I just realized

that this blog has been a self-indulgent pit of whininess and manufactured sentiment since March 26th. How repulsive. Here is a picture to mollify the frustrated masses:



I am sure I have posted this before, but the impossible touristy-ness of the photo and the image of male-pattern-baldness-baby saying "Okay, now get one of me in front of the crowd" gets me every time.

THIS JUST IN: In an effort to remain as pretentious and procrastinatory as possible, I have moved to Wordpress. This blog, and all of its posts, are now at yourbutts.wordpress.com.

From an article on (God help me) Oprah.com: "Savor your longing. Note the clever way it has of reminding you that you are very much alive."

Old songs

It's funny how there are so many songs that I never used to like until I hear them again, years later, and I am just nostalgic enough to be won over.

I just YouTubed and watched every version of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" that I could find. Including a High School Musical song with the same name that appears unrelated. The version that I first heard and that made me fall in love with it was an a cappella rendition by Penn Atma, who I normally don't like but who nail this song so beautifully. To date, I haven't found one that I like quite so much.

My assessment of a person's intelligence

is heavily, heavily based on their writing. I know, on a practical level, that there are many different kinds of intelligence, and someone far more brilliant than me at math or science or just about damn anything might still be a sloppy writer. But I can't help it--if I read a person's writing and I don't like it, it makes them appear stupider to me. Some people say that art is a window to a person's soul. If that's the case, then I think writing is a window to their mind. How can someone think deeply, reason thoughtfully, if they can't put those thoughts down? Or, on an even more elementary level, how can someone so smart have failed to pick up on the basic syntactical and grammatical rules that are drilled into our heads since childhood? I would imagine that someone of greater intellectual capacity than me could not only form coherent sentences, but play with the intricacies of language in the same way they play with ideas or equations. Doesn't the problem of how to phrase a thought stir the same intellectual curiosity?

Sigh. It seems like there is a negative correlation between putting a premium on intelligence and valuing good writing.

Uh oh

My senior project advisor, regarding my job in the SIG lab over the summer: "Don't fuck up, because my ass is on the line."

Shit just got serious.

Snatched from the jaws of death yet again

A beacon of hope in the form of two timely extensions has emerged from the murky depths of certain doom. Thank you, Steve Lane and Sanjeev Khanna, for saving the sanity of the mysterious stranger who only occasionally graces you with its presence. The phantom walks for another day.


On a side note, I have been occupying myself with an interesting but glum question: is passion and the theoretical drive towards it enough? Is there really hope, or am I just fooling myself and dragging down whatever poor sod is burdened with me for no reason? In other words, should I continue doing what I love in the expectation that things (well, I) will improve, or should I just face the reality that this is something I will never be able to succeed at?

I break my hiatus to bring you

http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/men/

A sex column written by a guy. Don't ask how I found it; I get very creative with my time-wasting.

It's interesting, not because of the content (nothing too enlightening and frankly, pretty bland), but because of the way in which it's written. The columnist is clearly a good writer--he has good phrasing, the sentences flow nicely, and his word choice is varied and intelligent. But, he is also clearly a lazy bum. In fact, the articles read a lot like mine: the basics of competent writing are there, but with zero effort or care. They feel rushed, like he pulled each one out of his ass 10 minutes before the deadline. And in a way, that dedication to minimal effort makes me relate to him. I wouldn't necessarily care to know the guy in real life, but I feel somewhat happy knowing that there is someone else out there hiding their aversion to hard work under a cloak of impeccable grammar and a passable grasp of the English language.

Anyway, back to my real mothertongue: C++, baby.