A scarily observant reader noticed that my book archive changed over the weekend and wanted to know what it is I’m using that provides fantastical features like paging and sorting. What was up there earlier was something I wrote years ago (think Fisher Price™ My First File I/O), but now I’m using something I wrote last weekend. The only real difference is that a baby MySQL backend and some help from Amazon and SOAP means that I can be ever so much lazier when it comes time to add new books, and that’s probably all for the best. Maybe now I’ll update the thing more than once a month. I’ve got something similar in the works for the music stuff, and the best part is that I get to learn AppleScript again.

Chris and I caught Kill Bill Vol 2 today, finally. I’m not even sure how long it had been since I last had time to go to the movies, but it was nice to soak up the industrial-strength air conditioning and cherry slushies for a couple of hours. I liked the film, although wasn’t as much fun as the first one, which is probably to be expected. I think I’d actually enjoy it more if I saw it immediately after seeing Vol 1 - so maybe when they’re both out on DVD I’ll rent the pair and make a night of it.

I’ll post all the goofy Commencement pictures as soon as I get them, but since the sunburn is still fresh and I’m drinking coffee from my very own Class of 2004 mug, you’ll have to settle for the lyrics to our alma mater. Which should really be remixed by someone like Chris Vrenna, I feel.

O stately Square that lies before us,
These stony portals straight and strong,
The birthplace of our Alma Mater,
We’ll ever praise in splendid song.
The archway ever stands triumphant,
Protecting all we seek to do,
With thee for e’er our inspiration,
O honored NYU.

No happier lot could e’er befall us,
No boon we crave of greater worth.
Than here to gather in the gloaming,
And blend our hearts in college mirth,
Scenes we’ve learned so much to cherish,
No friends we’ve found so staunch and true,
As those who pledge with us devotion,
To dear old NYU.

The one thing everyone told me about Grad Alley before I went was that it would be crowded, and it was. But I think the off-and-on showers kept it from being as bad as it would otherwise have been. The whole thing was in the usual style of NYU outdoor events, only bigger - a couple of square blocks were turned into an NYU-only street fair, complete with watergun racing games and cotton candy. And yes, there are pictures of me wearing that dorky purple hat.

We watched the Grad Alley fireworks from my brother’s rooftop, which had the advantages view, beer, and an absence of other graduates. Tomorrow morning is Commencement, which I expect to be more or less like the CAS thing, except hotter, longer, and with more caps and gowns. They’ve been setting up the park for days, and last night we could see thousands and thousands of chairs around the arch, which was lit with purple lights. These events are all a little bit tedious, but it’s still exciting.

There is, of course, a Commencement webcast if you’ve got RealPlayer and want to watch everything.

The Baccalaureate yesterday morning was long and fairly tiresome, but I think these things are required to at least be one or the other. I hadn’t actually been in the arena at MSG since I saw NIN there in early 2000, and it was a little bizarre that my seat among the undergrads yesterday was almost exactly where my spot against the pit barricade was four years ago. Only this time it was John Sexton center stage instead of Trent Reznor. The bulk of the thing was just waiting - we were told to be there nearly an hour and a half before it actually started, I guess mainly so that they could pressure us into sitting for graduation portraits and then divide us into groups by halves of the alphabet. And of course it takes a surprisingly long time to read the names of each graduating senior in the College of Arts and Science. We had only one person fall down the stairs from the stage, and we also had a young man who turned out to have been wearing nothing at all under his gown, as he demonstrated after his turn on stage (before running immediately away). There was someone who fell during my high school graduation, but we didn’t have a streaker.

Chris and I went out for the folks later for a celebratory dinner, where the champagne was much better than the stuff the University provided for that senior strawberries and champagne thing last week. But that’s to be expected, really. Tonight is Grad Alley and then Commencement on Thursday, and then I can finally turn in the purple tent.

If I’m done, why am I getting up at 6am today? Oh yeah - it’s because I never got my gown pressed even though I had a week to do it. But that’s why there are moms, and especially moms who have irons in their hotel rooms.

I finished up my last final this morning and proctored the Logic exam this afternoon. Now it’s time to meet up with the folks - they’re here all week for the festivities. First up is the CAS Baccalaureate, tomorrow morning. Because there’s nothing I like better than a big purple gown.

Nin.com is back, which is promising. It didn’t even exist until just before The Fragile came out, but the message boards that were there then were actually pretty good. The site went away for a while there, but with the new album supposedly coming out sometime this year, it looks like they’re paying attention to it again. I’ll be curious to see what they do with it this time around - so far the most interesting thing is the daily Q&A with Trent (which I don’t suppose will last very long).

I had another one of those stupid anxiety dreams. This one was pretty predictable - I got my CS final back and discovered I’d missed several pages at the end, landing me with a 57. What I thought was great, though, was that while asleep I correctly calculated what a 57 on a final worth 40% of my final grade would bring my total average down to. I think I probably would have started figuring the effect on my cumulative GPA if the cat hadn’t bitten my ankle. I get dreams like this pretty much constantly during the last couple of weeks of any given semester - I missed the final, I fucked up the final, I couldn’t print out a paper, I forgot about a paper. But with graduation only a couple days away, I’m actually not all that stressed out. Just so long as I don’t sleep through or miss four pages of the last final I have on Monday.