e pur si muove

Just heard on ABC local news that someone died last night amidst the intoxicated chaos of Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day.

I couldn’t find any writeup on the net yet (not even on ABC’s site) so I’m writing this up here for the time being.

Samuel Park was driving on Wright St through the intersection with Healey on a motorbike (?) with 22-year-old passenger Caroline Yoon. He crashed his vehicle right outside the Jerusalem restaurant on campus. Sam is out on $1,000 bail after being arrested for DUI. Caroline was pronunced dead at Carle Hospital slightly after 4 am, after massive head trauma. At the time, she was not wearing a helmet. Caroline was a graduate student at Penn State. Blood tests for alcohol were incomplete at press time but she was wearing one of those green Unofficial T-shirts.

It’s been ten years since someone first decided that a fabricated holiday dedicated to drinking yourself silly on luminous green beer and wearing bright green T-shirts and gewgaws was a guaranteed money for local business. Will this mark the beginning of the end of the greed-induced insanity? Isn’t it bad enough that the unholy Trinity of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day have been so thorough in their brainwashing of consumers for exuberant spending? At least those holidays were supposed to have a point. What is the point of Unofficial?

Because sometimes they fall off the edge of the Great Super Mario Video Game of Life.

Read about the rescue of a flummoxed feline in Bristol, RI. « Grrlscientist, Living the Scientific Life

The amazing thing about modern web services is that the article gives enough information to reconstruct exactly where the cat had been stuck in. Put together reports of a cat which “caught its head in a drainage grate on State Street ” and “police receiv[ing] a call of a cat stuck in a drain cover across from Magnolia Street”, and a little work with Google Maps, et voilà! Microsoft Virtual Earth does better, and in fact allows you to zoom in until you could almost swear you can see the grate. It’s across from the junction, remember?

Will be taking a hiatus over the weekend (along with the rest of the entire department) while the chemistry buildings’ electrical networks are being upgraded.

Not only is my advisor now my latest Facebook friend, he is also my poke buddy.

The weird and wonderful thing about social networking online is its incredible egalitarianism. So unlike meatspace.

In other news, my new camera should be coming in soon.

Oh, and Daryl passed on a link to a rendition of John Cage’s 4″33′ on YouTube. I love how the audience coughs (mostly) only between movements. Isn’t this so bizarre??

It just occurred to me that this piece would be an excellent litmus test for music snobs. Everyone else just won’t get it.