Monthly Archives: July 2006

Spending PlaidCa$h…

Posted on by

Um yeah, so I’ve spent around $240 in the past 5 hours, but don’t worry, it wasn’t my money. I had around $470 in PlaidCa$h earlier today, so tonight I decided to splurge. Went to Joe Mamas, bought pies and goodies at Eat n’ Park, bought drinks at Starbucks, and went to Murray Avenue Grill (the most expensive place that took the money) for dinner. Had their Seared Ahi Tuna Steak (the third most expensive thing on their menu, after the beef steaks and ribs). Oh god… it was so yummy. Ahhhh. I definetly want to go back sometime.
…
So this is what it’s like to be rich. Heh… I guess I’m glad then that I’m poor, because I’ve eaten wayyyy too much today.

Work today went well. Decided to ignore the inaccuracies of classification for now and start on extraction. Spent about 3 hours in the morning figuring out how the hell to parse points out of a word problem (i.e. “The candle was 5 inches long after having burned for 2 minutes. After 8 minutes, it was 3 inches long.” contains the points [5,2] and [3,8]). After that was figured out, extracting the equation for two-points problems was relatively straightforward. Extracting from standard then took me the afternoon (had to figure out how to extract an explicit slope i.e. “He drove 40 miles an hour and has already driven 20 miles” has the slope 40). So yeah, extraction for *most* of standard and for *most* of two-points now works. Yayyy!
Two down, 7 (harder ones) to go…

I think I’m getting sick. My throat hurts. That’s not good.
*drinks yummy Starbucks passion iced tea to soothe throat*
*eats fried tortilla chips to irritate throat*
*starts on my second blackberry pie*
Wheeee.

Carla is in the cubicle next to me at work. She is off this week on vacation.
…
I had nothing to do with this. At all. Yeah.

Took some artistic shots today downtown, but I’m too lazy to photoshop them and foo, so you lose.

The current condition of the world (N. Korea, the Middle East, etc) should worry me more than it does… meh. I remain relatively blissfully unaware of stuff… all I know is they have missles and the area is exploding (respectively to the two).
Meh.
I’m glad I don’t watch TV or read news sites or newspapers.

Tiiimmmeee

Posted on by

Where does the time go? It’s already 10:30. I should shower and sleep soon, especially since I think I’m coming down with something (sore throat, trouble breathing, cough… bleh).

Work today was kinda bleh. I feel so behind… I can’t work on formula extraction until I finish formula classification… and formula classification currently has a success rate of 74% for non-standard problems (99.2% if you include standard problems). I need to get that up above 80% before I’m comfortable going to extraction.
After that is working well enough, I need to tackle the issue of systems problems as well (for which equation extraction will be a horrible mess of painful death).
My mentor is so amazingly understanding…

I had another weird dream last night. I was in a video game, and there were a bunch of different quests I had to undertake to complete it and save my friends and family.
The only one I remember, unfortunately, was me noticing a bunch of gold and jewels (the game’s “collectable items”) under some crates, and trying to jump in such a way that I would slide in and touch it (picking it up; my character apparently is thinner while jumping or something). I finally consulted the hint system, which led me to a nearby computer station with a guy who introduced himself. He said that that terminal controlled the invisible radio waves in the air that could blow up the crates. I did so and collected the treasure.
…
There was more stuff involving sliding down broken railings over pits of lava and jumping over electrified metal shard boxes, but I don’t really remember that part.

My first S (even if it was just an S-) from this weekend.
(The left is 8… he’s too good -_-)

The front of New House, stylized.

Dreampost

Posted on by

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I want to get thoughts down before I forget it.

Had an odd dream last night. It took place in the future, just when humankind had developed a new form of energy derived from water (apparently super-effective). It followed a family of 4; the mother, father, daughter, and son; and I kept on switching perspectives from an outsider (as if I was watching a movie) to a participant (as the father and, sometimes, as a third child).

The thing is, the process of using water as energy in this way makes the water “magical” (that was the actual word used) and is diverted from the primary water supply to a special holding pool in the northern part of the city. Said water was gold in color (kinda like sparkly urine), “flows faster than normal water” (and you can see undercurrents of gold in the primary rivers and lakes), and is someone capable of spawning new life (how was never really explained). For that reason, all sex and “natural” reproduction is banned. Also worth noting is that this society was a Utopia… a perfect, pristine, sparking city of chrome and glass with trees and wildlife everywhere. Also lots of rivers and lakes and waterfalls, naturally. So beautiful… I wish I could draw, so I could recreate the scene.
The mother and father were present for the “grand switching,” when everyone on earth switched from coal and nuclear to the new power source. The daughter and son were born by the new process (from the holding pools of magical water).

In any case, life is good, and then one winter day the family goes up to the north to the holding pool of special water. The daughter (who is only 2 but can already speak, read, and write like a middle school student) tells her parents (who are reading and relaxing on the ice by the water) she is going to go exploring. Then we watch as the brother (who is now, for some inexplicable reason, an insect) slowly dies and eventually stops moving. No one seems to care. We then follow the parents as they go to the edge of another pool only to find a note from their daughter, “I’m going to play with my friend organisms!” (written in red sharpie, no less). The assumption here is that she has “unborn” herself by jumping back into the pool where she was created (whether on purpose or on accident doesn’t really matter). I remember crying in the dream, and the mother comforting me with, “Oh well, there’ll be more.”

I also remember thinking, as the dream progressed, with the knowledge that this entire thing took place in Alaska in the winter, that there was way too much daylight for too many hours per day. Odd thought to have.
Also interesting to think about is that eventually the water supply is going to run out, since this method of using water for energy makes it unusable after consumption. I remember the thought occuring to me when they were first switching to the system, but someone reassured me (in the dream) that water was infinite and we’d never run out. Hmm.

Heh, I wonder what religious groups would have to say about aspects of this dream. And it’s also odd that that’s the first thing that I wondered when I woke up and remembered it.

Also discovered what I consider the best haiku ever on the KoL forums today:
; +
! %
& ,
It actually works!

Have to run to work. Will edit this post later with a picture for today.

Edit: As promised…
Wall in front of someone’s house on Morewood Ave., stylized.

More ITG!

Posted on by

Played even more ITG with Grant and 8 today. Whee.
Managed to pass three more 10-rating songs on my first try
-Temple of Boom with a B+
-Remember December with a B
-Tribal Style with a B
Also got another B on Fleadh Uncut.
I’m also now consistently passing 9-rating songs.
That’s really about all I did today (a few hours of ITG). Kinda sad, no?

But um… yeah… after playing something like 100+ songs in the past 3 days, I really should stop playing for the rest of the week. My feet and legs and back are starting to hurt (and hands/wrists, from all the hands and bar-gripping). My wallet hurts too, but that’s a different kind of pain.
But OMG, Dawn expert…. I love the freezes with hands!

Tomorrow is work. I should sleep soon then.

Katherine, Andrea, and Reid at party thing last night:

…
Oh shit, I missed Starcraft night, didn’t I?
Meh, ITG was more fun anyway.

…
I should eat dinner, given that I havn’t eaten anything substantial all day and it is now 11:40.
My eating patterns have been all off lately. Sometimes I get hungry and eat like 4 meals a day, and other days I’ll just not get hungry. Maybe it’s because I sleep through breakfast and lunch.
*goes off to find food*

ITG, wheee

Posted on by

I really should not get into the habit of making posts after midnight… especially since I really should not get into the habit of going to sleep after midnight. Blah.

Um… so I’ve played a lot of ITG and DDR in the past couple days (with 8). As in… more in the past couple days than in the previous three months combined. I’m definetly starting to improve. Highlights:
-Got my first S ranking (had never managed to break A+ before) and continued getting S’s.
-Got my first Excellent streak (where the combo counter glows gold)
-Broke 600 combo for the first time
-Increased stamina (I can now play through an entire set without needing to stop and rest)
-Passed my first 10-rating song (Fleadh Uncut) with a C- and then a B (managing to keep us alive since 8 failed out trying to train himself with mods)
-Learned to read the reverse mod
-Passed a large number of 9-foot songs (Bouff and Dawn are two of my new favorites)
-Played survival mode for the first time ever (and didn’t do *too* horribly)
-Played DDR’s Oni mode (where you can only get below Great three times before you lose) and survived for 5 minutes, 30 seconds (longer than 8, amazingly)
Today was especially fun. Played something like 50 songs in a row… spent around 4 hours there. So much fun… so much exercise… so good for me! I think, between the two of us (8 and I), we’ve easily spent over $30 in the machines over the past two days. Wheee!

My next goal is to achieve a star ranking, but I need to get much more accurate with my steps first. Still getting far too many Greats. Maybe I should shoot for a “Single Digit Greats” first, then then work on increasing my Fantastics.

Also finished over half of GTO the series (I think we’re on episode 25 now). Amazing series. So much totally random stuff in it. Wheee.

Um… so yeah, I’m feeling much better. I’m actually really happy today. I had a lot of time to think about everything yesterday and last night, and I’m actually really, really, really happy with the way things turned out.
Most importantly, we’re still friends.
And I think doing a lot of stuff with 8 lately helps, since 8 is (usually) happy, and his happiness is contagous. I’m serious. I dare you to spend time with him and not walk away grinning.

Apologies to Keith and Tim for not attending the party at Keith’s place today. I didn’t get back to my room until around 15:30, and then had to shower and do laundry and eat (having not eaten in over 24 hours). I’ve just been kinda out of things for the past few days, but I should be good now.

Pooja and peoples threw a PSLC party thing tonight. We had lots of food and played Cranium. Whee. I’m especially proud of my doodle of “Drive-in movie” that I had to do with my eyes closed. Marc kept on asking me, “Is this one of those movie scene things?” while pointing to something that I obviously couldn’t see (since I had to have my eyes closed). Wheee.

Pictar of 8 with Tyler’s star pillow. I think I really like this one because of the colors (the bright yellow of the pillow with the bright blue of his shirt… whee)

I have used “Whee” too many times in this entry.
…
Whee?