Trying out email

So I signed up for twitter today, and found that you can update it by just IMing. I thought, maybe there's something like that for bloger also? Lo and behold, apparently I can update this blog just by sending an email. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm not exactly an early adopter.

Kids in the office!

Today is "bring your children to work" day at my company. Which makes me wonder - do kids get a "bring your adult to school" day? :)

Name Change!

I just changed the name of this blog, from Karolina's Core Dumps, to Irregular Expressions.
I personally liked the old name. A core dump is what a computer program prints when it does something really stupid and has to exit. And, well, this place is usually where I post something if I think of something really stupid - like a corny joke, or a would-be deep thought.
I like that it has the word "dump" in it - a blog is really a place where you feel free to dump your thoughts, for all the world to see - if they choose to. Using the word "dump", rather than something like, say, "publish", also better expersses the general quality of the posts on most blogs, including mine: they're not polished, beautiful pieces of literature. They're just something someone came up with, thought it was absolutely brilliant, and wanted to share with the rest of the world - without necessarily feeling the need to, say, spellcheck.
However, from the moment I first selected the name, people seemed to pick up only the vague scatological reference. That was never the point... I mean, you could also say that a blog post is the waste product of someone's brain, and, as they say, "your own shit don't stink"... but that's a bit too out there for me. If this is what most people think of when they see my blog title - well, then it's time for a change.

One evening me and my boyfriend brainstormed possible new names for my blog. I wanted something geeky. We went through a lot of ideas - and finally hit upon "irregular expressions". I hope you like it.

Turning 25!

I turned 25 a few weeks ago. This happened on a ski trip; my friends were awesome and baked me brownies and got me a bouquet with fiber-optic lights that one of my friends lit up with the words "You light up our lives." This was after me and Vishy destroyed a knife while trying to use it as an axe - you see, the firewood was plentiful, but there was a dearth of little splinters....

I feel a little old - but hey, now I can rent a car with no surcharges!

Oh, and thanks for the card, Pavel :)

IHTFP

Early on at MIT I learned the phrase "IHTFP". It stands for two opposite concepts; in a way, it's almost like the duality of light. Light consists of particles, and at the same time is essentially a wave. In the same way, IHTFP at once expresses the love and disgust an MIT student feels towards the institute. The two meanings are:

"I hate this fucking place" vs. "I have truly found paradise"

Anyway, so a favourite passtime of MIT students is to find alternative expansions for IHTFP. Some of my favourites are: It's hard to fondle penguins, I have tutored freshman physics, and my all-time favourite: Intelligent harlots try fancy positions.

That being said, here are some of my, Vishy's and Andreea's attempts:

News headlines:

• Indonesia has to fight pirates
• Irreverent hooligans trash flaming Porsche
• Indian hymns to foster peace
• Israel hosts three famous Palestinians
• Iraq hot topic for politicians
• Irate husband to file papers
  
• Indelible holographic tags found promising
• Inboxes have to filter porn
  
• Indian ham too freakin' pungent
• Ingenious hummus trashes fatuous peas
  
• Incompetent hang-gliders try failing parachutes
• Imparting humility to flamboyant preteens

Personal confessions:

• I hiss to frighten pussycats
• I hate trying fancy pants
• I hate tearing fancy pantyhose
• I hired three famous prostitutes
  
• I hate to fry pancakes

And, finally, encyclopaedic entries:

• Internet hosts talk ftp protocols
• Incas hounded the fallen prince // Citation needed
  
• Ironically, hash tables fragment pages // Not actually true
• Irate hormones trigger female periods // Well, sort of
  
• Intimate hosiery targets finance professionals // No comment

Another mass update

The last time I wrote a proper update about my life was... well, a long time ago. So here is my list of grand accomplishments over the last few months:

• Still dating the same guy
• Still working at the same company
• Still living in the same apartment
• Still have the same roommate
• Still haven't found a dance partner for ballroom

Ok, fine, something more interesting.

• My work moved to a new office - it's really cool, come visit!
• I surprised my parents by showing up aat home unexpectedly one weekend in May - I was in Prague on business :)
• Over the summer, I went to Norway with my parents and Klara - was awesome
• My sister and her friend Verca came to visit me in New York for 3 weeks in the summer, saw The Producers (a musical)
• Went to Las Vegas with Vishy for Labor day - went to Grand Canyon, saw David Copperfield's show; won $2.17 in slot machines - if I don't count the $5 we lost...
• Partied back in New York with lots of awesome people from work and MIT
• -Took figure skating classes for most of the spring and summer - hopefully I'll get back to that very soon
• Went to Prague for a weekend for my dad's birthday party
• Amassed a reasonably sized liquor collection - still need a few items but progress is more than satisfactory
• Reasonable progress on drinking said liquor collection, although there is room for improvement
• Hosted a random party, Vishy's birthday party, a dinner party and Thanksgiving dinner at my place
• Rented a car with Vishy and went to upstate New York to see fall foliage
• Saw a Shakespeare play in Central Park
• Saw a play about Indian mahematician Ramanujan
• Saw an improv commedy show and a poetry slam - thanks, Chow!
• Started reading books in Borders like Andreea (Though I'm still staying away from the romance novels section)
• Started doing my own manicure on a mostly regular basis - bye bye, nail biting!
• Started plucking my eyebrows (who knew it was so labour-intensive??), using face cream, wearing high heels and looking through fasion magazines
• Not sure if the effect of the above are necessarily noticeable
• Went to MIT Open ballroom competition in May and did pretty well in silver smooth - thanks, Muyi!
• Almost killed my plants :( Poor things, no matter what I do they don't seem happy
• Decided to go to Prague 3-4 times a year, for shorter periods
• Realized that in the foreseeable future my biggest expense will always be flight tickets
• And in general, I've been enjoying life - perhaps even more now that I've left college!
  

Well, that's about it for now. You can look forward to hearing from me again in... well, a year?

What are YOU thankful for?

On Thursday it was Thanksgiving. This is a really nice American holiday in that it involves good food and a very nice, peaceful atmosphere - almost like Christmas in my country.
Me, Vishy and Andreea and Marek hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. It was really nice - Vishy made excellent pumpkin/butternut squash soup and beetroot malai kofta, Andreea made creme brulee and cabbage salad and I made some stuffing (Czech recipe). For meat we had stuffed cornish hens, prepared by our local grocery store.
Before eating main course we went around the table, each of us saying what we are thankful for. It's a bit of a cheesy thing to do, but I think it's a nice way to force ourselves to remember that we've all been really fortunate in life so far.

Manicure

"I think I'm going to do my manicure now."
"Oh, is that like a cure for a man?"
"Nah, there's no cure for a man."

What pasta is your code?

This was a great lunch discussion. It went something like this:
"Our code is basically spaghetti code, it sucks."
"Well, what should it be? Rigatoni, so it's more self-contained?"
"No, rigatoni has too many holes. How about lasagna, a layered design?"
"No, I think gnocchi would be better - very modular."
"Or tortellini - modular with very good wrappers providing data protection."
"Or farfalle - modular with clearly defined interfaces that fit right into each other."
"Well, as long as it isn't cappelli (angel-hair pasta) - a shapeless mess with all sorts of loose ends sticking out..."

Quake

Q: Are Quakers the descendants of people who played Quake?
A: No they aren't. People who play Quake have no descendants.

Mountain View!

Just an update on what I'm up to - I'm on my way home from a business trip to Mountain View, CA. I spent a week living in a corporate apartment, driving a rental car - and enjoying every moment of it! I really miss having a car; I think that's the single thing that I hate most about the New York lifestyle. The small, expensive apartments, I can get used to; the lack of trees can be fixed by moving closer to central park or to Brooklyn. But it's hard to justify having a car in New York when you can't actually use it to commute (too much traffic) and the insurance and parking costs are enormous.
On the other hand, while I really love driving around San Francisco and exploring the city, I realized there are some serious practical issues with living there. The commute from San Francisco to Mountain View is upwards of an hour, and living in Mountain View is probably not that much fun. We'll see what happens to my plans of one day moving there.

A joke

Q: What do you call it when the London High Court holds a session in a subway station?
A: Tubal Litigation!

The sickly pink

I like the idea of my blog being pink, but the previous look was just _too_ pink. I've switched the template to something a bit more normal, but in the end I should just create my own. Let's see if I ever get around to it.

Another birthday

Well, time flies like an arrow - it's already Feb 2006, and I just turned 24. Ugh, this is the first time I've said it aloud - I feel old. On the other hand, there are still people who think I'm a baby. I'm talking about the car rental agencies.
This weekend we went on a ski trip and rented a car. I was going to be the second driver, but Avis thinks that I'm too young for that - you see, it's only after you turn 25 that you have sufficient maturity to be able to rent an Avis car.
I hate how every time you turn older, they put a new hurdle in front of you - something always pops up for which you're not old enough. When I turned 18, I thought this was it, I had all the rights a human being should have - and then bang, I moved to the US and I couldn't drink till I was 21. When I turned 21, I could finally legally drink - but I also got a driver's license and found out I couldn't rent a car without paying pretty much double the price until I was 25. So, I guess last Saturday marked the day from which in a year I might finally qualify as a full-blown, bona-fide adult.

Moving out of Athena

A week ago, my athena account expired.
Athena is the computer system used at MIT. Because MIT IS periodically backs up all data on athena, I gradually got into the habit of storing most of my data there (except for music and photos, which are too big). Athena also held all of my MIT email.
This means that last weekend, I had to go through five years worth of data, sort it and transfer it to my personal computer. It also means that I no longer get the benefit of someone else backing up my data, so I'll actually have to start doing this myself.

I went back to MIT this past weekend, and it was kind of strange to know that I can no longer log in. I guess this is it; this is the end of my MIT era.

On to bigger and better things, as they say....
(or not).

Words of wisdom

Never try to make cappuccino from soy milk.

Profile changed

Okay, so as step no. 1 towards updating my blog, I have updated my profile. I added a bit to the laundry list of my favourite music, and changed my locatin to New York.

The last time I wrote something here was when I graduated. Well, since then a lot has happened, presented here in an easy-to-digest, bulleted laundry list.

- The move to New York. This involved me, Andreea (my new rommate), and Sisi (who lived a few floors down from us) renting a Budget truck, loading it with all our stuff, and me driving the truck to New York. That was quite an experience - I actually managet to parallel park the thing several times, and make a u-turn in a two-lane road!

- The trip to Hawaii - this was a beautiful long weekend on Oahu, right in Waikiki. We rented a car for the last two days and drove around the island. The highlight was Waimeia Bay, a beautiful beach on the north shore, and another beach nearby where there were one-meter-long turtles swimming around and sunbathing!

- The trip to the west of the US and national parks - This was THE trip, a three-week long vacation with my mum, dad and Klara, my sister. The route: San Francisco -> Yosemite NP -> Death Valley -> Las Vegas -> Grand Canyon -> Bryce Canyon -> Yellowstone Park -> back to SF. That's only the highlights, there was a ton more that we saw. I might post a diary at some point, unfortunately it's in Czech so I'll see if I ever get around to translating it.

- The first day of work! This was actually fun - a tour of the facilities, a bunch of HR forms to fill out (actually not too many), a bit of indoctrination and legalese, and off we went to our desks. I've been learning about the programming environment and C++ all of my first week, and I think I need at least one more week to get reasonably comfortable.

We sublet the apartment for the summer, but next week I should be finally moving in.

I've also been thinking what I want to do with this blog. I realized I'm no great writer, and don't feel like spending time posting well-written, thought-out pieces (except occasionally, when inspiration strikes). What I would like to start doing, though, is posting photos with some comments. Doing that from my current homepage is a pain, because I first would have to download the images onto my MIT athena account; however, that's expiring pretty soon, so then I'd have to find a different solution. I probably don't want to run my own server or write my own html pages, so I'm going to look around for an photo posting service. Any recommendations?

Airborne Cats

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the looong delay in my postings. I hope to be back here more regularly henceforth. However, let me start my renewed activity on this blog with a link:

Airborne Cats

It's a link to a flickr slideshow. It's awesome. Thanks to Elizabeth Nugent for the link.

What did Cinderella say to the guy at the Kodak photo center?

"I'm waiting for my prints to come."

(Stolen from http://abombregardless.blogspot.com/)

Marketing...

Here's a headline I saw on BBC:

Beer mat ads to recruit priests

"Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor says the church may have to change
The Catholic Church has decided to use beer mats and posters as part of a campaign to recruit more priests."


Link to the story