October 27th, 2006, 2:49 pm PDT by Greg
I recently StumbledUpon a video that captivated me for some reason: Where the Hell is Matt?
I know this is the second dancing video I have posted. Maybe it’s a theme? Anyway, it strikes me that there’s something very right with the world because this guy exists.
In the second video (the one at the other end of that link), there is a clip of him dancing on the Kjeragbolten (which probably means something in some language). There is apparently a 1km drop from that rock before you hit anything (and I don’t think it really matters what you hit at that point—it could be a million nerf balls and you’d probably still die). I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but you wouldn’t get me on there if I was wearing a climbing harness tied to a bulldozer. But that isn’t true of everybody. There are many Kjeragbolten images on Flickr.
Posted in Links | 1 Comment »
October 21st, 2006, 10:12 am PDT by Greg
The CSSS had a games night last night. Not having much else to do, I went up to hang out for a while. Besides seconding one of the rooms in the lab so we could play Gran Tourismo on the projector, the games part was relatively uneventful.
But, there is an active group of first-year students. Here’s a quiz for everybody in the audience who has been in residence in first year (as many of them are): first year students + any excuse of a party = ???
That’s right! “Sloppy drunk.”
All of them disppeared and went back to res, drank too hard and too fast, and somehow managed to make it back to the ASB. Keep in mind that most of them are in my CMPT 120 class.
There’s something about watching your students yak into garbage cans that can really make your evening. Watching them draw on the passed-out one (and perhaps having some influence on the process) was just icing on the cake.
Just before I left, one of them came-to. He had purged most of the alcohol from his stomach and was in reasonably good shape. He looked at me, worried that I might hold something against him, and asked if I knew his name. I answered “no,” just to expedite the conversation. I thought about “no, [firstname],” but decided he was sober enough to catch that.
There are two interesting assumptions in this kid’s worry: (1) that I have some kind of individual control over his marks, and (2) that I would think a first-year student hurling the better part of a mickey of cheap booze is a horrible thing. Both assumptions are false and amuse me for different reasons.
Posted in Teaching, Work | 3 Comments »
October 9th, 2006, 12:07 pm PDT by Kat
I must say one of the things that I really miss is not being able to be home for the holidays. I know Canadian Thanksgiving is not as huge at American Thanksgiving in terms of people flying home to their family’s for the weekend, but I still miss it. In particular, I miss how Greg and I usually get 2 dinners.
1. A Chinese version of Thanksgiving at my grandma’s house, complete with turkey and some sort of Chinese noodle dish. Gotta love the fusion. Usually this dinner happens on the Friday or the Saturday of the long weekend – God forbid that the family has dunner on the holiday Monday. Most of my family is retired, so it’s not even like they have to work the next day. Anyways, this year the dinner was held on last Thursday. Don’t ask me why – my family’s weird.
2. Then there’s Thanksgiving dinner at Kelly and Paul’s. I REALLY miss this dinner. This year Kelly’s doing leftover Thanksgiving dinner. She did this last year at Christmas, and it was amazing. She cooked the dinner ahead of time (like the day before we got there), and then we made up our own reheated traditional dinner plates and made turkey sandwhiches. So, from what I’ve read in Kelly’s blog, that’s the plan for today’s dinner. And, since it’s Kelly, there’s always at least as many desserts as there are people.
mmmm….
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat something yummy for me!
p.s. What’s the story behind Canadian Thanksgiving? In the states Thanksgiving is usually taught as the native Americans helping out the Pilgrims when their crop failed. The native Americans shared their food, and so the Pilgrims gave thanks. It would be funny if it was similar in Canada, but just a month and a half earlier! Or, is it just giving thanks for a bountiful fall harvest?
Posted in General Life | 5 Comments »
October 9th, 2006, 12:38 am PDT by Greg
Curse you, Food Network!
So, I’m sitting here, thinking about going to bed. There’s some thing about a clam chowder cookoff on the food network. Now, I want chowder!
It’s hardly a late-night thing: I don’t think I could head out into Vancouver at 12:30 and find clam chowder. I’d settle for seafood chowder, but I don’t think that’s the issue. Maybe I can find some tomorrow.
Where does one go for a good chowder in the city?
Posted in General Life | 1 Comment »