Ever since my friend Justin moved to NYC, I started noticing his last name all over the place.

The first instance was probably the strangest. I was looking through the library at Xanga and came across this book: Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

The next time I saw something was on the train ride home from JFK. There’s a subway stop called Boyd Avenue on the A train.

When I was looking up good restaurants for my friends to go to when they visit NYC for New Years, I came across Boyd Thai.

I was reading an article linked from Google news about facial recognition, and the person being interviewed was named Boyd.

Finally, when reading some random research paper, I came across this in one of the citations:

[16] J. Little and J. Boyd, “Recognizing people by their gait: the shape of motion,” Videre, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1-32, 1998.

I believe there is something very mysterious going on here, and I will get to the bottom of it. I have a feeling this is a massive Boydian conspiracy.

I’ll start my research using this book: The Boyd Name in History

***** Edit **********
I found out that Justin is running some sort of cartoon site. Are the cartoons possibly part of the code? I don’t know yet.

This was on xkcd a while ago, but I came across it again and had to post it. Haha, I wonder what percentage of people in the world actually get this.  ***Edit**** Apparently you actually have to post a link to a joke for people to get it. What a country =).

Looks like the Onion got it right a while ago:
<embedded video>

Gap Unveils New ‘For Kids By Kids’ Clothing Line

</embedded video>

This is a public service announcement from South India, from where my parents are from. It’s a good thing (or bad I suppose for my enemies like Mikey) they didn’t see this 23 years ago!

I’ve been working on a new private home page with Marc, and I’ve put it up for everyone to try out. We made it a lot cleaner and I think way more useful.

If you’re not a themed user, you should upgrade. It’s seriously 1000 times better than using the old CLAF stuff.

One note: For people not using themes, you’ll notice that there’s not really a way to look through all your weblog entries. However, if you go over to http://weblog.xanga.com/[yourusername], you’ll be able to edit all your entries.

Let me know what you think!

Last weekend I went on a bar crawl put together by the always entertaining and fun Dave Chen. This year we were “Gotham Air Academy” graduates instead of Police Academy graduates like last year.

Me and my friend/roommate Joel went to the apartment of some of Dave’s friends before the bar crawl. One of the girls there told me the funniest idea for a halloween costume.

***** Warning! Not for the easily offended or youngsters. This means you teenagers below 18!***********

You wear jeans and no shirt as your costume to a Halloween party. When people ask who you are, you tell them, “I’m premature ejaculation, I just came in my pants.”

I thought it was hilarious, although I probably would never actually do this unless really really drunk.

I watched The Motorcycle Diaries for the 4th time last night. Every time I watch this movie I start to feel restless and I stay up all night thinking.  I’m not sure exactly what it is about the movie that makes me feel this way. The soundtrack is also really beautiful and inspiring, and I’m listening to it right now.

If you haven’t heard about the movie at all, it’s about a trip that the famed revolutionary Ernesto
Che” Guevara took with his friend Alberto Grenado around South America on a motorcycle they named “The Mighty One.” The movie shows how he i s deeply changed by their experiences on the journey. It’s based on the journal he kept during the trip.

If you haven’t seen it, you definitely should.

After watching the movie and reading more about the life of Che, I can see why he’s such a romanticized and popular figure. He’s was a handsome medical student who became skilled revolutionary, and was captured by U.S. special forces while trying to start a revolution in Angola and executed a short while later. There are accusations that he had many innocent people killed while he was “Supreme Prosecutor” in Cuba, but these haven’t really tarnished his legend and image for many people.

On Saturday I went to the LA Galaxy vs New York Red Bulls match. Beckham helped bring over 60,000 people to the stadium. We got to the match a bit late because of traffic and the stadium was packed.

Beckham had already setup two goals by the time we got to our seats. From there on out, the game was fast paced and back and forth. There were a total of 9 goals scored in the game, and it was close the whole way. The Galaxy tied up the game with 5 minutes left at 4-4, and then the Red Bulls put in the clincher with just minutes left in the game. Definitely worth the $50. I think a lot of people in NYC came just to boo Beckham, which happened every time he attempted a free kick or a corner kick.

After the game we hung out in the parking lot drinking beers and playing soccer rather than waiting in the lines to get out. While playing, someone accidentally kicked a ball under a car with a man and woman in it and Justin went to go get it. We thought nothing of it at the time.

A bit later we moved and someone told me to watch out for these plastic bags that were sort of in our way. So I went over the bag and gave it a kick expecting it to move a foot or two. What I didn’t know was this bag was filled with water and it sailed a good 20 to 30 feet and smushed onto the window of a car (luckily their window was closed). I stood for a second in shock not understanding what had just happened, and then I ran over to the driver side window of the car to apologize profusely.

Of course, it was the same man and woman from before! Then, out of nowhere, the woman burst out of the car and ran over to Justin and shoved him hard and started yelling at him in German accented English. She kept saying something to the effect of, “this is a parking lot, not a football field!” Alex immediately got in her face telling her to back off and asking her why she shoved Justin. I was still apologizing over near the man, who was still sitting in his seat with his seatbelt on. I’m not sure why he didn’t get out to yell at us or at least corral in his crazy girlfriend or wife. The lady finally got into her car and they drove off.

That’s when the ridiculousness of the situation dawned on us and we started laughing our asses off. What we couldn’t figure out is why exactly she pushed Justin instead of pushing me, the actual kicker of the plastic bag. One theory was that Justin is my karma whipping boy, so anything I do wrong will end up in his lap. Another theory was that the women was in love with Justin, and when she realized she couldn’t have him she snapped.

In my opinion, she was inspired by Beckham’s play on the field and brought her A game to the parking lot.

Me and office doorman during the day used to have an understanding. As I walked in he would make eye contact and I would give him a friendly nod to let him know I’m one of the good ones in the building. This easy relationship has existed for a few months now, but now it’s been destroyed.

The building has this rule that big packages are required to be brought through the freight elevator which is closed from 12 to 1. Unfortunately the big packages rule also applies to bikes, and since I bike to work I have to make sure not to get to the office in this interval. Lately I’ve been getting here with plenty of time to spare, but one day I got in at 12:30. I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal so I tried to go through the front entrance. I tried the ole friendly nod, but instead I got a head shake from side to side. I plead my case, trying to cite precedent, Plessy vs Ferguson, and other law terms I got from Law and Order to no effect. I told him I’d wait until nobody was using the elevators, or that I’d use the stairs up to the second floor and then go up, but still nothing. Then finally I decided to just stand in the lobby in silent protest. After a little bit of time he caved and he let me up.

I figured we were still cool, but the next day when I walked in I looked over at him, but I got no eye contact just a stare straight ahead. Now I guess I just have to wait and see if he tells other door people at the building or in NYC. I hope it’s not like in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David gets the cold shoulder from the entire lesbian community.

While on the subject of nods, I need to ask people about an interesting phenomenon in the Indian community of the US. Especially when I was in Michigan, every time I saw another Indian person I would get (and give) a nod.  Me and my sister called it the Indian nod. Here in NYC I don’t get it quite as often but it still happens.

What I’m wondering is if there’s other ethnic nods. For example a Chinese nod, or a German nod in the United States. My hypothesis is that this nod only occurs among a relatively new population of immigrants to the US, especially if they’re in a more remote area like Michigan instead of Chicago or NYC.