And Now for Something Lighter and Geekier

I know some of my regular readers' eyes glaze over when they see a post here about politics so I'll follow up the previous post with something totally different and far more geeky.

Today is square root day. It is the 3rd day of the 3rd month in the 9th year of the century. 3/3/09. The next square root day will be 4/4/16 in seven years.

Somewhere, my old math teacher from 7th grade, Ms. Carver, is smiling. Which is nice because my enduring memory of her is her sitting at her desk with her face in her hands, crying her eyes out after Scott Hagen made her cry, again.

The reason I think of Ms. Carver is because, way, way back when I started Middle School, it happened to be 9/9/81, another square root day. She was pretty jazzed up about it and also hadn't been beaten down by awful kids yet.

Because I now work in the education system, I have a deep amount of respect for all of the bullshit teachers have to cope with, from standards to insane parents to troubled kids to vandals to year after year of budget cuts to untold extra hours of work off the clock. It is an almost thankless job that pays too little but has deep rewards in other ways (like seeing a kid on the brink come back and turn into an excellent student or another kid flying higher and further than he/she would have otherwise).

Anyway, Happy Square Root Day.

And, to Ms. Carver, sorry for being one of the shits in your class.

Cool Geek Gift

You know what would be a cool gift for a geek?

A box of chocolates shaped like a keyboard with individual chocolates for each key and a chocolate bar for the space bar.

That would be awesome.

Number Nerd Day

I just realized that today is 10/9/08 which is kind of cool to a geek like me. Too bad we can't have a clock hit 7:65.43 but that would actually be a little past 8, not 7.

Oh well.

Wired's Gift Guide for Multi-Colored Geeks

Gifts for Every Geek: Shutterbugs, Empty Nesters, Foodies and Urban Commandos

Which include some pretty darned awesome goodies depending on what makes you salivate. I'm a foodie, motorhead, urban commando, modernist, shutterbug and mediaphile. I tend to think that I'm the easiest person in the world to shop for and not just because I have an Amazon wishlist.

If its new, has flashing lights, flies, makes sweet noises or takes pictures or all of the above then I'm pretty sure to want it and have a great time playing with it.

Which reminds me, I should go and update my wishlist. With some new cool schwag like the new Leatherman Skeletool or the remarkably practical and very coolly named Cube Jigger (though I'd have to say that Unica's web site ranks among the worst I've ever been to, too much information-itis) and, of course, I'd love me an iPhone.

But I think this Christmas will be pretty low key given I was off work for 8 months this last year. It will be better than a Christmas with me still looking for work though, that's for sure.

I'm off to update my Amazon Wish List! Woot!