Warrior weekend warrior

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sudden EMP shockwave?

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...

I can hear again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mario Party 6 must go

Andrew's home for the weekend, and Hugh, John, and Nicole went to some bar last night with John's sister and her friends. I took a stand and stayed home to get some work done (in lieu of being able to get a hold of Laura). I did some marking (which I actually find enjoyable), and got to bed at 1:30. They came back at 2 AM, and started playing Mario Party with what I am certain were not their late night inside voices. For lack of being able to sleep through it, and not being one for asking anything for myself, I went upstairs and watched them play it out until 3:30. So much for getting up early today to get some work done.

I feel like I have an awful lot of work considering I only have three classes, but I guess it's mostly just this one assignment for ENGL 119 due Wednesday worth 10% of my final mark. I can't believe they'd only give a week's notice for such an assignment.

I think I may have changed my mind from a Zen Vision:M to a Zen MicroPhoto. The differences include ~$100, 22GB, and the ability to play video. With 8GB I could store 1/3 of my music collection, which is likely all I'd really need. I doubt I'd watch much video on the go, but I suppose $100 is a small price to pay for staying on the cutting edge of technology. It all depends on if my parents are willing to shell out a nice gift for me. Hell, if it weren't near my birthday, I'd buy one myself (to hopefully make me seem like less of a spoiled white boy).

We're still waiting on furniture, but Andrew says his dad can drive down next weekend with a van, so hopefully that pans out. Until then, we continue to use cushions on the floor (generously donated by Julie).

I've been waking up at 11:30 consistently these days. I'm going to start setting my alarm for 8:30 every day, but of course I couldn't get up today since I was up late last night. Hopefully that will benefit my sleep schedule after a week or so. I seem to keep falling asleep in the evening.

So I guess the big news in my life these days is that I got a shoe rack. Yup, big news. No longer is our closet plagued with unorganized shoes.

Listening to... Winamp Radio
Link of the moment... $20 is a small price to pay for long term protection

From 249 Cedarbrae

It's been a long time since the last post, and so there's a lot to talk about. However, since there's so much new stuff that has happened, it's too daunting to talk about any of it.

I'm in the new house now with John, Andrew, and Hugh. I think we're mostly settled in now. We each have a bed (I bought a futon), I've got enough furniture to store all my crap, and now all we need is to find a way to get some furniture from Guelph to Waterloo in a relatively inexpensive manner (we can rent a UHaul for the day, but that would cost near $80). For the time being, we're playing games and watching TV on the floor.

We found a tv near the dumpster by our house, and it works well enough for us to use. It's about 27", and is fine aside from the fact that bright colours bleed a bit, and we have to use the RCA input rather than regular coaxial.

I've been spending a lot of money lately as well. I bought Mario Party 6 and WarioWare Inc for Gamecube from Blockbuster, as well as a third controller ($60+tx). I bought the PS2 Slimline kit that allows you to mod new PS2s to play burned games ($40). Soon I'll be spending another chunk of money for the new PS2 itself (~$130+tx). I also bought some nice headphones with a boom mic for my computer (for it for $50CAD on ebay, retails for $100USD!). I went to the UW bike auction which was a bust, but got a nearly-working bike at a garage sale ($50). All that crap, along with furnishings for the house and groceries make for a hefty Visa bill.

I also plan on getting myself a Creative Zen Vision:M for my birthday. (If anyone spots a good price for a new PS2 (less than $130) or a new Creative Zen Vision:M (less than $380) at any retailers, let me know will ya?)

Turns out Andrew is the marker for CS 234. Nifty, eh? I don't expect he'll need to mark me any nigher than needed, since it looks like the course will be easy (and I can always legitimately ask for his help before handing the assignment in). CS 338 looks boring as hell, and ENGL 119 looks like it'll be more or less easy, but stressful with all the group work and projects. It should be a good learning experience though, since I'm not well versed on technical writing, and my oral presentation could use some exercise as well.

So far I'm enjoying being completely bored all the time. I have enough stuff to keep me busy at the moment. I hope once things with the new house settle down a bit, I'll be bored enough to beat a few games. We've mostly been playing Mario Party since I got it.

Well, that's all I care to talk about for the moment. I seem to be spending much less time at my computer, since there's usually somene else dicking around the house that I can hang out with. We've had some good conversations around the dinner table.

Listening to... Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc (Have you heard of this song, Nathalie? I put it on just for you!)
Link of the moment... You *should* have heard of them!