Indistinguishable from Jesse

AMC printed the wrong date on Lord of the Rings tickets again:

Two years ago, my suitemate and a few of her friends drove to the theater on Monday night for Fellowship. As she left, she told me she had tickets to see the movie a day early. I believed her until I saw her at the theater on Tuesday night.

I'm not aware of any Mudders making the same mistake this year.

I wonder if printing the wrong date could be intentional. It's better if 10 people drive a day early than if 2 people drive a day late. Someone at the theater said the tickets are printed incorrectly because the AMC software only understands business days.

Michael Mateas of Georgia Tech gave a colloquium talk about Office Plant #1 and Façade. Alex missed the talk.

Alex: What's Façade?

(Selene and Ryan explain the premise to Alex: A couple you knew in college has invited you over for drinks. Their marriage is about to fall apart, but your character doesn't know that when he/she arrives. The characters talk, and you communicate by typing in free-form English.)

Alex: Ok.

Ryan: It's 3D and it has an FPS perspective.

Alex: So there's a gun in front of you?

I spent Thanksgiving at Montecito-Sequoia Lodge in Sequoia National Forest again. Like last year, there weren't any activities designed to bring high school or college-age kids together, so I only met a few (Alex and Jenny). My brother Drew and my cousin Jessica were also there.

It seems that many visitors have not internalized the idea that black bears are dangerous. When we saw a bear several meters from the road, we stopped and took photos. Other people stopped and got out of their SUVs to take photos. Also, members of my family kept leaving food in the car and even taking trips to put food in the car.

• Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? (Via Schmack.)
• Can you parse this English sentence? Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. The answer. (Via Stephanie Harves.)
• "You shanked my jengaship!" I think it's interesting that "shank", a mispronounciation of the past tense of "sink", gained an extra past-tense marker to become "shanked".
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (Via Schmack.)
• Actual newspaper headlines (collected from several sources)
• Capitol Steps: Al-Jazeera [Alouette?]
• Capitol Steps: Look Away (Rush Limbaugh's statement) [Dixie]
• Capitol Steps: Lirty Dies: Kobe Bryant (spoonerisms)
• Mountain Liquor?! I hardly know 'er!

AOL Instant Messenger has been showing animated ads for love.com, a personals site for AIM users. According to this news.com article, love.com will launch in a few weeks.

I noticed this strange HTML on prelaunch love.com:

<select name="gender" value="" class="txtfield2" style=width:80px;>
<option value=""> - Gender -
<option value="monday"> Male
<option value="tuesday"> Female
</select>

Why is male represented by "monday" and female by "tuesday"? Kate Monday and Pat Tuesday were both female.

"Is 'Oomph' a unit of impulse or a unit of force?"

"Hard drives are so fucking slow. Their seek times are measured in milliseconds!"

"Pass-by-name is like pass-by-reference on crack."

Political anagrams of "axis of evil":

• Lies via Fox
• A xvi of lies
• Fix oil aves
• Fox is a veil
• Fox is alive
• xvi is of ale
• xvi? oil safe!
• Save oil fix

Nonpolitical anagrams:

• Fax is olive
• Foil via sex
• Flies via ox

I found these anagrams by feeding "axis of evil" and various subsets (such as "axis of evil" - "oil", or "axs f evi") to Andy's Anagram Solver.

I went to SCAMfest without Helen because we broke up on Wednesday. But I invited my parents, who hadn't been before, and they loved it. My parents and I bought BOCA 2002, and I plan to buy the new Shades CD, "Phonogenic", when it comes out in December.

My favorite songs from SCAMfest were Hotel California (UCLA Random Voices), I Heard it Through the Grapevine (USC SoCal VoCals), Fields of Gold (Midnight Echo), Poisoning Pigeons in the Park (Midnight Echo), and Harder to Breathe (Shades). Of these 5 songs, I knew the original versions of the first 3.