Chocolate from Europe does indeed own.

As I'm washing out the bowl that contained my [just-devoured] Fruity Pebbles, I turned to look at the bookshelf for something to read, and lo! I will not tolerate such defacement. Beware, for Erick keeps score.

[For the readers: Instead of having a TV or an entertainment center or whatever in our living room, in keeping with the theme of the apartment (that is, nerdery), we have a bookshelf and a winerack as our centerpieces, both stocked with rather fine items. The "defacement" in question: My Cambell "Biology" and Ross "Intro. to Corporate Finance" were turned around in their spots on the bookshelf, their titles thus hidden. Such an act could only be the work of the hater Tony, who just cannot comprehend the greatness of such awesome subjects of study - a true Barbarian, to be sure.]

Cheese Review #1: Habanero Jack

I obtained this delightfully hot brick of habanero bits embedded in a good hunk of [softer] Jack a few weeks ago at the huge cheese tent at the Saturday morning farmers' market on the square. I must say, it's quite a step up from its weaker sibling, Pepper Jack (a.k.a. Jalapeño Jack); I put its spicinesses somewhere between a "medium" and a "hot" on a Thai restaurant scale. I have tried it on ham sandwiches, Town Houses, and with cherries, but it seemed to combine best with Saltines. A flavorful cut of cheese, but not recommended for the weak of stomach.

Erick's rating: 8/10

Where'd Tony's pre-Europe post go?

The line of thought "Sprinkles -> donut -> torus -> topology -> mathematics" sounds like what my head says to me whenever I walk into a bakery.. or well, whenever I see a donut, in general.

I've had my textbooks for a few weeks now. Here's the pre-reviews of the math books:

A Mathematical Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Chorin (for Math 705 - grad-level fluids)
A very short, cool-looking book that's pretty easily readible. The only real drawback is that it's not the most current version (and with that comes the annoying older vector calc notation). The physics and derivations are somewhat sketchy in the little that I've read, but that seems to be normal for the intro fluid dynamics genre. I don't know how much I like the order in which the concepts are introduced. One reviewer on Amazon claims typos exist, but I haven't encountered anything glaring yet.

Elementary Fluid Dynamics, Acheson (also for Math 705)
This is my favorite textbook in my library. I've had this book since last school year; I've worked the first two chapters, and have skimmed a lot of the rest. The derivations are solid, there are a lot of references to experiments (don't be too surprised if you find me running little clay airfoil shapes through dyed water in the bathtub), the diagrams are clear, and the order is very good for understanding stuff. Definitely plays strongly on both my math and physics sides.

Molecular Modelling, Leach (Math 801 - grad-level math methods of computational biochem)
I haven't had much chance to hang out with this book yet, but anytime something puts equations and molecules together, I get all riled up. It looks like this book will help me to push my computational biochem knowledge outside of what I've learned from protein docking and folding literature.

Scientific Computing, Heath (also for Math 801)
I haven't had a good look through this either. On the first run through, it looked like a lot of standard applied numerical analysis, with some cooler advanced topics not covered by the more immature numerical analysis books I own.

Statistical Inference, Casella (Econ 709 - grad-level stats & econometrics, semester 1 of 2)
The first semester of this sequence may as well be called math, as it's just stats and probability. This book looks like it will be pretty useful; starts with probability theory (all covered in 431), and builds up the stats and inference concepts from there. Not even five good books will save me from certain doom, though; this class is going to kick my ass.

The trip to GenCon commences at 11:00a later today; I'll talk to you guys when I get back.

I drink mocha, not latte.

Latitude of Cudahy, Wisconsin (i.e. Erick's hometown): 42.96 N
Latitude of Madison, Wisconsin (i.e. Tony's hometown): 43.09 N

Who's the Yankee now, Yankee? The rights of the Confederacy are Adam's, and Adam's alone..

And never have I put so much as one sprinkle on a mocha. Ever.

So yeah, do we even have a topic to be "on topic" about? We should probably declare one or two, lest this become completely out of hand from the get-go.