In a recent discussion about the history of papermaking, I recently thought how beneficial it is that books are made of paper, and not our favorite small woodland creature, the squirrel *. Thus, i came up with many reasons why such a thing is not so:

1. Books are made up of many pages, thus necessitating many squirrels. This creates multiple problems:
   • Squirrels like to run around alot, therefore your book would never be in the same place, be it a library or a bookcase
   • Squirrels do not like to be packed tightly into book form, thus your book's 'pages' would constantly be scattered across the entire area in which the squirrels roam
   • Squirrels need to eat to survive, and so you would incur not only the initial cost of the book but the additional cost of squirrel food to maintain your squirrels
2. Squirrels have fur, and ink does not adhere easily to non-uniform surfaces, plus hair falls out periodically, which would cause words to randomly disappear from your book
   • The animals could have their hair shaved off, but having 1,472 shaved and word-tattooed squirrels for your War and Peace novel would just look creepy
3. Squirrels only live to be less than 10 human years old, and so you would either have to:
   • keep losing pages as the squirrels expired, and give up your book entirely once the last squirrel passed on;
   • keep replacing your squirrels with new ones (which would incur additional costs to the aforementioned ones)
4. Like many natural animals, squirrels reproduce to continue their species, and so eventually you would acrue many new 'pages' with no words on them, and you'd have to feed these too, or give them away
   • The entreprenurial among us might see this as a good opportunity to go into the writing material business, as book consumers could easily become book-material suppliers
   • This could also solve your expiring 'page' problem, if you used the new squirrels to replace your absent pages
5. Squirrels are naturally timid and skeptical creatures who can run very fast, so getting your hands on one in order to read it would be difficult
6. Squirrels have sharp teeth and claws, and so even if you did manage to get a hold of one, be prepared to endure or defend against deep wounds to your fingers and hands

As you can see, there are many reasons why books are not made of squirrels, some of which are detailed above. If you have any more reasons, please let me know. Paper is for books, and squirrels are for, uh, entertainment :)

* a.k.a. 'dawgie' to some people i know ;)

So, when we arrived at Meijer, we proceeded to the rear of the store, to the Cans/Bottles area. Sure enough, they have these fancy machines with LCD screens and a circular shoot chute, into which you stick your bottle/can. Having quite the large bag of cans, i started loading up the shoot chute... Immediately the screen started flashing, telling me i had too many cans in there, and i have to insert them one at a time. ??!!?? Why in the world would a bottle/can crusher need them inserted singly? So i did, and suddenly i found my answer. These fancy machines are SO fancy that they actually scan each bottle/can that is inserted, so that they know the bottle/can was indeed purchased in a state that collects deposits. And it does this scanning by rotating the bottle/can until it finds what it is looking for (the barcode?). Only then does it suck in the bottle/can (cans get pushed one way, and bottles get pushed the opposite way in the crusher [different mechanisms i guess] ). After all that, a little $0.10 appeared on the screen, and the machine was happily waiting for another bottle/can. Encouraged, i inserted another, the smile widening on my face as i watched the bottle/cans spin magically and get scanned and crushed. The machine can even do 2-liter bottles! So, after much enjoyment, Rachel finished with her bags of bottle/cans and i did mine, and we ended up with quite a tidy little bit of money, to spend as we wished at Meijer :) Pretty cool, if i do say so myself :)

The grand state of Pennsylvania, my home, does not do this, by the way... Thanks Rachel, for suggesting this topic!

* not exact words but that's the gist of what she said ;)

Life has been so busy lately -- i thought last year was crazy, but this one has been full-on, non-stop 24/7 ever since my family drove up here with me to help me move. Well, to be honest, they also came along to tour around A2 and see the U of M, and i hope they enjoyed it. I did! We also stopped in 'Retarded Cleveland' (why is it retarded?) for a night, seeing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was pretty cool. Since that time, i've moved out of my old apartment, lived in my new roommmate Josh's old house for a few days, stored my stuff at Josh's, Rachel's, and in the Firestone Service Center (the latest location being because my car had a nice ol' gasline leak that required my car [and all my stuff in it] to be impounded for a few days while they repaired it). Finally i arrived in my new place, got settled in, helped Rachel move into her new place, saw the return of my friends including srah from France, and began the life of a 2nd year SI student.

I intend to blog more later, but here is something to say hello and prove i am still here. On that note, i have some work to do, so until next time... :)

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Answers to history tests and in Sunday school quizzes given by children between 5th and 6th grade in Ohio. They were collected over a period of three years by two teachers:

Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies who all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandos. He died before he ever reached Canada but his commandos made it.

Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. He was an actual hysterical figure as well as being in the bible. It sounds like he was sort of busy too.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a young female moth.

Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

In the first Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits and threw the java. The games were messier then than they show on TV now.

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king.

Dying, he gasped out 'Same to you, Brutus.'

Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw for reasons I don't really understand. The English and French still have problems.

Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah!" And that was the end of the fighting for a long while.

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.

Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking.

Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper which was very dangerous to all his men.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Since then no one ever found it.

Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and also declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." He was a naturalist for sure. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's Mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.

On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposing insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.

Bethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf that he wrote loud music and became the father of rock and roll. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up.

Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men.

Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits but I don't know why.

Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He wrote the Organ of the Species. It was very long and people got upset about it and had trials to see if it was really true. He sort of said God's days were not just 24 hours but without watches who knew anyhow? I don't get it.

Madman Curie discovered radio. She was the first woman to do what she did. Other women have become scientists since her but they didn't get to find radios because they were already taken.

Karl Marx was one of the Marx Brothers. The other three were in the movies. Karl made speeches and started revolutions. Someone in the family had to have a job, I guess.

We didn't have tickets yet, hoping to get them at the ticket office. After getting worried from seeing so many closed ticket windows, one area was still open, and packed with people. We get in line, and no more than 2 minutes later, a guy approaches us and asks if we want to buy 2 tickets! They're relatively good seats for $30 each, and so we take them happily (after paying, of course...). We're almost at Gate 2 to enter, tickets in hand, and then we realize i needed to check my backpack first (none allowed in the stadium). So $5 later and another trip half way around the stadium, we get back to Gate 2 and get in, as the game is starting. We sit down, watch the first inning, get some obscenely expensive food and continue the game.

The Yanks were down by 1 or 2 runs almost the whole time, but I was amused by such things as the classic beach ball getting tossed around until a cop snatched it away, beer that tasted like nasty soda and cost $8, the YMCA-dancing infield smoothing guys, some fans throwing an A's homerun ball continuously back into the outfield, wondering how many times the beer guy says "draft or light" each night, and generally seeing a crowd of 47,885 people just enjoying themselves and watching a baseball game.

Finally, in the bottom of the ninth, after much suspense, Gary Sheffield slams a two-run homer into left field to tie it up, 6-6. The crowd goes wild, and knows the Yankees are still in the running. Mariano Rivera came out to pitch for overtime, to his own unique accompaniment of Metallica's "Enter Sandman". After 3 more halves of inactivity, and the game approaching four hours in length, A-Rod finally let everyone go home by crushing a 2-run homer into left field - almost directly in front of us! As Frank Sinatra's classic "New York, New York" sang thru the loudspeakers, alot of happy Yankees fans left the stadium, crowding onto the subway trains for home.

Indeed, it was quite a great night -- as i was walking out to retrieve my backpack, listening to the music, i realized i'm really going to miss this place (i leave this coming Sunday). That song has some deeper, closer meaning to me now, and these past 3 months have given me a glimpse of the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, and the overall greatness that NY'ers experience everyday, and the dual hometown/celebrity feeling that attracts so many people to the Big Apple. Here's to you, New York City!

Thought i'd give a quick rundown of my weekend of museums and more. On Saturday i went with one of my SI friends (Miss A) to two museums, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum. We originally wanted to visit Coney Island, but because of impending rain, we decided against it. The decision turned out to be a good one.

The Whitney was quite enjoyable, displaying alot of modern art, from unusual nature art by Ana Mendieta to intriguing word art by Ed Ruscha (see the exhibits page on the site for much better descriptions...). Then we met two other SI friends (Mr. J and Miss M) at the Guggenheim after walking the 8 or so blocks between museums. We arrived at the big white spiral teacup, and began observing the main exhibit of Constantin Brancusi. He is a sculptor who primarily deals with abstract white marble designs, alot of them looking like eggs with alien faces lying on their sides. There was also a more traditional side exhibit where we found some Renoir, Van Gogh, and Picasso. Then, out of the blue, Miss A. saw Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General! He was with his blond wife and two burly bodyguards, having a personal tour by whom i assume was the curator. Miss M. took some pics with her camera phone, and we followed him down the spiral, watching him mosey through the crowds, mostly unseen, until he got to the base of the museum, and people could really see him. It was cool :)

Then Miss A. and I relaxed in Central Park while the other two met some other friends. We soon found out that they went to get Broadway tickets from the 50% off TKTS place. So we said we'd see whatever they got, and they bought Phantom of the Opera tickets! Wow! :D So, even tho Mr. J. and Miss. M. decided not to go, Miss A. and i attended. We had great seats for getting tix an hour before the show, and the play was great. I like PotO music alot, and seeing the actors and hearing the live performance was even better. I felt a bit underdressed, but hey, it was dark most of the time anyway... :) I've been wanting to go to a Broadway play this summer, and now it happened. Miss A. and i got some very late dinner outside Grand Central Station (because Times Square/Broadway looked like New Year's Eve, with all the crazy people) and then we parted our respective ways for Brooklyn and Midtown, ending a long but very eventful (and for the most part unplanned) day.

I realized that i am still a very worrisome person. I would almost call myself nervous, but really it's only when i worry. When i worry, i'm also quite creative, as i think of every possible depressing, saddening, or otherwise bad reason supporting and enhancing my worry. I build up the worry so much that it becomes ridiculous, at which point i begin to realize that in all likelyhood, whatever is making me worry can't possibly be as bad as i'm imagining it to be, and i start to relax. Or else i search for and find something that relieves my worry, by snapping me back into reality, whether it be some quote or a comment by someone, or similar advice. Fortunately, i've gotten this recovery period down to a few hours now, and i'm feeling better. The worry-attacks also don't happen often anymore, and i can usually stop things from becoming worrisome alot better than i used to. I guess i'm making some progress :)

For some reason i felt like blogging about this, despite some hesitations (because this is my first feeling-revealing post i've made).

So i leave work 15 minutes early so i can get in to the place before 7pm closing. There were 3 hair stylists there when i arrived, 2 women and a man. For some reason, i rarely have my hair cut by a man, and so this was interesting already. I got my hair washed, while the guy hummed to the music playing on 103.5 FM. Then i specified that i wanted it shorter, but not much shorter in the front. Soon, the scissors were flying -- so fast that i hoped i'd still have my ears after the chaos was over (i also found out the guy hummed all the time, irregardless of the tune being played). But sure enough, his cutting talent matched his speed, and $21 later, i came out with the best short haircut i've ever had. I still want it longer, but i think it will grow out nicely.

Then i rushed home, to get ready for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra concert in the Park, which my co-intern Linshi reminded me of 5 minutes before i left work today! I grabbed some food at the corner deli Lenny's, and some extra drinks for Linshi and her roommate, and jumped on the subway. Already late, i walked, - no, strided - toward Central Park. And of course, i was going in the wrong direction. Once i figured that out, i strided in the correct direction, beads of sweat gathering in my newly cut hair from the ridiculous humidity everpresent in the City. I got there, and now had to find Linshi -- among like 10,000 blanket-sitting, wine-drinking, overly-affectionate-with-their-partners orchestra purveyors surveyors. Once i walked all the way around the very traffic-controlling fence, i found Linshi and her roommate, and dropped into a little spot on their blanket. Fortunately we were relatively close to the stage, and also had a speaker right in front of us, so we could see and hear rather well. We ate and drank (only tea and juice; well, Linshi had a beer ;) ) and i fell asleep by the last 15 minutes or so, because it's so relaxing just to lie down outside, listening to a live orchestra. Then i said 'bye' to Linshi and Co., and crammed onto the '6' train to head home. And i mean *crammed*. I was literally squished inbetween people, such that i couldn't move at all. I explained to a lady squished in front of me that most of us were coming from the orchestra; she said she was jogging and heard them playing and saw the fireworks (oh yeah, there was a bit of fireworking afterward). We struck up a quick conversation (my second one to a complete subway stranger!), with her turning out to be a first-grade teacher.

Then i unsquished myself, and went food shopping, since 11pm is apparently not late enough to finish my day (what was i thinking?!). I went for bread, but ended up getting like 12 other things, like juice and ice cream and yogurt (i even caved and got one of those darn whipped ones again!) and spaghetti sauce, etc. Now i'm finally home and feel strangely like i'm imitating srah's extremely long posts about her wild weekend in France. (Maybe i am!)

Other extemporanea:
-- parking here costs up to $8.44/half hour, as compared to 50 cents per 30 minutes in Lancaster, PA
-- i saw some person walking a dog with little booties on - the dog, not the person! (is this is a medical thing, or does the owner not want the dog's feet to get filthy?)
-- my haircutting place was aptly named "Hair Cuts - Men and Women"
-- if you ever take a picture of your supermarket's amazing cathedral ceiling, don't stand right in front of the beer aisle...

"So, just a wedding?" you say. "That's not amazing news..." Well, have you ever been to a double wedding? I never have before, until now. Justin married his now-wife, AND Justin's younger sister married her now-husband, at the same time! :) Everybody exchanged the same (assumably co-written) vows, and took turns lighting the candles, and then the famous words "Husbands, you may now kiss your wives" was proclaimed. The main table was huge, to accomodate both parties of bridesmaids and best men and all four wedding vow exchangers. The wedding was very nice in itself -- lots of good food and free wine :) and lots of guests. Even better, i was reacquainted with my friend Beth, whom i haven't seen in 2 years! I wish i could have stayed longer, but overall it was a great night.

After venturing thru the rain, and remembering that the Midtown Manhattan branch is on 40th and Fifth Ave, not 40th and Park, i walked in the front door. Immediately my backpack was searched (because everybody brings knives, guns, and bombs into libraries these days, but fortunately i didn't today). Then i walked in further, past the security guards, took a quick glance around, and found the info-desk librarian lady. She looked very tired (it was about 7:30pm) but was friendly. I asked her who wrote CITR (because i read it so long ago that i forgot) and she told me "Salinger. It's a tiny, thin book." :) So i ventured over and found it, in all its simple, white-cover glory. Now i had to check out the book. I needed a library card!

So i walked over to the desk that said 'Registration', where nobody was. I waited, felt like i was in the wrong place, and walked back over to the info-desk lady again (who still looked exhausted) and asked her. She told me to go over to this other desk (so many desks!) and wait. I did, and this girl came up to me (with very glossy lipstick) and asked me what i wanted and who i was. I told her, but she needed proof. I showed her my PA driver's license. "Do you live in NY?" she asked. I told her 'Yes', but again she needed proof. Unfortunately i didn't have anything like that, so i explained my intern situation, which necessitated the bringing out of my UMID and my ID from where i work, to prove i am a student and i am interning here. To make matters worse, i happened to mention that i didn't even live at the address listed on my driver's license! Exasperated, but smiling, she said to just write whatever, and i'd get the card :) I did, and now i'm a full NYPL member! I even got to try out their cool barcode-scanning self-checkout station!

Now i have CITR staring up at me from the foot of my bed, daring me to open its stark-white cover, to be consumed by the world of Holden Caufield. No boring subway riding tomorrow!

"Oh no," i think, "i have a new trainee as a waiter..."

The italian guy soon comes back, pushing the blond guy out of the way (because he is hovering within 5 feet of me since i am his 1st of only 2 customers), and smiling a big smile, happily presents me with some warm rolls. He also extra-politely sets my dinner-roll plate next to me, saying "see?" to the blond guy. Changing my perspective, i thought that maybe this wasn't going to be so bad. I was getting treated extra-nicely b/c the italian guy (assumably the boss) was showing blondy the correct way to treat customers, and i was the example. Wow :) The rest was normally good -- food was piping hot, got my 'to-go' box right away, as well as my check. Sometimes being practiced-on is a good thing...

"Eww, it looks all curdled!"

So i smelled it, and it seemed ok. I tentatively decided this was a result of the 'whipping' process, so i hesistantly dipped the edge of my spoon into the Whip and touched it to my tongue.

"Mmm, it's ok. Hasn't sent me into immediate convulsions yet..."

So i started eating it. Indeed, it was "so unbelievably fluffy, so incredibly light", and actually rather tasty. The slightly curdled texture was a bit unsettling tho, as i am used to the usually smooth, more pudding-like consistency of normal yogurt.

Don't know if i'd try it again, because i'm fine with my regular strawberry, cherry, or blueberry yogurt. But hey, its another win for Yoplait. More fluff = more money. And it's seemingly a win for the consumer, who likes expensive, airy, semi-curdled yogurt...

Take a look around -- it's pretty much all the same, except for some minor modules that i want to add/delete, etc. and a redesign i will work on at some point.

Oh, and srah is so nice -- she decided to celebrate the unveiling of my blog's new domain name with a redesign of her own blog! *

* just kidding... but check it out tho -- it looks great :)

via srah blah blah.

-- if a hotel has a name, especially a stuffy European name like Worchester or Dorchester or Morchester, it is probably too expensive for Jim;

-- if a jewelry store's shiny rings and necklaces magically disappear from their display cases every night after closing, the jewelry is probably too expensive for Jim;

-- if a building's lobby is bigger than any house you've ever seen, and has an American flag on the wall that is big enough to cover the biggest house you've ever seen, whatever is inside is probably too expensive for Jim;

-- if a furniture store seems to have nothing in it except an old kitchen sink with a spotlight shining on it, that old kitchen sink is probably for sale, and it is probably too expensive for Jim;

-- if a clothing store has nothing in its display windows except billions of pieces of popcorn piled two feet deep, the clothing is probably too expensive for Jim;

-- if a restaurant serves ice cream sundaes with peanuts in separate little bags that you must put on yourself, then it is a McDonald's, and... well, Jim can probably afford this (because that's what i bought on my way home...)