Yeehaw!

Went to the halloween party last night. It was good, but my throat had been killing me all day, and it was absolutely killing me by the end of the night. This morning, it seems like my cold is back in full force, so I popped some pills.

My costume turned out ok, but I'm not sure if it was worth the forty bucks and time I shelled out for it. I hate wearing the same costume two years in a row, but I think it's warranted this time.

What sort of weird shit went down at the party...at least three broken bottles and/or glasses, Seirom (Korean girl next door) getting way too frisky with me, Emiko going missing Without A Trace, and a plethora of caps being fired off from our cap guns.

Steffi was there, but she had a mask on, and seemed preoccupied the whole night. Just as I thought she had spent the whole night ignoring me, she walked home with me (/us) when she found out I was leaving. How unusual. Now that I have most of my big midterms out of the way, hopefully I can have some time to waste with other people.

Some pictures:

Sexy cowboy


Nice little gangster picture


Hugh and Nicole boogying down

Listening to... From Autumn to Ashes - Short Stories with Tragic Endings
Link of the moment... Maybe I'll rent a game today.

"You're a daisy if you do"

Looks like the whole Google for Hugh Carkner thing didn't work. I don't know why; other full names in my blog have shown up in google.

I'm getting pretty excited about Halloween. I started off with a generic cowboy, but I found out Don John has a black cowboy hat that I might be able to borrow, so I'm going for more of a bounty hunter/gunslinger look. I'm going to the Salvation Army tomorrow, and I hope to pick up the following: White button up shirt, black vest, black pants, black boots, black leather trench coat, toy rifle with holster. In my head, I look totally awesome dressed up, but we'll see how it works out in the end. Hopefully, I'll have some good pictures to post.

I seem to be getting a very odd vibe from one girl...I have the distinct impression that she wants me like a fat kid wants twinkies. Unfortunately, I don't think the sentiment is returned. I guess this is what it feels like to be any girl I crush on. Well, maybe I'll lead her on for a while (cause I'm a jackass).

I've been dreaming about Gamecube lately. I think that sometime in November, they're going to to package the GC with two controllers and Mario Party 7. The GC has way more in terms of fun games. If you want a really good RPG experience, PS2 is the way to go, and XBox likely has the best FPS and action following, but GC is where you go if you want to have fun with friends who aren't hardcore gamers. Maybe I'll convince John to buy one (hehe).

I'm trying to put a lot of thought into what I want to do this summer and next year. John, Hugh and I have been talking about living together, but we can't all agree on where. I really like CLV, and I think so does John, but there's a good chance that he will stay here in the summer, in which case he would likely want to get a house. Hugh is a big advocate of getting a house next year. The way I see it, I could only justify getting a house if I'm going to stay in the summer (since most houses only have a 12 month lease). It seems like a big waste to have to furnish a house if I'm only going to use the furnishings for two terms. Not only that, but I'm sure we'd live further from campus than we do now, so I fail to see the benefit of having a house as opposed to living in CLV again.

My date with Tunde didn't go as well as I'd hoped. We never wound up going out to see a movie, but we rented one instead. Unfortunately, she forced me to pick something from the Film Fest rack, and I had little choice but to pick The Corporation. And we sat on different couches. It was a bit of a bomb.

Listening to... Jimmy Eat World - Work
Link of the moment... Yup. November 7th.

Hugh Carkner

Hugh Carkner wants his name to show up in google. I think this might help.

Listening to... Less Than Jake - Plastic Cup Politics
Link of the moment... Is it working?

Existence is Futile

Argh, I thought things were starting to pick up for me.

The Bad news:
I've given up on my CS245 assignment. If I did the first question correctly, then I should get just over 50% on the assignment. The examples that we do in class are trivial; I can do those without any help at all. The questions on the assignment, however, are very difficult, and I'm not entirely sure that I can do them with what they've taught us in class.

CO330 is even worse. I have no idea where to start on any of the questions, just like the first assignment in that class. I plan on abusing the TAs during the office hour, but I did that last time and still failed the assignment. This looks like another failure, people. I can only hope that the next quiz, and the entire exam are incredibly easy, or that I have an epiphany about generating functions.

The Good news:
I didn’t see Stephanie (hereby: Steffi) at the ice cream thing, and I thought I missed my window of opportunity with her by not going to CO355 this morning. When I got home, however, Christian told me that a friend of his that I met at the party wanted my contact info. Giggling like a schoolgirl, I jotted down my email, and I just got a message from her now. Unfortunately, it’s mostly math talk; she wanted to know if I recommended any courses for the upcoming term. Most of the stuff she’s taking is out of my grasp, but we might have a class in common (Linear Optimization). I suppose it's a good start regardless.

This weekend, I hope to see Wallace and Gromit, but with whom I am not sure. My three main options are Tunde, Steffi, and just a general group of friends. If things don’t pan out with Steffi by Friday, then I’ll stop by and surprise Tunde on Friday night.

Listening to... Thee Goblins – Good Jacket Theme
Link of the moment... Perhaps I’m getting into more than I can handle?

Synopsis for forgiveness

I honestly don't even know who still reads my blog, but assuming there exists at least one person, here's a brief synopsis of noteworthy events in the last week. I certainly don’t expect you to read it all in one sitting, but in the case that I don’t post for another week, at least you can read a bit every day.

Monday
Monday was Thanksgiving, and I spent the afternoon with Ruby and Tunde, from my old residence. I gave them the grand tour of my CLV townhouse, and they seemed to like it. We headed off to the Pita Factory and they both got some poutine which I helped pick away at. After that, Ruby treated us to some frozen yogurt. It was quite tasty, and we had some good conversations over both meals. After that, we headed back and did our usual basketball game. Ruby took a lot of pictures with her camera; I'll post some when she sends them to us. Monday night held another Settlers game. I told Tunde she owed me a movie, and she reacted quite pleasantly to it, so hopefully I can spend some time with her next time I get some free time.

Tuesday
You'll have to forgive me if I can't remember the weekdays very well; they were understandably uneventful. After CO355, I saw Marty (who I met at the Starlight one night), and caught up to him, to tell him that I was going to drop that course and get his opinion on it. Before I said anything to him, he told me he was going to drop it as well, so that made me feel a little more confident about my decision. Mat, Andrew and I played some three player cribbage at lunchtime. I’m on a bit of a crib kick lately.

Wednesday
I really cannot think of anything that happened on Wednesday that was of any importance. Hugh and Emiko went to some show at the Starlight which apparently was not as good as they were hoping. I skipped it to study for my midterm on Friday.

Thursday
Thursday morning was the first day with CO355 stricken from my schedule. I still got up early to go to campus, however, since Thursday was a rather momentous day for UW. Bill Gates came to campus and had a presentation with a question and answer period with students afterwards. I didn’t get to see him in person, but rather through a live feed in the Davis Center. It was pretty entertaining, and he showed off some cool gadgets.

Thursday night was Oktoberfest. The crowd was the usual six, minus Mat (for future reference, the six of us are Hugh, Emiko, John, Andrew, Mat, and myself). No one was willing to get into the spirit right away, but Hugh, Emiko, and John got into the spirits right away (shit, I’m clever). By the end of the night, John got into his groove, but the other three were still kinda rigor mortis-like. I started off joyful enough, but as the night dragged on, I felt less and less like being the guy who tries to cheer everyone up.

Friday
My PMATH midterm was absolutely glorious. It was very basic, and I was sure I had gotten perfect until discussing it with Natalie afterwards. I’m still pretty confident I got in the high 90’s, and anything higher than 80 is icing on the cake for me. On the way back from class, I spotted John walking back with a girl. He introduced her as Nicole, and she lives next to me. She told us about a pre-bomber party they were having on Saturday. I wrote it off as another alcohol related disaster that I would hate. Friday night consisted of watching Survivor and Apprentice with John (he had taped it because of Oktoberfest).

Saturday
Saturday was a pretty action packed day. I went to Fairview with John, but that was not much more than a timesink. I got a few of the things I needed, and a Cinnabon to boot. Afterwards I went with Mat to pick up a squash racquet, and got a few things from the bulk store while I was there. At seven, John Andrew and I went grocery shopping at Sobeys. I think I actually eat healthier down here than I do at home. When we got back, we parted ways and I went home. I wasted some time, and at about 10 PM, Nicole stopped by and scolded me for not being social and going to the party. I told her I hadn’t eaten yet, and that I was waiting for John (neither a lie). John stopped by, I made some food, and we watched the second period of the Flames-Eulers game (the Edmonton Eulers). Kip still looks amazing in goal.

At about 11:15, I felt guilty (and bored) enough to head next door with John and make an appearance so Nicole couldn’t be mad at us. We felt pretty out of place, since we didn’t know anyone there, but I did spot Nicolas, who looked a bit tipsy. We eventually found Nicole, and she introduced us to two German girls, Stephanie and…Stephanie’s friend. I was under the impression that they felt obligated to hang out with us, but after a while, I realized that Stephanie actually wanted to talk to us, so I struck up some conversation with her, and forty five minutes later, I realize that I’m talking to a gorgeous girl who actually wants to talk to me. You know a girl is authentically hot if John and I can both agree on it, and we certainly did not disagree on this subject. Oh wait…I guess I already mentioned this in my last post. Well, I guess I’m fleshing it out in a bit more detail. Looking into her eyes gave me a feeling of “wow”. Usually what I do when talking to someone, I focus on the bridge of their nose, because it gives the illusion of eye contact, and gives you a very central place on the face to focus on, but for a change I decided to go for full on eye contact. She’s got really nice eyes, and it really did give me a fuzzy feeling.

Well, enough of that. I’m very impressed if you actually read all of this. I hope my life entertains and/or educates you. One day I might make a post about my vision for a bands I’d like to start, but for the moment, my fingertips are raw and bloody from typing so much.

Just for fun, according to MS Word: this post contains 1,105 words.

Listening to... Social Distortion - Ring of Fire
Link of the moment... Bill Gates at UW

Just a quickie before bed

I won't even bullshit you. I know I only post about once a week lately. I have a shitload and a half to talk about, but I am just never in the mood for sitting at my computer typing.

I had a block of text that took me twenty minutes to type, then my computer froze. I should really consider pre-typing all my posts in Word. I think it makes backups. I won't say much because it's late, but hopefully I can devote some time to telling you all about my life.

The thing I was typing about, though, was the fact that I met a drop-dead gorgeous girl tonight at a party. She's German, blond hair blue eyes, and a great figure. I get to see her tomorrow at a sundae event for units 1-25. I don't really know what my goal by the end of the night is going to be, but I should set one (like getting a phone number or asking her to a movie).

Listening to... Slayer - Bloodline
Link of the moment... Maybe switching to Linux would result in fewer freezeups?

Summing up my weekend

Where to start, where to start...

On Thursday, the usual gang played Settlers of Catan again...Mat won as usual. After that I whipped out some Katamari Damacy. Friday was a pretty good day for me; I got back my quiz in CO330 and wound up getting 20/20, Natalie lent me her movie, and I got to sit down with a fresh copy of Imprint. When I got home, half of my friend pool had left for home, but Mat and Andrew were still around. I forget what we did Friday afternoon, but Andrew and I had dinner together and then the three of us played Risk 2210. It's pretty fun, but very elaborate, and the game tends to favour the winner, helping them win even more.

Saturday concisted of a lot of cleaning. I moved everything out of the breakfast area and mopped it and the kitchen. I also vaccuumed the floors and stairs around the house. Don't get me wrong, my own room is still a pigsty, but the rest of the house is taken care of. While it was drying, I fell asleep for an hour or so, and when i woke up I gave myself a crop cut, meaning no more mohawk. Then I had a shower, and lugged my laundry to the CC. Andrew and I played some more pool while I was waiting. Once I finished that up, I went and got McDonald's food that was stale and cold, and ate it while watching Lost in the CC. After that, I flipped it to the hockey game, and watched a very action packed last period between Toronto and Montreal.

After the game, Mat, Andrew and I played a game of scrabble. The highlights of the game include:
-Mat playing an X on a triple letter score to form 'OX' TWICE on adjacent O's for 50 points.
-Andrew unloading 'QUIZ' on a triple word score with a blank tile for 63 points.
-my mastery of the english language turning 'PEE' in to 'EPEE' for some massive points with a second word.

I wound up winning with something like 240 points, the first time I've beat everyone else at something.

After Scrabble, I went home and decided, on a whim, to start up a game in Growlanser 3. It's a fun game, but I won't have the time to finish it. I spent a half hour on the story battles, then got my ass handed to me in a story battle without saving.

Sunday left me with a lot of sleep. I attempted to make pancakes again, but it went terribly wrong. I've heard that the pan has to be hot, so I let it heat up (without margarine on the pan). When the first pancake hit the pan, it actually hovered on the pan, cushioned by a layer of hot air. Immediately, a plume of black smoke rose into the air, and I turned on the fan, opened some windows, and fanned it with a dish towel, much as they do on TV. I actually etched a black mark into the pan that won't come off. I grabbed a second pan, and this one wasn't much better. All in all, I got a few pancakes out of the ordeal.

I forced myself to sit down and watch Garden State alone. It was ok, but perhaps a little too deep and somewhat cliche for me. After the movie, I napped a scooch, and then went over to Don John's for dinner. He had a few friends over, and Mat came as well. The food was absolutely fantastic. One of the best meals I've had in ages. The turkey was moist, the gravy was thick and meaty, the stuffing wasn't overwraught with onion, and Mat's mashed potatoes were to die for.

After dinner, our first expanded game of Settlers ensued. I was the king of DEV cards this time, and it helped a lot. At one point, I had nine points, and it was John's turn (he's on my immediate left). I noticed he got 9 points on his turn and had plenty of cards. I convinced everyone to stop trading with him since he was so close to winning. Luckily, it worked, and by the time it came around to my turn I had JUST enough to build a road and my last settlement for the win. I got very lucky by rolling a seven. I was going to block off Mat, but I convinced him to give me lumber not to, and when I put it on John, he gave me the last wheat I needed to build. After that was some pretty lousy poker. I suckered some people into some nice hands.

Today, Ruby is visiting Tunde, and Pranab is around too, so I'm going to go visit them once Ruby gets in to town. I really, really should be putting some time into my assignments, but it's not often that I'll get to see them all.

I'm putting some serious thought into dropping CO355. It's becoming a little more clear that if I don't fail it, I won't pass with much of a mark. I will have two terms where I can take four courses, so perhaps I should consider making this one of those terms. I have until October 28th to drop without it affecting my transcript. I feel like it's giving up, but I really can't think of much of a reason that I shouldn't be dropping it.

Listening to... Iron Maiden - 22 Acacia Avenue
Link of the moment... Nothin' good coming up at the Starlight

Back to work.

Well I guess I can say that I'm getting on top of work, considering my situation. Late Saturday night, I noticed my throat was very scratchy, and now I'm stuck with a cold. Yesterday, all I did was sweat in my oven of a room. I had too much of a fever to concentrate on work. Today was not much better. I intended to go to the poker tournament tonight, but I stayed home and worked on my assignments. Hopefully tomorrow will be even more productive of a day.

I have a lot to talk about, I think. I don't really know what to divulge, and what to keep to myself. I suppose I'll start from Friday.

On Friday, Emiko, Hugh, and I (as usual...) went to Conestoga. Andrew went home to Toronto and John went to Barrie, so our forces were few. We didn't really accomplish much at Conestoga, but I bought a pillow and Emiko loaded up on popcorn. We went to Future Shop and I got season 2 of Corner Gas. We drove with no real direction in mind. Emiko and I got in an argument over the British show Coupling. I decided to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the night, since all I do is piss people off. Eventually I broke the silence with "let's go bowling", and we all agreed.

Saturday is a bit of blur, but all I really know is that we wound up at Ethel's Lounge for the second time. Hugh asked Emiko if she'd shown her tits to anyone, at which point I noted that it was a prety rude and personal question. Emiko chimed up, saying that I've said worse things. That just hurt me. For the second night in a row, I came to the conclusion that everything I say offends someone, and took another vow of silence. This one was a little more personal though...I was sulking most of the rest of the night. We wound up back at my place and when Hugh left, I had a little speech prepared for Emiko. We more or less made our peace, but I'll leave you wondering what we talked about.

Sunday, I woke up feeling like shit, and time didn't help. There was a lot of sleeping, not much eating, and no work done. At least I got some Chinese with John out of it. Family Guy was a highlight, as usual.

Today was a little better in terms of productivity. I finished up one assignment, and have less than half to do for my other two tomorrow. Unfortunately I also need to find time to study for CO330 tomorrow. I got an assignment back for that class, and it was 10/30. I wasn't expecting to break the 50% mark, even after spending over an hour with the tutor for the course.

I struck up conversation with the aptly named "math girl". I was early to class, and she wasn't far behind; since I'd been sitting next to her for the last two weeks, I figured I'd talk to her. Turns out she's way more of a supernerd than me. Hopefully she can help me out with these dreaded courses. She casually dropped her boyfriend in the conversation, and I'm glad she did, before I did something stupid. Honestly, it's almost like a weight off my shoulders. At least that's one less thing I'll be thinking about.

Tunde is moving into the old residence on Sunday, I think, and I believe that Ruby is coming to visit as well. It will be great to see them, especially since it looks like everyone else is leaving for Thanksgiving. I think Emiko will be here at the very least, so hopefully I can get some time alone with her.

Well I'm sure I've regailed you enough for the moment. Stay tuned for updates such as:
-my terrible quiz this Wednesday
-Oktoberfest on the 13th and the midterm I have the next day
-the many goods I purchase on my next grocery run
-unlocking Heihachi in Tekken 5

Listening to... Boy Sets Fire - Still Waiting for the Punchline
Link of the moment... It's a pretty interesting backstory.