Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes

I've lost my will to blog.

2008-07-12T17:02:00.000-04:00

Get over it.

Calculation Theme

2008-06-01T02:05:00.003-04:00

I hate these sorts of days.

I hate the sort of day where I don't do anything productive, I can't seem to get any plans together, and the plans I do have are things I don't really want to do. I was supposed to go to Scuttlebutts (I think I'm going to start calling it Shittyfucks) since Eric is in town for convocation. Unfortunately, I really don't like Shittfucks and Eric isn't my best of friends, so I decided to bow out (though Laura went out with him). I had hoped to hang out with Adam tonight, but of course he never got back to me, and it sounds like he's busy tomorrow. So much for another game of Runebound.

I seem to be having more of those sorts of days lately. I've been pretty mopey for a good week now. My scheduling course is giving me grief, I haven't had a chance to play any board games, I haven't really gotten out of the house much lately.

I've been getting up at 9AM, exercising, and eating breakfast in the pursuit of getting that "full of energy all day" feeling that I hear about so often. I can't say it's helped at all; I still spend more time sleeping than the average house cat.

Games nights have been random. Last week, I had a total of 10 people over to play games (many stayed until midnight). This week, I had a grand total of 0 people come to play games. Grant and Chanel came over around 8, but they weren't interested in playing games so we watched shitty TV while they talked my ear off about their trip. I don't know what it is, but I'm not the type of person who really cares to hear stories or see pictures of other peoples' vacations. It just doesn't interest me at all.

At least I had a pretty good birthday. I got to spend some time with Laura on Friday night, though we haven't really done anything outside of my house in about as long as I can remember. On Saturday night, I went to Adam's house and we played Runebound and drank. We started playing around 8, and didn't finish until just after midnight. It's a long game, certainly, but perhaps our analytical skills were dulled on account of the alcohol. Regardless, we had fun and we both plan to play it again. I'm already looking into getting some expansions for the game to buff up the decks.

On Sunday, we went out for dinner at Tony and Adam's. It was pretty good. After dinner we had some of Mrs. Stilla's cake, and I opened a few gifts. I got a fair amount of booze and candy, as well as a few shirts. I think Laura spent too much on my gift.

After dinner is what I was looking forward to the most: a five player game of El Grande with Adam, Trevor, Laura, and Mr. Stilla. The rules were easy to explain, and it seemed like everyone really liked the game. At the end of the game, I eked ahead of Laura for the win. It was a very close game, and I'm glad that she did so well. She has told me numerous times how much she likes the game, so I anticipate it being played again in the future (assuming I can get more than zero people to show up on Wednesday nights).

Listening to... Muse - Assassin
Link of the moment... I picked up a really good deal online the other day. I likely won't have it until after next weekend, though.

I...uh...hmm...yeah.

2008-05-13T00:44:00.003-04:00

BLEH. I need to get my act together. I spend too much time in front of my computer. I'm starting to get that zombie face feeling, if you know what I mean. And with all that time in front of the screen, I still leave my blog unedited for over a month. M'oh well, not like it's important in any way.

I've been very excited to get my hands on a game called Runebound. It's not like anything I own now; it is best described as an "adventure" game. From what I know of it, I'd describe it as Diablo, if it were a board game. You start off with a fairly weak character, fighting weak enemies, collecting gold, experience, and loot in hopes of becoming more powerful by collecting items, weapons, and allies. I'd likely have purchased it myself if my birthday weren't so close (I can be difficult to shop for as a result of my niche hobbies). It's not the type of game that will hit the table on games nights, as most people wouldn't care for the theme or the game length. Regardless, I'm sure it would make for a few entertaining afternoons with Adam, since he's always willing to do anything.

Laura and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other in the last few weeks, and things are going pretty well, despite my constant portrayals of insecurity. A gentleman mustn't kiss and tell, though, so I don't think I need to say much more on the subject. Trivia: Assuming Laura makes my list of "people I have considered at one time to be my girlfriend", then 50% of the people on said list will have the first name Laura.

I've started work on my course for the summer, an introduction to machine scheduling. So far, I'm left quite unimpressed both by the source material and the course organizer (who coincidentally is my new research supervisor). The material is dry and not very helpful with regard to the exercises. I had an assignment due today, and emailed the prof for help on Friday. She said she hasn't had time to look at the material yet. I went to her posted office hours today for help, but she was nowhere to be found. I'm less than impressed.

Well, Grant, Chanel, Sheena and Dan have headed off for Europe. The couples won't be back until May 27th and June 11th (!) respectively. I'm sure they're having a great time. They left on Friday, and skipped out on the previous games night to pack and visit family. I had a lot of cancellations that night, but had two new people come over. The three of us had a lot of fun; we played three games (as opposed to the usual 1 plus filler that I normally experience), and they really liked all of the games I showed them. They are both going to come back in the future. I had to convince them that I did indeed have other friends and everyone had canceled on me, but perhaps they think that I spend every Wednesday night sitting in my basement hoping that someone will finally show up.

Listening to... Metric - Down
Link of the moment... UHF video by Weird Al

SYMaOYE turns four!

2008-04-06T22:39:00.002-04:00

Wow, I almost missed my blog's birthday today! My face would have been red if I didn't celebrate with my usual "year in review" post, but luckily it looks like I'll be able to squeeze one in on time. I liked last year's style, so I think I'll copy it again this year.

My first shoutout goes to board games, and more specifically, weekly games nights. Since last summer, I've played a ton of games, as well as buying a whole lot of new ones. I've had a lot of fun playing all sorts of games with my friends. I also have to give a shoutout to my regulars, who make my Wednesday nights the highlight of my week, every week.

I'll also give a shoutout to the Game Shelf, the local game store. At first, I wasn't a fan of you. I'm still waiting for your website to be anything more than a placeholder, some of your prices are a bit high, and your selection is a bit lacking. However, I've come to realize that you can get anything I want if I ask for it, and some of your prices are actually very competitive to other retailers.

A shoutout goes to Lakehead University, which is my current alma matter. I still walk around like I'm hot shit since I went to UW, but I'm getting a pretty good education from you. Your smaller class sizes and smaller faculty are definitely a new experience, and is probably doing me a lot of good.

My first-year academic adviser, Adam also gets a shoutout. You've been a lot of help with my transition into grad studies, and I like that you're very approachable. Thanks for all the help in the courses you taught me!

My new school friends Laura, Eric, Chris, Bobbi, and Emerald get a shoutout. You guys have proven to me that I'm not hopeless when it comes to meeting new people. I really like hanging out with you after class and just chatting in the Study. I always think that you represent the "newness" in my life this year, and it's a shame that some of you are graduating and won't be around next year.

My Wii and video games in general get a shoutout. I finally got some time in the last year to plow through a bunch of titles I've wanted to play. I think I've rekindled my gaming hobby, and it's provided me with lots of hours of entertainment that would have otherwise been spent on crappy television.

My old roommates get a shoutout, since I went to visit them all twice in the last year. Thanks especially to Andrew and Hugh who let me stay at their houses during my winter trip. It's good to know we can still hangout and relive "old times" even once we've all graduated.

Unfortunately, I've got to give a shoutout to the single life this year. In the entirety of the year, I've only gone out on one date, and that didn't really turn in to anything. Still, I am happy that I still have lots of friends to spend time with, and there are still lots of fish in the sea!

For the first time, alcohol gets a shoutout. Once Phil showed up in town, I figured there was no reason not to give it a try. I've gotta say though, I'm still not a fan at all, but at least now it's because of the taste and not for no reason at all.

Guitar Hero gets a shoutout. Lots of my friends have had fun with you, and you've been a hit at parties! I've gotten pretty good at you as well, but I don't play as much anymore now that you're not "new".

Well, that's all for this year! Not a lot of new stuff, but there it is for you to read.

Listening to... Sum 41 - Billy Spleen
Link of the moment... Or, from another perspective...

That about covers it

2008-03-29T23:03:00.003-04:00

I went to a cover show, and saw

Bjork (ugh, GET OFF THE STAGE)
Blink 182 (omg amazing...they played a request that the drummer had never heard and he played it amazingly)
Jimmy Eat World (wait, is this a cover show or a fifth grade talent show?)
Distillers (whoah, whoah, is that *actually* the Distillers or just a cover?)
Danko Jones (good, but NO BOUNCE? WHAT THE FUCK?)

Some choice heckles I had (didn't say them loud enough for the bands to hear, of course):

Bad singer, to sound guy: "Hey, I can't hear anything on my monitor."
Me: "Consider yourself lucky!"

Laura, to me after I air drum a song: "Can you play drums?"
Me: "Better than this guy, but that's not saying much."

Crappy bassist grabs a second bass guitar.
Me, to friends: "This guy has two bass guitars? Maybe he should learn how to play one, first."

Guitarist, trying to get tthe crowd excited: "C'mon, get up! Did you come here to sit on your asses?"
Me: "No, we came to see some decent bands play!"

Other wonderful moments:

The bass player for the Jimmy Eat World cover was in a fairly corpse-like state: no presence at all, and he was a fairly bad at bass to boot. Nonetheless, at one moment, I'm pretty sure I saw him wipe his forehead, as though he was exhausted from his awesome performance.

At one point, one of the members of a bad band decided to tell a really lame joke. I laughed really hard in a belittling manner. He then followed up the joke with the classic "punchline" guitar riff, but wound up messing up the last note, making the whole event much more hilarious than the joke he told. I laughed hysterically for minutes.

Both of my friends head to the washroom. Seconds later, a drunk native woman comes up behind me, and says something along the lines of "Hey, don't be shy! If you know the songs you should get up and start dancing! I see you singing so you should be dancing...(etc.)". Minutes later, she was seen to be escorted outside.

Listening to... Danko Jones - Bounce
Link of the moment... Well, maybe I'll get to see it when Danko plays here in May!

"You cannot square the circle"

2008-03-28T00:03:00.003-04:00

I was tired this morning after class, and thought to myself "but I went to bed early last night"! Then, I realized that by that, I meant I had gone to bed at 1 AM, which is not really all that early in a general sense.

I had a party last weekend, and it was awesome! I got the usuals, as well as a few people I don't see often, and I even got four people from my seminar class to show up! A new fascination among the board gamers is Headbanz, which I picked up at the thrift store god knows how long ago. We played a little poker (got cleaned out by the guy we had taught the game to), and some Guitar Hero and Wii as well.

I think the highlight of the night for me was when I convinced everyone to play Werewolf! I had 10 (the perfect number, IMHO), and everyone had fun playing it! My new scoring system was not too complex nor too shallow. The first round was a bit of crapshoot, with not much discussion going on. Grant and Chanel moderated the second and third round so I could play. On the first day, I wound up putting a werewolf up for lynching, and people voted in my favour (I had accused them on little to no evidence, but it must have worked!). In all three rounds, the villagers won, but I think it was solely from lucky first votes. I can't wait to play again!

School is winding down, I guess. I've only got one assignment left this term, and then two exams. I've also chosen my project advisor, Wendy Huang. Her research is in the Open-Shop Machine Scheduling problem, specifically with dense schedules. Mouthful, huh? It should be interesting (or else I'm screwed). I hope to get lots of work done by the end of the summer, rather than putting it off.

I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I got a new scholarship, worth a total of $9000 over two years. Right now, I've got about $7000 worth of scholarship cheques to deposit. I should be a professional student!

I've broken in four of my six new games. I played Pillars of the Earth with Adam and my mom, and they both enjoyed it (my mom's not so great with rules per se). I won, but it was a VERY close game between the three of us. I'm looking forward to playing again now that I know the flow of the game. I also played El Grande with five last week. I think people generally enjoyed it and would play again, but I don't think it really "wowed" anyone, including myself. Still, it's a nice game deep in both strategy and tactics, that plays well with five.

This previous Wednesday, I had only Grant and Chanel, so we tried out some 3 player games. We started with Ra, which was about as good as I'd expected, but in a different way. The game is all about timing, and there are lots of things to consider when deciding to force an auction or place a tile. The game was super-quick, even with a rules explanation. I also went to the liberty of printing off four player sheets from BGG, and getting them laminated at Staples. After one play, I'm glad I have them since they make scoring and tile sorting easier.

We also played two games of Pandemic (though the first didn't really count, since we missed one rule which makes the game way more difficult). The second game, with *most* of the correct rules (hey, it's hard to remember all the details!), we lost. The cards came out kinda crappy, and there were a lot of chain reaction outbreaks. Overall though, I really like that game! I actually played a solo game tonight (that's right, you can play solo), and I wound up winning. I'm pretty sure I didn't cheat, and I think I just happened to get a good string of cards. I don't know if I'll still like the game as much when I feel like I've "solved" it, but I'm really in love with it at the moment. Maybe I'll play one more solo game before bed...

Listening to... No Use For A Name - Couch Boy
Link of the moment... Creepiest and coolest video you'll see in a while

Binge and Purge

2008-03-18T13:40:00.004-04:00

Whoops, haven't updated lately. You can blame that mostly on SSBB starting from March 9th onwards. I went with Adam to Walmart for the midnight release (I think that means my geekdom has reached a new high). There were a handful of other nerds there for that very reason. They probably sold about 20 copies of the game that night. That night (same night as the clocks moving forward an hour), I played the game until about 4. I think the five or six days following the release of the game, it got a cool 35 hours of playtime. I remember checking the other day and seeing that there was 10 hours clocked on Sunday alone! Time well wasted, I tell you.

I realized it was becoming an obsession, and I had a few assignments to do, so I let Grant borrow my Wii since Saturday night. I think I'll pick it up either later today or get him to bring it to games night tomorrow, because I'm caught up again and itching to play.

On games night last week, I had the regulars, plus Adam and Sheena's friend Kim. We wound up playing Settlers and Power Grid (well, those two games were played), and afterwards, I played some four-way SSBB with Adam, Dan, and Grant. Haha, I remember one of the first matches, I played against them as a team of three and wound up winning. I played either Falco or Wolf and racked up a good 4 kills off of one of my final smashes alone. I failed in all my other attempts though. Grant's starting to get pretty good and we're close to being evenly matched

Since the last post, I ordered and received some new board games from the states. I purchased El Grande, Santiago, and Alhambra, which have been on my wishlist for a while, and I picked up Pillars of the Earth on a whim since I needed another $40 to get free shipping, and there wasn't really anything else I wanted that was in stock. It's been called "Caylus light" by lots of BGG users, and it's got some nice looking components. You'd think that after opening four new games and getting that "new game smell" into my system, I'd be happy, but I actually wound up going to the local game store to buy another game, RA! It wasn't in stock at ThoughtHammer when I placed my order, and it's been number one on my wishlist for a while. It's out of print, so I figured I should get a copy while I still can (even if the local store charges $10 more than I could get online).

I've also grown very interested in a new game called Pandemic. It's a cooperative game where you play as team of people who are trying to control and cure a bunch of diseases around the world. From what I read, it seems like the theme is tied in pretty well with the mechanics, and it seems like there's a lot of tension in the game. The local store has it at the same price as online stores, so I'm thinking of picking up a copy. At the very least, I could play it solo!

Listening to... Dream Theatre - Metropolis Part I
Link of the moment... My Wii's GPU is shot (but not to the point where it's unplayable), so I'm going to have to get it sent away and repaired. At least it's under warranty.

An interesting euchre case study

2008-03-02T01:21:00.002-05:00

I just played some euchre online and came across a very interesting hand. I'd like to make a note on it so I don't forget. If you're not well-versed in euchre, don't waste your time but if you play cards at all, you might want to have a read.

The situation is this: I am dealer. My partner called spades. In my hand I have the jack of clubs, ace of spades, ten of spades, ace and queen of diamonds. The player to my left leads the ace of clubs, my partner has cut with the nine of spades, and the other player has followed suit. What should I play?

The natural answer is probably to ruff my off-queen and let my partner take it. If my partner is void in diamonds, we'll probably take all of the tricks. If my partner has a diamond, he will lead it, hoping that I've voided myself. I haven't, and this gives the other team a chance to cut on this trick, which I can't prevent. I'd say ruffing the queen will lead to getting all five tricks 4 times out of 5.

Now let's try something different: instead of ruffing the queen, let's overtrump my partner's nine with my ten to take the lead. Now I lead the left.

Case 1: My partner has only the right bower left in his hand. Then he wins, and probably leads an ace (otherwise he made a pretty risky call). Now I ruff my queen knowing that my opponents are probably void in trump, and my two aces will win the last two tricks, unless one of my opponents was lucky enough to get the two remaining trump in the deck.

Case 2: My partner has another low trump, which he plays under my left. I bleed the one trump left in my opponents' hands, and lead my ace of diamonds safely on the third trick. Next, I lead the queen of diamonds, and one of two things will happen:
a) My partner trumps it with the right bower. Then my ace of trump wins the last trick.
b) My partner trusts it. The queen will lose ONLY if one of my opponents was dealt the king of diamonds plus another diamond. Otherwise the queen stands and my partner's right wins the last trick.

Now it seems like the probability of one of my opponents being dealt two diamonds, one of which is the king is lower than the odds that one will be void in diamonds and be able to cut a diamonds trick. Thus, I think that the way I played (overtrumping my partner's nine to take the lead), while counter-intuitive, gives our team a better chance of taking all five tricks.

I hope SOMEONE found this interesting.

Listening to... Cream - Pressed Rat and Warthog
Link of the moment... Don't forget my old strategy articles!

Good frames won't save bad paintings

2008-03-01T21:38:00.002-05:00

I've accomplished a whole lot of nothing lately. Besides a lecture that I gave on Thursday morning (it went very well), I haven't done a stitch of work in days. I've got some marking to do as usual, and this week's group theory assignment looks difficult. Of the two questions I've looked at (out of ~10 that I need to finish), I've gotten stuck on both. I felt quite odd today, as I spent most of the day sleeping. I really haven't accomplished much of anything today. Even after spending most of the day sleeping, I still feel very drained. I'm not sure exactly what's causing that, but hopefully tomorrow I'll feel well rested and be able to finish something before the weekend finishes.

So, I went on a date the other night with Dina (the same day as my lecture; I was a nervous wreck all day). We got a coffee before watching "Juno" at the movie theater. It sounds like a second date is in the works, so what does that mean? We're "seeing each other"? "Dating"? Sometimes the wrong turn of phrase can cause a lot of trouble.

I don't like to post about stuff involving other people that some might consider private (for instance, I went on a date the other night, but I won't say what we talked about). However, I will relay one story that ends with me feeling like an idiot for the sake of your enjoyment. I'll even give you the whole story with all the little details, cause that's the kind of guy I am.

So, we need some background history here. First of all, Dina's cell number shows up as "blocked number" on my cell phone. Also, I was invited to two events last night: Dan's birthday party, and an appetizer party at Alexa's house. I decided I would go to Alexa's for two reasons: the only people I would know at Dan's place would be people I see on a regular basis, and their apartment is too small for the number of people they invited (and I don't like being shoulder to shoulder with people). I told Dina the other night that I planned to go to Alexa's and would like for her to come along. She said she had dancing that night until 9PM, but would like to go with me after then to the party.

So, Friday rolls around, and Adam phones me to do something (he's only here on the weekends). I invited him to go to the party as well since I wanted to hang out with him, hoping that Dina wouldn't mind. Well, that sort of fizzled anyways, because he decided to go out with his other buddies later that night, and asked me to drop him off at his place before I picked up Dina.

So, 9:45 rolls around, and I start to wonder where Dina is. I call her cell phone and get her voice mail, but I didn't leave a message. About 20 seconds later, my cell phone rings, and displays "blocked number", leaving any reasonable human to deduce that Dina was calling me back. I answer the phone, and hear a girl say "hey, where are you? Why aren't you over here?", accompanied with what seems to be a party going on in the background. I couldn't really tell what was going on, but I figured Dina wouldn't have gone to the party without me, and I take a stab at it: "Alexa?". No, apparently it was Sheena calling from her party. I told them I would probably stop by that night, but forgot to call them earlier to tell them about the change of plans. So, I told her I decided to blow them off to go to Alexa's, and hoped that I didn't come off as a dick.

Alright, so I kind of felt like an idiot at this point, but it gets better. I decide to start preparing the fruit I was going to bring to Alexa's, and if I didn't hear from Dina by 10:15, I'd chalk it up as a loss and go to Alexa's. At about 10, I hear my phone ring again, and see her name pop up on the caller ID (her landline shows up properly on my phone). Finally! So, I answer, and say something along the lines of "Hey Dina, are you still coming to Alexa's tonight?". She said she would, I asked how long it would take for her to get ready, and told her I'd be there in fifteen minutes. Alright, things are going well. I throw my fruit in a container, and go upstairs to grab a shirt to wear, while Adam waited downstairs.

As I get to my room, my phone rings again, and it's Dina. "Hey, what's up?", I say, wondering what she had forgotten. "Well," she replies, "some of my family is staying over for the night, and so I can't come out tonight". Hm, how odd. She continues: "So, I guess my nephew just called you and was talking to you. He totally prank called you, and I figured I should tell you before you show up at my house". Oh. Wonderful. So, at this point, I feel a number of things, all tied together by a feeling of idiocy. Not only can I not tell the difference between Dina's voice and that of her nephew, but my plans to see Dina that night are shot, AND I've been punk'd by some pre-pubescent kid who I really can't afford to hate, seeing as how he's related to the person to whom I'm trying to give a good impression.

If that's not bad enough, when I get back downstairs, I couldn't even bring myself to tell Adam how badly my Friday night just got PWN'D, and let on that I'm still planning on picking her up after dropping him off.

I hope my misery brings you joy.

Listening to... Mega Man 3 - Blue Balls Remix
Link of the moment... If you've ever played Mega Man 3, you should give this song a listen

What kind of music do I like?

2008-02-24T00:13:00.005-05:00

I always have to think a little bit before I answer when I am asked what sort of music I like or listen to. I usually wind up answering with "stupid metal", since I realize not many of the people I talk to listen to my type of music, and would probably categorize it as "stupid metal". Anyways, I thought about it, and here are some songs that I like to listen to, linked to YouTube (some live, some not) for everyone to appreciate.

Stockholm Syndrome by Muse. Characterized by some "fuzzy" guitar, fairly high-ranged (in some parts falsetto) vocals, and a change of tempo in parts of the song. Muse is described as Wikipedia as "New Prog", "Alternative Rock", and "Progressive Rock".
A Better Lie by Pitchshifter (I'm sorry, you'll have to settle for a DBZ video). Some effects on the guitar. The drums are very involved (lots of electronica-type percussion). Again, there's a distinct change in tempo during the song. The vocals are fairly gravelly and admittedly not the least repetitive thing in the song. Pitchshifter is described by Wikipedia as "nu metal, industrial rock, industrial metal".
The Bending by Hopesfall. The guitars are layered at times and much more than generic power chord progressions. The drums are quite unpredictable and add a lot to the song, in my opinion. The vocals switch between classic cat-in-a-blender screamo, and something a bit more melodic, overlapping with backing vocals. The guitars play some dissonant tones at points (~2:10). Hopesfall is described by Wikipedia as "Rock, Melodic Hardcore, Post-hardcore".
New Noise by Refused (you might want to skip to just after the first minute). Basic, repeating riff at the start of the song. Mostly screaming vocals during the chorus, and mostly talking during the verses. Guitars are mostly basic chords during the chorus, along with the repeating riff throughout. Drums aren't anything to write home about, but fairly varied through the different parts of the song. Refused is described by wikipedia as "Hardcore punk, Post-hardcore, Alternative metal".
Under A Glass Moon by Dream Theater. Keyboards and guitar bring the song in, with some great drumming near the start. I really like the alternating drum patterns in 1:06-1:20 and also during the chorus at 2:09-2:36. DT supposedly has one of the better drummers out there and it shows. Definitely lots of tempo changes. The vocals are high-range, and I guess it also falls in the falsetto range at some parts. Dream Theater is described by Wikipedia as "Progressive metal, Progressive rock".
Deliverance by Opeth. A very mellow guitar intro, leading into mellow vocals, delivered on an odd rhythm that seems to carry though most of the song. At 1:44 and 2:02 we get some dissonant guitar chords. At 2:23 we get some screamy vocals that are closer to death metal than screamo. Around 3:28 we get a completely new rhythm and a key change, and back to more melodic vocals. The song ends a bit early, but I didn't want to find and analyze the full 13 minute song. Wikipedia describes Opeth as "Progressive metal, Progressive death metal, Progressive rock".

Well there you have it. According to Wikipedia, I listen to progressive rock and metal with some post-hardcore. I hope you enjoyed delving into my musical tastes! So, what kind of music do you listen to?

Listening to... Blindside - Eye of the Storm (no good version for it on YouTube)
Link of the moment... Of course, every now and then I like to listen to something random (pun intended).

Reading week? More like...BLEEDING week...yeah.

2008-02-21T12:04:00.006-05:00

Well this is my reading week, but I've had a lot of work tacked on to me, so I've had to spend a good part of it working. Two loads of marking, two assignments (one in TeX), a lecture to prepare, and my usual commitment of trying to find a research topic. I think I've found out so far that research just isn't my thing.

Well, another lonesome valentine's day has passed. If I recall correctly, it was a pretty lousy day for me. I've been having more lousy days than normal lately. I just don't really look forward to anything anymore. I live every day thinking "alright, if I sludge through today, maybe things will be better tomorrow". I miss the life I was leading when I was in Waterloo. I got out of the house more often, and enjoyed spending time with all my friends there. To be honest, I don't really enjoy the time I spend with my friends here. Sure, it beats doing nothing, but it just doesn't have the same feeling as when I hung out with my old roommies.

[Edit: Alright, alright, that sounds a bit malicious. I guess what I really meant to say is that I miss hanging out with my roommies because after spending so much time with them, my personality changed, and after hanging out with them for so long, I feel like I'm not really being "myself" when I'm hanging out with my friends in Thunder Bay. Besides Adam, who I only see on the weekends, I don't really have anyone here that I feel I can just be myself around.]

Speaking of which, John was in town this previous weekend for "Family Day" (what a lame name for a holiday). I had fun hanging out with him this weekend. I played lots of games over the weekend with him and his parents, including 7 hands of euchre. To be honest though, playing euchre with his mom is like being skinned alive. She never retains any of the rules of the game. Sure, I understand if you can't remember the order of trump if you're just starting, but she's played at least a dozen games now. On Saturday night, I went to John's house along with Adam and we played "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" with John's cousin Dina. Well, apparently I am indeed smarter than a fifth grader cause I won the game. After that we played Balderdash (well, Ultimate Balderdash to be honest). It turns out that John is the best Balderdasher among us, and it was a close game for second, with Dina coming out on top in the last round, and Adam and I tying for third. Overall good times!

We had a game of Risk 2210 that spanned the last 2 games nights. I enjoyed it, but it would be much better playing with people that actually wanted to play. It felt like Chanel was just going through the motions, making truces with everyone possible. I guess it kind of worked for her, but on the last turn she could have easily taken over lots more territory, but didn't. I think she's too impatient for a game as long as Risk 2210. By the end of the game, I was left with 3 territories and no chance to win, but for some reason, Sheena saw it fit to try to obliterate me (even though doing so would give her no real benefit). Luckily I got some good dice rolls to secure my 9 point last place (the next lowest was around 20 I think).

In an effort to try to veer my life off its current path, I've asked someone out on a movie date. You can argue all you want that asking via email is a coward's way out, but I think it's better than phoning someone up and putting them on the spot, as well as not putting me at risk of saying something stupid. If this was someone I see in person regularly, I'd ask face-to-face, but I don't have that luxury.

Listening to... Matchbook Romance - The Greatest Fall
Link of the moment... Funny little video

Pressed Rat and Warthog

2008-01-27T01:14:00.000-05:00

Blech, I'm not enjoying marking this weekend. The prof for the first year calculus course "accidentally" made an assignment harder than it should have been. He asked we two markers which wanted to do it, with the promise that future assignments would be shorter. I volunteered, because I didn't have any discrete assignments to mark this weekend, and I figured I'd rather get the work over with sooner than later. Well, it took me about 4.5 hours to mark the first page of the four pages of solutions, so things were looking grim. I've burned through the second page quite a bit quicker, though, and it looks like the whole assignment will take around 16 or 17 hours to finish (still a heck of a lot longer than it should be taking).

I'm not taking a third course this term, but Adam is getting me started on my research project this term rather than in the summer. So far, I'm supposed to be reading some articles to find some inspiration, but I've been slacking off a little bit. I have, however, found a few sites with some reading material on combinatorial game theory. Interesting stuff, but I wouldn't say I'm "passionate" about it. I'd better find something I enjoy for my research project.

Adam bought the second power plant deck for Power Grid the other day. We went to the local game store on Wednesday and asked the owner (Drew) if he could order it for us, and he had it in the store by Friday afternoon! That's a pretty quick turnaround; I'm impressed. It wasn't too expensive either. I saw that they had Ra in stock again, but they've knocked the price up by another three dollars.

Power Grid is Adam's favourite game, and he pretty much goads to play it whenever possible. It's a great game, but I'm getting a little sick of playing the same game so many times in a short time (see: Settlers of Catan, Liar's Dice, Saboteur). I'm *still* waiting to get a sizable new audience to my games nights. It seems that just about every week, I have 7 people. If I could get 8 or 9, I could break into two games easily (since I have a fair number of games good for 4 or 5), but people seem less willing to break into a group of 4 and a group of 3. Well, I guess I should be thankful that I'm getting that many to begin with; 7 is better than 6. Now if I could only convince people from my classes to show up (they all say that they will, but never come!).

I had a hankering the other day to start playing Final Fantasy 12. Argh! I hate when that happens! I still don't have nearly enough time to start playing a meaty game like that! And then of course, when I actually have some free time to play games, I probably won't be in the mood for playing anything. Oh well, c'est la vie!

Well, time for some sleep. There's some A&W breakfast waiting for me tomorrow morning!

Listening to... Opeth - Serenity Painted Death
Link of the moment... Some fresh Super Smash Brothers Brawl gameplay videos

Two more games off the list

2008-01-15T00:44:00.000-05:00

Well, I just finished Disgaea. I've been playing like a madman to get it done before any work comes my way. I logged 36 hours of playtime. It got very difficult passed a certain point, and I had to spend a good 4-5 hours leveling just to make it past the last few levels. A big problem I've got with that game is that the only way to get experience points is to kill enemies, and the ones getting the most kills are the ones that are already high-leveled.

Adam and I also finished X-Men Legends 2. That game, on the other hand, got easier as we approached the end of the game. If you stick with the same four characters through the whole game, you tend to gain more levels than you need. Nevertheless, the experience was enjoyable, and we were always looking forward to smashing the heck out of some baddies.

I've managed to cross 9 games off of my "list of games I want to play", though I only actually played 4 through to the end. Another 4 were just too uninteresting for me to justify playing (after all, that's what games are supposed to be for, right?) (Fallout, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Sim City 4, and Lego Star Wars), and one got crossed off because I realized my PC just isn't powerful enough to play at a decent graphics level (Elder Scrolls 4).

Judging from my previous term, I suspect that I won't really have much time to play video games until the summer. My grad seminar course should be about equally hard as last term, and I suspect my reading course (group theory) will be slightly more work than last term (ring theory). Adam wants me to take a third course this term, but I'm hesitant, based on the fact that I found last term to be a lot of work, and I usually find the winter term to be a bit more grueling than the fall. The only other courses I'm aware of that I could take this term include a course in PDEs (which I am not fond of), and "mathematical models in quantum mechanics", which, again, is not in my area of interest. Regardless, I'm going to sit in on the latter tomorrow afternoon. Of course, no matter how much work I have this term, I'm going to take plenty of time to play some Smash Bros when it comes out on February 10th (should I preorder it somewhere, or just hope to find a copy in-store?).

Update: Before I even finished this post, I found out that SSBB has been delayed until March 9th. Stop teasing me, Nintendo!

Listening to... Amber Pacific - Always You
Link of the moment... Funny pics thread over at BGG

But first, an apology

2008-01-08T03:36:00.000-05:00

Before I forget, I'd like to issue a formal apology to Andrew for berating his lack of rules knowledge when it came to Cities and Knights of Catan. It turns out I've been playing a number of rules incorrectly in Power Grid. Though there's not much behind the actions the players take in the game, the housekeeping can be a lot to keep track of. There are a lot of details in that game that are easy to overlook.

I was supposed to have my first class today, but the Ryan building was closed today due to a burst water main. The class was only going to be a ten minute "here's the outline, read these chapters for next week" thing, so the prof just sent the two of us an email (yeah, another huge class of two). Thus, my first real class will be the Graduate seminar tomorrow morning. I'll have to make sure to coerce some of my classmates into showing up to this week's game night. I ran into Chris and his girlfriend at a new year's eve shag, and they both mentioned that they were looking forward to playing some games, so I expect them to show up at least a few times.

Adam has made the bold statement that Power Grid is his favourite game, and that can be evidenced by the 10+ plays it's had in the last few weeks. I think I've only racked up two wins so far, and I always seem to make some pretty bad plays every time I play.

I started a new game of Disgaea. I've completely set aside any magic casting characters since they're a pain to level up, and opting for a beat-em-up team. One thing I've noticed about that game is that it's very easy to spend way more time playing it than you originally may have intended. I've racked up about 15 hours of playtime since I started it three days ago (hey, I'm trying to milk as much out of my free time as I can while I still have some!).

The other day, I made the mistake of drawing a comparison between X-Men Legends and Guild Wars. In doing so, I re-lit my spark for Guild Wars, and further fueled my hope that I can get Adam into it (since he seems to enjoy playing XML). The original game is only $30, with no monthly fees. For that price, you get some pretty good bang for your buck.

I had an urge the other day to buy a new computer. There was a computer on the Future Shop website that included a QUAD-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a 400GB hard drive, and a 19" widescreen monitor for a grand sum of $800. By the time I noticed, they were sold out. I'd still be a little wary buying a computer from a box store. I'd rather know that I have higher quality components than having to deal with the hassle of trying to replace crappy components that are jam packed into the case. Case-in-point, Adam's power supply died on his old Dell, and the spare power supply I had sitting around wouldn't fit into his computer since the old supply was sized specifically for a bracket in the case. Sure, you get a great computer for $800, but after a few years, you'll likely have to spend another $500 (as well as a ton of aggravation) to keep it up and running. I think I'll stick with my plan of getting a new computer when I'm done my masters degree (when I'll likely be moving away to get a job in, you know, a *real* city).

Listening to... Metric - Dead Disco
Link of the moment... David Blaine parody (heads up, foul language)

Did you think I was dead?

2007-12-30T17:55:00.000-05:00

Hey, look at that. I *didn't* forget how to put up a post in my blog. It's been so long I figured I'd have lost the knowledge. I'm quite surprised myself that I would be on a 2 month hiatus from posting. I guess I don't really have much of an excuse, either, though most of my November was spent on schoolwork. Most of my December has been spent on sloth. Ever since I handed in my takehome exam for algebra, I've just been doing as little as possible.

Hm, now which events from the last two months should I discuss? I went on my trip to Waterloo a few weeks ago, and that was fun. I stayed with Andrew the first few days, and Hugh for the last leg of the trip. We had a four hour game of Cities and Knights of Catan that was rife with inaccurate rules since Andrew had never read the rules in any great detail.

I had that party that I mentioned in the last post, and it went off without a hitch. Lots of people showed up, everyone had a great time, and it didn't take much effort to clean up the next day. I'll be sure to do it again sometime next term.

Hey, here's some big news: I've started drinking! Not as a hobby, or anything, but I don't refuse to drink anymore. I realized a while ago that I didn't really have a good reason to *not* drink, but I felt like I needed an occasion to start. I didn't want my first drink to be anticlimactic. I decided that Phil being in town was a good enough reason to celebrate. Since then, though, I've decided I don't really like the taste of alcohol, and the last few times I've had drinks it's made me pretty queasy, so at least now I have an excuse if someone offers me a libation. Plus on top of that, I'm still a cheapskate, so I'm not willing to buy my own booze often. At the moment, Adam keeps making new and disgusting drinks with what I have sitting in my bar. The only thing that I've enjoyed so far is the Amaretto Sour.

Phil is back in town again (yes, he's visited *twice* since the last time I made a post), and he and Adam are more or less living out of my house. We've been playing lots of Power Grid and Nexus Ops, some Guitar Hero, and we started playing X-Men Legends (very fun multiplayer game). I've been staying up til 5 or 6 the last few nights; I haven't seen much sunlight lately. At least I'll be well seasoned for New Year's Eve.

I didn't get anything extremely noteworthy for Christmas besides a Bohnanza expansion (from Sheena and Dan), and Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3 for Wii. I was sort of hoping to get Super Mario Galaxy, but it'll still be waiting for me once I play the two games I got.

I attended a games afternoon the other day at the game store with Doug, a guy I met via BGG. I invited all of my friends to come, but none came. I'm willing to bet that Sheena and Dan would have, if they were in town. Regardless, I had fun. We played Incan Gold, Citadels, Bang (twice), and Munchkin. I'm not really a huge fan of any of those games, but I wasn't about to bitch and whine about it since it wasn't really my event. I sent an email inviting all of them to come to my games nights. I'm anticipating a pretty nice turnout to my games nights, but of course I've said that in the past only to have the usual 5 or 6 show up. If all goes well, Doug and his friends will come, and up to 6 people from my classes will start coming out as well. Hopefully Dan's two brothers will start coming as well. If I could get enough for two tables on a regular basis, that would probably be ideal.

Well, that's as much as I'm willing to write about at the moment, so I'll end it around here. I make no promises about when another post will show up, but hopefully I can get back into the habit of making a public journal of events in my life that next to no one cares about.

Listening to... Foo Fighters - Come Back
Link of the moment... Please do yourself a favour and watch all of these game reviews. HILARIOUS!

OMG! Where are the RSVPs?

2007-10-28T22:06:00.000-04:00

I thought that by now, my workload would have lightened up, but it really isn't. Due to my excess of presentations in the last few weeks, I had to put some stuff off, and now I have to spend all my time catching up. Plus, I'll have to work ahead this week so that I won't have any work when PHIL SHOWS UP!

Yeah that's right, Phil is hitting town from November 4-8, a Sunday through to Thursday. That's almost better for me than if he were here on the weekend, because I need the weekend to get any work done (I usually don't get my marking until Friday afternoons). Of course, I'll have some classes to deal with, but that's only a few hours out of each day. I really hope Adam's in town next week, otherwise he'll miss Phil and that would be a shame.

I don't know what I'll do when Phil is here, but whatever we wind up doing, it will be a blast. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of video games, something I'm looking forward to. I'll have to teach him the ropes in Guitar Hero and Smash Bros so that I have a sparring partner. Haha, I'll make him practice while I'm in classes so that he can kick my ass like he does in every game.

I sent out e-invites to my party on the 9th. I haven't been able to get it out of my mind for the last few days; I just can't wait! As a break from my own work, I whipped up song lists for all the guitar hero games and all the singstar games, so that people who are waiting for their turn can anticipate what song they're going to perform. Aren't I thoughtful?

I invited just about everyone I can think of that would be interested, including a few people I only barely know from one of my classes. In addition, I've told most of the people I invited to invite anyone that THEY think would want to come. I figure that way, even if half the people don't show up, I'll still have a big crowd.

I've been thinking that it would be nice to visit Waterloo this December when I have no work to do, and while most of my friends are still in the city. The catch is that I have nowhere to stay. I stayed with Andrew in the summer, but he's not so confident in his roommate this term and doesn't want to impose. I certainly couldn't stay with John, because he's staying with Julie and I doubt they could fit another freeloader! I suppose I might be able to stay with Hugh if I asked, but then I'd feel stranded way over in Kitchener, and at John's mercy when I want to go anywhere. I wonder if Hugh still reads my blog...

I guess I've lost touch with some other people too. I haven't talked to Katie in a while, nor Caroline, and I haven't heard hide nor hair from Nathalie in a dog's age (although I think the ball is currently in my court in terms of correspondence). I guess my opinion is always that my life is so uninteresting that if I were to call anyone, I'd have nothing of any real interest to say.

Let's see what I need to do tomorrow. I'm meeting my adviser at 10:30 for some help with my algebra assignment, and then I'm going to lock myself up in the library with the measure theory text until I finish the problem I'll be presenting on Tuesday. After that I guess I'll need to get some lunch. Then I'll probably have to work on my algebra assignments until Adam's colloquium at 4PM. Then I'll have to get some shopping done (I'm out of juice and I want to buy Guitar Hero 3 soon). Then Prison Break with Grant and Chanel around 7 or 8 until about 10. Hm, I'm cutting it pretty close with everything tomorrow, especially considering I'm having issues with my measure theory assignment. Well, I guess my algebra doesn't have to take priority, so at least I can put that off if need be.

Listening to... Iron Maiden - The Prophecy
Link of the moment... OH SNAP I'm going to pwn this song

"The goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning."

2007-10-08T15:26:00.000-04:00

MAKE IT STOP! Goodness gracious, I've been overloaded with work for quite a bit longer than I'd prefer. See, I do an average of five hours per week of TA duties in two different courses, but last weekend (that is to say, about a week and a half ago), I got stuck with nearly 20 hours of marking to do (though this *in theory* means that I'll have less work to do in these courses later in the term). As a result, I had to get an extension on an assignment, and everything got thrown off kilter (it doesn't help that I had only a week to prepare my second lecture for my seminar course). Since then, I've been logging exactly how many hours I put into marking so that I don't work any more than I'm supposed to.

I got together with Chris (a fourth year undergrad in two of my courses) to work on an assignment that is due tomorrow morning (the one we got an extension on), and we made little to no progress in the two hours we worked on it. On top of that, I have the regularly scheduled assignment due on Wednesday that I have only barely started working on. Oh, right, and then I've got that lecture to give on Thursday afternoon that's not done yet.

Mind you, I have had my fair share of distractions this weekend. I had Thanksgiving dinner, of course, and after that I played my second game of Power Grid with Dan, Sheena, and Trevor again. Sheena pulled off a fairly decisive win this time, and I was left once again not really knowing what I did to lose. Also, Sheena had some people over to her place for some Singstar (as two new song collections have come out recently). I got a hold of Holly, and she came with me. She knew the words to lots of the songs, which I suppose is a side effect of working at the radio station.

I've got some plans to have a party at my house at the beginning of next month. My plan is to drag another TV downstairs, and have multiple games going on: Singstar in one room, Guitar Hero in another (GH3 is released at the end of October), and Wii Sports somewhere in between. If I can find another TV and convince Grant to let me borrow his Gamecube, then I can even have some GC games going on as well (SSBM, Mario Party, etc). Someone pointed out that it would be like those "fun days" in elementary school where you get the day off to play different games set up at different stations. I'm quite looking forward to it, so hopefully there won't be too many conflicts with the date I choose.

Listening to... Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Link of the moment... Feel free to peruse the lecture notes I've prepared for my lectures.

My thoughts on what makes a good game

2007-09-15T15:59:00.001-04:00

I'd rather talk about board games than study.

I can't think of a good way to introduce this topic, so I'll just jump into it. I think that to analyze whether a game if 'good' or not, you need to consider two things:

1. How many choices does a player have?

If a player makes no or few choices during the game, the game is not good. For example, consider the card game War. Both players flip the top card of their pile. There is no choice involved, so War is not a good game. Similarly, Snakes and Ladders has players rolling dice and moving their pieces with no choices to make along the way.

2. Is it obvious to players which choice is best for them when faced with a choice?

Suppose now that while playing Snakes and Ladders, players throw two dice and choose which die determines their movement for the turn. The game is still not good, because a player can easily see which roll will benefit them more based on where their piece will land. Similarly, in Monopoly, when a player lands on an unowned property and has enough money to purchase it, it is usually in their best interest to buy it. Even if the choice is not obvious (for example when trading properties with other players), there are so few choices that one bad decision can cost a player the game (which relates to point 1 about how many choices a player makes in the game).

Now in Vegas Showdown (currently my highest rated game), players make at least one decision per turn, and the outcome of each option they have is not easily determined. Should you outbid a player to get a slots room? Or should you take the lounge at the minimum price? Should I save my money for a premier tile next turn? Each decision is quite tactical (which is a topic of its own), and the outcome of each is quite different in terms of the immediate and long term effects. Since there is no noticeable 'best' option, any choice the player makes will have a minimal, yet distinct, impact on the game.

For the most part, I think that's what makes a game good. There are plenty of other considerations such as player interaction, runaway leader issues, king-making, complexity, and plenty of other stuff that I haven't mentioned, but I think this is a good start.

Listening to... Transplants - D.R.E.A.M.
Link of the moment... A good resource for game design and the such.

OMG NEW BOARD GAMES

2007-09-15T15:10:00.000-04:00

I think I'm already starting to freak out with regards to school. I keep getting more and more work shoved under my nose. The algebra course is the least of my worries since I'm pretty well versed in it already, but even the first assignment is taking way too much of my time up. On top of that, I'm taking a seminar on operations research where I've been told that I have to prepare and deliver five hour-long lectures in October. Again, at least there's a fair bit of material that I already know a little bit about. The real kicker is the Measure Theory graduate seminar I'm taking, where I have a presentation to give in a little over a week on how to do a sample question and I don't even have the pre-requisite knowledge to keep up in class. The prof has been relating everything we do in class to metric spaces that everyone seems to nod their heads at. Well, I suppose the one analysis course that I took neglected metric spaces, so now I have to learn 39 pages worth of it ASAP. On top of that, I absolutely abhor analysis, so trying to understand the material is like trying to eat hot coals.

But, I just have to keep telling myself that the worst that can happen is I'll fail miserably in my courses, have to drop out of grad school, and disappoint a few people. It's really not a big deal at all; I applied under the assumption that I might not be able to hack it anyways. Life is too short to worry!

On the bright side, it looks like I have Mondays and Fridays free! Of course, all I'll wind up doing on the weekends is working and studying anyways, but at least now I don't have to brave the elements five days a week. As a side effect, every time I get a new email, I'm too scared to see who it's from and what it's about, because lately the majority of my emails are from profs who are either shoveling more work my way or asking me to come in to see them on my precious days off so they can shovel more work my way.

Good news though: all the board games I ordered are now sitting in my collection! I went to pick them up yesterday and spent all day cuddling with them and fondling their components. I really can't wait to play them now. I actually had to re-reorganize my storage solution since I couldn't comfortably fit all of my new games on my shelf. Everything is very well organized at the moment, and there's plenty of space for future games.

My games nights are on Wednesdays now, as suggested by Dan (who originally suggested they be moved to Thursdays). I couldn't really care less if Dan and Sheena want to go to the Outpost on the occasional Thursday night (who would go before 10 anyways??), but I really made the change for Chanel, cause she watches Grey's Anatomy which is on Thursday nights and will be starting its new season soon. I know the feeling, cause there's no way I'll ever make ongoing plans for Monday nights (that's my Prison Break and Heroes night!)

At the last games night, I got another 8 people (I'm starting to get decent turnouts again!), so we split up to play Catan and Vegas Showdown. Those finished within about fifteen minutes of each other, someone left, and then we decided to play a game that accommodates 7. No one wanted to play Bang, and the usual split of "I don't like Balderdash" and "I don't like Pictionary" prevented either of those games as well. Bohnanza was excluded for length, and I guess Apples to Apples got looked over as well.

I decided to introduce Saboteur for something new (I don't think it had seen the light of the outside world for a good year and a half). This is one of those games that is really good with the right people, and the people I played it with are very much the right people. It's got the same hidden role element as Bang and Werewolf without the player elimination, and also that some players have more information than others. It went over well enough to play four rounds, and I'm sure it will hit the table quite often in the future.

Listening to... Hoobastank - Say the Same
Link of the moment... My game collection, along with ratings and comments

Woohoo! 14 hour sleep!

2007-09-01T16:29:00.001-04:00

So, the other day I decided that going to bed at 4 AM probably wasn't going to work well with my school schedule, so I resolved to do something about it. Of course, you can't just shift your sleep schedule back 4 hours on a whim, so my plan was to pull an all-nighter and then go to bed early the next night. I wound up staying up for an entire 32ish hours without any sleep (well actually, I sort of passed out around hour 30 for ten or fifteen minutes). I went to bed that night at 9:30, and slept 14 hours straight (I probably could have kept going if my dad didn't wake me up). Unfortunately, I don't think it fixed my sleep schedule all that much, but it was a fun little experience.

I placed an order for my board games the other day. I'm still waiting for one to get in stock, but it will probably ship within the next week or so. When choosing games to buy, I tried to get a game that would fill every need I have. I got Power Grid for a heavy game, Citadels for 4-7 people, For Sale as a quick filler game, Coloretto for another filler, Shadows Over Camelot for a good thematic game, and San Juan for a fairly deep 2-3 player game.

I think it's interesting that ever since I've put serious thought into placing an order for games online, my list of "must haves" has changed quite a bit. The first game I really wanted to buy was Alhambra, and I've since changed my mind to buying San Juan as a substitute. I was also very intent on buying Category 5, but it didn't make the cut either.

I've transformed the back room into a games room now (well, it has other purposes, but what I mean is that my tables are permanently set up in there). The lighting is a bit better in there, and there's a bit more elbow room, but there are a few nitpicky drawbacks. The fridge and microwave are now no longer within sight, and I have to shuffle chairs around quite a bit to seat everyone. We'll see how I like the setup in a few weeks.

John's in town this weekend for a wedding and most of next week as well. I can only assume I'll see him tomorrow. It'll be fun to hang out with him again.

Listening to...
Link of the moment...

Things I've created that turned out alright

2007-08-18T16:00:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of a few things I've created in the last while that have turned out alright. On the bottom right is my two-tone plastic poker chips. They're especially useful for Bang, to show each players' health.

On the bottom left is a DS stylus fastened into the shell of a crappy old mechanical pencil. I got the idea from a much nicer looking stylus pen, but this pen is much more comfortable to hold and use than the stylus itself. Of course, it's not as portable as the stylus, which fits into the DS case.

At the top is a box that I got from the dollar store to hold my Harry Potter cards (and perhaps one day it will hold Magic cards as well). I made some inserts out of cardstock to make three rows for the cards. Everything fits snugly (or at least it would if I had more cards to put in the box). They fit all regular size playing cards, but cards with sleeves on them are a bit too bulky.

I'm just waiting to place my board game order, now. Of the five games that I'm quite certain will go on my order, three are out of stock so I'll have to wait about a month.

Now I'm going to play euchre online.

Listening to... Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Link of the moment... Yahoo is all funky looking now

"Boom shaka laka!"

2007-07-30T22:15:00.000-04:00

First, I'm going to list as many commentator quotes from NBA Jam that I can remember off the top of my head:

Boom shaka laka!
The nail in the coffin!
Is it the shoes?
From downtown!
Can't buy a bucket!

If you can remember any yourself, please remind me of the wonderful literary artistry from that game.

Well, I'm sorry to say, but I gave up on Super Mario Sunshine. I got to a point where there were three or four levels that were just TOO frustrating to complete. Yeah, that's right, I gave up on a kiddie game. Hugh, if you're reading this then I know that you're the most disappointed in me, but that's just the way it is.

I started up Tales of Symphonia for GC, and I've put some serious time into it already. It's a pretty good game and not too difficult, though some of the bosses can hand my ass to me in a flash. It's supposedly a 50+ hour game, so it's gonna be a long journey.

I've spent quite a bit of money on eBay lately. I got a MIDI to USB converter for my mom's new Mac to replace the old sound-card dependent one. I won Wind Waker for $18, a DVD boxset of Mission Hill for $30 (I was reminded of it when looking at the Filmography of the voice actor for the main character in ToS who also is the voice of Kevin French in Mission Hill (and Robin in Teen Titans)), and a 36-booster box of Harry Potter CCG cards for $20 (the best deal I could find).

In an effort to clean up the crawl space/storage room, my dad bought 6 heavy-duty shelves. Of course, I wound up assembling them, but I guess I have to earn my keep somehow. At least now I can feel like I did *something* productive this summer. They were a bitch to assemble, but they certainly will help in organizing all of our shit. Once we get rid of our old entertainment center (my brother is going to take it) and our old couches, there will be a lot of free room. I think I'll move my gaming tables in there to be set up permanently.

I realized that since we got the HDTV, I hadn't yet tried setting up a computer to the PC input. I have an old 900MHz Compaq running XP that doesn't really do anything besides get played on by Adam (who now has a job and doesn't come over as often as he used to), so I set it up to the TV. I haven't really done much with it yet, but I've fiddled around with all my emulators and set them up to the right resolution. Along with my PS2 to USB dongle (hehe, dongle), it's a nice little gaming machine now. Unfortunately, it's not powerful enough to run Project64 without slowdown, but everything 16 bit and lower runs fine. I haven't yet checked ePSXe, but I have a modded PS2 so emulating PS games is not a high priority.

Well I guess there's only a month left of summer. I suppose that soon I'll have to get together with my academic advisor to figure out what courses I'll need to take. Fun. Last night I was thinking about how I don't really like dealing with Fibonacci numbers. Maybe if I'm bored I'll try to figure out if there are infinitely many Fibonacci numbers that are prime, or infinitely many Fibonacci numbers that are square. Or maybe I'll play video games. I'm not sure.

Listening to... No Use For A Name - Fields of Agony
Link of the moment... Does this blog have the Buddha nature, Master?

Let's see a BIG turnout next Thursday!

2007-07-21T01:04:00.000-04:00

Games night has been rescheduled from Tuesday nights to Thursday nights starting next week (due to Tuesday being cheap night at the local movie theater). Last Tuesday wasn't much of a games night anyways. Chris brought Mario Party 8 as he had just rented it, so a four player game of MP8 ensued (unfortunately leaving multiple people to sit and watch, something I hate doing). After that was over, Dan broke out Singstar for PS2, much to Grant's zeal. The rest of the night was nothing but loud karaoke in my basement (though I did manage to fit in a game of Hive with Adam (I finally won!) and an unfinished game of Balderdash that was quite hard to converse over).

This was quite a shame, since I really had a hankering to play Vegas Showdown which I picked up (along with Nexus Ops) at the border earlier that day. I tried to get a game tonight with the neighbours, but once again my plans fell through as they had unexpected visitors. I swear, I shouldn't even attempt to plan anything anymore, since the universe likes to spite my plans.

My mom's Mac came in the other day (did I mention she got a Mac? Cause she did). I'm in the process of migrating her files to it and organizing them in some fashion (14GB to sort through!). I already threw boot camp on it and installed XP on a partition (for all those files that I unfortunately cannot transfer over to a comparable Mac program). It's really not fun to try to sort through other peoples' messes, so I might just tell my mom to sort it out on her own time.

Super Mario Sunshine is shit. I don't like it, but dammit I'm going to beat it. I have a bad habit of being unable to control Mario while jumping, which leads to MANY frustrating attempts at the same parts of levels. Sometimes he'll want to do a wall jump when I don't want him to, or he won't when I do. Sometimes if I want to turn around and do a small hop, he'll do a crazy backflip into the endless abyss. I've never wanted to bring pain upon Mario as much as I do now.

Well, Traveler is over. Only 8 episodes long. It's a pretty good show, and it's a shame that it's not going to be renewed for a second season (especially since there are DOZENS of loose ends that I won't get to see resolved now). Chanel and I have decided that we're going to start watching Prison Break season 1 (my mom has the boxset) on Wednesday nights since Traveler is over.

Listening to... Opeth - Deliverance
Link of the moment... Quite humourous. Watch it.

SMS or SM64? OoT or WW?

2007-07-15T16:15:00.000-04:00

If you'll take note of the sidebar, you'll see that I have completed Suikoden 3 (and it only took 57 hours!). Often, when I finish a game, I already have another one in mind to play, but unfortunately no such game has piqued my interest so far. I've been spending a bit of time on Guitar Hero 2, trying to unlock some stuff. I'm currently trying to five star all the songs no medium (which is pretty easy but time consuming).

I bought a second Wavebird the other day. I couldn't find them at a slew of store, but I eventually picked one up at Superstore for $40. The next day, I was browsing the used games at Rogers Video, and noticed that they (most assuredly mistakenly) had priced the Wavebirds at $25 ($5 cheaper than they were selling the wired controllers!). Unfortunately, I had opened the packaging on the first one, and I didn't really feel like laying down $25 for a third one.

I think in the future I'll play a Mario game and a Zelda game, but I'm not sure which of each: either Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario 64, and either Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. Considering I still don't have my Wii online, and since Grant has WW that I can probably borrow, I'll probably choose SMS and WW, though in the future I might have time for the other two. I was telling my friend Gennie the other day how I try to stay at least 2 years behind the times WRT video games. You'll save a lot of money that way. I didn't buy my Wii because I wanted a Wii, I bought it because I wanted a Gamecube and figured that two years from now I'd want a Wii. It's genious, I tells ya.

I ordered Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown from Amazon.com the other day. The two games are regularly $40, but they were on for $11 each (plus $4 shipping in the US). For that price, I figured it was worth the effort to get them shipped to Grand Portage and pick them up. I had planned on picking up Nexus Ops at some point, and Vegas Showdown has got some positive feedback on BGG. They made it to Minnesota on Friday, so they should be ready to get picked up sometime tomorrow. Maybe I'll try going Tuesday morning so I can break them out at the games night.

I'd like to turn as much of my media digital as I can, in an effort to clear up some space. I have a bunch of CD cases and DVD cases that are doing nothing but sitting there on the shelf. What I'd like is to get a 500GB drive, put everything I have on it, and then sell off my DVDs (undoubtedly illegal, so don't tell anyone). Of course, if I buy a 500GB drive, it'll be SATA. To use SATA, I'll need a new motherboard. For the new motherboard, I'll need a new processor, etc. I suppose I could get an external drive or a drive enclosure, but I think my system has issues with USB 2.0 (vs. 1.1), so maybe not. Well, it's not too urgent anyways.

I played softball last weekend with Sheena, Dan, and a bunch of Dan's friends. It was quite fun. I even got a double when I was up at bat! I was sore for a few days afterwards, but I'm looking forward to the next game (Dan wants to play sports more regularly, but we'll see if anyone actually has the motivation to organize it).

Listening to... THe Dillinger Escape Plan - 43% Burnt
Link of the moment... I'm starting to track game sessions to see how often games hit the table. Geeky, eh?

Board Game collection valued at USD$401

2007-07-08T02:19:00.000-04:00

I was doing pretty well at getting to bed early-ish and getting up early-ish these last few days, but due to my not being able to turn down a nap earlier, I can't sleep. I'm still going to get up at 9 tomorrow, but Sunday means breakfast at A&W with the family!

I was curious to know what my board game collection was valued at. Rather than estimating, or even just adding up some prices online, I whipped up a database in case I wanted to do a similar query in the future. I'm also able to sort my games by playing time and game complexity as well.

I've taken all my prices from Thought Hammer, which pretty well has the best prices on every game ever, and they're always well stocked. My valuation of $401 does not take into consideration my thrift store purchases (stuff that TH doesn't stock, like balderdash, pictionary, etc.). Also, the prices I'm using are pretty well best-case scenario, so I paid more for each game than I've accounted for (my valuation is simply how much it would cost to replace all my games by ordering on TH). It also doesn't take into consideration the taxes I've paid, so after all is said and done, I've probably spent closer to ~$550 on board games. Not too shabby.

I've watched a fair number of movies recently. The list includes Die Hard, Wedding Crashers, Clerks 2, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and Talladega Nights. I guess I've sort of lucked out since there are actually some movies on the movie networks that I've wanted to see.

I've been invited to a softball game tomorrow. I'll know all of two people there, but I guess I should probably go. It's not as though I have anything better to do (although I'll probably be hurting for some sleep tomorrow early-afternoon). A pretty vicious thunderstorm has just started up, so we'll see if it's still raining tomorrow.

Sheena brought up a good point the other day; it would save me a lot of time if I just left my two gaming tables set up in the crawl space rather than moving furniture around every Tuesday. I think I'll do that, but first I'll need to clean up the crawl space, something I tell myself every year. I guess it's really a matter of throwing a bunch of shit out. For instance, I don't think I'll ever have enough of a need for those 15" and 17" CRT monitors (mind you, they'd be nice if I ever had another LAN party...).

I went to six different stores the other day and didn't wind up buying anything at all. I hit up Value Village and the Salvation Army looking for some cheap games, but there was nothing too amazing (besides a really old school Donkey Kong board game that even I had to pass up). I went to the Game Shelf after that. They had an "open games day", which, while I was there, comprised two guys playing Magic in the store. They had a lot of tables prepared for gaming, but until they update their website, I'm not going to try to find out about any events they hold. I think that they're catering to the more hardcore miniatures type of gamer anyways (you know, 40K and Star Wars minis). Their prices aren't all that good. Most of their games are about $5 more expensive than I'm used to. Once you hit games that are over $50 at J&J, they mark the price up quite a bit. Still, given that I intend to buy Martine a copy of Bohnanza as a going away present, they're going to get at least a little business from me.

Now where was I? Ah yes. I went to Cash Converters to see if they had any gems stashed away in their used games, but nothing caught my eye (although maybe I should have bought X-Men Legends 2 for $10). After that was Walmart, where I intended to buy a second, new Wavebird for my Wii, but they didn't have any. They did have the new wave of Heroscape minis a day earlier than they should have, but I don't really need any yet. I headed to Future Shop after that, and they also came up dry for Wavebirds. I was interested to see that Guild Wars (the original) is marked down to $30 from the original $50. If Adam ever gets a laptop, I'll probably have to buy him a copy so that I'll have a reason to play that game again (anything besides more Battlefield! It's all he wants to play, besides tetris). Guild Wars is pretty good for just playing a quest or two at a time, you never really have to worry about experience grinding.

Listening to... Soulfly - Living Sacrifice
Link of the moment... Daily updates on Super Smash Brothers Brawl on weekdays! It's the highlight of my day!

You know you're old when you can afford the things you used to have time for

2007-06-30T23:43:00.000-04:00

So I guess I never got into chapter two of my chronicles of my Waterloo trip. It's all a blur now, so I'll never get around to it.

Well, I caved and bought the Heroscape Master Set, and now you're going to hear about it. I'm enjoying it so far, but it seems like there are so many different ways to play it that I'll never get around to trying them all to see which I like the most. It feels like you're at the mercy of the dice, but because of that, it's really quite fun. It reminds me of Risk, in a way (and I'm sure you could invent some sort of variant that has area control as well). I've played a handful of 2 player games with Adam, and even a four player match.

Even though the master set has so much in it, I think I'm going to wind up spending a lot of money on this game. I doubt I'll get any of the individual boosters unless they're on sale ($15 for two squads or four heroes is a bit much), but they're coming out with a new Master Set (which comes with lots of terrain pieces and figures). People speculate that when the new master set comes out, box stores like Walmart will put the current one on clearance to make shelf space. If that's the case, I'll probably get another copy of the current master set (if it's marked down enough) and one copy of the new one for the new units. I suppose that's quite a bit of coinage for one game, but I can just think of it as a Wii game and a half (not that I've even purchased a single new game for Wii yet, but that's beside the point!).

Listening to... Sparta - From Now to Never
Link of the moment... There's a smattering of useful information and discussion on this forum, but it's muffled by off-topic discussion and elitest snobs.

Monopoly? More like monotony.

2007-06-22T19:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a while! I'll break up my adventures into multiple posts. I'll start off jabbering about board games for a while, I think.

While I was in Waterloo, one stop I was intent on making was to J&J to pick up some board games (since I brought a Wii to Waterloo for Andrew, I had some space in my luggage I had to fill up). I bought Dodge City, an expansion for Bang, a two player abstract game called Hive, and a starter deck for the Harry Potter TCG.

Hive has turned out to be a pleasant little suprise. I've played it a few times and have managed to lose most of those games, but it's a really nice little game. It takes no setup time whatsoever, and can be taught in about three minutes. Once you've played for five minutes and "get" the game, you can throw some interesting strategy into it right away.

I haven't played a game of the Harry Potter TCG yet, but I'm already looking to acquire some more cards. I can get 24 or 36 booster packs (11 cards each) from ebay or other online sources, but the shipping to Canada costs more than the cards themselves. I don't really know what to do about that.

I've already got a nice little list of games on the proverbial chopping block (or shopping block if you will). I suppose I've gotten most of my geek talk out of my system. I'm looking at Alhambra (for a good light 3 player game), one of Shadows Over Camelot or Arkham Horror (for a pseudo-RPG co-op game; the latter has decidedly heavier gameply and takes longer but has a nice theme), and I've been interested in HeroScape for a while (but I feel like I already have so many 2 player games that never get played).

I got a lot of game time in while I was in Waterloo. I played three games of Catan (one with 3 players, one with 5, one with 6), two games of Bohnanza, a game of Monopoly, two games of Mario Party 8, lots of Smash Bros, some really good 4 player Wii tennis, a few games of Hive. That's quite a lot of gaming in one weekend. Even after all those games of Catan, I'm still ready for more! It gets a lot of table time on Tuesdays, so I'm sure I'll get into another game soon.

I'm not really sure how many games I'll have in my collection before I think that I have enough games. I have a ton of games that I rarely play (I don't want to introduce too many to my friends at once), but there is always a set of games that I want to purchase. I really hope that once the Game Shelf gets a website up, I can hook up with some more hardcore gamers. I might even be able to come across a few gamers in the math department at Lakehead. Until then, I'm going to have to try to mold my Tuesday night crowd into hardcore gamers.

Listening to... Opeth - Deliverance
Link of the moment... HeroScape even has a nice little community and is loaded with customized scenarios.

OMG! Game store in Thunder Bay!

2007-06-09T03:44:00.000-04:00

Hm, so I guess I'll nerd it up on my blog since I'm at a loss of other nerdy things to do at the moment.

Last Saturday I went to a concert with my mom at my old high school whose theme was video games. Even though I was well aware that I'd be subject to the usual high school concert conditions (babies crying, uncomfortable seating, idiot high school kids hamming it up), I couldn't turn down video game music. About half the songs were from Final Fantasy games, and unfortunately about half of those were from the FFs I haven't played (8, 10-2, 11, and 12). Among the songs I recognized were the generic Zelda and Mario medleys, "To Zanarkand" (FF10), "Aeris' Theme" (FF7), "Red Wings" (FF4) and the Pokemon theme.

Accompanying the Zelda medley was the worst choreographed fight between a guy dressed up as Link and some girl with a scythe (can anyone identify this character? I don't think Ganon(dorf) ever used a scythe). Actually wait, I take that back. "Choreographed" implies that they knew ahead of time what they were doing. What I saw must have been impromptu. Props to that guy for having a good Link costume. I'll finish this topic with ten words: hot high school girls dressed up as video game charcters. Yeah. I know it's wrong too. Wrong and awesome.

I've heard of a few good games lately, one of which is called Cash'n'Guns. Unfortunately, the game seems to not have been picked up by an American publisher and thus can be difficult to find. For some reason (and I really can't remember why I thought to do this), I had the bright idea of constructing the game myself and printing off a copy of the official rules. After some forum research, I found a program that lets you create custom decks (called nanDECK; if you ever need to to create a simple deck for anything, take a look). I also have used Cool Text extensively in the card design. I'm accumulating different guns as they come to me from dollar stores (I'm up to three, I need six).

Before making components for that game, I decided to make a more permanent deck for werewolf. After a little tinkering with card sizes, I've gotten to a finished product. I printed a front side and back side, used an old playing card between them for stiffness and threw them all in a clear plastic card sleeve. Normal printer paper is 20lb, I bought and used 28lb; I suggest using at least 65lb (card stock) if you are going to print a front and back and use a sleeve, otherwise shoot for 110lb if you dont' plan on using a sleeve. Two 28lb sheets are for too flimsy (these are the sorts of things you learn when you feed your nerdy habits).

I went the extra mile and constructed a tuckbox for the deck as well. It was inredibly easy considering I made a friggin' tuckbox on my first try. I used 65lb paper for this which is the heaviest I could find in the house. It's not too bad, but I might track down some 110lb paper for any I make in the future (I likely will; they're very nice looking and an upgrade from elastics).

I went to the Bookshelf (factoid: the website of the Bookshelf is www.thunderbay.com. The city's website is www.thunderbay.ca) today to track down clear plastic card sleeves. I could get 200 on eBay shipped for $5, but I figured it would be cheaper to find some locally. When I parked, I looked for a sign that said "parking for Bookshelf customers". What I saw was "Parking for Gameshelf customers". I looked up at the store next to the Bookshelf. There was no sign, but the door was open. I peered inside, and saw a girl behind a till, a lot of empty space, and a few stands set up with board games. Yes that's right my friends: Thunder Bay is getting a (dedicated) game store! They're not officially open until next weekend (or so they told me), but they sold me my card sleeves. I looked around at the stuff they had set up, but I (stupidly) didn't take note of any of the prices for comparison puposes. I did happen to look at Hive which has caught my attention lately. It had a marked price of under thirty dollars. J&J has their copies marked at $27, so if the rest of their stock has similarly comparable prices, they'll get a lot of my patronage.

Before I found out about the Game Shelf, I figured out a nice little plan to acquire games cheaply. Thought Hammer comes highly recommended on BGG, for good reason. With the Canadian dollar doing as well as it is (or is the US dollar just doing poorly?), it is much cheaper to place an order at TH and get it shipped (free if the purchase is over $125) to Ryden's (a store just across the border that handles packages) which is only about an hour drive away from Thunder Bay. I'd still have to pay some form of taxes crossing the border, but even if I have to pay some sort of fees on top of PST/GST, it would have to be extremely high to not make it worth my while. The prices at TH really are amazing.

Pictures follow:

My werewolf deck, with tuckbox in the background (yeah, I even added some "colour text" to all the role cards).

My table in all its glory (well, not all of it. I obviously don't have the legs folded out at the moment).

A close-up of one of the corners. Isn't that exposed wood rail just breathtaking?

Listening to... Iced Earth - Wolf (I've listened to this song about a dozen times in the last few days)
Link of the moment... My new TV drama fix

It's a nice day to start again

2007-06-02T09:59:00.000-04:00

Last night I hit up a place I've never been to called Fastlane, over in Current River (for Thunder Bayites, you might have known it as Bunnies back when I was in high school). I think the average age of patrons there was 42 (cougar city), but overall I liked the place, mostly because of the karaoke. I did my usual White Wedding cover, and I've decided that the next time I go to a karaoke place, I'm going to have a song list prepped. I heard Chris sing Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden, and I was thoroughly impressed with his vocal range. Impressed indeed.

While I was there, I chatted it up with Alexa's American friend Rebecca. She's in town for the next week (in addition to last week) for some DNA course. Adam made a good point after we left that I should have arranged some sort of phone number exchange before I took off. I told her I hope I get to see her again before she leaves, and that's no joke. I'd like to introduce her to the wonders of five pin bowling.

I've sort of been going crazy with torrents lately. Chris brought his portable hard drive over the other day and I picked a few things off of it, and I quickly got the notice that my hard drive was full. Well, I've burned a lot of my older media to DVD now, so I've got some more space to work on. I'm wondering if I should invest in an external drive myself. I cuold get a standalone 500GB external drive from Future Shop or an enclosure and 500GB SATA drive from ncix for under $250 each. Jeez, I never thought I'd see the day when I fill up my 200GB drive and 100GB partition. It's times like that that a DVD burner really comes in handy.

Also, congrats to Steve and Nat who recently got engaged! About time!

Listening to... 36 Crazyfists - Two Months for a Year
Link of the moment... I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I got Guitar Hero for my birthday. As of yet, no one has been able to give me a challenge.

Happy birthday, me!

2007-05-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm 23 today. Feels like any other day, naturally. I'm going out for dinner with family tonight, for Chinese food. Besides that, I'm not doing anything for my birthday, which is a bit of a departure from last year in Waterloo. I think I just sort of give up on my friends here; everyone always seems to be too busy to bother.

I went to the mall with Chanel the other day. It's always fun hanging out with her. I wound up buying some pants, but I feel sort of ripped off. I bought a pair of jeans that were 2 for $50, and I bought a pair of jean shorts that were 2 for $50, but the guy said I had to pay full price for both since they were in different sections. What the hell store has that policy??? Well, I paid full price, but I think International Clothiers has lost a customer.

Games night the other night was a bit sparse. Only three people showed up. Mind you, that was still enough for a game of euchre, Ticket to Ride, and High Society. It also gave me a chance to break in the new table. Wouldn't you know it, the first night I use the table, someone goes and spills cream soda on it! You know, that bright pink stuff. Luckily it came out really well and there's no stain at all, but I'm glad the table is built in a way so that I can replace the felt if that happens again. Everyone's been giving my table rave reviews.

I went to a BBQ at Sandy's camp last Friday, and another at Chris' house on Sunday night. Good times, though it was a bit cold on Sunday. I went to Chris' house with the intention of not having much to eat since I had eaten not too long before I went there, but I pounded back something like three hot dogs and a burger. They were delicious.

Chris showed off his R4 flash card for his DS the other day, and I was mighty impressed. Even if I don't pirate any games (ha, yeah right), it would be really convenient just to have all my games on one cartridge. It will only set me back $70 (+s/h), which is not that much in the grand scheme of things, for all the "things" it will let me do.

Listening to... He is Legend - Dixie Wolf
Link of the moment... Dammit, I can't find my Starcraft CD

Happenings of late (or, "The one about video games")

2007-05-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

Well, there's not much to do at the moment. My table is done (it looks great!), and I'm not really in the mood for any of my games at the moment. Time for a post.

I've been working through all the Megaman X games. I finished X4 the other day (probably the hardest final boss yet!). X4 was a big change from X3 since it was a move from SNES to playstation, but it still kept the same feeling. X5, however, seems like quite a departure from the series. The bosses seem poorly designed and named (Axel the Red? wtf?), the multiple armor thing is a bit much, and the levels are painfully difficult and not really all that fun to play. I'm wondering if I even want to try to play through the whole thing.

I was browsing around Cash Converters as I like to do the other day, and stumbled upon Super Smash Brother Melee for only twenty bucks. Twenty bucks! EBGames sells their used copies for $47.99! Well, even though I was doing a good job of purging the game from my system, I couldn't pass up the deal and bought it. When I got home and started playing it, I noticed that my skillz were sorely lacking (I'm not going to try to push all the blame on using a wireless controller).

I also noticed while playing that the screen wasn't looking all that hot. It was especially noticable on the character select screen. If you know me at all, you know already that I quickly went to eBay to try to find component cables for the Wii. I found something that is (hopefully) even better: a set of component cables that connects to PS2, PS3, Wii, and XBox360. This solves not only my issue of getting the Wii hooked up on component cables, but also my problem of not having any more component hookups on my receiver, which would otherwise have meant that I would have to switch the PS2 and Wii cables depending on which I wanted to play.

Sometimes I have questionable spending habits. I was at Blockbuster earlier today, and bought Suikoden 3 for PS2, even though I don't really have any intention to play it. It was only $15, and I think it's become a rather rare title. I rented it once, and it was a pretty good game, so I figured it was a decent investment. Of course, it's just getting thrown onto an already huge pile of PS2 RPGs that I want to play through (I think I might give one of the Growlansers a playthrough once I get that cable in. Or maybe Final Fantasy 6. Or maybe...).

SPeaking of RPGs, I fired up Guild Wars the other day when I was bored. I did a quick mission to get the feel of the game again, and chatted with some guys who were sitting around. I pumped up the graphics with my new video card, and it looks really nice. However, it didn't get its hooks in me yet. I'm sure one day I'll get an urge to play it and get back into it, but my Wii, my slew of PS2 RPGs, and my board games are on my hot list these days.

I went to Sandy's camp last night with Sheena and Dan. Besides the abundance of mosquitos there, I had a good time. Nothing much to report here, just some sitting around talking. Sheena and Dan insisted I bring Bohnanza (really! not my idea!), and we played a game of that. I came in dead last, but I seem to have gotten another two people interested in that game. Chris also said he really wants to play Catan again this coming Tuesday. I hope other people are willing to play with him, because I think I'd rather try some lighter, faster games with other people. Plus, I should be teaching some new games as well.

Anyways, I think I'm done jabbering on.

Listening to... Pitchshifter - Keep it Clean
Link of the moment... Police Squad - In Color! Great show.

The one about games nights

2007-05-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I had my second games night last night, so I guess I'll give an update on how they're going.

Last week, I got most of the regulars, plus a few people I haven't seen in a long time. No one was on time; I was hanging out with Stephanie until 8PM when more people finally showed up (I invited them all for 7PM). Once there was a sizable number of people here, I started off with Apples to Apples since it was so easy to explain, and is good for semi-large groups. It went over well as usual, but it's easy to get bored of it if you play it too much, and most of the people there had played it a few days prior.

After that, I tried to live my dream of playing Werewolf. There were 8 of us, so that meants 7 playing with me moderating. The first game was a bit haphazard since the only way to really learn the game is to play it. Grant showed uppartway through the first game, so the next game had 8 players. Chanel graciously took over moderating so I could play. Both games were really short, and as a result I'm going to say that Werewolf is no good until you get at least 10 people. 9 players means that there will be at least three votes before the werewolves can win. With only two votes, the werewolves have it way too easy. Luckily, I was able to convince most of the people there to try again when we have more people rather than giving up on the game after a bad introduction.

When we were down to seven people after that game, we broke out Bohnanza. I didn't read the rules very carefully and we didn't play correctly (you are supposed to change some stuff when 6 or 7 people play), but everyone enjoyed it quite a bit. I like it too, but I always get so impatient in trading games. This game ended at nearly 11, so everyone left after that.

Last night, I had pretty much the same crew, except that Veebs and Jason were able to make it. As I was waiting for people to trickle in, I played a game of Crib with Grant (he won), and then High Society with four and then five people. All of my friends in Waterloo hated this game upon first playing it, but it went over really well. It can be a pretty intense game at times, and I had a really good time playing it. Perhaps it helped that I explained the rules well this time, though it could just be that I was playing with the right people.

Once the second game finished, there were nine of us and I recommended we split up into different tables. I agreed to play Settlers of Catan with Grant, Veebs, and J, while everyone else said they wanted to play Bang and Bohnanza. So I first gave them a crash course in Bang. I think that the game is a bit dry when you play with all the slightly more confusing cards stripped out, but it's hard to play if you have to go to a reference sheet every five minutes. Everyone at that table had already played Bohnanza the week before, so I didn't need to worry about teaching them that. I left them to their devices, and I went to teach Catan to the others.

After a Catan tutorial, we were on our way. Everyone made quite a bit of use out of ports the entire game. It was overall a pretty friendly game. No one was really left behind, since at the end of the game, everyone was near 7 or 8 points. I've heard it's a good rule of thumb to not win any game that you're trying to teach anyone, but the dice really seemed to be coming up my way and I won (it was also getting sort of late, so I didn't want to try to wait around for someone else to win). It also went over well with everyone who played it (how could you not like Catan?), so I'm sure it'll see some playtime in the future.

Next week I'd like to get Ticket to Ride on the table, and I'm sure that at least a few games will get requested. I'm trying to avoid playing the same games week after week so that they don't get stale, so I hope I can get some new games out next week. I'm also hoping to get a bit of a better turnout. I'd still like to get a 10 or 12 player game of werewolf going, and I'd like to play in a seven player game of Bang myself so I can play with all the cards in the deck.

Wednesday is the worst day of the week cause it's as far away from games night as you can get.

Listening to... Hopesfall - April Left With Silence
Link of the moment... Funny dubbed scene from LotR

The one about board game accessories

2007-05-14T19:03:00.000-04:00

You know what I'd like to acheive? I'd like to have more, smaller blogposts that are dedicated to only one subject. It seems pretty stupid to use labels on my posts at all if every single one uses "board games, video games". I guess on that note, I should use more labels as well (but then again I'm not sure if there's even a point in using labels at all). Anyways, in hopes of getting one step closer to that goal, I'm going to dedicate this post to all the small thoughts I've had about board game accessories.

The first accessory I started working on is a new gaming table (or poker table, if want). It's nearing completion, but the next step (padding and attaching the vinyl rail) is likely the most difficult, and shows off any mistakes I make the most. My dad has been a huge help, but at the same time he's sort of taken over my project and has made a few decisions without me that I think are making things stray from my intended plan.

Also on this note, I'm giving my older table a bit of a facelift. Nothing cosmetic, but throwing a few screws in the right places will make it a lot sturdier. I also took 2 inches off each leg for the following reason: in a poker game, each player only really needs to see the cards in front of them. In a board game, each player has to see the whole board to get a good grasp of what's going on. So, it follows that a lower table will let you get a higher view of the whole board more readily. I really hope that it's not too low so as to impede anyone's sitting, but I'll have a slew of tables that serve slightly different purposes.

Another great idea I had is to use a cribbage board to keep score for games for which one needs to keep score. For instance, Ticket to Ride has a track around the edge which isn't that bad, but Lost Cities has no way to keep score with the game (so it's usually pen and paper). Many a people have complained about Carcassonne's board only going to 50, so it's hard to see when someone has passed 50 points. I already had red, blue, and green pegs, I spraypainted some extra ones black (turned out pretty nice), and I'm using white pegs to represent yellow, so that it covers all the basic colours. I would like to have yellow pegs, but acrylic paint didn't work, and I don't want to go spend five bucks on yellow spraypaint for three measly cribbage pegs.

While on a spraypaint high (not literally), I went crazy with painting some Memoir '44 pieces. I spraypainted the sandbags tan, and the hedgehogs and wire bundles in grey. I think they look so much nicer than the default army colours. My neighbour had the grey paint, so it didn't really cost me anything but a few minutes. I also used the tan paint to spraypaint the bases of the Through the Desert desert (green palm tree trunks? blech).

I also spraypainted one side of a whole slew of red plastic poker chips black. I plan to use these wherever I need to represent life points. The only thing I can think of off the bat is Bang, where you'd normally use a card covering part of another card to represent your health. It's easy to budge a card out of place, and difficult to see how close to death someone across the table is. Again, well worth the few minutes it took.

I picked up a bunch of plastic storage boxes from the dollar store. I'm using two for Memoir '44 whose pieces are hard to manage. The two fit very nice and snug in the game box. They fit just about everything perfectly, besides the cards and terrain hexes which I still keep in the remnants of the plastic insert. I'm using another for Through the Desert which will make setup time much faster, and it too fits perfectly in the game box. I'm using a fourth one for general game pieces (namely dice, those coloured cribbage pegs, and those red and black chips I mentioned earlier). Each one of those boxes is a dollar VERY well spent.

Lastly, I plan to get some 1" by 1" wood and cutting some shallow, angled cuts into it to make a bunch of 10" playing card holders. I got the idea from the plastic holders that Memoir '44 has. They make it much easier to consider all your options for any games that use cards with text on them. In longer games, too, it gets annoying to have to keep all your cards clenched in your hand.

Well, I think that's all! I'm also trying to get my poker chips back from Adam (who seems to have left them at a friend's house), as I've heard from other gamers that poker chips are far superior to paper money or cardboard coins for any game that uses currency that is passed around a lot.

Listening to... Dcay - In Step
Link of the moment... For only $15 at the Superstore, I couldn't refuse

Hit the peg! Hit the peg!

2007-05-07T10:28:00.000-04:00

Argh, thanks for waking me up, truck outside. Curse you!

I feel like I've been quarantined in my house lately. I can't seem to find anyone to hang out with. No one is phoning me, and anyone I phone is busy or not answering their phone. It was a pretty boring weekend; I just watched some movies on the movie networks.

Spiderman 3 spoilers
I watched Spiderman 3 on Friday, at a matinee. The theatre was only about half full. I don't want to give a full on review (I'm not a movie buff, so anything I say would just be coming from someone who doesn't know shit about production values and such), but I do want to say that I'm unimpressed with the way venom turned out. Topher Grace is not the right casting choice! They didn't put enough effort into building up Eddie Brock's hatred for Spiderman and Peter Parker. We saw Eddie lose his job, and have his camera broken, and even have his "girlfriend" stolen, but I never got the impression that it was all adding up and making him go mad.

On top of that, I didn't like how after Eddie supposedly reached his breaking point, he's still making wisecracks to Spiderman. I like how Scott Dewitt says that "Venom was the same dork as Eric from That 70's Show. Venom. Not the guy that turns into Venom. Venom himself is a dork". Venom and Eddie Brock really are two different characters, and there wasn't enough in the movie to get that point across. One thing I really missed not seeing as well was Venom calling himself "we", to show that the symbiote is a part of him, and not just something to enhance his powers. But enough of that.
END Spiderman 3 spoilers

I'm QUITE excited about my games night tomorrow night. I've had this fascination with werewolf ever since I had the idea of playing it. I've put a fair amount of effort into considering which roles to use, and how to handle voting in the day phase. I've whipped up some reference sheets for the roles and their powers, set aside some playing cards to assign roles to players, and even scrounged up some poker chips in hopes that the assist in the voting process. Now, all I've got to do is wait to actually play the game!

I picked up the Megaman X collection for Gamecube, as previously mentioned. So far I've blown through the first game, and I'm starting on the second. Even with all my heart tanks and four full energy tanks, the final boss took me countless attempts. Most of the time, I wouldn't be watching my health bar and found myself dead before I could use an energy tank. If memory serves correctly, X2 is just as hard, if not harder if I try to get the good ending by defeating three extra bosses.

I've been thinking of building my own poker table, using one of these designs. My old one is sort of in shambles, and if my weekly games nights actually pan out, having a nice table would go a long way. I've never been that good at that sort of stuff though. Even when I just changed the fabric on the old table, it came out in worse whape than when I started. I think I'm just too impatient. If I throw actual carpentry on top of that, I'm sure the end product won't turn out as it looks in my dreams. Still, I think stuff like that can be fun, and it's nice to have something that you built with your own two hands and can be proud of. I think I'll just mull over it some more.

Listening to... Death By Stereo - These are a Few of my Favorite Things
Link of the moment... They make it look so easy!

My computer's veins once again course with electricity

2007-05-03T00:59:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm back home. Of course, I have oodles of info to burn through, but not much of it is fresh on my mind.

The trip home was pretty excruciating. I couldn't sleep very well the night before, since I was sleeping on the couch. We got up at 7 and were on the road at about 7:30. Things were going fine until just after the border. We took the wrong highway and started heading towards Detroit. It's a simple mistake to make, trust me. That detour set us back what must have been a little over an hour. Driving was pretty quick through Michigan though, aside from some rain that slowed us down.

A late dinner got us leaving Sault Ste. Marie at about 6PM, much later than we should have been. The real problems arose when it started getting dark out. After passing through Wawa, we saw a lot of moose, and if you hit a moose on the highway, it has a better chance of surviving than you do. So, the rest of the night, we had to drive pretty slowly and at full attention to avoid impending death. We had some issues with gas, too, as we had a really hard time finding a gas station open at night. We rolled into my driveway at about 1:45, making it an 18 hour trip.

I hope that we made Hugh's trip a memorable one. It certainly was fun having him around. We hit up Kakabeka, and he even went up Mt. McKay. We went to Scuttlebutt's and the Brown Street Station (where I met up with Sheena and Veebs, among others). And, of course, some general hang outage.

I've had this real nasty cough for about a week. It's hard to describe, but it's the kind of cough where when you cough, you don't feel any better and so you have to keep coughing. It's been keeping me up at nights and waking me up at all hours. I really can't wait to get rid of it so I can do some real relaxing. I bought a big jug of orange juice, so maybe that will expedite the process.

I bought a Wii! It's given me some good times. Wii Sports is still amazing, but I'm still waiting for some decent games to come my way. I think once some copies of Super Paper Mario hit eBay, I'll scoop one up. Of all the Miis that are populating my system at the moment, Hugh's is most true to reality, while my own is probably in second. Beyond those, I can't seem to make anyone else look that good.

Well, I'm getting tired. Time for point form updates!
-I bought a Wavebird from Cash Converters today
-Apples to Apples went over well with my friends, once again
-I'm going to buy Megaman X Collection tomorrow
-I got a blister from rocking out on my drums; I sounded pretty good
-I'm going to host a games night next Tuesday; I'm hoping to get enough people for a good game of Werewolf
-Heroes on Monday was awesome
-I'm going to see Spiderman 3 this Friday
-I've still got lots of cleaning and sorting to do

Listening to... Orgy - Social Enemies
Link of the moment... Oh, Sam Raimi, is there anything you can't do?

There's been a change in plans.

2007-04-23T11:55:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like I'm not going home on Wednesday this week anymore. Now, Hugh is coming with me and we're leaving on Friday and doing a one-day trip. Unfortunately, that means that I'm either going to have to wake up really early to make it home at a reasonable time, or stay up late and drive through the night. I'm not sure what I'll do. It will probably depend a lot on what my sleep schedule wants to do in the next week.

I graduated! I'm a university graduate! I now have a Bachelor's degree in Combinatorics and Optimization behind me. I'm just waiting for one more mark to come in, but I have no reason to beleive I failed Network Flow.

This past weekend was one big party. On Friday, Julie wrote her last exam, so John, Julie, Hugh and I went out to the Huether for some food, then to the Silver Spur. It wasn't really that wild of a time. For some reason, everyone called it quits pretty early. I wanted to go to the Starlight to get my groove on, but the line was way too long.

On Saturday, Nicole came into town for a visit. The bunch of us, along with Katie and her friend Kat, went bowling and then for an end-of-term dinner at Red Lobster. For some reason, I've been feeling a bit queasy lately, so I'm not sure if seafood was the best choice. No one actually finished all of their meal, so I didn't feel too bad taking the rest of mine to go. After that, there was some Super Jeopardy on NES and some Apples to Apples.

Katie had invited us to her "dance party" that night too, so we headed over. I gotta say, it wasn't as hopping as I'd thought. There was some pretty tame music, and they were all playing some drinking game when we got there. Regardless, a good time was had by most. I offered Caroline a ride home (well, actually I think she asked), so my crew went home at that point. Afterwards, I stopped off at Katie's again for a farewell game of euchre with Jordan, since she was leaving the next day.

Today is John's last day. That is, he's heading for the airport later today with Julie. Of course, when Hugh and I pull in to Thunder Bay later this week, the four of us will hang out anyways, so it's not much of a goobye.

I finally got a hold of Memoir '44 after my last exam, and I've played both sides (Axis and Allies) of the first scenario (Pegasus Bridge). I'm having a tough time liking it, solely because Andrew absolutely massacred me both times, proving that he didn't just get lucky with one overpowered side. I'm hoping Adam doesn't have the same luck when I introduce him to the game.

Listening to... The Black Mages - Fight With Seymour (FFX)
Link of the moment... Play Coloretto online (against Bots)

My sanity is hanging by a thread

2007-04-17T20:45:00.000-04:00

I'm completely burned out right now. I've been studying my ass off since yesterday's exam. Even after all that, I don't think I'll do spectacularly well on tomorrow's exam, but I'm sure the studying will have gone a long way. We'll see.

Crypto was a less than inspiring experience. I won't be getting any awards for my work, but I passed, and that's what I was aiming for. My dismal performance is what inspired me to work hard on this next exam.

Studying isn't the only thing on my mind. Rather, another thought that came about from a recent conversation has been unwilling to loosen its grip on my thoughts, making studying all that much more difficult. I don't want to get into details, but all you need to know is that something is plaguing my mind, and by all means, do your best to try to get my mind off of it.

After putting some thought into it, I'm not overly looking forward to moving back home. Though there are a lot of people there that I call friends, it's not often that I actually hang out with them. Here, I'm living with three of my friends, so every day is a new party. Also, living with my parents isn't necessarily conducive to the many romances I hope to carry out in the near future. The only thing I'm particularly looking forward to is the weekly game nights I plan to host. I think I'm either going to have to get a summer job to occupy my time, or else find some other reason to wake up every day.

I don't know what to do tomorrow night. I'll be done my last exam, and I'll have my car for the night. I hope I'm not left home alone again, like tonight. I wish I knew a few more single gals in the city, cause I could use a friendly date tomorrow night. There are even some decent movies playing in theatres this week; it's a shame, really.

Listening to... Papa Roach - Last Resort
Link of the moment... Nothing to look at now, but I should keep my eyes open in the future.

Sonic...he's the fastest thing alive!

2007-04-15T18:07:00.000-04:00

Well, I've got one exam out of the way and another two to polish off my degree. I was most worried about the Network Design exam, but the exam went very well. I didn't ace it, but I most certainly passed it; I might even be in the 80-90 range depending on how he marks it. Of course, I only care about passing at this point, since I have no hopes of making the Dean's list. As a result, I'm not taking studying seriously at all. I've studied maybe a total of one or two hours for tomorrow's Cryptography exam since I think I know enough of the material to just wing it and pass. I won't know a lot of the definitions and more obscure things, but I can't think of an overly compelling reason to study for it. I think I might light a candle under my ass for Network Flow since I neglected the second half of the course, and I really don't even understand any of the algorithms or theory that we did. Well, we'll see what happens when Monday evening rolls around.

I beat Sonic 2 today, with John's help on some bosses. I have metal sonic down to a science now; I can beat him in about ten or fifteen seconds. I tried to beat the original Sonic yesterday, but I didn't have any continues and lost all my lives on one of the later stages. One day...one day I'll beat it.

I think I'm going to go through the US to get home, rather than going up through Sudbury. So long as I don't get held up at the border, it will shave nearly two hours off of my travel time. I've just got to make sure I have some US currency for food, gas, and tolls.

J&J still doesn't have Memoir '44 in stock, but they said they would likely get a shipment on Tuesday. I'll phone after my exam on Wednesday, and if they actually do have it in stock for a change, I'll pick it up as a personal graduation gift. At least then I won't have to worry about playing it when I should be studying.

Well, I've only got a little over a week left in Waterloo. I hope I can do something worthwhile in that week. I'm realy worried about becoming one of those people who just stays in Thunder Bay their whole life. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, but I just feel so secluded there. There's so much to do *outside* of Thunder Bay.

Listening to... In Flames - Dial 595-ESCAPE
Link of the moment... They need to bring back the old TV shows.

Memoir '44 is out of stock? GAH!

2007-04-12T04:58:00.000-04:00

I must be the target of a conspiracy...everytime I go to J&J with one game in mind, they don't have it in stock! It happened first with Thurn and Taxis (which I eventually got a hold of (but have yet to play)), and now it's happened again with Memoir '44! They say they're getting a Days of Wonder shipment in this week, but they're not sure if Memoir '44 will be in it. I hope so, because I'd really like to pick it up before I leave Waterloo. It seems like the kind of game that Adam would be interested in, and I don't have any wargames in my collection (besides Risk 2210, blech). I also had hoped to pick up Kill Doctor Lucky and Bohnanza, but they only had the latter in stock (I guess one out of three aint bad?).

I've also been thinking about picking up a mixed lot of Magic cards on eBay, or a starter set. No matter how many games I get, I'll never have enough to satiate my thirst. I certainly have no hopes of being one of *those* Magic players. You know, the ones that buy booster pack after booster pack, hoping to score one of those rares that they need to have an unbeatable deck. No, I just want something I can divy up between some chums and play when I need my nerd itch scratched. I mean, MTG has been around as long as it has, so the gameplay must have some sort of redeeming qualities.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to include more links in my posts. I don't suppose any of you have said "jeez, I wish Kevin would direct me to a page with more information about his favourite board games", but you never know. If I can infect one of you with my gaming disease, I'll consider it a success.

While I'm (still) on the subject of games, let me tell you a little story. When I last played Catan with Jordan and Katie, they mentioned that they were walking through the V1 cafe one day, when someone asked if they wanted to play some guy's game. They told me that he had gotten it published. This had reminded me of some guy who was showing off his game at a WATSFIC games day, saying he was trying to get it published. Long story short, they were one and the same. Having played the game, I didn't think it was that great. Someone (Andrew?) said I shouldn't trash talk him, since he got his game published, something I probably couldn't do. Since then, I've been trying to get inpiration to design a game of my own, and I think I've finally got something workable. I'm working out the kinks, but so far I'm thinking of an old west theme, with "simultaneous action selection" (ala Diplomacy). We'll see if I can make something workable out of it.

I've also been looking into Arkham Horror, but I'm not sure how much use I would get out of a 3 hour long, heavy weight game that requires a few playthroughs to get used to. Ok. I'm done talking about games for a while. Thanks for letting me indulge.

Listening to... The Offspring - Something to Believe In
Link of the moment... I have SERIOUSLY got a one-track mind

SYMaOYE turns three!

2007-04-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

Another year has passed by, all chronicled in electronic form by the good people at Blogger and an intrepid youth by the name of Kevin. What's happened since April of last year? I think this year, I'm going to give shoutouts to people and things that have been in my life in the last year.

First, I'll give a shoutout to 249 Cedarbrae, Unit 34. You may not have been the best of dwellings, but I've had some good times in you. Your basement flooded with humidity when I tried to dry my clothes, and I had to sleep in your living room when I locked myself out of the basement, but I still had fun in you.

The next shoutout goes to John. I don't know how you can put up with me after living with me for the last four years, and living next door to me the 12ish years before that. Regardless, you've given me many good games of Mario Party and Strikers. It's too bad your three jobs in the summer didn't work out, but I'm glad to see you and Julie are still together!

Another shoutout goes to Hugh. Of all my roommates this year, you've probably annoyed me the most, but that's because you're always right and you have a way of making me realize I'm an idiot. Regardless, I always seem to go to you first when I have embarassing stories, and you're always willing to hear them. You're also the only one who is going to read this.

My last roommate shoutout goes to Andrew. Even though you never get your marking done on time, you're a good TA (and I know from my CS 234 assignments). You've trained me well in Smash Brothers, but I'll never be as good as you (I don't have your devotion). Luckily, I can still beat you at Euchre. I hope you find some more people to play Settlers of Catan with!

Another shoutout goes to Hugh's Gamecube. I've had some good times with you even though you're not mine, like Mario Party, Mario Strikers, Paper Mario, and countless other games with "Mario" in the title.

Summer of 2006 gets a shoutout. This is the first summer away from home, and a great one to be sure. You had some great weather, and on the hot days I didn't mind because I was in the basement. I got a trip to Niagara Falls during you, and it was a great time. I got to relax because of my light course load, and when I had to get to campus, the walk there was enjoyable.

The UW Euchre club gets a shoutout. You kept me entertained, and I like to think that I helped develop you by being the treasurer. I made a lot of friends through you, and you're on of the greatest clubs on campus! I hope you're around for a long time to come.

Sivji gets a shoutout this year. You convinced me to take ENGL 119 with you, for better or for worse. We made an awesome Case Study in that course, and seeing 300 with you in IMAX was fun. I'm glad you liked Firefly and Serenity. I haven't kept track of you, but I RSS'd your blog just now, so I'll give it a glance when I have some time.

Nathalie gets big props. You made CS 234 and CO 485 somewhere between bearable and fun. Thanks for all your help on assignments, and thanks for taking an interest in my life. We didn't do much together off campus, but both the birthday parties were a blast! I don't think there's been a single time I've been around you and not in a great mood. You've got that effect on people.

Nicole gets a shoutout. Even though you graduated, you still visited us in the summer. It was fun playing Mario Party with you, even if you never won. When you moved to Toronto for college, things got sort of awkward between us. Because of you, I signed up for Facebook, and I guess I’ve gotten some good dirt on people because of it.

J&J Cards and Collectibles gets a shoutout. Thanks to your low prices and great stock, and also by the allure of boardgamegeek.com, I bolstered my board game collection to include such hits as Carcassonne: The Discovery, Bang, Thurn and Taxis, Apples to Apples, Through the Desert, and a few others. Even though I don’t get too much play out of them, it’s good to know they’re there when I need something to do when there’s nothing on TV.

Laura gets a shoutout. I haven’t seen much of you in the last year since you have a habit of taking too much on your plate. You made sure I stayed awake in Databases, I enjoyed playing card games with you, Trevor, Amanda, and Gee in the summer, and the one time we did get together in the summer was interesting. I hear you’re going out with Gee these days…you two are good for each other.

My Creative Zen gets a shoutout. It was a birthday gift, and certainly a step up from that shitty minidisc player. Congratulations on not being an iPod, and storing all of my music as well as some videos that kept me entertained when I had some time to kill.

Even my Nintendo DS Lite gets a shoutout. You’re a step up from the GBA SP, and you have a nice catalog of games. Thanks for giving me something to do when the TV was being used by my roommates, and when I had time to kill on campus.

Guild Wars gets an electronic shoutout for keeping me entertained during the summer exam period. God bless you and you lack of monthly fees. I’m sure I’ll pick you up again once I get some more console games out of the way, but I feel like I need to play you religiously or not at all, and I just don’t have to the time right now. I really hope that you still have a user base after being out for so long.

Katie gets a huge shoutout. It’s a shame we only met recently, since we seem to have good times. You’re always welcome at our house, and it’s really nice to find someone else who is willing to play a nerdy game or two when there’s not much else to do. You’re just about the only thing in my life to get a shoutout past New Year’s, so I’m glad you’re here to change my life up a bit.

My car gets a shoutout for the ordeal I went through with it with the whole battery thing. It was a struggle, but you’re back in working order buddy! Let’s try to keep it that way.

Caroline gets a shoutout for getting me out on the first date in 2007, and indeed the first time in quite a while. We’re not quite right for each other in a romantic sense, and I haven’t seen you online in a while, but I really thoroughly enjoy our banter when we get together.

Paul gets a shoutout, for taking an unhealthy interest in my life. Thanks for letting me know that enabling comments in my blog isn’t a waste, and thanks for the banter you’ve given me. I’m sorry I never got a chance to hang out with you pretty much ever, but I’m not a big “go to Toronto for the day” guy.

Well, I think that’s about everyone that gets a shoutout this year. I’m sorry if I neglected you, but according to my blog, these are all the big people and things that have been in my life in the last year.

Listening to... Sepultura – Repeating the Horror
Link of the moment... This year is the "leather" anniversary

Done undergrad classes! FOREVER!

2007-04-04T18:21:00.000-04:00

Well, classes are over. Like, for good. That is, undergrad classes. I suppose I'll still be taking courses at Lakehead for a grad degree, but those don't count. Now I've just got to burn through three exams, and I'll have a Bachelor's degree under my belt!

So far, I've just been relaxing since classes have finished. I've been sitting my poor ass on the couch, playing a lot of video games (ah, the good life). I started up Metroid Prime the other day. I usually frown on sci-fi themed games, but this game is really good. I still have issues with aiming through the shoulder buttons, but I can certainly see why the game is as highly rated as it is. I think the best thing about this game is that there is no stupid mascot character that rides on your shoulder constantly telling you what to do (looking at you, Legend of Zelda). If you ever do get stuck on something, you can scan items in the room for information, and you'll occasionally get intel through your visor about anomolies in the environment so that you always have somewhere to go, and the map makes it really easy to know how to get there.

I seem to be hanging out a lot with Katie and Jordan. They came over on Monday night after a grocery trip. We played some Super Jeopardy (on the NES emulator) and then played 25 words or less with the roommies and Julie. It's a pretty decent game, but I think some house rules are needed, as some of the rules are a bit ambiguous.

Last night, I went out to East Side Mario's with Katie, Jordan, Andrew, and Sean. I had some pretty good bowtie pasta (I would have gotten more, but everyone else was done their meals by the time I got a friggen refill on my iced tea). After that, we played a game of Catan (Jordan and Katie were on a team). It was a pretty good game, aside from some overly long turns. Catan is such a great game, just because trading with other players is such a big part.

I've already got well over a hundred dollars worth of games that I'm considering purchasing. If I buy them before I leave, I save myself some shipping and handling, but I don't want to try to fit any more boxes in my car for the drive home. Even though I don't play games much now, I can justify it since I expect to be playing games regularly with my friends back home (boy, I hope I get a good following back home, or else I'm gonna have a shitload of board games and no one to play them with).

I think I'm gonna make the trip back home around the 24th or 25th. Even though I'll be done on the 18th, I think I should stick around since I won't be seeing a lot of people for quite some time after I leave. It takes about 8 hours to get to Sault Ste. Marie from here, and about another 8 from the Sault to Thunder Bay. Since there aren't any sizable cities between the latter two, I'll probably split the trip up over two days in that way. I guess that means I don't have to get up early for the first day! I've also had the brilliant idea of loading up my Zen with podcasts to listen to on the ride home. Most of my music is kind of stale, so some good talk radio might be the ticket to keep me entertained on the road. I think I'll download a few episodes of the Dice Tower. Does anyone have any other suggestions (Paul, I'm looking at you)?

Listening to... Trapt - Still Frame
Link of the moment... I sort of like this show. Too bad there's no online audio-only supplement for it.

Farewell, euchre peeps!

2007-03-29T11:38:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-24T23:48:00.000-04:00

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)

2007-03-21T14:45:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-18T04:16:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-13T01:08:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-12T05:00:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-04T17:58:00.000-05:00

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.

Well you know what? I like it, and that's what matters.

2007-02-21T21:12:00.000-05:00

Well, my car is fixed! It took six hours and $150 but my car now gets me to where I need to be.

I went to Cambridge with Andrew and Hugh the other day. Andrew needed to get some skipants for his skitrip, and the National Sports here didn't have what he needed, but they told him the National Sports in Cambridge could get him what he needed. While we were there, we went to the mall, where I got FFVI Advance from the EBGames. We also went to the fabled Bluenotes outlet that John always gets his three dollar t-shirts from. Shirts with so called "witty" slogans on them aren't my thing, but they were indeed cheap. Hugh picked up a $20 parka that I thought was very good for the price. Not only was it only $20, but they were also under the "buy one get one free" deal. Long story short, Hugh and I walked out with matching parkas (though his is black and mine is brown).

I got out to a movie with Caroline, from the euchre club, the other night. We went to go see Smokin' Aces. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and found it startlingly similar to Lucky Number Slevin in style. Of course, since Kevin Durand had a sizable part in the movie, I had to mention that he's from Thunder Bay. Good for him.

Oh yeah, funny story from the other night. Katie was coming over Monday night to watch Prison Break and Heroes (actually, she only stayed for Prison Break), so I offered to pick Caroline up to watch them with us (she watched Heroes as well). I went to go pick her up, and due to her living on a busy street (Columbia), and my inability to see house numbers quickly, I wound up parking my car a few houses down. I walked up to her house, which was pitch black, and remember that she told me that her entrance was through the garage. I opened the door to the garage, and it was pitch black inside. I tried calling her cell, and only got voice mail. I waited around a few minutes, hoping she'd come out, but she never did.

At this point, I figure the only thing I could possibly do to get in communication with her is to drive back home, and see if she was still at her computer. Unfortunately, she was not, so I verified that I had the right address (psh, who writes down addresses?), hightailed it back, and used my cellphone as a flashlight in the garage. It turns out that once you get a few steps in, the light turns on via a motion sensor. Luckily, she wasn't waiting around the whole time, but did some dishes in the meantime. All in all, a somewhat interesting and awkward sequence of events.

I had big plans to play through Shadow Hearts this week, but it seems that the TV is in heavy contention. Hugh also had the bright idea of killing the week with video games, and Andrew has his usual Smash Bros. stints. I'm only about 8 hours into the game, sadly. I really should be getting on that crypto assignment too. It's bothersome to think that my week off is half over. I'm not particularly looking forward to getting back to class.

Listening to... The Human Abstract - Crossing the Rubicon
Link of the moment... Thanks for the nice link Paul

Did I just say "ego-testicle?"

2007-02-16T00:40:00.000-05:00

Beware the pronunciation of the word egotistical.

Well, my two pre-reading-week midterms are over and done with. I expect between 50-65 on Network Design (hey, a pass is a win in my books!), and perhaps between 75-85 on my network flows midterm. Another day of studying probably would have gone a long way towards the latter test, but what's another ten percent on my midterm going to get me in life? Nowhere, I'm sure.

I've only got a few hours of class tomorrow before I can truly start my week off. I think I'm already starting to go crazy from hanging around the house too much, so we'll see how long it takes before I snap.

It turns out that Katie (from the euchre club) lives a stone's throw away from my house. She walked home with Andrew and I last Tuesday. Last night, she was talking to Andrew on MSN, insisting that we play euchre with her and her friend. Long story short, we played euchre and crokinole until about 1:30. It was good times, but I was really dead tired before they even showed up, so I may have been a bit crankier than usual. The both of them convinced me to play Mario Party and Scene It in the near future with them. I'm pretty excited that I've got a friend that lives close by. We rarely have people over, and last night was a lot of fun!

Sometime this weekend, I've got to get my car to Canadian Tire to get the battery charged or replaced. I think I'll call CAA, get them to give me a boost to get my car started in the parking lot, drive to Canadian Tire, and then leave it running while I go in to get serviced. It'll take a few hours out of my day, but I'll have the time for it, and it'll be well worth it to have the car for the rest of the week.

Well, I've still got class tomorrow, and I'm pretty bushed, so I think I'm gonna get some sleep. Until later, diary!

Listening to... Billy Talent - Fallen Leaves
Link of the moment... Happy Valentine's day! Maybe next year I'll have someone with which to celebrate it.

Don't let the euchre club die!

2007-02-08T01:14:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems like none of the current euchre exec want to come back for another year. I'll be graduated, and the other three have just been doing it too long and want to move on. I hope we get a good set of people who want to be exec for next year; it would be a shame if a club that I care about so much was to die out so quickly after it was started.

Speaking of euchre, I had a really good night yesterday. I had seven wins and one loss, and it shot me into second place in the rankings! I also enjoyed the company of everyone else I played with, of course, but it's nice to have a solid set of wins for a change. Let's see how long it lasts...

I had a pretty good weekend, overall. I was feeling pretty nauseous for most of it, unfortunately. I got some Mario Party and Ticket To Ride out of my system. We went out for dinner on Saturday night, and man it was freezing. A blizzard started up just as we were leaving for dinner. What's worse is that we had to keep going out into it becuase we couldn't find anyplace with a short enough wait time. We eventually settled on Kelsey's, and waited the 50 minutes.

Earlier that day, my car wouldn't start in the Sobey's parking lot. I had to call CAA, and wait for a towtruck. He gave me a jump, as the battery was lacking sufficient juice. I'm a little wary to use my car now, at least until the weather starts to get a little less harsh. Unfortunately, I seem to keep finding uses for my car; Quinn wants me to get pop for the next euchre meeting again. I'll probably use it while John is in Las Vegas, since our parking spot will be otherwise empty.

It looks like it might be another lonesome Valentine's day. I have a date with a midterm that night, so even if I did want to ask some girl out (say, someone in the euchre club), I wouldn't be able to go out that night.

At least it looks like I'll be able to kick back for the reading week. Like I said, John will be going to Las Vegas, and Andrew might be going on a ski trip. Hugh said he'll probably go home for a few days, so I might find myself home alone to catch up on some gaming. I might be able to find a person or two in the K-W area who might want to catch a movie, who knows.

My Network Designs course is not getting any easier. I haven't been able to follow along with the lecutres; the material is really over my head at the moment. I've got an assignment due Monday, which means I have to ask questions on Friday, which means I have to work on the assignment tomorrow. Of course, working on the assignment is pretty well dependent on my understanding the course, so in a perfect world, I'll learn most of the course tomorrow afternoon, at least to the point where I can understand the assignment. Then, I'll have to learn the rest for the midterm next Wednesday. Luckily, I'm done my two assignments that are due Friday, so I only have the one thing to worry about.

I bought Through the Desert this previous weekend, and had a game with Andrew and John. It was pretty good. As usual, there's not a very explicit sense of interaction with other players, but you do have to consider what other players will do on their turns. Andrew won and I came in a pretty distant second. This Saturday, there will be another games day, so I think I'll get out to it again (but this time I'll bring something with me in case I find myself waiting on games to finish again).

I'm not fond of my sleeping habits lately. I honestly find myself sleeping for eleven hours when given the opportunity. I suspect that it is due to my lack of physical activity (aparently walking an hour to and from class doesn't cut it), but I am unwilling to do anything about it. To actually get out and do some exercise would take at least a two hour commitment, and then I'd be using two hours a day to cut back on an hour of unnecessary sleep.

Speaking of, I think I'll get some sleep now. My mind and body need to be well rested to bend some approximation algorithms to do my bidding.

Listening to... The Distillers - For Tonight You're Only Here to Know
Link of the moment... I think I'll order this game this weekend, to save the use of my car

I care not for this "homework" you speak of

2007-01-31T20:09:00.000-05:00

I've been putting off these assignments for too long. I tried starting the Network Design assignment just now, and it actually cause me mental anguish to try to do any of the questions. If I don't wake up tomorrow morning with some sort of newfound enlightenment, I think I'm going to just ignore the very existence of these assignments and take a 5% and 2% hit to two of my marks. Right now, I just feel like coasting out of this university. I only need to pass these three stinking classes to graduate, and aside from getting a "conditional" acceptance to grad studies (which are still just a reason to not get to working), I don't see how getting a 90 in these classes will be any different from getting a 70. It's yet another one of those ruts that I seem to fall in to every few weeks.

I don't really understand why I'm more lazy this term than last term. Last term, I put a lot more time and effort into euchre related stuff than I do this term. Now I really only update the website when I need to, and I don't ever contribute any strategy articles anymore. I'm spending less time on my three classes this term than I spent on my four classes last term (granted, I did shit all in Linguistics). Perhaps it's just the winter weather that's weighing down on me. Walking to campus is certainly no treat anymore. Not to mention that I don't have any breaks between classes on campus, which I would put towards working on assignments. Maybe if I started eating breakfast I'd be a bit more productive for the rest of the day.

The recent games day has resparked my interest in board games. The actual event itself was pretty uninviting. I waited about two hours from the time I got there before I played any games. I suppose I got there just when people had begun a few lengthy games. What really bothered me is that no one so much as recognized my presence while I was waiting. They're not very inviting people.

I did get to play a tutored game of Puerto Rico, and I thought it was a pretty good game. It's very involved, in that every decision you make has an impact on every other player. I'm thinking of laying down a sizable wad of cash at J&J again. One could argue that I haven't gotten much use out of my four most recently purchased games. The way I figure, I'm going to wind up buying most of these games sooner or later, and J&J doesn't usually have sales (and if they do, I never hear about them), so I might as well buy them sooner than later.

Nicole is coming this weekend. I'm looking forward to the visit, because she has the wonderful property of wanting to do things that I mostly enjoy. In fact, there is not enough time to do all the things I'd like to do: play some board games, go bowling, play Mario Party, etc. It'll be a nice relaxing break, whether I actually finish either of my assignments or not.

Listening to... System of a Down - Violent Pornography
Link of the moment... I'd like to play this game sometime, but I can't justify buying a $50+ game.

Our hero returns after a short hiatus

2007-01-27T01:10:00.000-05:00

13 days since my last post? Egads! I'd apologize, but I certainly have nothing to apologize for. I owe you all nothing, you hear me? NOTHING.

I can't say much has happened in the last two weeks, really. I went to the Silver Spur last weekend, with John's sister Maria and her boyfriend, along with John and Julie. It wasn't particularly entertaining, but nowhere near as bad as that one time I went to Scuttlebutt's (*cringe*).

Tonight I went to Polar Jam '07. There were six bands in six hours, but I wasn't really up for a six hour commitment, so I missed the first two bands (Intransit and Saigon Hookers, two bands I was particularly looking forward to). I saw The Junction (thumbs up), Brassmunk (if I had any more than two thumbs, they would all be down for this overly generic hip-hop), Idle Sons (recognized one song, most of their others were generic verse/chorus/verse/chorus/guitar solo/chorus, but overall enjoyable) and Thornley (great performance as usual, but their Come Again/Big Wreck setlist is getting a bit stale). It was an outdoor concert, so during most of the bands my toes were painfully numb. I was even wearing two pairs of socks! Not the warmest night we've had lately, most of the bands were complaining about it.

Today, I decided to try to get some sleep after getting back from classes. About half an hour into my rest, I heard a crowd of people, and assumed Hugh had some people over or something. Then I heard them come downstairs. Then I heard my door open, and saw some people poke their heads in. They seemed pretty shocked to see me, and I asked them what purpose they had in my bedroom, uninvited. It turns out that our landlord decided to give some people a tour of the house, without giving us any prior notice! I'm pretty unimpressed with him. Even if he los tour number, he should at least come to our house before he brings anyone else with him. What an ass.

My weekends seem to be chock full of things to do. Tomorrow I plan to go to campus to play some board games with Watsfic. Next weekend, Nicole is going to be in town, and I'll be going to a concert with her on Friday night. She said she might be going to a party on Saturday night, but if not, I'm sure we'll be doing something together. Maybe mario party, perhaps bowling; we'll see what the weekend has in store for me.

I'm not all that impressed with my assignments lately. I have two due next Friday, and I'm not entirely sure how much I will be able to finish by then. My big work days will be Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but I like to be essentially finished by Tuesday so that any problems I can't get past on my own can be solved on the Wednesday before the assignments are due. I took a look at Network Design, and it doesn't look too difficult. The bigger challenge will be Network Flow, since the questions deal with STUPID linear programming and matrix representations of graphs. I don't understand any of it, and I've noticed that staring at the page does not do much for me.

I finished Okami, after 34 grueling hours. I've started up a new save in my favourite game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics. This year, it's ten years old, and still as engrossing as ever. Judging by my previously saved game of 50+ hours, it might take a while to beat this game. After playing Okami, I stand by my opinion that a short game (10-15 hours) with lots of replay value is more enjoyable than a long game (30+ hours) that relies more on its story than variety in gameplay.

Well, I should get some sleep. Our landlord is showing the house to people tomorrow at 2PM, so I should try to get up early to get a bit of cleaning done (I wouldn't want people to think I live a slovenly lifestyle!)

Listening to... Tool - The Patient
Link of the moment... Kudos to [station on channel 5 in Waterloo] for putting this on after The Simpsons at 5:30

Got wood for sheep?

2007-01-14T23:42:00.000-05:00

Ugh. I'm feeling a bit down at the moment. Not really any particular reason, I guess. Just got the "every day is a waste of my life" doldrums. I guess I'm happy to be doing nothing instead of having too much to do, though.

I haven't done anything towards my idea of getting a bunch of clubs together for an event. I was aiming for February 3rd, but I think things would be too rushed if I tried for then. Everyone I've told says it sounds like a good idea, and I seem to have some support from other euchre people.

I've had only one assignment due so far. Network Flow has weekly assignments due on Fridays, and the other two have an assignment each due on the 24th, a Wednesday. What I'm hoping is that I can finish Okami in about a week and then just not play any video games until I'm done my assignments. That way, I won't have any distractions.

I finished season 2 of 24 the other day, and today was the premiere of season 6. There seem to be a lot of Canadian actors on the show so far. I'm excited to see Shaun Majumder on the show tomorrow night.

I made chili and it didn't turn out very good. I'm really sick of eating it, but I can't let it go to waste. So, I've got to pound down some crappy chili and rice for another few days. I treated myself to some McD's the other day, since we were out and about on the town. John, Julie and I went to Williams for a while to people watch. There wasn't really anyone interesting.

I've had a twitch in my eyelid for over a week now. It's intensely annoying and I'd like very much for it to go away. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to gouge my eye out, quite possible with a spoon.

Lately I've been sleeping for 11 hours when given the chance. Often, when I don't have school the next day, I'll go to sleep around 2AM and find myself waking up around 1PM. I don't mind sleeping in when I need to sleep, but sleeping that much on a regular basis probably isn't a good use of my time.

Nowrthern Ontario is so secluded from Southern Ontario. Once I move back home, there's not a very good chance I'll be seeing any of the people I met from University again. It's not really worth $350 in airfare or 14 hours of driving to visit friends for a few days. Looks like online communication is about as close of bonding I'll be doing with my friends. Of course, I might very well wind up getting a job in the GTA. It almost seems inevitable; there aren't many jobs that make good use of my degree that aren't in the heart of the country.

Maybe I should give Nathalie a call one of these days...there are a lot of people I should be calling: Phil, for instance. He called here the other day and said that he seems to do the same thing day in, day out, and doesn't really talk to any of his friends.

Listening to... Orgy - Fetisha
Link of the moment... I think I'll attend this event. At least it'll get me out of the house.

Fun trip to Brantford

2007-01-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back in "the 'loo". Hugh was home first on the third of January, then me, then Andrew, and finally John the next morning. Our family is once again complete. We went grocery shopping, but I forgot to look at what I had left in the cupboards and freezer. Because of that, I underbought and now I'm very low on food and I don't think anyone else wants to go shopping.

I only got to see Holly once while I was home. We went to the mall together. It was a very nice mall trip, she definitely made it fun. I got some pants and a nice zip-up spring jacket for $20 each. The pants are too long, so I'm either going to have to hem them or just let them be too long.

My classes are pretty boring so far. I few times, I've been close to nodding off during class. James, who I know from the Euchre club, is in two of my classes. The other class (Network Design) has only seven or eight students, and the prof isn't really that good of a lecturer. He goes a little too fast and writes a little too small for my liking.

The other day, I tried to beat Hugh in Smash Brothers with one hand. Specifically, my right hand. I used my thumb on the analog stick and my pinky for the buttons. Had I been able to react quickly enough to recover when off the edge, I'm certain I could have easily beaten him, but inability to recover proved fatal.

I had an idea at the euchre exec meeting. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or a bad one, but I'm going to put more consideration into it. We're trying to find new events to have for the club, and I think we're a bit wary about how Warrior Weekends are being managed. One problem I have with WW is that they tend to have a lot of events running concurrently, so people have to choose between events. What I was thinking is getting a few entertainment-based clubs (UWGamers, WATSFIC, etc) together, and having a day-long event with lots of back-to-back events. Then people can participate in as many events as they want without having to choose between them. Of course, it might be more work than it seems, getting a lot of clubs to be on the same page, and co-ordinating all the advertising efforts.

I beat the Warriors. As you might notice on the sidebar, it didn't take me very long. There are still a lot of extra backstory missions I can do, and a few more modes I can unlock, but for the moment I'm done with the game. I've moved on to Okami, which hasn't really wowed me yet. It's pretty fun, but I'm gonna say that LoZ: TP looks like a better game.

Listening to... Three Days Grace - Scared
Link of the moment... My latest wallpaper...I like this art style

A game I made up

2007-01-01T16:18:00.000-05:00

Alirght, I'm going to give the 'rules' of a game I made up a little over a year ago. We played it last night for new year's and it seemed to go over quite well. To start, I'd like to say that I made this game before I ever heard of Apples to Apples, because they are similar in concept.

For lack of a better name, I'll call the game "Connection". It's best played with 4-7 people. To start, one person is elected the judge for that round. What they do is think of a word or a concept, and everyone else guesses what it is without anything beyond the psychic connection they have with the judge. Once everyone says what they think the judge's word is, everyone else has to justify why their word is the most closely connected to the judge's word. The judge then picks their favourite, be it due to relevance, originality, or comedy, and then the winner becomes the next judge (or, if you like, the person to the judge's left or right becomes the next judge).

This game is so simple that I needn't try to take any credit for it anyways. It's suprisingly fun if you're with the right type of people, and is a good game to play when you're either waiting for something or just can't find any game that everyone agrees on.

It's interesting to watch someone try to relate "Super Mario" with a knife (see, super Mario implies that he's already eaten one of the mega mushrooms, since he's not just regular Mario, and you usually cut mushrooms up with a knife when you eat them). It has a small bluffing element where you can make up false facts that you know (did you know the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas has bamboo furniture?), and if you can convince the judge that your reasoning is the best, then you've got a good chance at being picked.

It's also good to know something about the judge. I usually like to give more points to someone who picks something really obscure, and I like to pick obscure things myself. If you pick a person everyone knows or The Simpsons, it'll be pretty easy to relate the two. It's harder when you choose "a Machete" or "six toes".

So, if you're sitting around with nothing better to do, give it a shot and see what develops.

Link of the moment... I don't think I have enough for a patent yet...

Shag-adelic, baby

2006-12-29T13:53:00.000-05:00

You may notice a slight addition to the sidebar. Hopefully by putting that up, it'll cut down on the "games I want to play" posts. I finally beat Resident Evil 4. I'm right near the end of Megaman ZX as well, but there's no way I can get through the "beat all the eight bosses again" part without some FAQ help.

At Blockbuster the other day, I picked up Okami as planned, and since they had a buy-one-get-one-half-off deal, I picked up Meteos for DS for another ten bucks. The next day at Rogers, I saw Kirby: Canvas Curse in the used games section. It looks like a good game, and I can never find it on eBay, so I picked it up as well. I'd better not buy any more games for a while, it looks like I have enough to last me through until the summer.

I went to Chris' house the other day and played some Wii. I've gotta say it doesn't really live up to my expectations. With Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I felt like all I needed to do was shake the controller in front of me until the guys were dead. When I tried doing one move, it would wind up doing a different one. With Wii Sports golf, the same sort of thing happened; it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. Boxing had the same problem. When I'd try to punch low to the body, it would do a hook to the face. Tennis was definitely fun though. Props to tennis.

I played another two games of Carcassonne with Grant and Sheena last night. I think I might actually be getting to the point where I'm getting sick of that game. I've played it entirely too many times since I got home.

Maybe later today I should go return stuff. X-mas gifts, that is. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep the camera I have or exchange it for one with a smaller frame. I guess I use it so rarely that it won't make too much of an impact. Canon's a good name, and I don't really feel like putting in the time to finding out what the best model is otherwise. I guess I'll just take it all in cash, because I can't think of what I should get from Future Shop. I certainly have enough games. I'm not sure if I really want to invest in any more boxsets at the time being.

Well I need to get some food in me. I'm sure I'll have to look for it outside the house, as the cupboards don't seem to be well-stocked lately.

Link of the moment... Slightly interesting article over at Joystiq

Happy commercialized holiday!

2006-12-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

It doesn't feel like Christmas this year. There's no snow on the ground, and we didn't bother putting up a tree this year (we just had a two-foot stand-in on a table). Let's see what booty I got this year:

-New Canon 5.0MP digital camera (I might return it in favour of a smaller model, if I can find one at the same price. Quality is fine and all, but bulky cameras are no fun to carry around)
-Poker's Wild! (A game from the creators of Sequence. Might be fun every now and then)
-shirt and pants (love the pants, the shirt is ok)
-Battlefield 1942 (looking forward to play this via LAN, but not sure if I'll get around to playing it solo for a while)
-Yoshi's Island DS (yay!)
-Lego Star Wars 2 (I happened to burn this from a rental the other day, so I'm going to return it and get Okami for PS2 instead)
-large cash donation for me to buy things for myself (my mom wants me to get a Wii, but considering the lack of great games and my current backlog of games for GC, PS2, PC, and DS, I'll spend it elsewhere and buy a Wii later on in 2007. I'm going to get that video card which is now on sale at Future Shop for Boxing Day.)

I've also added Metroid Prime to my "to play" list. It's the top rated GameCube game, and third highest overall at GameRankings.com. I'm on the last chapter of RE4. For the first three days, I was able to play through a chapter per day, but the fourth chapter took me a long time. I should be done this game in a few days, and then I'll move on to The Warriors. I should be able to finish that in a week and a half, and when I get back to Waterloo I'll probably move on to whatever I'm in the mood for. In the handheld division, I should be done Megaman ZX in less than a week, and then I'll play my new Yoshi's Island DS.

Hugh says that by scheduling video games like this, I take a fair chunk of the fun out of it by destroying the spontaneity. I suppose that's slightly true, but I think that with games taking 20+ hours to beat, and with some games having pretty steep learning curves, it's too difficult to jump back into a game that you've already started and still take as much out of it as you would if it were still fresh on your mind.

So far Adam and I have played 5 (or maybe 6) games of Carcassonne. I think the game works very well with fewer players. There's much more of a "screw over your opponents" element. I played Settlers of Catan with Adam, Grant, and Chanel, and they all seemed to enjoy it. We had to cut it short since Adam had to go somewhere, and while we were playing, Martine and her boyfriend came over. I think we stopped with a three-way tie where Grant, Chanel and I all had 8 points. I'm sure they'd like to play again if the number of people fits. I still want to play with Sheena.

After Adam left, the five of us played Bang!. I started off by stripping a lot of cards out (character cards, more complicated action cards) to leave more of a basic game. After the first game, we added the characters and some more action cards and played again. My one qualm with the game is that it seems to take forever to kill anyone. After playing ten minutes, everyone might still be at full health. I think it would be better to play more rounds that are quicker to play. To remedy this, I think I'll take out some "Missed!" and "Beer" cards (which evade shots and restore health, respectively).

Well it's nearly time for Christmas dinner, so I'm going to go shower and put on my new clothes, then stuff myself with delicious goodness.

Listening to... Rage Against the Machine - Freedom
Link of the moment... Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the new board games I've got my eye on. Lucky you.

Nothing screams "back in Thunder Bay" like a can of Razz Blast

2006-12-21T03:59:00.000-05:00

I loaded up on Safeway Select pop today. It was on sale for $2.50 a pop (here, I cleverly used "a pop" to stand in for "a piece" and also as metonymy by referring to the case of pop as "a pop". I am so clever). Among the six flavours I got was Razz Blast, which is a blue raspberry flavoured concoction that might be described as some to be a sugar orgasm.

Sleep has been very odd since I got home. The first night I got home, I went to bed at 11PM and woke up at 3AM. I think that was a combination of getting up earlier that day for my exam, and sleeping on the way to the airport. I could tell when I woke up that I wouldn't be falling back asleep, so I played some Resident Evil 4 for a while and watched some Beverly Hillbillies until my parents woke up. Then I got some McDonald's breakfast and did some early morning shopping. I guess most of my shopping is out of the way, except for my sister, for whom I have no idea what to get. The local Walmart is open 24 hours through the Christmas, so I think I'll go there some night at 2 in the morning when I have nothing better to do.

I fell asleep no fewer than three times during the day, sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes for an hour, depending on when I was awoken by some distraction. I went to bed last night at about 12:30 and woke up twelve hours later, perhaps due to my lack of 'real' sleep the night before. Tonight, I can't seem to fall asleep, as it's 4AM. 48 hours ago, I was already up for the day. Peculiar, if you ask me. I wonder what time I'll be rolling out of bed, and I wonder what time I'll be falling asleep tomorrow.

Since starting Resident Evil two days ago, I've blown through the first two chapters. I'm on something like 3-2 now, so nearly halfway through the game, I think. If I keep this up, I should be done before Christmas. It's a pain playing in the daytime, because the sun is usually shining on the tv screen, and it makes for a pretty nasty glare.

I played Carcassonne (: The Discovery) with Adam and Sheena last night. They both seemed to enjoy it, and said they'd play again. Adam kicked our asses. I look forward to playing Settlers of Catan, but getting exactly four people to play might be tricky (six would be fine too, but I think four makes for the best game).

Future Shop recently had Battlefield 2 for $20 (Reg $40) and Guild Wars: Nightfall for $40 (reg $50), but I didn't buy either. I'd better not buy any games 'til after Xmas. I played BF2 with Andrew a few days ago, and to be honest it was kinda boring.

I think I'm gonna ask someone to go see a movie perhaps tomorrow. I haven't seen a movie in a while, and Casino Royale might thrill me. There's a particular someone who I may or may not have some chemistry with, and she may or may not be the only single girl I'm friends with in this city. I may or may not make a fool of myself if I put myself out there, and I may or may not care if I do or do not. It's a very dubious situation.

Do you think it's wrong to put the moves on someone without the intention of having any sort of prolonged relationship with them? It seems like the last two times I've made out with a girl, it didn't materialize into anything, and I had no plans for it to do as such. I realize that if you look at my love life in the last two years, I look like much more of a sleaze than I used to. Just getting my jollies with girls without any commitment. Maybe I've turned into a sleaze. Maybe my standards for "realtionship girl" have risen above that of "make-out girl" in the last while. Maybe my libido is just starting to take over. Maybe I've come to the conclusion that starting a relationship with anyone in Waterloo or Thunder Bay is futile anyways. Yes, I think it's a combination of all of those things.

Listening to... Cold - Just Got Wicked (Winamp Radio)
Link of the moment... lolz? Kitties are cute.

Back on my exam sleep schedule

2006-12-17T04:01:00.000-05:00

I remember at the end of the summer term, I was starting to get my sleep schedule to the point where I would see the sun rise before I went to bed. I'm starting to get pretty close to doing that again. It's 4AM right now, and to be honest I'm not all that tired. Yesterday I was up til 4 as well. Tonight I slept from about 9PM to 11PM, knowing full well that I'd be screwing my sleep schedule up. I'm sure this will have dire consequences given that I have an exam at 9AM on Monday. It's no good to be falling asleep partway through an exam.

Linguistics went pretty well. I can't really predict exactly how well I did. There were a few questions I left blank, but I seem to have prepared well enough for it. I think I may have lucked out with Graph Theory. I only studied a total of about four hours for it, and when I started writing it, things were looking pretty dismal. There were a bunch of "give an example of a graph on n vertices which blah blah blah". Each was worth about 12% of the exam mark, and it was very much the case that you'd get either no marks or full marks. Either the right solution came to you or it didn't. Luckily, by the end of the exam, they had all come to me. A few of my other proofs were very sketchy, but I don't think they were looking very really high levels of detail. Only one question was left with an incomplete solution, but I'm pretty confident about the rest.

Hugh says that my blog isn't very interesting as it stands; he says I need more opinions or something. I've been trying to keep my opinions to myself lately because it seems like every time I give an opinion, someone proves me wrong right away. And I don't like being wrong. That, and outside of video games I really don't have much else to talk about (sadly enough).

I don't know what I'll be doing for New Years 06-07. I'm half considering having people over to my house (dare I say, a party?), but my parties are usually dry events, and people like ot get shit faced for the new year. What usually winds up happening is that everyone either goes to some private party, or a family party, and that leaves me with a very small invitee list. Don't get me wrong, hanging out with the Jurcik-Stilla connection is fun, but I don't like doing the same thing year after year.

I think I'm gonna go to a shag (bottom definition) on the 29th. I've never been to one, but there's no time like the near future, right? Besides, poor Chanel has to sell 48 more tickets for her friends.

Listening to... Primus - Southbound Pachyderm
Link of the moment... Almost reason enough to buy a PSP!

Post #301!

2006-12-11T21:42:00.000-05:00

I guess I didn't notice the last post was my 300th. I guess it's really only significant because we're living in a decimal-based world. It's not as impressive in a hexidecimal universe where it was my 12D'th post.

Warning: The following post is a boring one about video games. No love triangles or anything like that.

I think I'm going to start watching less TV in hopes of playing more games (I know, it's like I'm getting out of the frying pan and into the fire, I'm not really doing anything to stimulate my brain or anything, but it's still better than Raymond reruns). I already have a rather large catalog of PS2 games that I want to burn through, and I put a lot of DS games on my wish list this year, so I think I'll have a few of those to play in January. I also am hoping to get a new video card (be it as a gift from my parents or from myself), which would spur me to play more PC games.

Video Card Sidequest: If you would like to continue reading more about the video card situation, go to page 108. If you would like to read more about the games Kevin wants to play, flip to page 76.

PAGE 108

I was thinking about the $600 price tag on the PS3. It's really not all that much when you consider that I spent nearly $2000 on my PC a few years ago. PC games cost nearly as much as console games. Of course, I still won't justify buying one, but thinking about that made me realize that there is absolutely no reason I should be buying a new computer next year-ish. My only issue is that my video card is getting dated and AGP cards are hard to come by these days. At least, that's what I thought. I was surprised to see that card at Future Shop. It's got 512MB memory compared to my current Radeon 9600XT's 128MB. Going by the product name alone, it's two generations higher. $200 for a sizable upgrade isn't that much (mind you, now I want to get a new non-no-name LCD monitor to get the full effect of the upgrade). Thus, my PC would my solution to power-gaming (instead of XBox360 or PS3).

PAGE 76

Here are the PS2 games I would like to play:
Resident Evil 4
The Warriors
Guitar Hero 2
Growlanser 3
Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Okami

Here are the PC games I would like to play:
Battlefield 1942 (with friends over LAN)
Battlefield 2 (online)
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Civilization IV
Half Life 2 (but it's creeping me out a lot)
Guild Wars

And I think that's most of them. I don't want to start any of these games because I'll be away from my PS2 and my PC for two weeks. I don't have any DS games to play, and I don't want to buy any since I'll be getting some for Xmas, I'm sure. I sort of have nothing to do for a while. Well, in theory I could study for my exams, but let's get serious here.

Alright, enough boring you. Time to do...something. Maybe get some early sleep. Not sure yet.

Listening to... Blindside - Eye of the Storm
Link of the moment... Though it's ranked so highly, I don't think it really lives up to all the hype.

PHYS 121 destroyed me

2006-12-09T21:15:00.000-05:00

Well, one exam down. It was physics, and it was gruesome. I'm not looking forward to what my mark will be in that course, but I can't say I care too much. It's just an elective, and even beyond that, what's the worts that will happen if I don't get a good mark in some course this term? Nothing.

I've got a few days until my next exam. The next two are Linguistics and Graph Theory on Wednesday and Friday respectively. I think I'll mostly wing it on those exams. I'll review all the linguistics slides, but it will all be multiple choice and T/F, so it's nothing worth wracking my brain over. Graph Theory will mostly be about memorizing a few theorems, and being able to apply the rest of them. I've got a good grasp on the material, so I shouldn't run into anything that will disturb me on the final.

I went to J&J the other day, as I said I would. I found Bang!, and found Lost Cities after scouring the shelves a few times. Through the Desert, and Mystery of the Abbey, however, were missing. I figure MotA is a bit obscure, and they said TtD was out of print but they should get some more eventually. I didn't want to walk out of there without buying a $30 game, since I'm not often in a spendy mood and figured I should get something for myself. I wound up buying Carcassonne: The Discovery based on a review I found on Board Games With Scott, which says it captures the essence of Carcassonne while being more accessible to new gamers. TtD will have to go on my 'to buy' list for the next time I feel the need to get more games. I think the next time I want to buy some games, I might try out GermanGames.com which is local to Waterloo and has good prices and selection.

I won Megaman ZX off of eBay today for a measly $20 after shipping (it retails for $40). The only reason I got it so cheap was because I got it off a user with almost no feedback. It's probably a bad idea, but the price was right.

I think I might try to get involved in Watsfic and the UWGamers next term, if it fits my schedule. I stopped by the Watsfic office while on campus the other day to see if they were having any more games days. Turns out I just missed one last weekend. I also scolded them for not having their information more accessible, such as on their now-defunct website and perhaps over a newsletter. I'd join in hopes of playing games with people who play games. Similarly, joining the UWGamers would let me try out the new consoles and test drive new games for DS. Of course, walking to campus is such a pain in the winter term, I'm not sure I'd be motivated enough to go to events.

I'm almost done FF5! Isn't that so exciting? Although, I wound up exploiting a game feature to buff up my guys. I guess it takes some of the fun out of the game, but the final boss will still put up a challenge, and there's still an entire optional dungeon after that.

Only nine more days until I'm back home!

Listening to... Raised Fist - Illustration of Desparation
Link of the moment... I'm sure I'll buy from here when I'm back in TBay...no local shops there.

No mo' class

2006-12-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

Today was the last day of classes. I feel like there's still so much more I should have learned this term but maybe that's because I only have 3 on-campus classes, one of which I skipped frequently. Now it's just a matter of exams.

I think I will buy some new board games soon. I've been looking around on the interwebs and have narrowed it down to a few. Seeing as how I've little else to talk about, I'll now list the said five games.

Lost Cities: I plan on buying this because it's a 2-player game. Andrew's the only one nearly as eager as I am about games, so we're often short of players when we want to play something. If I had to compare the play mechanic of this game, I'd have to choose Gin Rummy.

Bang!: I've already talked about this one a lot. It seems like something Grant would go in for. If I had to compare it to another game, it would be Werewolf/Mafia.

Through the Desert: It's gotten some good reviews, and is a staple of many peoples' collections. It seems like a game I might be able to make John and Hugh play. If I had to compare it to another game, it would be Go (for the 'blocking in' aspect of the game).

Mystery of the Abbey: This would be a good addition to my collection since I don't really have a deduction game yet (besides scotland yard that no one will touch). From what I've seen, it's a hybrid of Clue and Guess Who.

Carcassonne: I might buy this after Christmas. Sonja says she got it cheap from a calendar kiosk after boxing day. I played it once and didn't like it a lot, but it seems to be one of 'the' games to own, so maybe I just need to know the rules a bit better.

Since I really haven't spent much lately, I've got $500 coming to me from marking, and J&J is a resource I can only use for five more months, I think I'll spend a non-trivial amount on games. I'll probably get Bang!, Lost Cities, and one of MotA or TtD. If the prices are fair, maybe I'll go ahead and buy both! It's just a bloody shame that I won't have enough room in my luggage to take a fair number of my larger games to play.

Listening to... Death By Stereo - Unstoppable
Link of the moment... A pretty awesome board game vlog I stumbled upon.

I'm uncomfortably moist

2006-12-01T11:57:00.000-05:00

It was raining effing hard today. I got completely soaked on the way to school. My pants, shoes, and even socks are still wet. I'm scared to walk back home, afraid that I'll erode away before I get home.

Looks like I'll be not finishing TWO assignments this week. Physics proved to be too much for me, and I only finished 3 of the 6 questions. Graph theory is just as bad, as I've only finished two of the four. It doesn't matter so much, since only three of the four assignments will be counted towards my grade and I've already got about 80 on the other three. It's a shame that it looks like I won't be getting higher than an 80 average in this course. Then again, what does it really matter? Not much.

I don't know what it is, but lately 8-9 hours of sleep aren't cutting it for me. I was tired and borderline incoherent yesterday, and it looks like I'm no better off today either. Things just aren't making sense to me.

It looks like I didn't win an XBox 360. I was looking forward to playing Gears of War, too. Shame.

Let's see what needs to be done this weekend: I need to finish crypto, finish my grad applications, and do all the treasury stuff for the euchre club. Not too much, I guess.

I'm sorry, I really have nothing else to say. Goodbye.

Listening to... Nothing...goddamn Zen battery is dead again
Link of the moment... Ah good old Kirby. Always a classic

I won't let Facebook take me alive!

2006-11-28T13:06:00.000-05:00

For a while there, I was checking Facebook daily, but I suppose two days in a row doesn't really count. Turns out there's a UW Euchre club group. I'm now an admin, even though I oh-so-rarely use Facebook. I've just never really been an admin before...

This past weekend wasn't as productive as it should have been. I'm at the point in the physics course where I have to learn stuff I didn't know in High School. Seeing as how the assignment is due Wednesday (tomorrow), and I need to scan the assignment on campus during the day, and I have euchre tonight, it looks like whatever I have finished up until this point is what I'll be submitting, which happens to be three of the six questions. The real killer part is that I won't get the assignment solutions back in time to study the assigned questions in time for the exam (on the 8th). Then I've got to work on Crypto before Thursday so I can ask questions after class to finish the assignment for Tuesday, and Graph Theory is due on Friday as well. Assignments sort of crept up on me; I never saw it coming.

I can't view my blog from the lab here, so you'll have to forgive me if I repeat anything. I found my gloves that I lost a while ago. Turns out they were sitting in this lab the whole time. Over the course of a week, no one stole them or threw them out or anything. Just goes to show how little this lab gets used I guess. Since I bought new ones, and Andrea loves them so much, I gave the old gloves to her She seems to have taken quite a liking to them.

I got some of my grad stuff out of the way, but I guess I still have a bit more to do. I requested my three reference letters. All I really need to do at this point is send in my applications and wait. To do that though, I need a statement of interest, and before I finish that, I want to know if I have a chance of doing the NSERC research program during the summer. To know more about that, I'm waiting for the NSERC person at LU to get off their ass and let me know if any of the math profs have research interests in graph theory.

My parents want me to apply at more places like Manitoba and UWO. I really don't care that much about grad studies though, so I'm only going to apply to LU and UW. If the both accept me, I'll proabably just go to LU for laziness reasons. That is, if there is a prof with graph theory roots who will supervise me. Sure, LU isn't nearly as prestigious, but the way I figure, once I get a real job, I'll never see Thunder Bay again. Might as well get some time in before I do that.

I'm really looking forward to playing Catan with Sheena! She told me she's been wanting to play board games but can't find anyone. Good to know there's someone to do that with at home. Maybe we'll play some poker too. Maybe I should invest in another game or two at J&J...Bang! might be a good addition to my collection. No one here would play it with me, but I could say that about nearly EVERY interest I have.

I'm not entirely looking forward to exams next month, but I guess I never really am. I'll have very little time to study for Physics on the 8th. I'll have to put lots of time into Linguistics on the 13th since I've missed so many classes. Graph Theory on the 15th shouldn't take so much time since I'd say I have a pretty good grasp of the course material. Crypto on the 18th will be gruesome, I'm sure, but if I can get some decent studying done without putting it off too long, I should bo ok. Of course, the fact that I can't use Nathalie as an aid on the final will probably set me back a few points.

My schedule for next term got a little better. I found out about a CO course being offered next term, Network Design. I dumped Coding Theory for it, and now my schedule will be Crypto, Network Flow, and Network Design from 11:30-1:30 on MWF. Of course Euchre will mean I still have to walk to campus four days a week, but I still vastly prefer this schedule for both its relevance to graph theory and compactness.

I think I'm going to have to go get a donut. I'm pretty hungry.

Listening to... Fugazi - Lockdown
Link of the moment... FINALLY got this in the mail!

Karmic retribution in the form of cookies

2006-11-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

Not a very apt title, but I like how it sounds. I'm trying to make sure that no two posts have the same title.

I'm posting from home today. I really don't know what it is in my body that makes me wake up JUST at the moment where I have to decide between getting to Linguistics on time or having lunch, but time and time again I'm looking at the clock between 11:03 and 11:18 (keep in mind my clock is 7 minutes fast for psyche-out reasons). Usually this only happens on Thursdays. I think this might be the first Tuesday linguistics I've missed. At least it will make my stay on campus shorter than the usual 10 hours.

I didn't do nearly as much this weekend as I had set out to do, but I set higher goals for myself than I expected to reach, so I guess it worked out. I'm still a bit uneducated about the grad studies application process, but I think I'm a few steps closer to knowing how to apply to UW. LU and the NSERC application are still foreign to me, though. I still have to get reference letters from profs, but before I do that I need to pick a C&O focus. I'm fairly certain it'll be graph theory, but I've only really done about 2 courses worth of graph theory, so I might just be interested in the baby part of it. Besides that, my next choice of focus would be either Cryptography or Algebraic and Enumerative Combinatorics, mainly because they both deal with group theory and modulo arithmetic, which is a shameful joy of mine. I wish I had more time to take courses related to the three areas to decide which one has a future with me.

I watched Steve's poker game on TV the other day. It was pretty fun to watch. He caught a LOT of really lucky breaks. There were plenty of times where he was a big underdog when he went all in and then caught a good card.

It's getting too effing cold out these days, and it'll only get colder once the blizzards come. I think I'm gonna have to start sleeping with some warmer jammy-jams, lest my roommates find my frozen corpse one morning.

Tonight is the last 'regular' euchre meeting (that is, random games that are counted towards the term scores). Next week will be a tournament, which I will hopefully win. I think maybe next week I'll put out a survey dealing with what people think of the statistics and how they could be improved.

I think everyone who plays RPGs has, at some point in their childhood/adolescence thought that they should attempt to make a game. After playing so many different styles and systems, each person thinks of ways to combine all the games they've enjoyed in some way to create some sort of master game. I know about a year ago (and just about once every three years before that), I started working on the basis of one of my dream games, but of course it never got out. The reason I bring this up is because since I've started playing FF5 again, I've been thinking about the parts of their class system that I enjoy and the parts that I would like to improve. Lemme tell you, if I was living with Phil and some other guy who enjoys sprite work, the three of us probably COULD put out a game (perhaps a crappy one, but it would be our child nonetheless).

Listening to... Dream Theatre - Under a Glass Moon
Link of the moment... I hope I make the right decision

Are bean bags an unhealthy obsession?

2006-11-18T01:02:00.000-05:00

So, I was reading Dueling Analogs the other day (terrible webcomic IMHO but I thought I'd give it a try), and the strip was nothing more than an advertisement for the Sumo Omni beanbag chair. For some reason, my interest was sparked, and I started scouring about the internet for more info.

The more I read, the more interested I became, to the point where I'm really looking forward to getting one of these chairs. I've read nothing but great reviews, and $130USD for something that passes as a lounge chair, floor pillow, loveseat, and more really is a good price. There's no room in the TV room in this house for one, nor is there space for one in my basement at home, but I look forward to the day I have an apartment to furnish. Along with my futon, I have a fair idea of how I'm going to be furnishing it already!

I think it might be one of those cases of hyping it up too much and being disappointed with the reality. Anyways, I should get off this topic lest my blog become an advertisement itself.

I wanted to go bowling, but Andrew and I couldn't find two more people to go with. Everyone else seemed to have other plans. I suggested we go play pool instead, but I think the feeling was unanimous that we were just too lazy to go anywhere. We wound up going to Boston Pizza with Hugh. Good food. Next weekend, Andrew's going home, so no bowling next weekend either. Sooner or later we'll go, I hope.

I'm really enjoying my Nintendo DS so far. That's saying quite a bit considering I don't even have any DS games at the moment. It's just nicer to look at and nicer to play GBA games on. Considering my lack of time to play games, I'm thinking I should just invest heavily in DS games. Most of the time I'm playing by myself anyways.

This week I've got to get on my grad studies stuff. Contact profs about getting reference letters, mostly. I also am looking into NSERC, which would net me a job doing research during the summer (for money that could be considered chicken scratch, but it varies). To do that I'd have to go through the application process, part of which would mean finding a prof at Lakehead who would be willing to take me under their wing as a research assistant.

Well maybe I should get to bed. Tomorrow will consist mostly of cleaning and marking assignments.

Listening to... Metric - Soft Rock Star
Link of the moment... One of my favourite webcomics, and it's Canadian to boot!

Now with 120% more bloggy goodness!

2006-11-14T13:36:00.000-05:00

I'm updating my blog in some way or another. I'm not sure if this post will even make it into the world. Something to do with Google being the new Blogger head-honcho. All I've noticed so far is that I can add labels (which I look forward to, but less useful for long posts that will problably span every label I can think of), and the text in this text box I'm typing into is delayed, making it VERY difficult to correct typos. Bear with me.

Saturday's euchre tournament was pretty disappointing. We BARELY got eight teams, enough for the bracket structure, and even then, one of the teams left when the movie started. We spent too much time waiting for more teams to show up, so we got a late start and got a little rushed out near the end of the ranking phase, but when we moved into the other room there was no rush and things were a lot more relaxed. The UWGamers were in the room as well, so I even got to fit in a song in Guitar Hero and a match in Smash Brothers Melee.

I placed fourth in the tournament with my makeshift partner. Brian won his second tournament for the term. If he wins the next one, it'll be a grand slam for him. The progressive scoring worked pretty well, we'll probably do it again.

The song I played on Guitar Hero was Monkey Wrench by Foo Fighters. I think I was pretty disappointed with the game and no longer plan to blow ~$90 on it. Firstly, the guitar controller feels like a small, plastic guitar, which is exactly what it is. When I was trying to play along with the song, I was playing the rhythm that I knew for the song and would have played on a real guitar, which sometimes is not always what is on the screen in the game. It's a game I'd love to play if one of my friends had it, but not something I plan to invest in myself.

As far as Smash bros goes, I played as Falco (my main man) against two links and Shiek. I was the first one to get knocked out, but considering I've never played against anyone other than Andrew, I'd say I did not so bad. After Andrew schooled me a million times the other day, though, I think I'm going to put that game on the backburner again. It's just too frustrating.

Andrew's family is moving into a new house, and the new house has two bigscreen tvs in it, so his family gave their current TV to him. It's sitting in our TV room now, and it's a pretty big step up from the other TV we were using.

I got a pretty good bargain the other day. Walmart had a misprinted price for Final Fantasy V Advance. They listed it as $16.88, which is actually the price of the strategy guide for the game. I brought the flyer to Zellers, who had the game for $39.99 and got them to price match it to get the brand new game for under twenty bucks after tax. I don't think I'd have bought it otherwise, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I think that for a lot of games (especially RPGs, and especially those with job classes), the best part of the game is the first five or so hours, when items, spells, and abilities are in short supply and you've got to figure out your own little arrangement for all your characters.

We plan to go bowling this Friday. I'm wondring who all I should invite. I don't want to mix up too many different groups of friends, lest I take over the event, but I want to see some people I haven't seen in a while.

Today I think I'm going to stay after Crypto for upwards of an hour to talk to the prof about the assignment. I'm having a lot of trouble with the questions I've looked at, and I'm sure the ones I haven't looked at will give me even more trouble. His hints have REALLY helped in the past, so I'd better take advantage of his help while I'm on campus.

Oh, as for that research thing I talked about last post, it turns out it's during the summer, so I'm not as interested. I'm almost contemplating staying during the summer so that I can get a 'real' job like that research position. There is absolutely no opportunity for people like me in Thunder Bay. Besides, I stayed in Waterloo last summer, and since I'm finishing my undergrad thisyear, I really think I could use a four-month break at home, away from UW. But, at what point should I be more concerned about getting on with my adult life and leaving my 'old' life in the past? I certainly can't live in Thunder Bay too long after I graduate. Even John is staying in Southern Ontario next summer instead of going back to Thuner Bay. Some people are lucky enough to live in cities that have some sort of opportunity, or at least that are within commuting distance of opportunity.

On a discussive note, what is your opinion on warranties? Should I get a warranty with a new camera? Cell phone? Should I have gotten one with my Nintendo DS?

Listening to... Monster Magnet - Space Lord
Link of the moment... Hugh schooled me last night

"Yeah baby, I can do it TWICE in one week"

2006-11-10T12:10:00.000-05:00

I'm currently waiting around the MC on a Friday when I don't have any more classes. It makes me feel dirty and I don't like it, but I'd like to talk to my Graph Theory prof sometime today, and I know he'll be in his office *eventually*. I skipped class for some extra sleep on Wednesday, and Andrea has alerted me to the fact that he made some mention of looking for some students to do research. She didn't know the details, but if he's looking for next term or the first term of my grad studies (assuming I do them), rather than during the summer, it sounds like it could be a really good opportunity for me.

I've finally surpassed Andrew on the euchre rankings to take sixth place, and I'm within two points of Quinn who is in fifth. With only three meetings left, the rankings are more or less set in stone (unless the top three people fall ill and miss some meetings), but fifth ain't that bad.

I'm wary to say that after this weekend I'll be on easy street for a while, because I said something to that effect LAST weekend. I don't know what made me think I'd have it much easier this weekend, perhaps just because I thought I'd spend more time studying for my two midterms than I actually did. This weekend (and early next week) I'll have to finish my marking, physics assignment, and a crypto assignment. Unless I'm mistaken, next weekend the only thing I'll have on my plate is some marking. Of course, if I were smart I'd start studying for final exams that weekend, but exam studying is much more of a December thing, don't you think?

I'm come to the conclusion that if I had some romantic prospects in my life, I'd probably do a lot more stuff. I was looking in Imprint which had a few adverts for some plays going on, and I thought to myself "that would be something fun to do for a date". I wouldn't really go for many other reasons, unless someone was deadset on going.

I was watching some videos of Guitar Hero the other night...how lame is that? If one thing keeps me from buying it, it is probably the TERRIBLE vocals on the Bad Religion cover ("Infected"). It was actually quite painful to listen to after hearing the song so many times before. I think there was some other song where the vocals were quite questionable, but I forget which it was. Perhaps if I find myself with nothing to do next weekend, and a newfound research position, I could justify such a purchase (BTW Paul, how much did you pay and from where did you get it? FShop has it for $89.99 but I'm certain I could find it for $79.99 somewhere in Canada).

I almost feel like I shouldn't buy mcuh for myself for the sole fact that my parents never know what to get me for Xmas (and they really like to spoil me). A camera would be nice, but I would use it so rarely. GH2 would be fun, but I'd like that before Xmas. A Wii would be a great gift, but I have no time to play it. Maybe a list of DVD sets and DS games. I guess that's one of the VERY FEW problems with having enough money to buy stuff that I want (but of course I'm not complaining).

I wonder when Richter will be back in his office...I have to trek up two flights of stairs so I don't want to make a wasted trip if he's not back yet. I think I'll browse the internets for some 20 minutes.

Listening to... N/A
Link of the moment... Joystiq, a blog with gaming news and articles.

Sudden EMP shockwave?

2006-11-07T12:58:00.000-05:00

I don't seem to be having much luck with electronic devices lately. My digital camera has recently been showing signs of being useless lately (fresh batteries usually take more than one picture) and more importantly, my cell phone isn't working. The inside display no longer shows anything, just a black screen. It would cost ~$100 to ship and repair it, and about ~$180 to buy a new rogers phone. I've still got 6 months left on my Rogers contract, so I'm going to try to get a phone off of eBay for less than $60 that will be able to last me the rest of my contract and however long I'll need a Pay as you Go phone after my contract is up. Thank god my DS and Zen are still in tip-top shape (knock on wood).

I've been sick as of last Tuesday night. I had a nasty headacke the first two days, and the usual congestion, but the thing that's really annoying me about this cold is the nagging cough. Most of the time it's a really dry cough so it really hurts my throat after a while. By the way, I recommend Halls over Fisherman's Friend by a long shot. It looks like I'm on the road to recovery though. I'm glad to get this year's cold over with, but that logic may be along the same vein as taking a bomb on an airplane because the odds of there being TWO bombs on the same plane is so drastically small.

Andrew and I (aka Smith and Wesson, he was Agent Smith and I was a cowboy, get it?) did alright in the tournament, but we caught an unfortunate break. We placed fourth out of ten in the pre-ranking games, so that got us started off in the quarter-finals in the knockout tournament (four teams had to compete to get in the quarter-finals). We beat the first team pretty easily, and in the semi-finals we held a two-point lead for most of the game. Unfortunately, they caught up on a couple of good hands and wound up beating us 10-9. I picked up the nine of hearts to give myself the Jack and nine of trump and some black kings. It wasn't a very good hand, but since I was the dealer I was more worried about being stuck and having to call one of my really weak black suits. The team that wound up winning was the one that was ranked tenth in the ranking, so good on them.

I was too lazy to update the euchre site this week since there were only a handful of new scores, I was hard up for a strategy article, and I didn't have any pictures of the tournament. This wekend, the club is holding a euchre tournament at the Warrior Weekends event (about time WW got back to us), and of course we'll be having an end-of-term club tournament at the last meeting in three weeks, so that's a pretty tourny-filled month for the club. I'm not sure if I'll be able to participate in the WW tuornament since I should be the one keeping score for the night. Such is the life of a club executive!

Looks like Guitar Hero 2 is currently carrying a 99% ranking. That $90 is looking like a pretty good investment for my Christmas holiday. Maybe (pimping DS) + (Guitar Hero 2) + (Buying Wii at presumed price drop in 2008) = success. It's not even a matter of having the money; I definitely do. It's a matter of not having the time for so many games.

Congratulations to John and Julie who have been together for a year now.

I looked at my notes and I've skipped four Linguistics classes that deal with the midterm on Thursday. Meh. I'm really not taking school seriously at all anymore. I have a crypto midterm in two hours that I'm very unprepared for. I don't know much about any of the signature schemes, or attacks on any of them, or any algorithms dealing with some attacks. My only hope is that the midterm is strictly easy number theory and hopefully an algorithm that is somewhere in my accessible memory. Looks like it's only worth 20%, but I suppose a bigger concern is that I'm even less prepared for the 50% final exam.

I don't know what to do for reading week this year. This is the first year that math students actually get a full week off, so I feel like maybe I should treasure it. Andrew is going on a ski trip and John and Julie are going to Las Vegas. My dad will have a condo in Florida again, but I feel like the trip is wasted unless I go with someone. My big plan was to have a girlfriend by now so that by mid-February we'd be in a position where we could go on a trip together and let our winter love blossom in the warmth of the Florida sun.

It was my mom's birthday on Sunday. I ordered a bunch of CDs and a Sudoku book for her. She went to the casino with some people (she only goes about once a year no gambling problem), and she wound up winning $1000! She was playing video poker as always, held the Jack of Spades, and wound up getting a royal flush! Good birthday gift, eh?

I really should find a second day a week to set aside time to make a post. Trying to sum up all the meaningless events of a week makes for too large of a post. Besides, as someone who checks for blog updates many times a day, I can understand that sometimes you people out on the interweb need something to keep yuo entertained throughout the week.

Listening to... Closed Captioned - Fugazi
Link of the moment... Honestly? Not entirely impressed with this either. Super Mario World was better...

Cowboy? Again?

2006-10-31T13:39:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am, in the lab, dressed up like a cowboy. It's not nearly as good as last year. Last year, I had a much better hat (I waited too long this year and wound up with a pink mylar hat, but it's the only one that fit!), and wearing a recycled costume isn't as fun as wearing one that you've never worn before.

This halloween seems to have been a bit of a bust. Last year, at least I went to a party in CLV with a bunch of foreigners. This year, we attempted to go to Rev(olutions), but no one there was dressed up. There were just the generic "sexy angel", "sexy devil", and "guy wearing a fuzzy pimp hat", and even those people made up less than a quarter of all people there. Well, maybe next year.

Tonight is a euchre tournament. I'm a bit skeptical about what the turnout is going to be. I guess we'll probably get the same turnout as regular meetings.

I tried sniping some eBay auctions the other day. One (for New Super Mario Bros.) got really pricey. I'm suprised that the other guy that was bidding on it went as high as he did. At that price, it's just about the same as getting one new from stores. I did, however, win Super Mario Kart DS for under thirty bucks after shipping (it's $45+tax in stores). I also got Donkey Kong Country in the mail the other day...good game, but it's very difficult to play on a handheld system.

I tried to trade in my Mario vs Donkey Kong at EBGames, but they would only give me a paltry ten dollars (TEN DOLLARS!), so I put it up on ebay instead. At the moment, it's up to $6.50 US, but I expect it to get up to at least $15 within the last 24 hours. I was just going to get in store credit at EB anyways, which would have one towards an overpriced new game, or an overpriced used game. eBay is the way to go, my friends.

I have only seen two other people on campus dressed up. Supposedly Molly and Quinn will be dressed up tonight, but I guess it's a bit weirder during the day. I like Halloween. I even like the fact that not many people are dressed up, because it makes my costume all that much more entertaining.

I got lucky and did most of my physics assignment in about an hour and a half. At the moment, I'm in the clear, but I've got midterms on the 7th and 9th, so I should get ahead and study for those. Especially because one is Crypto, and the other is Linguistics, the class that I've been regularly skipping. I would not be surprised to find that I have skipped about half of the classes that deal with material that will be on this next midterm, but I should be able to extract all the information I need to off of the class slides. It's just a matter of actually gathering the motivation to do so...

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the mall after class (about 11 AM) and load up on cheap halloween candy, a tradition that I hold dear to my heart. I seem to be using my car quite a bit lately. I have this system worked out: I take my bike to school, then after class I bike to the parking lot, leave my bike chained to a no parking sign, and then drive my car to my house. When I bring it back, I ride my bike back home. It saves a fair bit of time.

Even though there will be no new scores from euchre tonight, I guess I'll still have to update the website with the results of the tournament along with pictures. I was going to bring my camera, but it's really messed up. I put in fresh batteries about a week ago, and today I turned it on, took a picture, and it turned off (meaning the batteries are dead). I think it's beyond all help. Sooner or later I'll buy a new one, but I use it so rarely that I can't imagine spending too much on one. I really, really hope that someone else at the club has a camera, or Andrew gets my message and brings his own if he has one.

I'm getting really, really sick of the same old food these days. My pasta always smells like it's mouldy. Pasta sauce just tastes terrible after having it all the time. I'm too lazy to make 'real' food, and it would yield too much anyways (like meatloaf of shephard's pie or stuff like that).

Ah, back to that time again...still lots of time before Crypto, but nothing else to talk about. What to do, what to do. I guess I'll head over to RCH and play games like I did last week. Yup, sounds like a good plan.

Listening to... Refused - Liberation Frequency
Link of the moment... Time to start thinking about next year's costume!

"They taste like burning..."

2006-10-24T13:12:00.000-04:00

Weirdest thing happened last night...I was playing Super Mario Strikers with the roommates (which seems to be a nightly event these days...Andrew and I ALWAYS manage to beat John and Hugh by one or two points), and I suddenly got a slight stinging pain in my stomach. Over the course of a minute, the pain grew ever more painful until I thought I was going to explode. I had to call a timeout midway through the game and take a breather. It went away through some processes that shouldn't be discussed in public, but the rest of the night I was still a bit woozy (luckily this was before bedtime so it didn't cause me any downtime). Today I feel better but my legs are oddly sore. I suppose it doesn't sound like that odd a story to you, but I've never really had that sort of pain come from out of nowhere and build up so strongly over the course of a minute. I hope it doesn't come back anytime soon...

After class on Thursday, I told Nathalie that I would have one of two weekends. Either I would find some motivation after taking the week easy and study for my midterm and get lots of progress on my CO485 assignment, or I would do absolutely no work over the weekend. Unfortunately, this last weekend fell under the second category. I'm just coming off about 84 hours (three and a half days for anyone who doesn't feel like dividing by 24) of doing no work. Normally I have class Monday, but yesterday was just midterm review, so I decided I wasn't about to wake up at 8:30 for that. I wasted all that time, but I'm not too disappointed about it. I mean, what's going to come of it? I really don't think I could fail any of my courses unless I really let myself go. If the graph theory midterm is half as easy as I hope it will be, I should be able to do it all on the spot without studying (unless we are asked to recite a proof or definition, but it's only 45 minutes long so I doubt it).

I'm in a different lab today, the MFCF Unix lab on the third floor. It's much emptier in here than the 2nd floor, but they have the air conditioner going all the time and it's effing freezing in here. I'll head back to old faithful next week, I think.

Well, I 'beat' Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 yesterday (that is, I beat the last boss but there are extra levels I could do), and I doubt I'll play it again, so I'm going to trade it in to EBGames for $17US (or at least that's what they say they'll give me on the american website), and get a new game. I realize there's really not much of a used game market for DS games yet, but I only need enough games to play until Xmas, then I'll get hooked up from mom. Oh yeah, I exchanged my DS for one with no dead pixels (that I have noticed yet).

I don't know what's going on for Halloween. I still have to get a hat for my costume, and I've got less than a week to do it. That is, if we're even going out for Halloween this weekend. We really can't find any good places to go. The university only has something going on on the Tuesday. Rev is 21+, excluding Hugh, and the only other two places I've found events for are Abstract and Elements, neither of which exhibit genres that everyone else is very fond of (alternative and electronica, respectively). I'm not too thrilled about going clubbing myself, but I like getting dressed up for Halloween. Well, at least I'll have the euchre club tournament to dress up for...

This crypto assignment is just making me feel stupid. It's way too difficult. The difficulty of this course is one of the reasons that I feel like grad studies aren't in my future. I'll be meeting up with Nathalie today, and we'll probably talk about the assignment, but the poor girl can't work miracles. I think I'll just put another hour or two into working on this assignment and then submit what I have for whatever pity marks the prof wants to give me.

I'm really tired right now...but I know I'll never find a couch in the SLC to sleep on. That was one nice thing about the summer term: you could always find a couch to sleep on in the SLC. Now I've got to bring myself low enough to sleep in the Math Comfy Lounge. I've heard stories of the couches in that room.

Hence ends another summary of Kevin's life, one week at a time.

Listening to... FBLA II - Helmet
Link of the moment... Honestly? I didn't like it. Shame, Brett Ratner...

$220 later...

2006-10-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

Given that I'll be getting $500 from marking, and I have renewed my $1000 scholarship for yet another year, I felt as though I deserved to treat myself to something, as money was burning a hole in my pocket. I forget where I got the idea from, but recently found myself with an urge to get a Nintendo DS. So I did.

The service at FutureShop was terrible as usual, but they had a deal where I could get a game for $10 with the system. I wound up going with Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, which is a pretty decent game, but I'll need to invest in some more titles sometime soon. I started playing and noticed a dead (blue) pixel on the right side of the top screen. I threw out some of the packaging, but I'm hoping if I bring the DS along with the box with the same serial #, I can exchange it at FShop. It's not a terrible error, but if I'm going to pay $160 for something, I might as well get something without any flaws.

Along with my new system purchase, I got Super Mario Strikers for GC, because it underwent a recent price drop. It's a pretty decent multiplayer game, but single player doesn't have that same feeling. As far as a mario game goes, I feel it's sort of lacking. More play modes and minigames would have been nice as well as unique fields to play on and unlockable content (new captains and sidekicks perhaps?). Now I bide my time until Mario Power Tennis gets its price chopped...

Well I guess I'm sort of caught up now. I've got a few assignment deadlines coming up, but I have enough time to relax for a while. I got my ENGL midterm back: I scored an 84.5%. I guess that's ok, but it's below my peronal goal of 87%. Next is CO342...I think I have a good feeling about that midterm. I understand Graph Theory pretty well, and now we're getting into Vector Spaces, which I've already (more or less) covered in Rings and Group Theory. I only got 33/40 on the last assigment, so I've got to make sure I don't make any errors on this next one.

The other day, John Julie and I wanted to play kickball. We went to the school nearest my house, and sure enough, the very first kick of the game resulted in Julie kicking the ball onto the roof of the school. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon getting a ladder from Julie's house and getting the ball. It was an adventure to say the least. After that, the three of us went to Red Lobster to celebrate getting the ball. Well, in reality, we all just wanted to go to Red Lobster.

I updated the euchre website! Now we have the house rules listed, the current scores for the members, and some of my personal tips on the strategy page. Quinn and I had a dispute over the colour scheme of the site. We decided Molly's vote should be the deciding vote, and unfortunately she went with him on it. I still completey stand by my argument, but I'm willing to concede the point since we agreed Molly would have the final say. I should start my own Euchre Club, one that's not color-blind...

It's been almost two weeks since I played euchre. I'm dying to take some tricks! Now that midterms are starting, I wonder if our member turnout is going to be lower than usual. Well, so long as we have enough for at least one table, I guess it doesn't really matter.

I think my DS purchase is going to push back my Wii purchase...I'm not sure if I can justify buying so many systems in such a short period of time. The way I figure, I'll be getting a Wii for Christmas; it's just a matter of who is paying for it.

Well, I think I've run out of things to say. I'll head over to RCH and play my DS until Nathalie shows up.

Listening to... AFI - File 13
Link of the moment... Any thoughts on what I should buy next?

Oh Phil, come back again!

2006-10-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Ah, good old Phil. It was more than a pleasure to hang out with him again. There was a point where we were laughing so hard I thought I was going to vomit. That's how I'll always remember Phil.

I have an urge to have another LAN party. I can't remember what the largest number of computers I've had in my basement was...not nearly 8, but perhaps 5 or 6. I hope to do it again next summer. I'd like to give Battlefield 1942 a try. The ever-changing control-point mode seems a lot better than multiple, short rounds as in Counter-Strike. On top of that, you can set an entire team of bots in 1942 to make it a co-op affair with large teams, whereas in CS, the best you can hope for is a 2v2 battle. One of these days, I'd like too see a 7-8 player match of Starcraft. I have a feeling there might be some bitter feelings on alliance betrayals, though. Oh! And I'd have some Super Smash Brothers going on the Wii on the bigscreen, too! Ah, what dreams I have.

Well, that speed dating hookup is definitely not happening. I still haven't received a reply, so I don't expect to get one anytime soon. In my mind, the Warrior Weekends staff was unable to read her email address and screwed it up, and she's thinking about me all the time, but I just tell myself that to keep my self-image up.

I signed up for Lavalife while I was at home, and sent a smile to someone today. I read a good quote that makes me feel a little less like a loser resorting to online dating: "Twenty years from now, the idea that someone looking for love without looking for it online will be silly, akin to skipping the card catalog to instead wander the stacks because 'the right books are found only by accident.' " (courtesy Wired magazine, 2002). Unfortunately, my actions are limited unless I feel like paying for services (not bloody likely).

The roommies are out at Oktoberfest right now. They'll get back in about an hour, then we party down and annoy the neighbours. Until then, I bide my time. I've done my marking, so I'm giving myself a little break with my blog. I plan to finish Physics tomorrow, and then perhaps graph theory and/or relaxing on Sunday. On Monday, I've got to update the euchre stats and website, but that shouldn't take very long.

I went to Nathalie and Steve's apartment the other day for lunch, before classes to get some notes. Man, her place is pimped out! They've got all new furniture, and the layout is nothing short of superb. Now I can't wait to get my own apartment! Of course, to do that I'll have to find a good job, so I guess I'll have to do this one step at a time.

I'm still very much up in the air about grad studies. For my own good, I think I'll make a little Pro/Con list right now.
Pros:
-Another year to 'relax' before finding real work
-Masters degree will get me a higher paying job (or so I'm expecting)
-Masters makes me look really smart, garners pride from parents
-Increases sense of self-satisfaction

Cons:
-Most friends will no longer be in Waterloo
-Must live in student housing one more year
-Difficult work, courses, and thesis
-Increases chances of going on random killing spree due to stress

Neither of these options really has an outstanding argument. I'm just not sure what I want to do yet. There are some aspects of studying mathematics that I enjoy, and some that I do not.

Listening to... Static-X - I'm With Stupid
Link of the moment... Soon to be regularly updated by me. I'll even throw in some strategy articles, if I have the time.

Rainy day rant

2006-10-04T12:50:00.000-04:00

It's raining out and I don't have an umbrella, so I'm going to make a post in hopes that in the time I spend here, the heavens will cry out all their tears. It's not going to be a general post though, I'm going to post a slight rant, instead.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about how Microsoft's Vista is ripping off Apple's Leopard/Tiger/Jaguar operating system. From articles online to articles in imprint (mostly articles, I guess), people are reprimanding Microsoft for 'stealing' Apple's innovations. Such features as the desktop search (versus Apple's Spotlight) have been accused of being stolen from Apple's OSX.

While I don't argue that Microsoft is not paving new ground by implementing these technologies, I think they are in the right to do so. It is in Microsoft's best interest to deliver what people want, while the creator of these things should not matter. Imagine if only Toyotas had CD players, only Fords had seatbelts, and only Hondas had trunks. People want all these features in one package. When a technology comes about and is touted as an improvement, it becomes the norm. People aren't going to want to have to choose between two operating systems, both offering something they need, nor will they want both. They want everything they need in one package, and if more than one such OS exists, then they can choose based on the minor differences between them.

Meh, I'm not sure if I'm completely convinced with my argument, but at least I wasted a good half hour.

Aparently I'm too ugly for the other three

2006-10-03T13:12:00.000-04:00

I've been working myself silly lately, but I'm not entirely sure I've really made as much progress as I should have. I did my marking all in the first two days, and did my physics assignment in the course of about a day, but CO485 is killing me. I'm not sure when the last time was that I spent so much time on an assignment. I have a feeling I'll be handing it in with some questions left unanswered. I'm hoping to confer with Nathalie today, but I'm not sure if she's looked at the entire assignment. It looks like the tables might be turned for a change, where I'm the one who has it done way ahead of time.

Clubs days went well. Waking up early enough to be on campus at 8:30 was no fun, but it's not as though I was put under any strenuous work. We got at least 70 new people sign up, and it's very likely that another 20 came after I left on Friday before lunch. Of those, I'm not sure how many will actually show up to meetings, but it looks like we should have a turnout at least as large as other terms.

I think the weekend is where all my juicy info comes from. On Saturday, I went to the Watsfic games day, at abuot 4-5PM. There were a fair number of people already playing game. I wouldn't say that I got an overly warm welcome, but I made myself visible enough to warrant being invited to play a game (Princes of Florence). None of us knew how to play, save one or two of the five players, so I didn't feel like I was slowing things down too much. I came in dead last, by a fair margin, but I enjoyed learning the game.

During the game, Nicole phoned because she was in town. I told her I could meet up with her in the plaza for supper at about 8, and we did. At 9PM, I headed over to the speed dating event and signed up. They told me I'd be in the "second round", so I played some DDR for a while with Nicole and Carissa. After working up a sweat, I headed back to wait for the call. Eventually, they herded us in, ten guys and ten girls. Each 'date' lasted only three minutes, and I found it difficult to get a good impression from each girl. After all was said and done, I gave a "yes" to four of the girls, and eagerly awaited a reply from the Warrior Weekends staff. After that, John and Julie appeared as if from nowhere, and they said they phoned Nicole as they were on their way back from bowling. We headed home (I opted out of Superman Returns), and started watching LotR: tTT on CBC. Not much else to say about that.

Yesterday, I got a reply from WW, saying that I got one match, so now I've got the email of a girl who supposedly would like to get to know me a little better. Unfortunately, I'm pretty well busy until next weekend, what with thanksgiving leaving me little time to get any assignments or midterm studying done.

There's a new show in my Monday line-up: Heroes. I caught the first episode, and found myself a little intrigued. To be honest, I found the first episode pretty dull, but I'm curious to see where the series is headed. The second episode did a bit more to catch my curiosity, and I figure since it's on right after Prison Break, I might as well give it a go. I've realized that Monday is my TV night, as there's not really much else on any other night. Sure, I'll watch CSI if I'm home on Thursdays, but it's not enough to say "no, I don't want to miss CSI" if someone has a better idea. Family Guy on Sunday is the highlight of my week as well, but half an hour isn't much of a line-up.

I started fiddling a bit with my euchre system. I've got two spreadsheets filled with paid members and game scores, as well as a score sheet to bring to meetings. I've yet to set up the database aspect of it yet, but I don't think there's any need to have stats after only one meeting.

I think I had the epiphany the other day that I enjoy graph theory the most out of all the CO disciplines. I enjoy doing math-like proofs, and graph theory is chock-full of that stuff. I'm disappointed that I'm unable to take CO442, as it's only offered in the fall term, and I'm currently doing my last fall term of my undergraduate degree. I'm still debating donig grad studies. Unfortunately, I'd be forced to take some courses I'd rather not (optimization courses, etc). Isn't that kind of funny to think about? Not only am I interested in Math, and not only am I interested in Combinatorics and Optimizatin, but I'm interested in Graph Theory. I'm sure that most people in the world didn't know that math could be broken down into so many disciplines.

Tomorrow there is a lunch for students and staff in CO, giving the students a chance to meet some of the profs. I'm going, mostly for the fact that it's a free lunch. I also realize, though, that if I apply for grad studies, I'll need three reference letters. I think my best bet is going to be with Willard and Tasic, since I've had two classes with them each, and I did very well in all four of those courses. For the last one, I'll probably choose either Richter or Menezes, since they're teaching me this term. Whatever...I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Well, I've spent entirely too much time NOT working on my CO485 assignment, so I'm gonig to head over to RCH and work on that until the class starts.

I don't know when I'll update next, since I'll be in Tbay next Tuesday, but it shan't be very long.

Listening to... Refuse Resist - Sepultura
Link of the moment... I signed up for this stupid shit by request, but I'll NOT be one of the 60% that log in daily, nor of the 85% that log in weekly.

You know who I miss? Serial Joe.

2006-09-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

Time for my regularly scheduled Tuesday afternoon post. Today has been a pretty filled day for me. I woke up earlier to get to campus at 10:30 so I could pick up some supplies for the euchre meeting tonight (none of the other execs could be there early enough to set up). When I picked up "the goods", I fired up a physics lecture I put on my Zen so I could try to get back on schedule with the lectures. Then Linguistics, as usual, followed by lunch, and then another t-e-r-r-i-b-l-y p-a-c-e-d physics lecture, and a Nathalie-filled Cryptography. And now here I am, preaching to my wonderful audience of (what I expect to be) three.

I'm a little disappointed at the moment...it turns out that euchre night and mathsoc games night is the same night, during the same timeslot. I suppose my existence as an exec of the euchre club obligates me to favour the prior, but perhaps in the future I could play games at 6, and when that game ends, clock in my time at the euchre club. If the gods are smiling on me, mathsoc will change the games night schedule.

I've been doing a pretty good job of staying on top of work (or so I think). Every day I have about an hour and a half to work on campus, away from the syren's call of my computer. So long as I keep throwing physics lectures onto my zen, I should never be at a loss for work, and the time I spend on the work on campus turns out to be pretty productive.

I baked up a storm last night. Well, just muffins and cinnamon rolls, but that's two more things than I usually cook on a given night. The rolls were on sale; 8 small ones for $2.50. They're really tasty, but any less than two makes for nothing more than a taste.

For all of you who are wondering what I did after beating Paper Mario (ie no one), I chose to start up a game in Dragon Quest VIII. It's got really nice graphics and music over my other main choice, Shadow Hearts Covenant (which I am also looking forward to playing through).

This last Friday, I was pretty well bored to tears. I was home alone for a while, and for some reason was not in the mood for sitting in front of the TV (be it TV, games, or a movie), so I just sort of sulked around the house for a while. On Saturday night, I visited the Medieval Faire in Waterloo Park. I got to see a few choreographed and even unchoreographed displays of weaponry and armor, among other events set up mostly for kids. I didn't really walk away with anything besides the program, but it was time well spent in Waterloo,, seeing something that I wouldn't be able to see in Thunder Bay. I'm glad I got to do some things like that in the summer.

Later on in the night, some of us hopped in John's car and drove to Brantford so Nicole would stop asking us to. We went bowling (where I got the high score and an impressive shot), and then to Boston Pizza where I got a piece of cake (hey! I already ate supper....I'm not a pig, really). After that we drove around looking for a bar, and found one. As usual, I sat around wondering exactly what the draw to such places was. The majority of us sat around at a table, complaining about the music, paying for overpriced beer, while some others got up and danced (besides picking up questionable people, dancing is the only other reason I can imagine people would want to go to these places). I can't say I had a good time, but I had a time nonetheless.

Phil (from Calgary) phoned me the other day. We had a nice chat about video games (he being one of a very few people who I can have such talks with). Aparently he's making some very nice green at his new job, because he was telling me how he was going to play a game on his 62" TV. He says he got some nice furniture, a fully paid pre-order on a PS3, and even a new truck, so it sounds like he's definitely doing well for himself. I can't imagine he'd have half of what he has if he'd stayed in Thunder Bay (though he doesn't have me, and I'm worth more than any amount of money).

There's a Warrior Weekend this weekend, so I guess I'll be going to it alone once again. They're showing three movies I haven't yet seen (Click, Pirates 2, and Superman Returns), and on the Saturday, they're having a speed dating event. I am both looking forward to and dreading the speed dating. I would really feel more comfortable if I could find someone else to bring with me, but I don't really know anyone who would be willing.

This Thursday and Friday is clubs days, so I expect that I'll be sitting at the euchre booth. Mr. President hasn't delegated any hours yet, but I've volunteered myself for all of Friday, and aparently the parts of Thursday where he has classes, so I will probably be doing a fair bit of sitting.

I've been typing pretty furiously, and I have really tapped my brain on non-video game related matters to dicuss, so I think I'll go find something else to do before grabbing some supper from Brubakers.

Listening to... Nothing...
Link of the moment... WW schedule

Another update from MC20XX

2006-09-19T13:29:00.000-04:00

Tuesdays are looking like a good day to update the blog from this MC lab. Normally, I'd be sitting in the SLC Great Hall doing homework, or sleeping, or playing GBA during this hour and a half, but it's way too packed to find a chair. I miss the Summer term in that respect; the extra crowd on campus doesn't do much for me (although it does mean more events during the term which is a good thing).

This morning I scanned my physics assignment, and when I get home I'll put it all into one PDF and submit it electronically, but I'm not too sure how convenient that method is. I don't have much of a choice though, it's probably the most convenient option I have, unless I start getting assignments done ahead of time.

I'm getting towards the end of Paper Mario:tTYD, and I've started playing X-Men Legends with Andrew. Unfortunately, he doesn't play games nearly as often as I do, so any progress we're making in that game is minimal. I could play it single player, but the real joy of that game is playing it with friends.

I acted as a good roommate would this morning: I took out the recycling (which had been put off for far too long lately), and I did most of the dishes that were in the sink. It's like the work never ends.

It looks like Nathalie might be switching classes and taking Crypto with me. It looks like I have a reason to show up to class! Classes aren't nearly as good when you don't have anyone to ask for help when you get stuck with something.

Nicole came to visit last Friday. Good to see her. We went out to a pub and a bar, both of which I didn't find particularly fun. I just don't see what we did there that we couldn't do at home, aside from order an expensive plate of nachos and listen to some bad country music.

Time again for some useless banter about video games about which no one but me really cares. The Nintendo Wii has been given a release date (November 19th) and a price ($249US). On top of that, extra controllers will cost $40 plus $20 for a nunchuk attachment. Games will be $50 each, and only a handful will be ready at launch (I plan to buy Rayman and ExciteTruck, though we'll see what happens when the day comes). That's all, I'll stop boring you.

Unfortunately, I don't have much else to excite you with. I've got one hour left in 24, bought some gingerbread cookies, and am getting my bike fixed tomorrow. That's about it.

Listening to... (High) Visibility - Helmet
Link of the moment... I think I might want to watch the six Star Wars movies again. Is that nerdy of me?

Ubuntu FTW

2006-09-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

I've got nearly another hour of free time to kill on campus. My ENGL class got let out early, and my next class isn't until 2:30. I've already read the Imprint, and ate lunch. I can't really think of any websites to visit, or anything productive to do at the moment, so here I am at Blogger.

Well, my bike is fucked up. I can't really change gears anymore on the right gear clicker thingy. I'm hoping I can fix it with a little elbow grease. Speaking of grease, the bathroom downstairs is effing filthy. I got one of those things that turns the water blue and supposedly has bleach to clean the toilet, but it's already diluted and hasn't done a thing. I think I'm going to buy some heavy duty bleach and rubber gloves and beat the shit out of that bathroom with a sponge. Shower, counter, toilet, floor, everything.

Paper Mario is good times. It can get a bit repetitive, but it's cutesy enough to keep playing. I've still got DQVIII in the back of my mind once I'm done PM, but I think it's in my best interests to get a change of genre in there. I don't really know what to play (besides perhaps Unreal 2004 or counter strike). Maybe I've got to find a nice platformer for GC.

I went to EB the other day to inquire about reserving a Wii, but they said that they're not taking any pre-orders. I shudder to think of the massive crowd they'll get on launch date, because I've a feeling that it will be the big winner of the "next-gen" consoles (though I have reservations about saying that the Wii is in the same generation as XBox360 or PS3). Andrew maintains his prediction that I won't have any trouble finding a system whenever I want one, but I have a feeling they'll be mostly difficult to find until just after Christmas.

I anticipate this this term will be pretty hectic. Between my DE course which looks much more intensive than I thought it would be, my marking (oh yeah, they gave me a marking job rather than tutoring...bastards), my three regular courses, and my obligation to the euchre club, it looks like my four-course term won't feel as light as I'd hoped. So long as I stay on top of things, I shouldn't get tripped up over anything.

Well, I'm sort of getting sick of sitting in this lab, so I'm going to wander around campus for a while, making my way to my next class.

Listening to... The roar of students on campus
Link of the moment... Ah, I see.

Don't trust the blind

2006-09-04T22:31:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that the blind guy that I was renting a parking space off of is an effing dickhead. He phoned yesterday (the third of September) complaining about how we agreed that I'd pay him by the first of each month. I told him it slipped my mind and I could pay him when I get back in town, or even get one of my roommates to run it over to him, and he told me he didn't want me parking my car there anymore, even phoning my roommates to move it ASAP. I know it's not about the money...I think he's just using me in some fucked up experiment to show that kids these days are unreliable.

For the moment, my car is parked on the street (thanks to Hugh) and thus susceptible to getting some pretty nasty tickets. Once I get back, I'm going to get a parking pass for the Fall term. I just hope I can get one...this late in the year, spots can be sparse. Since it will then be a twenty minute walk to my car, I'll probably not use it unless it's worth my while. I'll just convince John to take us to Sobeys once a week, and I don't really need my car for anything else. Until the weather gets nasty, I can bike to campus. It'll just be more of a pain when I want to visit someone else, say Sonja.

So guess who has a boyfriend? EVERYONE. Not just that, I feel like I'm the only single person left. Except for Andrew and Nicole, so I predict they're going to hook up, leaving me alone. I swear, too many of my friends are in serious relationships now.

I had a BBQ the other day. The amounts worked out pretty well, though chicken was in pretty high demand, so I had to cook a few from frozen. I had a pretty good turnout...just about everyone I invited at some point or another. It's good to see them all. I feel like if I don't have events like that, I won't see most of my friends. It's rare that they hold things like that, so it's usually me doing the planning and inviting.

I rented Hitman: Blood Money. It's a pretty good game, though I find it difficult to control with a PS2 controller, and it's really hard to figure out where to go next (at least, on the level I'm on). I went to go buy Guitar Hero as well, but both EBGames were sold out and not getting any copies for a few weeks due to changing distributors, and FutureShop was sold out with none cmoing in soon. Guitar Hero 2 comes out in November, but then again so does the Wii. My current collection plus the Paper Mario I plan to buy will easily tide me over until I'm able to buy a Wii. I'm not sure when that will be; something tells me that the K-W region isn't one of the best places to try to get a Wii at launch without a reservation (though I cuold just reseve one now...).

Well I guess I'm sort of looking forward to getting back to Waterloo...I really want to get this parking thing settled ASAP. On top of that, there's not much for me to do around here, and I'm more comfortable in my own kitchen.

Other than all this, I don't think there's much to report on.

Listening to... Carpe Diem Baby - Metallica
Link of the moment... All hail Robot Chicken, my new master

I need your help!

2006-08-28T20:30:00.000-04:00

I was watching an episode of CSI just now, and heard a song which, after some sleuthing, I identified as End Theme by Zero 7. What troubles me is that I know I've heard it before, but I'm unable to figure out where. If you know where I might have heard this song before, please lend me some insight. At first, I thought of "MirrorMask", a movie I saw just the other day, but I can't find any proof that that's what it was.

Listening to... End Theme - Zero 7
Link of the moment... I'm pretty sure it's nothing listed on here

More computer jargon

2006-08-24T16:29:00.000-04:00

I was thinking that maybe I could just buy a new video card for my system while waiting for a reason to update the whole box, and that reminded me why I can't exactly do that (so, more of a followup of my last post than a new post altogether):

The new standard for video cards is PCI-Express, which became standard about two minutes after I bought my computer. There really aren't many cheap AGP cards out that are better than mine. So, to upgrade my video card, I'd need to upgrade my motherboard to use the PCI-E. When I upgrade my motherboard, I'll have to upgrade my processor, and I'd likely buy new SATA drives (the new standard for hard disks). If I'm going to have to replace the mobo anyways, I would buy a new case. At that point, I might as well buy a few new sticks of RAM, and now I have a new system. If I simply buy a new set of DVD drives, then I'll have a second complete system. It's a slippery slope, my friends.

So, rather than forking out ~$1500 (which isn't really that much, but I'll be buying a Wii soon :) ), I'll put up with my average to sub-par graphics until I get to a point where I can't play newer games (and of course for me, 'newer games' means games that have been out long enough to have a price drop).

Listening to... Kid Dynamite - Give 'em the Ripped One
Link of the moment... Soon enough, my precious, soon enough.

Upgrading my computer and my education

2006-08-23T20:56:00.000-04:00

I have a sudden urge to upgraade my computer...just thinking about how much better I could get Unreal 2004, or Guild Wars, or Half Life 2 excites me in a non-sexual way. I realize, though, that my computer is still competent enough so as to not justify the expenditure. I think a good time would probably coincide with the first service pack for the home edition of Windows Vista (which is coming out January 2007, so I read). When that first service pack comes out, I do not know. Perhaps it would come right around the end of a three term graduate degree at UW, around April 2008, which allows me to segue into...

Another thought that has been plaguing me for a while is that of a graduate degree. I think it follows with my undergraduate degree's motivation, which is "I have the ability to do it, so I guess I should". I'm not sure if I want higher education per se, but I can't think of too much of a reason not to go for it. My marks warrant it, and I presume that I'd enjoy the workplace about as much as another year of school. Of course, Grant doesn't allow me to leave Thunder Bay after I come back, but maybe I could get the grad degree at UW without his knowing about it. It would only be another three terms to do either 8 courses or 4 courses and a thesis project. I fear that if I get a serious degree, I'll have to get a serious job, then make some serious mistakes.

I guess it'll work itself out by December.

Listening to... I'm With Stupid - Static-X
Link of the moment... Not nearly as fun at 800*600 at lowest settings.

Tradition!

2006-08-21T13:45:00.000-04:00

I was thinking the other night about how limitations in video games in the olden days are still around, but they're now seen as standards rather than limitations. Granted, I can only think of two prime examples, and some publishers have done their part to do away with them.

Firstly (and I know I've brought this topic up before), fighting games still use health bars and the underlying system. I assume it started back in the days of the first fighting games and has stuck around ever since. I've said before that I'd like to see a game where fighters take location-based damage and injuries to one side of the body would affect attacks from that side's arm or leg. The only real example I can think of that tried to do away with this is Square's Bushido Blade.

Secondly, RPGs should lose random battles. It started with RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, where the NES just didn't allow for many sprites on the screen at once, so your team would be randomly flung into battle. Games like Chrono Cross and Grandia have shown that this is no longer a limitation, but the FF and DQ series still use it as a standard. In most games, it is nothing more than an annoyance to the player, knowing that there's no way to avoid battle.

Well, that's what I have to say about that. On to more personal matters.

The other day, I was going to buy Guitar Hero on a whim (curse you Paul!). Adam and Holly came over, and I was expecting more people, though it didn't pan out. We went to Future Shop at about 8:20 and they were sold out of copies. The guy helping us said that most places in the city were sold out too, though I don't know his sources. Today I'm going shopping with John's sisters (because I really don't have anything better to do). While I'm out, I'll check Walmart and EBGames for it (though I doubt Walmart will have it), but the purchase would have been more significant on Friday as it was both on a whim and with people with whom I could play the newly purchased game.

My ENGL119 mark came in, and I got 83. Not too bad. If I get 90 in CS234, I'll make dean's list again.

Turns out my dad's computer has a DVD burner on it, so I'm taking advantage of Video Network's $1 rentals.

Well, my paragraphs have turned into sentences. That means I haven't much left to talk about.

Listening to... Watching the Train Go By - Nine
Link of the moment... Gotta put more thought into grad studies

Kevin J in Thunder Bay

2006-08-16T01:55:00.000-04:00

Well I'm home. The trip home was more hell than usual. As I said earlier, I decided to stay up all night to get ready for my 5:45 pickup, but unfortunately I wasn't nearly as insomnia-induced as I usually am, so I had a pretty hard time staying up. During the drive to the airport, and the entire flight home, I just wanted to die. When I got home, I slept for six hours, then played Chrono Cross for a while.

I seem to have made a grave miscalculation. I forgot just how much of my time at home is spent playing video games. I only brought back a handful of games with me, thinking that I'd only play them when I have nothing better to do. Unfortunately, CC has its hooks in me and I'll probably be done in a week. I brought Dragon Quest 8, but my (old) PS2 won't play it. It takes upwards of a minute between screens, rendering the game unplayable.

When I first popped in CC, it wouldn't load, despite it being one of my few non-pirated games. I looked online for help, and cleaning the laser with rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip got CC working (though it offerend no help for DQ8).

Only one of my marks is in so far. I got 88 in databases, which I suppose is higher than I thought I'd get. Our group in ENGL119 got 87 on the final project...I don't know if that's just the written part, or the document and presentation. It will account for either 20% or 30% of my final mark. I don't really know where my final mark will sit, though I predict about 80. I have high expaectations for CS234, no less than 90.

Bringing my Zen was definitely smart, since I have no music on this computer. It's good to drum along to as well. I wish I had a DVD burner here to I could take advantage of Video Network's one dollar movie rentals.

Things are hard to get used to the first few days when I get back to Thunder Bay. The kitchen, the stove, the tv channels, the tv remote...lots of little things.

Well I should *try* to get to sleep. I am going to try to get up at 9 and go for breakfast with Adam.

Listening to... The Killers - Smile like you mean it
Link of the moment... One of the only other games I brought home with me

Unable to sleep

2006-08-09T06:04:00.000-04:00

Well, I can't get to bed. Again. The other night/day, I was up until 8:15! Isn't that ridiculous? My plan was to wke up again before noon, depriving myself of sleep all day, then going to bed at midnight. While I did get to sleep earlier than usual, I still managed to wake up in the afternoon! This is really pissing me off. Luckily, my other exam is in the afternoon rather than morning, so I don't think I'll be terribly affected. It'll still be a massive pain to get up for the plane ride home though. On second thought, since my flight is at 8:40...I'll have to be in the airport an hour early, and the transport will be here an hour and a half before that...looks like I'll just be staying up until 6 for the flight. I guess I'll nod off for an hour here or there on the way home, then get a nice sleep in my own bed.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone back home, though it seems people will be unavailable at times due to different trips. Looks like I'll get to see everyone sometime though, so that's good. I plan to bring Fluxx and Apples to Apples home, since they're the only good games I can fit in my luggage feasibly.

The rest of today looks as though it will be a pain in the neck. I was hoping to be in bed by 3 at the latest (it's 6 now), because I am going to some office hours for my next exam at noon, followed by a euchre exec meeting at 3, and I plan to make lunch before all this happens as well.

It seems as though every time I make a post lately, it's about video games. On that note, I haven't yet decided if I am going to try to beat Chrono Cross or Dragon Quest 7 while I'm at home (I'm going to bring my old PS2 back for the month). I think I'll just make a snap decision and play whichever I feel, but I should keep in mind that my old PS2 acts up on burned games (of which DQ7 is one, and CC is not).

I beat The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap the other day. I got slaughtered the first few tried on the final boss, so spent some time collecting heart pieces, skills, and the last bottle. When I tried next, I didn't need to use any of my potions! Yay for me.

I sort of went hog wild with snacks today. I realize I'm going home in a few days, but still bought a bag of chips, box of cookies, and a frozen cream pie, in addition to the half box of cookies I already have. I think I'm going to have to work double time on the snacks this week...poor me.

I think the sun is starting to come up. What a pity.

Unfortunately, besides video games, not much of interest has popped up in my life, so I'm going to kill the post here.

Listening to... Metalium - Rasputin
Link of the moment... Daily Bulletin @ UWaterloo.

Up late thinking about Wii

2006-08-05T14:23:00.000-04:00

Time for an exam update! I decided to study for my CS338 (Databases) exam. It paid off, as a lot of the questions on the final dealt with definitions and things I would have otherwise forgotten if I skimmed over them. I spent no time working on iSQL or relational algebra questions, but as I suspected, I was able to do it on-the-fly on the exam. I think I did rather well, but I never like to get my hopes up after exams. I fully expect to get at least an 80 average, but I won't hope for anything more.

I tried to get to sleep early last night so I could get some good sleep for my morning exam. I went to bed at midnight and fell asleep at 5:30. I actively tried to fall asleep until about 2, when I gave up and played Zelda on my GBA until about 3:30, and spent another 2 hours trying to sleep. I'm feeling really drained right now. I think I'm going to try to stay awake all day and just catch up tonight, rather than sleeping in the afternoon or evening.

I've gotta say, I'm putting a fair bit of thought into buying a Wii. I have this odd hankering to play Paper Mario and started thinking about buying a GC when I go home (since I already have stakes in Mario Party 4 and 6 and an extra controller for my roommate's GC), but if I'm going to lay down $120, I might as well get a backwards-compatible Wii for another $200.

I don't really like buying systems at launch. I like to wait until there's a nice padding of games and support. Of course, the Wii will have been out for a while when I get back home in May. I'll have to agree with Paul when he says that the Wii costs a mere pittance in the grand scheme of things (less than half the cost of a PS3!), and I have a lot of money I've been saving up for such a purchase.

I also have a terrible desire to buy a DS, but I doubt I'd buy one, given that I have the SP. There are just as many GBA games I haven't played yet than DS games (though Yoshi's Island 2 alone might be worth it the cost). Argh, the fact that the Wii isn't going to be out for months still is bothering me!

Well, there you go for another boring video-game related post. Oh yeah, my Guild Wars Monk/Necromancer (Crow Aziel) is level 20 (max). Huzzah!

Listening to... Division of Laura Lee - Pretty Electric
Link of the moment... I'm convinced this is THE BEST SNES game.

My Quandry

2006-08-03T02:03:00.000-04:00

I'll tell you my problem, and then you're going to solve it for me, capiche? I just moved my room around a bit (I don't want to get into details as my room is hard to exaplin, but I'd say it's a good change for a few reasons), and I figured perhaps I should take other considerations into account for my general comfort.

One such aspect of my comfort involves my frequent use of my computer and the data is displays for me. Currently my desktop is set to 1280*1024 (the native resolution for 17 " and 19" monitors), and it is difficult to read text, which is something I read quite often.

A few non-optimal solutions exist. Firstly, I could lean in and/or squint to read, but my eyesight isn't getting any better as I age. Secondly, I could change my desktop resolution to something lower -- likely 1024*768. AFAIK, this would make everything seem bigger and easier to read. Unfortunately, this would put my monitor into a non-native resolution, possibly skewing up some other stuff. Thirdly, I could just increase the font size of firefox. Unfortunately this doesn't affect all text (consider text in pictures), and it also makes some sites' templates look hideous (text running beyond edges and such).

I think I'll knock my res to 1024*768 for a while and see if there's much of a positive or negative difference.

Listening to... Cream - Dance the Night Away
Link of the moment... Very nice entry on native resolution

Television sets as a medium

2006-07-30T21:29:00.001-04:00

Consider the television. I don't really know for what need it was created, but early uses of the TV include news broadcasts and programs that were often performed and taped in front of a live audience. TV programs were originally aimed at sending infromation to an audience.

Consider now video games (specifically, 'modern' video games). The purpose of most games these days (especially first person shooters and most action/adventure games that are played with an 'over-the-shoulder' view) is to immerse the player in a virtual setting. I hope that immediately you can discern the difference between these two audiences. One brings the esperience to you, while the other tries to bring you to the experience.

TVs haven't changed much over the years. They still display things on a rectangular screen and not much else. Television programs have changed drastically in style (American Idol still treats viewers as an audience, but consider CSI or 24 which have fabricated environments, if you understand), but still only output information to viewers.

Video games however, are fundamentally different: they require interaction with the player. It is this interaction that makes gaming a distinct experience from television. Let's break video games into three distinct parts: input, output, and processing. If we consider now the 'next generation' consoles (PS3, XBox360, Wii), we see that PS3 and X360 are focusing on increasing the processing capabilities of the experience, while Nintendo is expanding the definition of what the input is.

In terms of the output, all systems are limited by their medium: televisions. They are increasing the number of polygons on screen at one time through processing, creating more 'realistic' images, but I argue that in this context, 'realistic' is a comparison to the realism that televisions are capable of, which is a program intended for an audience. They're still just dots on a screen. Until the big three rethink the output phase of the gaming experience, they will be limited in how immersive their games are. I certainly don't have any revolutionary ideas about what the new output medium could be, but that's not my job.

All in all, I'd like to congratulate Nintendo for being the first to truly revolutionize the input part of the equation. PS3 and X360 have embraced things like tilt control, analog buttons, and even camera input, but 95% of the games out there still use controllers just as they would have ten years ago (though I suppose analog control has become standard). Nintendo is trying to do away with the generic design while still keeping it an option.

Sorry if this is a terrible entry, but I'm just sort of typing whatever comes to mind as it comes to me.

Listening to... Ozma - Flight of the Bootymaster
Link of the moment... I don't know if I'll wind up buying a next gen or not.

Last day of classes

2006-07-25T09:10:00.000-04:00

Well in a few hours I'll be done lectures for the term. Just one more class left. I finished the last assignment for the term last night. Then, I think I'll be having lunch in the plaza with the usuals.

The case study project is done. The presentation went pretty well, minus a few small details (such as going over time). I don't know what sort of mark I'll get, but I'd think it'll hover around 80.

To celebrate the end of that terrible thing, I bought myself a new game from J&J: Apples to Apples. If I had to compare it to something, it would be Balderdash. It's a pretty good game, and more importantly, my roommates seem to like it. I'd say it plays best with about 5-6 people. Not a bad buy for $25, but I don't know how much use it will get.

John and I played a total of 45 turns of Mario Party 5 yesterday...I think we may have issues. It was fun times though. I'll probably play even more if Nicole comes over tonight. She doesn't come around much anymore, since she works in Brantford now.

Hm, not much else to say...I think I want to get in a post some day soon about the use of television as a medium for TV shows, movies, and video games, but I don't have the time right now. Tune in next time so you can destroy my poorly formulated argument

Listening to... the Black Mages - Battle Scene 2 (FF2)
Link of the moment...

My vision is blurred

2006-07-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

So, my monitor is acting up. The left half side of the screen (as split down the middle) has this sort of horizontal line static happening. It's especially noticable on warm colours (including my current background).

At first I was hoping it was a monitor issue rather than video card, thinking that it would be cheaper to replace, but come to think of it, even a low to medium end card these days would be better than my previously high-end card (as of two years ago), and cheaper than a new monitor.

I don't know what to do about the monitor (too obscure for link, but it's a no-name 17" LCD), so I need some opinions. I know I'm not going to go back to a CRT. I'm not yet in a position to get a projector. I have three main options (not including "put up with the slight annoyance and save $300).

I can get another 17" LCD. I'm used to the size, and it would be the cheapest of the three solutions. I could spend a few more bucks and get a 19" LCD. Slightly more luxurious, and keeps things in a generic aspect ratio that is standard for most things I use my computer for (esp. gaming). Lastly, there is the 19" widescreen LCD. These things seem to be standard, as 6 of the top 10 (including the top 3) sold monitors at ncix are widescreen. I'm not sure if this would provide a great benefit to me, since I don't use my computers to watch movies often. My PS2 games are all standard 4:3, AFAIK. I suppose some of my newer PC games would *support* widescreen, though not necessarily in an enhancing manner (do they make FPS games for widescreen that give you a wider perspective? They should).

Does anyone out there have a widescreen monitor (Paul? Aly? Emiko?) who can give some positives and negatives for this options? I can't imagine I'd really need a widescreen monitor until I move away from home, which may be a few years away, and I expect to upgrade my computer (and maybe monitor) at that time.

Listening to... The Vandals - Fourteen
Link of the moment... Looks like Guild Wars supports it, with a minor loss in vertical display, and minor increase in horizontal display

Whatever happened between you and me?

2006-07-17T10:54:00.000-04:00

Jeez, I'm starting to get lapped in terms of blog posts now. It's been one of those "busy weeks followed by apathy" sort of things. Last post I made was talking about my SQL assignment...I've already got that back, and I'm about to hand in the NEXT assignment for that course, so shame on me.

Haha...I keep telling myself I'll proofread my posts before submitting them...I put some pretty godawful mistakes in the last one. "Luch" instead of "Lush", and "phong" instead of "phoning". I'll try to be a bit more careful this time around.

Well, my case study is handed in now. That's what the "busy week" was. I think my entire group was working for the week straight on that thing. I'm proud of the final product, so that means it'll probably get a miserable mark. It's not completely done though; we have a fifteen minute presentation to give on Wednesday. I think for the most part we can wing it since we know the material of our own sections pretty well. I actually had to go buy some clothes for the presentation, cause I don't have any 'business casual' clothes.

I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Let's see how far back I can remember:
-Pirates of the Caribbean (Curse of the Black Pearl, on CBC)
-Saw
-The Ring
-Seven
-Mad Max
-Kung Fu Hustle
-Old School
-Three Amigos

Of those, I'd like to comment on two. Please don't see Mad Max. It's an hour and a half introduction, five minutes of his mission of revenge, and then the credits roll. Terribly paced movie. If you think you want to see Kung Fu Hustle, then I recommend you see Shaolin Soccer instead. If you've already seen Shaolin Soccer, then Kung Fu Hustle likely won't live up to your expectations. It's not bad enough for me to recommend you not seeing it, but it's not as funny as I thought it would have been.

Guild Wars is getting really hard. I'm in the second area of the game, and my party size has increased to six. That just means 1.5x as many enemies to team up on my character and kill him. I'm going to play through the game with my monk character first, and hopefully accumulate items for my other characters to help them out.

Andrew has got me hooked on Smash Brothers Melee lately. Thing is, I suck at it, but it's good times anyways. We've got two characters left to unlock, plus a bunch of stages.

I think I'm going to bring Trigun back from home. I think Andrew would appreciate it; I remember when I got into Firefly, I noticed a similarity between the two, and Andrew likes Firefly, so hopefully he'll like Trigun as well.

Only a week and a half left in the term...then exams. Nearly there! I only have two exams to write as well. Still two CS234 assignments to start and finish, but I don't really have anything else to get in the way of them, so it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the term. I just hope Wednesday's presentation goes well...

Listening to... Trigun - Yellow Alert
Link of the moment... An old Dragonball Z fight video with an awesome song...brings back my childhood

SQLing

2006-07-01T16:32:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess that Databases assignment wasn't so bad. I'm not sure all my answers are correct, but they seem as though they should be. Plus, now I can fake my way through Microsoft Access. I guess I can throw that and SQL on my resume now, plus that Euchre database is looking a bit easier to do.

I was going to clean the shit out of this house, but the Dollarama is closed due to Canada Day. I need a mop head, bucket, and a few other small things. I was hoping to get all my chores out of the way today so I didn't have to worry tomorrow. I've got my marking done and now CS338, CS234 can wait until Wednesday and Thursday night, so that means the only thing that should be on my mind for the next three days is my individual section of the case study.

I've already clocked well over 10 hours on Guild Wars in the last few days. I finally got one (actually two) of my characters into what is referred to as "Post-Searing", where the map is drastically changed from what it was in Pre-Searing. It used to be nice and luch, which I really like in games, but now it's more of a wasteland. The game is much harder after this point; you really can't play by yourself. I joined some random guild, but still used the AI-controlled party to do my quests since not many of the members were online or responding.

I went bowling last night with the mathsoc people. By mathsoc people, I mean the guy who organized it, and two of his friends. I felt a bit out of place, but I got four free games of five pin. Lino had some righteous BO. I think it got on my clothes.

I'm debating phong Nicole or not. I have no one else to hang out with, but I'm not sure if I'd rather play NES with her (which includes 2 hours total drive time) or stay in and play more GW.

On a parting note, are you ever gonna get your blog back up Paul? How else will I hear about Spiderman 3 news with personal commentary?

Listening to... Bedouin Soundclash - Eloween Deowen
Link of the moment... God, I need better ideas for links

Time to lose myself in Guild Wars

2006-06-29T17:24:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-25T11:35:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-16T01:06:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-06-11T01:21:00.001-04:00

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?"

2006-06-08T22:24:00.001-04:00

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