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Apparently there is an annual Champagne Cork Chair Contest where contestants must build a miniature chair out of a champagne cork, cage and label. I personally don’t think that their first place chair was better than the other submissions I saw. I’d be interested to know their criteria. Anyway, above, you’ll see my favourite submission. I’m judging based on complexity. I’m guessing that the actual judges have some simplicity philosophy. Oh well. There is also another pretty lounge chair made from a curvy bit of cork. It’s quite nice as well.

Another six months, another political checkup.

How did I do?

The results of the last two times I took the test (the retake is in the comments). I’ve moved back north again.

I am forever having problems remembering rules of grammar. I need to write them down somewhere. This seems as good a place as any. I’m marking it as news not because I think anyone will be interested, but because I never bother updating and feel I should say something.

Which do I choose: that or which?

That

Used in a restrictive clause. Use when specifying a smaller subset. Buy one of the CDs that are on sale or I went to the store that is on the way to school.

Which

Used in an unrestrictive clause. Use when the second part of the sentence doesn’t give any information necessary in identifying the subject. I signed it with my favourite pen which I got as a present or I drove to school in my car which is red.

Which talks about the subject, while that is part of the subject. In the last example:

“I drove to school in my car which is red” might be expanded as “I drove to school in my car. My car is red.” whereas “I drove to school in my car that is red” would be more like “I drove to school in my red car (as opposed to my blue car)” Using that is like saying I have multiple cars and I drove the red one today.

Apparently college students today are more self centred than ever and it’s all kindergarten’s fault. Being told “everyone is special no matter what” every day apparently makes us full of ourselves. Of course, I am special so none of this applies to me.

I do have to say we’re too obsessed with making everybody feel good. I mean, maybe it’s a good thing for a kid to feel inadequate. If you’re told that you’re perfect just the way you are, then why would you put that extra effort into learning to read? And then you get a generation of illiterate, narcissists who have never had it beat into them that they can do more with themselves.

Just wait till the current high schoolers take this test.

Click here to read the article

I’m currently reading “The Code of the Woosters” by P.G. Wodehouse and I came across this all-too-familiar sensation that I thought was worth writing about:

I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but a thing I have found in life is that from time to time, as you jog along, there occur moments which you are able to recognize immediately with the naked eye as high spots. Something tells you that they are going to remain etched, if etched is the word I want, for ever on the memory and will come back to you at intervals down the years, as you are dropping off to sleep, banishing that drowsy feeling and causing your to leap on the pillow like a gaffed salmon.

The last bit is the bit I’m interested in. You know, when you’re tired and going to bed and then some memory hits you and you lie awake obsessing for hours? Horrible, isn’t it?

SUPPOSEDLY if you’ve seen over 85 films, you have no life. Mark the ones you’ve seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, go to your own Facebook account, paste this as a note. Then, put x’s next to the films you’ve seen, add them up, change the header adding your number, and click post at the bottom. Have fun.

The 175 I’ve Seen

Put “I’ve seen ### out of 239 films” in the subject line and repost it.

I personally think it’s probably worse that I spent the time to take the survey than that I’ve seen all those movies.

Ok, so the iPhone is revolutionary. Right? You’d better agree or some Applehead might drag-and-drop¹ you to death. Hey, that sentence worked out better than I thought it would when I started writing it. I’ll have to remember that one. Alright, I’m done being pleased with my own turn-of-phrase, back to what I was saying. Now, I admit the thing looks cool and will probably be very functional. I’m not saying it doesn’t look like a nice phone and that I wouldn’t kill most of you to get one really like one, but I’m not sure it’s the revolutionary product it claims to be.

It’s a phone/PDA. I think the Treo got there first. It plays MP3s. So does my LG8100 and just about every other phone in existence. It plays videos. See previous comment. It syncs with your computer. Been done. It contains a mini version of a popular desktop OS. Windows CE (or whatever it’s called this week) already comes on some phones. You can browse the internet. Yawn.

Now, Apple has done all this with some flair, check out the videos on their website. But every product is an improvement on what already exists (or should be). In a year or two, people will be complaining about some aspect of the mini OSX interface and a new Windows CE will vastly improve upon it because no doubt they’re pulling the thing apart at Microsoft as we speak. Of course, it’s not cool to enjoy an MS interface. This is another instance of Applephilia.

I have to admit that I’m conflicted on the whole issue. I love Apple stuff, but I sympathize with Microsoft (and I use neither when I can help it). Apple has the convenience of being able to release really cool things and come up with creative new interfaces. That’s what they do. Microsoft, on the other hand, has to satisfy like 90% of desktop computer users. They have to take it slowly. Most users don’t want to relearn the way they use their computer every year. Poor Microsoft. I guess the only consolation is billions of dollars in sales.

In related news, read this comparison of the iPhone and the Treo.

¹ What can I say, I’m jealous of their ability to drag-and-drop. I’ve had to learn to live without that in Linux.

I can’t work up the energy to anything. I have three essays and a test in the next week, not to mention all the stuff I’m supposed to do for work. I could do it all. I could finish my PHL350 essay today and get started on the one for POL353, study for PHL346 during my break tomorrow and write PHL277 on the weekend. Yet here I am, staring at the computer screen. And this blog entry is the most useful thing I’ve done yet.

I kinda want to redo the website design. I have in my mind several designs that would be great, but every time I start up in Photoshop they come out all cartoonish. This one isn’t horrible I suppose. Maybe I’ll change the sidebar a little just to shake things up.

I’ve also made a little headway on CourtServices. I’m still trying to get it to look pretty and professional. I have this feeling that there’s just some psychological twitch that makes everybody look at their own designs and hate them.

I finally signed up for the LSAT. June 11th at McMaster. UofT and Osgoode were both sold out. One of them would have been nice and convenient, could have taken the shuttlebus or something. I’ll have to remember to go out to Mac beforehand and find the room so I’m not searching the day of the exam.

I finally got around to finding my MP3 player and taking it in the car the other day (good thing too, it was snowing and it took me over 2 hours to get to Brampton). So, the first thing I put on? Les Miserables. For some reason I never get tired of it. Almost every time I listen to it I notice new things (or old things that I don’t remember noticing the last time I noticed them).

Jean Valjean is my hero. There’s something inspiring about him. He insists on doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing. He doesn’t care at all about other people knowing it. In fact, he tries to avoid anyone knowing about it. So very unlike the self-important do-gooders that annoy me so much. On a side note, Superman is the same: he does good because he can do good and, as Clark Kent, he takes none of the credit for it.

It’s not just Valjean though, practically every character in the play is admirable in some fashion (OK, Thénardier isn’t so great, but at least he’s honest about being a cheat). Take Javert. He’s the bad guy, but he’s so principled. He really believes he’s doing the right thing.

Now, the reason I actually started writing this was to complain. The cast on the Complete Symphonic Recording is great… with one exception: Cosette. She sounds like a cat being strangled (or maybe a high-pitched sheep). It makes me wince to hear her sing. I like everybody else. I’ve read some reviews and people complain about Gary Morris who plays Jean Valjean. I like his Valjean. The problem I have with Colm Wilinson’s Valjean is that I can’t avoid hearing the Phantom in his voice. Rather distracting, that. And the people complaining about Eponine should be shot. Kaho Shimada has a beautiful voice (a horrible scream though). It is possible that the screwed up version I downloaded doesn’t actually have the CSR versions of certain Eponine songs and I’m mixed up, but otherwise I think she has a great voice (although I think the Eponine in the 10th Anniversary Concert was better).

I should stop writing, I’m supposed to be working, but I did promise to start updating again.

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It’s from Hamlet… I think this would make a good T-shirt.