Two Haikus

While I was in Vancouver I was the first person that I knew who managed to get a gmail account. You could get them by invite only. I felt so frickin' cool. To get them I found a guy who worked at google who said that if someone wrote a haiku on one of three topics, he would think about sending them a gmail invitation. Two of the topics were sandwiches and go karts. I can't remember the third topic. I decided to write two just in case. Here they are:

Haiku 1:

What to eat for lunch?
Choc'late chips and peanut butter
Make a great sandwich.

Haiku 2:

I love crashing cars.
Once a day is really good.
Now I drive go karts.

The Midway State

A few weeks ago, Neil discovered a band called Girl and the machine. This is what he told me:

> I made a list of things I like.
>
> 1. Girls
> 2. Computers
> 3. ....
>
> When I discovered the band GIrl and the Machine, I knew that this was
> beauty and the beast for nerds.

So, off we go to El Mocambo, a fairly nice bar at the very sketchy intersection of College and Spadina. Well, Girl and the Machine weren't very good. But, The Midway State, who came on before them was awesome. Also, it seems to jive with my "new life will be good, but things were good in the past" outlook. You can download all of their available material straight from their website: http://www.midwaystate.com/. I have been listening to these four songs a lot lately.

Also, it has now been 15 days of illicit flat screen. Jesse, one of the computer guys, said yesterday that he would come and get it today, but it's 6:30pm and I've still got it. I think they're just playing with me.

A Great Math Joke

I was reading my friend Ryan's comic over at www.qwantz.com and I just saw the funniest math joke I have ever read (Disclaimer: This probably will be very unfunny unless you have taken a calculus class). Here goes:

So there's this party right? A party of functions. All the cool functions are there: f(x) = e^x, f(r) = pi x r^2, f(i) = i^2. Even some old school guys like abs(x). Anyway, poor e^x is over in the corner, all by himself. Well, his good friend, 2^x comes over and says, "Why don't you integrate yourself into the party?" And e^x says, "Why? It won't make any difference."

I laughed really hard when I read it. Also, this is day 4 with the illicit flatscreen.

The Illicit Flat Screen

Sometime in the middle of the summer, some theory students knocked on my office door, asking if there were any theory students in our office. Joe is in fact a theory student. I said that although I am not in fact a theory student (but rather a computational linguistics student) most of my work is theory work and my supervisor has a cross appointment in theory. They were asking because they were giving flat screen computers to all the theory students. They weren't sure if I would get one, but I might.

Then, sometime around the beginning of September, the computer guys knock and say that I'm getting a brand new flat screen. I think this is great, since flat screens are way cool. However, there is a big theory sticker on the flat screen. This is like a big flag that says "Illegal activity" to everyone who comes into my office (and knows that I am not in fact a theory student). A few days later the computer guy comes back and says that he might have to take it away because I'm not really a theory student, but he's not sure. Thus starts the long battle between David (me) and Goliath (the CS department).

Time passes and I learn to love my new computer. In fact, I assume that it will be around forever. However, two days ago, they finally came and said that they would have to take it away. I expected them to take it there and then, but not so. So, I have started a countdown. I hope that this will be my computer forever, but let's see how long it's mine.

This is Day 2 with the illicit flat screen.