It was written in response to someone who really didn't want a friend of a friend staying at their house, but didn't want to be rude and say no.

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't even have to make the request directly; you'll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you're a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you're likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you're an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she's an Ask and you're a Guess. (I'm a Guess too. Let me tell you, it's great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It's an interesting exercise.

I also think people, even worthwhile people can be dicks sometimes regardless of why.

And then she drank billions and billions of them up..

My belongings in easy to transport containers.

Updating has been difficult lately. Mostly because I've moved! I'm now about 5 blocks further away from the hosue I grew up in. Every year I seem to go 5 more blocks down 8th ave.

Getting all of our stuff into this new house was a chore. Andrew and myself have just a tad too many things to throw in a bag and deliver to a new homestead. It would have been an impossible task if it weren't for a few friends who showed up in the nick of time to lend a hand.

My good friend Jason was the first to show up and stayed with us all day and into the night. This is the 3rd time he's done this and all he's ever asked for was lunch and dinner. (and beer — which I still owe him) My brother was around for a little while and helped move my television into our van. It was a gift that I've been paying for ever since. While beautiful (HD, good speakers, lots of inputs) it's about 300 pounds of suffering, that moves once a year. It took a few hours before we moved it out of the van. Caroline showed up a bit later and immediatly called for backup. Both Caroline and Tina moved box after box well into the night. I'm fairly certian I'm slightly responcible messing up their plans for the next two days, school and work come secondary when you're as tired as they were when they left. Late comers were Jeremy, my Mother and Mike, who helped get some of the details (and heavy lifting) that we were missing after hours of labor.

The entire night ended (for most people) with a lovely diner at my favorite restraunt Two Boots. Thanks to my Father many delicious dishes were had by all of us. We were tired, hungry, and grumpy and it made the night good again.

Thank you everybody who helped. I'm still sore, but I would have been broken if it weren't for you. Me and Andrew are getting the place setup and will have a housewarming in a few weeks. Much free food for everyone.

Even today as I write this, I still have other boxes left to move. I also figure my moving karma slightly lacking, I've helped a few people in my time, but I think after 3 moves in 3 years I need to give a little bit more back. Just remember, if you helped me, you've now got positve moving Karma, it's going to come in handy one day.

–Francis

Until it broke, and you had to hit the + to get a photo at all.

It was shitty hack. Code that was never planed.  I killed it this morning. I'm backing it up but.. you don't want to see its code. It was a mercy kill. It will be tough but.. the 16 people who were using it will have to move on.

I like to think that in a world of fb apps that include inviting friends to be zombies or go out on hot virtual dates with bumper stickers and snowball fights, my app was a little bit of hope. Hope for functionality without advertising or annoyance. Too bad it was broken.

I will miss you "Random Profile Image" but honestly.. not that much.

–Francis

_{If you really do want to see it's code let me know.}

Update: I had over 3.2k photos logged (I don't have the photos, I just knew about them so I could pick a random one.) that's an amazing amazing amount of photography to share.

More…

1) Pick a day (and forget to tell people right away)
2) Find a venue (my house, your house, whatever)
3) Add people
4) Add music
5) Add beer
6) (optional) Add hard liquor

And no matter what, as long as there are people + beer + music people seem to have a good time. Honestly I never though Id ever throw parties, but it's worked out quite nicely a whole bunch of times. I think it started with just a few friends, and slowly expanded to have like 10, 15, 20 people at at time. Which is just right for my tastes. People I love having fun, that's the idea.

For the record, the two photographers (minus a few camera phone pics by other people) were Mike and Jenny.

So for my birthday, I decided I wanted throwies. I got the idea from The Graffiti Research Lab, they developed them and gave them out to large groups of people encouraging them to "alter their surroundings". One of their biggest targets was "The Alamo" or "The Cube" that's in the village over on Astor Place. (I'm borring from wiki for the details, but I remember picking throwies off the cube after the event. Oh and I have to mention the unrelated Rubix Cube prank.)

So instead of buying beer in large quantities, I bought throwie parts. And with the help of the very simple instructions from instructables I decided on what parts to buy and after they arrived I stole a few rolls of packing tape from work, got a few box cutters (from my surplus order a few weeks ago) and I was all set. That's literally all the preparation I did for my birthday.

So once people started showing up (a few I had to convince to leave a showing of "the life of Brian" at another party, I promised they could finish the movie at my house but once they saw the lights everybody forgot about it.) I sat them down at a table in the living room and showed them how to make a few throwies. Nobody .. well almost nobody knew that was coming, but as it turns out, arts and crafts (like this anyway) are a lot of fun, and people are easily bribed with pizza.

Come back later for part 2.

–Francis

Tee-hehe

(that's sarah's laugh)

We just spend some time reading her old diaries from 1992, she says lots about herself from back then. Bad speller, angsty, named her diary chi-chi. It's interesting. I used to write stories about kids who had aliens kill them and then the ambulance would come and the doctors would bring them back to life. But sometimes the kids couldn't come back and the parents would be sad. I must have been like.. 4 or 5 years old.

They'd have me write a book in preeschool, now I don't remember it too well. but they would have me tell a story and they'd write it down, and I'd draw pictures and then write the story back in the book. It would be a blank hard cover.

(Sarah just brought up a great book called "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" man I love that)

umm, dr Seuss is cool

ok that's enough of this blast from the past roborooter diary inspired by a 8 year old sarah. Good night.

–Francis

PS little sarah liked hotdogs

I'll write something later, this is just to remind me that I want to.

And it's public because… you should know it was much fun. =D

–Francis

So we went to the internet instead. Even though stores carried my size I didn't end up liking what most of them had, so I was happy to find a nice pair of Vans and order them online. Brian still couldn't find any decent looking shoes. He'll have to try again later.

But back to Manhattan, We went looking for either Vans or Airwalks, I'm a fan of sketchers too, but I wasn't in the mood. So we skipped the sketchers store and hit up about 10 different shoe stores on 34th St. In one store the guy didn't even know the brands existed. When we went downtown and walked a good chunk of broadway, we found a Van's billboard ("Vans: Off the wall since 1960") but only a few stores that carried anything close to the same style of shoe. I was disappointed with america.

And Thank You Vans for letting me know your off the wall, you're so off the wall you're not even in shoe stores. Jerk.

Today, I clean!
(Bathroom, outside, entryway, hallway, living room, kitchen, countertops, toilet, ..other.. and that's just the stuff I've cleaned so far. Who would think that such a small apartment would have so many places for dirt.)
This is going to take several days.

–Francis

I was looking for a link on the penny arcades but I found nothing that just showed what it was (it counts the coins) but I did find out that they're easy to rip off. Apparently a bunch of them have been robbed. I just hope when I go to rob a bank my first instinct is to go for the spare change. I just hope they don't have this guy working security. I took that friday night.

I know it's been a while since I've posted (so sue me, cancel your subscription), I've been working mostly, taking breaks for trips to beaches and birthday parties. (Matt, I found your dream girl by the way.) And occasionally the friday night game of pool with Jason.

I don't know if I ever mentioned my credit card fraud problem, I got most of my money back the other day (all but 4 bucks says quickbooks) and I'm sitting pretty about it. Now I just need to solve my no credit problem (more on that another day).

This is looking pretty attractive. There were talks with Tivo and netflix for a home "download" box where you could download your movies overnight and watch them as much as you want. Their always worried that it could be used for evil, like to copy the movies or something, but I can do that with dvds. I just did a quick Froogle Search I found out it runs around $600 bucks. No longer as attractive.

Don't get me started on $800 dollars in one day, if you've heard my rant then you know I want my money back. Unfortunately the people who need to give my money back haven't heard it yet. You know who you are! You best be better getting with the check writing you people you.
(I thank you Hawkeye Pierce)

On that note I watched The first DVD of Season 1 of Mash today. It's a lot better without Devry Commercials or a laugh track. I love this show, every eyeful.

Good night folks, I'll be here all week.

–Francis

PS Look for new Audioslave, Cold Play, and The White Stripes

By the way a 180 being a U-Turn.

I had my 21st birthday the other night and people are still staying over at my house to go home monday morning. This has been a really good birthday, complete with a Chinese dinner I don't remember, pool, Jazz, ping pong, a wonderful italian dinner, a brand new camera, wonderful friends and wonderful family.

Jenny took photos. Once she posts them I'll make comments and stuff.

Good Night all.

–Francis

Next year we're going to have a star on top to add to the ornaments we decorated. I'd like to get one of those paper like ones with light inside. I couldn't find a picture of what I want but I did find some other stars that while looking nothing like what I'm referring to are really cool and can be made at home.

They also decorated my kitchen some.

I'll update more later. In the mean time I'd like you meet my new robot Murray. He's the small silent type.

–Francis

The point is, Brian gets more comments. And I hate to say its because people are lazy but… yea people are lazy. It's easier to respond to something stupid then to something that makes you think.

(Frank keeps asking "What's with your friends?")

But I understand you, you're suffering from malnutrition, sleep depravation, undue stress, and your lazy. It's ok though, I'm those things too.

=p

–Francis

But its well deserved.

Sort of.

So I got up today and went to work. I took a cab because I was late. I had a 3:30 appointment that got rescheduled for 11:30 but some stroke of luck I had arrived at 11:10 — early. Spring and Greenwich (near the west side drive) isn't that far from brooklyn. Someone let me in the building and I took the old freight elevator upstairs. The entire office building used to be some industrial something or other and now is chic (but I use the term loosely) loft office space.

The best thing about this office though isn't the sky lights on the top floor (though they are nice) or the wooden support beams (which are left unpainted) but the fact that before you reach a single office door there is a washroom. Its nice too, got fancy doors on the stalls and two big sinks on either side of a large mirror. The first time I saw the office it was to talk about getting a new job. I was really nervous and it was hot outside and my bag was heavy. I arrived and I felt like I was in greece. I was only just announced and I was given a chance to wash my face, my hands and cool off. The greeks they didn't even want to know your name until after you were washed, rested and fed. It was quite refreshing.

Anyway I was late the meeting was really supposed to be at 11 not 11:30 but at least the other guy was later, he didn't get there until 10 minutes after I did.

And instead of the "This kid doesn't know what he's doing, we need to find someone else to trust the future of this company in." that I was expecting I got a "well you've got a start but this will help you" and he proceeded to help me lay out the beginnings on the entire project. Man, I need to take a course in planing or something, I learned a lot today.

It was good. Class was Boring! But hey at least I learned a few things. I also found my friend Nina on tv (not for real), and England keeps coming up and that turns to Ellie in my mind as she's the only british person I know (Sorry Mike you don't count. I guess its time you became a citizen or something.) I've got about 100… no 1000, or maybe even a 10000 pictures to upload from Brian's party. I also setup 2 new galleries for other people and moved all my friends and respected photographers galleries into a single album. None of the links changed so no worries.

Brian's Party

I'll have other people's photos of the event up soon.

–Francis

Umm…

Lots of work.

–Francis

On more important matters I saw Shrek 2 finally. It was cute and had a lot of humor that went right over the kiddies heads. Didn't let down my expectations but they weren't that high anyway.

I was going to do an entire post on Raising Victor Vargas about a week ago. It was a good movie about a family of 3 coming of age kids and an old grandmother growing up in the Projects. I kept seeing it in video rental places and something about it just made me want to rent it. I didn't even know what it was about. The synopsis I read on Netflix really didn't do it justice.

Victor (Victor Rasuk) is a Latino kid who fancies himself as a bit of a lothario around the ghetto. But when word gets out that he's been romancing a fat girl in the apartment upstairs, his credibility as a stud is thrown into question. So, he finds himself a hot new girlfriend (Judy Marte) to shut everyone up.

Yea… the movie wasn't really about that. Check IMDB for reviews. Oh and it has a pretty good website even though it was never completed. I want to see Five Feet High and Rising but netflix nor my local movie rental store has it. (It's the director's first movie about the same family.)

I commented some photo galleries for your amusement. I can't say I'm too happy about the quality of many of the pictures but they all tell a little story. I need a camera with a bigger aperture. My current one (Nikon Coolpix 995) is nice but its got 3 broken pixels and needs a lot of light. Anyway, enjoy the pictures — they're in a new section dedicated to Events and Outings with my friends.

Nick's Graduation
The 4th of July
The 5th of July with Nina, Ellie, Becky, Jenny, Jason, Brian and Myself

–Francis

I had a real good time. I can't stress this enough.

I lost my voice with in the first 5 minutes.

Found some meaning to old songs.

Danced my ass off, sweated tones. I never dried from the rain that got me drenched earlier in the day.

Drove someone Cindy's car home =)

Downloaded some more music to listen tomorrow.

Oh! and the Drums! I could barley keep up with them. I wore my self out pretty fast but I kept dancing anyway. I've never heard them play them before. They're really good.

Ohhh that sound =)

I earned my sleep tonight.

–Francis

Go figure.

So I did some good stuff today to unwind. I got to hang out with a very good friend of mine and watch Being John Malkovich.. the kind of friend who I haven't seen enough of and I'd like to see more of. I did some work in the morning and got most of my domains straightened out. I had to use a lot of my skills to get things to move smoothly and I wasn't even trying to do anything hard.

Frank kept asking me; "How is a normal person supposed to deal with this?"

They can't. Thats why I think my business will work well even if its primary goal is small time.

I'm about to hit the sack, I stayed up to watch the season finale of The Sopranos. It was a good ending but a bad season, you won't find any 4 dvd packs of this one. Only 13 episodes and half of them had little to no purpose.

Sarah yelled at me for giving away stuff, she wasn't serious but it's been on TV already so excuse me if missed it. Regardless I'm not going to say much more about the Sopranos, I just hope I don't need to wait another year and a half for another season, they better put it back on normal rotation. (Never mind Alias was put on second half rotation for next year so the 4th season won't happen for a while. I can't say too many good things about the 3rd season though, Sydney doesn't wear her bangs well, she shouldn't be playing the hurt little girl character. And Vaughn doesn't play the raging heart broken lover very well, I like the show and the characters but I was greatly disappointed this season.

So now for the point, what's in a blog?
Do I use this space for random shit in my life? Do I gossip about my feelings for or about people? Do I account for my actions in life? or do I use this space to just vent?

I have no idea, but I'll continue to write what comes to mind, in the mean time I'm starting my business. And apparently I haven't told everybody, I'm moving back to Brooklyn and I'll be here for a while. New Jersey was nice but I wasn't flourishing there. My friends, my family, my work, and my home is here, and this is where I want to be. I'll miss you rowan people but you won't be far away. If we're meant to keep in touch we will.

I'm also not returning to school in the fall, this next spring I plan to. But this fall I want to keep working on my business and my life. In the mean time I've got a list.

1) Get my self together
2) Fix up my apartment — I've put a lot of work into it already but I'm far from finished.
3) Help my parents clean out problem areas. — Currently they've taken enough of my help and I'm done for a while, but I'm a "strapping young man" and I know how to effectively clean and organize.
4) Make sure my business including MS 51 is running smoothly.
5) Do a double check on my self.

And then, once I have all that finished, I'm going and spending 2 weeks in london. I'll have earned my vacation by that point.

I need a disclaimer at the bottom of wizard computing.
"All information is subject to change with out notice and all advice is to be followed at your own precaution."

I'll have to work on that a little, but I think it applies here too.

Good night all, hope your all getting by alright if not wonderfully. It's just being wonderful is hard and is rare, so be happy when it happens but keep in mind it will happen again.

Its funny how computers can have personal space.

He's got user accounts on most of the computers here at the "Farm" (My Apartment, its not quite a server farm but its the closet I've got.) but as I said he's got to have his own.

This is a double post, both on Roborooter.com and Wizardcomputing.com Since Wizardcomputing is my Business website I'm going to keep its posts limited to interesting things about the business, site updates, etc. I'll keep my personal life off of it and on my own blog.

Just to note You won't be able to find this on Wizardcomputing until I finish adding that content I mentioned, so check back soon.

Wish me luck.

–Francis

(Btw I'm hosting that trailer off my own server not apples so if you want a link to show your friends either send them here or send a link to roborooter. I don't mind spending my bandwidth if they bother to read my site, but I want them to bother.)

In other news I'm living in brooklyn. This entire week (I'm checking my calendar — I'm using iCal exclusively now, its keeping me sane.) and some of last week I've been moving. Part driving my stuff up from Glassboro, park moving it in to my new apartment (at Franks) and the last and hardest part putting my stuff into franks and making the place livable.

I took a break on monday and hung out with Yana. She's the Jill I never got to know. (few people will understand this) I walked around park slope and we got to talk about many things. It was quite fun. And I've captioned each picture so it tells a little story. As stories go its a short one but its got plenty of pictures.

I also wanted to show you a little of what I was doing at franks. I've got the kitchen almost setup the way I like it, sorta have food in it (I need to go shopping but the food around here isn't as good as the big ShopRight in Glassboro.) and its clean. I've been cleaning a lot.

I figured I'd start from the back and work my way front. So my room and the kitchen first and then the main room. I've got some photos of the process. More when I find my cable for my camera.

You might notice all the milk crates. I love those things, they stack, they're easy to put together and they don't break or crush like boxes. I could make a couch out of them if I wanted to, but I'll stick to night stands and shelves for now. Cleaning them is a bitch though.

I'm still going to be on my mega pace working on things for the next few days. Sunday will be my day of rest, and NOW is the time to sleep.

–Francis

Here at rowan My roommate melissa is graduating. She's been a senior for a little while and was finishing up some minors when she decided that she didn't want to do it anymore. She dropped some classes and is going to graduate in a week or two. She got her cap and gown the other day. She's still not sure what she's going to do after graduation.

Sarah and Josh are far along in their education, sarah still has 2 more years but she's acquired a nice amount of credits and is looking forward to graduate school. (hehe — Dr. Sarah) Josh has around 3 semesters left, he just needs to finish off his requirements and then he's off to Japan to teach english. That's not a career goal but he'll figure out something, he always does.

Matthew is going to be attending Rowan full time again, while living on campus. He's hated being a commuter so much he's dubbed his commuter parking tag his "Shame tag". I'm sure his family will still call him home to help with things but there's nothing wrong with that.

Nothing makes me happier then seeing my friends succeed and do themselves right. I'm proud of them.

I'm off to go work on that for myself (studding hard at Starbucks). Wish me luck.

–Francis

I have also confirmed my belief that even though it's an hour and 45 minutes away from here (as opposed to 30 minutes) the sound at PNC Bank Arts Center is twice times better then Camden's Tweeter Center and that it vastly makes up for extra traveling.

I was smiling after the show and a waitress noticed at a diner afterwards and told me to never stop being happy. =)

I wish I was really happy — I'm working on it though. Self pity is a path that no one wants to read about. I've just been angry lately, at my self first and foremost, I'm really not doing well at this end of semester thing, and at… other people. I'm going to feign my oncoming panic attack and change the subject.

There's some really cool stuff in the music world.
Let me get the small stuff out of the way.

Mini Kiss opened for tonight's show. They were small, weren't really playing musical instruments, and they sucked. But they were "little people" and they were dressed as Kiss, it was kinda neat.

The Burning Brides opened for APC. The were neither burning nor brides as Sarah pointed out. And they kinda sucked. But they had a chick bassist , and I've got a weak spot for chick bassist. (Women who play the Base guitar — I was using another word that was wrong — thanks to Andrew for the tip) Paz who used to play for APC but then joined Zwan (I saw her in concert) is a chick bassist. Unfortunately who ever the basest is in Burning Brides has no rhythm and it bothers me. She would play and play well but she would also attempt to move to the beat and would convulse instead. I couldn't figure out how one could move to a completely different beat and still play the first one. Anyway APC after loosing Paz picked up James Iha who is dam good. (Iha used to play with Billy Corgan in Smashing Pumpkins.)

I started thinking that with all the people from all these bands working together (APC, Zwan/Smashing Pumpkins, tool, Manson and NiN to name a few) and trading band members, they must know each other well. Sarah assumes they're all friends, while based in reality it's really what she wants to be true. I figure they're at least on each others Christmas lists.

I keep mentioning Sarah because she's the one who played me APC for my first time, she's also the one that got the tickets, and the one who knows more about these cool bands then anyone I know. Thank you Sarah!

I got to goto sleep. I apologize for the… mottled post but it is late and I am tired. Hope all is well in all your worlds because mine is about to become nothing but dreams. ;-)

–Francis

PS Speaking of dreams I had an odd one the other day. I got married and I knew it wasn't going to work out. I also belittled the patron of the hall where the reception was because he was charging for plates. It was odd…

I just heard 3 explosions, possibly gun fire, probably fireworks. I need to find a new place to live, I'm glad I'm moving out of this one.

I spent most of the week sleeping, I was going to say working but I slept through most of it. I did get a good 2 days worth in and got the cash to prove it. The only thing I'm stuck with is not knowing how to properly delete old backups automatically. A little shell script would do what I want but I was to tired to figure it out, and its probably not the best way to do things either.

On tuesday I got to spend a little time with Steff but I had to fight American Idol for it. American Idol is possibly the biggest waste of air time on TV, but I could be wrong that mob of midgets vs. and elephant thing was pretty crappy. I hate Fox more then Matt Groening.

Thursday I got sick because of some ill placed (and by placed I mean in my stomach) olives. But before my almost puking out an ill made hamburger (the burger was fine but it didn't happen to be what I ordered) and a few olives I attended Fat Cat Billards which also happens to be a happening Jazz club.

I loved the musicians. I'm proud to say that the trumpet has become my favorite jazz instrument. The sounds that thing can make is awesome. It wasn't about the sound, jazz never is, its about the emotions that the musician is conveying threw their music. I don't think this bunch would ever be that expressive with anything else, not speech, not body language, nothing.

They also had a guest play with them. I can't remember his name to save my life. But he was a drummer and he played more naturally then he walked or talked. Click for more on Fat Cat Billiards

Friday I drove 40 miles to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in Scarsdale NY. It was a good movie, I need to see it again under different circumstances when I've got less on my mind but I grasped enough of what Kaufman was thinking when he made it to make this viewing worth my while. If you don't know I've got a thing for his movies. He's probably one of the weirdest writers out there and thats why I think he's one of the best (Reference The Icarus Project to see why being weird is a dangerous gift. Note: deserves a post on its own.) I haven't seen all his movies yet (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is next in my Netflix Queue.) but Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Human Nature (which is odd) have all turned out to be worth the $11.50. (Yes folks New York City is a rip off.) I've left each movie feeling confused, dazed, sad, happy, or in love. And each time impressed. As I said I've got a thing for his movies.

After the movie we went to a diner and spouted movie quotes. I had some interesting things I wanted to discuss about the movie. But I was quickly informed that I shouldn't try to have a discussion. (Its been a long time since any of my friends turned down intellectual conversation.) so I joined in on the movie quotes. A few funny ones were said but in the end I was left hung up on wanting to convince people that a gag movie (Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back) wasn't better then a Mislabeled Comedy (Its drama: Chasing Amy). It may have been more funny but it had no story. And being funny, while fun, gets old really fast. I can only laugh at "Cock Knocker" so many times. Which is totally alright because gags aren't meant to last for ever.

I need to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" again so I can figure out what I was thinking the first time I saw it and maybe talk with people about it.

I went home that night in a poor mood, I guess I wasn't looking to drive so much for so little. I had originally planned to see it that morning in a local theater with someone I could talk to, but she couldn't make it.

Saturday I slept a lot (much needed) and then fixed things, packed (forgot a shirt I bought and really liked and a flashlight — hoping to receive them in the mail soon), fixed things at my parents house and then went home. I did get to say hi to my ever interesting aunt who I should visit sometime soon.

As if I needed an excuse to flee to Seattle for a week or two. ;-)

Its 'wayy' past when I wanted to goto sleep, I would have gone to sleep hours ago but a friend I hadn't seen in a while showed up and I went on a diner run with them. (Stupid friends working the night shift and never sleeping EVER.)

I'm glad I'm home. Even if this apartment is only going to be home for a few more months. (We're all moving out if you didn't know.) My most promising new home is a couple's apartment. The couple are friends of Josh's and they have a room mate moving out (going to germany or something odd). I don't know them yet, nor do they know me but I'm told they're nice people. Because I don't know how that will pan out I'm still on the look out for 2–3 bedroom apartments and people who will want to live there. I shouldn't have too much of a problem with that, especially since I plan on living on campus until I meet enough people that I can find 2–3 financially backed, sane room mates. I know its a tall order but I'm feeling hopeful.

I'm sleepy (by far) so I'm sleeping. Good night.

–Francis

Philadelphia is a wonderful city. It's got style, flare, and it's not New York. New York City is wonderful in its self but to have the same sort of gathering of culture somewhere else, filling a different city, its refreshing. And they have good cheesesteaks.

I consider myself lucky. I have Calculus 3 days a week (monday, wednesday, friday) at 8am, and Symbolic Logic twice a week (tuesday and thursday) at 9:50 am. I've got other classes in the morning too (Computer Lab Techniques, Intro to Java Object Oriented Programming, and Micro Economics) just not that early but thats not the point. I'm lucky because I don't have Calculus with Dr. Charzar (I don't want to remember his real name — he's better as a pokemon) I have it with Dr. Howe. He was described to me by 3 different people as a hippie but an excellent teacher.

I've been getting up early ever day this week. So friday after my 8am to 8:50am class (my only class of the day) I came home and slept for 8 hours and I felt great! Like Toni the tiger.

I'm in a war with my drunk neighbor who's blasting music so loud its shaking things because we were a little loud last night. We don't try to piss them off. I happen to like the father and the kids. But the lady she's going down.

–Francis

PS They Finally shut the fuck up.