Dream SOOO

I was back in grad school at UVa, studying statistics with one of the guys I used to play poker with. We were working together on a homework assignment. The poker guy had to leave, and I worked on the assignment a little more before taking it to the two teachers for the course we were in. They pointed out that we had done the first problem wrong, and that we had missed two problems at the bottom of the page. However, they pointed out that I had also turned it in early, so I had time to go back and fix it before it was due.

When I went back to where I was studying, I told the poker guy about what the teachers said. He became very angry, and started yelling at me for taking the work we’d done to the teachers. He stormed out in a rage, and I decide to go to the cafeteria and get some food.

I got a tray of food, but the cafeteria was packed full of people. I somehow managed to find a seat pretty easily, but everyone was talking really loud and the noise was bothering me. So I took my food and left, wandering around the building. The building was also full of people but it wasn’t that loud. Finally I found a spot near the top of a short flight of stairs. I sat down against one of those waist high metal poles they hook velvet rope to at movie theaters. It had some sort of sign on it, but I didn’t bother reading it.

After a while I got up, leaving my food and the book I was reading by the pole. I wandered down the stairs and around to the left, down some more stairs. Eventually I wandered back up and around to where the pole was, but my food and book were gone. I was very angry at whoever took them for a moment, but then I saw my book on top of a trash can to my right. I figured some found my food on the floor, threw it out, and left the book there for me to find. I calmed down and started walking over to get my book, but that’s the last thing I remember.

Method OO

So I’m two weeks in to my mood tracking, and it’s not working out so well. When things don’t work well, you adapt (I made a T-shirt that just says “ADAPT”). So I am switching gears on the mood collection.

Spam OS

Spam of the Week

Expect problems and eat them for breakfast. Alfred A. Montapert

I like this one. It’s not “I noticed your page count is low on Google,” or some broken English praise in the vaguest of terms. It’s just a nice little quote. Okay, it’s a quote from an obscure 1970s self help writer that some bot probably pulled from one of the far too numerous quote sites on the internet. Still, it shows some effort.

As always, the Spam of the Week actually gets posted in the comments. Spam under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Data OO

As I said in my last post, I need to come up with a plan for any new stab at Personal Informatics/Quantified Self. So I looked over what I had done and that gave me an idea of why I failed at the first stab, and how I might succeed this time.

Omen O

Omen of the Week

The inaugural week of the Omen of the Week was a good one. It was hard to choose, what with California declaring that Coke and Pepsi cause cancer, and a secret meth lab being found in a nursing home. However, the winner for this week’s Sign of the Coming Apocalypse is a grocery cart that follows you around the store. That’s right, America, you no longer even have to push that wheeled cart carrying all the food you will later be obesitizing yourself with! Really, with all the work you put into eating those 12 hamburgers, is it really fair for the grocery store to expect you to waste those precious calories using something as outdated as the wheel? Of course, this will be premiering at Whole Foods, so that would be 12 free range hamburgers.

Food OOOO

I got my letter back from Martin’s Potato Chips, Inc. today. As promised, here is the full response (after the photie of the contents, including real cashy money).

Food III

Today I sent the following object and the following letter to the Martin’s Potato Chip Company.

Habit XVIII

This week is the last week of my current habit cycle. Currently I’m working on playing a game of Chess every day. That’s working pretty well. I have played every day, and last night I played two games. My opponent challenged me to a rematch after I got a free bishop while simultaneously forking his rook and queen. I thought about saying that I only played one game a night, but that felt rude, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have the time. He had connection problems on the second game, and resigned the game even though it was an even game.

Habit XVII

One of the parts of the Simple Method that I am using for habit formation is doing one habit at a time. It was one of things that attracted me to the system. I know from previous experience with trying to change my life that if I try to change everything at once, that I get so stressed out trying to maintain all the change that I fail to maintain the change. And that means I fail to maintain any of the changes.

Food II

Last night I took advantage of the Super Bowl to go grocery shopping. See, I didn’t have a TV for years and still don’t have cable, so it’s not like I can watch the game at home. Not that I’m really that interested in the game in the first place. I used to make a habit of going out for dinner the night of the Super Bowl. Everyone is watching the game so you have the restaurant to yourself. Unfortunately, these days every restaurant has a TV. Even if you do have the restaurant all to yourself, the wait staff are all watching the game so the service stinks.