Shouzer

So I was walking to an exam earlier today.  Along the way I came to a crosswalk that has a bunch of signs around it explicitly telling cars to yield to pedestrians.  Even as I was walking up to the street, there were a bunch of people already crossing.  Right before I got to the curb, there was a small gap in the line of people walking across.  Suddenly this chick whose waiting in a car to get through slams on the gas and then almost instantly hit the brakes–I guess she was actually smart enough to realize she would have hit somebody if she kept going.

The best part was what happened next.  The guy she probably would have plowed over obviously didn’t appreciate her stupidity.  He stopped and faced the car and stood there with his arms crossed.  A few seconds later and everybody else had finished crossing the street, but he stayed there staring her down.  The road is actually a two lane road, so there were cars going by in the other lane, but he didn’t care.

She actually honked at him, at which point he flipped her off.  By this point I was already starting to lose my line of sight behind a building, but I’m fairly certain I saw her try to back up and then get in the other lane, but he just walked towards the car to ensure that she wouldn’t be able to move forward at all.  Oh, it was great.  And I never would have had the opportunity to see it if it wasn’t for this chick’s stupidity.

I was watching TV today, and I decided to compile a list of my favorite TV characters. Here is the first 5, stay tuned for 6-10.

15. James May in Top Gear
This is probably a bad way to start my list because technically, James is not a character, he is a presenter. Top Gear is a British car show that I absolutely love. They do a lot of really crazy stuff, and manage to make some rather cool insights on some awesome cars. I’ve also got to give an honorable mention to one of the other presenters, Richard Hammond. I used to think he was a bit of a pansy, but then he got in a massive wreck while driving a rocket car at over 300 mph. Only a real man could survive that. Here’s a video of Hammond and May turning a Reliant Robin (crappy old British car) into a space ship. Well, at least they tried:

14. Jordan McDeere in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
I am a fan of this show as are others on this site. Jason may have a mancrush on Matthew Perry, but I think I have a real crush on Amanda Peet. She exudes a cool on this show that you don’t see too often. Plus, this show turned me onto Aaron Sorkin’s shows, including Sports Night and the West Wing. Sports Night wasn’t that great, but the West Wing is stunningly good.

13. Charlie Kelly in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
This is another show many of you probably have on heard of. It’s on FX in the summer time, and it’s probably the funniest thing to come out since Arrested Development. It certainly reminds me of that show a lot anyway. This show is tough to pick a character from because they are all so funny. You should definitely check it out. Here’s a clip of Charlie singing a cool America song:

12. Octavian in Rome
This one is actually tough because I liked the old Octavian from season 1 and some of season 2, but the new one doesn’t have the same dramatic appeal. The old one had this quiet confidence despite his young age that the new one just doesn’t show. It’s still a good show though. Here’s a picture of the previous Octavian:

11. Sam Seaborn in The West Wing
I liked Sam on this show because of his optimism and idealism. It’s nice to see a character in this type of setting who isn’t cynical yet. I also have to give an honorable mention from the West Wing to Charlie Young. He was quiet cool in this show. Here’s a picture of Sam:

Oh, and yes, I do have better things to be doing, but I like to procrastinate.

Update: Press Release

The MRI revealed that Livingston suffered tears to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), posterior cruciate ligament (PCL), medial collateral ligament (MCL) and lateral meniscus. Livingston also suffered a patella dislocation, in addition to the previously diagnosed tibia/femoral dislocation.

Last night, my roommate and I went to Dairy Queen to get some dilly bars. We had a bet on the first Super Bowl commercial, each loser had to buy 6 Dilly Bars. I was one of those losers. Really though, the bet was structured so that we would all be winners because we were all going to partake in an equal number of Dilly Bars, and Dilly Bars are delicious.

On the way home from Dairy Queen, we had this conversation:
“It’s really cold, we should make hot chocolate to go with these Dilly Bars.” ~him
“Yeah, that sounds great, but we’re running low.” ~me
“I was going to buy more anyway, we’ll just stop by Basler’s on the way home.” ~him
“I don’t know….it’s kind of the end of hot chocolate season. I thought we rationed it pretty well. I don’t think I would buy more.” ~me making a big mistake
“Oh, I know Alton Brown melted fudgecicles to make hot chocolate, and he said it was really good.” ~him
“I’m game.” ~me

We did in fact go to Basler’s to buy fudgecicles, and we did make hot chocolate out of them. We melted all 12 fudgecicles, and they made about 1 cup of hot chocolate. Let me just say that it was amazing. You have never tasted hot chocolate this good. We even seasoned it with a little chili pepper. Oh man, it was great.

Notice I said 12 fudgecicles melted down to about 1 cup of hot chocolate. That means we each had a 1/2 a cup of this stuff. (Our other roommate was already asleep.) So we each drank 6 fudgecicles while eating a dilly bar. This stuff was to hot chocolate what espresso is to coffee. It was incredibly strong, and probably incredibly stupid. I didn’t sleep too well last night. (Notice the timestamp on this post.)

Both of us just graduated this week so we were a little giddy about that. It was probably a good time to have done that sort of thing. We’ll call it a graduation celebration. Yeah, that’s a good excuse.

Today is my last official duty as a Rose-Hulman student. I have to give a demo of my robotics project. I built a little car that has a SONAR sensor on the front. It stops if it senses an obstacle in front of it. I personally think it’s pretty cool. We were originally supposed to have a final in that class, but the prof decided to make the finals period the demo time. It was to be my only final for the quarter so now I don’t have any, and yes, that is as good as it sounds.

I also had to give a presentation on my senior design project last Monday night. It went pretty well. We got compliments on both the project and the presentation. We built a touchscreen LCD screen for the ChallengeX car. It has an animated powerflow map so people will know what is happening in the car. It’s pretty similar to the Prius’ LCD screen.

I’m moving out this Saturday. Oh what a day. I hate moving, but I am really looking forward to that day. It feels like a giant weight is falling off my shoulders. Next Monday, my grades will come out, and if all goes well, I will be officially free.

Dang.  I rather liked the idea of a Tuesday and Wednesday of classes being cancelled.  Why can’t that happen again?  Sure, getting around was a pain, but who really cares?  I had nowhere to be anyway.  Oh well…

So, I’ve got an exam tomorrow in Classic Civ 111, Mythology of Greece and Rome.  The class is very cool, but best of all is my professor.  I’ve only had him for about a month now, but he’s one of the best profs I’ve had in my four years.  He really tries to make lecture fun, and so far the class has been pretty easy, which I’m all for.  He gave us a pop quiz the other day and basically gave us all the answers.  I think it was more just to review the material and give everybody points for showing up.

His best question was, “Name two rivers that flow from the Garden of Eden.”  Now, that might not seem easy, but he gave us hints, too.  “They’re both real and located in Iraq.  The first sounds like an animal–a large striped cat.  The second…  Well, I can’t think of a clue for Euphrates.”  You really can’t go wrong in a class like that.

Check the blogroll and you’ll find Confabuler and Illinaisa already have some UIUC snow day pics. I’ll add mine to the collection.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kbharlow/20070213

All classes have been canceled for Tuesday (Feb. 13) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 5 inches of snow fell overnight, up to another foot of snow is possible by Tuesday night and a blizzard warning is in effect. U. of I. employees who have been designated as essential personnel are expected to report to work.

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

Pictures to come later.

Some of you know that I’m an avid reader of The Sports Guy at ESPN Page 2. I want to quote for you a paragraph from his most recent blog, because I felt like it was time that I, and maybe you, together as ‘we’ take a second look at Justin Timberlake.

It’s a tie between Justin Timberlake and Chase Budinger for “white guy who does the best job transcending his whiteness.” Justin Timberlake is performing right now, although he made the tragic decision not to sing “D*** in a Box.” Hey, it’s OK to think he’s talented, right? Two hit albums AND he’s one of the best SNL hosts ever AND he sold at the highest point possible on Britney’s stock AND he wrote the best revenge song ever (the “Cry Me A River” song that pretty much murdered Britney’s soul) AND he’s plowing through every hot female in Hollywood right now. He’s a hero, I say.

I’d be willing to challenge pretty much anybody at some 3-on-3 NBA 2k7. Al, Kyle, and I dominate that shit. We play as the Suns every game, mainly because, well, that’s how we roll.

More importantly, however, we bring our A-game every time–none of that Randy Moss shit in our house. Oh, no sir. We don’t drop the passes ala T.O.  We don’t blow pass coverage like the Bears in the Super Bowl.  We L.T. that shit.

Our A-game consists of a consistent triple double for Nash (me), double double for Marion (Kyle) with a good shot at leading scorer and stealer, and a double double from Amare (Al) which includes about 5 or 6 putbacks. We’re waiting for Albert to a 5×5, and it’s really only a matter of time. Domination.

People have been asking me all year what I’m going to do when I graduate. The official end of exam week Feb 22, so it’s coming up pretty soon. Well, I am hear to answer that question once and for all.

I have enrolled in a program to train me to become a TEFL teacher. TEFL is Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The program, which is in Prague, lasts one month, starting March 19. Afterwards, I will get a job teaching English somewhere, hopefully. I obviously have some preferences, but it will depend heavily on where I can land a job. There is a lot of demand in Asia and Eastern Europe, so I might end up there. Western Europe is difficult because most countries want EU citizens.

Most TEFL teachers make enough to support themselves and maybe save a little. I’m certainly not doing it for the money as I got job offers with much better pay than I would ever get as a teacher, even in the US.

After the year abroad, I plan to go to grad school, hopefully in robotics with a specialty in autonomous vehicles. I know you are thinking that I should have applied for grad school for this upcoming year, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. Autonomous vehicles is something I have always been interested in, but I was really leaning towards alternative energy in the fall. I couldn’t find any programs in alternative energy that I liked, and I was unable to land a job that had any kind of interest to me. I don’t want to be a corporate monkey.

Here’s a link to the program I am doing: http://www.teflworldwideprague.com/

I will, of course, document my adventures here on Shouzer, and I will take solace in know that I will be done with that program before any of you graduate.

Today I’m passing out a few free links to whoever wants them.

First up is an interesting article right here about a portable generator that produces its power from waste. It really doesn’t say what type of waste it accepts, but it’s cool nonetheless. It makes me think of the “Mr. Fusion” that the Doc had on the Delorean at the end of the first Back to the Future.

Next is a bit of a strange story from /.. Found here, it’s about Gorbachev apparently asking Bill Gates to step in on the side of a headmaster being charged with piracy. Apparently, if the unlucky headmaster is convicted, he could be sent to a Siberian prison camp. It seems more than a little disproportionate.

Third on the list of links is this link to the current rankings in college basketball. SIU has managed to make it into the top 20 in the coach’s poll. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that they have all five of their starters back from last year. Still, it’s nice to see them getting some respect. Hopefully they can keep playing the way they have lately, because they did have some dumb losses early on.

Up last is something I’m pretty happy about. For those of you that don’t remember, I’ve posted more than once about my belief that the Real ID Act was a bogus piece of shit (a fact exemplified by its being attached as a rider to a supplemental spending bill for the war in Iraq). Well, you can read here about a number of states that have basically said they won’t do it. Hurray for some states standing up for their citizens when the federal government won’t.

On that note, I also read over the weekend that minimum wage is being raised by about $2. It’s about time, but apparently it took the Democrats coming into power to make something like that happen.

So I guess Brett Favre has decided not to retire.  Honestly, I don’t know what he’s thinking.  I know he loves the sport, and I know he’s still a great quarterback.  The team will let him play as long as he wants, and I think they should–I wish teams and players in general were more loyal.  At the same time, however, it seems to me that the team is not going to grow while he’s there.  If Aaron Rodgers is really the future of that team, you’ve got to let him take over at some point.