Farewell, euchre peeps!

Well, euchre is now over. We had the end-of-term tournament the other day. I didn't get to play since I was organizing it, and the teams worked out in such a way that my playing would throw off parity. Molly and I got to play against a few teams though, and we were doing really well in the games that we played. Sean and Quinn wound up winning. There were a few complications, but overall I'm a big fan of the triple elimination style. We got a massive turnout because Molly advertised in the Village 1 cafetorium. We got 17 new members at the last meeting, which gave the club's pocket a nice padding.

I swear I'm borderline bipolar. I keep shifting between good moods and bad moods over the course of a day. I'm getting to the point where some time away from my roommates would do me some good, but I'm not particularly looking forward to moving out, back into my parents' house.

So I wound up getting a mark of 83% on that makeup midterm for Network Design. I think our class broke Swamy's spirit. He's marking a lot easier this time around. I made some mistakes that he would normally have taken off a handful of marks from, but he only penalized me a mark at the most. The assignments are a lot more managable too, so if the final exam follows the same trend, I can actually pull off a pretty good mark in this course.

I've got three assignments due on Monday, none of which I've started. I can only assume that I'm going to neglect Network Flow again (c'mon, each assignment is only worth ~1.7%). I skipped a day of classes one day as well, so I hope that doesn't affect anything.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say. How disappointing.

Listening to... In Flames - Free Fall
Link of the moment... My new Flickr account which currently holds the euchre pictures

Warrior weekend warrior

Blech. I've been trying to do work all day, but my roommates and the television prove to be too much of a distraction. My Network Design assignment is actually coming along much more nicely than previous ones have. There's a chance I'll actually get a passing grade on this one!

Man, where are all the MSN people when you need them? Here I am, sitting at my computer, and there's nary a soul with which to converse.

I hung out with Sean for quite a stint last night. We went to the mall, browsing for euchre prizes. As usual, I came out empty handed (aside form some licorice). Well, the trip was well worth the McDonald's, as it usually is. Plus, it's always nice to get out of the house. We both went to the Warrior Weekend last night. I wanted to see the Magic/Comedy show. Unfortunately, I had already seen the magic act at a previous warrior weekend, and the comedian wasn't really that great. A lot of it was the piss-poor presentation by WW, as usual. Their audio system is never that good, and there was a band playing at the bomber that would occasionally muffle everything else.

I could have easily left after the not-so-entertaining acts, but we had run into Katie, Caroline, and Jordan before the show, and decided to talk with them afterwards. We got some free entry into the Campus Cove and played the same old games that they've always had. Jordan and Katie beat me in a game of pool, after I called the wrong pocket and scratched the eight ball. After THAT, I still could have left, but I figured that I could either go home and do nothing with people I see all the time, or stay and do nothing with people I don't see too often. We guarded the Cove until 2AM, when Katie and Caroline were done (they work at the Student Life Office and thus have to help at the events). I suppose some good conversation was had, but everyone was pretty tired by the end. Caroline was struggling to maintain consciousness most of the time.

I picked up Thurn and Taxis and 25 Words Or Less at J&J the other day. I haven't played either, but I'm expecting some good times in the future. I think we're going to get a game of Catan going tomorrow sometime. We were going to play the other day, but I couldn't get a hold of Sean, and Katie blew us off, so we didn't have a third or fourth. I really hope that between grocery shopping, Catan, and buying euchre prizes, I'm able to finish my assignments. I doubt it.

I got a new cell phone off of eBay. It's a Samsung, of some sort. It's certainly an upgrade from the junker phone I was using, and it's even unlocked so I can use it with anyone besides Rogers. I'm disappointed that I can't hook it up to my computer via USB. It's much easier to update the contacts list from a keyboard than a keypad. It would be nice to put some of my own ringtunes on, as well as taking any pictures off of the camera and on to my hard drive. Well, as long as it serves its purpose of being a cell phone, I'm happy.

Listening to... Soulfly - Born Again Anarchist
Link of the moment... No full clubs listing? There had better be some good clubs at LU...

My Falco is awesome! (Smash tourny recap)

Note: This entire post is just a summary of the tournament I played last night. I will probably hae another, more varied post up soon.

So, I played in a team smash tournament last night. It was awesome! The organization was a bit chaotic, but things went pretty well. It was Swiss style, triple elimination, so that once you lose three matches, you are eliminated. We started off playing only three stock (I'm used to five stock) since there were a disgusting 48 teams that played (that's 96 people!), including my Falco and Andrew's Samus.

Andrew convinced me to bring my own controller, and I'm glad I did, because when I was warming up on one console, the joystick was pretty shitty and as a result I made a lot of mistakes. Our first matchup was against a Shiek/Marth combo on Jungle Japes. I lost my first life quickly due to the level, which got me worried. Right when I came back, though, I spiked both opponents off the stage. After some battling, I found myself dead, leaving Andrew with the two opponents, everyone on their last life. He pulled out the win after he KO'd Marth, and Shiek made a suicidal mistake, putting us at a 1-0 record.

Our second match was against Dr. Mario and Falco, on Kongo Jungle. Andrew and I didn't play very well. I made a few big errors, one of which cost me a life. This match put us in the middle half of all competitors, a 1-1 record.

Our third match was again on Jungle Japes (previously one of my most hated levels, but now one of my best), this time against a Fox/Samus combo. They both started the match guns blazing, but it didn't take long for Andrew and I (team BRDO) to disarm them. Samus made some good use of the fully charged blast; I reflected a few of these, which Fox almost reflected back to me. Fox fell victim to the fate of most Foxes; his aggressive play got him killed pretty quickly. After that, it didn't take long for us to take down Samus. This win was due to some pretty good team tactics on our part. This put us at 2-1. Due to the tournament structure, 1/8 of the teams were eliminated.

Our fourth match was against another Fox/Samus team on Pokemon stadium. This is usually one of Andrew's best levels, so I had high hopes. I shined the Samus out of the air for a KO once, a feat I'm proud of. Fox and I were playing mind games for a while, often with him coming out on top. I was suprised to hear Andrew ask if he could steal a life (meaning I still had two lives after he lost all his three). His Samus usually lasts a lot longer than my Falco due to his great recovery. He got a few bad recoveries leading to suicides, which gave our opponents enough of an advantage to beat us. Our 2-2 record meant that our next match could be our last.

Our fifth match was against Pikachu and Shiek on Fourside. Andrew and I rarely play Fourside, but it turned out to be great for his recovery and even greater for my spiking. The pikachu spammed his lightning bolt, which I fell victim for repeatedly. We successfully spammed our projectiles for a while, locking down the opponents, until I decided to go show them the bottom side of my boots. After some shine-aerial combos, some spikes, and even some impressive shine-spike combos, we had a two-on-one against Shiek, with plenty of lives to spare. This was probably our most decisive victory, giving us at least one more match to play.

Our sixth match was on Princess Peach's castle (bad for Andrew and I) against Marth and Fox. Again, some impressive combos and spikes helped me along the way. At one point, I thought I had lost my last life, but found that I still had one left. Shortly after that, Andrew was knocked out, leaving me with a 2-on-1. They both had 50%+ damange, and I had none. Of course, I thought I was terribly screwed. I played some mind games, and tried to separate the opponents. I knocked Marth out with a well placed b-air. I noticed all match long that Fox had a bad habit of coming in with an aerial, so I punished him with a shield-grab. A few of those, and another b-air sent him reeling, securing another victory for team BRDO.

At this point, 31 of the 48 teams had been eliminated. Our next match was on Corneria (which I mistook as a blessing). We were up against Dr. Mario and Luigi, the latter being controlled by the famed GOD?, who placed second with Luigi in the singles tournament. I made a few poorly timed mistakes. My real undoing came when Dr. Mario caped my recovery when I was at a low percentage, wasting a life. Had I sweetspotted the edge, we might have stood a chance, but once I was gone, Andrew was left to take out a total of four lives from the two players, a difficult task for any player. Thus, our tournament life was extinguished with a 4-3 record for the night, putting us somewhere in the top 17 teams.

The tournament was really fun, and even exhilerating. The feeling of winning a match that ended with me facing off alone against both opponents was great. Though we didn't win anything, I think that placing as high as we did is a pretty good result for our first tournament. I'm sure that with more practice against humans, we could fix our mistakes and do even better. Unfortunately, this is my last term, so I won't be attending anymore tournaments.

Listening to... Division of Laura Lee - I Guess I'm Healed
Link of the moment... I hope they're able to post detailed results, and some videos of the top teams.

Que sera, sera

I feel like I'm not entirely content with my life as of late. I feel like I need a clean slate, a fresh start. I recently got my offer of admission from LU, and I'm torn between sending it off with my deposit and ripping it up in an act of defiance. I'm getting entirely sick of math, and school in general. Well, hopefully life gets better after an undergrad.

I don't think I've really done a stitch of work lately. I haven't had an assignment due in a while; I have one due on Monday, but I think I might just not submit it again (it's only 2%). I wrote my (makeup) midterm for CO453. I think I passed it, but then again, that's what I said about the first one. Hopefully, I'll at least get more than 35% on this one. As for that crypto midterm? 98%.

Well, at least I seem to be involved with more stuff lately. Tomorrow, Andrew and I will play in a euchre tournament at St. Jerome's. On Tuesday, we're skipping euchre to play in a Smash Bros. team tournament (hopefully this will also knock me out of my #1 ranking so I don't have to wind up buying a prize for myself). On last Wednesday, I went out for Nathalie's birthday. We went to some Vietnamese/Thai place. The food was ok, but nothing to scream about. For a few days there, I was eating very poorly. I had a meal at midnight the night before, then the dinner that I got that night lasted me two small meals for the rest of the day. The next day, I had a pizza pop around 4 PM and a small frozen dinner later that night. Now that we've gone to Sobey's, I've got more food in the house.

After the dinner at Nathalie's, we went back to her apartment. I won a match of Wii Tennis, and had a terrible try at Wii bowling because I randomly picked a left-handed player (as a result, every shot had massive amounts of spin in it). We also played a game she got as a gift called Loaded Questions. One player asks a question from a card, everyone else answers, the person to the right of the player reads them all, and the player has to guess which player picked which answer. Since there were six of us playing, things dragged on a little late (six players gives the player a 1/120 chance of guessing correctly, five players gives a 1/24 chance). Overall, a good time was had.

I had high hopes of getting some good sleep tonight, but again my nightly sleep cycle turned into an hour and a half nap.

I really hope I'm drawing near the end of Shadow Hearts. My characters are Lvl40, and I think the cap is Lvl50. It's a decent game and all, but things are getting a bit repetitive. Battles all seem to follow the same pattern. I hope you'll also notice the completion of Megamans three through 5; John and I are just before the Wily stages in 6.

My dog, Skipper, died the other day. My sister is really broken up about it (as well I would expect her to be), and my mom was getting choked up on the phone too. Me? Eh, I guess I'm pretty unaffected. He was a good dog, and he'll be missed around the household, but I'm not going to shed any tears for him.

Listening to... Hatebreed - Tear it Down
Link of the moment... Mike Joooooooones.....HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW

Re: Finding someone I'm happy with

Yeah, forget that whole Katie thing. She just wants to be friends.

Listening to... Catch 22 - Leaving
Link of the moment... *sigh*

I am not economically viable

Well, things have taken a slightly interesting turn lately. Ever since Katie and I have started hanging out more regularly, I've been thinking of her in a different light. I asked her out the other week, and she responded favourably. We went doubles with John and Julie, to the bowling alley and Kelsey's. After that, we watched Falling Down and Hostage here. I won't go into details, but I will say that the date was very fun but not necessarily encouraging. I've been convinced by third parties to not worry too much about it and stop putting unnecessary thought into it. We'll see how things progress.

John and I beat Megaman 4 the other day, and we're done the first eight bosses on Megaman 5. He usually lets me do the bosses, which I seem to have a knack for. I've set a personal goal of beating as many of the megamans as I can without using cheats. Of course, who has the time for video games these days?

300 was a decent enough movie. I think I wasn't really in the mood for it though. I was pretty tired when we left, and it took all my willpower not to fall asleep at the wheel on the way to Mississauga. I didn't notice any difference at all between the IMAX screen and a regular screen. The movie was good, but I think there were still a few cliche-ish parts. I guess overall I'd give it a recommendation.

This week's Network Design assignment was considerable easier than previous ones, but there are still some questions that I couldn't get done. I didn't finish nor even start my Network Flow assignment. Again, it's only two measly percent, so I don't care too much. I didn't have much time this weekend, due to the movie and the date. I suppose in theory I could have worked on assignments rather than playing megaman games, but where's the fun in that?

I got a conditional acceptance to LU. I don't know what it's conditional on, it says more detail can be found in my offer of admission. I guess I'll go; I'm not overly excited to do more learning, but I can't really think of anything better to do. It won't hurt me to take 1-2 years to get a post-grad degree.

Happy early birthday to Nathalie! Her birthday is this Tuesday (I think), and I'm going to her birthday dinner this Wednesday. I think I have an idea of what to get her, too. Of course, I couldn't possibly say what it is here, or it won't be a surprise! I just hope I can find one easily.

I wish I was sleeping right now. I tried going to bed pretty early, and I would have been successful, had my roommates been a bit more considerate. I could distinctly hear all three of their voices upstairs. Sure, I could have asked them to keep it down, but by the time I was awakened, the damage had been done. Well, it looks like another instance where I sleep for two hours one night, and 12 the next. It happened to me last week, and that 12 hours of sleep was quite relaxing.

Somehow I guess I need to fit in some study time for my last midterm. I've got to study the four assignments we've had, plus the first midterm I took. Well, que sera, sera. As far as my crypto midterm goes, I'm pretty confident that I kicked its effing ass. Good for me! It helped that I really didn't need to study the RSA stuff, as I did so pretty extensively last term.

Listening to... Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight
Link of the moment... I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Then I must be some kind of Genius

Well, I got my midterm marks back. I got a 90 in Network Flow...excellent. Network Design? Well, I got the second highest mark in the class! Unfortunately, that mark was 35%. The odd thing is that the highest mark in the class was around 75%, so there was a pretty huge drop-off. We're going to have a make-up midterm, and the prof talked to us all individually. I didn't tell him off or anything. What worries me is that it doesn't look like he's admitting that he's partially to blame for the class doing so poorly. Well, there's still 90% of the mark to be decided, so we'll see how this second midterm goes.

My sleep schedule is quite off lately. Lately, I've been going to bed between 4 and 5, and waking up at around 2PM. On days that I have class, I usually only get a few hours of sleep, and then crash when I get home. I forget what messed up my schedule. I was looking forward to attending a games day yesterday, but I woke up at 3 and realized it was half over, and by the time it would take to get ready and get there, it wouldn't be worth going.

I'm finally on the second disc of Shadow Hearts, but I think there's still a ways to go before I finish it. I beat the co-op story mode of Timesplitters: Future Perfect with Hugh, after some horrendously difficult stages. For Yoshi's Island, I've only got to acheive my goal of getting at least 80 on every stage for the last world, and then beat the last stage. I haven't touched FFVI lately. I have too many games started up already, so I'm trying to get SH and YI out of the way first.

I'm talking to Aly as we speak ('we speak', being figurative, of course). He reminded me that he has my Serenity DVD. I suggested that we actually do something, rather than just saying "hey, we should do something". It looks like I'll be going to see 300 this Friday in Mississauga (or Mrs. Sauga, as I jovially refer to it) at the IMAX theatre. I guess it doens't really mess with my midterms or anything, and the roads should be nice enough to drive on, so I can't think of any good reason not to go.

Katie was over last night, for the first time in a while. I was starting to get the feeling that she didn't really want to hang out with us anymore, but she initiated the hangout, so I suppose my fears were unfounded. She, Andrew and I played some NES (I have a NES emulator for PS2 with 900+ games), Scene It, and Carcassonne. As the night went on, activities included making spaghetti, and Katie falling asleep on the couch. I didn't know if I should wake her up or not, so I just played some Megaman 3 instead. Eventually she woke up (at 3:30 AM) and I kicked her out of my house. Good times, as usual! Unfortunately, she is babysitting this Monday and as such can not come over to watch TV.

I bought a Pitchshifter CD from those seedy guys that set up shop in the SLC the other day. "deviant", if you must know. It was a rare find, so I was happy to pay the eight dollars (sans tax). It's not as good as www.pitchshifter.com (the album), but I haven't really given it any time to grow on me. Now if only I could find a Bucket Truck or Chore cd...

The university had 1.5 snow days at the end of last week. They closed up shop at 3:30 on Thursday due to some pretty fierce snowfall. Overnight, there was really nasty freezing rain, hence the closure on Friday. It didn't mean much to me, besides letting me sleep in and saving me three hours of unenlightening class.

Well, that's as much as I'm willing to type for now.

Listening to... Reel Big Fish - Take On Me
Link of the moment... NES emulator for PS1. Needs a swap disc or mod chip to work.