Planet Olin

DIRECTIONS
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it makes you look.
4. Title this post what the answer to your last question is.
5. Good luck and have fun!

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
"Tony the Beat" (Oddly appropriate considering the song's subject matter)

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"Lua" ( ... I guess)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Darling Corey" (Doesn't quite work)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Satellite" (Not especially)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Waters of March" (OMG - I leave on the boat at the end of March!!!)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTSFRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Loose Lips" (Haha!)

WHAT DO YOU OFTEN THINK ABOUT?
"Minute by Minute" (Not as much as I wish)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Commander" (Hmmm - interesting)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Eau d' Bedroom Dancing" (Also amusing)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Mountains of Things" (I suppose)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Second Guess" by The Butchies (Haha - well at least it's a lesbian band)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Seasons of Love" from Rent (Awkward)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"Run Away" (hmmm)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Can't Stand Losing You" (Kind of true)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Calypso" (I love this song! Maybe that's an indication)

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO NAME THIS POST?
"Aveda"

Sunday I took my brother to visit my grandparents, who, by the way, are completely awesome people. It was a nice visit. They celebrated his "graduation" in May and we had a good time. On the way back, the car broke down. I shifted gears and I don't think the clutch disengaged. I pulled to the side of the road and got a ride back to my grandparent's house. Ebs was an angel and drove the 2.25 hrs down to pick up my brother and I, call AAA for a tow (my AAA service has been canceled since I went off to college with no car), and drive back to PA. We dropped off my brother so he could get some rest before school today and then the two of us waited for the tow truck driver to catch up (he took the longer, slightly easier route) so we could lead him from the highway to the car dealership. Then we were wired last night and didn't go to bed immediately. Everyone was awake this morning around 6:30, so we're all pretty grumpy.

To add to the grumpiness, I've hit packing failure number 2. The first was in forgetting my suitcase, which foiled hotel swimming plans on the way down. This failure foiled my goal for today. I had one major goal -- get my passport. I need it soon, if my travel plans are going to work. Of course I forgot both my social security card and my birth certificate. I guess I'll get pictures, then submit next week. Maybe even with the rush payment I was hoping to avoid.

In compensation, I will finish a paper, run errands, maybe get my picture taken, send an important email I've been putting off (make that two), and take care of some other things. Mergle.

Today was a little bit of adventure, a little bit of downtime, a little bit of shopping, a little bit of cooking, and over all a pretty good time.

I left Olin yesterday evening in a spectacularly arranged pickup by my brother and Ebs, on their way back from making some college visits. We camped out in a hotel last night and woke up early this morning so Ebs and I could get some exercise in. Trend setting exercise for the holidays -- we rock!

After a drive that lasted until early afternoon, we arrived at Ebs' house only to find the place more messy than they'd left it. The cause? A squirrel we found camped out on Ebs' chair. A friggin squirel. It could have been there for three and a half days. We trapped it in Ebs' room. Then we looked at each other and had no really great idea of what to do about it. I figured it might be time to experience calling animal control like the people on the news do when they find crazy African snakes or mountain lions in their houses. Squirrels seemed far more likely to bite than the bats of summer '07.

Turns out the phone book only lists private companies as animal control. We called some friends and consulted, and then Ebs and I ventured in. We figured we'd open up the window and keep it in the room, then go shopping for poison. When we got to the room, the squirrel was between us and the window. It darted for the window as we closed in, then it started running and jumping around the room. Ebs struggled with the screen and finally just popped it out, and we scatted the squirrel out the window. Bye bye squirrel. Now we need to get some wire to block where we think the squirrel got in from. A friggin squirrel!

That adventure taken care of, Ebs and I ventured out of the house so my brother could get some work done. We figured we'd go to a local vineyard Ebs discovered, Stargazers Vineyard, for their Dornfelder Day. We missed that, but did crack open a bottle of the Stargazers Dornfelder that Ebs had on hand after dinner. Dornfelder is a relatively new grape from Germany that is exceptionally hardy and whose wine possess fantastic flavor. I wasn't familiar with Dornfelder until today, but I very much enjoyed Stargazer's Dornfelder and I will happily drink more of it in the future.

I also cooked egg rolls and spring rolls today. It turns out Ebs has been experimenting with them. We hit the Asian market and I got to roll some egg rolls. How great is that? I'm adding the baked spring rolls with the awesome spicy mustard sauce to the array of foods to make when I'm cooking once again. I don't think my metabolism could handle the fried food all the time and the baked ones were also fantastic. Yay cooking!

I caught Speed Racer for the first time (at long last). I promised Ebs we could watch it together, so we did. After hearing so many bad things about it, I thought it was pretty good. The style was a little off-putting (and I'm still wondering if it was more expensive to stylize it that way than it would have been to do more realistic special effects), but it was cute. And I'm definitely a Christina Ricci fan.

All in all, it's been a pretty productive day. I even managed to get a little work done! And my brother showed me his SAT scores and I am proud of him. I hope he gets into the college he wants and (in my opinion) definitely deserves.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

does anyone remember how jon ballard on dc101 did a pm drivetime thing called "make it stop"? because it was awesome.


1. aih - vanishing (kimble, 0.5)
2. sarah mclachlan - aida (srin)
3. all time quarterback - dinner at eight in the suburbs
4. wilco - hummingbird
5. lcd soundsystem - yeah (crass version) (spiraloflife)
6. massive attack - hymn for england (tallandquiet)
7. radiohead - the bends (live recording) (drew harry)
8. of montreal - she's the rejecter
9. the blow - babay (eat a critter, feel its wrath)
10. stars - what i'm trying to say (mr. sfofie)
11. kings of convenience - winning the battle losing the war (rosie)
12. tricky - hell is round the corner
13. bss - anthems for a 17-year-old girl
14. clash - train in vain
15. duran duran - hungry like the wolf (irshjumpinbean)
16. vienna teng - nothing without you (oceanschild)
17. amy millan - look up (oceanschild, 0.5)
18. live - lightning (oceanschild)
19. notwist - hands on us (kimble, 0.5)
20. tegan & sarah - frozen

winner is: oceanschild, with 2.5 songs!
and the runner-up, with two artists, is kimble!

eight songs were unidentified.


anyway, as dopplr'd, i'm flying bos -> iad mid-morning tomorrow for thanksgiving break and i'll be kicking around fairfax for most of the week, with maybe a trip down to charlottesville. as it happens, my family is slowly moving south -- i think we'll officially relocate somewhere around winter break, but my mom's already living in c'ville several days a week.

so that's the news you can use. hope to see some of you!

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"I've got 50 feet of latex tubing, two stuffed animals, and a roll of duct tape. What does it look like I'm doing?"

Warning: may contain rambling.

Thing 1: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.RLIhVF4ebk&refer=home

Citigroup is planning on laying off 52,000 employees in one year.

What on earth is Citigroup doing with 52,000 people that it doesn't need?

Also, how does a business grow to the size of Citigroup, with 352,000 employees? If you pick up and move everyone in the company, you could take over more than half of Boston proper. What?

What do 352,000 Citigroup employees do all day long?

GM tips the scales at 324,000 employees. Ford, 99,000ish.

...what?

I can't... I can't fathom that many people. I don't understand. You can't fit your company into a stadium. As a single company the size of GM, you have the capacity to burn $1.15 BILLION (http://industry.bnet.com/auto/1000354/gm-must-slow-cash-burn-to-last-past-february/) a month if you're not selling enough product.

What?

How do you build a town around a company? How do you make your entire town dependent on the commercial success of one company? What the hell happens to these towns when companies fail? What happens to those people? Is this ok? Are there morals that encompass this?

Let's say a company isn't selling a product the market demands, and has demonstrated a complete inability to respond to market pressures. If you were to let that company fail, you'd put 324,000 out of a job (not entirely true with bankruptcies, I know, but let's argue extremes). What? Entire towns are built around this company. Towns. The places people live. You can destroy entire population centers with individual business decisions.

What?

I feel like I quantitatively understand the numerical facts about these companies, but I don't have the capacity to qualitatively understand how big these companies are. How do you get that big? Why on earth would you want to get that big? At what size does the company take on a life of its own? When does it start growing as a result of emergent behavior among groups of people, and not as a result of conscious decisions by specific individuals? Who the hell wants to run a company that big? What on earth do they do all day long?

I continue to be confused. This will probably continue for some time. In which case.. on to Thing 2!

Thing 2: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1934681720081119

A girl lives for 118 days without a heart. Her blood was circulated by two surgically-installed mechanical pumps. There was no organic heart in her body. It was not there. Gone.

I... don't know how to process this, other than by throwing my hands up and awaiting the singularity.

- - - - -

In other news, I'm roadtripping to Pittsburgh tomorrow. What? I have once again managed to take myself completely by surprise with plans that have been in the works for weeks.

I blame this surprise on my one-track, tuna-addled mind.

Damn. Why does working this hard on one project feel so good, yet have such terrible ramifications (other examples - not coming home before 11 PM for the past two weeks, never going out dancing, never hanging out with non-Olin friends...)? I pour most of my energy into my work, and the resulting work is really good, and I'm thus persuaded to pour more of my energy into my work, because it feels even better...

Positive feedback loops abound.

So, what is the balance, and how do I get there? More importantly, The emotional center of my mind is screaming about my life (life: sum total that should consist of more than work and sleep) being unbalanced because of this project. My logical brain processes this screaming, and agrees that I'm unbalanced. Yet, my actions don't change. Resulting unanimous conclusion from both sides: what we have here is addiction.

There are rationalizations to be made about the amount of energy required by my position as project manager in a tough situation, the tight deadline requiring more effort to meet than normal, intricate and extensive design work being necessary, etc. etc.

Rationalizations are logical shields for emotional decisions. I want to do what I am doing. By and large, I feel more good as a result of this project than I feel bad. If the opposite were true, I'd have one hell of a time getting myself to work on it.

(Aside, historical relevancy: I've been raised on ridiculous projects with even more ridiculous timelines. It started in the 6-weeks-to-build-a-robot FIRST competition, expressed itself violently as 24-hour design challenges, continued in 2-day-snake robotics labs, morphed into 3-month-ornithopter summer jobs, made its way to some extent to get-it-right-before-we-go-to-a-demo Boston Dynamics, and is now manifesting itself here in 3-month-tuna. Extraordinarily challenging, high-intensity projects have, to some extent, become an addiction in and of themselves).

- - -

ADDENDUM, 8:15 PM: Is this related to procrastination somehow? Do I use the not-much-time-left high to get boring stuff done?

- - -

Hmm.

I think I'm done with this post. There may be another today, if I can get my thoughts together in a not-quite-as-rambling manner.

and their first lines. you know what to do

i haven't meemed in like forever guys! i mad cheated on these s.t. i think i would get most of them, though even some of these are total blasts from the past.

1. is this a fling? seven days and you're already vanishing kimble
2. ________, i do believe i failed you; ________, i know i've let you down. don't you know i've tried so hard, to love you in my way... srin
3. this is the proper place, i'm growing older without grace, all of the people sing, contented with the urban routine
4. his goal in life was to be an echo, riding alone town after town toll after toll
5. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah spiraloflife
6. in the name of and by the power of the holy spirit, may we invoke your intercession for the children of england tallandquiet
7. (uh. this is a song to our friends.) where do we go from here? the words are coming out all weird, where are you now when i need you? drew harry
8. my my you busted me, like a robocop strike me, with your riding crop, i'm forever going celibate
9. baby, hey ey, heyyyyy, babyy. (x3) and i thank my lucky stars every day for indoor plumbing, 'cause i know nobody knows where i'd have ended up without it
10. you looked so good in the clothes of a poseur, and when you smiled all the kids fell apart here ahmerora
11. even though i'll never need her, even though she's only given me pain / i'd be on my knees to feed her, spend the day to make her smile again topaz
12. i stand firm for a soil, lick em rock em force
13. used to be one of the rotten ones and i liked you for that
14. you say you stand by your man / tell me something, i don't understand / you said you loved me, that's a fact / then you left me, said you felt trapped
15. dark in the city, night as a wire, steam in the subway, earth is on fire
16. it's the quiet night that breaks me. i cannot stand the sight of this familiar place oceanschild
17. your friends hold a lullaby, they washed away the night lies, soft send to tackle radio oceanschild (unclaimed bonus: honey from the tombs)
18. it's crazy but often clear, often clear / we shimmer and disappear / in color, in black and white (black and white) / we slowly fade out of sight oceanschild
19. leo, they'll forgive you / leo, they'll forgive you / for the taking everything away kimble
20. it's not far to go, it's not far at all (x2) / pull out that water-soaked coat there's not much to say that i don't know

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.

Meme from Sam:

If you saw me in the back of a police car, what would you think I got arrested for?

"It's all going to change, Yamazaki. We're coming up on the mother of all nodal points. I can see it, now. It's all going to change."
"I don't understand."
... "I've been looking at history, Yamazaki. I can see the nodal points in history. Last time we had one like this was 1911."
"What happened in 1911?"
"Everything changed."
"How?"
"It just did. That's how it works. I can see it now."

[hundreds of pages later]

"These people are about to change human history in some entirely new way. There hasn't been a configuration like this since 1911 --"
"What happened in 1911?" the Rooster demands.
Laney sighs. "I'm still not sure. It's complicated and I haven't had the time to really look at it. Madame Curie's husband was run over by a horse-drawn wagon, in Paris, in 1906. It seems to start there."

William Gibson, All Tomorrow's Parties