ShinyPlasticBag

Continue reading “DFFWCFT (SAS)”...

• Written on 30 December 2003 & posted at 12:17 AM.
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Today, we went over to Dad's place to break in his new Risk board. Pictures exist.

• Written on 27 December 2003 & posted at 01:40 PM.
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La la la, life continues normally. Boxing Day has officially concluded in my head, about twenty minutes behind schedule. I think the 27th of December should be called Wrestling Day, but thus far, I've managed to rally about the same amount of support for that as my idea to bring Hammer pants back.

Christmas led to a good haul for me overall. I would have blogged about this earlier, but I have been somewhat distracted by shiny new things. I'll have relevant pictures sometime tomorrow night, since I forgot my camera at my Dad's house, and I'm going over there tomorrow to play risk.

#christmas_goodies {

• Chess set: glass, very cool;
• Fire safe: to protect my valuable things;
• MPIO FL100 MP3/WMA player: with FM radio and voice recording — Engrish++;
• Pajama pants: so comfy;
• Portable TV: black & white, but still very cool;
• Spindles of CDs: two 20 packs, apparently the 50 packs were impossible to find;
• Stability ball: my posture sucks;
• Subscriptions: to Scientific American & Wired
• Toque and gloves: my first toque, believe it or not;
• Turbulence lamp: blue stuff swirls around randomly; }

I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff. In particular, my book Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?, from Dad, which explains stupid everyday questions (a la who invented the stop sign?). I'd add it to the list, but the code is already pasted in and I'm freakin' lazy.

Tonight, there was a family gathering over at Darryl's, which basically consisted of everyone in that side of the clan: my grandmother, my mom, my aunt, her husband, their kids, the wife of one of them, the kid produced by the union of said kid and wife, the parents of said wife, and the mother of said husband of said aunt. Janet and I just hung out with Darryl and Darren (represented in the above sentence as “their kids”) — watching Futurama, and mixing in a bit of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. That game, incidentally, is quite lovely.

Oh, I almost forgot! Janet's mom bought me a giant Tim Horton's coffee mug, which holds 1.7 litres of coffee — that's six larges. It's fantastic. Unfortunately, a nasty warning on the top disuades me from drinking directly from it. Despite the shape, it's just a thermos. Grr. It's great, though. I'm a total caffiene addict.

PS: Take Taylor's advice and watch the trailer for 21 Grams. It does look awesome.

• Written on 27 December 2003 & posted at 12:48 AM.
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Ah, fantastic. Christmas is finally upon us. Foolish people like John finished up their Christmas shopping earlier this evening; morons will be finishing up at the local Petro Canada any moment now. Fantastic.

I'm over at TJ's house for a little Christmas Eve gathering. It's just a sort of sit-around-and-talk sort of deal, but it's nice. I'm enjoying it.

Tomorrow is Christmas, so for those of you who are “into it”, I hope you have a blast. For those of you celebrating chanukah, I hope it's still one of those eight crazy nights so I don't sound like a moron when I wish you happy chanukah. For those of you celebrating Kwanzaa, have fun, but it sounds a bit too much like a file-sharing client in my eyes. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Well, it's Christmas in Australia, so I'll stop. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Bling bling.

• Written on 24 December 2003 & posted at 10:34 PM.
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Pictures from Christmas Eve at my Dad's. Enjoy.

• Written on 24 December 2003 & posted at 01:39 PM.
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Basemas 2004 photos are up.

• Written on 23 December 2003 & posted at 01:39 PM.
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Well, we got our cat back today. He just looked like he was asleep, and was given a simple burial in a Lexmark printer box. We buried him with two cans of cat food, some kitty treats, his favorite pillow, one of Mom's nighties, his collar, and his pooper scooper. I'm gonna miss the little guy.

However, I had previous plans for this evening, and believe it or not, I actually went to a party. And I had a blast. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a 14,000 word essay on what I did tonight. Cheers.

• Written on 22 December 2003 & posted at 02:49 AM.
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I've burned a new CD.

Continue reading “What a Wicked Game to Play”...

• Written on 21 December 2003 & posted at 11:24 AM.
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Mom, don't read this.

Continue reading “A Memorial: Life Goes On”...

• Written on 20 December 2003 & posted at 09:18 PM.
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Well, if you live around here, you'll see this one on the news tomorrow: there was a very serious accident on Main Street, by the Ford dealership and Mary Ann's ex-house. A Tempo-sized car and a truck of some sort collided head on, and there was someone lying on the ground. There were nine police vehicles (six cruisers, a detective car, a van, and an SUV) on the scene, four of which were just blocking off access to the area. There were absolutely no ambulances, however. Steve and I were coming off of the highway by Swiss Chalet when we saw all the flashing lights.

I'm not exactly sure how that accident could have happened, though. The vehicle obviously collided head on, but it's a divided road. My only guess is that the truck made a left hand turn on Main Street from one of the side roads and smacked into a car.

Hope it turns out well for the occupants.

Lighthearted epilogue*: I just got a lovely Nigerian scam email. Why are these things always from Nigeria? Anyway, I generally read them, since they can be quite humorous. This one, from Williams Aku, ends nicely: “Remember not to tell anybody about this because my daddy happens to be very popular person even after his death.” Why can't the Nigerians include a space after periods?Messages are harder to read without proper spacing.At least I think so,anyway.

• Written on 17 December 2003 & posted at 12:27 AM.
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Check it out! Winamp 5 is out for the world to enjoy, so...enjoy it. Especially you, Castro.

• Written on 16 December 2003 & posted at 02:31 PM.
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• Written on 14 December 2003 & posted at 11:37 PM.
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Meh, who needs Canadian Idol? We've got this skinny guy. All in favor of an Internet idol, say “aye”.

By the way, start digging through the archives and vote for the best entries of 2003.

• Written on 14 December 2003 & posted at 02:04 AM.
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So, I've been playing Twenty Questions, just for something to do. I was trying to make it guess Bill Gates, but the AI in it has its mind somewhere else.

Question 20: I guess that it is a negro? (by the way, the AI programmer guy should make it be grammatically correct)

That's not right. But, check out the other possibilities it had: a gay man, a lesbian, an arab, a pervert, and, for some reason, an albatross. Weird.

Go try the game, you'll like it. It may be the ugliest thing ever.

• Written on 13 December 2003 & posted at 07:09 PM.
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Knowing the way that certain people are regarding interesting-looking water bottles, I thought I would include a picture of the very cool bottle of water I bought today at Chapters. Janet bought one too. The very-very-very neat bottle contains 500 ml of Canadian spring water, and includes a cup. I love it. I think I will keep it forever, refilling as necessary. Plus, it only cost $3.00, so if anyone wants one, let me know.



Also, from the “wow, you do that at work??” category, according to my referers list, somebody from Energie NB Power found my site by Googling for “moncton strip club”. Isn't that special? It's good to see people are working hard at their jobs, and doing completely appropriate things online when they have some free time.

Now, find out what happens when you set a melon on fire (890 KB WMV). “Mad props” to this guy.

• Written on 12 December 2003 & posted at 04:44 PM.
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Well, that's weird: a Google search for “web site hosted in basement” turns up a Dalhousie site. I think this is bloody hilarious.

• Written on 11 December 2003 & posted at 11:55 PM.
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Wow. I'm just sleeping for this entire break, I think. No school until...sometime in January. Isn't that fantastic? My finals are all over, and they weren't so bad, although I was legally insane for a few days there.

It's time to relax.

Oh, no wait, I can't relax: it's CHRISTMAS! Arg! I have so much more shopping to do, even though I tried to get a head start on it. I've got my Secret Santa person all purchased for (in fact, I bought his present the day after I got his name), but everyone else is either half done or not done at all. Crap. I hate this part of Christmas. Sure, it's fun to give the stuff, and fun to receive stuff, but actually obtaining the gifts is a wee bit stressfull (stressful?).

Tomorrow, I'm off to shop some more and stuff. Mom is home from work, so she'll probably be accompanying me. Then, we can both be stressed out. Oi.

I want to play Cups sometime. Who's up for that?

Anyway, I'm going to go. I'm working on a top secret project that should get resolved sometime next week. I hope everyone likes it. Taylor does, but I don't think he understood the grass part.

PS: The solution to the two-toned top area was ridiculous. First of all, let me lament the crappiness that is Internet Explorer's PNG support. It sucks. That was, in actuality, the problem, as if you couldn't guess from the fact that most of the offending browsers were Internet Explorer. Anyway, I converted the top image into a GIF (which isn't really a bad thing, since it was only 8-bit anyway — I just prefer PNG) and now it works fine. Everyone is happy. God, Internet Explorer is shit.

• Written on 11 December 2003 & posted at 07:26 PM.
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New CD burned. Yay.

I'm going to have to get another spindle soon.

Continue reading “I've Been Delayed”...

• Written on 08 December 2003 & posted at 12:26 PM.
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Broohaha, my OS exam is over. Thanks to my handing dandy study guide, I did very well. I think I might have a 90% or so on it, which means that there is a very good chance of me getting an A+ in the course. Score. I love easy exams, especially when you're expecting a fairly difficult one.

After a brief recouperation time, I have my final exam on Wednesday at high noon. Showdown between me and algorithms. Fwa.

• Written on 07 December 2003 & posted at 06:29 PM.
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In hono(u)r of the first real snowage, we made a video. It's called Merry Offensive Christmas.

Taylor, Dikshunerie (I still love you), and especially Kitta, this one is for you. Actually, we had to do it a few times due to screw ups, this was our first attempt (that was actually visible).

• Written on 06 December 2003 & posted at 11:08 PM.
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Finally! SNOW!!

Wow, am I ever excited! Happy winter from ShinyPlasticBag and a weird rooster I found in the bathroom (don't ask).



It turns out that my operating systems exam, which I thought was today, is tomorrow. Booyah, more time to study, and by study, I mean “watch the Naked Gun”. At first, Mike was just here, and then Steve and Keddy showed up out of nowhere, and now MacGee is here. Janet was upstairs working on an essay and summed it up well: “Every time I come downstairs, there's more of you. I don't here you come in, I just come down and you're here.”

Also, new haircuit. Wacky.

• Written on 06 December 2003 & posted at 10:05 PM.
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Well, it starts. And hereby, it ends. The semester, that is — wow, there are a lot of commas thus far. At eight am tomorrow, I have my first final (for object-oriented programming), which I am disconcertingly confident about. Generally, when I feel this good about a test, I end up getting blind-sided by something. However, I know the Big Three inside out (copy constructor, assignment operator, and destructor) and how to use the Standard Template Library real good.

At 3:30 on Saturday, I have my operating systems final in the unbearable Dalplex (for the uninitiated, Dalplex is our university sporting place. It has a canvas-like roof that is held up by high pressure; you actually have to go through a (de)compression chamber on your way in or out. Someone gets a nosebleed every time.) and gives me a headache. Once that is done, I've got my algorithms final on Wednesday, and then I'm all done.

Yahoo.

• Written on 04 December 2003 & posted at 11:06 PM.
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Maybe you're young without youth
Or maybe you're old
Without knowing anything's true
I think you're young without youth
Idlewild - American English

Ah, the ritualistic murder of innocent pine trees has begun yet again. Did you know that the so-called Christmas tree capital of the world is a scant two hour drive from here, in Lunenburg County? It's not a big surprise, I suppose, since Nova Scotia, like most places in Canada, has quite an abundance of trees, and Lunenburg County was mainly settled by the Germans. It was in Germany that the tradition of decorating trees began in the first place. Imagine that conversation.


Right. Moving along, I guess I should stop the diversionary tactics and blog about something that matters (or at least something that I myself might find interesting when five years have gone by).

School is absolutely insane, since it's the last week of the semester. If it hadn't been for that bloody hurricane, we would have been done a week ago, but something always seems to drag the semester on at Dalhousie, so I shouldn't be surprised. I have n assignments due this week, where n = some integer such that 3 < n > 5. Fortunately, the first one was due today and is totally off of my mind now. I've got one due tomorrow (along with a mandatory “come argue for how much you think you should get for participation” meeting with my Communications teacher), which is 89% complete, and one due on Wednesday, which is 75% complete. The final part of my Communications group assignment is complete and will be passed in on Thursday, at which point I can concentrate on the finals that I have on Friday (8:00 in the morning) and Saturday (3:30 in the afternoon). Bah.

Did you know that both bamboo and corn are part of the grass family? In fact, all of the grains that people eat are members of the grass family. Isn't that interesting, and a little bit intriguing for some of you?

• Written on 01 December 2003 & posted at 11:36 PM.
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Linkpool is finally the number one Google search result for the phrase linkpool. For some reason, a parked domain has been the number one result since I started looking, which was sometime back in June or so.

Gotta love the users. Anyway, I'm in algorithms; I swear, a real blog entry shall come forth at some point this evening. Got a broomball game to go to first, though.

• Written on 01 December 2003 & posted at 02:55 PM.
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