Sunday, October 31, 2004
I got up alarm-less (except at 6am, where my need to pee was an alarm) at 10:40am, feeling pretty good, but kinda bad realizing that I didn't have time to hit the ARC before work at noon. I checked my phone and realized Kate called me at 5:30 to tell me she made it back from LV, so I figured she'd be sleeping for a while.
I passed by Rome's clock and realized DST was in place. So now I am excited I have time to hit the ARC.
then I wondered about DST. Yes there is a set rule as to when it is (google that to find out), but who thinks "oh yah, its the 4th sunday of October, time to fall back!"
I'm guessing most people's friends tell them to fall back. Then I realize what a great thing this is -- it is a widely spread, widely accepted piece of gossip. Everyone wants to know (well they dont know they want to know, but they know it happens, and when it happens they want to know), everyone wants to tell other people, and when they learn about it, they get all excited like its the best news they heard all day.
Off to the ARC.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
The allusion escaped me and I google'd "mark twain can't jump" to find this information:
"Twain heard a story about a frog, and made an entry in his notebook: "Coleman with his jumping frog - bet a stranger $50. - Stranger had no frog and C. got him one: - In the meantime stranger filled C's frog full of shot and he couldn't jump. The stranger's frog won." He published 'Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog' in The Saturday Press of New York on the 18th of November in 1865. It was reprinted all over the country and became the foundation stone of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867). This work marked the beginning of Twain's literary career, and set the tone of his subsequent stories. Twain focused not the outcome of the story but the manner of telling."
I do remember seeing some claymation stories of Mark Twain when I was younger, especially one about a frog race, and one frog being full of something (shot? wtf is that). In fact the frog was sabatoged by the opponent's owner, and was fed a lot of something.
I also remember these claymation stories including some crazy adam/eve story, where, adam loved to ride a log down a waterfall, much to the laughter of my brothers (and my confusion since I think I was still too young to understand). He would yell something to the like of "Geronimo" or something, which my brothers repeated, again, which I did NOT understand. Eve tried to stop him from going down the waterfall, to the point where she made large red octagon stop signs, and a little armbar thing. Ahh, finally something I get.
Another story involved Mark Twain (or Samuel Clemens -- same difference really, just a difference in how he was called) had some hot air balloon and wanted to see Halley's comet and he was going to die. The hot air balloon rose into SPACE (yes, hot air balloon rose into FREAKING SPACE. hilariously enough, at the time I plainly accepted it nonchalantly as obvious fact), and Clemens did what he could to get to it for whatever reason.
I was curious as to what this story was trying to say and I google'd "Mark Twain halley's comet" to find this quote from Mark Twains biography:
I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
- Mark Twain, a Biography
He did in fact die the year Halley's comet returned from its 75-year round trip. I wish I could see these claymation stories again, now with a relatively heightened sense of understanding.
Anyone remember these by any chance?
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Absolutely ridiculous. Bev Harris is not by any means a computer expert or some software hacker. How the hell did this happen?
Monday, October 25, 2004
Blogger vs Wordpress breakdown
Kate's bday weekend
Random hilarious stuff (Mirror-thing w/Steve and hyper with Romes)
Blogger vs Wordpress
I might stick with blogger for the meantime for a couple of reasons:
1. I can update by using e-mail. Wordpress also had this option, but it had to be configured, and I didn't really have time to work on that. As Edgar so put, whatever helps me update more is the better choice.
2. I like the look better. The color scheme is a bit more vibrant, and while wordpress looked clean at the start, it looks less vibrant (advice taken from Kate's comment).
3. While there are anonymous posting on blogger, I do not get those random ass comments like from free casino online guy.
4. I thought wordpress would make the site load faster, since it is all based on one server, but the dynamic code that php does might put a bit of a load, as opposed to a blogger server which is used to large amounts of bandwidth.
Kate's bday weekend
Happy 20th bday! My girl is 20 now! Not a teen anymore, not yet a licensed alkie drinker =P So we get back on Friday night and go to Bluewater Grill for some nice fine dining. Weird how the valet didn't drive my car off after I got out, and that made me uneasy, but onward with dinner.
We waited about 5 minutes, admiring the clippings of the seasonal spiny lobster and the large fish that people caught. Off to the table, where we awed at the daily printed menus, the confusion we had picking the right fish for the meal, and taking probably the longest ever to decide what we wanted to eat.
We started off with some calamari, which I wasn't sure how much better it could get, but damn, it was nice and soft. Followed that up with some pan-fried oysters (wow -- so delicious), and some lobster bisque, which I'm glad I tried, and don't regret it, but I probably won't order it again (such an odd taste).
We each ordered fish platters: Kate got sea bass (which she couldn't remember why stuck out to her, to which I referred her to Dumb and Dumber, where the bully was named Sea Bass), and I got the swordfish, something I'd been meaning to try. The entrees were freakin delicious and neither of us finished it. Great, fun and romantic dinner with my Kate.
Saturday was just a loooong day, but it was well worth it to spend nearly all of it with Kate. She got her car radio installed (CD/MP3 booyah), and I picked up her and her mom from there to go to Elephant Bar for lunch. Again, stuffed ourselves (where the appetizer between the 6 of us would have satisfied me!), and off we were to hit the stores.
Off to Bloomingdale's, where I challenged that Juicy Catour is actually Jessica Tour (say it fast!). Also went to Kenneth Cole there (damned if I go to Victoria Secret's with my girlfriend and her mom!), and loved it. I love Kenneth Cole -- the jackets there are super duper awesome. I want to go there and put on jackets more often. After I get a good job, I'm getting a nice pinstripe suit, and a super nice soft leather Kenneth Cole Jacket. I felt like I got served there well, since I was wearing fairly nice clothes, and holding Kate's Bloomingdale's bag, as opposed to me shopping at J.Crew and feeling bad cuz I'm just wearing my Bozasm sweater. Yes, I know J.Crew isn't like KC, or Gucci, but if I feel bad there, imagine how I'd feel at other places...
Off to Westside Pavilion to shop at AE and Nordstrom, at which point me and Kate got exhausted. Finally off to Vons, which was closing down, for some 50% off everything sale (except alkie). Scored some good stuff and got a good deal.
Got a call and next thing I know, we're at Souplantation (that one word thing throws me off everytime) with Ate Wella and Mike. I'm glad we can get along on a dbl date situation with them so well. Makes me think I really need to set up that dbl date with Edgar/Jen. Ah so busy.
After that, Kate and I pick up Earl and head over to Rizzle Dizzle's just for some nice at-home mahjong action. A nice cool down after a long day out (of course, some cool partying woulda been awesome, but its Torrance -- not much I can imagine doing).
Lots of fun with Kate and saw her so much. It was awesome.
Random hilarious stuff
1. At work with Steve, Dave and Mike: Someone was making a joke referring to checking out hot guys in some movie, to which someone replied "yah I don't like checking out hot guys"
Steve replies, "unless it's me checking myself out in the mirror" (basically to that extent). The funny part was that I was stumbling my word to get that same line out. We both recapped how we started off in our minds with "mirror" then tried to forge a sentence quickly enough to respond, and laughed our asses off.
2. I was tired already after work yesterday, but since Kate was passing by for some CJ on her way down, Romes and I met up with her. I drank some soda to wash down some fries I ate, and I got all hyper. Driving back to 160, I got all hyper and started punching the air randomly and Romes cracked up and I found it hilarious.
::sigh::
Long post. Math review today, midterm on Wed, paper due on Wed, Midterm for 102 on Thurs. Got a full week and it's time to FOCUS.
Tested out my schedule so far. So far, The sleep didn't go as planned, I didn't walk to school, and I should be eating now before work. Go go go!
Thursday, October 21, 2004
My potential 5 day week broken down...
Given 120 total hours (24 hrs/day * 5 days)
- 16 hours class
- 8 hours internship
- 11 hrs work
- 40 hours sleep (Assuming 8 hour sleep sessions, 8 hrs * 5 nights sleep)
- 10 hrs 30 minutes walking to/from school (1 hr 30 minutes round trip everyday, twice wed and fri = 1 hr 30 mins * 7 times a week)
- 2 hrs 30 minutes driving to/from work/internship (30 minutes round trip, 5 times a week)
- 20 hours meals/changing/showering/general use (about 4 hrs a day)
- 10 hours study (2 hrs a day)
2 hours remaining idle time remaining
This would be a great schedule if I could pull this off.
Things to take from this exercise:
>> It would be good for me to have some sort of set 2 hour period each day to study. It might be lacking some days, but eventually, this time used each day should hopefully even itself out to where it will be helpful in the long run.
>> If I follow this plan, and have set those 10 hours for walking already, I would feel less need to hit the ARC, assuming I do NOT drive to school at all during the week.
>> I was thinking if I kept up with that much walking, then I would be very tired. But if I indeed keep those 8 hrs of sleep as planned, then it wouldn’t be so much of a problem.
>> Speaking of which, hardcoding those 8 hrs of sleep into my schedule like the 2 hrs of studying would also be a good idea.
>> Of course, the reason this doesn’t work completely is because of the randomness of life. I might pick up another shift or I might have to study more than 2 hrs a given day for a midterm/project/long assignment. In fact, 10 hours of studying a week might actually NOT be enough.
Of course this is all theoretical, but it’s an interesting testament of “what could be.”
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Goodbye old friend. I sometimes still imagine the wheel spinning and him runnin to get his food. I'll say more later.
Dr. Clock: No one's pure evil. Some people have a hard outer shell, but inside, everybody has a creamy center.
Dr. Cox: There are plenty of people here who are hard on the outside and hard on the inside.
Dr. Clock: So they'd have more of a nougat-y center.
Dr. Cox: Lady, people aren't chocolates. Do you know what they are? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. But I don't find them half as annoying as naive bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine
Dr. Clock: (rubs Dr. Cox's stomach) I'm touching your creamy center!
Dr. Cox: (irritated) Ooooh I'm so very angry that I'm going to find someone to kill just to prove her wrong...
(later)
Dr Cox: She actually thinks that the Earth is full of people who deep down are filled with kindness and caring.
Dr. Kelso: That's absurd. They're bastards-coated bastards with bastard filling.
Dr Cox: Exactly!
Ahh, enough of that.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
AccuVote shows flaws
I was reading this article about the security holes in AccuVote, a touch-screen voting system. A professor from a university wrote a report slamming its security flaws.
"He excoriated Diebold's software designers, who had built passwords such as 1111 into the machines, and said he would have flunked them in basic computer security classes" (taken from washingtonpost.com). Haha I feel bad for those programmers, but they did not thoroughly test. Then it dawns on me the importance of software engineering from 2nd year. Maybe they did test well, and as the adage goes – for each bug that is fixed, another bug is created.
Still, knowing that a government agency wants a super secure voting system, I’d think they would have extremely thorough testing. For non-professionals to easily see through the flaws draws light to either the brilliance of educators, or the negligence of professionals.
Oh yah another note: If you are making a program that needs to be ultra-secure, DON’T LEAVE IT ON AN OPEN INTERNET SITE.
Just in case you were in a position to be thinking “Hmmm…this internet site is freely accessible by anyone. Hell, Google can probably find it. Should I upload this voting system and create a huge security risk?” The answer is NO – PUT THE MOUSE DOWN YOU MORON AND FIRE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CREATE MORE SECURITY RISKS.
Then I looked at my referral URLS.
Number 1: My Livejournal. Apparently people saw the link on my LJ and clicked on it to get to bozasm.com, which makes the most sense, seeing as that is where I first put up the site.
Number 2: Kate's Livejournal. I don't remember asking her to link me, nor do I see a link, but who better to be my number one referrer =)
Number 3: Joe S's blog. A great blog for a great read nearly all the time, and he added my link.
It's just interesting knowing where my viewers are coming from, and now I will use my demographic information to increase my reader count. Mwahahhahahahahahaa.
or nothing at all.
Off to offce hours.
Friday, October 15, 2004
Man this comic just gets better and better. It reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes so much, generating the whole "viewing things in a different point of view since it is through simpler eyes" but Frazz being an adult allows me to feel that he is one of those diamond-in-the-rough kind of characters. Wise and honest about life, but no one would think it, unless they stopped to talk to him (since he is a janitor).
Good stuff for today. Check out Frazz everyday here.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
It's the little victories of life that keep your spirits up.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Frazz is an awesome comic. It has an almost Calvin and Hobbes-esque sort of quality -- where its truth through simplicity and looking at complicated/simple ideas in an odd manner.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
random thoughts this morning
Pray for my grandma in the hospital.
I liked when the people at my internship call me "my young friend."
Eating in the morning makes me feel sick sometimes. Not eating does the
same thing, just without the risk of throwing up.
I like Google news and I feel like I can just scan headlines and learn a
lot. I enjoy reading the New U for its overexplanation of headlines (not
to say that Gnews doesn't do that -- I just actually read the New U
articles, as opposed to Gnews headers).
The girl I returned my book to at the bookstore looked like she just
rolled out of bed and was insanely tired. I'm glad for the peppy attitude
she gave me despite that.
I wonder if the Ring Road vendors get bored of coming here and hawking
their goods to pretty much the same clientele each time (give or take a
year of students).
I wonder if the people who work at flower shops get jealous of people who
receive flowers.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Me: i fuckin told ya
Me: lol
Romes: but apparently i didn't
Romes: yeah i know you did
Me: did you praise me after you realized it
Romes: that's why it's funny
Romes: yes
Me: like you bowed down to the picture of me
Romes: thank you
Me: awesome
Romes: most awesome one
Damn right.
Labels: ims