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I've always wanted to do just a one sentence update, so here it is.
Yeah yeah yeah, 4 days I know I know.
It's been a busy week, and tonight isn't going to be much more fun with tons of
studying left to do and two quizes tomorrow (hence why the website's getting
updated, gotta procrastinate somehow!). It also seems to like to pour down rain
while I'm walking to and from class, which while I love walking in light rain,
the heavy rain I do not take joy from. It's the soggy socks.
If you haven't heard already, Greece has banned all
videogames, no matter how harmless. Don't believe it? Here's a PDF of the law in Greek.
This was actually announced way back in March in an effort to combate the rampent gambling that goes on over there. But I
feel sorry for all those poor Greek people who can't play DDR anymore.
Old skool videogame
commercials. The Mario Bros one scares me.
Today was the HUGE UF-Miami game, which was the first time the teams had played
each other in the regular season in like 20 years or something. Tickets were
going for $200+, but luckly I had season tickets so I got mine for a scant $7.
Sure I could have scalped them for a nice profit, but you can't put a price tag
on something that you may only get to do once in your life. Money is just
temporary, and I"d just end up blowing it on DDR or videogames anyways, it's
not like I would starve to death without it. Unfortunatly Florida lost really
badly, 41-16, but it was a lot of fun anyways. One loss does not make a season,
so GO GATORS!!!!
And speaking of football, the streets around campus were crazy! It was chock
full of people, most of them for UF but quite a few for Miami too. Lots and lots
of drunk alumni, gotta love it. I almost feel sorry for the police in trying to
control so many people, a great many of them too intoxicated for their own good.
But for the most part everyone's cool, so it's jsut a lot of fun walking around
and people watching and seeing all that orange and blue.
Today was the 75th anniversary of
television, though I hardly ever watch TV anymore. I'm either out doing stuff or
messing around on the computer. I do use it for videogames though, but as far as
actual TV shows, the only one I watch semi-regulary is The West Wing. And while
I'm a little late, September 2nd was the 32nd anniversary of the Internet. Which
of course is MUCH more important than that TV thing right?
This putty
stuff is way too much fun. And people love it when they find out it shatters.
And shatters it does (though not very much).
Today marks the very first time I've ever passed a 9-foot Catastrophic (the
hardest level) Dance Dance Revolution song. And it only took me 2 years and 5
days to do it :) It'd been cool if I did it on the 2 year anniversary (September
4, 2002) but I"m just happy to have finally passed a 9 footer. Dead End was the
song, which isn't really that hard, just really fast. So by the end of the song,
I felt like I was going to pass out, and my legs felt like jello. Anywho, this
made my day!
I'm becoming very friendly with the library thanks to my illogical Digital
Logic class. For some reason studying in my room just isn't working anymore
(that's what I did all last year) so I've gotta go to the library to get a
change of scenery. Always lots of cute girls studying in there though (perhaps
that's what makes them cute), so it's not bad at all. Plus libraries are like a
paper-internet. You can find anything on any subject imaginable, it's just a
little more cumbersome than the net.
Heh, now it really is possible for anyone to have their very own television show.
A year ago today America changed, for the better and for worse. It's a day
that I know I won't be forgetting anytime soon, and that continues to affect us
with laws and wars today. As I noted on this date last year I found out about it
around 9:50 AM after checking Slashdot and seeing the headline "World
Trade Towers and Pentagon Attacked". CNN.com was my next stop, but it was down
because of the huge spike of net traffic, so I turned on the TV to see both
towers on fire. It's still shocking to see. A site full of 9/11 newspaper
headlines from across the world is an interesting way to see the world's
response.
And speaking of responses, many people reacted differently. Some people can't
joke about 9/11 at all, in any form. So for those people, don't read on. For
everyone else, I personally find humor to be a great way to deal with a
difficult subject. As I've said before, I want jokes told at my funeral. And so
with this in mind, I think the best coverage of September 11th goes to The
Onion for their series of articles that they published 2 weeks after the
tradegy. In usual Onion fashion, they lampooned everything, from religion to
Bush's war to how America responded. It was some of their best work ever. And in
a related story, Salon did a piece about the "dark side" of 9/11 responses, the
things that people keep deep inside the recesses of their brains, because it's
not socially acceptable to actually say what you're thinking. Or stuff that you
may find funny, but that you would get roasted, toasted, and burned to a crisp
saying publicly. But as the article points out, everything you hear about 9/11
is the sugar coated stuff. So in an effort to bring some reality and balance
back into the memories of 9/11, they asked
some people about what they were really thinking on that tragic day a year
ago. Some of the results are suprsing, but I can relate somewhat. From being
happy that the twin towers are no longer an eyesore (to a particular person), to
hoping that their credit card company lost their records in the rubble so that
they wouldnt' have to pay their bills, people had some very dark ideas. They
also asked readers to write in and
share their "forbidden thoughts" that they felt on 9/11, and which go from
extremelly politically incorrect jokes, to charges of racism, to hoping that
maybe the events would get even bigger, that the perverbial "other shoe" would
drop, and America really would never be the same again. It's a facinating read
into the human psyche.
A double update! I've added a late September 11th update down below, so be sure
to check that out as well as today's.
Pop, Soda, or Coke? I'm a Coke man myself, even though I actually
perfer Pepsi over Coca-Cola. But growing up in Texas, it's always called coke.
Pop and soda just sound weird.
Microsoft has all but bought Rareware (makers of Donkey Kong Country, and Goldeneye among other games)
from Nintendo. So Star Fox Adventures looks to be their last Gamecube game, and
it's still unknown if any GBA games will be made from them. First it's Square,
and now it's Rareware. What the heck is Nintendo thinking by breaking off ties
with it's hugely successful 3rd parties?
Amelie was
playing at the student Union this past
week, so I went go to see it 3 times with 3 seperate people. And even though
I've seen it 12+ times, there are STILL things I've missed from previous
viewings and discover. Plus the movie version is translated a bit differently
from the DVD version, so a lot of things made much more sense in the movie
version. And everyone who saw it loved it, which is of course to be expected
since it's one of the best movies ever made. So if you haven't seen it already,
GO RENT IT!
Why do perfectly capable people use the elevator to go up
one floor instead of using the stairs? Is it really that hard?
Yay for sleep deprived updates! I've had less than 4 hours sleep in the last 48
hours, so it's one of those fun fun updates that everyone seems to like. This
also marks the first time in a long time I've had some free time in order to do
an update, which explains the 5 day difference between updates. School is just
keeping me SOOOOO incredibly busy this semester. Even my friends are mentioning
how I don't talk to them as much anymore.
Anywho, the reason for my lack of sleep is that I went to Daytona Beach today
for a DDR tournament. It was a last minute affair, because I didn't think I'd
have time to go, and also I didn't think I could get a ride anyways. But low and
behold I check the DDR Gators message board on Friday night, and there's an
extra spot, and I had less homework then I expected, so I decided to go. I
didn't do all that well, but some of the other DDR Gators did good, with two
guys placing 3rd and 4th out of 26. And then someone there AAA (all 314
perfects) Freckles Maniac, which is an incredibly rare occurence. All in all a
very fun day as road trips are awesome.
I want to go skydiving, but skydiving with cars? Too cool.
The Gators beat Tennessee today! Yippy!
Goldfish crackers are scrumpscious (however you spell it).
I have a mystery flavor dum-dum sitting next to me. I wish they'd tell you the
flavor, because I can never guess it just by tasting it. Unless it's like motor
oil flavor. That one's pretty distinct. And black. Don't like getting that
flavor.
I won a Microsoft keyboard on Thursday. They had a raffel at an engineering
thing that Microsoft was at, so that was one of the prizes. I suppose it won't
hurt to have an extra keyboard, considering I already have an extra mouse.
Anyone have a computer and monitor they're willing to donate to me? Pretty
please?
Oh, and a very happy 20th birthday to the :)
emotionicon
For the first time in about 3 weeks, I actually have free time on a weekday
evening. It's a great feeling to be done with homework by 7 pm. This semester's
just been a whole lot of work, but so far I'm keeping my head above the water. I
just hope I can continue it. This also let me catch up on month-old
email and some other stuff I've been putting off forever because I was
too busy with school.
In other news in my life, I went to the Career Fair the last two days in the O'Connell center.
Basically a bunch of companies looking to hire college students come and try to
recruit us/us beg for jobs while all spiffily dressed. All I can say is it's
nice being an engineer. I'd guesstimate a good 70% of the companies were
engineering related, with most of the other companies dealing with banking or
some kind of retail or management. And out of those engineering one's, almost
half probably had something to do with computer engineering, so I talked to many
many companies in trying to get an internship. And the way their eyes light up
when they see a 4.0 GPA... priceless. So that my dear readers, is the fastest
way to get some attention. Very interesting experiance, and hopefully I can get
a cool summer job out of it.
Ever wanted to know what happens if you drop 50 lbs of silly putty from a 6
story parking garage? Sure you have! Now you can watch the video and pictures of
someone who did just exactly that. Fun stuff!
Who owns who? Some people
dont' relieze it, but many of the companies on Wally World shelves are really
just subsidaries of bigger companies. So now you can find out who really owns
your favorite brand.
Homework homework and more homework. It just never ends.
And it seems like the less often I update, the more hits I get. It's probably
just people refreshing to see if I've updated yet, but it's a bit weird.
If you're ever talking to someone online, and just can't seem to figure out what
a :) really looks like in real life, here is your guide to smiley's. This is
also an example of why you don't let computer science students on their own.
Then things like that happen. I'm good though, I'm computer engineering. We're
normal(ish).
A public-domain bookmobile will be traveling across the
US from California to Washington DC to bring awareness to a Supreme Court
case on copyright laws. The case is Eldred v. Ashcroft and it's a challenge to a
law that extended copyright to the life of the auther plus another 70 years. Can
anyone tell me why a dead person needs to have his work still under copyright?
How does this help innovation? The main reason these laws get placed in the
first place is because Disney doesn't want to lose Mickey to the public domain,
so every few years it'll donate several million to various polititians and get
another extension passed. And Congress says they can't be bought.....
yeah.....
Silly putty rocks.
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