Two more games off the list

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

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)

My sanity is hanging by a thread

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!

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.

Done undergrad classes! FOREVER!

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!

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

Que sera, sera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am not economically viable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I must be some kind of Genius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did I just say "ego-testicle?"

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!

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

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.