I should be working

But instead, I'm writing a post because I haven't in a while and I just had a thought that frightens me. It makes me think I've had way too much English class in my life. I just had wrote a really stupid little analysis-thing for the last English class of my life. It was about the relationship between "Song of Myself" (the best poem ever) and its preface. Some time later, while doing physics homework (which is what I really should be doing right now) I was listening to Tool, and "Forty-Six & 2" came on, and I thought, "Hey, the underlying message of this song is kind of like what Walt Whitman was trying to say, only expressed in the form of musiOH GOD WHATS WRONG WITH ME" and I forget how the rest of it went because I was bashing my head against my desk to try and get the English teacher who had obviously taken up residence in there the hell out. Seriously, when I listen to Tool I just want to listen to it, not analyze it. ARRRGHHHH

So if anyone has any advice for getting rid of an English teacher who has infested one's brain, please share it with me.

Now I really have to get back to physics before I start analyzing the Tool song that's on right now ("jimmy"). If I do, I shall start listening to "Ticks & Leeches". The underlying message of that is obvious even to CS majors: "MEEEE SOOOOO AAAAANGRYYYYYYYYYY RRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH".

I be amused

OK, so I'm sitting on the 7th floor couches in Wean Hall being greatly amused. There are three girls also sitting here, paying no attention to me, and having girl-talk. This is a very interesting experience; I have never been privileged enough to overhear girl-talk before. Suffice it to say that right now, they're talking about boners in social situations. You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to laugh. I'm thinking I might have to leave soon before I die of suppressed laughter. Wow. You learn stuff every day. In my case, today I've learned that sparks are electrons and positive ions traveling through strongly ionized air, and also that girl-talk is absolutely ridiculous and terribly entertaining. Also, when they portray it in movies, it is not exaggerated at all.

Later today I have to go down to Craig Street to get on CMU's payroll for being a 15-200 CA. Today in lecture, I did the most challenging thing I've ever done in 15-200 in my position as a CA: I collected papers from people and passed papers out. How wild is that?

Aaagh. The girl-talk is filling my head with completely useless information like what it's like to work at an Abercrombie & Fitch store. Thus I really can't concentrate on doing other stuff, though I pretend to be busily working on my laptop so they don't realize I'm eavesdropping on them. All I can do is write an article for readme, because in that case, the more ridiculous the thoughts in my head are, the better.

OK, soon I have to go to Graph Theory, which is good because I'm about to exceed my capacity to suppress laughter. Holy crap.

15-211 is the suck

So, the first real homework assignment (as in, more complicated than "Hello World") is out. The instructions, as I'd heard before, are absolutely terrible. We're supposed to implement a queue as a circular buffer. We'd never heard the words circular buffer in class before, but in the instructions, they were a link. Guess what they were a link to? If you guessed "Wikipedia", that's right. The staff is too lazy to explain to us what circular buffers are, so they just pawn us off to Wikipedia. Admittedly, Wikipedia is awesome but that's hardly something that course staff should do. I would also like to add that circular buffers are a stupid way to implement queues.

I finally finished the Graph Theory homework. I fixed my proof that the k-cube is bipartite so now it's actually a proof; I bit the bullet and wrote out an exhaustive proof that there are 11 nonisomorphic simple graphs on four vertices, and it turned out to be a lot less hand-wavy than I thought it would be. I don't think my prof will approve of it, but that's just tough. If there's a real way to prove it, there's no way in hell I'll find it before tomorrow.

Physics just plain sucks. I'll get through it fine, but everything is so annoying. I realize that even though IB Physics seemed like hell as I was taking it, I actually sorely miss the rigor and strictness of the notational standards. I don't know if it's an American thing or just an anything-outside-IB thing, but the physics course I'm taking is disgustingly lax with notation of vectors and units. I know it seems minor, but it's incredibly annoying and misleading to someone who's used to not even having to pay attention to stuff like that because it's always perfect done (by the IB). The bright side is, it's the last science course of my life.

Write Crap About Crap is turning into a form of sick amusement for me. There's one guy in the class who regularly comes up with crap that even the teacher is impressed by. This guy can also quote moderately sized passages of Keats from memory. It's also fascinating to listen to people who say "like" and "sorta" and "um" way too much try to orally analyze poetry. I don't mind going so much, since it's not really boring. I sit in a corner, occasionally contributing, but mostly just suppressing insane laughter at the other people in the class.

15-251, the supposedly murderously hard class, isn't murderously hard. Apparently just because the homework problems can take more than 10 minutes to solve sometimes, it's a killer class. However, it was exactly the type of challenging class I was hoping to have when I came to college. This is why I usually start the homework the day it comes out, even though it's not due until a week later. It keeps me from being bored.

That's all the classes I'm taking. Also, I still have to get to Health Services to get them to refer me to specialists. (That last sentence had absolutely nothing to do with anything else.)

On football and poetry

So, next Sunday will be the first time I see a Super Bowl as it is played. And, of all things, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in it. They beat the crap out of the Denver Broncos yesterday afternoon, defying all expectations from NFL "expert analysts" who were all like, "Denver's better, who the hell do the Steelers think they are." They beat the number one, two and three seeds to make it to the Super Bowl. They played absolutely amazing football, too. When they had the ball, you just knew they were going to get stuff done. It was definitely one of the more awesome Steelers games I've seen. They didn't pull off a stunning come-from-behind victory, but they just played at their best against a team that was favored. Good stuff. Of course, now all of Pittsburgh has gone absolutely insane (there was wild jubilation in the streets last night) which is somewhat amusing.

For my 76-101 Write Crap About Crap class, I have to read a 50-page poem, "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. You can read it at The Whitman Archive. Click on Published Works (or something) and then on the complete e-text of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. There's a bunch of prose, then the first poem is Song of Myself. I seriously want you to read some of it so that you can feel the appropriate amount of sympathy for me. It seems to be just a bunch of disjointed nature-related images that all have an undertone of eroticism. There are plenty of other things I would much rather be reading.

I was made to realize in my 15-251 recitation today that maybe my proof that the k-cube is bipartite is incorrect. It's blatantly obvious that the k-cube is bipartite, but I'm not sure my proof is logically sound anymore. I think it is, but that's only because I originally thought of the reasoning behind the proof, and the reasoning is logically sound but I might not have gotten it all into the proof. If any mathematically inclined readers can prove that the k-cube is bipartite, tell me the proof after Friday. The k-cube is a graph where the vertices are the ordered k-tuples of 0 and 1, and two vertices are joined iff they differ in exactly one coordinate.

I don't have much else to say. I should get to reading Song of Myself, of which I read 10 pages, of the 20 I was supposed to read for today, last night. Adding to my troubles, I'm quite tired because I couldn't get to sleep last night due to some asshole on my hallway playing loud music.

*tap tap tap* there's no place like home

I want to go home. You see, this evening, I went out to dinner. On the way back, I passed by a Giant Eagle (grocery store) and wondered if I needed anything from there. I concluded that I did, since I was running low on soap and toothpaste. This was apparently a stupid idea.

So, I went in looking for soap and toothpaste. I found the toothpaste first, was rather bemused by the needlessly large variety of types of toothpaste, then looked for soap. Now, call me a naïve idiot, but I was looking for the type of soap I usually use, which is: a white, oval block of soft stuff that, when rubbed on wet skin, makes said skin clean. Call me a fool who has hopelessly lost touch with reality when I say that I was expecting to find something like that in the hygiene products section of a grocery store. There were endless varieties of things called, for example, "beauty bars" that came in strange colors and scents. Nowhere was there any box that looked like it might contain a white, oval block of soft stuff that, when rubbed on wet skin, makes said skin clean.

Rather disillusioned, I went to the Rite Aid nearby. The soap section there offered only slightly more hope than that of Giant Eagle. Normally I use Dove soap, but I could not find any box that had both the words "Dove" and "soap" on it. Apparently there's some sort of unwritten rule in this country that you should not print the word "soap" on a box of soap. Call it "beauty bar" or "cleansing agent" or any of a number of such ridiculous monikers. Near the bottom of the shelf there were bars of, quote, "soap" made by Dial. Just to demonstrate my support for their act of rebellion in putting the word "soap" on a box of soap, I opted to buy that. I was happy to give them my money.

This experience opened my eyes to a larger issue. I had no conception of how many products people can come up with that all achieve the same basic purpose: cleaning yourself. There was a very expansive shelf full of lotions and creams, all of them apparently different, each of them serving some special purpose, and all of them costing way too much money for something that cleans your body. I was somewhat impressed by the very subtle, nuanced varieties of simple things like toothpaste. There is cool mint paste, mint paste, mint gel, vanilla mint paste; all of those have varieties like whitening, with Scope, extra-strength whitening, tartar control, etc. Of course, each combination is offered by at least three companies.

The extent of consumerism had never hit me as hard before tonight. I don't think I can fully express the issues and problems I have with this. More than for the food, more than for the decent public transport, I now miss Belgium for the lack of rampant, pandemic, in-your-face consumerism that inescapably pervades American culture. All of this because of the simple, innocent act of trying to buy a bar of soap. Is it really too much to ask to be able to go to a store and buy a bar of soap without being caused to wish I was living in a different country?

A long due post

I've been posting less frequently since the beginning of break. I'm not entirely sure why, but oh well. Maybe it's a sign that I have better things to do with my time than write blog posts that nobody really gives two shits about. I'll keep writing them anyway.

I think I should write a report on how all my classes are. Here we go.

• 33-112 Physics II is going to kill me in the face. Since ninth grade, in which I had the best physics teacher ever (at one point he broke his leg and he was still all happy about everything), I've hated physics. This is college-level physics with a horrible textbook. Here's the thing: thanks to IB (for which I should have gotten credit for this course if AP Physics E&M gets credit) I know most of the stuff that's been taught so far. However, when I read that knowledge in the textbook, it's almost unrecognizable as something I already know. The professor is nothing special and the TA is not a very good TA. All I have to do is get above a 50 in the class and then I'll be done with science classes for the rest of my life.


• 15-251 Great Theoretical Ideas in CS could be a very fun class. The first homework assignment had a question on it that I bashed my brains out on for ages (ten minutes or so). When I finally had the flash of inspiration that solved it, I was deeply struck by the beauty and the brilliance. I felt the earth move underneath me. New worlds opened up before my eyes. Suddenly I could see all the secrets of the universe. Then I wrote out the answer (for the first time in a class, we're supposed to use LaTeX for homework) and it made me happy with its simplicity and awesomeness. If every homework problem is like this, I'm happy about that. Also, the professor is awesome. He's very young, and his research area is human computation, which is mad cool. He was one of only two entertaining speakers at last semester's Immigration Course. He has the coolest accent ever, which I identified as a hybrid of Spanish and German. This is confirmed by his name, Luis von Ahn.


• 21-484 Graph Theory will, I think, turn out OK. The professor reminds me strongly of my old IB Further Math teacher. They both have accents (though different, Further Math had a Slavic accent and this guy has a German accent), they're both old and have a tendency to emit rather unhealthy-sounding coughs, they both have impeccable handwriting and highly developed ability to draw perfect curly brackets and Greek letters. They're also both quite anal about being very strict and formal about mathematics. In the first lecture, he defined graphs in a very formal way, rather different from any way I've ever seen them defined before. He's also the first math teacher I've had who has defined matrices other than by saying "rectangular array of numbers". This could be a very challenging class, but I think I'll enjoy it.


• 15-211 Fundamental Data Structures and Stuff is starting out fun. The professor has defined big O notation and other stuff in ways that make me finally understand, totally, what it means. He also did a mad cool proof of the average case running time of insertion sort. He also has a German accent and a very cool voice. He has a laser pointer that he likes to play with. He laser points people who come in late. The first time it happened, he said, "Now, they always tell you not to do anything to humiliate students who come in late, so I won't." Then he shined the laser pointer on the late person's back, and everyone laughed, but the late person didn't know what was going on. He has an entertaining style and if the course material stays interesting, I'll be happy with it.


• 76-101 Write Crap About Crap will be the last English class of my life. The section I'm in will be discussing Walt Whitman, a 19th century American poet. So far I've had to read two essays whose authors seem to think Walt Whitman is TEH BEST THING EVAR. And next week, we're going to have to read a 50-page poem by Whitman, and his style is absolutely impossible to understand. Me not happy about that. However, it's the only remotely acceptable section topic available to me. I would have liked to do "the politics of documentary representation" but that's at the same time as 15-200 "lectures" that I have to show up to and do absolutely nothing in. Actually, I'm in one right now, writing a post. Anyway, I think only the fact that it's the last English class of my life will get me through it.

I'm done writing now.

First day of classes report

Well, it's not even 2:30 and all my classes are over for today. Actually, I was done with my classes at 11:30, thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I suppose I should be going to the afternoon MLK Day events to demonstrate my gratitude to MLK for having a day named after him so my afternoon classes got canceled, but I don't want to. Instead I'll write a post on how the first day of classes went.

At 9:30 I went to 15-200, my programming class from last semester, because I failed it and I have to repeat it. Not true. I'm actually a CA (course assistant) for it, which means I have three responsibilities:

1. Sit in "lectures" and get paid to do absolutely nothing, save for coordinating the passing-around of papers.
2. Grade stuff
3. Consult, which means help people figure out how to write programs without explicitly telling them what to do.

. So that was pretty boring. Then I had a physics lecture. I think I should have gotten credit for this course because of IB Physics HL, but I've already ranted at length about how unfairly CMU treats IB students, so I'll not do that again. The lecture consisted of an explanation of how the course would work. My 15-251 Great Theoretical Ideas in CS lecture was canceled, as was my Graph Theory lecture-thing and my Last English Class Of My Life section. After Physics I went and shelled out $85 for the physics textbook. Then I went and made a giant deposit of all the money I'll need to pay for spring semester (I've already gotten a $150 late fee, though I hope they'll accept my explanation of why I couldn't pay until now and waive the late fee).

My desk is back to being buried under a sea of mess, which I don't seem to be able to do anything about. I think I'll have trouble next year if I don't have a desk as massive as this one.

I realized how much I missed my speakers. They rule. They are making Liquid Tension Experiment sound like the earth-shattering awesomeness that they are.

Tomorrow I have a physics recitation and lectures in both my CS classes, which should be somewhat fun. Either that or it'll make me want to kill myself; I don't know. It'll probably be one of those two extremes.

Right now I'm in the mood to play some Halo, so I'll be off to do that now.

The second air-travel-inspired post

As I did on the way to Brussels, I’m amusing myself in Dulles airport by writing a blog post. I’ll post it when I get back to CMU. Once again, I’m inspired to write a lot by air travel, as always. Before I write anything insightful or thought-provoking, though, there are a couple of things I want to write about before I forget them.

First, as I was standing in the immigration line, two separate but noteworthy things happened. The first was that I passed a guy going in the opposite direction (the line snakes back and forth) who was wearing a Caltech t-shirt. I had my Carnegie Mellon hoodie on. We both spotted each other’s college clothes at the same time. We glared at each other a little bit, and then the line moved on. I was secure in the knowledge that I had put up a good fight for my side. The other noteworthy thing that happened was that I noticed a guy who was at a depth of idiocy that should never be plumbed. First off, he was using a cell phone in the immigration line, even though there are many large, prominently displayed signs in the immigration line that say (this is a direct transcript): “CELL PHONE USE IS PROHIBITED”. I realize that “prohibited” may be a big word for someone of that intellectual capacity, but below those words is a picture of a cell phone with a red circle and line over it. But that wasn’t all. I overheard his conversation on the cell phone. He was saying that he’d been sent on a business trip to (I am not kidding about this) “Bangladore”. That awoke a strong desire to kill in me. Since killing him might have caused a few complications, I contented myself with imagining him trying to find his way to a place that doesn’t exist, and trying to decide whether “Bangalore” or “Bangladesh” was actually the place he was supposed to be going. Silly places in foreign countries having similar names. No wonder America’s the best country in the world; we don’t do stupid stuff like naming two places the same!

I watched some movies on the plane. First I watched “The Brothers Grimm”, which would have been a spectacular waste of my time if I’d had something better to do (which I didn’t). So very stupid; don’t watch it. Then I watched “I, Robot”. It was quite good. The plot is as follows: Will Smith runs around going “AARRRRGHHHH! RROOOOOAARRRRGHHH! UNGGGHHHH ARRGGRRRRRR” while robots try to kill him. For a musician-turned-actor, Will Smith is really not bad at all. One thing got on my nerves (though this isn’t the fault of the moviemakers): because it was shown on a plane, it had to be “edited for content”, which means all the dirty words were taken out. There’s one scene where Will Smith is driving his awesome futuristic car (blatantly an Audi; I wonder how much they paid for that) at high speed and there are evil robots jumping onto his car from a transport and trying to kill him. As one of them rips off his front bumper, he yells, “OH, NOW YOU PEEIN’ ME OFF!” By the simple expedient of lip-reading and common sense it becomes obvious what he was actually saying. My brain responded, “OH NOW YOU DONE IT YOU ROBOT MOTHERFUDGERS! HE PEED OFF NOW! YOU BETTER WATCH OUT OR HE GONNA POP A CAP IN YOUR REAR END AND YOU GONNA TAKE THE GOSHDARN FAST LANE TO HECK!” That line simultaneously made me angry and made me laugh. There were other good bits, though. In one good bit, Will is in the house of a recently deceased guy looking for clues. The guy’s cat comes along and meows and Will goes, “I know you just suffered a loss, but this relationship…it can’t work. Look, you a cat, I’m black…I don’t wanna get hurt again.” That was funny. Then the house gets demolished around them and for the first time I’ve ever seen in a movie when something like that happens, Will picks up the cat and escapes the house with it. Normally the cat would just run off and not be seen again. But Will saved the cat (and fell into a pool with it) then gave it to his grandma. That made me happy.

Other stuff…I have another hour to kill in Dulles. I think I’ll probably go get something to eat.

On the plane I amused myself by watching movies, reading “The World Is Flat”, which is mildly disconcerting since the main point it conveys is that all teh coding jobz are going to India. I know that a CS degree from CMU means I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a job, but it’s still worrying in a background-worry sort of way. Other stuff I did on the plane was Sudoku; I ignored my own advice and did Sudoku while I was tired. It gave me a headache and it took me way too long to notice extremely obvious moves. I didn’t do anything stupid like putting the same number twice in the same subgrid without noticing, but I did stuff like sit there stumped for twenty minutes while there was a row with only one vacancy that I didn’t notice.

I have a major case of Laptop Superiority here. There are lots of people in this gate area with their laptops out, and mine is the best of them all. One person has an iBook, and that’s second best. Mwahahaha…I bask in my superiority over a bunch of random strangers, whom I’ll never see again, on the basis of quality of laptop computer. There is sarcastically nothing wrong or unhealthy about this.

Actually, I can’t think of anything else to write and I’m hungry and needing to go to the bathroom. So I shall conclude this post and then celebrate because I’ll soon be back in Da ‘Burgh.

Finally done

This is my (2^7)th post, by the way. For the less mathematically inclined, that's 128th. The number has no special significance other than being an integer power of 2. I, being me, noticed it and decided to point it out. That's how I am.

I've watched episodes 3 and 4 of season 5 of Scrubs. There's actually a noticeable improvement over season 4, and even the first episode of season 5. There's hope yet for Scrubs.

I went to Martin's house today. Jacob was also there. We mainly talked, all afternoon. Towards the end we also started playing The Sims. Martin had a house with some truly awful decorations. At Jacob's behest, we sold everything in the house and bought a robot with the proceeds. The slight problem with that was the lack of a toilet. Thankfully the robot could deal with the aftermath of that, but without a shower, the Sims could not clean themselves. Nor could they sleep or be entertained. The robot could make food and clean stuff, but that's it. Realizing that we had totally ruined a simulated family's life, we stopped playing and laughed about it for quite a long time.

Yesterday in the process of cleaning my room, I discovered a story I'd written for school in about fourth grade. The plot was that a family went on holiday. On the way there (they were on a ship) the ship sank and the parents drowned. The kid made it to a desert island, was rescued and lived happily ever after, even without parents. It was such a fucked-up story. But when I read it, I sat on the floor, laughing like a lunatic, for a good ten minutes. I just couldn't stop. There were tears streaming down my face, and my face and stomach ached from laughing. It was such a terrible story. Apparently my sense of what's funny and good hasn't changed between fourth grade and now.

Speaking of cleaning my room, I finally got it done. Woot.

I should be preparing to leave now; i.e. packing and stuff. I'm too lazy, though. Bleh. But I should act as if I'm doing something productive, so I'll stop writing now.

INTEL MACS HOLY CRAP

The first Intel Macs are out! The iMac and PowerBook both got Intelled. The PowerBook got renamed the MacBook Pro and only the 15-inch model is converted so far. They made it kickass, though. Now it's got a built-in iSight, a MAGNETIC POWER CORD, and apparently longer battery life. And it costs THE SAME as the old 15" PB.

Seriously, if Apple hadn't come up with this now, it would have hurt them pretty badly. There was so much hype and anticipation before the Expo: everyone was saying there would be Intel Macs at this one. Almost nothing on the iPod line this time. They did introduce the iPod Radio Remote, an FM tuner which is inside the remote control, but nobody gives two shits about that. But just as I predicted, Steve Jobs spent the first part of the keynote address going on about how awesomely the iTunes Music Store is doing and how well the iPods are selling. In fact, this is a pretty damn good summary of what goes down when Apple releases products. Note: anyone who contends or suggests, even in jest, that I engage in any of the actions attributed to Apple fans on that page will be met with much rage and hatred. I don't.

I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia this evening. The effects weren't quite as amazing as I'd been led to believe. The big battle scene gave me pleasant chills, however - maybe even more than Return of the King did. Also, child actors SUCK. Overall I think it's been overhyped; it wasn't mind-boggling. Above average, but not incredible. It was still nice to go to Kinepolis, though. Kinepolis is the best movie theater ever. It has ridiculously huge screens and really, really comfortable seats.

I disassembled some electronic shit today. I opened my tiny mouse and cleaned it, and I opened an old toy "laser" gun that I found in my room. When I did so, I found that it's JUST A NORMAL INCANDESCENT BULB. No laser. I wanted to play with a laser. When I opened the thing, it sprang open and showered me with parts, so I had a bit of a challenge getting it back together.

I got a haircut today. And Belgian waffles. Mmmm.

I need to clean my room. I just realized I have two days left to clean up an awful lot of crap, and two days isn't a hell of a lot. So I shall go do that now.

Things not to say in my presence

You'll notice I've abandoned the "Captain Bad Habits" format of post titles. I figure that if I stop regarding myself as a master of bad habits, maybe I'll start to develop some good habits. Those would certainly be useful for the upcoming semester. As it turns out, I will be a CA for 15-200 after all. Plus I'm taking some tough courses.

Now, on to the main subject of this post, which is: Things You Should Not Say In My Presence Because If You Do Say Them I Will Think You Are Stupid And Illiterate. Here is the list:

• Rate of speed
• Could of, should of, would of (instead of could have, etc.); this only applies to written language
• Irregardless
• "It's" when you should use "its", or vice versa (again, only applies to written language)
• "Their" when you should use "there" or "they're", or "there" when you should use "they're" or "their", or "they're" when you should use "there" or "their" (also only for written language)
• x AM in the morning (where x is a time) and other such redundancies; however, this is a slip much less heinous than the ones above
• many others, which I can't think of right now

Yes, I am a major linguistic nitpicker and perfectionist. I will admit to making mistakes myself, but unlike most people I enjoy having my linguistic mistakes corrected, so please nitpick my grammar and language.

Macworld Expo Apple keynote tomorrow omg.

Short post again, more eventfulness would help in creating longer posts. Bleh.

Captain Bad Habits and SimCity Syndrome

Today's post is on the subject of SimCity Syndrome, which is a term Jacob and I came up with to describe cities that have large areas that are laid out in perfect grids. This phenomenon is rare outside the US, but is fairly common inside the US. SimCity Syndrome is a bad thing because it means the city has no soul or spirit because it was designed instead of growing on its own. Granted, SimCity Syndrome does make a city easier to navigate, but if a city is challenging to navigate, that usually just adds to its charm (e.g. Pittsburgh). Some cities we've identified as having moderate to severe SimCity Syndrome:

• Chicago (downtown and suburbs) (probably the worst of the cities listed here)
• Fresno, California
• San Francisco*
• Miami

There are plenty more, but these are the ones I came across while playing around in Google Earth today. *I didn't mention New York City because although it has some pretty bad SimCity Syndrome in Manhattan, it doesn't suffer from the ill effects that SimCity Syndrome usually gives rise to. New York definitely has soul and spirit. San Francisco does too, but it still has moderate SimCity Syndrome.

Can't think of much else to say. Macworld Expo starts Monday. It better be good.

Captain Bad Habits realizes how much he sucks

I just realized I haven't updated my Comestible of the Month in over two months. I finally did just now. For January 2006, it's lams. I know there are a lot of self-righteous know-it-alls who read this who are going to think it's actually lambs, but I assure you with absolute conviction: you are wrong. It's lams. The sooner you just believe me, accept it, and embrace it, the sooner the world will become a happier and better place. Repeat after me: it's lams, not lambs. Lams, not lambs.

Cleaning my room is starting to lose the little momentum it had. My latest distracting find was my old juggling balls. I've spent the last half hour playing with those. I have to make some significant progress before 5:30 tonight. At 5:30, I have to go to the kinésithérapeute again for some more Exercises of Ultimate Pain and Suffering. I've been doing my stretching exercises every day, though, even though it only amounts to causing myself pain for no immediate benefit. I guess I just have to trust that it'll help eventually.

I ican't think of any more to say. The main point of this post is to alert you to the new Comestible of the Month, which is not lambs, but lams.

Captain Bad Habits is a mouse surgeon

I just performed surgery on one of my USB mice. The scroll wheel was bothering me because it was all full of dirt and gunk and it didn't work right, so I opened up the mouse and cleaned the scroll wheel. The first time I put it back together, it didn't work right because I'd knocked the lens and mirror for the light (it's an optical mouse) out of alignment, so I had to open it again and fix that. Now it works all right and the scroll wheel works fine. This marks the first time I've messed with hardware without instructions nearby.

In the process of halfheartedly cleaning my room, I found my old 4x4x4 Rubik's Cube. It's broken, though. I twisted it too hard once when the layers weren't lined up right. Now that I've pretty much exhausted the possibilities of the 3x3x3 cube, trying my hand at the 4x4x4 would be cool. To do that, I need a functional one and am too cheap to buy myself one.

My mom decided that it would be a good idea to move most of the storage furniture (dressers and wardrobes and such) in her bedroom into my study before I'm finished cleaning my study. This is because she bought all new storage furniture for her bedroom. Why not wait till after I was gone and had cleaned out my room? Great stuff, mom, keep up the sensible thinking.

I'm going to cut this post short now because I feel the need to go Unreal Tournamenting. Later.

Captain Bad Habits reflects on 2005

No, actually, he doesn't. What a stupid idea. Today is no different from any other day; what's the big deal?

I was at Jacob's for the past couple of days, and I can't remember what we did. Actually, I remember watching three movies: "Be Cool" (somewhat random, incoherent story about the record industry in LA), "Spartan" (Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike runs around shotgunning people and throwing old ladies around [no joke]), and "House of Flying Daggers" (Chinese movie involving ass-kicking, swordfighting and knife throwing - definitely the best of the three). We watched all these on New Year's Eve. At one point I said, "Hmm, it's midnight." We shrugged and kept watching the movie while idiots in the neighborhood set off fireworks.

Check out the Ig Nobel Prizes. These are awarded to people who "have all done things that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK." I was especially...affected... by the awards for 2000 Chemistry, 2000 Medicine and 1999 Managed Health Care. That last one - I seriously hope they never actually tried to use that.

Sorry my blog is somewhat less contentful than it usually is. I've actually resumed work on one of the stories I have in progress. I had a dream two nights ago that has already mostly faded but left behind two elements that definitely can be worked into this story. The other story I have in progress probably will never be finished - I think it must have been time-critical. I had to have finished it before last summer ended, most likely. Some stories are like that. Oh well.

I should probably be getting to sleep soon because I have to get up at 10 AM tomorrow so I can go have someone mess with my back. This means the waking-up-at-3-and-getting-back-to-sleep-at-9 shit is not allowed tonight. So I shall go attempt to sleep now. Night.