15 December 2005

happy holidays

i had my last exam yesterday and it went horribly. i studied hard and my friends were amazed at how well i knew the material. of course, i had the feeling that it wouldn't go well, as is now a tradition in all my grad school exams. but since they never fail people, in the middle of the test i just had this urge to stand up and leave. you won't fail anyway, then why go through the suffering? i thought it was a bit too early to just leave and that was a very loser-like mentality. so i stayed. i didn't do much more but i still stayed. how brave of me.

i hope next year i take classes with no exams. i hate the suffering one undergoes when sitting in the middle of an exam. even if you know the answers, the pressure of having to write down everything you know to show that you actually know is unbearable. but i guess that's the life of a student.

although i'm a procrastinator at heart, there's always this constant pressure of assignments that need to get done, papers that need to be written, research projects that need to be completed, presentations that need to be prepared. when all of that is done, there's still the exam period: nuits blanches, backaches, coffee breaks at 2am. and when all of that is done, you need to pack in the next 3 hours and you are literally running errands in order to catch that bus/train/plane that is going to take you to the holiday destination of your choice.

and then the holidays are hardly ever a good rest. if you go on vacation, you go everywhere in the city you visit because you tell yourself, i might never come back, i need to see everything. if you go home, you want to see all of your family and friends and spend every day at breakfasts, lunches, coffees, dinners, high school and family reunions. you go see your dentist and your doctor, because you have seen that dentist and that doctor since you were 6 and you don't trust anyone else, or because they are your mom's cousins or your dad's friends or whatever other reason you may have.

and then you go back to school, usually just the night before classes start... or sometimes even after classes began. after all, you don't have that many days of vacation and you want to enjoy as many days as you can at your holiday destination.

well... that won't happen this year. after my exam, i had lunch with friends, took pipi, perro, and mya to the train station, and then had coffee with chucho. he left for class and i stayed at k2 by myself. alone at k2 with anything but my coffee. no schoolbag, no books, no lecture notes. for the first time i felt that i had nothing to do, nothing to hurry for, nothing that had to get done by tomorrow. i sipped my mocha, sat back, and relaxed. then i went to the bookstore next door and i just browsed the shelves aimlessly. i walked back home in the cold -- stopped by panza's, who told me the temperature had been -11C that morning, and felt like -18C with the windchill -- and realized that it was the first time in my life that i'd stay at my home away from home and i'd be able to truly enjoy the city.

sit back. relax. enjoy new haven.

12 December 2005

to which side does it hang?

i once had a theory that mens' penises hang to the side opposite to their main hand: if you are right-handed, it hangs to the left; if you are a left, it should hang to the right. quickly, somebody disproved my theory and the reason why penises hang to one side or the other has remained a mystery for years.

after an interesting conversation on this, i did an internet search this morning. i didn't find any hard evidence (no pun intended!) but this random site made the following poll:

Question: When you stand up, does your non-erect penis hang to the left or right at all?

Options Percentage
no — it hangs straight down 56.7%
it hangs to the left slightly 27.2%
it hangs the right slightly 15.3%

there is a disclaimer that this was an internet poll and a doctor said that this and other statistics in the site are not reliable... but i guess it's useful to satisfy people's curiosity.

and for those of you who are still curious, here is the real reason why a penis might bend to the right or to the left:

Penis curvature normally develops simply from the organ's internal structures growing to unequal size, a condition that's quite common. In fact, it's rare for a man's penis to be perfectly straight.

and my roommate thought it was because people wear briefs (as opposed to boxers) since they are kids and that "compresses" the muscle and makes it bend!!

the ife, son of its reverend e-mail-address-selling mother

this weekend i was involved in a quite interesting social experiment. i receive sporadic e-mails from ife, mexico's electoral institute that plans, organizes, and monitors political elections in the country. these e-mails are sent to me and hundreds of other mexicans around the globe who are all members of this listserv. i don't really know how i ended up in this e-mail list but i don't really care since the presidential elections are approaching and it doesn't hurt to be a little bit better informed when it comes to make the big decision.

anyway, apparently nobody had realized that the e-mail list was open for posting to all members until this friday this super moron, miguel a. gonzález, sent a message to the entire list thanking ife for the distribution of these messages, greeting two guys who work at ife, and requesting 4000 ballots for orange county:

Agradesco que se nos tome en cuenta mediante este boletin y aprovecho para saludar a nuestros amigos David Cordova y Rodrigo Morales que estuvieron en nuestra junta de "Vamos por el Voto Mexicanos en Orange County" el Lunes Diciembre 5, 2005.

of course, and even greater moron had to respond and share his thoughts on how no party is perfect and everybody sucks and all that jazz. please, somebody shoot him. or at least help me spam him at fabiandelvalle@hotmail.com.

a third moron, edgar ramón sánchez galicia, continued the e-mail exchange to point out to miguelito that "agradezco" is spelled with a "z" and not with an "s" and, of course, requested that people refrain from sending e-mails to the list, just like the next 152 messages did! send a reminder e-mail to edgar ramón saying that his e-mail was not really necessary: er_sanchez@hotmail.com. and feel free to make as many spelling mistakes as you can.

i set a rule in my outlook to send all of these e-mails directly to the trash. still, every four or so hours i checked the deleted mail folder just out of curiosity. it was funny that someone sent an e-mail saying that at least we should take something positive out of this experience and appreciate how many mexicans were studying in institutions around the world, and then somebody else replied with a refined "i don't give a f**k, just take me off your list."

then, after another 47 e-mails from people asking to be removed off the list, fernando rodríguez, a very excited regio (what people from monterrey are called), made a post to share with us his excitement for the victory of rayados over tigres in the mexican football semifinals (both teams from monterrey) and for the food native to his hometown. this is hilarious.

Amigos,
este fenomeno de las quejas comenzo siendo molesto, pero ahora, como dice mi
compañero Humberto Godinez,
ha resultado tremendamente interesante y divertido. ¡Qué bárbaro, cuántos
somos que andamos fuera de México estudiando!
Espero que todos estén pensando seriamente en regresar y ayudar a construir
un país bien fregón, con universidades de primera, y a presionar para que
nuestro gobierno se vuelva uno de primera también. Ok... hasta quí el
optimismo patriotero.

Caray, yo una vez le pedí al Conacyt el mail de una amiga que vi en una
lista de becados y me dijeron que no le daban los correos a nadie, pero se
los dan al IFE, y vean lo que se logra, que todos quedemos ligados por un
momento. Qué padre!

De pasada: ¡QUÉ TAL ESOS RAYADOS (de Monterrey)! Eh? QUé bárbaros, le dieron
una lección de futbol a los Tigres y se la van a dar al Toluca. ¡Arriba
Rayados! Esa es una de las pocas alegrías de este semestre.

Ánimo, compañeros, a estudiar duro, a terminar el semestre bien. Y luego, a
la casa, a comer unos tamales de Villa Juárez, unos tacos del Güero (frente
al Tec), unas hamburguesas del Arbolito, unas enchiladas en la Taquería
Juárez, unas tortas Alex, un cabrito en el Palmito, y luego un café en el
Nuevo Brasil!!! Bueno... esto sólo aplica para los de Monterrey... qué
aplica para los demás??

Saludos a todos de un estudiante de pehachedé que extraña su tierra, su
gente, sus tortillas de harina y su acento norteño.
Sólo hay como dos mexicanos más en esta universidad (UMASS) me siento
solito... no tengo a quien presumirle que los Rayados ganaron.
Compréndanme....

abrazo!

Fernando Rodriguez Elizondo
Ph.D. Student
Communication Department
University of Massachusetts-Amherst

another quite funny story derived from these e-mails: some guy posted a message saying that we had fallen in a trap and we should stop sending these messages requesting to be taken off the list because it just contributes to the spam and the ife person in charge of the list won't see all of these messages until monday... and then some other guy responds to that previous message, "please remove my e-mail from your list!"

some math phd student at suny stony brook made an interesting analysis of the e-mails sent:

Hemos recibido correo no solicitado (SPAM) durante el fin de semana.
Hay varias preguntas. ¿Quién recopiló nuestros correos? ¿El IFE
(Instituto Federal Electoral, organo mexicano dedicado a coordinar
las elecciones)? ¿El CONACyT (consejo de ciencia y tecnología, órgano
mexicano que alguna vez se dedicó a promover el desarrollo de la ciencia
en México)? ¿Por qué hay estudiantes chilenos en la lista?

Ahora bien, me parece interesante observar cómo se desarrolló la
dinámica
del SPAM. He aquí los números:

46 correos con la petición: "por favor borren mi nombre"

Esta opción es la estrategia inútil para ser removidos de la lista, y
sólo incrementa el problema del SPAM. En el caso de un incendio, estas
serían las personas cuya estrategia para salvarse sería pisotear a los
demás con la esperanza de llegar a la puerta y salir del edificio.

5 correos proponiendo soluciones

Estos correos son de aquellos que se detuvieron a observar el fenómeno,
elaboraron
hipótesis y plantearon soluciones... y a fin de cuentas formaron parte
del problema.
En la analogía del edificio quemándose ellos son los que sacrificarían a
unos cuantos
por el bien de la mayoría: Avienten a la gorda por la ventana, después
todos le caemos
encima y nos salvaremos.

5 correos creando lazos sociales

Algunos se dieron cuenta del problema y lo vieron desde una óptica mucho
más general.
Plantearon interrogantes interesantes: ¿Por qué no hay una comunicación
más frecuente
entre los estudiantes de postrado latinoamericanos (mexicanos)? ¿No
sería acaso
razonable esperar una discusión fructífera sobre las elecciones de parte
de la élite
académica que se está formando en el extranjero? ...en la analogía del
edificio, estos
serían los que viendo el incendio se resignarían al destino manifiesto,
destaparían una
cerveza y se pondrían a platicar con el vecino: "Nos vamos a morir, pero
de menos
ganó el Monterrey, ojalá haya tiempo para comerme unos tacos, Yo soy
Juan ¿tú cómo te llamas?"

1 correo de un corrector de ortografía

Éste sería el que antes de morir quemado gritaría: "viva la Real
Academia Española
de la lengua y el Rey Juan Carlos!, muerte al moro invasor que no sabe
escribir 'Agradezco' "


1 correo de un chileno que se sintió alienado.

El dato que iluminaría los números anteriores sería el número total de
personas que recibieron
correos con el SPAM, el no escribir un correo puede interpretarse de
varias formas: ¿Serán
personas que consideran que lo más prudente es no contribuir a la
estampida de SPAM? ¿Serán
personas mucho más prácticas que simplemente crean un script para borrar
correos provenientes
del dominio ife.org.mx? ¿Son ellos el equivalente del abstencionismo
electoral?

Seguramente el IFE corregirá pronto el error y el SPAM se detendrá.
Ojalá algún
psicólogo social esté en la lista y pueda interpretar los números mejor
que yo.

Por mi parte, yo borro en promedio tres correos al día que me invitan a
alargar mi miembro,
otros tres que promueven los implantes de senos y otros tres que son de
ofertas de viagra
y diuréticos. No me molestó borrar todos éstos correos, y fue muy
interesante observar
las reacciones de un experimento social involuntario en tiempo real.

Un saludo a todos los demás ratones que como yo participaron en éste
laboratorio.

-Luis

Mathematics Department
State University Of New York at Stony Brook

the question is: how is it possible that all of these people sending requests to be taken off the list do not realize that it just won't happen? and these are our masters and phds of tomorrow...!! :P

since miguel a. gonzález was the one who started everything, you should all support me and the rest of the mexican ex-pats who were annoyed by these messages and send miguelito an e-mail to remind him when mothers' day is: gonzalez0433@sbcglobal.net.

08 December 2005

chang is the most common surname in the world

chang is the most common surname in the world, according to about.com. it's not mohammad, as someone once told me, and as vinay rao claims.

when i first learned that mohammad was the most common last name in the world, i also heard that gonzález was the second most common. i wouldn't be surprised.

in my research i found out that the surnames hernández-martínez-garcía are the most common in mexico and some combination of these three seems to be the most common in all of the country, with the exception of yucatán.

that hernández-martínez-garcía lot was a bunch of horny bastards!

in any case, the best part is that de la garza and garza and treviño and villarreal and all of the last names that throughout the country people associate with monterrey and the rancheros of the northern states are not common at all (at least compared to hernández-martínez-garcía). in fact, according to the electoral institute, ife, in nuevo león (my homestate, whose capital is monterrey), garcía does not even make it to the top three and rodríguez replaces it in the list instead.

so next time someone makes fun of me for being a de la garza from monterrey, i will have an educated response... especially if it's a hernández or a garcía or a martínez or a rodríguez or a chang or a mohammad.

oh, and by the way, vinay ray also claims that the most common last name in china is yong, which doesn't really make sense because, how is chang the most popular in the world if it's not popular in china?

and, according to this same guy, singh is the most common last name in india.

and, as expected, smith is the most common surname in the u.s., followed by johnson, brown, and jones.

top ten last names in mexico according to ife:
1. hernández 5,526,929 people
2. garcía 4,129,360 people
3. martínez 3,886,887 people
4. gonzález 3,188,693 people
5. lópez 3,148,024 people
6. rodríguez 2,774,179 people
7. pérez 2,746,468 people
8. sánchez 2,234,625 people
9. ramírez 2,070,723 people
10. flores 1,392,707 people

and the most common name is: juan hernández hernández.

07 December 2005

sam, the ugly

sam, voted the ugliest dog in the world for three years in a row, died recently just before his 15th birthday.

here is the story.

here is a picture of sam:

the company that changed the world

i don't have any doubts that google is one of the most influential companies in modern history. that they have conquered the internet search market, we all know. i don't know how many times last year i met people who asked me, thrilled, if i had ever used google earth before. i can see my backyard on that thing, they would say. just a couple of weeks ago i discovered google video and it's just insane as a means of entertainment. you see all these random videos that you can choose from or you can search for something of your own interest.

i like looking at the random videos because you come across some really funny stuff. for instance, i saw this 17-minute long video of different girls' fights. it was crazy! i wanted to show it to some people afterwards and i just typed "bitch fight" and it was the first one i found, if you'd like to see it. then i saw this ridiculous black dude singing whitney houston's "i will love you"in front of his computer and that was pathetic. it was very much like the dragostea fat kid or the chinese guys that sing backstreet boys songs (i wrote about these about a month ago), only 1000 times worse. the worst is that apparently he's made a lot of these videos because later i came across of other songs sung by him. anyway, then i found this jihad dancer... some guy dancing in his kitchen and then still dancing while taking a dump. oh, and throughout the whole 3 minutes he has his head covered. weird.

then i looked for roger federer and came across a video of him practicing very casually and some very informal videos of him with family, etc. that was awesome. i searched "elisha cuthbert" waiting to see some footage from the girl next door, and hopefully more, and i found an interesting interview in one of these night talk shows -- not conan o'brian, not jay leno... the other guy that's famous.

a very funny video i found was this harry potter one:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5765907587794135290&q=harry+potter

these kids basically change the voices and the dialogs in a scene of harry potter 3 and it's really funny.

but the most amazing thing i discovered today was google book search. i was studying for my public finance exam and i wanted to know more about the so-called inframarginality problem. whenever i have a question like this, i always google it up (i love that "to google something up" has even become a verb!) -- i guess like a lot of people out there. anyway, google only had about 10 entries, none of which was very useful. but then after showing all the possible entries, it gave me the option to do a google book search. this thing looks in a huge database of books which are thoroughly scanned!!! it shows you the page or a couple of pages where your searched item appears and then i guess if you want to know more you can buy the book or something...!! i cannot explain what effect this had in me... i was seriously in shock!! the power of information! at my fingertips! isn't it amazing???!

anyway, it's super late now and i need to go to bed to wake up early tomorrow and study. i was going to write about the inframarginality problem, in case you were interested, but then i thought not a lot of people would be. still, i know that at least a couple of the people who read this blog will in fact be interested about it. so just e-mail me or call me and i will tell you.

or even better: booksearchgoogle it!

05 December 2005

i love this picture

these are "los pedos" or "the farts," as they call themselves. most probably, english-speakers won't get that this is actually a term of endearment. so, she would say to him, "i love you, my little fart," and that is actually very romantic.

if you didn't recognize this particular term of endearment they use to call each other or if you didn't recognize their behinds, these are my sister dana and my cuñao rafa on the day of their wedding, back in june. they just received their wedding pictures and they sent some of them to me.

to me, this one captures everything that their marriage should be: the beginning of a long journey that they are to walk together. the outfits (i love the umbrella), the austerity of the landscape, and the black & white development of the photo make it seem as though it was taken a very long time ago. somehow i get the impression that their love is eternal.

it'd better be!

i love you, peditos.