At the moment my plan is to replace Windows Millennium with Ubuntu. I have been interesetd in working with Ubuntu for quite some time now. Yesterday I downloaded the ISO file and have tried to install it on my ancient laptop. I've already run into some problems, but that is to be expected. I have an idea as to why I keep getting the same error halfway through the installation process and should have it solved relatively soon. While trying to solve the errors with my old laptop, I'm also going to be working on dual booting my desktop. Hopefully this process doesn't take me too long.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ubuntu
I currently have 3 computers in my possession and only one works properly. One is my old Dell Inspiron laptop from middle school and the other is my desktop that died right around the time I bought my current laptop. I've been saying that I would fix up the old laptop for a while now and I think that time has finally come.
Monday, June 29, 2009
An Inconvenient Truth
While looking for a job I have avoided applying to any that require being out in the streets harassing people. If you've ever spent the day in Downtown Crossing or Harvard Square on a nice day, you might have noticed college aged students walking around with clipboards trying to convince people to donate to a variety of causes. I always swore that no matter how desperate I got I would never apply for anything that involved bothering people. I don't like the idea of harassing people about global warming or Darfur when they just want to be spending a nice day in Boston.
On the other hand I am very good salesman who still needs a summer job. Today I finally applied for one of those jobs. If I get the job it would require me to walk around Downtown Boston and try to convince people to donate money to raising awareness about global warming. Considering that I am still unemployed and bored out of mind, this job would be a wonderful opportunity for me. Hopefully my statement about why I love the environment is convincing enough to get me an interview in the weeks ahead.
Edit
I had a phone interview this morning and scheduled a face to face interview for later this week.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Summer Reading
Seeing as how I am still unemployed, I have decided to put all of my free time to good use. I've started going to the library and picking up books that I've been saying I would read for years now. I've compiled a list of books that I want to read and it continues to grow each day. At the moment, I have finished reading Animal Farm by George Orwell and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Tomorrow I'm hoping to start The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare.
...
My Reading List
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
Divine Comedy - Dante
A Seperate Peace - Knowles
Paradise Lost - Milton
The Idiot - Dostoyevsky
Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas * I'm considering reading it in the orignal French
David Copperfield - Dickens
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Me Talk Pretty One Day - Sedaris *This has been on my to read list since I was 12
Friday, June 26, 2009
Bye Bye Birdie
The death of Twitter. It couldn't come soon enough. I heard about Twitter right when it started in 2007 and I thought it would never catch on because it was stupid and pointless. Well I clearly gave the American people too much credit. It has caught on and now everyone and their mother is tweeting about the mundane aspects of their daily lives.
Before Twitter and other social networking sites, people shared the details of their lives with their close friends, not every single one of their acquaintances.
Now I will admit that Twitter does have some utility: receiving news updates,weather updates, and things of that nature. What I don't want to hear about is how Sarah just bought a pair of shoes from DSW.
Hopefully Twitter dies a quick death sometime in the near future.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Thank You For the Music
This year the Broadway Across America tour is bringing several amazing shows to Boston. Sadly I'll only be home to see some of them. It saddens me that while all these shows are playing in Boston, I will be stuck in the middle of west bum nowhere receiving an education. Though I am excited that I will be home to see The Lion King. I loved the movie when I was a child and I still love it to this day. I want to get a chance to see how it translated to the stage before it closes.
...
The 2009-2010 season is as follows.
Fiddler on the Roof - Nov. 3-15 2009
I have horrible memories associated with this show and I'm not disappointed that I won't be able to see it.
Avenue Q - Nov. 17-22 2009
I have been wanting to see this show for a couple of years now, but I don't think I'll be seeing it this season.
Mamma Mia -Dec. 15-27 2009
I could live without ever seeing Mamma Mia on stage.
In The Heights - Jan 12-24 2010
There is a good possibility that I may see this show. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews from various friends. I need to listen to the cast recording before making my decision.
DREAMGIRLS - Feb 2-14 2010
I have no strong desire to see this show, but that's because I know nothing about it. I should see if I can get a hold of the cast recording.
The Lion King - Feb 16- March 21 2010
This will be in Boston during my spring break. If I don't end up doing Habitat for Humanity, I will be attending.
CATS - April 13-18 2010
You couldn't pay me to see CATS.
Young Frankenstein - Apr.20 - May 2 2010
I've heard good things about this show, but I won't get a chance to see it.
August Osage County May 4-16 2010
This is supposed to be an amazing play. It won the Tony in 2008 for Best Play. Unfortunately I most likely will not be able to return to Boston to see it.
Grease June 1-13 2010
It would be fun to see this on the stage, but I have no strong desire to do so.
Overall a wonderful season with a lot of opportunities to go to the theatre.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday in the Park
It is official. Shakespeare on the Common will be returning to the Boston Common this summer with a production of The Comedy of Errors. It was being speculated that it would not return this summer because of monetary reasons. I am glad to see that it will be continuing for at least one more summer. The show will be playing from July 31st until August 16th. The performance are Tuesday - Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 7pm. If you have never experienced Shakespeare on the Common I would definitely check it out this summer. It is completely free and a wonderful experience to share with friends.
Suspended in Time
At 4:05 am and six seconds on July 8th this year.
The time and the date will be:
04:05:06 07/08/09
In Europe this would happen at the same time, but on August 7th since they write the day before the month.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Stumble !
I was first told about Stumble Upon a couple of months ago, but I resisted creating an account. I knew that if I made an account I would waste copious amounts of my time. For those of you who don't know, StumbleUpon is a site that essentially allows you to surf the internet. It presents you with webpages that it belives you will find interesting based on what other users have said and your own interests. You can even filter what topic you would like the recommendation engine to search for in a website.
Yesterday I gave in to my boredom and created an account. At the moment I have stumbled through 302 different websites and favorited 55 of them. One of the most interesting to date was a website with a video explaining Benford's Law. I had never heard of it before but it really is fasicinating. Benford's Law states that in list of numerical data the first digits are not distributed evenly. In fact one is always the most frequently occuring leading digit with two-nine occur less frequently. The Benford's Law curve is a curve with a decreasing slope. When looking at any natural data, such as birthrates in a town, the data very closely fits Benford's curve. The law is useful in figuring out whether or not data has been tampered with.
Video Explaining Benford's Law that I stumbled upon.
If you want to see what other website I enjoyed, you can check out my profile on the StumbleUpon website. My username is rt24601. Here is a direct link to my profile http://rt24601.stumbleupon.com/favorites/.
Bonus Points to whoever can tell me the signifigance of the numbers in my username.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Legen - wait for it - dairy
Neil Patrick Harris is amazing (I felt the need to make this known after watching him host the Tony's).He is the main reason that I watch the CBS show How I Met Your Mother. If wasn't for his portrayal of Barney, I probably would not have made an effort to catch up to the fourth season this year.
Last summer NPH starred in a short musical film called Dr.Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It was a viral hit and is still gaining fans. It is only 45 minutes long and available to watch for free on the film's website http://drhorrible.com/. If you have some time to spare, I would definitely watch this. NPH has a great voice and awesome facial expressions.
...
These two links also feature the awesomness that is Neil Patrick Harris. The second one is by far my favorite because of how his performance is out of the blue.
Sweeney Todd in Concert, NPH appears four minutes into the video
NPH and Jason Segel from HIMYM singing Confrontation from Les Miserables
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm Alive
Xanadu is a fantastic musical that premiered on Broadway in 2007. Some people still refuse to listen to the cast recording because they heard awful things about the Xanadu movie. Well the musical is a hundred times better than the movie. I listened to the recording a couple of times today after not having listened to it in a while and I thought that I should share the magic of Xanadu with all of my non existent readers.
This is the cast's performance at the 2008 Tony Awards.
Xanadu Commercial
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
I Know Things Now, Many Valuable Things
The job hunt is still failing. The only offers that I've gotten have been fake. They all involve me receiving checks for large amounts of money and wiring them to some company. One guy had a different twist on his story. He claimed that he needed a tutor for his daughter, but she lives in Switzerland. The plan was that he would send me a 5,000 check and I could take my cut of 500, then give the rest of the money to the girl's nanny when she was dropped off for her English lessons. I give him credit for coming up with a unique story, all the other guys used the same email format and the story about being a foreign business. I was very tempted to email him back saying that it was a good effort with the background story, but I still wasn't falling for his scam.
...
When I'm not getting fake job offers, I'm getting emails about how I should learn to be self reliant and start my own business. What part of "college student seeking summer work" are they not getting? I think I may just give up on finding a real job and just work for the high school musical theatre program that my friend is directing. They're doing Into the Woods, which I stage managed and did props for two summers ago. If I remember correctly, the props were fairly simple and I actually kept one of them,a chicken that lays golden eggs. I always knew that it would come in handy again.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
An Apple a Day
I have been a vegetarian for about two years now and people still tell me that I'm crazy for not eating meat. Well I say at least meat is the only thing I'm not eating.
There is a group of people known as fruitarians. Their diet consists of only raw fruit and seeds. Like birds. No, I think birds have broader diets.
Here are some of the quotes they have on their site in an effort to recruit people.
"Fruit is a LIVE food !!!! Fruit, has "the power and magic of life"… Fruit nutrition is a very simple concept…from fruit alone, the human body has evolved to produce everything else it needs to stay energetically alive for more than 100 years…"
"Eating fruit alone, the fruitarian becomes more attractive and beautiful, with better hair,skin, nails, smell and taste in the body…and more pure physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, a special loving creature…he/she is itself a "fruit" of the "magic" power of the earth and the sun…the final result of millions of years of struggle for life to produce a unique specimen…full of intelligence, feelings and emotions for love…and conscience…a beautiful life form…a TRUE human being!"
"Be FREE…become a fruitarian…live in harmony…and experiment every day, strength andprotection from the creative force that brought to this "blue planet": water, air, trees, flowers, animals and human beings… the power and "magic" of life …"
I don't know if these people actually exist and if they do, I'm certain they have a short life span. Humans are not birds. As magical as fruit is, you need more than that and the power of the earth to live.
...
Edit: All quotes obtained from www.fruitarian.com
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
All Around the World
Today I figured out that I somewhat know my world geography. I took the 'Can you name the countries of the world ?' quiz on Sporcle.com and I got 114 out of 195 countries. Maybe one day I'll get all 195, but I highly doubt that. I can never remember the tiny countries that no one has ever heard of before.
...
If you ever find yourself with time to waste, I would highly recommend visiting sporcle.com. They have hundreds of random quizzes that you can take covering a variety of topics. I would make sure that you don't have anything important to finish when visiting the site, because you will most likely spend over an hour on the site.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Be Cool My Babies
This week was Conan O'Brien's second week hosting The Tonight Show. I used to watch Conan quite often in high school. I loved his ridiculous sense of humor and skits. I always thought he made the show a lot more fun than other talk shows. I also liked that Conan never took himself too seriously.
When I heard that he was going to be taking over for Jay Leno , I was worried that Conan's unique style would not carry over to the Tonight Show. Luckily my worries were unfounded. Conan has made The Tonight Show his own by bringing over all of his antics from Late Night. I think it will take time for Leno's audience to acclimate to Conan's style of humor, but in the end I believe that they will love what he has brought to The Tonight Show.
On the other hand I don't see Conan's audience acclimating well to Jimmy Fallon, his replacement. I tuned in on his first show and I could not make it through the first five minutes of his monologue. It actually pained me to watch him. He was awkward and unsure of himself, which is understandable when first starting out. I gave him another chance a month later and I still couldn't make it through his monologue. Hopefully he's just a little slow in getting used to his new job and will eventually stop being awkward ( Unlike Carson Daily, who has been awkward for seven years on his late night show Last Call).
...
P.S.If you find yourself needing to watch something while Fallon is on, I would recommend watching Craig Ferguson on CBS. He is absolutely phenomenal.
It's like America... only South
I finally got to see Disney Pixar's UP today. As with every Disney Pixar movie, I absolutely loved UP. It has surpassed Finding Nemo as my favorite Disney Pixar movie. I love that UP is a movie for both children and adults. Pixar did an excellent job with making sure that the story was one that could be appreciated by both audiences.
I would give you a summary of the film, but I do not want to ruin it for you in any way. This is a movie that you should get to fully experience without having anyone spoil any of the plot points for you. I will tell you this though, it is a very heart warming and laugh out loud film.
Friday, June 12, 2009
You Can Go Around A Rotary Forever
Today, I learned something. I don't know how to get myself home. When taken more than 5 miles out of my town, I cannot find my way home (It's really quite sad). I think its because I always take the train everywhere, so I'm not actually aware of how to get somwhere.
I learned this during a driving lesson with a friend. It took me a couple times around the rotary and picking the wrong exit twice to finally figure out which direction home was in. He felt it was best to let me find my own way home instead of telling me which way to go. He started to regret that decision when I made the choice to get on the highway heading in the opposite direction during rush hour (In my defense it was sunny and I couldn't read the sign that said veering left would lead to the highway).
On the bright side I got more practice time because of my lack of sense of direction.
Honest Graduation Song
Something to waste three minutes of your time.
Usually CollegeHumor song parodies put me in a good mood. This one just depressed me because it speaks the sad truth.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Mystic Smoothies
Today was a good day.
I spent the day at the Cambridge Side Galleria and made my debit card cry.It probably wouldn't cry as much if I had a job that provided me with a source of income. I checked my email today and no one has yet to respond to any of my emails about wanting a job. I checked Craigslist and applied to another four positions. At this point I'm getting pretty tired of applying to jobs, but hoepfully my efforts will pay off.
...
One interesting thing that I saw at the Galleria was a boy with a mullet. I was under the impression that the mullet died sometime in the early 90s.
...
My friend Zenab told me about this really cool t-shirt that has all the essential facts that you would need if you were sent back in time. I would get one if it wasn't an ugly brown.
...
Random Side Note : My friend Bao vacuum packs her honey nut cheerios in a ziploc bag. She's an interesting character =)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
KINGS
Why do people insist on hating quality television shows with a well thought out plot?
I tend to not watch much televison beacuse of the lack of good shows. Recently I discovered the show KINGS on NBC. It's a unique show and I don't believe there's anything else like it on the air. So obviously it's on the verge of being cancelled. Everytime a quality show comes out, that it is to say it's not a reality tv show, it gets cancelled.
When the trend of reality tv started , I was really hoping it would soon die out. Sadly, that dream has not been realized. Every other show on television revolves around some "real" person's life and the "troubles" that he/she faces. I mean I understand why networks have been churning out the reality tv shows ( low cost, large profits), but there is a limit. At least I hope there is a limit. Though it's starting to seem as though the American people only want reality tv shows. People have become obsessed with following the lives of people they don't know. Even news reporters have started commenting on the people on these shows. For example, Jon & Kate plus Eight. I'm pretty sure that once it came out that they might possibly divorce, every newscast I watched that week felt the need to comment on their relationship and possible divorce.
The truth is people are no longer interested in quality television. All of their minds have been turned to mush by reality tv. Now, when offered a quality show people cannot appreciate it. There is a very small audience willing to watch a show of quality and give it a chance. Hopefully NBC willl decide to give this small audience a chance to discover the show before pulling the plug.
...
Here is the link to the show's site. The first five episodes are all available to watch online. The next episode is airing this Saturday June 13th.
Edit: Just found out that NBC has in fact cancelled KINGS, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch season one.
Job Hunt
Today I applied for another 10 or so positions. I have been applying for a job since March, in the hopes that by the time summer started I would be working. I have applied everywhere imaginable and continue to apply to random jobs every day. Craigslist has become my home page for the time being because that is what I have been using to find random desk jobs around the area. The problem is that not many people are hiring and most businesses don't want to hire a college student who is only sticking around for three months. I really hope that one of these places finally gets back to me. It's not just that I want to earn money, but I also need something to occupy my time.
On the bright side, I have a back up plan. If I don't end up getting a job, I'll have time to volunteer at a local high school theatre summer program.
...
So while writing this post I got an email back from someone on Craigslist. I had put a post earlier today saying that I was a college student seeking a summer job. This is what I got in response...
"I really dont mean to push my beliefs on you but in this economy more people should be looking into working for them selves. check out * website* , I dont think i'll ever interview for someones job again for the rest of my life. Good luck! " ( i removed the link because i have no idea what site it goes to)
Really now? Was that necessary?
First Post
Well I never actually thought that I would start a blog. I've been thinking about it for a while, but I always think of a reason not to start one. Recently more and more people that I know have started blogging, and so I decided that it was finally time for me to start a blog. I highly doubt that anyone will be reading this, but we shall see. My plan is for this blog to be a place for me to post my random thoughts of the day about various topics. Hopefully I will be able to update on a somewhat regular basis, but I don't see that happening once school starts back up again.
Here's a little background information about me:
I'm a sophomore Mechanical Engineering major with a minor in Engineering Management at Umass Amherst. I'm the vice president of the Society of Women Engineers and an active member of the Theatre Guild. Theatre is one my main passions besides the sciences. For a while I debated trying to double major in both engineering and theatre, but in the end realized it was too difficult. Now theatre is something that I do on the side whenever possible.
Well, that's it for my first post and hopefully there will be more to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
