Blogging to Blog

So I went to see "I am Legend" yesterday. I thought it was a pretty good movie although it was slightly depressing. This isn't a bad quality in a film, it jut caught me off guard. This blog isn't about the movie though. Its about soda. Specifically the cup you put the soda in and the subsequent holders for said cup.
AMC 24 at Stapely Center in Mesa has new cups for their large sodas. No longer is it a giant wax covered cardboard tub like the medium and small, but a slick and smooth plastic cup. A cup your could take home with you, and if your are so inclined, us for a few week. It is of sturdy quality that appears will be able to withstand the ravages of a few runs in the dishwasher. It would also make a great coin cup to save up for movie tickets, especially if you don't have a student ID or go to the matinées, like I do.
Unfortunately all is not well in the land of huge screens and overpriced concessions. The tower of cold, carbonated goodness has one fatal flaw. The cup follows the form of most plastic cups seen in the fast food saturated world of ours. The top of the cup is large and it tapers and the bottom, with a section at the very bottom of the cup that is indented to be an even smaller circle. I am sure you are all familiar with this form, the purpose of which is to make this over sized behemoth fit into the standard cup holder (which is conveniently sized to accommodate a reasonable amount of beverage). Unfortunately the new cup from the theater does NOT fit in the provided cup holder.
Thats right, after spending $5 for $1 of soda full to the brim with ice, no matter how many times you tell them no ice, you also get the privilege of holding said beverage in your hands for the next 2 hours. Sure, you could put the drink on the floor, but then you risk the kicking it over in a fit of laughter or an uncontrollable flinch as an alien bursts from someone's chest cavity.
You could put this ice cold (and usually sweating) beverage in your lap (or nestled in your crotch) but I don't go to "those kind of movies."

After 2 hours I have to say I did enjoy the movie, and my 64 oz ( 24 after ice) of cherry coke. I did not enjoy my 2 cold hands or the fact the my manhood had shriveled itself back into boyhood.

I hope you enjoyed this unnecessary ramble as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, BTW, Christmas was pretty good. I got a bunch of DVDs to watch with my new 5.1 surround sound system. I also got a skateboarding penguin. My wife got pearls, lots of pearls.

The report card

Sometimes I question if I should be posting this in the interwebs.
(That last number is the number of credits).

EEE 334	Circuits II	C+	4.00
EEE 341	Engineering Electromagnetics	A-	4.00
EEE 350	Random Signal Analysis	C+	3.00
EEE 352	Properties Electronic Material	B	4.00

As you can see.. not quite a B average.. only a 2.9
I really thought Circuits 2 was going to be a B.

Posting the posts

So I have intended to post a number of things in the last few weeks.
A picture of my perfectly prepared Thanksgiving plate, which I devoured (the food, not the picture), the progress at school (finals started yesterday), deep thoughts on the origin of the universe as it pertains to cheese...
There is so much wasted potential here that I think I could go pro. I wonder if they have a professional slackers league.

I miss Cody and Eve

I miss Cody and Eve. They are too far away. The worst part is I haven't even called them.
I am a terrible terrible friend.

The pain..

.. is going numb. Thank you Johnnie Walker.
6 tests in 4 weeks. It just isn't right.
I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Ramblings

All aboard the money train. Next stop, Sequel Station!

I pulled up the TV guide this morning to see which games where on which station and I couldn't help but notice that WGN has decided to go out on a limb and put some truly first rate movies up against Sunday Football. (That was sarcasm BTW).
Up first is the never The NeverEnding Story III, a one star doozy from 1994. After that they have chosen Back to the Secret Garden. They didn't even bother to rate this gem from 2000. I understand the never ending story is well.. never ending, but it still revolves around Bastian and apparently he is now struggling through adolescence. The first one was great. The second one was tolerable. The third one.. well I haven't seen it but I am having trouble coming to grips with the fact that it was actually made. There may be one redeeming factor in the mess in that it does star Jack Black. I still don't think that is enough to make me watch it.
As for the Secret Garden, it was found once so its no longer a secret.

In completely unrelated news: Kristina, Lenny, and I went to the Irish Heritage Festival yesterday. We volunteered at the AAGI booth showing off the greyhounds and answering a lot of questions about adoption and the breed in general. Except for the fact that we where across the way from the beer/whiskey tent, and right next to the DeLorean tent, I was pretty disappointed. The whole thing was pretty low key, and the main draw was the 2 stages of performers (there where supposedly some dancers but I only saw musicians). There where only 2 or 3 other cultural/historical booths, everyone else was a vendor hawking the usual bunch of jewlery, non-irish inspired leatherwork, or Guinness apparel. I wasn't able to go into the actual Irish Heritage Foundation Building they have there, so I probably missed out on a core aspect of the festival. My wife has some lovely pictures on her Flicker account if you have access and feel the need to see alot of pictures with dogs. I'm glad we went, but I felt a little disappointed in the whole ordeal. I guess I was expecting more history lessons and less commerce.

Lazy Sunday Mornings

Some times I don't know who is the master and who is the pet.

Voodoo math

I know logically speaking, any positive number is larger than zero, and when applied to test scores, just about any score is, mathematically speaking, better than no score. However I cannot help but feel that if I had just decided to wander the campus and skip either of my 2 tests (back to back) today I would be better off.
This may be stemming from some innate belief that my well being is derived from my personal happiness instead of the grade I am currently receiving in school. If this is the case my subconscious needs to straighten up and get with the damn program.

Uncle Curtis

Well, my sister isn't quite so pregnant anymore. I would like to welcome into this world my neice, Alauna Marie. Born 9/12/2007 at 3:48 PM. A healthy 6 pound 14 oz girl.

Buff Ref

Football is back!!
Hooorraaaaayy for football!
No, not that wussie stuff you Europeans call football. That is called SOCCER.

No.. I mean the NFL, Gridiron showdowns, pigskin faceoffs, John Madden, Furbie the sideline reporter, and last but not least BUFF REF!!

There is much hoopla (yes, I just said hoopla) over buff ref. He is referee number 85. You may know him for his involved explenations of each offense including the occasional pantomime of the offending action. You probably know him better for the pythonic biceps he tries to tuck into his zebra stripes. There is much speculation in our little group of football watchers on whether or not he actually sees all the calls he makes, or if he is just looking for an excuse to flex his guns on national TV while giving the face masking signal.

Who is this man that has us all so intrigued? He is Edward G. "Ed" Hochuli. He was born in Wisconsin but graduated high school from Canyon del Oro High School in Tucson, AZ.
He went to college at the University of Texas, then came back to AZ and went to the U of A for his Juris Doctor in 1975. In 1976 he was admitted to the state bar.
Thats right ladies. Not only does he have a 6'1", 215-pound linebacker's body, not only is he a referee for the NFL.. but he is a lawyer. He is a partner in a Phoenix firm specializing in civil law; Jones, Skelton and Hochuli.
Now we know the man behind the muscle. We no longer have to call him "Buff ref." We can use better names like.. Ed.. or the Edinator.. or Ed "gonna sue you for that personal foul , 10 yards repeat the down" Hochuli. Sadly we probably won't get to see him in person. Because of his prominence in the Arizona legal system the NFL tries not to assign him to Cardinals games. Oh well, there is always HDTV.

In my research I found this sports illustrated article on his work out schedule. Man do I feel like a wuss now. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/players/01/10/nfl.workout0116/index.html

Your welcome Eve.

Shoot 'em up

To quote Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star: "Not one second of the film is anything other than ludicrous, which is exactly why it rocks."

This movie is an action comedy. Not like rush hour where there is some action and some comedy. No.. the action IS the comedy. It is so over the top, so ludicrous, so unbelievable that almost every action sequence had me laughing. Well, actually, this was only if I wasn't cringing at some horrible bit of gore.. like a carrot through a guys head but as soon as I was done cringing I was laughing again. This movie is a ridiculous film that doesn't let things like "premise" or "gravity" get in the way of fun story telling. I know some people will see this and not like the film. This is because they will be fundamentally incapable of accepting the movie for what it is or are just to prude for the standards of our roman-esque society. I guess they could lack that the 12 year old video game violence humor that drives the film, but I doubt it. Those people probably wouldn't be going to see the movie anyway.. unless maybe dragged there by a significant other, in which case the significant other is to blame and not me.

All in all there is no way this movie is 5 star material.. which is exactly why you need to go see it.
Seriously.. the guy gets into a gunfight while having sex, never stops pleasing the lady, then caps it off with a terrible one liner. What a great way to end the summer movie explosion.

Woo.. now it really was my birthday

So it was my birthday.
I turned 27.
I spent the day at school. 12 hours straight on campus. hooray. I skipped out on 2 Diamondbacks games in a row for that damned place (Tues and Wed).
Birthdays stop being fun around 19.

Birthday parties on the other hand start getting better. This last one is definately in the top 10.. maybe even the top 5. Thanks to everyone that came out and played games and ate ice cream and drank beer and played more games and ate lots of food and played more games.
Are you seeing a theme here? It was a party of games. There was Wii action, Guitar Hero 1 and 2 action, Apples to Apples, Zombies, Are you a Wherewolf, skip bo, and some other games I didn't play because I was too busy playing even more games.
I don't know about anyone else but I had a great time, and lets face it. That is all that matters.

Are you sure its not my birthday yet?

Most of you know of my gadget reliance. I have been using a PDA for about5 years and have frequently complained about the amount of space it occupies in my pockets. This was almost remedied by the PDA I bought off of Tom because it was thin enough that it wouldn't be a hindrance to movement in my pocket if I left the protective nylon case at home. Unfortunately, the thing occupied the whole pocket meaning my phone and keys had to go in the other pants pocket (which may explain why my phone is so scratched up).
Speaking of my phone I am pretty sure it is dying. It will randomly drop calls even with 4 bars, I get very spotty service sitting in my cube (as in 3 bars one second, no bars the next, drops a call while it is ringing, or won't even get the call but will get the voicemail notification). Generally it is becoming a pain in the ass.

I am currently on the second battery cover for my PDA, and the battery itself is getting a dangerous bulge, and just like my last PDA I have managed to wear out the "down" button and am getting dangerously close to wearing out the "right" button. I think I may have gotten my moneys worth out of this one.

On the subject of phones and PDAs you all probably know by now they my wife recently upgraded her 4 year old Samsung i500 to a Treo 755p ... for free. Its amazing what good timing, full phone replacement plans, and a too much cuteness for you own good will get you these days. This of course has caused me no small amount of gadget envy since over half of my friends are now operating PDA phones, and the one person out of all of them who has been reliant on a PDA for the longest still fills his pockets with 2 devices.

You may wonder why a post titled "Are you sure its not my birthday yet?" talks so much about the sad state of my gadget empire. Well, those of you who are very astute will probably figure it out.
On Tuesday my battery cover popped loose again (ok, I was replacing the tape that holds it on) and the little piece of paper I had wedged into the battery cover switch came out. This little switch tells the PDA that the cover is open or off and switches it over to the backup battery so that you don't lose all your data. In my attempt to re-seat the little piece of paper I managed to trick the PDA into going back to main battery mode without a main battery attached. This means the device lost total power and reset to the factory default. In other words I lost everything on the device.
(sarcasm =>) Lucky for me this has happened before.
This is actually an almost bi-monthly occurance. As such i set my PDA up to do a weekly backup to it's memory card. I restored from my backup, which recovered every file except the ones I had added on Monday (lots of first day of school stuff) and the executables. I have since determined that those are only included in manual backups, not the automatic ones.
Not a huge loss here, I would just have to wait until I got home to reinstall some of the extra applications I use, but none of them are vital. I can get through my day without my ebook reader or my xvid video player. Oh, and all those notes from school? I am sure I can remember what room my second class was moved to, or what my teacher's completely cryptic web address was.

After cleaning up this little mess I decide I shouldn't quite get back to work (since I am at work) and instead reply to one of my wife's emails adding to it the woes of my morning.
The day goes by quickly because I am pretty swamped at work. I take my lunch at 12:30 at my desk (so I can keep working) when I get a call on my work phone. Its my wife. She says my phone sucks. I say "I know, I told you I don't get reception in my cube". She says "Well why don't you come out to the parking lot so we can fix that."

At this point I my mind kicks into high gear, but I fail to come to the conclusion that I am sure all of you faithful readers have. It takes me a good 5 seconds to realize what is going on and this is mostly because we [my wife and I] have been discussing it for the last few weeks.
When we were at the sprint store getting her new phone I finally had the chance to play with the Sprint Mogul. I decided that the world had finally produced a PDA/phone that met all of my desires. Full screen touchpad, compact size, Windows Mobile (NOT smartphone), and as a bonus the device has twice the memory of my current PDA and a slide out full QWERTY keyboard. Oh the joy. The thing was small, light, and retained all the functionality I have grown accustomed to. Unfortunately it was pretty expensive. I couldn't justify spending half this semesters book fees on the device when my current PDA and phone still work.
Luckily for me my beautiful, smart, charismatic, beautiful, loving, beautiful wife does not share the same reservations.

Kristina took a long lunch, went the Sprint store, bought me the Mogul, activated it, then drove to my work to surprise me with it. I guess that explains why she didn't try to call me on my cell phone.
Happy early birthday to me.
Thank you Kristina, you know me entirely too well.

Its almost over

Well, this is the last week of summer for me.
I start the new semester on Monday.
Hoorrray for:
EEE 341 - Engineering Electromagnetics
EEE 352 - Properties of Electronic Materials
EEE 350 - Random Signal Analysis
EEE 334 - Circuits II

I will also continue my internship into the semester part time.
15 credit hours (hey look, its a "light" semester) and about 12 hours a week for work. Guess who still won't be blogging much.

I don't think its ever going to happen

You know all those posts I've been promising you? Well, if you haven't figured it out by now, they probably aren't going to happen. I forgot how much time a job can eat up. Its not just the 10 hours a day I am away from home.. its all that stuff I no longer get done now that I am away from home 10 hours a day.
When its all said and done I have no desire to rant into the etherweb and half the time forget I even have one of these blog things. I remember ever other day or so when I check everyone else's blog but actually committing to a post? I am too busy trying to commit to dinner!

I have not been playing alot of video games or watching TV lately (although Kristina might disagree). Instead I have been reading. "What?!?! Summer reading?!?!" you might explain with prodigious amounts of gusto and inquiry. Neh, I say. It is but trashy science fiction books and even worse fantasy books. The literary equivalent of flavored spun sugar (mmm... cotton candy). Just like the fluffy confection they hold absolutely no benefit for you, in fact they can be down right bad for you but they are still satisfying in that sinfully indulgent way.

bad news

My mom's husband Jack died Friday morning. Preliminary reports say he over dosed on something, won't know what until the autopsy. I will be flying to Illinois this weekend (June 23).

Place holder

So much has happened in the last few weeks and I haven't posted about any of it.
Went to New York and Canada, started my internship at GD working on satellites (yes, I get to touch them), Nick and Holly came out to visit this weekend (what a party), got a new addition to the family (Lenny Jr., a totally awesome 4 year old greyhound)...
I am just to damned tired to actually go into any real detail. I need to rest up after this weekend and prepare to make a couple posts. Once again I am sort of waiting to get some pictures up because I don't feel that my words alone can accurately describe the total awesomeness of the above mentioned events.
Stay tuned folks, hopefully I won't be too lazy this week (or too busy)

Grades and stuff

Grades are in. Not as great as I hoped but good enough:
LINEAR ALGEBRA C+
SIGNALS & SYSTEMS I B+
FUND ELECTROMAGNETIC B
ENGRG PERSP BIOL SYS C
UNIVERSITY PHYSICS III A

Biology really should have been a B. I never do well with classes that required wrote memorization.

I start at General Dynamics on Monday (May 21). I am really glad I was able to get an internship this summer, especially with a high profile company like GD.

In unrelated news, we are going to the Greyhound Adoption Orientation tomorrow which is the second step in the adoption process. We will probably have a dog in week or so. It will make for an exciting weekend since Nick is supposed to be flying down for a visit over memorial day weekend. New job, new dog, and a visit from Nick. If this is how I start my summer I don't want to know how I will end it.

I should probably make a post about the trip to New York, but I haven't finished getting the pictures up so you will all have to wait.

Oh yah, I also upgraded to Vista yesterday. Its a "fun" story I might post about this weekend.

What a relief

I am done with finals. I had my last one yesterday.
Today I am sitting in my underwear, and planning on drinking beer all day while I work on absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately I don't think that plan will work. I have a bunch of errands to run, including going in for a urinalysis test for a new job, changing the oil on my wife's car (both of which require me to be sober as they require driving), and packing for my trip to New York (I leave tomorrow). Why can't I just enjoy my day off?

BTW.. for that new job: I got an internship with General Dynamics in Phoenix. I will be working at the Advanced Information Systems facility doing some final test procedures and requirement verification on satellites (as in for NASA).
Pretty scary isn't it?

As for the aforementioned trip, I guess it qualifies as a vacation. The wife and I are flying to Buffalo, NY for Bev and Don's second wedding. Really it is just a reception for all of Don's family that couldn't make it out to the Phoenix wedding. Its a great excuse to visit the eastern seaboard and generally get out of the desert. I am looking forward to the green scenery, cool weather, and Canadian beer. We will be visiting Niagara falls, spend a day in Canada (Toronto), and be drinking copious amounts of alcohol with fellow Irishmen (Don's family is Irish too!).
This won't be my first time east of the Mississippi or out of the country but it will be for my wife. I know she is looking forward to the culture shock.

I guess I should go put some pants on, drink some water, and go buy some oil... or maybe I will just let wal-mart do it. Its my day off.

God Bless America

Finals

Finals are here. I haven't had much time to concentrate on them though. This is because EVERY SINGLE CLASS ASSIGNED LAST MINUTE HOMEWORK. Seriously, if the class didn't have some last minute, crunch time assignment over some topic that we only briefly glossed over in class then the last day of class was devoted to a test, or a quiz.
My question to the teachers of the world is.. how are we supposed to learn from our mistakes if we are not given time to correct them? I hate not getting assignments back.

I'm going to kingman

This weekend I am heading up to Kingman to visit the in-laws. Some of you who know me well will assume I am not looking forward to visiting that beautiful, exciting, fun filled city. In truth I am, if only for the fact that I expect to finally get some sleep, if only on the drive up there and back.
I haven't been sleeping well lately. I don't know why so I don't know how to fix it. It is starting to take a toll on my daily life and my grades are definitely being effected. Its not insomnia, its more like I am not getting through a complete sleep cycle. Its worse on the weekends when I stay up late. I still wake up at 6:30 and get up so by the time Monday rolls around I have gotten less of the crappy sleep than I did during the week.
I am not a happy camper right now.

Today

As I sit at my desk, staring at the to-do list of stuff that needs to get done my mind starts going over a check list of things I could do instead of the productive things on my list. About 3 items into the the new list I come upon "check blogs" and after I check everyones blog I realize I forgot to add an item to my new list. "post blog".
So here I sit, posting a blog, in an attempt to procrastinate on my to-do list of productive things to do with my time when I am not doing homework.
I have nothing in particular to blog about so I started thinking about my blog, and the nature of my blog.
My blog started when I realized that on occasion I would have thoughts or observations that I felt needed to be shared with more than just my closest friends. I feel these thoughts should be available to my acquaintances and complete strangers too. Now I realize that sometimes I have thoughts I only want vague acquaintances or complete to read. What kind of thoughts? Ones that aren't fully developed and are therefore not up to the quality of thoughts I deem fit to share with my close friends. (I know, crazy right? I have even more half-assed ideas than you thought I did.) Its also hard to blog about your married life when your wife reads your blog.

I mean, if this was an anonymous blog I could interject all kinds of silly things and create a whole "artistic persona" as an author. I feel if I exercised this creative license I could create a blog that would really be fun to read. I could get readers by the thousands and weave a tale so engrossing I could actually generate some realistic add revenue from my site.
This will never happen though. I do not get to create a fictitious blog for my fictitious life and become fictitiously famous. I write about stuff that actually happens and therefore my blog reflects my life. Boring.

I break this boredom up by creating crazy ideas and strange theories, but the people I see on a daily basis have to hear about these crazy things and so by the time I am ready to put them in digital print they no longer appeal to me. The story has already been told.

I guess I'm just not made for this blogging thing.

Marital Bliss

Sad news folks.
The wife and I had a nasty spat last night, over socks of all things.
Like all nasty spats it starts out as a small disagreement over something trivial and escalates into screaming, yelling, crying, and throwing things.
Needless to say I am posting this on my laptop from my hotel's free internet access.
I would have gone to Tom's or Cody's or Don's but I just needed some alone thinking time (with free HBO).
I will probably be hitting one of you guys up (most likely TOM) to crash for another day or two until we get things straitened out.
Why am I blogging about this instead of calling you guys to tell you whats up personally? Because it is April Fools day. Suckers.

Don't feel bad, I fell for 2 slashdot articles before I remembered what day it was. Thank god for Tags.

sooo tired

Well, spring break '07 is over.
Alot happened. Don moved into his new mansion house, it only took a few days. Don got married. Don had a St. Patrick's day party.
Are you seeing a theme here? I spent most of my time at Don's house, both old and new. There was a very large amount of alcohol consumed and even more furniture moved.
On the plus side Don got a new TV so, as promised, I got his old TV. It is sitting very nicely in my living room surrounded by grudginly rearranged furniture. It is a beautiful 47" of 1080i goodness. Unfortunately the 4 year old set does not have an internal HD tuner so I still don't have HDTV, but the standard def cable looks good enough to me and I mostly wanted a bigger TV, I can wait on the HD (and by wait I mean I will probably order HD cable by the end of the year). DVDs look nice with my progressive scan DVD player (thanks C&E), and I am going to go buy the component cables to get the Nintendo Wii hooked up and using 480p as well (then maybe I will be able to tell the difference between a 6, 8, and 9 while putting in Tiger Woods Golf).

Needless to say it was a very full week of not-schooling and I am very very tired and still unusually sore. I want to go take a nap but I am afraid it will screw up my sleep schedule even more. The goal is to get to bed tonight around 9 pm and hopefully that will allow me to get up in the morning feeling rested enough to stay awake during classes. I find it really helps my knowledge retention if I am conscious when I receive the knowledge.

Its that time of (2) years(s) again.

Well, its come time in my computer life to upgrade. My last major upgrade was 2 years ago, almost to the month. This time I will be getting a new CPU, GPU, and some more ram.
I started looking for socket 939 dual core processors about 3 weeks ago. It was alot harder than I was expecting. You see they stopped manufacturing the 939s in favor of a new socket type that allowed for faster ram (*not technically accurate but good enough for the point I am getting across). The remaining stock of the higher end chips has apparently been sold almost completely. After waiting for one of my many "auto-notify" emails to come in from an online retailer to tell they had the part in stock again I started calling around to the local stores.
Luckily this week Fry's Electronics got a socket 939 AMD X2 4600+ in stock. It was a return but, hey, its all ANYONE had.
I bought it and Tom came over last night to watch me install it. Well, about 5 minutes into the install I found out the probable reason for the return. A few of the pins where "tweaked. Thats not to say they where bent, but it looks like the pins may have brushes something at some point in the handling of the CPU. This caused to pins to be off center just enough so they wouldn't fit, but not enough to be easily noticeable by the naked eye. Luckily I am a trained professional (no, seriously) and was able to spot the trouble makers. About an hour of gentle persuasion, some fine tweezers, and some outstanding light holding by Tom and I was able to get the offending pins back into proper alignment.
For those interested, Windows had absolutely no problem with the upgrade. First boot detected the new CPU and loaded the appropriate APIs. Once the new drivers where loaded I rebooted and "presto magico" I was rocking dual cores.
I have notice increased responsiveness in my system, especially when I am doing things like watching streaming video on one monitor, browsing the web or doing email or reviewing homework on the other monitor. (Did you like that run on sentence?)
More importantly there is a large gain in performance when playing Supreme Commander. This game is freaking awesome and probably the reason I haven't posted in a while. It a HUGE RTS and it can get very CPU intensive. I would say it is probably the most CPU intensive game on the market (its surprisingly easy on the video card and still looks great with low settings).
I will be upgrading my video card to the Geforce 8600 when they hit the market in April (17th). When I order the card I will probably get another gig of ram. This will bring my new system specs to:
MSI K8N Neo4-F Motherboard
AMD X2 4600+
2 GB DDR 400
Nvidia Geforce 8600 (ultra/GTS)
2x250 GB Western Digital SATA hard drives (raid 0)
19" LCD
19" CRT

I am part of the machine.

I guild mate posted this in our forum and I thought it was good enough to share with all of you.



I hope you all found it as entertaining as I did, especially those anthropologically inclined readers.

Rage Against the Machine

Most of you know they had a reunion concert at Cochella. What you may not know is that this has the potential to be more permanent.
Chris Cornell has stated he is leaving Adioslave. They claim the reunion was a one-shot deal but you gotta wonder.. what will these guys do for a front man? Are we going to see some third permutation of the band? If we do I hope it is better than Audioslave was. Don't get me wrong, they where pretty good, there was a lot of talent in that group. I just feel that some of the songs sounded forced. You got Chris Cornell whining singing melodically then you drop into some hard driving RAtM style chorus or guitar solo. It just didn't mesh as well as it could in some of the songs, they didn't sound as cohesive as they should have.
Granted, that is what alot of people liked about RAtM, you got the hard lined guitars then good ol' Zach comes in spitting lyrics like a pissed off rapper.
I hope these guys don't call it quits. I also hope that if Zach de la Rocha doesn't stick around permanently they find someone that was just as innovative as he was. Preferably someone that doesn't already have a well established solo career like Chris did.

good lord make it stop

So I'm balls deep into this semester. Boy, it is turning out to be a doozy. Weekends turn into 7 hour long homework marathons, weekdays are full of cramped note taking hands and mild to strong states of panic. February is "test month." This is much much better than "test week." I had 1 test last week (4% better than the mean.. I got a 70), a test this week, 2 tests next week, and a test on the 28th. I am scared of 2 of them. Matrix Algebra I understand but it takes me 3 hours to do one problem (I didn't say I understand it well) and Electro magnetics.. well.. if I could understand my instructor or the book I would be doing much better. Unfortunately the instructor copies the book into a power point presentation the reads it out loud as his "lecture." He skips the same spots the book skips (equation wise) and takes a few more shortcuts, making the "solutions" to example problems about as useful as WIFI to the Amish. To make matters worse he speaks in a rapid fire heavily accented korean english. His dialect consists of only 3 consents and 2 vowels which make differentiating between E, V, D just as impossible as L, R, and T. This makes understanding things like dE/dV (sounds like DD over DD) just as impossible as differentiating scalar and scatter (both pronounced scadrr).
Lets face it.. this shit is hard to begin with and an instructor who has only marginally more control over the english language than whoever wrote the book doesn't help much. (The author has apparently never heard about dangling participles.) Before you make a comment on the lack of grammar in my posts and the irony therein let me point out the fact that my blog is intended as a quasi-semi-personal journal, not a publish work used as instructional aides for advanced mathematical and physics concepts.

Well, I guess I should get back to my homework. I have to calculate that maximum charge the earth could hold before air starts to break down, losing its electrons, and turning into a conductor (basically until lightning starts randomly shooting out peoples asses.) BTW.. I found this to be approx 1.35 x 10^10 C and the capacitance of the earth is approx. 708 uF... not that you cared.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I know I have been leaning towards getting a Macbook Pro. Not because "its a mac" but because it is a very small package that packs a pretty mean punch as far as notebooks are concerned. This may cause some of you to believe I have reversed my stance on all things Apple, especially with my recent iPod acquisition.
Well, it hasn't. To help support this claim I want you to read this article and know that it is a near perfect representation on my own feelings.

This guy really hates macs. I just seriously loath them, its not quite a full fledge hatred anymore. How can it now that they run intel processors and can boot Windows XP and (reportedly) Vista.

Its February

Its February. The month that got screwed. Wikipedia has a nice entry on the month, including this ever so important segment on the the pronunciation:]

Many people pronounce "February" with a round 'u' instead of an open 'u' vowel, which forces the first 'r' to be eclipsed, viz. 'FEB-yoo-air-ee' instead of 'FEB-roo-air-ee.' That is, it elides into first half of the trailing diphthong. Otherwise, the flanking mid vowel ('e') and back vowel ('u'), combined with the final -ry syllable (front vowel 'ee') make the 'br' difficult for Anglophones to pronounce in the first place. The problem does not usually arise for Scotiaphones, however. The Scottish names for the month are "Feberwary" and "Februar," the latter usually pronounced with a long "ay" vowel in the first syllable.

February brings us great holidays. Holidays like Ground Hog Day (TODAY!), Presidents Day, and Valentine's Day, a holiday created almost solely by the greeting card, candy, and flower cartels that are the true power behind the shadow government that runs the world.

As a rule my wife and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. I don't mean we ignore it, but we try hard not to buy "Valentines Day" branded products (which is pretty much limited to cards, candy, or stuffed animals we don't need). Jewelry, flowers, and nice meals have been excluded from the "ban" list (mostly by my wife) and we try to focus on the meaning of Valentine's Day instead of its commercial components.

In other news my wife made cookies Sunday and I can't stop eating them. She also made blueberry muffins. I am eating one right now with a cup of french roast. It is delicious. I can actually relax and enjoy my morning (yes, I enjoy mornings) today because its the only day I don't have morning classes. I still wake up at 6:00 and spend half an hour coaxing my wife awake but it's nice to know I don't actually have to get up (until she asks me to go make coffee while she showers). I'm such a sucker for her. She could ask for a 5 course breakfast and I would probably get up and do it.
..mmm.. that bite had a big blueberry in it.

I almost forgot. I found the owner of the iPod. I decided that 2 weeks of no one asking lost and found for it meant they weren't really looking so I bought the dock/craddle for $30. I plug it in and find out the person used there full name to name the ipod. I searched ASU directory and pulled up a student with the name and emailed her. That was on Monday. I haven't heard anything back. I think 3 weeks of due diligence is enough and I am now claiming it as my own.

What am I?

A question is put forward from time to time that elicits many different reactions from different people. That question is "what is a nerd" or "what is a geek?" When this question is asked to me I generally tend to wax on about the different types of nerds, and the qualities that make up nerding, and then the differences (both quantifiable and intangible) between nerds and geeks and how to tell them apart.
This topic came up recently in a conversation and my mind, unhappy with all of my explanations and pontifications up to this point, has been working the answer over and over on autopilot ("if it weren't for that horse") until today when the answer dropped into my lap unexpectedly. I say unexpectedly because I had no idea my mind was working on this particular problem (which you already know if you got my Lewis Black reference).
SO.. here is what I came up with.

Nerd: an individual that eschews public opinion and social stature in the pursuit of a particular subject.
When used without a qualifier denoting the subject, the subject is assumed to be technology and academic pursuits.
That guy is such a car nerd. or That girl is a nerd, meaning she has such a strong interest in computers and her schoolwork she is willing do ignore popular opinion in the pursuit of the subjects.

Geek: an individual who pursues a subject while staying within the bounds of social acceptance and remains socially coherent.

The geek definition is a fairly new take on the word and is used in this context more commonly by younger generations. This is most likely due the the rise of "Geek Chic" during the technological boom of the late 90's and early 00's. This new use of the term is usually used to denote someone who has near nerd status but has minimized the impact on social interactions.

I consider myself a geek with strong nerd tendencies.

GEEK FACTOR 10

I am blogging this on my PDA, in the M.U., using the Campos wireless network! I have about an hour and a half before my next class and no homework today. I know this won't last long so I a trying to enjoy it while I can. I just wish coffee wasn't $2.00 a cup and Tacobell didn't smell so good. I don't have a keyboard so I am going to stop here and read a book until class time.

No one is looking

So I made a few discrete inquiries and found out that no one has come looking for an ipod shuffle at the lost and found. I think this is odd but I also have realized my mindset is not the same as 95% of the rest of the world.

Its raining today. It makes me glad I don't have to walk around campus all day like I usually do. Today I only have 2 classes and they are in the same building. I love the rain, but after living in San Diego for a few years I no longer like to walk around in it. Besides, its still pretty damned cold out.

My mind is pretty much wandering right now. I'm waiting for class to come rolling in like some tidal force of time and boredom that sweeps up all ambitious and hopeful students in its path only to grind and soak them into unmotivated, unthinking, office dwelling drones. I can see it sitting there on the horizon, 2 hours away, waiting for its time to come sweep me up in its inescapable path of mundane droning and dry text based destruction.

Shuffled morales

So today was pretty eventful.. and its only 2pm!
It was the first day of school. I have a carpool buddy because we have the exact same school schedule (hooray sweet sweet carpool parking spots). Unfortunately we have the first class is at 7:40 am everyday except Friday. This means getting up at 6 and out of the house by 7. Thanks to a judicious amount of coffee there was no tardiness today :)

I was walking to my second class today (on the opposite side of campus) and as we where passing the memorial union I noticed a brand new ipod shuffle in the graveled landscaping. I picked it up and immediately started to scan the vicinity for someone who could have dropped it or was looking around like they had lost something. It was still pretty damn early in the morning and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic in that particular corner of the campus and I didn't find anyone that fit the description.
Not wanting to be late for class I had to get moving and I wasn't gonna just drop the thing there on the ground for someone else to find. I put it in my pocket and scurried off to class.
After class I had to hurry home so that I could get a visiting friend off to the airport in time for her flight, leaving me no time to find the campus lost and found.
After taking my friend to the airport I came home and jumped on the computer to check my email and try to fix my IPAQ (I will save that little story for later). While I there I decide to try to find the lost and found location and policies for ASU.

It turns out that items turned in to lost and found are held for 60 days then donated to a charity (I assume they mean goodwill or the like). This brings me to a moral dilemma. I would like very much to see this $80 toy returned to the poor kid that lost it. Unfortunately there are really no distinguishing features about these new shuffles, though I guess he could tell the lost and found guys what songs he put on it and they could all listen for those songs. They just happen to be mostly top 40 crap every college kid is going to have. He has everything from the latest rap song to the latest pop, alternative, mexican rap, VH1 pop, hard rock, and emo. I have heard nothing that would really distinguish this guy's shuffle from anyone else just guessing as to what would be on Joe Random college student's ipod.
I also do not trust the lost and found people to be honest. Lets face it, do you think the student worker they hired (and is getting paid minimum wage) is going to let that thing sit for 2 months unclaimed and then send it off to a charity? I think it will end up in the pocket of the student worker.

If the policy was a little different and I would be able to claim the ipod shuffle after its 60 day hold period I would turn it in tomorrow. Lets face it, a free shuffle is a pretty sweet deal.

So do I turn the thing into lost and found hoping that whoever lost it doesn't assume that all college students are materialistic fiends lacking most basic sets of morals who would never pass up a chance like this to acquire a free ipod, even if it is only the shuffle? Do I trust that if I do turn it over and the original owner comes looking it will actually be returned to him, or do I just put the thing in my pocket and with the assumption that the kid has already written the damned thing off?

"Flacid with rage"

Stephen Colbert understands:



It seems that there was some confusion as to what I was angry about with the iPhone. Most of my rage was pointed at the media and the fanboys who where so wrapped up in the fact that there was an actual iPhone in existence they seemed incapable of forming coherent sentence. Instead of extolling the virtues of the revolutionary interface all they could say was "look at the pretty touchscreen!"

In other phone related news.. I will probably be spending a large chunk of change on my wife. Sprint announced the Motorola Q is now available for their network. I would get one for myself but I do not like the non-touchpad interface used for Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphones or the mini-QWERTY that has become so popular. I love my iPAQ and its tapable surface. I can't imagine playing bejewled without it plus all that screen real estate makes watching movies on it very nice.

iRant

You will all have to bear with me on this one. This has been stewing for about a day now, ever since my F5 riding ass read the up to the minute reports straight out of endagdet's CES coverage.
Thats right, I'm talking about the iPhone. Its the current super buzz topic and I don't think there is anything short of free energy that could take that title away.

Now, after reading about this thing and trying to digest the abundant (yet oddly vague) information about it I came up with some very quick conclusions.

Number 1: OS X. WTF? Ok.. ok.. you need to get this thing out there, no need to write a whole new platform for it, but why call this thing a phone? Why not just call it a mini-tablet PC with a built in phone?

Number 2: A touchscreen. There are already touchscreen based phones. They are called PDAs with built in phones? These have been out for about 5 years both for the Pocket PC and Palm based platforms... and people have been complaining that they don't want a touchscreen on their phone for 5 years. This is one of the reasons current smartphones are hard to find with a no shit touchscreen (that and the fact that windows mobile 5 for smartphones was designed so it wouldn't need a touchscreen to save costs on the hardware.) This interface is pushed even further by the use of gestures for the iPhone instead of the tried and true pointing and tapping.

Number 3: Support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi, and IMAP push from Yahoo to get your emails. Gee this sure sounds like more than a phone to me.. and doesn't Cisco already own the trademark for the iPhone they released 2 months ago?

THIS THING ISN'T A DAMNED PHONE, IT'S A PDA RUNNING OSX!

This is where the ranting begins. The world is seeming to go apeshit over this thing and its not even out yet. Everyone is amazed at the functionality that is built into this device (and they should be). What gets me is that all the news agencies and the world in general seems to be slobbering at Steve Jobs feet for thinking of putting all these things into one package.
Holy shit people. The pocket PC with integrated phone has been around forever. It does everything the iPhone does and more, its also been doing it for a very long time. The palm PDA phone has been around even longer! Look at the current generation. The Treo is a great device. What does it do you ask? Well, it plays your MP3s, it surfs the internet, it lets you read your email, it has bluetooth 2.o, it has a camera.. wow, doesn't that sound like the iPhone?

My anger isn't with the device, it isn't with apple, its with all the fan boys who are proclaiming a new age of enlightenment because Apple has released their own version of the same shit that has been around for years. I understand that the phone is a nice step forward. I understand that it is very appealing to alot of rational consumers and I also understand that it looks very pretty. What I don't understand is how people can ignore the last decade of development or the fact that the iPhone is entering a crowded market.
I know most people are looking at this thing with a sane and rational view but it seems to me that most of the people on the soap boxes have completely lost it.
I don't hate apple (contrary to popular belief) but I am starting to hate the cult following it is cultivating and the way people are putting on blinders to everything not made by Apple Inc.

To hopefully dissuade some of those out there looking to tear apart my argument, remember that this was a rant. I know the iPhone clearly not a smartphone. It isn't designed to be one. True to Apple's tradition of keeping things over simplified so that they don't scare technophobes off they have created a device that is also true to the world wide trend of ever increasing functionality in phones. Kudos to apple for once again answering the call of the consumer. I thing the iPhone will become a fairly common sight. I am just afraid it will be because of sheer popularity and not on actual merit. Maybe that is because I am just used to being let down by Microsoft products.

I'm going to stop here. My post is becoming disorganized and hard to read. I will close with these final thoughts.

The iPhone is a pretty interesting platform all things considered. It is a far enough divergence from current smartphones that it probably won't be competing for the same market. It has alot of things integrated in it, many of which I desire, some that I don't. The screen looks great, it has a large storage capacity, and I'm willing to bet the sound quality is pretty good for voice calls. I won't be getting one. I can do the same thing for cheaper using a non-apple product like the Motorola Q or the Treo 700 series (take your pick, palm or windows based).

RIP face fuzz

The "beard" got shaved today. Once again I am smooth. My chin is cold.
This marks the end of my vacation. I'm buying books tomorrow.

Time to get back to "work"

Well, that was a lovely two weeks. I had a great time going on vacation to Denver and San Diego. I spent way way more money than I should have but it was worth every penny. Why? I will tell you why. The other morning I woke up, rolled over and started rubbing my wife's back in an attempt to wake her up in the only way that doesn't make her mad at me for waking her up. I started with a soft stroke or three then moved in to focus on rubbing the usual problem areas of knots and tension. Thats when I ran into a problem. They where not there. I'll let that sink in for a moment.
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Now that you have contemplated the gravity of that statement I feel no need to elaborate so I will move on. I too have some New Years resolutions. Ok, its a couple (NOT a few). My first is to maintain my GPA. That is to say that come this time next year I still want a B average. My second resolution isn't to lose weight or get in shape, its something much more reasonable. Portion control. I have decided to go back to my old eating habits of only eating when I am hungry and then stop eating when I am no longer hunger. The system worked well for me for 25 years and now that I have finally gained enough weight that I no longer look like a stick pretending to be a tree I can need to cut back on my mass intake. I would also like to see an increase in vegetable intake but that isn't a new years resolution, its more like a craving. (Shhh.. just between you and me, I don't like all meat all the time, just mostly meat most of the time.)

I'm kind of tired for playing Wii all afternoon with one of my friends so I think I will stop hear and go to bed at a reasonable time.