Just according to keikaku
[Translator's note: Keikaku means plan in Japanese.]
The COM syllabus told me that first round presentations were going to start last Wednesday. I emailed Gehrs and he told me the same thing. Apparently he decided to push it up a day and first round was supposed to start today. But the projector was broken. First round starts a week later than I originally anticipated. I can easily attend class on Wednesday, see what's expected of my presentation, and then spend the rest of the week conforming. This... this takes a LOT of pressure off of me right now. And here I was thinking I was two presentation days late. Goddamn. I am so glad that we just happened to sit near Shavonne's (acquaintance from COM) group of friends at dinner tonight.
Hit the jump below for lots of text. (It's my quick little review of Mario Kart Wii. It's long. You probably don't want to read it. Don't click it. Seriously.)
I am in serious need of some sleep. Lately I have been listening to the Piano Collections of Final Fantasies 4, 7, and 10 while working on my paper stuff. I also have 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10-2, but I have not played any of those games and thus do not appreciate the music as much. Sleep, however, has come quickly the past couple of nights with the aid of the FFXI and FFXI: Rise of the Zilart soundtracks. The music influences my dreams.
I must also make up serious hours at work. I skipped again today to work on my paper. That's a total of six hours that need to be made up. I'll squeeze 'em in no problem.
Arbeiten, zwei
It's 74F out, goddamn.
Exam wasn't that bad. A couple things tripped me up, but I'll live.
My little weather widget predicted a high of 67F today. Even when it was 72F earlier today, it still said a high of 67F. It was pretty odd. Supposedly it's 76F back home. Awesome weather all around.
Bored.
One hour.
Arbeiten, eins
Part the Second of Work Again! didn't happen because I took a six hour nap instead of a half an hour nap like I had planned. But! I've got an hour left of work for this shift and then I'll be working again another two hours later today.
This is actually a good idea to save money. I don't know if I'd go through with it, though, those inmates look awfully happy in that picture... Too happy.
So, apparently Detroit is a problem in the eyes of this Nazi group who recently relocated their headquarters from Minneapolis to Detroit. Ugh, just go away. We don't want your kind.
I've actually kind of had a secret desire to be a volunteer fireman. I doubt I'll actually do it at any point in my life, but it does sound like an awesome thing to do. Volunteer firemen are some of the bravest people out there. Imagine, going out fighting fires and savings lives with the only payment being the (hopeful) gratification of those whom you saved / whose property you saved. That generally is payment enough in most cases. So why are the employers of volunteer firemen such jerks?
I've been to this 7-11! It's within walking distance of my dad's house! I recall walking there with Heather a few summers ago and picking up a bunch of Bawls. I don't remember why, but... we did. It was extremely warm out.
Ugh. I don't feel like scouring Google News for anymore stories from home. Or anywhere, for that matter.
No Microsoft, bad! Do NOT release works in progress! Release completed software. God damnit, is it really that hard?
I saw this yesterday and thought it was really neat. The Space Invaders one is cool too. BUT TODAY THERE WAS THIS!! Yeah, there's some weird smiley thing at the bottom. Screw that. Purple. Fucking. Tentacle.
I saw an article some where about a suggestion for a one-way mission to Mars. Apparently those who suggested aren't too keen on volunteering. I think the idea is neat, and while I wouldn't volunteer for it myself, I do hope that someone would. It's not necessarily a suicide mission because supplies could be sent to keep the person alive. Once they touch down with their basic shelter, larger complexes could be rocketed to Mars and set up by this person and then more people could arrive to make the place a less lonely. Eventually (hopefully) a method for allowing these astronauts to return home will be developed and could be sent in pieces to Mars where the inhabitants could assemble it and return home.
Lunch time shortly.
Then exam time.
Then work time again.
Work again! Part the First
So I'm reading Google News here at work and I noticed a "Local News" section that prompted me for a zip code. OK, 48313. Bam. Two different ladies died by car. One was run over in a grocery store parking lot, the other apparently trapped between a car and something else (a wall?). That's kind of... Not what I wanted to read. Then I stumbled across this article. Awesome stuff!
Then I found this one about Van Dyke. Is Van Dyke really that bad? And where at? It's been forever since I've driven on it (summer time).
Also, this shit is still going on? Come on! Whoa, holy crap. The priest in question is from St. Lawrence. I used to play on their playground! I attended mass there a couple of times! I actually confused St. Lawrence with St. Matthias at first and freaked out. But then when I didn't recognize the name of the priest, I looked at the church name again and realized I was dumb.
This article would be about my highschool's Baseball team, if it would load. I like how in everything sports related we're referred to as 'Utica Ford,' so that we're not confused with Henry Ford Highschool down in Detroit. 'Cause, you know, it's so hard to differentiate from Henry Ford II Highschool (the II is because there was a guy named Henry Ford II, not because we're the second Henry Ford Highschool in the area.).
wat You can't fight a natural event.
Chicago time!
Cougar killed in Chicago likely was same one spotted in Wilmette, experts say. Likely? There could be more cougars running around? Reminds me of when the Liger got free of the Detroit Zoo and everyone was scared shitless.
Wow, that's all the interesting Chicago news articles listed...
National news?
Oh, you crazy Mormans. The summary on Google News has a different article title and summary:
Sect members live 'normal' life on polygamous church ranch
International Herald Tribune - 10 hours ago
AP ELDORADO, Texas: The women who belong to an embattled polygamist sect wear 19th Century-style dresses, but their daily lives don't differ much from their neighbors', including trips to discount super stores and the orthodontist, members said ...
19th style dresses, polygamy, and FORCING YOUNG CHILDREN TO MARRY OLDER MEN IS NOT NORMAL LIFE. Four-hundred seventeen children were saved from this place, most of them girls. Freaking ridiculous.
Comcast’s Concession to Net Neutrality. Bullshit. After they tried so hard to throttle traffic and even went so far as to pay people to fill seats at their (first) FCC hearing, then they suddenly made nice with Bittorrent, Inc. It all seems so... fishy.
...that's all I've got in regards to interesting-to-me articles from Google News.
What will I post about for the next hour? I'll probably start looking at the psych powerpoints during my second shift today, assuming I get the computer again and that the office is fairly dead.
Oh, if you haven't heard yet, Trackmania Nations Forever has been released. Basically it's an update to Trackmania Nations, the freeware version of Trackmania, that was released a year or two ago. The update gives new pieces for the track editor, support for United Forever custom cars and skins, and the ability for Nations Forever and United Forever users to play together. United Forever is the for-pay version that comes with a bunch of extra stuff, but if you're a broke gamer like me looking for an awesome, challenging racer / semi-puzzle game, download Nations Forever. Unlike the older versions of Trackmania, Nations Forever and United Forever do not come with the Starforce copy protection scheme (I've heard that this is only through Steam for United Forever). You can download Nations Forever from the site linked above or through Steam if you have it installed. Either way, it's free and completely awesome. The track editor is amazing fun, Greg spent nearly an entire LAN party just dicking around with the thing way back when we used to play the demo for the original Trackmania (that had a severely limited track editor). Man that was a long time ago. So many memories.
Bookmarks for me (that might be useful for you):
RarCrack Opens Protected Archives Without Passwords. Linux only.
I should have a total of 19.25 hours worked for this paycheck if I make it to my shifts on time today and tomorrow. Good stuff. I really need to figure out how to squeeze in another .75 hours, though, so that I can reach at least my scheduled 20 hours for once. Perhaps go over by an hour or two :cool: No one will notice. :D
What do you guys think of these long posts?
It's almost class time, then lunch time, then work time again! sd;alkfjasdl;f At least Psych was cancelled today. Makes the day slightly easier (I get to be at work longer :lol: ). Dictionary.com tells me that cancelled is used more often by the British where as canceled is the American variant. I've always used the double-l for as long as I can remember. Though I've never been inclined to put a 'u' in 'color' or 'honor.' It's on-er, not on-oor or on-oh-er.
Well, bugger
I had a huge scare last night as I was trying to fall asleep. The hosting and domain for this site expire on the 24th unless I make the appropriate payments. Well, I've been going with the two year payment for hosting which is something along the lines of $190. The yearly payment is $110. :neutral: The monthly payment is $10.95. Looks like I'll be on the monthly plan for a while because of the month of no work and that these payments are due the DAY BEFORE direct deposit goes through. Thankfully, the decision to not only host with Dreamhost but also register my domain through them as well gets me a free domain registration until I cancel hosting. Which only saves me $9.95 a year, but that means I won't be paying ~$21 by the 24th, just ~$11. I can handle $11. I just have to pay another $11 the next month... and the next month and the next month... Eventually I should have enough money to pay the difference between what I've paid and the total for the two (maybe I'll go one?) year plan.
I missed work Tuesday morning, but went in Tuesday afternoon. Erika had Victor and I putting up table tents (the little foldy guys you see on the tables in the cafeteria) advertising that if you register early you could win one of two iPod Touches. I arrived at work thirty minutes past three, but I'm going to give myself an extra thirty minutes because SSV is warm as hell on a clear day. Stupid people building buildings with glass all over the place. It's like a greenhouse, only for melting people instead. Especially the fifth floor. Psych is cancelled tomorrow, so that's even more time I can work. I should hopefully be able to get up early enough to work from 9-11:15, go to Software Engineering, get lunch, then work anywhere from one to two until five. That'll make up Tuesday quite nicely.
Odd: IIT hasn't cashed the check I gave them for the second part of the housing deposit.
I need to check out the Dreamhost Panel more often! Apparently I can install four different Google apps onto sugardeath.net as well as use Gmail for all hosted email accounts. Like, actually have a gmail interface, but at mail.sugardeath.net instead of gmail.com. :shock: I dunno if I'd do the gmail thing, at least not for the main sugardeath domain, but it's still pretty cool. I'm gonna play around with the calendar now. Hm. I did the calendar thing and it looks like it's gonna install all of it. But it looks like I can easily disable a bunch of them if need be. I even get Google Docs! WTF Awesome!
Anyway, I feel better now that I've discovered how little the monthly payments will ream me (even if I don't get a discount like I do with the one year and two year payments). This means that I can also take out money to payback Health Services and hopefully not overdraw / cause the housing check to bounce.
The psych make-up is gonna be emailed to me at 1:30 on Friday. I'm taking an extra hour of lunch from work to take this exam. I should really get to studying tomorrow (today). I slept a lot today, kinda missed most (all) of my classes. It was such a nice day, too! 70 degrees fahrenheit!
I have $119 in bonus points remaining on my account. This is because I rarely visited Global Grounds or went got extra food above the meal plan from Center Court (or even just visited Center Court beyond the two transferrable (lunch?) meals per week). I think I will get a salad or something in addition to two hamburgers and a pop from Center Court tomorrow. Stick the salad in the fridge, eat it when I get hungry again around eleven or twelve at night.
I have two more breakfasts this week. Because I slept through both lunch and dinner on Sunday and lunch today, I get a total of three extra meals during the week. I used one breakfast Monday morning, and will try to use the remaining on Thursday and Friday.
Update faster DNS! I wanna play with my calendar and other things!
I really need to start looking up sources for my com paper and figure out what the hell is expected of me for my precalc paper. Seriously, wtf? Papers in math class? The topic I chose for my com paper is basically "email and its effects on other forms of communication in the workplace." "Other forms of communcation" being memos, bulletins, gossip at the watercooler / at lunch. Also the (in)formality of email and whether the in(formality) of other forms of communication have changed as a result of the introduction of email. Seven pages. I think we need eight sources or so, half of them have to be hard sources (i.e. non-internet sources). That'll be fun. This will be an insanely dry topic that I will have to somehow stretch out into seven pages. Are there even that many sources that discuss this? I should really start working on this.
Also, what the hell is up with my CS487 group project? I emailed the defacto leader of the group about when we can get together to work on the next deliverable and he never replied to me. OK, cool. Shouldn't we be coding by now? I am still confused as to how/why we're going to interface PHP with Java. Also, why Java for a game? Let's just go C++. Cross-platform hoo haa, that's what. I appreciate it, but... Java? For a game? The prof sent out our current grades on the group stuff. He also mentioned that a member or two has indicated that another member is not pulling his weight. Excuse me for being sick. At least I emailed the group to let them know about it. Perhaps I should do those self-evals o_O They just seem dumb, though. Do a self-eval on your contribution to this plan of the design of your game. What. "I contributed these sections. I wrote words. Perhaps I could have chosen better words in certain parts of the text, perhaps I could have phrased things differently." Sure, OK. No? I also need to do a self-eval for the last group presentation in com. I understand those kind of self-evals: "I talked to fast, I didn't look at the audience enough, I tripped over this phrase."
Speaking of com. Supposedly we're going to start presenting on our papers next Wednesday, despite the fact that he extended the deadline for the proposal of the paper topic to last Friday. Meaning, most people haven't even started their papers (perhaps even their research?) because the majority of the class turned in their proposal's ON FRIDAY. We are kinda behind in the class, though, so maybe he'll give us some extra time. Gehrs is usually pretty cool. He basically gave me a free A for ITM460 last semester. I approved of that.
Bauer called at 1:37PM on Tuesday, despite our agreement that 1PM was the time for the conference. He did most of the talking and I did a lot of "mmhmm, ok, yeah." He's recommending the CIS degree because then, if I choose to do so later on, I can go into a Master's program for the full CS program. With an ITM major I would only be able to go into a Master's for ITM. CIS requires a minor, which will be ITM. He says that I should have enough electives to take a second minor, but I think I'd rather not take two minors. He gave me a recommended schedule for Fall semester, but said nothing about Summer. He did email me a list of the ITM minors (which are slightly different than the ITM Major specializations), so I guess I'll be choosing my summer classes from those, seeing as how I only need to take one more specified CS class for CIS. There are about two CS electives and three or so CS Technical electives. He suggested I talk to the Career Management Center and give them my resume because I said that I was interested in a summer job. I should do that soon.
Why do I feel like I've already this? I haven't. The last mention I made was on Sunday.
Anyway, with CIS I have to take Physics 1 and Chem 1, but they shouldn't be too terrible. I can take Physics 1 with Corey next semester if our schedules line up.
Maybe I talked to someone about this? Incredibly in depth? Not like me...
The 'wake' light on my alarm clock is flickering.
Figuring out how I am going to pay for my website has actually relieved me a lot more than it should have. I should be relieved by doing the important things, like studying for my Psych exam, working on my papers, not sleeping through classes, clearing my holds so I can register for Summer semester and soon Fall, getting out more, working more so that I have money to spend on the important things: like the soap and shampoo that I am running out of; balls, I am going to be incredibly tight on money until my next paycheck comes in... Looks like I won't be paying Health Services their $10 until I get paid. They can wait. It's only $10. Now, if they accepted credit card, I would have paid when they handed me the freaking pills. But alas.
The Google Apps site says that Google Email is being "updated" and that it'll take up to an hour. I click on 'Email' and there is a button labeled "Disable Email on this domain." That does not sit well with me because of the Dreamhost warning:
IMPORTANT: You need to register at Google Apps for your Domain, then re-create all your email accounts with them first, or your current email will break.
Seeing as how I did not choose to install Google Email, though, I should be fine, correct? We'll find out come the morning.
Practically all of swads is going to the Spring Formal this Saturday. Money and lack of interest have prevented me from buying a ticket. I went last year. Dances really aren't my thing. Also, I've got no one to go with. I'm sure that if there were someone that wanted to go with me and I were slightly interested in them, I would jump up and buy a ticket. But as it is, I shouldn't be spending the money anyway. I'll just play video games or research while everyone else is out... having fun... :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:
Nah, it'll be cool. I play grindan gaems on PSO with Paul S. Douchebag. It'll be fun. Like old times on when we played online on the Gamecube. Fuck, I love PSO. Especially when it's free :cool:
Besides, I'd need to borrow another fancy pants jacket thinger. I borrowed one from Noah for the formal last year, but I'm nearly 100% sure that Noah is going with his girl this year (hey, if I were dating her and she wanted to go, I wouldn't say no; also, rhyming).
Enjoy yet another huge ass post (what's an ass post?).