Explosive Donut

Winter break starts tomorrow. I just have one presentation to get through. We’ve got plenty of pretty bar graphs and diagrams. My only concern is keeping it under ten minutes.

However, my break isn’t so much a break from work, just a break from classes. I have something due when I get back from each of my classes. In one class I have multiple things due! Currently, I’ll have to finish two projects, prepare reports for both, a presentation for one, and do two problem sets, and study for a final exam. One of my professors described his problem set as “harder than all of your previous assignments. Combined.”

Fun, fun, fun.

However, after finals in mid-January, I have another week and a half off. This is a real break, although everyone else will be busy with something else. It’s like working weekends – you only have free time when no one else does.

I cruised through my box of chocolate lucky charms in three days. How was it? Awesometastic.

“Lucky is my copilot”

It really tastes like lucky charms in chocolate milk. If you like lucky charms, and you like chocolate milk, you’ll like chocolate lucky charms. It also had more marshmallows than I remember lucky charms having as a kid. Back in the day, I really hated the cheerios stuff and would try to have as many spoonfuls have at least one marshmallow to balance it out. This time, it seemed like half of the pieces were marshmallows. That’s catering to your audience.

The other odd thing I noticed was that it had less calories than Honey Bunches of Oats. I’m not saying that Chocolate Lucky Charms is the healthiest breakfast, but it seems that Honey Bunches of Oats might be hitting the honey pretty hard.

Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen 24 Season 5 and are planning on it, you will want to kill me if you continue reading

Only one more month until Jack is back!

Jack’s looking a tad haggard since being abducted in the men’s room by the entire nation of China.

Now here’s the really odd thing. From the trailer, it seems that China returns Jack to the USA. This is the same guy who voluntarily got addicted to smack for his cover and then shakes it in under a day. One can only assume that he’s blackmailing the entirety of China into freeing him. The “voluntary release” is surely due to Jack kindly allowing the Chinese government to save a little face. Jack could take all 1.6 billion down if he really wanted to.

In related news, if you’re planning to do anything with me from 8:00pm to 10:00pm on Sunday, January 14 or Monday, January 15, guess again. Unless you’re planning on watching 24.

I was walking down the cereal aisle this weekend and I saw what may be the greatest cereal ever. Chocolate. Lucky. Charms.

 
“The Enabler”

Of course, I bought it. Unfortunately though, I have a Costco-sized (and only recently opened) bag of “Honey Bunches o’ Oats” that I have to get through first. While I’ve been waiting to try Lucky’s latest masterpiece, I did a little research. Turns out that the Cheerios-stuff in Lucky Charms is Cheerios. General Mills wanted to make a new cereal in six months (which is supposedly impossible), so they just combined Cheerios with “circus peanuts” (apparently the marshmallows, not actual peanuts).

It also seems that the marshmallows are no longer made from pork skin.  Awesome.

I’m proud to say that I’ve found a Google query totally unrelated to the words “explosive” or “donut” that make my website show up in the first 10 results!

Search for “sneaky toilet” or just click on here if you’re lazy. I’m #7. Woot!

It’s a small start, but something to be barely proud of.

Update: I just dropped to #9. Damn it!

When I woke up today:

• I woke up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. It may have been because the house was below 60 degrees (F).
• I was panicking over a deteriorating project which every single dependency has become a total time vacuum.
• The interwebs was all messed up (a big deal for me at least).

When I got home

• The heat was 73 degrees! Nutty.
• We talked with the prof we’re doing the project for. We’ve got a plan that doesn’t really have sketchy dependencies anymore. Woot!
• The interwebs are pretty good now.

The only odd thing was that the cell phone I was getting repaired was supposed to come back today. It was delivered…to Texas. I wonder what Motorola’s up to.

Today was pretty rough. More work keeps stacking up and I’m doing my best to stay afloat. I’ve already jettisoned daily trips to the gym. I’m reading my papers a bit more briskly and trying to wrap my head around the concept “good enough.”

I might drop off of the planet until I can get my workload under control. If I’m not terribly responsive, please don’t take it personally. Unless you’re trying to give me more stuff to do. In that case, please take it very personally.

And thanks to Davey Brown for trying to calm me down over email and Melody for just hanging out in my super-cold room and listening to me panic. I’m feeling better, thanks!

I think the socks in my laundry hamper are somehow settling to the bottom. I kinda need to do my laundry, but not badly. However, I’m completely out of clean socks. Well, that’s what I thought.

Even socks are different in Japan.

After desperately rummaging around my dresser for maybe a pair that was hiding I found a bunch of socks I’ve never worn from Japan. I have a bit of an obsession with a store called Muji. Imagine if you took the utilitarian simplicity of Ikea but made clothing, furniture and stationery instead. Apparently they sold a car with Nissan that didn’t have any logos on it. Muji hates logos.

I hear there’s one in New York but I haven’t been yet. I don’t get to go very often (as I’ve only seen Muji in Japan and Hong Kong) and I tend to buy anything that I might want that would fit in my baggage. Two and a half years ago I bought some socks which had a seperate big toe. The idea is to wear them when you’re wearing sandals so your sock doesn’t get caught on the strap. In Japan, this is very nice since everyone wears sandals inside. In the US, it doesn’t help me so much so these socks have spent the past 30 months in my various dressers and moving boxes.

As I didn’t have any other socks available, I wore these babies today. And it feels really weird. It’s like my big toe is telling me it’s confused all day. It doesn’t know why it’s getting all this special attention.

God help me if I wear the pair that has seperate parts for each toe.

More Info on Muji:

• Muji’s Philosophy
• Analysis on Useful+Agreeable
• Muji @ Wikipedia