Sunday, October 19, 2003

   World's most SICKENINGLY Catchy song!
This song is from a Vancouver band called "Crop Circle" that gained notoriety in the late '90s through the efforts of local radio heroes Larry & Willy. In any case, they played this song often on the air, got it stuck in people's heads . . . and after a while, it was all people could talk about when they called in.

In any case, it's not exactly a great song. Really, the fact that it became so popular is kind of astounding! But, it still stands; when "Crop Circle" played at any festivals or whatever, they would have to play this single song at least five times or so simply because the people loved it.

And so, I give to you, Mexican Cockfight by Crop Circle! Please listen and then make your friends listen just because it's hard to not smile when you listen to it. I assure you this'll be time well wasted!


(Oh yeah! The clips with fun instances of the song during "The Larry & Willy Show" can be found at this link. Enjoy!)
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Saturday, October 18, 2003

   I Miss My Sebring!!!
So, the family car - the one my brother was driving a couple weeks back when he got hit - is still gonna be out of commission for another week or so. Meanwhiles, the insurance company has run its days in which it'll pay for a rental car for us. As luck would have it, the dealership that our car's at is willing to give us a courtesy car in the meantime.

Yeah, you know how there's the saying "beggars can't be choosers," right?

We've gone from a 2001 Chrysler Sebring (a car that looked nice, drove smoothly, and still had traces of car smell) to a brown Civic (which drives like a scared squirrel, has a dirty interior and funny smell, and has a "MAINT. REQUIRED" light constantly on).

I seriously hope my bro gets some SERIOUS compensation from the idiot that hit him (the guy was a young man in a company car who had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel . . . and best of all, his driver's license was expired to boot!) . . . . . I miss my car!!!

EDIT: (Oh yeah! And yesterday "The Girl" brought up a really funny realisation to me: Legolas is a bishi'!!!)
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   STREET PHILOSOPHY #6: Sportsmanlike Conduct
Being the guy I am, I spent a lot of time playing competitive games with my friends. Be it "Goldeneye" on the N64 or "Axis and Allies" on the coffee table, I've spent many a night in direct win/lose situations with friends.

As is an obvious thing, no one wants a sore winner. Therefore, we always kept things kinda muted, with house rules of no gloating, no getting upset, etc. etc. etc.

Yeah, that never worked . . . . . there was always the implied feeling of frustration at losing, no matter how quiet the winning party was. And of course you can't say anything like "yeah, you didn't have a whole lot of chance there" or anything - that only got a quick and sharp "shut up."

So, I thought about this problem for a while. What could we do as a group that would keep things fun as games should be? Obviously jumping up and down and gloating would suck, as would just sitting quiet all night . . . . .

I thought up a solution and had it implemented one night. I had finally found my house rule for the best gaming experience ever:

Curse your f**king heads off!

You'd think a whole lot of swearing would be bad for sportsmanlike conduct, but the fact is, everyone's having so much fun calling each other odd, odd things to notice!

So you're playing a war-type tabletop game and the guy wipes out one of your squads completely? You respond with, "Bulls**t! That was the most bulls**t dice roll I have EVER seen you f**king guy!"
Take the same game. This time it's truly the make-or-break moment of a hero fighting three guys; whoever wins this fight will undoubtedly win the game . . . . . the rolls come out, and immediately everyone just explodes in a loud shout - not really a shout for good or bad, just a shout for the sake of energetic shouts.
By these sorts of points, the laughter is always close behind and people don't care if they're winning or losing - they just want to see the carnage turn out.

And THAT, my friends, is how you enjoy a game night!
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Friday, October 17, 2003

   Hell Week Ends With a Bang!
YATTA! NO MORE MIDTERMS!!! My last one was this morning . . . and let me tell ya it didn't go down without a fight!

So I'm at the bus stop down the hill from my house. The friggin' bus does NOT come! 20 minutes later, the next regular bus comes and I get on . . . this single setback puts my entire morning 20 minutes behind schedule . . . well, I don't know how I did it, but somehow I got to class only about two or three minutes late! It was like some sort of divine miracle or something! In any case, I was panting for air and whatnot as I wrote out two short essays on various Middle Ages written works within the rest of the hour I had . . .

I finished it; for better or worse I completed the essays. Now, I know for a fact that what I said was true and it filled out quite nicely . . . now it's just a matter of how much trouble I get into for concluding with:
" . . he writes the same way most others did at the time. He did use Attila, though, which is pretty cool."
(I'm not kidding - it ended with "pretty cool"!)


Ah . . . so by this point my feet are completely soaked from the nonstop rain (apparently it's gonna rain for the next three weeks or so). But, I live with it, because I have no choice.

The other great high-point in the day was around 2:00, when I showed a vending machine who was boss! A couple girls had a bag of chips stuck on the top row of snackfoods. Well, being me I had to intervene and help shake the damn thing . . . a little while later another guy who had just bought a pop helped too. In any case, after shaking, shoving, and thunking that thing for a minute or so, the chips fell, we cheered, the people in the area laughed, one of the girls called us her heroes . . . and I just smiled . . . . .

That in conjunction with riding home with "The Girl" made for a pretty nice ending to an otherwise sucky week.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to watch TV.
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   So, I didn't study for my last midterm whatsoever . . . . .
What's wrong with me? I've known all day that I should study up a bit for this thing, and yet I don't. How strange . . . . . instead I've been on this site for a few hours again. I wonder if that'll reflect on my grade . . . . .


So it sounds like a LOT of people did poorly on that CompSci midterm. I'm not completely surprised. It's a 1st-year science course and that midterm was the first test of the semester.

Here's where it gets interesting: students are COMPLAINING about the difficulty of that test!

On the messageboard people are saying that that was a really hard test, and that the next midterm should count as 100% of the midterm grade; still others say that the best-mark midterm should be what reflects the final grade and stuff.

I mean, come on! Do these people SERIOUSLY think that professors and TAs will simply give in to a mob because they fear they won't all be getting 80% or higher? All I can say is, "Welcome to University, kids!"

Honestly. It's hard to get into lots of schools nowadays. In most cases, these science students are used to getting A's in all their courses (perhaps many of you are A students as well!). And once they find out that they're small fish in a big lake again, well . . . . . they're in for a whole lotta disappointment . . .

So please let me tell you all now: for those of you who are going to go into post-secondary school soon, do your best. And when you get the test back and feel that your best was cheated from you, well . . . it happens. It's not the end of the world. These early midterms are what make you become better students, after all (cause you KNOW everyone's gonna study more next time around!). So yeah, that's my Thursday night / Friday morning post for ya. Next day, we'll bring back some official philosophy!
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Thursday, October 16, 2003

   Party at my Place!
So, a few days ago the parents left for a many-week vacation in the UK. I now hold soverignity in my house! Mwa ha ha!

Yes, I do have an older brother - a police officer, no less - but he's gonna be busy working a lot, so I'm therefore the one to hold the fort. I was dumped with all the food money and stuff and am pretty much the one who has to make dinner now should people actually be at home for that.

And you know what happens when you're in this sort of position? YOU AGE!!!

I couldn't believe it when these things were running through my head:
-Brothers don't know how to put away cups or flatware after getting them out of the dishwasher.
-When's garbage day?
-What should I make for dinner TOMORROW.
-That kid better stop drinking pop because the milk's almost expired.
-I'm gonna make dinner and then everyone's gonna say they're not coming home for dinner . . .

It really is a rather funny feeling, I gotta tell ya! Ah . . . . . whatever . . . I have all the money, after all!


So it rained brutally hard all day today. It was quite a change of pace . . . a shame it didn't do this during THE SUMMER when everything was hot and the trees in the interior were BURNING . . . my my, what an ironic week, no? Meanwhiles, Vancouver and Detroit are tied 2-2 right now. This could bode poorly for the Canucks, methinks . . . . .
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   CANADIANA: Part Two
Alright, here's some relatively random facts about the so-called Great White North for you all to digest. In fact, a lot of Canadians won't even know this stuff!


Geography: Canada is divided into ten provinces and three territories. How do you tell the difference? Easy: people live in provinces. Only truly daring people (and the Inuit [who are quite daring themselves]) live in the territories . . . oh, and Santa Claus. He lives up there too. Now obviously that's a blatant lie and lotsa people do live in the territories . . . . . but they're way up there where it's probably always cold and stuff! But enough about that . . .


Currency: Canadian paper money goes $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. I'm sure there's more after that, but who cares? For $1 and $2 denominations, we have coins - a gold/bronzish coin called the Loonie (for the bird on the tail-end of the coin, NOT for the woman on the head-end), and a double-tiered coin called the Toonie (mostly because people couldn't think of a better name for it - it IS a pretty nifty-looking coin, though). The current exchange rate is maybe about $1 Can / $0.65-0.70 US or so. It's gettin' better, so yay!


Sports: The National Sport of Canada involves two teams going at it, wearing protective equipment and carrying sticks, with nets and goalies at either end of the playing area . . . that's right! The National Sport of Canada is . . . . .

Lacrosse!

Now, that could have been a wicked joke, but it's true! The official sport is not Hockey, but Lacrosse (go First Nation peoples!). The funky part happened in 1994 with the "National Sport Act". Now, Lacrosse is the National "summer sport" while Hockey is the National "winter sport" of Canada. Guess people finally decided it was time for "the coolest game on earth" to get its spot in the sun. Neat, huh?


And so ends part two of "Fun Knowledge Time With Prof. SomeGuy!" Peace!
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

   I'm At School Right Now!
So here I am, sitting in the Student Union Building of my university. Needless to say, this comp REALLY sucks compared to my machine back at home - small monitor, unresponsive mouse, and God knows who's looking over my shoulder right now!

But yeah, I couldn't manage to fall asleep on the couch, so here I am! And now for the daily recap (cooler stuff'll probably come later tonight (or early next morning, depending on your point of view):

The first half of the History midterm went rather well, I thought. Made me VERY happy. Sure as hell better than last night, in any case!

My Latin midterm turned out to be not a midterm at all! It was just a short quiz! Well, it took 20 minutes out of my life, but gave me 30 free ones in return - got to leave early! I mean, I didn't use them especially well or anything (had to wait for "The Girl" to get out of her class after all), but it was still nice to have in any case.

So now I just need to kill about an hour of time before the Lindy Hop lesson. And that's why I'm here. Yup . . . just killin' time . . . . . lotsa time . . . . . . . time time time . . . okay, I shouldn't take my boredom out on you guys. Talk to alluvya later!


Man! This computer sucks!
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   Just when you think things can't POSSIBLY get any worse . . .
So, I killed the eight hours of break time up on campus until the midterm. We start writing. I'm pretty much screwed, in any case - those were some hard questions! Well, not that I had much time to worry about it . . .

Yeah: midterm + fire alarm + some ass-clown's hand = bad day . . .

So now we're all standing outside in the wonderful autumn night, slowly shivering away in relative silence (fire alarm still going and due to school policy we weren't really allowed to talk much). So after about 20-30 minutes of that, we all got back in to finish writing the damn thing . . .

The test was originally going to be 7:00pm-8:00. We didn't get out until about an hour later.

So, I also have a friend who was taking that test. She was in another room, but said to meet her outside a building so I could catch a ride home from her . . .

. . . well, 15 minutes standing by that building later, I decided that wasn't gonna be happening . . . time to walk back to the bus loop . . . total time wasted: about 30 minutes.

Finally get on the bus, off the bus, on the train, off the train . . . . . and find I missed the next bus by about THREE minutes . . . next bus isn't coming for about another half hour . . . . . time to walk up the hill for about that same amount of time . . .


Oh, it gets better . . . here's the REAL kicker:
I was about a block away from my street when my brother's friend drove by and asked if I needed a ride anywhere - this was after half an hour of walking uphill . . . . .

So yeah, I THOUGHT I was getting over my cold . . . probably not the case anymore . . . . . oh yeah, and to add insult to injury, I probably failed that midterm too. Oh yeah, NOT to mention I have ANOTHER midterm this next morning! Aiya . . .
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003

   Boo Midterms!!!
Okay, so, today I'm gonna be at school late, meaning I probably won't be able to put anything cool on this page. I dunno, maybe I'll take a break and steal a machine for a few minutes while on campus . . . but in the most case, I'll be studying my CompSci (stupid CompSci . . . . .).

So, I guess like last week so no one gets bored, um . . . . . if a knife, fork, and spoon were to fight in a triple-threat type bout, which would win?


[It's about 7:30am my time right now. It's still dark out. I know for a fact this is stupid, but I haven't even eaten breakfast yet and should be out the door in the next 15 minutes. Gomen nasai, minna-san . . .
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