Buggers

Dammit, while working on our experience report that's due in almost 5 hrs (due at noon), I felt something pinch my wrist. Not that I've had that much workout on my wrist lately to warrant it being in pain... Anyhow, turns out it was an earwig that pinched me. But the nasty part is that they also use their pinchers for mating! So did that earwig just violate me???? Ugh!!!!! I feel dirty now...

World Music

With all these legit music downloading sites popping up, I'm getting very annoyed at how limited their wold music is. And no way am I gonna buy from Amazon or someplace like that... It costs me around $50 for the CDs that I want! Man, I'm gonna be buying tons of stuff when I go to Asia. Until then, I've gotta learn to save up somehow :P Oh yeah, while digging for a grad portrait, I found a picture of me from my 1A term.
These are the guys on the first floor (my floor) and wow, we all look so young in it, ha ha! I eventually found my casual photo, but I'll let Nelson post that pic up (it's of Nelson, Barry and I eating a hearty meal at like 2am).

Ah frig@!#@$#^%$@@!# Stupid Tripod JUST deleted my account... Apparently I violated several Terms of Conditions such as offsite linking and not using file extensions... Sigh, back to Spymac I go! Anyway, time for some instant noodles! Hrmm, my stomach is already protesting...

Words of Wisdom (WOW!)

I can sure use some of that right now. By sunday midnight, I'll need a quote (15 word max), message (250 words max) and a casual photo of me... I'm not really one for thinking up memorable quotes and sayings, so the first 2 will be a problem. Anyone got any ideas? Ha ha ha! I just find it weird to have to think of something memorable/smart to say. And how the heck do I "pose" for a casual pic? Then it's no longer casual!!! Heh, maybe I should just use my MSN cow - it's much more eye pleasing at the very least! It's actually my cousin's - I asked him for that cow, but he was a prick and wouldn't give it to me, ha ha ha! (And yeah, it is currently 5am - I've been working overnight at school for the past two days finishing up some project. It's actually pretty cool working at school that late/early, so nice and peaceful! But right now, I'm wide awake at home - my sleeping habit is all screwed up again...) So anyway, my best (and only) quote so far is "This is my quote, I didn't want to make it superficial" as I really didn't. But it's so cheesy and dumb 'cause it sounds superficial, ha ha ha! And I need help with a much bigger problem - that 250 word essay! Again, I don't really know what to write for that as I don't want to make it a big "Thank you", etc... but it'll prolly end up that way.

On another note, my XBox has arrived! But I'm leaving it in Toronto 'cause I don't have time to play it :( I'm sooooo behind in class it's not funny, all because of stupid projects going on... I guess my friend was right in that we learn how to learn and how to manage time in university (I was commenting on how I don't feel like I learned anything...) So yeah, time to go do something productive (ha ha ha, yeah, like that's gonna happen...) - but regardless, have a nice day!

PS - Who reading this is using Windows ME? I'd suggest either Win98 or W2K... but not WinMe!!!!

Yeah, what he said!

I was catching up on this guy's blog Ryan's Random Thoughts when I encountered several entries of interest. His first one, although brief, basically summarizes how I feel about Michael Moore and has a link to a site that I haven't really read yet, but looks interesting. If you do go there, we should do as Ryan suggested and confirm those claims ourselves. His cherry-picking entry I actually laughed when I read it (cough) C---- (cough) as yeah, they are just damn annoying! But perhaps my lack of skill in those games has something to do with it too.

Hrmmm, we should get a forum or something for the discussions going on right now - but I'd like to confirm one thing. As I understand it, it's the faith in God that comes into play when judgement arrives, no? Someone please correct me on this, but I guess what I was trying to say (perhaps unsucessfully) in my other entry was that we all have a faith that becomes our set of "laws" and "rules" that we obey, basically without thinking. Chris brought up an interesting point (while not camping) that even in science/mathematics, we work under the axiom that 1+1=2. Sure, it works out for us right now, but it's also because we've built a foundation upon which 1+1=2 is the building block. He wrote a brief essay for his philosophy course or something about proving the existence of God and it was pointed out that many proofs for or against start off with the assumption of one or the other, so in essence, it becomes pointless as your proof goes in a circle.

Also, isn't the Tao (Dao) the way of "not doing" or "Wu-wei"? I didn't think it was smack in the middle of 2 sides or something, but essentially a belief that things happen, and to actively make things happen/not happen is to go against the Dao, especially since we cannot determine proper action as the Dao cannot be known. Bah, I'm gonna need to review my Eastern Religion notes...

Ho Ho Ho

Sorry Tim, this one isn't about you... Coming home to a package with your name all over it is awesome (unless you're being served), and it's better when it's free! Today, I came home to Futurama Season 3. Who would've thought Santa works OT? Ah well, I've been a good boy >D so yeah, ha ha! So now all the more incentive to finish my work early. Ureshii (happy) desu yo! (Yeah, I'm a cheap bastard - free things make me happy!)

Random stuff

Woot, we should have our PCB designed by tonight - my partner is currently drawing on it while I'm fighting the temptation to play War3 (Nelson isn't making it any easier, argh!) But instead of openly being a bastard and slacking off, I've decided to write a brief blog/comment.

1) Mozilla's find link/text feature is awesome - I almost don't have to use a mouse anymore! Unfortunately, their bookmarking system can use some improvement, especially since we have to manually enter in the keywords (their keymarker is pretty nifty too, but I don't need to use it yet) ourselves and I've just imported my IE bookmarks and ugh, I don't have time for that. That and blogger and some other sites don't work too well with it. Ah well, I can only hope it'll be fixed eventually.

2) I was using Spymac to host my images as Tripod was being a prick and once in a while, making my images into an ad saying "Image hosted by Tripod". Unfortunately, Spymac's been flaky lately and my UW account is maxed out, so back to Tripod I go. I think I figured out a way around their stupid advertisement for off-site image linking, but I'm not too sure if that dumb ad will come back, so please let me know if you see their ads instead of my pics :D The method was pretty dumb too actually - simply remove the file extension =D

3) I've realized something a while back, and that it's we all have a problem with letting things go. My family, for example, keeps everything - my old living room (now a computer room) is filled with old newspapers and stuff. I do the same thing as I still have tons of old clothes and toys (hey, Lego and Transformers rock, so shut it!) But at the same time, I've got many things which I should just get rid of somehow. I don't know why we tend to keep things - I know for me, it's usually because I think "ah, I can use this later" or "I'll fiddle with that when I have time" or whatnot. Yet I never do. All they've been doing is sitting there and collecting dust and creating havoc 'cause I'm running out of room. Why do I even bother keeping these things when there are much cooler and better things out there. Maybe I should save myself the trouble and have a garage sale. I know I'll eventually run into problems if I keep up like that. (I can't afford 2 flats right now...) Yeah, letting go sucks, hrmmm, anyone want an Astroboy belt? Actually, screw that, it might be worth something later on...

4) I've gotten into way too many debates like this and if I've learned anything, it's that we're stubborn and won't change. However, after reading Matt's response, most of which I agree with, I'd have to say that after observing and experiencing my family's religious life (both Christianity and Buddhism), I think atheists live as much of a filtered life as religious people, or similarly, religious people live an unfiltered life like atheists. Why? Quite simply, it becomes their way of life - it becomes the norm and it's no longer a set of rules that they must work hard to follow. I'll let it be known that I am so far an atheist in case it matters. I'd also like to point out that the religious will think the same way of us, wondering how we can live like that when the majority have some form of a religion. At the risk of sounding ignorant, to them, we're all going to Hell (or somewhere like that), so they'll be wondering how can we live knowing that we'll go there. Also, I firmly believe religion or some form of it is necessary as I shudder to think what it must be like to have to follow a leader who has his (or her, to be fair, ha ha) own set of morals. Definitely not everyone would consider the consequences of their actions. And even if one does, there are far reaching consequences that we currently are not thinking of. A simple one would be to not finish our antibiotics as prescribed. Or even using anti-bacterial soap. I was pro anti-bacterial soap, but now I'm a little wiser (hopefully =D)

Also, in response to humans are animals - yes, we are, but that does not mean we can't evolve and better ourselves. I'm sorry, but I really get annoyed when people say something like "oh well, we screwed up because we're only human." To me, that is such a cop out as we are given the intelligence, the ability to further ourselves as a whole, so why not make the best use of it? Believing that we are faulty to begin with serves to only allow us to be lax. Anyway, I'd love to discuss this with any of you, but right now there's an emergency with our design project. Maybe I should study philosophy next term - Chris says it's pretty good. An eye opener at the very least. Anyhow gotta jet!

Foxy...

I've finally decided to install Mozilla Firefox because I wanted something that was supposedly more secure than IE in case I wanted to surf for cracks (no, not those cracks - I don't even think you can buy those online yet...), and mainly because if I write a webpage, I want it to be compatible with as many browsers as possible. Anyhow, I've put it off until now because I'm a MS biatch, and quite frankly, IE kicks ass with their "nonstandard" methods and extensions. But when Nelson said it was only like 4.7mb, I was like what the heck, now's as good a time as any! Well, unfortunately, while it does take less memory than IE when it first loads (it takes approximately 15mb of memory for me), it eats up memory much faster than IE does and eventually, it was taking up 47mb while IE was maintaining itself at around 40mb. Firefox isn't without it's share of bugs either, but on this page I currently see only 1 bug and patch listed. I know Mozilla also had a problem with their certificate authentication, but I'm currently too lazy to look up the link right now. Maybe Hershey can send me the link again later and I'll post it. But I think people aren't going to exploit Mozilla until it becomes more common as right now it's not worth it. The one thing I really like in Mozilla, which they've kept from the old Netscape before it died was the list of links, images, etc. a webpage contains. I could've used that on several occasions, but IE didn't have that feature :( I'm just hoping it doesn't crash as much as Netscape did. Anyway, I'll be using Mozilla more often now just to test it, but so far, it's very much like IE, and to me, that's a good thing :D

Spam

Spam is good - no, it's not good, it's awesome, but only when it's in your stomach! It really blows when it clutters up your email. As if my main inbox isn't full already with emails, my bulk folder gets on avg 12 emails every 12 hrs, and sometimes one or two manages to get through the filter and ends up in my inbox. I really wonder how they'll fight spam. I've recently read about spam-baiting but that's too much effort, heh. Ah well, maybe I should stop clicking on the "Remove me from mailing list" links...

Oh yeah, does anyone have a War3 for Dummies I can borrow?

Yes mommy...

I don't have much to write about recently mainly because I've been so busy doing projects, labs and trying to catch up with my courses, but I'll say one thing - do not procrastinate! While it's pretty much inevitable that we will, we really shouldn't. Barry and I wonder every term why we always do that, and everytime we'd say next term we'll start studying a month ahead - but it never happens! Ha ha, ah well :P

Oh yeah, talking about procrastination - I went to an outlet mall and a farmer's market (St. Jacob's)here in Loo and B and I each got a pair of shoes for $42.12 after tax! So damn cheap! BTW, sorry Mike, it's a Reebok :P I was actually gonna hold out for a Nike or something, but when I put on that pair - damn!!!! Thanks B for spotting it for me, ha ha! The farmer's market was pretty interesting and busy, but hey, when things are cheap, ppl will come :P I think Chris is going to buy 5 dozen corn or so for like $20 later on this week. Chris has these events with his badminton club and his last one stunk up our house 'cause he was boiling sausages like there was no tomorrow. Chard has the pics of them being boiled, but this is how much he and Chard bought.





Crazy eh? But hopefully this time the corn will counter the sausages. I also saw Spiderman 2 yesterday with Chard, Cary, Chris and Annie. All I've got to say is how the heck did it get it's rating on IMDB? But then again, Tobey Maguire annoys me, so that definitely affected my opinion.

Time to go do some more work so I can play some War3 later on... (wtf is a hero again?)

The End

No, unfortunately for you, this isn't my last entry... Now, have you ever watched a movie or show with a "sad" ending, but they usually don't end at the right spot? I just finished watching something today and while the show was decent and had a somewhat sad ending (which also made it satisfying...), I was pretty annoyed at how they decided to drag it out some more to try to bring "closure." WTF! They should've just ended right after the sad spot and faded out! It wasn't even that sad to tell you the truth - they died together (and since the show was had a religious theme, we can assume they'll be together in some form of afterlife...) But still, adding useless bits at the end to try to cheer us up in whatever way they could totally ruined a perfect sad ending!@#%$!!@# Now I normally prefer movies/shows with sad endings, so it really annoys me when they ruin that by dragging it on. Anyways, back to work... Oh yeah, talking about sad movies, if you want to watch a good sad movie, watch Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka) - it's based on a novel based loosely on the author's childhood during WW2 in Japan. It's definitely one of my favourite movies - a warning though, I actually found that movie somewhat depressing!

The Sound of Music...

As some of you are aware, I've recently been fobbying it up ^_^ with Ayu and D-A-I and so forth la~~! I switched for several reasons, but the main one is I've gotten sick and tired of hearing the same crap put out by ppl that's filled with recordings of some orgy and stuff. My other reasons were I don't know where to get more jungle from, Digitally Imported is starting suck after listening to the station all throughout my last work term and I've found that anime actually has decent soundtracks! So what's so good about JPOP? Aside from the fact that I can't understand them, so I can't tell if they're sexing it up or something, they've got tons of songs with catchy tunes. Kind of reminds me of the old simpler songs I used to listen to... Sadly, I can tell that they're being influenced by western music and it's only a matter of time before they'll start moaning. But yeah, after digging up some anime music and other JPOP (and C and KPOP, but those I don't have nearly as much), I haven't really looked back since. Until today. Today, someone showed me a new song that was actually decent! Unfortunately, I forgot what category it was under, but I've never heard anything like it (that and I SUCK at categorizing music, so I'm not even gonna try.) Background music was pretty good and while the vocal took a while to get used to, it eventually seemed to lure you in. But yeah, that song was Silent Seven by Controller.Controller. So that's my twopence... man, I don't feel any richer either...

Got change?

Over the long weekend, I got to meet up with several people that I haven't seen in years (ie 3-4 yrs), which was really nice. I'm definitely not the best example for keeping in touch with ppl, but I'm hoping that will change and that things will be like the way they were before. (I've missed the stories we used to share, the feeling of being useful, etc.) But what struck me after meeting them was that even after so long, they haven't really changed. I'm not saying if it's good or bad, but I wonder if it's something that we can't avoid. I'd have thought that by now, some things would be different, and perhaps they are, just that I didn't pick up on it. But yeah, that's a question on my mind recently - change... for better or for worse, or even not at all? By looking at their reaction to me, it only furthers my belief that even if I was changing over the years, I didn't get very far. You've all heard of the adage I'm currently thinking of, so I won't even bother, but my question for you all is, "Is it true?" Anyhow, over the course of the "holidays", I was forced to examine myself on several occasions and I realized that one of the things I need to do is to be more open-minded (smarter too, but dunno if that can be helped :P), but yeah, open-minded, for I've been missing out on some great experiences. That and I need to stop whining/rambling, get off my ass and do something, as I haven't accomplished anything noteworthy (or even sponge worthy :P) How much of that I can accomplish, I really don't know as I've been a lazy bastard for a while now. Oh yeah, it's freaking hot and humid right now (in the middle of the night) and there's currently a lot on my mind, so forgive me if this entry makes little sense. Hrmmm, there's one more thought I'd like to bring up - that whatever we experience/think/feel/do, maybe it's all preplanned. Maybe we're all predisposed to act or behave in a certain way and when we think we're changing, we're actually not - we're just following a path that was determined either by the law of probability (due to genetics, environment, etc) or perhaps even something bigger. Bleh, while this is a topic I wouldn't mind getting into, and have actually discussed with Chris several times, right now I'm just rambling... Ha ha, see, we've come full circle :P

Talking about change.... I've added some links to sites I visit regularly. I'd put up my default home page, but then it'll prolly overload your pr0n filter or popup blocker :P j/k! Let me know if you want to be linked, but I really wonder how many ppl read my crap anyways...