Emoticon Showers

Doesn't "emoticon showers" just sound wrong? Ugh. Apparently the new version of AIM has them, and they are terrifying. Good thing I don't use AIM.

Oh good. I just love when I'm testing my interface, poking at a picture of a guy's face with a little roll of paper, when the guy who's face I'm poking at walks up. Not to mention I'd never met him, and he's the curator of the museum. Lovely. Just lovely. Yet another important person I've managed to have a GREAT first impression with. (See also : Ben Schneiderman).

Coding.

"Uh oh. Lauren's comparing code"
"Anytime I see that program open I know something bad happened..."
"Grrr arg the files are identical"

Things I like about the hotel I stay in:
1) Free snacks between 5:30 and 6:30
2) Free drink coupons one for every night you stay
3) Management is super friendly
4) Free cookies at night omg
5) Shuttle rides within 2 miles of the hotel

"You're probably going to hate me some more"

"That's a great way to start a conversation..."

I've had a bunch of things I meant to blog about that just never happened. Terribly sorry. Except not really - I've been out doing bigger and better things. Well... at least not sitting in front of my computer all the time, which is kind of nice for once.

COWS SENSE MAGNETIC FIELDS. Discovery made using GOOGLE MAPS. OMG.

I need to look into car service alternatives to the airport in the morning. My cab driver decided to use Belmont as if it were a two lane highway to pass the guy in front of him. That car didn't like that idea much, and sped up so the cab couldn't get around. Sweet.

This weekend and the last week were filled with lots of good times. My coworkers from Atlanta were up, testing the wall. Fun evening activities too. The weekend involved meeting up with a friend from elementary school, air shows, coffee shops with cool fish, awesome pubs, and a day at the race tracks. Not to mention awesome friends, falafel and hummus in mass quantities, and riding down Diversey with "Video Killed the Radio Star" blaring.

The pub was cool, because they killed the music to watch Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal, and then followed by playing "America - Fuck Yeah" and "You are the best around" for many awesome points. Michael Phelps is made of dolphin.

Spending time outside is awesome. Yay for sun. Boo for sunburn. I'm itching for a roadtrip.

Tough Pancakes

Brunch is delicious. Especially when served with a good helping of good company. Tack, Max, and Freeberg came over for pancakes and other breakfasty things, and it was delicious. Letting Tack and I loose in a kitchen is like letting two five year olds loose in an art cabinet - it will be hysterical, messy, and tons of fun.

If you haven't seen WALL E... go. right this minute. No, I mean it.

"Benjamin Franklin is wrong" ~ Quite possibly the best issue added to an issue list ever. Yeah, it's kind of like Minority Report. Yeah, it's very exciting that it mostly works on the wall. The issue list is totally manageable, and spending 3 days with coworkers non stop is sort of exhausting. It was fun though.

Swing dancing. Who wants to go with me? I also need places to volunteer in Chicago that can deal with my sporadic schedule. I'm open to suggestions.

I get to blog for work, probably. This amuses me. :)

Hamlet

Hamlet, via McSweeney's.

Some songs are too catchy for their own good.

Seriously. So catchy.

She Moves in her own way, by the Kooks.

Pilobolus

So I totally stole this from Carolyn's Google reader shared stuff, but seriously, watch it. Its kind of incredible. Pilobolus

I hate myself for Rickrolls.

I think I rickrolled myself in my sleep... there is no other explanation for why "Never gonna give you up" was stuck in my head in the shower this morning at 5am. Stupid brain.

me: Ok, I'm a nerd, and also slow

Sunah: lol

me: !!! (the band) shouldnt be called "chk chk chk" it should be called "bang bang bang"

Sunah: hehehe

first time i've heard of them

me: oh really?

Sunah: yeah, probably because my rock is nice and cool and dark

me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/!!!

lol

Sunah: lol, that definitely didn't get parsed as part of the url

it just looks like you're really excited about wikipedia

me: LOL

Sent at 1:40 PM on Monday

Sunah: dude, i'm naming my next band ?!!

and calling it "interrobang bang"

me: thats the third time this week the word interrobang has come up

for one of my asb trips, my friend andrew and i made tshirts for everyone with interrobangs on it.

we were talking about that yesterday (with this effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect)

and then andrew was wearing his interrobang shirt yesterday

i <3>

Sunah: whoa, that's so cool

and true

me: yeah

Sunah: A similar experiment draws from feminine and masculine qualities that the human brain associates with numbers. Subjects were given two numbers: a 9 and an 11, and were asked which one seems feminine and which seems masculine. The majority of the subjects chose 9 as the one that portrayed feminine characteristics, but for unknown reasons.

uh, curves

duh

me: yeah

11 is quite phallic

Sunah: lol

that's..

wow

haha

me: i a) can't believe i just typed that and b) am trying really hard not to crack up

Sunah: i hereby declare the number 11 retired from its former use as a number

and appropriated as a secret synonym for "phallic"

me: lol

Sunah: and it's going in my away message

me: nice

Sunah's new status message - that's very 11 1:48 PM

We flew OVER O'Hare today. Airports look very fractal, with the airplanes and the jetways and all.

Cars

Somehow, I keep talking about this phenomenon, but never remembering where the video was: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13402 Traffic Jams for no reason!

I really enjoy not having a car.

My family reunion was... relaxing. Kind of amazing. I could definitely get used to Lake Tahoe. Or being on speed boats in general (but going slow, and having a beer now and then). I need to seek the outdoors more often. And realize that I'm going to be traveling for a while, so that's no excuse not to do things I want/need to do for my life. My aunts had a "weirdest thing in your purse" competition the last morning I was there. And my grandmother can use a slingshot like nobody's business, and is moving into a double wide. My family does cool things like have relay races where you have to string each other together, run around in a circle, open a bottle of martinellis, chug it, and then burp simultaneously. What else could you ask for?

And I might as well post this, because I mention it a lot when I talk about moving to Chicago and how I felt as recently as a year ago, from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius:

After graduating he tried Chicago first, but was tired of constantly running into people from Champaign. They were all there, the whole school — so few make it out of the state. To most, Chicago was Oz, anything beyond it was China, the moon.

So far, I'm rather enjoying myself here. Living in a big city, with people from school, isn't so bad. Especially when I'm so very rarely here. And its kind of cool to live in a place where people are so proud to be from here. And lets face it, people outside of the midwest are just _different_. Not necessarily bad... just... different. "People in the midwest" leads me to suggesting you should check out Ryan Groff, if you havent.