How considerate! - posted at 12:12

Ticket to Seoul - $1334.77

0.36 fl oz of Refresh Contacts rewetting drops - $6.99

Actually getting to use said eyedrops on a 24-hour trip to Korea, thereby preventing anguish-provoked enucleation and thus being able to see that face you've been waiting four months to put your eyes on - PRICELESS.

Thank you, TSA, for pulling your heads out of your asses and relaxing a knee-jerk reaction a smidge or two.

While we're on this cheesy Mastercard knock-off thing, you know what else would also be PRICELESS? Getting to meet -- and get my picture taken with -- the Chonger lookalike! It would make my trip to Korea officially the Best Vacation Ever. Squared.

Jared commented:

Hey! Congrats on seeing Corey! I think the $6.99 is well spent. Speaking of Corey, that is who you're talking about, right?

So entirely off this subject: I read a BBC review on an online universe called "Second Life" and it totally reminded me of Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash. So I looked it up on wikipedia...and wouldn't you know it? They even use the term "snowcrash" in the game. It is "a tool for decrypting the file comm.dat, which contains a description of the communication protocol."

Stephenson better be making royalties off this!

Jitterbean Girl commented:

Thanks!!! I'm really excited about it! I agree that the $6.99 is well spent, but I think the rest of that chunk of change is too :)

And yes, I am going to go see Cory -- he's almost done with his year in Korea and I'm sooo looking forward to him coming back to the States. It's kinda rough (logistics-wise) being on different continents.

I think I've heard of Second Life -- I've got some college friends who are into it if I'm not mistaken. I'm surprised they didn't bring up the Snowcrash link, but I could be projecting over their personalities and assuming they like Stephenson. I might have to check that out now that you mention the Snowcrash thing...

(And I know I'm probably opening up the floodgates here, but....)

Read any good books lately? :)

Jared commented:

I just finished one yesterday that my friend Dan gave to me: called "A History of Time: A Very Short Introduction" by Leofranc Holford-Strevens. He gave me the option between this book and one called "A History of Mathematics" (from the same series, different author).

As the title suggests, it traces mankind's systems of time measurement and time understanding--comparing and contrasting them. It started out very fascinating but, by the end, Leofranc proves himself a terrible author or even technical-writer. He introduces themes with very little preamble and throws in terms with absolutely no definition or explanation.

By the end he spends WAY too much time explaining all the different arguments about how Easter should be tabulated.

I should have chosen the math book.

This morning I started re-reading one of my favorites: "Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900". After that, I've got my sights set on a number of books about Afghani History or politics and terrorism.

No fiction for me until Harry Potter comes out, or George R.R. Martin's final book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Oh, btw, new Harry Potter pics out, if you haven't seen them...
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808475612/photo/stills

Jitterbean Girl commented:

Do you happen to remember the author of the math book? The title alone is enough to pique my interest (surprise, surprise). I'm planning on starting Stephen Hawking's God Created the Integers fairly soon -- though of course, my annual reading of Lord of the Rings is rapidly approaching. I should be able to knock out a huge chunk of that to and fro Korea.

I very much enjoyed The Memory of Running -- it's a fiction work with a lot of subtance behind it. I'd recommend it if you feel like picking up a good fiction book a little sooner than anticipated.

Jared commented:

Sure do. Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Gowers. That book you recommended looks cool! Thanks for the recommendation...