The New Yorker has a nice item about David Letterman’s cue card guy. He inks and holds the cue cards. And he always laughs at the jokes, because he’s in Letterman’s line of vision.

How do colleges select roommates? At UT Austin, students fill out an online form of preferences. Davidson College goes beyond the call of duty, using a Myers-Briggs personality type test and family backgrounds, in addition to the usual preferences. My first year at college, we discovered that the incoming students in our dorm had been assigned to rooms alphabetically. We were in perfect alphabetical order within the dorm (not within the entire incoming class though). Our theory was that since we were in the “co-ed” dorm (Wellesley, a women’s college, had male students living on campus through the college exchange program), and we had all checked off the “I don’t mind living in a dorm with male students” question on the roommate form, we had been quickly lumped together and roomed alphabetically. It wasn’t any better or worse than other rooming systems. (via LTSeek)

Between packing boxes and gift boxes I think the cat has sat inside more boxes this past month than she’s ever seen in her life. And right now she’s sitting inside a glass bowl. Too darn cute.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is like Kevin Smith’s version of The Muppet Movie with a bit of The Great Muppet Caper thrown in too. That doesn’t mean little kids should go see it, of course.

From the Journal of Mundane Behavior, a social experiment, The Bride, Off Duty. A woman dressed in bridal finery goes about her business, getting money at an ATM, walking the dog, pumping gas. In the wrong context, and without a groom, the bride elicits suspicion, congratulations, requests for photos, compliments. Is there a costume that carries more emotional identification than a bridal gown?

Thanks everyone for all the congratulatory links and email. We have returned from a mega bookshopping trip that involved us visiting every single Portland location of Powell’s. When the weather cleared (coincidentally) we visited Mount St. Helens. Some day I’ll get all our photos web consumable.

If I wanted to study stressful driving, I’d pick Boston too. Of course MIT is already ideally located for that, and Rosalind Picard’s continued research into discerning human emotions has a study focused on producing a car that can analyze its driver’s stress level. Partially funded by automakers (isn’t it nice when you can get a corporation to pay for your research and it’s for good, not evil?), the hope is that the car can calm the driver down when necessary. Or perhaps it can just tell other cars to get the heck out of the way.

HumanMarkup Language “seeks to embed human characteristics within data, through XML.” It’s an interesting and ambitious concept. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like if I could mark a phrase in my weblog as being sarcastic, and have a reader’s browser indicate it as such. My writing style would certainly be different, perhaps not for the better, if the intended mood could be sent over the wire in addition to the words. A better example of an application for an emotional markup would be avatars, like the newsreader Ananova who already interprets XML in order to convey the proper emotional look for a news story. A scary example is a website with a laugh track. Perhaps this concept will help cross cultural boundaries. But the reality is, even if I find something funny and mark it as such, not everyone will. So it’s a communication device that says “this is what I think”, not “this is how you should think.” Which is, perhaps, always the proper way to communicate. (from a New Scientist item)

We’re married. Everyone and everything was wonderful.

(Special “bored while waiting for friends to arrive from the airport” entry): I’m enjoying the extra verbiage that is now appearing under the ratings in the movie ads. You can play “guess which movie” when reading them aloud. “PG-13, Western Violence”, “PG-13, Action, violence, language, and some sexual material”, “R, Strong sexual content, crude humor, language and drinking”, “PG-13, Thematic elements and frightening moments”. Those movies are, in order, American Outlaws, Rush Hour 2, American Pie 2 (you got that one, right?), and The Others. Unfortunately the one in the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ad is too tiny to read. And I’m too tired to look it up. But I bet it’s good.