"You cannot square the circle"

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

Good frames won't save bad paintings

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

OMG! Where are the RSVPs?

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."

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.

Happy birthday, me!

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

There's been a change in plans.

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)

Our hero returns after a short hiatus

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

Back on my exam sleep schedule

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!

Don't trust the blind

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

Update #1 - Birthday Hijinx

Well I guess I have a moment to recap some stuff.

Wednesday (my birthday) wasn't a particularly good day. Classes crawled along as usual, a handful of people sent me some e-cards, and we got to go out for Chinese food (which was probably the highlight...it was really good). I was feeling really tired all day. Just before bed I figured I'd have a game of chess with Hugh (who learned how to play only last week), and he beat me. I could have easily checkmated him too, but I didn't see the move until Andrew pointed it out after the game.

On Friday night, I went bowling with Nathalie, Steve, Laura, the roommies, Nicole, and Nicole's friend Sofia. I didn't do as well as I usually do in the first game. I have the uncanny ability to place the ball about a half an inch to the right of the head pin every time. Half an inch cost me about 6 or 7 strikes, I'm sure. John got the high score of something like 190 after getting five strikes in one game. Hugh got a turkey, but since we were paying by the hour, he didn't get to finish that game.

Afterwards, we headed back to my place and we waited around for the second car to get back. When they did, they waited around upstairs doing god knows what to my cake, and waiting for Julie and her friend Agnes to come. When they finally did (after me trying to keep Nathalie, Steve and Laura entertained), I blew out the 22 candles on my cake and we all had a slice with some ice cream.

We followed that up by playing an 11-player game of Cranium. We couldn't fit nearly that many people in the now-furnished living room, so we played in John's relatively massive room (which also worked out since we were in need of some A/C). My team fell behind early, but caught up late. We weren't in the dash for first place, but I blame that on being on the team of three. We did pretty well for ourselves though.

After that, it was past midnight, so I dropped off the UWP people and came back for a game of Mario Party 4 (notice, not MP6) with Nicole, John, and Hugh. That kept us up until 3, which was likely not in our best interests since we were going to Niagara Falls the next morning.

Overall, I give this birthday 8/10. The 24th wasn't a great occasion, but the fact that we got 11 people together for games at my place more than compensates for it. Plus, I can consider Niagara Falls a little birthday trip.

Listening to... Snapcase - Gates of Steel
Link of the moment... This looks like fun, I'll have to keep an eye out for it

I'm just saying, the first thing I'd think wouldn't be "hey, I should spit on my wiener"

Ho hum. Things are a bit stagnant around here. I should have thought ahead and brought a PC game home to play. I downloaded a few demos, but this computer is a bit too dated to play them.

I had people over the other night. Sheena, Chanel, Grant, Martine, Christina, Adam, John and Julie. I rented 40 Year Old Virgin, but most people had seen it, and Martine had rented Brokeback Mountain, so we watched that instead. Good movie, but it was a bit too deep for me. Nice to watch them on my nice tv and surround sound system (the thunder was so loud!). After that, everyone was too tired to stick around, so the night ended relatively early.

Earlier that day, I went with John and Julie around some of the sights around Thunder Bay. We went for breakfast at the Hoito. She had her first taste of Finnish pancakes, and John and I got the deeeelicious hot turkey sandwich. We noticed some well dressed men come in, and then realized that one of them was none other than the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty.

Afterwards, we went to Eagle Canyon, which houses Canada's longest suspension footbridge. I'll tell ya...not the best place to go on a windy day for anyone afraid of heights. My legs were rather wobbly when we got off. After that, it was a short hop to Ouimet Canyon. Unfortunately, the park is not yet open, so we had to walk 3Km uphill to get to the canyon. That was intensely exhausting and time consuming. We saw the canyon, I threw a few coins off, and then we made the trek back.

Well, I have all my marks back. I got 80 in Real Analysis, which is likely more than I deserve, but about what I was hoping to get. After going into the Linear Optimization exam with a 70 in the class, I walked out with an 86! Much better than I thought. Group Theory is the big shocker: I knew I did well on the exam, but I never expected to get a 98! That lets my average rest at 87 for this term, and conveniently enough, my cumulative average is also exactly 87.

Well, enough gloating...I'm going to go get some lunch.

Listening to... Snapcase - First Word
Link of the moment... Maybe grad studies @ home are the way to go?