regularly scheduled programming

Lisa & Jeremy were at the Cerimeles' reception tonight - they had driven down from Oregon and got in late last night. At one point I was showing them how my Oregon driver's license has my name mispelled. Between that and the sticker for my new address smearing I'm going to get a fresh one from the DMV.

Lisa mentioned how she wanted to have Oregon plates but a Washington license, and had her lawyer uncle look into it - apparently Washington doesn't allow it, but Oregon does not technically mind if your license and plates are different states. Well, there goes my incentive to swap the Malibu's plate. In fact, one sad fact I had been prepared to accept was that getting a new car would mean Oregon plates, as I am still exiled out here by the Michigan economy. But here's an alternate strategy: I can fly out to Michigan, get the car there, register it in Michigan, drive it back (thus breaking it in) and the cycle continues. It's not entirely daft - I would then be able to draft the help of family members who have been through the car buying process before. Genius.

Speaking of cars, I have to give up my holiday romance tomorrow as the Impala SS goes back. I think I pretty much disliked it except I became so enamored with the engine I glazed over everything else. I will have to make sure that doesn't happen when getting a new car.

broken already

I've used last.fm for barely a day and it's already screwing up. It apparently doesn't understand the concept of soundtracks, so it says things like Solaris is a Latvian band. I also can't wait to see the charts when it learns I will pick a song and listen to it twenty times in a row while doing computer work.

(Update: I was listening to some Half-Life music and the Last.fm application told me that I was 'incorrect' in tagging it as Half-Life and I should 'do last.fm and myself a favor' and change the tag to whatever composer I've never heard of who wrote it. So I went on the wiki and told last.fm to bite me.)

I have a mere four days of work between now and Christmas break, but it's going to be hectic. The new networked manufacturing system is entering its validation phase which means I get to help test it on top of doing whatever it takes to make sure the line keeps running. I'm also apparently the only one who knows most of the new process to release material for shipment.

pseudo coup, pt. II

So I think I've caused something of a minor insurrection in my business class. After I did a couple Sudoku puzzles in class, Vincent decided to do them too, and then the rest of my project group, and in the last class I saw some random MBA guy I don't know doing one too so I don't even know how far it's spread. I'm a very good seed of rebellion.

every morning i walk towards the edge and throw little things off

It has now been one year since I graduated from MSU. I'm not sure how much progress I can say I've made except that I'm about halfway through my Master's degree now. I swear I'll be done with school after this degree. I'm only halfway through this silly term, but it's getting close to the end of the year. Unfortunately I have a damned quantum final on my birthday, but I have plans for that. I'm not one that suffers things like that quietly.

I've had my iPod for over a year now. I've managed to keep it fairly scratch-free, so it looks nice. It's gone a bit mental though. It keeps locking up when I'm skipping through songs rapidly and I have to reboot it repeatedly, and if I leave it hooked up to the computer it will claim to not have any playlists one it until I reboot it again. I also found out that something else I thought was a defect was actually a feature. As if to prove a point, my iPod decided to crash and lose all its songs, requiring a ponderous reloading of 16GB. I bought some new headphones for the iPod, a different brand this time, and it has a wider response range and I'm impressed with the results. Especially for $5.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children finally came out on DVD. I have to say...the English dubbing didn't really work as well as I was hoping. Especially when they give Cid a Southern accent, and Cait Sith is Scottish? I think it was almost more confusing in English than it was in Japanese. The movie just doesn't click with me.

Corvallis has once again proved itself to be commercially useless, this time for restaurants. Eugene, which is as far away as Salem, has the nearest Chili's. Both cities have an Olive Garden. We don't even have a Denny's or IHOP (guess what, Salem again). There are no Big Boys in the state, and apparently National Coney Island is a Detroit thing. The nearest Cracker Barrel is in Idaho, 350 miles away, with the closest one after that in Montana. All the restaurants we have are either college food (pizza, Chinese, McDonald's) or uppity fancy places.

The new series of Top Gear started today! I really wish Honda would bring the Civic they have over here because it's a million times cooler than even our new Civics. They're going to review a C6 Corvette Z06 among other things, they don't usually review American cars but this one they can't just ignore. The new series looks awesome.

pseudo coup

Last week I found a great new way of getting through my three hour business class while staying sane. I take all my class notes on gridded paper so I can do graphs easier. I figured out that I can copy Sudoku puzzles into some of the squares in my notebook and do those while looking like I'm taking notes. And the puzzles only take like a third of the page up so I can put real notes alongside if anyone says anything interesting. This way, I don't go mad listening to proposals about air quality-testing lichens and biodiesel byproduct diapers. I'm glad I'm not an MBA.

I'm doing really well so far in my scientific computing class. After my initial troubles with Java I'm getting the hang of things and I'm probably the furthest ahead in the class by a good margin. For example, last week's program was originally due Wednesday but was pushed to Friday. I was putting the finishing touches on my programs on Monday. This week's programs are different so I want to run some stuff by the instructor before I keep pushing. I think that is an interesting class, it's not just about coding but now we're getting into the physics that can be done with it.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through this new term but I'm getting close to being halfway done with my Master's degree. I'm going to have to start thinking about what I'm going to do for an internship next year. I'm almost out of the PSM core and can start getting into my own classes now. Next year should be good with computational physics, electronics labs and solid state physics.

quantum mechanic

Today was another long and painful day. It ended with my irritating communications class. I seriously considered jumping out the window and running away. I was late to all my afternoon classes because Oregon State only allows ten minutes between classes, and profs here love to run over as much as anywhere else.

I did manage to pull off one major coup though. There was an extra quantum class today because quantum didn't meet last week. So the prof hands out homework in the morning session, and Vincent jokingly asked if it's due at the afternoon session, to which the prof responds "if you want it to be." I took a look at it and did 3/4 of it in E&M instead of listening. I seem to have a very good grasp on linear algebra and that's what this homework was. I made it my goal to finish the homework and turn it in before the afternoon session.

My only free time was around lunch though, so I sat down and started cranking through it. I was doing well, until some of the students in my lab found me in my office. Disaster! However, I was able to kick them out after answering a couple questions. I finished the last part of the last question in my TA seminar, and I turned in the homework in the afternoon session. So now everybody thinks I am crazy good at quantum mechanics.

I don't know what's going to happen with the damn midterm. I am not going to be a happy camper if I have to regrade.

I actually had some free time tonight, so I played We Love Katamari and unlocked the secret and super secret levels, as well as beating the end credits. I have to grade prelabs yet, but I seem to recall they grade really fast this week.

t minus one week

Down to the last week in Michigan. I have much to do in preparation. We had another garage sale to day to get rid of more crap and I made another $140. I also saw my friend Christie briefly, which was cool. She was in Corvallis last summer and gave me some tips on things to do in Oregon. It was damn hot and humid out today, so the garage sale was rougher than the first one. I have some gas money to show for it though.

My family rented some movies today, so I have some new fodder for movie reviews. We also set off some fireworks, including the last couple illegal ones left over from a stop in Ohio while driving back from my Florida internship. Not sure what the fireworks rules are in Oregon - I'm guessing the same as Michigan.

Just think! In a week, I'll have more to post about than doing nothing in my hometown! Exciting.

i'm way behind on my beating quota

I spent a good part of the day in East Lansing. Had lunch with the guys, then we went to Best Buy where Charlie found Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (the game with the bongos) very amusing. No one else was in EL afterwards though, so I just came home.

Got plenty of road time with the iPod/iTrip. It works pretty well, but I am still trying to figure out where to put it in the car to make the signal strongest. I used shuffle mode on the way home, mixing it up is good for listening in the car. Traffic was kind of heavy but not stop-and-go. I-75 is pretty torn up right now.

I felt like stirring up some trouble today so I cashed part of a birthday check in $2 bills. I spent three of them so far and the cashiers are surprised but take it in stride. Maybe I'll get some more.

I installed the expansion pack for Dungeon Siege, but it is starting to get boring too. I might try out some of the network stuff but I don't really feel like continuing on with the single player campaign. It's not exactly the mark of an excellent game when the player gets bored halfway through and stops playing.

Lunch and maybe hanging out with my friend Erin tomorrow, and perhaps some sorting of stuff. I have been really bad about getting ready for Oregon. I haven't even gotten oxen yet, I just know some of them are gonna drown when we try to ford the river.

main screen turn on

I found a very good candidate laptop. It has a 1.8GHz Athlon 64 processor, 512MB of ram, an 80GB hard drive, built-in WiFi, a DVD+-RW burner, and a 15" screen for $880. That's an insanely good deal.

I'm just going over my to-do list before I call it a night. Not only that, but I actually did some of the things on it. I finally replaced my windshield wipers today, and I took care of the rebate crap that went with it. I also found out I can get a copy of my friend's recent music recital, so I put a check in the mail for MSU's recording services dept.

I got some Nigerian scam email today, so I sent them an ASCII middle finger as a response. I wish the tech dept would deactivate my MSU physics email so I would get less spam.

synchronizing data transfer signal

All I've done today is read Atlas Shrugged. It's been pretty brutal. I have another four chapters to go to finish Part II. Tomorrow I hope to do all of Part III. I feel kind of bad that I'm not taking care of things, like finding an apartment in Corvallis or planning for the garage sale. This is important to me though, and I am not going to ease up. I'll continue working on everything else when I'm done.

Also, the Vin Diesel thread on allmsu.com got killed...so I brought it back.