jeff

A plea to Microsoft: You have $23 billion and change in the bank. Take $1 billion (or just the change) out and help some people who really, really need it.

i sent a message to friends who'd asked about the city and my parents saying things were ok ( pensive, pensive ) but they're not... i spoke too soon. I can only hope that the media is taking their usual route of instilling fear in everyone instead of showing the real situation, but something tells me they're not. Let's just hope this water engulfing everything is stopped and stopped soon... mean while, I'm listening to a very weird mix, because I'm feeling ver weird right now. But I can't image what's going through the people down there right now... fuck. Yes, that is an appropriate word right now.

I'm going to kill you, Ayman.

i had gotten up around 4am yesterday to try to get a peek at the storm, and luckily it didn't seem to have been all that bad. Though, as I've said to countless people, there's no use speculating the worst or the best... I'll find out everything hopefully today or the next. nola.com had some accounts of the damage, one dangerously close to my home, and this shot down the street... I can't say my worries are completely gone.

Hacked on the forwarder and updated this page with the new gdirections project newly-granted to me... also set a 'deadline' for proposing at one year and I'll do my best to stay true to that.

I want to see this show so badly, thoug getting back to boston that night could pose a problem or two.

when asked whether I'd move to europe today I quickly responded "absolutely!, but not today, for it's bastille day". and on this fine day mo showed a slide show from south africa which was really wonderful. mountains -- even if small ones, yes, I'll have to get on one or many of those soon. Really, soon. I threw around the idea of a prezi traverse one of the days this weekend, but haven't settled yet. Will work on it...

after everyone retired an we had put away quite few (though not a bastille's-day worth) or wine I laid down this little pattern that had been burning a hole in my ear and just jammed for a while... good things came there (maybe I'll have to revisit it later, thought sleep could be good). then I let me phone burn a hole in my ear for the next couple hours chatting and sharing music and sharing stories and catching up since, uh, the day before... i said once before that the definition of the munchies was dumping some bacos into a bowl of cereal at 3am (guilty), well the definition of personal comfort with someone could be dueling songs and listening them and random background noises over a crummy phone line at the same time (also guilty). While I can't endorse the former, I'd highly recommend the latter, just get the right dueling partner. And, I'll endorse it despite delving into an email conversation about *hamsters* after my phone won the battle of charge... well, i will update this as promised (though it's a little late due to a minor guitar distraction) and catch a little sleep before I start to anihilate my new shuffle tomorrow on a run whose route is TBD.

well done weather.com.

Right now the hurricane is about 100 miles from landfall, and I'll catch a few hours of sleep before that... I don't know what to expect? I'm thinking about my parents, and their pets and our house and their friends and my family and everything... I was, however, blown away by an offer from a friend a help out in the aftermath. And, after a few rounds of clarification I hope it was clear how floored I was with this gesture... this was one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous offers I've witnessed in some time. Also, hearing from a number of people wishing luck was nice and I passed all those along. I don't know what else to say... the news showed countless shots of new orleans, and predictions of the impact, and I truly hope it's still standing after the morning... I'll defend that city to the death, it's where I grew up, and it's where I'm proud to tell people I grew up, and it would be devastating to see it be buried by water... I'm not sure I could see the photos of that... and it will be hard going about life normally is boston tomorrow when life in new orleans is far from normal. I'm not sure I can go about the day as normal... OK, well, I'll hope for the best, and I guess we'll all see in a few hours.

fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina
fuck you katrina

so, I saw march of the penguins last night, and it was good, very good... sad at times, but happy at others times, so a nice balance. The various metaphors secrectly put in there basically knocked you down and weren't all that subtle, but it was very enjoyable... and, it was so good, that we made a tribute called March of a Penguin -- catchy. There's a chance I could have fallen asleep for part of the show, which is the case for most movies, but I have a feeling it was somewhat higher than normal last night... anyway, it's a lazy day today in Boston, so I should probably get a little work done, seeing as nothing world-shattering is knocking on my door right now. I was going to see the Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA, but it closes at 4.45pm. Poo on that.

A calming sunset over kenmore, before that an enjoyable ride through the city via critical mass. I hitched a little ride with a cab that decided there was no harm in merging into people, but all's good. I skated, so stuck out a bit, but that's ok, it's still fun... what to do, what to do??? meet people after the game, go to the country, stay in boston, go to cambridge? It seems like a plethora of choices, but it's really not... I want to listen to music. I want to listen to loud, beautiful music, but I'll see if I can scrounge some up... I hit another snag in my work, which was frustrating, but I have some time to keep working on it, and I'll do that. Well, before anything, I have to meet some people for dinner, and drinks I'd imagine.

I watched the final presentation of a camp at northeastern for 8th graders and they did some type of alien game in Scheme, and it was quite impressive... considering I taught essentially the same material to college students in 3 times as much time, I would have to give these kids a hearty kudos... it was impressive.

Well, I'm smelly and hungary and thirsty, so I'm going to pop in some music into the shower entertainment center (boombox sitting on the toilet), hop in a quick shower and head out... $7 PBRs are calling.

on guard

on guard.

miracle?

The Daily News had a very interesting (and by interesting I mean disturbing) headline to this article... they have changed it on the website, but the print edition read "MIRACLE! Family of 6 survives plane crash in Peru that killed 37.' Now, that *does* sound that a miracle, and why is it again that people around the world hate Americans? I couldn't believe this actually made the paper... moving on-- I was playing a most fun game of texting-tag today, initiated in the morning and carried throughout where the topic of choice (believe it or not) was static analysis. I luckily found a way to text on my laptop, because my phone is prehistoric and texting is a laborious task sometimes if you have a lot to say... either way, and as silly as it may sound, anxiously waiting for the next message as I fevorishly worked on two completely-unrelated items in an empty lab made the day for me. As it turns out the experiment I was doing that provoked the talk on static analysis flopped (too bad), but the other actually moved on nicely, and I was quite pleased with the results. A semi-full 12-13 hours working on it, but it finally started to come around. Anyway, thanks texting partner, it was fun.

Aa few pictures from New York a month ago and a week ago when Luke and I went down to meet some friends and hear death cab and the decemerists. I'd say more, but my mom reads this. And, I stole these from a friend's flickr account that apparently wouldn't let others see it, so I put them here, forgive me.

The plans were to head to the Buren tonight to meet up with some of Jeremy's friends, but those plans never reached fruition, and I just had a quiet one at the apartment with the rest of the crew. I dig the band that plays there on Thursdays and I was definitely in the mood to listen to music, but that just wasn't going to do it for me. Don't know why, really, it just wasn't. But, that's ok, a night in won't kill me... A friend was engaged yesterday and another two just got married, so I wonder if this is another little wave coming? I have my grammar school reunion this christmas, so I imagine I'll learn about quite a few nuptials then. I can't wait to see everyone, but I admit I'm somewhat apprehensive about it, because I didn't go to school with slackers at all, and I guess I just don't really know what to expect. There's part of me that thinks I could being doing more, part that's content, though the former probably ends up on top the most. And this is fine and is the way it should be... I don't want to be content with where I am, I only think bad things could come from that.

warhol trooper

   ( 7 days )

Someone left a mean message on the guestbook, though we've decided to keep it up for posterity and to set an example of the hatred that people can bring... that, and I lost the password and have to manually edit the database, and I'm not up for that now... so why am I up now? because I was thinking about cross site scripting and problems coming from it -- and obviously solutions for it and ways of helping to prevent it. For those who don't know there's a decent little tutorial here, but the idea is that one client can give a script a (possibly malicious) string which is then processed and ends up in the output of a further page. Then that code can be executed and possibly do bad things... the main problem is that you our taking untrusted information (from a client) and giving it to side-effecting functions such as echo and exec... for example, take this page. There is a very simple exploit in this line:

foreach ($_GET as $key => $val) {
  echo "<tr><td>$key</td><td>";
  if ($val == "jeff" || $val == "alert(123);") {
    echo "<a href=# onclick='javascript:$val'>$val</a>";
  } else {
    echo "<font color=red>omitted</font>";
  }
  echo "</td></tr>";
}


where I stuff whatever the client gives me (as long as it's 'jeff' or 'alert(123);' for my security) into a script that can be executed by clicking on it. So if you click this link

http://jeffpalm.com/code/xss.php?name=jeff

You see that 'jeff' ends up in the link... however if you click this

http://jeffpalm.com/code/xss.php?name=alert(123);

we've now stuffed a little executable code from the input into the output page, and if you click the link under value you get a little javascript executed. Any other variable is skipped, which is the right behavior, but lots and lots of websites have vulnerabilities such as this... anyway, I was thinking about it and continued this morning. I was thinking about it last night, but as the post below explains (and if I wasn't *totally* clear in my explanation, I got drunk at dinner) I didn't get the amount of thinking I wanted last night.... so here I am, blabbering on, which is fine. [Far is on]... I was somewhat saddened to read that Jason Schwartman isn't in Phantom Planet anymore. I had never really listened to them much, but from what I hear they're good, and their 'sounds like' section sounds yummy (a footnote: I was made fun of for using that word yesterday, so I'm using it again). OK. It's tempo run day, and I am done with my n^th cup of coffee, so it's time to run.


       [and I'm listening to the new death cab *NOW* ]

ooooo, and here's a histogram of my past blogging activity:

06/2003	**********
07/2003	***
08/2003	*****
09/2003	******
10/2003	***
11/2003	*****
12/2003	***
01/2004	**********
02/2004	*******
03/2004	*****
04/2004	*******************
05/2004	*********
06/2004	*****
07/2004	*************
08/2004	*****************
09/2004	*************
10/2004	******************
11/2004	******************
12/2004	*********
01/2005	**************
02/2005	**********************
03/2005	***********************************************
04/2005	*************
05/2005	***************
06/2005	*****************
07/2005	*****************
08/2005	**********************

I left work today at around 5pm a little miffed, heading home to work a bit more from there. Then the breeze hit me and gave me a second wind and decided to head out to dinner before coming back and working more. Well the latter part of that plan was soon scrapped after are end of the table was quite far from the sushi and became much easier to just grab a beer (or two or three... you get the point). Oh well. Then, coming back to luke, ayman, and sonia didn't help things get done. Again, oh well, there's tomorrow and the next day and the next... stuff will get done.... I'm semi-addicted to the new death cab, which isn't a surprise given my tendancy wear the laser etching off of CDs from overplay. It's good, really good. It's not on now (crucial information :) ), but maybe it should be? And maybe it's somewhat a metaphor for the rest of me, seeing as a tend to get hung on things -- all types of things... probably not, it's probably just some catchy rock tunes... OK, to make a somewhat uneventful story short, I had gone to bed a while ago to send an email or two and caught a friend on IM in a talkative and no-so great mood -- so the spudtrooper lent an ear. For such a lousy emotional medium IM can certainly do wonders sometimes...

google domains

As a little experiment and to see what google is up to next (possibly) I went around looking for subdomains and found these. Lots of the existing ones are documented somewhere, and these are shown here , but the interesting ones are the undocumented ones, like virgin.google.com and wire.google.com... what are these about? A partnership with Virgin? Don't know. Anyway, the domains with ??? are the same as http://google.com, a couple others are different and are noted. For example, vat.google.com redirects to gmail, sprint.google.com is a version with only the search box and very little else, and sloth.google.com gives you the following message:

these aren't the bits you're looking for

Huh? What? Anyway, here are the results and the script that found them:

bernadine.google.com		???
ham.google.com		???
jump.google.com		???
opt.google.com		???
protocol.google.com		???
publisher.google.com		???
ratings.google.com		???
sloth.google.com		Interesting!!!
sprint.google.com		Lean and mean version.
vat.google.com		Apparently gmail.
virgin.google.com		???
wire.google.com		???

where to run?

Today is supposed to be my 'recovery' day in running, but I'll have to scrap that because (1) I'm not exactly sure what that means, and I've lost the printout luke gave me with the descriptions, and (2) it's virtually autumn out already and I feel like a long one. Added to that was an unexpected treat earlier in the hour when I went to get a coffee down the street and found an oddly-placed (though thoroughly-appreciated) gem on my ipod -- it goes like this:

-----|------------------|
---7-|-----7------------|
--7--|-9-99-9------7788-|
-9---|-------9-9999-----|

and was hiding there in between Connor and Sage. Anyway, that was definitely a nice little get-me-up for the morning... and I wouldn't be surprised if a rather large shipment of spudtroopers arrived at the apartment in the next week or so. I'm not saying I ordered them, just saying it wouldn't completely floored if it happenned. I would be quite happy however if my bank card would show up -- I'm wondering if they could set up a recurring re-issuing program, since I apparently have my own little recurring losing-it program...

It's been an odd last two weeks to say the least. Ups and downs -- all probably written behind here, and, if not, then 'not' for a reason... afterall somethings probably don't need to be splatterd on the internet. Anyway, it's becoming increasingly hard to struggle everyday to not quit school and pack up and move and go somewhere else. Today, I had resolved I would *definitely* stay, but not I'm here, in limbo. A game of limbo where you are strapped to a plate of razor blades and then rolled under a poll instead of walking under it. Yeah, I'm being dramatic, but that's the point, right? I have the supreme hosting package that includes hyperbole... other ups, other downs, but, again I can keep some things to myself... I basically unsuccessfully tried to convey my current state of mind this afternoon onto some piece of musical equipment and it didn't work :). It of course was quite cleansing, just didn't yield anything ultimately palpable, but that's ok... this way anything I come up with is between me, the walls, and the bugs scurrying about in the vacant upstairs room... no Hamptons for labor day unfortunately, I found that out today. I'm sure something will pop up, until then I'll be labor day plans shopping ... and at that, I'm off to bed, with none other than mr. matranga to help me get to sleep. He also provides excellent shower music -- I found that out today -- though I should probably keep shower and sleep songs separate for obvious reasons.

What do you know? Thinking about things that are keeping me from thinking about useful things; doing things to keep my mind from those, such as plugging in the webcam for the first time in a while, putting together a script for grabbing grouphug lines in php here, and leo sent this link so I could make a trailer. (and now writing about it, ha). True it involves potatoes, but is still not technically worthwhile -- i.e. I can't include it in my dissertation. Maybe I could, I don't know, I haven't written it yet. In the on-again-off-again saga of my camera is seems to be favoring the former, as the picture below would show. I can't say I plan to see the sunrise tomorrow morning, but it was pretty chill this morning... besides banging my leg on the roof railing walking out to sit and watch, but that's ok. Not thinking too much, today, I decided to skate to my office listening to music, eating, texting and carrying a laptop -- well done Jeff ;). Granted I've done sillier things operating vehicles (rollerblades are vehicles???), but this isn't the smartest... Anyway, it's almost biologue time, and the spud trooper has to prepare to feed Ed and Luke endless facts, though I've been tuned into WMBR for the past 1/2 hour listening to feel good lost... it's a damn good show, 'Jess' has fine taste in music... well, I'm going to split for now. . .

up sun

moog

Bob Moog died today, which is a loss, but he did leave us with quite the instrument... a pseudo-synthy newbie song, number sixteen here. Super-ultra-beta, as the footnote says .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. ..............................

Some mario brothers for your listening enjoyment. Now work!!!

hmmmm... where to start? It's around 5am right now and I've been up since about 2. The sun's coming up, the slaughters on being arrested by the mind cops, and I'm contemplating things, things, things. I haven't touched my guitar in days -- a guitar yes, not for long -- but not my guitar. This will have to change very soon. And I actually sent someone a link to me on my guitar -- well, me on two guitars, two guitars that were out of tune, with plenty of mistakes, but that's what you get for one take on each. Anyway, this was a rarity for me... I had a great 'weekend' in nyc (weekend in quotes because my working friends seem to have a hard time believing the weekend starts on Thursday) where the lowlite was probably the decemberists and death cab in the park (for good measure that's elevating the rest of the time, not putting down the show). That's a good thing. They were cool, everyone was cool. Not tooooo much sleep, but that's ok, I'd rather sleep in boston. Ran around 11 miles yesterday in weather very swampy, and music very repetitive... for some reason I was having trouble getting into any type of rythym, and it was fucking frustrating... every time a new song would come it would take a minute of building up before I was running normally. This, until I ran across an old favorite from the flaming lips, that I continued to keep on repeat for the last 4 or 5 miles. If that's what it takes, I guess... well, off for now, I've been neglecting various people on email and reading their random utterances, so I'll go do that now.

Hello internet, long time no write... I've been away. Bjork is on and an ¨ is missing somewhere. More later, just wanted to say hello...

I have my extension on the mozilla page, but the installation script was apparently broken.. Just my luck :(. It currently has a 0.25 (of 5) rating. Yay, underachievers, unite!!! Oh well, as the description says, the current version is here. The new Death Cab is trying to keep me sane at the moment -- and it is doing a fine job (I think). I decided to come in to the office today, because I needed a change. I love working at home, but it's hard to concentrate sometimes -- well, most of the time -- and change is good. Theo's gone to Greece for a bit, Karl's still in Switzerland, so I really have no one to work with (or talk to, really, except te occassional query for help from someone). But, it's quiet and peaceful, so I'll do my best to get a little work done. Though, the grouphug screen saver is not doing much to help get stuff done. I ran a across a couple pretty good guitar stuff yesterday, nothing ground breaking, but enough to peek my interest... hopefully dan is coming over later with his drums and we'll make some mayhem. We've definitely got take advantage of having the extra room (palace) upstairs unoccupied. I know I'll do my best.

I lost my ATM card again., and right after I withdrew $500, I probably should have tried to squeeze that out of them, but I'm an honest person (that last statement was a boldface lie). The bank of america guy was quite pleasant, which is strange, but maybe that's because of the fact I tend to be a complete asshole on the phone sometimes -- to which luke will happily attest.

We got a free monitor yesterday to help power the itunes library server. Yuh.

Enough. Adios.

I just learned a new word watching my grouphug screen saver; it's snogged or the infinitive to snog. You can guess what it means, because I'm not going to repeat the context in which it was -- this is a family place.

Here's a firefox extension to help find directions on Google Maps based on your selected text and one of various home addresses. You can manage various 'home addresses' and find directions from one of your home addresses to the selected addresses by right-clicking on that selected address. I wanted to do this and had been interested in making an extension, so there. It's still alpha and doesn't work that great, but it does work.

It feels like fall right now after it really cooled off... which only means that it's closer to winter, which means closer to boarding time. That's good because I almost exploded today, but it'll be a new day soon. Poo on the old day. The drivers around Kenmore are mean mean mean -- that wasn't the pooey part, but it didn't help.

( the sign added to the past )

I woke up to a horribly loud noise today -- I have no idea what it was, but I went back to sleep and got up a little later... it's a pretty bleak and rainy day out right now. Apt for some work, so at least that's good. Right now I'm searching for a good trance and emo to compile a good running playlist... yes, unfortunately, these are my genres of choice fo running. Skating is monopolized by hiphop, alkaline trio, ann natalie merchant (with or without 10000 maniacs), but running... (livewire needs a spell check; I just typed the same misspelled word twice.) I get to see the west coast northrup people in a couple weeks at Sas's, which should be great... decemberists and death cab in central park on Thursday, then a couple nights for Anna's graduation, then a canadian visitor for the weekend. This was in place before knowing that my folks were visiting my brother; it's too bad I could make that. But Jason and I are (well, mainly me so far) thinking of hiking Zermatt -- I think you can do that... In the meantime I'm thinking about snow (and a thesis, so real snow and I can be re-united).

sobe one

Sobe One was our copliot into an evening of music... some guitars, harmonicas, the occassional trumpet! A must to do again, soon.

I did put the groundwork into a darth tater itunes controller. And I saw there were plenty of itunes and ipod remotes out there, but I'll have no part in buying one.

And http://tinyurl.com/bpnrs is the route from yesterday. tinyurls are cool. nice job whoever is responsible. [modest mouse]. I forget the name of the song, but I had an old tool tune on yesterday and as far as rock music goes its a masterpiece -- you wade (wonderfully) through eleven minutes of beeautiful sounds to arrive at your lyrical destination:

Come down.
Get off your fuckin cross.
We need the fuckin space to nail the next fool martyr.

I love it.

Yesterday Luke and I departed on the Voyage of Beer, and it was tasty. We picked up some passengers along the way, and I'm pretty sure they got some good out of the voyage too... the purpose of the night was to show a movie (maybe involving a prep school) on the screen that we put on the roof, and that was going well into the game. Then the rain came and it was a wash out for roof movie-watching (pun certainly intended). Rushmore went on anyway and it was a fun evening... that is until I had the last dream that convinced me it was time to get up. What I remember is coming to a river to cross and scoping it out, so I climbed a tree. I want to say this river was familiar, but I have on idea where it is. So, I then see a raccoon came across the river and after me, and it started jumping partly playfully, partly wanting to attack me. So, I kept kicking it away until it fel backwards and broke its back. This wasn't a nice dream and was part II. Part I was talking to a noteworthy person in my lab while he said about rumors were that I was doing ____ for my thesis (which is telltale sign this is a *dream*) and that I should reconsider. He capped off the conversation by saying "so we're clear, it's cleared." meaning I should start over, I guess. It was a dream, who knows? But still a little unsettling...

I ran 13.1 miles yesterday, also, in preparation for the race in a month or so. It was pretty hard, and I'm sure the race day will be hard, but I'll just have to load the shuffle with the best itunes has to offer. I keep creeping into worse and worse shape, partly due to being on the least coast and partly age (maybe). I'd really like to get back where I was a couple years ago, but probably winter in the northeast is not the most convenient time to do that... Other than that not much for the day, worked a little, played some music, put together the afore-mentioned screen, which involved grommets (look it up).

I want to build something (or lots of things) today. Included in the possiblities are the following:

• itunes server for the house
• a song
• a remote control for itunes
• an rss feed publisher for itunes
• a wine rack
• integration with the pedometer to pick out appropriate play lists. That is, you pick a route and get a playlist that accompanies you based on your height (stride), pace you want, songs you have, etc...
• more?

We had a paper rejected -- not the end of the world, but disappointing. Probably the more disppointing part is having to work on it further... oh well. We found a roommate (fingers crossed). I dare say that out loud as this is third time I will have said something similar, and the other two obviously didn't pan out. Let's hope.

The projector is back, which only means good things. Someone was dogging bright eyes last night and almost got thrown out the window -- I let it slip because he had the new death cab, which is on now.

I'm always back and forth w.r.t. the shuttle -- is it good, is it bad? They're trying to do a good thing -- advance science and help people -- but there's got to be a more immediate need for the gobs of money dumped into the space program. I don't know that much about the economics of our country, and can't do anything about it (I won't be falsely optimistic about my 'role' in our republic), but there's just something weird about dumping all that money into space exploration. At the very least trusting the government of all people to spend and develop the technology -- leave this to competent people in the private sector that will gnaw and cut their way to developing the best tehcnology they can. The same is obvious for war, but there's no question in my mind about that being horrible and evil; about the space program there is... if the shuttle would crash one time that would probably make the astronauts bigger heros than they could ever become by landing safely, because it would stop the endless spending on space journeys. This is a horrible thing to say, and I hope it never does crash, but if you pre-emptively (I know this one DID land) put a good spin on a shuttle crash, this would be one way to do it.

I was told this was insanely wrong, well I think it's fixed now, and I can today I've been alive 9669 days, which sounds about right. I'm not sure what I said before, but I'm pretty sure this sounds more reasonable. I'm supposed to do a tempo run today, but I feel like just cramming some earphones and running and running and running, and not worry about going fast, then slow, then fast, then slow, ... The names thing was broken, too -- well, broken becase I didn't copy over something from the old site (?). Well, I have to hurry and finish something before my advisor gets back! [atmosphere] yummmmmmmmmm... lastly, I guess the next thing to which I'll count down in Vail openning, but I don't know when it is. Too far away -- too0o0o0o0oo fucking far away.

on the shuffle

It's been a long time since I've been close to you It's been a long time since I've been sad. It's been a while since I've really spent time with you Wish I could take back the times that I had. The only thing that you ever really did for me Was make me oh so miserable. And the hope that I never see your face again Is anything but questionable. I hope this is goodbye. I hope this is goodbye. There was a time when I thought you were a friend to me I think those times I was probably just drunk. And if they offered a test about being a good friend I'd put money down that you'd surely flunk. The only thing that you ever really took from me Were my records to sell them for dope. Now all I have left is this heart in my chest And my happiness helping me cope I hope this is goodbye It's been a long time since I've been close to you. It's been a long time since I've been sad. It's been a while since I've really spent time with you. Wish I could take back the times that I had. The only thing that you ever really did for me Was make me oh so miserable. And the hope that I never see your face again Is anything but questionable. There was a time that I thought you were a friend to me I think those times I was probably just drunk. And if they offered a test about being a good friend I'd put money down that you'd surely flunk. The only thing that you ever really took from me were my records to Hawk them for dope. Now all I have left is this heart in my chest, Your dishonesty helping me cope. I hope this is goodbye. I hope this is goodbye....

I was a little embarassed with my music selection late in the day yesterday, and I'm still listening to the same, so I'll keep it to myself... the monkey fell. We put the monkey up in the entrance stairs and he's run out of air. It's a shame. And, Death Cab + Decemberists are next wednesday, not this one -- thanks to Ben. I'm sure we would have found fruitful activities to do in NYC even without the show, but it's good to know.

The new shuffle is shuffling and no one has stolen it yet, so that's a plus. I haven't had a chance to run with it, because I felt like death yesterday after finally getting over a flu I had had for a couple days. I asked for it, by having a less than wholesome week before, but it's over now. Planning to hear the decemberists and death cab in central park this Thursday, so we'll probably head down Wednesday, but that's still in the air. Still desperately trying to drive out some sort of drivel for the end of September. You would think my advisor being out of town would give me some freedom and I would be turning ideas out faster, but it don't and it hasn't... oh well. Guitared my fingers bloody yesterday, which amounted to good things. Also saw million dollar baby, which was ok. It probably would've been better had the the punchline been more contraversial (or contraversail at all) to me. I would have pulled her plug months before. Anyway.

I bought a new shuffle -- please, nobody steal it this time. We also got another sign -- a traffic-light-is-approaching one this time, which is quite appropriate for events later in the evening at the garden. And I can say now I'm approaching feeling normal after last night. I slept very late, which is very strange, but that's ok. Ran, and than hurt. A good evening -- not too many people. But quite a few new polaroids for the wall. I would say more, but you're probably better off asking someone with a clearer picture of it.

I was running an experiment yesterday testing random web pages to see if they were w3 compliant and the results are in... of 5047 chosen pages 2048 were compliant, which is just over 40%. This is suprisingly high, considering for most of the time the ratio was much closer to 20%. I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, here is the source -- in Perl, of course. It just chooses a random site and validates it's html. Nothing big.

Three more signs to the arsenal and another successful night skate, this time up to mission hill. After Anna's presentation and a gathering at the Muddy for beer and beer and then (oh yeah) more beer. Bio people, Leo, Ayman, me. A nice time. It was a more enjoyable walk across the bridge this time, though, even though it was essentially the same sign crew as before. We were cheered rather than jeered, which is the way it should be. And none of those people were cops this time -- s so that's good.

Anna's design presentation was good. Lots of good things to see. Lots of good people to see... I should start hanging out there more -- yum. More so, it was a chance to throw around the self-serving beer restaurant idea, which was (of course!) well taken. How couldn't it be?

Oh, and from the organization... we have some new pictures just in on the guestbook. Keep up the support.

This is a very cool. A google maps pedometer for running. I had written a shittier version of this -- I'm glad someone came through!

We're having a party. Partly to find a new roomate -- the one before is now in the air for various unfortunate reasons. The other reason is to have a party. Now that begs the question. That is, is one were to ask me "why are you having a party?" and I answered "because we're having a party", that would be begging the question -- I think.

I feel sorry for Brittany having to care for Eric after we bought him drink after drink after drink after shot and drink for his birthday last night. I sucked at pool, but what's new? [ Strokes ].

Wedding crashers was good and for those who say there was no plot, boo on you. The plot was two guys crashing weddings + the normal hollywood goodies. Yeah, you didn't have to think about it too much, but that's not always a bad thing. And before that a few pictures of PBR's finest at the other side... I saw two dozen (yes, about 24) cop cars yesterday rolling down comm ave with a white ford bronco in the middle. What was that? I needn't say what the last white ford bronco was up to... Boston's way to small for the juice... we have a shindig this Friday, but we'll see -- we have to work on party favors.

I've probably done more staring and hair pulling today than I have in a long time, and now I'm listening to an old tune from an album that's two shades of green with a little zebra on it. Maybe it will calm me down a little -- I doubt it. This is 'part of the process' so I'm told... aimlessness, restlessness, no direction... yeah. Oh, it's fun. I was just pinged to meet for drinks after work. The only problem is that I haven't done any work today, really. I haven't done any work that I can be proud of in the last half decade, and that bugs me. I bugs the shit out of me. But, I can still be borderline rational occasionally and think that this may be just a shitty day (or week or month or year or whatever). Anyway, it's time to step away from my computer, because I want to throw something through the fucking wall, and I don't own this machine.

I should learn to spell.

Oh my god, did it rain last night... I could have sworn we were being bombed it was raining so hard, and lightning, and thunder. I hope the pool is OK. Today is my first day for preparing for a half marathon. I guess, if anything, the mandatory rest periods will help the most, as I've gotten into quite a rut lately in running and my knees are probably about to fall out at the seams. Or joints (?).

We were sending in publications for our lab page -- to which I don't really consider myself a member -- and I got an immediate response about the bibtex entry I sent in: "do you mean abd or and [this was separating names]?" Ahhhhh, the love that goes back and forth in the PRL in unbelievable. Of course I mean abd, it's my special conjunction... I use it on rare occasions.

I did stumble upon a motivating example for another paper, which I'll try to pursue... the deadline is in September sometime, and if I don't get it out I'd image that would be the end for my sentence probably. That's ok, Breckenridge opens a couple weeks afterwards, Vail probably the next week, I'll buy a trailer and a missile launcher, it's cool.

http://www.jeffpalm.com/donotenter/.

We celebrated Jeremy's last year here by hanging out on the roof for his last night, then grilling some food, then camping out up there. That is, until it started to drizzle at around 4am ... but it was cool, shelter was close by. We'll miss him, despite this horrendous picture of the two of us... and, I'm told we're throwing a shindig in honor of him in his former pataltial estate of a room upstairs. Not to be missed, I'm sure. We also chatted about our futures, Leo possbily to a VC, Jeremy somewhere... Luke and I were quiet, but I'm secretly planning my escape: I'm going to build a space ship -- the biggest fucking space ship you've ever seen. That, too, is not to be missed... in the mean time Micranots will have to do.