Irrelevance Glorified

Well, for anyone who cares (Google Analytics tells me about one person a month looks at my page from Australia, so mostly this is directed at them), I’ve accepted a job offer from PARC, out in Palo Alto.

The longest I’ve ever been out of Illinois is about 3 months, summer internships in Tempe and Albuquerque. So here’s to hoping that my powers don’t derive from the delicious aquifers that lie under the Midwest.

Now, I just have to graduate…..

Gee, now I’ll have to stop talking about how the refs are always trying to screw Illinois.

Update : My Sad Sad Saga
The video above was from the game last week, when Illinois pulled off the shocker and beat Ohio State. It was broadcast on ABC (regional, maybe?), but amazingly enough, I didn’t watch it. I had a Halo 3 appointment with some friends. But, that’s not to say I wasn’t prepared. I had just bought an HDTV tuner which could catch over-the-air (OTA) HD signals. I checked out my antenna conditions and hooked it up. Somewhat disappointingly, I only received three OTA HD signals. But one of them was ABC! I was in business. Friday night I tested out the system, scheduling taping from 9 pm to 1 am….and it was a success! It was like 25 GB, but whatever, I have space.

The next morning, I schedule it to record from 2:30 to 7 pm, and make sure there is 30+ GB of space on my hard drive. We go to kick some Covenant ass. During the game, I could feel my phone vibrate — I was getting text messages. I knew something was up; either we were winning, or we were getting really screwed. But I squelched the temptation to check my phone and soldiered on. After we were Haloed out, we headed back home.

But Cameron and Gina were hungry, so we stopped at the Korean Karaoke place for dinner. I was going to stay in the car, to avoid hearing any information, but I was persuaded to come along when I was told the TV’s were off. Just to be safe, I put in ear plugs and kept my eyes on the floor. I hummed to myself to cover up any of the sounds that made their way through the foam. I kept up my sensory blackout until we got home, where I sprinted into my room, turned on my monitor, and….found that it had frozen. With a sinking feeling, I checked the hard drive…there was waaaay too much free space for this to be a good thing. And indeed…the computer had recorded nothing. I was crushed. I yelled a few choice swear words. And after some internal monologue, I realized that there was no way that I would be able to hold out on finding out the results until I acquired the game through other means. There was no way out. So I checked out Sportsline….and then ESPN and CNNSI! Oh my gosh! The Fighting Illini are front page news all around the country! And I had missed it!

I consoled myself with karaoke that night with other jubilant Illinois fans. I managed to catch the game the next morning at 8am on ESPN Classic (Yeah! An Instant Classic!). But really, I learned a lesson. I decided to skip the OSU game as a message, that Illinois Sports don’t control me (apparently video games do, though). And I was punished by missing a game that will forever be a part of Illini Legend. Serves me right.

While I try and get back on track with my work, I’ll post a great look at cloning by The Daily Show. I normally don’t think that Rob Riggle’s segments are the best, but he does a great job with the ending of this one.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Daily Show, it’s that the more local in government you go, the better chance you get some crazies. An example below: