They always come in threes

I know, I know; my updates have been more sparse than I've wanted them to be for about the fourth consecutive week. I had some research opportunities that I couldn't pass up come in, though, and since I'm still on vacation in Hilton Head, I've been split between working on those and spending the requisite amount of time with The Family. And, of course, watching the end of the World Series of Poker. (For the one or so of you who were rabidly interested after my last post, some amateur named Jamie Gold won. Eric Lynch took 15th, and Rhett Butler busted out in 5th. I think I'm going to try and enter at least one WSOP event by 2010, but we'll see about that.)

So I have two "Japan-wrapup" posts I still want to make. The sestina is coming this Saturday night weekend--really--and my final post will come in sometime next week. Until then, I'm going to get back into the flow of putting up interesting links and somewhat-less-interesting opinion pieces. I can guarantee that what I write about on here will be as insanely eclectic as it has been so far, so if you like that, stick around. (If you have anything you especially want to hear about, though, send me some comments. I know there's a decent number of you out there reading, even if you came here after doing a Google Blog search for 'Thorpedo'.)

Now that I have my cheap-excuse part of the post out of the way, here's some links to fiddle with, as a lot of us pack in our last days of procrastination before college starts up again:

My Very Blind Date

What a fantastic concept. Some random webcomic artist decided to ask the Internet to decide what he should do on an upcoming date with a (willing) female friend of his. You're given two options and chosen to pick which would make the better date; you can also submit your own. He's also testing out some algorithm by doing this, which seems to be working pretty well so far. Current top ideas include "Pretend you've never met, then loudly try out lame pickup lines in a swanky bar. Act like they worked", "Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and turn as many things inside their apartment upside down as you can, without them noticing", and the terribly tempting "Build forts out of furniture and blankets, and wage war with paper airplanes". I hope this guy releases the top hundred or so ideas after he's done with the program.

FindLaw: "Army Dismisses Gay Arabic Linguist"

I mean the following question completely non-rhetorically: could someone explain to me the justification behind the Army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy? I was in elementary school when Clinton had to deal with it, so I don't really know much about what shaped this decision. In any case, what's the rationale behind following this policy to the clear detriment of our national security?

The String Quartet Tribute

My personal Band of the Week. Over the years, they've done about 200 (yep) tribute albums to various pop and rock bands, working their most popular songs into string quartet format. (Sample bands: R.E.M., Relient K, Coheed and Cambria, Janet Jackson, Bjork.) iTunes is sadly lacking in most of their stuff, but I did get "Sugar, We're Going Down" (originally by Fall Out Boy). It's not the most amazing remix I've ever heard, but it's certainly recommendable.

Alright; time to get some sleep.