Horatio

Today was a cold day.

On Friday I got roped into a Secret Santa more or less without my consent. I've never been in one before. I could try to get out of it, but that would probably garner more attention than just participating. I need help thinking of a neutral gift that would work for pretty much anyone (I don't know who I got yet). I was thinking of an Amazon gift card. I don't know how much to get one for, though. I don't know if there is a price limit or anything, either. I also don't even know if most people use Amazon. I'll probably find out more details on Tuesday, but I'd rather be over-prepared than under-prepared. This is so stressful. The only thing I suck at more than receiving gifts is giving gifts.

When I was younger, I ate so many bananas that when I got routine blood work done one time, I had abnormally high potassium levels. It was enough to be concerning, but not enough to actually do anything. I don't eat bananas that much any more.

I buzzed my head. It's 1000x better than the previous haircut. I did most of it by myself and then my brother got home and he got a few spots on the back that I missed.

I really don't drink anything besides water (or 1% milk in my cereal (or maybe 3 beers/week)). I cut out sugary drinks ages ago. I just eat a TON (not literally) of food at night. It's really only at night, too. I think that if I ate like I ate at night like I eat during the day, I'd be a healthy weight. Related: I tried an asiago bagel today. It was delicious. I used to be a member of the everything cult too, but damn, that was one fine bagel. Unrelated: I got what was probably the worst haircut I've ever gotten in my life ~an hour ago. I'm going to ask my brother to buzz my hair when he gets home. I'd do it myself, but I don't trust myself to get the back right. If he messes up, I'll just shave it. Honestly, I think I'd prefer a shaved head to my current haircut.

I've heard of that notebook thing before, but in the past whenever I was trying to lose weight, I would obsess over calorie counting and as soon as I came across something that I didn't know the caloric info for, I'd just kind of give up. I might be stupid, but I'm not so stupid that I don't know that eating an entire bag of whatever over the course of an hour is terrible for you. I think I'll give it a shot.

Today I went to a grocery store and bought a bunch of unhealthy food. I'm extremely fat and I have a problem. I need help.

He is extremely stubborn. We spent literally at least half an hour deciding where to eat. It started to get on my nerves because whenever I suggested something, he'd come back with either "It's too far", "It's too expensive", or "It sounds really 'sketch'". Eventually he said that some random diner was fine, but we passed by a Fridays and I was just like "We're going there" and we did. As for Bill Nye, when we got to the library they were sold out of the book he was supposed to sign and the popo wouldn't let anyone else go to the top floor where he was. Apparently people had been waiting since 10 AM for the signing at 7 PM.

Oh yeah, I meant to wait a little bit AFTER you unplug it for the capacitors to discharge. In other news, I went into the city last night to see Bill Nye with a friend. More people were supposed to come, but they didn't show up, so it was just the two of us and honestly, the night was pretty miserable. We didn't get to see bill nye, so we went to a T.G.I. Fridays for about an hour and a half, 80 minutes of which was waiting for the food to come. Then I suggested we go to a hookah bar, but the only one my friend was willing to go to (Because he didn't like the names of some of them (He did the same thing with food places and it pissed me off)) was 21+ and he's 20, so the bouncer or whatever told us where an 18+ hookah bar was and when we got there, it was actually kind of scary because reasons, so we just decided to go back home at that point. We were in the city for about 4.5 hours, at least 3 of which were just walking. The area behind my left knee is sore now. I thought for sure I'd have blisters on my feet this morning, but somehow I don't. Anyway, yeah, I think the only reason I had fun in the city the last time I went was because I got drunk.

Heh Seriously, though. I'd wait at least a minute or so once it finishes toasting for the capacitors to discharge. Better safe than sorry

I remember reading somewhere that the reason black and white documents require some colored ink is because each printer has a "signature" that it prints on everything that you can't see so it can be traced back to the printer it came from. I have no clue if this is true or not, but I didn't just make it up. On-topic: When customers don't know how to give you their money and try to anyway. I can't tell you the number of times I've had a customer at work hand me the bills and change all at once. They'll like fold a dollar bill or something in half, hide 37 cents in it, and hand it to you in such a way that if you grab it in any way that isn't the way they were just holding it, fireworks of coins will appear. Then they get annoyed that I dropped their money. Related: People who claim to hate change (The money kind). Personally, I love change. I have a container in my room that I fill up with whatever I acquire over time and cash it in after like a year and, BAM, there's $300 that I wouldn't have otherwise had if I just threw my money at stray cats or whatever people do with their change. I don't really care if you want to pay with exact change, but please don't dig for a penny for 2 minutes when I have a line that's half a mile long. It's not even just the stereotypical old women that do this. It's a significant portion of the population that doesn't seem to have one demographic make up the majority of it.

Can someone explain to me why being a lightweight when it comes to drinking is frowned upon? This is an example of a social norm that 100% doesn't make any sense to me. Having a lower tolerance to alcohol is cheaper and healthier. The cheaper part is self-explanatory, I think. It's healthier because, disregarding natural/genetic alcohol tolerance, you need to drink a lot to build up a tolerance. I don't have anything against people who drink a lot; I just don't get why being able to go longer without being drunk is a good thing. An example some social norms that I don't really agree with, but at least make some sense to me are height/weight discrimination, needing friends/job experience to make/get friends/job experience, and gravitating towards people with a lot of money. The height/weight thing makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. The friend/job thing, while annoying, seems pretty straight-forward. The money thing I guess people do because they want free stuff. I just can't think of a single reason that makes any sense why not being able to drink a lot and stay sober is a bad thing, though.

I slept for >15 hours last night and now I feel weird.

That's the spirit!

I have a far below average sense of taste. I doubt I could distinguish a Hershey's bar from some crazy gourmet Dutch chocolate. I didn't start drinking until I turned 21. Due to these things, I feel that I'm far behind on the level of alcoholic knowledge I should have at my age (22). I don't have a favorite anything when it comes to booze and I'd like to be more knowledgeable in this field. I'm probably one of the least picky people you'll ever meet when it comes to food and drink, but I feel like at the very least I should have a favorite beer or something. What do I need to do to not come across as, well, me (In terms of alcohol)?

My friend just invited me to a book signing that his friend (and my... acquaintance that I'm on good terms with? I'm not good with this kind of thing.) invited him to. I told him that I'd definitely be interested in going, but the main reason I said that I'm interested is because I see this as an opportunity to expand my social life (Which is far below average, but slowly growing) and potentially do something afterwards. The book signing is a state over (NYC) and would cost a non-negligible sum of money to get to and buy the book. I'm kind of confused as to what the intentions of the people going are (If they just want to go there, get a book signed, and then come back) and I don't want to just ask "DO YOU WANT TO DO STUFF IN THE CITY AFTER WE GET THE BOOK SIGNED???" because I'm not really in charge of this event and I don't want to appear uninterested in the author (Bill Nye (Don't get me wrong, I watched the show as a kid, but apparently he's more politically involved now or something and I know that's a touchy area.)) and I don't know if the hanging out afterwards is implied or not. I'm like 90+% sure I'm going to go even if it's just for the book signing because I have nothing going on that day and even if it's just for the book signing, I guess it would be a good bonding experience or something, but I'd really like to do something afterwards because I feel like the excursion would kind of be a waste of money if it's just to buy a book and get it signed. I feel like I'm just repeating myself at this point, so I'll try to wrap this post up. Would it be weird to suggest that we do something afterwards? I don't even know what that something would be, but even if it's just wandering around in the city, I feel like it could be fun. What would you guys do if you were in my shoes? Sorry if this belongs in another thread. I just don't want to bump something that hasn't been posted in in several months.

I was seriously contemplating getting an action figure, wrapping him in some rags or something, and making a video of me washing him. He would have been my sheets dude and I would have been washing my sheets dude. Like, I looked around my room for a little bit, but I couldn't find any action figures and I'm not about to go digging through the attic for something that requires this much effort and a very small payoff. Tl;dr: commas In case I wasn't clear, I now lay in my bed with gym shorts and a t-shirt on and while I'm probably sweating about the same amount, it goes into my clothes now instead of my sheets and I change my clothes at least daily, so there's really no reason to wash my sheets. It's been well over a month since I put my current sheets on my bed and they look fine. There used to be a big dark spot from all of the sweat that accumulated where I would lay.

Thanks! On the topic of pants: Up until 1 - 2 months ago, I used to spend the majority of my free time in just my boxers in my bed. I made the switch to a cheap t-shirt and gym shorts when my bacne was starting to get out of control due to sweating on my sheets a lot and very rarely changing them. Now it's almost all gone. It's slightly less comfortable, but I think it was worth it on the off chance someone ever sees my back. Oh, also, related to sweat/odor/hygiene: Maybe 1 - 2 months before I stopped spending my free time in just undergarments, I started wearing A-shirts (http://images.jockey.com/en-us/catalog/productimages/009813_f.jpg) and now my shirts are significantly less sweaty. My arm pits still ooze the stuff, though.

Disregard this post.

I'm noticing a distinct lack of jewelry on either person's left ring finger.

Well, to be fair to her, she has had a fever for 25 days or something ridiculous like that and still came in a handful of times while sick. In other news, I went to a gym last Friday with a friend for the first time in ages and now they keep calling me telling me they have a special rate from their corporate office or something and I really don't know what to do. On one hand, if it's a genuinely good rate and my friend can make it (I don't like working out alone. Motivation issues, ya feel me?), I think I should do it, but on the other hand, if I call and they're like "Oh yeah, it's actually the same rate everyone else pays, but we're calling it our special guest rate just for you!" or something and I have to decide on the phone whether or not I'm interested, that would really suck. I don't know what to dooOOOoOOoOoOO

I went shopping and ran into a classmate from high school. I wouldn't even really call him a friend. I mean, we didn't not get along or anything; we were just never really close. Anyway, he stopped me and asked how life was etc. and it was pretty awkward due to a combination of me being socially inept and not being prepared for it. I genuinely didn't recognize him at first and it took me a few seconds to even remember who he was. Then we awkwardly parted ways and I walked out to my car, only to realize I parked on the opposite side of the shopping complex, so I had to walk back in and he definitely saw me. I'm not mad at him or anything for stopping me and saying hi. If anything, I'm grateful because when I was in high school I didn't really have any friends and it was cool that he even remembered me. Oh, also, remember how I said my one professor cancelled class a few times this semester? She cancelled class for the fifth time today. Now she's offering extra credit for those of us in the Monday-Wednesday section who go to class during the Tuesday-Thursday section, but me and at least one other classmate have class during that time, so he wrote an angry email to her.

What makes a programming language bad? I mean, I get that if you code a lot, you're going to have preferences with certain things, but a lot of what I've read online claims that different languages are good for different things. Honestly, I kind of feel like this conversation is a prime example of the Dunning Kruger effect (Myself included). I'm assuming that most of the people contributing to this conversation are undergrads (correct me if I'm wrong) and that they aren't experts on the subject. I'd really appreciate links to something backing up your claims that MATLAB and R are horrible languages that shouldn't exist and that you're not just speculating. Edit: Man, I'm a pretentious [bleep].

Today I drank alcohol and made posts on a forum on a topic I know very little about.

MATLAB was my first real experience with any kind of programming. The course at my school that teaches MATLAB only has precalc as a prerequisite, so I didn't have to worry about any conceptual math-y things while taking the course (I'm aware that it's used in many fields and is a powerful tool), and honestly, I loved it. I'm more of a visual person, so the first few classes when we were just doing Hello Worlds or whatever we did were really boring and easy to me, but at about halfway through the semester, we had learned everything we needed to know and we started doing projects. We had to write up reports on them, which sucked most of the fun out of it and the professor LITERALLY wanted every line commented (x = 3;? %Set the variable x equal to 3. No, I'm not joking.), but other than that, I actually really enjoyed learning code for the first time. The final project was pretty tough and I needed outside assistance, but once I got it to work, the results made me so happy that all the effort put into it was totally worth it. Tl;dr: You're wrong Indexing from 1, logically indexing vectors rather than the typical double for loops, and so many other things I can't think of at the moment are just awful. I've been doing very well in the class but as far as I'm concerned it's less useful and less intuitive than so many other languages. You can use a screwdriver to push a nail into a piece of wood. Does that mean you should? This seems to be the general consensus on MATLAB on the internet (or at least the parts of the internet I visit). I'd imagine it's the same for other languages. I'm not a student of computer science and know very little about it, so I can't speak from experience, but it sounds to me that you just don't like the syntax. Again, this is just my opinion, but the first analogy that came to mind when I read your post is complaining about polar coordinates because it's so much easier to make a line in rectangular. On the other hand, you could argue that SymPy/matplotlib/numpy/whatever (Is the fact that I'm only familiar with python and MATLAB showing yet?) can do the same thing, but... Uh... I don't really know where I was going with this. I guess now is as good a time as any to actually address the points you brought up in your post. Indexing from 1 - So what? I've used python (which indexes from 0 (which I'm assuming is "normal")) waaaaaaaaaaaay more than MATLAB and it doesn't really bother me. I'm sure there are more logical reasons to index from 0 than 1, but MATLAB is made for matrices, and matrices start at 11, not 00. This goes back to using the right tool for the job. That's my best guess as to why they do it. Logically indexing vectors rather than the typical double for loops - This just sounds like you being nit-picky to me. Honestly, I prefer being able to type x = [1, 2, 3 ; 4, 5, 6] rather than the nested for loops. The only good reason I can think that someone would argue against the way MATLAB does it is because it's slower (I don't know if this is true), but what's stopping you from doing the for loop thing in MATLAB? Again, take everything I say with 20 pounds of salt. I know very little about programming and have only formally taken one CS-ish course and casually taught myself python a little above codecademy.