Sunday, 24 February 2008

2005_09_01_archive



List #3...Favorite American cities

1. Boston. (obviously)

2. New Orleans. I love your delicious food, your fun bars, your

friendly people with those strange accents, your voodoo shops, and the

way you make me feel like I'm in another country. Get well soon.

3. San Francisco. Beautiful scenery with a funky vibe.

4. Miami. What can I say? I love the nightlife. Electric boogie.

5. San Diego. Sunshine, beaches, and Mexican food, without all the

smog. Stay classy.

6. Chicago. A big, fun, city where there's always something to do. The

best of the Midwest.

7. Philadelphia. Cheesesteaks. Allen Iverson. Bizarre new year's day

parades.

As a corollary, and I do expect to catch some flak for this

(especially from all those Seattle-lovers):

List #4...least favorite American cities

1. Seattle. Crappy weather and expensive coffee? Thanks, but no

thanks.

2. Washington, D.C. I know it's the nation's capital and all, but this

city has no soul.

Posted by eileen at 4:39 PM 4 comments

Deep down inside, I'm a cutthroat capitalist

Although I normally do my best to refrain from waxing politic, those

of you who know me well know that I learn to the left, and the far

left at that. Socialist in theory, democrat in practice. This morning,

those philosophies were questioned when my boss informed me that the

lab just got a substantial increase in funding, and he wanted to use

some of it to supplement the stipends of the three grad students in

the lab. In other words, give us a raise. Too bad that it's prohibited

under departmental regulations. All graduate students earn the set

stipend, and nothing more. I understand that it's in the interest of

fairness and equality, in that students should choose their labs based

on the science, not on the money. But honestly, aren't some grad

students more equal than others?

Posted by eileen at 11:07 AM 0 comments

Stellastarr*

I won tickets from WFNX to see the band Stellastarr* last night at the

Middle East. It was a good show and the fact that it was free made it

even better. The Information, a good local nad opened the show. We

were standing right in front of three FNX djs the whole time, so it

was funny to see people who are normally only heard. Stellastarr*

mostly played stuff from their new album, but did play last year's hit

"My Coco" as their encore. Their set was briefly interrupted when some

drunk buffoon ran onstage and made a beeline for the attractive female

bassist. He was quickly apprehended and tossed out the back door, but

I felt bad for the girl, it must have been pretty unsettling for her.

For those of you in Boston, Cake is playing a free concert at City

Hall Plaza this Saturday, from 5-8PM.

*The asterisk is part of Stellastarr*'s name and does not indicate

anything, but I never fail to look down whenever I see it written.

Lemming.

Posted by eileen at 10:51 AM 1 comments

Gaelic football

Good luck to my sister Eri and her Gaelic football team, Na Fianna,

who will be playing in the National Championships this weekend in

Philadelphia. For the record, Gaelic football is one of the most

insane sports in existence. The ball is like a heavy volleyball, which

you are allowed to punch or dropkick, but not throw or kick it off the

ground. The goal is a soccer goal with football uprights- 3 points if

you get the ball through the bottom part, which is guarded by a

goalkeeper, and and 1 point for dropkicking it through the uprights.

The most confusing part is soloing: when you're moving with the ball,

you can only take five steps, after which you must solo it, either by

dribbling it off the ground (keep in mind that this is like dribbling

a very heavy volleyball off the grass, so it doesn't exactly bounce


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