Author Archives: Alan V

Work day 29

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Work today was actually really interesting and fun… and the day went by rather quickly too, which was awesome.
I spent the day working on some JUnit tests. In the process, I feel like I learned a lot more about how the system as a whole works… I mean, I’m still asking a lot of questions of other people, but at least my questions now aren’t idiotic questions, but are actually decently put-together and whatnot.
Also, I learned that Java reflection is horrible and can do amazingly bad things… for example, you can access a class’ private variables indirectly through reflection (I needed to access a private boolean in a certain instance, and modifying that code would have been less than ideal).
Ew. Ew. Ew.
At least it was nicer than what I was doing before, which involed multiple runtime casts and a stack of something like 8 method calls, along with hardcoded values.

Um, yeah.
Foooooooooooooom.

Sicko

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I saw Michael Moore’s new movie, “Sicko,” today with Mars and Ian.
It was really good, actually, and made me kinda question the entire health care system in America. I mean, why are we the only Western nation without government health care? Why does our health care suck so much more than even Cuba’s?
The more stuff I discover about the government and the more pissed off I get with Bush, the more I want to move to Canada or something after I graduate.
Want to come with me?

Anyway, yeah, not much else going on.
You should see the movie. Definetly.

Blar

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It felt like Monday today.

Perhaps I should work 10 hour days for 4 days a week instead (and take Wednesdays off). Hmm…
The thing is, I don’t really know how much I like the idea of getting home around 7 PM every day.

Also, there was an awesome potluck party tonight… yay for delicious food and awesome company.

Kennywood

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Happy fireworks day to everyone.

We (Keith, Ian, Mars, Greg, and I) spent the day at Kennywood. It was lots of fun… I rode my first roller coaster (and confirmed that I hate roller coasters, and will probably never ride one again) as well as a lot of tamer rides. There was also tasty funnel cake supreme… funnel cake topped with ice cream, strawberries, and whipped cream. Also, there was the East Winds Synphonic Band concert that Keith was in (the entire reason we went in the first place). Alas, we missed the fireworks displays (we were at Steak n Shake at the time, eating dinner, since we didn’t realize how late it was), but it worked out for the best as we all just headed home afterwards to sleep… which I should now do.

Also, I am amazingly content and happy with certain parts of my life right now. I still wonder sometimes what I ever did to deserve something like this…
^_^

Work day 23

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I haven’t really been updating lately, have I?
Hmm…

Kelly’s new CD came out on Tuesday. Out of the 17 songs I got (because I pre-ordered the deluxe version of the album from iTunes), 11 are really good (AKA my style) and only one is intolerable. I think my favorite on the disc Sober, which is an amazing, amazing song… but I also really like Hole and Judas. Also, the preorder-only track Not Today is very good as well, but if you don’t have the album by now, you’re not going to get the song, so nyah nyah :-P
Overall, the album isn’t as good as her previous one (although you can’t really compare them, given how different this one is from any of her previous work… and that’s definetly not a bad thing)… but it’s still a damn amazing album, and I recommend you get it. Seriously.

This review of her album made me literally roll on the floor, laughing:
True, most will say, it is less mainstream as her sophomore hit, Breakaway. But this CD, WOAH, it so much deeper, the lyrics are personal (‘Why can’t you just take me?/I don’t have much to go/Before I fade completely.’-Irvine) and are written by Kelly herself. Whoever said these songs aren’t catchy? Of course they are! Maybe not as catchy as Since U Been Gone, or Walk Away, but catchy isn’t everything. Some hip hop songs are catchy (My Humps for example) but that doesn’t make them good songs.

Work went well today. I’ve been doing bug fixes for the past couple weeks, and I feel like I’m getting better at this. I got really, really frustrated earlier this week because I felt like I was taking way too long to track down and fix simple things, but I think I’m getting faster now as I get a better understanding of the code and get more familiar with the codebase. Yay!

CMU Adventures has had a couple updates… nothing big yet, but I’ll work on it eventually. I haven’t had much time lately between work and other personal commitments.

Not much else happening in my life, really. Meh.
*is boring*