Ok, so:

 No  Points     Name                                                   Hp [max]
  1    3941946  Bentomere-Wiz-Elf-Mal-Cha ascended to demigod-hood.   283 [284]

I beat nethack. I only cheated a little. Nethack is aggravating and tough to learn, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty fun. It's free and more than 20 years old: Nethack.org. You'll also want: Nethack spoilers

Happy birthday to me.

This happened on Tuesday. He's in the class I had on Monday. He was acting weird in class on Monday. He interrupted lecture to deliver a rant on how the medical community shouldn't tell him how many hours of sleep he needs (I should mention the lecture was related to sleep research). Also, before class he explained to one of my classmates how most grad students are incompetent and their thesis work is bullshit. Then he handed her a book about the Rastafari movement. He excused himself from class nearly an hour early, telling the instructor that "he had a lot going on" and that he was hungry.

Tonight I went to a Snow Patrol concert (they do the "If I just lay here" song). Rufus Wainwright's sister opened, and then Augustana played ("I think I'll go to Boston"). It was pretty fun. One member of my party pointed out that Zach Braff was in the crowd. I think she saw Mandy Moore with him, but all I saw was some girl next to him. It's LA. It would be weird if the girl next to him *didn't* look like Mandy Moore.

Go go college football. I'm still rooting for the Bears, but now I can be happy about USC winning, too.

In other news, I think I'm going to be working for at least a couple months with a professor named Norberto Grzywacz. Yeah. Everyone just calls him Norberto.

Also, can anyone convince me to join this myspace craze? Frankly, it scares me.

It seems I've become an Angelino. I'm as shocked as you are. Contact me for updated address and phone number stuff, if you want. I'll probably get around to sending out some kind of mass email or something. Also, come visit.

How do you feel? We feel fine. I feel happy when I find something on the web that does something I had never thought of.

Also: The results of the Best Visual Illusion Contest. May also serve as a benchmark for a "can your browser display pretty much any junk format thrown at it?" contest.

And now I share with you, the intertrons, a quote I particularly enjoyed: "Ivan is properly disdainful of the directionless hedonism of the average, unfocussed American teen-ager, but directionless hedonism and lack of focus are powerful forces, and you never know." (from "Title IX Babies", by David Owen in the May 15, 2006 New Yorker).

A confession: I just accidentally cut myself. With my toenail.

Rugby update:

Cal won their first match of the season by landslide. Last weekend was the Pac-10 tournament. Cal also won that, but Washington State gave them a run for their money with an early lead. Cal came back to win 27-6.

The next home game is this weekend: Saturday the 28th 1:00 pm against UC Davis. I hope the weather is better for this one. Gooo Bears!

Also, some of you may know this fine looking fellow:

It seems he scored a try in the recent match.

Here is how to Restore the Show Desktop Icon in Windows XP. It works; I had to do it.

Cal Rugby starts up this weekend. On Witter field at 1:00 pm, Cal takes on Humboldt State. HSU's team should be pretty good. They are in division II, but they lost out on the division II championship by a mere two points. After the HSU game, Cal's second side takes on Maritime Academy.

The Pac-10 rugby tournament is next weekend at UCLA. I may try to head down to check it out. Contact me if you're interested. And R$, contact me anyway, 'cause I lost your phone number.

I have found that exaptation triumvirate is a google whack. yay for me!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (with associated good tidings to you and your kin)

'Cause I know you love that Chronic
les of Narnia.

It's almost time for Christmas in the Balroom 2005, or XB2k5. I'm in it. It will be fun. Linkage to more information.

It's bad enough going up against number 1. Going up against number 1 and a self-defeating qb, well, that bird's not going to fly. The last five minutes, though, made me wonder about Levy. He played with some authority, and he showed some promise. Of course that fumble (and that almost fumble) didn't look good, but maybe we'll see him at the Big Game.

Since approximately half of the readership here is in to David Lynch, I thought you might be interested. David Lynch is coming to Berkeley on Sunday to talk about consciousness and meditation, or some such hippy nonsense. Anyway, he'll be doing an EEG demonstration to show the brainwaves of someone doing transcendental meditation. I'm into EEG as well as hippy nonsense, so I may end up going.

Here's a link with the details.