Internet Explorer, why do you make all of my webpages look like ass? I designed all of my sites in Firefox, and validated my XHTML and CSS, and my sites look mostly fine in Opera and Safari/KHTML without any work at all. But Internet Explorer, you just don’t see things the same way other browsers do… you have a very warped view of the World Wide Web.

Internet Explorer, I now must find friends who understand your confusing ways, who can help me build things that look beautiful in your eyes, even though you are a disgusting hack job who makes every intelligent web designer want to puke. I don’t understand why you see things the way you do, and I’m not sure I want to, but couldn’t you try seeing things my way for once?

Internet Explorer, there is no reason why you should be pushing all my content down the page to reside below my sidebar. Is it beneath you to render my blog posts in a reasonable fashion? Why can’t you be like the other browsers and put my text where it’s supposed to go? Isn’t it obvious that I don’t want there to be a page full of whitespace before people can get to reading my material? Seriously, think about it… use common sense, Internet Explorer.

P.S. I hate you.

Tomorrow afternoon I am moving into my apartment in Arlington, VA, right next to George Mason Law where I am going to law school. I’ve lost track of where everyone is this time of year, but if you will be near DC, I could really use some help moving in! I have to get everything into my apartment between noon and 4pm on Friday, because that’s when I have to stop using the elevator for moving furniture etc.

(Incidentally, if you know someone who would like a nice apartment 0.3 miles from GMU Law and right next to a metro station, hook us up! I need a roommate.)

The Uhaul trailer after we’ve finished with it

My dad requests that in the future I build robots or engineer superchimps to do the moving for us

If you know me well, you know that I’m a pretty picky eater… my allergies (mild soy allergy, violent peanut allergy), my vegetarianism, and my dislike of spicy foods all limit my diet. I also generally dislike unhealthy foods… most of my peers seem to enjoy junk food, highly processed foods, and foods which provide no nutrition except for empty calories, but I find almost all junk foods to be unappetizing. Perhaps this is psychological, but I know plenty of people who enjoy junk food despite knowing full well that it is bad for them, so if it is a psychological distaste it is at least consistent 🙂

Upon arriving in California, I vowed to be more adventurous… I wanted to try new and nutritious foods to expand my diet and improve my health. I think I’ve been mildly successful so far, although there is plenty of room for future growth. However, there have been some failed experiments, and I’d like to share those with you before I get to the good stuff (hopefully in the next few days).

My negative food reviews

I need a bike during my 3-month jaunt to Claremont, CA. One big question is whether I should try to fly with my existing bike, which is a roughly $700 mountain bike, or buy some sort of bike when I get there.

I would love your advice for transportation on a budget…

I am relocating to Claremont, CA for the rest of the semester, to spend time with my girlfriend Karen. I will be flying to Ontario, CA on Feb 10, so if you’re in the NJ area you’ll probably want to see me before then, and if you’re in the LA we should hang out sometime after that 🙂

I’ll be returning to the east coast on May 8th to take my final oral exam for my philosophy major, thereby completing all of my requirements for graduation from Swarthmore College. Unless something unexpected and horrible happens, I should be walking with the class of ‘007 on like June 3rd.

During my semester off, I hope to travel and speak in support of free culture, so if you want to bring me to your campus to speak, check out this little page I made about why you might want me to speak at your school. (Please leave some constructive criticism if you’ve got it.) I already have a few speaking gigs in the works, including an event at the University of Florida on March 5th, but I would love to have more. The more I speak, the better my speeches will get 🙂

My grandma has written me hundreds of notes over the years, much like this one. The content of these notes is never terribly important, and there are far too many of them to keep conveniently in our overcrowded house. Nevertheless, I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I throw one out. I know that someday my grandparents will no longer be with us, and I will be sorry that I discarded these tokens of their affection. Therefore, we have a compromise: this note is getting recycled, but not before I preserve it digitally for posterity.

[cross-posted to Flickr]

This has been a very frustrating hour and a half. I’ve been trying to clean up the Stairball logo so that we can use it on Stairball.org, but I can’t tell what color it really is! Different programs see the colors differently! Preview, iPhoto, the Gimp, Inkscape, Seashore… Firefox… they don’t agree! If you want to see what I’m seeing, check out this Flickr set:

Thank goodness the last picture in the set seems to look universally good, so that’s the one you see in this post.

Well, all of my coursework is done for Swarthmore. As far as I know, all I have to do is take my oral exam next semester and I will have completed all of the requirements for graduation. Swarthmore, it’s been fun, but good riddance.

When I wake up today, I’m running down to Brian’s house for a Wrong Side Of Dawn business meeting / practice. We are recording an album the first week of January, and we have a lot of things to sort out, such as exactly what days we are recording.

On December 27, I’m going with Adam to see Thursday‘s holiday show in NYC’s at the Starland Ballroom in central NJ. I’ve seen and enjoyed Thursday before at Warped Tour back in the day, but I’m told that this holiday show will be extra intense. It’s been forever since I’ve been to a punk concert, and although Rainer Maria was sincerely awesome and fun to dance to, they don’t count as punk. If I don’t see a moshpit or crowd-surfing I’ll be disappointed (although I will also be pleased to emerge with all of my limbs intact).

I also have to clean my room and such in preparation for the holidays and Karen’s visit in early January.

Perhaps most importantly, I have to figure out what I’m doing with this semester off before I start law school next fall (almost certainly at George Mason Law in Arlingon). Any crazy ideas?