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It's been a while since my last update hasn't it? I've had about 3 times I was
going to start an update but got discracted and didn't get around to it then
later. So here we go:
For the Christmas season (that comes earlier and earlier every year (this year
it was late October)) here's a list of urban legends
about the Holiday. One of the one's I've heard most often is the candy cane
myth.
My Thanksgiving break was really good. I made the turkey again this year, but my
mom and brother had already made the pies so I missed out on that. The food was
great though, and seeing a bunch of my friends was cool. It was also nice not
having to worry about school for a few days, though this next week is going to
be awful. The only unfortunate thing about going home this weekend was when I
came back up I reliezed I didn't do a lot of the things I wanted to do. I didn't
make my famous Garbage Cookies, I forgot to get stamps, I forgot to get peanut
butter, I forgot to bring up my Dreamcast games, I forgot to get more paper
plates, and I'm sure I forgot some of the things I forgot :) All well, such is
life.
I know I've linked to this before, but it's just too cool to so it gets a second
mention.
I need to get around to doing an mp3 update. It's not good when my "New" folder
has 200 songs in it. So expect one like around, oh say, Februrary.
And while I know I found some really cool links/news over the course of the last
10 days, my laziness has prevented me from remembering what they were so now I
can't share them with you. Crushed you are I know. Such is life. So I leave with
this tidbit of knowledge: "How to get the girl of your dreams"
Up down up down left right left right A B A B select start.
At last, proof that squirrels are slowly infitrating college campuses to gain
the knowledge neccasary to take over the world! Here's a listing of campus squirrels from
around the world, and it's not suprsing that they're so prevalent on college
campuses. I know there are a TON at UF, including some attacking squirrels. I
swear one tried to attack me, and a few others try to drop nuts on my head, and
I"M NOT CRAZY!!!11 But at least we have proof, so that we may fight back and
resist the squirrel revolution!
The Supreme Court decided it would look at a case about affirmative
action in college admissions today. Personally I'm against affirmative
action, as I'd hope by now we'd relieze that race isn't important in
qualifications. Economic background, where you grew up, childhood experiances,
they all can affect academic performance, but the color of your skin should have
absolutly nothing to do with getting admitted or not. If only we could live in a
truely colorblind society. If only.
I went to a dance show put on by the UF dance company tonight,
which was really good. They had some really nice cherography and the music was
awesome. There was a lot of synchronization problems, but other than that they
did really well. And one of the girls I went with were dancers themselves so
they could explain the more technical aspects of it which was pretty
interesting. Essentially all that hard looking stuff is easy and all the easy
looking stuff is hard :)
And finally, I bring you, LegoDeath.com. And you thought Lego's were
nice, innocent toys. Only on the internet could this happen....
We've finally reached assembly language programming in my digital logic class,
which is something I've been looking forward to for a long long time. It the
lowest level programming you can possibly get, and while it's very nitpicking
and tedious, it's still really cool. I love being a geek! :)
And speaking of programming, USA Today has a really interesting article on Digipen,
the school for videogame programmers. I had looked into Digipen when I was
looking at colleges, but it's not accredited so I figured it was a lot safer bet
to get my degree from a "real" university. And if I want to do games, I can
always do my grad work on it. Plus 450 students and only 14 females? That's even
worse than the male/female ration that I have now. Whenever I get to my discrete
math course early so that the class before (some humanities course) is coming
out, it's a shock to relieze "Wow, females actually do go to class at UF" since
it's like 90%+ male in all my classes. Such are the drawbacks of being a
computer engineer.
Here's an article on the inner
Einstein that talks a bit about the man behind all those famous equations.
He was quite an amzaing person, and his theories were revolutionary at the time
which makes him all more the genius. I'd love to be able to come up with new
theories of the universe like he did, but there have only been a few men
throughout history of his caliber and I most definitly am not one of them. Great
article.
Mozilla 1.2.1 has been released,
which fixed a bug in 1.2. Once again, a built in pop-up blocker, tabbed
browsing, and very cool skins make it well worth the download.
By popular demand (2 people), here's an update.
My left foot feels funny when I walk on it. Perhaps it's defective.
(Note: I wrote this on the 5th, and right now it feels just dandy. So I
guess it was a false alarm or something)
Sometimes you might find someinteresting stuff in your computer, such as a snake. Never can be too
careful I suppose.
I found out I got an A in my discrete math course yesterday, which made my whole
semester considering at one point I was worried about just passing the course. I
did extremelly well on the mid-term though, and so now with the A I'm exempted
from taking the final. And since now I don't have to study for discrete, I can
have some fun this weekend :) I went swing dancing last night with some friends
and had a blast, going to see Lord of the Rings tonight with another friend, and
then going to a Winter Ball tomorrow with some more friends. Lots of dancing,
lots of fun!
A professor at the University of Oregon has an interesting idea of using wearable computers to enable ad-hoc wireless communities. He sees crowds as
wastes of interactivity, since you may pass by someone unknowingly that has
exactly what you need. Essentially you would tell a computer you wear in your
clothing that you want to meet someone who can give you a ride home, and if
someone passes by who is offering a ride then you can be alerted to this. Or if
you think some girl in your class is hot, and she thinks you're hot,
then you can be alerted of that too. Interesting possiblities, and yet another
way that eventually computers will become such a huge part of normal
lives.
Pi is now known to 1.24 trillion
places. Cool.
Well tonight was the most fun I've had in a long time. The housing association
put on a semi-formal Winter Ball at the student union, so I went with a bunch of
friends (who all looked gorgeous in their dresses) and had a blast. It was also
a nice change of pace from just swing dances, because now I could break out all
my mad l33t ballroom dancing skillz (including the DDR swing dance). :) Girls
greatly outnumbered guys so I got the opportunity to dance with a lot of
different women, which was cool. Also took a bunch of pictures, which I'll
develop one of these days I'm sure. This dance also marks the very first time I
went to a school-related dance, as I never went to a high school dance. Anywho,
I had a blast and I can't wait to do something like this again.
Jive has a facinating article on computer game
addiction, especially with MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role
Playing Game) such as Everquest (also known as Evercrack). It's written by a
person who never suspected that she would fall prey to the addiction, and now
currently spends much of her free time playing Anarchy Online. Even though I've
never gotten addicted to a videogame (DDR doesnt' count) I can relate somewhat
with internet addiction. In a world full of stress and headache, it was always
nice to come into a world where you get respect just for playing (or being an
active member of a forum) a long time. The power is addicting, and the ability
to get away from it all is appealing. A very interesting article and well worth
a read.
Only one more week left of the fall semester :( I miss college already and I
haven't even left yet.
And thus ends the fall semester classes. Two more tests on Saturday and I'm
finished completely. I had my linear algebra final today, which I think I did
good (er, well) and then I have my digital logic and physics finals on Saturday.
Today also marks the last time I"ll ever be in a science class, as from here on
out it's all either math, computer, or electrical courses. Not that I'm
complaining (math and computer are my favorite courses, hence my computer
engineering major) but it's just another sign of growing older (much
like when I got too old to play on the McDonalds playgrounds, stupid
heigth restrictions).
Today is also two of my very good friend's birthday's, so Happy 20th Birthday to
Kathryn and Kristy! And another Happy Birthday to Sarah who turns 19
tomorrow! Lots o' birthdays
Rob Malda, aka Cmdr Taco, of Slashdot fame got
married last Sunday in Las Vegas. Which is just further proof that even hardcore
geeks like Mr. Taco (creator of the nerd havan Slashdot) can get women, because
as all the smart girls know, nerds make great significant other's ;)
"C is for cookie.... and that's good enough for me" - The mantra of thousands
of college students in hard classes. Cookie monster was right.
Fortunatly I'm doing well in my classes, and I took my last two finals today. My
digital logic one was probably the longest and hardest test I've taken so far
in college (which they've all been harder than high school), but it was pretty
fair and did a great job at seeing how well you really understood the material.
Memorization got you nowhere. Luckly it's my favorite class so I knew the stuff
backwards and forwards so I think I did pretty well on it. I also had physics,
and I think I did really well on that, but I'm still going to end up with a B+
no matter what. It's weird though, it's now only at the end of the semester that
everything's clicking in there. The entire semester I just vaugly understood it,
but studying for the final and taking it today, its' like it all made sense all
of the sudden. Wish it could have happened earlier so I didnt' do so bad on the
earlier exams, but all well, it's life.
So with exams out of the way, I'll be going home tomorrow for winter break. My
best friend from Texas is coming to visit for the first time for a week, so it
should be fun. Gonna hit up the theme parks and do some sightseeing. Am going to
miss college though, I look forward to coming back up the 3rd and starting
classes. What can I say, I love college!
Thursday I went to a DDR club party to play
games all night. Got to play a bunch of rare (in the US anyways) beamania,
including PopNMusic,
BeatMania,
various DDR mixes like 4th Mix Append and 3rd Mix, and Disney Rave Mix
(suprisingly good). Plus there was the always popular Super Smash Bros action on
the Gamecube, and various card strategy games going on upstairs. Good times,
good times.
Yep, it's been a week since the last update, but a very very very busy week. And
as long as this will be, there's a bunch of stuff I know I forgot about as
well.
The reason for my busy week was that one of my best friends from when I lived in
Texas came to visit me for the first time in Florida. So I played tourist for
the week and went all over Tampa Bay and Orlando showing him all the nifty
things that make Florida nifty. Monday and Wednesday went to Universal and
Islands of Adventures (which is the first place I ever played DDR *sniff*
*sniff*), Thursday went to take a tour of the Buc's football stadium, stopped by
the beach, saw some manatee's, and drove over the Sunshine Skyway
bridge.
Thursday then we went to see the Lightning play hockey, which was his first live
hockey game, and my first live professional hockey game. They had some cheap $10
seats avaliable, and it was a lot of fun (and a whole lot of Canadians
suprisingly, since we were playing Toronto). On the way home though a hose
busted in the car and started pouring out steam, so we had to pull over in a
sketchy part of Channelside. It wasn't too bad though, definitly worse places to
have broken down. So then I called my dad and we drove around Tampa trying to
find the part to fix it, but was ultimitaly unsuccesful. My dad pulled a McGyver
though and hacked a fix that got us to the repair shop. Very long night indeed.
And then Friday went to Ybor to check out the seen and watch Gangs of New York
(very very long, but not bad. Not sure if I'd recommend it though). Then showing
him USF and trying a cuban sandwhich (muy good) before he left back to Amarillo
today. A very busy but very fun week in all.
I miss DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) days. Doing nothing but laying
back and reading books all day instead of doing schoolwork....... being
a little kid sure had it's advantages sometimes.
I need a haircut. Really badly.
So Christmas is 4 days away, but I'm not in the mood at all. Maybe because
December has just been speeding by and it's hard to remember that Christmas is
so close. It's so much different then being a kid, when Christmas never seemed
to come. And for those of yall searching for those impossible to find gifts,
don't worry, just ask Santa for one :)
And speaking of gifts, if anyone reading this is feeling especially generous,
feel free to get me anything *cough*ThinkGeek*cough to show your appriciation
of this wonderful website :) And while I'm shamelessly begging, my
hosting bill came in yesterday, so if anyone wants to pay it, I'll give
you your own special update where I say how attractive you are to the
opposite sex. Credit card numbers (w/ expiration date) work just
fine......
I plan on doing a lot of computer work over the break. I need to upgrade to
Mandrake 9.0, reinstall Windows XP, get my harddrive to work correctly, make
a bunch of backups, and do all the little tweaks inbetween. Hopefully I can get
everything completed before I go back up, because I know I won't have time once
school starts again. I've heard some horror stories about how much time one of
my classes (Digital Design) takes up, but at least the material sounds really
interesting.
And finally, for the first time in like 6 months, the mp3 list is updated! Almost up to 10 gigs.
One major thing that happened last week that I completely forgot about was
finally getting into Mannequins at Pleasure Island. It's the dance/techno
club there, and normally it's only 21 and over. However recently they decided
that on Sunday-Wednesday nights they would allow 18+ so I finally got to go
in. The lights were
absolutly incredible, the music was awesome, and it has a huge rotating dance
floor. It was really uncrowded though (course being a Monday night on a regular
week what else would you expect) but it was SOOOOOO much fun. I really need to
get me a fake ID.
I saw The Two Towers yesterday (for free too since I bought the extended
Fellowship of the Ring on DVD and it came with a free ticket) and it was really
really good. I think I like the first one more, but the second one is extremelly
well done too. Everyone says the 3rd book is the best, so I'm really looking
forward to the 3rd movie.
Spam is evil.
2 more days till Christmas!
Merry Christmas!!
I hope everyone's had as good of a Christmas as I have. After some extreme last
minute shopping yesterday (which backfired on me for one gift since I have to
special order it now), I made the turkey and pies, and then opened presents late
last night after midnight mass. I got pretty much everything I wanted, with
enough gift certificates to get the things I didn't. Here's the rundown, not
just for your information since you probably don't care much, but looking back
on this years from now I'll be interested in what I got:
Back to the Future Trilogy on DVD
Orange UF Gators shirt (needed an orange one, all my UF shirts are blue)
Gift Certificate to Bennigans
Gift Certificate to Pizza Hut
Gift Certificate to Best Buy
Gift Certificate to Wally World (Florida Gator themed as well)
Gift Certificate to Blockbuster
Chocolate Mint girl scout cookies
A Mozart CD
A roll of quarters for laundry money
and finally a BNS DX Dance Dance Revolution Pad to match the one I already
bought. Bring on doubles!
I plan on using the Best Buy certificates to get some videogames coming out
later in the spring, and maybe get a webcam. Because if there's one thing the
internet really needs, it's me on video :)
My brother also got an XBox for Christmas, so now we own (get ready): Super
NES, N64, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gameboy Color,
and a Gameboy Advance. Yeah, I think we like videogames just a bit. Still
kicking myself for selling our old NES though.
What happens when Santa turns corporate? Bad Things. Really good short story (that used to exist)
about what would happen if Santa ran his elvish workshop like a modern
corporation. Let's just say Rudolf's nose would fall under EPA radiation
warnings.
And speaking of Santa, here's the infamous "Physics of Santa
page. A holiday tradition in many an email inbox.
Here's also another neat page on How Christmas Works.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Christmas but were afraid to ask. Like
where exactly did Rudolf come from anyway?
It's that time of the every-few-months again! Got pictures developed and finally
got around to scanning them in, so here's a bunch (yeah, it was a cheap
camera and scanning them in made it dark, so some of the pictures look
sorta off):
Remember that Winter Ball I talked about a few weeks ago? Well finally got
pictures in of that..
Me with some of the friends I went
with
Me and Alyson
Me and more
friends (I go swing dancing with them a lot)
Santa was very kind to
Alyson (they're actually the toys from the suggested donation to get in)
What happens when your camera drops.
I'm so 133t that I get a closeup shot of my foot and leg, as well as my head in
the SAME PICTURE! OMG!!
Also throughout the past semster I've mentioned going to various orchastra
concerts and opera's, and so here's two pics of some of the people I went
with:
Pretty water fountain outside the Philips
Center
Inside shot with more people. Take note that
there is only one male and five females in that picture. Little wonder why I
like going to the opera... ;) Actually I do like it on it's own basis, but going
with a bunch of cute girls is a nice little side benefit I have to
admit.
And coming to a kitchen near you, "Cooking On The Floor":
Scoones ready to bake!
Checking to see if it's done
They are good cooks though. Course slicing pre-made cookie dough and putting it
on a baking sheet for 12 minutes isn't exactly rocket science, but man are they
good cookies. Oh, and these pictures were taken at 2 in the morning on a
schoolnight. Good times, good times
For yet another example of why you dont' drop your camera, here is just a random
shot of what my case would look like if you were 2 inches tall.
And finally a scan of my Univesal annual pass picture. I even have my eyes (halfway) open,
very rare in a picture with flash.
Well I finally got around to wiping my hard drive and reinstalling XP (which
thanks to UF's deal with MS I get for free since I'm an engineering
student). My stupid IDE controller refuses to work in Linux even though it's
supposedly supported straight out of the box, but luckly they're a work-around,
though not what I really wanted. I did get it to work in Windows finally though.
I was going to upgrade Mandrake to 9.0, but since my 8.2 is working just fine I
figure why tempt fate. So now with one more week of vacation left, I have to
send out some more resume's and finish up my NASA application to try and intern
there over the summer. This break is just way too short.
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