What's Andy Cooking?

A dinner chat

At dinner tonight, an interesting debate arose about the use of salt on icy roads. While it was my opinion that the salt simply absorbs the ice as it melts naturally into water, leaving 'dry' ice, Erik felt that he'd heard from a very reliable source that the salt actually lowers the melting point of ice, thereby melting the ice more quickly and absorbing the water.

I suppose that this could be concievable, but I think it would require that the salt either actually change the chemical characteristics of the ice, or that the salt would have some internal energy not normally found in other substances that would be transferred to the ice in the form of heat. Both are concievable, but it seems to me that the second idea is the most likely.

On a related note, I discovered today just how deep the roots of the geek tree run in my group of friends . . .

Addendum from MarkyB, 12-1

I would have to agree with Erik, and confirm that the reliable source that he heard this from was none other than Tom Roland himself (probably one of the top five professors in Thompson hall). If my memory serves correct, salt mixed with water creates an endothermic reaction whereby heat is transfered to the ice causing it to melt. If you add salt to water and stir it, there is a noticeable increase in the temp of the water. Ever wonder why the polar ice caps are made of fresh water? Oh yeah, the geek tree roots just got deeper.

I win

I haven't posted for a few Sunday's now, and I figured it was worth the effort to do so.

I'm right now eagerly awaiting my prize from Furstie for being the 10,000th visitor to his site.

As it turns out, this will be the third time I've won something from his site. The first was last spring when I was actually number 4,999, for which I won a shirt with one sleeve. Just recently, I won a plaque claiming that I was first place all-around male for guessing the correct answer to his Lowell Explorer contest.

That last one was by far the funniest. Especially the little dig about Trent. Somehow those sneak in every once-in-a-while and they're funny as hell.

The lost thoughts of a late night

I had a thought on the walk home from Lindsey's house tonight, but it seems that I've since forgotten it. By since I mean that it was five minutes ago I formed it. Ah well . . .

I'll leave you all with this question to ponder: Everyone has seen real pigeons at some point in their lives, but where are all the baby pigeons?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Isn't that the way it always is?

So for the last week or so, Lindsey, Mark, Darcy and I have been planning to go out for some good dinner and drinking tonight. Of course, what happens the day of, but Lindsey pukes her guts out a few times and Darcy dissapears up to Seattle for her GRE and wont be back till most likely somewhere around eight or nine. You made dinner plans dear Darcy?

And as it is so often that things fall apart.

Thoughtfull

My mom turns 50 today. My brother and dad and myself have not gotten her a good gift yet, in typical Morrison fashion. The best idea we've had so far was to get the extended version of the Two Towers.

Way to go boys . . .

(How's that for mundane?)

Barbershop

Yesterday, I met my dad at Mer's for a good haircut and a chance to catch up. We discussed the fact that I've been going to Mer to get my haircut since I was seven years old. That's a long time.

Mer has to be the greatest barber on earth though. Yesterday, he gave my dad his best medical opinion on how recovering from surgery should go. It was something about how whenever he used to get sick as a kid living out in the midwest, his mom would always cook him up some good steak and potatoes, and soon enough he'd be feeling right as rain.

The funniest thing was when he expressed his opinion on beards: "Why would anyone want to grow the same hair on their face that grows naturally on my ass."

That's what going to a barber is all about though, the conversation. I don't want to hear the latest gossip - who's sleeping with who from the salon - or anything like that. I just want some good, old-fashioned B.S.

Plus the fact that his name is Merwin.

Production

Last night I managed to get some help from Shane in putting the picture of me with the Cream of Wheat on the banner like I've been wanting.

Today I looked into how I could try to change the color scheme, but didn't actually change anything.

Progress is coming slowly, but it certainly is coming.

The Horror

I'd like to have an alter-ego. Not like a second personality, but a real person existing separate from myself that could let out my subconscious desire to be mean or ugly.

For instance, today in my writing class a guy from Wyoming (I only mention that because he thought it important enough to mention himself about five or six times) was reading a story he's written during one of our workshopping sessions. Now, one of the rules of workshopping is that you don't talk when people are responding to your story, except to ask questions.

As you might guess by where this story seems to be leading, he decided not to follow this rule in the slightest. Not only did he interrupt people while they were critiquing, but he did so in such a way as to imply that they were stupid for not understanding what was going on in his story.

It was at this point that I began to ache for my arch-twin (much like Evil Cody is to Real Cody, or Wario to Mario) to come walking in the door and promptly smack him across his Cheyenne-loving face. Dually so simply because he takes all his class notes on a Mac i-Book.

This is just one example of the many times that I wish someone would come into the room, provide a much needed smakdown, and be on his way while all the girls gape in disbelief and all the boys mentally high-five him.

Taste-icles

Star Spangled Ice Cream has released a fifth flavor now! This time, they've gotten themselves an endorsement, and just wait till you see who it is. Check it out.

Two points of frustration today:

When I went to Rome class and it was so incredibly boring that I fell asleep for a full hour and fifteen minutes of it.

When I went to work instead of RDG with Lindsey and I ended up only helping one customer for the full three hours.

Also, for those of you in need: a girlfriend.

The pres

Lindsey, Johnny, and I had dinner at the presidents house tonight. I had a chat with Ronnie about my future plans and the fact that I'm a movie star.

I gotta say though, I've never been really gung-ho about administration for anything, but this guy is pretty cool. I mean, he rode on the tandem with me - an act which most likely caused those who saw him to question what types of relationships he has with male students. Who would ever put themselves on the line like that for friendship?

President Ron Thomas would!

State of the Internet Address

It seems that personal sites are now not impervious to spam. Last night I discovered that five adds for viagra had been placed in the comments on five different post from the last month. This morning I found another one that leads visitors to different online casinos.

The internet is a funny thing. Many people praise it because (like the library) it is the source of free information. It can also serve as a discussion forum for different things - connecting people with similar interests. And the there's seemingly little order to all of this. New sites spring up at random and people can link their own site to any number of sites that they want, creating a tangled web of interconnections. Through peoples' own sites, they can contribute to the fabric of the internet - their own square on the quilt if you will.

But therein lies the beauty and the problem. Anyone can contribute anything they please. They can set up any links they want and create forums to discuss any topic that they want. They can also destructively affect the net, spreading spam and viruses alike.

Now, it is my opinion that, in the real world everyone should get the opportunity at least once to contribute their own work. Write a speech and present it. Sing a song. Mold clay into a cereal bowl. Through creative/practical contribution, everyone can get a feel for what it's like to 'make' something. This, in turn, makes for better critics: they know what goes into creation and can be more critical and at the same time more sympathetic toward others' work.

But the internet does away with all that. Now we have worms that shut down entire networks of people on a whim. We have spam emails that bombard an account till use is futile. We have pop-up adds that interfere with the transfer of true information.

These elements of anti-productivity have invaded the internet. They do not add to the sharing of information, they are simply a nuisance.

The internet, unlike the real world, does not have a uniform system of critique or control, and because of this these nuicances are allowed to run rampant. In the same way that a gigantic 'condom' once advertised for the Castle Superstore in town, but was protested so greatly that it was torn down, so does the internet need these critics and control. Because, although it is a great place for constructive input, there is also the uncontrolled destruction and obstruction of the true passage of knowledge.

Short entry

It looks like my dad will be leaving the hospital tomorrow. He's pretty excited (and back to his normal self mentally anyway).

I'm off for the night. Kudos to me not doing anything school related. I don't know whether to be happy or stressed . . .

UPDATE: Nov. 10

My dad did make it out of the hospital yesterday after nearly a full twelve days. He's happily at home now with both my mom and my brother to care for him.

In a hurry

I don't have much time today - I'm heading up to Seattle for a concert tonight. Before I leave though, I thought I'd at least throw something up here. This flash video is amusing. Enjoy.

'It was a dark and stormy night . . .'

At work tonight, Kathe directed my attention to this site. It's a writing contest that annually asks for the 'worst' openening sentence to a story possible. Some of the entries are hillarious, check it out.

Scandal in the Shadow of the Mountain

As many of you are already aware (if you've been keeping up with my site in the last month), Tacoma City Council was recently the forum for debate concerning a proposed 'spire' to accompany the new convention center. Proponents for the spire claimed that it would help with a new look for the city, as well as bring in business in the form of tourists who might happen to eye the tower on their trip along I-5. Skeptics, on the other hand, felt that the $7 million proposed cost (which was enough money to keep many big lenders from promising funds) was far too much to pay for something that could easily be misconstrued as 400 feet of 'penis envy.'

In a surprise turn of events, Ms. Sarah Kershaw of the New York Times, decided that our poor, backwards town with it's misguided ideas for revitalizing itself would be a good topic for a short article.

The article, titled "A City Seeks Its Identity Atop a Spire of Debate" began with the statement, "It was always the lesser city on Puget Sound: smelly, crumbling Tacoma . . . a dusty, dying, pulp-mill mudhole with an understandable ego problem." It then goes on to discuss a few of the problems that Tacoma has faced in the past few years: loss of business, serial killers, and that awful "aroma of Tacoma."

Now, I'll let you in on a little trick of mine. See, when I watch the Mariners play the Yankees in the playoffs, I always shut off the tv sound and listen to the local radio broadcast. Why? I've found that the national announcers there in the Big Apple get every dig in they can about my boys, while they always seem to have convenient excuses about why errors were made on the part of the damn Yanks.

What's the connection here? The east coast news/media sure does seem to feel good about itself at the expense of us backwards, inbreds out here. Check your facts, though, boys and girls - half the time you don't even have the story right!

As Kits Merryman pointed out in her response, "Tacoma's got more soul than The New York Times has snooty," many of the facts Sarah was relying on in her journalistic back-hand of my city were way off. For example, Tacoma was once the major northwestern hub for the railroads and still has the largest, most productive port on the Puget Sound. The problem is, neither of these facts reflect Sarah's 'always lesser' evaluation of Tacoma.

And then there's the little digs she gets in. Calling out the Tacoma Dome as "a sports and entertainment complex that looks like a giant white blob," she forgets to mention the fact that the geometrical blue-fading-to-white pattern has been specifically painted that way to reflect the mountain that hovers majesctically over it as you look from downtown. She also totally fails to mention that it's actually the world's largest free-standing wooden dome, which couples nicely with the fact that my lost little town also boasts the second largest city-run park in the US. Second only to Central Park.

But I guess second doesn't count for much out east.

See, this "dusty mudhole" of a town doesn't suffer from that "understandable ego problem" that you think it does, Ms. Kershaw. In fact, it's not very often that you'll find people crying in the streets over the fact that Seattle has a bigger rep in the area. I guess there are those of us to whom size doesn't matter.

But I digress, penis envy is exactly the situation that brought this attention to my fair town. The funny thing is, the mayor indefinitely canned plans for the spire at least a good week before Ms. Kershaw published her findings . . .

Highlights of the day:

When my dad explained to the nurse that he had a fine understanding with his stomach and he really felt he was ready for food.

When I told Mark that I had something warm besides coffee that he could put in his mouth.

When I got split pea soup from the Magical Sandwich Makers (II).

When Jimmy O'Dea explained that he was a Canadian in disguise by pointing out that he often double-fists Molsons and Labatts.

When I had a glass of warm rum while typing my weblog and chatting with Mark.

When Lindsey was scared by Erik when he was hiding very obviously behind a car.

Geeky as it gets

About a month ago I guess it was, Peter sent me an email with a picture attached that reminded him of me. From the looks of it, it seemed to be a few guys at a ren-fair or something similar and they were dressed full out in superhero spandex. I don't know if at this point Peter knew about my halloween costume, but here it is.

This was the culmination of a huge effort on the part of a good many people, and it was one of the funnest and most insanely nerdy halloweens I've ever had.

For those of you who care at all (which is probably few), the cast goes as follows:

Jack's there as Beast, and Lindsey as Phoenix, Mark as Professor X, Jared as Gambit, Kristen as Psylocke, Erik as Nightcrawler, and Katie as Rogue. If you'll notice in the bottom right, Johnny looks on with great desire to be a part of the team. He spent the night in the role of Captain Underpants.

More than you know

I've been home a few times today and I still haven't taken my jacket or scarf off. This is a sign of two things:

One - that it's butt cold in my room. When you peek into the attic from the closet, you can see the underside of the shingles running the whole length of the roof. In other words, I guess our landlord is too cheap to buy any insulation whatsoever for this house.

Incedentally, I think he's one of those ambulance chasing lawyers. I have had alot of respect for lawyers in the past - Peter's dad being the coolest one I've ever known (that's by social association, I've also heard that he's one of the best environmental lawyers around by reputation. I mean, he's written a bunch of the city's law on the subject. That's what I hear anyway). Steven Davies, however, is the epitome of scum-sucking legality that gives law that awful reputation. What kind of lawyer uses has his secretary take care of all the house maintenance? By that I mean she takes our complaints and seems an awful lot more knowledgable than Davies ever is, not that she physically cleans our house or something. Still, what a fishy fucker.

Two - that I haven't had time enough to stop and relax in my own house. Working on the weekends is not all it's cracked up to be I think. The money is nice, though. Really nice.

Also, I've been spending a few hours each day visiting my dad who is in the hospital recovering from surgery. On Wednesday he had three inches of his colon removed in order to take out a polyp that caused him some trouble Tuesday night. He's doing well, and it's not cancerous which is a damn good thing. It's funny seeing someone who's supposed to be so invincible in a hospital bed like that. By funny I mean scary.

Incidentally, this is the same reason I haven't updated recently (you'll notice that my lack of posts corresponds with the timing of when I got the message that my dad was in the hospital). Soon, however, I plan to do some writing of my own - and perhaps even sponsor a discussion forum - on what I like to call Scandal in the Shadow of the Mountain. More to come on that tomorrow hopefully. Just know that some snooty east coast bastard has gone dissing on my city, and now there's hell to pay!

And now I'm off again for some good loving in the library with Mark - quantum style!!