Rational Action

“I want to see something pretty,” I said as we ambled around Westchester in Lance’s minivan. Faced with the prospects of watching Amelie — a film the New York Times claims “shows French snootiness as its absolute snooty snooty worst” — we became desperate in our hunt for something fun to do. Then Ethan called his father and found a pretty place to placate me: a “park” in a “town” called “Irvington”.

With the destination settled, we regrouped at Ethan’s house, gathering strength and wisdom for the trip. Part of gathering strength involved choosing appropriate attire. By the time we left for Irvington, Ethan was wearing his graduation gown, Matt had on an indian suit, and Eric displayed a Ben and Jerry’s smok. Lance and I made do with reindeer antlers and a laser pointer that shone light in the form of a spiderweb.

We made the trek across Westchester using only our “man sense” of direction and a few frantic phone calls to Ethan’s parents. Our man sense led us astray, and we took this critically acclaimed shot:

Yet just moments later we found ourselves driving by the entrance to a private park. Yes, it was closed. But we had made it! We took some more pictures as we explored the territory and became accustomed to local laws:

The evening ended with a traditional diner run. But we haven’t seen the last of that park.

(Picture credit Lance, Camera credit Ethan)

Yup. It’s back.

Assume for a moment that computers can think. Anyone who knows anything about computers can certainly attest to the veracity of that statement. In fact, the sentience of computers has become so commonly accepted that Hollywood has made a movie about it. But if that doesn’t convince you, just withold your disbelief. It’s time for a quick lesson in the thought pattern of the common laptop.

You may or may not know that there is a component in every computer (laptop included) called the CPU. The CPU does all of the thinking, and as a result, it generates a lot of heat. Here is the thought pattern for the “Pentium 4-Mobile” CPU (your laptop probably has one) as it begins to heat up:

1. It’s getting warm in here. I’m going to turn on my fan!
2. Oh man it’s getting even hotter. I’m going to turn up that fan so it makes lots of noise, and I’m going to lower my speed so that I make less heat! Oh yeah, and by doing that, I’m going to make the computer really really loud and really really slow!
3. The temperature is still rising! I’m going to SHUT THE COMPUTER DOWN WITHOUT WARNING YOU AT ALL.

How stupid. Your computer has a 30 watt lightbulb under its keyboard and the only way it knows how to cool itself is by flicking the light switch off. No matter if you’re doing something important. Yeah, I know. I too thought “Pentium 4″ meant fast in and outside the icebox.

(Luckily this is not my computer)

Matthew Good has released two songs from his forthcoming album, White Light Rock & Roll Review. The songs, Alert Status Red and Put Out Your Lights, are available on his website. For those who don’t know, Matthew Good Band happens to be Canada’s highest-selling indie rock band. Some time maybe 2 years ago they broke up and Matthew Good went solo. He also became more political, swinging to the hard left against American foreign policy. You can find his daily rants on his blog.

Yesterday he linked to this new article by Kurt Vonnegut. In it Vonnegut rails against President Bush and Republicans, denouncing the current administration’s foreign and domestic policies. Now, Vonnegut is probably the only author about whom I have any extensive knowledge. During a project in HS I managed to read nearly every biographical and autobiographical piece written by or about the man.

I really, really want to love his new writing. So I clicked on the link in Matt Good’s blog with glee, expecting to be amazed…

I hate to say it. Ok I’m going to say it:

Vonnegut has been repeating himself for the last two decades. Maybe three.

I’ve seen his wit before. When I read his sarcastic jokes, they remind me of the sad-funny criticism that I’ve… already heard. He speaks about his son’s mental illness. His adopted children. His failure to abuse drugs beyond cigarettes. The heartlessness of small government. The wonders of liberalism.

The same things he always writes about.

Maybe the Vonnegut style of the past has morphed into the writing style of choice for the present. Maybe Vonnegut seems repetitive because so many people have absorbed his own originality. I love Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. I just can’t help but wonder if he ran out of new things to say.

Are Columbia students pretentious?

Various sources tell me they are. I’m intrigued.

From 8pm last night to 5pm today I centered my life around writing a 7 page Lit Hum paper. Now, I’m not claiming I have more work than anyone reading this blog — I’m only claiming two things: 1) No matter how little work I have, I make it into a lot of work and 2) When I write essays, I constantly tell all my friends how many words I’ve written.

I realized that by going through my instant message logs, I could build a line graph of the progress of my essay. So here it is. Every dot represents a time I told someone my current word count over IM.

Note: Points three and four seem to connect on a nearly vertical line. That represents me at 100% efficiency. It’s cold hard proof that I am a lazy essaywriter.