An interesting day - in the Chinese Curse sense.

Aye, there's a new pope, and he chose the name Benedict for himself. This makes him the sixteenth Pope to choose that name. I say, this has to be close to a record of ballots taken to elect a Pope. We were waiting for months of deliberations, and one has appeared in two weeks. I wonder what sort of politicking happened before the conclave to produce such a quick result. Whether you think he's going to be an evil bastard or a Holy Father (all depends on how you look at his past, apparently), he's the new Pontiff. If he holds close to the Church's positions, like JPII did, he'll probably get about the same reaction. This seems to be more of a stalling-for-time move to me than anything. He's an older gentleman, and the Church may not have wanted to spend time selecting a successor if they felt like they were in a vulnerable spot. With this move, they can gain a few years on deciding who among the potentially younger cohort they want to install as next Pontiff. Doesn't mean he won't be scrutinized, just that his reign may be a stop-gap measure in between two long-reigning Popes. Still, that he was the chair of the Inquisition is a bit scary. But that's my opinion. It's nowhere near as powerful as D.C. Simpson's, so I don't think I'll be getting any five-page e-mails.

The other in-poor-taste thing that happened today was that I got an instant message from one of my friends saying that one of the sites we both subscribe to looked like it had been hacked - front page and all replaced with a simple message: "Owned by ****" (name redacted - doesn't deserve the fame of appearing in my journal.)

It would appear that there are children running around on the Internet unsupervised. With sufficient free time to devote to the pursuit of the equivalent of spraying graffiti on the web. Mind you, I'm not against all graffiti (there are some people who could use it), I just find it funny that they took a site that was designed to promote good behavior in people and behaved badly towards it. I don't see any possibility of there being animosity between the vandals and the sites on the server - if there is, I want to know what they find so angering. So I'm forced to conclude it was a random act of Internet childishness.

This is what annoys me. I don't think they actually read the site they vandalized. I harbor the (improbable) belief that if they had, they might have averted their destructive act. They might have, and decided to do it anyway because they didn't like our organization (I can hear "Bunch'a nerds" coming through for some reason...). That would be rather disappointing. Besides, indiscriminate graffiti becomes an eyesore - if it's not being done with a purpose other than "we're bored", then it's not worth doing. Graffiti, for me, anyway, is a subversive act, designed to bring a hidden truth to light. It has a purpose, for Eris's sake. Besides, there's so many more interesting targets to "0wn" - ever try your hand at a corporation that you know is using unethical working conditions? How about the government that just prevented you from marrying the one you love? What about the company that's shipping all of its jobs, including yours, somewhere else? Those are the places where you want to put your graffiti - pwn them first.

So I'm stuck halfway between all-out rage (which would be so if I could conclusively confirm some sort of animosity) and dismissal out of hand (kids these days. *sigh*) over this. I'll probably be inclined to let it blow over if all the restoration work works well. The child responsible for this should get a paddling and be grounded from the Internet.

There were some good points as well to today. Today was a Free Cone Day, and so I managed to schlep up to the appropriate ice cream shop and grab one. Good ice cream. Left Behind authors screaming, "Our fiction's better!" Doughnuts. (Beware of Pop-unders) Incidentally, apparently a Christian group was giving away Krispy Kremes with a bit of literature - unfortunately, I was at work, so I didn't get one. Oh, well. Wiffleball on a campus landmark at midnight, and good conversation afterwards until 3 in the morning. A collection of Greek works rendered useable. Lots of good things helping to keep the bad in perspective.

Congratulations to vwalbrid, who picked up his second Hopwood Award today, looking good in a white suit, sunglasses, and the "I'm a badass" look that takes a lot of cultivation. Since today was the last day of classes, you can relax a bit. Giving your instructors a collective finger might have to wait until after exams, though.

Ah, yes, and Keitaro and Naru tied the knot a couple weeks ago, according to Akamatsu-san. Hopefully their married life is a lot less painful than their single lives.

Last segment - since I participated, I suppose I should be Sheepish about this - It's time to be all warm and fuzzy - leave somewhere in your comment that you'd like to participate, and I'll produce one thing that I really like about you (gathered from what I know of you, of course). The catch is, if I give you this thing, you're supposed to make it available to everyone else (like any good meme).

Bah, where will I find time?

Strangely enough, even though it's only five pages, this last paper is coming along very slowly. Perhaps it is a subtle effect of senioritis. I went and saw Prof. Ralph Williams for a short while before meeting with my reader on the thesis. We chatted a bit about the Merchant of Venice movie that he had led a post-screening discussion for. I mentioned my preference that the beginning text be cut and an omission be added back in to make it a more faithful movie. We chatted about the significance of that particular omission, and how the director, without changing too much of the structure of the play, managed to convey an interpretation that was very unique to any other production that I've seen. I mentioned the new Pontiff, and he agreed with my sentiments that the matter was basically decided before the conclave met to have produced a new Pope so quickly. He, like many, was not necessarily happy with the results, and accorded with the thought that I had, that even if Benedict XVI's reign is short, he has enormous potential for wreaking destruction. Thank you, G. W. Bush, for showing us that. With the politics of America and the politics of the Vatican, we both concurred, there's a real possibility of severe damage.

He also referenced "May you live in interesting times." Understand why a lot of people on this campus that have heard him consider him one of the finest people here? His knowledge and wisdom are extremely impressive, and his conversation skills are top-notch. He makes everyone feel welcome.

Then there was talking with my reader, and he gave some pointers on what to fix if I should decide to try and make the thesis into a publishable article. We'll wait on that thought quite a bit, although he mentioned a possibility of making a citation of it in his own work. That's kinda scary. I might have hit on something novel with the thesis. After that pleasant conversation, I wandered around the Museum of Art on campus, and was reminded that it doesn't necessarily take realistic drawing or painting skills to be considered art. If I can lodge that idea firmly enough, perhaps one day I will create art... probably unintentionally. Heh. Isn't that funny.

Behold! Virtual life can cause real problems! Yeah - I thought half the fun of donning an avatar was that you could do things your person didn't do. So long as things stayed at the machine... d'oh. Moving on, behold! There is no free will! At the same time, there has to be free will. Another fine message from the Legions of Dynamic Discord.

So tomorrow, I’ll try and put the last of my paper together, and make it requisite length. *fingers crossed* Here's hoping. See you guys around...