Sandwhiches, which are the McGuffin

Today made a quick trip to the Super Target for the sake of picking up sandwich meat. I have had a lot of sandwiches in my day. I try to avoid them. It's not so much that I dislike sandwiches, it's that I know I am going to eat an awful lot of them in my life.

And it's not that I didn't try to avoid eating sandwiches this week. It's that Saturday evening I learned that spaghetti can melt, which put a wrench in my plans of eating leftovers for the next couple of days.

And this leads me to the grocery store, where I do something completely out of character. I talked to an attractive woman. I think she might have even found me funny. As you might have guessed, gentle reader, I fall into the "shy geeky guy" category. Talking to women, being outgoing, and other such things that allow one of have a normal social life do not come easily to me.

But hey, before I get to angsty, I think the point of this post is that I'm working on it.

Slacking Off

Yesterday afternoon I was given a lab report to write for one of my classes. It is due in three weeks. I am very familiar with this area, so I am not worried about it.

This means that I just do not have the crucial amount of terror in my soul to care enough to work on a Saturday. I have spent the last week in front of a computer programming, I would rather not waste a lovely day in front of a computer typing.

This all begs the question of why I am writing this post at the moment. I don't know either.

Ciao, folks.

Full Metal Jacket

It's a Friday evening and I go to make myself a cup of tea. I notice a potent aroma from my rat's cage.

I track down the little guy and sniff him. Okay, good he smells fine. I am happy, because this means I don't have to wash Sparty. For those of you who do not enjoy the many benefits of being a rat owner, allow me to give you a rundown of the procedure:

1. Turn on water in sink
2. Track down the rat. What the cat-dominated media has tried to keep from us is the fact that rats are smart. They know instinctively when you are trying to bathe them. And they are good at hiding when they want to...
3. Shampoo the rat. This process requires at least a sweatshirt because he's smart enough to crawl onto your back where he is very, very, very hard to reach. He's gonna get traction--there are no two ways around that. You can, however, make sure that he does not get traction by digging his toes into your skin.
4. Rinse off the rat. This has all of the worst parts of the first three parts, with the added bonus that you will then have to deal with a soggy rodent hiding in your pillowcase.
5. Rebond with your offended pet. This involves much rubbing of his back and offers of conciliatory peanut butter.

And that's not even going into what you have to do to clean the sink...

Life of a Graduate Student

I spent today programming.

I was working with a Matlab program to do some image reconstruction.

Of course, things never work right the first time you try them. Or the second, third, or 17th.

This implies that I had to run the program at least 18 times to quash one bug, before moving onto the next.

Oh, and the program takes about 3-5 minutes to run. My morale twas quashed.

I'm trying to be a good blogger, but some days have very little narrative value, ya know?

Everyday Geek

Well, I realized that blogging was one of the few forms of geekiness that I had yet to participate in, so I figured I'd sign up at Blogger.com and give it the ole' college try.

Of course, just because something is geeky doesn't mean I'll embrace it. The only way you'll ever find me at a Star Trek convention involves putting sedatives in my margarita, tying to me to the back of your X-wing, and flying me onto the convention floor (where I will promptly gather up the closet Babylon 5 fans and start a revolution, but that's what you get for kidnapping a defenseless nerd).

Let's see how it goes :-)