Trick or Treat

Funniest part about college: When Halloween rolls around, you can never be too sure who’s actually dressed up and who’s not…

JK Flip Flops

“Kerry has no convictions," he said. "His policies vary from week to week. The trend with Kerry is, 'The voters lead, and I will follow.'"

The above statement was made by a Reform Jew. The Orthodox Jews quoted in the article were all voting for Kerry. Yes, I do find this somewhat ironic.

(And since I'm 99% sure no one will notice, I will point out that the title of this post is also a CS reference)

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

...It's over the hill I go!

I went into a short little sneezing/coughing fit during Software Engineering class on Friday (aka *Isru Chag*)

Tom: “Deborah, don’t die on us,”
Jim: “We all know the cause would be old age.”

Ah..children these days…..Those little whippersnappers have no respect for their elders.

I Heart Jazz

Highlight of my classes today: Being serenaded with a lovely rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” by my Jazz professor on his piano.

I Side with the Bolsheviks

Other bloggers have already commented on an article in the Commie which denigrates J-blogging, called “An Evil Empire?” written by the Editor-in-Chief. Needless to say I wholeheartedly disagree with the majority of the article, but will defer to others who have already provided pithy explanations. One point: He blasts the poor *journalistic* standards of the Olam HaBlog in contrast to those of traditional media. By the way, Mr. Editor, there’s a grammatical error (I shall assume this is simply a typo) in the first sentence of your article. *Professional* standards indeed…..

An Exaggeration of Epic Proportions

A quote from a letter printed in the latest edition of the Commie:

"Without a vibrant Yeshiva University, religious Judaism in America will cease to exist.”

Give me a break.

Ode to My Friends

I have been avoiding this day for some time now. Somehow it still managed to sneak up on me. Shortly after 11:15, as my last few moments as a teenager were slipping out of my hands, my cell phone starting ringing. One after another, my Mich dira-mates called me…it’s now 1:30, and I just got off the phone…and this is with cutting just about everyone short to pick up call waiting. I returned to my computer to find a *heap* of IM messages. Though I very reluctantly surrendered the title of “teenager” tonight, as my phone kept ringing, I simply couldn’t regret the loss. With friends like these, growing old is just that much easier....

Rockin' Rabbis

Echoing MoC's senitments , people are quite strange !!

Jewish Algorithms II

Whilst experimenting with different pattern matching algorithms, it became apparent that Boyer-Moore stubbornly refused to scan my input. We were all running the same applet and somehow it worked for EVERYONE else in the class. I demoed my insubordinate algorithm to a few of my classmates.

Jim: Sorry, Deborah, but it looks like the Jewish algorithm doesn’t like you.
Me: But I’m Jewish!!!!!
Colin: Maybe it’s a self-hating Jewish algorithm
Me: Like all Jewish algorithms, huh
(Emphatic nodding by Colin ensues)

My Protégé

Don’t be fooled by that innocent smile. Despite his tender age, my beloved nephew has demonstrated great potential for a political career. The other day, he wanted some soda, and oddly, his parents didn’t obey his wishes. No matter. My nephew grabbed my brother-in-law’s glass, gulped down some soda, and remarked: “Look Mommy, Daddy’s sharing.” Brilliant. Absolutely Brilliant

Du Bist A Yid

While eating lunch in the X-Lab….

Christoph: Is that a hamburger??
Me: No, it’s actually a veggie burger.
(I nonchalantly whip out a handful of ketchup packets.)
Christoph: Oh. Can you put ketchup on that, or would that not be kosher?

**For those who monitor my ketchup consumption (cough::Eli7::cough), you know why this struck me as funny.. ;-)

While warning Jill that I would have to take off class yet again for Shmini Atzeres / Simchas Torah.

Me: ..but I’m going back to normal [meaning normal schedule] after this Friday.”
Jill: You mean as normal as you ever get.

**This is true, but I didn’t realize they knew me so well...

Progamming Pichifkes

For anyone who has ever taken a computer science class, you absolutely must read this. It’s literally a profile of every single boy who has ever been in any of my CS courses.

While we’re talking about programming, here’s a healthy dose of Tom quotes:

In explaining thread synchronization in Java:
“You wouldn’t want to sleep for 3 days. You might miss something.”

Responding to Evan’s questioning of the spelling of the words *foo* and *fubar,* which are standard geek terminology:
“You have long ways to go in your quest for geekdom.”

Update: Lucky for me I'm not on some half-witted quest for geekdom. One of my classmates just informed me that fubar is actually an acronym, one that probably doesn't belong on my site. Ah, well......

Caught in the Crossfire

I admit--I was supposed to be studying for my midterm tomorrow(er, today by now), when Jen sent me the following links:

In case you haven't watched it yet, here's Jon Stewart's performance on CNN's "debate" program.

The Democrat Speaketh

Here's a little snippet from a conversation with my favorite Democrat. Her reaction to a comment I made tickled me enough that I just *had* to blog it....

Eli7: "I think putting 'Clinton' and 'lishma' in the same sentence is heretical."

All together now..."AMEN!!"

I guess it just goes to show that despite their errant political leanings, Democrats are still capable of making a lot of sense. ;-)

Jewish Algorithms?

At the end of class today, Jill alluded to the next string matching algorithm we would look at….

Jill (paraphrased): The ingenuity of the Boyer-Moore algorithm is that it matches the pattern from right to left.

Jim: “It’s Jewish pattern matching”

This coming form the boy who told me he knew what Passover was because he watched a Rugrats special on it ;-)

This Means War

As mentioned previously, my database class split up into two teams to work on our semester long project. Apparently, the other team (the self declared “Manly Men” Team) has started a smear campaign by posting the following on their website:

Manly Man Competitors Indicted for all Kinds of Bad Things.
Good Company says it’s a Shame That the Government Didn’t act Earlier.

Baltimore – Two weeks after announcing their newest venture, Team Jads (more commonly known as Team Estrogen), a joint venture of Really Amazingly Evil Corporation and Microsoft Corporation has been indicted for fraud, insider trading, intentional sale of harmful products, sales of illicit substances to minors, racketeering, murder, and poor fashion sense. When asked what the reason was for the number and severity of the charges, District Attorney Ju Gohindawn replied, “Have you ever used any of their previous products? I used their flower delivery service and they sent man-eating venus flytraps to my wife for our anniversary instead of the long stem roses I ordered. As compensation for that ‘fiasco’ they said that I could be the first to try their new DVD store [still in production] and get a free movie. They sent me the wrong movie and it then exploded in my DVD player sending lethal shrapnel into the majority of my family and staring the now infamous Chicago fire.” The D.A. is also investigating the true meaning of the acronym JADS. The current leads indicate it stands for “Juvenile Abigei with Dacnomaniacal Sensibilities.”
When asked for comment, the heads of Manly Man Inc., a saintly and efficient organization with a reputation as the best database company, said, “It’s just a shame that a company that deranged could survive for so long. We really feel sorry for their venture capitalists, how are they supposed to know what they were getting into. Look how Team Estrogen fooled everyone. You assume from the front of their webpage that they are a gentle corporation that enjoys roses. Little do you know that to get those roses to their abnormally large and red state Estrogen fed them the blood of cute baby puppies daily, and occasionally a little bunny rabbit too.”
Manly Man Inc. is the non-profit and charitable division of Ultimate Humongous Awesome Corporation is dedicated to creating quality products and donating all profits to charities dealing with men’s health and self defense issues.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Eli7: i think i'm gonna have to return to my hot date with Aristotle at the moment
me: c'mon, i'm hotter
Eli7: agreed
Eli7: for a record third time
Eli7: u go blog and i'll go date the political theorist
Eli7: excellent
Eli7: g'night
me: g'night

Making His Formal Debut

One of my readers rightly pointed out that my other nephew has never been featured on this site. I shirked responsibility by blaming his parents who simply don’t take pictures (sound familiar?). Fortunately while in Chicago for Sukkos, my brother and sister-in-law went to visit my cousins who have an affinity for bombarding all guests with their digital cameras (thank my parents for the thirteen-yr-old’s latest obsession. They bought him said camera for his Bar Mitzvah. ) They uploaded their amateur shots (they like to snap pictures about every 30 seconds…) and burned them onto a disc. Here, my nephew is practicing steadying himself on daddy’s shoulder’s during a round of dancing. In the end, justice has been served.

Kill Jill, Volume III

It is common knowledge that we slackers are lured to the field on computer science by its enticing lack of papers. Apparently this is a carefully crafted trap. Despite my choice of major, I have yet to have a paper-free semester. In the past, this has been mostly the fault of “gen-eds” and electives. But this year…..First, I had an essay test in my software engineering class. And then—then the unthinkable happened. Jill assigned a paper in Algorithms!!! We have to wax poetic about algorithmic analysis. Sorry, pontificating about the supremacy of one sorting algorithm over another is only so appealing. Oh, and we have two weeks to gather all the statistics, compile and graph them, and then compose our lovely little ditties. I feel *betrayed.*

Ready? Set? Crawl!

Today is my nieces’ first birthday. Just over a year ago this time, my whole family was davening for a miracle, two miracles actually. Thank G-d, I can sincerely say that our tefilos were answered.
It was roughly 3 am when my brother-in-law called my mother from the hospital to tell her that they couldn’t stop my sister’s premature labor. And he asked her to daven. My mother immediately called my brother (twas during his kollel stint at the Mir) and told him to go to the Kotel. Then she called my aunt in Bayit VeGan and caught her just as she was on her way out the door to visit my grandparents’ graves and asked her to daven for my sister there as well. At this point I was trying to chop in a few hours of sleep before my two midterms, and had no idea my sister was in labor. Moreover, I had no clue that she was carrying twins. I woke up to find a note under my door that read, “Tami had twin girls last night.” After the initial shock wore off, the reality set in—and I simply didn’t know how to react. My nieces both clocked in at less than two pounds; when my parents went to see them in the NICU, both burst into tears. My nieces spent the next 2 ½ months in the hospital, and my father went there almost every single day to visit his grandchildren, and to say Tehillim. Even when they finally did come home, their condition was still somewhat precarious. But now—now they have grown into two beautiful, healthy girls. הודו לה' כי טוב כי לעולם חםדו

L'Chvod Eli7 II

Did the "This Land" spoof that spread like wildfire across the internet tickle you? If so, be sure to check out the Jibjab bros' latest, "Good to be in DC." Not as good, but guaranteed to elicit a chuckle or two.

For Interested Parties

Zach is Back!

My Protégé

Despite his tender age, my beloved nephew has demonstrated great potential for a political career. The other day, he wanted some soda, and oddly his parents didn’t obey his wishes. No matter, my nephew grabbed my brother-in-law’s glass, gulped down some soda, and then said: “Look Mommy, Daddy’s sharing.” Brilliant. Absolutely Brilliant.