Click for full size!

Only other comment: they really should’ve done without the…script. Really fun movie, but I would have traded the sum total of all the words for another light cycle race.

Girl 1: you guys were like TOTALLY sexting on the dancefloor!!
Girl 2: I–I know!
(both laugh)
Girl 2: But he’s like a really good dancer!!

Now, I was under the impression that sexting involved texting people… on your PHONE. And therefore has nothing to do with dancing skillz. Were they texting each other while grinding at Cly’s (woo woo multitasking)? Or does “sexting” mean something else now?

Soran Bushi (ソーラン節)

Soran is a traditional Japanese fisherman dance from Hokkaido. It’s supposed to make you think of the ocean! (Usually, after soran dance practice, I would get a craving for some sushi…) Here are all the J-Net officers doing the dance:

AKB48

So unbeknownst to me, who somehow managed to miss this important tidbit of Japanese pop culture, the Japanese pop group AKB48 has risen to disgusting amounts of fame in the past year. Their claim to said fame? They’re a group of FORTY-EIGHT teenage girls. FORTY-EIGHT!!! That’s so many that they’ve taken a Guinness World Record for having the largest pop group. Kawaii MEGA-OVERLOAD.

What’s with their name: AKB is an abbreviation of “Akihabara”, where they’re based, and the 48 is for the number of members.

Anyway, J-Net decided to be AKB48, schoolgirl outfits and all. I’m not sure we quite reached the necessary kawaii threshold, but we definitely ganbatta.

Here’s us dancing to “Ponytail to Shushu”

And the original. Proceed with caution. I am not responsible for anyone’s death-by-cute. You have been warned.

Also potentially insane (for me) because I don’t actually watch Stewart or Colbert — I’ve probably seen a combined 2 hours of their shows in my life. Stewart does seem to be consistently funny at least, though. Colbert, not so much my cup of tea. My friends are much more actual fans of this stuff, but they rightfully identified the fact that I would at least enjoy this trip. Stewart, Reddit, Colbert, and road trips. Here we go! And it was, in the end, a completely sane choice of me to go.

The Drive to DC

First 8 hours or so were pretty boring. Then we hit hills and pretty trees, right around West Virginia. So much nicer than midwestern farmland. Ooh-ing and ahh-ing ensued. This was also where Bhargav learned first-hand that it’s bad to schedule phone interviews for when you’re driving through the mountains of West Virginia at 70+mph because YOU WILL GET DROPPED.

Stopped for food at WVU. Morgantown was significantly bigger than we had imagined, and even had a building that was like a Bizarro Assembly Hall (this is the real one, of course).

Finally, we realized we wouldn’t really be on a roadtrip without a good hashtag, so after browsing the internets for a while we found what we needed: #roadtrip4sanity. Stolen by a group of rally-goers from Drake University in Iowa (that’s further from DC than us!) Sorry dudes, you had the best hashtag.

Arrived in DC around 7 PM. Ate Thai food and crashed.

The Rally

Our hotel was at the end of the Green Metro Line. Here was the line to get on the train at 9 AM. Queue4sanity:

RoadTrip4Sanity members, minus me:

Metro was kind of crowded after a few stops, as you can see by this reflection:

Oh right, we’re in DC!

Finally got to the rally around 10 AM. It was not too crowded at this point. We did find these charming folks:

The corn syrup is a nice touch.

I had some friends already standing somewhere in the crowd, but it quickly became apparent that meeting them was NOT going to happen. So we settled into our spot.

Team Fear dude in the background trying to horrify us. We are unfazed.

Nearby sign:

People behind us:

We were behind jumbotron #2, on the left.

And then hooray, the rally finally started!! The Roots played for a really long time (too long in my opinion), and then finally we got some Stewart/Colbert goodness. Thoughts on the rally lineup:

• Mythbusters = boring. Doing the wave once in a crowd of 215,000 people is kinda cool, but doing it like 5 times is not. Move along, guys.
• Music was overall pretty eh. I did like Cat Stevens vs. Ozzy Osbourne though, that was entertaining. But, um, KID ROCK?? REALLY??? That was unnecessary torture, guys.
• The Fear Awards were great. Zuckerberg for Facebook’s creepiness and privacy nonsense, Anderson Cooper’s tight black t-shirt for only appearing in disaster situations, and NPR for not showing up on Saturday: “If their employees attend Jon’s rally, someone might think that NPR is liberal. No one could tell from the free pledge drive hemp fiber tote bags they use to carry their organic kale rollups to their compost parties.”
• Stewart/Colbert banter was right on. Wanted more of that, less of other stuff (like Kid Rock). There was also a surprising lack of Colbert, in general. When he did make appearances, it was entertaining, but the thing was a whole lot of Jon. Great job on that duet, too, Jon.
• So Jon’s speech at the end. We all knew it was coming, and by 2:45 the crowd was notably antsy for it to happen already. He did a good job, people were moved, we got the point that the media is fucked up, and that the 2 sides refusing to listen to each other is, well, kinda a problem. You can go read lots of other commentary on his speech elsewhere, but at the very least it gave people a sense of closure about why they were there. Sorta.

And then it was over. I split with my group, and battled the horrible crowds for over half an hour in order to meet up with some Philly friends at our pre-designated meeting spot. On the way out, I was watched by all the hipsters on port-a-pottys:

Technology Fail, part 1, and Philly Meetup:

Now, phones on the Mall had basically not been working since we arrived at 10 AM. I knew this would be a problem — I was in DC for 4th of July, which was much much less crowded than this, and could barely get a connection the whole time. Unfortunately, being in a crowd of 215,000+ people when you are trying to meet up with a specific set of 5 of them is NOT EASY without the benefits of modern technology. I had phone service for about a grand total of 2 minutes over the course of 10 AM – 3 PM, during which I called Rob and worked out that I’d meet them on the steps of the Air and Space Museum after the rally. Of course, it took me like 40 minutes to make it there due to the crowds, and I couldn’t call to ask which of the zillion staircases they were on. I did manage to run into them just as they were getting up to leave, by a stroke of magic/good luck!

Jake found a good sign:

Post-rally hunger, conquered, in Eastern Market, which was still REALLY crowded but not as crowded as the stuff near the Mall.

Probably the most normal picture of Crystal ever taken.

Unfortunately, Philly peeps were off to B-more for a Halloween Party, so we only could hang for a couple hours. Still good to reunite with the BroHo gang though, after a 2 month break. And, they were kind enough to give me a ride over to Dupont Circle for the…

Reddit afterparty

First I had a brief meetup with a couple of random Michigan friends who had driven in for the rally. Afterwards, I was walking down the street to go find the UIUC group again, when I practically ran into Alexis Ohanian (who I’d met at Reflections | Projections 2009, of course) in the giant mob of people outside of One Lounge, the main Reddit venue was. UIUC group came to Reddit party, but unlike promised, the bar was not letting anyone under 21 in, which sort of ruined it for half of us.

So we tragically had to split up, or risk being beat up by a giant and unfriendly bouncer. It was also annoying that the bar was also hosting some other costume party, so it was not purely Reddit people, and yet my friends couldn’t stay. The party itself was pretty excellent though. Everyone from Reddit was really nice (both people who actually work on Reddit, and people who USE Reddit). Reddit is not always the friendliest community (especially to girls. on the INTERNET.) but I was pleased to see that no one who was a jerk showed up (I guess they stay in their internet-caves at home and don’t like to come out to parties across the country). Met Jenny Lee, Chris Slowe, Foo, and the the dude who created Awesomesauce, plus about a zillion other people. Spez was there too. Got that weird “oh I recognize you from the internet” feeling going on. But yeah, good party, Reddit, minus the part where my friends couldn’t actually attend it.

Technology Fail #2

Finally headed back from the party around 1:30. The Metro ride went swimmingly, encountered prince charming (who is apparently a UPenn student) headed for a Halloween Party, and things were good up until the taxi drive from the station to the hotel. Of course, the driver had no idea where anything was, and I needed the actual address of the hotel for the GPS. I don’t KNOW what the address of my hotel is! Used iPhone to log into facebook, find the message containing this info, read off the number and the street name, and BAM, iPhone dead. Come on iPhone, how many times are you gonna put me in dangerous situations by dying on me when your battery meter says you’re fine? (I had even charged it during Philly-meetup-fooding!)

Highway-Chase Reddit Meetup

Sunday we woke up earlyish and embarked on the 12 hour journey back. Near the rally there were lots of cars with related signs, etc. But we were out of the general rally radius, and back in Ohio or so when we encountered this car.

They also had a Reddit alien in their window. OMG! We flashed a QR code at them (Redditors were collecting each other’s QR codes all rally long) but that failed, so we just wrote usernames on pieces of paper and held it up to the windows. Best reddit friendship ever, formed at 70 mph with some Wisconsin dudes.

TL;DR: sanity, restored.

1. The World Cup
I don’t watch sports, as a general rule…so the World Cup wasn’t even on my radar. I thought I would remain immune, and I did — but after weeks of being in a lab full of Brazilians and Dutch, even I could not resist the World Cup Vortex. The tipping point was going to a bar to watch the US/Ghana game (where we were eliminated) — somehow, being surrounded by everyone ridiculously shouting “Freedom!!” when we scored opened up a spot in my heart for the rest of the World Cup. I continued to follow along, and even though the teams I rooted for almost always lost, I was soon watching games midday, texting my friend Nick play-by-play updates during the Germany game, and, by the end of it all, even sort of understanding what offsides are. Crazy. Oh, and the whole internet picking up on the vuvuzela meme didn’t hurt, either.

Paul had to be consumed, after all he did.

Lots of orange at Silky’s for the final, aanvalluh!! Twas sort of tragic in that bar afterwards.

2. Naps
I spent the year I lived in Japan training myself to wake up milliseconds after my alarm went off and leap out of bed, to maximize the amount of sleep I was able to get before the 7:19 AM train. Unfortunately, that backfired and made me super-sensitive to all alarms that ruined a lot of potentially good nights of sleep early on in college. By my second year, I had regained the ability to wake up only in reaction to my own alarm, and still get up immediately, without waking to anyone else’s alarms. Which got me thinking, despite never having been a napper (except for in cases of being extremely sick), maybe I could also train myself to be able to nap.

And, after some effort this summer, I successfully conquered the nap! I still need to work on a couple of skills, like falling asleep faster, and setting my alarm for the actual time I want to wake up… but I am nap-capable on a basic level now.

Nap ground zero.

3. Frats
Despite going to a school with looots of greek life (or perhaps BECAUSE I go to such a school) I generally don’t hang out at frats. As a result, I pretty much maintain all the typical frats/frat-boy stereotypes in my head. But, since an average Friday night in Pittsburgh would go something like this, we ended up spending a lot of time at the frat:
1. Mikesh throws a party
2. Everyone shows up to party
3. Hang out for a while, until Mikesh’s roommate kicks us out
4. Everyone has to go home, but WAIT, Chris invites us to the frat he lives in
5. Since the frat is right across the street from where we all live, there’s no reason not to go!
6. Fratting ensues.
Lather rinse and repeat many a weekend.

As it turns out, the frat wasn’t bad — it was even relatively clean (especially the last few weeks we were here). And the final night, it was revealed that many fratters were, in fact, of Montreal fans, and we spent an hour abusing the sound system with our Skeletal Lamping dance party. of Montreal-digging frat people, who knew?

Side complaint-about-Pittsburgh: of Montreal reminds me how much I cannot wait to see them for the fourth time, at Pygmalion 2010 in September. This thought also reminds me how non-existent the Pittsburgh music scene was. There were exactly zero shows I was interested in there all summer. Thumbs down.

But the frat doesn’t get an A+ in my book, for there was definitely a dealbreaker: The DEATHFAN. Fans without fronts should not be ANYWHERE, they DEFINITELY shouldn’t be run at parties… even really hot ones, unless it’s the kind of party where everyone sits quietly and far away from the deathfan (these types of parties are unlikely to occur at frats).

4. Truck food
As I complained last time, Pittsburgh food leaves something to be desired. You guys told me that I should learn to love what pgh is actually good at instead of the lack of Chinatown-level eats. The solution was basically truck food.

I don’t really like the one-and-only truck back home, so I was reluctant about the CMU trucks at first… until I realized they all served ethnic food. CMU has 2 thai, 2 chinese, 1 indian, and one middle eastern truck, all over in a row by the track (Here’s the exact location of the CMU trucks if you need help finding them). All of them require cash, every meal costs $4-$5, and most importantly, thai iced tea is available for $1!! I think the middle eastern and one of the thai trucks are my favorites. Yes, the trucks are junky, but delicious, and as far as Pittsburgh goes they’re almost the best asian food you’re gonna get anyway, so why not? The Pitt ones are 2 indian and 1 thai, but they’re a bit far if you’re working at CMU (over near the Cathedral of Learning).

Also, unrelated, but if you like wings… apparently Pittsburgh has a place for you to get cheap wings any day of the week. I’m not sure why “wing nights” are such a thing, but I’m not complaining.

5. Dorm Life
Like anyone past week 1 or so of freshman year of college, I hate living in dorms. Who wants to share a room with someone, anyway? However I think for the purposes of this year’s REU, it was a necessary evil that resulted in a lot more friendships than I would have had otherwise. (Sharing rooms was still not ideal — we all managed to live near each other AND befriend each other last year, while having our own rooms…) It felt a little bit first-week-freshman-year-ish at first, which feels really odd when you’re not a freshman, but it was worth it overall for the ability to meet people from my program and all the other research groups around. And most importantly, without dorm, The Fort would have never been able to exist:

6. American Karaoke
Due to living in Japan, I have been skeptical for many years about “karaoke” as it exists in this country, and have often karaoke-snobbed at people who think that the definition of karaoke involves singing in front of people you don’t know. Seriously? That’s not even real karaoke, I say. Small cramped rooms, iced oolong tea, Mr. Children and Arashi songs are the real staples of karaoke, clearly. Oh, and NEVER HAVING TO SEE ANYONE YOU DON’T KNOW. Real karaoke clearly wasn’t going to happen in Pittsburgh. However, I actually lost my American karaoke virginity in DC, at a sorta Japan-themed bar because word on the street was that they were a) Japanese, b) had karaoke, and c) didn’t card. All were true, but as the place was quite crowded, we barely got a chance to sing one song, because instead of just competing among your friend group for a turn, you must compete among every group in the bar for a turn. I also went to a place in Shadyside back in Pittsburgh and went early enough to actually sing a few different songs. Still enjoyable though.

I think American karaoke is actually less embarrassing than real karaoke. Yes, you are singing in front of people you don’t know, but at least for me, that means I care about their opinion less than the reaction of my close friends. Furthermore, this is taking place in a bar, which means 99% of the people there will be either a) drunk and not paying any attention to you or b) drunk and happily singing along to your musical selection too, and therefore also not paying any attention to you. Either way, there’s not a lot of judgemental vibes going on.

However, the connection between alcohol and American karaoke is annoying, problematic, and unnecessary. Many of my friends in Pittsburgh were under 21, and it is completely ridiculous that they couldn’t come and sing “Take On Me” with me just because karaoke was taking place in a bar. Karaoke is practically Japan’s official pasttime for children and teenagers. Come on now.

DC Ameraoke

So yes, Pittsburgh has clearly changed me greatly as a person, but hopefully my friends and family will still recognize me. As of today, Pittsburgh is over and I have moved on my next adventure: Philly, a week’s worth of clothes, electronics, and NO PLANS.

…but I’ve discovered there’s one great and often overlooked benefit of spending time in Japan: never be at a loss for words again, especially in large groups of people you don’t know.

(Not because you should pull the Japan card whenever possible and start shoving stories full of wa down everyone’s throats… no one likes that.) Instead, it’s because of what I like to call “The Japan Paradox”.

Background
Ever heard of the Birthday Paradox? It says that once you get more than 23 people in a room together, it’s more likely than not that at least 2 people share a birthday. Just 23 people!! It’s counterintuitive, but true if you do the math.

Japan Paradox Algorithm
Now, being a computer scientist, I’m rather fond of algorithms. Earlier this summer, I started to notice that I had developed an algorithm for functioning in group social situations where I was meeting new people. In particular, that meeting new people used to be difficult for me but isn’t as bad anymore. Part of this could be attributed to maturity (ha!), but the rest is most certainly the Japan Paradox. Here’s my algorithm:

If there are more than 4 people present:
1. Find the person in the group who has lived in Japan before
2. Talk to them about Japan
3. Oh look, it’s already time to go??

“But wait!” you must be thinking, “How do you come across so many people who happen to have lived in Japan/know Japanese/have some kind of connection to Japan?” Well, that’s what makes it a paradox!

Seriously though, this has happened to me on numerous occasions, and yes, usually in groups of people I have never met before. The most recent example of this, Exhibit A, was a MeFi meetup I attended a couple of weeks ago here in Pittsburgh. I came in, sat down, and my username (mokudekiru) drew attention from a guy who had apparently lived in Japan for 3 years! Who knew. Culture shock anecdotes and jdrama recommendations flying back and forth, and now I’m doing some Japanese help via email for one of his friends trying to learn Japanese (if the people I’m talking about here are reading this…well, hi!) The meetup was around 10-12 people while I was present.

The Wa-dar
The only potentially tricky step of my algorithm above is step 1. You sort of have to look for little signs that another Japan-er might be in your midst. Thanks to my coincidentally Japanese-sounding name, they usually ask me and I can say “no, I’m not, but I lived there…” and it’s on. Otherwise, making references to matcha or eating octopus might do the trick, as well as being on the lookout for little references others will make. And sometimes, you don’t know what it is about the person, but you just have a hunch. Hence, wa-dar. I’m still perfecting mine.

Demographics of the Japan Paradox
Okay okay, so it has to be related to the people I hang out with — clearly if you pick four people off the street in podunk Wyoming, there’s not a high chance you’ll find your Japan person. As a computer science student, I mostly run around in circles of well-educated engineers, undergrads, grad students, and the youngest part of the workforce.

I have definitely noticed some sort of engineering-Japan Paradox connection though. Both last summer and this summer, I’ve participated in research internships for computer oriented types (last year was CS/ECE, this year the research is in the learning sciences, so CS, Psych, and Linguistics). The two internships were on opposite sides of the country, and each consisted of ~15 undergrads. Both last year and this year, out of each group of 15 there were THREE people who had lived in Japan before. That’s 20%. Back at school, there’s an insane number of CS/ECE kids who have gone to Japan or at least are taking Japanese, and on the flip side, in J-Net, the Japan Club for our university, outside of East Asian Languages and Cultures majors, engineers are probably the next most represented (disproportionately so, given the size of the engineering school vs. the rest of the university).

It’s also a time/age thing. Even when I lived there (’06-’07) I didn’t feel like it was such a big thing as it is now — now it’s almost to the point of absurdity where I feel like every engineer takes a summer there. Not that this is a problem — comparing Japan stories is endlessly entertaining, and with a large number of people interested, but perhaps not having gotten to the living-in-Japan stage, having Japan-related expertise is highly valued.

So, if you find yourself in a group of 18-30 year old educated engineers, my Japan Paradox Algorithm is likely to succeed. Otherwise, YMMV, and I think we’d need some real demographic info about who learns Japanese and/or visits Japan from the US, to find out whether the Japan Paradox is more generalizable. Please comment if you have a Japan Paradox story or opinion!

So why the Pittsburgh stuff anyway... this summer, I'm doing research at the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, which means I'll be an expert on Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh by the end of July, as well as learning a thing or two about learning science, misconceptions about decimal arithmetic, and specifically how examples with errors in them might help you learn.

Carnegie Mellon

Kinda looks like this:

The campus is really nice, pretty small, and you can see the Learning Cathedral from, well, everywhere (the tall thing in the background):

The best part of the engineering buildings is that they’re all connected by bridges. The downside is that you never know what floor is ground level – it can be anywhere from floor 1 to 4 depending on what building you’re in, and the bridges aren’t on the same floors either. After 3 weeks though, I’m confident that I could survive without actually going outside in the winter.

The Gates building is the wackiest looking, but it does have a bunch of nice couches and a balcony that I work on sometimes, when my lab’s lack of sunlight is getting to me (get it, there’s a lot of windows in the gates building… ha…)

The bridge to the Gates building is cool…

…especially at night.

(we had a mini photo shoot there last night):

But the CMU campus is not all fun and games. In fact, there is one horrible, horrible thing going on here… a giant, slanted pole in the middle of the main quad area, with people walking up it:

This thing actually creeps me out significantly. Why are these people walking up into the sky?

Any why must these creepy fake people watch them from the ground? Sometimes there’s real people staring up at the pole too, but I assume they’re fake… as was happening when I took this picture… spot the real boy!

ITS2010

So I started work on June 7. My second week of work, however, was effectively lost, because I ended up volunteering for ITS2010, a conference going on at CMU this year about Intelligent Tutoring Systems, which is pretty relevant to the research I’m doing. Also I was interested in participating in a non-reflections|projections conference and seeing how they do things. There’s a bunch of pics from the conference here. The conference basically involved:
- lots of cool talks about intelligent tutors (computerized educational software that is ‘intelligent’ in some way, usually adjusting to the student somehow)
- lots of free cheese & wine, and a constant supply of coffee
- meeting lots of new people from all over the world who research the interesting stuff mentioned above (yeah, my Japanese knowledge DID come in handy!)
- A kickass banquet, with more of the above-mentioned free foods, plus, pretty plants with little aliens in them! (Banquet was at the Phipps Conservatory)

And Jack Mostow singing…

…and us singing with Jack Mostow:

Pittsburgh Wisdom

Here’s what I’ve figured out and noticed so far…

- Public Transportation: The bus system leaves a lot to be desired. There’s not really enough buses to begin with, but the service makes the experience even more unpleasant. Buses don’t stop for you unless you practically jump into the middle of the street and wave at them (and even then, they stop like 30 feet in front of the bus stop), they love to yell at you about you paying at the wrong time (going one direction you pay before the ride, going the other direction, it’s after, god forbid you don’t know which to do). While the occasional bus driver will be extra friendly and help you find your way, asking simple questions to most drivers incites severe rage, such as when we asked about Highland Ave., and the bus driver snapped back at us, “What about it!?” Come on, lady, we’re on a bus, what do you THINK we want to know about it…? or the other day when we got on a bus that had opened its doors, only to be yelled at because apparently it stops and waits before we can get on the bus… let’s just say, I avoid the bus whenever possible, because it just makes me depressed.

- Taxis: The lovely bus system ceases to function after around midnight, which means you’re stuck trying to find a taxi. Yeah, good luck with that. The first weekend here, I was stranded with my friend in Southside, the main go-to for nightlife. At 2AM when everything was closing down, we tried to flag down a cab, but there were very few, and the ones that did drive by were full. Upon calling a cab company, they claimed they wouldn’t send me a cab, because I was in a busy area where you’re supposed to “just flag them down.” We had to specifically find a more remote location to wait in order to call a cab, and even so it took 45 minutes for said cab to show up. I have a feeling this is not the last time I will be stranded somewhere in Pittsburgh.

- Food: Don’t expect too much. Pittsburgh seems to be really good at bar food, especially half-off late-night food (Fuel & Fuddle is excellent, though getting a table for 14 people at 11 PM does prove to be challenging), but if you’re looking for ethnic food (and I am) you’re pretty much out of luck. There’s a thai restaurant in shadyside that’s good but far too expensive, but that’s kind of the only asian restaurant for almost miles… other than the CMU trucks, which are actually pretty decent. More on them another day.

- Weather: Just carry an umbrella with you, all the time. It will be totally sunny, then start pouring for half an hour (right when you need to walk outside, too)…so be warned.

- Bubble tea: A major issue for any new place I live in… and Pittsburgh has by far the worst bubble tea situation out of any place I have ever lived. I have tried four places now and only one has been good enough that I might go back.
Stay away from:
- The kiosk in front of the learning cathedral… not enough boba, flavor was eh.
- Lulu’s: possibly the worst bubble tea I’ve ever tasted. Threw it out halfway through.
- Oriental Express: Probably the best option in walking distance of CMU, but still pretty eh. I liked the Taro, but have heard bad things about fruit flavors (which I never get).
The only good option so far is the Rose Tea Cafe in Squirrel Hill. It had your standard bubble tea that one might expect from every bubble tea establishment… not enough flavors, but I’ll take what I can get.

- Paper towel dispensers: I have never been to a city that has such a hard time with dispensing paper towels in bathrooms. Across the city (including my own dorm, and places at CMU), the dispensers just don’t work, the paper gets stuck inside, or whoever is restocking the paper just completely gives up and there’s just a roll of paper sitting on a countertop, outside of the dispenser. WHY IS THIS SO HARD, PITTSBURGH!?

- Mt. Washington/The Incline: Is definitely worth going to after dark for an awesome view of the city.

Lots more Pittsburgh insights later, DC next week, and more. Peace out.

Inspired by Ryan North who drove down from Toronto for Reflections | Projections 2009, I realized that Toronto was easily reachable by automobile.

Or not so easily – we spent the first day of our trip dealing with car trouble, and returned back to where we started (see Dave’s blog for details). On day two, our new plan worked and we made it all the way across the border and to Niagra Falls.

Lesson 1: Niagra Falls in March is a GOOD IDEA
$115 gets you a 42nd story suite overlooking the falls. We did not have to actually go visit the falls, which is nice, because it was cold.

On day 3 of trying to get to Toronto, we got up and left Niagra Falls, drove another 1.5 hours away or so and finally reached our destination!

After navigating the numerous one-way streets of downtown, we finally found our hotel, the Strathcona which had a great location (right in the middle of downtown) and sadly no parking. We did manage to scam our way into free parking though, by finding a parking lot where they had a flat overnight rate but no ticket or any marking on the car, and then leaving it there for 3 days without leaving the parking lot. 1 day’s parking cost for 3 days (and it was like 20 bucks, so it’s pretty significant savings here!)

One other essential item the hotel did not provide was free internet. We looked for a coffee shop, and got extremely annoyed at the sketchy internet connection at Second Cup, so we paid for one day of internet and laid out a game plan, using the map. Having this map was really helpful, and it highlights kinda the “important” neighborhoods in the different colors and explains them. Yes, Gaybourhood is the one in pink.

Tuesday Adventures
1) Headed for Yonge, the downtown shopping district (in yellow on the map). Checked out some record stores and such.

2) Went to the World’s Biggest Bookstore which was sorta big, but really not all THAT big. There was a smaller bookstore right next to it.

3) Took the subway west to Koreatown which might be my favorite place in Toronto. We went to a restaurant called “Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu” and YOU ALL SHOULD GO THERE TOO. Look at our glorious feast. SO DELICIOUS!!!

Wednesday Adventures
This is the day we walked way too much.

We started by walking east to the St. Lawrence Market, where we found wonderful baked goods and tea to eat and drink for breakfast (my first scone consumed in the country of Canada).

Then we started walking farther east to explore the less city-like parts of the city and eventually arrive at Pizza Pide, a Turkish pizza (and some lahmacun) place.

Area near the hotel

The CN tower is visible pretty much anywhere

My delicious feta/spinach noms.

We took a streetcar west, passed through little Italy but did not stop, and walked south until we were in the Queen Street West neighborhood. It was artsy and we stopped by the very small Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Afterwards, we needed to regroup a bit and get some internetting done. Due to our horrible experience at Second Cup, we realized a bit more research needed to happen before choosing a cafe to visit. Luckily, blogTO had an article about the best cafes with free wifi. We went to the White Squirrel, which was just about the size of a living room, but somehow reminded me of the Dolores Park Cafe in San Francisco (there was also a park near this one, and something about the layout of the cafe… I dunno.)

Queen West as a neighborhood was pretty interesting. It had a lot of clothing stores and kind of a wilder bunch than most of the other parts of Toronto we’d walked through. The street itself sort of reminded me of being in downtown Santa Cruz. CRAZY.

On the way home, we hit up The Beer Store to get Dave’s precious Labatt 50. The important thing to know about The Beer Store is that when you walk in, there is NO BEER. There is an empty room, and a menu on the wall of beers, quantities, and prices. You walk up to a guy behind the counter and tell him what you want, and he brings it to you. Based on the signs around the store, they have a pretty serious recycle policy too, when you bring back empty beers. Oh yeah, and The Beer Store is a chain. We saw like 50 of them in the week we were there.

The fruits of Dave’s Beer Store adventure

Later that evening, we hit up Chinatown for some noms, and went to Bread and Circus, a bar with a stage, and a stand-up comedy group was performing that night. Small place, pretty cozy, hilarious show. blogTO strikes again at giving us a good suggestion (downside: now I want a blogTO website for every city in the entire world).

Thursday Adventures
Today was the day to visit the University of Toronto. First we went to The Dark Horse Espresso Bar in Chinatown, where you needed a cell phone to get texted a password (and we didn’t have our phones with us) so that didn’t work out so well. Next the Kensington Market, and then walking up to the University.

Lots of little Hogwarts-like areas too. But the best part was the Computer Science building, which blows Siebel Center out of the water:

Very magical.

Next was the Shoe Museum (this is like the equivalent of the beer store for me), walking through Gaybourhood, and chilling out in the hotel again in the evening, stealing internets from our paying neighbors.

And that, my friends, was Toronto.

On Friday we packed up, headed out, and stopped at a bagel place in Mississauga on the 10-hour drive home. Ahhh bagels.

Overall Impressions
- The weather: was no worse than the midwest. Toronto is a perfectly acceptable spring break destination

- The Europe: You definitely felt the French influence. Most cafes and bakeries were run by French people. This could help explain why there was so much good pastry in Toronto.

- The City: Toronto is kind of like one of those cities you see in movies: skyscrapers, parks, businessmen walking around, lots of people from different ethnic groups who all appear to be socioeconomically similar, and the appearance that nothing bad EVER HAPPENS. It was clean, there were very few homeless people, and even the worst parts of the city were not at all frightening.

- The transportation: Toronto had excellent (albeit slightly expensive) public transportation. We wanted to see a lot of things by foot so we rarely used it, but by using the subway and the streetcars, we could get across the city pretty quickly. The subway was clean and nice and reminded me of a less high-tech (PHYSICAL TOKENS! PHYSICAL TURNSTILES! WHAT IS THIS!?), less crowded version of subways in Japan.

One of the best subway pictures I have ever taken

- The coffee lids: This is my main complaint about Canada. Every lid I encountered was flat and the tab wouldn’t stay down. Here is some other guy’s rant on the same issue. Come on people!!

- The fashion: NO ONE IN TORONTO WAS WEARING PANTS. They all had those stupid leggings. I sent these pics to UIUCNoPants. The no-pants epidemic definitely crosses international borders:

In short, I would totally live there, and just hope they figure out that whole fashion and coffee-lid thing beforehand.

Also, I too, like Canadians, love to eat the Internet for breakfast:

Setsubun celebrates the coming of Spring, and occurs at the beginning of February (the 3rd this year, though apparently the date varies slightly from year to year). Spring starting in February in Midwestern America is a ridiculous thought, but you can kind of just treat it like Groundhog Day as Spring-welcoming-and-preparation-and-all-that.

Setsubun celebration involves two key components:
1) Sushi. Make sushi rolls, don’t cut them (for good luck), and eat them in silence facing the lucky direction for the current year (west-south-west this year)
2) Bean throwing. Throw beans out your door to get rid of the demons, throw them inside the door to bring luck in. Shout the appropriate things in Japanese (“out with demons, in with luck!”)

Though I planned to have a setsubun party for a while, I didn’t get around to making a Facebook event and inviting people until a couple days before, by which point Dave had already planned a gettogether for the same evening – the first installation in a series of music-by-the-decade parties, starting with the 50s (for unknown reasons). The only reasonable solution was to combine the two into a 50s-themed setsubun celebration.

Here’s how it went down…

Key setsubun ingredients (Pocky is definitely an age-old setsubun tradition)

I cut up ingredients as people showed up and started staring at the random things on the table and/or sock hopping it up. Later, I became the makizushi instructor:

While waiting for their turn at making makizushi, the other guests participated wholeheartedly in the sock-hop that was going on…

Rob lookin smooth

Jake and Mia swingin’ and twistin’

Nathan is quite competitive sushi-maker

Sushi assembled, we all stood ready facing west-south-west

This, my friends, is setsubun

After we inhaled our sushi, it was time to throw beans. Nathan was kind enough to be our demon for the night, and the target of our bean-throwing.

Oni!

Several synchronous “Oni wa soto” and “Fuku wa uchi” yellings later, all demons and bad luck were banished from the apartment. Good work, team, golly gee whiz!

However, what wasn’t banished yet from the apartment was about three thousand grains of rice and beans all over the floor. Note to everyone considering a setsubun party: cleanup is a forced to be reckoned with.

About a month ago, I was sitting in the ACM office innocently working on some stuff for Reflections | Projections when suddenly I heard something that awakened a truly Pavlovian reaction in me: the Star Wars theme music.

I went to investigate the source, and found Carl watching a trailer for Star Wars Uncut, a project to crazily cloudsource a remake of the original Star Wars film: the movie is cut up into 15-second chunks, you choose a scene that isn’t finished yet, film it (however you want: live action, animation, something crazy), and upload it to Vimeo.

Here’s the trailer Carl was watching that left me no choice but to stop what I was doing and jump on board this project:

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

After perusing the available scenes left on Star Wars Uncut for about half an hour, I suddenly stumbled across the perfect scene, #383. Remember when Han, Luke, and Leia have finally escaped from the Death Star, tension is high, and Han’s being all “I just want my $$, I’m sure not in this for _you_, princess!” and Leia gets all “fine take your money and leave, bitch”?

Right after that, Leia is ready to storm out, just as Luke is coming in, “Your friend is quite a mercenary – I wonder if he really cares about anything. Or anybody.” And Luke goes, “*I* care!” like a huge dork.

And that’s my 15 seconds.

No one better suited the role for Luke than the biggest Star Wars nerd I know — my brother. (No, he is not actually my twin. But we have been mistaken for each other… don’t ask. Oh, also, I know he’s my brother.) Han Solo doesn’t actually do much of anything, and he doesn’t say any lines, during these 15 seconds. This meant that a cardboard cutout would work perfectly! One phone call later, I was ready to purchase a cardboard cutout of Harrison Ford, albeit from the wrong scene of Star Wars. But when stormtrooper Han Solo is your only option, you GO with stormtrooper Han Solo.

On the evening of Monday, November 1st, I rendezvoused with my brother at what would become the Millennium Falcon; a place that should look very familiar to most UIUC Computer Science Students. One hour and six takes later (which amounts to a grand total of 1.5 minutes of footage), we were done with our scene. Thanks to Dave for helping with the daunting task of pushing the record button those 12 times.

A trivial amount of editing (and some gratuitous sound effects) later:

Star Wars Uncut – Scene 383 from Mo Kudeki on Vimeo.

There was only really one hurdle we had to get over while filming: about 40 minutes into the shooting process, three guys walked into the room, and sat down in the stadium seating. We kind of stared back at them like they had invaded our turf (which they had).

“What are YOU doing here?” Princess Leia asked.
“Homework?”
“Ummm… we’re shooting Star Wars. Can you come back later?”
“If I get to keep Han Solo.”
And with that, they were gone long enough for us to finish the shoot.

Of course, now I will never look at those 15 seconds of Star Wars the same way again. When my brother accidentally nudged Han Solo in an all too “come hither” way during filming, we rewatched the scene and noticed something subtle: when Leia leaves, Luke looks back at Han angrily, as if to say, “she’s my potential woman and DO NOT INTERFERE.” But then he looks out the doorway after Leia again, and then before coming into the room he turns back to look at Han, this time locking into what is a distinctly sexy stare. Suddenly, the subtext of this scene has changed. It’s ON. Not competition between Luke and Han over Leia — no, it’s classic sibling rivalry of Luke vs. Leia. Who wouldn’t fight over Harrison Ford?

And that’s how I am going to watch this scene from here on out. No going back.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I still have Han Solo. (the cutout)