3.14.15(926535897932384626)

In honor of the pi day of the century, I decided to come up with some trivia questions to celebrate.

Don McLean song with the lyrics “’Cause the players tried to take the field/The marching band refused to yield/Do you recall what was revealed/The day the music died?”

Fill in the blank: As American as _________

TV trope with origins in slapstick comedy

Maine’s state dessert

Circular chart used in statistics in which arc length is proportional to quantity or percentage

Book featuring a lifeboat and a tiger

Type of detective who can be hired to interview people, search records, and conduct surveillance, among other things

Black and white movie about a paranoid mathematician

Police drama featuring a retired police officer who also runs a restaurant

Type of hopes an ant might have

Ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter

Leave your answers in the comments; correct answers win a virtual high five. And no, I did not get any pie today.

Thirsty Thursday

Merry: Pip, look at this.

Pippin: What are they?

Merry: I heard they’re called shots.

Pippin: They look even bigger than pints.

Merry: Do you think so?

Pippin: How do we get some?

From left to right: Virgin piña colada, nonalcoholic wine, soft cider, and 0 proof vodka

$9.03

In an effort to apply the knowledge gained in my two introductory economics classes avoid giving the Cornell Store any of my parents’ hard-earned money, I bought all my books for this semester on Amazon or from Ithaca’s only cooperatively owned bookstore (Buffalo Street Books). Due to the Cornell Cartel’s Store’s manufacturer-suggested pricing, with added contribution to the Buy the Dean a Drink fund, I got all the textbooks I needed for my ChemE classes for less than the Cornell Store was charging to rent a used copy of the book.

The liberal studies class I signed up for mainly because it fit in my schedule didn't have any books listed with the Cornell Store, but when I went to the first lecture, it turned out that we did indeed require books. Nine of them, in fact. We had the option of buying the books online from the bookstore and having them delivered to class, buying them from another source, or using the books on reserve at the library. I prefer to have my own copy of the texts, so that meant the bookstore or Amazon.

Because I obviously have nothing better to do with my time, I found all the books on Amazon and cataloged their titles, prices, and ISBNs. Then I compared the prices on Amazon to the bookstore prices. The bookstore sold the whole course pack at list prices for $137 while the books on Amazon cost about $115 (16% cheaper). However, Amazon would charge tax (about 8%) while the bookstore did not, and the bookstore would deliver to the lecture in time for me to do the first book reading, compared to five to eight days for an Amazon delivery. Furthermore, the books on Amazon were not uniformly 16% cheaper but ranged from list price to over 20% cheaper.

Naturally, what I ended up doing was buying the first four books we needed from the bookstore because they were all either list price or 15 cents cheaper on Amazon. I ordered the last five books from Amazon a few days later. I saved $9.03.

Road Tripping: The Frozen Apple

Once again, I remained in Ithaca over Thanksgiving break to enjoy its beautiful weather. I was fed plenty of Thanksgiving food on Thursday, on Friday I didn't leave my dorm, and on Saturday I went to New York City with the band for the Cornell-Penn State hockey game at Madison Square Garden. The game is called the Frozen Apple, I guess because it’s in New York City and it’s cold?

Anyway, we left at a decent hour instead of 5 in the morning like the time we took a day trip to Maryland. We stopped for lunch at the exact same place we stopped last year, watched two and a half straight hours of season two of Community, and got to Madison Square Garden (MSG) with plenty of time to spare before we were expected inside to play pre-game sets. We were allowed to roam the streets of New York City for a couple hours; I ended up with a group of people who walked over to the public library, then got dinner before returning to MSG.

Back at MSG, we got our instruments and tickets and headed inside. After riding over half a dozen escalators we reached the bridge level where we waited for awhile before walking out into the stadium playing Davy. Then we played a couple of sets and went to hunt down our seats where we would get to watch Cornell take on Penn State.

Less than half of the Cornell fans.
In contrast, the Penn State fans didn't even fill two sections.

As for the game itself, it was great, in large part because Cornell ended up winning. The first period, Cornell could barely get the puck out of their own half, and it was just a matter of time before one of the Penn State players jammed the puck into the back of the net. Then in the second period, Cornell finally started getting shots, and during one of their forays into the Penn State half, one of the Cornell players took a shot from distance that somehow got past the goalie.

From there, Cornell looked a lot better right up until the game-winning goal (which was assisted by Cornell’s goalie, who also scored a goal in his first start last season). Following that, the game shifted back toward Penn State, but when they couldn't score again with a couple minutes remaining, they pulled their goalie, leading to the third Cornell goal on the empty net. So we walked away from MSG with a 3-1 win and boarded the bus for the four hour ride back to Cornell, which featured bad movies, neck pain, and a return to everything ChemE, namely, lack of sleep and brainache (it’s kind of like headache, but is caused mainly by ChemE problem sets). All. The. Fun.

Tales from the Trenches

Disclaimer: I am not making fun of any of the people in these stories, except for myself. There is exaggeration and dramatization involved and my purpose is to tell some mildly amusing stories about life at Cornell.

They Think It’s Summer:
Last “spring” at the end of March or so when it was finally getting warm I was working a shift for Cornell Productions. We were setting up the sound system when we discovered that one of our adapters didn't work. I was sent back to the office to find another adapter. Since I had just been hauling sound equipment up stairs, I didn't bother to put on a jacket and I was wearing shorts because it was over 40°F. As I was on my way to the office, I passed a family who was visiting Cornell (in jeans and jackets). The father was commenting about how the Cornell students seemed to think the weather was warmer than it actually was just as I walked by (in shorts and a t-shirt), prompting him to exclaim, “See, they all think it’s summer!”

Veterans of the Dining Hall Lunch Line:
My house on West Campus got tickets to Thanksgiving lunch up at one of the North Campus dining halls. Since it was free, I decided to sign up to go. By the time we got there, there were long lines for the food, which was set up buffet style like most dining hall meals. It was the slowest non-specialty-station line I have ever been in. I stood behind a girl who was so absorbed in her phone that right after her friend offered her a tray, she nodded and left the line . . . to go get a tray. I stood in front of a woman who muttered under her breath for five straight minutes about how the line was forming in the wrong place before asking people to move. Then she continually walked into me with her purse. As I approached the front of the line, it became clear that the majority of the people in line were new recruits to the dining hall lunch line. There were children who needed to be asked three time whether or not they would like stuffing, and adults who did not know just the right amount of force to use to get the mashed potatoes to un-adhere to the spoon, and others who cared about their corn and gravy touching. Corn and gravy is nothing. Broccoli and syrup, on the other hand, is a little less than great. I stormed through the line, then settled down to eat my rice mixed with corn stuck to the candied sweet potatoes.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet:
It appeared on the “Overheard at Cornell” Facebook page during the last week of classes that a parent on a tour was heard telling her son, “See, it isn't that cold.” The weather this past fall was as freakish as usual, and the day they were touring Cornell, it was 60 degrees and sunny at the end of November. (Yes, I obviously wore shorts to class.) The next day, it dropped back down to high 30s. The day after that, it snowed. Then it snowed again, and finally everything froze.

10, 15, 32, Which Bus is Right for You?:
Finally, a story that features none other than . . . myself. It is indeed a story about the bus, as you may have guessed from the title. A friend and I needed to go to Wegmans before Thanksgiving break to get food. We were going to go in the afternoon, but another friend wanted to come and he couldn't leave until after 6 pm. I checked the bus schedule and we’d still have enough time if we left after 6, so we all decided to take the bus from West Campus at 6:09 pm. At 6:15, the bus pulls up. We get on and get to the Commons at 6:30. Eleven minutes after the bus that we were supposed to transfer to left. I had thought that there would be more than enough time to transfer, but apparently Trip Planner had us getting to the Commons at 6:18 and catching the next bus at 6:19. The next time that bus would be coming around was in, oh, fifty minutes or so. We decide to walk the rest of the way to Wegmans. By the time we get to Wegmans, it’s about 6:50, so there’s no way we’re going to catch the 7:30 bus. We hang around until 8:30 and catch the last bus of the day back to the Commons, where we have to decide if we want to stay on the bus or see if we can catch another bus going back to Cornell that will drop us off closer to where we live. Never mind. The other bus has stopped running for the night. Staying on the bus it is. When we get back to campus, we have to go down the slope and cross the entirety of West Campus where we split up to go to our respective apartments/dorms. And that is the story of how I went to Wegmans on the bus on a Tuesday night.