Things that might be decidedly odd…

Cleaning

I’ve been cleaning my room up like a madman for the past couple days. It hasn’t looked this tidy in a while.

Before

After

and because I can, here’s an MPEG movie from my new camera!

Campanile

Pictures like this make me miss Berkeley.

Chapel Hill may be the southern part of heaven, but there’s something to be said for a shot of the campanile, the eucalyptus grove, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge together.

There’s an interesting thread going on over at the UC Berkeley LiveJournal community with such pictures.

New Camera

OK, so I somehow got the consumerist idea into my head that I needed a new digital camera. My old one was bought in early 2000, has a whopping 1.3 megapixels resolution and is actually so old instead of a USB connector connects through a 9-pin serial connector (which I have actually lost since I just use a USB card reader instead). Most importantly I never use it any more since it’s fairly bulky. Lately, I’ve been looking around online and once at BestBuy to compare and what not, which has been very frustrating. It seemed like all the cameras I was looking at had some major flaws (Nikon had bad performance in non-bright light, Canon has some sort of problem with LCDs cracking unexpectedly). Anyhow, I decided I wouldn’t buy online since I wanted this camera before my vacation starts Wednesday afternoon. Plus, it’s always nice to buy locally if possible, even if it means paying some sales tax.

Well, this afternoon I went over to Staples to see what they had to offer. They had some neat cameras, but nothing really stood out as a good deal. I then headed over to Circuit City in Durham, but got lost since I thought the store was on a different side of Target than it actually was. They had a decent selection of cameras, including a couple I had been looking at online and at other stores. I was drawn to a couple of Sony cameras that I had read pretty good reviews of. I ended up springing for the Sony Cybershot DSC-S90, paying about $50 more than I originally intended. They actually had the same camera over at Staples for like $10 more, but Circuit City also threw in a free case, which was nice. However, the thing came with rechargable batteries and a charger. I actually have rechargable batteries from my last camera (both take double-As, but this one only needs 2 compared to my old one which required 4), but I somehow lost the North American charger. I do have the European one still, although that’s not particularly useful here. Anyways, I basically got a bigger LCD on the back for like $15, which seemed worth it at the time. Originally, I was looking at smaller cameras, but in the end I wasn’t happy with the price/feature tradeoff for any of the subcompacts. This one is still relatively small (253g with the batteries), so I think it will work fine.

Anyhow, I got it all setup, but of course there’s nothing to take pictures of except for my messy room (and I won’t bore you all with those). Speaking of my messy room, I need to get things cleaned up before Wednesday since my parents are coming here then. It’s not like they don’t already know I’m a slob, but it’s always good to keep up appearances I suppose. The sad thing is that there’s a pile of stuff that I haven’t touched since I moved in last August. Ya, I know that’s pretty bad, but at least it’s not filth. Mostly books, old electronics, cables and random papers.

Fun With Search Engines

Every so often, I examine the statistics extracted from the logs of this site for things like search keywords and referals. Now, normally the far and away most popular search terms involve non-circular gears from a project I did back in undergrad (you can find links to it on the main site). This month though, I’ve gotten a decent amount of traffic related to wax, ears and water from my plight with such problems earlier this month. Well, if you type in water stuck in ear into Google, you will find my site at number 9, which I think is pretty awesome.

Now, if only Kendra will have such luck with the phrase pee on foucault.

Fun with Google Satellite

Google just beefed up their satellite imagery of Europe, apparently. I pulled up a number of the places I live or have lived in the past and I’m surprised at the variance in resolution. Actually, the vast majority of Saarbrücken has bad resolution, but for some reason there’s a big slice in the area around my house and the university that is at a very good resolution. Interesting.

Ridge House

Im Sauerbrod 84, Saarbrücken

my house in Carrboro, NC

Today

Today, I went over to Kessing Pool to swim a few laps again. It was fairly non-crowded and I was able to have an entire lane to myself. I still can’t swim backstroke straight, which annoys me, but at least when I have my own lane I don’t have to worry about running into other people. On Monday, I need to talk to my teachers at the Y about some breathing stuff. Often times, I still feel like I’m suffocating when swimming freestyle when I start to get tired.

Vince and Tynia invited me and a bunch of other people out to dinner at Elmo’s Diner over at the Carr Mill Mall (the smallest and most unusual mall I’ve ever been to). Afterwards, some of us got ice cream at the newish Maple View Farm store across Weaver Street from the mall. It was kinda crowded when we first got there, but the ice cream was tasty. We then sorta split up, with some of us heading over Tyler’s/the Speakeasy to grab a drink and play some pool. At first things were pretty chill, but then a ton of people appearing to be from a wedding showed up. It was just weird and really bothered me for some reason I don’t understand. Anyhow, the rest of the gang headed back into Chapel Hill to hit another bar, but I was just feeling tired and not up for drinking. Maybe I’ve just been going out too much this summer or something.

Dear Abby Strikes Again!

From yesterday’s Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: I am 10. I was born in 1994. My problem is I really, really wish I had lived in the ’80s. I know this sounds stupid, but the style was awesome — not skanky. The music was great — not rap. The ’80s seem awesome! I mean, they had good songs like “She Blinded Me With Science.” The ’80s seem so cool — at least people are always saying so.
Help, Abby, please. I’m sitting here listening to ’80s music now. I wouldn’t admit this to anyone else except my mom or dad. — BORN IN THE WRONG ERA

DEAR IN THE WRONG ERA: I can’t “fix” your problem, but it may comfort you to know that many people feel the way you do about various eras — and that includes the roaring ’20s, the romantic ’30s, the fashionable ’40s, the revolutionary ’60s, the experimental ’70s, as well as the “awesome” ’80s.

When you’re older, you’ll be able to satisfy your “itch” to live in the ’80s by collecting music, clothing and accessories from that decade. It’s not exactly a trip back in time, but it will capture the nostalgia.

Lightning

Interesting snipet out of a National Weather Service public information statement today (emphasis added).

According to storm data, a National Weather Service publication, the
U.S. Averages 67 reported fatalities per year. Due to under
reporting, the figures are more realistically about 100 deaths per
year. Only about 10 percent of people who are struck by lightning
are killed, leaving 90 percent with various degrees of disability.
The odds of getting struck by lightning in a given year is 1 in
240,000 and the odds of getting struck in your lifetime are 1 in
3000.

That seems like a pretty high number, especially in light of the 240,000 number. Still, either way you cut it, you still have a much better chance of getting struck by lightning than, say, winning the lottery.

Best Simpsons Line…

At least that I’ve heard in a while… To give you background, they’re in the process of escaping from Alcatraz.

Lisa: Hurry, swim towards San Francisco!
Homer: What?? I’m not made of money! Swim towards Oakland!

So true. I miss the Bay Area.

Today

Around 4am, I finished getting everything working on my linux box and managed to go to bed. Of course, I got up late since I had gone to bed late. Anyhow, after futzing around and getting some work done, I started to get ready to go over to the YMCA for my swimming lesson which start at 7:45 on Monday and Wednesday. Anyhow, as I started to pack my bag, it started to rain very hard along with lots of thunder. This was a bad sign since they close the pool whenever there is lightning in the area for safety reasons. A quick check on the Weather Underground and it was clear the storm was one of those fast moving summer thunderstorms.

Driving over there was a bit interesting since it was raining just about as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain. I had my wipers on full blast, but was still driving slow because of some limited visibility. By the time I got over to the Y, it had all but stopped raining. After waiting in my car for a while, I headed over to the main building to ask what the status on the pool was. I didn’t even have to go inside actually, because my instructors and the other students were waiting outside. We sorta chewed the fat for a while, but there was the sound of thunder off in the distance periodically. The rule there is that the pool has to remain closed until 20 minutes after the last thunder is heard. By the time it was about 8pm, I decided it wasn’t really worth it to stick around since at best I’d be able to swim for only 10 minutes.

Undaunted, I decided I really should do some exercise today. My cold is basically gone now, but I still have a little bit of phlegm left over in my throat and lungs it seems. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided I should go for a run since it has been over a week since I last did. The run went great actually. I think it’s the first time I’ve run my entire route without taking walking breaks. Now, I’m fairly pooped though. I need to take a shower and get to bed, since I need to get up at 7am tomorrow for my radio show.