Explosive Donut

Another snowstorm came through today. There wasn’t as much snow as the storm that came through two weeks ago, but there wasn’t the mad panic beforehand either. I woke up today, looked out my window, and thought that it would be fun getting to class.

It’s a much wetter snow than the last snow. It’s right around 32 degF today and was warmer yesterday, so a lot of the snow melted when it hit the ground. After a while, a bit of wet sludge accumulated. I didn’t get hit by any sludge-splashes on the way in but the side of my jeans not facing the road got really wet. I have no idea how that happened, just that all of a sudden, I felt really wet.

Campus always looks nice when it snows though. I’ll enjoy looking at it before it gets dirty, or at least before I have to go outside again.

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.

Episode starts with the most intense warning. “Viewer Discretion…IS ADVISED.”

President Palmer wants to put a (former?) terrorist on TV to support the US. How does this help…anyone? If Bush put Osama Bin Laden on TV for a happy love fest, I think a lot of people on both sides would be real happy.

What kind of crazy tin foil did that one henchman have on his cell phone antenna? I hope by 2012 people stop putting dumb crap on their cell phones to improve reception. Annoying ring tones seem to be a thing of the past at least.

Chloe’s computer buddy Milo’s got some crazy pills. Didn’t get saved by Chloe and her manic M16, but Jack Bauer saving you must be pretty sweet.

Marilyn needs to stop crying and whining. We all know she wants to get with Jack. Again.

How does everyone remember addresses in CTU? I can barely remember my address.

How many times has Jack said “How could I have been so stupid?” It’s gotta be at least once a season.

The Muslim women just showed up after being oddly absent for a few hours. She’s got Milo’s password too, so 95% chance she’s evil. Maybe she’s Nina in disguise.

Bauer Sr.’s got good taste in hotels. When was the last time I got a plasma TV? I’m lucky if the previous guests weren’t smoking the bedsheets.

“As a family.” That’s a funny thing to say to the wife of the son you killed.

Josh knows granddaddy’s gonna kill him. But can he pull himself away from the plasma TV?

Doesn’t anyone think it’s odd that two guys keep going in a dark closet together?

Chloe’s boy’s getting plastered outside the liquor store. If only he did that before arming the nuclear suitcases. Also, nobody has ever eaten a mint with such shame before.

What’s that crazy amorphous blob tattoo on Milo’s arm? Looks like he fell asleep on a wood burning iron.

Now I know why mom always told me never to talk with strange men about killing the president in some dark closet. They only want you for your security clearance.

Jack utilizes the Bauer sedation system (punch ‘em in the face)!

“I didn’t metabolize the alcohol.” I wonder if the state police buy that line.

Nobody calls Jack a “civil servant.” Bauer Sr. is completely screwed now.

Sweet, Bauer Sr. doesn’t execute Jack and gives him a free Palm Pilot! What a dad.

Logan looks like he’s going for the crazy Mel Gibson look.

And now I have to wait 6 days and 23 hours.

After yesterday’s snow, Cambridge was greeted with rain and sleet followed by below freezing temperatures. As thrilled as I was to plant my feet in some cold puddles deeper than my shoes, the real fun started when I left my apartment today.

The coefficient of friction on any walking-related surfaces near me has dropped significantly, including the stairs out of my apartment. It’s tricky carrying a heavy mountain bike down a flight of stairs that would rather see you land on your head a few times. Most of the roads aren’t terrible, so riding a bike is much better than walking. I saw one guy who was walking completely lose his grip and fall on his butt like a Looney Toon slipping on a banana. He didn’t seem to find the humor though.

I should really buy a shovel. I have no idea how I’m going to dig my car out of this frozen mess. One of my classmates lost an axel after it froze to the ground when he tried to pull out!

When I walked outside, some lovely Boston weather greeted me:

Perfect weather for riding a bike

But still, I had to get to class. I could either could walk 25min and have soaking feet, or risk braining myself on the road and try the bike. I chose the later.

 Biking in the snow was sort of fun in a “most fun I don’t want to have again” sort of way. You really have to pay attention to what you’re doing lest your wheels go in the opposite direction your body is. I cut through a parking lot to save a little time but it wasn’t plowed so it was very slow and slippery. There’s something strange about going 1mph while constantly skidding out. You’re in constant danger of falling into 6″ of snow.

I made it to my building in just about the usual time. Despite the slower speeds, there’s virtually no traffic out so it didn’t take much longer. Cambridge, MA seems to have collectively said, “screw it,” and went back to bed.

I also got a Zambian-themed package from Chilumba, who recently got back from his visit there. One item of particular interest is the following wooden elephant rod with two protruding screws:

Care to guess what it is?

I’m not really sure what it is, but I have a few guesses:

• Zambian Throwing Star: Hold the bottom of the handle and throw it at someone. If you’re good, you’ll hit them in the skull with the screws.
• Refrigerator Door Handle: For those who need a little more when opening their fridge.
• Bottle Opener: Not sure of the mechanics here, but maybe bottles in Zambia are different too.
• Bar Beer Keg Handle: In case I come across any African-themed house parties.
• One-way Lightswitch: Tired and want to go to bed? Throw it at your light bulb. Note: cannot turn lights on.

Like the other winter holidays, my winter break after Christmas was pretty low key. I mostly went to the library, kitchen, or cafe to work on either of my semester research projects, my compilers final assignment, or my compilers final exam.

Doing something that seemed really important a few weeks ago

There were some bright spots too. I stayed home for a few more days and had a semi-relaxing time with my parents. Note, this was “semi” due to the previously mentioned work, not my parents. One of the nice things about being home rather than living with three other guys is that sometimes food appears without doing anything and it’s quite good. Desserts also happen this way, although I’ve noticed the longer I’m at home, the less this tends to happen.

Food is so great.

It’s also nice to see my parents more often, although after seeing me three times in the past week, I think they might start to wish I was back in Seattle.

My father is clearly thrilled that I’m randomly taking pictures  

A few days before New Years, I went back to Boston and met up with Melody. We hadn’t seen each other since mid-December, so it was time for more Christmas gifts! Melody got me two different Final Fantasy Games (III for DS, XII for PS2). For the record, I madly played FF3 after my last final and beat it in a week. These games usually take me a year to beat, but I played a lot. Melody also got me a nice black fleece that I’ve worn every day since (it’s very cold in Boston). I got Melody a purse from Burberry. She took pictures of it that day and put it on some “purse forum” website, which I guess means that it was good (or really bad).

Fits three crackers and a pen

Melody and I also went to First Night Boston. We both had fun, but I’m not sure if I would excitedly go again. There’s lots of different events to go to, but I didn’t feel as though any of there were great. There was one event that stood out: Eva Dean Dance Co. The dancers were dancing with those giant balls found at the gym for doing situps and whatnot. Besides the otherwise mediocre dancing, they were playing with giant bouncy balls while the audience was eatting this crap up. Everyone around me was clapping every few minutes while I felt like I was watching the Emperor’s New Clothes in dance form. I was trying very hard not to audibly laugh.

Boston loves ice sculptures on New Years

After the dance party and a particularly unamusing standup routine, we headed over to the ice sculptures in Copley to celebrate 2007 with the mob. There was some crazy electronica band outside that was pretty good but seemed to be a minute early with their countdown. The crowd didn’t seem to care as they got to celebrate twice.

After New Years, it was pretty much “back to work.” I ended up getting all of my projects, assignments, and finals done. I haven’t received my grades yet, but I think I at least obtained the “good enough” needed for grad student life.  

I went to an advance screening of the new “Reno 911: Miami” movie.

Note the sleazy hotel in the background. This is central to the “plot”

It was a bit tricky to get in though. First, I showed up over an hour early and there was already a huge line there. The promotion was done through MySpace so naturally the line was full of suburban pre-teens trying to flip gang signs or working on their goth posture. And me. And a strange senior Russian couple. The Russian guy seemed to enjoy talking to me, despite me having no idea what he was talking about. I think at one point he was asking me about some oscar nominated films but then moved onto praising “Epic Movie”. He also yelled “911″ into the roaming cameras, so if you see that, that’s Mr. Russian guy. I’m probably trying to avoid the camera somewhere nearby.

After over an hour of standing in line, they let everyone in the theatre, or at least everyone that got there at least 45 minutes ahead. We then had an hour of listening to one of the seemingly retarded MySpace employees extoling praise upon the site which got such valued members of society to attend.

An hour after the official start, Jones (black guy) and Garcia (latino guy) showed up in character to introduce the movie. Maybe it was the idiot MySpace guy that was talking before them, but they are two very funny actors. They then watched the movie with us.

The movie was great. It was similar to Supertroopers in the “idiot cops on the loose” sense, except it didn’t suck halfway into the movie. If you’ve seen the show, you will like this movie. It’s really just a giant episode with some better effects and more explitvies.

After the episode, Jones and Garcia took questions for 20min, and not surprisingly, they both think Trudy is their least favorite deputy. The crowd agreed. Afterwords, they signed posters and said hi to everyone. Jones thinks I’m a pimp:

Garcia had been signing posters for 30min before signing mine

I was in Boston when the T’s red line shut down and no. To answer your question Bryan, I did not have anything to do with it. I suppose I’ll have to dress up as Ignignokt or Err (the odd characters that caused this mild insanity).

 
Source: Fark, of course

From listening to the news, this sounds like a much bigger deal that it actually was. First, from the limited amount of information I could find, only the T’s red line was shut down. If you weren’t taking that particular subway line, you would never have been affected by it. Also, anyone that regularly takes the T, especially the red line, knows that it inexplicably shuts down all the time. I remember that a newspaper caught on fire inside the tunnels several times in one day. Furthermore, someone was crushed to death in one of the Big Dig tunnels, and was shut down for months. Why hasn’t Menino made a big deal about who is going to pay to fix that?

The only reason I even heard about this was from a friend who had to take the T to get home and a warning from people who were organizing a party. Nobody was going ape or rioting in the streets. This was a real pain in the ass for some people, but I think most people just assumed it was a hoax. There was no panic.

It’s nice that Turner has agreed to pay Boston for the security costs but I wouldn’t expect them to. On the news, you would hear that someone had set up boxes with wires haning out in a suspicious manner. In reality, they looked more like Lite-Brites:

 
Guess which one shut down the red line?

What if they had put the Mooninite lite-brite apparatus in a nice enclosure? I think it would have looked more like a bomb, since you wouldn’t know what’s in it. By exposing the circuit board, it’s pretty clear it’s just some electronic graffiti.

I’ve also heard DHS recently praised Boston for its handling. This is odd, considering that these signs were placed three weeks ago. Personally, I find it sad that anyone can just put glorified children’s toys around a city and cause such an uproar. I’d like to know more from Boston about why this became such a big deal when it should have been quickly clear that there were no explosives involved. Reacting to a bomb threat is not enough – we must learn to react with an appropriate response.

Additional Thoughts:
I’ve heard a few people saying that this whole situation shows that “the terrorists have won” since a stupid thing like this caused such issues. I think that this would be a problem for terrorists as well. Every time there’s a bomb hoax, people get desensitized to it. If this happens enough, the threat of a bomb seems less since it seems unlikely, reducing the potential for terror. Unfortunately, the only way to for terrorists to counteract this would be to increase the ratio of real bombings to hoaxes, meaning that this kind of over-reaction could cause more bombings.

This is actually a pretty good marketing deal for Turner. They’ll be paying somewhere between $500,000-$750,000 for constant national and possilbly worldwide exposure for several days. The Superbowl’s advertising rates are $2.4M for a thirty second spot.