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I have class here in 10 minutes, but I want to note what a great day it is at the UW.

The school is now dense with life compared to summer quarter.

Girls are wearing their new, unwashed hoodies or sorority shirts. Groups of Asian exchange students are clustered here and there.

A few guys are practicing martial arts on a lawn. Two Mormon missionaries are engaging students in Red Square.

The colors of the trees are varying and illuminated by the still bright, but fading day.

Students are beginning to scour The Ave looking for cheap food.

It's fall quarter, but it feels as fresh as spring.

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When you get online, is Facebook your first stop or even your homepage?

Well then, you might be a narcissist.

According to a Fox News article and by way of WIB Street Teamer Cari, researchers at the University of Georgia found, to no surprise, that Facebook profiles benefit narcissists.

Through personality questionnaires and studying the profiles of nearly 130 Facebook users, researchers concluded that the number of friends and wall posts (messages left by the owner of the profile or friends) that people had on their profiles correlated with how narcissistic they were.

Now I'm not going to name names here, but I know more than a few people who spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook.

This report on narcissism is especially concerning when considering Facebook's growth over the last year. According to a Nielsen Online report published in August, MySpace still stands as the dominant social network with more than 61 million users, but has plateaued, only gaining a million new users in the past year. Facebook is closing the gap and doubled in size over the last year, up to 38 million users from 19 million users last year. That accounts for a hell of a lot of more narcissists online.

Even the amount of time people spend on Facebook has increased. Last year users spent an average 1 hour on Facebook whereas this year users are spending 1 hour and 40 minutes. More people are spending more time logged into Facebook.

Facebook doesn't necessarily create narcissists, according to study co-author W. Keith Campbell, but it's a resource for exercising narcissistic behavior. "Nearly all of our students use Facebook, and it seems to be a normal part of people's social interactions," Campbell said. "It just turns out that narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships — for self-promotion with an emphasis on quantity over quality."

So how can you separate the nasty narcissists from the rest of the Facebook community? According to researchers, "Narcissistic Facebook users were also more likely to have glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photo, while others tended to use snapshots, the study found."

So look out for people with profile photos like this:
And avoid them at all costs.

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According to the NY Times, the House of Representatives voted today against the $700 billion bailout package. In the 228-205 decision, 133 Republicans voted against W.

The Dow lost 777 points following the vote, marking the worst single-day stock plunge in two decades.

In related news, I'm going to buy a piggy bank after work.

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Saturday Night Live is back at what it does best: Political satire.

Here's Tina Fey reprising her Sarah Palin role as SNL parodies the Katie Couric interview I posted last week.

SNL needs a better Barack Obama impersonator, but Darrell Hammond's John McCain is great, and this is an awesome parody of Friday's debate.

In the REAL debate, I didn't see a clear winner. I thought this was really McCain's debate to win considering the foreign policy topic, but Obama kept up with him. Granted, a lot of time was appropriately spent on the state of the economy and McCain spoke well to possible solutions. I paid attention to body language and noticed Obama spoke directly to McCain, as encouraged by moderator Jim Leher, but McCain made his statements to the crowd, rarely engaging directly with Obama.

I'm looking forward to this Thursday's VP debates, and I'd be surprised if Joe Biden doesn't crush Sarah Palin. Of course, my internal debate is whether I'll be watching that debate live or taping it to catch The Office.