Irony

Steve Martin is as good a cure for Wednesday that I know.
From the movie Roxanne:

[Roxanne Kowalski is walking behind a hedge because she is nude]
Roxanne Kowalski: Nobody had a coat?
C.D. Bales: I thought you said you didn't want a coat...
Roxanne Kowalski: Why would I not want a coat?
C.D. Bales: You said you didn't want a coat!
Roxanne Kowalski: I was being ironic.
C.D. Bales: Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a, a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was tired of being stared at.

A dubious national title

The University of Florida - Go Gators! - was voted the number one party school. I'm not sure whether to be thrilled about this or slightly embarrassed.
UF always had this party-school reputation anyway, so this seals it. However, getting something like this kind of overshadows that it does have an academic reputation as well. Eh. People get out of it what they put in, I suppose.

That's SMART

I've seen several of hte new SMART cars on the road here in Princeton. They are kind of cool in a cautionary-tale-waiting-to-happen kind of way.
Today, after walking home from lunch, I heard an ambulance, with all its sirens blaring. I look over to the general direction of where it might be, and I see a wee SMART car driving by, followed closely by said ambulance.
For some odd reason, I thought this was kind of funny. It was like a small kid running away from a huge linebacker, and if it were a cartoon, I'm sure the SMART car would have been screaming.
Why the guy didn't pull over, I have no clue.

Too much stuff

I have way too much clutter in my apartment, and I think this as good a time as any to start getting rid of it.
I started yesterday by getting rid of the first box of useless crap. I found:
* Resumes from 1999...hopelessly and thankfully out of date.
* Letters of recommendation from 2000. 8 years ago...wow.
* Two old wallets, with business cards from folks I no longer remember.
* A personality assessment I did in 96. Says pretty much the same thing as every other personality assessment I've ever taken. Shy, reserved, creative, etc.
* Old post cards I never got around to sending, along with a couple of Christmas cards that fought a losing battle against my procrastination. The intention is there, but the implementation is my weakness.
* Old writing samples, from when putting words together was a 9 to 5 gig.
* My first review from my current job, from about 4.5 years ago.
Next up is to go through old books I no longer want, and then I should really go through the 4 or 5 boxes of miscellaneous stuff I have packed away in the closet. How much of that stuff do I really need to keep around. Most of it is just unnecessary weight I no longer feel like carrying

An exercise in futility

YEsterday, I took myself on a futile escapade to track down the intrepid iPhone in the wild. Friday night, I checked the Apple Web site to determine where I might be able to find one, and seeing as how Apple stores in all of New Jersey and Pennsylvania were sold out, I decided to head to the next closest, which happened to be in NYC.
So, I get up at what I consider to be an early hour (7:30 am) on Saturday, and then hurry to the Princeton train station so I can miss the train I wanted to get on. I grab the next one, and I'm on my way...(since when do they have double-decker trains on NJ TRansit? I'm liking this development...much like the trains in Switzerland.)
I'm completely shocked at how absolutely crowded Penn Station was, and everyone seemed to be heading out toward Long Island or Jersey. I played crowd frogger to the subway and wound my way to 53th and 5...and then out to the oppressing heat. Wearing jeans was supremely stupid.
I walk along Fifth, and as I'm passing a line of about 20 waiting to get into Abercrombie and Fitch of all places, I was thinking that I might be heading for a bit of a wait at the Apple store.
Sure enough, several hundred people had beaten me to the punch (which isn't that hard, granted.) I asked one of the Apple guys there and he said that the line was about 2-3 hours long, but realistically could be up to 6 hours long.*
Seeing as how I didn't have the luxury of killing that much time, I had to move on, without a phone. Grr. I did manage to grab a couple slices of greasy pizza, so the morning/early afternoon wasn't a complete loss.
Overall, it turned out to be a $30 leisurely walk in NYC. Brilliant.
Also, on the train ride back, the train stops for about 20-30 minutes before the Secaucus stop. Thank God I had a book with me.

-----
I had been expecting a wait for the phone...just not a 5-hour one.

Burn

One never knows how bad a sunburn is until after you get out of the sun. I spent the day floating down the Delaware River on a tube, and even though I put sun screen on, I'm well cooked, and oy do I feel that sun burn.
I planned on getting the new iPhone on the 11th when it came out, but due to my general intolerance for lines, I decided to wait a few days. Also helping in that decision was the fact that all of the nearby AT&T stores were sold out already. Grr.
Being out in the sun all day completely knocks me out. It's 8:30 now, and I could crash right now.

MOW to open for Coldplay?

Only you can prevent forest fires.
Also, only you can get MOW to open for Coldplay.
My old roommate's band, Mouth of Wilson, has a chance to open up for Coldplay on that's band swing through the area!!
Out of several hundred bands, they are one of 15 remaining. The thing you have to do is go to http://www.coldplayontour.com/wmmr/ and vote for them.
Their video, for a song called "Heavy," is the 13th down. So, vote early, and vote as often as your Web browser lets you.

Hmmm

* Has listening to Jimmy Buffet made me nostalgic for Florida, or do I listen to Jimmy Buffet because I'm nostalgic for Florida?
* I think I have a feeling why time heals all wounds. It's because time also, concurrently, kills brain cells.