called "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", about a young wizard named Harry Potter who attends Washington University in St. Louis and must juggle homework and WashU's complete lack of a dating scene while ridding St. Louis of car thieves and rap stars. Sure it's the same character, but it's a whole different environment and story about the character. In a word: FanFic.

For the last few days, there has been loud music with bass shaking our apartment, especially my room. I was mentioning it to Lucas in the lab today and it turns out the source of the shaking is someone else in the lab! Ravi, who lives directly above us and has a -273 sticker on his door (and who probably didn't know that we knew about his blog. We are all-seeing...), owned up to just purchasing a new sound system and playing music in the mornings and at night. Mystery solved.

This morning I played basketball, which is nothing new, but this time rather than defend against Pete's "lower your shoulder and run into people" style of play and Berney's crazy dribbling, I squared off against my cs441 professor and other CS grad students. I was worried that I'd have to play tight defense and end up fouling my professor, but luckily she was on my team so my grade is safe at least until the next exam.

Dear Other Amy,
I'm sorry that my archives are screwed up, but it's Blogger's fault, not mine. It likes to leave off my most current post for some reason. I will be switching to MoveableType soon, which should solve both that problem and the lack of comments. You reading CNN is another problem entirely, though. My site should be the first one you read every day, not these knockoff hack "journalism" news sites.

With Love,
Chris

I don't have very good luck with appliances, and it doesn't help that most of the ones I have are older than I am. Last week I tried to use my VCR to tape Friends and CSI for a friend. The VCR is so old that it a) doesn't have digital channels, it has about 13 bands that must be hand-tuned to the same band as real channels, and b) can only tape shows in 15 minute-increment lengths, but I've had so much experience with the beast that I can usually cajole it into taping the shows I want. I know all its intricacies, having used it many times to tape my favorite shows and to dub bootleg Smashing Pumpkins videos, but last week it came up with a new trick. After allowing me to set up the proper programs to tape, the time arrived for Friends to start and the VCR fired up as per usual, but instead of taping the show it whirred for about 5 seconds and then shut itself down. I tried pressing the record sequence manually, but got the same result. Apparently there is some belt or something broken, because the VCR can no longer advance the tape. Useful.

Then, yesterday while I was cooking a baked potato in my toaster oven which is presumably older than I am, I heard a crackling electricky noise coming from the kitchen. I looked over at the toaster oven but the noise had already stopped. This happened a few times before I started just staring at the oven waiting, daring it to make the noise again. Sure enough it did, and accompanying the noise was a shower of blue sparks coming out of the underside of the toaster oven. After using my pen to shut the oven off (so as to keep my hand away from the source of shockingness), I unplugged the oven from the wall and proceeded to burn my hand on the top of it as I was going to pick it up.

The good news is that now that both of these appliances have failed, I have exactly zero left in our common area. Everything else out there David or michael's, which presumably means that everything else functions in a non-fire-hazard sort of way. Now all of the danger is localized entirely in my room, which contains a guitar amplifier known to broadcast Spanish radio stations and also emit showers of blue sparks...

I am a huge tool. My coin-flip method worked fairly well last week but I still came up short. The overall record now stands with me at a respectable 52-36 and Lucas at a robust 64-24, so I've added a new weapon to my arsenal. Using my elite programming skills, I've conjured up a Java program that takes in a variety of statistical inputs (you don't think I'll reveal my secrets do you?), does a bunch of wacky calculations, adds in a random factor, and computes a score for each team. Then it repeats this 100 times, tallying the "victor" each time. Then, because the NFL this season has been incredibly unpredictable, there is a chance that the program will pick the "underdog" based on the differential between the number of wins for each team in the 100 game trial. I've put all of this week's games into the program, turned the crank, and here's what it spit out:

CAR at ATL: CAR. In our first upset of the day, the Panthers beat the Falcons despite Atlanta holding the slight edge in wins.

CHI at DET: CHI. The computer program must not know that Chris Chandler will be starting for the Bears.

SEA at STL: SEA. Apparently Marc Bulger's impressive debut didn't impress the algorithm. Either that or it realizes that even the Seahawks' pathetic offense should be able to roll against our weak Rams.

BUF at MIA: BUF. In an upset, the Bills pull it out against the Jay Fiedler-less Fish.

SF at NO: NO. Terrell Owens may be arrogant, he may be a jerk, and he may be a whiner, but he always manages to entertain.

MIN at NYJ: MIN. In a cakewalk, the Vikings pull it out over the equally-hapless Jets. The only thing that would make the Jets' awful start even more fun would be if Bill Parcells were still coaching them.

TB at PHI: PHI. Personally, I'd have to disagree with the program here. I think Tampa's defense will shut down Donovan McNabb, but we all know how well my picks have done thus far.

DEN at KC: KC. Trent Green continues his assault on both the touchdown and interception records against the underwhelming Brian Griese and his lucky Broncos.

JAX at BAL: JAX. Who the hell is David Garrard, and why did he have more rushing attempts than pass attempts last week? How does this guy have a job but Jeff George is unemployed. I mean I know he doesn't get along with anybody, but at least he can throw the ball.

SD at OAK: OAK. Not only did the Raiders lose to the Rams last week, but they looked pretty bad in doing so. Now they're pissed.

HOU at CLE: CLE. The Texans almost pulled out an improbable win last week that would've given me victory over Lucas. Alas, they didn't. It could've been their last chance at a win this year.

WAS at GB: GB. Damn, I really wanted to pick the Redskins because I know Lucas will pick the Pack, but my program doesn't lie.

DAL at AZ: AZ. Has there ever been a worse .500 team than the Cowboys? And not only are they bad, but they're incredibly boring to watch. Almost as boring to watch as Arizona.

IND at PIT: IND. I really wonder how Monday Night Football picks games at the beginning of the season. Of all the great matchups this weekend, they get the most lopsided one.

Yes, Other Amy, sometimes I like to keep my readers aware of what's going on in their world. If you've got something to say about my posts why don't you leave comments? Huh? Huh? Or are you just not brave enough?

Anyway, tonight's post will not be about the news of the world. Tonight's topic is Donald Knuth, or "I Look Into a Crystal Ball and See my Future, and This is It". Knuth, despite looking like the villain from one or all of the Indiana Jones movies, is actually a famous CS guy, and one of the most eccentric people I've ever heard about. Apparently when you've worked with computers all your life, you grow old as a very, very interestingly odd person who, amongst other things...

...has not used e-mail since January 1, 1990...
...reads snail mail exactly once every 3 months and faxes once every 6 months...
...pays $2.56 if you find an error in one of his books because "256 is a hexadecimal dollar"...
...had an organ with 812 pipes built in his house so that he never has to leave...
...recently turned "1000000" (that's 64 in binary numbers) and to celebrate had lectures by other famous CS people such as Bob Tarjan...

and this is just the beginning. Take a good long look at me now, everyone, because in 100000 years (32 for all you decimal folks) that will be me, a kooky old man who would rather do research for 12 hours per day than have to leave my house. I'd better play lots of basketball now to make up for it...

So this post was supposed to go through last night, but unfortunately Blogger was down. One of these days I will switch to MoveableType so these things don't happen and so that you guys can leave comments. Although I'm a little wary of the latter...

As you undoubtedly know by now, the Giants defeated the hometown Cardinals in the NLCS, which unfortunately means another couple of weeks hearing about how Barry Bonds is some sort of baseball Jesus. He hit a home run the other night, in a game the Giants ended up losing, and Fox decided to show the highlight of it repeatedly during the subsequent two games. One could only imagine what they would've done if he had a meaningful hit in any of the games. Barry also offered this pearl of wisdom about why the Giants beat the Cards, in reference to Matt Morris throwing a high pitch in game 1 that Kenny Lofton dove out of the way of: "God doesn't like ugly". This ranks right up there with Randy Moss' quote about a trip to "Planet Clown". Sometimes sports figures just need to keep their mouths shut.

Good news for all Iraqi readers of the Festival: Saddam won the popular vote in Iraq's latest election. I say good news because he was apparently the people's resounding choice, since every eligible voter voted for Saddam, who of course was the only candidate on the ballot. Citizens celebrated in typical fashion by firing guns up in the air and declaring the day a national holiday...before the election even occurred. Iraqi officials defended the 100% voter turnout despite the fact that citizens were witnessed stuffing boxes with multiple ballots and the fact that it would have been physically impossible for them to gather and count all of the ballots in the time it took them to announce the results. What a country.

Those wacky religious folks are at it again. While most haunted houses feature teenagers caked in makeup and scary outfits trying to frighten other teens, this one has teens engaging in "immoral behavior" such as abortion or homosexuality and falling into hell. Someday they'll catch on to the ultimate in halloween scares: teens dressed as Jerry Falwell.

And finally, we may be spared forever from Dell's "Dude" ads, where "Steven" urges parents and students to purchase Dell Computers while maintaining his stoner image. Will Subway Jared be next?

Someone found my site by searching for "Stuart Florida prostitutes", so I figured I'd do a little research into the subject. There are certainly quite a few seedy areas in my hometown that seem ripe for a prostitution ring, alas a quick search of the internet revealed only a cache of male prostitutes harassing nude sunbathers.

But this in itself was a bit of a discovery, since I was not aware of any nude beaches in Stuart either. In fact, there are no legally-sanctioned nude beaches in the area, but there are a number of traditionally-nude ones, and in fact there is a whole society of nudists in Stuart. They even have their own webpage and a monthly newsletter. According to the website, nude beaching is a great family experience. Now I'm all about parents raising their kids however they want as long as they don't hurt themselves or anyone else, and nude sunbathing doesn't hurt anyone, but is it really best for a child to be surrounded by naked strangers?

In reading the newsletter, I discovered that the beach that my parents used to take me to when I was young and living in Orlando was also an "unspoken nude" beach. I don't remember seeing any naked people there, but I'm sure my parents would be shocked to hear that they were unintentionally exposing me to "naturism" (which is what they call "not wearing clothes") during my formative years.

Last night I saw an episode of The Iron Chef that shocked and disturbed me. I assume everyone is familiar with the structure of the show, in that one main ingredient is chosen and both the challenger and the Iron Chef have one hour to create a whole meal where each course uses the chosen ingredient prominently. Normally the main ingredient is something normal like beans, mushrooms, or fish, and by "normal" I of course mean "not currently alive". Well last night's main ingredient of "octopus" was definitely alive, and in fact when the tank of live octopi was unveiled, one of them literally jumped out of the tank and onto the floor of Kitchen Stadium. Then, the chefs each chose a few octopi to be a part of their dishes and proceeded to start dicing them up while the creatures were still alive. The tentacles continued to twitch even after the head was gone, and in many cases the tentacles continued to twitch and move around even after being cooked for a short time in hot water. I have enough trouble cooking food that is dead, I can't imagine adding ingredients to a pot and watching them crawl around under their own power.

But the positive note to all this is that both chefs cooked the octopi, which is more than I can say for many Asian fish-related dishes. Apparently, somewhere down the line while we Americans discovered things like botulism and other such food-bourne microbes, the Japanese culture discovered that "hmm...you don't always get sick when you eat uncooked fish". I would never, ever, become a vegetarian, for many reasons that I'll elaborate on in a different post someday, but if I took the lid off a tray of seafood and discovered a row of shrimp staring at me through dead eyes and a grouper with its mouth gaping open then I would probably be tempted to grab the nearest tofu and run. Man discovered fire many many thousands of years ago, but apparently the East-Asian subcontinent is a little behind the times.

And once they master fire, they can move on to the other great discovery of the past few millennia: utensils.

Joe "Don't Call Me Jim" Tucek contributes his haikus:

The sleepy senior
He refuses to take notes
Fedders disapproves.

E E 4 5 5
Chamberlain is so jolly.
Should I drop CoE?

In four twenty-two
all students write buggy code.
Segmentation fault.

Goooooooooooo Joe! (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Last night I took a major step in my life. I played soccer. You see, I have it on good authority from many many girls that "girls like soccer guys", so with this inside knowledge in mind I signed up for an IM soccer tournament. My team lost quite handily, and three of the goals scored against us were tallied by our own players, but happily I was not responsible for any of them. My biggest action in the game was when one of the opposing players kicked the ball near our goal and I...get ready for this...hit the ball with my head away from the goal. As I understand it, this was a good play, and should have garnered sexual favors from many of the girls in attendance. Alas, it seems that just showing up on the field (or "pitch" as we soccer guys call it), does not automatically make me attractive. There are a number of other important steps to become a soccer guy such as:

-obtaining soccer equipment, including the proper shoes.
-using the word "keeper" to refer to the person standing in front of the net rather than "goalie".
-yelling angrily at my teammates as I run up the field.
-being an overall jerk.

Once I master these important steps, I will have achieved soccer-guy-ness, which as I understand it is right above "frat guy" on the social totem pole of life.

I'm not doing well in my NFL picks, 43-31 to Lucas' 54-20, so I am resorting to a new method to pick my winning teams: the coin flip. Heads for the home team, tails for the visiting team, and I will then proceed to write a sentence justifying whichever pick the coin makes, even if it picks the Bengals...

PIT at CIN: CIN. Yeah, so the coin doesn't seem to be starting off well, but keep in mind that only one team has ever gone 0-16 so chances are that the hapless Bengals will win one of these games. And who better to beat than the Steelers, who have only one win of their own? I call this my "upset special".

CAR at DAL: CAR. The Panthers have lost two straight, but Dallas has no offense to speak of and Carolina does have one of the top defenses in the league.

JAX at TEN: TEN. The Jags are playing way over their heads right now. Fred Taylor has been healthy for a full five weeks, and the prospect of him staying healthy for a full season is just too impossible to even contemplate. Jeff Fisher has pride, the Titans will pull this one out.

BAL at IND: IND. Those lucky, lucky Bears...oh wait, the Bears aren't playing this week. This year it has been the Ravens who have been doing wacky things to win like returning field goal attempts for touchdowns. Without Ray Lewis, though, Edgerrin James will run roughshod all over them. I love the word "roughshod".

DET at MIN: MIN. Minnesota can't lose every game, for reason I have exlained above, and who better to provide them with a victory than the Lions, who start a young quarterback and have no running game to speak of.

GB at NE: GB. The Pack may be banged-up, but the Patriots' defense is reeling from two straight tough losses. It's gut-check time, and unfortunately without Troy Brown again the Pats don't have what it takes.

ATL at NYG: ATL. Michael Vick is out, but Doug Johnson is a better pure passer and the Giants are miserable. If the Falcons can defend agains the air attack, they should have no problem with Tiki.

NO at WAS: NO. The Patrick Ramsey era may have begun, but the Saints D should have no problem stifling the fun and gun. Since I am required by law to mention Steve Spurrier in this sentence, I just have to say that his decision to sign Danny Wuerffel just gets funnier and funnier.

BUF at HOU: HOU. There is absolutely no way I can justify this. There is no way the top offense in the league will lose to an expansion team. However, I have to leave it in here to prove that I am just going with the coin.

KC at SD: SD. The Chargers' defense is dinged-up, but the Chiefs have Trent Green, the human interception. Unfortunately I have him on my fantasy football team, so I can't afford the 3 picks that he will undoubtedly throw.

CLE at TB: CLE. Keyshawn has his touchdown, he is now free to disappear for the rest of the season.

OAK at STL: STL. Oh the humanity. Ohhhhhhh the humanity...

MIA at DEN: DEN. It's time for Miami's letdown game after last week's big win against New England. This game should feature about 80% running plays, so feel free to do your homework on Sunday night.

SF at SEA: SF. Shaun Alexander only does well in prime time games, and because his team is so awful this will be their last prime time game of the year. I don't know how they do it, but Monday Night Football has managed to pick 5 blowout boring games so far, and this one will be no different.

There they are. If the coin flipping doesn't work, I am fully prepared to write a Java program to do my picks for me next week...

A few more haikus came in this evening. David gives us this quixotic offering:

Dogs and kitty cats
They're in every song I know
Kitty cats and dogs

Well said, Dave. Meanwhile James took a page out of the Full Professor's playbook and contributed a programming poem:

I will not say a
word about Iteration.
I will not say a

Ah, those clever CS majors. And finally, the other Amy wins the prize for nerdiest haiku, but at least she didn't think of it herself. Here's the scoop:

Several semesters ago, I was sitting in ee250 lecture. Mid-lecture, the professor happened to say:

True story.

Once again, however, this one isn't really a haiku unless you pronounce the last word of the second line as "po-em" rather than its traditional backwoods-America pronunciation of "pome". Better luck next time, ee250 professor. update: Amy has confirmed that the professor indeed pronounced it as "po-em". She also points out that it was an unintentional haiku on the prof's part, so Amy does indeed get credit for the nerdiest haiku. Way to go other Amy!

Well I survived my cs441 exam. Whether or not I did well on it is another story, but I survived 2 and a half straight hours of proofs.

Amy Sia sent along this haiku to describe her cs455 class and its substitute professor:

Damn you, Kimura.
Teach 455 at least.
Dataflow is so dumb.

Unfortunately, Amy failed to realize that "dataflow is so dumb" has 6 syllables, rendering this verse a malformed nonhaiku. Better luck next time, Amy.

This haiku contest, to quote Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon, "began as a tiny worm and is blossoming into a large cobra."

Yesterday Ben posted an amusing piece of ASCII art to his webpage. However, ASCII art is no laughing matter. There are 3 things that the internet has given to mainstream society that have weakened the infrastructure of our culture and those things are FanFiction, pop-up ads, and ASCII art (one could also argue in favor of "1337-H4x0r-speak"). And the most disturbing thing about this is that a large library of ASCII art can be found at Chris.com, a site named after me! (well, not actually after me, but it uses my name dammit!) This gallery includes, but is not limited to, ASCII art porn! On a site named after me! Oh, the horror!

Tonights post will have to be a quick one, since I have my hellish 441 exam tomorrow morning bright and early at 9 AM, a time when I can't think coherently about what clothes to wear, never mind how to prove a greedy algorithm.

I went an astonishingly-bad 6-8 in NFL picks last week, dropping me to 43-31 on the season. Lucas fared slightly better, going 9-5 to move up to 54-20. That means I'm 11 games behind. That's bad.

Speaking of Lucas, he forwarded me an email today that promises that I can grow taller. In fact, according to growthmiracle.com, by growing just 2-4 more inches I can make more money and look more attractive to the opposite sex. Sign me up! Although in addition to this, the site also makes specious claims like "...mental...factors have been proven to play a significant role in 'deciding' how tall you'll be!". So in other words, if I think that I will grow taller, then I will? So why should I pay for their supplements and spinal adjustments when all I really need is to wish a few extra inches onto my height? So many questions, so much money...

I've made some changes to the top bar as you can see, adding Ben Brodie's lengthily-named blog and removing the defunct creation of James Brodman.

And finally, haikus:

Full professor Ron Cytron contributed quite a few entries:

Recursion is that
Which is self referential.
So, see "Recursion"

Garbage collection
Means never say you're sorry
For trashing the heap.

Lincoln freed the slaves:
He discovered grad students
Were better than slaves.

He even wrote one in honor of my cs441 exam:

Amortization
And dynamic programming
Hurt my feeble brian

And the WashU bunny has now been immortalized in haiku by the full professor as well:

Why is a rabbit
Adorning our precious grounds?
Someone should steal it.

Finally, all the way from Boston, Massachusetts, Nick Haddad penned this piece of poetry about some assistance we received during our work on the WUGrade entry to the Microsoft contest:

MCA,
The SQL programming God,
Let us pray.

Unfortunately, Nick forgot that haiku's have a 5-7-5 syllabic form, not 3-7-3. Better luck next time, Nick.

As you know from David's post we have been without phone and internet here at apartment 12 for the past day and a half. wing way:

Badly-engineered
and painfully slow to load,
MS Visio

In honor of my databases homework (SQL is pronounced "sequel"):

So many standards,
all with diff'rent syntaxes:
the SQL language

And this one needs no explanation:

441 test
is only three days away,
Someone kill me now.

Now it's your turn. Send me your CS or WashU-related haikus. The best ones will get published here. Make sure you include your name and web page if applicable so I can give credit where credit is due. Don't be lazy, send some in!

I bet most of you out there went to summer camp at some point during your childhood. If you are Jewish, you most likely went to a plethora of summer camps, since it seemed like most of the Jewish kids I knew growing up would disappear for most of the summer. Outdoor adventures, canoing, arts and crafts, it's likely that your summer experience involved any or all of these. However, if you're reading this site then chances are you're an Enginerd and not very good at activites involving physical exertion. In fact, you're probably the one whose hand got dunked in warm water while you were sleeping and who was constantly harassed for wearing the pajamas with the little feet.

Well now there is a summer camp for you. At least if you live in Canadia. In "Saskatoon" (this has to be made-up, doesn't it?) there is something called CompuCamp which teaches children important computer skills like "learning to find MP3's, graphics, chat on ICQ, and download programs", i.e. "baby's first foray into the seedy world of pirated software, file-sharing, and internet porn". The camp for younger users even has a theme of "Pirates", which I envision as a secret sweatshop of young children chained to PCs being forced to hack the newest version of Photoshop, a la the nursing home scenes in "Happy Gilmore".

Most of the camps mix group activities and outdoor fun (in the form of "racquetball, swimming, and multi-player gaming tournaments") with their computer classes, but not so for the "Power Programming Camp", which promises "Limited recreation - One solid week of computers!". I got that every week during Computer Graphics, and I don't think I would ever subject my 11 to 15 year-old to that nightmare.

And as if you need any other reason to attend, this guy gave it two thumbs up!

Me: 37-23.
Lucas: 45-15.
The losing streak must end here.

Picks for Week 5

TB at ATL: ATL. Could the Falcons finally have a home-field advantage? Atlanta sports fans are probably the worst in the nation, but they're the quickest to jump on a bandwagon and they seem to have taken a shining to Michael Vick. Until he starts fumbling, Falcons games might no be blacked out on local television.

OAK at BUF: OAK. Both teams have been playing way over their heads, but Oakland usually doesn't shut it down until they're about 7-0. Drew Bledsoe can't keep throwing 4 TDs a week, can he?

NYG at DAL: NYG. Dallas is one of those teams that, on paper, should lose every week. Occasionally they will come up against teams like the Rams that will give them the game by making bad coaching decisions, but the Giants should at least put up a fight, and even that is too much for the Cowboys.

WAS at TEN: TEN. Danny Wuerffel is starting because, in Spurrier's own words, he "performed well for us at Florida". Note to the "Ol' Ball Coach": That was 6 years ago, and even then he was helped by a standout receiving corps.

CIN at IND: IND. Do I even have to say who I'm picking in this game?

NE at MIA: NE. Normally the Dolphins' big edge is their gorilla, Oronde Gadsden, and his Lucas-like size advantage against the short Patriot DBs. However, this year the Patriots have trained their own gorilla, Donald Hayes, to knock Patrick Surtain and friends around. If only these two could square off against each other, it would be like King Kong vs. Godzilla.

PIT at NO: PIT. This is just a hunch, but it really seems like the Steelers match up well against the Saints. Pittsburgh has a poor pass defense, but the Saints have one of their receivers out with an injury. This one will be a good game, almost too close to call.

AZ at CAR: CAR. Yes, I'm actually predicting that Rodney Peete will go 4-1. The clincher is that both Cardinal running backs are hampered by injuries (and not very good to start off with), and the Panthers are playing at home.

KC at NYJ: KC. The Jets are in a sorry, sorry state right now. Trent Green won't blow up like he did last week, but he shouldn't have to against a Jets team that seemingly has no direction.

SD at DEN: DEN. Denver looked bad last week, so you can bet that they will be fired up this time around. Plus they're at home against a team that has injuries on the defensive side and has played way over their heads. Stop LaDanian Tomlinson and you've stopped the Chargers, and I think the Broncos linebackers can do that.

STL at SF: SF. Marvel as the high-powered Rams drop to 0-5. Laugh as Jamie Martin gets the same lack of protection that Kurt Warner had and is forced to run around like a chicken with his head cut off. Rejoice as Mike Martz feels the heat from the media.

PHI at JAX: PHI. After a few easy wins, it's time for the Jags to step up to the plate against the big boys. Does Fred Taylor's amazing streak of health end here?

BAL at CLE: CLE. Sure the Ravens got lucky last week, but now it's back to their regularly-scheduled 3-7 points per game.

GB at CHI: CHI. At home, on Monday night, against a team that has looked terrible in all of their victories, those lucky lucky Bears might find some of that magic that they've been missing these last 2 weeks.

Lucas and I recently sounded off about Coors Lite ads during football games. This guy did the same thing, but he gets paid to do it. Go figure.

Tomorrow is the career fair, the time of year every WashU Engineering student tears off their Linux t-shirt and blue jeans and stuffs themselves into an ill-fitting suit and tie for the annual schmooze-fest. It's funny how someone you see in class who you know is just a wrench short of a complete Toolbox show up at the career fair wearing a slick expensive suit and the naive companies just eat it up. It's funny but it's also scary, because the business world basically rewards you for being as completely fake as possible, and this toolbox who does ASCII art in his spare time will be the one working for a large corporation next year while you're living in a cardboard box on the Delmar Loop. I give you my proof in form of a short play:

[Act One: An Actual Interview]
Chris, our tragic hero, shuffles into the room uncomfortably in his suit that he only wears because everyone else is wearing one

Generic "Professionally-Attired" Businessperson: Hi [glances at sheet], Chris, I'm so happy to meet you! I'm bright and bubbly even though it is 8 in the morning!

Chris: [wipes his eyes and regrets not eating a candy bar to wake himself up] Hi, I don't know you and I'll probably never see you again, but I'm glad to meet you too.

Businessperson: I have just a few questions to ask you this morning! None of them have any relevance to any actual duties you'd be performing on the job at [insert name of consulting company barely staying afloat], but we find it's easier to just ask all of our potential candidates the same pointless questions and then just pick the winner randomly out of a hat! To start off, what made you decide to apply for a job with us?

Chris: Well, according to your webpage your company helps people and I...uh...also want to help people.

Businessperson: Excellent! [writes furiously on notepad] Tell me about a time you've worked in a group!

Chris: Actually, having gone to school for the past 17 years of my life, I've worked in many groups.

Businessperson: Great! Let's pretend you're in a group that isn't getting along, what do you do to make sure you still get the job done?

Chris: I'm in graduate school, I'm not five years old, I can usually get along with people well enough to do a project.

Businessperson: Wonderful! That's about all I have to ask you, do you have any questions about our company, keeping in mind that we just inundated you with brochures, flyers, insulated mugs, frisbees, CD-Roms, and posters?

Chris: Well not really, seeing as how this "ask us a question" time is really only meant as another way for you to judge me on seemingly-random criteria that have no real-world application.

Businessperson: [stands up] Fantastic! It was soooo nice meeting you today [looks at pad] Dave, oh wait, Dave is next, I mean Chris.

[Act Two: The Ideal Interview]
Chris strolls in at 2 in the afternoon wearing a Less than Jake t-shirt and cargo shorts

Down-to-Earth, Technically-Knowledgeable Employee: Hi Chris, glad you could make it. My name is Michael, but you can call me "Heavy Mike D" [gestures towards simian wearing people clothes] and this is Chum-Chum the chimp. Tell me about a software project you've worked on, and since I'm a technical expert and not just a business clone you can actually explain it to me without dumbing it down to a 3rd grade level.

Chris: [goes into brief but thorough explanation of interesting project, while Chum-Chum claps his hands and does summersaults in his chair]

Interviewer: Great, I'm not going to waste your time asking you stupid questions, I can tell from your resume that you've had a successful academic career without reading you BS questions. I can tell this because I am a reasonably intelligent person rather than a suit who got his job because his dad's friend once slept with an intern who also bedded the director of recruiting. They call this "networking". For the remaining 50 minutes of your interview, Brittany, our single and incredibly hot programmer who also listens to punk music and loves playing basketball, will tell you more about the work environment of our comapny while performing a striptease to the Reel Big Fish song "Sellout".

If I ran the business of tomorrow, things would be verrrrrrry different...

I've been so happy that my cs441 homework has been done for a few days, until I receive an email from TA Charlie that there is more that I need to do for the proofs. He nicely let me know this in advance so that I would have time to go back and add to my solutions, but unfortunately in my head I finished the homework on Monday. Once I think I've finished something, I can't work on it anymore. This happened with my proxy server for Networks last year, when I found out at the last minute that we had to properly handle images, and it has happened for this 441 assignment. It's a nasty habit, because I know I'm going to get reamed on points again even though I wrote the annoying program and I got all of the algorithms for the most part correct I think, but I just can't make myself rewrite my solutions to add the new material or think about it anymore. I know I will regret this immensely on Friday when I find out that I once again failed a homework assignment, but there's not much I can do at this juncture.

I will never understand anime. The other night I watched an episode of Dragonball Z (unfortunately, just posting the words "Dragonball Z" to this page will result in many many hits from people looking for "Dragonball Z AIM Buddy Icons"), and it followed the same pattern of pretty much every anime show I've ever seen: normal looking guy fights against big goofy looking bad guy, both characters do strange things that normal people can't do such as "fly" and "shoot energy out of their hands", both characters score big hits against the other that cause many random lines to fly around the screen, neither character ends up actually winning the fight. From watching these shows, I have learned much about Japanese culture:

-Japanese schoolgirls all wear sailor outfits.
-The future of Japan is one of constant war with strange creatures from outer space.
-There is some sort of spiritual life force that, if tapped into, causes normal humans to grow to twice their own size, gain 'roided up muscles, and have the ability to make random lines fly everywhere. This life force has different names in every show, but the random lines are omnipresent.
-When people in Japan feel emotions, there are large physical signals so everyone knows about it. These signals include coiled squiggly lines next to their heads for anger, a single giant teardrop suspended in mid-air for embarassment, and gallons of water flowing out of their eyes like a fountain for sadness.
-Japanese people do not actually look Japanese at all.

It sounds like an interesting place. Although if you look at American cartoons, then our culture consists of: talking inanimate objects (Spongebob Squarepants), animals that solve mysteries (Scooby Doo, et. al.), and the rest are half-hour toy ads. But at least most of ours have varied themes and stories. Every anime consists of the same basic story, with characters drawn in exactly the same style, in the same "Neo-Tokyo" locale. I know the anime purists are just fuming right now, but you've got to admit that every single artist in Japan seems to draw people in exactly the same way. It's posts like these that make me glad that I don't have a place to leave comments.

So tonight all 5 feet, 7.5 inches, and 140 pounds of me entered the mosh pits for a Reel Big Fish/The Starting Line concert. Starting Line were the openers, and they rocked in their own "we sound exactly like New Found Glory" kind of way. In between songs they told bad jokes, and the lead singer made these strange, vaguely homosexual, faces, but I have been the proud owner of their CD for awhile and their live show did nothing to deteriorate my appreciation of their music. The Reel Big Fish are an interesting sort of beast altogether. A few months ago I posted a review where I pretty much blasted their new CD (you can search through the archives for it, I'm lazy right now and my ears are ringing), and fortunately they didn't play too much from that unfortunate album. The songs they did play from it were fairly well received but seemed to interrupt the flow of the concert. Which was exactly what they didn't need to happen because their trumpet player managed to do that singlehandedly. In between virtually every song he would tell bad jokes, tell stories that didn't go anymore, and basically just shoot the shit for 5 minutes or more. They played for about 2 hours, without even an encore, but the reason the set was so long was that Scott the trumpet player just refused to shut up. Despite all this, the show was a lot of fun, and I was even in the middle of the crowd fracas for awhile. Even though the average age of everyone there was about 17, it seemed that only the largest guys in the city were there. These people were supposedly 5-6 years younger than me but some of them easily had me beat by 100 pounds or more, which made jumping around a bit of a problem since they could swat me away like a mosquito and I would go flying across the floor.

Back when the Vanessa Fiasco was in full force, michael suggested that I find a girl who likes the same music I do, his rationale being that I like that kind of music because of what it has to say and anyone else who likes it must also have the same basic ideals. The more I think about it, the more I agree with this line of thinking, with one major problem: as I stated before, the average concertgoer's age was approximately 17, and this directly contradicts my "no more younger girls" decree. It seems that when girls come to college, even if they liked good music before their brains get twisted and warped by college-type things like frat guys and pot and they start listening to Dave Matthews Band and other such filth. Obviously this is a huge generalization, but I dare you to find a counterexample. And then there is the "indie" craze, but that's a whole other post altogether...

Wow, in the last few days the Festival has turned into, well, a weblog about me rather than about general silliness in the world. There has been way too much of my life and not nearly enough chimps wearing cowboy boots. Don't worry, I'll get back to Leonard Nimoy's musical tomfoolery, NSync in space, and, based on search strings of people who access my page, "naked sorority initiation stories", before you know it.

After 2 days of wrangling, questioning my will, and begging the TAs for help, I have finally completed my program for cs441. And it's only about 70 lines. This class has the distinct ability to make me feel really really stupid.

Speaking of stupid, Lucas recently posted about the Coors Light commercials that they run ad nauseum during football games and how he believes they are making him stupider. I agree, especially because they prominently feature a man who has painted "Coors Light" on his chest, which is possibly the stupidest act I have ever seen, but let us not foist all the blame off on this one brand. Another beer company (if they featured their name more prominently in the ad maybe I would remember which one. good job ad execs.) runs a commercial approximately once per break that starts off "I...love...playing two hand touch [cut to scene of attractive couple in football jerseys making out], eating way too much [cut to overweight man in football jersey eating a chicken leg larger than his arm], watching my team win...and twins [cut to obligatory ditzy blonde cheerleaders that are found in every football-related beer commercial". Is the target audience of these commercials really the average football fan? Am I an outlier in that I enjoy football and have an IQ over 100? More importantly, everyone harasses me because I don't drink, but why should I start when based on commercials the only people who drink are either extremely overweight (possibly as a result of drinking) or "playas" who try unsuccessfully to hook up with any girl they see (also possibly as a result of drinking)?

I was a pedestrian 8-6 in NFL picks this week to drop to 37-23. Lucas again gained ground on me by going 9-5. He stands at 45-15.

It's now confirmed that the 6 most feared and reviled words in the English language are "His name is Henry, Clay Henry".