December 2002

November 2002 -- 2002 -- January 2003

December 1, 2002


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.

December 2, 2002


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....

December 3, 2002


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.

December 7, 2002


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.

December 8, 2002


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.

December 11, 2002


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 ;)

December 14, 2002


"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.

December 21, 2002


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.



December 23, 2002


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!

December 25, 2002


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?



December 26, 2002


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.

November 2002 -- 2002 -- January 2003