My quarter at Stanford has begun. It’s really time to turn the heat up, since I’m taking around 23 credits.

I was sick on the first day. What a way to start.

My philosophy for choosing graduate school classes is for only two reasons: it’s useful for my future research, or it’s just fun and interesting.

I have a lot to do now. Posts will probably be more sparse, but hopefully I will be able to queue myself as soon as my weekly routine settles down.

I love going to Lozano’s car wash. If you’re in the bay area and have never experienced a Lozano-caliber wash, you should definitely pull into one.

It’s pure machinary. Your park your car, and leave it to near the vacuums. Suddenly, two or three people come and hurridly vacuum and detail the interior. No more than three minutes later, your car is driven to the car wash. But this is no cheapo brush car wash like all the others.

Sure there are the machine brushes that sweep the sides and top of your car. Where Lozano’s really shines is in the hand cleaning. The workers literally swarm your car like bees. But this is not a chaotic swarm. Every person serves a purpose, and they do each purpose very well.

One person sprays the inside windshield while another details the front of the car. Another comes on the other side of the car and wipes the inside windshield while another details the crevices in the interior doors.

It all moves so quickly.

All of this happens in such a short time span you can hardly take it in. By the time the vehicle reaches the end of the brushes your car is nearly spotless, both inside and out. It’s then driven to a designated spot and hand detailed even further. Of course this is all done under your watchful eye in case they miss any spots. This is how all car washes should be.

On top of it all, you get free lemonade and popcorn. How can you beat that? All for $9.99.

I walked onto Stanford campus after my long summer working in the Bay Area. It feels very fresh and reviving to be back as a student. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been cooped up in a cube all summer.

But alas, with a new school comes the usual administrivia. Papers to sign, bills to pay, and photo IDs to obtain.

I hate photo ID pictures. They always catch you off guard. One doesn’t realize the gravity of the situation: this photo will be in your wallet for the next four years, at least. We’re usually pretty selective about what pictures go into our wallets. Carefully, we choose nice looking pictures of our loved ones.

But then, comes the driver’s license picture. The student ID picture. I’m sure all of you have had bad pictures hanging around. It’s mostly because we are caught off guard. These nonchalant pictures are annoying, but not annoying enough to fix (unless you’re real desperate). So there we are, walking around with a picture of ourselves, most likely with an awkward smile, an off-kiltered tilt of the head, and a shirt you wouldn’t be caught dead in.

I’ve owned my digital camera for about two years now. Needless to say I’ve amassed a large amount of photos in my archives. I’ve tried my best to organize, but haven’t given too much thought into it. Now is the time to start.
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My fiancee is on a business trip, but we managed to stay on the phone while watching the same movie in sync. We chose Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, still one of my favorite movies even after three viewings.
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It appears [kottke.org] that Google is looking into making their own browser. Evidence abounds about them hiring browser specific people, and even registering gbrowser.com.

Google is already so much a part of my online life. If they make a browser, I’ll be opening Gbrowser to search Google web, looking at news at Google news, and checking my email at Gmail. That’s enough integration into my daily web habits to scare me. Who knows if the corporate giant will be altruistic in the future. I say we need to spread out the technology among several entities. One thing I do like is the emphasis on more useful Java, Flash, and other dynamic based applications on the web (ahem.. Flickr, Gmail).

Whatever the case, Google’s stock will be on the rise.

Others
Blogzilla: Google Browser?
kottke.org: More evidence of a Google browser
dashes.com: Upon the demise of Netscape

I’m trying to sell my bike on craigslist, but it’s frustrating. The bike I have is way too small for me. It would be ideal for a person 5′4″ (I’m 5′6″) or shorter, at most. So I post that in my listing.

The next thing I know, I get a barrage of emails from people asking How tall of a person would this fit? I’m 5′9″. Go read the listing again! Some people even go as far as coming and looking at the bike, even though they are far taller than I am.

I guess I’m a bit puzzled why people like to waste their time. I suppose there’s this sense of hope that the bike is really taller than it is.

I got in on a good deal for hosting at Telnap. I got the tip from Anandtech’s hot deals forum. It’s 2.5Gb/month and 100Mb for $6 a year. Not too shabby at all. Also, I found that you can get .info domains for free. Expect to see my site at www.jamesjyu.info soon. Yeah, I know I’m cheap, but it sure beats having to deal with Stanford’s slow servers all the time.

I wrestled with MT to move over all my posts. Found that the easiest way was to just reinstall MT fresh at the new site and export the entries from my old site. Now, I’m just waiting for my new domain to resolve… hopefully by tomorrow.

Apparently the Postal Service (a regular in my playlist) is enjoying much success from their album. Gibbard, of Death Cab For Cutie fame (yet another regular), exclaims

The funny thing is that the USPS actually got on their case about their name.

I find that amusing.