| 26 apr 2001 nyquil rocks. yesterday i was really fucked up, so i went to work for an hour before going back home to sleep. but, seeing how dinner at the company was indian food, of course i dragged myself out of bed and went back to the office for dinner. and then, i headed over to the seven eleven where i sifted through their small collection of cold and flu medicines before grabbing a bottle of cherry nyquil. i went home and pounded a shot. and i felt better! i made it through _dawson's creek_ fine, although _felicity_ didn't really capture my interest. i think that show show be renamed _dysfunction_ or something like that. nobody is ever happy on that show! it's always problem after problem. ben is just too immature to deal with stuff. and why does felicity always talk in this hushed voice? like she's afraid to speak at normal volume? but anyways, tuesday night was pretty messed up. i couldn't breathe, and i wound up just lying in bed until 4am. then it occured to me that i had some old nyquil in the bathroom cabinet, so i took a shot and knocked myself out. shit. i should have thought of it sooner. but i'm better now. still have a cough and some nasty green gunk, but at least i'm lucid. cbs was showing _contact_ last night. i still get excited to see the beginning of that movie, where they first receive the alien transmission from vega. even though it's contrived, i still think it's a great testament to engineers and scientists and their abilities to solve a puzzle. i mentioned earlier how "the game" was the coolest thing i did at stanford. well, used to be, until i replaced it with taiko. but anyways, the game is this 30+ hour adventure thing where 5-7 people pile into a minivan, and basically drive all around the bay area, scavenging for clues and solving them. the clues can be really tough and esoteric, and usually require a pretty broad range of backgrounds. i've played the game 6 times, but i haven't been on one since september of 1999. my next chance is early may, but with my old age and all, i don't know if i'm up for it, or worse, if my brain is even in shape to help my teammates solve the clues anymore. seeing how staying up late knocked me out for a few days this week, i don't want to think about what pulling an all nighter will do to me. but anyways, some of the clues were pretty rad. one that sticks out in my mind was a set of long keys. it turned out that the notches in the keys represented triplets of base 3 numbers, meaning that they could be of a value from 0-26. and of course, 26 means that those numbers are translated into letters. crazy, huh? yeah, the game is kind of like the geek's ultimate wet dream. i'm not ashamed to say that. some people just won't appreciate it, but i do... my favorite clue of all wasn't very esoteric. it involved some little trinkets which turned out to say something like "student union, princeton," "yale university station," and some other college place. and basically you had to call someone at that university, tell them to go to that place, and there would be a big sign telling us where to go. but anyways... my passion for the game has died down ever since my age went up. i'm just not mentally nor physically fit to do it any more. it's grueling. and i haven't been a very good puzzle solver. my brain is just lazy these days. there was a game last week, where my roommate and his team played, and i took one look at some matrix clue that they got, and i just felt all frustrated and helpless. we'll see if i decide to do it one last time come may 5th. ingenuity is impressive. and back to the movie _contact_, that's what the initial discovery of the alien message is all about. even though i have doubts in my ability to figure stuff out like that, it still impresses me to no end to see others do it. ----- my feel-good basketball play of the day: i was at the top of the key, and a guy was guarding me closely. i faked a pass to the left, and blew by the guy on the right. two steps. jump. crazy lay-up. and it went in! that felt so fucking good. |