Time Wasting

Usually I don't mind review. Okay, that's a lie, but usually I can get over it without being too frustrated, but class last night really tested this.

One of the cool things about microeconomics is that while you have two sides of markets - producers and consumers - looking at how they consume and produce is remarkably similar. Utility and production have many of the same properties, and both are subject to budget constraints. What this means in terms of learning about it is that once you have consumer theory down, it's a very small leap to get to producer theory. Ideally, you shouldn't have to spend much time going over producer theory, except to point out where words are different, and to point out a few things with costs (you don't really look at the average cost of utility like you do the average cost of production).

Unfortunately, this didn't happen. Instead of quickly going over producer theory and moving on to something a little more interesting, we spent just as much time going over producer theory as we did consumer theory. I really can't figure out the need to do this. I mean, once you've talked about minimizing cost in one setting, you've talked about it in the other.

What's more, all of us have gone over it before in previous economic classes (it really doesn't change that much from one level of theory to another - you just get to go a little deeper). Oh well, I guess it just means that I won't have trouble keeping up with the material. At least the homework he gives us is interesting to do - I have that to look forward to.

Tempting

I'm very tempted to travel over to SF this weekend to check out WonderCon, but I don't think it'd be much fun by myself. Still, the idea is very tempting.

Huh

I now understand why there are drains all over campus.

Blerg

It's been raining for four straight days, and I want it to stop just long enough for me to get a good run in. But I know as soon as I get ready and walk outside, the wind and rain will start up again. Oh well, I suppose we need as much rain as we can get.

I have the house to myself until later this evening (and have since Sunday). It's been nice to be able to make a mess and not have to clean it up immediately like I usually do. It's also been nice to have the downstairs to myself. I've gotten through three movies in as many days, mostly due to the fact that there's nobody down here making noise. Wednesday and Thursday I'm housesitting for another family, so I'll have a place to escape to while this house is packed with people.

You know, there is one good thing about all the marketing for V Day - the cheap candy the day after. I'm stocked up for a month, at least!

Temptation

I know that if I go outside to run, it will be freezing. But if looks so nice and warm from here. You'd think I would have learned this lesson long ago during Spokane springs.

Stuck in class

I'm seriously about to hit a guy in one of my classes over the head with my book. He's got a serious breathing problem in that his normal breathing sounds like me after I've run a couple miles. Or it sounds like he's breathing through a tube, I can't quite decide.

Anyways, I noticed this the first week, and it's quite distracting to me. So the next week I moved, knowing that if I had a problem, I should be the one to change. But he decided to sit right in front of me. Now this was only a little better than him sitting next to me. But there are four rows of desks in the classroom, and I was in the third, so this week, I figured that if I sat in the very back row, he would stay in the second row (where he had sat the previous two weeks).

But no. He again sat directly in front of me. So now I'm going to do an experiment during break. I'll move a desk down and if, when he comes back, he sits in front of me, I'll know something's up.

The real difference between American and British

"For the American system of manufactures was, above all, a totally unsentimental approach to the productive process in industry, one in which purely commercial considerations prevailed. The British long consoled themselves with the belief that standardization and mass-production techniques inevitably resulted in an inferior product. Unhappily, from their point of view, they persisted in this belief long after it ceased to contain even an element of truth."

- Why in America? by Nathan Rosenberg, originally published in Yankee Enterprise, the Rise of the American System of Manufactures in 1981

I'm doing my happy dance

I feel that it's necessary to share this: Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible) is back in television, this time with a show starring Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy and Angel, also Tru from Tru Calling).



Show starts Friday, 9:00 pm, on Fox. Right after Sarah Conner which stars another actress that Joss found. You think they did that on purpose?

In celebration of this new show, I'm going to be doing some posts between now and Friday about why Joss Whedon is the man, and why I'm very worried that this show is on Fox.

Also, thank goodness that the scheduling people didn't screw up and put it during BSG. I would have had to make a tough decision if that was the case (BSG starts at 10 pm).

Lack of Sleepies

I don't really understand my lack of affinity with going to sleep lately. I find myself surfing the internet, going back to pages that I just looked at 10 minutes ago (with nothing new on them), just too put off going to bed. Usually sleep is one of my most tried and true methods of procrastination. I routinely had to get up at 6 am during college because I had put off doing homework for my 8 am class by going to bed.

Perhaps the first step to recovery is admitting I have a problem, and this post will be the first step. And to continue on my path of recover, I'm going to go to bed now.

That is unless I put in disk three of season six of Buffy. If there's anything that's procrastination fodder, it's rewatching old television seasons (especially if there are vampires/magic/butt-kicking involved).

Tweet

So since it's the beginning of the semester, it means I have to find some new procrastination tools until classes start being interesting. This semester, I've decided to take up Twitter. We'll see how long it lasts.

Breaking the Curse

Since Netflix has all of Seasons 1 and 2 of 30 Rock available on streaming, I've decided to see if I can break the curse. If there is any show on television that could break the curse, I think it might be 30 Rock, both because of all the good talk it's gotten lately, and because it looks to have staying power. Plus, perhaps my curse only applies to hour long shows (although AD puts the lie to that, but perhaps that was a fluke). So, if you watch 30 Rock, be aware that it could start sucking in the next month or so, and if it does, I apologize.