Amnesia

It's happened yet again. A woman said hi to me, called me by name and actually took the time to have a brief conversation with me, but I have no idea what her name is or where I knew her from. It always bothers me when people who I would view as perfect strangers appear to know me quite well. I did the usual, banal conversation, making due without using any names and not getting into any details. Odds are that I knew her from dance lessons. It's been so long since going that it seems highly plausible that she was there. Oh well, it wasn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time that this happens. At least I'm sure this time that I hadn't hit on her at a party or something, that's always extra embarrassing.

My Christmas Wish

I have two wishes:
1. That the peoples of the world would (including their governments) would realize that we are all in search of a little help and therefore live by a modicum of tolerance and periodic altruism. If you see that someone really needs your help, help them, even if you have to break the rules.
2. That people would stop telling me that these are the best years of my life. The idea that it won't get any better is wholly depressing.

The Hit Parade

Wow, my life is going great right now! In fact, I think I'll take a moment to reflect on a few of the things that have made it so wonderful.
. I wasn't allowed to write the GRE because I forgot my passport at home despite the facts that I paid over $140 to take it and had all sorts of other government issued ID.
. I have an air mattress which is completely deflated because the nozzle came unglued from the rest of it. I now get to sleep on the floor, cushioned only by a few sheets. It's just like camping.
. The stair-well incident: refer back to "drinking with the profs"
. My diet is entirely composed of potatoes, carrots, coffee, corn, eggs, peas, rye flower, coffee, whole wheat bread, onions, butter, coffee, peanut butter, jam, mr noodle (50% msg), oh and coffee.
. The other day the zipper on my back pack failed, spilling my belongings and a pair of borrowed binoculars onto the icy pavement. I'm still trying to find oneof the lenses from those binoculars.
. I have exams, that I really would rather not take.
. Somehow, I'm always short of money on my one card when I really need to print something.
. Universities have consistently told me that they don't have money to fund me
. In order to lighten the load of what I'll be bringing back at the end of next semester, I'm taking so many fossils across to border, that if I'm caught, I'll certainly face a $50,000 fine and possibly up to one year in prison.
. My frying pan produces more smoke than edible food.
. Today I apparently made it clear to a highly respected member of my field that I support the black market fossil trade (which i don't - all the fossils that I purchase are legally exported from their nation or origin).
. I'm procrastinating studying for an exam that's tomorrow by writing this.
. I keep getting the distinct impression in the back of my mind that there is a god, and that he's mildly perturbed about this whole atheism thing.

Google Does it Again

I have to say that I am very pleased with Google as a company. First of all, they own this website. But other than that, the company is making available, free of charge, alot of services that people used to pay for or might not otherwise be able to exist if not for Google's financial assistance (i.e. Blogger). If you want to buy something, go to froogle. If you want the news, go to google news. for web mail, I enjoy a free gig of space thanks to g-mail. If you want to find something on the web, well, that really depends on what you're looking for. It used to be that for everything, google.com was the best choice. As a result, those of us writing papers end up with a whole lot of useless results and very little academic. But now, there is Google Scholar which searches for academic papers only. I was rather concerned that once I eventually left a University (if every) I would no longer be able to make use of the databases which the university subscribes to, to find the papers I need. But now it's free and available anywhere with an internet connection. I can see these other databases eventually going out of business or lowering their prices to remain competitive, but that's not all that bad.

More of Gelnaw's Law

Check it out. Here's an article about Webster dictionary's web site but notice the incorrect spelling in the title.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,78923,00.html