naps and what have you

I'm sick and run down, I'm low on blood, and my running schedule is blown for probably the rest of the week. I called off my afternoon class and I'm taking a nap for many hours now. I will dream of partitioning Aronszajn trees.


In Iraq three powerful explosions killed at least 17 people outside a Baghdad hotel used by foreign media and contractors.

blood feud with myself

Abdallah Khamisi, an opposition supporter, sits covered in blood after he was smashed with sticks and rifle butts by soldiers, one of them running in the background, in Stone Town, Tanzania October 30, 2005. Zanzibari troops beat opposition supporters and fired a live bullet and tear gas on Sunday during an election on the Tanzanian islands marred by clashes and fraud allegations almost as soon as polls opened. Violence intensified in the afternoon, as troops and opposition backers fought more and more in the streets of historic Stone Town.

Caitlin: Don't buy a car without driving it and checking out its history online first. People who buy cars sight unseen do crazy amounts of legwork in advance that you don't have the resources to do. If you buy a car without driving it you will regret it, guaranteed.

I gave blood today and it transpired as if according to script. A script I know far too well. I knew all the characters and lines in advance and yet I couldn't prevent anything from happening. I feel fine before and during the process. But right when it's over my mind quickly starts to recede; I can feel myself drawing away, my extremities tingle and I tell someone I feel dizzy. I keep thinking I won't black out, even when I can't see anything anymore and I lose hearing.

The return process is always slower. I gradually become aware of people saying my name and asking me to do things I cannot understand yet. It's all very confusing and wet as I regain control of reason and then try to recreate my now disjointed sense of self. White. Stucco. What am I looking at? A ceiling. Where am I? I feel fine. Wait, now I do, I didn't a second ago. Now I feel even finer. Why do I have dripping paper towels on me? I passed out. Ok, hold my arm straight up with this gauze in place. Pretend I feel normal and not act like my mind was just blown.

The funny thing is that I always think: this will be the time I don't pass out. It never is. Sometimes, when I'm with someone I know, I will mention beforehand to the attendant that I have a history of passing out. But then they start to make jokes at my expense while giving me "special treatment." Like I'm just a complainer. I understand that there must be people who enter into situations eager for the attention that comes with medical care but I am not such a one.

So I vary my routine each time before I donate to see if doing something differently might help. Eating more or less, eating sooner or later, riding my bike or getting a ride, etc. So far I've passed out at least once under each set of options, so I'm starting to think it's just me.

I'm fairly sick

For the last week at work, I have been asking my cow-orkers to join me in giving blood at the bloodmobile that's outside the theater today. Many people agreed, some people said they would but clearly would not, and some people declined. But now I'm really sick and I feel like I have to show up because I've spent so much time trying to persuade other people to get over their fears to donate blood. I know that I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway.

I was invited to several parties last night, none of which I went to. I came home, drank tea, and went to bed. I need soup right now. Is there a soup delivery service? Someone could make a killing filling this niche.

late night time travel

Running until I have to go to work at 6. It says I'm scheduled 6PM-1AM, for 8 hours. Daylight savings time happens at 2AM: clocks run normally until 2AM, then they say 1AM. But our theater closes around 12:30AM. We never stay open until 2AM, so why the hell am I scheduled until then?

Wow. The coolest stunt I've seen in a while. Yeah, it's a commercial, but it's still more interesting than anything else you've seen today.

Happy Birthday Josh!

My sleep schedule has been REALLY messed up this week ever since I agreed last weekend to go out after work and didn't get to bed until 6AM. Consequently I missed some classes, slept until the late afternoon, took awful naps, and wasted a lot of time trying to get back on track. I'm still not quite there yet.

Fab is in Meadville this weekend. There's a de rigueur Halloween party tonight at MILO thrown by Colin and Michelle. They have been working on their Star Wars-themed costumes for nearly a year now, so it should be worth going after work just to see what they've done. It's Josh's birthday today: he's 30. Everyone please call him to wish him the best. I'm not sure what's he's up to today since I can't call him.

I found out what happened with my phone, though. When we moved in July, I had to change the service to the new apartment. Several billing things also changed. I had my phone bill set up to automatically deduct from my checking account before it was due. But I forgot to set that up with my new service, so I hadn't paid my bill since July! Whoops! I guess they would like some "money" for the "services" they provide...

LOST as godgame

yes, I know my phone is out

Again, I love the phone company here. I take back anything negative I've ever said about SBC. Now stop messing with my service!



Parametrizing the abstract Ellentuck theorem
by Jose Mijares
Abstract: We give a parametrization with perfect sets of the abstract Ellentuck theorem. The main tool for achieving this goal is a sort of parametrization of an abstract version of the Nash-Williams theorem. As corollaries, we obtain some known classical results like the parametrized version of the Galvin-Prikry theorem due to Miller and Todorcevic, and the parametrized version of Ellentuck's theorem due to Pawlikowski. Also, we obtain parametrized versions of nonclassical results such as Milliken's theorem.

ah, dense subsets of rationals!

Let Q be the rationals and let Δ_P={A ⊆ P | A is dense in P}. I think I've proved Is it true that for ∀r, ∀f:D_Q→r, ∃D∈Δ_Q such that ∀A∈Δ_D, f(D)=k for some k≤r?

That is, color all the dense subsets of Q with a finite number of colors. Then must there be some dense subset D of Q such that all dense subsets of it have the same color? In fact, I think much more is true but I'm going to check it out first.

---

Google Earth via Ryan
A little addicting, I must say...



A thugged out girl tests all of her ring tones as loud as possible for a solid minute.

Preppy girl: Are you serious with that? Can you do everyone a favor and stop?
Thug girl: I know you're not talking to me. You messed with the wrong girl.
Preppy girl: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Your screaming phone made me deaf.
Thug girl: I'll f her up. But then she'll call the cops; her people love the cops. Go back to where you came from!
Preppy girl: I'm trying to. That's why I'm on the train, you stupid bitch. Look, you got a new cell phone and that's great, but figure it out at home.
Thug girl: I'll f you up. You're f-ing with the wrong girl. Don't be fooled by the pretty face.
Preppy girl: Pretty face? Where?

--N train
from Overheard in New York

row up the dominoes around you

I'm in a strange mood. Laura and I hung out Monday night. I made dinner and we talked and watched Six Feet Under (she hasn't seen the 5th season). We spoke on matters of some substance and it tends to make me get mushily un-Landonish whenever we engage each other the way we used to. I end up listening to a lot of old songs and staying up even later than usual, thinking.

"my boyfriend has big arms"

I was so nearly unconscious this morning in class on 4 hours of sleep. I mindlessly took notes then that I read this afternoon and remembered writing none of it.

I saw Good Night and Good Luck last night: I highly recommend it to everyone. I'm going to see it again this week. It's hard for me to imagine a time when television was more than fear mongering and celebri-void. The words Murrow spoke seemed to come from another world, an intelligent meaningful world that encouraged rational discourse.

I'm back on Milliken's strongly embedded infinite tree partition theorem; yet another generalization of Ramsey's theorem. I was off it for a while but Yared's in Mexico at a conference so I have an extra few hours this week to get back on that wonderful, Halpern-Lauchli fueled horse.

is this thing on?

I am having trouble loading my own website but I don't have time right now to sort it out.

Fab is going to Dave Chappelle's show tonight but I have to work. Oh well.

After work last night I played a marathon game of pictionary with drunken cow-orkers. I stayed up until 6AM and slept in until 3PM. Ouch. Sleep will be difficult tonight.


Columbus Jazz Arts Group with Branford Marsalis

Parthenondisclosure

I've still never run a 5K, so I think this one will be my first.



John in Seattle can see all the good shows! Pedro the Lion plays there all the time and it's killing me... David Bazan is playing a solo show tonight with Iron & Wine and Calexico: how cool is that? What I wouldn't give to be able to be able to see my favorite band play so frequently.

I made cookies today. No reason. Cookies were in order.

I am watching BBC's The Office this afternoon, eating cookies. Ha.

a word I wished were "Valvoline"

Ah, freezing rain, how I've missed you! And on the morning I have to get groceries: what thoughtful timing for your return to me.

Mike Doughty: Chicago 10-15-2005

Has everyone heard the Arctic Monkeys?

Josh is playing as a guest in a show tonight. I'm hoping to get off work early enough to see him (and maybe play, too).

bigger than it is

I had a feeling Fab was getting weirded out about something lately but I didn't know what. It seems he wanted me to tidy up the place a bit. When I came downstairs this morning, the kitchen and living room were bedecked with an artful array of my dishes. Arranged in graceful curves, he stretched cups, bowls, plates, and the occasional pan in unavoidable arcs I would have to step over to go anywhere. I opened the bathroom door and knocked over a pot placed behind the door. I turned on the lightswitch and a colander nearly took my head off: he had set the overhead fan on high speed and placed it on top of a fan blade. When I hit the switch, it came crashing down.

OK. I get it.

I saw him in combinatorics and told him that I liked what he'd done with the place but that for future reference, he could just ask me to clean up.

underlative superwear

An incredible rendition of the Simpsons theme played on acoustic guitar: video HERE. Fab can pull out a decent version on his violin but this smokes him.

Pedro the Lion DVD set for early 2006

other voices, other rooms

A reasonably intelligent description of the stolen 2004 presidential election HERE.



I couldn't fall asleep last night. My mind kept going even though I was tired. So I turned on the light and started reading. It made me even less tired than before. But at least I got a lot of reading done until 5AM!

LOST is on tonight. I run after all my classes today. My run will end up at Josh's place by 7PM for dinner, music, and LOST.

good i-dear!

NPR's This I Believe: John McCain


via boingboing



Beverly is gone. Allegheny starts again tomorrow so she left this afternoon. It's back to just Fab and me for the moment.

that's a doozy of a counterexample

As you'll notice, with no mouse, I am decidedly picture-free lately. I just don't have the determination to figure out how to cut, paste, and upload images effectively without a better interface than mousekeys.

Argh! I left my toothbrush and toothpaste in Euclid! I hate getting redundant toiletries.

Fabrizio has advised me to put nothing incriminating (about him) on this website. So let it be known that he is a perfect angel of a roomate who has never, to my knowledge, done anything, ever, to dishonor himself. Pabrizio Folo, on the other hand...

THIS is clearly very important. Josh and I were crying our eyes out in Euclid and no one else thought it was even funny.

Mustard Watches: An Integrated Approach to Time and Food.
via Spoons

I'm back

Back in Columbus.

Left VERY late Friday night/Saturday morning so Josh could go to the Decemberists' concert. Too little sleep to run the race: I didn't want to repeat my last performance in Cleveland. Saw Gina and Neil on Saturday. Played guitar and Magic with my cousin Matt. Went to Emily's birthday party Saturday night. A great weekend, all told.

sorry for the delay

...but I had a ton of homework, running, and sleeping to do.

Yared asked me to teach his Linear Algebra classes on Friday because he's out of town. I'm a little nervous but it's easy stuff and they're mostly engineers, so real math will confuse them no matter what I say.

I will be in Euclid over the weekend for a race and Emily's birthday party.

Carry on people.

tripping on white squares

I have combinatorics and analysis at 9:30 and 10:30 on the same floor of a building Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So I usually stop in the bathroom between classes. The wall around the urinal is covered with small, white, square tiles. While there, I make a game of trying to Magic-Eye the tiles: that is, refocusing my eyes to make the repetitive tiles appear to coincide differently. When done correctly, the result tricks my brain into believing the tiles are much larger and closer than they are. Whether done correctly or not, I also imagine that it appears to anyone else in the bathroom at 10:30 AM that I'm totally high.

my morning apple

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T.S. Eliot

I found a way to not have to climb the tree to get my morning apple. I found a board 2 feet by 10 feet long. I hold it at one end and with the other end, tap the bottom of an apple on the tree. If it's ripe, it pops off and rolls down the board. No more scrapes from apple tree bark. And for any of you who think, why don't I just buy an apple, you have clearly never had apples from this tree. I would *PAY* $2 per apple if I could get these in a store, they're that good.

preempterodactyl

I went over to Josh's this evening in the hopes of watching our usual Sunday Fox lineup but our hopes were crashed with the preemption of stewpid baseball playoffs. Tarnation!

I think I'm heading back to Euclid next weekend for a small race: Run This Way 5K in Cleveland. That is, if my request off is approved. Ah, work. Good for nothing but low wages.


Possibly one of the worst movies ever made. Caitlin and Steve fortuitously happened upon it while channel surfing. I had the pleasure of renting it when I was in the 9^th grade and laughing so hard with Ben Whittaker we cried.

convolution solution

I watched Proof (Paltrow, Hopkins, Gyllenhall) after work last night. It was as expected: nice, but not as good as the play.


Also, I must be worn out. I slept nearly 12 hours last night and it feels like I still have rest to catch up yet.

A strange story about a man who calls restaurants pretending to be a police officer to get employees to do terrible things. HERE.

Lost is full of strange hidden messages and references. I always love the metagame.

50 million people CAN be wrong

Mitch Hedberg comedy clip SITE

Don't Run Away, I'm Not The Flesh-Eating Kind Of Zombie

Sylvester's Line Problem:
If a finite set of points in the plane are not all on one line then there is a line through exactly two of the points.

Philosophy must be of some use and we must take it seriously; it must clear our thoughts and so our actions. Or else it is a disposition we have to check, and an enquiry to see that this is so; i.e. the chief proposition of philosophy is that philosophy is nonsense. And again we must then take seriously that it is nonsense, and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense!
-Frank Ramsey

Deuber's wqo theorem

Let (A,<) be a wqo-set with an obvious ranking r defined by successively taking minimal elements. Call a sequence (a₀,a₁,...) regressive iff r(a_i)<i for every i in ω.

Theorem (Deuber): Let (A,<) be wqo. Then there exists a function
H_(A,<):ω --> ω such that every regressive sequence (a₀,a₁,...,a_H(n)) contains a weakly ascending subsequence with n terms.

---

Three Variable Funny Test

Ben Folds is playing at Allegheny College. Beverly, can you get Fab and me student tickets? We're cheap and we don't want to pay full price.

Monk and Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, 1957

Man on cell: Yo, I gotta call you back. I'm watching my man Jack McCoy. Nigga be lockin' everybody up!
from Overheard In New York


The Nov. 29, 1957, concert [of Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane] was recorded by the Voice of America but never broadcast. For years, the recordings were lost and forgotten. Now, thanks to Appelbaum's discovery, Blue Note Records is releasing them.
NPR story
torrent of concert



In the morning, before I go to combinatorics at 9:30, the last two weeks I have been picking an apple from a tree nearby. This morning, all the apples in reach had been picked. So I climbed the tree to get one. The apple was great but I skinned my inner thigh on the way down. Goddamn it hurts to run. Not going to give up my apples though.

the status of afflatus

I talked with Ryan Cercone yesterday for the first time since 2002. I have to go to Pittsburgh sometime soon to see him before he pulls up stakes and heads to Chicago. Everyone seems to be migrating there lately.

I question whether we’re really that much better off. [Laughs.] We have access to health care, but the lives that we’re saving tend to be sad and lonely and full of anxiety.
-Mike Doughty

4 8 15 16 23 42

Our two aims are truth and clarity, and to achieve these I will shout in class.
Serge Lang (1927-2005)


via robot wisdom weblog
Jeannot was disturbed. He carved 80 lines of text into his floorboards before he starved himself to death. Now these boards are being shown in France. People are upset. Insanity qua art: I love it.

on its last paws

My mouse is finally giving in, giving up the ghost. I've had this optical cordless mouse for a long time. It had a special knack for exploding batteries and dripping acid everywhere but I liked it. It will be missed. Please send cold hard cash in lieu of flowers.

I didn't see Fabrizio in classes this morning so I hope everything is cool. He has mucho grading to do today, I hear.

I ran too far yesterday afternoon and I pulled something slightly. I'm going to take it easy today and get back to schedule tomorrow.

Napping before work today.

egad, a base tone denotes a bad age

It's always easier to get forgiveness than permission.
-Banksy

Laura gave me a giant puffball mushroom. Delicious.