but at that time i couldn't see it

My stupid cold dragged itself out much longer than I would have expected, and I'm still working on the last 1%, but I am much better now. Finally having a weekend where I could sleep in helped - unfortunately it is back to the grind tomorrow. San Diego in less than three weeks though, even if my overall plan is still half baked.

I picked up GTA IV and so pretty much dropped off the face of the earth for a few days. I have to focus on the storyline now because there is an achievement to beat the story missions in 30 hours, and I do not ever want to play this game all the way through again. It starts off really slow and never seems to open up the same way previous games did. I pretty much forced myself to keep going to open up new areas. The graphics make GTA IV look like it's been taken to a new level but in terms of actual gameplay it's actually been brought way back from where Vice City and San Andreas were - at least in the parts that mattered; we have traded car customization, side businesses and jetpacks for in-world internet spam.

I've not only been playing GTA IV - I also picked up Consider Phlebas, the first book in the 'Culture' sci-fi literary cycle. The setting for the book seems very interesting but the actual events of the book are petty, overdescribed or downright uncalled for. I am finding myself pretty much skimming the book for the parts where they talk about the setting as a whole. Unfortunately this book was described as the best in the series, so it may be downhill from here.

Not much of what I would consider interesting car news lately, although there was the story about the "Return to Vanishing Point" Challenger. The very first preproduction Challenger was rescued from the crusher, painted white and entered in a race under a Vanishing Point theme...unfortunately reality seems to have mirrored art too closely, as the Challenger met a tire wall during a time trial and seems to be out of action. At least for that particular race.

yippee-ki-yay

So I spent the 4th watching Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers back-to-back. Surprisingly I like the former better. It felt really epic while Transformers tried too hard to be silly, and any action scene with the robots was useless because everything was just a blur. I was kind of hoping for more of a car chase/duel between the Camaro and the Mustang as well. And I felt let down that the Camaro wasn't rebuilt as a 2009, it just went off and did that itself.

Anyway I actually have to go back to work today, which is harsh. Tomorrow is technically the end of my internship (although I am just going back to work on Monday as a full engineer) and I am defending a week from tomorrow. Which means I need to sit my ass down and study some physics for the very last time.

a different kind of sunday morning

I think I may have finally figured out how to disable the bastard auto-update on Google Toolbar. There's no option to make it not replace my nice version with their horrible new one, so I had to get clever. I have been idling in the lair of the beast (toolbar.google.com) and it still hasn't auto-updated, so maybe I am in the clear.

I made an impulse buy today. I was in Staples trying to find new red pens because grading exams used up the last of my good ones, and in the laptop accessories section they had solar chargers. They have a MSRP of $100, Staples originally had them for $80, but they were on clearance for $19.80. Solar power + 75% discount is something I can't pass up. Unfortunately it's night right now so I can't play with it. The website has pictures of people using it in weird places, like "extreme ironing" in the Himalayas. Maybe mine won't be used for that, but hey, if civilization collapses and the power grid goes down I can still listen to my iPod.

I found out last week that the Atlas Shrugged movie(s?) is finally being pulled together. Angelina Jolie has been confimed as Dagny Taggart, I think she'd be perfect. Brad Pitt as John Galt I don't buy as much. I don't know who would be better though. Michael Gambon would make a pretty good Hugh Akston, and Harrison Ford would be a good Hank Rearden if he were younger...Anyway, we'll have to wait until 2008 to see. One of the articles I saw also said a remake of The Fountainhead might also be done. I've seen the original and I've been waiting for it to come out on DVD for years, which is finally about to happen.

The movie news has sparked my interest enough to make me finally get around to my annual reading of Atlas Shrugged. This is the 5th year now. I'm not going for the speed record this time - currently set at 4 days, but I swear it can be done in 3 given nothing to do and the stamina to break through The Speech on Day 3. This time around I'm taking my time and reading a couple chapters a day. That's more than I can afford time-wise anyway.

I've had a cold all week and it's annoying the hell out of me. dHealth/dt > 0 but it's not over yet. Cute Fred Meyer Girl was also sick. We commiserated with each other briefly and she gave me a Halls.

I acquired some mp3s of the new albums by BT and Hybrid. The BT tracks aren't that great, he's gotten a little too artsy. They are spacey and ambient and the shortest one is over eight minutes long (with the longest one topping 14). The Hybrid album doesn't seem to stand out at first, but it got under my skin and I can't stop listening to it. Today's post title is stolen from one of those songs.

1111111

It's Friday night and I am cruising an obscure corner of the internet. I have been searching high and low for the original score to the movie Pi. I have the album, which contains bits of the score and is great in itself, but the score is really very powerful and I'd like to get my hands on it. One problem - it's unreleased. However, in the composer's online forum he posted:

"It's the 10th anniversary of π next year and there have been some rumblings about what to do to mark such an event. Over the next month or so Tezzer and myself will be launching www.clintmansell.com and by that time a few plans should be in place - and the release of the π score is on the 'to do' list."

That would be awesome.

I saw Fearless tonight and I have to say it was stunning. I didn't come out of it feeling slightly let down like I did with Hero. Better than Fist of Legend I don't know, I have to let it sink in. And maybe see it a couple more times. Definitely a good movie for Jet Li to go out on.

but i still can't focus on anything

It looks like my new 300GB external drive will show up on Tuesday rather than tomorrow as I'd hoped. I really want to get working on my computer. I had a panic moment this morning when my computer hung while booting, but I found the culprit was my stupid iPod which had locked up (now what are the odds of that?) and was causing my computer to do the same when it turned on the USB ports. I've kept my current external drive off most of the time because I don't want to taunt it.

I finally watched Bullitt tonight. It was ok. The car chase scene was pretty good though. I wrote up some more movie and game reviews and put them on my MSU site.

if it can be lost then it can be won

I had a nice weekend. Mostly because I did no school work. I made peanut butter fudge, went to the department picnic, watched Where Eagles Dare, got on the roof of the physics building (pictures on Facebook), saw Cars, and did no studying for quantum mechanics. I'm flying back to Michigan in a week and I'm looking forward to that.

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.

no war no wrapped in plastic

I stopped trying to make up titles to posts that actually make sense. Now I'm just pulling random lines from songs I'm listening to. It seemed like the hip thing to do. Or maybe I'm just lazy and like confusing people.

Idiot Neighbor Boy was at it earlier today with his incessant pounding bass, so I went over and yelled at him. This time I didn't ask him to turn it down, I ordered him. It's much quieter now. Hopefully it sticks in his damned head this time.

So far my schedule is not too hectic, but the labs I TA haven't started up yet. I was assigned to a section that conflicted with my schedule and it took me two days to get it sorted out. I have to move my office hours though, which means I'll probably get stuck with some awful time slot. I wish this crap had been taken care of ahead of time instead of waiting until classes have started.

My classes. Quantum and E&M are off and running again like we didn't have a break. They're both pounding away at Lagrangian stuff I should have learned somewhere but didn't. It doesn't seem too bad to pick up though. It always amazes me when several independent classes get hooked on the same topic at the same time. At least I only have to learn one thing instead of two.

My philosophy class looks kind of interesting, although I want to go back and read up on Objectivist moral theory. I believe most of it, but I can't debate because I never remember the specifics. Also, I don't really care what other people believe anyway so there's no point in debate. I also do that Roark thing where I don't pay attention to people in the street. I'm always worried philosophy classes will turn all socialist. They were already throwing the word 'selfish' around in the first class today. I'm not looking for trouble, but I won't go quietly.

PSM seminar is going to make a pain of itself to start with, but then the whole second half of the term is making web pages. Hell, I could sleep through that. Just knowing how to get into my OSU FTP is like a million bonus points.

Speaking of websites, I added a couple game reviews to my much neglected MSU site.

The Nice Device released a song that's going to be on their new album. I can't wait until I can get my hands on that. They apparently have the final mixes in hand. I'll probably have to go to a show to buy it though. I really liked them the first time I saw them, but the second show wasn't quite as good. Part of it was just the sound. "Girls and tuning don't mix." -- Alicia Gbur, retuning after a couple songs.

I saw the Miami Vice trailer online. I thought it looked pretty good, until I stripped out the Linkin Park song they used, the fact that I played Vice City and the Ferrari 360. Then it looked awful. I have never actually seen Miami Vice, so I have no idea what the show was supposed to be like. Remember, 'Miami' spelled backwards is ' I Maim'.

My wireless keyboard shipped and should be here Thursday. Should be cool.

I'm a good chunk of the way into my latest book, Germany's Last Mission To Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234. It's an interesting piece of history, but sadly you might not realize that from the book. It is kind of tepid when talking directly about U-234, and it also has a tendency to go off and talk about the war as a whole and make some sweeping claims in passing when it should be talking about rogue Nazi submarines. The book's organization is a little odd too. My tome on cryptology that I am excited to read arrived yesterday from UPS with the rest of my stuff from home, so I might start chipping away at that after I finish the U-234 book.

doomed

I saw the DOOM movie with Vincent and Lisa. Vincent really wanted to see it. I decided to go with him because he convinced Lisa to see it, and the opposite is probably true too. I'd say the movie wasn't really bad as much as it was stupid. For further details, check out my movie reviews. Which I updated. Holy crap.

All I have to do this weekend is study quantum, so I will have time to do other things that got neglected last weekend with all the exam grading. Like cleaning up my apartment, it's a dump. I can also do some longer range planning like research possible internships.

I'm not particularly worried about the quantum midterm but I know there is a lot of stuff (the not Linear Algebra stuff) that I need to brush up on for me to do well. I am a little worried about E&M though. I don't think I need to worry about getting the boot - at least just yet - but I'm going to start making a contingency plan for transferring to a lower level E&M next term in case things start going badly.

I was tempted to grab the little that's left in my bank account and run to Best Buy this weekend (I get paid on Monday anyway), but this week wasn't as rough as last week so I'm behaving myself.

re-strung

I went to the print shop today to talk physics shirts. They told me they'd send details in a day or so. I started looking at colors as well - there won't be blue shirts in this run, but all the other popular colors are making a return. I have been convinced that red shirts would be a good idea (all you, Mikey) and of course green and orange are back. I liked the looks of the yellow and grey shirts last time as well. All of the shirts will be 100% cotton this time - I wasn't happy that last time some of the shirts were 50/50 polyester. This time I'm probably going to replace my 50/50's with full cotton shirts because I like the feel of the cotton shirts better.

I suppose that on today's news I can confirm a third run of Michigan State Physics T-shirts will be made, I don't have specific details yet though. I have to work out a timeline and get the production end running, and Jim has to start working some marketing magic. I'll throw up a website or something when I'm back in Oregon and have details. We're not taking orders just yet, but definitely drop me a line if you're interested.

Tomorrow I'm going over to Ann Arbor to hang out with some friends. I'm going to wear a Michigan State Physics shirt, of course. Tomorrow is also my last full day in Michigan before I fly home. It's very fortunate that I flew Southwest Airlines this time, because Northwest and Delta both went bankrupt this week.

After I return from Ann Arbor I have to pack everything up and get ready for another day on airplanes. I certainly did a good job of raiding my bookshelves - I won't have a shortage of things to read for a while. I'm wondering if I took full advantage of my week back in Michigan, but I think I did all I could for only having one week (especially for only having a car a couple of those days). I kind of want to hang around in Michigan some more, but my five month long summer is over. It was good to hang out with friends at MSU again, but it also felt clear that it's not for me anymore. Time to move on.

I finished watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I thought the series started off good, then got a little slow in the middle. Then the run up to the climax was pretty awesome, but the final episode was confusing and not quite satisfactory. I enjoyed the series overall though. Now I am trying to find Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. I found out the English version won't be out until November, but I can probably find a Japanese version (subtitled in English) to watch. Penny Arcade claims Advent Children is pure condensed awesomeness. I am inclined to believe it.

I am flying back to Oregon on Saturday morning. Next week is orientation week at Oregon State, and then my classes finally start. It's been a whole five months since I had classes - I am not sure if I am ready, but it's coming anyway. The next time I'll be in Michigan will be December.

incorporated

I watched The Corporation. I thought it was fairly well done. As for the actual content, I agree with some of their ideas but not all of them.

I tinkered with my RSA demo program a little bit, but the stuff I would like to add involve stuff I've forgotten how to do and would generally be a pain.

Overall I had a slow weekend. I am very excited to go home next weekend, but I still have things to do here before I leave. I wanted to take care of some stuff today, but I forgot it was Labor Day so nothing productive could get done. I did get a small fire safe today though, which makes me feel a lot better about keeping important documents out here. Fortunately, banks and stuff are open again tomorrow so I can start attacking my list of things to do again. My virtual Post-It notes are slowly obstructing more and more of my desktop.

I have usually kept Freeman docked at the desk over the past few weeks, but I have recently been taking advantage of the fact that it's a laptop to do computer stuff on the futon. I like my futon.

I haven't gotten out and about too much recently. It would be nice to go out to the coast again, but I am trying to put off filling up the car if at all possible. I am going up to Portland in a few days anyway (though my exact plans are not yet determined - another important thing to take care of). I will be home in Michigan all next week, but again my plans are not yet determined. I do know that I want to get up to MSU and over to U-M at some point.

I played a bit of Counter-Strike: Source over the past couple of days, and I regained some skill, but frankly I am tired of video games right now. I am more interested in becoming a better Go player than in becoming a better CS:S player.

I want to get a bike so I can explore Corvallis without wasting gasoline, but I don't know where to find a decent bike (for a sane price). One more item on my list of things I haven't gotten around to getting yet.

return of the EVO

As you can see, the Lancer Evolution was back. I have no idea why there were no cars there last weekend, but the dealership is back in action. It seems they only have the one Lancer EVO now, but at least it was the red one. I only managed to take a couple pictures before they sent a salesman after me. He was pretty nice - he offered to pull the car out so I could take better pictures, but I was only swinging through while running errands. He asked me if there was a Lancer EVO in my future and I laughed at him. I told him I'm just laying the foundation for my midlife crisis, he was amused.

I watched Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World tonight. Between my pirate game, my pirate book and the Far Side of the World book, it was inevitable. Although I felt let down overall by the original book, I found that the book had a lot of small details that helped me understand the little things in the movie better.

I sorted through a great deal of paperwork today. My table is actually cleared off now. I got an email or two out but I have more to write tomorrow. I also might give some family a call to let them know how I'm doing (guess I'd better start charging my cell then).

I looked around for a good computer chair today but I didn't see any in my price range. Staples had a good one that I enjoyed sitting in for a few minutes, but it was $109 which is over twice what I'm aiming to spend.

Staples also had the notebook Audigy 2 ZS for $80, when last I checked it was $100. I only resisted because if it is $80 at Staples it must be even cheaper online. Sure enough, a quick check reveals a going price of $65 at Buy.com...after a $20 rebate that ends Monday...hmm.

damn it feels good to be a gangsta

I just finished watching Office Space. I love that movie.

It's about 11 PM local time. The space shuttle is supposed to land around 2 AM local time. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I'm going to try to stay up for it. No promises though. I haven't bothered to get cable TV yet (no CNN), but I found a webcast.

Since I have some time on my hands before then (and I finally graded those prelabs I had been putting off) I am thinking about crazy stuff. Like how I hate batteries. It just seems to me there's got to be a better way to store energy. Unfortunately my background is in physics, not chemistry, so I really have no idea how batteries work, or what a better alternative would be.

Then there's my professed interest in solar power, photovoltaics and whatnot. My physics background SHOULD be able to make all that clear, but semiconductors were not gone over real well. Hell, I know less about transistors now than I did before physics tried to explain them (I took some EE before that). I'm not entirely happy with my undergraduate education. To improve this, my grad classes are going to be heavy on Solid State Physics. I think Oregon State is trying to go big time in optics, but they do have a good Solid State program here, so I'm in a good position. I get the impression that's going to be important in whatever I go into.

(sooner or later I'm going to have to stop saying "whatever I go into" and go into something.)

I've also been sentenced to a year of Quantum Mechanics. They don't think I have deficiencies in anything, they just feel QM is good for everyone to have. I also managed to talk them into giving me E&M as well. At least I kind of like E&M. Then I've got my business classes, and a bunch of seminars on the side. I'll be busy.

Dr. Warren recommended I take a stupid physical activity class to round everything out. I agree. I like the looks of the Badminton class. I remember Badminton fondly from my required high school gym class. I teamed up with another band geek in that course. We sucked at everything except Badminton and swimming, but we didn't care. Basketball was especially painful. People assume that because I'm tall I can play basketball, but I have no talent for it. On top of that you've got all of basketball's ridiculous rules, and you've got a recipe for failure worthy of Emeril. BAM! Consider it kicked up a notch.

There's also a 'Relaxation' class. No Wallyball though. Or archery. I got to the longbow part in my book of wonder weapons, and now I want to try archery.

Edit: Now they're saying the shuttle is supposed to land around 4 AM local time. To hell with that, I'm going to bed.

updates

I actually updated my website. It's been neglected ever since I started ranting here. It needs some more attention though - maybe I will watch some new movies to review or something. I was very close to buying Bulletproof Monk the last time I went to Best Buy, but then I remembered I wanted to see Cradle 2 The Grave (the movie with Jet Li, DMX and Tom Arnold) and I wanted that one so much that Bulletproof Monk went back on the shelf. Unfortunately they did not have any copies of Cradle 2 The Grave, so I left Best Buy empty-handed, always a sad event. I think I'm also going to try to update my pictures site, that's been completely forgotten.

I sorted a bit of stuff today, but I think that was more to settle into my room than get ready for Oregon. Even though I've been graduated for over over six weeks. I might take a crack at sorting stuff for real tomorrow. So far my list of things has:

1. my George Foreman grill
2. my pillows
3. my laptop

Now I can probably get pretty far with these three items, and it's pretty symbolic of grad student life (eat, sleep, and compute), but I'm gonna need more than that.

I might also take a look at the Malibu. I could stand to get some of the leaves and crap out of the air intakes, and it could stand to be waxed.

I read some of the news today. Not the crap on CNN, real news. I really hope they impeach that son of a bitch George W. Bush and his whole damn administration. I used to trust CNN. I got mad at them after they dropped the ball on the SpaceShipOne flights, and the current media environment is just ridiculous.

performance tests

I spent most of the day at my cousin's high school graduation open house. She is going to MSU, and I wish her well with that. I got to talk with the extended family about Oregon. Most of them have at least a general idea about my program, but me getting a summer TA position is new. I did attempt to explain my program once but only did a halfassed job of it. I always have to explain my program because it is so unique. I wish I had a brochure or something I could hand out. Another cousin was warning my parents that I would come back from Oregon with a goatee and a ponytail, but I told her that I am not the 'do as the Romans do' type. I got to ride back in the Solstice, which was fun. I watched All The President's Men with my family, I liked it.

I reinstalled Generals on Freeman and it runs about as well as it did on my old computer. I had some fun playing with that but now I am moving on to the final performance test, Half-Life 2. I didn't get around to installing it until now because it spans 5 CDs. We'll see how it runs. Freeman is certainly holding up as a replacement for Riemann Mk. II. The laptop is pretty anchored to my desk right now though - I've got my own mouse, better speakers and now the external hard drive. It's basically a docking station.

Only about 3 weeks until I leave for Oregon - time to start getting things together. I'm pretty nervous about everything but it will all be worth it.

Monday is my birthday!