I’M FAMOUS

When I wrote about Dev0n’s blog, I never thought she’d read it. After all, we don’t have common friends… or do we? Plus, her site probably has 100x more visitors than mine, who’d tell her about my little dog and pony show?

Lo and behold, Dev0n has left a comment on my site. I feel she has graced me with her presence. Not only did she leave a comment, she mentioned me in one of her posts. She even left a link to my site. With the number of visitors she gets, even more people will be looking at my site and saying, “Damn, that’s an ugly site.”

Here’s to Dev0n and more increased web traffic! Woo-hoo!

RANDOM CRAP

Thursdays are supposed to be one of my easy days. I don’t have class until 3:30pm and it’s my only one of the day.

Today, however, was different. I had to get up at 8:30am to get ready to run an experiment. I’m doing this group project for this class. Anyways, we developed this system (don’t ask) and we need to test it on users as part of the project.

The whole experiment ended at 12pm and I had to go get my transparencies done for the presentation I made today. You know the one where the prof gave us a day and a half notice? I got my transparencies done at the SUB, grabbed a slice of pizza for lunch, and headed home. The weather around UBC has been weird lately. The whole campus was shrouded in this gray fog.

When I got home, I checked my e-mail, and I didn’t even bother rehearsing my presentation. I changed into my PJs and went straight to bed. I got up at 3pm, got changed, grabbed my presentation stuff, and left for class.

As I walked into class, I was five minutes early, but they had already started the presentations! I knew this was going to be trouble. We had thirteen people in the class with the average presentation going 10 minutes each. That’s 130 minutes folks, not counting transition times. Yikes!

Some guys went totally over the 10 minutes and the prof would cut them off. It was kinda funny, these guys would look at the overheads they hadn’t gotten to yet, and you could almost hear them think, “but I spent hours on those last fews slides…”

Well, serves them right for being totally over. One guy had a ton of slides, like enough for an hour’s worth of time. I don’t know where he thought he could get through all of them in ten minutes. Dude got cut off!

Nearly two hours later, it was my turn to go. I was bringing up the other extreme in terms of number of slides. I had three slides in total. I was also last to go. People were antsy, raring to go by the time I got up there.

It had been five years since I had made a presentation. Suprisingly, it went really well. At least that’s some people told me. The prof asks a question or two of everyone at the end of the presentation. Luckily, he didn’t ask anything that revealed my stupidity. And he didn’t cut me off either.

Tomorrow, in about eight hours, I have to make another presentation. This one is going to be way longer, about 25 minutes. I think I’m prepared, but who knows what could go wrong. Hey, it’s also the last day of the class for the term!

Ok, I gotta go sleep.

ENTERTAINMENT ELSEWHERE

I anticipate the next few days are going to get quite hectic for me… hell, they’re hectic now! As such, I might not be making many posts, and if I do, they’ll probably be short, if not coherent.

However, I know my faithful readers still want some entertainment out of this site, so who I am to disappoint them?

In light of this, I figured I’d let you read some of the blogs I read. Surprisingly, there are more blogs out there than mine own! Really! Let’s begin:

dev0n.com

This blog actually has a personal connection to me… sort of. I have this friend Fraser, who told me once that he met some girl on this on-line dating service. They were going to go on a first date and naturally I wanted to hear more about this girl. He wouldn’t tell me anything except that she had a web site. He gave me the address and I took a look. Devon’s blog was the first ever I had seen. I was immediately interested in the whole format of blogging. It seemed so random and easy to get your thoughts out. It took about five months, but I gathered the courage to launch my own blog after seeing Devon’s.

Now about Devon’s blog itself. Hmmm…. how should I put it terms that are accurate. Ok, how about this… if my blog is a combination of a Dennis Miller rant and a Fox sit-com, then Devon’s blog is an old fashioned melodrama. She’s so open with her thoughts and emotions, it can’t help but read like a melodrama. She writes down when she cries (it can be quite often), what her fears are, when she has fights with people (again, can be quite often), and almost everything in general.

I’ve never met her in person, but I feel I know a lot about her. I rarely go to her site to get a laugh, but I do go to see how gritty other people’s lives are. I applaud Devon for being so candid on the Internet. If I had to deal with some the issues she does, I doubt I’d have the strength to post everything on the Internet for all to see.

Click here to read Devon’s blog.

Alyssa Murphy

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, is a 23 year-old woman living in Hawaii named Alyssa Murphy. I still can’t remember how I got to her blog, but I’m glad I did. I’m going to get this out of the way, so I can continue… Alyssa is a very attractive woman (some of my friends might even describe her as hot). There, I feel much better… 🙂

Her posts are really interesting to read. She’s a capable and confident young woman with an interesting job, lots of friends, and an active social life. She always seems upbeat and even when she has a bad day, it appears to never drag her down that far. A bit of a contrast compared to Devon at times.

This is going to sound weird, but if I were to have a daughter, I’d like her to have some of the qualities that Alyssa exhibits. Man, I must be getting old… ha ha ha.

Anyways, here is her blog and here is her personal web site.

I need to sleep, so I’ll catch you guys later.

THIS IS STUPID

No one likes reading about everyone’s whiny complaints, but at the times, you just have to bitch.

School isn’t very fun right now. Today, one of my profs (who shall go unnamed… ha ha ha) told the entire class we had a presentation to give on Thursday. This was the first anyone had heard of this. We all have to give a ten minute presentation outlining the project we’re doing for the course. One small problem… I haven’t started the project yet (which itself is due in two weeks, worth 50% of the course). I’m in good company since nearly no one in the class has started too. I’m basically going to have to wing my presentation on Thursday, and talk about things I have to do as if I’ve done them already.

The funny thing is, I have another 25 min. presentation to give the next day for another class. It’s supposed to be 15 to 20 min. for my talk and another 5-10 min. for question and answer. I timed my talk twice tonight. Both times I can up with 13 minutes. I need to eke out two minutes somewhere. Maybe I should talk really slow for during stretches. Actually, Garrett Knights came up with a great idea. He said I should tell two minutes of jokes at the beginning or end.

If that weren’t enough, I have another group presentation to make on Monday. It’s been five years since I’ve had to make a presentation and I get three in the span of four days.

I also have my first final exam in seven days. That wouldn’t be that bad except I have a million other things to do which kinda gets in the way of reviewing. Screw reviewing, the prof is still teaching new material until Friday, so I’m still learning at this point. In fact, I’m two units behind.

It’s times like this I think it’s incredible students actually paid to have the privilege of being stressed out of their minds.

For an alternate view of university life, go over to Nordman’s site.

A NOTE BEFORE BED

I should be in bed right now, but I’ll write this quick post.

If you haven’t seen them already the NY Islanders unveiled their new third jerseys yesterday. It’s a… whole lot of orange.

If you’re wondering, that’s model Carol Alt next to Alexei Yashin. If you ask me, and most people do, they make an unlikely couple. He just doesn’t seem “with it”.

Oh well, I have a busy day tomorrow, so I’ll write more then.

VENDING MACHINE UPDATE

As some of you might recall, during an earlier episode of erwintang.com, I told a tale of the St. John’s College pop machine accepting my money, but refusing to give me product.

I am happy to announce that the situation has been resolved with a happy conclusion, well at least on my end. Earlier last week, the Aramark Corporation mailed my $1.75. It was sent as a loonie and three quarters, all taped to a standard Aramark “We’re sorry our machine took your money and then gave you nothing” apology card.

This is further reinforcement that a consumer using firm, yet polite communication can make big companies to listen. I have no thoughts on where I’ll be spending the $1.75, but I am looking at property in Monte Carlo.

26

That is how many consecutive hours I spent in my room this weekend. I came home from a meeting at 4pm on Saturday and I didn’t leave my room until 6pm on Sunday.

I didn’t realize it until I was at dinner tonight. Twenty-six straight hours. That’s not right. It’s actually quite disturbing. I really shouldn’t be working so much. However, I have no choice. There are too many assignments to finish, too many presentations to prepare, too many projects to finish, and even one project to start.

On a positive note, I did eat a lot of chicken this weekend!

I’M ON MY WAY TO WENDY’S RIGHT NOW

I saw this on Maxim Online where they interviewed actress Ali Larter.

Here’s what she said about men…

“I hate pretty-looking boys. I’d rather have a guy with a potbelly than one who’s in the gym all the time and watches what he eats.”

Why can’t more women be like Ali Larter? Specifically, why can’t more super hot women like Ali Larter be like this?

I knew eating at Wendy’s was going to lead to something good!

Check out the rest of her interview here.

A POOR, POOR SHOWING

I am less than twenty-minutes removed from a midterm I just wrote. As a summary, I can tell you it did not go well.

Here are a few random thoughts I have now:

– it was not necessary for me to have studied all week for this exam, nothing about it tested us on any knowledge that we acquired in class

– the whole exam was mostly mathematical proofs; the last time I checked, I was registered in mechanical engineering, where practical applications of science and technology are the thrust of why we do the things we do, not dicking around with proofs

– a math major probably could have written this exam cold and scored higher than any one of us who attended every lecture of the term

– when it comes to my intellectual strengths, mathematical proofs are my Achilles’ heel

– the last part of the exam was worth 25% of the marks, and I stared at the question for ten minutes without having a clue where to start

– I will be lucky to get 5 marks out of the last question

– as I walked home, I suddenly realized how to do the last question

– I want to blow shit up for the rest of the evening

ONE MORE THING

I’d like to say hi to the men and women of the United States Air Force who seem to be visiting my site in droves from air force bases from around the world. From Mildenhall UK to Pusan, Korea, the USAF appears to have a great interest in my little place on the Internet.

I have no idea how they’re getting to erwintang.com, what they’re looking for, or what they intend to do to me.

If I go missing one day, tell my family I love them.