The Mad Scientists' Corner (Vol. 6). You know, recently it seems like this series would be more aptly titled “The Entrepreneurs' Corner,” but hell, that wouldn’t be half as much fun, eh?

Cereal Kit. You know how they sell cereal in those disposable single serving size plastic dish things? Well that’s all nice and dandy cuz you don’t need to get your own bowl, but what about everything else? Let’s break this breakfast thing down. Ok, so to have yourself a bowl of cereal, I figger you need the following: a bowl, cereal, milk, and a spoon. They’ve got 2 out of the 4 covered now, why not go ahead and take care of the other two as well? More revolutionary of the two I think would be the milk part. Why can’t they stick some instant milk powder in there with the cereal flakes (or puffs)? Then you wouldn’t have to lug around a jug of milk when you want cereal in the field. Just pour in water, stir, and consume. It’d be like ramen, except it wouldn’t even need to be hot water. And I guess while they’re at it, they could toss in one of those fold-up plastic spoons. It could be right in there with the cereal, and you’d dig for it like the prize in the box from when we were kids (; they don’t do that anymore, do they?).

PBJ Slices. When I’m making sandwiches, and I’m in a hurry, 9 times out of 10, the sandwich I make is ham & cheese. And you know why? Cuz neither of those requires a knife! None of that wasted extra time opening jars and spreading and whatnot. But you know, a lot of times, I’d really rather have like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I think they should sell “slices” of peanut butter & jelly just like they have slices of cheese. And you know, hell, while they’re at it, the produce department should sell like lettuce, tomato, and onion slices packaged in single sandwich quantities. So whenever you want a sandwich, any sandwich, you pop open one package (ok, maybe 2 or 3 to account for ham and cheese, but nothing requiring a knife), flop that on some bread, and you’re good to go. Yea, forget the fact that it’d probably be easier just to buy a pre-made sandwich, and I think this has got potential.

iPod Karaoke. Ok, I thought this one up right when the video iPod came out, and thought it’d be such a cool use of the iPod’s new capabilities. But then the more I thought about it, the more annoying it seems the whole concept would be. I’d really hate to be the guy responsible for causing an epidemic of American Idol wannabes walking on the streets causing all that noise pollution. So yea, I guess this one kinda needs to go back to the drawing board. But seriously, how easy would it be to just have a music video playing along to a song, and stick some words in there, and have a ball bounce over ‘em at the right time?

Smell-Proof Weight Gloves. (If you don’t wear gloves while weightlifting, you should if you’re serious- they prevent calluses and I think it helps you lift more.) Anyways, most times I throw out my weightlifting gloves, it’s not because they’re worn-out, but rather because they start smelling horrendously of B.O. (body odor). And it’s a shame, cuz under that putrid odor lies supple leather that’s still fully capable of doing its task. Going back to the root cause of the smell, I believe it’s the waste products of bacteria eating the nutrients in your sweat. So couldn’t they treat the gloves with some kinda anti-bacterial gunk like they do shower curtains? I would think that’d solve the smell problem… Or hell, there’s a lot of friction when you lift too. I suppose they could make the gloves to have like a scratch & sniff style scented coating- that’d do the job roughly the same.

Ice Sublimator. Credit for this one goes to my mom, actually. We were driving around on vacation somewhere, and she noticed a patch of ice that had steam coming off of it. The more sciency members of the family pointed out that it was the phenomenon of sublimation, whereby under the right barometric circumstances (atmospheric pressure), ice changes directly to water vapor without passing through the liquid water phase. And this brought up the stories about how mountainside villages were sometimes flooded when winter ice started melting. Ignoring the possibly catastrophic side effects it could wreak, couldn’t they make some kind of gigantic device that lowers the atmospheric pressure in a large ice-covered area? Sure, it’s probably impossible and might cause devastating rain downwind, but you’d have temporarily solved a localized flooding problem. =P

Less Thought-Out Ideas. 1) Halfway through my trip last Fall, I learned the technique of pointing a camera at yourself from arms-length so you can get yourself in your pictures without asking someone else to take it. The problem with this method is that due to the limitations on most average people’s arm-lengths, your head usually ends up taking up half of the frame. Other than the obviously hokey solution of a telescoping arm extension thing (and/or asking for someone else’s help), is there anything you can do? 2) You know how when you’re wearing a long-sleeve shirt and you put on a jacket and the sleeves of the shirt get all messed up and unsmooth under the sleeves of the jacket? Other than just grabbing your shirt sleeves as you slip on the jacket, is there any way to get around this uncomfortable phenomenon? 3) I'm like obsessive compulsive with checking people's buddy info's on AIM. You suppose they could make like some kinda RSS type of thing for profiles, where it'll tell you when someone's changed something? Kinda like in Facebook how it tells you which of your friends has updated their profiles recently.

Previous Edition>>

Tales of a Fourth Year Nothing. So I find myself now in the midst of my final semester (hopefully) at UT. I’ve always been one to settle into a pattern or swing of things, put down some roots. And soon this world I’ve built up over the last four years will be drawing to a close. If our lives can be described as stories, I think there’re these different chapters in our lives, and after each one is over, they’re over and don’t significantly affect the rest of the plot. But this story of mine is at a dramatic turning point, and I find myself at a crossroads of many one-way streets.

I feel like I’m at some sort of cusp in my life. There’s like an obstacle in my path half a year down the line that I just absolutely cannot see beyond (i.e. graduation, getting a job, and all that entails- what I’ll be doing, where I’ll move to, what my new lifestyle will be like, etc.). The uncertainty of it all drives me wild, so I try not to think about it too much, but it inevitably finds its way back into my conscious thoughts.

I would not have imagined senior of high school that this is the state I would find myself in. I really feel like I entered college with a lot more direction and sense of purpose than I’m leaving with. Four years ago, I thought I knew with absolute certainty what I wanted to do with my life, and now...? ...?? ...??? I have no idea what I want anymore. To be happy? To be me? What the hell does it all even mean?

Sometimes I wish I could stop time so I wouldn’t have to make these big hard decisions. But I can’t (well, not until I get a temporal flux capacitor, anyways), and c’est la vie. It’s like the world of Middle Earth College is coming to an end, and the age of the Working Man is upon us. All we can do is bite the bullet and try to finish things with a bang instead of a whimper. Cuz from here on out, it’s off to the real-world, and out there it’s a dog-eat-dog kinda place. Now's the time to party hearty- party like it's your birthday, party like it's 1999... well, you get the idea. This is a semester to live boldly, to savour the dying days of our youth, so let's make it count, eh?

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more"
~Shakespeare's Henry V; Act III, Scene 1

“And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we're gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times'll never change
Keep on thinking things'll always be the same
When we leave this year we won't be coming back
No more hanging out cuz we're on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cuz you don't have another day
Cuz we're moving on and we can't slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of that night in June
I didn't know much of love
But it came too soon
And there was me and you
And then we got real blue
Stay at home talking on the telephone with me
We'd get so excited and we'd get so scared
Laughing at ourselves thinking life's not fair
And this is how it feels

As we go on
We remember
All the times we
Had together
And as our lives change
Come whatever
We will still be
Friends forever

So if we get the big jobs
And we make the big money
When we look back now
Will our jokes still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule
Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
And this is how it feels...

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there?
Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us 'round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town
I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly”
~Vitamin C - Graduation

Catch-22. So my 22nd birthday (Friday) went pretty alright. The Spring engineering job fair was that morning; went alright I guess. I got an interview with NAVAIR on Monday; my first serious one. =O I was so antsy about the fair the night before that I couldn’t sleep till like 4 though. =/ Oh, and in those wee hours of the morning, I managed to spill water ALL OVER my laptop! I wiped off the water I could see and continued using the comp. Then like a few minutes later, the ‘n’ key stopped working, but I kept on. Then a little later, pressing like any key would pop out the wrong letter, and I was like oh CRAP! So I shut down the computer and took to it with a blowdryer. To my delight, the comp worked normally after that. *whew* That was quite a scare though. Teaches me not to be so careless with the wires around my comp anymore (it was the headphones cord that tipped the cup of water when my leg snagged it).

Anyways, at night, me and like the hugest posse I’ve ever successfully gathered for any kind of occasion joined me for dinner at Texas Land & Cattle Co. I’m reminded of a card I saw at PostSecret some time back that was like: [I tell people that I don’t like to celebrate, but I’m really just afraid no one would come.] I always felt/feel like that, and I guess I was pleasantly surprised, so that was pretty heartwarming. It was actually perhaps a little too large a group to handle successfully- hard to talk to people at the very ends of the table.

After dinner, me and a few other people came back to my place with the intention of pre-gaming before going down to 6th. Well, we started drinking, and I’m not 100% sure why, but we never ended up down at 6th. I had wanted to hit a total of 22 drinks before the night was over, but I only made it to around like 17 or 18ish. I learned that that saying: “Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, time of the year.” is equally true if you substitute wine for beer. Didn’t throw up, but just felt really queasy and nauseous once I started hitting the hard stuff, which brought my marathon-22 to a grinding halt. Which is not to say I didn’t have fun, I did. But I don’t recall how we managed to kill like 4 hours last night though. Like, I know we made guacamole, sandwiches, and sushi (all while drunk); and I think I owned at SET even when I was drunk; and I remember trying to gel my sideburns like straight out sideways… other than that, I have no idea what we did.

The next night, I went to a party for Maria’s b-day. And this time, I got thoroughly inebriated. The fun started at Trudy’s, where through the usual tricky ordering through proxy, I managed to get myself 4 Mexican martinis (whereas they would usually cut you off at two). It was all downhill from there... or up depending on how you look at it. =P Afterwards, we proceeded to move the party to the top of Maria’s apartment complex. Several drinks (and a few cupcakes) later, I have very little recollection of what happened; though apparently much of the night’s antics were caught on candid camera.

For the Superbowl, I went over to Khoa’s place for “Fry-Day”. He has himself a deep fryer, so we fried up all kindsa stuff like chicken, French fries, oreos, twinkies, and cheesecake (which ended up a mess). It was pretty tasty going down, but my stomach felt awful afterwards. It’s one of those things that afterwards you promise yourself you’ll never do it again, but inevitably you will. The actual game was just alright. I think after the Rose Bowl, nothing could possibly compare in terms of excitement.