I'm kind of interested in data mining and machine learning, more toward the statistical end of things, so having slightly more than rudimentary knowledge would be helpful. I'm already familiar with thinking algorithmically, but there's the matter of building something bigger than an algorithm, you know, actually doing it in a real programming language, and getting practice doing so. Should be useful. After that, learning a little Python and some R or maybe Orange should be sufficient for me to start working on super fun happy statistics projects. I kind of wish I still had my algorithms textbook. It was kind of nice.

Had people over for dinner on Saturday, which was pretty okay. Then we had a wedding on Sunday. We arrived late and were halfway through the long speech some guy was giving about his own marriage, which seems to be a significant proportion of most Protestant weddings I'm at. Once it was clear that we would be late, I hoped that we would be late enough to miss that, too. They also had some silly made-up evangelical Protestant vows. Still, not terrible. The food was excellent. The maid-of-honor's toast was somewhat bland and rambling, the best man's was a bit better as it was one of their theatre friends. All in all, a good time was had by all.

I am almost done with A Feast for Crows. When I'm done, I will have to wait for the fifth book - the person who has it is only like halfway done. Man, a lot of people are dying these days. I'll hit up The Baroque Cycle once I'm done with this book.

My mouse is dying, so I ordered a new one. True story.

I was thinking about Seinfeld. It started at about the same time as The Simpsons, but it went out while it was still toward the top of its game in its 9th season. The Simpsons, however, kept going and is the terrible zombie monstrosity that it is today (having fallen off the cliff after season 9). I can't imagine how crappy Seinfeld would have been if it had continued.

None of this will interfere with chess or picking up heavy things. Well, life itself is sufficient for interfering with picking up heavy things right now. They have parking at the gym now, though, so it should be a little better if I decide to go at times other than right after work.

So I have a list of TV shows the we should watch perhaps in their entirety. Star Trek (almost done, on season 3), Simpsons (only first 9 seasons, on season 6), The Wire, Futurama (only most recent season needed), perhaps Star Trek: TNG, Battlestar Galactica (old), Battlestar Galactica (new), and Friday Night Lights. We should also catch up on Game of Thrones. We currently watch Fringe and How I Met Your Mother. We currently watch 2-5 hours of television and movies per week.

Man, I have these crappy projects to finish off.