Templates for successful groups
April 28, 2002
Remember how the Carebears had a grumpy bear… maybe called Grumpy? The Seven Dwarves had a Grumpy. Sesame Street had Oscar the Grouch. South Park has its Cartman. Who’s the grump in your group? Does having a grump in a group make it successful? Arguably these groups have had their success in their years. What about other personalities? There’s usually a leader character who throws out morals and makes claims of friendship and trust, there’s usually a nerd, a tough guy, a couple “normals”, someone who refers to him or herself in the third-person, there’s usually someone of a visible minority (be it an ethnic minority or of a different social class) - these are your standard groups.
Now looking into our group…who’s who? I don’t think we really have a grump - all of us get grumpy once in awhile, but no one is grumpy all the time. We have a few computer nerds (more than our alotted quota of one nerd), we have a crazy pyro (Hi Sunny) who definitely is the most dangerous in the group, we have crazy death metal man Dennis (who also happens to be a computer nerd, but I guess mixing OCCs is ok - they let you do it in AD&D if you’re not human. Who’s our leader? I don’t think we have one, well, maybe Shannon, I’m afraid of her and her crazy Pokemon Attack Guards. I’m the crazy kung fu guy I guess. Jeff would be our big guy, kinda like the lion or the elephant in the Carebears, or Snuffalufagus (sp?) in Sesame Street. Andrew strikes me as a normal. Jesse is the quiet computer nerd who one day comes out with an earth shattering secret, something like he can fly or lift 10 tonnes. And Justin and Dave are more like normals too. We’re missing a leader and a visibly different ethnic person, I think having a Rabbi or a Tibetan monk would be awesome. OH hey I got it! Michelle, bring your white boyfriend into our group and we’ll have our ethnic minority! I don’t think Eri counts because she doesn’t visibly look different. We’ll also need a pet. Most groups have some sort of faithful dog or dizzymon or something. Considering that my parents have a pet shop, let me take care of that (Attack Budgie). This works out perfectly guys! We are now officially a group. I nominate myself to be Dark Supreme Overlord, on account of my good overlording skills. All we need now is a band of arch nemeses with weird powers - Frogman, Dr. Wily, Yosemite Sam, Shredder, Gaybot, Cutman, you know the drill.
Anyways, if I missed anyone in the group, you shouldn’t be too offended, I just forgot about you that’s all. You’re probably the crazy doesn’t-show-up person anyway so consider yourself cut from the group. And if I did name you and you are offended, oh well, then this episode in our lives will be you and me making amends and hugging in the end and proclaiming that we’ll be friends forever, after defeating a wicked villain first (Cutman probably).
Michelle falls into the tank
April 26, 2002
My majestic plan to enslave all of you is going well. Michelle has fallen off the edge of the planet by reaching the 8th pet… she has no hope of returning to the normal world. How did you get 2 snails? I got a crab as my 8th pet. And I can’t get over 4000 points on the third tank. How the fuck did those guys get over 30,000? That game is the best. If you haven’t been enslaved yet, go get your slave medicine here.
VAG
My trip to the VAG was the first visit since the Rembrandt exhibit last year. I finally got myself a membership because I wanted to get the student discount while I’m still technically a student. The cyborg exhibit is so cool. You’d never think something like cyborgs could hold some artistic potential but wow. Moving. I didn’t care much for Douglas Gordon, no matter how famous he is. His stuff didn’t really get to me. The whole contrasting/opposite relations theme seems a little repetitive. Anyway, now I can see all the new exhibits without paying. Plus I get two free guess passes so if any one of you wish to pursue some artistic appreciation without paying, let me know.
Staring through a glass of water
April 25, 2002
I see… I see a strange calm settling in the water. A quiet sense of security that is about to be rudely awakened by a violent shake of the glass. The tranquility will be no more. Turbulent storms will erupt shaking the glass and everything inside to the verge of ruin. The water will no longer be crystal clear because somewhere along the shaking, foreign particles were introduced. This demonized water will be poison to those who still believe in it. This glass as we know it, is dead.
In a few hundred years, scholars will read that and think I’m some amazing prophet that predicted some terrible catastrophe. Much to the styling of Michel de Nostrodame, they will call me, Leungus.
Lego D0000D
April 24, 2002
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Take the test here if you can’t find the link in that picture.
Justin
He’s back suddenly. Back since Saturday too. No one told me… maybe he was avoiding me. No cheese. After seeing Frailty (review below), I went and had too much coffee with “the gang” at BG. Good times for me anyway because I actually talked. People, you are my friends but if you don’t talk, it’s just some idiot called Jerry making really stupid jokes for an hour. It was nice to see these guys again. It’s rare that we ever hang out anymore. I guess that’s part of “growing up”. Or maybe it’s just people don’t like me and avoid me. Nah it’s not that. Now back to Frailty. I didn’t know anything about the movie when I walked into the theatre. The first hour is boring and pointless UNTIL the ending. Seeing the ending made everything make sense. It’s kind of sad because at least three guys walked out of the movie during the boring part. They will think the movie sucked ass but if they saw the ending, they might have thought otherwise. It’s got a Sixth Sense sorta ending, twisty and made ya think. Normally I like no brainer movies (like the upcoming Triple X movie!!!) but I guess this one was good. What was the movie about? Crazy guy thinks God is telling him to kill people who are demons. Kills people in front of his two kids. Kids grow up messed up. They kill people too. But then the ending shows one of the crazy kids seeing these demons and they actually did evil stuff. So I guess the crazy God part came true.
I guess that review limits any career as a movie critique but they’re always stupid anyway. Goodnight. I love Eri.
Promoting a game
April 23, 2002
Insaniquarium is possibly the most creative internet game I have ever seen. It’s so stupid and fun and addicting. What is it? You have a fishtank. You have two fish. You feed them. They poop out money. You collect the money. After awhile, they grow and you can buy stuff like more fish, better food upgrades, better weapons to shoot down enemies (some alien from Aliens and some sort of lion thing). Then when you amass enough money, you buy pieces of an egg. When you have three egg pieces, the game ends and out hatches a “pet” for you to keep. I think there are 8 pets available right now. I have 7 hehe. When you play a new game you can add your pets into the tank (max 3 pets at once). I don’t know if there’s any point to the game but it’s just so fun and cute. Oh and if you have kids, don’t buy the carnivore and have little fish in the same tank. Your kids will cry.
I highly recommend you play this game because since I like it, you must by default, like it too.
This is bliss
That’s it folks, no more exams tee hee. Boy it sure feels good. Having passed the exam that I knew I failed. Thank god there are many other dumbasses in that class along with me, otherwise, there would have been no scaling. Another surprise, I pulled an A- in my land law class. I got 58% on the midterm but after some quick calculation, I got close to 90% on the final. A 77 on something else. Today’s final final was a lot easier than I imagined. I studied my ass off for this because the teacher was scaring us about “more quantitative calculations” but there were really just 2 of them and they were for preschoolers. I actually dreamed of not knowing some things and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I made a mental note to read it quickly in the morning.
I was the first to leave every exam except one this term. I love that. People think I’m so smart for leaving quickly, but do I know better hehe.
WOOHOOO!
April 22, 2002
He did it! He scaled the marks! I passed! 57%!!! Woohoo! I think I can graduate now.
Damn Luck Last Night
About an hour after my last update yesterday, I went outside so I could catch the planets and what do I see? Stupid stupid clouds covering up most of the southern sky. What luck. The alignment will be around for a week so unless these clouds are gonna hang around that long, nothing’s gonna stop me.
Here are some really beautiful aurora borealis pictures to make up for the clouds. Damn Patchy.
Do Yourself a Favour
April 21, 2002
And get off your lazy ass tonight at dusk. Walk outside the house, that’s right, out of the safe protection of your four walls, and look south (or look north and then spin 180 degrees really quickly). The brightest object you see in the sky (next to the moon) is Jupiter. Then, slowly turn your head towards the west (I don’t want you to injure any discs in your neck) and find another bright object, this should be Venus I think. Now here’s the complicated part. Remember where Jupiter is? Point your finger at Jupiter and slowly (no neck injury again) trace a straight line to Venus (might be Mercury, I forgot). On this imaginary line, you should be able to spot Mars, Mercury, and Saturn (assuming it is Venus to the west, I don’t want you to think you’re seeing TWO Mercuries, that would just be crazy). This happens once every 30 years or 100 years (tv stations should really find out which is real) so instead of studying or practicing kung fu, or burning cylinders for your band, or not fucking with Andrew’s site tonight, you should go see this astronomical treat. It’s also so nice and sunny right now so no evil cloud will block your view. Unless Patchy the Evil Cloud comes out tonight. I hate that bastard.
And one more thing
April 18, 2002
Andrew has asked for “you and your friends to not f*** around with aksy.dhs.org for the entire week because i’m using it for my interview as a demonstration.
thanks”. That sucks. Me and my friends actually had a meeting last week at a secret CIA building making plans to fuck with his webpage. In fact, Conrad, my Second Lieutenant, mentioned, “Haha, Commander Jerry, this plan will not fail. We will fuck with his webpage with certainty, unless he is using it for an interview as a demonstration.” Bastard! I’m having Conrad executed for his stupid prediction.
Attaining This Power
Today I’m gonna talk about something that means to me what metal and other metallic types of music must mean to Dennis.
All of us probably grew up watching those wicked kung fu movies where people use “noi kung” or inner strength to defeat armies of opponents. I’ve had an interest in martial arts since I was 15 and through these years, I’ve seen my fair share of people who preach inner strength. Words like chi, or ki, tai-chi, and qigong all come to mind but I can honestly say 99% of all the stuff I’ve seen is pure bullshit, aimed at those who want to become good at a martial art really quickly.
Anyway, until I started learning a “soft” martial art called Yi Chuan (literally fist of the mind or will), I never really tried to pursue any sort of inner strength training. I tried it for a year but never really got anywhere because it was too slow and passive for me to enjoy. I thought it was bullshit because I didn’t feel any different in terms of power or speed or even health benefits. Well, one day I was at class and my teacher and I were practicing something called “sticky hands” - it’s the primary wing chun training technique. I suddenly realized how fucking strong my teacher was. I’m not talking about a high school bully who’s 100 lbs bigger than you strong, I’m talking about holy shit he can snap me in half strong.
I was fighting just to stay on my feet. With every small movement, I felt my whole body almost lift into the air, smacking into the wall. Then, he used more force and guess what… I DID go flying into the wall. I remember the hitting the wall and getting up and asking him “how did you do that?” I forgot his answer. Let’s compare this to another member of the class who was always slightly better and slightly faster and slightly stronger. When we were training, I would never have to fight just to balance, I could spend my attention on trapping him or getting in that punch. With my teacher, I never got a chance.
So after that day, I realized that that was what real inner strength was. My teacher isn’t a big person. He’s shorter but bulkier than me. Skeptics can argue that he has a lower centre of gravity and I would have a higher one and it was easier to lift and push me, but I was braced and balanced for his attack. Also, there’s another guy who’s roughly the exact same size and proportion to him and he sucks ass. He could have never sent me flying the way my teacher did to me. Still, he never told me how he trained to get that sort of power. I know it took him decades to get to that level, but even so, he wouldn’t share his training techniques. That kind of pisses me off about teachers. Many will never share the one thing that makes them better than their students.
I’m getting back into training every other day now but it’s all “outer” stuff. I want to learn more “inner” stuff. It’s so easy to copy “outer” forms and techniques. Anyone with working eyes can watch Bruce Lee do a few side kicks and copy his form and even his idiosynchasies (that’s what I did) but it’s impossible to watch someone perform some inner training and copy it. There’s a lot of subtle things like breathing and how to exert force and power that make copying impossible. Damn it. Don’t bother suggestion learning tai chi chuan or yoga or whatever the hell they’re serving at your community centre. I stress that 99% is bullshit rule again. It’s not that tai chi chuan is not good (it can be brutally devastating) but it’s that most teachers don’t know how to teach it for my purpose.
Hmm… this is rather confusing
April 16, 2002
I just looked at my credits from classes I’ve taken and it turns out even if I fail that course… I might be able to graduate… I’m not really sure. I think it’s cuz I took that extra class last year and so I have an extra three credits sticking out like a sore thumb. But since I probably failed that other one, that sore thumb is gonna swell back down into a normal thumb. Or something like that.
I’m as confused as you are. Good day and bid me a good study night tonight.
I forgot to give these links
Another flash thingy that I enjoy. This one is funny. And here’s a comic I just started reading.
Poor guy
Poor Colon Powell (that is how he pronounces it so that’s how it should be spelled). He’s over there running between two sides trying to patch things up when it’s blatantly obvious even to the most inept individuals that his efforts will be viewed with disdain by both sides. Talking isn’t the most effective tool when people have been blown to bits by tanks, snipers, suicide bombs, and a whole bunch of crazy shit like that. I appreciate how someone is finally getting into the nitty gritty and trying to put an end to this senseless (to me anyway) violence.
Will his effort produce fruit? Arafat denounced ONE bombing yesterday and now he expects Sharon to unconditionally pull out of the Palestinian controlled towns. Sharon (and Bush for that matter) wants Arafat to take immediate actions to stop any more bombings. Arafat says not until they pull out. Sharon says not until he stops them.
10 print “Hello World”
20 goto 10
run
Meanwhile idiot guerrillas in Lebanon and Syria are making idiot attacks on their borders. Will they stop just because Powell has asked their respective governments to end it? I strongly doubt it.
We live in interesting times.
I guess I’ll update then
April 15, 2002
Who was it that updated when I was the only one? It was Dennis so I’ll update this special update for him. All you other fuckers who aren’t updating, well you’re not allowed to read it.
Let’s see what’s on the front page these few days. People are still exploding in wars, a plane crashed in south korea, and looks like the holy church has a few skeletons in its holy closet. I wonder what I should wear for prom… oh god, I hope my hair looks nice that day. And X-Files is ending in a few episodes, oh god like, what am I like, gonna do, and stuff?
Since not downloading emails from my smarttnet account, 25 spam messages have been sent. I checked them through the email checker thing in ICQ so that’s why I haven’t downloaded them. None have been sent to my normal email. So yay. I’ve been studying all weekend except now when I went to get some coffee with Jeff. Uhh… 3 more finals. Well, most likely there’ll be one more in the summer when I take a course because I fucking failed that stupid on last Tuesday. Stupid me.
I’ve been making these really stupid drawings on my palm, in the “Notes”. They look really ugly (they’re meant to look ugly) but I can just blame it on the low pixel count and the monochrome notes screen. And Aldon’s Crossing looks like a really fun game, it reminds me of “Wraith” for the old Apple II. Too bad it’s in shareware. I hate shareware. The software usually is too crappy to buy but too useful to pass over. I’m using this screenshot program that prints “Register at www…”. Ok, I could use this program but it’s $20. I don’t want to spring twenty bucks for something that just takes a snapshot of what’s on the screen. Hell, I’m in the hole with taxes and crap coming up.
Anyways what a shitty update this turned out to be. Bye.
Email Change
April 13, 2002
From now on, I won’t be using my smarttnet email account because I get a huge chunk of spam from there. After two attempts at contacting smarttnet to see if they can do anything about it, I’m giving up. They didn’t respond to my first email and the next one, they said they would refer me to abuse@smartt.com but nothing happened after that. Since I’m probably leaving for Japan in half a year, I’m not gonna bother switching isp’s at this point but I’ve had it with them. Azonet (the host of this webpage) has some sort of spam filter now that works pretty well so it will be the only address I use (jerry [AT] jvision.ca). So if you happen to have my jl@smartt.com address in your book, you should change it.
Expertise or Well-roundedness?
April 10, 2002
Today I wrote my first exam and unfortunately I am reasonably sure that I failed it (and therefore failing the course). I’ve failed an assignment or two in my life but never a whole course. I’ve been close a couple of times but not truly fail. Am I disappointed? Yes. I studied quite hard for the exam but sadly I still didn’t understand all the material covered. It was the ‘advanced’ accounting course that I keep complaining about.
I then began thinking about this soon to be fail and how it applied to the rest of my persona. I didn’t do too bad in the courses leading up to this one but for some reason I just choked and died. I then realized that I do that in everything that I’ve ever done. I try something, get kind of good in it, but never reach the threshold where I would consider myself very good. It’s as if something (within me?) holds me back and won’t let me go.
And I guess to compensate for this, I try a lot of things. I have so many hobbies, so many interests, so many things I like to learn about or talk about or do. To put it best, I’m a jack of all trades, but a master of none. No matter how hard I try, I’ve never been the top dog so to speak in whatever I’ve done. I’m not really sad about it because I know I put in a lot of effort and I can look in a mirror and say that it was the best I could have done. It’s just, it was a few steps short.
As I began lamenting over this weird quirk, I also thought? was this really a bad thing? I started debating over which was better: to be able to do a lot of things fairly well, or to be able to do a couple things (or maybe even one) really really well? My conclusion is that I don’t know.
I look back into my past and think of friends that were superb in something. They might have been great musicians, excellent sports players (one single sport), really intuitive computer dude, or an artist who can turn ink into beauty. I appreciated their talent and their effort and wish I had their skill but when I turn to the next ‘activity’, their name leaves my mind.
So for me, to be really great at something is only good when people are thinking about it. Otherwise, you may be forgotten or even passed. I never picked the computer guy for my soccer team nor did I go to the musician for help on homework. And when it came to financial success, my artist friend would probably be the last person I think of.
But then again, a person who’s not really great at many things wouldn’t be thought of too. What a dilemna: should people concentrate on one or two things that they can do really well or should they try to broaden their scopes and try many things and not be too concerned about being that great?
More funny business stuff
April 09, 2002
I’ve been reading fuckedcompany.com a lot lately and here’s another piece: some company wants to buy Napster and are ready to spend up to $30,000,000 US. And what’s funny is that this company “had spent around $100 million supporting Napster.” Maybe I’ll go buy Enron for $300,000,000,000 then. It’s about the same deal. I assume that Napster has negligible real assets (you know, like factories, land, machines, coke dispensers) and a big giant lawsuit at its door. I haven’t seen its financials but I can guess this company is buying for “future outlook” or whatever. I guess they think they’ll figure out a deal with the record companies and I guess users will end up paying some money for d/l’ing music and everyone will flood back to napster. I guess they don’t realize that some other illegal idiot will come up with whatever.com and let people transfer music.
Man if I had $30m i would dump it into oil futures now since Mr. Crazy Iraq Guy has just stopped exporting oil. What good will that do? It’s not like Americans (including us, America Jr.’s) have not been through times where oil prices skyrocketed. They did it in the 70’s and a few years ago. Sure it was a cartel that limited supply for business/asshole reasons but this political reason will probably have the same effect. Other crazy leaders will think crazy iraq guy is right and jump in. Oil is at/around $27~28 a barrel right now. It went as high as $32 a couple years ago so let’s try to break that barrier! 40! 50! 60! Soon oil will be the next internet bubble, except you can hold oil… in a can at least. So buy oil futures now! 6 months down the road, you’ll be buying me prime rib dinner and some chardonnay. Too bad I have negative money right now (damn taxes).
Taking a break from studying
April 08, 2002
This is amazing foosball playing.
Does anyone else out there care?
April 07, 2002
Is it just me that has concerns that a multinationed war, a “world” war if you will, is set up to begin? The players has been polarized and taken sides, entrenching themselves in what could be a very fearful battle. It’s iron versus terror. Aircraft carriers versus viral carriers. Highly trained professional soldiers versus religious zealots willing to part with life for the cause. Two sides have formed with threats being thrown left and right. In the middle of it all are two who have been “retaliating” for over 2 years. These two are the source of this chesspiece forming. I’m with white, black is evil. I’m with black, white is evil. Is it just me that sees all this and cares? While people are being blown up left and right, I see people wondering what they’ll wear at their grad, where to go out and party, bickering about some girl that wronged them in their past. Are these sheep oblivious to the countless news reports of death and terror? Are these morons so indulged in the “decadence of the West” that they believe they are safe from world issues? I pity these sheep. The sheep that believe in George Orwell’s ignorance is bliss proclamation. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m overtly sensitive to this because I believe every race, religion, belief, political doctrine, language, action, and life is all the same. I believe that every human is nothing but a human. There are no divisions, no borders, and divides.
Maybe a culture like “The Borg” from Star Trek isn’t such a bad idea. They don’t fight over religion. I have always respected religion and the right of every individual to pursue any religion they like but I’m having my doubts. I only see evil coming out of religion. Only sadness, murder, hatred, division, and greed. I see blame, scapegoats, propaganda, power, fear, and control.
There you go.
You bastards
Bah. I was planning to out wait you asses and not update until someone else does but it’s gonna be 2 weeks for the next person to update. I had my last class yesterday and suddenly realized that I won’t have to step into another lecture for a long time. I do plan to continue learning something but not soon (well, maybe Japanese classes). That last class signaled the end of school but the start of 21 days of continual studying and final writing. Bah. I have to go through four chapters of this stupid book today and know it inside out.
With school out, I can plan more important stuff now for the summer. Third on the list is a redesign of this page. I’m getting bored of it already. Well, not already because this has been up since summer of last year. It didn’t even make a full year hehe. Oh well. My pages never do.
I finished Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 yesterday without losing a single battle, using Lui Bei. I love conquer the universe type games. Always use catapults because they’re so fun. What a shitty update this is turning out to be.
Doh I was had
April 04, 2002
My last update about fuckedcompany.com turned out to be an april fools joke. Damn! I saw soo many april fools webpages but I had to get caught by this one! Haha. I found out a little later after my update, but blogger.com was down (AGAIN) so I couldn’t erase the update and hope nobody caught it (damn you Justin). God I feel like a panda bear in an orc filled world.
And the simpsons was dead on
April 03, 2002
I was reading fuckedcompany.com and found that, Idealab was giving money to fuckedcompany.com even though idealab was the target of unnice remarks by fcomp. Idealab CEO then says, “The move makes perfect sense. By operating a number of small, profitable websites, PK Interactive is leading the next paradigm of web business.”
One episode in the Simpsons said something like people who use the word “paradigm” were stupid people who were trying to sound smart (or something to that effect). The Simpsons is a tv show proving to be this century’s Oracle. What the fuck does leading the next paradigm of web business mean? He just dumped 18 million into a company! How does that lead to the next paradigm? 18 million could’ve gone into marketing, or human resource, or dividends (remember what those are people? dot com’s don’t know what dividends are), or just whatever. 10 bucks says this company’s gonna tank because of stupid use of the word paradigm.
Some kid with obvious mental illnesses kills himself and the mother blames Everquest
Here’s the article. I don’t think it was Everquest that killed him. It was him that killed him. Did the game contribute to his death (and therefore be found liable for … manslaughter or negligence or some crap)? Who knows. The mother wants “warning labels” put on the games. Dude, that will just make kids want to play it more. Things are more fun when they’re forbidden or frowned upon. Here’s another story in the article:
One client - a 21-year-old college student - stopped going to class within eight weeks after he started playing EverQuest his senior year.
After playing the game for 36 hours straight, he had a psychotic break because of sleep deprivation, Parker said.
“He thought the characters had come out of the game and were chasing him,” Parker said. “He was running through his neighborhood having hallucinations. I can’t think of a drug he could have taken where he would have disintegrated in 15 weeks.”
It’s not the game’s fault these kids were stupid. It’s actually violence on tv, blame violence on tv instead.
This is the coolest idea ever
April 01, 2002
Artist Trading Cards. What people do is that they make 20 original cards of their own design (by whatever means they want) and send them to this place. When they send 20, they’ll receive 15 from different people who also made cards. It’s like a big art swap. And they try to organize meets to let people trade in person. There’s even a Vancouver meeting at The Grind (the shadiest coffee place that I’ve ever been to). If I were artistic, I’d be making cards all day instead of writing this update or trying to figure out how to convert txt/doc files to palm format all night. If you happen to be artistic, send me a card. It would make my day big time.
