eDork

I felt like being an ass today. Something about girls makes it very hard to deliver on such things, so I just grumbled to myself about idiot professors and life altering decisions. I'm looking at a flyer trying to decide if free pizza is worth spending time with a bunch of nerds talking about a club I don't give two tinkles about. She said "we'll talk about competitions and funding"; I think, "and I care because?".

See what I mean, ass.

Something got dropped about toga's at a football game and I immediately look for the door, only to realise that class hasn't even started. It's not that I have no school spirit, or that I'm super lazy... I just have no school spirit and I am one lazy mofo. Of course I'll be gone a trip for the game, but it breaks my heart no less to miss the excitement. What once I thought was some kind of spark seems to be just a generic how do you do and even though my interest is still peeked... I'm small fry in a big bowl with lots of swimming and exploring left to do. Maybe... maybe not. We'll let the attitude calm with some sleep before making a rash decision.

Silver lining? New 6x9s for the truck! Courtesy a good friend. Another good friend will help install them at a convenient time and finally some ellipses may drop another cm or two. Speaking of ellipses, I think I learned an integer equation to draw them today. I'm not sure because the ramblings of a professor that doesn't understand what she professes are about as hard to understand as someone speaking giberish at me while pointing at equations on the board. It's not easy to understand, you see. The book is no help here either because it seems to have been written by folks without a mathematics background. You know, the ones that think flashing equations is enough to justify $100 more on the book price while never explaining why or what the equations are for.

Okay... enough rambling. I'm tired, there are dishes to be done, and there's never enough variety in my diet to manage a strenuous day in a healthy manner.

Gimme

I want that mouse. Bad. Real bad. It fixes everything I dislike about the mouse I currently have (and absolutely adore because it kicks major ass). Lithium battery, battery level on-mouse, horizontal scrolling. Mmmm....

Now, I just need to see if Logitech makes a new wireless keyboard that's better than the one I have (no key-state LEDs and it interferes w/ other wireless peripherals).

The Full Monty

That's it... right there. If it doesn't scream nerd, I don't know what does.

Down

So when I said the other day that Down is better than Pantera, I meant better in the way that your body prefers water to other liquid substances. Sure, it may let you take in Mt. Dew or whatever, but it's gonna be far more well off with a little H20. Seriously, this is what metal would be if it had something to say. It's honestly that good for your aural senses.

In other news, I stumbled on libgmail today via a link on /. about the gmail filesystem (so you use your gmail account as another 1GB partition). This means I can finally check my gmail through Thunderbird, which was about the only thing keeping me from ever using gmail. I'm not sure what kind of holes running a local pop3 proxy brings, but I think it should be okay behind my firewall.

Bed

I finally got a bed. I've had a matress on the floor since we moved in here and it's been the pits. I now have a short little bed frame and a piece of MDF keeping me and my matress up off the floor. I'm so happy, I think I'll treat myself to a glass of apple juice.

Also got the coffee table my grandpa made for us. It's really nice. We've been using a box we named Bob (you know, he has bitch-tits) to eat off of and put our feet on (as well as play M:tG on). It's going to be so nice having a nice, clean table to eat on and all that. We're living like frickin' rich people up in here.

M:tG Tournament

First friday night magic tournament tonight. I lost the first round and spent the rest of the time watching Caleb lose. Still good fun though. I'm excited for the next block to start so I can really begin my collecting and deck building.

Also, the girl from the other floor is back. Good friend is going to see if he can get me an in. I'm excited enough about this one to probably crap myself. Hopefully I can hold that in when it all goes down.

Pantera

For a conversation I had earlier:

Pantera = Good, but broken up
Down = Even better, no longer making music
Superjoint Ritual = Not so good
Damageplan = Just like Pantera, but with a new singer

Crap, now what?

Cute girl in two of my CS classes. WTF do I do now? I can't be all like *drool* because every nerd in the place is doing that (and unless she's an idiot, which I doubt, she knows it too). She actually sat by me and made conversation. I won't look into it at all because of the afformentioned nerd thing.

<rant>
I also need to say something... I absolutely hate these damn nerds that are always like "*snort* I'm so smart! You're wrong about whatever you're talking about because I feel the need to argue every minute point *snort*". What's even worse is when they're actually idiots, so all they do is perpetuate the false information being spouted by whoever they're arguing with. I really, really hope that in the real world, computer people have some kind of clue about engaging in normal conversation that doesn't involve the Ghz of their processor.
</rant>

Olympics

Had a conversation today about the Olympics. I've basically given up on the male end of the American contribution to the games. Our baseball team couldn't qualify, our basketball team sucks, our gymnists suck, a couple swimmers are okay, but overall they suck. However, our women are rocking the damn house. I told the guys this and they seem to think it's because other countries don't have an emphasis on women's athletics.

I'm not saying I totally disagree with that statement, but it seems an awful discredit to what these women are doing. Our softball team has shut out all but the Australian team. I don't know much about Australia, but something tells me they work just as hard as our women. Yet, we only gave up one point to them. Our women gymnastics (aside from being nearly the only non-anorexic girls otut there as well as the cutest) are medaling in almost everything they do. I could go on about diving, track, and the other events they're bringing home, but it'd just be beating a dead horse.

My point is this: our women rock. You can't take that away from them. It's on film for crying out loud.

School

School starts tomorrow. Yeah. I think. My first class is at 4:40pm. This is going to be a long semester, I can feel it already. Luckily, it's my last so as long as I don't fall into the "just 100 more days" rut, I should be good to go.

I forgot about this eariler... the damn comic store has more than one girl working there. The one yesterday wasn't as cute, and she was on the phone telling a customer that she really doesn't know much about comics. I'm wondering if maybe it's not just a marketing ploy to get suckers like me to hit their store a whole bunch just for the girls.

WACD

Been working on a remote control app for WinAmp (so we can have music on the laptop and change it up w/o getting out of our chairs). It's coming along pretty nicely. The only problem is that as of now, you can't load playlists or play CDs. Not too big of a deal, just some inconveniences.

Also got a gmail account yesterday. Suprisingly, all the names I wanted were taken. I didn't think many people watched ATHF but I guess enough did to take up all the cool names. Ended up choosing one that works out well (no, I'm not gonna post it here) and still lets people who know some things know that I'm a complete dork.

I Love Bees

I told myself I wouldn't fall into it. I absolutely hate marketing campains meant to grab the weak minded and force them to buy things they don't need and can't afford. Then I saw that it's coming to my town... in fact very close to where I'm sitting at this exact moment. So I guess I'll be there. I read the story and as much as I hate the idea of it making sense, it's interesting and might work itself into Halo 2 really well. I even visited the ninja bees Wiki to see what others had gotten. That's where I found the GPS and the time. Should be either very interesting to see what's going on, or I will make a complete ass of myself (and only to myself if I keep it on the down-low).

Of course I have no idea what's going on, and I'm not really even sure if it's attachment to Halo 2 is something worth looking into, but again, it's just that interesting.

Bestest night evAr

Decided to do a bbq last night. Find out a couple other guys were coming over to leach the fire and get some free food. They brought some shrimp so I'm not complaining. We ended up eating some semi-raw potatoes with it all while watching them cute little girls do their gymnastics routines.

Where it all gets to be a blast is when the other fellows leave and my roommate convinces me to bust my saxophone out. I haven't even opened the case for this thing since the last day of my senior year of high school over 4 years ago. It was not a pretty sound that came out of it but I ended up really surprised at my ability to remember a lot of the fingerings (in fact, I was amazed I could even read the music any more). He's excited to go get some reeds and some rubbing alcohol so he can play around with it. It makes me reminisce about all the good times I had playing that thing.

We also tried to jam some drums and guitar, but thing of all things, I can keep on a beat and play other people's music really well, but when it comes to being creative with my own music I'm like some kind of idiot uncreative person thing. Very not pretty.

We also had several hours of going back through yearbooks (we went to the same high school as well as worked together for like 2 years after I graduated), looking at all of the girls that were amazingly hot but are now probably fat and popping kids out like machines. Lots of funny stories were told, lots of bitching about the place we used to work (they bastardized my layout for their website after I left). Lots of good memories in high school... makes me wonder wtf happened in the last four years to make everything not as fun.

We're gonig shopping tomorrow. I want to stop by the comic book store again. It's funny because this whole being single and hanging with the guys thing has been really, really fun... but I miss talking to the female variety of people. Most of my friends in high school were girls (and now I can't even make idle conversation with them) so when the initial nervous wears off it actually ends up better conversation than I would have with a guy. I know I'll make an ass of myself, but I think talking to the comic store girl might be a good idea. Take my mind off of some things I tried so hard to put behind me, before I get not happy again.

Morgan Webb redux

I <3 Morgan Webb says Morgan Webb did an 8 page shoot for FHM. Still just a rumor but man has she let some dignity slip. Not that there's anything wrong with showing off what she obviously knows she has (and it's not like I wouldn't front some $$$ to see it anyway), but come on, smart chicks that respect themselves are hot.

In life's news, I'm tired. I don't know. I left work early yesterday for a nap that didn't happen. I seem to be sleeping okay (I wake up a couple times though when it gets too hot) so I'm not sure what's up. When I wake up, I look like I haven't slept for a week. I know I'm not sleep walking because there's no way I'd get down them stairs in my sleep without hurtling myself off the balcony. It's very confusing.

Serenity

A couple of things to think about:

Bill Hicks quotes
Bill Hicks website

Magic: The Gathering

My roommate has gotten me back into the obsession. I haven't played in something like 8 years and I feel really behind the times with it. I'd like to build up a really good couple of decks, but I'm so poor that it's going to be really hard to break out of the pre-cons you can buy at the store. He's got some great tips and everything, but with such a limited selection I'm not sure how well I'll be able to do at it. Either way, it's a lot of fun to get in a couple of games when we're both here, even if I do end up losing almost every game.

FYI - The guy below us is a real dick when it comes to loud music. Luckily, his tastes don't seem too far off from mine so it's getting to be not so bad.

Update

Mac & buger - Dry and cruddy... and plenty left.
Sticky Rice - Mmmm... and there's enough for tomorrow.

They say not to store sushi rice... I say why not? It's still good the next day if you just want to eat the rice.

Cooking

I hate cooking. I'm making some kind of hamburger macorroni thing. It looks terrible. I'm also trying my hand at some sushi rice so hopefully that'll be the saving grace. I also hate shopping because it seems like nothing lasts more than a week around here and it's all so damned expensive. Is everything in adulthood this much of a recurring pain in the ass?

I picked up some comics yesterday as we were hunting for my first Magic: The Gathering cards in about 8 years. I got some Ultimate Spider Man's that are supposed to introduce the new Carnage. I don't know who dropped the ball and where it happened, but these Spider Man comics really suck the big one. In the original, Carnage was the offspring of Venom and attached to Kletus Cassidy... a serial killer. Lots of blood in every comic he showed up in. This new Carnage is now some kind of genetic thing spawned from Spider Man's DNA and instead of killing people in a mass homocide he just sucks the life from them and leaves a mummy. Not cool. I'm an adult and I deserve an adult Spider Man.

Speaking of comic store, the girl working there was really cute. I might head back this week to see if she might like to do something. I know it will just end poorly for me, but I can't really afford many comics so it shouldn't too bad of a loss if she says no.

Schooled My Shit

So the other day I said Lacuna Coil is a good band. I was wrong. This band is some of the finest music I've heard in a while. It's like someone said "Hey, let's make a good goth/hard-rock band... only instead of having a pussy ass guy sing falsetto, we'll get a hot chick who can actually sing like an angel" and Lacuna Coil was born. The only reason you have to not check them out is if you were either born without ears or have had them removed in some horrible accident. And it better have been a severely horrible accident or your excuse isn't good enough.

Latest Obsession

Jessica Alba. Mmmm....

Extensions

I'm starting to wonder if maybe Microsoft is extending itself a bit too much. I say this because if you click the link up there you'll find an article about SP2 being a mixed bag for people. Some really like it, others hate it. In particular I note that the new XP firewall can be turned off by an arbitrary application (given suitable rights, which most XP PCs will have on the default user); MSVC++.NET 2k3 remote debugging has issues; remote desktop ports are closed off even if remote desktop was turned on before SP2 install; and IE updates are still far too minimal.

What really stands out is that the IE updates people really want are still missing. No tabbed browsing, poor PNG support, and a lack of standards compliance overall. The solution most people turn to is 3rd party browsers such as Firefox. I'm left wondering why Microsoft has left IE in the dust until Longhorn ships? Why make the push for browser integration and then drop it like a bad habit when it had such a large corner on the market? Overextension is about the only thing I can think of. Too many people working on other things and products that aren't even on the market yet. I honestly can't see any other possible situation that could lead to something like this.

Atomic Bomb

I got done reading something just now about the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Japan. I honestly don't understand why people have such a harsh reaction to that event (as well as the dropping of the first bomb). It really makes me wonder if the people pissing about it really checked into what was going on at the time.

If you look at almost any battle America had with Japanese forces, these people would literally continue fighting until they could fight no more. They would not give a position until they absolutely had to. They suffered immense casualties in normal warfare because of this. They fought savagely and brutaly (hence the image of archaic asian people from the 40s and 50s). We dropped the bombs because we knew that if we brought the front line to them, it would cost more lives than dropping the bombs did. Most importantly, it would cost more American lives. The math was done and the bombs were dropped. If there were another choice, it would've been taken.

It's an unfathomable thing in an era where precision air strikes and special forces take care of the dirty work, but at a time when real people had to do real fighting and dying (not to mention the fact that I've heard somewhere that the Japanese government was intending on having civilians fight with whatever they could get their hands on) the only option was to kill enough to people to make them say "hey, this fight isn't worth the cost". Anyone who does enough looking will see that the Japanese were and still are an extremely proud people. Just the same as we would stand in the streets with rocks and defend ourselves if we had to, so would they.

I'm not saying it was the best that could have happened, I'm just saying it was necessary and given the available options and probably outcomes it ended up saving a good amount of lives from being lost over a long period of time.

Now I'm going to go back to watching my anime and enjoying my Sony music system.

Note to Self

Lacuna Coil is a good band. Probably influenced Evanescence.

PVP Fun

"My brain is hung like a horse." Absolutely brilliant!

Comics

Linked up there to today's PA post. I like to think this new movement parallels the Open Source movement. People doing what they love and doing whatever's necessary to continue doing those things. I for one welcome our new webcomic overlords. I'm sick of Charlie Brown and Family Circus and I think only good things could come from this.

Not to mention that PVP is one of the funniest things on the internet. I had no idea Scott Kurtz had a book deal with Image. Might have to check that out.

Eggs

I just messed up my first scrambled eggs attempt. Not sure where I went wrong, but the ended up spotted with yellow instead of just yellow. The book had a big thing about mixing milk with the eggs and I was like, "Mom didn't do that, just put the eggs in the pan and see what happens... you know it'll be fun". Now I have to eat it.

On the Doom3 front, I made it to hell and back yesterday. That was probably the most intense part of the game. They really put a lot of effort into making you feel like you are right in the pits of the worst place imaginable. But I now have the soul cube and am tearing through zombies and demons like a madman back on Mars. It's slow going, but I guess I have to deal with real world responsibilities before I can vanquish evil for good.

My favorite (well... something like favorite) demon so far is the Cherrub. This thing is like a half-insect half-baby thing that sounds like a cute little baby when it's coming to attack and it screams like a baby being pinched when you shoot it. It really gives me the creaps every time they pop up.

Annoyance

So we got our cable yesterday. Thought I'd hit some Doom3 online. Guess what? The server browser is fux0r3d. Major fux0r3d. Seems every server is password protected, but the password filter doesn't work so you can't get rid of them. It also appears as though some people have found a way to get more than 4 players on a server... but when you try to join the 3/10 match, it tells you the server is full. The sort by ping... doesn't sort by anything, it just reverses the order of the servers. And to top it off, the people touting the co-op mod were actually allowing server admins to steal your CD key. Aren't people great?

So it looks like I'll be sticking to LAN Doom3 until a patch is released that gives us a server browser that actually works as advertised. I'm still trying to get through the single player portion of the game, it's just become very difficult trying to do so when other things keep coming up.

Still no internet

I was up playing Doom3 last night (when it finally got dark) and man did it scare the crap out of me. I have some lights on my computer that change colors, and when they change it gets dark, which just so happens to look like the shadow of someone walking by out of the corner of my eye. I almost jumped the first time it happened.

So far the game is absolutely amazing. The only problem is that I feel very disengaged from the story. Like I'm just doing my thing with this bigger plot going on around me that I can't actually be a part of. I don't really like that because it's more like watching a movie than playing a game. However, there was one part where a lady is whispering to you, and if you follow her voice it takes you... wait... no, I won't ruin it. Let's just say it was as creepy as anything I've ever seen in a great B horror flick.

DOOM3!@!!!

It's here! We tried to snag a copy early last night but it didn't work out. So during my lunch break we went and picked it up. I'm now at work late because I couldn't stop playing. It's a damn hard game, looks supreme, and the 10 minute multiplayer we played was pretty cool. You really have to see this game to believe it. And you know what? I'm playing on Medium settings and it still looks great. A couple slow downs but nothing major.

So back to work I go so I can get back to the apartment and back to Doom3.

Waiting

My truck is in the shop getting the exhaust fixed. They said "We'll try for 12" with the look of a lier on their faces (this is at 8:30 in the am). It's now 2 and I have a feeling I'm going to be sitting on this empty floor for the rest of the day. I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better to shell the cash for the dealer's promise of 1 hour.

In other news, no cable until thursday. Luckily Doom3 will be here either tonight (if we can convince the best buy folks to get a couple of copies out for us) or tomorrow so not having the internet won't be that bad.