Sunday, September 2, 2007

How would you like your eggs?



Adjusting to the East Coast, in general, has not been that difficult. Sure, crossing the street is dangerous and the tax sucks, but other than that I'm doing ok. Every once in a while you stumble upon a cultural difference between coast lines (East and West coast people tend to know different words). For instance, on the East Coast you say that you stand "On Line" at the bank instead of "In Line" as is popular on the West Coast. Most of these little syntax differences are kind of fun to discover, but today we hit a cultural divide of epic proportions.

We were just settling down for breakfast at Zeta Psi and I was asked what I wanted for breakfast. I responded that I wanted french toast, bacon, and over-hard eggs. I get this weird look, and the guy wanders away to tell the kitchen. After he's gone the people at the table look at me and tilt their heads a bit.

"Did you say 'Over-Hard'?"
"Um, yeah, why?"
"What's that?"
"Are you serious?"
[everybody else at the table] "What are you talking about Snively? There's no such thing!"

Alright, call me crazy, but I've been ordering Over-Hard eggs for my entire life and nobody has ever had trouble figuring out what I was talking about. Do you guys know what Over-Hard eggs are?! Let me know in the comments and then in the poll on the right side of the page, it's bugging me a ton.

How would you like your eggs?



Adjusting to the East Coast, in general, has not been that difficult. Sure, crossing the street is dangerous and the tax sucks, but other than that I'm doing ok. Every once in a while you stumble upon a cultural difference between coast lines (East and West coast people tend to know different words). For instance, on the East Coast you say that you stand "On Line" at the bank instead of "In Line" as is popular on the West Coast. Most of these little syntax differences are kind of fun to discover, but today we hit a cultural divide of epic proportions.

We were just settling down for breakfast at Zeta Psi and I was asked what I wanted for breakfast. I responded that I wanted french toast, bacon, and over-hard eggs. I get this weird look, and the guy wanders away to tell the kitchen. After he's gone the people at the table look at me and tilt their heads a bit.

"Did you say 'Over-Hard'?"
"Um, yeah, why?"
"What's that?"
"Are you serious?"
[everybody else at the table] "What are you talking about Snively? There's no such thing!"

Alright, call me crazy, but I've been ordering Over-Hard eggs for my entire life and nobody has ever had trouble figuring out what I was talking about. Do you guys know what Over-Hard eggs are?! Let me know in the comments and then in the poll on the right side of the page, it's bugging me a ton.

First Dome Hack of the Year

Last night at about 3:30 am, if you happened to be wandering around Killian Court and also happened to look up, you would have noticed the dome sporting a new shade of purple. I didn't have my camera with me, but I snapped a cell phone camera shot (which sucks, but you can figure out what the picture is of).



I was particularly excited to see that I was witnessing a hack in progress, because as I looked at the dome I could see lights wavering and switching from white to purple as the gels were affixed over the lights. Look for better pictures and perhaps more details in the IHTFP Hack Gallery soon!

First Dome Hack of the Year

Last night at about 3:30 am, if you happened to be wandering around Killian Court and also happened to look up, you would have noticed the dome sporting a new shade of purple. I didn't have my camera with me, but I snapped a cell phone camera shot (which sucks, but you can figure out what the picture is of).



I was particularly excited to see that I was witnessing a hack in progress, because as I looked at the dome I could see lights wavering and switching from white to purple as the gels were affixed over the lights. Look for better pictures and perhaps more details in the IHTFP Hack Gallery soon!

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Balloons in Burton Conner

Today was a spectacular day for blog content! I came in to my room after wandering the outside, only to see the room filled with balloons! During In-Dorm rush there was a room filled with balloons to play in and it seems somebody forgot to close the door to said room after rush was over. Due to a strange combination of open windows and empty hallways, the balloons started leaving the room and wandering around the building . . . by themselves. The result was random rooms, kitchens, hallways, and staircases filled with balloons. Soon enough the balloons found their way outside, riding vortices and wind currents into the big blue sky . . .

Balloons in Burton Conner

Today was a spectacular day for blog content! I came in to my room after wandering the outside, only to see the room filled with balloons! During In-Dorm rush there was a room filled with balloons to play in and it seems somebody forgot to close the door to said room after rush was over. Due to a strange combination of open windows and empty hallways, the balloons started leaving the room and wandering around the building . . . by themselves. The result was random rooms, kitchens, hallways, and staircases filled with balloons. Soon enough the balloons found their way outside, riding vortices and wind currents into the big blue sky . . .

Friday, August 31, 2007

All Settled In

Wednesday was In-Dorm rush. Basically what that means is I had to decide on which floor I would live, since I was placed into Burton Conner permanently. In-Dorm rush consists of touring all the floors of Burton Conner for three hours, eating lots of food and trying to figure out where you'll fit in. My roommate, Jon, and I, decided that Conner 2 (second floor of the Conner side) would be our favorite floor, but it's always up in the air as to whether you get what you want. MIT seems to be very fond of the lottery system, deciding on nearly everything with a lottery in some form or another. The same was true with In-Dorm rush, we ranked all the floors and then waited until the next morning to hear the results. After mucho anticipation, I was delighted to hear that Jon, Yuki, Dan, Michelle, and I had all been selected to live on Conner 2! Conner 2 is also where Laura lives, which will create all sorts of fun and taunting and yelling and crap-giving.

Yesterday was moving day, and move we did. We hauled all our bags into the kitchen near our room and prepared to move in. Before we moved in though, we decided to paint our room, so we took a trip to the hardware store, which Laura graciously walked us to. She also graciously told us, after we spent 20 minutes picking out the perfect paint colors, that she hated them and they were ugly.

Paint in hand we headed back to campus and began taping, painting, and panting for air since it's really hot here and there's no air conditioning. My two roommates, Jon and James (there are 3 of us in a double, a lovely little thing called crowding) did a lot of painting while I went on a tour of the Media Lab and James painted with Laura while Jon and I went out to eat. By the time our evening escapades were over, it was 1 am and the room was half painted. That's when I made the brilliant decision to pull an all-nighter to finish. James helped a little and then crashed, while Jon was asleep before we knew it. I finished all the painting at about 3 and managed to stay up until 4 IMing people.

I was so deliriously tired while typing that I think I said "brb" or "just a sec" so I could look something up, and then fell asleep accidently. The next time I looked at the screen I saw "That's a really long 'Just a sec'" and realized that it was time to sleep a little. I don't remember if I said goodbye or not to the people I was talking to, or even how long I left them there when I accidently fell asleep, or what I actually said to them. I was a wee bit tired after all.

I woke up at 7 this morning (read 3 hours of sleep) and spent the whole morning moving everything into my room and completely unpacking. That is finally done, and now we have a completed dorm room, ready to live in. The only things that aren't done are

a) Lofting the single bed so we can put a desk under it and open up a wall.
b) Add some shelves above the wire shelving unit.
c) Add a dresser (still not sure how that'll fit, but James seems to think it will. I think the bookcase will have to go)

I took some pictures of the room, just try to ignore Jon and James at their computers, they're studying really hard (YouTube).