80K!

Visitor #80,000, according to the official SiteMeter was referred by Vinegar Bee!  Yay!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 05:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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40 more!

The Site Meter says 79,960 at 8:53 pm PST.

See below, on the sidebar

Posted by: caltechgirl at 08:54 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Insert high-pitched little girl scream here

Yippee!!!  Guess what I found in Target today? THIS

And it turns out that my favorite episode of all time just happens to be #6, which is on this set!  YAY!!!!

Update: This is one of the BEST DVD sets ever. Lots of artwork and extras, and the menus are cool. There's even a section with 50 profiles of not only the main characters, but several minor characters as well.

The cartoons are remastered and cleaned up and they look and sound better than they did in 1983!!!

PS does anybody else not remember the Orko music sounding quite so much like the Macarena?

So, who is YOUR favorite He-Man character? Me, I love the Sorceress.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:07 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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For the record, I was in Ruddock House

Page House is known for two things:
1.  Being very Frat like and jock filled
2.  Having a Beer Room instead of a Library.

Also, it's a Fine House (rotation rules and the honor code require I point this out, even as an alum).

For those of you not in the know, Caltech requires each Freshman to live on campus during their first year, and they must stay in one of 7 on campus houses (Hovses).  Rather than assigning students randomly, Caltech uses a "rotation" process similar to frat/sorority rush week on other campuses.  Each hovse has its own character and traditions, and the Freshman choose/are chosen into the Hovse they fit with best (usually).

After students choose/are chosen by their hovses, each hovse has its own initiation ritual. Page House's ritual involves elaborate costumes and a hike back to campus from the top of Mount Wilson.

This year, it didn't work out too well.... but regardless of the headline, nothing that goes on at Caltech is anything like hazing.  First, saying no is ALWAYS an option.  Second, it's always in fun.  It's  not about making the frosh hurt.

Also, the school in the video, DEFINITELY NOT Caltech.  Get it right, morons.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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HELP!

Ok, so somehow I have f*cked up firefox, and now instead of it opening popup type windows normal sized (like comment windows), they all open up narrow and unresizable.

I figured out how to make it allow me to manually resize the too-small windows, thanks to Mozilla, but I have no idea how to make it work right in the first place. I would prefer not to have to resize the stoopid things every time they open.

This only happens in MY Firefox profile, not my husband's or the dummy one I set up in the process of troubleshooting.

Any ideas? I know many of you are much bigger computer geeks than I am....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 08:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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If you haven't seen it.....

Here's South Park's "Trapped in the Closet" episode featuring Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and R. Kelly.

h/t Emily

BTW: Matt and Trey do not mind when fans download their episodes off the Internet; they feel that it's good when people watch the show no matter how they do it." Visit www.southparkstudios.com for more info.

UPDATE: Emily sez, "By the by, I would appreciate it if as many of you with blogs link to the "South Park" episode as possible. Couchy McBrainwashed is trying to keep us from seeing it and that's just plain censorship as far as I'm concerned. Thousands of celebrities have had the piss taken out of them over the years by "South Park" and nearly all of them have handled it in good spirits. There's no reason why Tom Snooze shouldn't do the same, other than his ego and an attempt to protect his "church.""

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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MeMeMeMe

Or, the Meme of Fours, tagged by my buddy Kipper at CardMart:

Four jobs you've had in your life:
Student assistant in the Alumni relations office at Caltech.  Fish feeder.  Graduate Student.  Professor.

Four movies you could [and do] watch over and over:
White Christmas, Blazing Saddles, Fellowship of the Ring, Return of the Jedi

Four places you've lived:
Fresno, CA; Pasadena, CA; Carrboro, NC; Chapel Hill, NC

Four fiction books you can't live without:
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas; The Shipping News, Annie Proulx; The Rainmaker, John Grisham; Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King.

Four non-fiction books you consider essential:
Principles of Neural Science, Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessel; Devil in the White City, Erik Larson; How the Irish Became White, Noel Ignatiev; and City of Quartz, Mike Davis.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
House, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Survivor, The Amazing Race (bonus 4 favorite shows of all time: The Pretender, Quincy, Hart to Hart, The A-Team)

Four places you've been on vacation:
Cayucos, CA; Disneyland; Boston, MA; Outer Banks (Kitty Hawk, NC)

Four websitesblogs you visit daily (there are way more):
Jay and Deb, Margi, Helen, Bou

Four of your favorite foods:
Pizza, Chinese, Bacon, See's Scotchmallows

Four places you'd rather be:
Cayucos, CA; Chapel Hill, NC; Disneyland; an alternate universe where SC won the Rose Bowl...

Four albums you can't live without:
Simon and Garfunkel, Collected Works; Barenaked Ladies, Greatest Hits; Indigo Girls, Rites of Passage; Queen Greatest Hits Vol 1 and 2

And I'm tagging two people, too:  Ben and Darling Hubby

Posted by: caltechgirl at 09:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Honestly, how did I live before the internet??

The server was down for an hour at work, and I fidgeted like a nicotine addict.  Not because I'm addicted, but because I was in the middle of something.

And then I kept thinking of things I needed to look up.

Nothing like an outage to remind you what you wanted to google.....

Now for more caffeine and a return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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New Toy!

Check the sidebar for Su Doku of the Day!  Clicky here to get your own!  Comes in 2 sizes and lots of cool colors!

h/t Jon and Angie

Posted by: caltechgirl at 06:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Who Knew?

I'm #1 on Google for this.

Let that be a warning to you lurkers.... I'll search you out!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One more

Because I couldn't resist:

Your Stripper Song Is

Closer by Nine Inch Nails "You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I've got no Soul to tell" When you dance, it's a little scary - and a lot sexy.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:54 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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WooHoo!

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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An academic's guide to Hollywood

Or, how to get paid for being a nerd.  Hollywood producer Kate Coe writes this interesting and informative piece on academic consultants and their role in production.

You might have a named chair at Hallowed Halls U, but on a film set,
status is measured by the size of your budget -- and you don't have
one. With no budget, there's not much reason for the camera operators,
set designers, or props department to take you too seriously. On the
other hand, an adviser does have access to the director and to the
star. (You have access to the writer, too, but writers don't have much
status, as they will be quick to complain.) So work with decorum, be
collegial, and go through channels.

Interestingly the piece features the contributions of several Caltech professors to the current CBS show NUMB3RS, including Gary Lorden, who allowed me to pass Math 2C/1D (statistics) with a D, and Richard Wilson, who is famous as the Math 1A (freshman fall term math) prof, and who was long destined for Hollywood between his penchant for flute playing in class (to demonstrate harmonics) and his tendency to name functions ("Take f(x), let's call it Frank...")

h/t Joanne Jacobs

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Audience Particpation Special

So, since I've been a good little girl, what should I ask Santa for this year?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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In honor of my DH-- UPDATED!

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Good God I hope so! It would be sad if they could give you a PhD in science without being able to pass the 8th grade...

Minor quibbles:
1) It's nucleus. Not "nuclues"
2) 8th grade is PHYSICAL SCIENCE, so questions 2,4,5,and technically 6 (see below) don't count.
3) Question 6: What is the charge of a neuron? Umm? As if? The right question for the correct answer is "What is the charge of a neutron?". However, as asked, the correct answer is: depends on the ion concentration and the firing state.

Stolen from a Baboon with an eyepatch

UPDATE!!! Answers below the fold! more...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 08:37 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Googling Fun

Two recent hits, one right after the other from search engines:

1. "halal kosher wtf"
2. " fficial_s&q=nc+pork+barbeque+recipe+%2Bcrock+pot&spell=1">nc pork barbeque recipe crock pot"

I agree.

Heh. Also, I'm #4 for this one. And I think this person was looking for Ith.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Does this look better?

For all you non-FF viewers... do the posts appear directly under the banner now?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:52 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Ultimate geekitude

This post from Physics Geek reminded me of my favorite Ditch Day Stack of ALL TIME:

I believe this happened in the 60's. As you may be aware (see link above), on Ditch Day, Caltech Seniors lock their room doors and go off campus, leaving a series of puzzles behind for the underclassmen to solve to figure out how to open their door for a prize.

Anyway, the seniors left at 7 am and all that was on this particular door was a hose sticking out from under the door, and a note saying that only the proper substance could be poured through the hose to open the door. The only clue as to what that was was this: "0.693"

The underclassmen sat all day and stared at the door, they couldn't figure out what 0.693 meant..... Finally at 4:30, 30 minutes before they would have to give up, one of them jumped up and ran out the door. He returned a few minutes later with a steaming jug and poured the contents down the hose, and the door opened, just before 5.

The answer below the fold for those of you who would like to take a guess as to what was in the jug.... more...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:11 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The Queen Mother of all swear words....

Just watching my #2 favorite Christmas movie, and browsing my email, and wondering....

If my boss calls me a "trooper" does that mean I'm in over my head?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Step to the right, please...

Not like it's gonna help to post it, but if you can't see the posts, scroll over.

I already asked some of the smartest people around about fixing it, so hopefully this won't be an issue much longer.

Until then try Firefox.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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