Well, in case you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past couple days (and why I haven’t been online half as much as usual), I’ve been in Houston, Texas, for the Jeopardy college tournament tryouts.

I know, you’re all wondering how it went. Well, for the third year, I managed to pass the test (introvert that I am, I’ve always thought that was the easiest part); and in addition, I feel like I did better on the mock game and interview than I had in the past. Let’s just say that I let the extroverted side of my personality show through a bit more than I have at past tryouts…

So, will I make it onto the show? Doubtful, yes, but there’s always a chance. I noticed that most of those present at the tryouts were from the area immediately around Texas (or, of course, from within Texas itself), and a majority were from larger universities such as UT, A&M, etc. Few were from small colleges such as Mercer, and fewer still flew all the way from the east coast to get here, so I actually feel like I have more of a chance than before. (Of course, this is just one of the four or so cities in which tryouts were held, and one of the two tryout sessions held here in Houston, so I can’t be too sure…)

But one thing’s for sure: if I do, by some chance, get the package letting me know that I’ve been selected to appear on the show, I’ll most definitely post a blog entry about it.

Spam header of the day: “Hello codedisk98 ! You’re a WINNER”. ‘Twould be great if that were actually my username. (At least it’s better than being called $FIRSTNAME, as has happened in several other spams, though…)

Random train of thought of the night, from an IM session with the inimitable Kat:

…all the girls I seem to encounter are the kind who think they’re cool but are, by my standards, far from it.
I’d think I’d encounter more, say, at lunch, in class, in the library, in the computer labs…but even then, I seem to have little luck.
I’ll occasionally find someone who actually likes me for me, but it’s a rare find.
I wish there were some sort of “geekdar” to identify geeks from afar. Heheh. :-p

Weird spam subject line of the day: “aegre : egre : (adv.) hardly, scarcely, with difficulty, laboriously.” Too bad the actual spam was just another run-of-the-mill ad for a pornographic anime site; honestly, I would’ve preferred the vocabulary lesson. 🙂

(I know this is going to get me some weird search requests, incidentally. Heh.)

Yet another inexplicable search request from the zone38 logs (yes, I know, I know, I’m becoming obsessive, and I’ll stop): what is yahoo’s server address.

Maybe they meant their IP address? Or the actual physical address of the server? Because otherwise, the answer to this question seems extremely obvious…

Hm. Interesting. Apparently someone stumbled across my site by searching on Google for "central georgia" blog. And not only that, but my site was also one of the very few that actually came up as results. Quite curious, really…

At least that search I can understand. Someone was, most likely, searching for a blog belonging to someone in the midstate. But here’s one I can’t understand: why do they spell colombia columbia. ::blinks, scratches head::

We’ve all heard the stories of states rejecting vanity license plates because they found them too offensive– but sometimes the DMV‘s own random plates are suggestive enough. You might, for instance, already have heard the story of the man in Florida with an unintended "orgy" on his license plate— but even worse, there’s the story of the woman in Ohio who received a new license plate with "BL04SX" emblazoned on it…

Time for some more Weird Search Requests, a nice feature we’ve had access to after, um, celebrating our independence from free web hosts… (I had to tie it in somehow, all right?)

• new volkswagen commercial layers clothing – In the January 2002 blog archives, I mentioned a music video that resembled a Volkswagen commercial, and the fact that I had been dressed in several layers of clothing. But even now I don’t recall having seen any Volkswagen commercials that involved layers of clothing– and I wonder why someone interested in a new commercial would view a January 2002 blog archive, for that matter.
• Discussion Forums on Accents – Quite amusing, really: I have a rather inactive message forum on the site in which I sparked– you guessed it– a thread discussing accents.
• “paxan”+sound – Uhh? This is a search from Brazil, so maybe there’s something in Portuguese that I’m missing, but I still doubt it.
• MOUTAINSIDE BY MARRIOTT – Led, of course, to a page on the Proofreader’s Hall of Shame.

Am I the only one who finds this ad placement on boycott-riaa.com ironic?