Todd’s Macbook came! After I got off the phone with the manager, I called Todd and he called FedEx himself. He apparently got through to the local office, because they knew about his apartment requiring a key code and were familiar with the place. They got in contact with the driver, which is interesting because that manager had led me to believe that contacting drivers was impossible, and the driver agreed to stop by Todd’s again. This time we took no chances with the outer door, and just left it open. Eric, Todd[1], Chris, and I were waiting there when the guy came. Not only did I get to save Todd’s Macbook from a long wait in the back of a truck, but I also snagged a package for Steve upstairs. Now I can finally stop complaining to you guys about FedEx, as well as stop alienating and attracting visitors.

After leaving Todd’s place from Macbook watching, I was going to go to the mall to get a gift for Todd for our one-year anniversary (whee!). Well, Bentley called and I invited him along. I never manage to spend time with just Bentley which is sad because he’s a very funny guy, and really the only person I know who is described perfectly by the word ‘zany’. Imagine how rarely anyone ever uses that word, and to think I’ve had a fellow around this whole time who is the living incarnation of it! So we hit up some stores and I found a few things for Todd, then I ate some Chinese while Bentley talked about a philosophical book he’s been reading: The Myth of Sisyphus. The idea behind what he told me seemed to be that everyone’s lives are just like Sisyphus’s (the guy in Hades that kept pushing a rock up a mountain, only to have it roll back down every time) because everything we experience is an up or a down, and we grow tired of everything. He asked why not kill ourselves, if there’s no meaning in it. It led us both to the conclusion that meaning is relative to every individual’s perspective. I talked about the little highs and lows that we experience daily make it worth it; we get happy being with people, we look forward to that vacation next month, that raise next year, that next little success. It may look pointless to someone else, like Sisyphus’s life to us, but it has meaning to the person living it. It was a nice conversation and the book doesn’t sound bad.

Engineering Day was fine today. Jess and I stood outside the room where the C.S. demos were being held, directing parents and their kids inside. “We’ve got lots of cool stuff inside, like a video game demo and a sudoku puzzle generator.” Most people seemed happy with it, but I was most tickled by the cotton candy machine, which Jess, Josh, and I visited a few times. Josh was a grad student in computer science that was helping out. My big story about him is that he got all excited when I was able to get a free RC car from Toyota’s booth for him while he bought a burger. Haha, glad to be of service.

So while I was in the shower, I came up with two neat ideas, because I always come up with my best ideas in the shower. What else is there to do, other than stand around and be soapy? Without further adieu:

1. Say you’re interested in being on American Idol. For your phone voice mail greeting message, start out singing some song clip, then ask the caller if they think you’re good enough to try out for American Idol. Tell them to respond in their message after the beep. You’d get future employers calling about your resume, your aunt calling about your cousin’s wedding, your neighbor saying your cat got out again, all sorts of fun people responding. You know at least one of them isn’t going to sugar it up, and just tell you flat out that you sound like a hemorrhoidal cat getting spanked with a broom.
2. Meeting people is fun. Reading blogs of people you like or know is fun. However, I don’t feel like I have a handle on a person’s personality just from reading their About page. It would be cool if the person had a little Flash video of them sitting around, waving at the camera and saying something like, “Hi there, welcome to my site. I’m Jilly, I like skee-ball, mudslides, and science fiction novellas,” yadda yadda yadda. Something short but just enough to get a taste of how they talk and if they do any funny hand gestures, that sort of thing. I think I’d enjoy a person’s blog a lot more if I knew they were the type to shimmy a bit while they talk, or if they do that imaginary-golf-club-practice-swing thing.

I’m trying out a new Javascript feature from Snap.com: when you hover over external links, a little pop-up (not a browser window, just a little hovering div) with a small preview of the linked page shows up. I saw it on MarBlog and thought it was pretty nice, since I generally like visiting well designed sites and the preview gives me a clue about whether I’ll like a site or not. You can choose to disable the previews when you view one, via the ‘Options & Disable’ link.