Test

I've been working on a movie of pictures for my grandfather's upcoming 90th birthday party. This is the only venue I could think of to show it to members of my family, to get their input on it. If you're not a member of my family, you will find this REALLY boring.

Close Call

While filling up the gas tank of our Uhaul truck in Nebraska, I glanced down at the tire and noticed this:



Apparently the inner tire on this side was flat, so all the weight on that side had been going on that one tire. I can't even begin to describe how glad I am that I noticed this and we got it fixed (NOT at our own expense) before the tire blew out.

We'll be in NC on Monday!

The Plague

Congrats to Linda, Lauren's Nana, for correctly guessing the disease. Her guess was "bubonic plague", which is only half-right. It's actually septicemic plague, but they're both caused by the same bacterium, so close enough.

That blackening of the flesh? Yep, that's why the called it the Black Death.

Pop Quiz!

If you see this...

...what disease do you probably have?

Hint #1: this blackening in the flesh is the source of one of the common names of the disease, and despite what it may look like in the picture, is not due to fire or otherwise burned flesh.

Hint #2: this disease is endemic (naturally-occurring) in the four corners states.

Hint #3: If you DO actually have this disease, then by the time you see these symptoms, if you aren't already on antibiotics (meaning...it's caused by bacteria), then you'll soon be dead.

Anyone? Marissa, you're not allowed to answer.

UPDATE: The answer will be posted on Friday, April 17.

I need to read The Onion more often

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Thanks, Unkie Steve, for reminding me how hilarious The Onion really is.

Going to Carolina in my Mind

Well, it's official. We're leaving Provo soon after BYU graduation, and will move into our new home in Chapel Hill at beginning of May. We haven't completely pinned down where we're going to live in Chapel Hill yet, but that should be decided quite soon.

Apparently, Utah has decided to remind me just how much I dislike it by giving us another snowstorm, after a week of 60-degree weather. Stupid jerk-state.

Accepted

UNC called me this week, and I'M IN. Lauren and I will be moving out there as soon as possible.

I'll be entering the program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and after a year, I'll enter the Ph.D. program in Microbiology and Immunology.

Carolina Born, Carolina Bred, Not Yet Carolina Dead

Two weeks ago, I went to Dallas, for an interview at UT-Southwestern. I loved the whole weekend. The weather was perfect, the campus was beautiful, and the science happening there was amazing. The weirdest thing I noticed there? In the morning, the air smells distinctly like barbecue. I'm completely serious. I wasn't there long enough to decide if I liked hickory-smoked morning air, but it was definitely a nice idea. The following Monday, I received a call from one of their admissions faculty letting me know that they had decided to make me an offer--- I got accepted. Not only was I excited that I was accepted there, I was relieved that even if no one else accepted me, I would still have a place to go to this spring and flee Utah.

This past weekend, I've been in Chapel Hill, interviewing at UNC. My feelings about the entire trip could probably best be summarized with this picture.


What a gorgeous place. The campus is even more beautiful than in Dallas. The weather is more moderate. The town is adorable. The research is more pertinent to my own interests. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my time there. They said that they will probably need a week or so to let us know their decision, and oh man, I'm already getting antsy.

So, in answer to the question I asked in my last post, love of Cheerwine clearly won out. Not much of a surprise there--- Cheerwine will always win out.

Grad School

So, at right, there is a poll that has been up for many, many months, concerning where we should go for grad school. Since then, the University of Washington has rejected me, and hurricane-related concerns helped me decide not to apply to UTMB in Galveston, Texas. Remaining are the Albany Medical College, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and the University of Virginia.

Virgina has yet to respond to me.

I interviewed with AMC last week by phone. They seemed nice, and I'm sure I'd get a good education there, but unless everyone else rejects me, I can't imagine us living there. Albany is too freaking cold.

This week, I'll be flying out to Dallas for an interview at UTSW, and I'll be doing the same next week in Chapel Hill. Dallas is a much cheaper place to live than Chapel Hill and Charlottesville (not to mention Albany), but Lauren's not all that thrilled about spending 5-6 years living in a Texas climate, and we would definitely be closer to family in North Carolina or Virginia.

I wonder what will win out: who gives me the most money to go to their school, or love of Cheerwine?

CNN and Race

So. I was checking the news this morning from CNN and I saw something unusual. Here's my screen capture. Let's see if you can spot it. You'll need to click on the image to see a larger version.



Here's a zoom on the unusual area.



If you didn't know that Robert Gibbs is the White House Press Secretary, would it be unusual to you to see CNN apparently clarifying that Obama's press secretary is white?

Nice job, CNN. Nice job.

By the way, a careful observer will notice something in this screen capture that tells you some information about a recent change in my computer situation. Since January 2007, I've been using a Mac Mini. Did you notice the battery icon in the upper right? I just got a new aluminum Macbook!

Jealous? I know.

Better Know a District-- BYU

Stephen Colbert has "better-known" the district where I live! I'm so honored.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - Utah's 3rd - Jason Chaffetz

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Done!!!

I'm done with my finals! The stress of the semester is over! At last, I can relax and spend a decent amount of time with my wife.

Now, I can get on with the Christmas shopping.

Possessed

Lauren and I went out today and took pictures together in the snow. Unfortunately, as this picture shows, I appear to be possessed by some kind of goblin.



Fortunately, he didn't come out for EVERY picture.



Merry Christmas!

I love me some David Sedaris

It's no secret that I love David Sedaris. Earlier this year, I blogged about how I tried (unsuccessfully) when I was single to use one of his books as a dating activity.

On the episode of This American Life from two weekends ago, they included a fantastic reading by David Sedaris. Do yourself a favor and take the time to listen to this. I cropped out the Sedaris portion from the rest of the show and made it the audio for a movie, with a picture of him as the only video.
Enjoy this.

(from "This American Life, 11.21.08, #104: "Music Lessons")

I think I could have cropped out everything else, and just played his Billie Holiday version of the Oscar Meyer commercial jingle, and that by itself would have been hilarious enough.

If you're really interested, the This American Life website has an archive of all of their episodes. On the episode broadcast on Halloween of this year, the last portion of the show is another David Sedaris piece (it begins at 41:56), in which he describes his thoughts and experiences when he volunteered at a city morgue for a few days. Hilarious.

Halloween

So. Guess what Lauren and I were for Halloween?



The two ARE related. Any guesses? Take a look at Lauren up close.



Does the makeup around the eyes give it away? Look familiar?

Hmm...
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We were Jareth (David Bowie) and Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) from Labyrinth! Lauren was Jareth...



I was Sarah...



Look at this picture! Is it us, or is it from the movie? Who knows?!

Colbert on Young Voters

This is a clip from October 1st's episode of The Colbert Report. It's so funny, I had to share. That's about the only reason I have for posting this.

An Open Letter To the Mirror in the TJ Maxx Dressing Room

Dear Mirror in the TJ Maxx Dressing Room---

Hey. I was in the dressing room tonight, trying on some new jeans. Remember me? I'm the one who took this picture with my phone.



I understand that it's probably a good marketing skill for the mirrors to tell the customers that they look good in their clothing. That TOTALLY makes sense. But honestly, "That would be such a score"? Really? Who says that?

As a mirror, it's your job, I guess, to let posers look at you all day. That doesn't mean you have to become one.

Jake

Tags

I'm not much of a blog-tagging kind of guy, but I don't want one of my friends to think that I don't pay attention to what she has to say (like, say, when she tags me) either. So here goes.

What I was doing 10 years ago...
1. Being way excited that I was FINALLY in 8th grade
2. Two words: Nintendo 64
3. Living alone with my mom
4. Learning to play the trumpet
5. Deciding that science is simpler and more fun than other school subjects

5 Things on today's "to do" list...
1. Go to bed at a reasonable hour
2. Beat Chrono Trigger on my SNES Emulator before I'm too busy with school to do with it
3. Dishes
4. Resign to the fact that I have to take Physics this semester
5. Work on Grad School apps

5 things that I will most likely do instead of my to do list...
1. This
2. Stay Up Late watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
3. Play X-Men on my arcade game emulator
4. About half of the dishes
5. Remain in denial that Physics won't be that bad

5 Snacks I enjoy
1. Riesens
2. Fruit Snacks
3. Grilled Cheese
4. Ice Cream
5. Popsicles

5 Things I would do if I was a millionaire...
1. Buy a MacBook Pro, with all the bells and whistles
2. Get a Jetta
3. Get Lauren a GOOD iPod
4. Give Lauren that European honeymoon we had originally wanted
5. Get a Wii with Guitar Hero and Smash Brothers

5 places that I've lived...
1. Salisbury, NC
2. Provo, UT
3. Henderson, NV
4. Erlangen, Germany
5. Nashville, TN

Tag 5 people...
1. No
2. thanks,
3. I
4. am
5. good.

Barack Obama

Kudos to The Daily Show for this hilarious spoof on how ridiculously hyped Barack Obama is. The episode from which this clip comes was recorded right before Obama's Thursday night speech at the DNC.

Culture... REAL Culture

I'm a college student. My wife is an extremely bored sales associate at a department store. Neither of us really interacts much with people outside of our personal social sphere. Tonight, we were exposed to a decent cross-section of some of the other types of people out there.

Lauren had a craving for burgers tonight, and for some reason that neither of us really understand, she was craving, of all places, McDonald's. Going to McDonald's is an experience in which we take part once every six to eight months. Naturally, anything more often that that just isn't good for one's health (twice a year is bad enough). Below are some of the scenes we observed during tonight's semiannual gastrointestinal trials.

Horny High-Schoolers

I know you've seen this. A boy and a girl just beginning to enter sexual maturity, but they have no idea what to do with it. Consequently, they spend all their free time all over each other, completely oblivious to other people. There was a couple tonight who actually bothered to order some food, but spent most of the time with the girl sitting on her boyfriend's lap, straddling him and eating his face, rather than her food. It was awful.

Bad Parents

We saw two examples of this. We saw a man with three kids: a little boy and girl who were both enjoying their own Happy Meals, and a baby who spent the majority of the time sleeping in its little carseat-carrier-thingy. The two toddlers happily played with their Happy Meal toys while their father spent almost the entire time talking to someone on his cell phone. He completely ignored his children. So sad. We also saw a father get some food to go, and then loudly threaten his son of probably 4 years that "If you open that Happy Meal before we get in the car, I SWEAR I'll throw that toy away. I SWEAR." Nice. That's the way to get your child to love and respect you: verbal abuse and public humiliation.

Grifters
I'm not really sure if 'Grifters' is a word, so in case it isn't, I'm referring to an 'Artful Dodger' kind of person.

I don't know the details of what happened. I just overheard the tail end of a conversation between the manager and a man with dyed-black hair and several facial piercings (somewhat unusual, for Provo). This man claimed he had spoken to a woman last night, around midnight, and that she had written something down somewhere, and for some reason, this man was entitled to three free sandwiches. I'm guessing someone messed up his order or something, and he didn't realize it until he got home and called back to complain, but didn't want to return to the store. Not only did the manager have no notification from this 'girl' this man had spoken with, but the manager also said that there were no women working that time of night at all. The man persisted. This story is kinda boring, but what shocked me was that in the end, this man kept pushing until he got the three sandwiches he was demanding: two double quarter pounders and some chicken sandwich. That's about fifteen dollars' worth of food, for a story that was CLEARLY made up. I could easily make up a more airtight story than that. Easy.

Who knows what we'll encounter next time we feel like punishing our stomachs with a few ounces of putrid grease? Maybe we'll see a homosexual? A lion tamer? Or, perhaps most rare of all in Provo: a black person?