gwax’s rumblings

Max and I have been meaning to go skiing this IAP and we finally got around to it today. So, this morning at about 7a, Max, Bryan, Gus and I set out for points north. By 10:30a, we had rented skis and were getting on the ski lift at Waterville Valley in New Hampshire. It’s worth noting the costs associated with getting to this point: $34 for a lift ticket (with college ID) and $32 for equipment rental; totally $66. We then proceeded to ski, with a brief lunch break, clear through about 4p. The drive is not that bad, the price is pretty good and, overall, it’s totally worth it for 5 hours of decent skiing with my friends.

Since my sidekick can operate as a digital camera, it only makes sense that I take pictures of things every so often. Now, taking pictures is one thing, sharing them with other people is a slightly different thing and as such I have set up a photo gallery/photoblog/whatever called gwax’s sitings (now I can rumble and site). There aren’t any comments or names for the existing photos (I might add some later) but from now on I’ll be adding them.

Enjoy

Update: I have culled a lot of the photos to eliminate redundancy and low quality pictures. Also, I have added descriptions for all of the old photos. Some of the earlier photos are in a funny order because the time stamps were a little messed up.

I am an American, from my mongrel blood to my world views (I’m talking ideal American, not the modern political majority). Being American puts me in the unique position of being able to enjoy the benefits of the so-called melting pot that is my country. The melting pot involves the mixing and exchange of various bits of various cultures; one such bit is fusion foods, foods that borrow from different cultures. Right now I am eating fried kielbasa (Polish) and sipping good scotch whisky (Scottish). The scotch and kielbasa combination isn’t terribly multicultural but it reminds me of my favorite food, kielbasa fried rice. Kielbasa fried rice is a wonderful Polish/Asian fusion food. I was too lazy too make kielbasa fried rice but that doesn’t change my love of fusion foods.

Well, in theory I’m leaving very early to go skiing on Thursday and I kind of want to see Ian and Ben’s robot for 6.270 at 10a tomorrow so I don’t think that I’m going to sleep tonight. I’m pretty sure that I’ve got enough Mountain Dew and Cherry Coke in my appartment to help me stay up through the night as long as I can find ways to keep myself entertained.

I don’t expect many people to be awake, so AIM isn’t going to serve as an adequate passtime. I haven’t got DSL to my appartment yet, so I can’t waste away on the internet or do much with my computer other than watch movies or tv shows that I already downloaded. I’ll make food at some point but that will occupy a little bit of my time. I might try reading this book that I found in an Athena cluster (more details likely later). Maybe I’ll steal some Athena paper and do some art. I might even build a Whitewing.

It may be a little after 5a right now but this night still has a long time until it’s over.

Having become annoyed with comment-spam, I have chosen to implement Gudlyf’s AuthImage plugin for WordPress. The plugin makes one of those pictures with funny text that’s hard for computers to parse. The plugin also demands that you type in the contents of the image or you don’t get to post a comment. I don’t really like forcing something like this on people but the spam was pissing me off and this seems less obtrusive than sending peoples’ comments to moderation and then accepting them later. If this is really unpleasant for people, let me know and I’ll consider other options.

My previous analysis of this blizzard was insufficient. Having walked back to my appartment late last night and now having been outside once the blizzard has stopped dropping snow, I can give a better explanation of things. I need only one adjective to describe this blizzard.

This blizzard is ludicrous.

Oh holy crap, it’s blizzarding outside right now, like a whole bunch. We’ve probably got about half a foot of snow and some drifts up to two or more feet; that’s not to mention the snow-plow piles that are like 6 feet high. Also, there’s like a whole bunch of wind and it’s making the snow fly all over the place and into your face and crap. It’s really cold too. Oh and it’s supposed to keep snowing until tomorrow evening. Also, they declared a state of emergency. I love this kind of weather so much. Blizzards are the like the bestest things of all.

Also, my sentance constructs are stupid in this post.

I now have a DSL modem for when the DSL to my appartment actually gets connected. It was a bit of an adventure to get the thing and I will explain the technique so that others can obtain DSL modems more efficiently.

1. Call speakeasy
2. Sign up for DSL service
3. Don’t be in when UPS tries to deliver the DSL modem
4. Go to the UPS tracking website and ask them to hold the package for pick-up
5. Get annoyed because Third Ave gets cut in half by a bunch of stuff at the Cambridge/Somerville border
6. Take a long annoying detour to deal with the severed Third Ave
7. Get your package
8. Decide that you don’t want to take the detour again
9. Find the break in the barbed wire and hop the fence into the MBTA train repair facility
10. Hide in the shadows while a train snowly backs some cars into a hangar because you are tresspassing
11. Book it across the train tracks
12. Find a gap in the barbed wire on the other side and hop the fence
13. Jump down off a big stone wall
14. Return home
15. Congratulations, you now have a DSL modem

Ok, I guess that’s not really the best way to get a DSL modem but that’s how I did it.

I remembered hearing, long ago, that peanut butter doesn’t tend to go bad but that when it does, it becomes very carcinogenic. Not knowing the details of this little fact, I turned to the internet and found a bunch of sources to explain what was going on.

The molds Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus grow on a number of things and grow especially well on peanuts. These molds release a chemical known as aflatoxin, which is a strong carcinogen and has been linked to liver cancer.

The FDA monitors aflatoxin levels in commercial products and it turns out to be the case that the big brand peanut butters (Skippy, Jif, etc.) have the lowest levels of aflatoxin. Also, if you go to a health food store and get freshly ground peanut butter, you’re dumping tons of aflatoxin into yourself.

So buy big brand peanut butter and don’t let it go bad.

Sam Felton, of all people, has a blog now. You can all go read about his latest generalizations now. Hooray!

Having settled into the bachelor’s life pretty solidly at this point I have recently discovered a wonderful new food which I have decided to refer to as the Bachelor Burger. Here’s how it works; you start with cheap grocery store brand burger patties (all beef) and you fry them up on a griddle, then you drop a nice slice of pepper jack cheese on top (I’m using Cabot brand) and then drop it on a cheap grocery store brand bun. I don’t bother with condiments (not my style) but the cheap burger, cheap bun and good strong cheese makes for a really tasty and inexpensive combination. Such is the Bachelor Burger and it’s mighty good.

I turned in my application for grad school earlier today; yes, that’s singular. This year I am applying to only one grad school and if I don’t get in I am going to go do something else. That is my plan and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, the application is in and now I just need to worry about graduating. The rest of my future is out already determined as far as I am concerned.

I’ve chosen the track that I’m going to be on and now I just need to toss coal into the furnace for a while.

The friends have been doing up the Jung - Myers-Briggs typology test so I gave it a spin (go take the test; blog about it or something). It’s a fun and interesting little thing and it’s a better put together than most internet personality quizzes (certainly more informative than something that tells you which Britney Spears song you are).

I turn out to be ENTP, or Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving. This type is sometimes referred to as the Inventor style. Descriptions of the ENTP type can be found care of D. Keirsey or M. M. Heiss and J. Butt; personally I think they’ve got me pinned to a “t” (or nailed to a cross if you want some tasteless humor).

I took this test once a few years ago and last time I scored as INTJ. I agreed with that scoring then and I still agree that it is representative of who I was a few years ago. Back then, I sure as hell wouldn’t have seen myself becoming an extrovert or becoming less judgemental.

I finished the return trip to Massachusetts today and am writing this from my room in Concord. Total trip mileage was 3553 (keen, it’s symmetrical). I’ll probably get myself back into the city tomorrow, though it might take more than one day.

Today was an interesting one. I started at a rest area in Virginia where I ignored the two hour parking limit and got eight hours of sleep. Between there and New Jersey, things were pretty uneventful. However, an interesting thing happened when I stopped for lunch and gas in New Jersey, I picked up a hitch-hiker heading for New York. Mind you, this was no normal hitch-hiker, this was Ludovic Hubler (you’ll want to click the British flag if you can’t read French)(also, it’s kind of flakey in some browsers). I’m sure you’re asking who is Ludovic Hubler and why should I care? He’s this French guy who is hitch-hiking around the world, trying not to spend any money at all on travel expenses. He started in France, hitch-hiked across the Sahara, across the Atlantic, to Antarctica, up to the US and I gave him a ride from the middle of Jersey to New York.

That’s my exciting news of the day; I picked up a hitch-hiker. The first time I ever pick up a hitch-hiker and I get the hitch-hiker to end all hitch-hikers.

I’ve come in contact with a new chain restaurant on my trip into the South, Waffle House. Waffle House is pretty much what you’d expect given the name and is pretty tasty. It’s a little better than IHOP or Bickford’s in my opinion.

Also, they have grits, which are a new thing for me too. Grits are good.

This morning it’s the 3000 mile mark.

I’m not lost but I’m somewhere in Southern Florida and I don’t know exactly where I am. It doesn’t much matter as my time is valueless right now and I am pretty good at figuring out where I am in strange places.

Truth be told, I am actually kind of glad that I am bushwhacking through unknown territories. This is a beautiful part of the world that I had never seen before. It reminds me of Southern California a whole lot.

I’ve found I-95 now, so all my problems are solved from here to Massachusetts.

I’m hitting the 2000 mile mark on the trip odometer right now.

I’m deep in the land of Dixie (which being a proper noun can, sadly, not be used in Scrabble) now, Savannah, Georgia to be precise, and it’s time for a break. What better way to take a break than to sit down and update my blog? Probably a bunch of things but that’s not the point.

I’ve been getting pretty tired of the alphabet game so I’ve only finished 3 more alphabets putting me at 25 and looking for a “Q”. I’ve also been tearing a pretty solid swathe through my CD collection having fully listened to 14 KMFDM albums, 1 KMFDM single, 1 MDFMK album, 1 KMFDM vs. Pig album, 1 Lucia album, 1 Happy 2B Hardcore compilation, 1 Aphex Twin album, 1 Daft Punk album, 1 Gigi D’Agostino compilation and 1 Mr. Velcro Fastener album. I think that I’m going to give local radio a shot for a while.

I don’t really mind the driving; it’s kind of pleasant. I am getting a little bit fatigued but not tired or tired of the driving, a problem solvable by breaks like this. The sun is setting; that should make things different. Let’s see if I can get another 4 hours of driving in and make my way into Florida.

Well, I’m sitting in a Pizza Hut somewhere in North Carolina, partaking of the lunch buffet. Things go well and I am 260 miles from where I started the day. If I can keep myself going until late tonight, I should make Key West by mid-tomorrow.

I figured that it was about time to send out a progress report from the grand state of Virginia. I’ve been here chilling with Sherv and having a grand old time since I got here Sunday evening. We’ve mainly just been chilling and not doing anything terribly extravagant.

Virginia is a pretty nice place, at least the Virginia Beach region. I’ve been noticing some big differences between this part of the country and Massachusetts, but many of them are rather subtle and I don’t particularly feel like going into a grand old compare and contrast thing. Suffice it to say that it’s quite nice and gives me the feeling of really taking a vacation and getting away, which is a feeling that I don’t often get.

Tomorrow I hit the road again for Key West. It’s going to be a longer drive so I expect to get through the alphabet a few more times. I was playing the alphabet game on my way down here and I made it through the alphabet a full 22 times and will pick up again looking for my 23rd “J” when I get back out there. The driving is quite nice and I was only getting a little tired come around hour 8 or 9. It’s 20 hours to Key West from here so we’ll see about that and I expect the 30 back will be something.

Well, plenty more fun ahead, back to chillaxing in Virginia with Sherv.

I’ve been underway since 8:30 this morning and am currently getting food at the Vince Lombardi Service Area in New Jersey. It’s overpriced but I need food and gas for the car.

All gas stations in New Jersey are full service; this is slow, inefficient and stupid. I am waiting in a fucking line of cars to get gas! It’s so retarded.

Tomorrow I begin my grand adventures off to the South. I will be driving to Virginia tomorrow morning to visit my very good friend Sherv, whom I have not seen in quite a long time. I will spend a few days hanging out with Sherv and then I will probably proceed onward to Florida, where I will hang out with Gus in Key West. I’ll be getting back sometime around the middle of the week of the 10th.

I’ll be dragging my sidekick with me, so you may get some posts during the trip and if any of you are going to be geographically between Massachusetts and Florida during my trip, give me a call or email and I’ll stop by to say hi.