The Agrinautica

   30 in 30 IV ended over a week ago now. Only 11 months until 30 in 30 V!!! (=
   I spent months beforehand stockpiling ideas, spent the first half of hte month pacing myself, and then I was off adventuring for the entire latter half of the month! Ended up making actually making an unprecedented 47 posts in June! O= Now I have all these entry ideas I don't know what to do with though. Post them anyway, or email them to my future self for consideration next June? In particular, I had promised to name names as to who the shadiest ASUCD politicians have been, and to write something truly controversial. What should I do with these exciting ideas?

   Anyway, its time to recap how everyone else did. When I last took a head count there were nine people still in.

   With 30 out of 30, the following people are awarded the illustrious Golden Geoduck

beastmario - This guy is some kind of crazy blogging machine who appears to be 410 for 411, having only missed one day since he started, and that one intentionally.
eazyt - and these are about the only 30 posts he's made this year!
metalphoenix
emosnail
   The following persons made a valiant effort and are awarded the Silver Geoduck!:
ironlioninzion - 25/30 - Was relatively caught up till the 20th
bartgroks - 20/30 - Abruptly ceased updating after the 18th.
   The following persons get a regular Geoduck for their efforts:
xaositecte - 13/30 - Abruptly ceased updating after the 18th.
pavel_lishin - 12/30
thanew - 11/30 - appears to have FEWER posts now than when I last tallied on the 14th. Odd.


   In other news, I noticed something odd. With the group of people from my friends list, the median increase of friends was 102.28% (ie +2.28%), while the change in friends-of was 98.63% (ie -1.37%). That alone seems kind of silly, except that its bringing it closer to a 1:1 ratio since its currently 78:123. But what IS interesting is that the average is a friends change of 97.37% (-2.63%) and friends-of of 101.66% (+1.66%) -- the OPPOSITE of what the medians are doing! I think this really highlights the difference between using medians and averages.
   Basically the rich are becoming richer while the poor become poorer -- in terms of friends--friends-of ratios. (=

Time Limitations
   First day of the quarter and I made the front page -- or at least our current case did, but I was mentioned.

   While I was on the Third Floor, Senator Thomas "Llord of the Sith" Lloyd enformed me that he'd be "writing legislation so the Court can't delay cases anymore." I informed him that we were handling the case as swiftly as constitutionally possible (Hearing is on Tuesday, the first day since the case was filed for which we could provide the required three academic days of notice). He really ought to learn to be a little more diplomatic, there's a million ways he could have said that without sounding accusatory and misinformed. "I want to set a time limit for how long you can take to decide a case" he continues. Me: "There currently is one, its ten academic days and we've always had a hard time staying within that" "well it should be seven calender days then." This of course was all thoroughly discussed two years ago, and it was intentionally set at academic days to prevent the event of a case being unaddressable through being filed on the last day of a quarter such as this one was.


Elections Committee to Run in Election + a hamster
   The current case (#28, Harney v. Leathers) addresses the fact that allegedly candidates in the recent ASUCD election were not in fact qualified to run for office. This quarter we will have another ASUCD election, and in brilliant act of parody the Elections Committee itself (seen massacring the previous elections committee in this picture from the archives) has been said to be running for office.
   The slate consists of the Elections Committee members, an alumni, and a hamster. The official statement of the slate, parodying a hypothetical argument of the currently disputed candidates, is that while it may come to be realized that the alumni is not eligible for office, he will have by then been voted in, and if he had been told he was ineligible in the beginning he could have enrolled and become eligible. This closely parallels the current situation where it is disputed as to whose fault it was that the candidates were on the ballot and what they would have done had they known they were ineligible, if indeed they were unaware.
   The slate's platform includes "Transform ASUCD into an explicit Kleptocracy, and purchase an Elections Committee Kleptoc-mobile," and " A huge raise for Alex Park and the rest of Creative Media, because "its not who votes that counts, it who counts the votes," and " Replace Sword and Sandals with Freemasonry as the official secret society of ASUCD. There were at least 15 US Presidents who were Masons; how many were in Sword and Sandals?"
   The staff here at Emosnail would like to recognize that this ingenius act of satire brilliantly combines parallels to current events with extreme hilarity. We therefore would like to award this satire with the highest honours, The Sacred Order of Trogdor (seen here being awarded to Daviswiki founder Philip Neustrom in a traditional Order of Trogdor ceremony). This of course does not in any way constitute an endorsement of the intended political implications of the satire or the political goals of persons associated with it. Emosnail would, however, like to suggest that the Stonecutters be made the official secret society of UC Davis.


Jesus: ineligible as well?.
   In other news, whether Jesus Christ ever existed is set to be determined by a court in Italy. The plaintiff --a former priest, and author of a book asserting Jesus never existed-- is suing the church for "abuse of popular belief" and impersonation. Plaintiff asserts that Jesus did not exist even as a historic figure, but instead is based on one John of Gamala. Under Italian law, as plaintiff Cascioli has made a prima facie case that Jesus did not exist, the burden of proof is now on the church to prove that he did in fact exist. (source: CNN)
   Now I want to read his book. I've heard it said before by other former priests as well, that most of the bible is just synthesis of other myths and legends from other religions which were extent at the time of its compilation.


Picture of the Day

Kristy got new kitty pajama pants for Christmas

   So today marks the last day of 30 in 30. Indeed many excitedly crossed the midnight just after midnight, but most of the 30 or so original entrants have long since expired on the side of the road to be run over repeatedly by mega-trucks. Others, such as neukolln blogged with distinction until being killed by a stag beetle.

   Today I was going to give out some awards I'd like to call The Snailies, much like previous awards extraveganzas The Frasky Awards, The Rote Power Awards, and the Golden Robot awards. Unfortunately however, the very day I planned on presenting The Snailies, the Second Annual Frasky Awards were announced!

   Nevertheless, there were enough categories not covered by the Second Annual Fraskys that I think I can still continue with the Snailies, and so I present to you:

THE 2005 SNAILIE AWARDS

Best Commenter: Commenting is, as Chris said in the 2004 Frasky awards, clearly the underrated art. Commenting is what makes the blogosphere go round. Its what seperates us from those less evolved heathens, the independant (non-LJ) blogs. Its what makes a livejournal community in the unofficial (better) sense of the word. What struck me most when I first met the 30 in 30 crew was the huge numbers of comments they all had to all their entries. And this was partially because they'd have conversations with eachother in the comments to their blogs, commenting not just to the entry's author but to one another without hesitation.
   The award for excellent blogchievement in this area goes to apoplecticfittz.
Best Up-and-Comer: Statistics clearly indicate, as I've expounded already, that emd has really taken the blogosphere by storm in the last year. The statistics alone don't even do credit for her numerous accomplishments, such as founding the critically acclaimed instantkitten community, making numerous brilliant 30 in 30 posts, many with pictures. Often if I didn't have time to edit a picture or couldn't get it right she'd help me with that as well. In conclusion, emd is awesome.
Best Communist: Dr. Grandpa St. rote is a man of great influence in the blogosphere. He has both negotiated important blogosphere peace treaties and visited the Rotepopo Red Brigades upon deserving enemies of the people. He also doesn't hesitate to help me find whatever arcane piece of blog artifact I happen to be looking for for my obsessive linking needs.
Worst Communist: Former Aggie columnist John Green. He doesn't even have a livejournal, and thats only the beginning.
Best Icon, Third Runner Up: They've probably never heard of 30 in 30 and they're not on my friends list, but whenever I visit ucdavis I come across value_meal_2:
Best Layout: I'm sorry I'm going to have to say my own, emosnail. The fact is I can't stand to read your journals anywhere except my friends list. And when you put big fancy pictures in the background? Yeah that just makes it hard to read. Would you like it if your textbooks all had full page illustrations underlaying the text? Or if the local paper did (hey citizene, new idea for the aggie?) No you'd think that was wack, so what are you doing with your livejournal, trying to make people not read it?
Lifetime Blogchievement & Title of The Bloggist: For a long time incomple has been known as the The Bloggist. However, considering the weakness of his recent entries, his marginal attempt at participating in this years 30 in 30 (6 entres, with the most recent one telling us we all suck!), I hereby propose that he no longer be known as "The Bloggist," and that that title and all its glory be reallocated to apoplecticfittz, inventor of 30 in 30 AND the word "frasky." Indeed, I'm not going to even attempt to give you the numerous reasons why this should be so, just read his livejournal or something.
Most Accomplished Bloggist in History: ( HISTORY'S MOST RENOWNED BLOGGIST )

   While I'm at it:
Enemies of the People: roxymartini and Courtney Gertler. The former thinks its cool to be vain, is a fan of ratings communities, and loves to lose arguments... only not really. She loves to get into arguments she has no ground to stand on in and then refuse to give up. Several examples are in my memories category of "me kicking ass in arguments" I think. The latter, she used to have a livejournal but deleted it (evil!), also, she is evil.



   And now my friend Shalane unexpectedly showed up for for the first time in forever I'm going to actually be sociable. A fitting end for 30 in 30, really. Though I'd have liked to spend more time on this.

More On Murderous Violence in Davis
   Apparently in January of 2001 a 20 year-old lad was found dead in the Kappa Sigma house in Davis with 27 stab wounds. Police determined that the stab wounds were the cause of death, but they found the knife found at the scene not to be the stabbing instrument. Investigators declared it a suicide.
   How does one stab oneself 27 times? One source even reports the stab wounds were in the back. I find this whole case extremely peculiar.

   Also, in 1985 someone was bludgeoned to death in a restroom on campus. There is currently a $6 reward for anyone that can identify the specific restroom. Anyone want to add to the pool or claim the prize? (Individuals are ineligable if identifying restrooms in which they were the murdering party. Well, they can add to the reward pool but not claim the prize I suppose.)

Related: Daviswiki entry on Tragic Events; Daviswiki entry on an evil & haunted campus restroom.


Procrastinator's Choice Award - Fall 2004
   Also we'd like to award Daviswiki.org with the Procrastinator's Choice award for Fall 2004. When one has followed all the existing links they find entertaining, reloading the recent changes page is THE procrastinating activity of Fall 2004.
   Award was previously awarded to any of the several most recent livejournal picture update lists. I still reload one, occasionally, and in fact just today it brought me such amusing findings as this.

   Also with the addition of a link to this livejournal's entry regarding the Campus Judicial Board's Elections Committee hearings, we here at EMOSNAIL think we may be one of the most cited websites on Daviswiki, behind the California Aggie and Wikipedia itself. We'd like to note that EMOSNAIL staff only added one of the references ourselves - to the entry on Kris Fricke we added that he is not officially associated with this livejournal. As it is a goal the staff here at EMOSNAIL to journalistically report on local events, we are proud of the numerous times people have felt it worthwhile to cite our entries from wiki articles.


The Justice Grinch
   The Campus Judicial Board of (CJB) of Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) found in favour of the Orwellians on both counts against the Elections Committee, 7-0. Their finding was posted in the glass case on the MU Third Floor, shortly, however, the statement was found to be missing and the glass case open.


Shocking But True: In an epic procrastinatory reversal, half this update sat here for two days before I got around to finishing it. Similarly I also got halfway through writing an email on Thursday, and I might finish it after I do this, maybe.