Twenty-five

Saturday, January 31, 2009

I was recently tagged in a Facebook Note by my friend Vanessa to do this, so here we are. Random* facts now.

  1. I talk to myself constantly when I'm alone, and usually in different accents.
  2. If I had more time, and the wherewithal to buy a nice TV, a PlayStation 3, and an Xbox 360, I'd play all sorts of videogames.
  3. I have a favorite pen: the Pentel R.S.V.P. BK90 Fine-tipped black pen. I used one of these puppies at work once and it was like a whole new world. I sketch out all of my proofs using these.
  4. I'd like to retire — presumably with my wife — to the English countryside, with an enormous library of books, a fireplace, a large yard, and a beautiful kitchen.
  5. Again, if I had a whole bunch of time on my hands, I'd like to learn how to play the piano.
  6. I have Snoopy & Woodstock-themed flannel bed sheets.
  7. I write all of the posts on this blog in hand-coded HTML because Blogger uses ridiculous styling methods with its WYSIWIG editor. I'm also a pedant.
  8. I'd trade just about anything to play baseball for the Chicago Cubs.
  9. I consider Bull Durham to be the best sports movie ever created.
  10. I love taking showers.
  11. I can't swim very well, and gave up on lessons once my sister's friends trickled into my skill-level at the local YMCA.
  12. I've never sold back a textbook to the bookstore, although now that I've sort of given up on undergraduate Economics, I'd like to clear some space on my bookshelf by selling off my intro- and intermediate-level textbooks.
  13. I'm mildly afraid of heights.
  14. I still love playing around with LEGOs, especially the part where I build a bunch of spaceships.
  15. In the course of writing this — which, predictably, took longer than one sitting — I've been tagged by Sam Hoymeistersteinson.
  16. Playing around with last names and nicknames is something I rather enjoy. Much like Rob Schneider on Saturday Night Live
  17. I've never seen any American Pie movies.
  18. Kneading dough makes me happy, as does baking in general. But kneading dough makes me feel badass.
  19. I have an unhealthy interest in typography.
  20. Raising my sister and I without cable television was, in retrospect, probably the best decision my parents ever made. It sure sucked at the time, though.
  21. When I was in third grade, I wrote in an assignment for school that said if I couldn't be a professional baseball player, I wanted to be a Mathematician. Prophetic? The next year will tell.
  22. Despite loving nearly every facet of Madison, after nearly sixteen years of living here, I'm ready to move elsewhere.
  23. As Sam noted, I am not a fan of hipsters. You've got to make a good impression if you harbor hipster inclinations.
  24. My favorite coffee mug is one I purchased in Oxford, and it has the shields and founding dates of all of the Oxford colleges across it.
  25. Although I rarely have time to listen, I love the AM radio shows A Prairie Home Companion and The Nick Digilio Show

As for taggings, Sam has already crafted one of these, but I'd love to see one from Katie, Steph, and the Jew, perhaps. Actually, anyone who reads this blog should feel compelled, and then they should comment with a link. A link, I say!

* "Random" is a bit of a misnomer, as truly random facts would be forcefully taken from my brain out of the entire pool of "facts about Brian." This is ridiculous, and a more apt title would be "Twenty-five facts about myself that bubbled to the top of my head, and were considered interesting enough to publish on the internet." But that would be no fun, and too long.

Long walks on the cold, hard sidewalk

Friday, January 30, 2009

What surprised me most when I first joined the cycling club during the first few weeks of my freshman year — and still surprises me, really — is the multitude of members who started commuting by bike (in addition to the usual throw-on-the-spandex-and-bolt riding) not because they want to perpetually savor the thrill of pedaling, but because they hate the prospect of walking. I simply don't understand this aversion.

Very willingly will I trade the speed of a pedaled commute for the opportunity to think during a nice, long walk.

On my walk home tonight — from the skating rink, so a longer walk than usual — I had a lot of time to think. About dinner, and after-dinner, and my day, and the past week, which was unusual in too many ways. I mulled over some math problems that were, and still are, in my head, and I thought about how much — and how subtly — the persistent construction in Madison has changed the campus, even in my short tenure here. I thought about dinner again, actually.

Despite all of that, I mostly thought about nothing. The traffic din and the cold helped, I think, to just move my mind's focus from everything to nothing.

Golly, I'm tired.

In which I discuss macsturbation

Friday, January 23, 2009

I went to an iPhone Development Workshop the other day — Wednesday, to be precise — to learn about how educational departments might utilize the iPhone, and to see the tools used to develop iPhone applications. It was interesting. I have a write-up in the works* that I'll send to my boss. And I got to skip class.

Subsequently, though, I tweeted my disdain with the so-called "macsturbation" I witnessed. Definition**:

mac·stur·ba·tion
1. overstimulation while using a Macintosh computer as caused by excessive use of Exposé and Spaces, especially during a presentation, lecture, or otherwise organized event.
2. gently stroking an Apple product in an affectionate manner.
3. discussing the latest Apple products with unnecessary fervor with another Apple admirer.
4. actually masturbating over a Macintosh computer.

A quick Google search would indicate that I have not minted this term in general — although I don't think I had ever seen it before I uttered it for the first time to my programming partner last semester; I figured it was too easy a wordplay to be overlooked, however — but I do think I'm the first to use it as described in the first definition (the other three I threw in so the definition wouldn't appear weak — (co)incidentally, these three are all in use on the greater Internet).

The term first came to me as I sat bored in my Data Structures class last semester, watching a fellow student a couple of rows down Cmd-Tabbing, Exposé-ing, Quicksilver-searching, and Space-switching in between the following programs, in the order of how often I anecdotally recall him using: Google, Gmail, Yahoo Stocks, Google Reader, Flash Games, Microsoft Word (to take notes, presumably), Google Calendar, and Eclipse IDE. As an aside, and specifically in retrospect, I'm curious as to why he'd use Yahoo as his source for financial information when he's clearly got at least two feet in Google's camp. Anyway.

I will say, I'm quite impressed that he consistently used this machine-gun approach to laptop use during every seventy-five minute lecture that I can recall, for the entire seventy-five minutes. I never heard him speak one word. He wore a sleeveless shirt under his coat on one of the coldest days of the year. Oh, Computer Science.

But to go back to the iPhone Development seminar, I saw at least ten similarly-minded people who, through the entire two-and-a-half hour workshop, were zipping from blogs to NetNewsWire to Mail to Adium and then back to the blogs, where they'd read a sentence or two, and then jet off to another window.

As I said in my tweet, I'm a Mac-user. I have so many great things to say about my MacBook, and so many exclusive applications I love for my share of computer-based hobbies and jobs, that I'll likely have to write a separate post to pay my libations. I use Exposé to swiftly switch windows, and while Spotlight has its fair share of problems, it takes at most ten keystrokes to find a file or application that isn't already in my Dock. These are the features that I miss most when I use Windows (although there are undoubtedly Windows applications I could use to achieve the same functionality — but it wouldn't be the same).

So why the disdain? I find it ridiculous that this sort of computer use actually makes sense to people — the fact that they're Mac users is likely coincidence, but macsturbation has a ring that personal-computerbation will never have. When I'm developing on my laptop, sure, I flip windows pretty frequently between my text-editor and browser, with a splash of FTP client, MySQL client and Version Control client thrown in as needed. But to focus simultaneously on a lecture, a game, a feed reader, email, and stock prices is ludicrous. Hmph.

* I should note that, at the time of writing the first paragraph, I was sitting in pajamas, killing time by writing until I could hop in the shower. Well, I didn't get back to it until now, after work, and the write-up is done. For the sake of the post, this is probably irrelevant, and I kind of regret making note of it, but here we are.

** I realize that this is technically a poor definition, since it combines verbs and nouns. I guess I can live with myself, so I hope you'll forgive me

Small Spaces

Monday, January 19, 2009

Last night I ate dinner with my folks and a couple of our family friends over at their beautiful Arboretum home. While I sat on the couch listening to the conversation and half-watching the football game, I spied this fascinating little book called Living in Small Spaces and spent much of the evening paging through it, enthralled.

Given my intended educational track, I'll be living in "small spaces" for the next decade or so, and yet the ingenuity required to live comfortably in such a space makes me think again about ever buying a larger-than-average home*. It's akin to the phrase "brevity is the soul of wit" — if you only have so much space to put your shit, you've got to figure out how to store it intelligently. A small home (or apartment) also lends itself, perhaps counter-intuitively, to entertaining; parties, gatherings, and soirée's ought to bring people together, and a large room only encourages wall-polarity.

* As a kid, I used to tape about six sheets of white construction paper together, and lay out a rough blueprint of my future "house," which generally had at least two swimming pools, a baseball stadium, a McDonald's, a theme-park, a mall, and a bedroom or two. I also usually drew in Great White Sharks circling the premises, hidden in the depths of my moat.

Quietly Gearing Up

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Over the past couple of days I've slowly come to the realization that class does, in fact, start on Tuesday and that I've done little to prepare as such, outside of buying books (which I actually just finished doing mere minutes ago).

If I was asked to rate this break, I'd probably make some sort of snorting noise and counter-ask what sort of fool rates breaks. Really. If I was asked to talk about how I felt about this recent break, I'd probably understate it and say "it was pretty okay."

This break was interesting, really. I read voraciously — something I always mean to do, but never take the time — and I worked much less than I could have so that I might have time to enjoy myself. In those respects, it was unlike any other break I've had since starting university, and consequently, where I was once burned-out, I'm refreshed and ready for classes to kick back into gear.

Get Off My Lawn

Monday, January 12, 2009

So I saw Gran Torino last night with Jamie and Stu (woo, future roommates!). I won't say anything about it, as just about everything noteworthy I could say would spoil the movie for others, but I do highly recommend it. A fair warning for my asian friends such as Katie: while there are a lot of racial slurs in the movie, most of them are directed at asians, so if that's not your bag, stay as far away as possible: Clint Eastwood held very few punches.

Update: To expand on the above, I should say that very rarely — say, in a handful of scenes — is the usage due to anything more than Walt being an old-timer, and a Korean War veteran at that. I suppose you could say it's "light-hearted," but I will not speak for others.

Anyway, a week from now, you'll find me packing my backpack once more for the start of second semester. I have what I think is a pretty nice assortment of classes:

  • Math 522 - Analysis II
  • Math 542 - Abstract Algebra II
  • French 101 - Bonjour! (Not actually the class name, but why not?)
  • Econ 450 - Wages & the Labor Market

Unfortunately, a new semester brings with it new textbooks, which, as of now, will likely deplete a good portion of the money I've made by working over the recess. But, such is the price of knowledge, I suppose. Even so, I can't help but feel just a little miffed when my French workbook costs $170. I'm being robbed.

Pip!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Just short of three weeks to the day on which I began, I've finished Great Expectations. Before I write anything else, I'm compelled to tip my cap to Everyman's Library editions of novels. If, twenty years down the stretch (when, presumably, I've struck it rich), I could re-purchase every book in my possession as an item in this collection, I'd do it in a second. My library would ooze class, and I'd ride around on my ladder with wheels affixed to the tops of my bookshelves, laughing with the laugh of a man who just bought an absurd number of finely-bound hardcover books.

But getting back to Dickens, I'm making quite an understatement when I say that I enjoyed this book wholly — from beginning to end, I never found myself stagnating in the middle of a page, waiting for something to happen, for some paragraph to grab me back into the novel, as I occasionally did in David Copperfield (although I will say that Copperfield is my favorite of the two). I remember learning in high school that, in The Great Gatsby (which has a great typo-twin, The Great Hatsby), F. Scott Fitzgerald strove to write the perfect paragraph — he came damn close at the very end, I'd say, but in Great Expectations, I found myself on several occasions re-reading a single paragraph, feeling as I did when reading the closing of Gatsby. But even with those outliers aside, the writing kept me, the reader, along at an even pace.

Parting with the characters was bittersweet: on the one hand, I was happy for Pip, who had found his place in life, and for Joe and Biddy who had found happiness together; but on the other, I was sad to leave the characters — much like finishing The Deathly Hallows or Lord of the Rings was like losing most of my friends. Every great novel, leaves the reader with that inkling of sadness that the tale is told. For my purposes, anyway, this is a good rubric to have on-hand.

Anyway, I think that's all I'll say for now. Next up is Norwegian Wood. This will mark the second time I've followed Dickens with a Murakami story. My life is nothing but one big thrill ride, I know.

Nothing For It

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Being sick, I mean.

It set it Friday evening in a matter of hours: at work I was fine, at my lease-signing I had a few sniffles, and by ten that night I had those weird lower-back sensations, where you feel a combination of stiffness and general restlessness, a sore throat, a light fever, and a headache. Saturday was not a whole lot better. Only on Sunday did my drastic increase in tea-intake start to shine through, and yesterday and today I only have the remnants of my weekend symptoms.

All was not lost, though. Being at my parents' house, I had little to do but read, and as such, I'm maybe forty pages away from concluding Great Expectations, and am very much caught up on local happenings and various comics' story lines. I reaffirmed that the one cat genuinely fears for her life when I'm in earshot, too, and that the other has absolutely no regard for privacy of any sort. Although I really can't blame him — if I were a cat, I'd be curious about the shower, too.

A Map to the...wait, what?

Friday, January 2, 2009

There you have it, folks: the namesake of this blog. Rather, I should say, this blog's reincarnate, as I wrote a [lesser] blog A Map to the Refrigerator during high-school, oh-so-many years ago.

But where to begin? The phrase is overused, but I'd say it's appropriate given the introductory nature of this post, at least thus far (I could just blow off on tangents later on…you just wait!). I suppose I'll begin with a little history — seems like a logical place to start.

History!

I've written things on the internet since Xanga first came about. I hopped over to Blogger for while, undoubtedly had a LiveJournal at one point, have blogged on my own domain, had another domain which was attacked by Turkish ePirates, and most recently took a break because I couldn't find a rhythm.

So what's this?

Well, I'm not sure just yet. Lately I've had the itch to just write. You know, just for the hell of it. To use words that I don't ordinarily get to use, such as betimes which is, in my opinion, a nice alternative to early, on occasion. Perhaps I'll talk about the books I'm reading, or the neat things I'm learning about in my Math classes, or the fun that will be researching graduate schools.

Whatever it turns out to be, which is likely nothing consequential, I'm going to write for myself. My most egregious error in my most recent efforts has been writing as though I'm writing for something else. Along with the phrase "where to begin?," this is an overused sentiment ("I'm going to just lose weight/live/fight/eat crackers for myself and not anyone else!,") but in this case, the outcome won't be some sort of triumphant overcoming of adversity for my own improvement, but rather a departure from any sort of academic writing for my own enjoyment.

And, hopefully, yours.