Walmart Juxtapositions

Seen next to each other at WalMart today: (1) a bag of "Bliss" mint-and-chocolate candy; (2) a can of generic-brand sliced beets.

Wonders of an Alumni Magazine

1. The article about social networking refers several times to "[and several other percussion video hosting sites]". I am frankly amazed there's even one "percussion video hosting site".
2. From the "please give us money" article:
   

   "My parents helped pay for my first year, then I told them I would pay the rest. I don't want my parents to help," he says, as if it's a point of independence and pride.

   
   "As if"? As if? Do the writers/editors not recognize it as such? What do they believe are independence and pride?
   

Things that are Happening

1. I am running another tournament at apterous.org; calling this one the Winter Closed because (a) it's close enough to winter for me and (b) it's a closed tournament (based on rating). A little smaller than the Summer Open was (45 total, compared to I believe 48 for the Summer Open, counting only distinct entrants). The side speed event is another 30 (but pretty much the same people). I deliberately made these as self-running as I could (hello Holland system!), and you can watch them vicariously at their own website (thanks Google sites!). Yes I did do that with the championship division pool names, thanks.
2. Speaking of tournaments, the World Mahjong Championship is coming up in about ten months. I haven't qualified here (there are 20 spots for "the rest of the world" -- non-Europe and non-Asia) and am not even sure who is verifying those qualifiers. (The official site says that the "national mahjong organizations" are setting the standards. What the national mahjong organization is for "the rest of the world" I'm still working on. The US mahjong association doesn't seem to have anything up at the moment.) There are also 5 spots for online qualifiers, which might be more likely; although even there I haven't played a serious game of mahjong for about ... four or five months? I'm not sure my membership at MahjongTime is still valid. (Checks... I was able to log in just now so that's good.)
3. The hybrid class is progressing, slightly. I was not at all surprised when a grand total of one person appeared to have done the hybrid work for the off day last week (out of a class of 20-ish, depending on how many people have (been) dropped). Why some of these people agreed to a hybrid class when they don't have a computer or internet access I'm not sure.
4. Did not die in the storm this weekend, even though I was in Virginia Beach at the time. We all got caught in a game of chicken (IMO) since the site of the awards banquet didn't want to lose a lot of money by canceling on us, despite the fact that they were flooded at the time (we had to drive out via the golf cart track, since the road was gone) and we didn't want to lose a lot of money by not showing, despite the fact that it was sheer lunacy to go (since they were flooded at the time). I think I will continue to resist promotion so I don't have to do this again next year.
5. I now have a new debit card to replace the one that got misappropriated over Halloween.
   

I need the Internet's help

So the standings for the speed demon tournament -- "a colorful way to display information so that you can see at a glance what's going on", or "garish"?

Amtrak and Airtran are conspiring against me (a/k/a ACPT travel woes)

I've been using Airtran to get to NYC every year since I got here (even when the ACPT was in Connecticut, nobody actually goes to Connecticut. How else would we get our Connecticut Limo horror stories?). So I'm trying to do some preliminary planning, on the assumption that Willz will only change the date once (which has already happened).

I'm pretty sure Airtran used to have a lot more flights than they do now; at least they're still the cheapest option I'm pretty sure ($62/72 each way, plus taxes). But there's only two flights a day each way now: I can leave here at 8 in the morning, and then think of something to do in NYC that day or leave at 6 in the evening and probably miss the Friday night stuff. And then the only possible flight home leaves at 7:30 pm. Delta doesn't even fly to New York from PHF any more; I'd either have to fly to Atlanta or drive to Norfolk and fly to JFK; that comes out to $168 (plus taxes).

I've done the train up to DC, and the Northeast still seems to have this idea that trains are good. Eight hours on a train each way isn't necessarily the fastest travel plan, but usually Amtrak isn't too bad. And if I could get both ways for $77, then that would not be that much worse than anything else. Unfortunately: 1) the return trip is $110, and 2) it leaves at 1pm, which means no lunch (although having a good reason to skip the generally over-priced and under-catered banquet may not be a bad thing). And I suppose 3) the 25%-off on the NPN-New York run expires December 28. I suppose someone would have to teach me how to use the NYC subway system to get from Penn Station to the hotel and back.

Strange Design Choices

So when you go to the GMail login page, your password is filled in for you and you can start typing your username. BUT: As soon as you hit tab or enter, the password is erased (meaning that at least you can't log in without actually typing your password). But what is the point of showing you what your password looks like filled in? "Oooh, that's a lot of dots, I must be using the long password here!"