Time to lose myself in Guild Wars

People not in town this weekend:
Hugh
Andrew
John
Julie
Nathalie
Laura

People I'm left with:
...Sivji?

This weekend should be an interesting test of my mental state. I have a feeling that by the end of it I will have lost a bit of my sanity. I'd even consider going home if it weren't for my fear of all this work I have. It's not much work, but I'm certain it will be slow progress.

I planned to buy Guild Wars tonight, but I decided not to. I bought it Tuesday night instead. I think it's a bit slow going at the moment, much like any other MMORPG. I think once I get a good handle on the controls and abilities, and once I find a few people to party up with, it will be a bit more interesting.

Well, I think I'll play a bit of that now.

Listening to... Alkaline Trio - Sleepyhead
Link of the moment... Just gotta make sure I find the right Guild

This is my main offender

Hm, how to sum up last weekend's wedding...I went to the casino and won $170, had cheesecake three days in a row, enjoyed seeing some family, and was breathtaken by the Detroit skyline at night.

I bought Fluxx a while ago. Fun game, but I think it's getting borderline stale already.

I've been putting off this comparison assignment for a while now. After getting back my 60% process paper, I feel like anything I hand in to Paci won't ever be good enough, so what's the point in trying?

I finally bought my PS2 the other day. I could justify it without it being on sale because of my casino winnings and a Future Shop gift card from my sister for my birthday. I've finally got it tricked out to play burned games really easily, but it took a lot more effort than it should have. The kit I got was subpar. The instructions online were just plain wrong. I replaced one of the pieces with a self-moulded twist tie. I'm convinced I could have done the entire thing with just twist ties. I also had to glue one piece in for it to stay in the spot in which it needed to stay, so my console is permanently modded. So much for the warranty; I certainly hope it lasts the year. On the bright side, it works marvelously. It's much quieter than my old black box.

All weekend, I've had this terribly powerful urge to play Guild Wars. I think once I get my assignment in on Wednesday, I'll go buy it. It's been a while since I treated myself to a new PC game. I'm sure it'll be slightly boring without anyone with which to play it. I'm trying to convince Andrew it's in his best interest to buy it, but $60 takes a lot more convincing than what I've been doing. I suppose eventually I'll get caught up in some guild online or something. Hopefully there's some guild of casual players...I hate jackasses that yell at you for not using the "best" builds or not being able to hotkey like a madman.

I downloaded the new Three Days Grace and Hoobastank albums. They're both pretty good, but it will still take some time for them to grow on me. I'm debating whether or not I should buy one or both of the two Chore albums I can't find any other way. I probably will eventually, but I think I've spent more than enough money on myself lately (at least, I will once I get Guild Wars later this week).

Well, I'm going to make some pancakes for the roommies. Aren't I such a generous person? I think so...

Listening to... Eyelid - Invention of Hope
Link of the moment... Nothing is ever as easy as it looks.

Let's try that again

So here's my first interesting story: last weekend (namely Sunday), we realized there was no hot water in the house. We put up with it for the day since we couldn't call anyone about it. The next day, I phoned a few places that were no help to me. I left a message with my landlord, who I STILL have not heard back from. I decided to try anything I could do by myself; namely check the fuses. We have an old style fuse box, so without a voltmeter I can't actually check the fuses myself. I popped out the fuses for the hot water heater and brought them to Canadian Tire. They were different amperages, which was odd, and the 30A fuse was blown instead of the 15A, even more odd. Anyways, I bought a new 30A fuse and popped them back in when I got home, and that seemed to do the trick. Later that day I had a shower of both cleansing and victory.

Sometimes I feel a little unappreciated around here. No one will ever do anything with me. All I want to do is play a game of cards instead of watching stupid TV, but no one around here will co-operate. Andrew would play but he's always too damned busy.

The other night I fell into a state of borderline depression. I got back my process paper from ENGL 119 and got a 60% on it. I'll admit I didn't put too much effort into it, but I feel I deserve way more than a lousy 60%. Between 8 and midnight, I waited. I waited for one of my roommates to acknowledge my existence. I played solitaire for a while, slept on my desk for a while, sulked for a while, and the whole while, no one came. I make a habit of it to wander the house every now and then and asking people how their days have been going.

I think I'm going to stop giving them so much credit. No more free dinners, no more "I'm going to Sobeys, do you want anything", no more "sure I'll do whatever you want to do". More than anything I'm sick and tired of getting my hopes up, thinking that maybe something will actually turn my way one of these days. I think maybe it's about time I start looking for someone who can sympathize with me. Sometimes I feel like I just don't belong in this world. People will listen to me blather on, but they certainly don't enjoy it. I think my only real saviour is Nathalie, god bless her. She will always lend a compassionate ear, and I think she really understands me.

Well it looks like my schedule is picked out for next term for the most part. As expected, I'll be taking
CO 342 (Graph Theory),
CO 485 (Public Key Cryptography),
ENGL 306A (Intro to Linguistics), and
PHYS 121 (Mechanics and Waves 1, by distance ed).
Overall a decent term. I was hoping to take classical studies, but it is only open to first year arts students. I'm glad to be taking the Physics course, as mechanics is the only real branch of it that interests me. I wish I could have taken an on-campus section with a good prof that fits into my schedule, but unfortunately no such section exists. I was also slightly interested in the intro to cognitive science course, but I think it might be too much work and thinking for my liking.

Don't you wish you could set your body like an egg timer? Tell it exactly when you want to go to sleep, and tell it exactly when you want to wake up, fully refreshed. I went to bed at about 11, but as I hope you are able to conlude, it did not work.

I've had games on the brain lately. I'm still not sure if my schedule is clear enough for me to start playing, but I think I've more or less got the time. So long as I work efficiently when I do work on my assignments, I can finish them all pretty quickly. I wish I could waste this weekend playing some games, but this is the weekend I go to Windsor with my mom and sister for my cousin's wedding. It's a four hour drive to Windsor! I guess I'll just have to speed. I've already got a playlist queued up on my Zen. All I need to do is make sure I put some good tv episodes on there too for when I get bored and I'm set.

Well I'm still not tired, so I guess I'll peruse the internet for a while, read up on some games perhaps. I certainly hope my lack of sleep doesn't cause me to crash while driving tomorrow.

Listening to... The Police - Fallout
Link of the moment... Hopefully I can secure this for less than $20 on eBay

Anyone want to talk about feelings?

Man, I am BORED as shit right now. It's one of those moments where you feel like you're bugging out. Sort of like cabin fever. I guess I know the ins and outs of the house, so I'm a little accustomed to it.

This feeling is partly because I feel like I didn't accomplish anything today. I only did a small bit of work on my CS234 program (though that portion is done), and only some brainstorming for my critical comparison, which I hope to have done by Monday night. I spent more time than I should have watching the Simpsons today, and some other assorted tv as well. I made alfredo sauce for part of my supper, but the milk I used tastes like CRAP so the sauce is more or less inedible.

I'm not as tired as I should be at 1:30. I'm sure most of you can relate when I say that I don't want to go to bed because I feel like my day isn't really quite over yet. You can't really go to bed until you feel that you've done something with the day. I suppose making this blog post is about as productive as I'm going to get tonight.

There's not really anyone on MSN either. I don't know who exactly I'd like to talk to the most right now...probably Holly, or maybe Laura...good kids. I haven't talked to Adam in a while either, I wonder how he's doing. I can't say I have anything too exciting to talk about, but I'm sure I can make up some conversation if need be.

I struck up a conversation with Sonja the other day...it died off in about three minutes. It's almost like there's too much to talk about, so I don't know what to talk about (and it's all just "catching up" sorta stuff). Man, my writing skills are taking a dump right now, and for that I apologize. Sometimes I just like to ramble, and I don't pay attention to verb tense, word choice, or parallel structure. I hope you don't need a rosetta stone to decipher my posts.

I cleaned the house a bit today. That is, I vacuumed a few rooms. I think maybe tomorrow I'll get a one dollar mop and bucket and do the kitchen up nice and good. I suppose I really do have a lot more time than I would on a regular term. If I could only utilize it a bit better, I could accomplish a lot. I realize I must waste a lot of time, because I have four full days to get all my work done, but I sometimes still feel pressed for time. I can't even think of where it all goes...probably bad sleep schedule, watching TV, and hanging around doing nothing with the roommies. I guess I spend way too much time on my computer, doing nothing (not unlike right now).

I played Civ 4 today, just the tutorial level. I finished the tutorial but it crashed shortly after. I really should have expected that, what with it being pirated and all. I found it a bit too open and hard to follow. It would take too much time to actually figure out what all the technologies and civics did.

I am TOTALLY rocking out to Hopesfall with my headphones on right now, and I am TOTALLY intending on typing out a lot of useless, useless information in this post. I certainly hope you people enjoy reading this, cause otherwise, who will hear my woeful cries?

Hm, I found out the other day that the Witness Protection Program broke up. That saddens me. I had fully hoped I'd get to hear them live one day, but I guess they've gone the way of Chore. What I really don't like is that I really want to go to their shows so that I can actually buy their cds which are painfully obscure. I don't want to have to order them online, and there's no other way to get their stuff.

I wonder if this post will wind up breaking my old record of approximately 2000 words. I wonder if, now that I've wondered that, I'll make a conscious effort to do that in which case it really defeats the purpose. Hm, I justs checked, and I'm only at ~750 words, so I don't think I'll be awake nearly long enough to break the 2k mark.

I have some gift cards here that are a year old, I think. I have no reason to use them. No one ever has the time or money to go out for a nice meal.

I'm not sure if I'll ever know what I want out of life, or if I'll ever truly be happy with what I have. The grass is always greener, I guess. I think ignorance is bliss. If you don't know what you're missing out on, you could never miss it. Like chocolate. If you never had any before, it's probably easier to not have any for your entire life, but once you have some, you think "man, I could go for some more of that". Or making out. Whatever.

Hm, should I set my alarm tomorrow morning? It'll only be six hours of sleep I get, max. I think I'll leave the alarm off and just roll my sorry ass out of bed at noon. It's a tough call. Today I had the alarm set for 8:15, but left the radio on until 11 AM. What do you think, is that being awake? I heard some of the songs, but I wasn't fully conscious.

There is no deal on PS2s this week. I'm very disappointed. I think I'm going to have to hold out for YET ANOTHER WEEK because I can't really see any pressing reason to get one now. I doubt I'll have any reason to watch a DVD this week, and I'm trying to convince myself that I'm too busy to play any PS2 games. If there's no deal next Friday, I think I might have to murder someone. It's the only way I could possibly set my mind at ease.

You know what I should do? I should finish all my work tomorrow, and then spend ALL DAY Monday playing video games. No, actually...I'd probably want to play one of my burned games, and for that I should wait for the new console which is hopefully a little more reliable in that regard. Then I should...finish all my work tomorrow and spend all day Monday studying for my midterm the following Tuesday! But that's not nearly as exciting. Doesn't matter much, cause I doubt I'll finish my comparison paper in one day. That is, if I did I doubt it would be very good, but then again I'm not really aiming for perfection.

Well I think maybe that's it. I think I'm done feeding my thoughts through my keyboard into a text box that will soon be posted to the internet, where anyone can find it, so long as they know the right way to find it. It's my little contribution to the soon to be current state of the public universe.

Listening to... Hopesfall - Manipulate the Eclipse
Link of the moment... I don't like how this tastes on bread. What does it go well with? I'm thinking graham crackers or pretzels.

"Are you still serving breakfast?" "Uh, you mean right now, or in general?"

Well this should be interesting. Next Friday I have to pick up the M136 assignments to mark by Wednesday morning, I have a comparison paper due that same Wednesday, and a midterm on the Tuesday just before, and the entire weekend I'll be in Windsor at my cousin's wedding. What I hope is that I can get my paper done by this coming Wednesday (week ahead of time!), study ahead of time for the CS234 midterm, and then mark all the papers in the morning at the hotel room in Windsor. I hope I can stick to my schedule or I'm screwed.

I think tomorrow I'm going to have to buy a PS2 wether I find a deal or not. We need a working DVD player on the tv. Besides, I've paid off my credit card...we can't have me not owing money, can we?

Yesterday morning, I found something out: I have allergies. I'm not sure what to, but I'm willing to put money that it's to some sort of pollen from some tree, since this is my first spring in Waterloo. My eyes were really watery and itchy in tutorial, and Nathalie told me to go get doped up on antihistamines. I gladly obliged, and they seem to be doing something for me (I still felt it today after taking one in the morning, but to a lesser extent). It's relatively expensive, but I just gotta put up with it for a few months.

I went to Dooleys the other day; Mathsoc had a free night for math students. Andrew was too busy, but I met up with Gee there instead. I more or less kicked his ass but lost a few games by scratching, and he won a few games of nineball against me. Good guy. It's good to know that we're on relatively good terms with one another.

Gee, Trevor, Amanda, and Laura all seem to have good taste in nerd games. I never have a chance to play anymore. Andrew is usually willing to play when he has free time, but John is never around and Hugh seems to be too good to play with us anymore. Most games aren't really good unless you have 4-6 players playing them. Maybe I'll buy some card game from J&J and bring it around to lunch with me (though to be honest I'd like to play some regular card games like Spades or Euchre or Oh Hell).

This weekend, I really hope I can finish my CS338 and CS234 assignments due next week, start and finish my comparison paper, and make some sort of contribution to the case study. I've got four days, so hopefully I can just keep my motivation up.

Laura will be out of town this weekend, and I'll be gone the next. We never seem to have a chance to get together. It's a shame she's always so busy. It's the life of the student, I guess. It's almost like my time at University is just dead. Everyone is always too busy to spend any time with me.

Listening to... Metallica - Trapped Under Ice
Link of the moment... Maybe I'll get this after my BMath

I can hear again!

I woke up the other day unable to hear out of my left ear. I've had this happen once before, about two years ago. Last time I went to Health Services on campus and they flushed my ear out. Unfortunately this time it was 4:45 on a Friday (I awoke from a nap, you see), so Health Services was closed. I went to the walk in clinic on campus but the wait was too long. I suffered the annoyance through the night and went the next morning, and they cleared me up again. I fear this may be a regular occurrence now.

My PS2 has been veru finicky lately. It will no longer play burned DVDs, and for some reason it won't read my Firefly disc either. I'm still waiting for Future Shop or Best Buy to have ANY sort of a deal on PS2s, whether it be a small discount or some special offer.

I'm also still waiting for my Zen armor to come in the mail. Pretty slow, if I may say.

I dragged Andrew out to a Euchre night last Thursday. I was shocked to hear that a fair handful of people felt that calling trump and then leading with the right bower from the first seat is a bad play. I argued my case but I don't think I convinced anyone. Perry, if you still read my blog, please back me up. Sadly, their argument is that you're drawing out your partner's trump, which may be a lone left bower. I tried to convince them that there is twice the chance that a lone left is in one of your opponents' hands than in your partner's. I also argue that if you have an off-ace and the right, it's far better to play the right first, as it will draw out trump that might have been used to otherwise cut on your ace. Bleh, whatever.

I have barely started on my process paper, and it's due Wednesday. That is, I have to present it Wednesday. For my topic, I chose "how to use mathematical induction". A bit simple, perhaps, but I couldn't think of anything else very relevent. I keep telling myself that even if I wing it, I can get a passing mark, so any actual work I do on it should be gravy. I'm not sure if I'm taking this term very seriously, but that was sort of my intention to begin with.

I've started looking at my courses for next term, and it looks like if I take CO485 (Public key cryptography), CO342 (Graph Theory), CLAS100 (Intro to Classical Studies) and ENGL306A (Intro to Linguistics), the schedule would work out pretty well. Those are pretty much all the courses I wanted to take, so it looks like things are working out nicely with my planning ahead. I'm almost done!

Listening to... Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow
Link of the moment... *Thumbs up*