http://journal.alanv.org/ A general blog about my life and other stupid stuff. Ph34r teh un-r337 me. en-us journal@alanv.org Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:57:39 -0500 http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001557.html Apologies to anyone reading my journal through the LJ feed. I had to hack it last night to get it to let me post, and apparently I screwed up something with the feed files. It should be fixed now... Um yeah. So, like Zeke suggested, I'm considering moving over to Wordpress. This would make life easier in many ways for me, since I wouldn't have to constantly deal with MT deciding to die on me. Dunno. I'll mess around with a WP install and see what I think. I got an interview with JPL (Jet Propulsion Labratories) tomorrow. We'll see... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001556.html Boss got a new pool today. Unfortunately, it's in a very bad place. So I was cooking dinner and washing my pan, when I noticed my feet were getting wet. Naturally, I thought I had splashed water on the counter that was falling onto them, so I ignored it. It didn't stop. I looked down. There was a stream of water flowing out of the cabinet under the sink. I opened it. The sink is leaking. ... So yeah, that was fun. I was washing dishes, the kitchen was filling with water, wheee. ... Communial.kitchens-- At least the chicken with... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001551.html Saw Narnia last night with Alisa. It's an amazing film. The battle scenes weren't over done, when they easily could have been. It's been a while (4 years) since I read the book, but it seems to follow it very well from what I remember. It's amazing how good special effects are getting... you can't tell that Azlan (sp?) isn't a real lion. Wheee. Tonight is Greek Sing. With the amount of homework I have, I really shouldn't go, but meh. I've gotten combinatorics 1/2 "done" (assuming my proofs are correct and rigorous enough), 18100 1/6 done, and 15312 3/10... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001550.html My new camera is absolutely amazing (Click it to see bigger) I guess you can't really see all the detail in there (the full image is 6.1 megapixels), but still... the picture quality is insane. I also got some nice studio shots of Apphia today I may post later. I'm not used to the aspect ratio of this camera (2:3 instead of 3:4), but meh. Good for making prints, at least. I think I'm actually understanding combinatorics now. Went to the grader's office hours, she explained everything I didn't understand, yay. Here's hoping I do well on the exam tomorrow.... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001549.html My new camera (Nikon D50) arrived today! It's so beautiful and pretty and OMG such good pictures! You'll see how amazing they are in my next batch of photos I post to my galleries (following some event). Going to see Brokeback Mountain with Alisa and peoples tonight. This'll be the 3rd time I've seen it in theatres, which is a new record for me (actually, I think twice was a new record for me... but meh) for seeing movies in theatres. So much homework that I'm not doing ahhhh. Tomorrow is a photo shoot with Apphia... and then dinner with... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001548.html Room draw wasn't as bad this year, although we weren't able to get a Fairfax 1-BR as we wanted. Ended up with an 8th floor efficiency by Tim, Dan, Mars, and Apphia. Not bad. Whee. I'm keeping screenshots from various times during room draw (here). Hopefully this'll help out next year's freshmen with their room draw questions, and help out this year's freshmen with their sophomore draw questions too. Frosh are fun. I wish more would talk to me online. Um, nothing else, really. Have so much homework to do, so naturally I'm doing none of it. What I really... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001547.html So I didn't get the Microsoft, as expected. Oh well. Just have to try really hard for the Fog Creek one. Mrrr. I really need to brush up on my C skills... which I guess are still in the process of being developed, so blah to that. Anyone here ever play the game Chrononauts? On a spur-of-the-moment thing last night, Tim, Keith, and I spent like 6 hours yesterday working out a CMU version of it, and Al-Tim helped with some of the IDs. So yeah, now there's a CMU version of Chrononauts... we'll make cards for it soon, and... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001546.html Hey look, it's an entry dated Sunday, that was actually posted logical Sunday! Keith's parental units took me out to Pamela's for breakfast today. Yummy yummy walnut banana hotcakes. Mmmmm. Thank you for yummyness! So I ordered the camera yesterday. A Nikon D50. Yay nice dSLR cameras! Will arrive in a little less than 2 weeks. Turns out ordering the camera from Amazon got me a free 20-page photo book (a $40 value) from Shutterfly, as well as 15 free prints. I need to look through my photos sometime in the next 30 days to choose photos for the book/prints.... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001545.html First, a note to people who read my journal using the LiveJournal feed account ... each entry has the URL of the actual post on top. Please leave comments on the actual entry (click the URL) instead of in the LJ feed... this is because LJ feed entries are deleted after a while, and I lose the comments. If you comment on the actual entry (http://journal.alanv.org/whatever), they stay. So yeah. Decided to go to Pegasus tonight with Chris, gwillen, Tom, Alisa, and Allison tonight. It was mostly anticlimactic. Watched people put on makeup and stuff for a couple hours... then... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001544.html Good news to anyone who hates my camera... It's dead. Completely. Turning it on results in some grinding, then an E45 error. Looking this up online turns up that this is pretty much the "Well crap, this camera is dead... time to get a new one" error. Oh well. I'll start looking for a new one. Good thing this happened during break, so I have time to buy a new camera before New York trip. Bad news to anyone who hates my camera... I'll probably be getting a digital SLR to replace it. This means more camera mehness for all... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001543.html So I guess I'm continuing the trend of making posts after midnight, so the post date is the next day... so I confuse people. Whee. I got a lot of homework done today, where by a lot, I mean none. I tried to do 18100. Spent all day on the last problem. Still not sure I did it right. Whee. Besides that, I covered another two chapters in the C++ book. And that's it. Woke up at around 2, did homework, went to watch TV with Alisa and Jordan and peoples, then went to halfprice, now I'm here. ... I... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001542.html Logical today was pi day and pi(e) party at rlambert's. There was yummy chicken pot pie, spinach and cheese pie, potato leek pie, some dessert pie made with molasses and sugar, cheesecake (not pie), and peach pie with ice cream. So much pie... so much yummyness. Pictars will be posted eventually... probably logical tomorrow. As far as academics go, I've completed one more chapter (day) in the C++ book, and done one more 18100 homework problem. I'm so bad at getting work done over break... meh. Dyed hair too. It is now dark red/maroon. It looks kinda meh when I... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001541.html Yeah, I guess I should update. My goal to teach myself C++ over break (with the help of Tim's book) is going well... I guess. I got through the first week of the 21-day "program" yesterday in about 2 hours. So far, nothing too hard... just some weird syntax stuff. Went to Waterfront with Tim and Ian today. Got some hair dye. Love hair dye. Would have gotten two colors plus bleach, except my hair is sad enough without bleach, and I wanted to change colors... not just touch up the existing copper. So I am officially going to New... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001540.html Fog Creek wants to fly me to New York for a couple days for an in-person interview... and also pay for a couple nights hotel stay so I can look at the city... Exciting. I am eating a bento. I have melon soda. Life is good.... http://journal.alanv.org/archives/001539.html Today was the interview with Microsoft. I wanted this job. I screwed up the interview. I have no chance at this job. Dammit. I'm going to be kicking myself over this for weeks, especially after the rejection letter comes. I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail I fail. It was such an easy technical question too... but I just couldn't get it. I havn't had enough experience with manipulating ASCII characters. GAAH! I'm just no good. And when I am good, I'm just not good enough. I'll never be...