blogwaffe

.true to form, i forgot dad’s birthday this year in spite of the friendly reminder mom gave me a few days ago. !happy (one day late) birthday, dad! .i started reading a really interesting paper by r raussendorf (now here at the iqi). .it’s about one-way quantum computation via single quibit measurement only. .pretty slick stuff. .this evening, in celebration of greg and heidi leaving town for the weekend, paul.za, louise.za, greg and i went to amigo’s for some margaritas. .there i killed a cockroach as large as my fist. .it was crawling around on my (flipflopped) foot; it deserved punishment. .also found out via louise.za that currency.za rocks: much more interesting than its american counterpart.

Pictures of my office(s) and apartment(s)

.got up at the ridiculous hour of 9am this morning to meet with professor giapis (ace’s ‘fearless leader’) at 10. .the meeting went fairly well and was fairly interesting. .as an added bonus, he had parked in timed spot that morning for some reason and so had to cut the talk off at about an hour to go move it. .following, i went down and chatted with ace a bit about his ginormous plasma gun and the various bits needed for its operation. .i’d really like to see some numbers on how much juice that thing draws from the grid. .in the afternoon, i had a very nice chat with ben toner from iqi. .very informative about the research going on and, even better, very encouraging about working in the group. .he also told an amusing story about going to a shooting range and firing all sorts of guns dirt cheap while talking to the guy in the next lane about “those damn treehuggin’ earthfirstin’ sissies”. .the story was particularly funny as ben is from .au, and this was a sort of “find out what it’s like to be an american” adventure.

.every big company should have a mathematician on staff. .in fact, i dare you to think of any type of national company that doesn’t need a few mathematicians. .just keep ’em in a box with some paper and pencils and haul ’em out every once in a while when you’ve got a tough problem. .sort of “bring out the gimp”-esque. .on a related note, i’ve always wanted to develop a crush on a barista. .something nice and cliché. .we’d have a drink instead of a song: a good darjeeling or earl grey or or even hot apple cider when it was in season. .the relationship would develop slowly but pleasantly, and we’d grow genuinely fond of each other. .we’d see and critique movies and evaluate other people’s senses of fashion with no care in the world for our own. .it’d last for about a year and a half until she broke up with me for some artistically minded person who actually drank coffee and knew the difference between emo and crap. .i’d be heart broken and desolute [sic] for months until i realized she’d stolen my green lantern shirt. .then i’d be pissed. .yeah. .that’s the life.

.there is a stairway outside behind my office. .it leads down a flight or two to the back exits of the lecture halls in noyes. .i’ve been in this office for six months or so and had no idea it was there. .seems an interesting place. .might do some late night reading there in the summer. .greg, who is a baby and won’t write his own website but will hopefully guest lecture here, and i went to burger continental for the special. .over a pitcher of guinness, we decided that we were going to hang out with charlie kaufman sometime. .maybe invite him to amigo’s. .hang out at his place. ?who knows? .we figure he’s a pretty coolguy and can probably appreciate the various wierdnesses of caltech students. .we’re gonna write him a letter.

.updated the site, a few new pics. .got online and talked to bengis, neeks and haskell. …hm… .need more text to get the formatting right. .let’s see. .sompaa v. fumpaa update: still in preplanning. .i’ve never played whack-a-mole. .i’m sure of had more musings, but i never remember them, so the list never changes. .i wonder if i inspireed kate’s rant on capitalization. .everyone should check out the nascient offyellowpaper. .i need a domain name. .ah yes, i forgot to tell everyone that i’m trying out a web stats service. .you might be getting a cookie or two, let me know if this is heinous.

.greg has a new baby (a shiny new powerbook). .paul.za told me he generally uses the mouse left-handed (though he is arighty). .so i’m trying it out now.

.i did absolutely nothing yesterday, in stark constrast with the previous few days. .played an ass-load of milles bornes with ariele and michelle. .ended up drinking very tasty mojitos that greg made. .today… i don’t remember. .i’ll get back to you on that one.

A fish

.i don’t think i did much of anything besides see eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. .a very good movie with only one quibble [spoiler]. .met heather’s sister robin who is in town for the weekend. .got a call from my parent’s saying, among other things, that my aunt did not get her kidney transplant as scheduled yesterday because of heart complications. .what’s worse, is that she’s temporarily off the list. .hope everything works out soon. .more amigo’s, first with greg and heidi, then with bonnie, (her) brian, and teresa.