var blogDB = new Array();

blogDB[0] = "<i>Origins:</i> The Computer Science program here at Centre College started a \"Tech Club\". Being the tech-obsessed mega-dork that I am, I joined. They asked for people to volunteer to help design a club webpage. I didn't remember how, but volunteered to help in the hopes of learning/remembering something. After a brief tutorial from a senior who knows her web-design stuff, some of the HTML and web-design-through-Microsoft-Word-for-lazy-people-who-don't-want-to-bother-with-coding stuff that I had messed around with a few years ago sort of came back. OK, to be honest, this was originally done in Word b/c it's 10:53 PM on a Monday night and if I tried to re-learn HTML right now, my brain would melt. Which is generally an undesired occurrence. I might need it tomorrow for philosophy class. :(  <br/><br/>Note to future webpage designers, never design a webpage in Microsoft Word, unless you enjoy migraine headaches caused by things not staying where you put them on the page. It's making me nearly-literally tear my hair out. <br/><br/>I have some random pages up now, whose names are generally self-explanatory. Enjoy.";

blogDB[1] = "<i>4/16/05:</i> Yay! Now all of my pages have at least something on them, although I still don't have all of the \"Humor\" pages up. But there's plenty of humor there to enjoy for now! I've finally managed to get around to doing this much b/c my homework level has been fluctuating lately from \"about to go crazy from stress\" to \"absolutely nothing to do\". In the latter times I've been working on this masterpiece of web-design (insert sarcasm here...). At least I have another way to fill my free time now. Have you seen the Episode III movie poster? I'm excited; I ordered one from SW.com a few days ago, even though it doesn't actually start shipping for about a week and a half. <br/><br/><i>I can't wait until May 19!!!!!!</i>";

blogDB[2] = "<i>9/18/05:</i> Since this website has had absolutely nothing done to it for many moons (say, about 4 months), I figured that I might as well pay the poor thing some attention and try to come up with something half-way fresh to add. Ha. <br/><br/>A new school year has started, and the stress is coming back full-force, mostly in the form of reading assignments hefty enough to almost make me wish that we had never \"progressed\" to having a written language. Of course, that would make this masterpiece of web-design (har-dee-har-har) rather impossible, both to make and to access. Ah, well. At least, if nothing else but minor nervous breakdowns, this new semester has brought along with it an interesting life opportunity: my roommate is a Japanese foreign-exchange student. Which is utterly awesome, because not only is she incredibly nice and so on and so forth, but now I have an actual captive Japanese person on whom I can practice my Japanese-speaking skills. Not that I have much in the way of skills to practice, especially after a Japanese-light summer break. Sigh. I know it's all in my skull somewhere, I just have to take a mental broom and sweep the bits of <i>Nihongo</i> out of the random crevices in my brain into which they have proceeded to fall. Speaking of which, I have some Japanese homework to do...";

blogDB[3] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/java.png\" align=\"left\"><i>9/19/05:</i> My sanity is slowly being destroyed. By curly brackets. Curly brackets -- { } -- are responsible for destroying my sanity for one reason: Java. Java, for you more caffeine- or geography-inclined individuals out there, is also a programming language. It's actually quite a good one, it just has a few things you have to remember. One of them is putting curly brackets around EVERYTHING. If you forget one teensie-weensie measly little curly bracket, your program will not compile. Which means that it has no chance in hell of running b/c compiling is what creates the machine code that actually runs when you run your program. Going through heaven-only-knows-how-many lines of code to try to figure out where that missing bracket should go is one of the activities that I file just above \"being dismembered\" on my big list of stuff I really don't want to do. The same goes for the semicolons that just absolutely MUST go at the end of every line. Ugh.";

blogDB[4] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/super.png\" align=\"left\"><i>10/3/05:</i> Ok, am I definitely not one to obsessively follow the tabloid stalking of celebrities or to hunger after every detail of famous people's lives, but something I read yesterday on both CNN.com and some entertainment website thoroughly caught my eye. Actor Nicolas Cage (<i>National Treasure</i>, <i>Gone in 60 Seconds</i>, etc.) and his third wife have just had their first baby. And they've named him \"Kal-el\". <br/><br/>When I read this the first time, a double-take was definitely in order. For those of you out there not quite into superheros, Kal-el is the Kryptonian (birth) name of Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman. The guy just named his kid after SUPERMAN. If that kid's not going to have an interesting life, I don't know who will. <br/><br/>No pressure at all, little Kal-el. None whatsoever...";

blogDB[5] = "<i>10/10/05:</i> In the \"daaaaaaaaaaaaamn\" category is the following found at <a href=\"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/tiny.html\">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/tiny.html</a>: <br/><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/einsteinpaperclip.jpg\"> <br/>-the mass of a small paper clip has roughly the energy of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima <br/>-when a single atom of uranium is split, less than a proton's worth of mass is converted into energy, which is enough to kill an amoeba <br/>-the amount of solar energy that strikes Earth in a second is equivalent to 4 pounds of mass <br/>-a dollar's worth of pennies could power New York state for about 2 days <br/>-a 2.2-pound lump of coal could illuminate a light bulb for 29 million years <br/>-when the Space Shuttle travels as its top speed of 18,000 mph, it gains roughly the mass of a flea <br/>-a medium-sized house could possibly split Earth in half <br/><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/einsteinhouse.jpg\"> <br/>The lesson: don't be converting either your house or a paper clip to energy any time soon. Crazy-cool atomic stuff...";

blogDB[6] = "<i>10/25/05:</i> I have just discovered what I find a very wise quote in, of all places, the Bible. :) <br/><br/><center>\"For in much wisdom is much vexation, <br/>And those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.\"  <br/>(Ecclesiastes 1:18)</center>";

blogDB[7] = "<i>10/26/05:</i> The following is a new low for me in the category of \"things I've done whilst trying to avoid doing homework by any means possible\": I've discovered that the little dangly thing in the back of one's throat (the \"uvula\") doesn't have much feeling in it. When I poked it and bent it around, I couldn't feel anything at all. Only by pinching it fairly hard did I get any acknowledgement whatsoever from my nervous system of its existence. It feels pretty cool, too, really squishy. So if you ever get really bored, start pinching your uvula. Hope you don't have a hair-trigger gag reflex, though. :) <br/>OK, the Internet officially has everything. Through Google I just found this, a smiley face w/ an uvula >> &nbsp;&nbsp;<b><font color=black>:-(</font><font color=red>}</font><font color=black>)</font></b><br/><br/>Yikes...";

blogDB[8] = "<i>11/21/05:</i> I really need to convert this site into HTML code, because this whole designing-a-website-in-Microsoft-Word thing is beginning to drive my inner computer scientist absolutely nuts. Have you looked at the source code that Word generates for this page alone??? It's <i>horrific</i>!! Yep, this site is definitely going into HTML as soon as possible...";

blogDB[9] = "<i>12/2/05:</i> OK, so this site is about 80% HTML-coded now, though some of the pages still aren't fully done. Probably the best result of my HTML-ification of this site is that I finally re-designed it into something that better approximates an actual website. My design is still amateurish, I know, but it's certainly lightyears better than the old version.<br/>Additionally, I've created two new pages, \"SW Pictures\" and \"Downloads\". \"SW Pictures\", true to its name, will contain some of the better <i>Star Wars</i> pictures that I've managed to collect over my years of fandom. Unfortunately, this page is not even started due to the fact that the DVD on which I stored the pics is giving me grief and I'm still working on extracting them from it. \"Downloads\" will probably offer a collection of things like wallpapers and such that I have run across that I think are awesome. Maybe some useful freeware programs as well, as long as it's permissible for me to distribute them. I'll have to check...";

blogDB[10] = "<i>12/4/05:</i> Ah, the things you get to do in college. Like stand outside in your pajamas at 2 AM when it's about 20 degrees out. The other night some super-genius burnt their popcorn so badly that they set off the fire alarm, so all the people in my dorm had to go outside and wait out there for like five minutes until campus security got here to make sure that the building wasn't going to burn down. I was half-asleep when the fire alarm went off, and my pajamas are a t-shirt and shorts, so I definitely would have frozen to death of I hadn't woken up enough to throw on a sweatshirt and grab a blanket to wrap around myself. As it was, I still got pretty damn cold. It was really funny though, b/c most people had the weirdest collection of clothes on. I heard this one girl talking about how she threw on a shirt and pants over her pajamas of sports bra and boxer shorts. Glad she was awake enough to remember; she would've died of hypothermia otherwise! And then this guy and girl came out together about a minute after everyone else. Wonder what they had been doing? They definitely got some catcalls. :) <br/><br/>Awesome quote: \"I'm gonna chill with the cows\". Thanks Tony-san!";

blogDB[11] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/snow.png\" align=\"left\"><i>12/8/05:</i> Snow!  Actually it's by now become more of slush/ice (slice?) and it's rather slippery to walk on. It's still mostly white, though, so it still looks snowy out. Or as snowy as it can look with about a millimeter of actual snow... Still, it's a visual improvement over bare concrete sidewalks and the like. <br/><br/>On a completely other note, if you want/need a good laugh, read the story called \"The Pastor's Ass\" on my Humor page. It's quite the amusing little anecdote. :) <br/><br/>In other news, my Anthropology class today was quite amusing. A prospective student and his father were visiting our class, which would have been perfectly cool, except their timing was less than opportune. You see, they just happened to pick one of the days on which we were presenting our ethnographic projects, where we had to go out and study a little \"cultural scene\". So this poor PS and his father ended up sitting through a presentation on a bowling alley, horse auctions, and, of all things, frat parties and a sex store. What made it all even better (I swear I think my professor was blushing a bit that this was the representation of her class that those 2 were seeing) was that the presentations included pictures, so they were treated to sights such as a drunken streaker and penis-shaped thumbtacks. Guess who we probably won't find on campus next year...";

blogDB[12] = "<i>12/9/05:</i> Today is random quotes day!<br/><br/>\"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.\" --Anon.<br/><br/>\"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.\" --Albert Einstein<br/><br/>\"Not all those who wander are lost.\" --JRR Tolkien<br/><br/>\"The person who says it cannot be done should not get in the way of the one doing it.\" --Chinese Proverb<br/><br/>\"Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.\" --Katherine Whitehorn";

blogDB[13] = "<i>12/10/05:</i> Thought for the day: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic. ";

blogDB[14] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/cutekitty.jpg\"><br/><i>12/12/05:</i> Can everyone say ADORABLE??? Soooooooo cute!! Check out more cuteness at <a href=\"http://cuteoverload.com/\">cuteoverload.com</a>!!<br/><br/>Site HTML-ification Update: We are now fully HTML coded! Yay! OK, so actually we have been for about the past week, but I forgot to mention it. I'm still working on gathering up stuff for \"Poetry\" (which ousted \"For Jenny\" due to my lack of ideas for that page) and Humor. I've also removed \"Downloads\", at least for now, because most everything I wanted to supply for download fit nicely under \"Humor\". So it's there. I may make up a page for wallpapers or screensavers or some such later. \"SW Pictures\" has still not gotten anywhere b/c I still haven't had enough time to wrest my pics from that blasted DVD. That will be my goal over X-mas Break...<br/><br/>Some upcoming movies that I think look quite interesting and hope to see: <i>Memoirs of a Geisha</i>, <i>X3</i>, <i>Aeon Flux</i>, and <i>King Kong</i>.";

blogDB[15] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/death earth.jpg\" width=300 height=300><br/><i>12/17/05:</i> It's the \"Death Planet\"...perhaps less powerful than the Death Star, yet more colorful! :)<br/>Found at <a href=\"http://www.howstrange.com/\">howstrange.com</a>, check out other funny things there!<br/><br/>It amazes me sometimes how I haven't killed myself driving yet...I darted across 2 lanes of traffic today in a quite large city. And today is the Saturday a week before Christmas, so you know the stores and streets were madhouses. Guess it's a good thing that I don't own a car, I'd prolly kill myself with it. Although, at least then I wouldn't have to suffer through the cleverly disguised student-torture-device known as finals. They were, as usual a completely miserable period of time. It's amazing how completely wrung out one's brain can feel after several days of intense studying and test-taking. Oh, and there's the stress, too. I swear I lose a few brain cells to stress-induced mitochondrical failure (or what ever the heck the cellular equivalent of heart failure would be, I'm not a biologist) each finals-time...";

blogDB[16] = "<i>12/23/05:</i> Go to Google. Type in \"miserable failure\". Look at the top result. God I love the Internet. :)<br/><br/>Between older backups and remembering where I got some of my newer pictures, I have managed to mostly reconstruct my collection of <i>Star Wars</i> pictures (I never did get that DVD to work...), and I am now working on coding the \"SW Pics\" subpages and uploading the pictures. It's the uploading that's taking most of the time b/c all I've got here at home is a stupid dial-up connection. So far I've got the pictures pages for the new trilogy movies done and uploaded, and the pages for ANH, ESB, & ROTJ are close to being done/uploaded. Please bear with me while I get everything for this section of the site done. I'm trying to think of the best way to present the pics aesthetically, so I may be working on these pages for a while...";

blogDB[17] = "<i>12/26/05:</i> I love my mom; she says such funny things. Today when she and my sister were playing chess, my sister left for a few minutes b/c my mom was taking a long time to move. When she got back, my mom said: \"In your absence, I sharpened my swords and found more clubs.\" Just the thought of chess pieces going at it with swords and clubs is enough to crack me up. :)<br/><br/>The other day, my dad heard this on the radio: There have been only 2 Presidents in the history of the United States whose names contain all the letters to spell \"criminal\". They were: Richard Milhous Nixon and William Jefferson Clinton. LOL :)";

blogDB[18] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/bunnyafghan.jpg\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/puppystick.jpg\"><br/><i>1/4/06:</i> A new year it is, happy or not. Back to school, sadly. Sigh. On the upside, I've just finished browsing <a href=\"http://cuteoverload.com/\">cuteoverload.com</a>, and I discovered these squeezable critters hanging out waitingto be \"awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww\"-ed over. I love the bunny!";

blogDB[19] = "<i>1/6/06:</i> Our weather is officially insane. We had tornadoes on Monday; today we have snow. I swear...<br/><br/>In other news, I've finally gotten all of the SW Pics pages coded and up. I'm trying to think of a better design for them, but they are at least there. A pox on malfunctioning DVDs that made it take so damn long to get those pictures up. I've also discovered something a bit odd: the difference that \"/\" vs. \"\\\" makes to different Internet browsers. For some reason unknown to me, when I initially coded all these webpages, I more often than not used \"\\\" (in links and web addresses and the like). It turns out that though Microsoft's IE isn't picky about \"/\" and \"\\\", Mozilla's Firefox (which I recently switched to using b/c it's generally better than IE) is. Firefox wants \"/\", or it gets confused and consequently can't find pages or open links. Stuff like that. Anyway, it's all fixed now. That was an interesting bug to discover...";

blogDB[20] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/t hell dial-up.gif\"><br/><br/><i>1/8/06:</i> I love this tech-comic that I recently found! I've just finished adding a small boatload of comics to the \"Tech Cartoons\" section of my \"Humor\" page. Check them out, there are some <i>really</i> funny ones, including the \"Tech Commandments\" and \"DaVinci's Code\". Go, now! Look at them! If you'd spent most of your day programming (in a language you've been studying for a grand total of 3 days), then you'd need some tech-humor too. :)";

blogDB[21] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/hubble moon.png\" align=\"left\"><i>1/9/06:</i> This has to be the most beautiful picture of the moon that I've ever seen! It was taken by Hubble. Pictures like this are what make me mad about NASA not performing maintenence on Hubble anymore. They're just leaving it to die. :( Fortunately it can probably still last a while w/out repairs. I'm also excited about the upcoming Webb telescope, though I can't remember much about when it's going to be up and running. For the full version of this moon pic, go <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1999/14/image/d\">here</a>.<br/><br/>My class today was uber-interesting. We installed this program on our Linux machines called \"psDooM\". Those of us that've played the video game DooM (I'm not included in that group, not being much of one for first-person shooters that don't involve spacecraft) will appreciate the design of this program. psDooM is actually a fancy process-management application; it lets you control which programs are running on your computer. Anyway, the running programs are represented by monsters, and you get to run around among them (and in the surrounding environment where there are more conventional enemies) shooting which ever ones you want to. Injuring one causes that program to recieve fewer system resources, and killing one terminates that program. Since psDooM provides you as targets <i>all</i> processes that are currently running on your computer, shooting the wrong thing can crash your system. And I gather from one of the people in my class that throwing a grenade, or whatever sort of mass-destruction devices you get in DooM, into the crowd of program-monsters does some interesting things to your computer, like causing it to die utterly and require a reboot. I've been playing around w/ it too (this actually <i>is</i> what we did in class today), though I haven't gotten as far as most of the guys in my class, as they've actually played DooM before. It is rather cathardic. You just think about all the times that your computer has pissed you off, and then proceed to pump its vital programs full of virtual bullets. It's very fun! :D";

blogDB[22] = "<i>1/10/06:</i> I've <i>finally</i> found a half-decent Matrix screensaver! I've been looking for a good one for forever... It shows the falling Matrix code, and has a slew of options that you can set, like what the code is, background and text colors, how fast the code moves, how dense it is, and a bunch of other more sophisticated stuff that in general lets you make the Matrix look exactly like you want it to. In short, everything I've ever wanted in a Matrix screensaver! Unfortunately it does show an annoying red message in the corner about you purchasing the screensaver, but I can live with that for the sake of a good Matrix 'saver. Click <a href=\"http://www.dirfile.com/real_3d_matrix.htm\">here</a> to check it out...";

blogDB[23] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/linux penguin.png\" align=\"left\"><i>1/13/06:</i> If I previously had any doubt that I wanted to be a computer science major, it has been erased in these last few days of class. We've been assigned this group project where we're supposed to get this program called openMosix installed on our Linux machines. It's a program to create a cluster, which is basically a group of computers working together to get their collective workload done as efficiently and quickly as possible by moving work to machines that have less to do at the moment. This is a very nice idea, and certainly doesn't sound too hard, right? Ha! <br/><br/>Our problems started the second we went to download the software to install it. It turns out that the version of openMosix that works with our version of Linux (2.6 kernel) isn't quite done yet. Figuring we didn't have much of a choice, we downloaded what there was of the openMosix code for the 2.6 kernel, patched a vanilla 2.6 kernel with it, and compiled the patched kernel. The compiling took a full two hours with our Pentium IIIs. Then we discovered that we had failed to tell the kernel that we wanted to enable openMosix before we compiled it. So we had to recompile the blasted kernel, another 2 hours gone. That concluded our first day of work on this project. <br/><br/>The next day, one of my group members had discovered the previous evening that there weren't any userland tools for the new version of openMosix written yet. Which was a major snag b/c having those tools is a requirement of our project, so we had to think of another approach. All the work of the previous day was useless. So then we decided to try getting the second newest verison of openMosix (for the 2.4 Linux kernel) and compiling it with a 2.4 kernel, seeing if that would run. Unsurprisingly, all the stuff that got installed with our 2.6 kernels (GUIs, programs, etc.) weren't exactly compatible with our patched 2.4 kernels, so our systems wouldn't boot to the 2.4 kernel due to a \"kernel panic\" (I love Linux's terminology, it's so funny :) ). So much for that idea. We consulted our professor, and he helped us work out a few more ideas. <br/><br/>Next we spent a few hours trying other approaches, all of which led to dead ends and a few more kernel panics. Oh, and one of my group members ended up screwing his computer up so badly that it wouldn't boot at all for several hours until he got it fixed somehow. Eventually someone discovered our salvation: clusterKnoppix. ClusterKnoppix is a bit strange, but very cool. It's an operating system on a CD, that you can just pop into your CD-ROM and boot to. It's sort of like having another hard drive with another version of Linux (Knoppix) installed on it, except you can't write anything to the CD. You can save stuff temporarily in RAM, but when you reboot the machine, eveything you saved is gone. The absolutely awesome thing about clusterKnoppix is that it comes with openMosix installed on it. It runs a little slow because it's running from a CD, but by this point, we couldn't have collectively cared less about how fast the thing run, it WORKED! It took us several more hours to figure out how to configure openMosix to recognize other computers and get the computers to share jobs among themselves, but we finally got that done. We had a cluster!!!! That concluded our second day of work, which ran from 10 AM to 5 PM solid, excepting a one-hour break for lunch. <br/><br/>Today's work wasn't quite so involved b/c we only got half the class time of the other days, but today we finally got started on planning for our presentation on Monday. Which we rather had to do today b/c half our group is gone this weekend. And conveniently enough it's the half that has the most idea what's going on. Figures. But I am definitely going to be spending my entire weekend trying to figure out all of openMosix's commands and configurations, because that's what my 7-minute segment of the presentation has to be about. Sigh. <br/><br/>Oh, and back to those possible doubts? There's a very good reason that I now have absolutely no doubts about wanting to be a CS major: I found this whole thing FUN. Even when I was so frustrated that I wanted to kill something, some deep little bit of me was still enjoying itself. <br/><br/>I baffle myself, but at least I know what I want to be when I grow up...";

blogDB[24] = "<i>1/14/06:</i> I've been browsing <a href=\"http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/\">corsinet.com's \"Brain Candy\"</a> section, and I've just found some absolutely excellent insults directed at America/Americans. After all, what kind of pathetic person are you if you can't laugh at yourself and your country? I LOVE the irony of the Hitler one. :) <br/><br/>- Americans always try to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else. -- Winston Churchill <br/>- I don't see much future for the Americans. Everything about the behavior of the American society reveals that it's half judaized, and the other half is negrified. How can one expect a state like that to hold together? -- Adolf Hitler <br/>- The 100% American is 99% idiot. -- George Bernard Shaw <br/><br/>...and to not leave out the rest of the world, here are gentle critiques of some of our other fellow humans... <br/><br/>- Britain is the only country in the world where the food is more dangerous than the sex. -- Jackie Mason <br/>- France is a country where the money falls apart but you can't tear the toilet paper. -- Billy Wilder <br/>- The German mind has a talent for making no mistakes but the very greatest. -- Clifton Fadiman <br/>- This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. -- Sigmund Freud (about the Irish) <br/>- The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness. -- Paul Theroux <br/>- In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered. -- Winston Churchill <br/><br/>...and to at last make everyone equal, some nice intelligence insults. <br/><br/>- A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post. -- Tom Waits <br/>- He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. -- Abraham Lincoln <br/>- He has the attention span of a lightning bolt. -- Robert Redford <br/>- He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. -- George Bernard Shaw <br/>- His golf bag does not contain a full set of irons. -- Robin Williams <br/>- His mind is so open that the wind whistles through it. -- Heywood Braun <br/>- I would not want to put him in charge of snake control in Ireland. -- Eugene McCarthy <br/>- Reader, suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain <br/>- Why are we honoring this man? Have we run out of human beings? -- Milton Berle";

blogDB[25] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/bad_ninjas.png\" align=left><i>1/20/06:</i> At last, I finally have enough free time to add a post to here! I am fully convinced that my professor is conducting an experiment on how many projects you can assign a group of students in a period of three weeks before their sanity finally explosively shatters like the block of cheese on that 'Kraft Crumblers' commercial. Since Monday, I've given my part of our openMosix project presentation, learned a new scripting language (PHP) and how to use a database program (mySQL), and wrote from scratch a website (using PHP and mySQL) that can do the main things that E-bay can (logging in, registering, posting items to sell, bidding on items, viewing all the items for sell, having auctions close at a certain time, keeping a history of bids on items, etc). Oh, and today we started yet another project, this one to install SELinux on our computers to create a secure portal between the school's computers and the rest of the Internet. Writing that website (using a language and a program that I had just learned about the day before) in three days has become the new apex of my list of \"hardest assignments i've ever had\". It beats the 10 page research paper, for Christ's sake! Sorry, Moudry, but I've finally found a teacher more determined to kill his students than you. :) And yet, I STILL love the class! I swear, I utterly baffle myself. I am SUCH a techno-phile. :) <br/><br/>A note on the picture. It's a comic from a website known as <a href=\"http://www.badninjas.com/\">www.badninjas.com</a>. They have all kinds of similar funny comics of the same theme. Check them out! <br/><br/>Using my hastily-learned PHP, I'm thinking about trying to add some more interesting features to this site, like maybe a page for people to submit new clam-ified quotes for \"Clams and Quotes\" or a page for general comments. I wish I knew if the school's webserver that this site is on supports PHP...I'll have to check...I would think they should...but then again, I've known about this language for a grand total of 4 days. I don't know crap about it, really...but I like it! :) <br/><br/>In the \"cool computer errors\" category, yesterday I was checking my e-mail in Outlook. I have my \"Office assistant\" set to the little cat, who I've named \"Nilla\", btw. Anyway, Outlook somehow contrived to crash in a way so that even though it was closed, Nilla didn't close out like he usually does, so I had the little cat sitting on my desktop, still moving and stuff like he normally does. It was so cute! I was sad when I had to turn my computer off for the night, because he was still there, stretching and meowing and stuff. I wonder if they make little \"desktop pets\" or anything that you can have running around on your screen...";

blogDB[26] = "<i>1/21/06:</i> Ah ha! You CAN get virtual pets for your desktop! I've found several adorable ones, most of which can be found <a href=\"http://www.kylyria.net/desktop_pets.htm\">here</a>. I particularly like Felix, a black and white feline who can roam around on your desktop or stay in one place (if you tell him to), grooming, playing, etc. You can also pick him up by the scruff of the neck with your mouse and move him around. Very cute! :)";

blogDB[27] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/laptop.png\" align=\"left\"><i>2/2/06:</i> Ah, I love vacations. If only they were longer. So much hanging out with friends and boyfriend to do, so little time. :( <br/>Anyway, my break resulted in a few mention-worthy things, the most interesting of which was my success in installing Fedora Core 4 Linux on my laptop. Linux, though generally highly easy to install on desktop computers, is a bit trickier to get working on laptops. Fortunately for me, I think my combination of less-than-cutting-edge laptop (a Compaq Presario 900 series) and a recent version of Linux (FC4) worked together so that most of my hardware is supported. I haven't exactly run rigorous tests on the setup, but it definitely boots and can connect to the Internet and fun things like that. I did have to manually hunt down and install a driver for my modem in order to connect to the Internet via dial-up, and I also had to install the screensavers from the terminal before I could use them, but from what I read, this was an intentional modification to FC4 and not a bug. Ah, and I notice I've been imprecise in my describing what I did. I did not just install Linux on my laptop, I installed it alongside my existing Windows XP installation to form a dual-boot system. When I want Windows, I can have Windows; when I want Linux, I have Linux. It's quite fun. It did require me to resize XP's hard drive partition, which, though I found it a little scary since I much prefer not having to reinstall Windows because I just accidentally fucked up my partitioning, was quite easy, once I found the program with which to do it. I forget the name of the program, but I'm definitely keeping it around for possible future use. <br/><br/>I have just now added another entry to my <a href=\"humor.htm\">Humor</a> page's \"Audio & Video\" section. This entry is a little stop-motion animated movie entitled \"The Missing Eyeball\" and was made by my best friend Laura and her boyfriend John. It's an incredibly cute little movie, and the voices and sound-effects crack me up no matter how many times I watch it. :) Laura and John are very into computer graphics, animation, and cool stuff like that. They're also very good at them. :) Their movie is really worth a view or twenty, check it out!<br/><br/><i>There, John, I've mentioned you guys on here. Happy now? :)</i><br/><br/>In alternate thoughts, I just found an excellent example of the whole \"good and evil all depend on your point of view\" thing in a CNN article about a movie that's coming out soon in Turkey that depicts American soldiers as bad guys who, among other things, storm a wedding and wreak <i>Kill Bill</i>-esque havok on the participants. Of course, we can hardly complain, because among all our movies, we've had to have depicted at least half the world's armies as bad guys at one time or the other. According to that article, most Turks aren't particularly fond of Americans right now and associate all kinds of fun words like \"rude\" and \"violent\" with us. The sad thing is, they're pretty much right...";

blogDB[28] = "<i>2/5/06:</i> One thing about living at college: interesting things are always happening. This weekend was Rush Weekend, when the fraternities and sororities on campus officially induct their new members of the year. Needless to say, plenty of people, particularly the old and newly-minted frat boys, were drinking, and campus has been pretty crazy all weekend. There was music blasting from one of the frat houses all day yesterday and part of this morning. My dorm is several buildings and a street over from Greek Row, but I could still perfectly hear the words to all the songs. And then there was the periodic <i>waaaaaay</i>-too-enthusiastic screaming from that general direction. Between the music and screaming, they actually woke me up yesterday morning. This isn't a very easy feat b/c I'm a pretty sound sleeper. And then when I was walking back from breakfast, a group of frat boys (probably pledges) came running along another path, screaming at the top of their lungs. At this point, running wasn't a very safe idea, because it was still snowing quite enthusiastically (it ended up snowing most of the day). Nice wet, slippery snow, too. It was also approximately 25 degrees out, and at least half of the frat boys were wearing shorts. It was incredibly funny. It turns out that it's really quite hard to focus on one's homework when you can hear the Greeks screaming their heads off en masse down the street. It rather sounded like there was a riot outside. :)<br/><br/>Leaving the crazy Greeks behind, yesterday I added a few more videos to my \"Links\" page. Either Bobby or John, or both, found them while we were all hanging out and slightly bored over my break. My favorite of them is a very informative grammatical lesson on \"fuck\". It's really quite interesting how versatile the infamous \"f-word\" is. Then there's a video called \"Smile\". It depicts a <i>1984</i>-ish society run by robots where the punishment for failing to smile is quite severe. It's a strangely beautiful mix of depressing and sad. The final of my new additions is called \"The Asshole Song\". I'm not even going to say anything about that, one just has to see it. Check 'em out! :)<br/><br/>Hmmmm, this page is beginning to get pretty darn long. I might have to split it up into several pages...";

blogDB[29] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/aibo.png\" align=left><i>2/10/06:</i> This semester I have accumulated another job, this one involving programming, finally. One of my computer science professors has a Sony Aibo robotic dog (exactly like the one shown), and she's trying to write programs to enable it to learn. Needless to say, this is not a small undertaking, so she's employed two of us CS students (me and a junior guy) as her assistants. My professor's idea is to enable the dog to learn through a technique called \"reinforcement learning\". The dog gets an electronic reward whenever he accomplishes what he's supposed to. He gets a negative reward when he does something \"bad\" or unwanted. At the moment, we have a program in which the dog looks around for his ball, wagging his tail when he finds it. The program is set up where the ball is always in roughly the same place, and the dog learns over time how to find the ball more quickly from any starting position. When we ran the program the first time, he just looked around absolutely randomly, and it usually took him several minutes to find his ball. Now he's learned some, and he can find the ball in around half a minute or less. Sometimes he finds it within a few seconds. It's all really quite cool. :) Now we're trying to get him to move toward the ball. That's had some interesting results so far. When we were working with him on Thursday, my professor had the dog run that program as it stood. The dog was ok for about 4 seconds, then he started looking for the ball lower and lower, until he was staring straight at the floor, where there was, naturally, no ball. At the same time he was also walking a bit, but when he lost sight of the ball, he started whining (part of the program), and turning right. So he was sort of shuffling around in a semi-circle, staring at the floor between his front paws and whining quite convincingly. It was both incredibly cute, incredibly funny, and a bit sad. But at least we then knew that that program needed some tweaking. Later on, we were once again trying to get him to walk, and the results were even funnier. Instead of actually walking in any direction, he just sort of started flailing around all over the place, then fell over. What was funniest was that his flailing-and-falling was a <i>perfect</i> impression of being drunk. Funnier still, all his flailing had somehow mis-aligned his leg joints so that any subsequent attempts to walk in any direction resulted in him scuttling sideways to the right, like a crab. Summary of that day: programmed dog to mimic drunkenness and crabs. Highly academically useful, that. :D";

blogDB[30] = "<i>2/11/06:</i> Anyone who is not interested in astronomy apparently has no interest in beauty. One of the newest images from Hubble is or the Orion Nebula, shown in <i>beathtakingly</i> beautiful detail. My eyes truly teared up when I saw the full-sized image of it, with silken ribbons of colorful dust and starlight sweeping through space. It's times like this that I really wish that I was an awesome poet, because a good description of that picture would make a fantastic poem. To see the image, go <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/01/image/a\">here</a>, go to the bottom of the page and select the option to see the \"Higher quality\" version of the picture. If your internet browser shrinks the image to fit in the window, find some way to zoom in on it. Trust me, it's worth it. And don't be fooled by less-than-fantastic smaller versions of the picture. They don't come anywhere near doing the full one justice. Don't be scared off by the site's dire warnings about viewing such large files in your browser. If you have a fairly new version of either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, I know for a fact that it'll work fine. Go, LOOK!";

blogDB[31] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/ci.png\" align=left><i>2/12/06:</i> I'm a bit bored at the moment, so heck, why shouldn't I go and write some ramblings about my TV show obsessions? (Don't answer that.) Whether in real life or on TV, I like weird people, particularly those who are weird in a constructive way. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I'm obsessed with the show <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>. The main characters are, naturally for a <i>Law & Order</i> spinoff, two New York City detectives, Bobby Goren and Alex Eames. I really like Eames, as she is both funny and kick-ass, but it's Goren who has really gotten me addicted me to the show. Goren is most definitely weird. He's incredibly smart, and his powers of both pattern recognition and psychological manipulation are mind-blowing. He seems to be able to get a confession out of absolutely anyone, and his interrogation methods are what would probably be termed \"unorthodox\". A few examples of his technique include his dragging a suspect around the iterrogation room in a strange sort of waltz, insulting a murdering judge's sexual prowess (and lack thereof), and acting as obnoxious as humanly possible in a Boston accent while infringing on a murdering cop's \"territory\". My paltry summaries can't nearly do the situations or performances justice, but trust me, they were utterly <i>hilarious</i>. He also has random little continious expressions of weirdness, like odd little hand gestures, funny comments, and his \"Goren lean\", where he kind of leans sideways and down in order to get a look at someone's face/eyes. I literally <i>cannot</i> get tired of watching Goren, even to the point of watching episodes five or six times, because he is inevitably interesting and always makes me laugh. The show is also quite well-written and the plots never boring. There are also tons of insightful and/or funny quotes. Simply put, a great show from all angles. Ah, and now I must be going. Two episodes of CI start in a few minutes, one of which I have not yet seen. I'm so happy... :)";

blogDB[32] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/100_per_chance.png\" align=left><i>2/18/06:</i> Oh my God! Wow! It's amazing! A weather forecast is actually <i>certain</i> of something! Oh, wait...it's already snowing outside. Darn, I was beginning to have faith in their abilities... <br/><br/>In Aibo-programming news, to his existing talents of drunkedness and crab impressions has been added a new ability. Dancing. (I kid you not.) The other day my professor, fellow student programmer, and I were all once again hard at work, this time trying to program Aibo-san (ok, so I couldn't resist that; Sony's a Japanese company, for heaven's sake!) to walk toward his nice pink bone and pick it up in his mouth. Naturally, we didn't exactly have much success on our first tries. He walked forward well enough, but when he saw his bone, instead of lowering his head, crouching down, opening his mouth, and picking the bone up, he kept his head up high and his legs started doing odd little things, like extending and lowering utterly out of sync for walking or anything useful. But, interestingly enough, his incorrect leg movements were synchronized with each other enough that there was actually a catchy little rhythm to his twitches. He was dancing. Quite well, too. It was an utter surprise to us, and we couldn't help but laugh hysterically for several minutes. The definite upside to programming a physical robot vs. simply programming a PC: at least when your programs don't work right, the result is amusing instead of just frustrating. :D";

blogDB[33] = "<i>2/24/06:</i> I have three utterly unrelated things to write about. The first is my most significant brush with famousness yet. Garrison Keillor of <i>Prarie Home Companion</i> fame came and did a show here the other day. Since I find his stories and radio show absolutely hilarious, I had gotten my ticket about the second they were available, and was consequently in the very front of the place. It was awesome, and the story he told was so funny that I couldn't actually breathe from laughing so hard for the better part of his show. I'm too bad at storytelling myself to do it justice, just suffice it to say that the pinnacle of the story involved a drunk Norweigian in a row boat singing obscene songs, twenty Lutheran pastors on a pontoon boat that was barely keeping their combined weight afloat, and a naked guy on a hang glider. ROTFLMAO doesn't even begin to cover it. :) My dad and sister also came up for the show, but they got stuck way in the back 'cause they waited a bit too long to buy their tickets. Poor them.<br/><br/>My second order of non-business is a bit about Aibo programming progress. The other night I finally managed to get myself over to the lab where we work w/ him to get some programming done. I basically spent two and a half hours writing a rudimentary program to get him to lie down. The whole lying down thing is a lot more complex than it seems, especially when you have to give specific commands to move each of three joints in each of his legs, and you have to give a lot of these commands so that you can move him a little at a time so he doesn't fall over and hurt himself or something. The next day at one of my jobs we had nothing to do, so I wrote a much-improved version of the program that automated much of the generation of specific values to which to set the various leg joints. Thanks to that program, Aibo can now (usually) lay down, put his head down between his paws and whine. It's really quite cute, though still rather jerky and far from reliable. Some lay-downs are much more smooth than others, and some are just horrifically jerky and such. Hopefully I'll be able to work on that some this weekend. I swear, it's amazing how obsessed I am about programming. Now that he can do what I want him to, I want him to do it <i>better</i>. I wonder if I am mentally capable of quitting working on a program that doesn't have a specific deadline to stop me? Guess we'll see...<br/><br/>And the third item. Why on God's green earth are there so many TV commericals for toilet cleaning products??? I can easily understand wanting to keep your toilet <i>seat</i> clean, 'cause you actually <i>touch</i> that part, but what's with the obsession with clean toilet bowls? The products that advertise how many germs they kill particularly amuse me. It's a <i>toilet</i>, for Christ's sake! Why does it need to be sterile? Are these people <i>drinking</i> out of their toilets??? We as a society are so damn pathetic when it comes to germs. It's like we think that if there's one single germ within 900 miles of us, we'll die instantly in some horrifically painful and humiliating way. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.";

blogDB[34] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/haru_poem.png\" align=left><i>3/1/06:</i> It's spring! It's so awesomely warm outside today, which is especially nice after all the cold weather and unusually frequent snow that we've had this winter. It's amazing how foreign warm weather can seem after so many months of being frozen solid every time you set foot outdoors. If only today was a Friday, it would be a perfect day. Warm, beautiful weather, but it's only a Wednesday and I've got an evil amount of dialogue to memorize in Japanese by Friday. Sigh. But, speaking of Japanese, there's this beautiful picture I found via Google. It was on a Japanese person's website, and I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's a poem. It's something about spring, in any case, and though I freely admit that I have no idea what it says, it sure is damn pretty to look at. That's one of the things I love about Japanese: even when what's written makes no sense to me, it's still beautiful. I'll have to ask Aya to translate for me. :)<br/><br/>I've had a suggestion that I make it possible to post comments on my blog, pictures, etc from here. I've been thinking about how to do that on and off for quite some time. Obviously it's possible, I just have to figure out exactly what programming tools/langauge I need to be able to do it. I think I may have found a promising lead on that last night. I already know how to code the actual visual stuff, like the boxes to type stuff into and such, because that's part of HTML, which is what this entire site is written in. I just have to figure out how to write the program to collect and somehow store the info entered into the textareas and such. Fortunately, there's nothing I enjoy more than a good programming challenge, except perhaps sleep. :D";

blogDB[35] = "<i>3/16/06:</i> Ok, so maybe I'm not very good at updating this thing frequently. Ah, well. I have an excuse, anyway: homework. Predictable and boring, yes, but mostly true. Oh, and by the way...the other day I saw David Copperfield live. Bloody ticket cost me $50, but it was worth it. I don't believe in magic, but I do believe in entertainment. And Copperfield is nothing if not entertaining. He's got a damn good sense of the theatric, too. He's also about as good a comedian as he is a magician. Very funny guy. :) <br/><br/>In visual news, you may have noticed that the buttons over << there are somewhat animated now. Thank you Javascript. I'm still working on getting them to depress when clicked. Oh, and the whole submit-comments thing. It's coming. Eventually. <br/><br/>My Spring Break starts tomorrow! I most definitely can't wait. I haven't been home for six weeks, and I miss my family, friends and boyfriend like none other... Plus, my sister's cat had kittens a couple of weeks ago, and I can't wait to see them! Via IM, Jenny and I named them with Japanese words. Not <i>logical</i> Japanese words, but Japanese words. Therefore, we now have kittens named Ninja (actually pronounced \"neen-jah\"), Mikomi (pronounced \"me-koh-me\", means \"hope\"), Sakana (\"sah-kah-nah\",fish), Itami (\"ee-tah-me\", pain), and Shichi (\"she-chee\", seven). Yeah, I know. Jenny and I pick really weird names. I do, however, find it appropriate that a cat named Splinter has a kitten who's name means \"pain\". :D And hey, we've already named a dog Tomago (\"toe-mah-go\", egg), a cat Mizu (\"me-zoo\", water), and a fish Risu (\"ree-sue\", squirrel). It's well established that we have no logic. :D I did have to stop Jenny naming a kitten Inu (\"ee-new\", dog), b/c that would have just been <i>so</i> wrong, cruel, etc. :)";

blogDB[36] = "<i>3/17/06:</i> I have some very strange friends. Actually, all my friends are pretty weird in one way or another, but then again, so am I, so I guess that explains that. (And plus, weirdness keeps life interesting.) Anyway, my friend Jamie was telling me in an e-mail about a dream she had. It was quite a scary dream, generally, but there's one part that I think is absolutely hilarious. She told me I could include it here, so here goes: <br/><br/><i>...We were still, at this point, in the kitchen of Adam's house.  Only one wall (that faced the driveway) was made up mostly of windows. I think there were three or four. After we got down from the chairs, we looked on the table and saw a bowl full of melted butter with a big, plastic, off-white colored utensil in it. One of us lifted up the utensil and when we saw what it was, we were all terrified and shouted \"BUTTER FORK!!!!!!!!\"  (Whatever the heck THAT is!?!?!??!?!?!). I think Zac then put it in a clear plastic container and threw it out the window. But he couldn't get the window shut, and, the \"wind\" kept making the container with the \"butter fork\" fly up to the window and try to get in, to kill us, I guess. So we were really scared, but it was all really bizarre, and finally we got the window shut. Then we were sitting in a big porch swing were the counter would have been with our backs facing that same wall. I think we were all talking about what we were going to do. We may have even been laughing and making jokes a little. But deep down we were still scared. And then we saw a cat fly in from behind us and somebody said \"Oh...no...\" and we slowly turned around and saw that the window behind us was open on the top corner.  And that's how the cat flew in, but that part didn't worry us. We knew the \"butter fork\" could get in. And I have no idea what happened then. I think somehow the \"butter fork\" issue was finally resolved...</i><br/><br/>If you want to read the rest of it, go to Jamie's MySpace blog at <a href=\"http://blog.myspace.com/rubysunrise\">blog.myspace.com/rubysunrise</a>. It's really quite an interesting dream...";

blogDB[37] = "<i>3/21/06:</i> I have just recieved the most <i>awesome</i> spam e-mail on the face of the earth. Sender: \"Superhuman Powers\", Subject: \"The Subliminal Mind Technology They Tried to Ban!\". The body wasn't near as interesting, just some links that I'm not quite stupid enough to click on, but I'm glad that at least one spammer finally found a way to amuse me instead of just annoying me constantly!";

blogDB[38] = "<i>3/24/06:</i> First off, does anyone besides me who doesn't live in Alaska or somewhere equally perpetually snowy find it highly annoying for it to snow on the first day of spring? 'Cause that's definitely what happened. First it sleeted for a while, then moved up to full-blown snow. Some of the fattest and thickest-falling snowflakes that we've had all winter. Sigh. I still say God is sitting up in heaven bored out of his mind, so he decided to fuck with the weather for the sake of amusement...<br/><br/>And speaking of God, church is apparently hazardous to one's health. My mom and dad went to church on Sunday, by Monday evening she was sick, and I started getting sick Wednesday evening. Fortunately our dreaded spreading illness isn't anything worse than a sore throat and stuffy nose, but it was irritating enough when all I had to ruin my break was studying for my Japanese midterm. Now I have to study Japanese on my Spring break <i>while I'm sick</i>! Arrgghhh...<br/><br/>And continuing in this holy vein -- ok, so apparently we're wandering around God's circulatory system -- who is the last possible person you would expect to try and injure three-and-a-half-week-old-kittens? I'll bet Jesus was at the top of that list. Believe it or not, you're wrong there. Our kittens, who started out residing in my dresser, and then behind a bookshelf, are currently hidden away in my mom's bedroom closet. They are in a basket at the back of the closet, tucked in between all kinds of stuff. There are also shelves above them with more stuff on them. Anyway, yesterday evening, my mom went to check on them, and she discovered that a Jesus-on-the-cross metal crucifix had fallen off one of the shelves onto the kittens! It's quite a large little cross, maybe 10 inches long and weighing a pound or two. Fortunately neither the kittens nor their mother seem to have been hurt by it, but my sister and I had a field day with the idea of Jesus trying to kill kittens by dropping crucifixes (or \"crucifi\"? what exactly is the plural of \"crucifix\", anyway?) on them. I wonder if there's a special clause in the \"Rules of Who Goes to Heaven\" to deal with people/animals accidentally killed by crucifixes. What if Jesus felt guilty about that, and therefore let you into heaven no matter what you'd done? That'd be pretty funny. :)";

blogDB[39] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/earth_from_mars.png\" align=left><i>3/31/06:</i> OK, I definitely just typed \"3/32/06\" the first time through on the date. Geez. I just added a new day to March. As if I didn't have trouble enough remembering which day my mom's birthday is on with only the 30th and 31st of March, I'd be completely lost if there was also a 32nd. :)<br/><br/>Anyway, now that I've stopped redefining time as we know it, I think I'll go off on a tirade about something. It's a nice enough thing to do in your free time, and I have plenty of that right now. We've finished w/ a test in my psychology class, but apparently we're not allowed to leave until the end of class, which is another 40 minutes from now. Ah, the excitement. What was I talking about...oh yeah, the tirade...<br/><br/>Look at this picture. Know what it is? A bit of the Martian  sky, as seen by either Spirit or Opportunity, I forget which. D'you see that itsy-bitsy bright speck in the upper half of the picture? That's Earth. Now, explain to me again how we're the only life in the <i>universe</i>? We're <i>this</i> tiny from <i>Mars</i>, which is the third closest major heavenly body to Earth, after the moon and Venus. We're so insignificant as to be invisible from the closest <i>solar system</i>, except to something like the Hubble telescope, never mind the next <i>galaxy</i> over. There are <i>zillions</i> of stars in our galaxy alone, a hell of a lot of galaxies in the universe, and maybe even more than one universe! Those are some damn long odds against life only evolving in one place, however unlikely life's evolution may be. There is absolutely NO way that the only life in the universe (or multiverse, as the case may be) is going to be hanging around on that little-bitty dot. Just. No. Way. <br/><br/>I swear, every time I hear some egocentrical (or species-centrical) jackass trying to claim that we <i>must</i> be the only life/intelligent life in the universe, I want to sit them down and force-feed them every picture Hubble has ever taken. Seriously, go and look at one of those pictures that shows a massive, sprawling spiral galaxy in all it's glory, and then tell me with any conviction that there's not life in there somewhere. Heck, here're some links to some to help you along: <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/10/image/a\">random spiral</a>, <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/12/image/a\">the Whirlpool Galaxy</a>, <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/01/image/a\">barred spiral</a>. And don't look at little 3x3 inch versions of the pictures, either. Download the full-sized versions. I don't even care if the pictures are so big that they crash your browser, <i>look at them</i>. Don't let your browser squish them down to fit the screen, either, zoom in to view them full-sized and scroll across the vast expanses of stars and such. Go on, you might as well. If you're actually reading this, you obviously are utterly bored out of your mind. :)";

blogDB[40] = "<i>4/5/06:</i> When small colleges tell you that you get more personal attention, believe them. Or at least my school, in any case, wasn't lying. Today I was at my job as the lab assistant for the Intro to Computer Science class, and the guy I was helping at that time accidentally ran over my big toe w/ his chair (they're swivel chairs). I wasn't wearing shoes at the time (I'm addicted to flip-flops to begin with, and whenever possible I discard even those), so he got my toe good, but there wasn't any major damage and the guy apologized, so that seemed to be the end of it. Maybe half a minute later I checked on my toe again b/c it was hurting, and I noticed that I still had the indented groove in my skin from the wheel, and I was bleeding a little. I still didn't think anything about it, not being one to get worked up over minor injuries. Then I started to gradually feel dizzier and dizzier. I started breathing deeply b/c that always helps when I feel light-headed, but I kept feeling dizzy, so I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, hoping that would help. A few seconds later (what felt basically instantaneous to me) I was suddenly <i>under</i> the desk that I had formerly been sitting on, and the professor (Dr. Oldham) was asking me if I was ok. Honestly, I just felt like I had fallen asleep, although I had apparently passed out. Dr. Oldham gave me his arm and helped me down the hall to Dr. Shannon's office (the professor that I've been helping w/ her Aibo dog). Dr. Oldham, who's apparently also trained as a nurse, took my pulse and said it was normal, though Dr. Shannon did say I was really pale. They decided to take me over the the school's medical centre, but since Oldham needed to get back to his class and they though that two people should walk me over, they enlisted Prof. Bradshaw (another of our computer science professors) to walk over with Dr. Shannon and I. <br/><br/>We got there without incident. By this time I felt basically fine, except a bit shakier than usual and with a slight headache from hitting my head on the desk on my way down. A nurse took me in, asked me some questions about having eaten and such, then did a few tests for blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar, and hemoglobin. All apparently turned out fine, and when I told them about my toe, they decided it was probably just a \"fainting at the sight of blood\" kind of thing, which my mom does with some regularity, so I'm not really surprised that I may have inherited a bit of that. The nurse, who was really nice, told me to come back tomorrow morning to see the doctor if I felt strange or passed out any more. She also gave me a Sprite to get a little caffeine into my system and doctored my toe-wound a bit. <br/><br/>Now the part that actually links up with my opening statement. When I went back out to the waiting room, not only was Dr. Shannon still waiting there, but Dr. Oldham and the guy that I had been helping when I passed out had both come over to see if I was ok. Maybe having passed out recently makes you a bit sentimental, but seeing that the three of them cared enough to come over and wait for me to get out was truly heartwarming. Somehow, I sort of doubt that many professors at huge colleges would have the time and/or inclination to care so much about one student. We all walked back over to the science/math building together, and Dr. Shannon and I had a little meeting that we had scheduled. Dr. Oldham dropped by Dr. Shannon's office again before he left for the day to make sure I was still ok. I would not transfer from this school for the world. I love the people here, especially the professors, and I love the classes and my jobs, even the relatively boring envelope-stuffing one. I really wish I could go to grad school here too...<br/><br/>So, I suppose the upside to all this was that, aside from the actual fainting part and the slight headache that I still have, getting to hang out with Drs. Shannon and Oldham more than usual was really fun. They're absolutely awesome people and really fun to talk to. :) Something else that was really funny: on the walk over to the med center, Dr. Shannon told me that back when the Catholic church made you fast on Saturday night and Sunday morning, she would always pass out in church. Then when we got to the med center, one of the nurses told me her version of the exact same story. I'm just glad the Catholic church got rid of THAT rule, b/c the services are soporific enough without also being food-deprived. :D";

blogDB[41] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/ocean.png\" align=left><i>4/15/06:</i> \"Beautiful\" doesn't even come close. I miss the ocean. I've been three different times, twice to Myrtle Beach, SC, and once to a beach in Oregon. The beach in Oregon was my favorite because the sheer beauty of the place wasn't marred by the hideous human buildings and hotels as Myrtle Beach's was. We were the only ones on the Oregon beach and there wasn't a hotel in sight. We just walked along the sand, watching the waves flow in and out. We ventured ankle-deep into the tide a few times, but since Oregon is hardly South Carolina, the water was quite cold. Honestly, though, I couldn't have cared less. We didn't go to that beach to swim, we wanted to look at it. I wish I had a house on the beach, with nothing but Earth and Life around for miles. Because the beach wasn't being constantly scoured by hoards of tourists, there was actually still cool stuff washed up on it, like some seaweed and a crab shell and legs. One thing that I actually <i>did</i> really like about Myrtle Beach, however, was how pointedly insignificant all the human-built crap was revealed to be. You would look at all the hotels and the bored tourists wandering around in their swimsuits, and then you would look out over the ocean, out and out and out until you could no longer tell where the ocean and horizon parted ways. One vast blue blended into the other, and your mind was at an utter loss to grasp the hugeness of merely what you could see, an utterly miniscule slice of the planet. Your mental image of the place zoomed out until the humans and their petty concrete structures were smaller than grains of sand, but the ocean still spread on and on, never ending. One thing's for sure, how we as a species ever deluded ourselves into thinking that we're of the slightest consequence is utterly beyond me...";

blogDB[42] = "<center><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/swans_moon.jpg\"></center><br/><i>4/16/06:</i> I think I have found myself a photographical hero. <a href=\"http://www.wildthingsphotography.com\">www.wildthingsphotography.com</a>";

blogDB[43] = "<i>4/23/06:</i> Fine print: the best part of commercials. Whether TV, printed, or radio commercials, most of them usually have fine print of some sort or another. The fine prints that I find funniest are the ones on those \"get thin/rich NOW!\" kinds of commercials. Have you ever noticed that whenever they're showing their \"success stories\", like the people who lost 120 pounds in 2 months or have made $2 million with their home business in the last year, they always have \"Results not typical\" hovering around the screen somewhere in 5-point font? Gives you real confidence in the amazingness of their product/service, doesn't it, if the \"typical\" results aren't good enough to actually brag about. My next favorite fine print is the ever-present \"Do not attempt\". This particular bit of advertising wisdom can be found on just about any commercial from one involving using a Pomeranian dog as a broom, to one showing a guy driving through one of those parking-garage toll booths on a little pink bicycle, to those insidious car commercials where they show people driving in a manner that would get you arrested on the spot. I'm so glad that the advertisers' opinion of the American people's intellect is so great that they figure that they have to warn us that doing such oh-so-sensible things might not actually be a good idea. (Then again, this is the country in which people just can't for the life of them figure out that if they spill McDonalds coffee into their laps, <i>they will get badly burnt</i>. Somehow I doubt that people who didn't have enough sense to <i>know</i> that coffee is hot will get much benefit from the useful \"Caution: HOT!\" warnings that they now have to plaster on anything over 70 degrees...)<br/><br/>On a side note: \"do not attempt\"? They couldn't just say \"don't do this!\"? \"Do not attempt\" makes it sound as if the only problem with performing that behavior arises when your can't actually succeed at doing it. If you <i>attempt</i> it, then you're an idiot; if, on the other hand, you try it and <i>succeed</i>, all is well. Oh, oh, oh! And my all-time favorite \"do not attempt\"-er: the lady diving into her little black dress from a second-story window to avoid white marks from her deodorant. Let me just say one thing; anyone above the age of five who needs to be <i>told</i> that diving from high places toward surfaces that don't primarily consist of very deep water are pretty bloody hopeless and should feel free to \"attempt\" said action. Maybe that'd result in the world being a slightly smarter place...<br/><br/>It would, of course, br downright impolite to leave out an entire media's-worth of fine print just because their commercials don't actually involve text. Radio commercials have some gems of their own where fine print is concerned. The shining example of this is, of course, the car-sales commercials. The commercials themselves are hilariously over-the-top enough with the guy who sounds like he's just downed the entire contents of a Starbucks, but the fine print is even better. Has anyone in the history of the planet actually been able to <i>understand</i> a car-sale commercial's fine print? If so, I certainly don't see how they managed it, because that fine print is hurled at you faster than it is humanly possible to speak with absolutely no pauses in sight. I love to listen to those commercials when I'm driving on a parkway/interstate because they at least make me laugh and wake me up a bit.";

blogDB[44] = "<i>4/24/06:</i> The jury's still out on whether or not I should ever be allowed any free time. I do some weird, random stuff when bored. This may not be quite so weird and random, but also not particularly ordinary either. (Ok, that's confusing...) I made a little slideshow-ish video set to some <i>Star Wars</i> music. I had to save it as not-very-high quality for the sake of manageable file size, and it's still about 7.5 MB. It doesn't look completely horrible, though the audio can fritz a bit. <br/><br/>In other random subjects, the upcoming months aren't looking half-bad in the movie department. Coming soon: <i>United 93</i> on the 28th, <i>Mission Impossible: III</i> on May 5, <i>The DaVinci Code</i> on May 19, <i>X-Men 3</i> on May 26, and <i>Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest</i> on July 7. Personally, I'm the most excited about the new <i>POTC</i>. Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow is my favorite movie character of all time. He's just so bloody <i>funny</i> to watch! The newest trailer has me positively vibrating from excitement. It figures that it's the one furthest away from release...";

blogDB[45] = "<i>5/1/06:</i> I just saw the cutest little bunny outside by one of the dorms! She was a little brown rabbit, no more than 6 or 7 inches long, maybe 4 inches tall to the ears. She was so adorable! I sat down 6 feet away and watched her graze on the lawn for about ten minutes, until some people walked too close and scared her back under the tree where I assume she lives. I love how rabbits' jaws and nose and cheeks work as they nibble and chew. It's just so darn cute!! A robin was also in the vacinity for a few minutes, gathering up a beakful of worms before flying back to his nest in the same tree the bunny hid under. I love how relatively unafraid the (unfortunately limited) wildlife here is. Most of the squirrels'll even let you within 3-4 feet of them if you don't make any sudden movements or loud noises. I love wildlife! :) <br/><br/>Only 1.5 weeks of classes left! 2.5 weeks until I get to go home!!";

blogDB[46] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/stress.jpg\"><br/><i>5/10/06:</i> Classes ended today. Finals week has begun. Kill me now. <br/><i>(Only one more week 'til home, only one more week 'til home, only one more week 'til home...)</i>";

blogDB[47] = "<i>5/15/06:</i> Oh, finals week is such fun. I've officially become permanently giddy/near giddiness. I swear I started giggling in a manner pretty darn close to hysterical last night when one of my professors sent me a final-review PowerPoint who's first slide contained the phrase \"don't be a ninny\". The word \"ninny\" is NOT a word that you need to get fixated on when stressed, 'cause it's just too darn amusing of a word to be able to pass up hysterically giggling at. <br/><br/>Other things that have been causing me waaaay too much amusement lately are the following quotes:<br/><br/>\"High explosives are applicable where truth and logic fail.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--???</small><br/><br/>\"It's no wonder that computer scientists often seem to be confused by reality.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--my computer science textbook</small><br/><br/>\"In your absence, I sharpened my swords and found more clubs.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--my mom (regarding a chess game)</small><br/><br/>\"Our friend the devil is going to reside here in the details.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--Dr. Oldham</small><br/><br/>\"I didn't realize that 'm' had become a vowel.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--Will Larson (in respond to Oldham's \"An marketing major could do this\")</small><br/><br/>\"You have to be possessed by Satan to use PDF in the first place.\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--Dr. Oldham (the world's biggest fan of PDF!)</small><br/><br/>\"If you don't kill me, I'll die!\"<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>--Ethan Hunt (<i>Mission: Impossible III</i>)</small><br/><br/>By the way, it's ridiculously chilly outside. It's like 49-ish. Aya got a call from her high-school-study-abroad host family, which lives in Michigan, yesterday, and the temperature that they reported it being there was ONE degree colder than the temperature here was yesterday. That's pretty darn messed up... <i>(Only two more days til home, only two more days til home, only two more days til home! And two more finals. Ick...)</i>";

blogDB[48] = "<i>7/18/06:</i> Yes. All evidence to the contrary, I am, in fact, still alive. I'm excusing my two-month absence from the world of my site by pointing out that my Internet at home is dial-up, and therefore abysmally slow, therefore quick to get on my nerves, and, all in all, modifying and uploading this page didn't seem too appealing to me while I was home. I am now back at school for the next month, doing further Aibo research with Dr. Shannon. I'm more-or-less enjoying it so far, but I would still much rather be at home, as my friends and boyfriend are there. :( At least I'll be home another 2 weeks before actual school starts. Not NEARLY enough, but better than nothing. Sigh. Why the HELL did I pick a school so blasted far from home??? It's so annoying! And to make life even better, my ID card still can't get me into my dorm building here. It's been TWO DAYS, people! Fix it, please! I think I'm going to have to go by some office or another tomorrow (again!) and ask (again!) that they fix my ID. It's beginning to get a bit annoying having to wait around like a burglar for someone to come by/out and let me into the bloody building...again, sigh. On the other hand, going food shopping before I got here was pretty funny. Having to lay in a month's worth of provisions (no school-supplied food in the summer, naturally) while only being able to buy food that was packaged and required at most microwaving for preparation was very interesting. Thankfully, there's a lot more microwavable food out there than I thought. It's nice to not have to live off of cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. :)";

blogDB[49] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/flowers.png\" align=left><i>7/22/06:</i> I figured this page could use a pretty picture, b/c I haven't put on up in a while, so here one is. Some cool flowers. For more pretty pictures of flowers, visit <a href=\"http://photobob.smugmug.com/gallery/289104/1/82617514\">photobob.smugmug.com</a>. Though that's not where this pic came from, this site definitely has some beautiful flower pictures. And apparently all the flowers are grown by the photographer-guy's mom, which is pretty cool. <br/><br/>One thing I really hate about being stuck here at school for a month is that, without classes and homework, there's really not a lot to do up here. Consequently, I'm basically spending my time at work, reading, surfing the Internet, sewing (I'm working on a quilt), or watching TV. An exciting existence, truly. I suppose I should probably be out socializing and making new friends with whom I could hang out, therefore solving my boredom problem. Too bad I'm too antisocial to want to bother with that. :) Ah, well. I'll find something to do. If all else fails, I can always go and play with Aibo. :)<br/><br/><i>Later...</i>I found something to do. Watch wacky videos on www.youtube.com. Here's some must-sees, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg&feature=Views&page=1&t=a&f=b\">The Evolution of Dance</a>, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw&feature=Views&page=1&t=a&f=b\">Real Life Simpsons Intro</a>, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaFm47lsL2g&feature=Views&page=1&t=a&f=b\">Comic Soccer</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kJZOfq7zk&feature=Views&page=1&t=a&f=b\">Urban Ninja</a>.";

blogDB[50] = "<i>7/23/06:</i> My roommate just introduced me to this website: <a href=\"http://www.potterpuppetpals.com/\">PotterPuppetPals.com</a>. It's got little videos of \"Harry Potter\" characters, in puppet form, doing little skits. There're also a few other very funny videos, like one of Snape \"singing\" the song <i>I'm Too Sexy</i>, which is absolutely HILARIOUS!<br/><br/>As proof that some people have way too much free time, and the weirdest ideas on how to fill it, <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm\">here's</a> an article about three pigs recently created by adding jellyfish genetic material to pig embryos. These pigs glow green in the dark. Why this is considered a good thing is beyond me...";

blogDB[51] = "<i>7/25/06:</i> The more I do work with AI programming for robots, the more impressed I am with living beings and evolution. It's so darn hard to get the bloody robot to be able to even approximate learning how do something as simple as find his darn ball, something that takes most humans about 2 seconds, particularly when the darn thing is 2 feet away. Kudos to Mommy Nature.<br/><br/>As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love the fine print in commercials. My all-time favorite I saw for the fourth time today. An Orbit gum commercial. The fine print: \"Dramatization. Orbit gum will not get you into Heaven.\" My sister and I were all but rolling on the floor in completely debilitating spasms of mirth when we saw that for the first time. :)<br/><br/>It's 11:11 PM (I swear, I ALWAYS look at the clock when it's that time!!), and I have just eaten two of those fantastically sugary sugar cookies from Wal-Mart...I...AM...WIRED! And sleepy. A highly wacky combination for me...";

blogDB[52] = "<center><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/kitty.jpg\"></center><br/><i>7/26/06:</i> This kitty pic cracks me up. And I just found this article on cuteoverload.com, who found it on Yahoo:<br/><br/>\"WEST MILFORD, N.J. - A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree--twice. Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising. \"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear,\" owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's editions. Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat. After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree Dickey, who feared for her cat, then called Jack home and the bear scurried back to the woods. \"He doesn't want anybody in his yard,\" Dickey said.\" <br/><br/>LOL! How that reminds me of Gray and his own intruder-chasing tendancies. He never got ahold of a bear, though, as far as I know.<br/><br/>Oh...dear...God! <a href=http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/>www.CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com</a>. This is a new height of wackiness that I was not aware that it was possible to achieve...";

blogDB[53] = "<i>7/30/06:</i> It's amazing the capacity for creepiness that religion has. I was watching a program on the History Channel about the Antichrist (the idea's origins in scripture, how people have looked for the Antichrist throughout history, etc.), and there was a short bit about an evangelical Christian branch in the US, and the video they showed of this church's service was absolutely creepy. It looked like a rock concert. The pastor was up on a stage, illumniated by spotlights and shown enlarged on huge TV screens over the stage as he darted around, preaching furiously and grinning like a maniac. The crowd was all standing and at one point they were being illuminated by sweeping spotlights as they swayed, sang, sobbed, and screamed enthusiastically. I've never seen anything more cult-looking in my life, except in movies. It...was...CREEPY!<br/><br/>Apocalyptic thinking alternately cracks me up and supremely gets on my nerves. To people who think that the end of the world is imminent because the Apocalypse will occur in a time of great turmoil and this is a time of great turmoil, I ask one thing: when in human history has the world NOT been in turmoil? To have living humans on the planet means having turmoil. It's rather like how having plants leads to oxygen. One creates the other, always, consistently, and predictably. On the upside, at least all those people who are so excited about the world ending at any moment will always have hope...";

blogDB[54] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/black_hole.png\" align=left><i>7/31/06:</i> Today at work I got rather bored (one can only watch a robot dog find a ball over and over again for so long before one begins to go stir-crazy), so I started wandering around on the Internet, desperate for <i>something</i> to do. After perusing CNN.com and several other equally stimulating sites, I decided to see if there had been any interesting developments in the world of the Hubble Space Telescope, so I went to <a href=\"http://www.hubblesite.org\">hubblesite.org</a>, where I noticed a link to something about black holes. Being always interested in science, astronomy in particular, and crazy-cool stuff like black holes most of all, I immediately checked it out. Imagine, if you will, my delight when I discovered that I had stumbled upon the most interactive and comprehensive little tutorial on black holes that I have ever seen. I already knew most of the more basic information, such as how black holes form and the various sizes they can come in, but some of the stuff was truly interesting and rather amazing. For one thing, though I already knew that at the center of a black hole is quite a lot of matter squeezed into a very small space, what I was interested to learn was that the matter is actually squeezed into an <i>infinitely small</i> space. That's just cool. :) Any mention of infinity starts to give me a headache from being so damn impossible a concept to grasp, but thinking of so much matter squeezed into an infinitely small space is just mind-blowing, pure and simple. It's nearly as bad as the pre-Big Bang universe that consisted of all the matter in the universe squashed into the volume of what, a grapefruit? But at least a grapefruit is a conceivable measure of volume. It's a hell of a lot harder to get one's mind around an \"infinitely small\" volume. Something else that I discovered, that I didn't expect at all, was that black holes can actually die. Over time, their energy can slowly \"evaporate\" away as tiny quantites of light slowly manage to escape. And black holes seemed like such indestructible things, too. Crazy-cool. :D Check this awesome site out for yourself <a href=\"http://hubblesite.org/discoveries/black_holes/\">here</a>!";

blogDB[55] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/vaio.jpg\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/compaq.jpg\"><br/><i>8/1/06:</i> I've definitely decided what I'm going to do with the money from this research job: buy a new laptop. I've been wanting a new one to begin with (my current one is going on 4 years old and has developed irritating quirks), but now I really know I need one, because yesterday my screen's hinge started going out. My hinge had basically always had a very small distance (perhaps a few degrees of it's arc) through which it didn't work too great, but since yesterday that arc has increased rather drastically. Now my screen will only stay in place if it's quite close to being vertical. Moving it too far either way past that leads to it's falling closed/completely open. Hardly a good thing. At least my screen's hinge has lasted longer than the one on my sister's laptop, which hasn't worked in years. Since both our laptops are Compaqs, I can't help but wonder if this is a flaw in the company's engineering, or if all laptops' hinges tend to go bad after a while. If it's solely a Compaq problem, then it must be a relatively recent one, b/c my dad has my old laptop, also a Compaq, which must be 6 or 7 years old, and it's hinge works perfectly. Of course, it has it's own problems, like a screen that can only be viewed as anything but neon green from about three esoteric angles, but whatever. The most annoying thing about the hinge issues so far is that, when I go to open, close, or otherwise reposition the lid, I keep habitually using the same amount of force to accomplish the task as I always have, but this now results in my slamming it closed, or shoving it past where I want it. Rather annoying, and probably not helping the thing out, either.<br/><br/>Being a thorough technophile, laptop shopping is, naturally, one of my absolute most favorite things to do, so I spent some time at work today on the Internet, searching around to see what's out there at the moment. One of the qualities that I want in my technology, though utter shallow, is appearance, especially for laptops. My current laptop is predominantly black, with silver trimmings and a bit of chrome. I think it's absolutely beautiful. I'm not entirely sure why, but I've always thought light-colored laptops were rather odd looking. Maybe it's a preference inspired by loathing of those absolutely hideous shades of beige that desktops used to come in. In any case, this time around, I hope to get, first and foremost, an awesomely powerful, versatile, etc. laptop, but I also want it to be pretty, like these ^^^. Glossy black with trim of silver is really quite beautiful. The first pic is of a Sony Vaio notebook, the second of a Compaq Presario. I'm perfectly happy to give Compaq further business, as long as the laptop is powerful and pretty. I'm seriously drooling over that Vaio, though...ooooooooooo....";

blogDB[56] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/oreos.png\" align=left><i>8/3/06:</i> Wow, I really <i>am</i> pretty darn bored. I've started writing poetry again. Not that I don't like writing poetry, mind, I just don't do it very often. I require quite a bit of inspiration in order to be as badly poetic as I am. (Imagine how much inspiration it would take to get me to write a <i>good</i> poem. :) ) Apparently staring out of my window at the trees outside, out of sheer lack of anything else to do, can constitute inspiration. After being inspired, the idea sorta floated around in my head for a few days, eventually resulting in \"The mortal way\". If it sounds incredibly cheerful, that's probably because it's not. Not even very original, really, but at least it gave me something to do for a bit. It's now hanging out in my \"Poetry\" secion, waiting forlornly to be read by someone. <br/><br/><i>Man</i> I'm getting gloomy. I plan to get a nice big bag of Oreos this weekend. That'll cheer me up. I love those things like addicts love their drugs ...sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good...... and with fewer nasty little side effects! :)";

blogDB[57] = "<i>8/9/06:</i> If I've ever said anything bad about Compaq laptops' quality, durability, or engineering, I deeply apologize. Yesterday I managed to do something that I'd, thankfully, never done before: really and truly drop my laptop. I had it in my backpack, having just gotten back from work, and the side was partially unzipped to let the laptop breathe a bit (I don't turn it off when transporting it b/c it'll refuse to come back on properly for several hours afterward) while attempting to keep the slight drizzle of rain out (I usually unzip the top, not the side). I was halfway through taking my backpack off when the zipper came all the way undone and my laptop fell and hit the floor. Since I had been bending down a bit to put my backpack on my bed, my laptop only fell about 3 feet, as opposed to the 5 or so it could have plummeted under normal conditions. I can tell you one thing, the sound of a $1400 piece of fairly delicate technology hitting a tile floor with some speed is something you <i>never</i> want to hear. My laptop hit the ground front left corner-downward, then fell over onto it's top. To make me feel even better, the impact of top to floor was energetic enough to pop the battery out of its compartment and send it skittering across the floor. I've never come so close to having heart failure in my entire life. If there had been a god of technological integrity, I would have been praying to them with a fervor never before inspired in me. Thankfully, though, once I reunited laptop and battery and pushed the power button, it started up fine, and has been functioning perfectly as far as I can tell ever since. Thank heavens for that. <br/><br/>Unfortunately, it didn't make it through its collision with gravity entirely unscathed. The corner that impacted the floor first is rather badly cracked, the speaker on that side is a little looser than it should be, the casing around the screen popped slightly open at that corner, and there is a slight gap between the casing and the bottom of the laptop at that corner. On the upside, though, quite a lot of the dust in my keyboard got knocked out in the impact (it was on the screen when I opened my laptop up), so at least my keyboard's quite a bit cleaner. I'm really not very surprised that the corner that hit the ground with 7 pounds of laptop with 3 feet's worth of vertical momentum driving it cracked a bit. That's a decent bit of force. I'm just glad the thing stayed together and, as far as I can tell, fully functional. It certainly got my heart going, though. Maybe that should be a new cardiovascular workout, \"Expensive delicate object dropping\". :)";

blogDB[58] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/monsoon.png\" align=left><i>8/28/06:</i> Got the new laptop! So happy! A HP Pavilion dv6000. It's pretty and shiny and black, has a 120 GB hard drive, 2 GB RAM, built-in wireless, a DVD burner and so on. Me happy! Oh so happy!<br/><br/>Back to school again. Sigh. Fall term started today, on one the worst day for classes that I've ever seen here so far. It seems that America has suddenly developed a monsoon season, because it was raining that torrentially for the better part of the day. During the first deluge period, I was safely squirreled away in class for 3.5 hours straight, so I didn't get soaked that time. Unfortunately, after I got out of class and ate lunch, I assumed that, since it had switched to being fairly sunny, it was done raining for the day, so I dropped off my backpack (containing my umbrella!) in my room and went off to my first job. Even more unfortunately, while I was at work, the monsoon started up again (giving a new meaning to the phrase \"pouring down rain\" as far as I'm concerned), and didn't let up until after I had already walked halfway across campus in it. If I hadn't been heading to my second job, I probably would have enjoyed the rain. At least it was thundering and lightening quite enthusiastically, which made me very happy, b/c I looooove storms. :) Also, the rain was nice and refreshing after the muggy humidity that quickly took hold after the first monsoon bout. Well, at least when it was raining, it wasn't hot. Which is especially good because the air conditioning in my new room doesn't quite work yet. <br/><br/>This dorm room makes me feel like I've rented a somewhat fixer-upper apartment. We're missing a ceiling tile, 4 of the 5 incandescent lightbulbs were burnt out and had to be replaced by me, our air conditioner doesn't work, both our main and bathroom windows are next to impossible to open, the paint on the closet's ceiling is peeling, the Internet jack in the wall is nearly detached from it's casing, several other ceiling tiles are warped/water damamged, and my bed squeaks. :) Honestly, I'm rather enjoying this a bit. Perfect functionality is a bit boring, and I've enjoyed trying to figure out how the heck to get the light fixture in our bathroom (I love this room! We have our own bathroom!) off so I could change the bulbs, and I'm currently trying to think how to fix my bed and the windows. Honestly, I'm more concerned about the windows, because a little squeak doesn't bother me as much as not being able to open the window to get some fresh air. :( I'm a great fan of air.<br/><br/>This year I'm rooming with another Japanese exchange student, Kayo. She's really nice, and I've enjoyed living with her these few days, at least. Her English isn't as good as Aya's was, and her accent is quite a bit stronger, so Kayo and I have more trouble understanding each other, but that's probably actually a good thing, because it means I actually use Japanese sometimes since Kayo is more comfortable with it and I REALLY need to practice my Japanese! I don't have a Japanese class anymore, and I really don't want to forget all my Japanese!! <br/><br/>I'd better get back to my AI homework (one of my classes). I'm supposed to be coming up with 5 questions to ask a computer to determine whether or not it can think. Hard!!!";

blogDB[59] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/aragorn.png\" align=left><i>8/31/06:</i> Being of impeccable work ethic when it comes to getting schoolwork done (har har), I've just finished watching <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i> for the umpteenth time. There are a few things that I am therefore inspired to say: <br/><br/>-When Elrond makes his big dramatic pronuncement \"You shall be the 'Fellowship of the Ring'\", am I the only one who gets the irrisistable feeling that it would be appropriate to smash a champage bottle over Pippin's head or something, sort of like christening a ship? <br/><br/>-My favorite quote from this movie is: Gandalf - \"What did you hear? Speak!\", Sam - \"N-n-nothin' important. That is, I heard a great deal about a ring, a dark lord, and something about the end of the world.\" No Sam, nothing of any importance at all... <br/><br/>-Bilbo's face when he tries to grab the ring away from Frodo at Rivendell is without a doubt the creepiest thing that I have ever seen. And the Nazguls' cries are the creepiest thing I've ever heard. Oh, and I wish I had a pet Balrog. Those things are AWESOME!! <br/><br/>-When the orcs at Isengard are going on their tree-killing spree, why on earth do they have to rip them up by the roots? Haven't they ever heard of axes? And who in their right mind is going to fuel fires with freshly cut (and therefore green) wood? Green wood doesn't burn in anything approximating a useful manner, and instead of having nice hot fires for their sword-smelting activities, the orcs would've ended up with a lot of smoldering wood, and a hell of a lot of smoke. <br/><br/>-When the demonic squid thingie outside the entrance to Moria grabs Frodo and Sam hacks at the lone tentacle, I love how the poor injured tentacle meekly retreats into the water, and then immediately about 10 more burst out to bash everyone in the head. It's like: \"You have angered the Almightly Tentacle! Feel my wrath!!\" <br/><br/>-The book that Gandalf reads from in Moria, describing how the dwarves all got killed by orcs. One question: who, when they and all their friends are fighting for their lives and are very likely going to be soon killed, starts a diary about how utterly screwed they are? Bit odd. <br/><br/>-I love the nomeclature of the big flaming volcano in the midst of the kingdom of the most evil dude ever: Mount Doom. How simple, yet appropriate. <br/><br/>-Sauron the Giant Flaming Eyeball is the most awesome-looking bad guy ever! <br/><br/>-It really gets annoying after a while, how, whenever the Ring is in sight, everyone present just absolutely HAS to stare fixedly at it for at least half a minute. Get a grip, people! <br/><br/>-Another awesome quote: Aragorn - \"We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death.\" Well, I bloody well hope not!! <br/><br/>-Is it just me, or does the Uruk-Hai who shoots Boromir look a hell of a lot like a giant evil Barbie? His harido looks a lot like a high ponytail, and I swear when he's walking down the hill towards Boromir between shooting his first and second arrows, he's doing a catwalk-strut. Creepy evil little buggar. <br/><br/>-Last thing: Aragorn is AWESOME! Plain and simple. ";

blogDB[60] = "<i>9/4/06:</i> It should be illegal to have school on a national holiday. It's Labor Day, but does Centre College care? Nope. Last year we started the semester on Labor Day, so why should we be stopped from having normal school on it? Heaven forbid. Nobody was particularly happy about this, students, faculty, or staff. Nearly everyone I talked to today had a little something to say about school on Labor Day, including on of my professors. The other professor I had (twice) today didn't mention it, though she didn't make her students' day any happier, especially when she hit us with the world's most horribly unsimplified radical in Calculus class. The chalkboard's maybe 12-15 feet long, and this radical stretched 10-12 feet long. And it didn't even have any actual numbers in it, which was the worst part. It was ALL variables. It was scary. It was part of a proof that she got halfway thorugh before class ended. When she said that we could finish solving the proof on our own, the most of the class (me included) laughed. Like we want to spend a good half hour of our life trying to simplify the Radical from Hell. :) <br/><br/>To make me even happier, I'm sick. I guess I've got a cold, but I feel like hell. Part of that is probably because, since my throat hurts so much, I couldn't sleep very well last night. That and my sinuses are increasingly congested and my nose is starting to run. Ah, illness. But at least it's finally stopped raining daily. Instead, though, it's turned chilly. It was only about 75 today, at most, and since it was predominantely cloudy, it felt even colder. And for some reason, our room is <i>really</i> chilly. I would happily turn on a heater if I had one. Our AC unit is either heat or AC, depending on what they've got the system set for, and they haven't quite switched over to heat yet... Sigh.";

blogDB[61] = "<i>9/6/06:</i> Here's a summary of my day:<br/><br/>--moved a worm from sidewalk to ground, possibly prolonging its life (I have maybe accomplished something in my life now) <br/>--programmed a Lego robot to play (in a mechanical, slightly creepy way) \"The Saints Go Marching\" <br/>--I decided that I want the inscription on my gravestone to say \"Smile, dammit! You're making me depressed!\" <br/>--in an IM conversation with Jamie M., came up with the thoroughly demented \"Can you imagine having a stomach shouting insults at you in Japanese while attempting to chew off your kneecaps?\" <br/>--I got some apples off of the apple tree next to my dorm, and they're quite good, even when I don't have an actual knife with which to cut them and somehow ended up sawing through them w/ a plastic PB/jelly knife <br/>--I've utterly failed to get most of my homework done tonight, excepting the musical robot program <br/>--at 1:30 AM, some supergenius in our dorm burnt their popcorn badly enough to set off the fire alarm (again!!!!), and I had to wake up and go stand outside in the rather chilly night with the rest of my dorm until DPS arrived 15 minutes later to allow us to go back in. Kayo and I were sharing the blanket that I was fortunately awake enough to grab, trying not to freeze to death. Then I couldn't get back to sleep for like an hour and a half. Who makes popcorn at 1:30 AM on a weeknight, anyway?? <br/>--read in a Dove Chocolate wrapper: \"Listen to your heartbeat and dance.\"";

blogDB[62] = "<i>9/10/06:</i> This is awesome! It's a spontaneously capsizing rabbit! He's so cute! <br/><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/AJ03yZfjJmc\"></param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/AJ03yZfjJmc\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></embed></object><br/><br/>This one is a family of kitties, who's day is narrated in Japanese. ADORABLE!!!<object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/tR_LccOnBMY\"></param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/tR_LccOnBMY\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"></embed></object>";

blogDB[63] = "<i>9/27/06:</i> My recent laziness in updating this page has been due to several factors, of course, since nothing has a single cause. Perhaps foremost in these causes has been my recently formed addiction to the TV show <i>The Dead Zone</i>. Before I started watching it this summer, all I knew about it was that it involved a psychic guy, but even based off that info I knew that I would probably really like it. I think I actually avoided watching an episode of it for about a year after I first heard of it b/c I knew that it already interested me enough that becoming addicted to it was a distinct possibility. Then this summer I finally got bored enough and broke down and watched an episode. Instant addiction, I would say. Since <i>The Dead Zone</i> has something of a wacky season schedule, the 5th season ended over the summer after I had watched about 4 of the episodes. I was then looking forward to reruns to find out eveything that I had missed, but much to my dismay it seems that they only run its reruns in the dead of night (perhaps out of a sense of irony), and since staying up until 3 AM to watch TV was definitely out of the question, I quickly broke down even further and bought the first two seasons on DVD. I got them about a month ago and have watched all those episode as of about a week and a half ago. I'm even more thoroughly addicted now. Sigh. It's worth it, though. <br/><br/>On an alternate note, the other day we were graced by the visit of Latif Bolat, famous Turkish musician. He gave a little concert the other night, which I went to because I figured it would be interesting. However, it zoomed right past interesting and straight on into fantastic! His music is very beautiful, and even though it's in Turkish and I have no idea what any of it means, I still love to listen to it. During the little intermission in the program, I and a friend I was with, who was equally enamoured with the music, went and bought his CDs, and I'm actually listenting to mine right now. So beautifully lyrical. And what was even cooler, yesterday he came to my World Religions class and gave us a lecture on Islam and the Sufi Mysticism branch of Islam from which he draws his music. He also read us a few poems by Turkish Sufi poets, two of which I've added to here b/c I like them so much: <a href=\"poems/iamdead.htm\">I Come and Stand At Every Door</a> and <a href=\"poems/whatofit.htm\">What of It</a>.";

blogDB[64] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/japanese_flag.png\" align=left><i>9/29/06:</i> I think Japan is out to get me today. Two of the three Japanese people on this campus have managed to scare me so far, and the day's not over yet! At lunchtime when I was in the dining hall getting dessert, Yuji (the Japanese class assistant) came up behind me, said \"Jackie-san!\", and tapped me on both shoulders. I swear, he nearly gave me heart failure. It was kind of funny, though. Yuji's really cool. :) Then, just now, Kayo had gone to the library and I went into our bathroom, and when I came out, she was back. That startled me as well, though she obviously didn't mean to scare me. Now all I need is for Tetsuya to jump out of my closet and yell \"Boo!\" or something, and my terrorization by Japanese people today will be complete. (And perhaps my journey to the dark side, as well. You never know...)<br/><br/>In other, non-Japanese news, one of my friends sent me the link to this website, which has a bunch of really stupid covers from old Superman, Batman, and Spiderman comic books, among other things. It's absolutely hilarious to see how desperate they seemed to be getting at times for story material. And the comments that the website author puts underneath the comics make it all even better. You WILL laugh! Go look at the <a href= \"http://www.superdickery.com/other/1.html\">Confounding Comic Covers</a>! The rest of the site is pretty damn funny, too. :)";

blogDB[65] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/horseman.png\" align=left><i>10/4/06:</i> Oooooh, boy. I think I've been programming for too long today. My brain's beginning to get tired, and therefore I'm becoming WAY too easily amused. For example, I was looking through the documentation for the Java programming language, trying to figure out how to do drag-and-drop in a graphical file tree, when I stumbled upon what has GOT to be the best exception EVER: HeadlessException. Oh, how I laughed... A bit of explanation. An exception is basically just Java's way of notifying something else that an error has occured. There are lots of different kinds of exceptions, like IOException (for input/output errors, like when reading or writing files) or InvalidOperationException (I think that's it, anyway; it's for idiot stuff like trying to divide by zero). But I had never seen a more amusingly-named exception than \"HeadlessException\". It sounds like, if the town of Sleepy Hollow was a computer program, that a \"HeadlessException\" would be thrown every time the Headless Horseman came around and killed someone, or something. :) Anyway...yeah. Back to the programming!";

blogDB[66] = "<i>10/24/06:</i> I was very amused today when I was at my mailing-intensive job and I was putting address labels on envelopes, and I saw one addressed to a \"Father so-and-so\", and on the next line of the address I could have sworn, at a glance, that it said \"Our Lady of <i>Congestion</i>\". Obviously it actually said something like \"Our Lady of Consolation\", but the mere thought of there being a religious group (or church, or whatever they are) called \"Our Lady of Congestion\" made me quite nearly hysterical with laughter. It's just a good thing I was alone in the room at the time, because my coworkers probably would have thought that I had finally lost my mind completely. Honestly, \"Our Lady of Congestion\"...sounds like a religion/church for doctors, doesn't it? :) They can pray to the Lady to give them lots of business during  flu season, or somesuch. Am I easily amused, you ask? Why, yes, I would say that I rather am...";

blogDB[67] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/lickitude.jpg\"><br/><i>10/29/06:</i> Could this guinea pig look any more freaked out if he tried? LOL!";

blogDB[68] = "<i>11/8/06:</i> So far I am quite pleased with the election results from yesterday! Lots of Democratic victories, including takeover of majority in the House, and perhaps also in the Senate! Democrats now also hold the majority of the state governor-ships, and the first-ever Muslin was elected to U.S. Congress by Minnesota. Yay for liberals/Democrats!!!! Plus, Rumsfeld is resigning! I was getting rather tired of him. Apparently I sit in a very liberal/Democrat-heavy part of our dining hall at lunchtimes, because when the news about Rummy's resignation first came onto TV, all the people at the tables around me broke into applause! There was even some cheering. It was rather awesome. :)";

blogDB[69] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/kernel panic.gif\"><br/><i>11/9/06:</i> I LOVE today's Foxtrot! Talk about a new take on kernel panics! (Computer system crashes, like the Windows \"Blue Screen of Death\"). I've always thought that \"kernel panic\" was the funniest term for a fatal error. :)";

blogDB[70] = "<i>11/11/06:</i> Y'know, the subtitling for the Star Wars DVDs needs some serious help in the way of creature sounds. Everything Chewie says is subtitled as \"Grr\" or \"Rrrr\". Hardly captures what he's really saying. Same with Artoo's speech: \"beep\" and \"whistle\", pretty much. And the worst thing? On ROTJ, Jabba's palace when Luke falls into the rancor pit, the rancor's door goes up and the rancor lumbers out, roaring. The subtitle? \"Grr.\" And you know that screechy-creak cry the Sarlacc has? Subtitle: \"Grrrrr.\" Sigh. They're hopeless.";

blogDB[71] = "<i>11/15/06:</i> I should not be allowed to title anything, ever. My titles are usually just horribly mediocre, but the title for my latest paper, the one for my World Religions class, crossed the line from mediocre to just plain painful. The subject of the paper is how the belief system of the Jedi can be considered a religion in the real world (too bad real-world Jedi can't have real lightsabers). My title: \"The Jedi: A Religious Force\". Sigh. A horrible pun on the Force for a title. How sad is that? I should be banned from the literary world for my horrible infringement. <br/><br/>You know what? It's really bloody cold and rainy outside, and I had to walk all the way to Speedway to get milk in it. Sigh.";

blogDB[72] = "<i>11/17/06:</i> Wow, when my mind wanders, it <i>wanders</i>. Today in my Software Engineering class, my professor started talking about Nasse-Schneiderman charts or something like that. Sadly, the second I heard that name, I noticed its strong auditory similarity to the phrase \"Nazi Spiderman\", so I sort of spent the next ten minutes contemplating what Spiderman might be like as a Nazi. Would he be capturing Jews in his webbing and leaving them for the SS, like he does with criminals and cops? Would he replace his spider emblem with a swastika and make his outfit red, white, and black, or else that drab soldier-outfit color they had? And can you imagine Spiderman marching along with that stupid straight-legged march they did, with the hail-Hitler extended arm? In case it hasn't become apparent yet, I'm way too easily amused/distracted. And unfortunately, I don't know much about Nasse-Schneiderman diagrams, either...";

blogDB[73] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/kitten.png\" align=left><i>11/20/06:</i> Never tempt the weather. Yesterday it was really cold and raining a bit as Kayo and I walked to Cowan for supper, and I was stupid enough to be optimistic about the frigid rain that kept blowing into our eyes and such by saying \"At least it's not snowing.\" So what do you think it was doing when I left my dorm this morning? Snowing. Of course. Since the blinds were closed in our room, I had no idea at all that it was snowing until I left our room and looked out of the window above the outside door, which is at about eye-level when standing next to Kayo and my's door. I literally stopped dead in the process of closing our door behind me and just stared out the window for a few seconds. It was rather disconcerting, I must say. I have never had a stronger feeling of being taunted by Nature in my life. It was quite a nice surprise, though, since I love snow. :) And I must say, Centre's campus looks particularly pretty when snowy. I was particularly enthused when I saw a tree that still had all of its bright yellow leaves, but was also dusted with snow. It was quite cool! <br/><br/>Isn't this kitten cute? Could the kitten's eyes get any bluer if they tried? I got this from <a href=\"http://cuteoverload.com\">cuteoverload</a>, of course. It's too bad that I had to shrink the pic down a bit to make it fit nicely, b/c it was even cuter at the original size! :)";

blogDB[74] = "<i>11/30/06:</i> Today I attended my first-ever press conference. The occasion? Centre's announcement that we intend to host the 2008 Presidential debate. Centre held the Vice-Presidential debate in 2000, and is going to apply to hold the 2008 debate. That would be SO awesome! Even though I'll graduate in spring 2008, if Centre gets the 2008 debate, I will come back and see it! It was a very interesting press conference. The Centre Brass group was providing festive, patriotic music before and after the actual statement by President Roush, two guys dressed quite elaborately as Uncle Sam were handing out little flags and red, white and blue pom-poms (their outfits were <i>hilarious</i>!), and cameramen and photographers were hovering around. I'm pretty sure that's the first time that I'd ever seen a news camera in real life, and those things sure look like a pain to haul around, unless they're a lot lighter than they appear. I don't much think I'd want to be a news cameraperson. It was an interesting press conference, and I just saw clips from it on the 5 o'clock Lexington news, and it was the 5:30 \"Big Story\"!. Yay, Centre! It was pretty weird seeing something I was present for myself on TV. Thoroughly cool! :) <br/><br/>By the way, I'm considering a perhaps-permanent visual rework of this site. I'll see how that goes, and if it works out in a way that I like, the new look will probably arrive by the end of next week. Gives you something to look forward to, hmm? <br/><br/>It's supposed to get really cold really fast tomorrow. Curses! I was really enjoying the warm weather. :(";

blogDB[75] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/death_note.png\" align=left><i>12/1/06:</i> I wish I got more chances to watch anime, because I generally love it. I saw Kayo watching this anime (which is currently running on TV in Japan) on YouTube.com, and got curious, so I checked it out and immediately got addicted. It's called \"Death Note\", and is about this guy (Light) who finds a notebook, the Death Note. If you write a person's name in the Death Note, they die. Light decides to purge the world of all bad people, and starts killing off criminals. He soon attracts the attention of police (and L, a mysterious super-detective) and has to be increasingly careful to avoid being caught. Eventually Light and L end up having personal vendettas against each other, and are constantly matching their (very sharp) wits. The freaky-looking blue guy in the picture is Ryuk. He's a Shinigami (Death God), and it's his Death Note that Light has gotten hold of. (Ryuk likes apples.) It's a very cool anime (with awesome music!), and the episodes on YouTube fortunately have subtitles, b/c my Japanese definitely isn't THAT good, sadly. ";

blogDB[76] = "<i>12/2/06:</i> Well, here's the new look. True, the layout didn't change, but I thought a visual change would be nice. I really love the cow-patterned look! It's too bad that I couldn't figure out how to make the buttons cow-patterned too, b/c that would've just been cool. :D I'm not sure how long this look will stay around; the black might get a bit depressing, even though I think the buttons look awesome. :)";

blogDB[77] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/mice.jpg\"><br/><i>12/2/06:</i> How can people dislike (or be <i>afraid of</i>) mice?? THEY'RE SO CUTE!!!! LOOK AT THEM!!!! Their whiskers are bigger than the rest of their bodies, for Christ's sake! <br/><br/><a href=http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1524155&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300>Teaser trailer</a> for the next Harry Potter movie!! Ooooo, I can't wait!! ";

blogDB[78] = "<i>12/3/06:</i> I've come up with an excellent idea. During finals week, at a certain time each night (or perhaps a few times during the day), every student studying in the library gets up, and everyone runs throughout the library screaming at the top of their lungs for several minutes. I feel that this would be an excellent release for the panic that tends to build up as one is studying for finals. This would also be a fairly good release of the stress. Someone should convince the library to let us do this, 'cause I definitely felt like screaming in panic when I was just studying...";

blogDB[79] = "<i>12/5/06:</i> Perhaps its just a function of being young, but I can't imagine ever being terrified that people would discover that I'm getting old/older. The plethora of commercials for hair dye, wrinkle cream/peels/whatever, and so on baffle me. Yeah, you're getting older. That does tend to happen. It's called BEING ALIVE. Do you really dislike ageing that much? If so, just die. Then you won't have to worry about getting old and ugly, or whatever you're fearing. Western culture/psyches seem to be so backwards in random areas such as this. The other cultures that value age and honor those older than themselves, where people are proud of every single one of their birthdays and have no desire to lie about their age make a lot more sense to me. It seems like America doesn't value older people very much. We make fun of them for being bad drivers, curse when we're stuck behind a \"little old lady\" going 30 in a 45 zone, ignore our parents or stick them in nursing homes when they get older, etc. And how many people have declared themselves to be \"30 and holding\" on all their birthdays after that age? How sad is that? Why would anyone want to be stuck at age 30 forever? That's so limiting. You'd never get to be the little old lady who gets to frustrate every impatient driver behind her as she takes her time enjoying her drive. Men: nobody cares if you go bald. We've all seen plenty of bald guys, we're used to it. Women: nobody cares if you have wrinkles or gray hairs. I honestly think that gray is a very pretty color for hair. I hope my hair turns a beautiful shade of gray (or white!) when I get old, like so many peoples' I've seen. And really, if you go out of your way to look \"young and beautiful\" for your spouse/partner, then the two of you don't seem to have a very deep relationship. If looks matter that much, the relationship doesn't. I really hate all these anti-aging-product commericals....";

blogDB[80] = "<i>12/8/06:</i> I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Finals are over, time for three week Christmas break! Woohoo!!!!!!!!! It snowed yesterday. It was very pretty, but unfortunately its now become incredibly cold. It was 13 degress Farenheit this morning when I got up for my last final. That's like too cold to breathe...";

blogDB[81] = "<i>1/7/07:</i> \"Surpassed only by the Permian Mass Extinction and the Senonian Retreat, scientists rank the rise of humanity as the third most cataclysmic event in the history of life on earth.\"      --GullibleInfo.com<br/><br/>Strangely enough, I'm completely unsurprised...";

blogDB[82] = "<i>1/9/07:</i> It absolutely amazing how thoroughly horrible the science is in most movies. Take <i>Batman Begins</i>. Its a fantastic movie and I love it. I'm just a bit bothered by the fact that the giant microwave-generator they have is very picky about which water it vaporizes. It'll vaporize the entire contents of a giant water main in seconds, but the completely unshielded people standing right next to the thing are perfectly unharmed. It's a giant mi-cro-wave gen-e-ra-tor. It'll heat any water to the vaporizing point, which includes the water in every person, plant, and animal in the vicinity. In fact, a super-powerful microwave-generator wouldn't make a half-bad WMD. Except for the thing with microwaves and metal, also completely ignored in the movie. Now THAT would be an interesting light show... <br/><br/>They're making another Batman movie, BTW. It's due out in summer 2008, and continues where <i>Begins</i> left off, with the Joker. Can't wait! :D";

blogDB[83] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/crusades.png\" align=left><i>1/11/07:</i> If you really want people to stare at you, take your whole class, dress them up in Crusader outfits complete with silver cardboard swords, and take them all out to stand in front of the school library. Then, have your professor put on a black robe that makes him look like a cross between a priest and Batman, stand on a low wall, and start \"preaching\" at the top of his voice (with accompanying highly-flamboyant gestures) to your mob of \"Crusaders\". People will give you the most hilariously stunned looks as they view this spectacle. It also helps if your professor is shouting things like \"Who among you is willing to go and kill the infidel???\" and \"Eternal salvation awaits you in Jerusalem!!!\". That's what we did yesterday in my current class, which is entitled, unsurprisingly, \"The Crusades\". My professor is THE single most energetic and enthusiastic teacher that I've ever had. And I've had some pretty hyper teachers. When he was giving that over-the-top speech to us Crusaders, he was literally bright red in the face from the entusiasm of his preaching. And that happens a lot in normal lectures, too. His lectures could convince even the most militant history-hater that history is interesting. His enthusiasm is simply infectious. It's great! <br/><br/>By the way, the aforementioned traumitazation of passer-by was for the sake of our class projects, 40-minute documentaries about the Crusades. We're divided into three groups, and each group makes a documentary. It's been great fun so far! Every day this week, during the last hour of class, we've gone outside and filmed scenes with the entire class, which, given the rather violent nature of the Crusades, means a lot of scenes where we're charging something or someone, slaying each other, etc. You have to love it when a sizeable portion of your homework for a class consists of having an all-out melee with your entire class beating each other to \"death\" with cardboard and plastic swords and shields. Besides charging and killing in general, we've also filmed scenes where we assassinate the king of the city of Edessa, storm a frat house and kill everyone inside, and threw croissants at the camera person from atop the football-field bleachers. I'm not sure what was up w/ the croissant-throwing, because we haven't studied the crusade that that group is doing in class yet, but it sure was a fun scene to film!";

blogDB[84] = "<i>1/12/07:</i> Today we had a huge group of \"Crusaders\" chase a few \"Muslims\" halfway across campus. We also went to the cafe in the gym and \"demanded\" that the lady there give us 1,000 sandwiches and smoothies, and when she \"refused\", we all got really \"angry\" and started chanting \"smoothie, smoothie, smoothie\" and waving our weapons threateningly. (We got lots of stares from people working out in the exercise room for that!) Then we went outside and did more charging and screaming and killing and made our professor wear a beard that looked kind of like a dead rat so he could be Saladin. What made it even better was that there was a tour of prospective students and parents wandering around during this time. I wonder if our performance will make them more or less inclined towards attending/letting their children attend Centre? It'd certainly make ME want to come here more! :D";

blogDB[85] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/lollipops.jpg\" align=left><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><i>1/14/07:</i> Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I love this picture! Lava flows and lazily leaping lollipops! Thanks Jamie!!!";

blogDB[86] = "<i>1/20/07:</i> On September 11, terrorists destroyed 4 planes and two buildings. In retaliation, we invaded two countries. Does that seem reasonable to YOU?";

blogDB[87] = "<i>1/24/07:</i> Today was the last day of my Crusades class. I think I'm rather sad. That was a really fun class! We watched our video in class on Monday, and it seemed to go over quite well. People laughed a lot, so I was happy. People in my group also said that they really liked it, so that's also good! Today we watched the other two groups' videos today because Group 2 couldn't get their's burnt in time to watch on Tuesday, so we didn't have class that day, which was cool! I really liked Group 3's video; it was really well filmed and quite funny. I think they had the best director/cameraperson of all the groups. Group 2's video was also quite good, though rather long and they also unfortunately had a problem with audio tracks having moved to places that they weren't supposed to be, so a few times different narrations were overlapping. After we watched the movies, our professor had the \"Crusadeies\", which was his version of Oscars or Academy Awards, and the prizes were gingerbread men that were quite yummy! He gave everyone a prize, and it was really funny some of the prizes he came up with. There was a \"best dying pope\", a \"best provider of real weapons\", a \"best historian that you would never let near your kids\", and a \"person who was killed the most times\". Zack and I got \"best editors\", so I'm definitely happy! :) Oh, and we also had a final. It wasn't too bad, only 10 short-answer questions. There were also 3 bonuses, which were HILARIOUS! They were the three questions that the bridgekeeper in \"Monty Python and the Holy Grail\" asks King Arthur. \"What is your name?\", \"What is your favorite color?\", and \"What is the land air-speed velocity of a swallow?\". When I first saw the test, I was laughing myself breathless, as was most of the rest of the class. I'll bet anyone who hadn't seen Monty Python (kind of sad that there are such people...) were really bloody confused. :) <br/><br/><font color=red>\"Warning: Use only as directed. Deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents can be harmful or fatal.\"</font> (From a can of whipped cream). Look, a new method of suicide! Death by whipped-cream inhalation! Deadly, yet yummy. Very sad that they actually need to point this lovely little fact out, of course.";

blogDB[88] = "<i>1/31/07:</i> This is awesome! <a href=http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html>The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord</a>. Also, a list of movie reviews in which said movies' bad astronomy is criticized/corrected: <a href=http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/>Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy: Bad Movies</a>. A very cool optical illusion: <a href=http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.php>castle colors</a>.";

blogDB[89] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/Truck.jpg\"><br/><i>1/31/07 again:</i> I absolutely love this truck! Such a great combination of messages! We saw (and photographed) this truck one day on the interstate. And people say travelling by car is boring.";

blogDB[90] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/snow pan.jpg\"><br/><i>2/2/07:</i> Yay! The weather has FINALLY acknowledged that it's winter, and we've finally gotten something that can count as snowfall! Ok, so it's maybe 2 inches, but that's way better than anything else we've gotten so far this winter. It's so pretty! I've been compulsively taking pictures all day every time I'm outside. Unfortunately for the sake of really awesome pictures, it hasn't been sunny very much today, and snow pictures always look the most beautiful when it's sunny. I got an awesome new camera over winter break, which has the capability to take panorama pictures. You can bet that I've been having fun with that! The above is the best of the panoramas that I've taken so far. It's so pretty! I LOVE SNOW!!!!";

blogDB[91] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/ironic_squirrels.png\"><br/><i>2/4/07:</i> This comic strip is pure awesomeness. I love the website that it came from; this is a very funny comic series! <a href=http://www.partiallyclips.com>www.PartiallyClips.com</a>. I just love that line, \"What would constitute an 'ironic' moment for a squirrel attack?\". LOL!! And since when do squirrels say \"screee\"?";

blogDB[92] = "<i>2/10/07:</i> Today I went and played with clay for about two hours with Kayo at the Art Barn (building where the art classes are). It was quite fun! We used the clay she's made for her ceramics class, and she was working on her homework project while I was just playing around. I made something that basically resembled two people (one large, one small) being engulfed by tentacles. It looked sorta cool, but not spectacularly so. It was rather fun squishing it, too. I love squishing clay! I really liked that clay, too. It smelled exactly like summer rain falling on sun-warmed rocks. Or at least that's what I think the smell is. That's when I usually smell it, anyway, at the beginning of a spring or summer rainstorm. I love that smell; it's actually my favorite smell in the world. I suppose it must be the smell of some kind of mineral or something. Anyway, I love it!";

blogDB[93] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/bleach.png\" align=left><i>2/13/07:</i> Well, I feel a nice little sense of accomplishment. I've managed to install Fedora Core 6 on my new laptop AND get it to boot, finally. I actually did the installation on Saturday night, but it took me until today to figure out how to correctly use the commands that I needed to turn off the services that caused it to hang while booting. Yay! I have a dual-boot machine again! Not entirely sure how well its going to work, but I know it works well enough to boot, and my graphics and Ethernet cards both seem to be working spectacularly. Now if I can only get my wireless card to work...<br/><br/>In other news, I'm officially obsessed with another anime, \"Bleach\". I haven't the faintest clue why its called that, but its absolutely awesome. Lots of shinigami (death gods) and swordfighting (which you can probably tell from the picture) and huge explosions of spiritual energy and fun stuff like that. Oh, and there's a talking cat, too. :) In the week and a half that its been since I actually started watching Bleach, I've gotten up to episode 65. Given that each episode is 20-25 minutes long, that's a lot of watching. But it's SOOOO good!! I blame John, Laura, Kayo, and Tetsuya. John (and Laura too, I think) were talking about how awesome Bleach is when I was at his and Laura's apartment over break (and we watched the 16th or so episode on TV), and Kayo and Tetsuya showed me the 1st episode, which turned the interest peaked by the 16th episode into a serious desire to watch a lot more. A serious desire which has thoroughly continued. Well, Bleach is like the 7th most popular anime in Japan right now, I think, so at least I'm not alone in my obsession. :)";

blogDB[94] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/lava.png\" align=left><i>2/19/07:</i> The perfect adjective for today: infuriating. Allow me to explain by way of highly irritated rant. Stupid Windows Update installed some Security Update or another that managed to screw with my computer, causing \"Generic Win32 host Process\" or somesuch to crash on boot every time, which somehow managed to screw with both my speakers and my network card. My computer stopped acknowledging that it had speakers at all (kind of annoying when one wants to listen to music or watch \"Bleach\"!), and my network connection stopped noticing when it lost its connection, so that if you unplugged the cord, it would still say it was connected, and since it thought it was still connected, it made no effort to reconnect when you plugged the cable back in, effectively killing my Internet connection until I rebooted. Just to add to the general joyful nature of my recent life, my taskbar kept twitching between the normal WinXP look and something more appropriate for Win98 (gray and 2D and boring), which was really annoying. Attempting to fix this stuff, I accidentally fucked up some of the rather essential files that Windows needs to boot, so I had to whip out the HP recovery DVDs, which had an option that they claimed would restore Windows and my programs to their factory-new condition without deleting my data files. Since I hadn't backed up my data in about 10 days and had some stuff that I really wanted to keep (like the new work I finally did yesterday on the Chess program I'm slowly writing for my mom), I went with that recovery option. Apparently either something went wrong in the recovery, or HP just lies about their recovery programs, because it kept all my programs (though managed to make most of them uninstalled-enough that they were no longer functional) and completely wiped out all of my data files that I had desperately wanted to keep. At that point, my curses at Microsoft, HP, and myself became especially creative.<br/><br/>Faced with this useless version of my file system, I just decided to reformat the damn hard drive and reinstall Windows completely. This, of course, ended up wiping out my hard-earned functioning Linux partition, just to improve my day. I finally have Windows back up and functioning, and am reinstalling all of my programs and copying my data over. I'm still really pissed off about the lost programming work, but none of it was particularly brilliant, so hopefully I'll be able to duplicate it with a minimum of trouble. Just need to remember what all I did. And I have a few other files and programs that I can recover from my e-mail. Still really pissed off about this whole thing, though. Additionally, I can't seem to figure out where the program that I had for DVD burning came from. I could have sworn it came installed on my laptop, but it didn't get installed in the reinstall, and I can't find it anywhere in my CDs or anything. That's really annoying me, b/c I really like that program. (I figured a volcanic eruption made a fairly appropriate picture for all this.)";

blogDB[95] = "<i>2/19/07: (later)</i> Oh. Duh. The DVD burning software came bundled with the external DVD burner I bought for my old laptop. Imagine that. Fortunately I finally figured that out before I went and spent $70 to buy DVD burning software...";

blogDB[96] = "<br/><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/backlit.jpg\"><br/><i>2/24/07:</i> This kitten is awesome! So fluffy! And she looks like she has 1,000 times normal fluffiness because of the backlighting. <i>Adorable!!!</i><br/><br/>I seemed to be doomed to computer problems lately. I just now finally got most everything reinstalled and back to the way I like it to be set up, and as of yesterday morning, my blasted computer won't boot at all. When I turn it on, it acts fine for about 3 seconds, then beeps at me three times and quits booting. I think I know what the beeping is, though, an error message from the power-on hardware tests that, if the Internet is right, means something is wrong with my video card, screen, or the connections pertaining to such. This does not make me happy, since I am not exactly a hardware guru, and moreover, it's a laptop. Things like the video card and screen are rather thoroughly integrated into the body of laptops, and not easily servicable. Which probably means that if my problem doesn't magically fix itself in the next few days, I'm going to have to send my laptop off to a HP repair center for them to try and fix. What annoys me about that isn't money (its still within warranty, so I don't think they should charge me anything), its the time that'd take, which would probably be several weeks, at the least. Being completely without my computer for that long is not a good thing, esp. since I'm a computer science major! I do tend to use the thing a lot for programming homework and the like, and I really don't like having to trudge off to a computer lab (where I am now) every time I need access to a computer/the Internet. Sigh. On the upside, I got to see <i>Ghost Rider</i> yesterday, which made me happy because its quite a good movie! Awesome effects, though most of the lines said by the main bad guy (the son of Satan) were either rather corny or rather melodramatic. Nicholas Cage was awesome in it though, naturally. :)";

blogDB[97] = "<i>2/25/07:</i> Yep, I'm definitely cursed in the technological category at the moment. I've been trading e-mails with HP customer support, and I am going to have to send my laptop to them to repair, and, just to make my year even better, some of the parts they think they'll need to fix it are out of stock and the soonest they'll be able to get the thing fixed and back to me is April 11. CURSES!!! I can tell that I am going to become intimately familiar with all the computer labs on campus that are even vaugely convenient for me. (I'm in the library writing this.) At least the library computers and the computers in the labs closest to my dorm all have nice keyboards. I really hate the keyboards of some of the other lab computers on campus; they're impossible for me to type quickly on. Sigh. The perils of owning things that can break...";

blogDB[98] = "<i>2/26/07:</i> Wow, this is really cool. My blog is spilling over onto Facebook! First there was a group extending on the Clam Quotes concept (see the \"Weirdness\" section) created by Jenny, and now there's \"The Comment-on-the-Blog/Site-of-Jackie-Soenneker-because-it's-awesome Group\" created by Jamie. LOL! NOTE: I do not claim that this blog is at all awesome, that is merely the opinion of Madam Jamie, and perhaps some other strange and rather bored people (I'm sure you're not bored Jamie, just strange :) ). If you have a Facebook account (or would like one; they're free and it's a good way to keep up with friends and such), then you can find the Clam Quotes group <a href=http://centre.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2236603316>here</a> and the comments group <a href=http://centre.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2248430220>here</a>. (Those links work for me, not sure if they'll work for anyone else. If they don't, then just search the Facebook groups for the group titles.) <br/><br/>I've been a computer science major for too long, I think. I've got proof! Most of the items on this <a href=http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/programmer.txt>\"You Might Be A Programmer If\"</a> list either apply to me or really crack me up, and <a href=http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/evilmalware.html>\"Why Linux Viruses are fairly uncommon\"</a> makes sense to me. I love tech/computer humor!!";

blogDB[99] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/me.jpg\"><br/><i>3/1/07:</i> Aaaaaaaahhhhh! I love this drawing Jamie did of me! She even got the flip-flops and lots of purple and everything! I think this picture also describes my relationship with my computer quite accurately, especially at the moment, since it doesn't work at all...";

blogDB[100] = "<i>3/3/07:</i> I sort of hate how wacky the weather gets when we're transitioning between seasons, but it also rather amuses me. Today when I went down to the basement of one of the buildings on campus to use the computer lab there to work on a programming assignment, it was very sunny outside and maybe 45 degrees, though windy. When I was coming back up the stairs after about two hours and got my first glimpse out of the window, I stopped dead. A minor blizzard had wandered in while I was fighting with Finite State Machines and HTTP packet specifications. It honestly looked like it was the middle of January: cloudy, snow falling thick and fast, whipped about everywhere by the wind that was all that remained of the former weather conditions. It had been pretty warm all week, too, which made it even more startling. It was quite pretty, though, and as long as that doesn't become typical of our weather for the next week, I'll be quite happy to have experienced a bit more winter before moving on into spring. ";

blogDB[101] = "<i>3/5/07:</i> This is so cool! I just found a link to an awesome website on <a href=http://blog.myspace.com/rubysunrise>Jamie's blog</a>: <a href=http://www.jacksonpollock.org/>www.jacksonpollock.org</a>. If you have the faintest clue who Jackson Pollock is, you can probably guess what the website is about (think interactively). It's AWESOME!";

blogDB[102] = "<i>3/6/07:</i> This is a very strage video found on YouTube. Two rabbits fighting, and then two chickens breaking up the fight and attacking the rabbits a bit. <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVb3t560oY>It's very strange.</a> These are the things I do when I take breaks from studying. I have three tests this week, one on Thursday, two back-to-back on Friday. This is worse than finals week! At least my finals are usually spaced much better than this! My computer is still broken, though its all boxed up and ready to send to an HP repair center, I just have to figure out how to hand the darn thing off to FedEx...";

blogDB[103] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/stranglehold.jpg\"><br/><i>3/12/07:</i> \"I loooove you sooooo much!\" Adorable! :D <br/><br/>I am <i>so</i> glad my midterms are over!! And it's almost Spring Break! Happiness!";

blogDB[104] = "<i>3/14/07:</i> Yay, I got my computer back yesterday, and it seems to be completely fixed! According to the paper the repair place sent with it, they had to replace the \"system board\", which I assume means the motherboard. I'm sure glad that my laptop was still within warranty and the repair was therefore free, b/c I bet that would've cost quite a bit of money. Hooray for having a functional computer!! Now if the campus network would only allow me Internet access...rrrrr...";

blogDB[105] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/spring_tree_small.jpg\"><br/><i>3/16/07:</i> It's spring! Even though it's turned a bit cold the last two days, it's been warm in general, and is supposed to get warm again soon! AND it's Spring Break!!! Happiness! Joy! Jubilation! Bliss! Glee! umm...Delight! ummmmmm.....Ecstasy! Umm..........well, I've run out of adjectives, but I sure haven't run out of happiness! :D";

blogDB[106] = "<i>3/29/07:</i> You know those \"I'm a Mac. I'm a PC.\" commercials? I absolutely love those! They're so hilarious! Apple's just poking away at Window's flaws (in a very accurate manner, I might add), with hilarious effect. Ah, tech humor used for advertisement. It's fantastic! Here's a few links to my favorite of the series (they've even got a few from Japan!):<br/><br/><a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n4mdcXa8B0>Vista \"Protection\"</a><br/><a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY60vzAWqxw>Restarting</a><br/><a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpLnkgfyhA>Tech Support</a><br/><a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6rna2zNCi0>Japanese--Viruses</a>";

blogDB[107] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/human infestation.gif\"><br/><i>3/30/07:</i> I've added a couple more comics to my Garfield, Tech, Star Wars, and \"Other\" comic pages, and they are worth a look (under \"Humor\"). The above comic is one of my favorites. I love the bit about the \"two asteroid impacts\"! :)<br/><br/>Also, this, found at <a href=http://www.gullible.info>GullibleInfo.com</a>, is absolutely hilarious!: <br/><br/>Acute Pyrotechnic Absorbative Psychosis, known better by its nickname \"Firecracker Madness\" was first discovered in a number of young Laotian fireworkwrights in 1989. A new pyrotechnic alkaline had just come into use in Southeast Asia, and these sixteen fireworks-makers all worked with the substance. They drew handfuls of it out of large buckets and packed it into skyrocket launch tubes for several hours each day. Unbeknownst to their employers, this substance was able to cross the blood-brain barrier, and soon these men found themselves the victims of terrifying hallucinations and delusions. One man became convinced his father was calling to him from heaven to bring large bales of toilet paper to the tallest hill in the village, another became convinced that he could pass through solid objects. A third fell fourteen meters from a catwalk, convinced he was being pursued by a ball of fire-breathing eels. After four days of inexplicable behavior on the part of their employees, factory managers shut down the operation, and after discovering the cause the use of the alkaline pyrotechnic was discontinued throughout Laos. Thirteen of the sixteen men stricken with the syndrome recovered fully, and the remaining three live on somewhat disabled to this day. The chemical (whose name and composition was never released) continues to be used by Chinese and Korean fireworks manufacturers, but they refuse to comment on any further cases of \"Firecracker Madness\".";

blogDB[108] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/hp.png\" align=left><i>3/31/07:</i> Movies made from books are both cool and sometimes insanely irritating. I'm watching the <i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</i> movie at the moment. That book was probably my favorite so far, or at the very least, the whole scene in the Shrieking Shack involving finding out about Sirius being innocent and such is my favorite scene from any of the Harry Potter books. Needless to say, I am disappointed with the relative brevity of that scene in the movie. (Although I do LOVE the \"Severus, don't be a fool\", \"He can't help it, it's habit by now\", \"Be quiet, Sirius!\", \"Be quiet yourself, Remus!\" dialog while Snape's got his wand at Sirius' throat.) Necessary, I know, but it was such a good scene in the book! In any case, I though I would compile a list of things in this movie that drive me insane. Let's say that it's for the sake of my not exploding from frustration.<br/><br/>1) Harry isn't allowed to do magic outside school. Uncle Vernon even says so when Harry comes downstairs with his trunk after he inflates Aunt Marge, and Harry says so when he's talking to Fudge at the Leaky Cauldron. So, obviously they haven't spontaneously altered that rule. So, WHY IS HARRY PRACTICING A SPELL UNDER HIS BEDCOVERS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE????<br/><br/>2) When Harry first sees Sirius (in dog form), right before the Knight Bus makes its dramatic appearance, the dog/Sirus growls and barks at him in quite a menacing fashion. SIRIUS WOULDN'T DO THAT!!<br/><br/>3) Since when is Tom the Leaky Cauldron barman a hunchback? And why did he act like he was expecting Harry? And why doesn't Fudge have his lime-green bowler? It's sad how the little details fall by the wayside...<br/><br/>4) Why is the Monster Book spitting out little pieces of paper while it's attacking Harry? Why on earth would it chew itself up? Come to think of it, it <i>couldn't</i> chew itself up, because its teeth are all on the edge, and they can't turn inward...so why is it spitting pieces of chewed-up paper??<br/><br/>5) This one actually isn't something that annoys me, it amuses me: why, in those \"mug shots\" of Sirius, is he screaming in every direction? I guess it's a perfectly plausible reaction, rage that Pettigrew had betrayed James and Lily and framed him or somesuch. But is is really incredibly funny, just watching those posters silently screaming away in the background. :)<br/><br/>6) Dementors are supposed to have hoods, not veils. Honestly, I think the veils make them look kind of lame. Perhaps they were worried about resembling Ringwraiths too much or something, but I think they would have done a lot better with the hoods. The fathomless blackness beneath the hood is much scarier than a veil draped over a skull-shape, even if the veil does sort of show the outlines of the gaping dementor mouth. Hood = scary. Veil, not so much. But at least the dementors still look really cool when they're flying!<br/><br/>7) Since when is Hermione an expert at imitating werewolf calls?<br/><br/>8) Why are they treating magic like the Force all of a sudden? You need a wand to do magic, but everyone from Dumbledore to Lupin are just waving their hands and making stuff move, ignite, stop after falling from a great height, etc. Yes, it looks really cool in the movie, but that's not how Harry-Potter-world magic works! Rrrrr...";

blogDB[109] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/snow_trees.png\" align=left><i>4/6/07:</i> Ok, perhaps it's winter again. The last few days it's been back down in the 20s at night and the daytime highs have been in the 40s. And this evening it is snowing. It's not sticking to the ground, but its coming down fairly hard. What the hell??? It's April!! It's officially spring. WHY IS IT SNOWING??? Sigh.<br/><br/>On the upside, my group for Networking class is doing very well on our lab. We all have working implementations of a simplified DNS system (part of the Internet that is used by computers to find out the actual (IP) address of a website so that they can connect to it. It's really a pretty cool lab because we had to make up our own protocol, and ours seems to work great! I think that in the real world it would be too inefficient, because our protocol stores an awful lot of state information in its packets, but at least on a small scale it works fantastically. Now we have to get our different pieces of code (client, intermediate server, and root server) to all work together, which is going to be interesting and hopefully not too horribly hard. We already know that each of our programs works with the other two programs, we just have to find out if each person's programs work with everyone else's in the group. For added incentive, Dr. Bradshaw said that if everyone's groups get their programs working together, then he'll give us an ice cream party in class late next week. Yay! I don't think I've had an in-class ice cream party since sometime in middle or high school. I do hope we get to have it, because I love ice cream. :) It makes me sad that Dr. Bradshaw has to leave at the end of this school year because Centre wouldn't hire him back because apparently the Computer Science program doesn't merit more than 3 faculty members. We are small, yes, but maybe if we had more faculty, we could offer more classes and draw more students! C'mon Centre, help us out here!";

blogDB[110] = "<center><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/title.png\"><br/></center><i>4/8/07:</i> So, as you may have noticed, I've now relocated this website, as well as changed the background and such quite a bit. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the pretty graphics, since its just a template that the place I'm now hosting my Blog/Site provides. I might switch templates every once in a while as the mood strikes me, but for now this is my favorite. I've been working on translating my pages from my old location to here for the last few weeks, and I'm finally satisfied with the result. :) Since I no longer have to hand-code everything, now I can have some fun stuff like a Guestbook! Everyone should go and sign it so I feel loved and such. Now there's a place to leave comments! :)<br/><br/>Did you notice my new hit-counter? (Scroll to the bottom). It uses Japanese numerals! Unfortunately, the number it shows in Japanese doesn't actually translate to the number shown in English because of a fundamental difference in how English and Japanese writes numbers. With English numbers, place matters and tells you the what unit the number show in that place is in (the one's-place, the 100's-place, etc), and using those places we figure out that 1,854 is one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four. In Japanese, however, they're much more explicit in telling you what unit the number is counting. In Japanese, 1,854 is written like this (though in Japanese symbols, obviously, and without spaces, since \"100\" and the rest are not one-character expressions in English): 1 1000 8 100 5 10 4. In more verbose terms, \"one thousand plus eight hundreds plus five tens plus four\". In other words, what we do with the position of the numeral, they do with an explicit statement of \"this many 100's, this many 10's, etc\". I really like Japanese numbers. They look so cool, and are quite fun to read! :)<br/><br/>The cow-patterned title was so nice, I decided to include it here. Yay for cow-patterns!";

blogDB[111] = "<i>4/10/07:</i> I decided to swap my Guestbook for a Forum, which is niftier! In the forum, I have a topic where you can post new Clam Quotes, one for new Looney Letter Last-Lines, and one for comments. The latter is a branch of Jamie's aforementioned Facebook group, \"The Comment-on-the-Blog/Site-of-Jackie-Soenneker-because-it's-awesome Group\", so now those of you who are bursting with comments but are deprived of Facebook accounts aren't left out! I'm sure there're tons of you out there who's only desire in life is to post comments about this miraculously magnificent masterpiece of a blog/website. Consider your prayers answered. :)";

blogDB[112] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/drops.jpg\"><br/><i>4/15/07:</i> I finally found an awesome free wallpaper source! Even better, they have tons of both wide-screen and normal-screen sized pics, and they're available in insanely high resolutions, too! And they have some of the most <i>beautiful</i> pictures I've ever seen! <a href=http://interfacelift.com/>interfacelift.com</a>";

blogDB[113] = "<i>4/19/07:</i> I love random quotes, and I love good <i>Star Wars</i> books, and random quotes from good <i>SW</i> books are even better! <i>Star Wars: Allegiance</i> is the newest one that I've read, and it's absolutely awesome due to the fact that it's written by Timothy Zahn, who is my absolute favorite <i>SW</i> author, and in the top 5 or so of my all-time favorite authors. His books are always really incredibly interesting with intriguing plots and so on, and are also some of the funniest books that I've ever read. Perhaps when it comes to <i>Star Wars</i> books I have a strange sense of humor, but I think that quotes like \"Even when he wasn't being homicidal, Vader was never pleasant to deal with.\" are absolutely hilarious! It might help if you read the scene preceding the quote, but when I read that line I was laughing myself breathless for quite a few seconds. I think it's how they mention Vader's homicidality, and then remark that he isn't too much fun to stand around and chat with that gets me. Such a great contrast! In any case, I think Timothy Zahn is a freaking genius! In another of his books, set about 40 years after the last movie when the Alliance and Empire have become more or less friends and are facing the extra-galactic invasion of a brutal warrior race intent on general extermination, there's a scene where Han and a Imperial officer are talking. The Imperial says that if Palpatine had still been around, he would have exterminated the invaders (called Yuuzhan Vong) as soon as they had set foot in the galaxy, instead of letting them take a bunch of planets like the Alliance had. In response, Han says: <br/><br/>\"That's not what the Empire would have done. What the Empire would have done was build a super colossal Yuuzhan Vong-killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. And you know what would have happened? It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors, or some other mistake, and a hotshot enemy pilot would drop a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done.\" <br/><br/>Even reading that yet again just now, I end up paralyzed with hysterics! It's the \"Nostril of Palpatine\" bit that really gets me (what would such a superweapon look like, I wonder?), and the fact that he's saying all this directly to an Imperial's face. GOD that's an awesome scene to picture!!! I think my family thinks I'm an absolute nutter when I'm just sitting there quietly reading a book, and then suddenly I'm cackling hysterically and possibly also going into mirthful convulsions. :D";

blogDB[114] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/buddha.png\" align=left><i>4/21/07:</i> I love crafts! Yesterday my friend Megan and I went up to Lexington to wander around and try to find her some paint pens to use in her experiment with water striders for one of her biology classes. We went to Michael's, hoping to find some, and also just wanting to look around. I should never be allowed in a place like that. I was acting like an overexcited kid, running around all over the place going \"oooh, this is cool!\" and \"Megan, look at this!\", and \"oooh, this is so <i>cute</i>!\". If I hadn't been so happy, I would have been getting on my own nerves something crazy. :) They had so much cool stuff! I absolutely love stickers (they had a whole aisle of them), prettily-patterned paper (they had huge books of it), and little boxes and bottles and such made out of wood or glass (they also had tiny little flower pots, which I'm pretty sure Megan thought I was insane for being so excited about). Even worse, they had a huge aisle of cross-stitch kits and such, and if there's anything crafty that I'm addicted to, it's cross-stitching! Ok, yeah, I kind of laugh at how much of a dork I am when I'm happily sitting in my room cross-stitching and watching TV on Friday and Saturday nights when pretty much everyone else in this place is out getting drunk with their friends, but I just really love doing it! Imagine, then, how I felt being surrounded by so many beautiful things to cross-stitch! They has some of the prettiest things, like elegant flowers and such, and I was especially excited when I found one of a Buddha, bonsai tree, and Chinese characters (see picture). I love Chinese and Japanese characters in the first place because they're so beautiful, even in cross-stitch, and bonsai trees are also awesome! I swear, I was almost jumping up and down in excitement. :) <br/><br/>Thankfully, I managed to restrain myself in the purchasing department, and only bought one sheet of pretty flower stickers and that Buddha cross-stitch kit. Now I just need to finish the other cross-stitch thing I'm working on at the moment so I can start on it! :D";

blogDB[115] = "<i>4/22/07:</i> Aaaaaaahahahaha!!! Finally, someone has captured the spirit of Centre College (and the zaniness of the professors) on film! Watch the short film <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dt2lm5ZM4s>Personal Education. Extraordinary Success</a>, it's AWESOME! Dr. Tubb, the guy ranting about Centre's football victory over Harvard is the guy I had for my Crusades class, and that actually is pretty much what his lectures are like! Dr. Glazier-McDonald (the lady speaking Hebrew on the treadmill) I had for \"Biblical History and Ideas\", and she's very cool and has fascinating lectures, although she gives you so much information that it's all that you can do to keep up while note-taking. I love Centre's professors! They're all INSANE, but so smart and hilarious that you can't help but love them. :) If you have no other reason to watch this video, does the direct quote \"a striptease of knowledge\" spark your interest? :D";

blogDB[116] = "<i>4/30/07:</i> Our college library sure has some strange-sounding books. I was in the library this morning, studying for my test later today, and I ended up sitting in a place where I had never sat before, and it was by a bookshelf. Since the stuff I was studying wasn't all that fascinating, I ended up staring off into space in the direction of the shelves a lot. Eventually I started reading some of the titles of the books, and this is what I saw: <br/><br/>-the 4-volume <i>Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(that just sounds scary to me) <br/>-<i>The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(why do we have this book?) <br/>-<i>The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(I laughed out loud at that one) <br/>-<i>The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(how mysterious...and intriguing) <br/>-<i>Chinese Philosphy</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(I think it was the fact that this was so close to the werewolves and witches that amused me) <br/>-<i>The Oxford Companion to the Mind</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(I'm not really sure why I laughed at this one...) <br/>-the 2-volume <i>Encyclopedia of Human Emotions</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(I didn't know we had THAT many emotions!) <br/>-the 3-inch thick <i>Dictionary of Religion</i> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(not sure why that one amuses me, either)";

blogDB[117] = "<i>5/6/07:</i> Ok, now spam is finally really getting on my nerves. I could live with the e-mails offering free PS3's, laptops, iPods, etc., e-mails offering to give me tons of money for doing surveys from the comfort of my own home, e-mail offering me timeshares in Costa Rica and the like. But, no, I DO NOT WANT ANY \"GIRLS GONE WILD\" DVD's, so stop sending me offers for them! Jesus Christ. The freaking incessant commercials at night on Comedy Central are irritating enough, do NOT start e-mailing me about this crap...";

blogDB[118] = "<i>5/10/07:</i> Ah, the horror of finals week is striking again. This semester all of my finals are in the afternoon. In a way, I wish they weren't. At least with morning finals you get them over with quickly, instead of having to dread them for half the day. On a brighter note, we had our Computer Science picnic today, and it was really fun, especially since it gave me a reason to further avoid studying for my math final tomorrow afternoon. Apparently I've been elected Computer Science student representative by all the majors and minors that bothered to vote. Why anyone would want ME to represent them is beyond me, but I guess I'll do my best. <br/><br/>Amusing quote from the picnic: \"How many PhD's does it take to open a container of potato salad?\" (Two, it turns out. That was a very amusing moment. :D )";

blogDB[119] = "<i>5/12/07:</i> Hmmm...so how many finals have YOU ever had that were administered by a professor in drag? I particularly liked his floppy straw sun-hat, though the fingernail polish was a close second. Ah, the things people will do for a charity's sake...";

blogDB[120] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/smite.png\" align=left><i>5/13/07:</i> The random stuff that I do during finals week. I've just now found a random page of comics about the teaching-intelligent-design-in-schools thing in Kansas, and it's either one of the funniest things I've ever seen, or one of the most depressing. Perhaps a bit of both. On a related note, yesterday I sent a fake e-mail to my sister from God (well, from God's secretary, St. Peter, to be more precise), and half-way through threatening to smite her with a Thunderbolt of Heavenly Wrath, I realized that I don't really know how to conjugate the word \"smite\". This realization made me very sad, since smite is one of my favorite words! Therefore, I went and found a guide to conjugating smite on <a href=http://www.notwriting.com/commentary_020804.htm>notwriting.com</a> (this is all verbatim from the site): <br/><br/>Here's a definition from the American Heritage Dictionary: <br/>smite: v.  1. To inflict a heavy blow on.  2. To kill as if by blows.  3. To afflict. <br/><br/>Now here's its conjugation: <br/><br/>Principal Parts: smites, smiting, smote, smitten/smote <br/>Infinitive: to smite <br/>Perfect infinitive: to have smitten <br/>Present participle: smiting <br/>Past Participle: smitten or smote  (nice to have a choice here) <br/><br/><table border=0> <tr><td>Present</td><td>I, we, you, they <b>smite</b></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>he, she, it <b>smites</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Present Progressive&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>I <b>am smiting</b></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>we, you, they <b>are smiting</b></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>he, she, it <b>is smiting</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Future</td><td>I, he, she, it, we, you, they <b>will smite</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Past</td><td>I, he, she, it, we, you, they <b>smote</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Past Progressive</td><td>I, he, she, it <b>was smiting</b></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>we, you, they <b>were smiting</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Present Perfect</td><td>I, we, you, they <b>have smitten</b></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>he, she, it <b>has smitten</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Past Perfect</td><td>I, he, she, it, we, you, they <b>had smitten</b></td></tr> <tr><td>Future Perfect</td><td>I, he, she, it, we, you, they <b>will have smitten</b></td></tr> </table>";

blogDB[121] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/palm.png\" align=left><i>6/13/07:</i> I'm surrounded by palm trees and robots. I feel like I'm at a robot resort or something, though I'm admittedly at a loss why robots would want to vacation in Tampa, FL, because it's too humid and hot for me, much less someone who's made of metal and therefore rustable. Oh, the robots get to stay indoors all day, you say? That explains it.<br/><br/>Anyway, here I am at the University of South Florida, starting the two-month research experience that's consuming most of my summer vacation, though also earning me enough money to pay for some rather good stuff, like my trip to Germany during the upcoming Centre Term (January). I almost wish that my adviser/mentor would treat me like I was more of an incompetent idiot, though, because she's already told me to spend the next two weeks reading research papers about the different learning methods, and to give a 10-minute presentation about my findings and which learning method I recommend for the project. True, it's only a 10-minute presentation, but I hate presentations. I do (quite desperately) need more practice at them, though, so I know that this is good for me. I just don't wanna do it. I want to play with a computer and program something, not read papers written by people with 10 PhD's who do not write using words that I understand. I've managed to get through two papers in the last two days, and have already learned about fun things like \"voxels\" (3-D pixels, elements of 3D space; used in 3D data gathering/storage) and segmentation of visual data (which I'm pretty sure involves breaking a big cloud of data points into more coherent and meaningful sections, such as \"plane\" and \"line\". I've also run across eigenvectors and eigenvalues often enough to wish that I remembered more about them from Linear Algebra (which only ended a month ago, for heaven's sake!!!). <br/><br/>I've also been running all over campus (and it's a BIG campus) for the last few days getting all my housing and accounts and everything paid for and activated and organized and filled out and so on. Just today I also found out that I'm not being paid only by the program that placed me here, I'm also being paid by my mentor (they're each paying part), which means that I spent at least an hour this afternoon trying to get the paperwork filled out to get me on the appropriate payroll, and I still have to go in tomorrow morning to finish it off. Sigh. <br/><br/>On the bright side, I saw some absolutely beautiful clouds on the flight down here! ";

blogDB[122] = "<i>6/19/07:</i> If there's one thing that I really love about summer, it's all the movies that come out! Even better, right now I'm living within walking distance of a mall, and I'm pretty sure they have a movie theatre in there. It's sort of hard to tell because the mall's website isn't very informative, but I'm pretty sure one's there. If it is, then awesome! There are so many movies coming out this summer that I want to see, and I really don't want to miss seeing some of them (like Harry Potter!) in theatres!";

blogDB[123] = "<i>6/23/07:</i> If you ever have the pressing need to have the overwhelming feeling that you've gotten yourself in over your head, here's a surefire way to do so. Get a job involving research in a field like, say, AI. Then contrive to get yourself assigned to researching different learning algorithms for terrain analysis. This will of course involve reading papers about what other researchers have studied and learned on the topic. The writers of these papers will inevitably be very much smarter than you, and will constantly start talking about AI or math algorithms or concepts that you are about two PhD's short of being able to understand. In case this doesn't do it for you, try coming across this in one of the papers: <br/><br/><img src=pictures/scary_equation.png> <br/><br/>Don't ask me what it means, but it sure nearly gave me heart failure. Fortunately I'm fairly sure that it pertains to part of a paper that wasn't really related to what I'm researching. Thank God. I mean, look at the exponents on the \"e\"s! That should be illegal...";

blogDB[124] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/urahara.png\" align=left><i>6/26/07:</i> Oh, I haven't laughed so much in a while! I just found the website of this artist who apparently enjoys drawing dog-versions of Bleach characters. An example is to the left. Guess who it is. If you're stuck, look at the pattern on the collar. Some of the drawings are downright uncanny. The one of Renji had his smirk almost exactly, and there's one of Kenpachi and Ichigo that's priceless. The one of Ichigo and Ishida is pretty darn hilarious as well. This is an awesome website! <a href=http://www.artoholic.org/BLEACH/dog.html>Click here</a>! <br/><br/>In other website discovery news, I've also come across a website very helpful for fans of YouTube videos, <a href=http://vixy.net>vixy.net</a>. The site lets you convert a YouTube video to one of several file formats (AVI, MOV, MP4, etc.) and save it on your computer. The really cool thing (at least to me) is that, since the MP4 format is included, you can convert YouTube videos to be downloadable to and playable on an iPod! There are several YouTube videos that I never get tired of, no matter how many times I watch them, so I'm in the process of converting them and putting them on my iPod, so that I can force other people to watch them in the future! :D The conversion is free, probably because the service is still a beta version. That means that they're still working on getting all the kinks out of it, but it does work quite well. It does require a bit of patience, because you usually have to try several times to successfully get a connection to their server (which might actually be in Japan, since Japanese people seem to have made this site), but it'll work eventually if you stick with it! ";

blogDB[125] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/eyes.png\"><br/><br/><i>6/27/07:</i> Are those not the most beautiful eyes ever? Wish I had differently colored eyes. <br/><br/>It seems that living in the city does have a few perks. Besides being within walking distance of a large mall with a very nice movie theatre, I also found a quite awesome bakery nearby. At least now I'll never run out of bread, which is very good because I'm basically a breadivore. Low-carb diets would not work for me, that's for sure. They've got all kinds of cool bread too! I think next time I'll get a loaf of \"sunflower bread\". It sounds very interesting and rather yummy!";

blogDB[126] = "<i>6/28/07:</i> Why on earth do they have instant oatmeal? And what particularly is \"instant\" supposed to mean? That you can eat it the second you add the water? (Sure, if you want to scald your mouth horribly.) Anyway, to me \"instant\" means that you can eat it the second you open it, like canned fruit or whatever. Instant oatmeal is not instant; you still have to boil the water, and then wait for the stuff to cool down enough to be eatable without incurring severe pain. Why do we need faster oatmeal, anyway? Normal oats require the same \"boil water, wait for it to cool\" cycle, only that boiling the oats themselves for a minute is inserted. One minute. Who on earth doesn't have one minute to boil the freaking oats? If you're THAT pressed for time, I think you need to be reevaluating your schedule, not trying to find a way to eliminate one minute from your breakfast preparation time. <br/><br/>In case it isn't glaringly obvious from the fact that I'm actually thinking about things like oat varieties, I'm currently trying to avoid doing stuff that I should be doing, in this case practicing for my presentation tomorrow. Sigh. Presentations over summer vacation are particularly depressing...";

blogDB[127] = "<i>6/29/07:</i> Well, the presentation went fine; it was walking back to my room from the presentation that was the interesting part. When I left the Engineering building, it was raining, but only drizzling a little bit. By the time that I was about halfway to my dorm, the drizzle had gradually intensified to actual rain, but there wasn't really any point in turning back, so I kept going. By the time I was three-fourths of the way to my dorm, it was outright pouring. Fortunately, there's a post office and laundry facility building on the way to my dorm, so I was able to dart under its roof until the rain calmed back down to a drizzle. After that, I hurried the rest of the way to my dorm and finally got safely inside just as the rain was starting up again. <br/><br/>The funny thing is that I <i>have</i> an umbrella, but I had left it in my room because it was so sunny when I left. Apparently I still haven't learn my lesson about how fast the weather changes here. Normally I wouldn't have cared at all about getting wet, since I love walking in the rain, but this time I had my laptop with me. Fortunately, my laptop bag is thick, fairly waterproof, and forms a nice tight seal, even though it's messenger-bag style. The laptop is perfectly dry, though both the laptop bag and I are thoroughly soaked. My hair was dripping, and the shoulders of my shirt are still plenty wet. I'm just glad the rain was falling straight down, because if it had slanted it might have gotten to my laptop. Thank goodness for calm air!";

blogDB[128] = "<i>7/6/07:</i> One perk to everything being sand: when it rains, no mud! You end up walking through a lot of wet sand, but sand comes off a lot easier than mud, especially after it's dry. Plus, wet sand feels a lot better than mud, I think. :)";

blogDB[129] = "<i>7/13/07:</i> I'm not even vaguely religious, but I do think that people don't give Jesus enough credit. Christians always say that Jesus \"died for our sins\", which is all well and good, but rather missing the point in my opinion. The man was brought back to life three days later, so it wasn't the dying part that was the big deal. He didn't just let himself be killed, he let himself be tortured, mocked, tortured and mocked some more, condemned to death, and driven while carrying a big chunk of tree along a route that culminated in his death via what has got to be one of the most painful ways imaginable. Even thinking about having one nail through any part of my body, much less a hand, is quite horrible enough, and that's thinking about a modern nail, thin, shiny, smooth, and sharp. I imagine what the Romans used was something more like an iron peg, and I doubt they bothered to sharpen it very thoroughly. After all, the point of crucifixion is massive amounts of pain and <i>eventual</i> death (after you've slowly suffocated under the weight of your own body), so sharp nails was probably not at the top of their \"to buy\" list. A blunt iron peg, hammered through a hand, a foot. That wouldn't pierce you so much as crush its way through you. Ouchie. Anyone, even if he's the son of God and knows he'll be brought back to life three days later, that voluntarily goes through something like that deserves some big-time respect. Of course, it's entirely probable that Jesus is fictional or at least has been vastly modified over the years, but who says that you can't respect fictional characters?<br/><br/>This lovely little collection of macabre thoughts was inspired by <i>Ben-Hur</i>, which I've just watched. One thing I love about that movie is when Ben-Hur has been stumbling through the desert with the rest of the slaves and is forbidden water at a village. He collapses in a mix of despair and dehydration with a plea of \"God, help me!\". Immediately, Jesus shows up with water. Talk about one of the few times in history when that prayer has been answered quite that literally. :D";

blogDB[130] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/bippity.jpg\"><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/werepups.jpg\"><img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/lumos.jpg><img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/drapery.jpg><img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/lupin.jpg><img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/avada.jpg><br/><i>7/15/07:</i> Oh, these pictures make me laugh! Multicolored werepups...they'd have interesting family pictures. And not that Sirius was really killed by drapery, since he got hit with \"Avada Kedavra\" before encountering the drapery, but whatever. And it would be quite cool to have a light switch that responded to \"Lumos\"!<br/><br/>I finally saw the <i>Order of the Phoenix</i> movie yesterday, and it was awesome! I think it's probably one of my favorite HP movies now, even though I'm STILL pissed that Sirius dies. He'd <i>better</i> not really be dead. Ditto with Dumbledore. I can not wait to get my hands on the seventh book! One more week! One thing I didn't like about the movie, though, was that Sirius called Harry \"James\" near the end. Don't do that, it makes Sirius seem crazy! In general, though, I much prefer the movie's portrayal of Sirius to the book's, because Sirius spends most of the book being moody and angry that he's locked up in Grimmauld Place, but in the movie he's much more cheerful, and his and Harry's relationship seems much stronger. Which, naturally, makes it even more heartbreaking when he dies. I also hate how the movies continually change things like what spells do. \"Stupefy\" does not hurl people through the air, damn it!!";

blogDB[131] = "<i>7/17/07:</i> Microsoft makes me suspicious. I can understand why their software is really expensive, since it's really complex stuff and takes a lot of time and effort to develop. What I'm dubious about is the fact that Office 2007 Standard (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook only) is priced at $399, while Vista Home Premium is priced at $239. $400 for the 4-program suite and $240 for the operating system. This does not seem even to me. Admittedly, I've never written a program nearing the complexity of an Office program, but I also know enough about operating systems to know that they're not exactly simple. Perhaps they've priced Vista lower to encourage people to buy it, or they know that they'll sell more copies of Vista than of Office, so they feel that they can lower its price a bit. Either way, the price is all out of proportion to the actual complexity of the software, and that annoys me. Obviously it's a good thing that I'm not going into marketing...";

blogDB[132] = "<img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/galaxy.png align=left><i>7/18/07:</i> Ok, so, I've found this awesome website, <a href=http://www.galaxyzoo.org>galaxyzoo.org</a> where anyone who's interested can help Oxford astronomers classify images of over a million galaxies by telling them whether they think a given galaxy is an elliptical or spiral galaxy, and in which direction it's rotating if it's spiral. The point of the project is to try to better understand the structure of the universe by taking a \"census\" of the galaxies and find out how many of each type there are. Being the astronomy-loving geek that I am, I've already spent several hours on this site. Classifying galaxies is so cool! First they give you a bit of a tutorial on the basic differences between a elliptical and spiral galaxy, given you a quiz to see if you're competent at telling them apart, and then set you loose on the images. Some of the images are inevitably too low-resolution for you to be able to tell what you're looking at, but I've definitely come across some beautiful images, and even a few images of galaxies colliding, which always looks thoroughly awesome with the two galaxies all distorted and chaotic. <br/><br/>I can't help reiterating that I don't care how long the odds of life developing on a planet are (and I don't think they're nearly as long as some people say, because life is nothing if not tenacious), there are so freaking many planets and so on out there that there is bound to be some more life out there somewhere. Oxford's got images of over a million <i>galaxies</i>, for heaven's sake, and every single one of that incredible number of galaxies is incomprehensibly huge, containing an incomprehensibly vast number of stars and planets and so on. I think the odds are in life's favor.";

blogDB[133] = "<img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/engc.png align=left><i>7/26/07:</i> <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJr2evLANsE>This</a> is an incredibly cute and rather strange YouTube video of a cat being annoyed by an adorable little turtle. You can see the cat thinking \"leave me alone already, you irritating little reptile!\". I also found a <a href=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1784806.ece>funny news article</a> about a mother cat who's raising seven baby chickens along with her four kittens. Poor cat, raising eleven kids at once! The article is accompanied by pictures of the poor mother cat practically buried under the mixture of chicks and kittens. I wonder if chickens raised by a cat will think that they are chickens or cats. And I wonder what the kittens think of their feathery siblings... <br/><br/>Today has been an interesting day, work wise. Instead of just sitting in front of my computer watching it train a neural network, today I got to go outside with the robot to collect some more laser images, which are what the neural network works with. Since both the project deadline and the date when I depart Florida are rapidly approaching (only two weeks and two days until I'm back home!), Dr. Murphy, our project manager, is kicking the whole team into overdrive. At our meeting yesterday, people were shifted around to where they can do the most vital work, and gathering more laser data became something of a priority, since my terrain-recognizing neural network is a rather important part of the project, and it's rather hard to train a useful neural network with only the nineteen laser scans that we have at the moment. Therefore, I and one of the grad students on the team were assigned to collect more laser data as fast as possible. Unfortunately, this isn't very fast, since the program that runs the laser isn't particularly streamlined, and consequentially we have to wait for the program to set up the laser again (which takes at least two to three minutes) after each scan, and the scan itself takes another minute or two. Plus we have to drive the robot out to wherever we're scanning, then go back in when the controlling laptop's battery runs out, and so on. All in all, laser data acquisition is a time-consuming process, and basically leads to Craighead and I spending a lot of time standing around in the hot sun, waiting for the laser to decide to start scanning. <br/><br/>On the up side, I actually got to do the robot driving, which is pretty cool, though also rather nerve wracking since it's quite an expensive robot. The robot's got a joystick jacked into the back, and you walk behind it trying your best not to run it into any walls while you're inside, or hit a tree while you're outside. It wouldn't be so hard if the robot's top speed was slower, but it's on the highest speed (for the sake of our actually getting to where we want to scan quickly), which is alarmingly fast if you're in an elevator and trying to turn the thing around without slamming it into a wall. At least I am getting better at driving it, so I don't have to creep it around corners quite so slowly, and can generally keep it moving in a straight line at a fairly steady speed. Here's a picture of the robot. Its name is Sheldon. The blue box thing on the front is the laser. The box itself rotates as the laser scans, and is fairly cool to watch in action! The picture above is of one of the Engineering buildings, in front of which we were collecting laser images of grass. Having nothing to do except stare at the robot, I started taking pictures of pretty much anything. At least the building has some nice landscaping! <br/><br/><center><img src=http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/sheldon.png></center>";

blogDB[134] = "<i>8/8/07:</i> You know you're a frustrated programmer when you start naming your programs things like \"RunDammit\". Only three days left at the job in Florida, and way too much stuff to get done. I think I've already done more this week than I did last week, and I'm sure by the end of the week I'll have done more than in the previous week. Sigh. This isn't much of a relaxing summer vacation, but at least I'll soon be home again and a bit more able to do nothing at all. Until school starts back up in two and a half weeks, that is. Sigh. <br/><br/>Isn't it weird how we actually have no idea what the universe looks like at the moment? Of course, you never know what a thing looks like the exact instant that you're looking at it because of the delay (the incredibly slight delay, in the case of close-up objects) caused by light's travel time. We can't see what the sun looks like now because light takes about 8 minutes to get to earth. It's so strange to think that the sun could go out entirely, and we wouldn't know about it for eight minutes. The closest galaxy to ours is Canis Major, which is 42,000 light years away. When we look at it, we have no clue what it looks like now; we see what it looked like 42,000 years ago in 40,000 B.C., which was approximately the beginning of the Stone Age. The images that we have of all those other stars and galaxies are even more severely outdated. Sure, astronomical things don't usually happen very quickly, and things millions of years ago probably look pretty similar to things today, but it's still odd to look outward now and see what happened so long ago. It's so easy to see back in time; just step outside and look up...";

blogDB[135] = "<i>8/9/07:</i> You know that part in the first <i>Matrix</i> when Neo and Trinity are on their way to basically destroy that building to save Morpheus? They walk in the front door, put their bomb through the X-ray machine, and Neo steps through the metal detector, setting off the alarm. The guard comes over and says \"Could you please remove any metallic items you may be carrying. Keys, loose change...\" and Neo opens his trench coat to reveal his 62 guns. At that part, I always want Neo to finish the guard's sentance with \"...personal arsenals?\". :)";

blogDB[136] = "<i>9/10/07:</i> The other day I saw a weight-loss commercial on TV that went almost exactly like this (it wasn't exactly a complicated argument): <br/><br/>Eat all you want and still lose weight! <br/>That's right, eat all you want and still lose weight! <br/>Eat ALL you want and STILL lose weight! <br/>And we couldn't say it on TV if it wasn't true!!! <br/><br/>At this point, I nearly fell off my bed owing to severe convulsions of derisive laughter. Since when does something have to be true to be on TV? In fact, plenty of the stuff on TV is most decidedly not true (thankfully), and I've never exactly heard of a \"Truth Police\" as far as commercials go. I seriously doubt a TV company is going to turn down someone who wants to buy airtime just because papers documenting solid, thoroughly done scientific research verifying the product's effectiveness aren't stapled to the check. I hate idiotic weight-loss commercials even more than I hate the idiotic \"this will make you a sex god!!!!\" commercials. Practically back-to-back with the gem above I was treated to one who's most memorable line was \"<Product name's> main ingredient has been PROVEN to enlarge a certain part of the male anatomy.\" Oh, please. It didn't exactly help that the lady saying this made the \"certain part\" bit as suggestive as humanly possible. I just think it would be funny if the product actually made men's ears or spleens or something random like that bigger (which it could, since the commercial never actually SAID which part it makes bigger).";

blogDB[137] = "<i>9/15/07:</i> I found the most adorable video! It's of a kitten munching on a slice of melon in the cutest way imaginable! <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV_w0R8snhE>View it here!</a> <br/><br/>Yesterday in my \"Design and Analysis of Algorithms\" class, my professor was talking about the best and worst case efficiencies of a basic string-matching (find a substring inside of a longer string) algorithm, and the example he ended up using was pretty hilarious. Since in the worst case, the algorithm has to go through the entire string to discover that the other string is not present, he wrote \"sssssssssss\" on the board as the string we were seaching in, and \"sst\" as the string we were searching (in vain) for. He explained how the algorithm would look all through the all-s's string in order to finally discover that \"sst\" wasn't present, and summarized by saying \"So, in the worst case, we'd be looking for the acronym for 'super sonic transport' in a book of Parseltongue.\" I found this so hilarious that that's basically all I thought about for the rest of the class, frequently breaking into silent laughter and trying not to be obvious about it. A book of Parseltongue, LOL! <br/><br/>I saw a commercial yesterday that I also thought was hilarious. I can't remember what it was for, but it involved people traveling around to cool places. The hilarious part was that when they were driving around, they had giant red pushpins (the kind you use to mark locations on maps) on the roofs of their car, and when they got to their destination, they stuck the giant pin in the ground and left it there. Admittedly this would seriously mar the landscape if done for real, but it sure is funny to imagine going on vacation with a giant-sized red pin strapped to the roof of your car. :D";

blogDB[138] = "<i>9/15/07 again:</i> I figured out what the giant pin commercial was for! It was a car commercial, and it's unsurprisingly on YouTube, and can be enjoyed <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4SwgXdsD14>here</a>!";

blogDB[139] = "<i>9/23/07:</i> Now this is cool, an energy-saving version of Google. <a href=http://www.blackle.com>www.blackle.com</a> is a version of the Google search engine that reduces the amount of power that your computer monitor draws by having a black background. Apparently it takes more energy to display a white background than it does a black one, so using a black search engine saves energy! That's a neat way to save energy even when Googling. :)";

blogDB[140] = "<i>10/8/07:</i> I have two tests in the next two days. I really should be studying. Instead, here I am, putting up a collection of Dr. Oldham (computer science professor) quotes that I find amusing. Since he generally punctuates his lectures with all kinds of randomosity (today he told us about a version of \"The Candy Man\"--from <i>Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory</i>--that he was singing at home this morning), this list would go on forever if I hadn't forgotten lots of his random comments. <br/><br/>-\"It's a set of points in a plane. Well, where else would they be? I guess they could be in a <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;boat.\" <br/>-\"You might not know the difference between a convex hull and a concave mast...\" <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>we were discussing an algorithm to find a \"hull\" enclosing a set of points</i> <br/>-\"Those damn programs. They don't have any eyes.\" <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>commenting on programs' inability to determine a convex hull by visual examination</i> <br/>-\"You have to be possessed by Satan to use PDF in the first place.\" <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>not a fan of PDF, Oldham</i> <br/>-\"Our friend the devil is going to reside here in the details.\" <br/>-\"In the worst case, we'd be looking for the acronym for 'super sonic transport' in a <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;book of Parseltongue.\" <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>analyzing a string-matching algorithm; I was laughing about this one for the rest of class</i>";

blogDB[141] = "<i>10/8/07 again:</i> The <a href=http://www.xkcd.com>XKCD comic strip</a> really is an awesome one! Besides having a bunch of funny tech comics, there are also some ones that are just plain hilariously weird. Example: <br/><br/><center><img src='pictures/a-minus-minus.png'> <br/><i>You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback.</i></center>";

blogDB[142] = "<i>10/26/2007:</i> Have you seen that Swiffer commercial where the lady is \"testifying\" in court, saying how she could see the \"evidence\" (aka dirt) all over the floor when she walked into the kitchen? In any case, the part that really annoys me is when the questioner asks \"Can you point to the defendant?\", she points at the broom, and the courtroom erupts. Do the people who wrote that commercial not watch cop shows? Pointing at the defendant would not cause a commotion. The defendant is the person being accused of whatever, everyone knows that. Obviously they meant for the lady to point at the perpetrator of the \"crime\" she witnessed, which would create an uproar. Pointing out the defendant would have been as mundane as pointing out the judge. Geez, people, watch some Law & Order, <i>then</i> write commercials!";

blogDB[143] = "<center><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/beautiful_sunrise.jpg\"></center><i>11/5/07:</i> I hate graduate school applications. When they aren't actively sucking up all my free time, they're driving me crazy with stress. Aarrgghh! On a more amusing note, I was working at the Alumni office today, and they handed me a 3-inch stack of papers, and told me to put them in alphabetical order. And what did I do? I Merge Sorted them. You know you're a computer scientist when you find opportunities in everyday life to practice your sorting algorithms. :D";

blogDB[144] = "<center><img src='pictures/nowalk.jpg'></center><br/><br/><i>2/13/08:</i> Is this picture not hilarious? You can just see this cat going \"The <i>hell</i> I'm going on a walk!\". :) <br/><br/>I think the contents of my backpack right now are amusingly strange: <i>Mathematical Statistics with Applications</i>, <i>Theory and Construction of Compilers</i>, <i>Operating Systems: Design and Implementation</i>, and Thoreau's <i>Walden</i>. Which of these things is not like the others? I took a random English class (about nature!) to avoid having a semester of pure math and computer science, which I think would have caused my soul to shrivel a little. I love CS, but it's not exactly an artsy/poetical subject. Ditto with math. Let's hear it for a liberal arts education! We've also read some Emerson, and I added a poem of his that I really like to the Poetry section: <a href=\"poems/eachandall.htm\">Each and All</a>.";

blogDB[145] = "<i>2/14/08:</i> Question of the day: Which is more dangerous, juggling flaming pencils while reciting Shakespeare in Swahili, or whistling a funeral march while dancing along a tightrope strung over a pit of irritable tulips?";

blogDB[146] = "<center><img src='pictures/the_drake_equation.png'><br/><i>But seriously, there's loads of intelligent life.  <br/>It's just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search.</i></center><br/><i>2/16/08:</i> Ah, how I love XKCD! The real kicker of this is, even if the intelligent life <i>is</i> screaming in our direction on a frequency we monitor in a way we would recognize as communication, either they have to be very close to us or to have evolved considerably sooner than us in order for their screamings to have reached us yet across the lightyears upon lightyears of space. Heck, by the time we hear from a species on another planet, they'll probably have become extinct in the time it took the message to get here. Now that's ironic.";

blogDB[147] = "<i>2/17/08:</i> I absolutely love the weather today! The wind has been blowing delightfully hard all morning, and it's thrown in some rain as well in the last few hours. How I love walking in the wind! It's such a strange feeling to be shoved around quite forcefully by air, usually the meekest and most yielding of substances. The way the wind roars through the branches of the trees make it seem as if the trees were speaking, growling their displeasure of the wind that manhandles them so, or perhaps they're approving of the wind's touch. All in all, awesome. I even waxed poetical on the subject: <a href=\"poems/windyday.htm\">windy day</a>.";

blogDB[148] = "<center><img src='pictures/looking_down.jpg'></center><br/><i>2/20/08:</i> I like quotes. I added a quotes page. Cause and effect. Also, adorable kitten picture alert!";

blogDB[149] = "<img src='pictures/rings4.jpg' align=left hspace=5><i>2/29/08:</i> Leap day, how exciting. I'm surprised the commercial industry hasn't come up with some demented sort of stuff that you're supposed to buy and give to people on Leap Days, since they've done it with most other days of any note. Of course, Leap Days happen at most every four years, so perhaps they just didn't think it was worth their trouble. <br/><br/>So, <i>Lord of the Rings: Return of the King</i>. Just finished watching it again. They sure do a good job over the three movies building up the audience's hatred toward Sauron and the ring. I noticed this the most at the end of this movie when the Ring is floating on it's little crust of solidified magma inside Mount Doom before melting, and when Sauron's tower is crumbling before he explodes. During these moments before the twin destructions, I had very similar sentiments. To the Ring: \"Melt you irritating little piece of crap, MELT!\". To Sauron: \"Die, you evil bastard, DIE!\". It certainly is a happy feeling when the bad guys lose.";

blogDB[150] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/Egypt2.jpg\" /><br/><br/><i>9/25/08:</i> Obviously I have periods in which I do not keep up with this site well. Therefore, summary. I graduated from Centre College, and now I'm a graduate student in computer science at Purdue University. I adopted a cat named Egypt from an animal rescue in Danville, but now she's at home with my family while I'm stuck here in West Lafayette and I really miss her. Purdue has been pretty awesome so far, though also busy and stressful. I'm only taking two classes and a seminar, plus teaching two 50-minute recitations a week as a TA, but somehow I never seem to have free time. Over the summer I stayed at home and took lots of walks, and got really interested in wildflowers. I'm thinking of putting up a page or two of the flowers I photographed and more-or-less identified. ";

blogDB[151] = "<i>9/26/08:</i> Seen this morning chalked on the sidewalk in front of the computer science building: \"McCain == Windows ME. 'Nuff said.\" That's got to be the most hilarious thing I've seen this whole election. Let's hear it for discipline-specific campaign arguments! :D";

blogDB[152] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/souls.jpg\" style=\"align:left\"/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/canhazup.jpg\" style=\"align:right\" /><br/><br/><i>9/29/08:</i> The most adorable/hilarious website ever: <a href=\"http://www.icanhascheezburger.com\">I Can Has Cheezburger</a>.<br/><br/><img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/tmnt.jpg\" style=\"align:middle\" />";

blogDB[153] = "<img src=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/pictures/Growth.jpg\" style=\"align:center\" /><br/><br/><i>10/1/08:</i> <a href=\"http://www.gelaskins.com\">Awesome skins</a> for laptops, iPods and so on. This is the one that I recently bought. It's purple! :)";

blogDB[154] = "<i>11/5/08:</i> I just finished some revisions, mostly to the background code of the website. I did also change some stuff that someone who's not going to go and read my HTML and JavaScript might notice. I took some things off of the Humor page that I was bored with. I also threw out the forum. I might make a less elaborate comment-posting mechanism later. <br/><br/>In terms of stuff I added, I threw a few links on the Weirdness page to some webpages that a few computer science friends from Centre and I wrote last year. We were at a programming contest at the University of Kentucky, and while we were eating lunch Elizabeth said something that I somehow heard as \"ickaplott\". I shared this mis-hearing and we started speculating about what an ickaplott is, and eventually we also extended our weirdness to foos and fog monsters. I don't actually remember where the fanged cinnaplott came from. I think we were all just spending way too much time thinking of things that we could breed ickaplotts or foos with at that point. :) To give proper credit to the people who actually wrote out/edited these pages: <a href=http://wiki.centre.edu/csc/index.php/Ikaplott>ickaplott</a> by Conor Mather-Licht and Elizabeth Denny, <a href=http://wiki.centre.edu/csc/index.php/Fooaplott>fooaplott</a> by Elizabeth Denny and Carol Hummel, <a href=http://wiki.centre.edu/csc/index.php/Foo>foo</a> by me, <a href=http://wiki.centre.edu/csc/index.php/Fanged_Cinnaplott>fanged cinnaplott</a> by Elizabeth Denny, and <a href=http://wiki.centre.edu/csc/index.php/Guide_To_The_Proper_Care_Of_Foos>The Guide to the Proper Care of Foos</a> by Carol Hummel and Elizabeth Denny. Not sure why it took so long for me to put links to these pages on here. It's the perfect sort of thing for the Weirdness section!   <br/><br/>I also finally got around to adding a little database of the flower pictures that I've accumulated and more-or-less identified thus far. I think I will probably explode from excitement once it's spring again, since there are so many nice places around Lafayette and West Lafayette to go and look for flowers. I'm also thinking about getting more into the identification of butterflies and trees, so might at some point add information on those as well. Fair warning, I am definitely not a plant expert, so my flower identifications are usually based on pictures other people have taken and identified (probably with their equally amateurish skills), though I've tried to verify identifications using the USDA PLANTS database as much as possible.";

blogDB[155] = "<i>11/6/08:</i> Curses upon Internet Explorer! While I was doing my code modifications to this page, I was testing it in Firefox, so I figured that I should get ahold of a computer with IE and see if everything also worked in that. I should have known: of COURSE it doesn't. In IE7, at least, the links to blog pages other than the first one aren't showing up, and my Wildflowers section isn't working at all. And there are probably some other problems that I haven't found yet. I'm working on fixing things, but in the meantime I guess anyone using IE is going to experience a flawed version of this website. Honestly, my advice to all using IE is \"get Firefox\". It's free and a much nicer browser. <a href=\"http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/\">Downloadable here</a>. <br/><br/><i>(later)</i> &nbsp;Ok, ok, I'm sorry I got mad at you, Internet Explorer. Most of the problems were my own mistakes or not-quite-correct use of Javascript that Firefox let me get away with. But it's still annoying when pages render differently in different browsers! In any case, I think everything's fixed now...";

blogDB[156] = " <object width=425 height=344><param name=movie value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/hgEJZ1dFCog&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1\"></param><param name=allowFullScreen value=true></param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/hgEJZ1dFCog&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=344></embed></object> <br/><br/><i>11/7/08:</i> Ah, the fun times in Europe singing this song. Hooray for Sesame Street! :D"; 

blogDB[157] = "<img src='pictures/twilight.jpg' align=left style=\"padding-right:8px\" /> <i>11/12/07:</i> The <i>Twilight</i> movie comes out on the 21st. I'm very torn between extreme excitement and dread. I read the Twilight series for the first time over the summer, and have been incredibly hooked ever since. The books are stereotyped as \"teenage girl books\", probably because they are narrated by a teenage girl and have to do with fantasy and romance. Personally, I think they're books for anyone who likes love stories with a fantastical twist. Sometimes the books get a little heavy on the overly-idealized romanticism, but on the whole they're very enjoyable no matter the reader's age. Rather like the Harry Potter books, just with fewer evil wizards and more love story. <br/><br/>I was incredibly excited when I first heard that they were making the first book into a movie, and most of the trailers I've seen so far have increased that excitement. But some of the trailers make me cringe. One of the newer ones that I just saw yesterday is the worst so far in my opinion, because it has an incredibly cheesy voice-over narration. And I really hate that scene of Bella and Edward in the woods where she's telling him she knows he's a vampire because it looks a lot different than the book's version of that scene and Bella's being much more freaked out than she's supposed to be. That's a main point in the book, Bella being way too calm about Edward being a vampire. I hate it when movies change things that were fairly fundamental in the book(s). I'm still hopeful that the movie might actually be good, though, because I've also seen scenes in the trailers that look like they're straight from the book, including some of my more favorite scenes from the book. Plus I'm hoping that they're just playing stuff up in the trailers to try to pack as much excitement and action into their two minutes as possible. C'mon, Hollywood, don't ruin this one!";

blogDB[158] = "<i>11/14/08:</i> One thing that I really like is artistic and particularly creative commercials, even if (and sometimes especially when) the commercial really doesn't have much to do with what it's advertising. For example, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piDgTFaafNM\">this Saab commercial</a>. The song itself is beautiful enough (full song <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYfsJ6rXgoc\">here</a>), and the video footage that they put to the music results in one of the most beautiful (and heartbreaking) videos I've ever seen. I mean, how often do you actually start tearing up over a car commercial?";

blogDB[159] = "<table border=0 ><tr><td><img src='pictures/doctorwho1.jpg'  />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src='pictures/doctorwho2.jpg' /></td></tr></table><i>11/18/08:</i> I'm addicted to another TV show. I'm not sure if I should be grateful to the people who tell me that I should watch these shows or not. I have found some really excellent shows (like <i>Bleach</i>!) this way, but all this TV-watching sort of cuts into my productivity. Of course, so do plenty of other things, so I can't really exclusively blame the TV shows. Anyway, my newly-acquired TV show is the British <i>Doctor Who</i>. It's the longest running sci-fi TV show in the world, because it originally ran from 1963 to 1989 before being canceled, and then was restarted in 2005 and is ongoing again. I haven't seen any of the older episodes, since I started with the first new season (the one that started in 2005). I kind of doubt that I'll ever watch the old episodes because I would probably be completely distracted by the inevitable horribleness of old special effects. The first new season was completely excellent, and so far the second new season is also very good. The sort of weird thing about <i>Doctor Who</i> (and the thing that has allowed it to run so long) is that they replace the actor portraying the Doctor fairly frequently (they're on their tenth actor at the moment), but there's actually a part of the Doctor's backstory that allows this to happen, so at least it's less weird than when shows replace an actor and viewers have to ignore how the same character is now inexplicably played by a completely different person. The Doctor in the first new season (the 9th Doctor overall) is my favorite so far, though I'm gradually warming up to the 10th Doctor as I work my way through the second season. The whole cast of the show actually shifts around quite a lot as the Doctor picks up and gets rid of different traveling companions. So far the episodes I've seen have all had the same main companion (Rose Tyler), but apparently she leaves sometime soon, so I'm going to have another casting change to deal with. It's rather strange to have such high actor turnover that's also completely legitimate in terms of the show's plot. Takes some getting used to.<br/><br/>The thing that I really love about <i>Doctor Who</i> is how hilarious it is. I'm picking up awesome quotes like crazy from it, and will probably have to rework my Quotes section soon so that it's not just one hugely long page. The majority of the actors are British too (duh, it's a British show), and I really love listening to British accents. That's actually one thing that I liked most about the Doctor from the first season, his accent. The new Doctor doesn't have as strong of an accent. I also love the incredible energy of the Doctor (no matter who's playing him). He always reminds me of a highly caffeinated child or a squirrel or something, and the way that he frequently switches from completely silly to completely serious is also awesome. It keeps things very interesting. <br/><br/>In the pictures, the first guy is my favorite Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston), and the second guy is the current Doctor (played by David Tennet). The girl is Rose Tyler, the main companion of the Doctor in the shows I've seen so far. The blue box in the background of the second picture is the Doctor's spaceship, the TARDIS. It's a thoroughly awesome show, and I highly recommend it!";

blogDB[160] = "<i>11/22/08:</i> Time for a collection of random things that I've seen recently that I found interesting. First, a baby combine. I was walking back to my dorm and a truck went by hauling the smallest combine I've ever seen. The combine was about the size of the truck (a pickup truck), though taller. It had at most a fourth of the volume of normal combines (well, the one that we have at home, anyway), and looked like it could do at most 2 rows at once. I'm really not sure why someone would make a combine that small. Are they combining their garden or something? It was so little that it was positively cute, and that's not a term that I generally apply to farm machinery. Second random thing: a hawk (or maybe eagle) that was sitting on the sign next to one of the academic buildings on campus one day. Most buildings have little identification signs on posts maybe 8 feet tall out front, and a hawk was just sitting on one of them. I stopped to watch it for a bit, because that was the closest I've ever been to a bird that big in my life (it was maybe 5 feet away). It was just sitting there, looking at me like \"What's with you? It's perfectly normal for me to be sitting here!\". I also found it amazing (and sad) how many people were walking past such a beautiful bird without a second glance. Third: incredibly vivid fall colors. I don't know if I never noticed how bright fall colors can be before or if they're particularly bright around here/this year, but the colors this fall have been amazing. My friend Mike and I went for a walk a few weeks ago in Purdue's horticultural park, and some of the trees were positively blinding, especially the yellow ones. There were also beautiful deep orange and red trees and some trees that were multiple colors. I found one tree that I guess was in the process of changing colors, and its leaves were green with yellow along the veins. That looked incredibly cool! <br/><br/>I love the random things that I see when I'm out walking around!";

blogDB[161] = "<img src='pictures/twilightcover.jpg' align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px\" /><i>11/30/08:</i> I find it interesting how my opinion of the <i>Twilight</i> movie has evolved. Before I saw it I was hopeful that it would be good, but certain that it would fall far short of the book and be a disappointment. My pessimism increased the closer I got to seeing it for the first time, and I came out of my first viewing of it with the impression that the movie wasn't very good. But then I started thinking back over the movie, and realized that it was a lot better than I had first thought. I'm still sad about some things that were changed or left out, but I also noticed that I really like some of the other things that were changed or added. <br/><br/>For example, I really like the playfulness between Charlie and Billy Black that they added, especially when Charlie threatens to roll Billy into the mud and Billy threatens to ram him in the ankles in return. It's very cute and really funny, and gives Charlie a chance to be more than just Bella's awkward dad. I also like the scene where the Cullens are cooking for Bella when she visits for the first time. It's also cute and it's hilarious how much fun they seem to be having (except for Rosalie, of course). It rather reminds me of Mr. Weasley in <i>Harry Potter</i> and how he always gets overexcited when he gets to play with Muggle stuff. It also makes the Cullens more than just Edward's vampire family. It demonstrates their thoughtfulness and shows their enthusiasm that Edward has finally found someone to love, human or not. <br/><br/>I am also incredibly impressed by the Cullens' house as shown in the movie. I think more of the walls are glass than are supposed to be, but it's such a gorgeous house that I can't even begin to complain about that. If I ever live somewhere surrounded by wilderness, I want a house like that. The feeling of openness is just awesome. I think that the movie did a surprisingly good job of demonstrating the depths of Edward and Bella's love, as well as their mutual terror of the thought of losing the other. The pain in their expressions when they think of losing each other is spot-on. <br/><br/>A few things that I don't like about the movie. Bella's listing of all the weird things about Edward before she tells him he's a vampire annoys me, mostly because she sounds too freaked out. Bella is not supposed to be freaked out. The baseball scene where the Cullens are protecting Bella from James is fairly painful, mostly because humans never look very scary when they hiss at someone (plus, they're supposed to growl, not hiss), which is one thing that always bothers me in vampire movies. And they mostly look completely stupid in those baseball uniforms. I'm also not a big fan of the vampire-superspeed special effects, mostly because it never looks like the vampire has an actual grip on the ground, tree, etc. They look like they're gliding, or in the case of Edward climbing trees, levitating whilst flailing at the air a lot. <br/><br/>A random last thing: I love how they snuck the cover image of the first book (the two hands holding an apple) into the movie. It actually took me a while to notice that, but I really like it.";

blogDB[162] = "<i>12/1/08:</i> This bugs me. I keep hearing critics of <i>Twilight</i> say that Bella's a bad role model for young girls because she's too obsessed with Edward and is too passive as a character. First, yes she's rather obsessed with Edward, but that's because she loves him. How are you not supposed to be at least a little obsessed with someone that you love? And it annoys me that people only ever seem to object to Bella being obsessed. Edward is equally obsessed (if not more, since he is the one that basically stalks her for a while), but that's okay? Also, the depth of Bella and Edward's love isn't something that critics should complain about, because I think it's one of the most attractive parts of the story. I imagine that deep down, pretty much everyone wants to love and be loved that deeply and intensely, and that's one of the reasons that so many people (NOT just teenage girls) like this story so much. <br/><br/> As for Bella being too passive as a character, I completely disagree. As a human she's physically a lot weaker than the vampires, so of course she gets protected by the Cullens a lot when evil vampires come along, but she's a smart person and fights to get what she wants. Several times Bella's the one that comes up with the plan to solve the dire situation and the Cullens listen to her, respect her as a person, and don't just view her as Edward's pet human or something. Bella fights to protect the ones she loves and to keep Edward, no matter who's resisting (even Edward) or how strong a resistance they put up. She argues especially strongly with Edward when he gets carried away with protecting her or whatever, and definitely does not passively submit to her beloved's will, as some people seem to think. Also, when Bella finally does become a vampire, she is completely kick-ass and is finally able to put up some direct resistance (and save the day, even) when the bad vampires come calling. ";

blogDB[163] = "<img src='pictures/taste_rainbow.jpg' /><br/><br/><i>12/6/08:</i> This picture makes me laugh, and is also pretty and colorful. It would be interesting if the person dropped the snow cone on the cat. Rainbow kitty! :)<br/><br/>I've never lived near a river before, and I enjoy looking at the Wabash every time I'm going over into Lafayette via the (very nice) pedestrian bridge. This morning I went over to the yarn shop in Lafayette (<a href=\"http://www.riverknitsyarns.com\">River Knits</a>, a very awesome shop). It was very cold both last night and this morning (and the past few days) and snowed some more last night, so I was really enjoying looking at all the pretty snow. When I got to the river, I was rather surprised and really excited to see that it had huge chunks of ice floating down it. Apparently the river had frozen mostly or completely over during the night (or sometime in the last few days) and then broken up, and now small to large sheets of ice were floating down the river. Some of the ice sheets were really big, about a third of the width of the river, or maybe 20 to 30 feet (I'm not really good at eyeballing actual measurements, but the things could definitely have held a few parked cars). I'd never actually seen ice on a river before, so I stood on the bridge for a while, watching the ice float past. It was very pretty, and really made me wish I had my camera on me. One thing that looked particularly cool was when one big sheet of ice hit the wedge of ice that had formed on the upstream side of one of the bridge's pillars, and split right in half. Ice is really cool! :)";

blogDB[164] = "<img src=\"pictures/angelofdeath.jpg\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px\" /><i>12/11/08:</i> I just recently got to see <i>Hellboy II: The Golden Army</i>, and was surprised by how good it was. Specifically, I was surprised by how much I love certain parts of it. First of all, all of the special effects were absolutely awesome. All the animated creatures were very well done, and even the creatures that were done with suits and makeup looked unusually good. Secondly, the plot was quite good, and I particularly liked the little love story between Abe and Princess Nuella. They were such a well-matched couple, with their mutual reading-by-touch abilities and so on, and I was quite sad when she died. Poor Abe.<br/><br/>My absolute favorite part of the movie is the forest elemental that Prince Nuada sets on Hellboy. It was one of the most beautiful creatures that I've ever seen in a movie. I tried to find a good picture of it, but none did it justice, so I gave up. Its head seems to be a cross between a flower and a seed pod (and in fact does open into a massive flower as the elemental dies), it has tentacled limbs, and its back is covered with trees. And the part that really struck me was that it bleeds life. When the forest elemental is injured, the green fluid that comes out starts plant life growing on any surface that it touches. Asphalt, cars, and buildings all ended up covered with grass, moss, ferns, and other greenery as the elemental bled to death. It was beautiful, a forest glade in the middle of a city. I wish I had an infinite supply of that liquid. I would paint every man-made thing on the planet with it to help the earth go back to being beautiful. And I wish that there were such beautiful embodiments of life as that forest elemental. The movie is worth watching just to see that glorious creature. This movie seems to have a stronger undercurrent of environmentalism that I expected, between the forest elemental and several remarks made about humans' infinite greed and destruction of the planet in the name of parking lots and shopping malls. Good for them.<br/><br/>Another thing that struck me about this movie was the public's annoyingly-probable response to the demon and the girl who can spontaneously catch fire: \"Inter-species marriage?? They're destroying the sanctity of marriage!!!\" How many people can envision that happening? I definitely can, and that depresses me to no end. When are people going to get over the idea that the \"sanctity\" of marriage is based upon the genders (or races, or religious beliefs, or whatever) of the pair involved? To me, marriage is important and sacred and so on because of the love involved. When two people love each other to the point that they want to spend <i>the rest of their lives</i> with each other, that's sacred. That's a miracle. Why do people care if they're gay or of different religions or whatever? It truly boggles my mind.<br/><br/>Miscellaneous last things. I thought it was hilarious when the forest elemental threw the giant O from the \"HOTEL\" sign across the street. It would be funny if it squished someone. Death by O! Not many people can claim to have been killed by a letter of the alphabet, I'm sure. :D Also, the Angel of Death. Creepiest. Thing. EVER. (See picture).";

blogDB[165] = "<img src=\"pictures/dalek.jpg\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px\" /> <i>12/14/08:</i> I'm officially really, really addicted to <i>Doctor Who</i>. The first two (new) seasons were enough to do it. I've also started watching random episodes from the old seasons on Netflix, and I must say that the Fourth Doctor's scarf is possibly the most pointless yet hilarious thing that I have ever seen. It's got to be around 15 feet long, and he leaves it dangling all the way down to his feet. I wonder if he ever trips over it at a particularly inopportune moment. That would be very funny, since it's such an impractical article of clothing. He used it as a measuring tape in the episode I watched yesterday, which I also found fairly hilarious.<br/><br/>I absolutely love David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor now. I had to get used to the switch after the Ninth Doctor regenerated, but I have to say that David Tennant makes a thoroughly hilarious Doctor, and I love his outfit of pinstriped suit and sneakers. It's a very amusing combination! And in the last episode I saw (last episode of the second series), he also was wearing a set of those paper 3D glasses a lot, which just made him look even more wacky. Another thing that I really liked about that episode was how they threw Cybermen and Daleks together and had them fight each other instead of the Doctor for once. I even found myself rooting for the four Daleks that were successfully taking on the huge army of Cybermen, which was definitely a new experience. I think I like the Daleks a bit (except when they're trying to kill characters I like) because they strongly remind me of big, evil R2-D2s, with the way they have rotatable domed heads and all. (Well, technically the Daleks existed first, so I guess it would be more proper to call Artoo a smaller, nicer Dalek.) Artoo sure could use that shielding system that the Daleks have, with all the times he's been shot at. :) <br/><br/>I keep forgetting how big a part of British culture Doctor Who is (because it's so new to me), and how obsessed some people are. While I was Googling for a good Dalek picture, I found instructions on how to knit a Dalek. That's just odd...";

blogDB[166] = "<i>12/24/08:</i> Officially the most awesome Christmas Special comic ever: <a href=\"http://xkcd.com/521/\">The 2008 XKCD Christmas Special</a>. Love how they don't do random panels, they do prime numbered ones. :)";

blogDB[167] = "<img src='pictures/doctor_win.jpg' alt='funny pictures' /><br/><br/><i>1/10/09:</i> Darn right! Well, I'm the one who captioned this, so obviously I agree, but still. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome show. In case I haven't made that clear enough yet.";

blogDB[168] = "<i>1/16/09</i>: Good lord it gets cold in Indiana. The high today is -1 F according to Weather.com, and with wind chill it's currently -20 F. It. Is. Cold. I've never had skin go numb so fast in my entire life. In the ten to fifteen minutes it took me to walk to the Computer Science building yesterday (which had similar weather conditions) my ears went so completely numb that I was rather worried that I'd gotten frostbite. And I was even wearing a hat! At least it's supposed to be warmer (in the 20's and 30's) the next few days. It's amazing when temperatures like that sound like a heat wave...";

blogDB[169] = "<i>1/27/09:</i> I've now watched about half of Season 1 and most of Seasons 6 and 7 of <i>Doctor Who</i>. I could have watched more of the first few seasons, but couldn't really stand watching TV quite that old. For one, the first six seasons are all in black and white. While I don't really mind this, color really is helpful in making things more exciting and helping the viewer to figure out what special-effects-type things are supposed to be. Mostly I decided to skip them because the plots move so slowly that I couldn't help getting bored. The way that they did stories in the old seasons was that one plot line would be spread out over at least four 25-minute episodes, which I would be perfectly happy with except that they generally end up including way too much cheesy dialog between the bad guys or the people that the Doctor is saving or whatever. Stuff that kind of advances the plot, but is also really quite repetitive and usually pretty boring. Stuff that actually includes the Doctor I definitely still like to see (except for the first few episodes, in which the Doctor was much grumpier and more contrary than usual), and plenty of the Doctor's dialog is quite hilarious. <br/><br/>I'm finding it interesting to encounter each of the different Doctors for the first time. Before I started watching from the beginning, I'd only seen the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in the new series, a few episodes with the Fourth Doctor, and part of an episode with the Fifth Doctor. I really like getting to know new versions of the Doctor, because it's interesting in how many subtle different ways the character can be played. The First Doctor I don't like so much, though he wasn't too bad once he stopped being grumpy. I'd probably like him more if I hadn't skipped most of his episodes, but they were about to bore me to death. The Second Doctor I really like, because he's really quite hilarious. I love how he acts rather like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum whenever someone doesn't let him get his way. His reactions to things are a bit exaggerated (probably just a quirk of this time in film), but it makes him all the more funny. The Second Doctor's got some good companions, too, my favorite being Jamie, a Scotsman from the 18th century (I think) who actually wears a kilt. He likes to make fun of the Doctor, and they're a great pair. The Third Doctor I also like so far (I've almost seen all of his first season). He seems to have a fondness for gold jewelry that is somehow quite amusing, and has a rather god-awful bright yellow old-school roadster named, of all things, Bessie. I sort of twitch in horror ever time it comes on screen, but it is a bit funny to see a Time Lord whizzing around in a bright yellow convertible from the 1930s or whatever. <br/><br/>A random thing about the last episode I watched: it kept switching between color and black and white. It would be in color for ten minutes, then the color would fade and it would be black and white for five minutes, then the color would seep back in for the next ten minutes. It was quite surreal. I mean, you never really see a film or whatever that switches randomly between color and black and white. It did make me really appreciate the color every time it came back, though. :) (It was doing the color/B&W thing because some of the old episodes were lost and had to be patched back together from whatever copies survived, and they only have some of the film in black and white. Just thought I'd explain that so it would seem less mysterious...)"

blogDB[170] = "<img src=\"pictures/snowy_purdue.JPG\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px\" /> <i>1/28/09</i>: FINALLY! A decent amount of snowfall! I've been anticipating a snowfall of more than a few inches all winter, my hopes particularly high since Indiana is the furthest north I've ever lived in wintertime, and the snow gods finally obliged. It snowed about two inches over the weekend, and snowed more or less constantly from early yesterday afternoon to late this morning. I think we've got about six inches now, and a little more might come in the next few days. I was getting really irritated because at home they were having worse weather than here, with lots of ice and fairly prevalent power outages. The weather here is still less severe, outage-wise, but at least now we've got something in the way of wintry-ness. I hope we get some ice at some point too, though, because absolutely everything looks more beautiful when it's coated in ice. I still wish there was more snow (my dream is a foot or more, since I don't think I've ever seen that much), but I'm happy with what we've got. Everything is so pretty!<br/><br/>I particularly like the pine trees and such, with snow all piled up on their branches. There's one little pine of some sort, about six feet tall, in front of the building beside the Computer Science building, and today it was practically buried in snow, between what had built up around it and what was on it. The snow on its branches actually reminded me a lot of a little collection of mountain ranges, because of the way the snow formed a ridge along each branch. It really did look quite a lot like mountains from the air. Snow-covered mountains, obviously. :) And to make my enjoyment of pine trees and snow skyrocket even further, around noon the sun came out and some of the snow on the trees melted a little, and when it started getting colder again icicles formed on some of the pines! So now we have pine trees adorned with both snow and icicles! They look so Christmas-y, and are definitely among the most beautiful things that I've ever seen. I'm going to go out with my camera tomorrow if it's sunny and try to get some really pretty snow pictures!";

blogDB[171] = "<i>2/7/09:</i> British TV really has produced some brilliant stuff. My newest evidence of this is a miniseries called <i>Blackpool</i> that is, of all things, a musical cop drama (with a bit of a love story thrown in). Just think about that combination of genres for a minute. How weird does it sound? Well, it's even weirder than that, but also completely brilliant and quite hilarious. Backing up a bit, I went looking for more things that David Tennant is in besides <i>Doctor Who</i> because he's so awesome, and came across <i>Blackpool</i>, in which he plays a Scottish detective (which means that he actually gets to use his real accent for once). The story follows a case that Tennant's character is investigating, and some seriously interesting plot twists arise, such as him falling in love with the main suspect's wife. The story and characters are both interesting and amusing, and the musical aspect just makes everything even better. It's not quite the usual definition of \"musical\" because the characters actually sort of sing along to some rock or pop song that's playing, but they do everything else that musicals usually do, including some very enthusiastic dance numbers. This leads to some incredibly hilarious scenes, such as one in which Tennant's character is arresting a kid for selling drugs, and the actual arrest is all musical, with dancing and everything. I had never seen a musical arrest before, but it sure is pretty interesting. I love it when TV shows and movies get creative!";

blogDB[172] = "<i>2/21/09:</i> Man, we have some seriously crazy wind today. I walked the 5 miles from Purdue to the nearest Wal-Mart and back this afternoon, partially because I wanted some exercise, partially because I needed some stuff, and partially because it was snowing and really pretty. There were several unsheltered places where I nearly got blown off my feet. Literally. It was ridiculous (and quite cold). Fortunately the gale-force winds were mostly perpendicular to the direction in which I was going, but once I was walking straight into it. Unsurprisingly it picked that time to be particularly strong and sustained, so that I really had to lean into the wind to get anywhere. My face went completely numb, too. It was a little better once it had stopped snowing and I wasn't having snowflakes pounded into my eyeballs any more. Between walking the 5 miles, having to deal with icy/slush surfaces most of the way, and having to fight the wind, I am seriously tired. I'm rather tempted to take a nap, even though it's only 4 PM. Seeing all the pretty snow-scape was worth it, though! :)";

blogDB[173] = "<img src='pictures/newcat_smell.jpg' alt='funny pictures' /></a><br /><br/><i>3/13/09:</i> Friday the 13th again. Kinda weird to have two of those in a row. Ah, well. Spring Break starts tomorrow, and this is an adorable picture from <a href=\"www.icanhascheezburger.com\">I Can Has Cheezburger</a>. I love the kitten's reaction, and that mother cat is really pretty.";

blogDB[174] = "<img src=\"pictures/purpledeadnettle.JPG\"> <br/><br/><i>3/29/09:</i> Spring is here! Which means: <ul><li>that flowers have started blooming (I'd never actually noticed before how early wildflowers begin blooming)</li> <li>that I'm encountering lots of flowers that I've never seen before (being in Indiana might be helping with that, too)</li> <li>that I've gone into flower-obsessive mode with a vengeance</li> <li>that I want to spend pretty much every waking second outside taking pictures of flowers or on my computer figuring out what the flowers are and adding the new ones to my \"Wildflowers\" section</li> <li>that I'm having a really hard time making myself do anything productive (which is VERY un-helpful, since I have a king-sized boatload of stuff that I need to get done)</li></ul> The weather hasn't been so great for photography this week (cloudy, so no sun, so harder to take good photos), and today it's actually cold and snowing (seriously, what's up with that?), but that isn't quite enough to dampen my enthusiasm. I'm still perfectly happy to get out and walk and look for flowers, whether or not I can get a good picture of them at the time, so I ended up going on a long walk yesterday in the Purdue Horticultural Park and taking the best pictures I could without sun. Unsurprisingly, the Horticultural Park has a LOT of plants (though I'm mostly ignoring the ones that were obviously planted for beautification purposes), and I was basically running around the place with maniacal enthusiasm the whole time I was there. It's supposed to be mostly sunny and warmer tomorrow, so I'll probably end up spending my several hours between classes over there getting good pictures. I'm never going to get any homework done...<br/><br/>The above picture is one of a <a href='http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/viewflower.htm?pic=purpledeadnettle'>Purple Deadnettle</a> that I took at home over Spring Break. I'd never looked closely at one before, and consequently was surprised to discover how complex those tiny purple flowers are. Wildflowers really are gorgeous, they just tend to be more subtle about it than the rather ridiculous flowers that humans breed.";

blogDB[175] = "<i>3/31/09:</i> Spring weather is amusing in its bipolarity. Sunday was snowy. Yesterday was sunny. Today is rainy. Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny, and the day after that is supposed to be rainy again. Mostly I think it's hilarious how perfectly the weather is alternating between sunny and precipitating (can't even just say \"rainy\" because it decided to throw in some precipatory variety).";

blogDB[176] = "<img src=\"pictures/maccrash.png\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px;\" /> <i>4/5/09:</i> I love the message that Macs give you when they crash. On Windows, you get some dire message along the lines of \"your system has recovered from a serious error\". On a Mac, you get almost exactly the same message as when any old program crashes (\"___ quit unexpectedly\"), except with the bit about the computer restarting thrown in. I find the attitude of the Mac's message absolutely hilarious: \"Oh, the operating system--the one piece of software absolutely essential to the computer doing anything more complex than serving as a paperweight--just died horribly. No big deal.\" Since OS X hardly ever crashes (I can count on one hand the number of times that my laptop's crashed in nearly a year), it took me a long time to actually see this message, and the first time I saw it I didn't actually read it. The first time I did read it (second or third time my Mac crashed, which was about two months ago), I immediately burst out laughing and couldn't stop for about five minutes. I was sad that I didn't think to take a screenshot that time, and so when my computer glitched today, I was actually happy about it. I mean really, how often is anyone happy that their computer crashes? At least now I have the screenshot, and can laugh at it whenever I want, instead of mournfully waiting around for my computer to FINALLY decide to crash again. Or, even worse, getting so desperate to see the message again that I take matters into my own hands and start slaughtering system processes in order to make it crash (which is actually kind of fun, by the way). :)<br/><br/>Changing directions, it's amazing how bad my memory is sometimes, especially when it comes to books. I read really fast, which tends to lead to low retention, especially if I finish a book in one day (because I don't sleep on it multiple times). But I can usually at least remember if I have read a book or not. Even if I don't remember it by the title, I generally realize that I've read it before I'm more than a chapter into it. Yesterday, however, I not only failed to remember that I had already read Jane Austen's <i>Persuasion</i>, but I was literally halfway through the book before I figured it out. Seriously. I must have read the first half of the book very quickly the first time, because it never occurred to me that this book seemed familiar until I was right in the middle. That caused me to laugh at myself for about ten minutes, and then to proceed with reading the book. At least my poor memory about the contents of books allows me to enjoy the same books over and over without losing too many elements of surprise, because by the time I get around to re-reading a book, I've forgotten most of the plot twists and surprises. It's annoying when someone asks me what a book I read was about, though...";

blogDB[177] = "<img src=\"pictures/springbeauty.jpg\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right:8px;\" /> <i>4/28/09:</i> The weather was beautiful over the weekend and earlier this week, and fortunately I was able to be out in it some before it turned to rain again. I went on a beautiful walk in the Purdue Horticultural Park yesterday around noon. It's getting so green there, and since I'd only ever been there in the winter before, I was amazed by how green and leafy it is already. Since the path through the woods there is a narrow one (about a foot and a half wide), I felt encased in greenery at points where trees with lower branches were growing close to the path. It was amazingly relaxing. And because the greenery meant that I couldn't see quite as far as I could before, the whole place felt much bigger. In all, it was a much more satisfyingly natural walk than I'd ever gotten anywhere around here before. <br/><br/>I was also completely amazed by how many violets are growing in the park. The grassy areas around the forest were more purple than green in plenty of places, and there were yellow and blue violets all over the place in the woods as well, though the <a href='http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/viewflower.htm?pic=mayapple'>Mayapples</a> beat out the violets as the most thickly-growing plant there. I seem to have missed the Mayapple flowering season, which makes me sad. They're one of the plants that I can actually reliably recognize and remember the name of, and I like to have good pictures of those plants. (It helps that they're also called \"Mandrakes\", which immediately makes me think of <i>Harry Potter</i> and serves as an excellent pneumonic device). I'm also slightly surprised that the <a href='http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/viewflower.htm?pic=springbeauty'>Spring Beauties</a> are still flowering (above is a picture of one that I took yesterday). They're not as prevalent as they were in March, but there are still quite a few of them. I'm curious if it's still the same plants that are flowering, or if new plants keep sprouting and flowering. It seems like flowering for months on end would be very exhausting (and probably kind of pointless) for a plant, so the latter seems more likely.<br/><br/>On a semi-random side note, I found out yesterday that germinating a tree from a seed is frequently harder than it seems like it should be. The simplistic view of growing things is \"Put seed in dirt. Water. Wait.\", but for many tree seeds it's more complex than that. Some need to be exposed to fire first, or eaten, or exposed to cold moist conditions for months on end, or some combination of the above. For example, to germinate an Eastern Redbud seed, you have to first \"scarify\" it (to simulate being eaten, I suppose) by either soaking it in concentrated sulfuric acid (!) for 30 minutes or boiling-hot water for one minute, and then keep it in a cool, moist environment for 5-8 weeks before planting. (On a side-side-note, the human stomach produces hydrochloric acid. Which just seems amazing to me. Acid always sounds like such a scary thing that it's strange to think of one's body producing it. Sort of like if our stomachs produced minor thermonuclear devices or something...) Of course, it completely makes sense for a seed to not want to germinate until it's been eaten (a.k.a. carried away from the parent) and exposed to cold moistness for a long time (the end of which would signify spring), but it sure does point out to one how hard one has to work to simulate nature. <br/><br/>On Sunday I was laying out near the Engineering fountain, doing a little homework and enjoying the warm weather (though the sun wasn't out) and wind. The Engineering fountain is surrounded by lots of trees which currently have pink flowers. The wind seems to take the petals off those trees quite easily. It was really windy. A cloud of flower petals coming towards you isn't something that you often get to see, and it was even better when the wind decided to swirl the petals into one of those mini-tornadoes. It was gorgeous.";

blogDB[178] = "<img src='pictures/genuine_lolcat.jpg' /><br/><i>5/1/09:</i> I can't believe I forgot to post this when it was on ICHC. Egypt the official LOLcat! When I found a banana with a \"LOL\" sticker, I knew that that sticker plus a cat was going to make an awesome picture. :)";

blogDB[179] = "<i>5/3/09:</i> Yay, I didn't miss the <a href='http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/viewflower.htm?pic=mayapple'>Mayapple</a> flowering season! I was over at the Horticultural Park yesterday, and I was quite delighted to find that Mayapples were flowering all over the place. I originally mistook the flower buds for the fruit, because I didn't know their flowers were quite so large. As soon as I have time to sort through all the pictures I've taken in the last few weeks and look up what they are, I'm going to be able to add at least fifteen or twenty new flowers to my \"Wildflowers\" section. C'mon finals, hurry up and be over with!<br/><br/>In <i>Doctor Who</i> news, I'm now into the Fifth Doctor's episodes. From the last few episodes I watched (yes, I'm still watching way too much Doctor Who even during finals time, which is not exactly helping), I discovered that the Doctor was responsible for the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Cybermen killed the dinosaurs. I thought the latter was particularly hilarious, and I'm also amused how every other even vaguely important historical event and person has been worked into Doctor Who by this point. Apparently nothing interesting ever happens on this planet without the Doctor being involved. :)";

blogDB[180] = "<i>6/15/09:</i> Whilst reading the book <i>The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language</i> by Stephen Pinker (which is a very interesting, well-written, and amusing book, by the way), I learned that the text editor Emacs has a built-in psychotherapist, namely a little program that you can \"converse\" with that will reply to your statements with therapist-like questions (\"How do you feel about X?\", when X was something that you mentioned in a previous sentance, etc). I've been talking to the thing for about 15 minutes (and having way too much fun with it). I started off more or less answering its questions seriously, until this point:<br/><br/>Me: Sometime I feel like throwing a pink elephant at my uncle's parrot.<br/>Computer: Maybe your plans have something to do with this.<br/>Me: Possibly. On the other hand, all my plans might subconsciously revolve around turkeys.<br/>Computer: What makes you believe that?<br/>Me: The fact that everything I do somehow involves turkeys, even though I never consciously plan this.<br/><br/>It kept encouraging me along that line of thought, so things got rather bizarre for a while, until I confused it completely, and it jumped to another track of questioning, though either it or I keep re-mentioning turkeys. Another fragment:<br/><br/>Computer: How do you reconcile the people you hang around with?<br/>Me: What people?<br/>Computer: Is it because of problems at school that you say what people?<br/>Me: No, I think it's mostly because of the turkeys.<br/>Computer: Are you sure that is the real reason?<br/>Me: Pretty sure. You see, the turkeys inevitably end up eating anyone that I ever speak more than precisely 19 words to.<br/>Computer: Are you positive you ever speak more than precisely 19 words to?<br/>Me: Yep. I did experiments.<br/>Computer: Earlier you said to use this?<br/>Me: No.<br/>Computer: Did you ever regret I ask that?<br/>Me: Ostrich.<br/>Computer: You're being a bit brief, perhaps you could go into detail.<br/>Me: Onerously obstinate Orwellian ostrich.<br/>Computer: Perhaps this has something to do with the turkeys?<br/><br/>Needless to say, this amuses me way too much. At least now I have a guaranteed sympathetic ear when stressed. :) ";

blogDB[181] = "<i>7/15/09:</i> Wow, there are a lot of flowers around! I just added the 200th flower to my \"Wildflowers\" section. Interestingly enough, it is <a href=\"http://www.jackiesoenneker.com/viewflower.htm?pic=catnip\">catnip</a>. I took the picture in Pennsylvania, which is where I currently am, working as a teaching assistant for the Johns' Hopkins Center for Talented Youth summer program. I wonder if catnip grows around home in Kentucky. If so, I wonder of our cats ever find any. That sure would explain why they act so weird sometimes. :P";

blogDB[182] = "<object width=425 height=344><param name=movie value='http://www.youtube.com/v/nBcRMsiZjgs&hl=en&fs=1&'></param><param name=allowFullScreen value=true></param><param name=allowscriptaccess value=always></param><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/nBcRMsiZjgs&hl=en&fs=1&' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=344></embed></object> <br/><br/><i>8/27/09:</i> Elk's adorable little kittens: Marimo (the grey), Patch and Turtle (the calicoes), Gobi and Cotton (the tan and whites) and Mori (the tan). Poor little Marimo got killed by something a few days after this. :'( ";

blogDB[183] = "<i>8/28/09:</i> Waaaaah, <i>Reading Rainbow</i> is going off the air! <a href='http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112312561'>This story</a> says that there wasn't enough funding to renew the program because the governement is channeling its funding into shows that teach more basic stuff like spelling and phonics. (So what exactly are these kids doing in school, if not learning how to read and spell?) That really, really depresses me. For me, <i>Reading Rainbow</i> was always really cool to watch for much more than the books. I learned SO much from that show that sometimes it seems like half the knowledge floating around in my head comes from it. I can't even count the number of times someone has asked me how I know something and I responded \"It was on <i>Reading Rainbow</i>\". In tribute to this awesome, awsome show, the old-school intro: <br/><br/><object width=425 height=344><param name=movie value='http://www.youtube.com/v/WfGhfI_NwcA&hl=en&fs=1&'></param><param name=allowFullScreen value=true></param><param name=allowscriptaccess value=always></param><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/WfGhfI_NwcA&hl=en&fs=1&' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=425 height=344></embed></object> <br/><br/>And now that I'm in the awesome old-school TV show mood, here are some links to the intros or theme songs of some other awesome old shows:<br/><ul><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuzc4jgwlT8'>Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego</a> (okay, this song is completely imposible to not sing along with!)</li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjRlp1wgQWw'>Captain Planet</a> (hmmm, maybe this show is why I'm so environmentally-conscious...)</li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA0TS9l_nJE'>Animaniacs</a> (this song <i>still</i> randomly gets stuck in my head!)</li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPFSNu_QNs'>Pinky and the Brain</a> (<i>loved</i> this show! I still find myself singing this song)</li><li>Sesame Street <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWDnhwLNA_w'>intro</a> and <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WpZ2kkaGQI'>ending</a></li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49nesMuk6pE'>Bill Nye the Science Guy</a> (another epic win!)</li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_cMaGt52QE'>TaleSpin</a> (I don't even think I watched this show many times, but it was enough times to get addicted to the theme song!) </li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdRLhI2Gs0U'>Digimon</a> (really, really loved this show!)</li> <li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEtDdlrWOc0'>Zoboomafoo</a> (that would be a really awesome job, chilling with and imitating animals all day!)  </li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-tUd_Ji-AY'>Mr. Roger's Neighborhood</a> (NOSTALGIC!!)</li> <li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6fthc-qBEw'>Garfield and Friends</a> (I almost forgot about this one)</li><li><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBf3L4rSS9M'>Gargoyles</a> (such awesome dramatic music!)</li></ul>";

blogDB[184] = "<img src='pictures/TomBaker2.jpg'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src='pictures/TomBaker.jpg'><br/><br/><i>8/29/09:</i> <a href='http://www.phonezoo.com'>PhoneZoo</a> is an awesome place to get free ringtones and wallpapers for your cell phone. They'll send them to you phone for free, and they have a decent selection. I now have a Doctor Who ringtone and a Bleach wallpaper. :D And, because finding Doctor Who ringtones and wallpapers put me in a Doctor Who mood, here're a couple of pictures of Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, who I still find the funniest of them all. <br/><br/>I find it amusing how I post nothing for months on end, then post stuff several days in a row. :P";

blogDB[185] = "<img src='pictures/moonlight.jpg' align='left' style='padding-right:8px;'> <i>9/2/09:</i> I'm really beginning to notice that I have a thing for stories where the main character is either way older than they appear or, to a lesser extent, more powerful than they appear. (It also seems to help if they're a bit tortured about it.) <i>Doctor Who</i>, <i>New Amsterdam</i>, <i>Smallville</i>, and <i>The Dresden Files</i> are a sampling of TV shows that I'm like that fit at least partially in this category. And now I have another one: <i>Moonlight</i>. Contrary to what the title would suggest to those who know only that the show has a supernatural twist, <i>Moonlight</i> is about vampires. In particular, the main character is Mick St. John, a vampire some 85 years old who works in LA as a private investigator (I've also noticed that I prefer my deceptively awesome characters to spend their time investigating things), and who was turned into a vampire by his wife on their wedding night (talk about ruining the honeymoon). I rented the first two disks of the first (and only; apparently the general public does not share my preference for stories such as this, because they keep getting cancelled) season from Netflix the other day, and recieved them yesterday. I decided to watch \"the first couple of episodes\" to see if I liked the show or not. (Famous last words.) As it turns out, I do indeed like the show, and ended up watching both disks (8 episodes) straight through. This led to me going to bed at 1:30 AM on a weekday night, which is about two and a half hours later than normal, and getting absolutely no homework done.<br/><br/>I'm still trying to figure out who the guy who plays the main character reminds me of. Some combination of Nicholas Cage (the voice and a bit of the way he talks), Johnny Depp (the way he looks at certain angles), and someone else who I can't quite get a grasp on...";

blogDB[186] = "<i>9/3/09:</i> Okay, I think the guy who plays the main character in <i>Moonlight</i> actually reminds me of about seven or eight people, based on his expression, tone of voice, way of speaking, and the angle of the camera. I re-watched the first four episodes last night, and I kept rewinding and re-watching little 15-second clips over and over, trying to figure out who he was reminding me of in that particular bit. There's one scene where his expression makes him look exactly like a werewolf in <i>Doctor Who</i>, and once his tone of voice and pronounciation reminded me of the actor who plays Dresden in <i>The Dresden Files</i>, but those were the only additional ones I was able to figure out. This is incredibly frustrating. I am going to be ridiculously excited each time I figure out another of the people he reminds me of. I can just see myself in a movie theatre or something, having to restrain myself from jumping up and shouting \"Ah HA! <i>THAT's</i> who he reminded me of in that one 10 second clip!!!\" Sigh. ";

blogDB[187] = "<i>9/8/09:</i> Tomorrow's date will be 09/09/09. And, to make things even more fun, at 9:09 AM, it will be 09:09 09/09/09. If anyone's lucky number is 9 or anything, they should plan something very ambitious tomorrow at that time. If someone's unlucky number is 9, they should hide in bed all day tomorrow.";

blogDB[188] = "<img src ='pictures/colinbaker.jpg'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src='pictures/sylvestermccoy.jpg'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src='pictures/paulmcgann.jpg'><br/><br/><i>10/26/09:</i> This is really bizarre. I'm out of Doctor Who to watch. As of last night, I have watched every episode of Doctor Who ever made, excepting most of the First Doctor's stuff because I can't sit through them (too old; I watched the first episode/story on 2x fast forward with subtitles and was STILL bored) and the stuff of the Second Doctor's that is partially lost. But from the Third Doctor onward, I've see all of it. The Sixth Doctor (first picture above), despite having a positively horrifying costume, is quite hilarious. I loved how he liked to pet the cat pin on his lapel in his first few episodes, and wish they had kept that little habit. The Seventh Doctor (second picture above) was definitely luckier in the outfit department, though the sweater with question marks is quite odd, and has a completely awesome accent (Sylvester McCoy is apparently slightly Scottish). It's kind of bizarre, but also refreshingly different, how manipulative the Seventh Doctor is. Half the time he doesn't tell Ace what's going on, and several times intentionally drags her to places he knows she won't like. And he tricked Davros into destroying Skaro, for heaven's sake. I was impressed how they were suddenly willing to have the Doctor do things that are morally questionable. Like I said, though, refreshing. Stubbornly goody-goody characters eventually get on my nerves.<br/><br/>As for the movie, a few things. <ol><li>WTF is up with that TARDIS interior? What freaking time machine uses TORCHES for lighting? Super-glad they didn't keep that interior in the new series.</li> <li>WTF is up with the Doctor making out with Grace? Quit it. Seriously. It's freaking me out.</li> <li>Thank god Doctor Who is made in the UK. If this is how America would do it, it's very good that we do not.</li> <li>The Doctor came to America, and immediately got shot? That's depressing. He can wander around on Skaro, wherever it was that the Cybermen were from, and pretty much every other part of the galaxy and do just fine, but the second he comes to America he gets shot? Come to think of it, he also got tortured in America by that Internet-owning bastard in the new series. Yeah, better stick to Britain, dude.</li> <li>The Master. Between the rampant 90s-ness of the movie, the rampant American-ness of the movie, and the fact that he spends half his time as a slime-snake and the other half wearing a long leather coat and aviators, I kind of wanted to bash my head in every time the Master was on screen.</li> <li>Since when do Daleks put anyone on trial before exterminating them? And since when would the Daleks have cause to put the Master on trial? It's usually the Doctor who thwarts/kills them.</li></ol> I didn't actually hate the movie, though. It was very 90s, and I like it better when everyone's got British accents, but overall it wasn't too bad. Positives: <ol><li>The thing with the cop driving into the TARDIS and back out again was HILARIOUS! I'm kind of surprised they hadn't done anything like that before (that I remember).</li><li>I love the inevitable lap around the outside of the TARDIS that people take when they look into it for the first time. No, the rest of that space isn't somehow hiding behind it.</li><li>The Eighth Doctor (third picture above) is pretty cool. I like the outfit, and he vaguely reminds me of Alan Rickman, who is awesome.</li> <li>The amnesiac Doctor was a fairly cool idea. Good thing he didn't get locked up in an insane asylum, though.</li><li>It was nice for the Doctor to have another American companion. Technically two, if you count Lee. He's pretty short on non-British (even if they're non-human) companions.</li></ol>";

blogDB[189] = "<i>10/26/09 (again):</i> And because I'm on a roll with Doctor Who listmaking but the first post was getting too long, my opinion of the various Doctors: <ol><li><i>The First Doctor (William Hartnell):</i> I only know him from his first few episodes (when he was a bit of an ass) and his various appearances in multi-Doctor episodes, so I don't have much of an opinion about him. Definitely didn't like him much in the first few episodes, but it was pretty hilarious how he bossed the \"younger\" Doctors around in the multi-Doctor episodes.</li><li><i>The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton):</i> The man's hilarious. I love the hobo/clown outfit, I love his overly melodramatic reactions to problems, and I LOVE how he and the Third Doctor argue endlessly any time they're in the same room. He and Jamie are one of my favorite Doctor-companion pairs, and the recorder's cool.</li><li><i>The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee):</i> Absolutely love him. He and the Brigadier are my favorite Doctor-Brigadier combination, and he and the first Master are my favorite Doctor-Master combination. His outfit is weird without being bizarre, I love the way he talks, and the Venusian karate is AWESOME. I do kind of want to kill myself every time Bessie is around, though. Gah! So...horrible....</li><li><i>The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker):</i> Loving Tom Baker's Doctor isn't exactly an original opinion, but I can't help it. He's hilariously brilliant. The hair, the scarf, the mildly creepy wide grins, and the general hyper/random way of acting, it's just irrisistable. How he was acting right after regenerating pretty much sums it up (I've watched that episode more times than any of the other old ones). Merely thinking about that jump-rope bit makes me start laughing. And his scenes with K9 are great as well. I've got more bizarrely hilarious quotes from him than possibly the rest of the Doctors combined (I think his train of thought is a roller coaster). Tom Baker ties with David Tennant as my favorite Doctor. <a href='audio/Jelly Baby.mp3'>\"Would you care for a jelly baby?\"</a></li><li><i>The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davidson)</i>: Probably ties with William Hartnell as my least-favorite Doctor. I don't dislike him, but he was kind of boring. I do love his stick of celery, cricket outfit, and some of his phrases, but I don't find him particularly amusing. Maybe he's just too normal...</li><li><i>The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)</i>: Another one high on the \"very amusing\" list. Horrifying outfit, but otherwise I really like him. He's rather, oh, I don't know...sassy, I guess. I just love his rant at the Time Lords in \"Attack of the Cybermen\" for sending him to fix their problems, and he and Peri have some awesome dialogue. Also, his accent sometimes reminds me of a deep South accent, which is just funny.</li><li><i>The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy):</i> See all previous remarks about liking his increased manipulativness and willingness to kill. Also love the accent, and all the hints he drops about his mysterious past. Him and Ace are an awesome pair. Love 'em!</li><li><i>The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann):</i> See remarks about the movie. McGann was definitely the best part of the movie, and had an interesting role as the Doctor with no memory. Less spastic than most other Doctors. I guess he was the most human-acting of them all.</li><li><i>The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston):</i> Completely hilarious, him. LOVE the accent, and the outfit, and the general hyperactivity. He always seems like the most hyperactive of all the Doctors to me, and I consistently want to compare him to a semi-psychotic squirrel. I think he reminds me a lot of Tom Baker, with the huge grins and so on. High on my list of favorites, almost joining Tom Baker and David Tennant for a three-way first place tie. I'd say him and Jon Pertwee tie for second place. \"Fan-TAS-tic!\"</li><li><i>The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant):</i> Absolutely love him, obviously. Hyper, haunted, grinning like a maniac, and rocking the trainers and glasses. Wish he did the Scottish accent more often. And I love when he randomly has an epiphany and shouts \"Oh!\" or something similar and startles everyone in the vicinity. \"Brilliant!\"</li></ol> ";

blogDB[190] = "<i>11/3/09:</i> I spent yesterday at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory yesterday, going through a gauntlet of job interviews. It was actually my first time interviewing in person (I'd done one phone interview before), but fortunately everyone was very friendly, so it wasn't too scary. As a consequence of going to Maryland, I flew out of the Indianapolis Airport. It's a new airport and very nice. One thing that I really like about it is that they have little (or big) random art things scattered throughout it. One of the more amusing ones is one called \"Connection\" that consists of a series of lights on the ceiling of the hallway/bridge to the parking garage. Among other things, the lights track people walking below them. As you move, whichever light you're under turns red. The whole ceiling occasionally flashes magenta and a bunch of other things, but the tracking feature (though slightly creepy) is fun to play with. I didn't even actually notice that it was tracking people the first time I went through it because there were lots of people going through and it was basically a chaos of lights, but on my return pass through, I was one of the two or three people walking thorough at the time, so that feature was more obvious. And what did I do? Started zig-zagging around and laughing to myself as the light followed me side-to-side as well as forward. If anyone was watching me and didn't get what I was doing, they probably thought I was really weird. :D <br/><br/>The piece actually has a <a href='http://electroland.net/projects/connection/'>website</a>, including a video of the lights in action. It's sort of trippy when the whole ceiling lights up/flashes at once. ";

blogDB[191] = "<img src='pictures/planet-earth.jpg' > <br/><br><i>11/8/09:</i> The TV series <i>Planet Earth</i> by BBC. It. Is. Unbelievably. <i>Awesome.</i> I really love nature shows, and I think I probably started watching PBS's <i>Nature</i> about the time I was born. I always loved <i>Nature</i>, but something that generally annoys me is when a shows' narration starts straying too far from the strictly factual description of \"we are here and watching __ do ___\". Mostly I get annoyed when they start getting too anthropomorphic and start talking about the social drama in a monkey or ape troupe like it's a soap opera or talking about what an animal is feeling emotionally. I do think that animals have feelings and thoughts and emotions and so on (some more than others, maybe), but that doesn't mean that we have a clue what they are. Sure, when an animal is being chased by a predator, it's probably afraid and so on (fear being the general biological self-preservation mechanism). But still, stick to describing the situation and let the viewers just watch them without the filter of \"this animal is feeling this or thinking that\". We don't know how to meaningfully communicate with them, so we don't have a damn clue what they're actually thinking.<br/><br/>Anyway, one reason that I really like <i>Planet Earth</i> is that they keep that kind of thing to a minimum, so the episodes are extremely educational because they spend their time actually talking about useful stuff. And they have some incredibly, gorgeously, unbelievably stunning shots. Like a slow-motion shot of a great white shark lunging up at a seal and into the air. They can swallow seals whole. I did not know this. I also didn't know that seals hunted penguins. On land. Since both animals are fairly awkward on land, the chase is a little amusing to watch, but you definitely have to wince on the penguin's behalf when the seal catches it and practically rips its head off. Ouchie.<br/><br/>A perfect example of what I mean by \"awesome shots\" is in the episode \"Great Plains\", when they're talking about the mass migration of some sort of bird or another. (Snow geese, maybe. I forget.) They start with a close up shot of a few of the birds flying along in the middle of a flock. Then the shot starts pulling back, so that you can see more and more and more of the birds. And more. And more. And MORE. You quickly reach the point where you don't think there can possibly be any more birds in the flock, but the shot is still pulling back and there's still no edge to the flock in sight. By the time the edges finally do start appearing, you're just staring at the screen incredulously, completely and totally dumbfounded by the sheer, ridiculous size of this flock. Plenty of shows show huge flocks of birds, but they do it from far away only, so that you don't actually have any sense of how massive the flock actually is. This was an incredibly effective way to actually force viewers to realize how many freaking birds there actually are in a huge flock like that. It. Is. Mind. Blowing. <br/><br/>They also make extensive use of time-lapse shots of things like plants growing, herds migrating, and flowers blooming. And they have an awful lot of aerial shots, which gives an unusual perspective and kind of helps the viewer to get more of an overall picture of what's going on.";

blogDB[192] = "<img src='pictures/matrix-neo.jpg'><br/><br/> <i>11/22/09:</i> Rewatched the Matrix movies in the last few days. Their fight scenes and graphics are still awesome, even thought those movies are starting to get a little old. Kudos to them for still being cool. And they should re-name the second and third movies \"Movie with Hugo Weaving Playing 90% of the People On the Screen\" parts I and II. When you actually start paying attention to it, it's kind of hilarious how many faces in the two movies are Hugo Weaving's. ";

blogDB[193] = "<i>12/15/09:</i> Why I Love my Mac (in no particular order): <ul><li><b>It works.</b> Between good hardware and a stable OS, I am continually amazed how reliable my Mac is. I've had it for a year and a half, and have not had one single hardware problem. Not. One. By roughly this point in the ownership of my last Windows laptop, the motherboard had failed and been replaced and the speakers had completely died. And I never managed to get the microphone to work, so either I was an idiot, or it was DOA. Although, to be fair, I never bought a Windows computer as expensive as my Mac. Perhaps in the same price range I would have gotten this level of reliability from a Windows machine. As far as the OS and software go, I can go for weeks without rebooting my Mac without it becoming spastic and slow. Rarely do I have to kill a frozen program, rarely enough that I STILL can't tell you precisely which key combination is the Mac equivalent of Ctrl-Atl-Del. And when I do kill a frozen program, it dies almost instantly and the system immediately recovers. Good luck getting that result with Windows. More rarely still does the OS crash (pretty sure it's still been less than 5 times in a year and a half).</li><li><b>It's pretty.</b> Apple's ability to make aesthetically pleasing hardware and user interfaces is very nice.</li><li><b>It's UNIX-based.</b> I love having the Terminal, and the ability to use most UNIX/Linux commands that I know. And with the ability to actually use them on an everyday basis, I'm getting a lot better at remembering UNIX shell commands. And I can write shell scripts to automate stuff. And so on. Yes, I could do all this in Windows with the Command Prompt, but pretty much all the command line stuff I know and use with any degree of frequency is UNIX-based.</li><li><b>The user interface is excellent.</b> I find the Dock easier to work with than the Windows taskbar, the Dashboard more useful than Vista's sidebar (or whatever it's called), and Expose might just be my favorite thing ever. The ability to hit one key and see all the windows that I have maximized on the current desktop is unendingly useful, especially when programming, because I tend to have a lot of files open. And that's another thing I love, the multiple desktops. I usually have four or six, depending on how many separate things I have going. When one does not restart one's computer more than once every few weeks and tends to leave windows that one will use again soon open, one definitely needs good window management/organization tools. The multiple desktops was always one of the UI features that I liked most in Linux, and between the multiple desktops, Expose, and the ability to drag and drop windows between desktops and rearrage desktops, I'm in window-management heaven.</li><li><b>It has awesome hardware features.</b> The gesture-based MacBook trackpad that they imported from the iPhone is ridiculously useful. I will never, ever be able to own a computer that does not have this feature now. I would go crazy without it. The dedicated keys for activating things like Expose and the Dashboard are quite nice as well.</li></ul>";

blogDB[194] = "<i>12/16/09:</i> So, that deja vu scene in <i>The Matrix</i> with the black cat. I had a moment like that today. I was looking out my window (which partially looks down on a parking lot), watching cars and stuff. A nice fairly new red car went past. I went \"Oh, that's a pretty car\". Half a minute later, an identical red car went past. For a brief period I vacillated among \"am I hallucinating cars?\", \"surely there are not two of the same car in this parking lot that decided to leave at nearly the exact same time\" and \"uh, oh, the Agents changed something!\". Then I saw the first car still sitting at the traffic light. Yep, there were two of them. And they were definitely identical. What are the odds. ";

blogDB[195] = "<i>12/24/09:</i> I suspect that I will never cease to be glad that I took that English class titled \"Getting Back to Nature\" at Centre. I still have all the books that we read in that class, and re-reading them never fails to put me in the mood for nature. Plus, most of the books have some very good quotes, such as: <br/><br/><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator.</i><br/><br/>This is from <i>A Sand County Almanac</i> by Aldo Leopold, possibly my favorite of the books I bought for that class. Having both raised a garden and lived in a house with a wood-burning stove, I agree with Leopold on both points. People who have no actual idea of where food comes from sort of astound me. Sure, I've never grown lots of foods, such as pineapples or onions, and therefore have only the vaguest idea of what those plants are like or what growing the plants and harvesting the food is like. But I know how some crops are grown, and therefore have a decent amount of general knowledge about agriculture and the things one needs to think about when considering the impact that agriculture has on the planet. Which is why I am an incredible fan of organic food. The amount of pesticides and fertilizers and such used in the \"traditional\" approach to farming is downright terrifying.<br/><br/>Ditto with sources of energy. I've never done the actual wood-cutting, but I have observed my dad go through the process, and assist in keeping the hungry stove well-fed with wood whenever I am home. Heat does not just spring from nowhere. If your surroundings are warmer than the outside temperature, then most likely something somewhere is being burned to create that heat. Or to create the electricity that is creating the heat. And the substance being burnt is probably mined or drilled for, neither of which are good for the environment. With all this in mind, energy efficiency is resource preservation, atmospheric cleanliness, and reduced bills all rolled into one.<br/><br/>Like Leopold says, without firsthand knowledge of where food and heat come from, a person is substantially blinded to their impact on the environment. Which is, I suspect, why it's doing so badly in the first place. People who don't even understand how they're hurting the earth can't begin to stop doing so.";

blogDB[196] = "<i>12/29/09:</i> In lieu of going crazy waiting for the second part of the new Doctor Who special to air, I'm going to point out how awesome Wilfred Mott is. The man got together a search party of old people to find the Doctor, and then, upon seeing the inside of the TARDIS for the first time, remarks \"I thought it'd be cleaner\". Best TARDIS reaction EVER!";

blogDB[197] = "<img src='pictures/snowy_egypt.jpg' ><br/><br/><i>1/13/10:</i> The ever-adorable Egypt, 10% into her gradual transformation into a snow leopard. She went on a walk with me in the snow, and if I hadn't kept knocking the snow out of her fur, I think she would have been a snowball with legs by the time we got back. <br/><br/>The result of my latest poetical attack: <a href='poems/upward.htm'>Upward</a>.<br/><br/>Apparently they are making a movie of <i>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies</i> starring Natalie Portman (<a href='http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/11/natalie.portman.prejudice.zombies/index.html'>article on CNN.com</a>). The book's pretty hilarious, as it is mostly the text of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, but with zombie attacks and martial arts thrown in. My personal favorite part was when Elizabeth (now a kick-ass zombie killer with a katana) follows up her rejection of Darcy's first marriage proposal with an attempt to kill him for ruining Jane's happiness. This should make for an entertaining movie! ";

blogDB[198] = "<i>1/21/10:</i> Subject-specific humor is always awesome when it's a subject that you particularly like, and one of my favorites is tech/programming humor. Hence, <a href='http://www.geek24.com/g/2006/06/13/absolutely-hilarious-computer-quotes'>this</a> website has me ROLLING! Some of the best ones: <br/><br/>A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Mitch Radcliffe<br/><br/>Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary,<br/>over many a strange and spurious site of 'hot xxx galore'.<br/>While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, <br/>and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour,<br/>\" 'Tis not possible!\", i muttered, \"give me back my free hardcore!\"<br/>Quoth the server, 404.<br/><br/>If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime.<br/><br/>A computer program will always do what you tell it to, and seldom what you want it to.<br/><br/>Always program as if the person who will be maintaining your program is a violent psychopath that knows where you live. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Martin Golding<br/><br/>Ooh, and here's another good one: <a href='http://www.devtopics.com/101-great-computer-programming-quotes/'>101 Great Computer Programming Quotes</a>. Can't...stop...laughing!";

blogDB[199] = "<i>1/22/10:</i> I pretty much find an infinite variety of amusing websites via <a href='http://icanhascheezburger.com'>I Can Has Cheezburger</a>, and <a href = 'http://oddlyspecific.com'>Oddly Specific</a> is quite a hilarious one. Some people/places sure post some damn odd signs, though I suppose some of them make more sense in context. (One has to wonder what strange incidents led to the posting of some of these signs, though...) Another good one is <a href='http://autocompleteme.com/'>Autocomplete Me</a>.";

blogDB[200] = "<i>2/5/10:</i> I was rather surprised to discover that I now prefer programming in C to any other language that I know. This most definitely did not used to be the case. My first programming language was Python; possibly because of that, it took me quite a while to get the hang of certain features of C, like pointers and manual memory allocation. In undergrad I didn't do a whole lot with C. I wrote a compiler in it (with quite a few \"please help me with this C problem\" e-mails to Dr. Shannon), and I think that may have been pretty much it. Then grad school comes along, and suddenly I'm writing stuff in C left, right, and center. <br/><br/>First semester I wrote a couple of programs for Networking in C, and kept having to go to the TA for help because I kept getting segfaults caused by stupidities like \"char* str = (char*)malloc(sizeof(char*))\". Second semester I wrote programs to walk GCC's abstract syntax tree and \"unparse\" the program from which it was derived and to analyze programs for potentially uninitialized variables for Compilers. I also implemented an SQL parser and basic database. And it was all in C. At this point I still started off every new C project by making some set of stupid pointer or malloc errors and getting segfaults that took me forever to fix, though once I got going I did better. Third semester I had to both write and read large quantities of C code in Operating Systems as we modified a stripped-down version of XINU. By then my prowess had improved to only the occasional stupid memory/pointer mistake. And this semester I'm writing an interpreter for JavaScript from the ground up in C. My partner and I have so far managed to write a recursive-descent parser that can parse any JavaScript program, and we got ZERO segfaults while testing it.<br/><br/>Adding to my enjoyment of C is now that I don't waste time hunting down stupid segfaults, I have the time and courage to try out some more advanced features of C, such as passing pointers to functions as parameters and writing functions that take a variable number of arguments. I used both in the parser, with great success, and was (probably overly) proud of myself. But both techniques are pretty cool. Still not brave enough to try to tackle macros, though.<br/><br/>I have also been using other languages, so grad school hasn't been all C all the time. There are a smattering of things that I've written in Java--plus this is the third semester I've TA-ed a class that uses Java--and I'm doing my research/independent study in Python. I still like Java (OO stuff is handy), but I'm finding that I like Python less and less. Python is awesome for whipping up a quick script to get stuff done, and its string and array manipulation operations are downright heavenly as opposed to dealing with strings and array resizing in C. However, the dynamic typing and other freedoms that it allows can let you make your code really unreadable really fast. At least in a statically typed language you declare a variable and know forever more what type of data is in it. With Python variables, take your best guess. So I've come to the conclusion that languages that force some structure and organization on the programmer are a very good idea, unless the programmer has very good code organization skills and consistently exercises them. ";

blogDB[201] = "<i>2/14/10:</i> If Amazon wants me to ever buy a Kindle, they're going to have to make it smell like a real book. I'm a technically-inclined person who likes reading, so I'm somewhat interested in getting a Kindle. However, there are several things that keep me away from digital book readers in general. The first is that reading on backlit screens for long periods of time is horrible. The second is that I like the heft of a real book and the tactile feedback about how far you are through the book. The third is that I like a physical library to look at even when I'm not reading it (I also like browsing through physical books better). The Kindle does at least avoid the screen issues. Their screen is fantastic, though the delay and flash as the pages change is a little disconcerting. I know it's an artifact of how the technology works, but it's very un-booklike. And I very much like the Kindle's design in general, but my other preferences still stand. Plus I absolutely love the smell of books, especially new ones. I don't think I've ever opened a new book without immediately burying my nose in it and enjoying the beautiful smell. Therefore, until I hear of a version of the Kindle that smells like a book, I think I'll stick to the old-fashioned format.";

blogDB[202] = "<img src='pictures/i_am.png'><br/><i>Great, LO-M. Do you speak Bocce? I'm supposed to find one that speaks Bocce.</i><br/><br/><i>3/3/10:</i> I STILL can't believe how completely awesome XKCD is. Today's comic is beyond hilarious!";

blogDB[203] = "<i>3/12/10:</i> In the spirit of <a href='http://itmademyday.com/'>It Made My Day</a>: A few days ago I got a hug because I was wearing a Doctor Who T-shirt. IMMD! :D";

blogDB[204] = "<i>3/17/10:</i> I hope I never \"get used\" to flying to the point that I fail to notice how interesting it is. I think what always gets me the most is suddenly being <i>above</i> clouds instead of below them, seeing their backs instead of their bellies, out of range of their ability to block out the sunlight. Instead of being sandwiched between the earth and clouds, being sandwiched between the clouds and space with the ground on the far side of the clouds. Unfortunately, when there isn't clouds or darkness to block my view of the ground, I'm usually also depressed about how thick the human infestation is. Most times it's hard to tell how thoroughly humans have spread over the planet until one sees it from the air. When everything as far as the eye can see is encrusted with houses and streets and such, I just want to cry. This poor, poor planet. ";

blogDB[205] = "<img src='pictures/autocomplete_deadbadger.jpg'></br><br/><i>3/28/10:</i> A gem from <a href='http://autocompleteme.com'>Autocompleteme</a>. For even more hilarity, read the actual article  <a href='http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml'>How to Install Linux on a Dead Badger</a>.";

blogDB[206] = "<i>4/2/10:</i> I'd never quite realized how deeply and greatly frustrating it is to be unable to find clothes that fit properly until I finally found some. Being 5'11\", I'm considerably taller than the female norm, and this has made clothes shopping very, VERY frustrating for me ever since high school. Jeans weren't too bad for a while, because long jeans fit me quite well, but when the trend started towards skinny jeans (which I hate) long flares became harder and harder to find. This made shopping for jeans about as fun and rewarding as pushing water uphill. As far as tops went, I stuck with T-shirts because the fitted tops were always too short on me. And I don't even want to talk about how impossible it is to find women's size 12W shoes in a store.<br/><br/>Finally I got angry enough to try my luck at online shopping. This has never been my favorite venue of clothes shopping because I prefer to physically see and try something on before handing over money for it. However, with my only pair of shoes that properly fit about to fall apart and winter coming on fast, last fall I finally did some online shoe shopping, which on my first try yielded fantastic results: a pair of sneakers whose look I like and which are the most comfortable shoes I've owned in years. Bolstered by this success, I next tried out jeans, and was particularly elated to discover that stores like JC Penney and Gap actually DO have clothes for tall women, they just only sell them online. A few pairs of delightfully long flares later, my success was growing. I was even delighted to discover that a few of the jeans I ordered were actually <i>too</i> long. After years of frustration over shortness, trying on jeans that I could easily wear 4 inch heels with nearly made me die of happiness. Next I ordered a jacket, since too-short sleeves were third on my list of clothing frustrations. Had to try a few times to get the size right, but another success! Eventually I branched out into tops, and I've basically redone my entire wardrobe in a few months. I've ordered at least $1000 in clothes from Old Navy, Gap, and JC Penney in the last few months (no, I haven't kept them all; I order lots of sizes and colors to make sure I get something I like and return the majority). <br/><br/>Which brings me back to my opening sentence. I've always known that finding only ill-fitting clothing annoyed me greatly (it was sort of obvious because I was invariably surly by the end of any clothes-shopping trip), but I had never quite realized the depth of my irritation until I found out how delightfully giddy finding clothes that <i>actually fit</i> makes me. Seriously, it's a little scary how happy I am. <br/><br/>Curse the rest of you people for being too short and causing me years of frustration! :) ";

blogDB[207] = "<i>4/10/10:</i> I'm very glad Doctor Who is back, although my Saturday afternoons are pretty much shot as far as productivity goes now, since I'm first anticipating and then watching (and re-watching) the week's episode. I must say, I'm warming to Doc 11 quite quickly. His intro episode is one of my favorites, probably tying with Tom Baker's as my favorite (I can never get over the jump rope and the costume-choosing montage). His second episode was also quite good, and I find it interesting how much that episode reminded me of the old series. It somehow just had an old-series feel. The return of the big screen on the TARDIS wall certainly helped with that feel. That and everyone sitting around watching each other on monitors, I think. I also enjoyed the cameo of Magpie Electricals. <br/><br/>I also just re-watched <i>The Eleventh Hour</i>, and suddenly realized that this is the second time the Doctor stole his outfit from a hospital. Having remembered that, now I really want to watch Jon Pertwee's first episode... ";

blogDB[208] = "<i>4/22/10:</i> The Icelandic volcano situation is interesting. I was wondering why planes had to avoid the ash clouds so avidly until my professor explained that since the ash is rock, if it gets into a hot engine it melt and forms glass. I can see how a jet engine with an interior coating of glass might not work so well. But if nothing else, the volcano's led to some gorgeous and awe-inspiring pictures. The Boston Globe's got some particularly interesting photo collections <a href='http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/icelands_disruptive_volcano.html'>here</a> and <a href='http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html'>here</a>. The second page has some particulary badass pictures of lightning in the clouds of ash coming off the volcano (apparently ash clouds generate a lot of static electricity). The first picture on the second page would fit in really well in Mordor. Be nifty if Eyjafjallajökull translated to something like \"Mount Doom\". :)<br/><br/>Icelandic seems like a pretty interesting language. The words certainly look impressive (sort of like German on steroids). I found a pronunciation of the volcano's name (at the bottom of the page <a href='http://www.slate.com/id/2250998/?from=rss'>here</a>), and even after 3 or 4 listens I can't get more than the first half of it. The end of it sort of spirals off into sounds that I didn't know existed. For even more fun: Kirkjubaejarklaustur, Eyjafjallasveit, Sveinbjoernsso. The first two are apparently places and the third is a last name (found 'em mentioned in the photographs linked to above). If nothing else, it sure seems like a language that likes the letter J, which is kind of neat.";

blogDB[209] = "<i>4/30/10:</i> To continue my habit of only posting things when I should be doing massive amounts of homework and studying, here's something I just found. In response to <a href='http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/obama_being_forced_to_look_at.html#photo=1xundefined'>A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane Things</a> (which actually has pretty funny captions), someone took Photoshop to the original images to result in <a href='http://www.flickr.com/photos/dryponder/sets/72157623726710218/'>Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things</a>. One of the awesome things is a TARDIS. Unsurprisingly, this completely won me over. The subsequent picture involving a lightsaber didn't hurt either.<br/><br/>Oh, and I love this <a href='http://www.icanhascheezburger.com'>ICanHasCheezburger</a> picture:<br/><br/><img src='pictures/not_taste_ebil.jpg'>" ;

blogDB[210] = "<i>5/1/10:</i> I'm convinced that I picked the coolest topic ever for my Information Security project. I'm writing a set of webpages that gives an overview of the security printing features commonly found in currency, credit cards, and the like. They are very cool. When I finish, I'll probably put the pages up here. In the course of researching holograms, I found out about stereograms, which are possibly the coolest thing ever. Basically they're how 3D movies are made, but you can also gain the effect with a pair of normal pictures that were taken from slightly different angles. Instead of using special glasses or the like to feed one picture to each eye, you can actually just cross your eyes to combine them. It takes a little practice to focus on something with your eyes crossed, but when you manage it, the 3D result is freaking awesome. An example image from the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereogram'>Wikipedia page on Stereograms</a>:<br/><br/><img src='images/220px-Asiatic_hybrid_lilium_stereogram_flipped.jpg'><br/>Instructions: \"To view the image cross your eyes until four images appear, then allow the images to converge to a set of three, focusing on the centre image.\" The Wikipedia page also has other images, as well as a much larger version of this image. I'm starting to get a headache from having my eyes crossed so much, but these images are just too cool to stop looking at.";

blogDB[211] = "<i>5/7/10:</i> A few XKCD comics that are awesome but I don't think I've mentioned yet:<br/><ul><li>Computers are awesome: <a href='http://xkcd.com/676/'>676</a></li><li><i>Die Hard</i> with sysadmins: <a href='http://xkcd.com/705/'>705</a></li><li>Why you should organize your game cupboard: <a href='http://xkcd.com/708/'>708</a></li><li>Sauron's inspiration: <a href='http://xkcd.com/712/'>712</a></li><li>Computer scientists can't cook: <a href='http://xkcd.com/720/'>720</a></li><li>Laser pointer dots are tasty: <a href='http://xkcd.com/729/'>729</a></li><li>More beneath the surface: <a href='http://xkcd.com/731/'>731</a></li><li>Computer troubleshooting flowchart: <a href='http://xkcd.com/627/'>627</a></li><li>Beware of numeric overflow: <a href='http://xkcd.com/571/'>571</a></li><li>Don Quixote's destiny: <a href='http://xkcd.com/556/'>556</a></li></ul>";

blogDB[212] = "<img src='pictures/fordconnery.jpg'><br/><br/> <i>5/9/10:</i> The caption does have a point there. I'm also amused that they seem to have been tied up by the most OCD person ever. That rope is wrapped WAY too neatly. ";

blogDB[213] = "<i>5/10/10:</i> I'm going back and reading through all the XKCD comics again. I'm amazed how many of them I get now that I didn't get the last time I read through them, which was only a few years ago. Anyway, more good ones:<br/><br/>Computers & Programming<ul><li>Pointers: <a href='http://xkcd.com/138/'>138</a></li><li>Sudo: <a href='http://xkcd.com/149/'>149</a></li><li>Commenting: <a href='http://xkcd.com/156/'>156</a></li><li>Regexes: <a href='http://xkcd.com/208/'>208</a></li><li>Escape Artist: <a href='http://xkcd.com/234/'>234</a></li><li>Code Talkers: <a href='http://xkcd.com/257/'>257</a></li><li>NP complete: <a href='http://xkcd.com/287/'>287</a></li><li>Gotos: <a href=http://xkcd.com/292/'>292</a></li><li>Compiling: <a href='http://xkcd.com/303/'>303</a></li><li>Ballmer Peak: <a href='http://xkcd.com/323/'>323</a></li><li>Turing Test: <a href='http://xkcd.com/329/'>329</a></li><li>Boot Sector: <a href='http://xkcd.com/340/'>340</a></li><li>Python: <a href='http://xkcd.com/353/'>353</a></li><li>Compiler Complaints: <a href='http://xkcd.com/371/'>371</a></li><li>Epoch: <a href='http://xkcd.com/376/'>376</a></li><li>Real Programmers: <a href='http://xkcd.com/378/'>378</a></li><li>Traveling Salesman: <a href='http://xkcd.com/399/'>399</a></li><li>Security Holes: <a href='http://xkcd.com/424/'>424</a></li><li>Voting Machines: <a href='http://xkcd.com/463/'>463</a></li></ul><br/>Others<ul><li>Communicating Badly: <a href='http://xkcd.com/169/'>169</a></li><li>Proximity to Cats: <a href='http://xkcd.com/231/'>231</a></li><li>Recursion: <a href='http://xkcd.com/244/'>244</a></li><li>Captions: <a href='http://xkcd.com/262/'>262</a></li><li>Jon Stewart: <a href='http://xkcd.com/360/'>360</a></li><li>Star Wars Books: <a href='http://xkcd.com/367/'>367</a></li><li>Impostor: <a href='http://xkcd.com/451/'>451</a></li><li>Scantron: <a href='http://xkcd.com/499/'>499</a></li></ul>";

blogDB[214] = "<i>5/22/10:</i> <a href='http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html'>A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages</a> is funny. That is all.";