Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

I've been reading Oreilly's "Time Management For System Administrators" (mostly for the User Friendly comics), and it got me thinking about how I spend my time and prioritize my activities. I realized that there is a substantial difference between how I should be spending my time and how things actually turn out at the end of the day.

Here is what my priorities should look like (that is, if I care about being a healthy and productive member of society):

1. Work
2. School
3. Social Obligations
4. Physical Exercise
5. Blogging
6. Reading Fark, Slashdot, and Reddit
7. Research into the life and career of Mr. Tom Lehrer
8. Browsing videos on archive.org
9. Gaming
10. Random time wasted on the Internet

This is how I actually spend my time:

1. Work
2. Reading Fark, Slashdot, and Reddit
3. Research into the life and career of Mr. Tom Lehrer
4. Random time wasted on the Internet
5. Browsing videos on archive.org
6. Gaming
7. Blogging
8. Physical Exercise
9. Social Obligations
10. School

This is not counting the time I spend reading, singing and dancing, watching Monty Python, and dorking out with Perl and Javascript, which is really non-negotiable, so I chose to leave it out of this organizational scheme.

Since I am taking several classes next semester, I need to free up some more time for school. Also, a lot of people are upset that I have been canceling my lunch dates, so I'll need to free up some time for social obligations as well. This means that I won't be able to waste so much of my day browsing the Internet for interesting content. It also means that I won't have as much time for my research into the life and career of Mr. Tom Lehrer.

There are three things that I am currently trying to find out:

1. A 1981 American Scholar article indicates that Tom Lehrer spent a year at Columbia University. I'm trying to find out in what capacity that was - as a student/instructor/researcher/local super-awesome guy/etc. I thought of trying to pull a few favors (even though I have none left) with somebody over at the registrar's office, since they are supposed to keep track of such things. Finding out what the particular year was (or at least a small range) would be a good first step. But I haven't gotten that far yet.

2. Various sources indicate that Tom Lehrer was involved in a Dodge industrial film in 1967, called either "1967 Dodge Rebellion Theater" or "Dodge Rebellion Memories." Various sketchy and insecure sites are selling a DVD of this for some 35 bucks, but I really wanted to find out more before making any purchase. I was hoping some historical society (or auto club) would have it. I checked the Columbia library system and NYPL, but was not able to find anything.

3. I'd like to find out what dissertation topic Mr. Lehrer was working on when he was a PhD at Harvard. There is no registry of unfinished dissertations, so this is going to be a bit tricky. I am not sure why nobody ever asked him about his graduate work during any of the interviews. But I suppose that a long explanation of some advanced mathematical concept wouldn't make for very good journalism. All the obvious searches (as in, "Tom Lehrer +dissertation") yield results along the lines of "Tom Lehrer never finished his dissertation." Even though it appears that Mr. Lehrer focused his academic career on teaching (rather than research), it still seems highly unlikely that he could spend so many years in graduate school without at least co-authoring something.

I really much rather figure this stuff out on my own, without having to harass the poor man with yet more letters. Plus, there's that whole joy of discovery I've heard so much about. If anyone out there (a bored undergrad who wants to become my best friend, perhaps) wishes to help me out, that would be fantastic.

Just remember - you can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of student labor.