Category: Uncategorized

LET’S PLAY “YOU MAKE THE CALL!”

So I’m going through the Internet like most people do, and I stumble upon some girl’s modeling web site, again like most people do.

She seems pretty serious about modeling. As I peruse through her portfolio, I notice one of her sections is labelled “vintage”. Intrigued, I take a look. The section contains a few pictures of her that date back a few years, but most of them seem very recent. I start to wonder why she would call them “vintage”. I go back to her portfolio and look at some of her “other” sections. Then, I go back to the “vintage” ones. It’s then that I notice something. For your convenience, I’ve taken a “vintage” image and placed it next to a “recent” image. Click on the comparison image for a closer look.

Do you see what I see? Now, it’s true I don’t have all the facts. There is a chance in the realm of possibility that she might have experienced a sudden, um, natural “development”. I don’t have all the facts, so it is a possibility. Then, there are other “possibilities” that might be attributed to this impressive “development”. However, I’m going to keep this classy (ha ha ha) and leave that up to your imagination.

I’ve been taking this course in fuzzy logic, where inferences are made based on incomplete data. It might be a stretch to apply those concepts here, but I’m going to make my own inference. What’s yours?

UM, THANKS, I THINK…

So after being filled with rage because of not having the chance to sign out that textbook, I decided to head downtown. I needed to grab some dinner and pickup my pants from Banana Republic.

I go downtown, eat, and pick up my pants. I decide to buy some aromatherapy candles ’cause I don’t want my room to stink like a guy. So, I’m standing there paying for my stuff, when some guy walks up to me. He goes, “Excuse me, I really like your coat, it’s nice… what do you call it?”

I’m wearing my black three-quarter length coat, it’s made of polyester, nothing special. I respond with, “I dunno, it’s a three-quarter length coat, I got it at Banana Republic…” I point down to the end of the mall where BR is located. The dude kinda looks confused, and I figure he might be out of town. He adds, “Oh thank you, that coat makes you look really handsome.”

With that he walks away, and I’m left standing there with the cashier. I finish paying and I go to take the bus home.

While I’m walking to the bus stop, I’m thinking, “Wait, did that guy just hit on me?” Maybe he did like my coat, but most guys don’t say to other guys, ‘you look handsome’, well maybe they do, but only if they’re gay.

There are a million hot looking chicks out there and I get some dude who compliments me on my coat.

I guess it’s better than receiving no compliments. However, my parents probably think I’m gay, and if they read this, they’re not going to be too pleased. Ha ha ha… but seriously Mom, I’m not gay… really, no really…

GREEDY PEOPLE SUCK AND SHOULD DIE

I’m not in a good mood right now. Here’s the story. I have this class where the text has been reserved in the Computer Science Reading Room. There is one copy of the book that you can sign out for a one day loan. The prof has been very considerate in doing this, as we don’t reference the text all time, only some of the time. Buying the text isn’t necessary in this case, as a lot of our readings come from the web.

Well, a few of the readings this week have come from this text. Today at 4pm, I go to the Reading Room to sign the text out for the weekend. It’s out. I look at the card in the pile and I find out that the book was due on the 2nd of October. It’s the 4th today. This book can only be signed out for one day. I tell the librarian and she says I should e-mail the person since the borrower’s e-mail is on the sign-out card.

So, I sit down at a terminal at the RR and e-mail this direct yet polite e-mail to my lazy, greedy, thoughtless classmate of mine. The librarian takes notes of the e-mail address and she says she knows who the student is. “She’s been here for years”, she tells me.

Now that I’m home, I’m thinking I should have swore up a storm in my e-mail, or at least been not so polite. What the hell do I care? I don’t know her, nor am I going to do any group projects with her.

I think I know who she is too. She was actually at class today. If I knew she was hoarding that book, I would have a few words with her. It really bothers me that stupid, greedly, selfish people can get away with this stuff.

I hope she returns the book soon and then fails the course. Honestly, I do.

FOOD SHOPPING

I went grocery shopping for the first time since the beginning of school. Yeah, I know, it’s sad and suprising at the same time.

The only reason I went is because Nic and Marcia got a car for a few hours. We went to the liquor store first, and I picked up a few bottles of wine. I’m planning having wine on Friday nights to melt away my troubles of the week. That sounds either really sophisicated or really gay.

Next we headed off to the Safeway on 10th Ave. I haven’t been to that Safeway in years! It’s changed a bit since I was in there. To be honest, I think the Safeway at Lougheed Mall is a bit better (except the girls are still hotter at 10th Ave). I couldn’t find any decaffeinated green tea, nor could I find an apple pie. Nonetheless, I bought tons of food, even a roasted chicken. I swear food shopping takes on a new significance when you’re a student.

LOST ARCHIVES

Blogger has recently experienced some serious problems in how they let people post their entries. In my case, it’s causing my archives not to display properly. Notice how the archives are there for the first week and the last two, but nothing in between. The odd thing is that blogger still has all my posts, but the archiving process doesn’t recognize it. Also, I still have all my archives posts stored locally on my web server.

When I have time, I am going to have to manually add the lost archives back in. It’s going to look a bit odd, but it will have to suffice until I figure out a better way to fix it. After all, I’d like everyone to revisit the time I nearly sliced my thumb off.

ODDS AND ENDS

I’m reluctant to post so late into the night because I generally tend to make no sense, but I find this hour gives me some peace.

Anyways, I’m come to the conclusion that the first class that will kick my ass is MECH 523 – Fuzzy Logic Control. The bad thing is, I can’t even blame it on being behind in my reading. See, if I was behind in my reading, then I could just say, “It’s gonna kick my ass ’cause I haven’t read the text, if I did, I’m might know what’s going on”.

However, I’ve read all there is to read so far. Yet, my grasp of several fuzzy logic concepts eludes me. This is trouble. I knew I was in trouble when I tried to do some practice problems. When I tried to apply some of the concepts, my brain stopped working. Also, the whole course relies on very abstract mathematics. Stuff I might have had a chance with five years ago, but not now. I’m going to lean heavily on the prof now. I’m a big believer in the motto, “there are no stupid questions, only stupid people”, so I’m going to query up Dr. de Silva every chance I get.

Even worse, I get the feeling everyone else in the class knows what is going on, but I’m the only one who doesn’t. Oh well… lol.

In other news, I think I’ve discovered why my right arm gets tired and numb so easily now. For the last two days or so, I’ve noticed that just in regular use of my right arm, it gets really tired, like I’ve been lifting things all day. Today, after a nap, I noticed that I’m keeping my arm underneath my pillow for some strange reason. I usually don’t do that. I’m guessing the pressure of my extremely large and heavy head is causing grief on my arm. It’s strange how I don’t wake up though.

Finally, I am happy to report that my two favourite people here at St. John’s College, Nic and Marcia, have returned from their quick trip to Toronto. Without them, I would find living here a much more isolated, boring, and lonely place. Now if only Marcia would stop blabbing all my gossip in the hallway…

I’M A LAZY BASTARD

What’s beginning to bug me is that I’ve become a lazy person. Case in point, yesterday…

I woke up around 10am. I had an appointment for a haircut for 12:15pm. From 10am on, I had breakfast, dicked around on the Internet, and left for the bus loop at 11:30am. Now, if were a non-lazy person, I would have awoken at 9am, and worked from around 9:30am to 11:30am. Two straight hours of work lost!

Yesterday, my one class ended at 4pm. I didn’t have anything else to do, but I only began studying at 8:30pm. In between, I ate dinner, played a game, surfed the Internet, watched TV, and generally wasted my time. Even then, I stopped work around 10pm. Wow, a somewhat productive hour and a half!

Today, I had a break between 1pm and 3:30pm. Guess what I did? I napped (though napping is worth it’s weight in gold… ask any commuter), watched TV, and surfed the Internet. Another two good hours devoted to something other than studying.

My class just ended at 4:45pm. I got home at 5pm, I easily could do work until dinner at 6:15pm. However, I’m typing this out. Why? Why do I like wasting time like this? It’s really quite stupid.

Sure, I said I wanted to enjoy school this time around, but I am wasting a lot of time. I bet come November, all my school work is going to kick my ass.

THE END TO THE WEEKEND

So we’re upon the start of a new week. I had a really boring weekend. On Friday, I totally did nothing. I got home around 4pm. Felt kinda tired, so I just sat in my room. I taped a few shows during the week, so I started watching those. I had an episode of Ed, The West Wing, and ER on tape.

Three hours later, I felt like I had sampled most of the NBC’s season premiere week. A few of my fellow residents were supposed to go to KFC for dinner, but none of them were around, so I went to the Village McDonald’s instead.

I came back, and then watched TV and played video games I think. I know I didn’t do any drinking.

On Saturday, I did work basically during the entire day. For dinner, I went to the One More Sushi place at the village. It was nice. If you’re as old as me, you’d never think they could put a nice sushi place like that on campus. After dinner, I worked until 12am or so. Here’s where it got bad. Around 2am I decided to play Team Fortress Classic. I didn’t stop until nearly 5am. That was stupid.

On Sunday, I got up at 12pm!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I got dressed, showered, ate breakfast, and got my ass downtown to get some pants hemmed. I also bought a pair of jeans I didn’t need, but oh well. To top if off, I bought the Monsters, Inc. DVD, but really, who can fault me for that? It’s a good disc. My only disappointment was not finding a good picture or poster of Yoda from Clones. I want to put it on my door. I looked everywhere. Every book store, toy department, and even Golden Age Collectibles on Granville. When Clones came out, everyone had all sorts of promo material. Where is that stuff now?

Tonight, I just studied. At 10pm, I stopped for Band of Brothers, which is such an excellent mini-series. A fantastic combo of history and entertainment.

Well, tomorrow I’m getting my haircut before class. It’s going to feel weird, because I usually don’t do errands before class. Back in the day, I was usually in class from 8:30am to 5:30pm (with maybe a one hour break), so it’s odd to have this time on my hands.

I have an hour before I go to bed, so I’m gonna relax, take care kids.

INTERESTING STATS

Well, I’ve done nothing all morning, and I should be working right now, but I decided to post a few interesting stats about my website. I downloaded a program last night that distills all my site stats into a readable, coherent report. I’ll going to release the stats in little chunks, so it’s not so overwhelming. Here are the overall stats for my site since March 5, 2002:

Web Server Statistics for erwintang.com

General Summary

(Figures in parentheses refer to the 7-day period ending 28-Sep-2002 01:47).

Successful requests: 95,026 (4,763)

Average successful requests per day: 460 (680)

Successful requests for pages: 28,345 (1,179)

Average successful requests for pages per day: 137 (168)

Failed requests: 472 (0)

Redirected requests: 1,238 (30)

Distinct files requested: 1,163 (616)

Distinct hosts served: 3,143 (223)

Data transferred: 43.622 gigabytes (2.410 gigabytes)

Average data transferred per day: 216.509 megabytes (352.642 megabytes)