April 30: I Don't Like Star Wars

Woohoo! I got my marks back from the spring semester and I got a C in the course I was sure I'd failed. That's really surprising. I can only assume it was a benevolent mistake. Anyway, I'm fairly happy with my range of marks (A- B B- C) considering how stressed out I was during finals season.

Last night, Tony and I (mainly Tony, of course) installed Redhat 9 on Trinity. It's a bit slow compared to Windows 2000 (I always thought Linux would run faster than Windows) but it's really purdy. I've got a dual-boot thing setup. If I like Redhat, I might dual-boot my laptop, too. It all depends on how well Wine works, I guess. However, Windows, in general, is much, much prettier.

Anyway, I'm in the process of downloading music for a new audio CD, “Muzak to Drive To”, which is going to be all car commercials. I love car commercial music, especially Mitsubishi's stuff (I love the new ad with “Start the Commotion” in it). It'll also be fun to have the Vibe music.

Du du. Du du. Du du. Du du...

April 28: Um...poop

Yay. Simon Says has been bastardized into Simon Swears. You go play. Now.

April 27: Magic Squares

So bored of work...

Remember magic squares?

April 27: Stroke of Luck

Do you think that the vast majority of songs mean anything at all? Sometimes you hear a song that is quite obviously full of symbolism. And a lot of the time, songs are utterly vacuous. However, in the middle is a group of songs that sound symbolic, but may or may not be. Take, for example, “Above” by Finger Eleven:

We are strong, but we're dumb
We look above, we loook above

To me, this seems like a statement about religion — you know, something to the effect of, here we are, we're an amazing species, but for some reason, we feel this unneccessary need for the supernatural to control our lives.

Last night, Mike and I were discussing “Yellow Taxi” by the Counting Crows. It seems symbolic, but it's unclear what it's symbolic about. In the end, Mike decided it was about a guy who was so caught up in trying to save the environment that his girlfriend left him. That might be it.

I've got to get back to work. I will see most of you later. Remind me to buy a spindle of CDs tomorrow.

April 26: aY htiW gnikcuF tsuJ

Ssh.

Don't tell Mike, but I've come up with a brilliant new way of not only annoying him, but making him think he's a little crazy. You, too, can try this at home. Just get your mommy or daddy to cut along the dotted lines.

Whenever he comments on something, I wait a few minutes (not too long...maybe two or three) and then repeat the same thing in almost the same way. If he calls me on it (which he rarely does), I feign innocence.

It's starting to work. But don't tell him.

April 26: Hmm...

I would so vote here if I was an American.

April 26: Yes!

Victoreeeeeee! Well, almost.

April 25: Mailbox Pixelfest

Ugh. The inbox has become my most detested of computer metaphors. I can handle the desktop, I can handle the recycle bin...but the inbox drives me crazy.

Every time I check my mail, I picture a few dozen greasy con-artists standing next to my mailbox and shoving greasy letters at me. After deleting 60 or 70 of those, I get to the good stuff, usually one or two letters from a friend.

I hate spam. I hate email. I demand an authenticated, traceable Internet. Screw anonymity.

Sigh. I don't mean that. But the Interweb really needs to be regulated, and not with the copyright garbage everyone concentrates on.

April 25: Sweet...

So, I finally did it — I started to learn C++. This is a big deal for me. I haven't accomplished anything particularly interesting — in fact, my efforts have thus far been rather pathetic — but it's just a start.

So far, I wrote a console based piece of crap that prints out whatever you type in backwards, and an even crappier graphical piece of crap that prints out “Hewwo, welcome to HOMESTARRUNNER.NET. It's dot com.” Don't ask.

Anyway, I'm quite liking it. Sure, Visual C++ looks like it was designed by someone with severe mental retardation, but it's got all the stuff I love about C. Pointers, segmentation faults, no memory management — it's programming the way it's meant to be. Or something.

For some reason, coding in Visual Basic isn't particularly impressive. The only thing less impressive than VB is Java.

April 23: Ooooooh...

I want one.

April 23: Invisible

Hmm. The Internet is getting to be a strange, strange place. What started out as a haven of free information exchange and easy communication has become an entangled mess of lawsuits and largely unsuccessful attempts at anonymity.

I suppose anonymity has its uses, sometimes at least. Invisiblog is the most interesting thing I have seen in that vein for a while. I saw it on Slashdot. Basically, it uses a network of remailers to completely mask your updates, which are posted to an anonymous and untraceable (well, easily) blog. Pretty nifty. I'm sure the evil dictators are Homeland Security will have a shitfit when they see this.

Who else is here? I'm bored...

April 22: I'm a Song from the Sixties

Hey, you. Yes, YOU. Put down the fork for a minute and go here. Now.

Best...ad...ever. Those sany brits. This took 600 takes. It's not CG.

April 21: Three Things

Adri had the answers to a quiz called Three Things. Anyhoo, I filled it out. Don't know why...Wesleeeey.

April 20: Perfect Strangers

Sometimes I get a feeling that I've been where I am before. Not a physical location; a mental place. I feel like the exact same thoughts were going through my head in the exact same order, and I'm always just as tired as I was the last time I thought so. And then this thought, this concept of mental deja vu (forgive me for not inserting the appropriate accent) pops up. The sequence ends and I'm back to where I started, sitting on the couch. Watching a TV show about Atlantis.

Is it unsual to feel some sort of familiarity with a place that exists nowhere but online, or to feel close to people you've never met? It's strange that the only thing you need to link two people are little strands of metal carrying electricity. Very strange, indeed.

Tomorrow is cram day. I have to succeed on my statistics exam or I will absolutely freak out. I don't need to do outstanding on it, and, in fact, a 70% would be sufficient for me to initiate the long dormant Dance of Joy. Three hours of incomprehensible, inapplicable mathematics and best-guesses stand between me and summer.

Summer is worth waiting for. It will be great. It will be full of roadtrips, iced cappucinos, and a zany Australian.

It will be great.

April 20: The Reflex Tester

Go to here and test your reflexes. It's addictive! I've never beaten 0.27 or so.

Oh, and go visit the best website ever.

April 20: Time to Kill

I scored
72¼%
on the classic 400 Point Purity Test!
Take the test here!

April 20: They're Still Stupid

People are still stupid. One has to feel a certain outrage at crap like this. I'm all for the battle against kiddie pr0n, but people are a little too edgy sometimes.

Anyway.

Noah Grey is an amazing photographer.

April 19: Stuck in the Holodeck

First of all, Underworld looks like it is going to be an absolutely fantastic movie. It's about a war between werewolves and vampires, happening in the modern world without us realizing it. It comes out September 19th, which seems a bit late for a blockbuster, but hits the Halloween market I suppose. It should be cool.

Nothing else to say at the moment.

April 19: Three-d

I had the weirdest dream last night. I was coding. As geeky as that sounds, it's not all that uncommon for me.

But it was weird. I was seeing the code as a constructed whole, a strange 3D mesh. Every line I changed would cause drastic changes — things would appear, or move around, or change their colour. It was so weird...I wish I could see it again.

It'd be the best IDE ever.

April 19: Woohoo

We're finally back! The trip was a grand total of 250 kilometers, and here is a little map. It's sort of a loop. We did it counter-clockwise.

Fun stuff.

April 18: Note to Self

Note to Self:

Do not visit Apollo ever again.

What a sickeningly surreal evening this has been.

So, it's approximately 10:54 pm and we're still driving. At 5:30ish we left my place and hooked up with Mike around 6 or 6:30, switching to the van at that point. (We just passed a taxidermist). We had the intent of playing the map game tonight, but I stupidly suggested visiting Apollo. he lives in Musquodobit, which isn't too far from Halifax (so I thought, anyway). We got to Musqoudobit and looked him up in the phone booth. Despite the sick amount of people who share his rather rare last name, I got his huse on the second try and we headed to Upper Musqoudoubt. He'd warned us that it was a bit of drive, but we had no idea. At 10:15 we got to his house. That's a lot of driving.

We're currently facing the midnight crisis, wherein Mike loses his ability to legally drive. We have 62 minutes to reach the real world and home. Sigh.

At any rate, I have atleast figured out where all the nature went. It's at Apollo's house. All of it. The stars are really, really bright. It's a little disconcerting. Give me dull stars and civilization any day over Upper Musqoudobit, population Four.

My day, such as it was, was rather productive. I spent the afternoon with Annette, studying for my stats exam, which is on Tuesday. I worked on my cheat sheet, which is, like, 50% done. I love exams with cheat sheets. Even though they're usually harder. I think we're actually allowed to bring our text book as well. Woot woot. I mean, w00t w00t.

I am using the weirdest font in the world.

Must go. Many emails to write. Oh wait, I'm in a car. Damnit. Meh. Must go anyway.

Hey Keddy . . . Yesh.

April 18: What city are you?

Here's an interesting, US-centric quiz by Girlwithagun that's fast and fun to take. Found by dotgirl.

I am...


Take it.

April 18: The Seven Month Cycle

Alright. It's been more than four years since I first noticed The Seven Month Cycle. It's time to codify it.

The Seven Month Cycle is a music-related cycle that repeats (get this) every seven months. Basically, every month or so (sometimes longer, but not by much), my taste in musical genre rapidly switches. However, once seven months go by, I'm back to my original genre.

Here, as far as I can tell, are those genres:
  1. Eighties (Depeche Mode, Petshop Boys)
  2. Punk (Blink-182, random MP3.com band)
  3. Pop (Whatever is current, generally speaking)
  4. Dance (Mainly eurodance stuff)
  5. Rap (Whatever is current)
  6. Angry (Stabbing Westward, etc)
  7. Mellow (Aimee Mann sorta stuff)
There isn't much of a segway between the genres. Unfortunately, I'm just on the cusp of the 4/5 transition, I can feel it. I hate rap. But the last few songs I've heard have been surprisingly catchy.

I can offer no proof or explanation for the cycle. However, those who know me in real life will attest to its reality — remember when I went nuts over Dilemma by Nelly last September? It's April, it's been seven months...

I believe this cycle began when I first got into MP3s, although there may have been fewer genres (and each would have lasted longer, since the cycle was still seven months long). CD00 is full of eighties stuff. CD01 and CD02 were full of a lot of alternative (though not really punk) music. CD05 and CD06 were angry. CD07 - CD09 were pop. After that, they were mellow until about CD14. Anyway, I'm not going to go through all 87 CDs. But the theory is solid.

Weird, eh?

April 17: Eegads

Lifted from rainy who lifted it from excite:

A controversial new Vatican glossary of sexual terms says homosexuals are not normal and that countries which allow gay marriages are inhabited by people with “profoundly disordered minds.”

Sigh. Why do people listen to anything these people say anymore?

April 17: Ugh

Worst...day...ever.

April 16: Keep Going

You know, it's funny. When you lose contact with someone that you care about, they don't really leave. In your head, they're usually still around. No matter how much time goes by, they stay as they were. Most of the time, you don't think about them. But when you do, it's still alright. Fights and differences fade away. You're left with a perfect snapshot of a perfect version of them in your head.

Forever.

April 16: Sweaty Toilet

Why do toilets sweat? I mean, I understand the physical explaination. But do they really, really have to? Can't they wait until we're in bed before they get all moist? It's really gross!

Anyhoo, I wanna say hi to dotgirl. Congratulations on being the first non-hostile visitor to this site that I've never met in real life. Everyone else, go visit her site, it's quite nice.

I'm listening to Tupac. Please stop me!

Permalink of the Day: a list of my albums collection.

April 15: Lost Again

You need to bow down and kneel to the absurdities Tony is capable of spewing forth when given access to a keyboard:

Im a taco. Im a FLAMING taco!!!

Im gonna get myself connected. 10(<something something> connected)

Sigh. Poor Tony. He thinks he's people.

It's actually quite absurd what I am listening to at the moment. Let me begin with some backfill before I tell you. Hopefully, by the time I'm done, the song will be over and I'll be listening to something more respectable.

Having a big chunk of free disk space on Trinity, I decided it would be nice to have all of my full albums in one place, easily accessible by the network. So, I'm in the process of going through all of my CDs and pulling the albums off of them. I have 87 CDs, I've done the first 25. Since I started the whole CD thing back in 1998, the first 25 are a bit dated. Anyway, I've got all of these albums (91 of them, in fact, although there are two or three singles) in one big playlist (über.m3u). Listening randomly.

And I actually just listened to all of 5ive - That's What You Told Me. Yes, that's right. Not only was it a boyband song, it was a bad song by a bad boyband (well, badder than usual). I'm very sad. Drumroll to find out the next song...and it's NSync. Alright, I have way too many boyband CDs. 25 tracks by No Doubt. 40 by Offspring. 31 by Greenday. And it's the friggin' boyband songs that play. Sigh. CTRL-ALT-B.

G'night.

April 13: Insert Typo Here

Please explain something to me. It's driving me insane.

Why is it that, as they get older, men grow gigantic ears? What is it about the ear that is so important it has to double in size when they hit 65? It's creepy! I was in a line behind an old guy trying to figure out what lotto ticket he wanted to buy. His ears were blocking the sun. Seerweeoslee.

Anyway, here's a challenge. Figure out what, exactly, you can accomplish in 20 seconds. Here's the start of my list:
  • enter a record at work
  • boot up my computer
  • transfer an mp3 between home computers
  • pee
That's it for now.

April 09: $23.10

A hair cutting salon is a strange environment to be in. It's very austere...a bit creepy. As far as I can tell, this is where cheerleaders end up after high school. Everyone seems to be obsessed with their personal appearance, despite the fact that they usually have some sort of genetic disadvantage.

And the floors...they're worse than the bathroom of any bachelor. Tiny hairs, everywhere. I think there might be some in my nose, and I'm just in the waiting area.

But it smells nice.

Alanis Morisette is on the radio. I hate Alanis. Especially “Thank You,” which is the song that is playing. Everytime I hear it, I have this flash of the video and her grody, naked body flashes before my eyes. Shudder.

I'm working on decoding the .eml file format. Actually, that's not the best word for it. The format is pretty simple, no decoding required. What I want is to get a good way of backing up my emails. Outlook offers the Personal Folder file, but it's not browseable — you have to import it back into Outlook to read the emails. If you drag messages out of Outlook Express, however, you get .eml files (for some reason, Outlook provides .msg files when you do this, and they are stored in a totally cryptic format). Their filenames are pretty crappy, though, so I'm going to write a program to grep the date, subject, and sender, and shove them into the filename. Pretty.

Anyway, that is all that I feel like typing.
  • Written on 09 April 2003 & posted at 02:55 PM.
  • There are .
  • Permalink.

April 09: It's Still April

Ugh. Winter: go away. It's April. It's been April for more than a week. Pack up your snow and leave!

Anyway, I'm done my second exam (psych). The next one is in eight days (dkf). Crud.

I'm so tired of school. I just want to start working full time. And I also want to sleep, right now.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

April 06: Daylight savings, my ass

Ugh! I hate time changes. Whoever invented them was a total knob. As much as I love the “fall back” bit, it really sucks to “spring forward”.

I suppose I can't be too bad. Daylight savings is just one of the many brilliant Canadian creations. Yep. Jet engines, telephones, and daylight savings. If you're bored as hell or actually interested in useless knowledge, here's a nice list of stuff invented by Canadians.

Anyway, I'm thinking I want to build a library. Nothing major, just take a corner of my room and organize all of my books. I have quite a few, and I want more. Books are one of those things that are fun to collect. After all, information is the most important thing in life, right? No, wait...that was family. Oh well. Info can be number two. No, wait...info can be number one. Family can be zero.

Well, I'm off to work. I'm so tired.

April 02: Lonely Toothbrusher

Oh my God, the lonely toothbrusher finally did it: he (or she, but I think that only a guy could be this stupid) has revolutionized the toothbrushing industry.

Oh, no, wait — that's just stupid.

April 02: Spring?

Ugh. I hate this time of year, but I love it at the same time. I'm so tired of school and just wish it was over at this point. I have an exam on Saturday.

However, it's all nice outside, finally. I'm not a big fan of summer, but I love late spring — it's not too hot. Before I know it, I'm going to be old, and I never enjoyed my summers as much as I think I should have. So I think I'll try to have an interesting summer this year. Maybe I'll travel a bit.

Anyway, I have a photo of the crazy flooding that happened in Nova Scotia a few days ago. This is the sort of crazy thing that I thought only happened to inbreeding little hick towns in the States. Go figure.

I have a few other photos but I'm not going to bother putting them up. One shows Tim Horton's being flooded, and I just can't take that.