Kevin's Journal

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:35:11 GMT

Is anybody else having problems with Facebook? I keep tabs open dedicated to major sites I use a lot (FB, the Ozone, Bloglines) and just refresh periodically. Just in the past day or so, whenever I refresh Facebook, it takes me to the login screen and asks me to log in. Sometimes I type my password and it logs me back in, but most of the time I get stuck in a loop. Does this happen to anyone else, or am I maybe having cookie issues with my browser?

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:56:13 GMT

I think everyone who reads this is friends with me on Facebook, but if not, I just posted some pictures of the OSU library renovation over there that you should check out. It's a public album, so you can view it even if you're not friends with me, but you should friend me anyway.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:55:02 GMT

The saddest article in the history of the New York Times. Say it with me now: "Awwwwww."

Tue, 19 May 2009 22:17:23 GMT

Overheard in Columbus

Backstory: I'm sitting at Panera on Grandview Avenue, and there are some people at the table next to me. Two of them arrived just after I got here, an employer and an employee. The employee promptly resigned from his job. The two of them continued talking until a third person arrived. The employer greeted the third man by saying "John just shared with me some disturbing news". The third man replied "oh, you told him about your diarrhea?" This really happened.

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:11:13 GMT

I suppose this is old news, but some people who have followed the saga might be interested. I have mastered my kitchen nemesis, the grilled cheese sandwich. No longer will I throw bread across the room in frustration. The sandwiches I made the other night were not only a breeze to make, but they were so perfectly done that the cheese was nearly liquid while the bread remained golden brown. The best grilled cheese I've ever eaten. So that's progress.

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:16:45 GMT

Hey guys, I need some help with something that's been bugging me. Jill, you know your writing utensils, so I'm especially looking at you. When I was in high school, there were these super-awesome pencils. They were circular, not orthogonal, and painted black and very smooth. I remember them being called something like "Beryl Black Warrior" or something like that, but Google returns nothing related. There is a Black Warrior pencil by a company called Mirado, but that doesn't sound familiar. (Also, Staples doesn't carry it.) Does anyone else remember these? What were they called and where can I buy some?

EDIT: I found them. They were called Berol (with an O) Black Warriors. Berol was bought by Sanford/Papermate, and now they are marketed under the Mirado name.

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:13:32 GMT

WHY I DIDN'T WIN MY NCAA TOURNAMENT POOL

First, let's concentrate on what I did correctly: I picked the national champion. I have been filling out brackets for nearly 20 years, and I've never done that before. I've had some memorable letdowns (Big Dog Robinson, Santa Clara over Arizona), but mostly I've picked Kansas and they've let me down. Last year, I thought I'd learned my lesson and picked against KU. When they won, it felt like God was telling me to give up. But this year I did it! (Full disclosure: I entered three brackets. One was my OSU bracket - OSU won the national championship. The second was my wishful thinking bracket. The third was my money bracket - the one that actually had a chance to win the pool. I picked UNC in my money bracket.)

In retrospect, it seems difficult to see how I couldn't have picked North Carolina to win. Their depth is incredible - NC's bench could have been a three-seed. But for some reason, only six people in my 45-person pool picked them to win. So that was good. But it wasn't enough, for the following reasons:

1. I overestimated Memphis. When one of your two finalists loses in the Sweet 16, it's bad news. I picked Memphis based almost entirely on last year, when they actually did reach the championship game. In my mind, I saw another edition of John Calipari's team getting no respect. I saw an opportunity to outfox my co-workers. What I didn't consider was that, between then and now, they lost the #1 overall draft pick last summer. So yeah, Memphis was a pretty good team this year, but good in the mid-major sense, in that Gonzaga and Xavier were good. I still wouldn't have picked Missouri to beat Memphis, but I probably should have taken UConn in the Elite Eight. (More on both later.)

2. I tried to ride West Virginia and failed miserably. WVU was my secret weapon; I had them in the Elite Eight and I didn't feel like that was a stretch. They had to beat Dayton in the first round, which didn't seem hard; Kansas in the second (see below); and then Michigan State in the third. MSU, keep in mind, was coming off a loss to Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament, which lowered their stock in my eyes. And of course, Dayton won in the first round game. That's seven points down the drain. I actually had UD winning in my wishful thinking bracket.

3. I underestimated UConn. I watched the Huskies play Pitt at the end of the regular season with my sister, and I wasn't exactly thrilled. They looked undisciplined, and Hasheem Thabeet looked too raw. I let that one game mix with my general distaste for the Big East and picked them to lose in the Elite Eight. That's eight wasted points. UConn's depth is second only to UNC's. Thabeet is raw, but he's also 7'4". And I broke my own rule and ignored Jeff Adrien. If I could do it over, I would pick UConn in the championship game.

4. I underestimated the Big XII. I only really respected Oklahoma. I thought Kansas lost too much from last year to make a run, and Missouri was too obscure. Texas was the only other team I had winning in the first round. As it turns out, the Big XII went undefeated in the first round and only lost two games (to a one-seed and a two-seed) in the second. Missouri turned out to be better (and Memphis worse) than I thought, and Kansas still has several solid players.

5. I overestimated Duke. I have a soft spot for the style of ball Duke plays, and I let emotions win over reason. I picked Duke to beat Pitt in the Elite Eight and set up an epic matchup with UNC in the Final Four. Of course, Duke never got that far, losing to Villanova in the Sweet Sixteen. That game sealed my fate, since there was another guy in the pool with exactly the same Elite Eight as me except for Nova instead of Duke. Since he was a couple of points ahead of me going into the game, with Duke's loss the best I could finish was second. I had Villanova in the Final Four in one of my other brackets, though, so it wasn't a complete shock.

6. I probably should have ridden Arizona a little further than I did. I correctly picked them to beat Utah (ignoring the Utes' great-looking uniforms), but I let the low seed and last-team-in stigma scare me off of a second round upset. This is a team with two lottery picks. They're better than their record. Of course, there's no way I could have predicted that they would play Cleveland State in the second round, but even against Wake Forest I think the Wildcats matched up well. Unlike my friend Jed, who had the Deacs in the Final Four, I thought Wake was overrated and ripe for an upset. I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

I didn't pick terribly. I can't criticize myself for getting 8-vs.-9 games wrong (I picked each of them incorrectly) because statistically, that's 50-50. Other than that, I only missed a couple of other games. If I'd picked just a couple games differently (Kansas over West Virginia in the second round, UConn over Memphis in the Elite Eight, Villanova over Duke in the Sweet Sixteen), I would have had 14 more points, enough to put me in third place in my pool. Picking one more (MSU into the Elite Eight) would have tied me for second place. I guess none of it really matters, because the winner of the pool was so far ahead of everyone else. But I would have been happier in second place.

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:34:51 GMT

Big news. For only the second time in history, I changed my userpic. It looks pretty crappy, so if any of you have image-editing software, I'd appreciate it if you could rescale it to make it look better. The original image is here.

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:55:39 GMT

Neologism of the Day

Avenireal disease: an STD that you will be infected with in the future.

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:42:56 GMT

More humanities awesomeness.

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:16:40 GMT

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:51:16 GMT

Someone assured me this would be worth reading, so here goes:

I've been thinking a lot about gardening recently. Living in an apartment, I don't have a yard I can use to garden, so it's all speculative, but it's been on my mind. I want a formal garden. Like, Versailles-style. I've got an idea of what I want.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX                           XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX                           XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooXX
XXoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXooo____oooXXooo                         oooXXooo____oooXX
XXoooooooooooooooo                       ooooooooooooooooXX
XXooooooooooooooooo                      ooooooooooooooooXX
XXooo*************oo       ^^^^^^^     oo*************oooXX
XXooo***************oooooooooooooooooo****************oooXX
XXooo***************oooooooooooooooooo****************oooXX
XXooo***************ooo            ooo****************oooXX
XXoooooooooooooooooo    ##       ##    ooooooooooooooooooXX
XXoooooooooooooooooo    ##       ##    ooooooooooooooooooXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

KEY:
XX = 36" tall boxwood.
*** = 36" tall yew, planted in quincunxes.
## = trees (see note).
___ = 24" tall brick planters (see note).
^^ = bench.
ooo = gravel walkway
Everything else is grass, which I intend to be highly manicured (like a fairway).

It is, of course, not to scale.

Note: I'm not sure what trees to plant yet, or what flowers to plant in the planters. I have a couple ideas. The best idea, IMO, is to go with an Ohio theme and plant Buckeye trees and scarlet carnations. The other options for trees are Japanese maples or cherries (although I'd then have to decide between fruit or flowering cherries). For flowers, I'm also considering tulips, marigolds, and roses. None of those options really fit together the way Buckeyes and carnations do, though. I suppose I have plenty of time to decide.

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:29:01 GMT

I just had a walk-in customer tell me that the leaf pictures above my desk are "the most creative thing [she's] seen in months." She thinks I should get a booth at like Comfest or something like that and sell them for $20 each. She went on and on about how great they were. It kinda weirded me out. I obviously like them, but are they really that great?

Also, why do I feel so uncomfortable when people compliment me?

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:09:05 GMT

I don't watch much TV, but I turn my TV on fairly frequently. I like to have the background noise. A few years ago, I would watch news, but then the tone got to be too screechy. I watched sports, but I can't stand ESPN's constant editorializing, so that limited my options. In football season I left it on the Big Ten Network, but I don't care as much for basketball, so instead I have alighted upon HGTV.

HGTV airs two kinds of programming: design shows and real estate shows. The design shows are of varying quality. Some are useful; some are cringe-worthy (note to landscapers: replacing all the grass in someone's front yard with mulch is not a pleasing landscape). These generally run during the day and on weekends, so I don't see very much of them. In prime time, HGTV runs the real estate shows. They are myriad, but interchangeable. There's "Property Virgins", in which a yuppie helps other yuppies buy their first house (in the process explaining that six-bedroom/four-bath houses in the nicest part of town don't exist in a price range of under $100,000). There's "My First Place", in which a different yuppie each episode helps other yuppies buy their first house (in the process explaining that six-bedroom/four-bath houses in the nicest part of town don't exist in a price range of under $100,000). There's "The Property Shop", in which a yuppie complains about how hard it is to be a realtor. There's "The Unsellables", in which a (remarkably hot) British yuppie tells other yuppies that the reason their house is still on the market is because they don't clean well enough. There's "Designed to Sell", in which a decidedly less attractive British yuppie and an American yuppie tell other yuppies that the reason their house is still on the market is because it's ugly and needs to be remodeled. There's "The Stagers", in which a yuppie daughter yells at her yuppie mother for not working as the daughter would like, and an apparently unrelated gay man attempts to confirm every stereotype of homosexuals (speaking with a lisp, wearing really tight jeans, using a vocabulary of only "OMIGOD" and "fabulous). The crown jewel is "House Hunters", in which yuppies look at three houses and decide to buy one, like a game show. Sometimes they complain about the price, or the neighborhood, or the condition of the kitchen. There's nothing wrong with this. I do the same thing when I'm looking for a place to live. It's just rather grating to watch other people do it.

This week is "House Hunters International Vacation Home" week, in which we get to watch yuppies drop half a million on a house they'll visit maybe twice a year, often in countries that are desparately poor. (Favorite moment: when the buyer in Nicaragua asked why there were bars on all his windows.) It's an annoying show even in good times, but it's even more so in these times. In Nevada, one out of every 70 houses is in foreclosure. It seems mean-spirited to make these people, who are losing the only home they have, watch people compare their $600,000 vacation condo on Waikiki to their $3m mansion in Beverly Hills. So I wrote a letter to HGTV:

The bursting of the so-called "housing bubble" has led to the most severe economic downturn in this country since the Great Depression. HGTV is uniquely positioned in mainstream media to explore the causes and effects of the housing crisis, and to educate its viewers on how to avoid some of the traps to which so many others have recently fallen victim. Instead, HGTV chose to air "House Hunters International Vacation Home Week". I understand that HGTV programming is aspirational; however, the tone is so out of sync with the times that it is almost offensive. I would like to register my displeasure and express my hope for more responsible programming in the future.

Granted, watching a show about a family getting kicked out of their house would probably be depressing. But imagine how helpful a show about home finance could be. If you're thinking about buying a home, you could tune in to see why taking out an adjustable rate mortgage for 125% of the asking price is a bad idea, or what kinds of things could turn up in a home inspection, or what kind of auxiliary expenses (e.g. property taxes) you'll need to budget for when calculating how much you can afford. That sort of information, distributed so publicly, might really help.

Instead, escapism rules.

(Cross-posted to Facebook, because even though I think it has jumped the proverbial shark, I want to consolidate my social media usage.)

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:29:44 GMT

Holy cow! I might have just found a way to achieve one of my long-standing life goals.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:31:15 GMT

OK business majors, let's talk:

"If doctors or lawyers wreaked such havoc in their own professions, we would certainly reconsider what is being taught at medical and law schools."

Humanities rule.

Discuss.

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:06:41 GMT

Do any of you guys watch movies? Something occurred to me today and I want to discuss. It's my opinion that, with a few exceptions, movies about Vietnam suck. I have a hypothesis: there are two kinds of Vietnam filmmakers, hippies and reactionaries. Hippies hate the war, and their films depict it as absurd. Reactionaries hate hippies, and their films depict the war as john wayne-ish. What I found interesting, though, is that neither side cares about the Vietnamese. Can you name a single Vietnamese character in a Vietnam movie? My friend Andy, whose DVD collection spans all four walls of his bedroom floor to ceiling, came up with the hooker in Full Metal Jacket, and I got the kid from Good Morning Vietnam. That's it. That's the thing about Vietnam movies: they're not about the war. They're not America vs. Vietnam; they're America vs. America. (Most arent even war movies. They're existential brooding by soldiers. You could transpose the setting without losing much of the plot, which of course is what Apocalypse Now did.) I think it would be interesting to see a movie from the Vietnamese perspective. Maybe not Letters from Iwo Jima-style, all-NVA, but with a few deeply developed characters from the other side. It was a pretty complicated war for them as well.

Incidentally, Good Morning Vietnam is my favorite Vietnam movie.

Discuss.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:42:46 GMT

R.I.P. Socks.

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:25:10 GMT

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Phase one (take up carpentry) is complete. Progress to phase two: gather disciples.

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:09:09 GMT

This kid died wearing one of our warmups. We're sending him another because the family wants to bury him in it because he liked it so much. This is causing me kind of a lot of anguish.

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:19:10 GMT

Are any of you aware of words that I consistently misspell? I know I make typos periodically, but I think I have a pretty good command of everything. I've been coming across "indefinitly" a few times today at work, and it's driving me batty.

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:44:43 GMT

One month goal update:

I set 35 goals for myself. Roughly 20 of them are continuous, year-long projects. The other 15 are one-time things. So, after the first month, how am I doing?

I've completed one-third of one discrete goal and I've succeeded in two-thirds of one the continuous goals. I saw a symphony performance, and I'm currently reading two books. I attempted to read the newspaper in French, but failed. Well, not failed; didn't succeed. I could make out roughly half of what was going on. That's better than I expected.

I will complete another on Sunday if people come to the Sherman Day celebration, and I came very close to not drinking at all. I had one drink, champagne following the best man's toast that I gave at my brother's wedding.

I'm not doing as bad as it sounds. Many of the continuous ones are things that will require a lot of effort, and won't be close to accomplished until the end of the year. And at least seven of the discrete goals could not have been achieved in January. That said, I'm slacking hard.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:17:16 GMT

Despite being forced into going to work today, I was happy to see my tulips improving.

Note the tears on the leaves. That's the tulip equivalent of cutting your arms.

Just in case you couldn't make it out yourself, I made a macro emphasizing it.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:01:13 GMT

If any of you have an ice scraper, could you please bring it to my apartment? Mine died this morning, and I'm apparently not allowed to call off work.

Edited to add picture.