Go. Forth. Camel. Giddy. Up.

Yay for Megan! I was selected to be a delegate for Girls State, a political camp in Willamatte(?) just for girls to go and ...learn about government! Yay! What we do is we make our own government, lobby for bills, etc. It's a nationwide thing, and each state selects two girls to be senators, and then those girls all go to D.C. and introduce new bills. I want to be a senator. And hopefully, I will be elected director of the CIA. The only problem is that the organization is really republican, so I'm afraid I may be ostrasized. Well I got it, and that's the first step, eh?

Hmm...it occurs to me that I should probably make it clear I'm not trying to hint at anything with these last two posts. Just thought the Slate article was interesting, and Tom told me about the Name Wizard thing the other day, which I found to be way too nifty not to share. So no speculating, all ye speculators!

The Baby Name Wizard - NameVoyager is pretty neat. I killed a good half an hour last night just typing in random names and seeing how popular they've been over the past hundred years.

Interesting Slate article about baby names, how they become popular/unpopular, various historical trends, etc. Jack and Jill, meet Aldo and Annika.

Fair Verona this ain't.

Passed. Still not totally official, as one of the four profs didn't show- I'll have to present to him later. However, it says "Passed" on the examination result line. Go me.

Wow. Google now offers satellite mapping through their regular map engine. For free.

Tick... tock... tick... tock... (reminds me of something I think Dennis Miller said about Morley Safer gettin' old: "How do you think he likes the sound of that clock ticking?!" Mind you, this was in the 90s (I mean the date, not Safer- though that's not an unreasonable estimate))

April fools from Google. Funny folks, those Google peoples.

Requiescat in pace, Mitch Hedberg... He made me laugh until I cried.

Now here's a cool thing - a watch that monitors your sleep pattern and wakes you up at the most optimal time. Definitely a neat gadget.

Penny Construction Project: Creations built entirely out of pennies. No glue, no additional support of any kind. Really neat. (And a good band name.)

Cool new MRI application.

Good ol' McSweeney's: Lyrics to the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire" if they were written by a muskrat instead of by Billy Joel.

Funny CNN headline: Laura Bush Making Unannounced Trip to Afghanistan
Um...so much for unannounced, there, CNN.

Gee, this is great. There's a law on the books to prevent collection agencies from defaulting active-duty military personnel (or their spouses) on loans, mortgages, etc. while said personnel are deployed. The problem is, there are a fair number of judges who don't know the law exists, so they've been phenomenally screwing people who are supposed to be protected. Good job, folks.

NCAA+NCLB = Harrison Bergeron? (you'll have to read to the end of the list)

1. All teams must advance to the Sweet 16, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY BASKETBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

This morning while walking to the convenience store at Caltech, I saw an really old fat white guy walking a tiny little dog. He was wearing a FUBU sweater.

A completely fascinating piece on This American Life, tonight. In the mid 80's, Jello Biafra was prosecuted in Los Angeles for obscenity by ADA Michael Guarino. The prosecution failed, and eventually, the Guarino dude left the DA's office and has come to like Jello. They spoke, in this piece. It was pretty cool.