Last night, my friend showed me something on Facebook that will consume even more of my time. And no, I’m sorry, it’s not a secret way to change your layout back to the old Facebook, so suck it up and accept it. (Besides, I like the new look, so I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew a secret way.)

One holiday among the many you may have missed this September (International Day of Peace, Neither Rain Nor Snow Day, and Elephant Appreciation Day), is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day, celebrated every year on September 19.

(The new) Facebook has added a new language feature to raise awareness for this important cause affecting millions around the world… and it’s way better than that stupid Ninjas vs. Pirates game everyone keeps inviting me to.

That’s right, you can change the official language (bottom-left corner of your profile) of your Facebook page from English, French, Chinese, or whatever… to Pirate.

Some fun translations I found in my short time playing around with the feature so far…

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The other side is the same.

So what’s one of the first things I noticed here in Madrid?

The cramped quarters. Fitting all the people in Madrid into this little city is roughly equivalent to the elevator rush hours in the high rises on a macro scale. Madrilenians have elevated the bottleneck to an art.

This extends to parking. Naturally, much like Philadelphia, street parking dominates. We’re used to seeing cars parked (and double- and triple-parked) on the streets as students grasp at prime spaces for their vehicles.

However, nothing compares to last Friday night. I was coming back from an outing with my homestay señora in her car. It was perhaps 11 or 11:30 p.m., at which time normal Spaniards don’t even begin getting ready for their nights out. (That starts around one a.m.)

And do you know how long it took to find a parking space?

An hour and a half.

That’s right. Ninety minutes of my life went down the drain circling the same blocks over and over, searching for a ray of hope (or space, as it were).

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If you’re losing faith in the United States armed forces, you need only look to the September 20th football game between Princeton and the Citadel for a reminder of our nation’s military prowess.

Princeton lost twice that day.

The score on the field was 37-24 in favor of the Bulldogs, and the outcome of the exchange between the Citadel student body and the Princeton band was the Citadel 1, Princeton 0.  I can’t say I’m surprised.

As band president Alex Barnard (who wears an orange kilt to conduct the band… uh, he’s asking for it) tells the story, the “40 nerdiest kids at Princeton” journeyed 12 hours to cheer the Tigers to victory in South Carolina. They marched innocently through the Citadel’s campus on Saturday morning en route to the football stadium where they planned to put on a pre-Citadel-approved halftime show.  You can read the script here — I didn’t think it was that funny, and can someone tell me what an “amniotic ice chipper is”?

While making their way to Johnson Hagood Stadium, they were met with a human roadblock of cadets that unleashed a flurry of (mostly homophobic) insults and antagonized the band, spitting on and shoving members.

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Last Friday, I skipped out on the chance to see Nas perform live at Temple. Why? Because I would’ve had to take the train home by myself after the show… at Temple.

That night I read the blog I wrote last week and, naturally, felt like a hypocrite.

Luckily for me, my good friend Tre was going to the concert. I asked him to give me a detailed account of what happened so that I could gain a better understanding of what the Temple campus was actually like. Here’s his story.

When he arrived, he saw what he described as a “chaotic and violent urban landscape.” He immediately heard the sounds of shootings, sirens, and patrolling helicopters overhead. Every student he saw carried a handgun while wearing a kevlar bullet proof vest. I hope that their tuition covered those items.

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Without wireless, productivity prevails at vp

Dear AirPennNet,

I can’t go on without you.

It’s Sunday, so it’s time to do my work. But without you here to help me procrastinate, I actually have to do it now.

I can’t read the blogs bashing Sarah Palin, I can’t check my friends’ uploaded photo albums and I can’t see what the 10-day weather forecast is for Philadelphia, so I don’t know if and when I need my umbrella…

* * * 

As soon as I realized that AirPennNet wasn’t working for anyone in Van Pelt, I expected riots, bidding wars on Ethernet cords and endless lines behind the computer stations that had the coveted connection. Perhaps the South Park episode where the Internet disappears lowered my expectations of humanity to a far greater degree than reality, for today I witnessed a natural calm where I foresaw disaster.

During this unacceptable wireless calamity I saw far more people reading books and highlighting notes, their laptops folded in resignation on the desks before them, than rioting. It was as if the whole community of students became intellectually re-awakened without the distractions of the World Wide Web.

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Ah yes, it’s that time of year again, filled with campaign slogans, advertisements, and posters. But move aside Obama and McCain, this election has nothing to do with you.

Yes, today is the last day to vote in the 2008-2009 Freshman Elections for the Undergraduate Assembly and Class Boards!

Although I won’t vote (I’m a senior) and ultimately don’t care, I was very interested in reading each candidate’s statements, and came to the same conclusion summed up by this article in Wednesday’s edition of the Daily Pennsylvanian: What’s with the ridiculous promises of unfeasible change?

Are people bitching so much about issues like better dining options (grocery shopping?) and better toilet paper (textbooks?) that these candidates feel compelled to fool their fellow classmates with absurd pledges? Some of the platforms don’t make any sense. Could someone please explain to me how some candidates will reconcile plans for more air conditioners with the goal for a “greener campus”? And then there’s this guy.

So, to give you eager leaders of the Class of 2012 some direction, here’s a change you can make on this campus with less than $5, a few hours of your night, and a can of WD-40.

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A week or so ago, The Daily Pennsylvanian told us about how the University selects its highly prestigious Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professors. PIKs, after all, hold appointments in two University schools.

I’d like to nominate a few individuals who, while eminently qualified, may be overlooked by the archly conservative bastions of academia here at Penn. I urge the University to closely vet these individuals and make one of them the next Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor.

1. The criminology department could use a lift from Professor Suge Knight. Professor Knight would hold a joint appointment in Wharton, where he would teach the future leaders of Wall Street about business ethics and which federal prisons are coziest. Professor Knight is a great choice to educate the Whartonites as his personality makeup is pleasantly similar to theirs.

2. Last year, someone was apparently hired for his “real world experience.” With that in mind, I think actor Paul Giamatti would be an excellent choice to teach us about the life and times of John Adams in the history department. He did, after all, star in a miniseries on the second president. Let Giamatti teach “blah blah blah on the media” in the Annenberg School and wa-la!, a PIK professor is born.

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Say goodbye to your personal lives, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s 1984.

A recent article by John Hechinger in the Wall Street Journal cites several disturbing studies that conclude that between 10 and 21 percent of the top 500 colleges in the United States

acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw “negatively affected” their views of the applicant.

What is more disturbing is that applicants have actually been rejected based upon photographs and information conveyed in their Facebook profiles.

In a related phenomenon, employers are also checking on prospective and current employees’ Facebook profiles to look for content that they believe would shed negative light on their company. Some companies (including the one I worked for this summer) actually require their employees to allow them full access to their profiles, and threaten dismissal upon seeing anything unrepresentative of the image they want to display.

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A picture of some of Florida

Well, Florida finally did something right.

Last month, a circuit court judge in Florida made the decision to allow a gay man by the name Wayne LaRue Smith to legally adopt a son.

The boy had been living with Mr. Smith (and his partner Daniel) as a foster child for seven years; apparently seven years is all it takes for a Florida court to realize that you’re fit to adopt.

But the decision, though victorious for me and my proud homosexual race, wasn’t what caught my attention when I read about this business. (I have no interest in adopting any angsty, pubescent 12-year-old right now.)

Apparently, the 12-year-old’s teacher showed up in court to testify to how great the gay dads were as parents, and she had this to say:

“I must confess, the first year I had him [in class], knowing he was of gay parents, I looked for things, and I found nothing.”

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