Saturday: Some statistics.

• Approximate number of miles driven: 2000.
• Number of times I've almost died on this trip: 2.
• Once when I hydroplaned while it was hailing between Laramie and Cheyenne.
• Once when I couldn't see where the road was after a semi passed me between Goodland, KS, and SomeOtherPlace, KS.
• Number of crashed/broken cars seen: 18.
• Number of crashed/broken cars seen in Colorado: 18.
• Number of crashed/broken cars seen in the Denver metro area: 16.
• City whose urban planning is best fixed with an orbital laser strike: Denver.
• City whose urban planning surprisingly works: Salt Lake City.
• State with least interesting food options: All of them.
• Number of Targets seen: 7.
• Number of cops seen: 5.
• Number of wind turbines in Wyoming: ~120.
• Azimuthal range covered by synchronized warning lights on wind turbines near Wilson, KS: 180°.

Let's just say it was an eventful day.

The start.

It started out as a cold and rainy day.

Wyoming actually isn't awful to drive through.  It looks nice, and the roads aren't terrible.

Back to Laramie for the first time in more than a decade.

 I was somewhat surprised to see three college age kids crossing the street with a rainbow, a bisexual, and a pansexual flags.  Today was apparently the Pride parade in Laramie, which is a nice improvement over twenty years ago, just before I first visited.

But I was there for a calzone.

 Because that's also been awhile.

It was good.

 I had to find a place to park and eat.

There were squirrels.

Then more driving, and after realizing I wasn't going to get to my hotel before restaurants closed, I stopped at the first place I saw.

And had a shake.

And steak.

 It was all good, although I could have used a fork.  Zach.  I'm talking to you, Zach.

While there, I saw this tweet, which was odd, because I was pretty sure I was there.

Then it rained, and it wasn't fun, and it rained some more, and it continued to not be fun for like five and a half hours.

And my car hit 30k miles.

Here are extra squirrel pictures:

Tuesday: The news is saying people are complaining that the recent repaving didn't repave the whole road.

But this ignores the fact that Manoa road was nearly unusable before now.  The giant holes everywhere, the mountain down by the five-way-intersection-that-is-an-abomination-before-the-eyes-of-god that was impossible to pass faster than ten mph, the constant uneven road with random gauges.  All fixed.  Who cares if they didn't repave the part of the street people park on.  I enjoy driving on roads that aren't actively trying to destroy my car.

Also: shout out to the guy who decided "no lines means I drive in middle of the street."  You're an idiot, and you're going to kill someone.

I realized yesterday that I have something like 13 new-Pokemon evolutions I can do, which works out to 26k xp.  However, I need to make a list, and I need to make a list of "almost" things, because I remembered today that rare candy exist, and that I could probably bump those close ones.

• They are again trying to kill Pell Grants, which are part of why I am nearly done paying student loans.
• "Think about it. I mean, everybody but the current employees voted for us up and down the line."  Think about it.  I mean, there's a point where you have to realize you sound like a villain.
• I missed Brooklyn 99 to watch Legends of Tomorrow.  "Sometimes we screw things up for the better."  That really should be their official slogan.  Tonight's episode involved Rip Hunter being a jerk (again/still) and Julius Caesar taking over the world because after being mind wiped and having a selfie taken, he stole a history book about Rome out of one of the heroes hands.  Like, there was literally no other way it could have happened.  He had to have taken the book, Steel would have to have let go of the book he was holding in his hands, and then forget that he was no longer holding a book.  I love shows that just don't care how silly they get.  Oh, also Flash was on, and it was gloomy and everyone was a butt, and I guess Barry died/well, actually he died is simpler last season and had to be brought back, and new Barry is going to be less of a butt?

Saturday: Logistically, doing it in the other order would have been easier.

But by the time I was ready to go, I was super hungry, so I went to get lunch first.  The Piikoi ramp is closed for traffic studies, so I had to use the Ward one.  This has the exact same problem as the Piikoi ramp: you have to cross two lanes of traffic if you're not getting off on Punahou.  There's a longer distance to do so, but it doesn't really solve the fundamental problem.  Also, fuck Ben Cayetano for being a piece of shit who wants to shut down the rail project.

I felt like build a pizza today.

I've been thinking that it was the spicy chicken that didn't sit well with me.  I got the sausage instead, and it still didn't sit well.  I don't know.

In any case, after getting lunch, I went to the park:

Which is full of Houndour now.

 And then spent forever building up space in the gym.

Seriously, did they change gym battles to completely cheat now?  Like every time I used Jolteon's charge attack, I was hit by the opponents charge attack immediately after.  No time to dodge, no warning.  Just boom.  Dead.

There weren't many people at the park today, but there was a wedding (on the Diamond Head side, which doesn't have a lot of space between the path and the water), a wedding photo shoot (she's in her dress, and he's wearing shorts?), and a giant Frozen bounce house.

This was the most exciting thing I found.  Unlike other people.

I didn't do the big science march today.  Just didn't feel like it.

I did watch an excellent Samurai Jack episode, and then be baffled by Attack on Titan.  This is what everyone has been talking about for so long?  "Big gross zombies kill people in gratuitously bloody fashion"?  Why?

• Inept.
• Marvel letting a single idiot fuck over all their comics.  Again.
• I mean, when you announce "oh, we're totally going to ignore all of this in a few months," what's the point?  Stop letting single people dictate the entire world.  You have infinity characters.  Give each book N characters, and if they want someone else, they have to work together with the author who has that character.  Make them write interesting stories that are interesting because they're well written, not because they kill somebody.
• I kind of want taiyaki.
• Snorlax.
• The concept of countries is stupid.  There.  I said it.
• I feel bad for little crab.
• Moana theory.
• Skateboard dog.

Friday: Ugh. Malls.

Since they redesigned it, Ala Moana is not a terrible place to park.  I assume part of that is them preparing to be the terminus of the rail line, but there are always parking spaces now.  I think the sign said there were like 2000 open ones.  However, people are remarkably stupid, and I saw a bunch turning onto floors that were clearly labeled as having 20 open spaces.  People are dumb.

The other problem is that getting to, and getting out of the mall is still difficult.  Keaaumoku is a pain to get down, because there are so many lights, and people always want to turn left.  It's the same problem leaving the mall: everyone has to filter through the same exits, and it takes forever to do that.

You'll also notice that this katsudon is at home.  There were no seats in Shirokiya, because the tables were filled with people who were drinking beer and don't know how to share common tables.

I mean, what could possibly be better than that?

I also decided today that this is my new favorite song ever:

Utada Hikaru: Boku wa Kuma (I am a Bear).

• Similarly, I decided today that "The First Noel" is objectively the shittiest Christmas song.  It's like get to the fucking point, song.  Don't repeat yourself ever other line.
• I guess Vine is sticking around?  Cool.
• Werewolves.
• Rowlet.
• I'm glad to read this about Moana.
• YOU KNOW WHY, DOGGO!
• "since 1851."
• I'm not saying that I'd welcome Leopard Women on Giant Saurians discharging their Intensified Comet Fire on the Earth right now, but I'm also not not saying that.
• I was literally thinking about this scene last night, and how it's Batman at his best, and Harley at her best, and it's just great, and here it is, showing up in my RSS stuff.
• This probably means we get the TPP.
• There's a new Ducktails coming.  I like how everyone knows all the lyrics, except for David Tennant, since he's Scottish.
• Also, this comment on the casting almost killed me.
• That song is called "Sex with Ducks".
• Let me tell you about this television ad.

First up, my grandparents had a console television like that one on top.  I always thought console televisions were cool.  But the main point is that it lists the size as 295 square inches.  "How big is that?" I thought.

Old TVs were 4:3 aspect ratio, and measured based on the diagonal length (because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but that's at least what I vaguely know).  So that means that:

1. r^2 = 4 * a^2 + 3 * a^2 = 25 a^2
2. Area = (4a)*(3a) = 12 a^2
3. Area = 12 / 25 r^2; r = sqrt(25/12 * Area)
4. It'd be r = sqrt(337 / 144 * Area) for modern 16:9 TVs.

So it's a 24.791 inch television, which I think makes it roughly the same size as my old TV.

Tuesday: O frabjous day! Calloo, Callay!

Why am I all "Through the Looking Glass"?  They repaved Beretania Street.  It is no longer a hell of potholes and uneven sections.  That leaves only the entire rest of the road network to be fixed (but seriously, Beretania was particularly awful).

And I'm not totally sure I got this simulation correct, mostly because I flooped it together in far less time than I really intended.  I'm also not sure that hash-of-hash-of-array-of-array-references is really the most efficient data structure for the problem.  I'll look at it again later in the week.

• I guess it's good that it's not due to the animals being in a bad shape, just due to funding, but this is still kind of crappy.
• Erte.
• I totally use "genre" like that, Sailor Moon.  And now I want waffles.
• Or ramen.
• So it turns out the Superman/Batman movie is bad.
• Maybe they should have just remade this one.  Since, you know, it wasn't bad.
• The second image is really the reason for this link.
• My comment last night while watching it:  "There's something you need to know."  Opens shirt, takes off glasses.  "You're a fucking moron, Lucy Lane.  A stupid, stupid moron."
• Peter Serafinowicz.  Huh.  That is a good choice.

Monday: MLK Day

Apparently this is a day-off place to get lunch.  Not quite as good as I was hoping for today.  I think it's because the veggies cooled the burger down too much, and added a lot of soggy to it.

Kapolei's kind of intolerably busy now.  The main issue seems to be that Kalaeloa gets clogged up with people heading towards Waianae.  This backs up onto 95, which is where a lot of the people are coming from (since there's that giant shopping center there).  The obvious solution would be to add a west exit from the center, but that would require an additional bridge over H1 or to connect it through a residential area that despite having a sufficiently sized road that could easily reduce the traffic.

And Target didn't have everything I was looking for, so that kind of sucked.

• Huh.  Cute Overload is closing.
• I kind of hope they have a Wonder Woman crossover with the Supergirl TV show.
• Misprint.
• Marnie.
• Peridot. 

Tuesday: Ok, I guess that'll be the third link, then.

Eh.  Close enough.

• TWC should be nationalized, too.
• The important thing is that he's doing what he enjoys.
• I saw this story on twitter earlier, and ignored it since "heavy traffic" for me usually means it takes ten minutes to get home instead of 8.  This makes the rail plan make a lot more sense to me now though.  I assumed that the number of people who live in west Oahu and work in town was small, since having that long of a commute seems stupid.  The fact that having the zipper lane break, which I think only decreases the number of lanes by one, causes backups that persist so long shows that that's not true.  In addition, there seems to be only three ways to get from one side of the harbor to the other, with one of those being the long way around on H-2.  Therefore, adding a parallel rail connection seems like a reasonable solution.  In a similar future incident, even those people who drove to work could take the train home.

Thursday: Crunch.

Today was nearly super eventful.  I was driving home, and was behind a new SUV.  I could tell it was new as it still had a temporary license plate.  We got to The Worst Intersection Ever:

Manoa and East Manoa Roads.

We're travelling down East Manoa road towards the red dot in this story.  We stop at the intersection, and then the SUV starts going again, despite there being cars coming in the approaching Manoa road lane.  Those cars pretty much all slammed on their brakes, as did the SUV at the last moment.  I really thought I was going to have to call the cops to report a giant wreck.  The approaching cars had to swerve across the line to get past and onto Manoa road, and everyone eventually made it home safely.

But this is stupid.  This should be a damn roundabout.  There wouldn't even need to be that much construction.  Mohala way does cut all the way through to Manoa road.  It's dumb, but it's there.  If this was clearly signed as a roundabout, then traffic on Manoa road would all split onto the East Manoa road merge, people could turn onto Mohala or continue on East Manoa, or they could continue on the Mohala cut-through back to the continuation of Manoa road.  Simple, and it keeps traffic flowing, instead of forcing the traffic on East Manoa to wait for approaching Manoa road traffic.  I'm not sure there's another place in existence that would benefit from a roundabout more.

Except possibly the crap storm that is the Oahu/Manoa/Lowrey intersection.  It's a five way stop.  A five fucking way stop.  Roundabout.  There's enough road surface that it could again be added with minimal construction.

Then I got home, went all the way to my apartment, and found this note on my door.

"Please staff."  No.

It was super heavy.

This is a far larger book than I expected.

I'll have to read it when I finish the one I'm reading now.

• Team Rocket.
• Sure you can look at this stupid G.I. Joe gif, and think about dinosaurs, or you can note how absolute shit the animation was.  I saw this episode again in grad school, and it's just continuity and missing cell errors for 22 minutes.
• In case you forgot that Republicans are pretty much fascists who hate actual democracy.
• I would watch this movie.
• Of course, it's not available for android yet.  This is just another reason why I hate apple.