hello

(call home earlier)
brother and poncho (our green-winged macaw) (in unison): hello?
me: hi! i heard poncho too, did he know it was me? (laughing)
brother: no, i think the hello was to the walnut he's about to eat... he's going through a greeting his food before he eats it phase

duuuude

"josie and the pussycats" is on the WB right now... never seen it, was going to change channels, but the dude who plays turk in scrubs is in it, so i might just have to laugh at the stupidity for fun :-P

spiderman 2 came out today -- hopefuly seeing it later with ben

do dah.

yay for friends :-)

chatting with scott on IM at present:

smswtshnn: have you talked more with bd?
lkp4242: after i beat him in chess (well during the 2nd game) he got a really bad headache and went to sleep it off an hour ago
lkp4242: we're having lunch at cracker barrel just south of columbus next week tuesday
lkp4242: he insists he's paying
lkp4242: but we talked for 6 hours today
lkp4242: including the chess
lkp4242: (just on the computer)
lkp4242: that's the scoop :-P
smswtshnn: woa, 6 hours
smswtshnn: there aren't many people i could talk to for 6 hours in one day :-)
lkp4242: well both multtitasking
lkp4242: you couldn't talk to me for 6 hours?
smswtshnn: right
smswtshnn: dude
lkp4242: what did you do on the way to delaware?
smswtshnn: i suppose technically we were in the car for how many hours?
lkp4242: 17
lkp4242: you slept parts
smswtshnn: omg
lkp4242: but not 11
lkp4242: :-P
smswtshnn: true
lkp4242: i don't think of that as totaly outrageous
lkp4242: it was random question day
lkp4242: and we made plans for next week
lkp4242: and i beat him in chess
lkp4242: and it was more fun than doing math
smswtshnn: yeah, i guess it's not that outrageous
smswtshnn: why does he insist on paying?
lkp4242: i'll just copy and paste
lkp4242: hang on, let me find it
lkp4242:
~~~~~
BlkDeth 13: I hear ya.
BlkDeth 13: so, i've found 90 bucks cleaning my room today.
lkp4242: wanna share?
BlkDeth 13: and i got paid today.
BlkDeth 13: but.. i dont have that yet.
lkp4242: i'm many times that in the negative
BlkDeth 13: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
BlkDeth 13: i'll buy you lunch!
BlkDeth 13: *nods*
lkp4242: lol -- for the record, the previous 2 linesfrom me were not meant as begging
BlkDeth 13: I'm aware of that.
lkp4242: just checking :-P
BlkDeth 13: and, for the record, that wasn't an offer. it was a statement.
BlkDeth 13: *HA!
BlkDeth 13: wow, i always win.
lkp4242: so there's no debating with you?
BlkDeth 13: that would be it. yes.
lkp4242: fine fine, then thanks for the of- i mean statement :-P i appreciate it
BlkDeth 13: haha
~~~~~
lkp4242: you've asked two or three times for updates -- is this really that entertaining?
smswtshnn: yes!
lkp4242: because?
smswtshnn: dude, i wish i could be there when you meet bd
lkp4242: because?
smswtshnn: but as like, a fly
smswtshnn: lol
smswtshnn: to "observe"
lkp4242: observe what?
smswtshnn: what you order from the menu
smswtshnn: sorry, that was sarcasm, which i rarely use :-[
lkp4242: sarcasm is funny dude
smswtshnn: i want to make sure he's nice to you!
lkp4242: no, what do you think is going on?
lkp4242: you don't think he will be?
smswtshnn: oh, i'm sure he will be
smswtshnn: but, you know
lkp4242: i hope i'm not boring
lkp4242: but i don't even know what's going on
smswtshnn: you?? boring??
lkp4242: i worry about that frequently dude
lkp4242: i overanalyze every situation ever under the assumption that i'm the least cool person involved
smswtshnn: dude, no way
lkp4242: tht's how i operate
lkp4242: like you and ben and me covered -- lara has NO self-esteem :-P
lkp4242: that's just hidden under trying to be comedian most of the time :-P and hoping to succeed
smswtshnn: well, you usually succeed, so just try not to worry about it so much!
lkp4242: lol
lkp4242: i think i'm past worrying for now
lkp4242: i'll worry tuesday enxt week while i'm driving
lkp4242: i'll call you tues afternoon while i drive through cincinnati and give you the run down ;-)
smswtshnn: well, ben and i think you're cool. who cares what the rest of the world thinks anyway.
lkp4242: lol
smswtshnn: :-) okay?

ok.

done for the day copying and pasting all my conversations to the blog :-P

p.s. note the new blogroll on the bottom of the left column ;-) enjoy!

oh dude

what a day

woke up with grand intentions of working hard on math all day, but really not so much

i solved one problem and then....

"black death" signed online and we chatted from like 3pm til 7:30pm... i did other things in the meantime... like watch tv, color in my coloring book,... but not math

around 7:30 we started playing chess online... game 1: lara has a queen and a king, BD had a king, but i got into stalemate instead of checkmate -- tie game... game 2: lara's losing pieces left and right about about ready to quit when i randomly got a rook in a fortunate position, 1 by 1 took out his major (non-pawn) pieces, and kicked butt...

this brings us to 9pm, when eric signed online to ask me car advice... i'd told him he should get an intrepid of an impala because i like those and so he went to a dodge dealer looking for an intrepid today and saw this: http://www.lasvegaschapman.com/ChryslerJeep/results.asp?StockNumber=PP3181...

Galois1105: well there's a 2004 dodge neon with 10000 miles and list price of $11000 that i found
lkp4242: ooh
lkp4242: neons aren't bad
lkp4242: if you like it go for it
lkp4242: beagley drives one that's a few years old
lkp4242: mostly it's a space thing
Galois1105: and guess what..... it's blue:-)
lkp4242: ooo!!!!
lkp4242: this could be a sign :-)
lkp4242: you should just call me dude
Galois1105: okay
Galois1105: one sec

re: above, the hilarious thing is, i'd told eric back in april that i've had a few random dreams about being on the roadtrip in july... nothing profound, just do dah do dah, we're riding in the car singing with a CD driving through desert or something or we're near the car at the grand canyon (which my mind's completely made up since i've never been there)... but every single time i've dreamt about being on the trip, the car is blue...
note: the car in the above link is indeed BLUE

now for a non-car, non-internet thing... the whole time eric and me were on the phone just now, his sister (still in HS) was in the background showing him new high heels she got that light up with lights that look like fireworks or something and he's relaying her comments to me:

rachael (eric's sister): see, aren't they cool... does lara think they sound cool?
eric: (repeats)
me: um yeah, but you know what kind of shoes i wear right
eric: yup, guy sandals or none
rachael (in disbelief in the background): lara doesn't wear high heels??? how tall is she?
eric: how tall ae you?
me: 6 foot
eric: she's 6 foot
rachael: (in shock!) ooh
(later... after eric and me talked cars more)
eric: so rachael wants to know where you like to shop
me: for what? for books or for clothes?
eric: it's rachael asking -- for clothes
me: uuh duh, i don't like to shop
eric: see, shelley, lara's doesn't like to shop... she's not a normal girl... she's kinda like... well, she's like me.
(much laughter all around)

that's about as good a summary as it gets :-P

dinner time :-P

fun with cats

prof. szaniszlo back at valpo sent me this link for fun:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/annekebroenink/maukie2.swf

turn your sound on and move the mouse around... i can make the cat do at least 10 different things, can you?

enjoy.

fun with shiny things :-)

eric sent me a delayed birthday present -- check it:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VUYQS/qid=1088441482/sr=8-6/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i6_xgl60/102-8579828-1736111?v=glance&s=home-garden&n=507846

how much fun is that? :-)

email fun

several weeks ago, google rolled out its new g-mail, and quickly yahoo responded by increasing their standard 6M mailbox to 100M... having 5 active email addresses (rutgers general, rutgers math server, yahoo, excite, hotmail, each for a different purpose), i was curious what the other non-academic email sites would do... and now i have my answer

excite's had a blurb in huge letters for a about a week now "coming soon: your new 125M mailbox! and 10K attachments... coming in september"... geesh... 1.25 times yahoo size, even though they're probably the least popular of the trio (yahoo, hotmail, excite?), but yahoo gave me my upgrade right away... i gotta wait another 2 months for this one (don't get me wrong -- i like excite... i get absolutely no spam there, and they've upgraded quite a bit since i first got an account with them... they're just not an email "supergiant" like yahoo and hotmail)

hotmail sent an email to users this morning announcing that they'll start doing state of the art virus scans on attachements, allow you to send 10K attachments (like yahoo changed at their upgrade) and give you a 250M limit. (stay tuned for details in the next 2 weeks they say... how long will it take? hmmmmm)

ok, seriously, when we've learned to cope with 6M (yahoo), 3M (excite) and with a mere 2M (hotmail) for so long, don't get me wrong, i appreciate the extra space, options -- no complaints... but does anyone find it highly amusing that they're each trying to come up with an insanely bigger number than the previous competitor who just rolled something out? i've gotten good at managing my 3/6/2M inboxes... now having 125/100/250M?... dude... more space is good -- this is just crazy =P especially when it feels like the bigger numbers are there to compensate for the fact that these other servers weren't prepared to make the upgrade as quickly and smoothly as yahoo did... hmmmm

that's my thought for the morning -- finishing the may/june "night sky" (astronomy magazine) issue, breakfast, and then getting to work for the day =P

the end.

fascinating

http://www.badastronomy.com/

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lkp 42 42 42: hey john, so FYI, in the spirit of qual studying, scott and me are having a "complex integral beatdown party" at ihop either tues or thurs this week
lkp 42 42 42: i can keep you posted for further details if you'd like
lkp 42 42 42: the idea is just to do a ton of them until we remember how :-)
lkp 42 42 42: ...and eat pancakes

kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over and make you wish you were a math ph.d. student, eh? ;-)

accomplishments of the day

(1) woke up before noon
(2) went to church and actually had 3 other math grad students come with me! (paul, sujith, and colleen)
(3) grocery shopping (this is majorly exciting because i have a weird paranoia about going to the grocery store by myself, or once there about dealing with shopping carts -- a liter of egg drop soup for $1.50 makes me happy though :-) )
(4) finished reading the millenium problems (as if you can't tell by the previous entry
(5) talked on the phone with heather miller for an hour
(6) talked on the phone with eric for an hour
(7) talked on the phone with roommate for half an hour
(8) talked on the phone with jenny lemahieu for half an hour (first i'd talked to her since her heart surgery 4 weeks ago)
(9) had my room shown off to prospective new tenant... dude...
(10) talked on the phone with tammy for an hour

[by this point, my ear hurt from being attached to the cell for 4 hours straight more or less, but they were quite the quality chats :)]

tammy quote: "i don't know what to do around girly girls because really, i'm not one, and i completely don't understand... what's up with them?"

(11) dinner: egg drop soup, some sushi, and some raw mushrooms -- doesn't that sound great?
(12) finished reading "the spy issue" of mental floss (back issue from mid-2002)

what's next on the list? more fun reading of course! astronomy magazine, this week's issue of time, other astronomy magazine, or the science of God... your guess is as good as mine =P

later dudes.

the millenium problems (what's going on with math and why you, who are friends of an aspiring mathematician, should care =P)

just finished the latest book on my personal reading list (the millenium problems by keith devlin). this calls for a book report of sorts :-) enjoy, and feel informed, evn if it is just vaguely, at my summary of a summary of what hardcore math people are interested in these days =P

question: what are the millenium problems?

answer: back in 1900, david hilbert, mathematician extraordinaire, made a list of the top problems he'd like to see solved in the next century... all but one were solved. in hilbert's spirit, the clay mathematics institute made a list of seven "millenium problems" which they presented in 2000 as the new hilbert's list of big important hard problems to solve. the remaining hilbert problem is one of the seven, along with 6 other significant questions. As a measure of recognition of how difficult these problems are CMI (clay math institute) has put a $1million bounty on a complete solution to each of these problems...

with how increasingly abstract and specialized research mathematics is, devlin's book is an overview of each of the problems for mathematicians who are not specialists in these areas as well as for ambitious non-mathematicians... his descriptions of the first 5 problems are accessible... of the last two, he even admits "these are really hard to put in simple terms... good luck with these last 30 pages, and don't feel bad if you give up"...

all that said, here's the list of the millenium problems, very simply what they're about (lara's even more simplified summary of devlin's summary), and why you should care (besides the fact that you know me (an aspiring mathematician) and probably others of my math friends and this is what we all care about :-P)

here goes:

(1) the Riemann Hypothesis:

in simple math terms: all zeros of the Riemann zeta function (other than the negative even integers) lie on the line Re(z) = 1/2 in the complex plane

in relatively non-math words: there's a particular equation number theory people are interested in, because if it does what they think it does, we know a lot about how the prime numbers are distributed

why do you care? if this equation can be solved and the prime numbers do what mathematicians think they do, this affects the way internet security works (which is based on the idea that it's really hard to factor/predict insanely large prime numbers)

(2) Yang-Mills Theory and the Mass Gap Hypothesis:

in simple math terms: for any compact, simple, guage group, the quantum yang-mills equations in four-dimensional euclidean space have a solution that predicts a mass gap

in relatively non-math words: physics is looking for a grand unified theory of everything that accounts for the mechanics (which we witness day to day), quantum theory (what happens on a tiny scale inside atoms/etc.), and relativity (what happens on a giant cosmic scale)... physicists operate on many assumptions that according to all scientific evidence are indeed true... however, the math to support what modern physics is working in doesn't exist yet... mission: fill in the missing mathematics!

why do you care? solving the yang-mills equations would give the mathematical backing for some things physics knows and uses on a regular basis... being able to give the mathematics behind the mass gap hypothesis, would be significant for physicists as well though, explaning why the phenomenon that m=E/c^2 (related to E=mc^2) seems to imply you can get mass from pure energy... however there's a nonzero minimum energy level needed to produce such mass... solving the mass gap hypothesis would account for why this is so, which is currently a mystery.

(3) P vs. NP:

in simple math terms: can all problems that can be solved in nondeterministic polynomial (NP) time really be solved in polynomial (P) time?

in relatively non-math words: if there is a "P" time algorithm to solve a problem, no matter how much data you give it, a computer should be able to solve it in a non-ridiculous amount of time. however, many problems that businesses need to solve or approximate from day to day (even scheduling workers/tasks optimally) are "NP" problems, meaning even just adding slightly more data/workers to sort makes the computer solving time go up ridiculously. the idea of this problem is to determine if such "ridiculous to compute" problems really do have "P" time algorithm solutions that we just haven't found yet

why do you care? if P=NP we know that algorithms exist to solve things more efficiently, and this is a good thing :-)... if not, then it's ridiculous to keep working on finding polynomial algorithms for some tasks because they don't exist (and for the record, the money's on the latter being true)... in a word, it's all about time management

(4) the Navier-Stokes Equations:

in simple math terms: the navier-stokes equations given initial conditions can be solved for all times t 0<=t<=T where T is very small. mathematicians want to know if a general solution exists and if so what is it?

in relatively non-math words: the navier-stokes equations describe how liquid moves in 3 dimensions. however, no one can pinpoint how to solve them even though we know they work... in that respect, kinda like the issue with yang-mills above =P

why do you care? if solved, navier-stokes would give immense insight into the dynamics fluid flow over surfaces -- a solution could result in better design of planes or boats... or in better understanding how blood moves inside us leading to new life-saving devices we don't know enough to make yet!

(5) the Poincare conjecture:

in simple math terms: can a 3-manifold have the loop shrinking property and NOT be equivalent to a 3-sphere?

in relatively non-math words: in studying topology, the above conjecture has been proven for 2 dimensions and for 4 and higher dimensions... 3 is the missing gap no one seems to fill in

why do you care? if, as suspected, it turns out to be true, we finally fill in a long missing piece of the puzzle of topology... if for some weird reason it turns out to be false (although all the money's on it being true), then there are some really quirky things going on in the universe

(6) the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture:

in simple math terms: the existence of many solutions to a particular equation mod p (for many primes p) guarantees the original equation (not mod-anything) has infinitely many rational solutions

in relatively non-math words: in algebra you learned how to "solve" equations for x and y (e.g. x^2 + 5x -6 = 0... x = ?)... this is basically a question about solving more complicated equations where we just want to know answers where x and y are rational (can be written as fractions)

why do you care? this problem has to do with elliptic curves... in the spirit of being as vague as possible, answering more questions about elliptic curves would have repurcussions in stuff anywhere from number theory to geometry to cryptography to the mathematics of data transmission... vague description, but useful :-P

(7) the Hodge conjecture

in simple math terms: every harmonic differential form (of a certain type) on a non-singular projective algebraic variety is a rational combination of cohomology classes of algebraic cycles

in relatively non-math words: you learned at some point (i hope) that math equations can describe particular objects you can "see" (x^2 + y^2 = 25 for example describes a circle of radius 5)... an algebraic variety is the "object" described by a system of equations -- maybe you can visualize it maybe you can't... this conjecture guesses that a particular type of algebraic variety (call them H-objects) can all be built out of really simple building blocks, so to speak

why do you care? this is after all the most complicated to explain of the 7... because it seems bizarre anyone could have intuition like this on something so abstract... i can't tell you what good application it would have, but if this turns out to be true it would say a lot about how amazing human intuition can really be :-)

if you're still reading, i'm impressed... don't you feel at least somewhat informed/slightly smart now? to see the "real" versions of the 7 millenium problems, rather than my abstraction of an abstraction, go here: http://www.claymath.org.

later dudes =P

tiiiired

it's been an alright day.

did lots of errands, then scott and me worked at the new starbucks for several hours.

came home, ate dinner, read a little, setup my telescope finally since the motor came back repaired a couple weeks ago... talked to laura felch on IM for the first time in ages; i like talking to her; funny how some friends kinda slip in and out of the picture depending on what's going on... funny in an unforunate way... but the slipping back into the picture is a good thing =)

perfect stargazing weather tonight too, but for some reason, everyone felt the need to work tonight, so i set it up looking out my window... fortunately said window looks west, and at 9-10:30pm, while i was stargazing, that's where jupiter and the moon were.

riddle me this: what does it say of my fine motor skills that i could find jupiter a full 45 minutes before i could get the moon in the viewfinder... that's just sad...

nice and clear though... could see 4 of jupiters moon nicely too... 3 off to the left, one off to the right (only i have a reflective telescope so i guess that means reverse "left" and "right" in real life)... i watched it for quite some time... it was so bright though that i couldn't really make out stripes on jupiter itself even under higher magnification... oh well... it was still beautiful =)

after that i watched the moon for a bit... it's really cool to look at the valleys/craters right on the edge of the shadow =)

then, roommate called me back from earlier and we talked nearly an hour and a half... well maybe not quite that much but definitely more than an hour... i had lots on my mind to vent about and she's good at (a) listening, and (b) sometimes helping me put more precise/clear words on how i feel... yay for roommate =)

tomorrow, colleen's coming with me to church... i went with her to mass in january, and she's coming with me finally now =P... paul and sujith, (both a year ahead of us) are apparently meeting us there too... shall be entertaining to have a whole "rutgers math pew" in church in the AM ;-P

on that note... night y'all =P

llama llove =P

so as promised a few entries ago, scan of the card the parents sent (note: mom gave me a serious card when i saw her in pitt -- this one was my dad's doing even though he didn't actually sign it :-P)










=)

a revolutionary evening

ben and me saw "two brothers" tonight... mostly it made me mad at people in general for being ignorant and destructive... i think that was kinda the point (the movie ends with a conservation message about saving endangered tigers)... the scenery and filming was incredible, but there was onyl one likeable human character out of many many the whole movie. so it goes... it made me mad, but i'm still glad i saw it.

seeing movies isn't all that revolutionary though, so what gives with the title?

so i've been chatting with online friend "black death" since high school... we've agreed to meet up for the first time ever in a week and a half on my drive to memphis... he lives near columbus and i'll pass through there around lunchtime that day anyhow...

realize i've been talking to this guy for 5 going on 6 years now, and in that time up until a couple months ago, i had an online personality, a first name, an email address and that's it... in march or so he sent me a photo...

and tonight i suddenly have his cell number and full name... this will be entertaining to be sure... i'm interested to meet him, but have a hard time with changing friendships, so it's a huge deal in my mind to switch from IM friend (which is completely in my comfort zone) to meeting up (which will be an adventure)... and he wanted to call me tonight and i freaked and turned off my phone, claiming the battery to be dead because i'm not quite mentally ready to take that step yet... i'm not scared of him, i'm working on not being scared of change... probably in the next few days i'll have an interesting chat to tell y'all about :-P

revolutionary indeed.

night y'all.

soaked!

it's been a good day

not productive, but good

talked online for a bit, officially got the call/chat from paul ellis that i'm next year's pizza seminar coordinator, went to panera and barnes and noble with colleen and scott, and now, after running from my car to the house in the rain, i'm drenched

one would think that i could get lots done in a bookstore since it's quiet and filled with books encouraging me to think and be good... guess again.

scott and me first beelined for the kids section where he read me "go dog go" and "a fly went by" (or something similar on the 2nd title)-- both dr. seuss... i got distracted by magazines and other fun... found the "is your mama a llama?" book again and got scott to read another one called "the grapes of math"... it was fun all around. but how much work did i do? 1 problem that i had an idea how to solve before :-P

now dinner, and hopefully seeing "two brothers" with ben when he gets out of class... in a bit (once i have de-soaked) i also just have to scan the birthday card my dad sent this week -- it's great :-)

later dudes =)

on sleep

i need to develop the ability to sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time again, because i can't anymore...

two nights ago i went to sleep at 3:30am and woke up with a jolt at 6:16am convinced that i had slept 15 hours or something ridiculous... looked closer at the clock and realized, no, i really should still be in bed

last night, similar... went to sleep at 4:30am and woke up suddenly at 6:40... was convinced i had slept for 14 hours and started to get up and do stuff, only to realize i'd only been in bed for 2 hours.

even after going back to sleep, both nights i woke up again around 10 and made myself go back to sleep again before getting up noon-ish.

this wouldn't be quite as strange if like i normally got up at 6/7am, but i never do intentionally...

this also wouldn't be quite as bad if i thought i was completely stressed out; but here, i am summer time, with a schedule of "wake up when i want, study some, have some fun with my friends, go to sleep when i'm tired"... it bothers me that i'm yawning all the time and not able to sleep for more than 2-3 hours... maybe i need drugs. =P

this and that

email i got earlier from someone my parents' age: "Lara, Just read your latest email...what a life you live, you go girl! Wish I had
done more of those fun things when I was your age."

question (which i have asked before): do i really lead that exciting a life, or is that just the theme of my generation and the people who tell me such things don't know enough 20-somethings =P? discuss.

in other news...

scott and colleen came over tonight to share pictures (scott got back 3 rolls of film going back to january and colleen got some back from the weekend at the gardens today) and to watch a movie (watched "bend it like beckham")...

at 1am when we were done, we headed for a diner for some late night dinner... there, we ran into ben, jason, and inessa (ben and jason are older math students, inessa just finished undergrad and has been dating jason for years)... we joined them for a bit, enjoyed our evening breakfast food, and then all headed home...

got home to witness a very drunk roommate doing things that hopefully won't happen again before i move out in august =P... who knows... enough said.

on that note, reading myself to sleep... night y'all =P

sadness

i started studying for quals today.

eric and me agreed to start by just working brute force at solving old qual problems from tests from previous years... after 5 hours and solving all of 1 problem on my own, i was mad and ready to throw things and/or cry... ben gave me hints on 2 analysis problems i was mad at, and i called eric to see how he's doing with it... happily enough, his first day at it was similar to mine, which is encouraging... but he's worked at it for a few days already and is a bit ahead of me... i now have thoughts on how to do at least parts of 5 problems, so that's something right?

still... all this is to say, if i work as hard as i'm supposed to, this is going to be a long and extremely frustrating summer of work =(

the end.

in case you were wondering... this is what i do late at night:

BlkDeth 13: ok.. try THIS...
BlkDeth 13: I'm a stud... and you talk to me right before you sleep.
lkp 42 42 42: dude
BlkDeth 13: therefore, your dreams should be SO good.. you'll not wake up till noon.
BlkDeth 13: *nod*
BlkDeth 13: **true story**
BlkDeth 13: (i was running out of serious ideas?)
BlkDeth 13: ((ok, so i wasn't that serious about the scotch either))
BlkDeth 13: *(*i'm a master at sub-thought punctuation*)*
lkp 42 42 42: counterexample: i talked to you last night and woke up after 2.5 hours of being asleep :-P
lkp 42 42 42: so i see (re: punctuation)
lkp 42 42 42: i'm thinking i might just have to look into the drugs i was taking 4 years ago ;-)
BlkDeth 13: Oh.. clearly your thoughts of me overwhelm you.
BlkDeth 13: how can you sleep when your heart keeps skipping a beat?
BlkDeth 13: *snickers*
BlkDeth 13: ok, i gotta go read, or i shall not see my bed tonight.
lkp 42 42 42: lol, you're crazy
BlkDeth 13: **vague shakespeare reference**
lkp 42 42 42: yup :-P
lkp 42 42 42: have a good night!
BlkDeth 13: g'night!
BlkDeth 13: **and, i DO love that line**
BlkDeth 13: ***the priest rocks***
lkp 42 42 42: :-)
BlkDeth 13 signed off at 3:57:29 AM.

a picture's worth a thousand words...

and i write too much already...

today was another quality day... slept til 12:30 (although i woke up several times before then and made myself go back to sleep in order to get more than 2 hours total :-P)... pizza and developing photos with colleen... movie and quality chat with jessica in philly.

the photos? from last night... we don't look like we're having fun at all... do we? ;-)
















night y'all =P

the like best birthday ever

so you thought it was over and the countdown was reset to 364 days, but not so much... last night was the good chats and dinner night... tonight was the crazy night...

first though, i had to give a talk to the rutgers REU kids... eric had called late last night and we talked til nearly 3am my time... and then i crashed... i kept dreaming that i overslept and missed giving the talk or that i screwed it up somehow or another, but i did wake up on time, get some breakfast, and practice my talk before heading to campus to give it... and here's proof that eric's just that great... we were talking at 3am my time/midnight his... he generally stays up til 2 or 3am, and then sleeps til noon... he set his alarm for 9am his time/noon mine and was like "ok, so you're freaking out about the talk, i don't have a planned peptalk, but like i can totally field all your usual ridiculous questions... so have at it"... yeah, eric's great :-)

long story short (or at least this part of it), i gave the talk, the audience cheered and approved, asked good questions, and even the one professor who sat in came up afterwards and complimented me heartily.

thus ends the being responsible part of the day.

although there was dinner last night, the thing i really really wanted to do for my birthday was see a broadway show, so sarah, scott, ben, and me had tickets for "movin' out" tonight...

sarah had to work til late, so scott, ben, and i caught the 3:30 train to penn station, then beelined for the world's largest toys r us (in times square) -- it was great, because although i've been there many times, it's a completely different dynamic for everything when you put ben and scott together... scott oohed and aahed at the huge moving dinosaur and ben played with action figures... we all danced the hokey pokey and the chicken dance with the dancing elmos, and scott freaked out over a kids book and had to read it to us (called my mamma is a llama or something like that)... it was just plain hilarious -- it's fun to hang out with people who can be completely ridiculous like that!

after dinner at sbarro and a run through the hershey store just to get high on chocolate smells without actually buying anything, we headed to the broadway/43rd street starbucks where we were meeting up with sarah... we met up with her, and meandered to another starbucks and then to wait for doors to open for the play.

so, "movin' out" -- fantastic! it's a broadway musical centered totally around the music of billy joel... i think you have to have a real appreciation for billy joel music to get the most out of it... there was a plot, but no dialogue -- just a band (handpicked by billy joel) that was on a platform that moved on the stage or up in the air depending on the scene and lots of ballet people (handpicked by twila tharp) going along with the music -- impressively there were a handful of songs neither scott nor i knew, but the choreography was amazing!... each scene was just a single billy joel song, or a couple glued together, kinda like rock concert meets ballet... scott and i (and occasionally ben) sang at the top of our lungs along with the songs we knew (and it was so loud you couldn't really hear us anyhow so we weren't being distracting, just laughing our heads off and having a blast!)... they did a really weird arrangement of "we didn't start the fire" though that we didn't recognize until the words started and "pressure" was done in like double time with the cheesy synthesizer line replaced by something else... sarah commented though, that even being less familiar with the songs, the choreography, especially in act 2, was completely amazing... so yeah, we all had a blast... and scott and me sang ourselves nearly hoarse =P

when the play got out (10ish) no one wanted to go home yet, so we all wandered towards penn station, didn't see anywhere to stop, so we headed east a bit and ended up at some random pub for 2.5 hours... sarah, scott, and ben split 2 pitchers of beer, i had 3 margaritas, and we all split miscellanous fun food... the thing is alcohol makes me quieter and tireder... coffee's what makes me do crazy stuff, so it was tasty, but i was the quietest in the bunch, still it was a hilarious conversation and we had fun... we left mostly because there were 2 trains left going back to jersey before sunrise, and we figured if we at least tried to make the earlier of the 2 (the 12:42am train) we'd for sure make it home... we ran into the station and onto the train as they were calling "all aboard" and ready to head out...

scott, ben, and me laughed most of the way home, and then riding in my car back to campus, we sang along with toy story and lion king songs on the CD i had in my radio -- me, ben, and scott trying to sing along with the high parts of hakuna matata at 2am... yeah... it was durn entertaining :-)

now, i'll get photos tomorrow and scan them for your laughter enjoyment, and scott owes me a dramatic reading of "go dog go" (kids book) tomorrow afternoon -- i'm excited =P

time to get un-manhattan-ified (i.e. i always feel gross and sticky after getting back from the city), and get some sleep... yeah, it's been a durn good day :-)

night y'all!