Transmissions 
..........Activating Directional Antenna............
..........Searching for Earth.......................
..........Earth Found!..............................
..........Synchronizing Chronometers................
Chronomike = 20070426
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Transmission # = 7118424591914557862
Rotation Increment = 8:02 PM
Old Girlfriend
BLUE J - Today at work, a friend of mine asked how College Inn nights were going. I had to admit that we were no longer seeing each other. "Let me guess," she said. "It's not you, it's me, right?"
"No," I said. "It was her. She stopped caring." We laughed. Then I told her about our new girlfriend. "Her name is Dante's! I didn't think we'd like her, but she's great! We're going to see her again next week."
I explained that as a group we did what you have to do with a new girlfriend: make a spreadsheet that outlines all the petty pros and cons. So here we have it, the complete list of things we love and hate about Dante's upon first impression as compared to the College Inn. Thank you, Karl, for typing this!
| Pros | Cons |
| whorish waitresses fried food (french fries, onion rings, chicken strips) good nachos we're smarter than everyone there we get to be elitist you get in line to order good location chairs roll around (you can sit and spin) big table (and it is phallic!) cheap food and drinks cute guys (6 years ago) it is like being in the midwest arcade games karaoke (including oldies) | whorish waitresses no secluded area bathroom graffiti is mediocre at best too much television have to get in line to order sticky tables no sexy math grad students can smell the bathrooms from the bar we're smarter than everyone there lame nacho olives floor is not flat creepy old guys (specifically, dudes that look like Alan Rickman) barking frat guys phallic table it is like being in the mid-west karaoke |
Despite the many cons, she's clearly better than the old girlfriend so far, and another date is already lined up. Maybe we'll get lucky!
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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Chronomike = 20070415
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Transmission # = 7037067758304885397
Rotation Increment = 9:29 PM
Evil Mike
From a particularly sinister part of the galaxy came my doppleganger last Friday. He showed up at my work to protest our teaching of evolution. He barged into my office demanding to speak to a supervisor. I responded.
We came nose to nose, and for a moment there was an eerie calm and sense of understanding between us. He was just my height, devilishly good looking, yet undoubtedly evil despite the lack of a goatee.
Then he started yelling at me. Evil Mike claimed to be a priest of some sort with a firm belief in creationism. His hatred of the science of evolution was so strong that he cursed me with a "plague of insects." I don't know what it means, but I am concerned that he might try to release the butterflies from their tropical house.
I calmly thanked him for his input, but asked him to leave the premises. He snarled something despicable about my mother which I thought ironic. He stomped out. Later in the day I had to fish his sign out of the ponds.
It's unsettling to think there is an Evil Mike out there. What nonsense is he teaching the children? Is he as calculating as me? Does he go on more dates than I do?
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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Chronomike = 20070413
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Transmission # = 2445116631984134728
Rotation Increment = 6:43 PM
Requests and Dork-Libations
BLACK T - Last week we tried out Murphy's in Wallingford as our new Monday night bar. It was positively received by the majority of attendees, however, not by all. Here were the arguments for and against Murphy's as it compares with the College Inn.
For:- Better food
- More choices for food
- Kind, welcoming wait staff
- Half-price Irish beer
- Not in a dark basement
- No stairs
- Closer to many regular attendees or better bus connections
- Outdoor seating options in summer
- Live fiddle music
Against:- Louder
- Smaller tables that are less expandable
- More expensive
- Brighter
- No back room to take over
- No half-price nachos
- Worse bus connections for some
Did I forget any main arguments?
I request that we attend again this week and really give it a solid consideration. Does it meet our needs as a group? Is there somewhere else we should try?
And speaking of requests, as you probably already know, I've entered my chat bot, Love Agent, into a contest for chat bots called the Chatterbox Challenge. She will be assessed by judges on personality, interface, and conversational ability. She will also be judged by people like you for most popular. This is where you come in.
All I'm asking you to do is visit http://www.chatterboxchallenge.com/ by the end of the month and vote for my bot and two others. There are many bots that are really great, and you can chat with most of them online by clicking on their names and following the links to their individual web sites. I think you'll find that while mine is not the best in every category, it does quite well and has a good personality. If you want to chat with Love Agent yourself or read more about her including quotes from her funniest conversations, visit Love Agent's page here on The Planet Mike.
Thanks! Please pass this along to your nerdiest friends.
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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Chronomike = 20070411
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Transmission # = 6270889471377660719
Rotation Increment = 6:06 PM
Mac Mini RAM Upgrade a Success
Yesterday I got my new Intel Mac Mini upgraded from 512mb of RAM to 2gigs! I wasn't willing to spend the four hundred odd dollars the Mac Store wanted to charge for the upgrade, so I bought two sticks of Corsair 1gb DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Memory for Apple Notebook from Newegg.com for only $67.99 each, then had my local Mac Store install it for $30! It only took them about 15 minutes, and I didn't have to worry about destroying the Mini's pretty case with a putty knife.
Now my Mac soars! Viewing music by album covers in iTunes is now enjoyable, and Word runs as fast as it would on a PC (it had a horrible load time before). Everything is smoother and really pops like it should. It's just the Mac experience I was looking for.
Today I'm home sick from work. I slept for five hours this afternoon and spent the remaining hours coughing and dribbling. I still feel awful. I think I'll go back to bed. Thank goodness the Mac has a remote!
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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Transmission # = 4569860115231138269
Rotation Increment = 9:45 PM
Adventures with Matzo
ORANGE S - I went to my first Seder last night! It was really interesting. We ate bitter herbs, drank wine, and played the traditional hide the matzo. There was much song in Hebrew and enough in English to understand what was going on. I mostly got out of it that for Jewish people, this dinner is symbolic of celebrating freedom from slavery. They do things like have others poor wine for you to remind you that everyone is a king at the table. At one point everyone leans to the left while dining as a reminder that slaves would never have been allowed to lean or sometimes even sit at a table. Relaxation is a privilege of freedom.
I also started to understand better some Christian traditions. The dinner that Christ supposedly sat down to with his disciples where he offered bread representing his body and wine representing his blood was this passover Seder dinner. He was replacing the symbols of freedom from Egypt with new symbols. Matzo is the original Jeezit! It now makes sense that it is flat, unleavened bread. There would also have been an excess of wine to use as a symbol of blood.
And no wonder the Easter holiday is calculated so seemingly bizarrely as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Jews use a lunar calendar. The first day of passover when the first Seder dinner takes place is defined as the 15th day of Nisan, a lunar month, and necessarily a full moon. Christ would have dined on this day, making Easter fall on the following Sunday!
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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Chronomike = 20070402
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Transmission # = 1988427000151998673
Rotation Increment = 4:02 PM
Delightfully Tacky Yet Unrefined
Saturday night was Nick's bachelor party. The boys and I took him out for his last night of fun before the shackles of wedlock. We started at Hooters where Nick was forced to wear one of the girls' outfits and dance in front of everyone. He was also wearing a Viking helmet Andrew got for him. It was a pretty great scene with his chest hair poking out and the girls yelling, "What do we think of marriage? Boo!"
The next stop was Jillian's on Westlake where Nick played video games. I drank a martini and danced. Then it was back to the U District for 1am donuts and fresh squeezed orange juice before heading to a hookah lounge on Roosevelt called The Rabbit Hole. I tired out by 2:15am having worked all day, so I left the party there and went home to pass out. I hear there was another stop for orange juice and a trip to Subway before the night officially ended around 3:30am. I didn't hear anyone come in, but the next morning they were passed out on my couch and under the dining room table.
Have a great wedding this weekend, Nick!
Transmitted by Michael Bowers
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