J Songs

One of the things we do in the Women's Glee Club is "Secret Glee Love" -- akin to Secret Santa, but nondenominational and with a $5 limit. At the risk of finding out that she reads my blog (and I'm pretty sure she doesn't), I have our president, Jaye (pronounced like the letter).

In keeping with the budget, I decided to make her a mix CD and make it themed to her name -- songs that start with J(aye). This was surprisingly difficult -- lots of songs start with "I" (the Magnetic Fields have an entire album of them), but not nearly as many start with the 9th letter of the alphabet. Initially, I tried to be really ambitious and come up with songs whose artists names also start with J, but after struggling to find the few I did find, I gave up on that. Once I opened my options up a little more, things started to come together and I was quite pleased with the results -- provided she likes classic rock as much as I do. I haven't had any blogging inspiration for awhile and Anand posts these things, so I am being a copycat posting the results of my evening's compiling. (And now onto that other compiling job I have waiting for me... actually, it's in perl, which isn't compiled. So that pun fails.)

J(aye) Songs:

1. Just Like Starting Over -- John Lennon
2. Jungle Love -- Steve Miller Band
3. Jumpin' Jack Flash -- Rolling Stones
4. Johnny B. Goode -- Chuck Berry
5. Joy to the World -- Three Dog Night
6. Jane -- Barenaked Ladies
7. Jesse's Girl -- Rick Springfield
8. Julia -- The Beatles
9. Jackal -- Ronny Jordan
10. Jealousy -- Natalie Merchant
11. Janie's Got a Gun -- Aerosmith
12. Jet -- Paul McCartney and Wings
13. Jailhouse Rock -- Elvis Presley
14. Jokerman -- Bob Dylan
15. Jack and Diane -- John Mellencamp
16. Just Like Heaven -- The Cure

Santana gets the Cy Young

... and it was unanimous, so my hat is safe and there will be no pictures of me eating headwear on this blog.

College Puzzle Challenge

Yesterday was the third annual (and second for me) Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge, held at college campuses around the country, including MIT and UMich. My team from last year regrouped, fittingly naming ourselves "The Return of the Cryptic Orchids," with a goal of doing better than we did last year (which meant we had to be first at our school and/or be the grand prize winner). We met our goal and took first at Michigan by a wide margin (21 out of 22 puzzles vs. 18 for the second through fifth place teams). As a result, I'll be getting one of the not-yet-released Microsoft Zunes in the mail in the next few weeks. A team from MIT (Quarks and Gluons, who I think were from Random Hall) won the grand prize.

This year's event (which I kept referring to as a "hunt" even though that's not how anyone else refers to it), consisted of 22 puzzles, two of which were metas, one of which came on the back of the free shirt they gave us, and not including the opening puzzle, which gave you access to the first 11 puzzles. (Essentially it was a mini-meta using the answers to the five pre-huntevent puzzles (which they went over just before the event started), plus answers to two other quick puzzles, which we never bothered solving.)

The theme involved being stranded on a desert island... with Gummi Bears. One of the flavortexts read "I'm starting to feel like I'm in a Disney cartoon. All over this island, Gummi Bears. Bouncing here... and there... and everywhere." Immediately I went looking for the theme song on the internet, only to find that it's been removed. That didn't stop it from being in my head ALL day, only to be replaced by "Kokomo" upon solving Island Golf Classic (solution). This one I happened to have the mp3 of.

In general, I thought the puzzles were much cleaner and in some respects easier than last year's puzzles -- no ridiculous leaps of logic. In fact, in filling out the post-challenge survey, I had to stretch to name a puzzle I "liked the least." (I picked Lost in the Mail (solution) because it was more of an ad for local.live.com than a clever puzzle.) But at the same time, I had hard time picking a favorite puzzle, because none of them jumped out as being really spectacular. I wound up saying Rock Formations (solution), a less frustrating tetris puzzle than the one from the SPIES hunt that involved some (very easy) calculus. It was probably the most well constructed puzzle, as well as the last one my team solved, but even that one didn't make me go "Wow, that puzzle is really clever." In fact, my reaction to the entire suite of puzzles was similar to my reaction to last year's Mystery Hunt puzzles -- everything was nice and clean and nothing was horrible, but nothing was so fantastic that it will go down as one of my all-time favorites either. (With all due respect to Phys Plant, I'm only talking low level puzzles -- their presentation of the theme was one of the best ever.) Maybe I've done so many puzzles that it just takes more to impress me... I'm not sure.

Michigan 34, Ball State 26

Went to my second Michigan football game of the season today, thanks to a friend of mine who's at a conference. With the number 2 team in the country (that would be us) facing a school that I hadn't even heard of before today, I expected the game to be a big blowout. (Ball State is apparently in Indiana -- I didn't know this until well into the second quarter.)

But surprisingly enough, the game turned out to be somewhat close -- a little too close for comfort for my friend who's been at Michigan since his undergrad days. Ball State got the ball to the 3 yard line with two and a half minutes left -- if they scored and managed to convert two, the game would have been tied. Upon this realization, my friend nearly started hyperventilating. At fourth down, Ball State decided to go for it and the student section stood and cheered and frantically waved our keys in the air (as we do for all "key" plays). The QB threw a harmless incomplete into the endzone as the stadium collectively breathed a sigh of relief and my friend sat down to collect his nerves. Michigan rode out the rest of the game for the win.

I actually took the ticket because of the guest marching band conductor -- none other than Captain Picard himself, Patrick Stewart. During halftime, he led the band in a rousing rendition of the Star Trek theme and Hail to the Victors. One boisterous fan even did the Star Trek symbol instead of making the traditional fist during the "Hails." Stewart also instructed us to "Boldly go [to Columbus, OH] and beat those Buckeyes -- be number one!" at which point, the stadium went nuts with cries of "Captain Picard's on our side!" and "Buck the fuckeyes!" Stewart is, of course, in town with the Royal Shakespeare Company and I'll be seeing him as Prospero in The Tempest on Tuesday and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra on Thursday.