ShinyPlasticBag

So, I am currently in the CS learning center, working on an assignment for operating systems (my algorithms assignment having been completed in record time). I forgot my textbook, so I was looking up the definition of a frame (a memory frame, not a video frame or a web page frame) online. For some reason, I just kept reading the online glossary (ah, useless knowledge) and found this assuming entry:

You have to love the geek sense of humour. It's fantastic.

However, speaking of fault tolerant, my ISP certainly is not, because Internet access is down in my area. According to Sarah, a fast-fingered customer support emailer, there's people on site fixing it at this very nanosecond. Yay. I was a little nervous, since my server had given up on itself a few days ago. I'm still not ready to trust it (sniff).

...

Wow, it's better about ten hours since I wrote this entry. Time to post it, I guess. Until next time: think...grass. A few of you will understand in a few weeks.

• Written on 28 November 2003 & posted at 10:58 PM.
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So, tonight I hung out with Janet and Keddy — fun times. Whilst Janet was applying for a job, Keddy and I sat in the car and listened to the radio, discovering new and crappy stations that we didn't know were there. I guess this drained the car's battery a bit too much, because it really didn't want to start when it was time to go. It freaked me out a little bit, to be honest, since the “Check Engine” light has been on for a week. Mysteriously, it had turned off earlier today.

That, coupled with the fact that my webserver (Trinity) didn't die when her CPU fan stopped spinning, leads me to believe that things that live at our house all know how to fix themselves and deal with their own problems. Let's not forget the fact that Limechan, my old computer, was/is alive and (as far as I can tell) sentient, and you have some weird stuff going on. This house is strange.

Anyway, my life, to sum up, consists of...school. That's about it, unfortunately, but the semester is almost over, so fear not. Plans for winter break: sleep, blog, code, buy. I'm a consumer whore.

(And how.)

• Written on 26 November 2003 & posted at 11:35 PM.
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So, the CPU fan in my webserver died while I was at school today. Fortunately, it knew enough to turn itself off instead of melting, and the problem is now fixed. I've replaced the CPU fan (for, like, the tenth time in two years — I don't know what's wrong there) and set up the computer with a big house fan pointed directly inside. Problem fixed.

Sorry for the Linkpool outage. And check out Juan Aleman if you've been following the John Ale story at all.

• Written on 26 November 2003 & posted at 06:04 PM.
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It's weird the things people do when they love you. Doesn't matter who it is, or what sort of love it is either. I think it's sort of weird the way that people become interconnected. I don't know what it is about humans that makes us need other people so much, since I can't see too much of an evolutionary benefit in tight bonds like that. However, it's great. Grade A, eh?

Class in 30 minutes, and not a whole lot to say. I spent yesterday going absolutely crazy over my operating systems assignment, which I strategically left until the very last day to start. I managed to get it done, though, so who says procrastination doesn't pay off? Seriously, though, I think I'd be a lot less likely to keep getting into these predicaments if I actually didn't get everything done somehow anyway. Speaking of “these predicaments”, I have an assignment due for my object-oriented programming class tonight, and I haven't put a single byte down for it yet. Not even a header. Eep.

On the bus ride over here, I was happily playing Uplink (best game ever) and some guy sat down next to me. That bit isn't so weird, but he started talking to me, and we discussed things like how computers really rule the entire world and hackers and stuff like that. Good conversation. The odd thing, though, was the guy. He totally looked like an wannabe 80s rocker — long, scraggily hair, leather jacket, etc. The judging of books by their covers (and/or protective jackets) shall hereby cease.

I'm currently sitting in Ground Zero in the CS building. I am really starting to wish that it looked like winter outside. Now that the loveliness of fall is gone, and the warm weather with it, I figure we should at least have snow. It's only fair, right? Without the snow, it's hard to know when I should whip out CD36 and start blasting the retro Christmas music from 1999. Easy-E was great. For some reason, I'm having a memory of listening to “Christmas with Perry Como” in Sarah Maher's car the night we went to visit Jen in the hospital. Mike, do you remember how we moved her car across the parking lot by putting it in neutral and pushing? That was a fun night.

Anyway, I have to head off to communications, oh joy/oh bliss. Have fun.

• Written on 25 November 2003 & posted at 11:13 AM.
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Isn't that great? I think it looks just like him. Congratulations on creating what may well be the longest comment thread ever; more to come later. I'm very stressed out about my operating systems assignment.

• Written on 24 November 2003 & posted at 08:43 AM.
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CSCI 3120: Operating Systems and Computer Architecture

Well, I'm doing well in that class. Actually, I'm doing really well overall this semester. I'm pretty happy with myself; normally I slack off for most of the semester and then, in a mad panic attack at the end of term, work my ass off to get a B. Not anymore, oh no. I'm actually putting effort into school henceforth. I'm doing well in everything; if I get a 95% or higher on my Object Oriented Programming final, I'll get an A+ in the class. But even if I get something as low as an 88%, I'll still get an A. Score.

I'm happy. School rocks. You know what else rocks about school? The Internet access here. Look how fast this transfer went:



Classy. With those two files now complete, John only needs one more episode to have the complete first five seasons of Friends. Then, I just have to get copies burned off. I wonder why “The Man” gets so pissed off at people who download television shows, since they're (effectively) free to watch anyway? Maybe it's because it's convenient and makes us happy. That always pisses him off.

Anyway, I'm going to go watch them now. I'm really dead tired, and actually in bed even though it's only 8:30ish. Life has been so frantic lately, it's really been brain-draining. Sleep.

PS: To aid the people that found my site by searching for the reason when downloading songs from Kazaa suddenly hang, the answer is, as always, the RIAA. They plant those files to make file-sharing more difficult.

• Written on 21 November 2003 & posted at 08:31 PM.
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Ah, winter: I love it. Sure, I realize that it's still fall for another month-and-a-bit, but the very best part of winter has already started. The air is cool and crisp, and every morning, the ground is white with frost and just a little bit crunchy. I can see my breath. Although you will probably hear me complain about winter, just like I have in years gone by, for now, I am am loving it.

This isn't really winter that's approaching, though. I hope you know that. If you don't live here, I guess you don't, but Nova Scotian winters are strange, strange things. November will be filled with lovely almost winterness and Christmas decorations will slowly appear. By December, we will have fluffy snow (were we in the public school system still, snow days!). That's really where it should end, but no, it keeps going. January is frigid cold and the snow has stopped being fluffy. It's around this point, I think, that Winter has remembered how to make the best snow for making driving difficult, and it must be excited to make use of it.

February, it will be very, very cold, and the snow will be mixed with freezing rain that makes life almost impossible. We will wake up to cars embedded in opague ice like ironic glassien sculptures. We will be sick of playing in the snow and making snowpeople and snowangels. However bad February was, March will be worse; not because of the weather (which will mainly follow a rain-snow-rain-snow pattenr), but because we are so sick of winter dragging on. By the end of the month, though, as we realize that winter is ending, we will enjoy one last snowfall and make gigantic things in our yards.

Or so it has been in the past.

The malls have begun to gear up for Christmas — this is a process that apparently began sometime last week. It hasn't been all that long since I've been to the mall, so I must have just missed the decorations. I was in a “Season's Greetings” mall last night for the first time this year when I went to see Kill Bill: Vol 1 (for the second time, and by the way, the next part comes out in February) with Mike, Steve, and Janet. As tacky as decorated malls are, they are always sort of nice the very first time of the season. Or at least, I think so.

So, Christmas looms on the horizon. We really need to draw names for Secret Santa.

Call me.

• Written on 19 November 2003 & posted at 09:56 AM.
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Tonight, I went to the Parade of Lights. At first, I thought I was going to the Festival of Lights, until somebody told me that was Hanukah/Chanukah. Now that I've actually looked up the correct spelling of Hanukah on Dictionary.com, it's actually the Feast of Lights. Wow, am I ignorant. Anyway, the Parade of Lights is an annual Christmas parade that winds its way through downtown Halifax and basically wreaks havoc on traffic, all while being the crappiest parade in the history of the human race. Seriously. I didn't think anything could be worse than last year's, but this one really was. Fortunately, it wasn't nearly as cold.

Janet and I met up with Russell, Amanda, Steve, Pugsley, and oddly enough, James, who we haven't seen in two years or so, and stood in front of the library on Spring Garden Road, watching such floats as the burn-treatment ward and the Children's Wish Foundation roll by at 5 km/h. The best part, as usual, was the Shriner's and their tiny motorcycles. Also great was the people who were victims of excessive political correctness, who were carrying a big banner that said “Merry Merry!” I'm a fan of political correctness, because not only does it level out the playing field for various under-represented groups, but it leads to ridiculous phrases such as that. I find it odd, however, that the same parade that featured the “Merry Merry!” banner had another float that said both “Keep the Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”. I really think it would have been funny if Mic Mac Mall had a float that said “Unadulterated Consumerism is the Reason for the Season.” Seriously.

But I am very tired, and the television show that's on right now is absolutely abhorrent. Medical dramas suck. So, I'm going to go read my book, and maybe play Sveerz. Best game ever.

• Written on 16 November 2003 & posted at 12:18 AM.
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I thought that, post-antitrust lawsuit, Microsoft finally had to stop linking all of their programs into one big anti-competitive heap? I just clicked a hyperlink in Microsoft Word and the bloody thing opened up in Internet Explorer, instead of my beloved (and most importantly, default) Firebird).

I really, truly thought that crap was over.

Anyway, the point of this entry is to point out a brilliant quote that Jonathan over at AnotherPointless.com pointed out a few weeks back:

I don't know that athiests should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
- George H. W. Bush, 41st President

People are stupid, especially (a) Americans, (b) The Bushes, and (c) Christian conservatives.

Allow me to quantify this, in the interest of not offending people too much. When I say Americans are stupid, I'm talking about the country stereotype. There's one for every country: the British are polite and old and drink tea a lot, Canadians are friendly lumberjacks. Americans are overconfident and inconsiderate, and actually hunted their national animal to the brink of extinction (did you know that they are importing bald eagles from Canada now?). It's just the generic. The vast majority of people don't match their stereotypes — I'm not a lumberjack, for example. However, the actions of each country as a whole tend to match the stereotypes pretty well.

• Written on 15 November 2003 & posted at 10:38 PM.
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I never thought I'd see this: Stuart McLean has a blog. Life is good — go give it a read. Unfortunately, you can't leave comments, but it's still super-great.

Check out the email I got that notified me of it:

Hi,
I recently convinced Stuart McLean to start keeping an online journal while
on tour for his new book Vinyl Cafe Diaries and now I feel that I owe it to
him to let as many people as possible know that it's out there. It's at
www.penguinblogs.ca/mclean and I thought you might want to check it out - I
noticed you enjoyed his work. Though it's hosted by Penguin, his publisher,
the blog is all Stuart - a nice slice of Canadiana, life on tour etc. If you
feel it's of interest to your readership, I'd be grateful if you mentioned
it on your site.

- Lindsey Lowy, Marketing and Internet Copywriter, Penguin Group (Canada)

Oh, the wonders of having a well-Googled site.

• Written on 13 November 2003 & posted at 10:47 AM.
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Have you ever had one of those days where, no matter who you call, you get a busy signal? I'm having one of those today. It's incredibly frustrating, and it makes me start to wonder if my phone is broken or something. Not that cell phones ever break in such a manner that they always give busy signals, but that's not the point.

I set up my PayPal account so that any money transferred to it gets sent to my Royal Bank chequing account automagically — it's pretty cool. At this point, it has yet to take effect, but it should at some point within the next few days. This is in preparation for the completion of the first Hipnite project. Oh, what a sweet moment that will be. Imagine getting paid for doing something I actually like. It's almost too good to be true.

I am excessively tired today. I place the blame squarely on tight pants, but staying up late last night probably had something to do with it as well, if only a tiny amount. I'm also in need of food and the only stuff I brought today was junk food, since there was nothing at home that could be easily transported to school.

Anyway, what's with this Paris Hilton sex video that's floating around the blogosphere right now? Everyone seems to have something to say about it, and I don't know why. I guess that at this point, I have officially added to the clutter, but I'm just confused. Paris Hilton is the daughter of the hotel mogul, and is one of those deplorable rich kids that never has to work a day in her life and spends all of her time partying. I guess it's not too smart to videotape yourself having sex if you're famous, because your face (and other things) end up plastered over the Internet. It's a wacky world.

Well, I'm off. I have to find something with which to amuse myself for the remaining 45 minutes until class. Xau.

• Written on 12 November 2003 & posted at 01:44 PM.
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The Whitehouse burned, burned, burned
And we're the ones that did it
It burned, burned, burned
While the Americans ran and cried
Like a bunch of little babies (wah wah wah)
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie - The War of 1812

This is part two of Living in America. You should read part one first.

The lack of metric measurements anywhere is a bit disconcerting. Going 55 on a freeway seems ridiculous to me, even though that's miles and not kilometres. Even if you convert it to kilometres (88 km/h), that's still pretty slow for highway driving. Top speed under any circumstances in the US is 65 miles an hour, which is only 104 km/h — a bit slower than our max speed (110). So, booyah for Canada.

Seriously, though, the units they've made up* to measure things here are ridiculous. For example, I bought a Coca Cola when I got here yesterday. It only cost a dollar, so I assumed it was a can, and I mentally bitched about how expensive that was. It turns out that it was a bottle approximately the same size as our 600 ml bottles. The catch: it wasn't measured in millilitres, it was measured in floz's. I'm not exactly sure how many millilitres are in a floz (or, obviously, how you pluralize them), but there were 20 in this bottle, so I'd guess there's about 30 ml per floz.

Anyway, I hereby conclude this blog entry. May I remind everyone of what a great band the Sounds are?

• Written on 10 November 2003 & posted at 11:54 PM.
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We're not living in america
But we're not sorry
I knew there was something that we never had
We don't worry
The Sounds - Living in America

This is part one of Living in America. You should read part two when you're done with this one.

Hey, guys. Check out this cool site I found, it's at...oh, wait. I'm disconnected for the second day in a row. No cool sites for you — and I think I am personally going through TCP/IP withdrawl.

That's right, ShinyPlasticBag is on hiatus whilst I wander Bangor, Maine with Janet, Mom, and my grandmother. I'm sitting in the continental breakfast area of the hotel, even though it's 11:00 at night. The coffee machine is still dispensing free coffee (and it's pretty good, too). I really am curious as to why there is no cream anywhere. What's with this ultra-pasteurized Half and Half stuff? I didn't even think stuff could be ultra-pasteurized. Weird.

It's been a pretty nice road trip, and I have some great stuff to take home. I really like Bangor, because it's just different enough from home to be interesting. The Bangor Mall, in particular, is great. Not only because it has a Hot Topic (a very cool store, where I bought some very great postcards — come see me for yours, Tony), but it has a Borders, too. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, Borders is like Chapters on speed. In fact, Chapters absolutely pales in comparison to Borders, because the selection at Borders is much more varied and they have music and movies on the second floor. I bought a copy of Merlin, the 1998 made-for-TV movie with Martin Short in it and the guy from Jurassic Park. I love that movie. Unfortunately, no books really caught my eye this time around, so I abstained. Other than the fact that bastardly debit machines at Borders won't read Canadian bank cards (invalid expiry date? Yeah...they don't expire...) when our debit machines have no trouble reading American cards, it was a fantastic experience. Not quite transcendental, but close.

Overall, though, the best part of visiting Maine seems to be the Combos. Combos are a fantastic form of junk food. Basically, depending on which kind you get, it's cheddar cheese wrapped up in either a pretzel or cracker tube. They're crunchy and salty and utterly fantastic. I bought ten bags at a gas station and the girl there gave me the traditional “He must be out on a day pass” sort of look. Whatever. The Combos are the only thing that matters. Thanks to the low sales tax those crazy Yankees have, I get to buy tons and tons of Combos.

However, as much as I'd love to have a 5% tax rate instead of 15%, we get benefits like, oh, I don't know, universal health care that make it worthwhile. When giving any statement like that, however, it should be pointed out that if America stopped bombing random countries and cut military spending by any more than 10% or so, they could afford a health care system at least as good as ours. Have you seen how much Vietnam 2.0 (where Afghanistan was Vietnam 2.0 beta) has cost them so far? It's absolutely sickening.

• Written on 10 November 2003 & posted at 11:52 PM.
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Well, I'm going to Bangor, Maine for the weekend — a micro roadtrip, as it were. So, I thought I'd make a “I'm not gonna update for a while” message to put here, which I know is somewhat taboo as far as the rules of blogging go, but I don't really care too much. I'll try to update if I can find Internet access down there, but we all know how well that worked out last time — I only got online once when I was in Montreal, and I didn't get a whole lot accomplished as far as blogging.

Two assignments due today: Algorithms and Operating Systems. I completed the OS assignment on Monday (and re-completed it on Wednesday, after an off-hand comment from another CS geek helped me make it infinitely better. I finished the algos assignment this afternoon, although I didn't get anything for one of the questions (there were five questions and a bonus; I got the bonus but not one of the other questions. Since they were worth the same amount, theoretically it should work out alright in the end). I've got a OOP assignment due on Monday, which sucks, because I won't be online all weekend to work on it. Fortunately, the professor gives everyone five free late days that aren't subtracted from your grade, and I've still got four of those left. I think I can safely use up one or two, since that's the second last assignment. It doesn't sound like a fun assignment at all.

Life is pretty exciting.

Anyway, I'm going to go waste my remaining half hour before class. Wish me luck in doing so without losing an eye. And Taylor: don't forget to keep Linkpool free of crap.

• Written on 07 November 2003 & posted at 01:51 PM.
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It's just a virus
He says to me
It's not quite the prison
you make it out to be
Sarah Fimm - Virus

Note: To settle the Pugsley/Janet argument regarding the gigantic book on mythology, the correct title is Mythologica. Now, stop bickering for the love of god.

Interesting paradox: “This sentence is false.” If the sentence is correct, then it is false. But if it is false, then it is correct. Fun stuff.

Today's topic is...post-urination handwashing (it also applies to post-crap handwashing, but that topic can be extended into a blog entry all of its own someday). That's right. How do you wash your hands after taking a leak in a public washroom?

Not so hasty — this is not an easy question. The post-pee handwash is an elaborate ballet, a dance of soap, water, and paper towel, where timing is the key and a dramatic flair provides absolutely no benefit. Yes, timing is key. Allow me to present the seed of this entry.

Continue reading “Well, isn't that...special?”...

• Written on 05 November 2003 & posted at 10:04 PM.
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Involuntary self-defense
Call it what you will
How can we go on?
Where do we go from here?
Fenix.tx - G.B.O.H.


So, Steve and I discovered a tongue twister tonight: “I love how my glove box locks, all glove boxes lock.” It's practically impossible. Try it.

I'm off to read and then sleep. Life's so exciting.

• Written on 03 November 2003 & posted at 11:24 PM.
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Anyone perfect must be lying
Anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely
Anyone loved can be lost
Barenaked Ladies - Falling for the First Time

Well, it was an interesting weekend, and although it seems mildly eventful now, it was sort of slow while I was actually living it. Steve got his car yesterday. It's a 1999 Volkswagen Golf. It's a standard with a tiny engine (physically, not...powerfully...erm, yeah), and bright red paint. It's the paint color, in fact, that has given it the name of Cherry, which is not yet official, but I hope it sticks. I suggested it to honor the character from the anime Saber Marionettes J, the only anime that I ever liked (excellent story, check it out if you ever get the chance). I like it, although Steve's current motto is “If you can't find it, grind it.” Classy.

Last night, as I was getting ready for sleep, I had an uber panic attack regarding school work. Somehow, I managed to let four assignments creep up on me, and they're all due this week (although one of them is fairly straightforward, and is just a chunk of a group projct). This was around midnight. I knew I'd never be able to get to sleep unless I got something done, so I started working on my Object Oriented Programming assignment. I got it to the point whwere the data was getting read in and shoved into an efficient container, and left it at that. This morning, I woke up early-ish (I battled the alarm clock for two hours and finally climbed/rolled out of bed around ten) and started working on it. I had it done by 11:30, which is when Marg, an IWK person, called me to go fix her computer. The problem turned out to be that the program (Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0) didn't support Windows 98. Waste of a bus ride. Anyway, she's going to buy Windows XP this week, and I'll install it on the weekend. Pugsley gave me a life home around 1:30. He was with Janet.

Speaking of which, today was the third anniversary of Janet and I being Janet and I. That's a freakin' long time. 36 months. 156 weeks. 1,095 days. 26,480 hours. 1,576,800 minutes. 94,608,000 seconds. For all intents and purposes, forever. Very cool, I think. I bought her a grey sweater, a toque (Canada rocks), and a tiny book on wizards and magic. She bought me two books: Vinyl Cafe Diaries by Stuart McLean, and a book on the Valley of the King's that I don't know the exact title of, or who wrote it — that's because the book isn't next to me, and she's reading it. It's very neat sounding — I love Egypt stuff, but then again, who doesn't?

The Vinyl Cafe stuff rocks beyond all belief. For non-Canadians/non-CBC-listeners (these two groups make up the vast, vast majority of the world's population), Stuart McLean hosts a radio show (The Vinyl Cafe, appropriately enough) on the weekends. It's just stories of events in the lives of a few characters (namely Dave, a fifty-something guy who gets into the most ridiculous predicaments, such as getting trapped in the blood pressure monitor in the local drug store), and he delivers the stories in complete monotone. It's so great. The Vinyl Cafe books have a great 1940s style about them that make you want to examine every little bit of the cover to make sure you didn't miss anything. I highly recommended.

Oh, and by the way, ha ha, Mike: I have the book. Neener neener.

• Written on 02 November 2003 & posted at 09:58 PM.
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