Smooth sailing
Still in the process of getting everything to work properly in Win2k. I haven't encountered any real problems. Most of my work involves downloading a program and/or installing it in this operating system. Tribes 2 doesn't want to work properly, but I'll just get someone to send me an updated version of the file that is causing me all of the misery.

I kinda dug the installation process of all of my hardware. I didn't have to run around the internet looking for Win2k drivers for... say, my SCSI CDR drive. The only drivers I had to download were the latest Detonator drivers for my video card. No biggie. I didn't even have to do that if I didn't want to. But I had to in the name of not chewing up my computer during online gaming practices. :)

Software that I don't have on CD tests my patience. Stupid phone modems take quite a bit of time trying to download IE and virus scanning updates. *sigh* I'll have to save that stuff for later. :p Melons rule!
My mom has a garden, and you know those little plastic white signs that tell you what vegetable is being grown at that spot? Well, there's one that says "cantaloupe" for some reason.

Mmm... cantaloupe...

If it's true that cantaloupe is growing there... uh... I don't think cantaloupe grows this far north of the equator.

I'll shut up now. *yawn*
I'm pretty tired right now. I didn't get many hours of sleep last night because I decided to be a really nice guy and help one of my ICQ buddies out with a C++ project until 3:00 in the morning. Too bad I had to get up at 8:30.

T'was a pretty long day for me as well. My brown poodle was starting to look like a hippie, so I dropped him off to get a hair cut. I then came home and slept in an unorthodox position for another hour. Someone else picked the dog up from the groomer's. Heh. Then I dicked around for a while, made a stop at the bank, and confronted several miles of construction and the cones that go with it. Once in Concord, my mom poked at my face for an hour. She's taking some class in... eh... I don't remember what it's called. It isn't aromatherapy, yet it isn't considered dermatology. And I guess she needs to work a certain number of hours giving facial massages and other weird skin / face things, so she uses me as her guinea pig once a week.

Anyhoo, after that somewhat torturous experience, I made a trip to Borders and I picked up a pair of ASP books. While looking through the collection of Internet books they had available, there was a piece of literature titled MP3 for Dummies. What the hell is there to know about mp3's that requires a 400-page book for? I don't get it. You go online, you download Winamp, you find some songs (or rip your own), and you play them. The end.

So yeah. I have a pair of ASP books now. Good stuff. Maybe I'll even look inside them some day. Hehe.

I think I'll install Win2k tomorrow, try and get everything I current have installed for Win98 to work in Win2k... maybe fiddle around with some web server stuff. No ASP stuff yet. Then, some weeks later, I'll be really l33t and have a full-fledged dynamic web site on my own server (or thesevoices.com, should that ever be up and running again), thereby tearing me away from the shackles of crappy side programs like that search engine and Blogger! Wow, I feel so inspired now. I'm getting kinda attached to Blogger, too, though... Whatever. Story time
I want some warm weather again. Today wasn't bad, but I'm still digging that wonderful weather that occured during finals week. Frisbee-playing weather. Shorts-wearing weather. Hard lemonade-drinking weather. *sigh* Maybe next week.

* Americans are stupid. Canadians seem to know a lot about we Americans (hell, they broadcast the news going on in the US on some stations), but we don't seem to know anything about them. All Americans need to know is that Canada gave us ice hockey, strong beer, and... umm... their maple syrup kicks ass. The story came from Jon.
* There's nothing special about this disabled golfer story, but I found it funny that the Supreme Court had to make a ruling about letting Casey Martin use a cart to get around the golf course instead of walking from hole to hole.
* Intel to cut prices again! Too bad they keep slashing the prices of the chips I don't intend to buy. Damnit! All I want is a p3 850 to max out my Dell. Rumor has it that I could squeeze a 1 Ghz into my motherboard without complications... I may have to look into that. But first I need to make some money. And to get a rockin' video card.

The light blue color used for links is too light, isn't it?

And Metafilter has restricted who can visit their site for the time being. That sucks. There's some great stories there. And I want to read them. :( Gotta find some work
I had to offset the color of my links so they don't get mixed up with the red-blue color palette I use for my amusing conversations.

Jake: tampon commercials oppress me
me: help! help! i'm being oppressed!
Jake: exactly.
Jake: and then they try to rise up and kill your head!
me: those types of commercials are made by the man in order to keep the brothas down
Jake: word
me: Being broke sucks
me: I want money
Jake: ummmmmm
Jake: that really does suck =(
Jake: you should get graduation checks! that's what i did
me: oh yeah? nice
me: I want an allowance from RPI
me: I want that $120k given back to me in monthly installments over the next 10 years
me: that'd be sweet
Jake: askldfj
Jake: heehee
me: my thoughts exactly

Just finished babysitting my nephew. Before this ends up being a permanent career move on my part, I think I better do some more job hunting. My first run through the process since graduation didn't bode too well. Those companies had their position filled or much more experienced applicants. So, time to try again.

I found a couple webmaster internships jobs in the Boston area. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to work for nothing. I'll have to sift through the HeadHunter and Monster databases later tonight.

I've also been finding a lot of jobs requiring Perl as of late. This is pretty odd, because I used to never find jobs requiring Perl, but ASP instead. I've only found one ASP-needed job in the last couple weeks. Interesting. I'll probably pick up an ASP book at a bookstore in Concord when I make a trip there tomorrow. No hockey tonight?
That's a shame. I wanted to see the Avs prove me wrong again. No X-Files rerun last night either. FOX found it more important to broadcast some Nascar race. Damnit.

While I scrounge for things to do, feel free to entertain yourself using the links below:

* Bubble Boys Hockey! You know it. Do you have what it takes to win the Bubble Boys Cup? You must be 21 or older to play (it's a Bud Light promotional thing).

* I scored a 22% on Metrosexuality's Gay-O-Meter. I'm wondering if that's a good thing or not.

[GARBAGEman]: Hi Jerome..... Wassap?
me: not much. sitting back, wishing I had a Bud. ;p
[...]
[GARBAGEman]: oh yeah.....in germany we call it "yellow water"
me: lol
[GARBAGEman]: I wonder how you can get drunk by this .....
me: I don't think you can. it is essentially water. I can't drink the stuff myself. :p
[GARBAGEman]: HAHAHA...

Salt overload
Has anyone ever died / overdosed on Saltines?
I really want to know.
And I like Ritz better... Link dump 2 of 2
I was gonna be a jerk and hold onto these stories until tomorrow, but since I don't really want to discuss my horrible adventures with Geocities, take these links and do what you want with them:

* I wish I was in middle school, went to tour a prison with my class, and was used as a demostration for a strip search. Aren't there rules against this sort of stuff? Pervs.
* This proves my theory (look at question 10) that TV is the best birth control we have! I wonder how much money the government spent on this research. I could have told them that for $10.
* Thou shalt not say the Lord's name in vain, or prepare to be disqualified.
* I was gonna say, thank goodness NASA is gonna attack a comet, because they haven't jetisoned a multi-million dollar hunk of metal at a celestial body in a while. I need my fix! Link dump 1 of 2
I know how much you love random story links. In fact, the demand is so great that I'm having trouble keeping up. After all, who else can bring you the news like me? That's right. No one. Your sole purpose in life is to read my witty annotations.

I haven't shut up in the last couple days about other things that I wanted to save my stories for a slower day. Well, today isn't particularly slow (I have plenty of stuff to bitch about) but hey, what the heck? Have some computer stories! Link dump #2 will contain the sex, profanity, and destruction that you folks yearn for. Literally.

* "Hey! Microsoft is bundling software to their upcoming operating system and that's unfair!" said AOL. "Hey, it's cool," says AOL after they worked out a deal to bundle AOL 6.0 with Windows XP.
* Are you telling me that those spam messages that so-and-so is dying from a rare disease and you should forward this message to all of your friends could be false? I mean, each time the message is forwarded, a dime is sent to develop a cure! And don't forget, if you don't forward the email, you're a heartless bastard who should be very ashamed of yourself. Jerk.
* Anyone need a 50" plasma display monitor? It weighs 101 pounds, has a billion input terminals, and they slashed the price by thousands of dollars! Believe it or not, this is a really cheap price compared to most of the other places that are carrying this item. I think I'd rather get a new car, though.
* Quake for cats! I wonder if my cat would go for this at all. I don't think so, all he does is sleep all day and eat and be fat. But at night, it's almost guaranteed that there will be a headless rodent somewhere in the house or near the driveway. It's fairly grey outside
Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.

Or... I'm only happy when it rains? Owned.
In the wonderful world of Planetarion, a web-based Civilizations-like game that takes place in outer space, my homie Jake and I were really bored. So, we decided to attack some piss-weak planet with about 90% of our combined armada of doom. We sent in 2214 ships ranging from your little dinky ships to EMP-loaded ships to big bruisers. The guy we were attacking didn't have that much of a chance. He had a lot of turrets, but... big deal. He wouldn't for long! :)

So, we sent our our ships and waited for morning.

I logged in, and the two-hour battle totally didn't go as planned. I guess a few of this peon's friends came to his aid, and they totally outnumbered our ships 8 to 1! Things didn't bode well. In fact, we totally got smacked. Of our original 2214 ships, only 661 came back alive. And we only took out 206 enemy ships!

Needless to say, Jake and I aren't attacking anyone else for a while. Trying to recover from such a galactic anal raping is gonna take some time.

If you want to know more about Planetarion (like what the hell do all of the listed ships do), check out the manual.

Speaking of owned, how about them Devils? Nyah. Uncle Kracker may be a spawn of Satan
I've had my mp3's playing all day and recently, Uncle Kracker's "Yeah Yeah Yeah" song was being played. My mother came into my room to make a quick run through it with the Swiffer, and that "you can tell the whole world they can kiss my ass" line came up in the song. My mother was somewhat shocked. Heh. She found the song to be inappropriate and vulgar and some other negative adjectives. Heh. What I find funny is that I say worse stuff on a daily basis in my house. So does she. :) And that Uncle Kracker song is really laid-back and mellow. She'd flip out if she knew what songs have been playing in modern rock and alternative radio stations across the country. Or how about rap songs? Eek. Even Jennifer Lopez's "Play" is "naughty." Maybe I should lend my mom one of my Rage Against the Machine CD's. Or how about Eminem's The Marshal Mathers LP? I'd pay to see to see what would happen next. :)

They don't make music like they used to. Thank God. wtf?
You Black and White warez hunters don't give up, do you?

I hate you all.

You want the game? Come to my house. Then I'll punch you in the face. Repeatedly. Sure, it ain't the right colors, but "Black and Blue" should suffice. Devils in six games
I'm reversing my decision. Those wily Devils are gonna retain the Cup. What's with my sudden change in my prediction? I don't know. Call it a hunch. Ever since I said the Avs were going to take it in six, I've had a feeling that the Devils were gonna prove me wrong. I guess it just goes to show you that I'm not a professional NHL game and team analyist.

Watch this, the Avs are gonna win the Cup and I'm gonna feel like a tard for reversing my decision. Whatever. Both teams are really damn good and the series could go either way.

Game 1's tonight, huh? The post of nothingness
Sorry for the lack of posts "yesterday." Mommy decided to keep the phone modem cord for a very very long time for some reason. But it's not like you would have read much, anyways. I don't feel like giving you any links. TAKE THAT! Heh.

However, you can send Jake your love, for "today" (the 26th) is his birthday. "What is this, Saved By the Bell?"
Hehehe! Kurt Angle kicks ass.

Guess you had to be there.

Quite a bit of stuff in the world of politics, eh? The Republicans couldn't "bribe" Jeffords (story 1 | story 2) from leaving the party. As a result of that, the Democrats own the Senate, which is considered Armageddon to oil drillers and Pro-Life Texans everywhere. And Bush got owned at Yale when he was the guest speaker at their graduation ceremony. Sucker. At least RPI had Bill Cosby. w00t w00t!

And on a completely different topic, how would you like to get your email from Mars? A bunch of smart guys are working on "Interplanetary Internet." I remember in CANOS doing some latency and bandwidth problems if there was a connection running from Earth to the moon.

And DON'T ASK ME FOR BLACK AND WHITE! What the hell is wrong with you? Read this for further instruction.

I'm done for today. Posting, that is.

my cousin: c yaz l8er j

Yeah. Later. My trash stockpile
I still have this pile of refuse in one of the uncharted areas of my room. It's been there since I started moving my things around to make room for all of the stuff I brought back from RPI. It's kinda intimidating, since it contains some of the weirdest junk I mustered since... uh... the late 80's. Seriously:

A 26" self-sealing inner tube for a bike tire.

Year 2000 calendars.

A Precomputer 1000 with three cartridges: general knowledge II, sports trivia, and bible knowledge. I never played any of the games on the cartridges, only the games and stuff already in the Precomputer 1000. I remember coding in BASIC and playing Hangman on that thing. Wow, that was so long ago. Why the heck do I still have this?

Paper. Lots and lots of paper. This includes old magazines from January 1999.

Winter boots.

Your mom.

Stuff I received when I bought my Dell a couple summers ago. Anyone want the CD's for MS Work Suite 99? It comes with Streets 98! How about Lotus SmartSuite 96? Virus scanning software? Come on, none of this stuff is even opened! :) And let us not forget the awesome "Power Game pack" I got with my computer: Descent: Freespace (which would lock up my computer), and Rage: Expendable.

You can pick this stuff up tomorrow morning in my dumpster. A pair of neato quotes
Because... uh... neato quotes are cool.

This first one I got from Keith:

"To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States."

--Yale grad President Bush addressing graduating students at his alma mater.

Quite thought-provoking, yes? Now, the other one:

"What are the best things in life?"
"To Crush your Enemies,
See them Driven before You,
And Hear the Lamentations of the Women."

- Conan the Barbarian

Damn skippy. Phone modems still suck
I'm downloading this huge-ass movie and it's taking forever (12 1/2 hours remaining at 1.7 KB /sec. wtf?). The movie itself is 98 MB zipped, and in case you care, it was a video that Wolfpack showed at E3 displaying the coolness that is Shadowbane.

I am so getting this game when it comes out this summer or fall (no announced ETA yet). How can you go wrong with a online roleplaying game where you DON'T have to camp or powerlevel to be able to "play," create bustling cities with economies, kill other players, and have huge mass-scale wars with other guilds and nations? It's paradise! And let us not forget the implementation of seige weapons! Long live the trebuchet (this screenshot is nearly a year old)! And there will still be months-long quests and new content every month. Check out the FAQ for more details. Linky linky?
Shit. Today is almost over, and I have yet to post! I was gonna post something early this morning that pretty much said not to call me repeatedly early in the morning and then get someone to wake me up. So, I'll do it now: DO NOT CALL ME REPEATEDLY IN THE MORNING AND THEN ASK SOMEONE TO WAKE ME UP. Otherwise, I'm gonna toss you a verbal beating of a lifetime. Keep that in mind. Heh.

Now that I have cleared that issue up, how about some links? After all, nothing really happened to me through the course of the day that I feel is worth commenting on. Except that there's road work going on everywhere from my house to Concord. And everyone was driving like 5 MPH under the speed limit. It sucked.

But anyways:

* What happens when a cabbie recovers and returns a $4 million instrument? He gets a $75 check and no "Thank You."
* Any bets as to whether or not this old guy is a little bit messed in the head? Or maybe it's just something in the water...
* There has to be something in the water in Spain, too. People are doing the darnest things with rubber bands. Ick. Totally unprofessional. :p Funny!
Right now, the first article headline that appears on the ZDNet Internet page is the "AOL: You've got a rate hike!" story. Here's the intro to the article:

Time to cut back on online chatting? Beginning in July, Internet giant America Online plans to hike its subscriptions rate by $1.95 for its monthly unlimited use plan.

Uh... cut back on chatting? YOU HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS!

Hey, I thought it was funny, and that's all that matters. ;p And then there were two...
The Colorado Avalanche made the St. Louis Blues their man bitch in a 5-game series.
The New Jersey Devils totally outplayed and outsmarted the Pittsubrgh Penguins in a 5-game series, too.
Now they have to face each other for the Stanley Cup.
Only one team can claim the Cup. Who is gonna be?

The Avs have a lot of superstars, a very large payroll, and they've been trying to make it to the finals for the last five years. They definitely have the talent to win the Cup. They were the best team in the regular season, and Patrick Roy is just phenomenal. It also seems that the Avs have to win it; otherwise, all of their effort in acquiring all of their players and making those trades has been in vain. And a lot of their players' contracts expire after this season, too, so if thery're gonna win the Cup, this is when they have to do it. They surely can't keep all of their players, but that bonus money from getting the Cup will surely help.

The Devils are the defending Cup champs. They had issues early in the playoff season, but they are a well-oiled machine now. Plus, they totally smacked the Avs during the regular season, winning six of seven games or something like that. And the crowd finally realized that the Devils were still in the playoffs; they were pretty excited when their team took the Penguins out tonight. The Devils don't make mistakes, and the Avs aren't going to get many power plays.

My prediction? It's gonna be a tough series. :) The Avalanche in six games. Story time
I got some somewhat dated links that I've been meaning to share with you folks. I guess now is the time for me to do it.

* How would you like to be the first to experience Brittney? It's not quite the same type of "interactive game" as Jenna Jameson's (heh), but I bet it will still sell lots of copies.
* Read the "Revenge of the Week" part of this sports article. Some professional baseball players player Everquest? No way! Then again, Ken Griffey Jr used to be in a Quake clan called... uh... damn, I don't remember... "Natural Born Killers" under the alias "Slugger," if my memory isn't failing me. Wow... Quake 1... those were the days. This link brought to you by Jake.
* Women are grown like grains over in Utah, since 30,000 Mormons have multiple wives. This may threaten Utah's Olympic hosting privileges. Keep in mind that this breed of "Mormon" isn't the same as those LDS dudes, either, which seems to be a common misconception. I think I said something like this in an earlier post. This story brought to you thanks to Jon.
* I saw this story at a few places. This is kinda disturbing in more ways than one. *shudder*

And as a side note, you know that search engine off to the side? It's not too good at doing its job. *sigh* It has been mathematically proven that...
GIRLS ARE EVIL.

It's true, it's true. Political stories day
Yup. I have more political news stories to put into your grubby little hands. I gave you two today already, how about two more? Sounds good to me, too.

* The Family Values Party - beacuse we need someone who is righteous, faithful, and who was chosen by God as president. Then the sinners and the blasphemous Pro-Choice people will meet their demise! People who desecrate "OUR BELOVED HEAVENLY FATHER HOLY LIFE-GIVING LAWS" (people with tattoos, smokers, and homosexuals are some violators) are not allowed into the party. Notice that the sites are hosted by AOL...

* Let's buy Greenland! That way, we can build a radar there to warn of any incoming cruise missles. Too bad China is on the other side of the world. Here are some neat quotes from the article:

It's troubling that a country whose entire population is comparable to that in the state of Wisconsin might hold so much sway.

What has Greenland ever done? Nothing. At least Wisconsin makes cheese.

Greenland has a population of about 60,000 people, who have the island's 840,000 square miles all to themselves.

Wow, 60,000 people have 840,000 square miles to play with. Those selfish bastards!

Like so much real estate, Greenland's value is its location: A lot of missile shots coming toward North America from Russia would fly right over it, or at least near it. The Pentagon understandably will want to chart their precise trajectories so its anti-ballistic missiles might blow them to pieces.

Or Russia could attack across the Pacific. I mean, Russia is only like 10 miles away from Alaska. :p

And if this global warming business turns out to be worse than expected, at least Americans will have somewhere to live.

On a big chunk of glacial ice that will slide into the Atlantic? Right...

This world is full of tube steaks.
I stole both of those links from Metafilter. Break the walls down.
Yeah Brotha. NEC commencement
I went to the NEC gradation ceremony yesterday morning. It was slightly different than what happened during my RPI graduation, that's for sure. I got there about half an hour before the ceremony started, and the total number of seats available paled in comparison to the seating in the Pepsi Arena. This is expected, though, since the graduating class at NEC totaled 170 while the number of people getting diplomas at my commencement was ten times that number. Plus it was outdoors, so I was able to secure a place to watch the ceremony without having to deal with parents and the heat and these robed guys handing out "I object" signs and pamphlets. I didn't know what these guys sought out to do at the time; I chose to ignore them and get a sweet spot under the tent and score a bottle of Poland Spring water. Woohoo.

One of the main things I noticed while I wasn't listening to various student speakers say about how much of a great time they had at NEC was the lack of diversity on this campus as opposed to RPI. The whole crowd consisted of a bunch of Anglo Saxons. There was maybe one group of blacks and those of Latino descent, but that was about it. It was kinda of unusual to me, since I was used to having half of the RPI campus be populated by every "minority."

The ceremony itself wasn't anything to write much about. I didn't recognize any of the speakers, but our idiot Senator Bob Smith got a gay award and said a few words. The "I object" signs were held high while he was on the stand.

Diplomas were handed out, awards were given, and then it was over. Much like my graduation, I couldn't find anyone I was going to meet after the ceremony despite looking around for about 30 minutes. There wasn't a predetermined meeting area, so I guess this was to be expected. Or something.

Yay.

I read today a story in the Concord Monitor about the "I object" event, and you can read it yourself here. Apparently Smith is the antithesis of what NEC supposedly stands for, and no one wanted him to be at the graduation ceremony. I guess it just goes to show you that if someone donates money to your campus, sometimes the "higher ups" have no choice but to kiss the donator's ass. Fixing the national tax system
I found this amusing article over at Metafilter. Here's a small snippit:

The present system was "an abomination" that required changes to its "very structure".

" Not only am I committed to working on this issue, the President [George W Bush] is also intrigued about the possibility of fixing this mess," said Mr O' Neill.

One of the most important moves, he suggested, would be abolition of taxation on companies.

Um... abolition of corporate taxing? Excuse me? I guess you can tell our president is a Republican, and so are most of the cabinet members.

For your information, Paul O'Neill is the Secretary of the Treasury. *sigh*
I had a nice post written up.
I click on a link in one of my email messages.
The IE window with my yet-to-be-posted post is used to show the page. I cry.
I click on the "Back" button of that particular browser window.
Post is gone.
I cry some more.
Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. It's not in me anymore to try and rewrite it.
Plus I have homework due tomorrow. A moment of silence...
For Alex Krycek, the character no one likes on The X-Files, is no more. Indeed, it is a sad day for us all.

Affectionately nicknamed "rat bastard" by many, referred to as "the man" by me, his life met an untimely end as he got a "justified" bullet to the head by the people he's been pissing off for the last six or seven years.

I thought he would survive throughout The X-Files, but then again, you gotta be amazed that he even lasted as long as he did (he's been around since the second season). I guess it was gonna happen eventually, but I was hoping later than sooner. :p Much later...

Hey, what ever happened to that Marita Covarubias chick? She was around for a while, and then I think Chris Carter forgot about her... Yay! Spam!
What would I have to write if it wasn't for spam?

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From: [some spamming toolshed]
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Yeah, sign me up for three.

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Thank You!

By screening of email addresses, do you mean "remove all women from the spam list?" That's some great "technical ability" you guys got going on. Also, what indicated that me and a slew of other Hotmail users were interested in receiving this email? Right... But at least I can reply to this email and type "REMOVE" in the subject line and wait 48 hours for you people to verify that my account is still active for future spam. After all, it isn't possible with your best "technical ability" to make the process instantaneous and let a database or some web script remove me from the mailing list, huh? It doesn't say it takes 48 hours to verify my book order should I choose to buy three copies of it... I guess you can't apply the same concept to both processes. Heh.

I'm so awesome. :p Random links
All courtesy of Ananova, I believe:

* I had a moose run through my backyard once, but I never got wrecked at school by a deer. Ooph.
* Something to be proud of: winning a lifetime supply of toilet paper from a TP tasting contest.
* Why would someone place a sign in a pile of sand saying a baby was buried there? One would assume the founder of the baby would unbury it... Oh wait, it was a prank. Nyah. Silly Floridians.
* Get busted for being in possession of drugs? Eat the evidence!
* What the hell? Prisoners don't want to do their laundry? They claim the prison has poor air circulation. Awww, poor babies. They may want to breathe easier, but PEOPLE IN HELL WANT ICE WATER. You can't have everything you want. :p Can't afford to suffer the consequences? Don't commit the crime. Writing for the WWW: all too easy
Check out this summer course's syllabus below. This is the class I signed up for and arranged with the professor to send him periodic emails with my work:

1. Find a web site that is particularly effective; analyze it according to the characteristics we discussed, write up your analysis, and present it to the class. Due Monday, May 21. (10%)
2. Find a web site that is particularly ineffective; analyze it according to the characteristics we discussed, write up your analysis, and present it to the class. Due Monday, May 28. (10%)
3. Design a butt-ugly web site (or portion of a web site) that is grossly overdone with animations, sound, colors, etc. The purpose of this assignment is to give you a chance to use all those flashy devices and get it out of your system. Due Monday, June 4. (30%)
4. Design or modify significantly your own personal web site. Due Monday, June 18. (30%)
5. Think of a good way to test the site you developed for assignment 4, find people to work as test subjects, conduct your test, and analyze your results. Hand in a description of your test and results. Present to the class a plan for updating and improving your site based on your test results. (You do not have to actually make the updates.) Due Thursday, June 21. (20%)

Simple. That's why it's a humanities course. :) I could probably do the first four items on this list in a single week instead of one a week if I really had to. Needless to say, that means I won't be putting too much effort into this course. I'm gonna have to find out what "my personal web site" for assignment #4 has to do with assignment #5, though. If I need to have "test subjects" for my site, that may mean I have to update my survey, whcih may be a good thing. Or maybe these so called "test subjects" are supposed to just navigate my site and see look for unclosed HTML tags and broken links. Whatever.

As for assignment #3, can you say Jeff K?

Ooh, looks like assignment #1 is due this coming Monday. I wonder what the discussed characteristics of an effective website are. Hmmm... looks like I'll be doing some BS'ing already! The IT job hunt
My cold didn't even last for a 24-hour period. Hmmm... I wonder if it was even a cold to begin with. Whatever. At least I can breathe!

I've been mustering up "help wanted" ads online from such places as HeadHunter.net and Monster.com, and here's some of the neat stuff I've found (in regards to webmasters, web designers, web development, that sort of shit):

Excellent opportunity for candidates who are entry level or experienced with OOD skill sets. C++ is preferred. Perl or solid scripting skills are a strong bonus. This position can be full time permanent or contract to hire.

Three cheers for me knowing C++ and Perl.

They currently seek a Web Developer for their North Boston facility. [...] The requirements for this position are: Strong personal and written communication skills. This role requires professionalism in communication and interaction with others in a variety of roles. Thorough competency in all Microsoft Office Products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) as well as thorough competency in graphical software applications (PhotoShop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, etc).
Demonstrated success in online marketing graphics, design, and development. Strong familiarity and understanding of HTML and PERL. General aptitude for technical/ computer problems. Enthusiastic personality and ability to thrive in a very fast paced atmosphere and meet short and dynamic deadlines. Able to work independently and exceed expectations with little or no supervision. Familiarity with Unix/ Telnet is a plus.

There's a couple jobs out there just like this in the Boston area, and I could so do that. I suck at making graphics, though, but if it's for a company website, they don't need to be that sophisticated.

One of another webmaster position's requirements: Excellent HTML authoring skills (hand coding preferred)

Long live EditPad! :) Dreamweaver and FrontPage are for ninnies.

I got about six or seven ads that I'm gonna send resumés to. I chose not to send them yesterday or today just because it's the end of the week. I consider that bad karma. :) It's best to get those HR people after they've had a weekend to relax, hehe. :)

Most of my saved ads are in or around Boston. If I hear back from a couple of the places, I hope I can schedule most of my interviews on the same day. Boston is one hell of a commute for me. I'm not sure how far Boston is from Hillsboro, but it takes me an hour to get to Nashua, NH and two hours to get to Davers, MA, just to put things in perspective. In the world of Garbage
Stolen from Garbage.com:

We wanted you to have this information first. The mixing of the new release has begun and is slated for release late summer of this year. It's official the title of the new album is BeautifulGarbage. The band thanks you for your patience and ongoing support.

"BeautifulGarbage," eh? I really hope there's a typo in this title and that the title will actually be "Beautiful Garbage," with a space. I'm not too keen on the name of the album, regardless. It sounds pretty... uh... weak and unoriginal. While "Version 2.0" was a clever name to use for their sophmore album, I bet there's probably a couple shitty Homestead or AOL hosted websites made by 12 year olds with the title "Beautiful Garbage" (no offense if you happen to be 12 and have a good website or something). "Beautiful Garbage" also sounds like a name someone would give to one of their unofficial bootlegs, much like their bootlegs titled "Complete Garbage," "Live Trash," and "The G Files." Shirley and company could have done a lot better. *shrug* Oh well.

In other Garbage news, it looks they might have a little court tussle with the American Breed. Yeah, I've never heard of those guys either.

I was gonna also gonna include some news about how Rage Against the Machine + Chris Cornell - Zack de la Rocha have ~17 songs written up, so they look like they're in good shape for an upcoming record (sorry, no ETA). Meanwhile, I believe Zack recruited someone into his cult of creating music with a message. But I lost the articles. Damnit. Microsoft wins
I can get Internet Explorer to break routinely when I'm writing an email using my Hotmail account.

Good job, guys. You can't even get two of your products to work properly in unison. ;p The X-Files gets another season
And The Lone Gunmen gets canned. Go figure.

Too bad The X-Files was over about two seasons ago. I guess FOX really wants to drag this show out; it must be the only thing they have left. Well, at least they didn't invest in the XFL, haha. And doesn't David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's contracts expire after this season? I doubt Duchovny (Mulder) will have much of a role in the last season (if at all), since he would rather star in B-rate movies involving aliens instead of being on The X-Files. But that's ok, I guess. Robert Patrick (Agent John Doggett) is a pretty cool guy and I can definitely deal with him for another season (or two or three). But with Anderson's (Scully's) character being the centerpiece for the season finale this Sunday, I think she'll almost have to be back for one more season. Unless they kill her off this Sunday... Oops, that was a spoiler. :) Actually, I'm a liar. :) Scully can't die:

CLYDE BRUCKMAN: Still, you're not the least bit curious?
(There is a knock on the door.)
SCULLY: That must be Mulder. Time for the midnight shift.
(She puts her cards down and stands up. She goes towards the door, but then walks back up to Bruckman.)
All right. So how do I die?
CLYDE BRUCKMAN: You don't.
(He smiles as she stares at him. There is more knocking. She looks through the peephole and opens the door. Mulder holds up a folder.)

Awww shit.

This story brought to you courtesy of Jon. Also, read the whole article to learn a little something about The Family Guy. w00t.

It's also the only link you're getting tonight, so you might as well appreciate it.

I gotta blow my nose. Sonofa... Things that suck
It's a very short list, since I really don't want Frank's ultra awesome site to be considered useless. Oh wait, it already is considered useless? Hehe.

* Colds. What the hell? I got one during the middle of spring break in Panama City that really messed me up for about a week or two. It effectively cut my spring break in half, since I really didn't feel like doing anything starting Wednesday night. But now I got another one. I didn't get it until about noon time, and now I feel like I got the runs in my nose. There's a wonderful image for ya. Heh, you're welcome. I guess I'm gonna have to pick up some NyQuil. Red NyQuil. That's right, I ain't fucking around. :)

* People that refer to articles of clothing by their brand name. For instance, "Those Dockers look great" and "I need to pick up some Tommy's [Hilfiger]." You can often see this behavior in people shopping at Filene's and in Filene's radio commercials. It's friggin' queer. The way to deal with these people is to punch them right in the face. Trust me, they'll stop. And if they don't, they'll get the hint eventually.

That's it for now. Time to find some links for ya. M$ should stop skewing statistics
I'm willing to believe Hotmail is the most widely used web-based email service, but I refuse to believe that MSN Messenger is the #1 IM program:

MSN Messenger Service recorded 31.9 million unique users worldwide in March.
[...]
In November 2000, MSN Messenger lagged behind AOL Instant Messenger in terms of U.S. users 21.5 million to 10.3 million, according to Media Metrix. From February to March, the service added 2 million users worldwide.
[...]
The Spanish-language version of Hotmail has attracted 8 million unique users in March, according to the research firm.

Bullshit. Let me guess, the people behind AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo all closed down their services for a couple of months so M$ could triple their numbers?

Whatever. Bunch of liars. :p And their numbers will only grow when Windows XP bundles the IM program to it. Nyah. More Internet stories
With the occurence of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (also known as "E3") going on all this week, all of the head geeks from a bunch of cool companies get to show off their upcoming products to the masses. With that said, you're probably gonna see a lot of software / hardware links here until it starts coming out your ears. Or maybe you won't. There are several zillion sites that are covering E3, but I'll make mention of the items that seem to catch my interest when I was looking for stuff to read online.

Here's a little sample, these links pertaining to console systems:
* All hail the X-Box release date. There's some system specs about it, too.
* But what's this? The Gamecube is going to be out 3 days before the X-Box? The console system industry is starting to heat up!
* Speaking of the GameCube, Nintendo has some info about it on this site. While looking through all of the screenshots of the games to be released for this system, be sure to check out Metroid Prime. Metroid kicks ass. Whoa, I just had a "Justin Bailey" flashback. Damn, I wish I still had that console game.

And finally, how about some porn story links? There seems to be a lot of porn stories as of late; I'm not quite sure why:
* Porn on your PDA. For those of you who need porn while on the road, certain companies are coming up with ways to hook you up using your PDA as the medium. Also in the article is this odd but true quote: "The porn industry has always been at the forefront of technology."
* "It's like calling a prostitute a sex worker!" The women of Cancun are wearing uniforms in protest of a local government law. Wasn't there a protest like this a while back in India? I don't know, maybe I'll try and find that story if I'm excessively bored. Have some links
It's been a pretty uneventful day, so perhaps the links below will quell yor hunger for news until I have something to say.

* Because there aren't enough of these on the net, here's another United States vs Europe rant.
* Dude! Old school Atari commercials! Yar's Revenge is such a great game. I think I found this link on Metafilter.
* Huh? Everyone knows AOL sucks already, but why must they taint the greatness that is the Playstation 2? It may be a ploy to stunt Microsoft and their yet-to-be-released X-Box, but I don't think many PS2 owners want to surf the web using AOL and the Netscape browser. Then again, I bet a good number of PS2 owners already have a computer with some sort of online connection they can surf with, so who cares?

Actually, I do have something to say: Go Penguins. :) As the number of teams in the NHL playoffs is cut in half after each round, I'm running out of interesting games to watch. And I don't like watching any game where the home team is the New Jersey Devils. The crowd doesn't get into the game. I watched part of the game they had with the Pens when I wasn't watching what was on the WB, and the crowd is so docile and quiet. They are totally not into the game, and they have been that way throughout the playoffs. They don't get too excited when the Devils score. Hell, I swear that when the Penguins score, they cheer almost as loudly as when their Devils score! What the heck is up with that? I can't watch those type of games. The crowd needs to hate the away team and get rowdy when the home team does something cool. I hope the Pens win the series just so I don't have to deal with this blasphemy during the Stanley Cup finals. Leave me alone
No, I don't have Black and White on my computer.
No, you can't have it.
No, this post doesn't mean I have it still.
No, I can not send it to you for several reasons.
No, I don't know where you can get it (perhaps the store?).
No, I don't know who you can ask to get a leaked copy of it.
No, begging and grovelling will get you no where with me (unless you're hot and female).

I've been getting a number of requests for this game as of late.
Make it stop! So much for Moore's Law
Which states something like CPU power doubles every 18 months. Looks like they have a p3 850 Ghz available at one particular retailer, even though the p4 2 Ghz won't be out until the end of this year. And it's only $160! That's a friggin' steal!

Or maybe it's a typo... Nah... :) The Internet and sex
Wuzzzuuuuh.

In the last few days, I've managed to collect a good number of links. I've filtered through most of them, and now is the time for me to deliver to you only the best of what the net has had to offer recently. Ain't I such a nice guy?

First off, stories about online computing as we know it:
* The Internet2: because an OC-48 line just might not be enough bandwidth for video conferencing or group collaborating. Coming soon to a home near you. The rates are kinda high right now, though. Heh. Thanks Jon.
* Go figure. Other companies are pissed off at Microsoft's bundling techniques. I don't think I will be using Windows XP when it hits the shelves, especially if (and I quote) "MSN Messenger installs and loads automatically every time XP is run." WTF? I hate AIM and what AOL has done to ICQ, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna use a third IM program, especially if no one else uses it either.
* Speaking of instant messaging, here is a wonderful list as to the type of people you can meet on the net. The "One Line Wonder" is too damn common. So is "Dr. Hardass."

And everyone's favorite topic, sex:
* They call him Dr. Pimp. Well, they should anyways. I think I found this at ShackNews or a similar site.
* Pornstars have needs, too. Hehe. Paradies from The Onion are always cool. Thanks Mike.

On an irrelevant tangent, my room is full of so much crap. And I have a good-sized room, too. I'd say it's about 15 feet by 18 feet, not including the closet. Hell, there are two twin beds in my room along with a bunch of shelves, two bureaus, and my mother's old (but big) office desk. But anyways, onto my crap: Apparently I have amassed a large number of items since high school and I don't have any place for it. A lot of it includes "going away to college" type of stuff like dishes, pots and pans, towels, etc. My amount of formal clothing has increased about threefold. I also kept 37 textbooks in the last four years. And I have a lot of my old schoolwork, some of which I'm keeping for reference (like my Perl and C++ notes), but most of it (like chemistry of material quizzes and environmental engineering exams) are being trashed since I won't use the knowledge acquired in those courses ever again. My room is in a state of mayhem as I try to figure out what stays, what gets shipped into the attic for eternity, and what gets thrown in the dumpster (That's right. Mother's in-house business produces enough trash to require a small dumpster near our driveway.). *sigh* Someone else unpack it all and organize it all for me. I'll give you a dollar. Graduation day is over
What a long day Saturday was. I'm pretty glad it's over.

I didn't fall asleep until about 1:00 in the morning and I got up at 6:00. Getting five hours of sleep should have done me in, but I must have gotten a good amount of sleep the night before that, because I didn't feel tired. That's key. I was in for one hell of a day and I didn't want to be fatigued at all.

I did my normal morning stuff, I packed even more of my junk and threw it all in my car, but I didn't pack everything up since I had to come back some time after graduation to work out some final things with my roomies. I left the apartment at 7:15; I didn't have to be at the Pepsi Arena (which is where the graduation was being held) until 8:00. I picked up an acquaintance of mine who was staying at the Best Western in Troy, and then I got to the arena by 7:40. I was there so early just to account for any traffic, lack of parking, and in case I got lost on my way there. Heh.

I then stood around in the atrium part of the arena with all of the other walking graduates until show time (9:30). Some pictures were taken of me and my peeps, but nothing incredibly exciting happened.

1,700 people receiving their bachelor's, master's, or doctorate's degree then walked into a stadium filled with an estimated 10,000 graduation attendees. Being one of the first people that had to walk into the stage level of the building, I was quite overwhelmed by the number of people in the audience.

About 3 1/2 hours later, several awards have been handed out, the speakers said what they wanted to say, Bill Cosby was still the awesome guy that he always has been, and 1,700 people in gowns, hoods, and tasseled hats got to walk up onto the stage, get their piece of paper, shake some hands, and get their picture taken. Final words and closing remarks were said, and we were out of there.

I found my sister and her fiancé off to the side before I headed out the same door I came in through, and they told me that the rest of the family was way up at the other side of the arena. They wanted to meet me up there. Sure, that shouldn't be a problem. It took me about ten minutes to get to where they were rumored to waiting for me since thousands of people were trying to get to the area where their sons and daughters were (i.e., it was crowded) and I had to find my homie Ray around section 120 of the arena. I told him the before we got to the arena that I was originally going to meet my folks outside section 120 after the ceremony. I found him there and told him about the change in meeting locations.

This is where the fun begins. I circled around the ring-shaped auditorium with Ray to the other side of the building where everyone was waiting for me. They weren't there, though. We then proceeded to circle the outside of the arena about three or four times, and we went back into the arena to see if they were waiting there for some reason. No luck. We then circled the exterior areas around the building to find my family at least four or five times. No dice. By this point in time, an hour has passed and the inside of the building has been vacated and we weren't allowed back inside. So, they had to be outside somewhere. So, we looked around some more, it started thundering and raining heavily at this point, and then I got fed up with the searching. We took the scenic route around the parking garage in hopes that I might see my mom's car (or my own, heh, I had trouble remembering where I parked! Yeah, I'm a winner.). Nope. Consequently, we hopped into my car, left Albany, and went back to my apartment to pick up the rest of my stuff and resolve any remaining issues with my roommates.

Not too much happened while I stayed at my apartment until close to 4:00. My mother had her cell phone on her; I was hoping she would call so I could find out what the hell was going on. I didn't have her cell phone number. She never called, though. And we were supposed to have a big family lunch together... :( If I haven't heard from my folks this late in the afternoon, I guess it wasn't going to happen. :(

I said my goodbyes to my boys that were around, and then we took off for the magical land that is Hillsboro, NH. We stopped somewhere along the way for food (since we missed out on lunch. *sigh*), I dropped Ray off at his house, and then I went back to my place. It was about 7:00 when I got home.

There weren't many cars in the driveway by the time I got back; my dad was already back home in Nashua. My grandmother and the guy that came down with her (my grandmother never had a license) were still around, as was my mother, but that was it of those who came to see me "graduate." There were no "extras" waiting at my house when I returned. Well, unless you wanted to count my girlie girl (heh) Courtney, who tended the house while we were in the state of New York (my mother has an in-house business taking care of the elderly and/or the mentally handicapped). Hmmph. While their presence at my house was cool, I was still rather bummed out about the fact that I couldn't find my folks in Albany, there weren't any solo or group picture takings with my family, and I had to settle for eating at a restaurant with a waitress that had to be recently hired instead of eating with everyone else. :( The waitress Ray and I had was an idiot; she never got our drinks although we requested them on three occasions and... eh... she was just an idiot. We didn't tip her well. Heh. But anyways...

It was a long day, and it definitely did not go the way I wanted it to. Disaster would have been avoided had my mother and company went to section 120 after commencement like I told them to. :p Oh well. What's done is done.

Now that graduation has ended and I'm back home never to return to RPI again (or at least for a very long time), what does the future hold for me? Well, I have that one humanities course I have to take, I have to unpack all of my junk (not looking forward to that), update my resum�, and aggressively hunt for an IT job. Maybe learn ASP on the side, too, heh. A lot of my job searching has involved positions where ASP is desired. Perl shows up as a requirement rarely, and PHP hasn't shown up yet. That kinda blows this guy's theory out of the water, huh? Round 3 of the NHL starts... uh... yesterday.
Since I was too busy graduating yesterday and I packed up my computer Friday night, I kinda missed out on the opportunity to report about this on time. But since Blogger is under repairs, I guess it doesn't matter anyways. I was 50-50 in my second round predictions, which goes to show the great parity that exists in hockey. While it is pretty easy to guess which team will win a particular NFL playoff game or an MLB series, you'll only get in trouble if you try that with the NHL. Hell, I remember one year when in the first round of the NHL Eastern Conference the #1, #2, and #3 seeded teams were eliminated. The Western Conference ended up winning the cup that year. :)

But anyways, how about the conference finals of this year?

* New Jersey Devils (#1) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (#6) - I didn't think Lemieux and the gang were gonna make it past the Sabres, so I have to say the Devils will win this series. However, if the Pens can actually beat the Devils, then I'll say the Pens will be the Stanley Cup champions just on principle. Heh. What kind of a comeback would that that for Super Mario? He came out of a 3-year retirement to lead the Pens to a cup victory? I bet he would shit himself.

* Colorado Avalanche (#1) vs St. Louis Blues (#4) - I totally didn't expect the Blues to sweep the Stars in four games. But doing so ended up giving the Blues a nice week-long break while the Avs were struggling to put the Kings away. Now that makes you wonder if the Blues have an advantage or disadvantage going into the series against the Avs: does that long rest make them a lot more energetic than the tired Avs, or are they off their game and losing their edge? Hmmm... I'll say the Avs are gonna take out the Blues, but I have (had?) a roommate that predicted that the Blues would win the Cup. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Go Penguins. Blogger is still having issues
While now that it's done trying to erase my posts, it won't upload my changes to the website. So, while I am typing this out on Sunday, I bet you won't see the post for a few more days. Heh. Same with the news post below this one. But whatever. The dude(s) at Blogger are working on the publishing part of Blogger (the part that takes your post and uploads it to your site) and making it less resource-intensive or something. Nyah. In the news
That's right. I deliver the news in ways no one else can bring them to you. That is, of course, assuming Blogger doesn't erase my shit when I'm trying to upload each post. Heh. But with the Thesevoices.com server being moved to my homie Mike's house, I may move my site onto that server, do some dynamic HTML coding (ASP?) to break off my current dependency on external programs like Blogger (for posting) and Atomz (the search engine), and do whatever my little heart desires. Or maybe I'll use another buddy's server. Or maybe I'll make my own. But I kinda need a job first, and to live in an area that has cable modem or DSL access. Stupid phone modems can lick my ass. But anyways, here were yesterday's set of links:

* Looks like the National Gallery in London is eroding away... because of uric acid.

* Say goodbye to the XFL. I guess making Jesse Ventura more of a trouble starter instead of an actual game analyst didn't help any. Nor could the players play. And you had that idiot whose jersey said "He Hate Me." Plus these guys didn't look like they had a future in the NFL when compared to college players, mainly because the XFL guys are older and... uh... just as bad.

* Hey! Another useless ICQ story! Like all of the other IM stories out there, this one tells you nothing. But you do get that special feeling that AOL ruins everything it buys out. I'm guessing that's not the best marketing strategy ever. Test...
Work, Blogger, work!

I usually keep a backup of every post before it actually gets posted just in case Blogger hiccups and eats my post. But for the first time in ages, I didn't do that. I had this great post with a bunch of worthwhile links in it a couple hours ago, and what happens? That's right. Fucking A. The piece of human refuse chokes up on me. God damnit. The stupid thing hasn't been working properly for the last few hours at least.

Come back in a half an hour or so. Or maybe tomorrow (aka today?), should I get lazy and not update. Looking for stories
My usual news sites aren't giving me much news to work with today, and since nothing really happened to me that is worth mentioning, I had to go find some... eh... "alternative" news sources tonight. Heh. Make of that sentence what you will. :) Anyways, story time!

* talkin shit - a little ways down on the left column, there are ten AIM pranks. They are worth reading, although they do get kinda old, since all ten pranks are essentially the same prank done on ten different people.

* The Austrian police are getting some extra cash for... well... it ain't cool. Click on the link.

* This brings new meaning to "cleaning product." Hmmm... Strom Thurmond is really old
98 years old. Damn.

At 98 and increasingly frail, Thurmond is the central figure in a political drama that has the nation's capital on tenterhooks. As President Bush tries to push his agenda through a Senate deadlocked 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, keeping Thurmond in office and casting reliably conservative votes is key to his party's success. Should he be unable to finish his eighth and final term in January 2003 -- a month after he would turn 100 -- a successor appointed by South Carolina's Democratic governor could tip Washington's balance of power.

Looks like Bush may have some problems trying to get those bills to pass, especially if they have his oil-drilling buddies in mind.

Thurmond also has "eyes for women," (search for it in the article) which means he must be kinda like Clinton. And since Clinton is the devil... yeah. Both political parties should have all of its members impeached. Or something. Never mind. Frisbee pics
I got a page full of decent pictures up. You can check out my sexy mug and the other beautiful people here. I will also put a link in the sidebar to the left to it a little later today. Maybe during a hockey intermission (go Penguins). I'm also gonna tweak some of my non-news pages a bit so updating the sidebar on the left won't be such a pain in the ass. Yeah. Sounds good to me.

Also, check out this site's new background image.

Just bring it. Denmark takes on the music industry
You gotta love that part of Europe where the Netherlands are. Not only can you pay for sex and certain narcotics legally, the RIAA and IFPI (the worldwide version of the RIAA) will probably have a fit with Denmark's latest legalization, downloading music:

[One] would be allowed to make a copy of a CD for use in their car, a form of offline copying allowed in many countries. The proposed law would also make it legal for [one] to copy music from the Internet to their PC, Jorgensen said.

If this goes through... yeah. That'd be great. The only problem would be is how do you know if the person is downloading the music legally (i.e., they own the CD but chose to download it from the net instead of ripping the CD themselves). Then again, does it matter? You know everyone downloading music from the net is doing it illegally, anyways. :) Cell phone short-hand
I guess people haven't figured out that talking like a 12 year old AOL-er looking for pictures of Britney Spears naked reeks of gaiety. I don't want to ever see people typing like an idiot ever again. I hereby abolish such queer acronyms as CUL8R and RUOK. There is no reason to have to type in what seems like an encrypted code. You'll spend a lot more time trying to figure out what the hell the other person is saying than actually "talking."

Here's a novel idea: use a cell phone as it was meant to be used, as a phone. Save the instant messaging for things like... hmm... instant messaging software and pagers.

Oh, here's a story link. It's a little dated, but hey. Hail to the Kings, Baby
There was a really, really good hockey game last night. While there was only one goal in the game, you could tell that by the way the Kings were playing and on some of the chances the Avs had, it should have been 11-10 or something equally unbelievable.

Game 7 is gonna be even more ridiculous. I think it airs Wednesday night.

Damn, hockey playoffs are cool. I can sometimes watch a full football game. I can only watch maybe two or three innings of baseball before dying of boredom. I can't watch basketball for more than a minute before changing the channel. I rarely watch season hockey games, but playoff games? Yeeaah. That's where it's at. Cold Fusion 2.5 released
No, this isn't about the database-webpage integration program thingie that many sites use to run their businesses. It happens to be the name of a mod for Diablo II (see my gaming page for details). Personally, I found Diablo II to be really easy, especially for my wicked cool ice sorceress and even with the 8-player mod running. Supposedly, this "new" mod makes D2 about four times harder to beat. Health potions can only be found (not bought), there's better set and exceptional items, the skill trees have been tweaked for more balance, and some new skills have been added. I may have to install D2 again just to try this mod out. :) And, you can even play it at battle.net (if you have a legal copy of the game, unlike me), but it isn't recommended for LAN play for some reason. *shrug*

If you're familiar with D2, check out the Cold Fusion mod. There's plenty of info available at the site, plus you can download it there as well (go figure).

(Here's another sentence with parantheses, because I didn't have enough of those in this post.) And you thought soccer moms were bad...
How about soccer dads? Beats me, but there was this one guy who was angry enough to kill after his boy's hockey practice. That's pretty bad. :p "Vocal" parents should be placed in a soundproof booth during their kids' games. Referees are a dying breed. There is no snow in my backyard
Hooray!

There's quite a number of black flies to make up for it, though. Sonofa... 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. Frisbee Pics
[Note: this entry never existed, but was later added here because it was placed on another page on one of my old sites]

Jake #1 - This came from the day before; it was the only decent shot Jon took of me and/or Jake.
Jeanell #1 - Jeanell about to make a catch.
Jake #2 - Jake running next to the frisbee in a feeble attempt to stop it from running away. Heh.
Jerome #1 - Me just, eh, hanging out, waiting to pounce on Jeanell's next throw towards me.
Jake #3 - Frisbees are known to bite if they get too close to your face.
Jeanell #2 - Do a little dance?
Jerome #2 - Grondin with the air snag. :) You can also tell that I didn't bother shaving that day. :)
Jon #1 - Jon took all of the above pics. Wanting to be in front of the camera, Jeanell took this shot of Jonny. 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.