ziasudra

1.
So much for being productive tonight. After opening at one job and staying late at the other, I came home and all I managed was brainlessly surf the Internet. So, for tonight, a mindless meme.

Ganked from

blackletter: ( What chess piece am I? )

2.
Starbucks is moving up -- in more ways than one:
♦ Seattle PI: Starbucks ordering a double shot -- twice as many U.S. stores

♦ Chicago Tribune: Starbucks to raise prices to cover costs
Argh! This means I have to rememorize all the drink prices now that I finally got them down.

And a couple of New York Times posts about the recent detainee "settlement":
♦ Republicans Reach Deal on Detainee Bill

♦ A Bad Bargain -- "Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession," writes an editorial contributor.

And now off to bed...

I'm such a night person. Tomorrow is the first day this week that I won't need to open (I'll be closing), and what happens? My sleep-by-ten resolution immediately gets thrown out the window, heh. At this rate, I'd be lucky if I go to sleep before 2 a.m.

[ETA: past 2 a.m. and my roommates and I are still chatting in our room.]

Closing is good. I get first dibs on taking whatever expired (but still good and edible) food home before they get thrown out. *g*

And because I have nothing better to do (), here's another meme, the second one in two hours:

My Personality


Neuroticism	71
Extraversion	7
Openness To Experience	49
Agreeableness	44
Conscientiousness	51

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

MySpace Surveys, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

Hmm... it appears I'm highly neurotic. Wha? o_O The expanded report is interesting, but I'm not so sure how reliable these "statistics" are with the test being so short and highly reliant on self-rating. It's fun though :)

Current Music: Chatting with roommates

( My interest collage: image heavy! )

Tagged by

lampblack:

Book Meme
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people.

( My book sentences )

I tag...

radicalteacher,

sparkly_stuff,

somethin_random,

kaskait, and

blackletter. It's not binding, and if you aren't tagged but want to do this meme, go ahead!

Current Mood: bookish
Current Music: Mercy Me -- I Can Only Imagine

w00t, I'm back to NYC! I was back yesterday, but was so tired upon arrival that I literally got home, crashed, and did nothing for the rest of the day. To those I met at the conference: *loves* I had SO much fun! More coherent post on it later.

First things first:

Congratulations to tanechigai and sad1225!!!

Lots of good things coming up:

elanor is staying with me for the week, I'm going to see Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and John Irving at Radio City Hall tomorrow night, my new job is starting and more interviews are rolling in, and former roommate J is coming to visit this weekend!

And now for the six random things meme that

sad1225 tagged me for:
Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog with six random facts about yourself. In the end you need to choose six people to be tagged and list their names.

( My six random facts )

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: TV

If you have some free time, would you mind hopping over to take this test? I've been taking a lot of personality tests lately because of my tendency to freak out about not knowing what to do for the rest of my life. This one is supposed to be PhD certified (doesn't mean anything, I know...) and if my result is correct, then it's eerily close to my heart but I'm sadly not (yet) qualified for.

For your free report, just click on "get free report" or something like that and say "no" to a whole bunch of ads and you should get your report after 10-12 clicks or so.

Do you find it accurate?

( Ziasudra's results )

On a different note, I have an interview at 3 today! This one's 10 minutes from my apartment, and it's about sports equipments. Whee. I hope it goes well :)

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Jay Chou -- Grandpa's Tea

Since everybody is doing it...

Intelligent and insightful, you are a gifted individual, who although may sometimes be buried in academic affairs, is friendly and welcoming.
My two highest scores were Ravenclaw (70%) and Hufflepuff (65%), and I'm least like Lord Voldemort. That's a good thing, I suppose *g*

And now for a funny news link of the day. Polish politics. Nepotism, anyone?
♦ President appoints twin brother as prime minister

"President Lech Kaczynski yesterday appointed his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw, as prime minister.

The move came after Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and his government formally resigned, clearing the way for Jaroslaw Kaczynski to step out from his behind the scenes role as head of the governing Law and Justice Party."

Current Mood: blank

I died in the Dungeon of Ziasudra

I was killed in a half-collapsed alcove by Nenyaentwhistle the owlbear, whilst carrying...

the Axe of Amrcan Hermione, the Dagger of Sumerology, the Wand of Nyu, the Axe of Neopets, the Shield of Kaskait, the Axe of Neopets, the Shield of Sunnydlita, the Amulet of Yu-gi-oh!, the Armour of Teaching, the Axe of Sra Black, the Sceptre of Akaisakura, the Sword of Awallens, the Crown of Goodnightlady, the Crown of Zerbie, the Sceptre of Final Fantasy and 93 gold pieces.

Score: 159

Explore the Dungeon of Ziasudra and try to beat this score,
or enter your username to generate and explore your own dungeon...

This is what I've spent the majority of my waking hours playing (a smaller dungeon, with an actual "normal" score, heh), including making a map of my own dungeon because mine doesn't have a scroll that shows a map of it. I've even explored a few other people's dungeons.

Lest I look like I did nothing else, here are a few news links:
♦ New York Times: Bush's Use of Authority Riles Senator
♦ LA Times: Study Links Male Gays, Birth of Older Brothers
♦ The NBA draft is tomorrow. Read up on the latest here.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Pippin -- Simple Joys

I haven't done a quiz in a while, so here's one. Ganked from

sad1225.

Take the quiz before you read behind the cuts for it to be most fun.

You are not alone. You are walking in the woods. Who are you walking with?
No one.

( Explanation )

You are walking in the woods. You see an animal. What kind of animal is it?
Rabbit

( Explanation )

What interaction takes place between you and the animal?
I look at it, it looks at me.

( Explanation )

You walk deeper in the woods. You enter a clearing and before you is your dream house. Describe its size?
Not too big. Enough with a study room, I suppose.

( Explanation )

Is your dream house surrounded by a fence?
Nope

( Explanation )

You enter the house. You walk to the dining area and see the dining room table. Describe what you see on AND around the table.
First reaction: similar to home’s.
Otherwise, if it’s my choice, there really isn’t anything on or around it. Didn’t imagine the house *with* a dining room, actually. Just an all-purpose table for work and food, which probably means the table would have paper clusters and whatnot on it.

( Explanation )

You exit the house through the back door. Lying in the grass is a cup. What material is the cup made of?
Plastic

( Explanation )

What do you do with the cup?
Pick it up.

( Explanation )

You walk to the edge of the property, where you find yourself standing at the edge of a body of water. What type of body of water is it?
River

( Explanation )

How will you cross the water?
I probably wouldn’t.

( Explanation )

Current Mood: bored

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for

ziasudra are close by:

chirpasee, athena8 (100 - 150)
animusincarnate (150 - 200)
seamripper, airtia, keeblerx, prehensile777, lissa_dora (250 - 300)

( More results below the cut... )

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends list?

Interesting results. Some people, like

kleeberx and

prehensile777, I feel like I ought to know. Others are friends' friends. And there are a whole lot of others I have no idea who they are, but if I ever find myself with a lot of free time I might check out their LJs just for fun.

As for basketball... *grumbles about Spurs loss in OT* I'm hopeful for the Suns though. I really want to see them advance. [ETA 1:20 a.m.: Go Suns, 127-107!!!]

Current Mood: confuzzled
Current Music: Clippers @ Spurs

1.
A fortune cookie meme, oh how accurate *g*

ziasudra's Fortune
for May 19, 2006

Fortune by myYearbook.com
the World's Biggest Yearbook!

2.
Ever got one of those HTTP 404 Page Not Found pages? Well, here's a fun one that I actually enjoyed watching: The page cannot be found.

3.
My family took me out to celebrate (way in advance) my birthday tonight. We went to Olive Garden. I had Pollos vino bianco, or chicken in white wine sauce, yum!

Current Mood: stuffed

A couple of memes and a good news item today.

Good news first.

Boy Cousin's best friend is a genius. Literally. New Jersey kid is America's top 'mathlete': Middle-schooler beats 227 rivals in annual competition. He wins $8,000 scholarship, a trip to the U.S. Space Camp, a notebook computer, and got to meet the president. Not that I'm too fond of Bush, but for a 14-year-old to get to meet the president for what he represents, that's pretty cool.

One thing's for sure: this win is going to bolster the WWP school district (and up the property tax) even more.

The Interview Meme
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview Me!"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are my answers to

ptyx's questions:

( My interview answers )

The LJ Name Meme

kaskait tagged me for this:

Explain your LiveJournal name and its meaning. When you're done, tag as many people as there are letters in your name.

In short, Ziasudra is the Sumerian sign for Ziasudra/Utnapishtim, the Sumerian equivalent of Noah in the Sumerian epic. I direct you to this entry for a full explanation of why I chose this username.

And the people I tag are...

akaisakura,

everydaysushi,

joz_music,

methegirl3,

siukong,

sparkly_stuff,

transcendentsin,

verdenia.

[ETA 2:12 a.m.: adsf;okfdsj the Phoenix Suns won 125-118 in double OT!!! dafjdsk;dfsag]

Current Mood: hmph
Current Music: Clippers @ Suns

A special reminder that deserves its own big letters:
Tomorrow (April 25) is Ben & Jerry's
Free Ice Cream Day!

More information here, though really, just get to the nearest Ben & Jerry's and get in line!

I've seen people getting Giant Battle Monsters for themselves, so I decided to get one too. I chose to name mine after my Neopets account name (Onsa66) since the Ziasudra Giant Battle Monster is rather incompetent ;p I quite like my Onsa66 monster. *g*

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Cartoon Network

Current Mood: dumb
Current Music: Leonard Cohen -- Hallelujah

So I was reading through some of my posts in March and realized... as far as content goes, March was a dark hole month if you're not a basketball fan.

Speaking of which, April 1, 2006: Florida def. George Mason, 73-58; UCLA def. LSU, 59-45. So Florida and UCLA will compete head-to-head tomorrow night at Indiannapolis for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship!

News-wise, here's something interesting:
The New York Times: Iraq's Premier Is Asked to Quit as Shiites Split

As always, Juan Cole's blog is up-to-date with the latest news in the Middle East: UIA Member Calls for Jaafari to Step Down.

Now for a meme. I've seen this floating around. Not a popularity contest because I really have no clue how it works:

ziasudra's LiveJournal popularity rating is 3.20/10.

ziasudra is more popular than 92.4% of all LiveJournal users.

ziasudra is more popular than 48.7% of their mutual friends.

How popular are you?
LJ Popularity created by

thehumangame.

Current Mood: productive

Spent the day with former roommate J and roommate D. We had fun. Toward the end of the night, we started playing a fun career game. I found the questions and interpretation of the answers very intriguing. Here they are, for your job exploration purposes.

But first...

( NCAA Men's Basketball Results )

Now onto the questions. Explanations behind the cut.

Answer these questions with your first reaction:

1. Are you more like a clothesline or a kite string?
2. Are you more likely to walk on thin ice or tiptoe through a field of tulips?
3. Are you more like a hotel or a motel?
4. Are you more like red or green?
5. Are you more like a singer or a dancer?
6. Are you more like a loner or a grouper?
7. Are you more like a rose or a daisy?
8. Are you more like a shark or sardine?
9. Are you more like a shoe or a sock?
10. Are you more like a saver or a spender?
11. Are you more like a window or a door?
12. Are you more like a yes or a no?
13. Are you more like a talker or a listener?
14. Are you more like a teacher or a student?
15. Are you more like a country or a city?
16. Are you more like a tree or a bush?
17. Are you more like a dog or a cat?
18. Are you more like a heel or a sole?
19. Are you more like summer or winter?
20. Are you more like the present or the future?
21. Are you more likely to go along or to go against?
22. Are you more like coffee or tea?
23. Are you more like a mountain or a valley?
24. Are you more fast or slow?
25. Are you more like an apple or an orange?
26. Are you more like steel or gold?
27. Are you more like an elevator or an escalator?

( How your answers work )

Current Mood: introspective

Not much to show today. I had one of those writing days that as I read over what I wrote, I felt like scrapping everything and starting over. So 4,300 words later, I think I'd be lucky if I can keep 1,000. I'm used to this though. That's what I've been taught in J-school and my copyediting jobs after all: not essential to the story? Cut!

So instead I present you with a meme.

( The four things meme, tagged by His Gal Friday )

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Trapt -- Echo

It’s March! Guess what’s going to be occupying my mind for the next month? If you said “March Madness,” then you’re right!

Before the craziness actually starts, here’s an article that would only be too true, if I actually have a 9 to 5 office job: CBS Streaming March Madness Coverage Live Online

“CG&C says companies will undoubtedly see a significant drop-off in worker productivity. It estimates that for every 13.5 minutes workers spend on the internet watching for the next three weeks, the cost to employers in lost wages alone exceeds 237 million dollars.

Over the 16 days of the tournament, the total loss could climb as high as 3.8 billion dollars.”Hehe. My first reaction was: How can someone watch only 13.5 minutes of a game? I think I alone would lose out a company with this new live streaming thing.

I’ve come to this conclusion: I turn on the TV to watch sports; Roommate A turns on the TV to watch food network and celebrity-ish stuff; and Roommate D doesn’t really watch TV but would try to make TV watching into an interactive experience in which she’d try to engage whoever’s in the room into conversations about whatever’s on.

( Now for a quiz that totally made me want to join LiveJournal Anonymous but was a lot of fun to take )

[ETA: Who knew a game about fish burgers can be so much fun? *g*]

Current Mood: chipper

Some news headlines:
The very major ones (port talks, U.S. Supreme Court hearing on abortion, the Black Family Tree winner, etc.) are missing. I assume they're all over people's f-lists by now.

New!
Per

tanechigai's suggestion, I'm trying something new with my links today. When you click on them, they will now open up in new windows. I haven't figured out how to make them open up as new tags for Firefox users yet, however.

♦ Huge earthquake in southern Africa today—Earthquake shakes Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

♦ For the video gamers among you—A Slump but No Exodus: Game, Console Makers Face Tests Despite Strong Sales.

And more—PS3: delay rumours intensify. I'm just glad that that U.S. version of Kingdom Hearts 2 will be coming out as a PS2 game.

♦ Hubblesite—Hubble Confirms New Moons of Pluto

The Personal DNA Test
Yet another personality quiz. This one's much more comprehensive than the two-question Enneagram, and the best part is that taking the test is fun. You get to empty buckets and place dots onto quadrants of graphs. Very interactive.

The test pegged me as a respective experiencer. It also told me that I'm likely an INTP, which is half-accurate, since I sometimes do test out to be one—usually during my more brainy moments.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: TV -- Olympics

I just took this Enneagram-made-easy quiz. Only two questions! And it's strangely accurate too. I've taken the 131-question version and got the same result. I'm definitely a Type 5.

Ganked from

bugland

the Observer

You chose BZ - your Enneagram type is FIVE.( Traits of a Five )

I've also finally wrote down some thoughts from attending The Veritas Forum at NYU last week. They were written mainly because I wanted to leave detailed feedback on the survey e-mail that was sent out. I hope I wasn't being too academically minded. Reading back some of my comments, you'd think I attended a dissertation in which I was on the approving committee or something.

To those who attended: Agree? Disagree?

( Human Rights Panel: Michael Horowitz, Benedict Rogers, Ashley Woodiwiss )

( Economics Panel: David Grizzle, Katherine Marshall, Vinoth Ramachandra, Larry Reed )

( Future Topic Suggestions, Overall Impression )

Current Mood: introspective
Current Music: TV -- Olympics

This has been floating around. It's one of the more indicative memes out there. Just take a quick minute to pick five or six adjectives that describe me. The results are charted into different categories that compare my self-awareness with others' perception of me. No LJ account needed.

If you make a chart for yourself, leave me a link and I promise I'll do yours.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=ziasudra

P.S. -- the site is sometimes overloaded. It usually takes a minute or so for it to function again.

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: street traffic

I got one of those Johari Windows too. I'm curious. What do you think about me?

http://kevan.org/johari?name=ziasudra

Current Mood: curious

Ganked from

methegirl3:

1. Playing my guitar.

2. Waking up at 10:30 a.m. (or later) in the morning without running late for anything.

3. Being prayed for.

4. Reaching the final level of a video game and defeating the Big Boss. Bonus points if secret ending is unlocked.

5. Spending the whole day creating something just for fun -- art, story, Web page, cupcakes, etc.

6. Gmail - Inbox (1)

7. Singing because I'm happy.

8. Hanging out with friends, just because.

9. Having something I worked hard on being well received.

10. Food!

Current Mood: happy

Because everyone is doing it...

Get your own spectral analysis from Area 23^®

If you're wondering: This apparently shows how you influence me. My picture is the one on the left. If you follow the link to area23's image generator, you'll get a picture of your own, which will show up as the left picture when you post the generated code into your entry. The picture on the right shows how our pictures meld, or, how we influence each other. I have no idea how the generator calculates influence, however.

Current Mood: random

I spent all day trying to figure out what I might want to do for my final MA project. At the end of the day, nothing has been figured out :p

I did, however, come across this very interesting news from CNN: Invasion of the giant jellyfish. Depending on your opinion regarding jellyfish, this is either fascinating or disgusting. This paragraph especially tickled me:

"Seaside communities in Japan have tried to capitalize on the menace by developing novel jellyfish dishes from tofu to ice cream, but for some reason the recipes have failed to take off."

I like eating jellyfish when served as one of those Chinese cold appetizer dish. But I think I'll pass on jellyfish ice cream ^_^;;

And just to be even more unproductive, here's a random quiz to boost my ego:

( My Scholastic Strength )

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Simple Plan -- I'm Just A Kid

Meme Time

I'm compatible with owls...

Baaaa

Book Meme

Back from hiatus

What's your destiny?

Twins: my HP meme twin and Poland's president's twin

Dungeons and News

I died in the Dungeon of Ziasudra

My Walk in the Woods, Dream House, and Me

TrustFlow results for ziasudra

Fortune, Not Found

I Know A Genius; Memes

Free Ice Cream & Nifty Battle Monster

I better get a better grade on my paper...

Sunday night mixed post

Fun Job Questions

Writing... but nothing to show

Marching to the Tune of Madness... soon

Wednesday linkage

Enneagram in just 2 steps! Veritas Forum Notes

What do you think of me?

Who Am I?

Life's Simple Pleasures

How my LJ friends influence me

Productivity = 0

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January 2011

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