Songs: Which are your top 3 of all time?

Like most people, I have listened to a lot of music. I have heard a lot of bad music, and I have found some decent music too. Sometimes I wish that some divine entity would hand me a cd with my favorite 50 songs of all time (including the future of course). That would save me so much trouble!

Anyway I got this idea which is that I will tell you what my three favorite songs are, and you can tell me yours. Seems simple and maybe a little stupid, but I think it will rock. See, you have had a lifetime to find good songs, as have I, as has everyone else. So why don't we all benefit from each other's, shall we say, well spent time by sharing with everyone what these songs are. Don't just pick the three songs on the radio that you like the most right now. I mean the three best ones ever. I will then try to get a hold of all the songs you put and listen to them to decide which ones are my favorites. You may do the same if you want. As soon as you can, post a comment with your 3 favorite songs of all time.
Here are mine:

Radiohead - Let Down

Oceansize - Music for a Nurse

Sezen Aksu - Firuze

Of course it is really hard for me to feel tremendous about these choices. I could name about 10 other songs that I could have chosen in place of one of the other ones, but ultimately I had to base it on many different factors. You may base your decision on whichever factors you please. Maybe there is a song that doesn't get old no matter how many times you listen to it. Maybe there is a song that you used to listen to during an especially memorable time of your life. So go ahead and choose the 3 that are your favorites. I will look forward to listening to them.

State Quarters

For the short story, skip to ***

Remember when the government started making those state quarters? I was 13 at the time and I was of course very excited the first time I saw a Delaware quarter. I had assumed that coins were one of those things that never change, but here I was wrong. Things do change and life is all the more exciting for it. That was my initial response anyway.

So then I thought, I should collect these! Oh what a marvelous thing to collect. Stamps are boring, bugs are gross, but quarters! So I looked around and found a Delaware quarter and said, "Ah-ha! Now my collection has started." Then I got this terrible feeling of the slowness of time when I remembered reading in the newspaper that they would be releasing the new quarters every 10 weeks for like 9 years. I tossed the Delaware quarter aside and decided that I would just forget about the damn state quarters until at least most of them were released. Fast forward to the other day.

I realized ah ha! They have all been released and I totally forgot about them until now! Ok, I really wasn't that excited. ***But the short story is I have decided that I will collect the state quarters until I have them all. For the conclusion, go to ^^^. I started the collection August 10th when I went to do my laundry and stuck a $10 bill in the change machine. I used the non-state quarters for my laundry and put the others in a box. I can't imagine why you would care, but this blog is about me and I care (a little anyway).

^^^As you guessed, the map above shows in green the states whose quarters I have since I started my collection. I will update it as the quarters come in. If you see me around and happen to have one the quarters I need, I'll be thrilled if you give it to me.

Regrets

Sometimes when I ask someone what their regrets are, they say "I have no regrets," and then I regret having asked them.

Geography Lesson

This is sort of random but I was thinking about how a lot of states in the US have capitals that are not their biggest city. ME, NH, NY, CA, TX etc etc. In fact the capital of the US is not our biggest city. Then I got to thinking, I wonder which other countries also share this trait.

On the map shown above, blue countries have at least one city that is larger than their capital. I suppose each country has its reasons. Turkey moved their capital from İstanbul to Ankara to protect it from invasion. Brazil wanted to move the population inland and so they took the opportunity to build a new, gorgeous, modern capital city in the middle of nowhere. I think I like the idea of a country having a capital city that no one has heard of because then one city in your country doesn't get all the attention. Unless of course you are like Greenland and no one has even heard of your capital city. In that case you have to stack everything into one city and hope for the best. Does anyone know its capital without looking it up? ...I didn't think so.

A Bit About Work

Upon request I have put a couple pictures here from work. Actually I don't usually look that thrilled, but I enjoy my work. It is sort of too bad that it will all be over soon and I will go back to school. Of course I am also a little excited about school.

While I am making a post about me, I thought I'd mention the highlights from the passed week in chronological order.

1- Turkish Language Meetup was great. Really nice people. Had lots of Rakı.
2- Saturday morning breakfast with Safiye. Cooked sigara böreği. mmm
3- Hiking, ice cream, and... corn of all things with two additional friends, Mike Susie and Ferit. By the way I have to remember that we have a rain check for mini golf.

And what I am looking forward to these next couple of weeks:

1- getting back into regular-ish communication with Pınar after her travels to northern Spain and Eastern Turkey.
2- going to chill with Safiye and finally get around to having an Avrupa Yakası marathon. What a hilarious tv show (the theme of which gets stuck in my head all the time).
3- weekend get together with some friends at a lakehouse.
4- sister coming for a visit before moving to Holland. I lost a bet to her back in June over a soccer match and so as agreed I will take her out for some Turkish food in Boston. Actually, the bet was rigged because I agreed regardless of the outcome of the game. Anyway, really looking forward to that.

The Rarest Dates in the Next 50 Years

Remember all that hype from back in the year 2000? I'm not talking about the y2k stuff, but just the fact that it was going to be the year 2000. Everyone was freaking out because for the first time in a thousand years, the date's fourth digit from the right changed. The 1 in the 1000's place became a 2. That digit would not change again for 1000 years.

...But then I got to thinking. What is the real significance? As with any counting system, the three things that determine the number are:

1. when you start counting (in this case sometime within half a dozen years of Jesus Christ being born)
2. how much you count by (one year, every year)
3. which base you count in (base 10)

I am going to talk about the third one. The year 2000 looks pretty sweet in base 10, but look to the right to see what that year was in other bases. Some of them are still interesting, such as 5, 7, and 10, but most of them are boring. Right now it is the year 2008, in base 10. In base 11, it is the year 1566. In base 12, it is the year 11B4. However...

I went ahead and made a list of the 18 most rare or special looking dates in different bases for the next 50 years and sorted them in chronological order. As always, click to enlarge.

Notice that I included a ranking for rareness.
Ranks 1-14 are all more significant than a century.
Ranks 1-11 are more significant than a bicentennial.
Ranks 1-3 are more significant than a millennium.
And rank number 1 is more significant than a bi-millennial.

So in the end we can see that the year 2000 was exciting, but we don't have to wait until the year 3000 for a similar celebration.

The Map 2

Shown here is a map upon which is drawn a polygon of the largest area where the points are places I've been. It is more informative and more colorful than my previous attempt at displaying the range of my travels.

A Rather Revealing Map

So I thought to get back on the subject of interesting maps...

Notice the ENTIRE CONTINENT OF AFRICA there around Kentucky. Anyway, I think this map send a clear message to the rest of the world: "Hey, you can probably get away with polluting a lot more, cuz even then you won't be half as bad as us." Ok, I'm kidding, but seriously you have to ask yourself why we let this continue.