Long Post
I haven't updated in a while so I figured I'd do a big stream of consciousness entry to sort of cover my summer up until this point. I'll break it into sections with lj cuts since it is so long.
I guess I should start with the first part of my summer. Nothing much to talk about- two moves (one into Aepi and one into morewood) and then some work for the computing center and two classes (one which I ended up dropping). Then came precollege, which was from June until August 5th or so.
[The rest of this part is in the friends only post]
When I was not at precollege (rare), I spent my time with the 10 or so friends here that stayed for the summer. We watch tv/movies, go out, have dinner (where we play an amusing game of guess the waitresses age, and then someone has to ask her), and just have nice discussions on everything from US fiscal policy and foreign policy in the middle east to what is the best pizza place. I find my self slowly become more liberal on a lot of issues and my friend here insists he will eventually bring me over from the "dark side" of conservatism. We'll see. The one bad thing that has been slightly irritating is that every single time I go somewhere (often two/three times a day) something bad happens to be. It could be something simple like falling asleep and missing my bus stop or something worse like being stuck at the mall until 3AM and waiting for a taxi for 3 hours. My friends joke that I must have a bus curse or something and find the whole thing amusing.
Some things are just really random...like the bus ride last night. So four of my friends and I are on the way to dinner and we get on the bus. We hear these annoying random people in the back of the bus saying "got you b----" at random intervals. Then they start throwing pennies at me. Why? No clue. I ignore it for a bit then they start doing the same to my friend (we're standing and the other two friends are sitting). Now it's annoying and they taunted us by offering us a seat by them. Of course, at this point they can't be ignored without a loss of face/manliness/etc. However, I didn't want to start a fight on the bus. So I start mentally prepping. Fortunately, the bus driver noticed what was going on and stopped the bus and made the main guy throwing the money get off right then. The rest of them shut up then and our stop was first so no confrontation. Given who we had with us I think we could of have taken them in a fight (which a few of my friends were quite in favor of- perhaps starting it with a witty rejoinder) but I think it worked out fine in retrospect. There will always be stupid people and one can't always go around fighting them.
Much of my summer free time has been used by reading (currently have Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell from a friend), taking pictures (new camera - sony cybershot dsc-t5) watching movies (I now have 100 DVDs, all legal- yes, me- mr. "all software is free"), and watching internet videos and clips. Oh yes- go see Devil Wears Prada and My Super-Ex Girlfriend if you haven't already- both are very good despite seeming like "chick flicks".
Here are a few of my favorite internet vids or clips or sites:
Since much of my life is about computers and tech, I want to note here what has been happening with that stuff. Besides the new camera and the fixing computers and MP3 players I have been updating my computer and keeping up with the latest tech. I am seriously excited about the new processor and cpu developments. The Intel Core 2 Duo price and benchmarks are insane! I want one. But instead I got a x2 3800 (amd) since those just dropped in price by 50% or so and I didn't want to replace my ram and mobo. By the end of the year quad core will be out by early next year. Four cpus in one! Crazy. As far as software goes, Google has some crazy nice new software. Sketchup (like AutoCad lite) is a drawing program and Picasa is the best photo program I've seen. It even beats iPhoto. And it makes really really nice slideshows with movie like zoom in and out effects. Try them both now. Especially Picasa. Oh, and Windows Media Player 11 is out now.
I am currently retagging all my MP3s with MusicBrainz Classic Tagger and redoing my website into something decent with a real domain name. Lot of work left on both accounts. And why do my laptop and computer always break at the same time? My laptop had a few things wrong then IBM fixed it. Now it is overheating and shutting off. It is reaching 90 degrees Celsius so I think they forgot the thermal grease when fixing the cpu or broke the fan or something. Back it goes. And as far as my desktop...let's just say I will never ever be lazy about making a RAID setup. Do NOT ever use windows xp dynamic disk spanning. Yeah, you can laugh. You'd think I'd know better but I just wanted to try it for a bit. I learned my lesson the hard way with a couple hundred gigs of lost data I am recovering very slowly. Fortunately it was just movies and such that are not important and easily recovered- my files and music vids and software are all fine. Well, beside the fact I broke part of my zalman cpu fan so it's noisy. Whatever. Enough tech talk.
Whew, that was a ridiculously long post. Just one or two more things. I will be home from August 7th until August 24th. I might be on vacation with the family for a few days of that but other than that I'll be around if anyone is home then.
I guess I should start with the first part of my summer. Nothing much to talk about- two moves (one into Aepi and one into morewood) and then some work for the computing center and two classes (one which I ended up dropping). Then came precollege, which was from June until August 5th or so.
[The rest of this part is in the friends only post]
When I was not at precollege (rare), I spent my time with the 10 or so friends here that stayed for the summer. We watch tv/movies, go out, have dinner (where we play an amusing game of guess the waitresses age, and then someone has to ask her), and just have nice discussions on everything from US fiscal policy and foreign policy in the middle east to what is the best pizza place. I find my self slowly become more liberal on a lot of issues and my friend here insists he will eventually bring me over from the "dark side" of conservatism. We'll see. The one bad thing that has been slightly irritating is that every single time I go somewhere (often two/three times a day) something bad happens to be. It could be something simple like falling asleep and missing my bus stop or something worse like being stuck at the mall until 3AM and waiting for a taxi for 3 hours. My friends joke that I must have a bus curse or something and find the whole thing amusing.
Some things are just really random...like the bus ride last night. So four of my friends and I are on the way to dinner and we get on the bus. We hear these annoying random people in the back of the bus saying "got you b----" at random intervals. Then they start throwing pennies at me. Why? No clue. I ignore it for a bit then they start doing the same to my friend (we're standing and the other two friends are sitting). Now it's annoying and they taunted us by offering us a seat by them. Of course, at this point they can't be ignored without a loss of face/manliness/etc. However, I didn't want to start a fight on the bus. So I start mentally prepping. Fortunately, the bus driver noticed what was going on and stopped the bus and made the main guy throwing the money get off right then. The rest of them shut up then and our stop was first so no confrontation. Given who we had with us I think we could of have taken them in a fight (which a few of my friends were quite in favor of- perhaps starting it with a witty rejoinder) but I think it worked out fine in retrospect. There will always be stupid people and one can't always go around fighting them.
Much of my summer free time has been used by reading (currently have Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell from a friend), taking pictures (new camera - sony cybershot dsc-t5) watching movies (I now have 100 DVDs, all legal- yes, me- mr. "all software is free"), and watching internet videos and clips. Oh yes- go see Devil Wears Prada and My Super-Ex Girlfriend if you haven't already- both are very good despite seeming like "chick flicks".
Here are a few of my favorite internet vids or clips or sites:
- The Yahoo Nine- Every morning around 10AM the yahoo 9 group puts together 10 clips (9 + 1 user submitted) of some of the best sites and clips on the web. Check it out.
- Get Perpendicular! - Funny flash clip by Hitachi explaining the technology behind perpendicular hard drive storage through dancing bytes in the style of Schoolhouse Rock. Pretty funny.
- Hips Don't Lie Music Video (Fan Version)- Funny clip of people dancing to Shakira's song hips don't lie.
- Moo & Oink Stunnaz- Because grocery store mascots dancing to rap music is just funny.
- Boten Anna - German techno Music Video by Basshunter (english subtitles) about a chat bot in IRC. Catchy tune.
- Bush Sunday Bloody Sunday- Video edited to make bush sing U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. Well done and appropriate.
- Silent Library- This one I got from Iain. Random Japanese game show. Too weird. Just watch- you know you want to see "old man bites tenderly".
- 10 Things I Hate About Commandments - Fake trailer to make Charlton Heston's 10 Commandments movie into a modern comedy.
- The Internet Is for Porn- Clip of World of Warcraft Characters singing about...well look at the title.
- Pablo Francisco Impressions- Pablo Francisco doing funny impressions.
- Crazy Mother- Video clips of a kid making fun of his asian mom yelling at him about grades.
- Alkali Metals + Water = BOOM!- Video of Alkali Metals + Water.
- Urban Ninja- Urban Ninja performing crazy jumps and moves.
- Hey Clip- Two girls singing Hey! by the Pixies.
- Where The Hell is Matt?- Random Guy dances all over the world.
- Daily Dancer- Geeky Software developer dances to songs people request.
- Numa #1 Fan- Another numa video- the original one is here
Since much of my life is about computers and tech, I want to note here what has been happening with that stuff. Besides the new camera and the fixing computers and MP3 players I have been updating my computer and keeping up with the latest tech. I am seriously excited about the new processor and cpu developments. The Intel Core 2 Duo price and benchmarks are insane! I want one. But instead I got a x2 3800 (amd) since those just dropped in price by 50% or so and I didn't want to replace my ram and mobo. By the end of the year quad core will be out by early next year. Four cpus in one! Crazy. As far as software goes, Google has some crazy nice new software. Sketchup (like AutoCad lite) is a drawing program and Picasa is the best photo program I've seen. It even beats iPhoto. And it makes really really nice slideshows with movie like zoom in and out effects. Try them both now. Especially Picasa. Oh, and Windows Media Player 11 is out now.
I am currently retagging all my MP3s with MusicBrainz Classic Tagger and redoing my website into something decent with a real domain name. Lot of work left on both accounts. And why do my laptop and computer always break at the same time? My laptop had a few things wrong then IBM fixed it. Now it is overheating and shutting off. It is reaching 90 degrees Celsius so I think they forgot the thermal grease when fixing the cpu or broke the fan or something. Back it goes. And as far as my desktop...let's just say I will never ever be lazy about making a RAID setup. Do NOT ever use windows xp dynamic disk spanning. Yeah, you can laugh. You'd think I'd know better but I just wanted to try it for a bit. I learned my lesson the hard way with a couple hundred gigs of lost data I am recovering very slowly. Fortunately it was just movies and such that are not important and easily recovered- my files and music vids and software are all fine. Well, beside the fact I broke part of my zalman cpu fan so it's noisy. Whatever. Enough tech talk.
Whew, that was a ridiculously long post. Just one or two more things. I will be home from August 7th until August 24th. I might be on vacation with the family for a few days of that but other than that I'll be around if anyone is home then.