In the land of Dairy Queen, we treat you right

Our first assignment in Human-Computer Interaction involved reading five academic papers in the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) digital library, then writing a three-page summary in the format of ACM academic papers.

ACM papers always have an "Acknowledgements" section near the end.

Thus, if I wished to folow to correct format, my paper would have to have an "Acknowledgements" section also.

That is how I ended up with this in my paper:

"There's something inherently awesome about milk ..."

Especially if it's on Amazon.

Much like milk itself, I expect that link to expire eventually.

Last night was a production night at the Sheaf, but it was also the night the Sheaf got four free tickets and one photo pass to the Red Hot Chili Peppers show. I sat with our arts editor pretty much parallel to the front of the stage. A half-hour before the band went on, we got the idea that we should run a Chili Peppers photo on the cover -- heck, we had another four hours until we had to get the paper to the printers; that's plenty of time! Despite the lack of a cellphone signal, we somehow got the attention of our photo editor, who was standing right of the front of the stage. He communicated that he was allowed to take photos for only the first three songs. Perfect, said the arts editor and I; we didn't want to stay much past that. (You'd be amazed how easy it is to leave a show when your $70 tickets were free.) As soon as we saw our photographer get shooed away by security at the start of the fourth song, we left our seats and met him near the exit. A mad dash to the office ensued, during which our photo guy browsed through the 390 pictures he took that night. We didn't run into any problems until 1:30am, and that was an MP, not a YP: it was an issue with keeping the colors CMYK and not downsampling the images when converting the InDesign document to PDF (we were using our new layout computer for the first time, dontcha know). Oh, there was also a problem with Distiller not sending the PDFs to the correct output folder, but that was really technical and probably not interesting to you.

Also not interesting? The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I probably didn't have to tell you that, though. I felt like I was attending the MTV Video Music Awards inside a Virgin Megastore. But free is free. Also, a 17-year-old girl from the boonies bought me a beer, so the evening was doubly adequate.

Redemption is getting 48% on RottenTomatoes.com

So there was a girl I was sweet on. We spent part of an afternoon watching Garden State. She was rather fond of the movie. Me, I didn't care for it. I mean, I lived it -- no need to pay money to see it. I told her, "Just wait until we see Me and You and Everyone We Know; now there's a movie." We eventually saw it. She didn't care for it. That should have been a sign.

It mystified me, this preference for Garden State over Me and You and Everyone We Know. Garden State? Garden $%#&ing State? It was at this point that I [would have] asked, "Can such things be?!"

The answer ... is yes.

So now Zach Braff has a new movie out. I can only imagine it's like Garden State, only perhaps less New Jersey-y. It's called The Last Kiss. I'd consider seeing it, if only to attempt a better understanding of the preferences of culturally anorexic girls everywhere, but Amelie Gillette had this in her Onion-based blog:

In response to his girlfriend asking "What are you thinking about?" Braff responds: "I was just thinking how weird it is that I'm considered cool and intelligent for driving a $20,000 hybrid car...and how lucky I am that you love me."

That's actually the first thing he says in the movie ...

Better understanding be damned, I'm skipping this one.

Put your hand inside the puppet-head

This evening it occurred to me that I haven't listened to They Might Be Giants in years. I'm talking presidential terms-in-office here. Clinton's first term, maybe.

I see no reason to change that, of course.

I'm putting off writing a review of Canadian Idol sweetheart Theresa Sokyrka's new album. I think it's called "Yours Is Yours", though I can't be sure. Maybe that's one of the songs. Maybe the Arts Editor doesn't even expect me to write the review. I started playing it in the office last week -- you know, for research -- and he made me turn it off because it was so bad.

Speaking of the Sheaf, I accidentally made the thumbnails for the pdf too big, which has the delicious bonus of highlighting my design. Of course, it's usually the design on the inside that's much better, but the fireworks thing on B1 gets a passing grade. Also getting a passing grade is page B4:

Fig. 1: ITC New Baskerville - the font for a new generation!

With school in session now, I am able to conceptualize the full hierarchy of procrastination. In order of greatest likelihood of being put off in favor something lower on the list ...

1. School - assignments/studying for tests
   
2. School - general reading
3. Sheaf - writing
4. Cooking
5. Folding laundry
6. Posting to ye olde blogge
7. Reading for pleasure
8. Watching movies/tv shows I don't particularly enjoy
9. Doing laundry
   
10. Watching movies/tv shows I do enjoy

Masturbation is on there someplace, too, but I thought mentioning it would be unnecessarily coarse.

Especially if it were #11.

Which it is.

Too soon?

Predictably, the best write-up on the death of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin comes via Bronwyn on the WFMU blog:

... [Irwin] died doing what he loved best—pestering animals who weren’t bothering anyone until he came along.

Apparently Irwin was working on a TV show with Jacques Cousteau’s son, and bad weather was keeping them from shooting whatever it was they wanted to film, so the Crocodile Hunter decided to go bother some stingrays and film that to use later on in a show of his own. And the stingray didn’t like it, and it stuck him in the heart, and he died. All the news reports stressed that it is incredibly rare for a stingray to kill anybody, but the statistics are based on people who encounter stingrays accidentally. In cases where someone goes looking for a giant stingray to intentionally rile it up, the stingrays are one for one.

Don't ask Genadi about souvlaki

Justin and I were walking to the theatre to see Crank, the new action movie starring the Transporter. (I know he has a name, but no one cares.)

We passed by the outdoor patio of a Starbucks. One of the patrons looked up as we walked past and said "Hi" to each of us.

After we turned the corner, this is the conversation we had:

Dave (me): That was Genadi.
Justin: Genadi?
D(m): Yeah.
J: How do you know him?
D(m): I met him a few weeks ago.
J: Oh yeah?
D(m): Yeah. He's a shepherd.
J: OK.
D(m): He herds goat-men.
J: Goat-men?
D(m): You know -- goat-men: half-man, half-goat. Yeah, I have no idea who that guy is. I've never seen him before.

And then we got to the theatre and Crank was awesome!

Lou Reed loves you

I get easily confused by 80's Lou Reed.
I am frightened by 70's Lou Reed and delighted by 60's Lou Reed.

Anyway, if I were not so confused by 80's Lou Reed, I would have correctly described this video [to someone, I forget who,] as belonging to Mistrial and not Metal Machine Music (which, as it happens, came out in 1975 -- but I guess I was so frightened by 70's Lou Reed that it led to confusion in this case).

OH MY GOD, NEVERMIND. HERE'S THE VIDEO.