Author: Erwin

BE RIGHT BACK

No one I know is up right now, so I’ll say this here. I’m going out to B-Lot to get a new parking for my car. If you don’t hear from me, please come find me… and oh, bring food.

DOES MY MOM READ THIS?

Popular humour web site The Onion had an article this week about some dude’s Mom finding out about his blog.

That is something I’ve feared for a long, long time. To be honest, I don’t post anything that is wild because, well, I don’t lead a very wild life anyways. That doesn’t preclude, however, a few posts that I’d probably wouldn’t want my Mom to read. Like that time I got really drunk in New Orleans or when I nearly sliced my thumb off in the first month of school.

Actually, for a while I thought my Mom was reading my blog, but then when I cut my thumb, I knew she didn’t. I didn’t tell my parents about my medical escapade, but I did write about it on my blog. They didn’t call me at all. Then my sister read my blog and she called my parents and said, “Erwin nearly lost him thumb!”. Only then did they phone me.

Blogger has kindly posted what to do if you fear your Mom finding your blog. I’ll probably keep on truckin’ like always.

COVER ME

Every night around 1am I have to go B-Lot to buy a new parking ticket so I don’t get towed the next day.

Tonight, I had the pleasure of Patrick’s company on the way to and back from B-Lot. As we were walking back to SJC, we cut through S-Lot which is a small parking lot near the kitchen entrance of the College.

I noticed that one of the cars in the lot had its driver side door wide open. The interior light was not on, so I couldn’t see inside. The car was about 40 feet away from us, so that made it even harder to discern what was going on in there.

I got Patrick’s attention. We stopped and looked at it from afar. Patrick turned to me.

“What do you think is going on?”

“I dunno. I think maybe the driver is in there?”

It didn’t make sense though. What would anyone be doing there with the interior lights off and door wide open?

We watched for several more seconds. There was no discernable motion coming from inside.

“Erwin, want to check it out?”

“Without back-up? I think we needed to be armed. Let’s go back to my room. I’m going to get my tennis racquet. I have a hockey stick, you can bring that.”

Both of us ran back to my room with the excitement only 20-something year-old guys can have when facing a potentially dangerous situation. I grabbed my racquet and handed my stick to Patrick.

“Do you have something heavier? This is light.”

“Dude, it’s aluminum, it’ll do.”

I also grabbed my Mag-Lite so we could see inside the car.

We hurriedly made our way back down the hall. We saw a resident in the hallway who must have known we were up to something. It’s a rare sight to see two guys with a hockey stick and a tennis racquet at 1am in the morning.

Outside, we arrived at the same spot we were about two minutes ago and stopped. I was wondering how we should approach the car. Having seen a million movies and TV shows where cops approach an unknown car, I thought I’d have a plan for sure.

We finally decided we’d go in nice and slow, but not at a snail’s pace. I held my racquet in a position that I must admit wasn’t the most the defensive, but it sure looked cool. I had it up against my shoulder like it was rifle. In hindsight, that was really dumb. It did allow me, however, to hold the Mag-Lite along the handle and shine it in a steady fashion.

I took the lead with Patrick about four or five feet behind me. Quietly as we could we came in from an angle (the car was facing away from us). Using a brisk crouch-walk, we got about 15 feet away from the car and I began to sweep around to get a better look into the driver side.

It was empty. I moved around further to see that the front of the car was empty too. The back seat was a still mystery though. The only way to find out was to get real close. We slowly inched our way to the back seat windows. I nervously pointed my flashlight into back… nothing. It was all clear.

I let my guard down a bit and tried the trunk. Locked.

“Erwin, it’s a rental. Look.”

There was a Budget sticker on the rear bumper. I checked the front. There was an S-Lot pass. This car wasn’t abandoned. Someone had bought a pass for it. Maybe it was a loaner or something.

I examined the contents of the car. There was a Club anti-theft device on the floor, a map, and a box of Frisk mints. The interior was very clean. It didn’t look like it had been rummaged through. Weird. What the hell was this?

The only thing I could think of was that the owner had forgot to lock the door, someone came by, opened the door, looked around, found nothing, and just left the door open.

What do to now though? I asked Patrick for his opinion.

“I think we should just leave it.”

“No way. We can’t do that.”

“What if you leave prints on it?”

“You think I’m going to get fingered for murder?”

I looked inside again. I saw the tell-tale flashing of a red LED on the dashboard. It was probably anti-theft.

“The anti-theft is on.”

“If you close the door, you might set off the alarm.”

“I’ll just ease it shut.”

I gently swung the door closed and then gave it a final push to lock the mechanism in place. No alarm went off.

There was nothing left to do. We walked back to the College. Patrick suggested I send a mail out to the College distribution list just in case that car was rented by someone at SJC. He also said I should add some “pizazz” to my description of what we did. I told him I’d probably tone it down.

Well, at least for five minutes tonight, I had some excitement in my life.

BAH

It just dawned on me that I’ve done essentially no work since Thursday night. My whole weekend was a non-productive mess. I went home to my parents’ place to pick up some supplies and wound up doing nothing but lying around. I was supposed to do use the weekend to work on a database project. My project partner and I agreed to work on separate parts of the project. We’re meeting on Monday to discuss what we’ve done.

It was my belief that my part would only take an hour or so. Stupidly, I left that hour to the last part of the weekend. I’ve just examined what is required for me to finish my part of the project and there are several things that I’m not sure how to do. I could probably figure it all out, but that would necessitate me staying up all night to do, and that just wouldn’t be a good idea.

At the very least, I can come armed with some really good questions tomorrow when I speak to my partner. I hope he can answer all my queries (no pun intended).

Meanwhile, my readings for my AI class just snuck up on me and I’m about a chapter behind now. I also have to mark two huge assignments for my tutorial class.

It will be a very challenging week for me.

CHAOTIC CONCENTRATION

My attention span isn’t what it used to be. I get distracted quite easily now. It could be anything… TV, the Internet, food, that piece of lint on my desk, the list goes on.

In undergrad, I used to mitigate this weakness of mine by going to the library. Also, back then I was a machine when it came to schoolwork. Hell, I guess it wasn’t a weakness back then anyways.

I’m lazy now, and it just takes too much damn energy to pack my crap up and hoof it over to some library where I may or may not get a decent place to study. Just thinking about the time and energy that I expended going to libraries makes me shudder.

So, I work in my room where I can do a million things other than study. I feel like I’m not productive most of the time. In an effort to stop this, I discovered a radically alternative method of making me concentrate. Instead of placing myself in a quiet environment conducive to studying and working, I go to the other extreme. I make it loud in my room.

I’m not talking about glam rock or metal or anything like that. The best thing that I’ve found so far is the first twenty minutes or so from Saving Private Ryan. I’m not sure why, but listening to arguably the most chaotic battle sequence in history of film allows me to focus on what I need to get done. I’ve done this with my speakers twice now, and once with my headphones. Something about the incessant chatter of machine-gun fire drowns out any thoughts I have of doing something else. I’m guessing it must be similar to those white noise generators some people use for sleeping.

I can’t do this with my normal speakers much more now. While I believe the soundproofing between walls here is good, I think my neighbours will probably want to kill me if I keep this up.

Maybe I should look into those white noise CDS. The headphones are ok, but nothing can replace the sweet boominess of a dedicated subwoofer.

Holy crap, what the hell am I doing writing for my blog at 4:30am in the morning?

QUICK NOTE

Jordan, it was a pleasure having dinner with you and Lesley (or is it Leslie? sorry!). Like I said, feel free to come by and visit again.

REVOLUTIONS

“I have dreamed a dream… but now that dream has gone from me…”

The character Morpheus spoke that line in The Matrix Reloaded, but it seems that many film critics have been echoing the same thing. Gone from them are the dreams of another sequel worthy of or even better than the original Matrix.

From what I’ve seen on the Internet and some print media, the reviews are less than stellar for the final chapter of the Matrix trilogy.

I have not seen Revolutions myself, but I am hoping that I will have a better impression of it than others. Even if the reviews are what they are, how can one not want to see how the story ends? Will the human race break free of their enslavement from the machines? How does Neo awake from his coma? How many more rubber outfits will Monica Bellucci slip into?

Weak or not, if you’ve invested any interest into these movies, I think you’ve got to see Revolutions at least once.

One question I have is whether or not critics are poorly reviewing the movie just to say that they panned a movie that had good box-office. Similar questions were raised when Clones came out. I even remember one Detroit critic panning it for disparaging Hispanics. His evidence? He said the actor that played Jango Fett was clearly a stereo-type for Hispanics. What he didn’t know (stupidly), was that actor was Temuera Morrison, a famous Maori actor from New Zealand. I guess in Detroit, there are only four or five ethnic groups.

Well, that’s all I have to say about that… heh, geez I’m tired right now.

WHAT? MORE TIME?!?!?

I did almost no school work today. Technically, that’s no different than any other Tuesday. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my lightest days where I have the opportunity to do the most work. Somehow, I usually wind up finding a way to piss away the day while at my desk.

Today was different. I consciously made the decision not to do much work. It all started when I went to my AI class. We have (er, had I guess) an assignment due on Wednesday. I was having some trouble with it, but I was looking forward to handing it in and being done with it. It’s possible to spend too much time spinning your wheels.

Anyways, my prof decides he wants to give us more time on it. Great. He first decides to give us until Friday. Then he says, “Well, I’m not going to mark on the weekend anyways… how’s Monday?”

Of course, everyone is cool with it. I was actually a bit disappointed. He gave us almost a week more time. That took the wind out of my sails for the day. After class, I went home, paid my rent and checked my mail. I decided I’d have a day off. I knocked on Patrick’s door. He’s game for anything these days. Having just completed an M.A. and just starting his Ph.D., Patrick is pretty much willing to do anything.

I suggested we go for lunch at Cactus Club. On the way to the bus loop, I started feeling guilty. I was thinking maybe I should have taken another class this term. The thought passed as we got on the bus.

Minutes later, we were on the corner of Granville and Broadway. I had an excellent lunch at Cactus. You know, it’s actually possible to go there just for good food. After lunch, I did some shopping. I went and bought mugs. I came to SJC with three mugs, but broke two of them over the course of the year. A few days ago, Rhonda came over unexpectedly to have hot chocolate with me. I was using my only mug, so she couldn’t have a warm beverage. That ain’t cool.

I went to Cookworks on Broadway and bought two mugs. You know, there are a lot of terrible mugs out there. Some are butt ugly, while others hold like a sip of liquid. I like a mug that can hold enough liquid to last an entire debate on the total number of Jedi in the Galaxy before the fall of the Republic. I found two acceptable mugs today.

Next, it was off to Future Shop to purchase Finding Nemo on DVD. Having just seen the movie for the first time just two weeks before, it was a relatively short wait for me. As always, I passed by the plasma TV section. It’s my dream to hang a widescreen plasma TV over my desk and use it as my TV/monitor. It won’t happen, but a dude can dream can’t he? As I was paying for Nemo, they handed me a Nemo plush toy. Neat.

After that, it was time to go back to the ranch. We got back at four and we both went to take a nap.

At dinner, I had the honour of sitting down with Lloyd Axworthy, but that’s a story for another time. After dinner, I did more dicking around and here we are.

I think I’m going to go to the vending machine for a Coke.

TIME WASTER

Wow, I really did a whole lot of nothing today. I wonder what it’s like to be one of those super-efficient people who do a million things in one day. It must feel so good.

So, it turns out my costume for the party was well-received in general. Tonight at dinner, Carl came up to me and said, “Dude, you made my night.” That was nice to hear. I got a few other positive comments. The weirdest comment came from Rhonda who said, “I’m glad you’re out of costume now, it was kind of frightening.”

Some guy beat my record of consecutive hours in your room without leaving. I previously had set the record of 26 hours last year. I did it from 4pm Saturday to 6pm on Sunday. I thought that was pretty good. At dinner tonight, Tyson told us he spent approx. 36 hours straight in his room. From approx. 2am Saturday morning to around 4pm or so on Sunday afternoon. Now, if I may, I must point out that he was completely wasted by the time he rolled into his room at 2am and he spent a lot of the 36 hours asleep. For the most part, he was trying to recover from drinking. I was working my ass off for most of my 26 hours, so I figure you have to put a disclaimer on his record at the very least. I’m not bitter or anything, he’s got the record for sure. It just means I can get a tub of Hybernol and try to break the record some time later.

I’ll leave you with a treat. My Halloween pics will be up shortly, but here’s another person’s gallery. Thanks Sarah!