Yesterday, I wanted to map multiple addresses on one map. As a result, I discovered the google map api and basically have been fascinated. And wasting a lot of time.

I made my ice cream tour page of the ice cream places I want to visit before I leave Pittsburgh. I spent an hour debugging when it turns out that I accidentally put a backslash after quotes rather than before quotes. If I was this dedicated and involved with work, I could really go great lengths. I could be a programmer. But my attempts at programming have always become disastrous. I am innately impatient and will wreck my code haphazardly if something is not working. I will insert alert messages all over the place, make temporary markers. Essentially bad programming in moments of stress. I usually always achieve the goal, but afterwards I am often unable to extend or update the code.

But back to google maps. One of the annoying things is that it requires a lat, lon for a point on the map rather than street addresses. Yet, there is so much potential for this. Much of what has been done is listed at the google maps blog. I absolutely loved the Nuke Your Ex google map (where you can nuke someone metaphorically on the map). And how can anybody forget the first of the google map hacks – the the craigslist/maps mashup that presents the location of available rent/for sale apts/houses. A pedometer, a hurricane tracker…

I almost cried when I was listening to the first movement in the LOTR symphony tonight. The symphony was everything I imagined. It was sold out. Every song played to its perfection. Great singers. Great orchestra. And great men\’s and women\’s choir. And absolutely fantastic children\’s choir. It was one of those spine-tingling musical events. But I admit that I used to be such a LOTR fanatic that this was quite a moving experience for me.

It reminded me of last summer which I spent watching the first two movies on HBO over and over again. Then how I listened to the soundtrack for at least 8 months every single day. My favorite songs have always been \”Concerning Hobbits\”, \”The Breaking of the Fellowship\”, \”Forth Eorlingas\”, and \”Evenstar\”. Even though Howard Shore wasn\’t there to conduct, it was still amazing. Billy Boyd (who played Pippin the hobbit) made a short appearance to sing his short poetic piece from Return of the King.

Last summer, I heard about the LOTR symphony. Unfortunately it was going to be in California when I had already left for Pittsburgh and it was going to be in Pittsburgh before I had arrived. I had thought of trying to go to Connecticut in November, but ditched the idea. When Carol proposed the idea a few weeks ago, I was so estastic. I started turning in a LOTR geek, quoting lines from the movie (and book). How can nobody not llike the quote All you have to do is decide what to do with the time given to you. Babbling about LOTR trivia. Maybe not that extreme.

Soundtrack music takes up approximately half of my playlist nowadays. For me, music recalls moments. Any Backstreet Boys songs reminds me of my wistful stupid liking-boys moments. Eurodance reminds me of my naivete of freshman year. And soundtrack music is in a league of its own. It reminds me of themes in the movie. The emotions. The thoughts. The people I saw it with. The feeling of the characters in the story.

Next: tour of New Zealand to see the original shooting locations of LOTR

With only Elbow Room, we celebrated Justin\’s birthday yesterday night. It\’s amazing how birthdays take so much precedence here. I have never experienced so many \”surprises\” as I have at CMU. Last year, it was all about remembering your own. People were so disconnected in Berkeley. There was this self-absorbed tendency to get caught up in your own work, your own life, your own issues…that you often forget to open up yourself to others, forget to share.

I can say that I left that on purpose.

This weekend, I am planning to do the 6 lb burger (maybe?), live music at the Quiet Storm Cafe, and my own self-created ice cream tour.

My new music fascination is the Scissor Sisters. Such great gay disco of New York. I first saw them on SNL, but discovered them again as I was browsing the iTunes shared playlists. Favorite song so far: \”It can\’t come quickly enough\”

Today, I got to have the entire office to myself since the majority of my team was out. It was nice. A large room with my free dell speakers playing Keane and Snow Patrol. A slight bass. This is a rare time that I can do that when I try to always be considerate of my housemates and their music tastes. To pump up the music and not worry that others will not appreciate it.

Last summer, I had that luxury of playing music (loud and unconcerned) in my car. Oh last summer. It has been exactly one year since I met Chris. It has been one year since I invented the words closing time syndrome – a syndrome where people see others as much better because time is running out. Last summer, Chris saw me like that. It was one of the strangest, oddest periods of my life. I was given the job of lead technical coordinator. I was preparing to move across the country. And my parents were on my case as a result.

A moment like this:

He was sitting across from me, trying to install drives on the new security servers. I was there with my powerbook, not really wanting to do work, mostly idling with my usual Internet surfing. Suddenly he said, \”Guess what! Guess what!\”

\”What? What?\” I asked with a smile, an eyebrow raised.

\”I am going to miss you,\” he replied and gave me this nostalgic look

There is a lot more to the story, but he had the closing time syndrome. Wherever we go, we don\’t realize that there are some people that we won\’t ever see again. We never know if a \”see you later\” will translate to a permanent goodbye. And I wonder whether I\’ll have that as people in my program are leaving in early August. This time it\’s different. Almost everyone is heading to a place I will definitely visit in less than a year. There are no unforgotten strings or broken promises. There are only longlasting friendships and a sincere \”I\’ll see you soon!\”

Recently, my sister watched a video of a family trip to Washington D.C. more than 10 years ago. In one scene, she was shouting into the video camera showing off all the goodies she gathered. I stood complacently to the side, almost mute. She told me about a scene where she and I were playing on the rocks near the shore. She was close to the shore, having crawled over many rocks, throwing pebbles in the ocean. I instead had just crawled over one jagged rock, watching her throw pebbles. Just standing as if I was afraid to go any further.

The funny thing is that I still haven\’t changed that much. My personality is still very timid and reserved. A few months ago, when I went to Portland, I went with a few friends to visit a waterfall. There was a large area with logs and large rocks. Everyone else went crazy climbing over the rocks to see how far they could get in the river. I hesitantly walked across one log that was set across the river…and that was as far as I got. To me now, I consciously was afraid of falling and didn\’t want to risk. But I am so much like my timid, reserved self of 10 years old.

It\’s interesting how we don\’t change at all. Not internally. Sure some people can say I am no longer a mute (and that I tend to blurt a lot of things that are on my mind), but internally some personality traits don\’t change. I still have this awful shyness that overwhelms me when I am in a new situation with unfamiliar people. I still smile ridiculously for no reason. I still let my sister run the show in big situations.

But then what are the things that can change when I am this old?

Just a thought. Now that I don\’t post on Xanga, I waste time browsing through itunes\’ shared music libraries (one of the greatest inventions from Apple) on CMU\’s network. It\’s sad. I just can never stop procrastinating.

My \”L\” key on my powerbook has been acting up lately. My poor Eris (the name of my powerbook and brother to Chwong\’s Nemesis) has been slightly been abused lately.

Point is I never realized how important this little letter is. It\’s a single stroke when it\’s lowercase and it\’s two strokes when it\’s uppercase. It can often be mistaken for an I especially in sans serif font. Quite often, it disappears into accents when spoken. And in spanish it becomes a Y, like a vowel.

Yet, this insignificant letter has taken over my typing vocabulary for today. The words blog, letters, well-defined, well-designed, pan left, show clickable areas, more detail, faults, Charlie, Chocolate. And I find myself having to press the L key differently just to get that letter to show.

Eris, it\’s time for a makeover.

I have been thinking of getting an ipod for awhile and now have my sights finally set on the new 20 gig ipod (with photo features). $269 with student discount and free shipping of course.

But now I have that hefty question. What should I have for the free laser engraving?

Some ideas (and some inspired elsewhere):

Things like this? Using the engraving utility!

A recap of a typical mHCI graduate student\’s weekend! And I thought I was soooo busy!