<p>Now, they&#8217;ve done this several times before, usually on April Fools, and people are slowly starting to wise up.  What do you think the chances are that they delayed their prank this year?  I&#8217;m gonna feel really bad if this turns out to be true, but I can&#8217;t really believe it.</p> 

got my acceptance letter from Beijing University of Physical Education (Dept. of Wushu) today. looks like i’m headed back to the middle kingdom. in typical chinese fashion though, nowhere in any of the materials they’ve sent me or on their website do they mention a) when the semester begins, b) how to register for classes, or c) how to arrange for housing.

<p>they&#8217;re not getting rid of me /that/ easily, though.</span></p> 

got my acceptance letter from Beijing University of Physical Education (Dept. of Wushu) today. looks like i’m headed back to the middle kingdom. in typical chinese fashion though, nowhere in any of the materials they’ve sent me or on their website do they mention a) when the semester begins, b) how to register for classes, or c) how to arrange for housing.

<p>they&#8217;re not getting rid of me /that/ easily, though.</span></p> 

everytime lani comes up to visit, she leaves behind a couple of the complimentary magazines from the Delta Shuttle. usually, the tech magazines are bland Wired wannabes with fluff stories about upcoming technologies and rising dotcoms.

<p>after lani leaves, they tend to last until my next cleaning pass over the apartment when, if they&#8217;re lucky, they get a quick once-over just to make sure there isn&#8217;t actually anything of interest to me before heading into the garbage.</p>

<p>tonight i&#8217;m cleaning a little and decide to flip through the copy of <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/">Technology Review</a>. there&#8217;s an <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/tr100_0602.asp">article</a> on the top 100 young innovators (this article was, of course, depressing lani because it made her realize that at 22 years old she hadn&#8217;t yet won a nobel prize ;)</p>

<p>amongst the likes of Shawn Fanning (napster) and John Carmack (doom, quake, etc) i was quite pleasantly surprised to see <a href="http://goatee.net/">Joe Reagle</a>. Joe is a friend of <a href="http://www.miromi.org/">mimi</a>&#8217;s and goatee.net is on my regular reading list. seeing a (somewhat) familiar face in a magazine when you aren&#8217;t expecting it is kind of weird. i knew that he does all kinds of cool stuff but i never realized he was a celebrity.</p>

<p>so congratulations, Joe!</p> 

after drinking a lot this weekend and generally staying out late a few times too many last week, i decided i should re-hydrate myself and flush out some toxins. so over the course of the day, i drank a few gallons of water.

<p>felt good but i was pretty much running to the toilet every half hour all day. it&#8217;s hard to get programming stuff done when you can&#8217;t really concentrate on something for more than about 20 minutes before your bladder distracts you.</p> 

last night, lani and i got in a van with Daphne, Blair, and Angela (Angela is doing production work on a movie and was given a van for the duration of the filming so she can pick up the crew and equipment). we drove around manhattan for a while listening to nirvana and screaming obscenities at the crazy taxi drivers. then we went out to williamsburg looking for dinner. we’d planned to go to the brooklyn brewery’s restaurant/taproom but they were closed by the time we got there. so instead we went to some other ale house nearby where i had a Weihenstephaner hefe-weisse and a grilled portobello sandwich.

<p>then we wandered down to Daphne and Blair&#8217;s to watch Iron Chef while we digested our food.</p>

<p>around 2am, we headed off to Luxx again. some of Daphne&#8217;s friends who have a hip-hop duo called Moreplay were performing. stylistically they were pretty similar to Avenue D: electro beats and sexually oriented rhymes. Daphne joined them for one of their songs. pretty good show.</p> 

so i mostly survived the biphysics lecture series…well, considering that i did the equivalent of bumrushing the place. they didn’t accept me for studentship but i talked my boss into helping me fund the train rides and taxi cabs. the organizer gave some kind of comment about how the students who attended were selected and special. i have to say that it was pretty funny that a bum like me worked her way into it. there were definitely a collection of interesting and talented people there. on the train ride to nyc, i talked with a german post-doc with background in statistical mechanics in chaotic systems who is taking on exactly what i am dying to see done. yay! i just hope he gets it done soon.

Root exploit in apache. New version came out this morning that’s not vulnerable.

jP eventually did ride the wet pink pony. lani has photographic evidence.

<p>lani&#8217;s in town for the coming week, staying with me while she attends a biophysics lecture at princeton.</p>

<p>jP came down for the weekend to visit me, lani, daphne, blair, keith, and a few other bates types. on friday night we all went to see yet another Avenue D show out in williamsburg. they just keep getting better. even had a hardcore song this time.</p>

<p>the rest of the weekend we spent drinking, eating (<em>lots</em>), and hanging out.</p> 

congratulations to jP for passing his qualifying exams and becoming a real, live PhD candidate.