The Long Road

Archives: March 2003

Monday, March 31, 2003

I am of the opinion that you can tell a lot about a person by what's on his/her bookmarks folder. In that vein, I've created a page of all my bookmarks which you can find here. Have fun.

Posted by Rayne @ 05:43 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

My housemates and I have recently learnt something about a girl we know; she's technologically competent. It was the damndest thing! She knew more about IRC servers and idents than I did. I'm not trying to be sexist or anything, but it's certainly not a daily occurence that we run into a girl that can engage Stephen in a conversation about these things with such a high level of techno babble. The guys and I were generally very impressed with this girl's knowledgeability. We're assuming that whenever she encounters some kind of techi problem that she'd just look things up on and find ways to work it out instead of going to others for help or giving up (my favoured options).

This leads me to the three types of girls that I always find super-interesting. Girls who like sci-fi, gamer girls and tech girls. By sci-fi I don't mean "Star Wars" but REAL sci-fi like Herbert, Heinlein, Asimov, Card, etc. And by games, I don't mean party games but FPS, RTS, Fighting games, etc.

If girls always want someone who's "sensitive" and "emotional", I think I'm allowed to want these types of girls.

Not only are these girls uber-rare (to my knowledge) but they, obviously, have something in common with me and many other guys out there. It's easy to see why one of these girls would instantly click with men around the world. I've only ever met 2 sci-fi girls and 2 tech girls. If I ever meet a gamer chick, you can be sure that I'd pounce on her!

A girl that's a combination of these three traits would be like a dream come true.
But watch out! If you ever find a girl that's into all three of these things, it could be that she's the perfect woman OR that she's exactly like every male friend you have!

Posted by Rayne @ 12:49 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Sunday, March 30, 2003

YTV is running this contest where you get to spend some time with a host of your choice if you win. Reallly, as if there's any choice other than Sugar!

Posted by Rayne @ 02:15 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

When I was younger I used to watch a lot of TLC. I watched one show about how in billions of years the universe would collapse back in on itself in The Big Crunch. The end of everything. I remember being pretty worried about that. End of All Existence type stuff is always unsettling. Luckily, its been recently claimed that the universe will never reverse its inertia. PHEEEW!

So today I was reading about the movie "The Core" and ran into a looming end-of-the-world disaster. Everyone's heard of volcanoes but how many of you have heard of Supervolcanoes? Supervolcanoes aren't mountains like volcanoes, they're crater-like pits of pressurized magma that erupt with the force of a thousand normal volcanoes. Scientists have only become aware of supervolcanoes in the last hundred years.

When a supervolcano erups it results in nuclear winter for the whole world - without the radiation. The sun will be bloted out for years and acid rain will pour from the skies. The last known supervolcano to go off was Tomba in Sumatra about 74 000 years ago. Scientists think that all but about 5 000 humans died then along with most species of plants and animals.

Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. It's so big that you can only tell it's a crater from outer space. It has been determined that Yellowstone erupts every 600 000 years. The really scary part? The last time it erupted was 640 000 years ago. It's 40 000 years behind, which means it should go off SOON. Give or take a few hundred years.

Try looking some of this up, it's creepy. If you were 40 000 years behind for an eruption, you'd probably take the rest of the world with you too when you finally blew.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:06 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Saturday, March 29, 2003

Well, Friday was pretty interesting. I had either the option of going out with Mike, Jill and Lindsey to Phil's or to some party at some girl's house with Arthur, Alex and Dan. I was really torn because I had told Mike already that I'd go, but Arthur would be leaving soon and I hadn't seen him in a while (before this week).

What tipped the scale was the fact that it would rain tonight. The thought of walking to and/or from Phil's alone in the rain for 40 minutes was extremely unappealing (Arthur has a car). I ended up going to the party. Sorry Mike!! =(

The party was alright, they had three kegs(!) of beer and charged 2$ to get in or 10$ to get in and have unlimited drinks. They stamped everyone's hand who paid 10$ and handed them a numbered cup. I'm not exactly sure how many people were there but the lowest number in the stack of remaining cups at the end of the night was 91. So assuming all 90 cups were actually 'sold' they made 900$. CRAZY! INSANE! WE SHOULD DO THIS!!

At the beginning of the night, the house was packed. There was hardly room to move around in the living room. Things eventually got better but I'm sure that the crowd exceeded, by far, the fire hazard limits. There was one person I recognized at the party, it was Forest the cs240 TA. He had the same long hair except it was black and he didn't speak in that strange voice he had when TA-ing. I introduced myself and talked to him for a bit about what it was like to be a TA. Some interesting stuff.

Not much really happened at the party. One of the hostesses was making smoothies all night long, I stuck about 10 drink umbrellas into this other girl's hair, and played (and lost 10-2) a game of foosball. I think I had around five smoothies, I feel really bloated right now from having consumed so many.

Arthur met many people with whom he's been playing Diablo 2 online at the party. Its like finally meeting an online b/f or g/f. So strange.

We ended up leaving around 3:30, the rain was coming down pretty harshly.

Posted by Rayne @ 05:00 AM EST [Link] [3 comments]

You'll all think this is weird but I've been "collecting" animal sayings for the last few months. Theres no particular reason why I started doing it, just thought it would be fun. The list is getting pretty big but I'm sure I've missed a few. Click on 'more' to see all the animal sayings I've collected and add some if you can think of any. I'll keep adding to this list as I hear new sayings. I hope you do too! [more]

Posted by Rayne @ 04:36 AM EST [Link] [24 comments]

Friday, March 28, 2003

Found this article over at The Pulse

"Ah, the joys of World Youth Day. A day for youngsters to be coddled and feted by having old people tell them what's good for them. Over in Taiwan, President Chen Shui-bian released an email yesterday in which he wished young people a happy Youth Day and encouraged them to "enjoy their lives by developing interesting hobbies such as reading cartoon books or playing electronic games." According to the Taipei Times, Chen urged people to excel in what they do and recalled his meetings with cartoonists in Taiwan. He pointed to Tseng Jeng-cheng, who won a gold medal at a cyber-game competition in 2001, as an example of a young person who excels at what he does.

Chen said it is an outdated impression that only ill-mannered children enjoy reading cartoon books or playing electronic games, adding that "developing curiosity or a keen interest in learning is even more important."

Truly, this is a man in touch with his people. Can you picture George W. Bush telling teens that playing video games and reading comic books is good for them? The Beat thinks the children are our future, and our future is clearly in Taiwan. "

How truly cool is that? A public figure that thinks reading comic books and playing videogames is actually good for you! I'd like to point out though that both activities are not "for kids". The average gamer is 28 years old and the average comic book reader is 30.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:11 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

The more I hear about the war on Iraq, the more I think of Dune. It's pretty funny. Sort of.
Iraq sounds like Arrakis if you pronounce them correctly. The news talk about the desert and sandstorms like they were on Arrakis. Dune's overthrown villain is Emperor Shaddam which no doubt reminds you of Saddam. And Saddam's death squads are the Fedayeen while Paul's death squads were The Fedayken. Whoever controls The Spice controls the universe, and whoever controls the oil controls the world.

Eerie stuff!

Maybe Frank Herbert was a Nostradamus like prophet as well as one of the best writers ever. And maybe Saddam is going to unleash giant sandworms soon! I can't wait!

Posted by Rayne @ 01:40 PM EST [Link] [14 comments]

Just woke up from a five hour nap! YAWN. I was up pretty late last night doing cs360 so I only got 6 hours of sleep. Thats not very much for me. Still have to do my Pmath assignment for tomorrow morning though. I was thinking that he did say any assignment we don't get back we'll get 100% on. What are the odds that he can get us this assignment back by Monday if we hand it in today? Doesn't seem likely to me. I don't think it's a gamble I want to take, but it IS an entertaining idea. He actually better have our second midterms back on Friday. Or else.

Today was the last lecture of Stats I ever have to take! OOH YA!! Well, provided I don't fail 231. Hopefully won't.

David engaged me in a game of TetrisNET. Dennis, Stephen and 2 of Dave's friends joined in. One of his friends won 1 game, Dennis won 1 and I won 2. Sure showed 'em! Didn't spend my childhood playing Tetris just to be beat by some punk high schoolers! haha.

David Goyer, writer of Blades 1 and 2, was just hired to script the next Batman movie to be directed by Christopher Nolan (of Memento, Insomnia). If this goes through it could be a very good film, but don't hold your breath. Frank Miller and Darren Arafnoski were working on one too but thats been stalled forever.

Posted by Rayne @ 01:10 AM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Yesterday was quite a busy day.
I went to my 3 classes but ended up sleeping through half of the third class, Econ 201. After my nap, I went to the PAC for an hour then jogged home. Had my late lunch, fooled around for a bit then I nook a nap until 7 or so. Around 8 Arthur came by and we went out to dinner with some of his friend. We went to Jia Jia Lok where I FINALLY got to have some ying-yang fried rice!! I've been craving that stuff for about 6 weeks now but never really had the chance to go get me some. Everyone at dinner was a gamer so we had conversations about Diablo 2 (which I know nothing about) and Warcraft 3.

When I got back I wasted some more time before doing cs360. I was up pretty late working on that assignment but didnt' finish all of it; I left one part of one question unanswered. That was the last 360 assignment ever! YAY!! Only 2 more assignments to go before I'm all done!

Do you need 600$ 6.1 Surround Speakers? Yes? Then look here.

Do you remember One Must Fall 2029? I don't care, check out these cool pictures of its sequel ten-years in the making!
omf1.jpeg
omf2.jpeg
omf3.jpeg
omf4.jpeg
omf5.jpeg

I think some of the robots don't look robot-y enough, but it still looks like it will be a good game.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:04 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

I've had some weird dreams the last couple of nights. In both dreams, one of my guy friends forms a fast friendship with a girl that mean a lot to me (a different girl and guy in each dream). These are people who've had no real prior relationship to each other. Anyways, it was quite strange to see these people associate with each other like that. Let it never happen in real life! ha!

A little later on in my dream, Mike was sobbing furiously on my shoulder for minutes since a couple of people were angry at him because of something I said/did. C'mon Mike! You sissy!

Posted by Rayne @ 09:51 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

There's a game I play.

Winning the game lands you the prize that most men covet. The prize doesn’t want to be won and the opponent is relentlessly stubborn. The rules of the game are simple and the winning strategy is simple, but the road to victory is long and arduous. Each time the game is played, strategy goes out the window; frustration and instinct take over leading to impotent lashing out. The result is always a bitter defeat, but never bitter enough to make me quit, nor to make me follow the strategy all the way through.

I should play another game, one I can win (like Warcraft), but the prize is there. It teases me. It taunts me. It haunts me. E-ve-ry-day.

Posted by Rayne @ 04:07 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Posted by Rayne @ 02:20 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

So Katie got some complimentary tickets to see Tony Lee the hypnotist. Before the show, Katie and I went out to McGuinness Frontrow for some half priced appetizers. We ate 40$ worth of over-priced appetizers for a decent 20$. After dinner we headed off to Fed Hall where Shawn met up with us.

The show started with a stand up comic doing a 15 minute routine about sex that included the phrase "clitar solo". Tony Lee's show was mostly about humiliating people sexually somehow. It was quite funny. When he did the 'initial hypnotizing' I was trying to participate, but he lost me after a bit. He was trying to get us to keep our hands clasped together, it worked for just a second with me. Those who couldn't re-open their hands were asked to get onstage and they were the subjects for the night. Some of the highlights include dinosaur beastiality, angry phone calls to roomates, guys pretending to be girls and girls pretending to be guys.

At the end of the show, he hypnotized the people onstage to have a very vocal orgasm each time someone shook their left hand for the rest of the night. One of the girls sprawled on the floor, shook and moaned everytime. It was FANTASTIC. I shook this other girl's hand; her reaction wasn't as great as the first girl's, but let me tell ya, thats the easist time I've ever had trying to get a girl to orgasm.

Read Shawn's account of it here.

What did you just say? CS360 a5?? OH....ummm...yaaa....

Posted by Rayne @ 12:59 AM EST [Link] [12 comments]

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Got the stats quiz back today. It was as bad as I was expecting it to be. The average was 50% and 40% of all students failed it. Harsh eh? I hope they end up curving it somehow...like tripling everyone's marks. Most likely, they'll just leave it like that.

Was suppose to meet Arthur at the PAC after stats. I got there and waited around for 25 minutes and he didn't show up. 4-5 o'clock seems like the time to go though! The place was PAC-ked! What am I doing going there at 1:30? Turns out Arthur showed up about 5 minutes after I left. Silly.

On my walk home, I was aware that someone was walking behind for about 10 minutes. I got to my front door and the person behind me turned out to be the girl next door!

Posted by Rayne @ 06:20 PM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Monday, March 24, 2003

Discussion in the topic below brought this up. Borrowed a little bit from Frank Herbert:

I must not spam.
spam is the mind-killer.
spam is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my spam.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the spam has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

well ok, borrowed a LOT.

Anyways, I got this really strange SPAM the other day, it asked me to give them my bank acount number and information and what not and they would deposit 45 Million US dollars into my account. Who would fall for this garbage? I know with 99.9% certainty that this is a scam, but that 0.1% is what they are hoping people will act on. What if I empty my bank account and then give 'em the details to it? That'll show 'em.

The email is SO long, who has time to compose such things and come up with such elaborate details and typos?
I've included the email, just click on 'more' to see it, be careful though! You're proabaly not suppose to see it since it's "STRICTLY CONFIDENTAIL" [more]

Posted by Rayne @ 11:08 PM EST [Link] [6 comments]

Its hard to get used to this new mouse. I'm still used to being very careful when I'm clicking so I don't accidentally double click that I'm still clicking ever so lightly. Having a back and forward button is so nice, I'll never go back! NEVER!

On my jog home from class I passed Shawn and Cora on the corner of Phillip and Columbia, they were in Cora's car. I wonder where they were coming from? Maybe I could ask 'em? Nah, thats ridiculous.

Did the course evaluation for Econ 202. It was quite strange; M.C. Howard didn't even leave the room. Is that standard procedure for arts classes because I know for certain that math profs have to leave the room when students are evaluating them. I also found that the evaluation forms for arts courses are much less informative than math ones.

Just came back from dinner with Arthur and friends. We were there for 2 hours having Korean hot pot. It was really good! I think having a raw egg in the dipping sauce was the only difference to traditional hot pot. I was really impressed with all the types of meats they brought out. All you can eat for 15$, what a great deal!

Posted by Rayne @ 10:07 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Today's activity logs are going to be incredibly skewed by the large amounts of accessing I had to do.

I went for a 15 minute jog this afternoon, it was pretty nice outside. My stamina is pretty bad though, I couldn't run for more than a couple minutes straight without having to take a walking break. This is what happens after years of minimal exercise. Hopefully I'll continue going on jogs and improve my cardio. The worst is that the it became sunny right after I came back indoors. bah.

I added a picture of Avril to the pictures section. Here. Does she not look like she belongs in the Dune mini series with those bright blue eyes?

Speaking of Dune, here are some nice quotes I pulled from the mini series:
"I don't patronize, I care"
"I'm afraid she's about to let it pass through her"
"I can't remember the future"
"We hate the empire, but we have no idea what we would like in its place"
"I can't undo the past, but I can influence the future"
"you have eternity, I have only now"
'A universe of suprises is what I'm hoping for"

Posted by Rayne @ 11:48 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

WOW. That was just about the longest time its ever taken to do something so simple. I added a "favicon" to my site. Favicon stands for FAVourites ICON. Its the icon that shows up beside your address in the address bar and when you bookmark a page.

First I drew the icon in paint and tried to convert it to ICO format, no go. Joe and I ended up trying 4 different programs but none of them would do it. So I downloaded a shareware program (IconCOOL Editor) to do it in.

I uploaded it to my site, and expected the icon to just show up since thats what I read would happen. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. I added this piece of HTML to the meta tag: <link REL="shortcut icon" HREF="http://rayne.woot.net/favicon.ico" TYPE="image/x-icon"> but the icon shows up wrong! It showed only the bottom left corner for some reason?!?!

A bit more fiddling around with sizes and colour pallettes didn't do anything good. I upload a comletely different icon and delete the old one and still nothing changes. So obviously the browser cached the icon somewhere and wouldn't replace it even though I kept pressing refresh. Ridiculous. In any case, it shows up fine now, but I still don't know why it was only showing the bottom left corner before.

If you've got a website, I recommend you add a favicon, it's a nice touch of peronalization. I'm sure it won't take the absurd amount of time to do it that it took me.

Posted by Rayne @ 05:10 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Just watched Children of Dune, it was soooo good. It adapted the basic plot of books 2 and 3 of the Dune chronicles, but like most book-to-movie adaptations it loses a lot of the subtleties and motivations in the books. That plus some things that were dropped/changed really felt like they diminished the intelligence of the characters, especially the twins. You never get the feeling that these people are incredibly clever and competent. The twins are suppose to have everyone figured out and be several steps ahead of them, but come off as sort of stumbling along. My one true complaint though is the Freemen eyes. THE distinguishing feature about the Freemen is that they have blue on blue eyes. BLUE ON BLUE. The books mention this all the time, yet for this series and the one before it the Freemen have normal blue eyes that happen to be a bit brighter. SACRILEGE!

Most of the CG shots were well done. Some that stand out in my mind are when the ornithopter has the encounter with the three worms, the stoneburner, and all the shots of Arrakeen. They truly managed to show the absurd size of the Royal palaces.

I really enjoyed the music, costumes and the sets. The costumes aren't nearly as gawdy as the ones in the original. Freemen still suits were actually dark coloured instead of that aweful white-green pastel they used before!! The acting was pretty good overall but the actress playing Alia could have been better. Her acting was pretty bad, and considering that she was one of the main characters she was onscreen quite a bit. I think they cast her for the eye-candy factor; she had an exotic looking face, very attracive, but she had really strange hips. Susan Sarandon was also in it, she was unfortunately showing too much skin in a few scenes =( Her opposing matriarch was played by Alice Krige. I love Alice Krige, she has the most amazing voice ever. I wish I could have a really long conversation with her. Well, I just want her to talk to me. I'd be content to listen.

Haven't read Dune yet? Do it. The best science fiction series EVER. And don't give me that "I don't like sci-fi" garbage. This is a book about politics, ecology, religion and palace intrigue that just happens to be set in the future.

Posted by Rayne @ 03:26 AM EST [Link] [2 comments]

I got a new mouse! But not just ANY mouse; the best goddamn mouse in the whole wide world! See it here, read all about it here. The thing has 8 buttong (EIGHT!!), is more precise than a dual optical laser mouse, and looks oh-so-sexy. And OF COURSE it doulbe clicks only when I want it to double click! My favorite thing about its design is that the two regular buttons aren't on seperate pieces of plastic but are part of the mouse's body. niiiiice.

The mouse is usually 80$. Future Shop had it advertised for 50$, Joe said that if I brought the flyer into Staples, they'd give me a 150% price match so I could get the mouse for a measly 35$! Unfortunately, when I got there, Staples had also reduced their price to match Future Shop's so I ended up buying the thing for 50$. Which is still pretty good. I think that someone had probably already gone in and done the price match, so they just lowered their price in case anyone else came in with the flyer. When I went to pay for it, the mouse came up at the regular price so I pointed out the sign said that it was 50$. I suppose I could have just pulled out the Future Shop flyer and saved myself 15$, but that would have been dirty since they had matched the price on their sign.

The girl at Staples, Lindsey, didn't demagnetize the box for the mouse so I ended up setting off a whole bunch of alarms while wondering around the mall. Sheesh! Speaking of boxes, the mouse box had the WORST design I've ever seen. To get the mouse out I had to open ALL THREE SIDES!! Usually you only have to open just one side and to get stuff out but NOOOOOO, that would just make too much sense for Logitech. Oh well, the minutes of aggravation were all worth it once I plugged the thing in. Computing heaven I tell ya.

Mike went with me since he had a couple of things to return to Future Shop. While there, I also asked what they could do about that not-my-name-on-my-receipt thing. The girl got on the phone, talked to a couple of people and then gave me a phone number to call, apparently they'll 'help me out'.

We got there on our bikes; in the rain! It was pretty bad, the roads were quite muddy so my bag is now splattered with mud. =( I'm glad that it's warm enough (sort of) to bike around now, soon I'll be able to go on 5 hour biking excurstions to nowhere-in-particular.

Posted by Rayne @ 03:21 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]

The server was malfunctioning somehow for some odd reason on Saturday/Sunday. Details? Thats all you're getting.

Went grocery shopping, got some bananas. I picked out some 'loose' bananas that weren't in bunches. I felt bad for them because I knew that everyone who would buy bananas would grab a bunch instead of those single ones.

I made a pretty cool milkshake! Milk, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, a spoonful of peanut butter, blend. Delicious and un-nutritional, what else could you ask for?

Speaking of food, how come when I combine white pudding powder mix with white milk it forms a yellow substance?!?! My mind is boggling!

Posted by Rayne @ 03:20 AM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Friday, March 21, 2003

Got a haircut today, finally got rid of that mop I had to hide under a hat for the last couple weeks. I had a five dollar coupon but when I went to pay for the hair cut they only charged me 6$, I would have felt bad if I used the coupon. I saved it for another day when they choose to charge me a non-buzz fee. Its very strange, HeadKuarters sometimes charges me the buzz price (6$) for a cut and sometimes the cut price (13$) for a cut, but I always get the same cut.

Wore four different outfits today, FOUR! One for classes, one at the pac, then I got home and showered (washed out the haircut) and changed into another one, I'll be heading out to Reid's party in a bit in some other clothes too. If you count my sleeping clothes, thats five outfit! Ridiculous.

Oh ya, theres war now!
I think its pretty ridiculous how every little thing that goes on in the war is televised, its so different from how I'm used to thinkin about war. I realize that not everything is revealed to the public, but I think that its strange that Iraq also sees the same news broadcasts as the U.S. (and we) do. I'll bet you that Saddam is finding out more about whats going on through CNN than through his own reconnaicance. Iraq loses an airfield, CNN knows and reports how many troops were involved, what type of equipment was used, how long it took them, etc. Saddam probably had no access to any of that information! I'm sure knowing all this doesn't help him any but I just think thats its pretty strange. Its like removing the "fog of war" (only gamers know what I mean with that one). Things don't look good for Iraq though, their soldiers are surrendering and the capital is under constant bombing. How can Bush take this war so seriously and so solemnly? There was no doubt going in that Iraq would utterly lose. They're pretty much helpless, trying to make it seem otherwise seems really trite to me. Does anyone think that Saddam has an ace up his sleeve?

Posted by Rayne @ 08:57 PM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Pmath 330, GREAT course. The material is interesting, the prof is fun, the assignments are relatively easy, the class average is high. But, in the last 3 months we've yet to get a single assignment back! What on earth could be going on? Is the marker completely incompetent? Its been so bad that the prof has cut back on the number of assignments he was suppose to give us. It was planned to be around 10-15 assignments over the term but we've only just handed in our fourth. The prof even said on Wednesday that any assignment that we don't get back we'll just get 100% on! Deal!

Here's a story from the best lecture I've had this term. Its not word for word what happened (obviously), just to the best of my memory.
We're about five minutes into the Pmath lecture.
Ross, the pmath prof: "So, seeing as you're all Waterloo students, you would notice that this set of equations is the negation of a tautology so will always be false. But if you were from another school, say...WESTERN, you wouldn't notice that and take the long way to solve it."
a female Student in the front row: "But I'm from Western!"
Ross: "Really? What are you doing here?"
Student: "We're on our week long March break this week and next week" (this occured in mid February)
Ross: "Okay...well why don't you come up here and help me out"
The student goes up to the blackboard.
Ross: "So what's your name?"
Student: "Jill"
Ross: "ok Jill,what would you do if you were told that this equation is unsatisfiable?"
Jill: "WELL, I'd try my hardest to satisfy it of course!!"
Ross *looks around* : "What I meant was, how would you go about proving that it was unsatisfiable."
Jill: "OH! what I would do is construct a set of clauses representing each equation and resolve them over each unit until I'm left with either a null set or an empty set"
Ross: "That sounds about right, thank you very much Jill"
Jill: "no problem" and she leaves the room.
Ross continues on with the lecture as if women from Western were an everyday occurence in class.

After a minute or so, someone asks him who the girl was. Turns out Jill is Ross' daughter who apparently had nothing better to do that day than to participate in a little skit her dad prepared for the class??? Isn't that awesome? A prof caring enough about his students' entertainment to do something like that. The best is imagining Ross at home saying something like "hey Jill, do you want to do a skit for my class?", "umm...sure... I guess". hehehehe =)

Posted by Rayne @ 03:10 AM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Had a CS programming assignment due today at 6 and a Stats Test at 5. Such a stressful day, Stats is really scaring me, today's test made me feel like I should start studying for it now, or have a repeat of Stats 230! I pretty much just spent all my time this week on the CS assignement and forwent studying for stats except for that 60 mins right before the quiz. I think CS students would sacrifice any class for a CS assignment. Its probably a little like that for other majors too, but I wouldn't know.

I know that most people use Internet Explorer, but I want to suggest to everyone an alternative. I use Phoenix. It's pretty much like IE except it has some really nice extra features. The one that I like the most is the ability to have 'tabs'. Basically, you get to open as many web pages as you want inside one window and you go through them using tabs like Excel worksheets. Phoenix also block all pop-up windows and you get a neat feature called 'mouse guestures". Download it from here. You don't even have to install it, just download, unzip, and run.

You will have to play with the settings a little to make it look more familiar, and export your links from I.E to Phoenix, but once you've done all that I think that it will be most worth it.

Posted by Rayne @ 07:05 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

AAAARRRGHH!!!
So I bought a router a few months ago from Future Shop. Here’s the story.

At first, I got a hub so my brother and I could share our Internet connection at home. So I get the 19$ hub, right after I buy it I notice it’s only a 10 base-T hub. So 2 minutes after I buy it, I’m at the customer service line exchanging it for a 100 base-T hub. It was 50$. We get home after a while, and plug it in. It all works fine. My brother and I are now connecting independently to our ISP. A week after it no longer works!! Frustration. I call the ISP, and the guy tells us that it’s a new thing they’ve just implemented where one home can’t get two different IP addresses anymore. We have to pay ‘em an extra five dollars a month if we want 2 IP addresses. No way were we going to do that.

Back to Future Shop.

We get a 100$ router. Bring it home, jack it up, doesn’t work. We fiddle with the settings for something like two days, nothing. Just for a joke, we reset the router and put in the same settings as we had before and OF COURSE it works. About a week later, the router goes on sale at half price through a mail-in rebate.

Back to Future Shop.

So I’m in line for the 3rd time to “exchange” the thing. We do a refund-resell which is basically just them taking the thing back and selling it to me again so that my receipt has a date that’s within the mail-in rebate timeline. All good. I send in the receipt, the mail-in rebate form and the UPC from the box. About six weeks later, I check the website www.wheresmyrebate.com , DENIED. I call ‘em up (Netgear). And apparently the person’s name on the receipt is “Deacon Roduck” and I can’t claim someone else’s refund. The person ends up telling me to fax them a copy of my receipt (I’m not sure why). So I did that about 2 weeks ago.

Call them again today, same problem. I don’t know if she was trained in annoying customers but today’s receptionist was aggravating. I couldn’t understand a thing she was saying, and she couldn’t understand a thing I was saying. I read her my postal code FOUR times. The fourth time, really slowly. “N”, “N?”, “yes, 2”, “2?”, “yes, L”, “L?”, “yes, 5”, “5?”, “yes, A”, “A?”, “yes, 7”, "7?", "yes".

And then she asked me my name.

After some effort, she finds my records and says the same thing I’ve heard before about it not being me that bought the router. I tell her that I did so buy it. And that Deacon Roduck is probably just the employee that sold it to me. She asks something like “did you use YOUR credit card”, as if calling me a liar. “Yes” I assured her. Then she makes a request that sounds very much like this “Can you send us a copy of the person?”, “huh?”, “Can you send us a copy of the person!?”. After some linguistic wrestling, I figure she’s actually saying “can you send us a note from that person saying that he works at Future Shop”. I swear to god, they make getting these rebates as hard as possible, after all this work though, they can be sure that I am not giving up.

I let her go and call Future Shop in Ottawa. Get the computers department. They have no idea who Deacon Roduck is. After explaining my dilemma, the guy says that it’s probably just that my phone number is under Deacon’s name in their database. He passes me over to customer service. I explain to the woman my problem. “ok, I’ll forward you to computers”, “WAIT!! NO!!” too late. Some OTHER guy picks up. “pass me back to customer service please”, someone ELSE picks up. So I explain the thing again for about the one billionth time. He forwards me to yet ANOTHER person. It’s JEN! Ah Jen. She doesn’t know me, but I know her well. She’s the person that’s been at the register EVERY TIME I’ve exchanged my router. She’s pretty capable. Anyways, I explain for the one billion and first time. She tells me that I could just go get it exchanged again, and talk to a manager and they would work some kind of voodoo and all will be good. I don’t actually have my receipts or anything that I need for that right now, but guess where I’ll be going once I’m done exams?

Back to Future Shop

Posted by Rayne @ 08:50 PM EST [Link] [37 comments]

Looks like it’s gonna snow tomorrow, we’ve been having some really nice weather lately though. I had my window open for the last little bit but it was pretty cold tonight. I was sitting here FREEZING as I was coding then I figured I should close the window.

Not much happened today so I don’t know what I can really talk about…umm….ya.

My mouse is really acting up, double clicking all the time. I had dragged and dropped a section of code without even knowing that I did it, creating a deadlock plus other problems. I blame the mouse. I really need a new one.

I added a “Guestbook” to the page, but its really just a link to the very first entry I made. Whatever works. I don’t know why I’ll ever need a guestbook though, that person who posts under the strange names will probably just keep filling it with garbage.

Also added a link to math comics. They’re just popular comic strips that feature math in some way, it's not as geeky as it sounds.

Ever hear the song “Can’t Stop” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Its currently my favorite song. Download it from me here. It’s a really good song, though I have NO IDEA what its about.

Here are some lyrics:

The world I love
The tears I drop
To be part of
The wave can't stop
Ever wonder if it's all for you
The world I love
The trains I hop
To be part of
The wave can't stop
Come and tell me when it's time to

Sweetheart is bleeding in the snowcone
So smart she's leading me to ozone
Music the great communicator
Use two sticks to make it in the nature
I'll get you into penetration
The gender of a generation

Heard of the movie "Bend It Like Beckham"? Its apparently a lot like (and better than) “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” but with an Indian girl. Plus it features Keira Knightly; "the sexiest tomboy beanpole on the planet". See a picture of her here. I'm really interested in seeing it but would have to wait 'till it plays at The Princess or comes out on video, I can't see it being played in wide release. Why WOULDN’T you want to see this movie?

No politics today, but Jen Currie had this to say:
“most of the gov't shit i don't pay attention to, but assanine stuff like this...i tell ya!”

Posted by Rayne @ 12:25 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Chretien said today that Canada won’t participate in any non-U.N. sanctioned war. Which is good, I’m glad that we’re actually standing up against the U.S. AND Britain whose Queen is our Queen.

Did anyone watch the 8 o’clock broadcast? Bush told Saddam that he and his family had 48 hours to vacate Iraq or the bombs will start coming down.

Some pretty ridiculous stuff was said though; here are some quotes from CNN:

‘Intelligence leaves "no doubt" that Iraq possesses "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised,"’ ---- that’s just more U.S. rhetoric to me, they’ve been saying this kind of thing for months but never producing any kind of tangible proof.

‘He vowed that anyone who destroys oil wells or uses weapons of mass destruction would face trial as a war criminal.’ ---- see what’s wrong here? Sure you can prosecute people for using weapons of mass destruction, but for destroying oil wells? How can he deny that this is a war for oil after a comment like that?

"We are a peaceful people, yet we are not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers." ---- Ha!!! Who's got a bigger military force than the rest of the world put together?!? Who’s acting like a thug?!? And who’s about to do the killing?!?!

This one’s not from Bush but I thought it was pretty good too:
‘John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he thought the Security Council vote "would have been close," and said France's threatened veto was the reason it was not brought to a vote. "We regret that in the face of an explicit threat to veto, the vote-counting became a secondary consideration,"’ ---– He basically said that they knew they couldn’t win the vote so didn’t feel the need to go through with it. Why hope for a consensus when you’ve got all the bombs? Sounds a lot to me like: “Look what you’ve done, because of you we have no choice but to go to war without your consent.”

Anyways, I've been hoping that a peaceful solution to this whole thing would be found, but it's starting to look very unlikely. I pretty much expect war to break out at the end of the week. Can we even call it war? The U.S. has Iraq WAY outclassed, they're going to roll right over them but I can imagine huge CNN headlines now making a big deal of each U.S. HERO that dies in the next few weeks but never once mentioning how many Iraqies get killed.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:39 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

So I did end up going out after all. If I fail this assignment, it’s all Mike’s fault. We went to Wilf’s at Wilfred Laurier, seeing as UW currently doesn’t have an on-campus bar. The line to get in was pretty long but there were something like 3 girls for every guy in line, again, not something we see very often in UW. The bouncer told Mike that no bags were allowed inside, so we decided to leave. When we got to our bikes, Mike decides to lock up his bag with his bike, so we go back to the end of the line. The bouncer recognized us though and asked us if we remember where in line we were when we left. I went to look through the line and found the girl that was in front of us. The bouncer asks the girl if she remembers us being behind her, she says no, but he lets us in there anyways. As if I’d just go pick someone at random in the line. =)

About 10 minutes later, we’re at the front of the line, and we’re told that non-Laurier students have to get signed in. The bouncer asks the guys behind us to sign us in at the door, they agree. We get in, pay our 2$ fee (going to a cystic fibrosis charity) but no one asks us anything about signing in, so we just walk on through.

We ordered a pitcher of green beer ($10.25). Now, I’m obviously highly delusioned because I thought green beer was some special alcoholic drink that they trotted out once a year, but NO, its just normal beer with food colouring! VERY disappointed.

The reason we went to Wilf’s in the first place was because Jill was working there. She said she’d get us free food if we went. Anyways, we were there for a long while before we got anything to eat. The manager was standing in front of the kitchen exit for quite a bit. Eventually, a waitress came to our table and said “did you guys order this?” and gave Mike a little nudge on the arm. We got a platter of appetizers including deep fried battered mushrooms which were really good and nachos which I had for dinner not 2 hours before! We ended up leaving at around 10:30 but not before Jill sneaked Mike about 100 pounds of lunch meats. I thought it was pretty funny the way she had to hide it every time someone walked by! I’ve never seen a girl give a guy so much meat before.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:34 AM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Monday, March 17, 2003

What a beautiful day it was today. We apparently set a new record high temperature! Today was a pretty good day in general. The Pmath midterm went well. At first I totally freaked out because I couldn’t remember how DeMorgan’s Law worked, so I had to spend a few minutes deriving it. It was one of those moments where you KNOW it’s a certain way but then you write it down and start to doubt yourself. “OMG, is it THIS way or THAT way?”

I got my 3rd Econ midterm back today. I did much better than I thought; 85%. I was expecting something around 70%. No complaints. Classes like that are so much easier than CS/Math classes. All you have to do is skim the textbook and take the tests. I think I do about one tenth of the work that I do for my core courses and still have similar or better marks.

It looks like the U.S and friends are going to war no matter what anyone else has to say about it. Bush is going to tell Saddam to leave Iraq tonight at 8pm. Make sure you watch it, I’m sure he’ll have a few interesting things to say. To me, it’s not about whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not anymore. This is about the U.S. saying “we want to take out Saddam”, for whatever reason, brushing aside all diplomatic solutions and going right to war. And that’s scary. If they can just bully around Iraq, imagine what they’ll get away with next?

I hope to God that Iraq has no “weapons of mass destruction”. What if they did? Dubya would then be in a position to tell the world “I told you so” and have the moral right to do whatever the heck he wants. Which is not good. I don’t care how right he may be or the fact that he’s “President of the United States of America”, I have no respect for the man and think he’s a downright psycho.

Posted by Rayne @ 05:42 PM EST [Link] [2 comments]

In honour of St. Patrick's day, I've adopted a green motif for my site. Do you like it?

There have been 17 distinct hosts hitting this site in the last 3 days! Woohoo! I was thinking that maybe five people were reading this site regularly but it looks like it's around 10. Though, not many people post comments anymore, there were quite a few when this thing got started.

In an effort to get more comments I want everyone to comment on this: "Peanuts: neither peas, nor nuts", discuss.

Here's a cool quote. Imagine a dozen very large armoured vikings saying these words as they are being rushed at by hundreds of barbarians on horse back.

"'lo there do I see my father.
'lo there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
'lo there do i see the line of my people, back to the begnning.
'lo they do call onto me.
They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Vahalla where the brave may live, forever."

Vahalla is the Norse heaven, just in case.

What is St. Patrick the saint of? Here's Jen Smuj with the answers(as posted by her in the comments of the last entry):
"St. Patrick, Bishop, Apostle of Ireland. The patron Saint of Ireland. Basically, here's the scoop... He was born of Calpurnius, a Roman-British deacon. At the age of 16, he was help captive in Ireland and forced to serve a heahten master, but managed to keep his Faith. Six years later he escaped but then had a dream telling him to go back to Ireland. So he studied in the monastery until he finally was consecrated Bishop (about 432) and traveled all of Ireland sowing the Faith everywhere despite much hostility. He was then commisioned by Pope Leo the Great to organize the Church of Ireland. After winning a pagan nation, St. Patrick established many monasteries for both men and women whom then went on to carry the Faith to England, France, and Switzerland. St. Patrick died on March 17, 461 after leading the life of an apostle. (source: "Lives of the Saints." New Revised Edition)

Why this means that Catholics dress up as leprauchauns and drink vast amounts of green beer in the name of a Saint who dedicated his life to God, I will never understand. But hey, why mess with tradition....pass me the Guinness. Cheers."

Posted by Rayne @ 12:41 AM EST [Link] [3 comments]

Sunday, March 16, 2003

Andy reminded me earlier that its St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. Will I be out celebrating? Probably not. Most likely, I'll be here coding.

I'd go to her party but she stood me up for casino night ;)
Who has time for such frivolities?!

"but Thai!, St. Patrick WANTS us to get drunk!!!"

What's Patrick saint of anyways?

RIM said 'no' to the web development job that I applied to. Thats pretty frustrating considering that I think I'm very well qualified for the position. It'd be nice to know why they passed me over. Was I not qualified? Were they looking for someone in a lower grade(pay scale)? Did my resume suck? We'll never know since co-op (and real world job searches) is such an oblique process.

Posted by Rayne @ 08:47 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Right now, I have a cs assignment to do. My Pmath and Stats marks have also been targeted and the people I live with might be stressed as well. I am CS Student Thai Tran, and this week is the longest week of my life.

Hehe.

Do you know what day it is? Sunday. If you were U.S.ian, you wouldn't be reading this, but more to the point you'd be watching Children of Dune on sci-fi tonight. If you ARE a U.S.ian and aren't watching Children of Dune tonight, then you are a poopoohead.

Made Mexican Rice last night for dinner, it was DELICIOUS. In Mexico, they probably just call it rice though.

Forgot to mention this earlier.
Friday, Katie asked me to go buy a cpu fan with her. In front of the MC computer store was a computer (case & monitor) with "JUNK" written on it (they were renovating/moving). We look at it and figure there's probably fan in it, but just stand there unsure of whether or not it was garbage. Some guy comes along, sees it, picks it up to look inside. Katie asks him if theres a fan on it, he says 'yes' and walks away with the whole thing. We ended up going to the plaza pc store to get a 10$ fan. Friday wasn't a good day.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:39 PM EST [Link] [1 Comment]

Saturday, March 15, 2003

I was thinking about the tuition price increases lately. For those not in the know, CS has had 15% tuition hikes for each of the last 2 years; we now pay 4000$ per term. I can see how the hikes sorta make sense. There has lately been a lack of "high tech" jobs (witness the co-op situation), but still a very large number of CS students. So in an attempt to lower the number of students in the program, the school raises prices so that only those that truly want to be in CS go into (or stay in) CS. It's not like they can make entrance requirements (high 80's) any higher right? Thats the thing with capitalism, charge what the market will bear and only those who want it enough and can afford it, will.

Now back to being bitter and angry about it.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:42 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

UGH. Halle Berry got cast as Catwoman in the new movie. This is the woman who delivered the worst line in all of movie history! Personally, I was looking forward to Ashley Judd or Nicole Kidman to take up the role. MEOOOOOW!

Here's what the script writer had to say about that toad line:

'Everybody remembers that as the worst line ever written, but the thing about that is, it was supposed to be delivered as completely offhand. [Adopts casual, bored tone.] "You know what happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Then, after he gets electrocuted, "Ahhh, pretty much the same thing that happens to anything else." But Halle Berry said it like she was Desdemona. [Strident, ringing voice.] "The same thing that happens to everything eeelse!" That's the thing that makes you go crazy. At least "You're a dick" got delivered right. The worst thing about these things is that, when the actors say it wrong, it makes the writer look stupid.'

Posted by Rayne @ 02:33 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

Friday, March 14, 2003

With the guidance of Joe and Stephen, I've added a log page to this site. It keeps track of all kinds of statistics about who views this site and so on. The logs update nightly at midnight. Now I'll be able to see if anyone else sees this site but me.

Note that you HAVE TO visit by http://rayne.woot.net for the logs to keep track properly.

It's linked to right under the banner. Check it out.

Posted by Rayne @ 08:07 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]

MY GOD! Today was full of idiocy on my part.
I forgot my pmath midterm which I was suppose to lend to Katie; my pac clothes, so i'll have to go tomorrow instead of today; and my wallet, Katie and Mike had to spot me for lunch. argh!

To cap it all off, I walked away from Irene after the econ midterm. D'oh!
The midterm went alright though.

Mike mentioned how I write about "boring stuff", like those comic book review quotes, later he brings up how he writes in HIS journal about stuff he wants to write about no matter what other people think of it. well then! =P

Posted by Rayne @ 04:34 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, March 13, 2003

I've been waiting to do this for a while. Below you will find a set of quotes from one of the more popular comic book critics. He reviewed 21 comics this week, and I've pulled quotes from eight of them.
See if you can find a running theme.

"Well, those familiar with his work know that there is a common thread in all of his work, and that's strong, down-to-earth characterization."

"Despite the fantastic premise, the characters are grounded, and they serve as our gateway into this near-future."

"The main strength of the book, though, is how well grounded the characters are."

"Ellis wisely brings this terrorist drama down to earth early on, when he introduces agent Chris Royal on the second page… he’s got a casual, witty personality that makes him instantly likable and more like an average joe."

"The visuals here are photorealistic, and really capture both the everyday humanity of the characters in the "real world" and the magic of the faerie kingdom… The bulk of this issue takes place in the magical kingdom, but Holguin wisely sets a more human tone at first by focusing on a character who seems to be the catalyst for the tale. Her real-world woes and memories of more pleasant times as a child are elements to which the reader can relate, just as one can imagine the same sort of leisurely drive through a forested area. That tone is reinforced by the everyday activities of Kildare and her friends later on the book. Holguin maintains a nice balance between that more human side of Aria and the wondrous sights in the supernatural city that Kildare visits"

"Wheatley brings the alien flora and fauna, technology and energy to life, but the characters never lose a vulnerable, human tone either."

"Veitch is really trying to tap into the alien nature of an undersea society while not casting off qualities they might share with humanity in order to give the reader something to which s/he can relate."

"Jerry may be a bit of a loser, immersed in self-pity, but it's all too easy to relate to him. The creators also tap into more of the fun side of the H-Dial, but at the same time, the script never loses its mature, grounded tone."

Caught on?
This guy seems like he can only appreciate something if its "down-to-earth". He has honestly soured that phrase for me for the rest of my life! If you wrote a book about a bunch of aliens who didn't live, look and act like people (imagine!), I can guarantee that he'd hate it because the aliens wouldn't seem like the average joe. They'd be too strange and fantastic. Can someone really appreciate a book if it s/he can see themselves in the book? Sure, it helps but to bring it up in almost every review he writes!! I want to strangle this guy! Shake him up a little and say "what the hell is wrong with something comlpetely fantastic?"!!!

Posted by Rayne @ 05:52 PM EST [Link]

Wanna see some screen shots of X-Men 2?
go here. There are some really good ones of Anna Paquin.

Please note that you can now get to my site via http://rayne.woot.net

Posted by Rayne @ 05:29 PM EST [Link]

Just watched this short movie. It is FANTASTIC. It is a finalist of the 2002 Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival. The movie seems rather strange at first, but it makes perfect sense at the end, and is just absolutely beautiful. And it'll probably haunt me for minutes.

Unfortunately its a streaming video so if you don't have a good connection, you might have to put up with some choppiness. It required about a constant 70kps for me to keep it smooth.

I've also just registered to the film section of the Chrysler site just to see some of these other short films.
I'll point out some of the better ones later on. maybe.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:37 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

I just had a startling experience, one for which loud music had to be played immediately for a good long time.
That is all.

9:50
In a possible act or retaliation against my noise pollution, the neighbours have been playing their loud music for the last 30 some odd minutes.
"you can do it, just put your back into it!"

11:48
I have "Don't Walk Away Aileen" stuck in my head.
except it plays "Don't Walk Away Irene".

Posted by Rayne @ 09:35 PM EST [Link]

No PMATH or ECON classes today because of campus day. But CS class was still being run. Neither rain, nor fire, nor nuclear armageddon will cancel CS class! I think it’s pretty funny that I never bothered to visit the Waterloo campus before actually signing up to come here. I guess it doesn’t really matter, who goes to a school because of how it looks? Certainly no one here! hoho.

I’ve met two econ girls this week! I introduced myself to Cordelia (notice the lack of double quotes) on Monday, and I met Irene (she's an act-sci major with stats minor, yuck!) today. There wasn’t even an econ lecture today!

Bought a bottle of Axe Deodorant body spray from the pharmacy in the SLC, the Phoenix scent. I think they way overcharged for it. It was 10$ before taxes. I’ve yet to be assaulted by women; but the moment I am, those 10$ will be well worth it. How much did you pay for yours Mike?

Posted by Rayne @ 04:04 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Has anyone been keeping an eye on the US vs Canadian exchange rate lately? Apparently, I haven't because when I went to deposit my 100$ US check from my mail-in rebate I was expecting around 160$ but only got 145.10$. Talk about dissapointment. I think if I cashed it in early last week it would have been a different story.

My brother sent me this link: here.
Basically, it says that several government menus have changed the name of "french fries" and "french toast" to "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" as a way of signalling their displeasure with France's stance against obliterating Iraq. I think this is ridiculous and petty. The new names don't only sound stupid, but they also do that "we're on higher moral ground than you" thing. By substituting Freedom for French, they're making "french" a dirty word, implying that France does not uphold freedom, or maybe, is the enemy of freedom.

The article goes on to mention that several politicians have introduced legislations that will economically punish France for its stance. This essentially amounts to financial blackmail due to political differences; France wants peace, the US doesn't. What is France asking for anyways? That the weapons inspectors be given more time to do their job, while the US wants to give Iraq a deadline of March 17 to "completely disarm" themselves. I get the feeling that no matter what Iraq does, what the inspectors say they have done, US politicians will always be saying something to the tune of "Sorry, but no; you did not comply. Bombs away!"

Posted by Rayne @ 08:13 PM EST [Link]

Monday, March 10, 2003

Can't go a day without writing an entry

OKAY, time to write more.
Its been about a week since I started this site. I must admit, it's a lot of fun writing about daily goings on, so I'll probably keep doing this for a while. Though I have no idea if anyone even looks at this page. Maybe it's just me? In case some of you haven't noticed, there's an "archives" option at the bottom to see past entries, the front page will only hold the last 7 days' worth.

I used Dennis' digital camera to take a couple of pictures tonight after we did our stats lab. The camera doesn't work too well in dark environments but a couple of pictures did turn out ok. So I added a picture of myself and my room in Waterloo to the pictures section. None of you Ottawa people have seen what its like here, so check it out!

Posted by Rayne @ 11:51 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, March 9, 2003

Went to a concert last night. Can't remember the bands' names right now, but they were ok. Sounded like generic alternative to me, but what do I know? Came home and ended up chatting online until 4:30-ish am!! Silly time zones.

I cooked dinner yesterday, shrimp garlic alfredo sauce on pasta. It was frigen' delicious. Tried making glazed carrots today. I've never made them before, so I thought it'd be fun; and it was! I will be glazing carrots and various other vegetables for days to come!

My throat has been really hoarse the last couple of days, hence the Buckley's entry. I'm not sure why it started either. It just suddenly happened.

I've added 3 pictures to the pictures section, nothing too interesting.

Started trying to write an "about me" page, but I found that my bio was pretty much centered around what schools I've attended, so I got discouraged and stopped for a bit until I find a better angle.

This week will be pretty light. A stat lab tuesday, cs assignment Thursday, Pmath assignment and Econ midterm on Friday.

Here are some fun links.
To see what your name would be if you were an elf, go here. A hobbit? here.
Mine are Maedhros Telrúnya and Posco Gamgee-Took of Bywater.

Has anyone heard of the movie "Willard"? It's a remake of an older film. The new one stars Crispin Glover (George McFly from Back to the Future) as a man for whom nothing goes right, but one night discovers he can control rats!!! RATS! All kinds of mischief then ensues. Watch the trailer for it here. The thing is, I have no idea what to make of this film. It could be anything from a comedy, like Ace Ventura, to a dark horror film. The trailer doesn't really help clarify what kind of movie this will be. The bit with the cat is fantastic though. Willard comes out this Friday, anyone interested in seeing it with me?

Posted by Rayne @ 10:25 PM EST [Link]

Thanx.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:22 PM EST [Link] [5 comments]

Saturday, March 8, 2003

I guess its advertising tag line turned out true for me, I saw the movie while I was still alive.

The Ring is a remake of a Japanese movie of the same name. I’m sure many of you have heard the premise of the film; there’s a video tape that if you watch it, you die seven days afterwards. The Ring starts off like a lot of horror movies do, with teens alone in a house when strange things begin to happen and the teens eventually end up dead. One of the teens in question is the niece of a reporter named Rachel, played by the talented and Gorgeous Naomi Watts (haven't seen Mulholland Drive yet? She does a nude lesbian love scene in it). Rachel is asked by her niece’s mother to look into the death; she has done some research and had several doctors look at the body and never received a satisfactory answer to her daughter’s cause of death.

This of course leads to Rachel seeing the tape and trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on before her seven days are up. Through the next seven days, images from the tape begin to manifest themselves into her life. She ends up seeking help from a former boyfriend and her son who strangely knows more about the tape and its origins than she does. Her son has that same kind of “creepy kid” role as Haley Joel Osmond in Sixth Sense, and that girl from The Others, and Signs. I swear, kids creep me out now more than ever.
[more]

Posted by Rayne @ 03:53 AM EST [Link] [10 comments]

Friday, March 7, 2003

M.C. Howard let us out of lecture after 15 minutes. What's up with that?

Had a really interesting run-in with "Cordelia", Darryl and Kate at the CECS building after econ. VERY interesting. Or maybe it was just my imagination.

Went to the PAC today after skipping it on Wednesday for CS. Skipping a day can really do some damage though. I really felt the burn. And my shoulder is getting worse I think, just my right one though. So I still have my left shoulder and my right knee!

I just realized that I've really been a bit sluggish lately. I think that because its after the Study Break and that onslaught of exams, things might just seem a bit slower and I'm not as caught up on all the classes as when I was studying for everything. Bad grammar?

Posted by Rayne @ 08:36 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

So I got lots of marks back today. Actually I got TONS of marks back. Some were great, some not so great. Here are some marks.
The Pmath midterm was finally returned to us after something like 3 weeks!
Pmath miderm - 100% (best miderm so far in the last 3 years!)
cs360 assignment 3 - 95%
Stats labs - 8/10 and 9/10
Then I got the Stat quiz 2 , and cs342 midterms back. Not so good. Below average for sure.

Also got a few replies from co-op. Rim emailed me to say 'no' for the E-learning co-ordinator job.
Georef, Sybase, and Entrust also had bad news to give me.

I did get a 'yes' for an interview for the RCMP only to get an email later on saying that the interview was cancelled because they've already filled the position!

Give with one hand, take away with the other.

Here's what Rim's email had to say: [more]

Posted by Rayne @ 08:25 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

Thursday, March 6, 2003

sooo tired!

Posted by Rayne @ 06:01 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]

Been listening to that Requiem/Hobbit music all day and night! Its such a great track.

So I'm done the coding stuff. I have the two theory questions left to answer, yay! I was really impressed that my thread-safe wrapper didn't need any debugging at all, but the OTHER code, GAWD there were logic errors aplenty. Thats what I get for trying to program in the wee hours of the morning. Later on tonight, I'll post some of the code that I just wrote, I'm sure most of you will find it THRILLING.

Anda never came by! I called her around noon-ish and she said she was just about to leave to go back =( Oh well, theres always next time I guess. I dunno how much fun I would have been if I had gone out this tired...walking around with my eyes closed.

Do you guys remember that Chinese girl from Phil's that was dancing with THAT GUY? How could you possibly forget...well anyways, I saw her in MC yesterday (I think) she was talking to someone so I didn't want to approach her...but I did want to. I wonder if she remembers me??

Isn't it funny how some people always seem to have what they want, but others are always yearning for something that's out of reach (literaly and otherwise)? Nah, not very funny at all.

Posted by Rayne @ 01:57 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

2am!
So this has been/will be the third all nighter I've done for 342. Bah!
In the words of Frodo : "I can't do this anymore"

At least I get good marks for these assignments!

I've just finished the initial coding for both the programs we were asked to write. I will honestly never look at speed (the card game) the same way again. In fact, I may never want to see it again. It will probably take me FOREVER to get this debugged and working correctly though as well as documented with all the test documentation. =(

This game is crazy when you think about how complicated it is.
Basically, what we had to write was Speed as played by several computers against one another, sharing common discard piles. The hardest parts are having each player figuring out when they can't make another move and finding a way to prevent 2+ players from playing on the same pile at the same time. Tricky stuff!

The fun thing was coming up with a thread safe wrapper for vectors. That was my favorite part. I don't know how well it works though...

I also went out to Tim Horton's from 11:30 to 12:30 to hang out with Arlen.
I am expecting Anda to call some time later tonight or maybe today. We're suppose to go out for food/drinks. She's here until early Thursday afternoon I think.

In an effort to not do any REAL work, I added a picture section to my site earlier this afternoon, there's only 1 picture there right now. Its of Andy's eye. Quality over quantity right?

Posted by Rayne @ 02:16 AM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

So I had a pretty strange dream last night. Meghan Mathe and her non-existant-French-substitute-teacher-sister from Alberta were in it. They both had strange Elektra like secret identities where they dressed up in silver-blue versions of the movie-X-men costumes and they both had fights with a Bullseye type character. To say that they lost their fights with Bullseye would be a bit of an understatement. There was some out-of-costume stuff to the dream too, but nothing worth mentioning. =)
Can anyone interpret this dream?

Got my Western Digital mail-in rebate check in the mail today! 100$ U.S. , thats like 300$ Canadian!! Just so everyone else is jealous, my hard drive is ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY GIGABYTES!
Now to see about that Netgear rebate!

Check out this trailer for "The Hobbit" Its so well put together. If anyone can identify the music please tell me cuz I'm dying to know!

Alright, nevermind that music thing, I just figured out where it's from. It's a 'remix' of the music from "Requiem for a Dream" - a movie that EVERYONE should see.

When I first saw the trailer I was like "Man, this is a good track, I really want it". A few hours later the same song was played on winamp and I was like "Man, this is a good track, it sounds really familiar". And then a light bulb clicked.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:43 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]

Well.

After walking through tons of snow, I get to class only to find it empty with "Pmath cancelled today" on the blackboard. Great. Wouldn't you know it, today was when he said he would return our midterms too. This is just an excuse to delay that even more I'll bet! Well, maybe not. Still, that extra hour of sleep would have been nice.

Posted by Rayne @ 11:10 AM EST [Link] [5 comments]

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Just watched the second Animatrix short: "Program". Absolutely wonderful! This one was set in feudal Japan with Ninja Scroll style animation and fight scenes, but of much higher quality and with TONS of scrolling! oooh scrolling! The only problem I had with it was the girl's hair...what was up with that??

The story is more of a standard "what is life in this world like" kinda story as opposed to "The Renaissance Part 1"'s myth building. Can't say anymore. It's such a short story, any details would be spoiling it.

I cannot wait for "The Renaissance Part 2" and "The Final Flight of the Osisris".

If you haven't seen the two available shorts yet...what are you waiting for?!?!

back to MY program...

Posted by Rayne @ 11:40 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

So I had time to go to both classes and see both presentations today!

The Guy Gavriel Kay (GGK) presentation was great, I walked in on it with about 30 minutes to go. The first thing I noticed was his voice and accent, I can't tell at all what kind of accent it was but I didn't like it. The second thing I noticed upon sitting down was the large number of attractive girls in the room. There must have been 1 girl for every guy, this is of course in HUGE contrast to math/cs classes where there is about 1 girl for every 10 guys, attractive or otherwise.

So what did GGK talk about? Actually when I walked in, the Question/Answer period had started so he was answering questions. He had this habit though of answering a question then dovetailing into another topic until he ended up talking about completely unrelated things. But he was a good speaker with lots to say so I can't hold that against him.
[more]

Posted by Rayne @ 06:49 PM EST [Link] [5 comments]

Monday, March 3, 2003

Classes were ok today, but I think that things are starting to not make sense. I need new Pmath and 360 assignments soon so I can catch up on all of this material.

Saw the people at CECS. RIM does, indeed, not want our cover sheets, transcripts, or cover letters anymore. Just resumes.

Went to the PAC after classes, saw both KM and Chantal. Its interesting to see how two extremely active girls can build such different physiques!

As can be seen, I did a bit of work on the way this site looks. Made the colours a bit nicer and came up with a very nice looking banner if I say so myself. I also came up with 4 variations of it but decided to stick to the first one after all. Figures. Can anyone make out what the logo says?

The 342 assignment is starting to look a little scary, question 4 takes a lot more work than I originally thought, we're implementing the card game Speed and I'm stuck at figuring out where/how to determine when all the players can no longer make moves but still hold cards.

Dang it! Guy Gavriel Kay is giving a lecture tomorrow at the same time as one my classes...I really want to go!
Maybe I'll skip 342 just to hear him speak? It would be most worth it.

Also theres a 4-6pm presentation for third year CS students on how to pick courses for the rest of our time here. Stats class goes on until 4:30 though. Hopefully the lab won't take long!

hearing Guy Gavriel Kay VS hearing Charles Clark? hmmmm...

Posted by Rayne @ 10:36 PM EST [Link] [4 comments]

So I finished one of the questions from the assignment, it was pretty easy once I knew what I was doing. I did get a bit of help from a cheerleader though.

I then started to apply for some positions at RIM (*ahem*). They have this strange new system where instead of dropping off our resumes in the bins as usual, we have to fill out a profile form on their website, upload a plain text version of our resume as well as a MS Word version. The profile form had questions like "willingness to travel (as a percentage)". Also had to choose and rank 15 skills with years of experience. Coming up with numbers 13 through 15 was a little iffy!!

I guess we don't have to upload cover letters or transcripts to them?? Nowhere did I see anything for that, though I suppose it could be included in the "MS-Word version of Resume"-file. That would be interesting, judged solely on the strength of our resumes. Maybe I'll ask a co-ordinator tomorrow??

Also, they list 17 jobs for co-op students and Access only lists about seven. Can I apply to all of them? Yes of course, but why wouldn't Access list all of these?

Overall, I think I like it this way much better, no walking over to the CECS building and spending $$ for photocopies. But no customizing of resumes since it SEEMS like they use only 1 for all the jobs you are applying to. I guess that would also mean that cover letters would be pretty meaningless since they'd have to be generic to all positions.

The positions I applied to were:
Web Developer
Product Marketing Specialist
Software Tester
E-Learning Coordinator

They all sound like they'd be pretty fun! [more]

Posted by Rayne @ 02:14 AM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Sunday, March 2, 2003

Ok, I knew this would happen...

Instead of spending my time doing REAL work, I've spent the last several hours fine tuning little details for this site.

When, instead, I should be working on assignment 3 for cs342.
Here's the assignment:
http://www.student.math.uwaterloo.ca/~cs342/assignments/assign3.pdf

if you can make sense of it, you're already ahead of me!

I think I feel like I don't have to be stressed about this because I can take a late on this one, meaning its not due until thursday instead of the traditional tuesday.

Also have to do some resumes for co-op. yay co-op!

btw, if any of you have a personal site that would like me to link to, post it and i'll add it to my list of links!

Posted by Rayne @ 08:43 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]

So this is a guestbook.
I don't know why I need one really, but you can all post general comments here.
Stuff like "you suck". =)

Posted by Rayne @ 03:09 PM EST [Link] [15 comments]

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