A week in review
It has been a fun week. It started off with me coming back from home, then Jonny got a digital camera and started talking "dirty" (speaking of which, I got eight decent frisbee pics to put up), something about my pants, getting an A in my psych capstone project, and not yeilding to a bus three lanes away. Then came some more frisbee and the watching of hockey playoff games, and then my last final exam EVER. Then came even more frisbee, I realized I was a victim of pornography (read: sexploited), heh, and I helped people pack up their car. Today, I watched too much hockey and I watched American Pie one and a half times, and now here I am.

T'was a good week. And long live my weblog. This puppy can be fun to write in sometimes. Heh, this log also makes me remember what the heck I've been doing with my time. It makes a handy "calendar" when I try to recall what the heck I did on a given day.

I'll probably go home tomorrow to get rid of even more of my shit (moving all of my stuff out will probably take three trips; you don't have too much room to work with in a Civic).

Graduation is one week away. How freaky is that?

Dogs in elk
Jake found this great story over at memepool. It is quite... hmm... "interesting." It's definitely worth reading despite its length. Check out the times on each message, too; the whole newsgroup thread is almost happening in realtime.

Random stories
First off, this streak that Jake and I had on how many days in a row we played Frisbee has prematurely come to an end. I'm not sure how many days in a row we've played, but if you don't count the days I went home, I'd say we were close to two weeks. Maybe even up to three weeks. Oh well.

Now for some more stories courtesy of Metafilter:

* Are you a victim of pornography?

It may seem unseemly to toast a month that's by design a dour affair, but now that a Republican lives in the White House, conservatives are mounting an unadulterated campaign to save the sexploited.
[...]
Daniels argues that activists should worry about themselves rather than trying to regulate the lives of others. "The great thing about living in America is that if you don't want to look at something you don't have to," he said.

Whatever. Good luck, Republican guys. :p

* Isn't the creation of genetically altered human babies illegal, or is that just cloning? Somebody should be getting a lot of heat for this.

* And, hey! It's the stupid bitch of the day! Hmm... I guess the swearing wasn't necessary. Oh well. What's done is done.

That's it.

And my computer sucks. Someone buy me a new video card so Tribes 2 doesn't run so poorly when I'm trying to get the enemy flag. :p

Get off the sidewalk
Lacking better things to do and not having the drive to accomplish anything but the most minial of tasks today, I set forth to find the news stories that affect American citizens like you and me. After all, who else could you turn to? FOX News? Hah! Your favorite internet portal? You aren't going to find anything worth reading. With the exception of ShackNews' Evening Reading feature, this is the place to be.

But anyways, here is a very important story for those of us who live in the Northeastern United States: the new No-Walking Ordinance of Seattle! Oh wait, Seattle is 3,000 miles away. Oh well. Read it anyways.

All done with exams
I didn't have many chances to write yesterday. After my last post, I studied for my last final ever and bitched about the upcoming test with someone else who was taking it, too. Heh. Then doomsday came and I had to take the final. I had to take it in the Armory, and it was about 100 degrees with no real air circulation throughout the test. Yesterday was not a good weather day to begin with; the local news stations were predicting record highs and it would be hazy, hot, and humid (HHH. But not to be confused with Triple H). My clothes were sticking to me within no time. And this was a three-hour exam. Fortunately, I planned accordingly and brought some iced tea with me. The exam wasn't too bad, and since I was in the 50th percentile of the people in the class and the top two-thirds of the class will get a B or an A, I only had to do as well as everyone else. There were some questions that I just wrote something down to get partial credit, but hey. I think I got enough right to secure myself in the B range.

After the exam, I went back to my apartment and did nothing for a while. Then Frank (you gotta check out his website) came over, we and my roomies just talked for a while, and then most of played frisbee and ultimate frisbee with part of the ultimate frisbee team for three hours. Heh. Then we shot the shit some more and before you knew it, it was between 2 and 3 in the morning.

And here I am on the following morning.

I don't have much in store for me today. Just a bunch of errands need to be run. Most of the campus will be empty since everyone not participating in the graduation next week has to be out of here by noon tomorrow. So, um... yeah. Good stuff. I got lots of free time this coming week.

Anarchy Online to be on shelves by June 27
It's the first game of the "second generation" of MMORPG's to be released. If you're familiar with games like Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call, then you have a good idea what Anarchy Online will be like. Except it probably won't suck. And it's set in the future. That's all I really know about the game, though. I haven't been keeping tabs on it, unlike Shadowbane.

But anyways, here's the link.

Any takers?

I probably will not play this game, but I know some people who probably will, so... *shrug* I guess it depends how bored I'll get when the game comes out and if I have nothing better to do with my time.

"Baby, you smell great!"
Yeah, sign me up.

I was taking a look through one of the messageboards I like to check out every now and then, and this pheromone ad came up in a pop-up window. It's a fine example of a product that doesn't work, sort of like herbal breast enhancers and... eh... tarot card readings (ok, so readings aren't considered products, but it is an example how gullible people get scammed). Sure pheromones have an effect on things like ants and wallabies, but humans are a little more sophisticated than all of the other known species. Our sense of smell is piss weak compared to several other creatures, and I'm pretty most of the fly honies out there won't fall for deer musk. However, if you have sexy legs like me (heh), well, then you're big pimpin'.

3) Quhit day wur ye boarn?
Check it out: one of the census forms for the people of Northern Ireland! No joke. The link even comes from a government site! The form is written is "Ulster Scots," which, ironically, looks more like really broken English.
Gracias, Jake.

Note to self: WATCH FOR BUSES
Had a little run-in with the local police this afternoon. Jon, Keith, and I were coming back from Friendly's on Hoosick Street, which is a 4-lane, 2-way street that runs right down the middle of Troy and the neighboring towns. Apparently, there was a bus that was stopping in the furthest lane from me (I was in the rightmost lane). I heard the bus slowing down, and I was thinking to myself "Hey, that sounds like a bus slowing down." And Keith was like, "Hey, isn't that bus coming to a stop?" But it didn't click in my head for whatever reason. And I never really saw the school bus. I didn't look for the source of sound. I did see the school bus that was much further up ahead, but I never bothered looking for the other one. So I kept driving forward like a jerk.

Under a minute later, the local police flashed me down. I pulled over, gave the officer my license, and then I fumbled around looking for my registration for about five minutes. I couldn't find the damned piece of paper if my life depended on it. I even handed the officer some useless pieces of paper that was in the same envelope as my registration, but it just made me look like more of an idiot. Heh. I am such a winner. But eventually, I found it.

Some time during my quest for the registration paper, he was trying to have small talk with me; he mentioned the weather and he wanted to know how old I was and if I went to school in the area. "22. Yeah, I'm a senior here at RPI," I said. Or something like it. Then he wondered if people in New Hampshire stop for buses. Heh. Then he refreshed my memory about the rules involving buses on the street. And since I will be leaving Troy forever in under two weeks, he didn't give me a ticket just so I wouldn't leave the place with a bad impression. He didn't even bother to look up my DMV record to see if I'm a repeated not-stopping-for-buses offender. Yay!

I was pretty shaken up about the whole thing, since it was the first time I ever got pulled over. I think I'm going to be paranoid the next few times I go driving.

-------------------------

Adam: heh, as soon as he asked for your license you should have stepped on the gas and gotten out of there. A police chase would have been fun
[...]
me: hehe, it took me forever to find my registration. I kept fumbling around to find it and I even handed the officer other pieces of paper that he didn't even need because I was too dumb to see if the paper had the word "registration" on it. heh. it was great. :)
Adam: i bet. All the ladies will think your a "bad boy" too :)
me: hehe, oh yeah. I'm a badass now. :)

More fun with IM programs
Some things are too good not to share. Jarrod was a roomie of mine that went away to a co-op this semester, and he left some of his junk behind. Well, since this semester is coming to an end and we all have to get the hell out of here soon, he has to come back to get his remaining stuff:

Jarrod: BULLETIN: Microwave and fridge will probably be removed this weekend
me: so will my pants
Jarrod: Ya, but I have nothing to do with that :-P

Hehehe!

Another flash movie
Luckily, this one is short and to the point. Check out the video for Lobster Magnet.

I gotta stop linking to ShackNews. :p I only get the good stuff from their daily Evening Reading posts.

Future Frisbee pics in the works
Jon thinks he's such a badass with his new digital camera. He's been taking pictures of me and everyone else for his own sick pleasure. Yesterday and today, he got a bunch of pics of me and Jake playing Frisbee. And Jeanell played today, after much stealth and subterfuge. But anyways, he took several pictures, some which were pretty good, and then he decided to be Mr. Tough Guy:

Jon: you should put some of those pics at ATG, asshole
me: maybe you should shut the fuck up
Jon: maybe I'll come in there and shut you up
me: I'm gonna rip your balls off
me: so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world
Jon: uhm hey listen
Jon: what did you say right before you said that? I closed the window
me: me: I'm gonna rip your balls off
me: so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world
Jon: dude
Jon: I always masturbate into a jar that I keep in the freezer
Jon: so I have sperm
Jon: just sitting around
Jon: so even if
Jon: you ripped my balls off
Jon: I"d still be able to populate the world
Jon: and impregnate your mom
me: that' just wrong
Jon: and be really gross
me: hahahahaha
me: maybe I'll put this conversation online instead

Yeah. We hate each other.

I'll probably toss some of the better ones up later in the week. I'm sure there will be even more pics taken tomorrow that he'll want me to put up, so I'll just collect them all, sift through them all, and post the cooler ones here. I'm not doing it now because... well first I got a paper due tomorrow, I got a final exam I haven't studied for on Thursday afternoon, and I gotta crop and do some overall adjusting of the good pics, and then I gotta make a cool page to display the pics on, and... uh... uh... that's it. Plus I'm lazy. And I kinda want to get one more survey up before the school year ends, but that's not looking too promising.

So, in short, things are coming all in due time.

Blame Canada
In the NHL playoffs, when one team has to play another team, the first two games are played at the higher seeded team's arena, the next two are played at the other team's arena, and then they alternate the other three games if necessary (first team to win four games wins the series). Well, this year, when a Canadian team is playing an American team and they are at the Candian team's arena, those crazy Canucks have been booing during The Star-Spangled Banner. How uncool. This guy at Sports Illustrated had something to say about it:

Nobody's quite sure why you're booin'. Maybe you think if you disrespect somebody else's country, it makes you more patriotic. Maybe Vancouver is hacked off about losing its NBA Grizzlies to a U.S. city. Maybe Edmonton fans have had it up to their earflaps with gettin' punked by the Stars in the playoffs four straight seasons. Or maybe fans hear the rumors that the Oilers are the next Canadian hockey team that's going to pack up and move across the border. Or maybe you drink about three dozen too many Labatts before the games. But you buncha lumberjacks just crossed a 3,987-mile line.

Well, I know what it is. You're sore at how we're whippin' you at your game. A Canadian team hasn't won the Stanley Cup since 1993. You've only got six teams left out of the 30 in the league, and those six are lookin' paler than a Saskatoon stripper. None of 'em have a snowball's chance this year, and most are broker than Braniff. Meanwhile, there are teams in such hockey hotbeds as Dallas, Miami, Phoenix (you remember that team, right? Used to be in Winnipeg), San Jose and Tampa.

T'is a good read.

Self-healing computers
Looks like the folks over at IBM are busy trying to put together rejuvenating computer networks currently called "eLiza," not to be confused with Eliza, of course:

With eLiza, computers would monitor everything from patterns in a power supply's electricity consumption to how many people are using a Web site, Patrick said. When the behavior of an element of the computing system starts showing the first indications of distress, automatic services would fire up backup systems, order replacement parts or take other measures to ensure that people using the system don't notice problems.

One element of eLiza will be a project called Project Oceano, a prototype that consists of a bunch of Linux servers that can share jobs among each other, with new servers being added into the mix or removed as necessary. The system can even install operating systems and stored data without human intervention.

I'm not sure what to say about this. It's pretty interesting yet weird.

Internet taxation?
Congress is wrestling with the idea of having some form of state sales tax for things people buy over the net:

At stake are billions of dollars in revenue for state and local governments as well as tax fairness between traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and their Internet and catalog competitors.

Congress' General Accounting Office has estimated that uncollected sales taxes on Internet purchases could cost the states $12.5 billion in 2003. Remote sellers, meanwhile, say complying with thousands of different taxing jurisdictions would create a costly new burden -- and could lead to imposition of more taxes in the future.

Personally, I could care less, since if certain states start imposing an internet sales tax, New Hampshire will probably not be one of them. If I don't need what I buy badly, I'll just have it shipped to my mother's or father's house. :) Heh, I'll save a buck or two. But even if this become a federal mandate, hell, a sales tax is better than a 200-year jail sentence (you have two guesses where that second link came from).

Bandwidth kicks ass
Damn, do I hate phone modems. They are so damn slow, and trying to download two things at once or run two browser windows in parallel is such a waste of time. Site searching and whatnot has to be done one site at a time, or else you will be surfing twice as slow (amount of slowness is proportional to the number of things you’re trying to do on the net at once). It really, really sucks. Right now, being at home, I’m trying to download Winamp (to play mp3’s, duh) and Adobe Acrobat (to view PDF files, duh), so I can then download my CANOS back tests and use them to study for my Thursday final. It’s a friggin’ brutal process. Rumor has it that it’s gonna take another 50 minutes before I complete this Adobe Acrobat download (9 MB of 10 MB left). Then I got the back tests to download after that. And I can’t really do anything else except bitch and moan about it. Or watch TV.

That’s something I’m really gonna miss once I’m out of RPI for good. A decent net connection. And the packet loss (lol). And a “Network Neighborhood” that’s probably bigger than Napster. And many other things not pertaining to the ethernet. But that’s another story for another time.

At least I head back to the gross city of Troy tomorrow. I have to head back before I get too used to the roads back home: smooth and without potholes.

33 minutes remaining. *sigh*

Neat link
You can find some cool stuff typing in random URL's.
Ever wanted to know what was at yourchin.com? Now's your chance to find out.

Funny!