September 2003 Archives New PicturesSeptember 02, 2003 — I've put up two new image galleries: Did you catch the Abercrombie vs. American Eagle game?September 03, 2003 — I've done some research and it turns out there is no such thing as the Abercrombie football team. In fact, there's no Abercrombie swim, track, baseball, soccer, ping pong, or badminton team either. This surprises me because there seems to be a whole lot of people out there who believe they are either on the team or are big fans of the team. September 03, 2003 — In case you've found yourself yearning for more information about those pictures on your left, the images now link to the scrapbook page from where they originated. Happy Birthday, Google!September 05, 2003 — CNN reported this morning that Google has turned 5 years old. In celebration, let's look at searches people used on search engines like Google and ended up at smandel.com. Here are 10 of the most frequent searches for August:
Although July was a partial month on this server, top notable searches were
For the short amount of September, I've had the following searches clicked through one time each:
September 07, 2003 — This weekend was Gabe's birthday, a definite good reason for a celebration. Here are some pictures from the weekend. My brother, the doctorSeptember 08, 2003 — Not only does my brother have his own chiropractic practice, but now he has a Web site for it too. I think it might finally be time I let him crack my back. A 'small' correctionSeptember 09, 2003 — While at Burger King the other night I went into my usual rant about how the smallest size on the menu is 'medium.' I went on and on with my whining, saying that in order for something to be medium, there must be something smaller and something larger. Once I finished all my arguments, the guy in front of me turned around and told me that there is a small. It's listed as part of the Kid's Menu. Oh. So if it turns out that there actually is also an Abercrombie football team, I'm just going to give up right now. Well, gosh, what are the chances?September 11, 2003 — People seem to get a real kick out of situations they perceive as being extraordinarily unlikely. 'Well gosh, what are the chances?,' we often say. While it's often asked rhetorically, it's sometimes easy enough to calculate the probability. And I think when we do or when we really think about it, we may find that these so-called unlikely events are not as unlikely as we may believe. I recently cut my right index finger while removing staple. My initial reaction was 'Damn it -- that's my typing finger. That's just my luck; I'm always cutting my typing finger.' There's nothing truly strange here, aside from that fact that I still type with one finger. The reason is that the index finger on my dominant hand is the one I use most frequently. I'm therefore more likely to injure it. In addition, when something happens to my pinky finger, it doesn't make a big impression on me. So I'm also overestimating the frequency of the noteworthy situation. In some cases, an actual probability is to easy to calculate. While tailgating in Philly, we got 6 cheesesteaks -- 4 wit whiz, 2 wit provolone. Shaina wanted whiz. The first one she opened was provolone. Before opening the next one she said she hoped it was whiz. It was provolone. Rhetorically, she said 'what are the chances?' Obnoxiously, I instantly responded, 1 in 5 (for the second one). The chances of them both being provolone is 1 in 15. That is indeed pretty unlikely and that's why we noticed. But for each unlikely event like that which happened, there were about 14 likely events that we probably never noticed. Probability calculations like this only work for random, independent events, as we will see with my next scenario. I've said it's weird how I fly with the same people every week and I rarely sit next to someone I know. Let's do math. First class has 16 seats and I typically know 3 other people. The chance of me sitting next to someone I know should be 20% (3/15). In reality, I know it's much less. Why? It's easy. It has to do with how the airline fills in the seats and how people select their seats. It's certainly not random, but rather computed by a highly complex algorithm that would be difficult to figure out with anecdotal evidence only. It seems like the seats get filled in to leave vacancies next to people when possible. My colleagues and I get upgraded and assigned seats at roughly the same time -- after paying first class passengers are assigned a seat. That, and if I see that I'm sitting next to Joel, I switch my seat ;-). All this probability is starting to hurt my brain. I think it hurts lots of people's brains... if they even understand it in the first place. That's why people sit around at a roulette table, looking at what's hit recently. We're amazed if we see a string of 10 reds, but we think it's perfectly normally if we see 5 alternations from black to red. The two events are just as likely. These examples explain why I believe that people who go around thinking they are just unlucky are severely mistaken. Sure, in some sense, you might be able to classify half the population as more lucky than not and the other half as more unlucky than not. But when it comes down to it, life is a collection of many individual events. These events are either truly random, under our control to some extent, or completely out of our control. The truly random events will follow the laws of probability -- over time, we'll see that approximately 10% of the time we could expect to experience a situation that is 10% likely. For those things that are in our control, we need to try our best to shift the odds into our favor and let mathematics take things from there. And as for things completely out of our control, we just need to say 'it is what it is' and move on. The apple doesn't fall far from the treeSeptember 15, 2003 — Here are some excerpts from an email I got from my mom today asking me to help her get some concert tickets. I laughed hysterically for the next five minutes. 'This is super important! Simon and Garfunkel tickets will be going on sale for New York and New Jersey at some point in the next few weeks. I MUST HAVE THESE TICKETS!!! I am not yelling--I am excited ... After the Beatles (can't happen) this is the one concert I must see!' She robbed the perfume!September 16, 2003 — Pictures from my weekend in DC are now online. No thanks, I'm just looking aroundSeptember 22, 2003 — Shopping for clothing is not one of my favorite things to do and pushy salespeople don't make it any easier. Almost without fail, some overly perky salesperson dressed exclusively in the store's apparel comes over to me, introduces himself, and asks if I need any help finding anything. For a while, I was pretty good at dealing with this situation. 'No, thanks. I'm just looking around,' I would say with a slightly forced smile. This once ideal response appropriately conveyed my appreciation for the offer while politely declining any additional assistance. It was essentially a real nice way of saying 'leave me alone.' Not anymore. My once ideal response is now met with a barrage of additional questions. 'Well, what are you looking for?,' 'Are you looking for casual clothes or work clothes?,' 'Oh, work clothes? Well, what do you do?' While I'm sure these individuals are lovely people, I really don't go to the mall to make friends. But business is business so the sales pitches are inevitable. 'Just wanted to let you know about our new Restored '03 jeans -- they look like they're about three years old' or 'If you buy 2 graphic tees, you get a third at half price. We just got in the new season's American Eagle football team shirts.' It's amazing. Like as if they read my mind and knew that this is exactly the stuff I was looking for. I can't stand getting dressed in the fitting room and having some dude ask me how I'm doing. 'Well, I got my pants off with no problem. Thanks for asking.' Why are they so anxious to know how everything is working out? One of these days, I'm just going to say, 'Look for me at the register in five minutes. If I'm there, I've decided to purchase these clothes. If not, I didn't.' But even that's not enough. When I decide not to buy something, they insist on asking why. I can't see how it's any of their business if the pants were a little tight around my ass. After all the trauma, I make it to the register for the worst part of it all. The credit card pitch. As I stand there with the American Express card in my hand, they say 'Will this be on your Banana Republic card?' No, it will be on this card. The one in my hand. 'Well, did you know that if you open one today you can save 10%?' No, I didn't know that because I haven't been to a retail store in the past 10 years and this is actually the first time I've ever been posed with such an offer. As a matter of fact, I think it's a brilliant idea to fill out paper work for 15 minutes, get yet another credit card that will be listed on my credit report for 10 years, and get added to even more junk mail lists so I can save 30 cents on this pair of socks. Born To RunSeptember 24, 2003 — On Sunday, September 21 Damian, from the swamps of Jersey, celebrated his birthday. If only I still had the Damian/Springsteen photoshop image, it would perfectly accompany this post. To prove it all night that these references are not just jive, a third of all mentions of Damian of my Web site include references to Springsteen. In other Boss-related birthday news, Brian celebrated his on Saturday, September 20. We've yet to celebrate it in Madison so we'll just have to see if this year's event contains any velcro shoes, gum in the face, or statements for the blackboard. But back to The Boss... the connection here is that Brian, under the name of Ferris Bueller, attended a Springsteen show with me in Chicago. And he liked it. These Springsteen references really aren't forced. I mean, what else can we do now except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair. The Boss just rocks. And sure, Brian and Damian rock as well. The inevitable meta postSeptember 26, 2003 — I've tried really hard to avoid the inevitable meta post. You know, the post about posting. But here I am, writing about my blog. There. I said it. Blog. Blog. Blog. It occured to me yesterday when Adam made some comment about my blog. 'I don't have a blog,' I instantly and defensively responded. 'Yeah, dude, you do.' And that's pretty much all he needed to say. I knew it was true and it was time I just accepted it for what it is. It's no big deal, really, I guess I kinda felt like how Monzy was feeling in his latest post, which will presumably be the latest post for some time. But I'm over that now. Anyway, I was also thinking about the whole blogging concept in general because Erin is posting in Ethan's blog which I just find extremely funny. The September 25 post made me laugh, as Ethan and Erin usually do, and made me think of this old school post. Well shit. I guess I've been blogging for a while... even back then. |
It's time for some birthday updates and some good