jdthomas's Xanga

Song a Sing

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:02:35 GMT

The Graduate School at Northwestern has passed the UPass, if you will. This allows most graduate students to spend more than they ordinarily would on the CTA and allows some graduate students to save a lot of money. It is basically just an unlimited CTA (Bus and "L" train) pass for around $60 per quarter. Some are complaining, others are grateful. I think I will just ride on the CTA for no other reason than to use this pass. I could ride one block on a bus, get off, then get on another bus. Maybe I could spend a whole day at it and try to see how much it would have cost me with just a regular card one gets at the machine.

Anywho, I took my first UPass trip on the "L" to go to Moody to workout with my good friend Charlie. To fit in with my fellow 21st century train riders, I began list-ening (the "t" is not silent here) to some music. As the instrumental began for Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" the train announcer came on and announced "Next stop Belmont. Doors Open on the right[?] at Belmont". At first I thought it was part of the song. It had my head bobbing a little bit. Had it been the song my mental inertia carried me into, I may have begun a demonstration of the dance style I have amalgamated from the patented moves of Preston D., Jonathan T. and Justin T. Fortunately for the 21st century, Billy Joel came in and robbed me of my inspiration.

Can someone write that song for me, make a lot of money, and give me half of it?

Back to Studying

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:09:08 GMT

Well, I'm back to studying and it is going so well that I have time to update my Xanga--Blog--Thing. I actually studied a good amount over the break, but now that I am back where I should be studying, I don't want to anymore. You see, over the break I studied simplicial sets the ugly way. I messed with hundreds of indices flapping around... swapping d_i's and s_j's for a few hours at a time. Then, I got this book from my Mom and Dad which has a cleaner, modern approach to it. Many of the indices were cleaned up and some intuition began to sprout. Now I am balancing getting my hands dirty spreading the roots of my understanding or trying to lean toward that ray of sunlight peeking through the slit in the blinds.

----------------------------------------------------

That last bit didn't make any sense to me either.

The Evil Dead Trilogy...and a poem

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 05:39:18 GMT

I recently finished watching three movies which are claimed to be part of a trilogy. However, the second movie starts out with a summary of the first in about five minutes. Three of the characters are completely taken out. The third movie summarizes the end of the second by...not summarizing at all. It appears the writers changed their minds and just rewrote how the previous movie ended. On another note, here is a poem in honor of my pastor as it is pastor appreciation month. I should be in bed right now so I can get up for chu'ch tomorrow, but I get a free hour, so I might as well waste it.

Note: the poem has some common sayings of our pastor and some inside jokes, so just pretend you know what it is talking about if you read something that does not make sense. Make up a story to make it fit.

Ev'ry week you get up and, you preach from the pod'j'yum
You have taught me so much; I feel like a theologian
But this is not the on-ly, hard work you are do-ing
Kai-ros journal, B C M, you have a lot brewing
You speak at con-fer-ences, and teach phi-lo-so-phy,
You spend part of your week at, Sou-thern Se-mi-nar-y
Grad-ing pa-pers and tea-ching, for most that is e-nough
But not for ou-r pas-tor, he does a lot more stuff.
He reads books and writes pa-pers, ar-ti-cles and es-says,
Brings the word on Sun-day morn-ing, on Sun-day night he prays.

He could not keep up without Sharon, his child bride—his “main squeeze”.
He marr-ied up and im-proved, all of his qual-ities
Now ev'ry once in a while, he will com-mit a fox-paw,
But how can we blame him? He's from Arkansas.
Where the pri-mary question, that is settled in courts,
Is “Will you still be my cousin, when we get a divorce?”
He's ho-stile, mo-bile, and a-gile too,
High speed and low drag—well maybe that's not true.

Now that we have come through this month of October
It is good to remember, be vigilant, and sober
For we must not allow, this tenth month to end
Without showing him honor. And, so, to this end,
We present you a gift, which we have not plundered or stolen
We would like to send you, ice skatin' and bowlin'
But that costs way too much, we sadly confess,
Thus to theatre and dinner, this gift doth digress.
Go downtown, have a good time, and know that we love you
And whatever you eat, don't get any on you.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:44:24 GMT

Thanks to my brother, my mom, and my dad I now have a PS2, extra shirts so I can make it a couple more days without doing laundry, and a new way to squeeze my toothpaste. Fortunately, the PS3 is coming out soon, so that should drive down the price of PS2 related items. I find it beneficial to have retarded discoveries of the coolitude of new technologies. It is much cheaper that way.

However, I am pursuing a piece of technology called AirPort Express by Apple that will allow me to broadcast the music on my computer to the speakers in the living room (which don't exist right now). If you are looking for such an item, do not go to Best Buy and do not ask anyone there about it. Trust me, just don't. Nothing against the workers at Best Buy but--well that's a lie, I don't really like most of the workers at Best Buy--I think they are not trained to answer your question but to tell you why your question is stupid and then tell you what you are better off doing.

On a sharper note, I made biscuits and gravy the other day.........delicious.

Peace out,
-JT

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 05:02:25 GMT

Here's the deal. "Where?" you say. "Right here," I say. I have been thinking that my name should be made to use as a verb in addition to its current workload. For instance, we have
Bob the tail of the dog.
Harry up and make a decision.
Use an X to Mark the spot.
I have not Ben feeling well lately.
Will you get me a freezer pop?
He may Rob that grocery store.
Should we Phil up the gas tank?
Can you Taylor this suit for me?
We will Bill you for the damage.
Do you Cara bout the issues at hand?
I don't Noah bout the issues that well.
Haven't I already Sean you?
I feel so restricted. My name cannot serve as a (non-proper) noun, adjective, adverb, or dessert. It can only be parsed to appear in phrases like "just in time", "just in case", "this just in...", etc. If your name is a verb you get 1,000 points.

Painted Room

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:33:58 GMT

Before: After:

Then I put all my stuff into an empty room

Before: After:

The observant viewer will have noticed the box for "Justinopoly" in the lower left corner. The ladder you see there actually extends 30,412 feet into the air (just a bit higher than Mt. Everest). It is a bit of work to get to the top, but the cooler temperatures are well worth it. The chair was left in the apartment by a former tenant; now I can roll around all over my apartment so I never have to stand up. This was my behavior before having the chair, it's just much easier with the chair.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:47:00 GMT

I bought this

bike from my former roommate

Yi-Fan. His girlfriend is in the picture with him. He has moved to New York, and did not have room to take the bike with him, so I took it with me. It has 21 times as many gears as my other bike, and twice the brakes.

Picture number next...

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:47:28 GMT

Here we go:

Now what we have here is not entirely clear from the picture. We have some boxes from moving that still need to be put away, and a desk owned by a former resident of this apartment. Once these and some other items are gone room will be made for the item in the background. Yes, that's right, it is a folded up ping-pong table. It was here when I moved in, and it will be left in my apartment. After some furniture is moved out, there will be plenty of room for ping-pong tournaments. Come one, come all!

Photo Phone fun for Friends

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:22:06 GMT

I just bought a new camera phone and now I am playing around with my new toy. So, one picture at a time, we will see what my camera found so interesting as to picturify.

First, we have my apartment building. Notice the invisible fingerprint of the architect. He has done such a good job at disguising his work that the building appears to be just a squared up pile of bricks. The trees are included in the rent. We are allowed to look at them and walk by them. The numbers 6, 2, and 8 on the side of the building must have some special meaning. My guess is that the 6 represents an upside-down 9, which is an age that everyone who lives in this building has reached. The 2 must then represent the number of eyes that most people have. Finally, 8 is a number between 2 and 9, but it is listed after both the 2 and the upside-down 9. This is a representation of the struggle for order in a chaotic world. It represents everyones daily battles to keep their apartments clean. It is symbolic of much more than just a number that rhymes with "ate", it reveals the human condition and delineates the ongoing turmoil caused by the entanglement of divine sovereignty and the free will of mankind.

Second, we have...

Happy Birfday, dear fries

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:56:02 GMT

One year ago today, I put a small order of McDonald's french fries into a ziploc container and let them sit. One year later, they smell a bit like cardboard and look as good as new. In fact the time I did this was at 10pm, just the time I am posting this notification of the first birthday of my french fries. If only we humans aged like fries.