If you have a lot of time to kill, this is a highly addicting website:
http://20q.net
I first came across it when I was TAing the AI class at the Harvard Extension School last fall when we covered the algorithm that is likely being used for the game. Since I have nothing better to do (well, I suppose I could pack for California), I’ve been playing it for hours. Try guessing dirty things… the result is amusing.

Thanks to Mr. Randall, my blog is now syndicated on LiveJournal here. Amrys and Jeff appear to be LiveJournal-ified as well.
Oh, and this also means that Josh has a LiveJournal.

As many of you know, I have been applying to grad school.
Prior to today, I thought that I would be attending the
Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.
It seems that that decision might change, however. As
Lady Luck would have it, today I received an acceptance
From the Gateway Antarctica program at the University
Of Canterbury in New Zealand. While this is somewhat
Of a change in plans, I look forward to studying the rare
Loof Lirpa, which only grows south of the Antarctic Circle.
So wish me luck, folks. I’m off to endure real winter!

As anyone who has talked to me in the past few days can attest, I have a pretty bad cold, complete with runny nose. Unfortunately, I left my kleenex at home and thus I went downstairs to the MGH gift shop to buy some. But, much to my dismay, they were out of the regular kind. Luckily for me, they had plenty of designer tissues.
That’s right, folks. For $1.50 for a pack of 10, you can buy designer tissues with which to blow your nose. You can see the style I selected here. Now, just to be clear, this design is not on the box, but repeated on the tissue itself. Very stylish, indeed.
Of course, there is a downside. They’re 4-ply and are only slightly softer than printer paper. My nose, somewhat sensitive at the moment, couldn’t take being scratched for very long. Thus I have replaced my 15¢ apiece designer tissues with free plain white napkins from the cafeteria.

Happy π (3/14) Day! (And Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein.)
It’ll be more exciting in 10 years when it will be 3/14/15 9:26:53. Or if you want to skip the time and prefer rounding, in 11 years it will be 3/14/16. For whatever it’s worth, I currently have π memorized to 3.14159265358979, which I believe coincides with the number of digits of π stored on a TI-85. In case you missed it, I was, and am, a HUGE math nerd.
Many years ago, my parents threw a pie party (although I don’t think it was on π Day). All the guests were requested to bring a pie and no other type of food. There were fruit pies, mincemeat pies, pot pies, and I think even a pizza pie. But being the creative child that I was, I made some chocolate chip cookie dough and formed it into a gigantic π-shaped cookie. More than one of my parents friends didn’t get the joke, if I recall.
π day is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. He would be 126 today, which is relatively old. (Pun entirely intended. We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert. (Oh man, now I’m punning/quoting Paul McCartney songs. I better stop this before it gets out of hand.))
Edit: Yes, I fudged the time of this entry.

I think that one day I will have to make a trip out to Cottonwood, ID, just so that I can stay at the Dog Bark Park Inn, a 30 foot tall dog/bed and breakfast. From the website:

Guests enter the body of the beagle from a private spacious 2nd story deck. Inside and up another level in the head of the dog are a loft room for additional sleeping accommodations and a cozy reading nook in the dog’s muzzle.

Staying inside a dog named Sweet Willy might actually be cheesier than South of the Border. Oh, who am I kidding – nothing could be cheesier than the 200 foot tall sombrero.

This morning, like most mornings, I grabbed a copy of the Metro and headed straight for the crossword puzzle. I generally try to pace myself to finish it by the time I hit Central, three stops away from Davis. However, this morning, a fellow passenger interrupted me at about Harvard to ask how the Metro crossword compared to the Boston Globe crossword. I was a little surprised, and slightly annoyed that he broke my rhythm, but I was polite and told him it was approximately the same level of difficulty, but that I really preferred the Times.
He then proceeded to ask me what I do and I treaded lightly, not quite sure who this random stranger was. Eventually, I mentioned that I was going to grad school in computer science in the fall and he asked me what area. When I responded natural language processing, he immediately perked up. His (London based) company, he explained, was starting a Boston branch and looking for developers. One of the board members is a Stanford professor – the PhD advisor to the guys who took time off to found Google. He also wrote one of the earliest natural language parsers back in the late 60s and their company would be developing similar knowledge representation and parsing algorithms. The man then gave me his card, the guest username and password to the company’s website, told me to check it out and said that if I was interested in working for them, I should send him my resume.
“I saw the speedy crossword solving and the brass rat,” he said. “I figured it was worth striking up a conversation.”
My question is, where was this guy when I was looking for a job last summer? Also, I never did finish the crossword.

On the T this morning, I was surrounded by advertisements for Axe body spray, two of which I understood and one of which I didn’t. All of the ads had the tag line “The New Longer Lasting Axe effect.” The woman sitting next to me was equally perplexed about the ads and we started up a conversation about them. Mostly we discussed how terrible they were.
One of the ads that I understood was a dirty couch with a clean spot where someone had clearly been sitting. Okay, so the effect of the body spray is so great that places you sit are cleaner and prettier. That one makes sense to me. The other ad that I understood, though found mildly offense, was the doorway to an apartment with one of the “Take a Number” machines that you see at the butcher’s. Okay, so the stuff is so great that women will be lining up outside your door. I get it — I’m a little put off and offended by the whole meat market analogy, but at least I understand it.
Now, the ad that neither I nor my fellow T-rider understood was the one in the bedroom. It consisted of an approximately queen-sized bed with white sheets and hundreds of cups on the nightstand next to it. The cups may or may not be filled with water — we couldn’t decide. Either way, exactly what is this ad supposed to be saying? That their body spray makes you really thirsty? That it takes that much water to wash the stuff off?
Whatever the message, we remained unconvinced that “Axe body spray” is anything more than your average deodorant. And we certainly weren’t keen on it relegating women to a number.

After having not seen a new state quarter since I came across Texas last summer, this past week I came across not one, but two quarters I hadn’t seen before. Iowa, true to it’s lack of personality, has a one room school house on it. Apparently it is based on the Grant Wood painting, “Arbor Day.” And here I was expecting corn.
But I wasn’t entirely disappointed. For today, after making change for Anat, I acquired Wisconsin. Not only does the Wisconsin quarter feature an ear of corn, but also a cow and — most importantly — a wheel of cheese. Now that’s more like the state stereotypes I grew up mocking.
(Before I put my foot in my mouth, I looked up the Minnesota quarter… lakes, loons, and fishing. That seems perfectly respectable and representative to me.)