“It’s Friday evening, and the US is preparing for a long three-day weekend, often considered the official start of summer here.

So what’s a pasty white nerd to do? You can’t go out on the beach, because the goodlooking people will laugh at you, and kick sand in your face.

I’m not bitter.

But now you _can_ do something: you can download the latest -rc kernel, and smile smugly to yourself, knowing that you are running the latest and greatest on your machine. And suddenly it doesn’t even matter that summer is coming, because you can just sit in the basement, and close the blinds, and bask in the warm light from your LCD, rather than the harsh glare of the daystar…”

– Linus Torvalds, from here.

This weekend Lauren and I drove up to San Jose for Mother’s day as well as to search for a place to live after graduation. After looking at a ridiculous number of apartments over an increasingly stressful three days, we finally managed to secure the only one we really wanted.

It’s not the largest place we visited, and it certainly wasn’t the newest; The current owner’s grandparents bought the house from the original owner in 1921. I could talk about it, but instead, how about I just post some pics plz…

View from the street

The fig tree in which Teddy Roosevelt lost his virginity

Ultra-futuristic furniture from 1923

Unfortunately, the current tenants hadn’t left yet and so we didn’t photograph as thoroughly as we would have otherwise. The rest of what we have can be seen here.

If you are unable to remember someone’s first name, simply ask them: “What’s your name?” When they reply with their first name, laugh and say “Oh no, I knew that, of course. I meant your last name”. This is a much more acceptable thing to forget–and you still get their full name.
— Bettina, from Tricks of the Trade: Socialite

This is brilliant, but what about when I forget this question?
Me: Who the hell are you again?
Them: What?
Me: Oh no, I knew that, of course. I meant your last name.
Them:  Go away!
Me: All right, I’ll talk to you later.
Me: *Writes down Wot Goway*

“Grad school is the snooze bar on the alarm clock of life.”
– Slashdot drone.

Once in a while I’ll haphazardly bungle onto Canadian news and get zapped by a bit of culture shock:

That smoky haze above the park just north of the Legislature was from the thousands of people who sparked up joints as part of the Toronto Freedom Festival and Global Marijuana March, “a celebration of all things marijuana,” as one organizer described it.

The park was jammed with tokers who gathered to make a collective case for the legalization of pot, under the watch of Toronto police, who ringed the periphery and herded some marchers through downtown streets, but otherwise let the crowd blast off and didn’t arrest anyone.

A police news release prior to the event said they expected a crowd of 10,000 to 12,000, which may have underestimated the actual attendance. Officers at the scene didn’t want to guess at the crowd size.
– The star

In California people wouldn’t be allowed to march while smoking cigarettes.