I had a nice birthday yesterday. I received a card from my parents and one from Todd, roses and a Joseph-Beth bookstore gift card from Todd, a mini vacuum from Jess, the promise of a shopping trip from Mom, and lots of birthday greetings from all kinds of people. :) After Todd and Jess got out of class, the three of us went out for dinner at Subway and ice cream at Culver’s. We were originally going to have dinner at Culver’s and save some driving, but just couldn’t justify the horrible nutrition values that place has. They serve butter burgers, fer Chrissakes, so you know it’s not healthy. The mood saddened over ice cream as the news was on TV there and it was of course about the Virginia Tech massacre, so our conversation turned that way as well. Some of the points we hit upon included:

• A professor, Liviu Librescu, suffered fatal shots himself in order to hold a classroom door shut so his students could get out the windows. That’s such a sad, touching story.
• Why did it take so long for the word to get out on campus about the first two murders? Todd thinks it may have been for the sake of the university’s reputation. Jess thinks it was inexcusable because the authorities should’ve been thinking, “this killer is still out there on the loose, we’ve got to warn people.” Had people known in time, some difference might have been made. People might have left their dorms since the murders happened in a dorm, or even left campus altogether, which could have helped later on when the attack happened in the classroom building.
• The inevitable discussion of amendment of gun laws. I already gave my opinion over at Snark, but to repeat: I don’t think tightening gun laws would help situations like this. Laws stop honest people from doing things; someone that’s crazy enough to do what the shooter did is not going to give a damn about gun laws. Beyond that, had guns been allowed on campus, there might’ve been someone carrying that day that could’ve defended himself and others against the shooter.

When we left, the conversation eventually shifted to other things and the evening became more cheerful. We headed back to my place and they sang ‘happy birthday’ to me over the cake Jess had bought. Jess and I watched American Idol while Todd surfed the ‘net; I really enjoyed Phil and Melinda last night, and voted for both of them. I was tickled when Simon said what I’ve been thinking all along, that Sanjaya’s singing is horrendous. I’ll be so darn glad if he leaves the show… I eventually got a birthday spanking from Todd as Jess counted off to 21; lovely.