Blog
May 31, 2002
I recently learned that the word ‘Blog’ came from ‘web log’. Say ‘web log’ quickly a few times and then drop the ‘we’ syllable.
Dennis really knows me well. I was going to complain that he wasn’t updating but he beat me to the punch. I now believe Dennis is the opposite of me in terms of I like designing webpages but I wouldn’t know the difference between interfacing with databases and grating mozzarella cheese. It’s good that he’s doing it now because should the day come I host my own site, then I’ll just beat him up for the code. Maybe I’ll send him a few bucks as compensation afterwards… nah. Congratulations to Shannon for the fish poop job! I’m wondering how far you two are in Baldur’s Gate. I’m not really that far into the central storyline - I just found out the reason why the metal’s been turning bad in Nashkel. I did however explore every area south of Bereghost. Most of it is just wilderness chock full of your bears (kill the bears for so much exp), vampire wolves, sword spiders, and something called a sirrine (each of these things are 2000exp a pop!). Everyone in my party is around level 5/6 but I think since the copy we bought includes the expansion, the experience cap isn’t until level 7ish for my main dude.
My ankle is a lot better now but I still have to tiptoe step on my left foot which is kind of funny to watch. It turns out the more I walk around, the better the ankle feels. It’s the most painful when I wake up. So sleep does not cure all. I hope it heals really quickly because I’m missing my tkd classes and I’m starting my crazy work-every-day schedule now.
Last thing. I made this yesterday but added a couple more today. I got bored.
Moby
May 30, 2002
Not only is his music fun to listen to, he is really funny too. He’s on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and he’s interesting.
The Bush Strikes Again
When you give a monkey a big gun with an easy-pull trigger, things will go wrong. Here’s the proof that he’s a monkey.
Ouchie
May 28, 2002
I twisted my ankle yesterday during my belt test. That’s rather embarrassing. And it was Andrew’s friend, Arthur who was overseeing the test too. I didn’t warm up very much and I was trying to move to a side doing a double punch when I hear Pop! Then the pain shot up my leg and made a hole in the pain area of my brain. I thought I could shake it off but the pain overtook me. Oh well, I’m not in it for the belt colors anyway.
I did get home alright and the whole day was fine but during sleep, I roll around a lot and everytime I turned, my ankle would contort to a painful position and send me waking up yelping, “Itai” (the word for pain in Japanese). So today I’m gonna be a wuss and go see a doctor. Only my dad just told me doctors don’t work today (what a bunch of bastards) so I have to see a tet-da guy (chinese dudes… uh translated means “metal hit”). I don’t really trust these old chinese forms of medicine… I don’t know why. It just doesn’t seem scientific enough for my trust. Also, if I have a badly torn ligament (which I think I do), will this chinese dude know how to set a cast? Or will he make me drink a concoction boiled with 70 different herbs?
I bet one of those herbs really do work well in healing the injury, it’s just that they don’t know which one, so they pile a whole bunch of them up and hope one of them works.
Oh yeah, did I tell you how stinky these concoctions usually are? No party at my house this week dudes.
Baldur’s Gate cont
May 25, 2002
Dennis, Shannon, and I started playing yesterday after probably an hour of trying to set up battlecom. The game will be so slow. It’s not because of connections, or framerates, or my shitty processor speed, but it’s the fact that it takes forever to gather all three of us to do a simple thing like buying weapons. Plus those two are always stealing and doing unlawful things and that pisses off my character (Lawful good human paladin - the epitome of goodness). Luckily, they’re so weak that even with my fists I nearly bludgeoned Dennis’ character to death (left with 1hp) hehehe. But of course, being a nice paladin, I healed him up as best I could. I even protected him from evil. This game is going to take months to complete. Yesterday we spent probably another hour just walking around the starting town before we headed out. We were at a place called the Friendly Arm Inn when an attacker killed me. And with the main character dead, the game ended (sorry guys, I didn’t realize that Teshnor or whatever his name is was so strong). In case you’re wondering, Shannon is playing a Willow character while Dennis is playing a character similar to the guy who yells, “Hey Abbot!!!!” in Men In Tights. Playing in character is fun.
Baldur’s Gate
May 23, 2002
I picked up the game yesterday and played it all night. It’s pretty good. I don’t think it’s a game for everyone because it does take a little patience. If you ever liked the old TSR games like Pools of Darkness (or Radiance), Champions (or Dark Queen) of Krynn, anything made by the old Forgotten Realms Unlimited editor, then you may like this. I haven’t gotten far in the game so the central storyline is still a big mystery to me. I did a couple of the miniquests and quite a few oddjobs for people (deliver this, kill that, find this, etc). Now I understand what Dennis meant when he said he had two lunatics in his party… so did I. One guy had a hamster that made a funny squeek when you pressed it. As for my character, I chose a fighter/thief instead of a pure fighter or paladin. Sure the leveling up is ultra slow (i played for quite awhile and I’m still on level 1) but I get benefits from both worlds. I’m still opposed to bards though.
Weapon of choice is the composite bow - for everyone in the party. Most of the enemies I’ve met so far are puny little monkey guys and wolves. They fall to arrows quite easily and no one gets hurt. It’s quite gratifying to see a dozen of these bluish imp looking guys walking through a narrow valley while my 6 composite bows fire away in an obvious ambush. Then I send one guy in to pick up the spoils and luring another group of imps into this gauntlet. Muhahaha.
I can’t wait for the multiplayer although I have a feeling it’s gonna be quite slow.
Blast it
May 20, 2002
I woke up at 3am and rolled around in my bed, listening to George Noory talk about nothing for an hour. I realize my attempt at going back to sleep will be useless unless I accomplish three things: peeing for one, getting water, and of course, updating in the wee hours of the night. A few hours ago, Dennis and I finally finished off that damn ss2 game. It was funny because we only had about 10 minutes of gameplay left where we left off but we put it off for two weeks. We’re going to attempt Baldur’s Gate next. Apparently it stays quite true to AD&D (except stupid elves and be resurrected). I will of course be a fighter with the possibility of being a paladin (which is just a variant of the fighter class anyway). Why am I always a fighter? It’s all about the swords. You can shoot your stupid slings and sing your damn songs (bard) but for me, it’s always the clangs of the blade. Bah I don’t have anything else to say other than I really should get some sleep.
Cool
May 19, 2002
a = b
a^2 = ab
a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2
(a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b)
a + b = b
2b = b
2 = 1
HAlloo
Looks like Dennis has caught himself in another one of those pesky time warps again because he’s updating from far into the future. No wonder he says no one is updating. We’re still on linear time and he’s waiting for us 10 days in advance. I wonder if he meant today or next Saturday to play SS2. Maybe I’ll send him a time capsule.
I had a weird dream yesterday. What’s that? Share details with you? Ok.
So for some reason, I find myself on a bike that’s also carrying my sister and my mom. And for another reason, we had to get to UBC. My dad took off in the van and left us here with only the bike. So there we were, biking to UBC, actually, it was only me who was peddling. We stopped at some crazy woman’s house and she gave us a container. I think she wanted us to fill it with food. Suddenly, another friend joined our group and he said he would fill it up. Anyways, it’s getting late so we decide to move on. Now I find myself in at least 5 other bike’s presence. I was first so I turned around to see the others… SHIT! It’s that crazy woman and she’s pissed off about not filling her container. We pull over and the crazy woman is screaming at me and accusing me of stealing her food. She says she wants to see what’s in my backpack. I tell her it’s illegal for her to check (Dream Act, s5 paragraph 7b). But I start pulling stuff out of my bag anyway. I pull out 52 decks of cards, each with a different design. Whatever I was gonna do at UBC must’ve involved tonnes of playing cards. After proving our innocence, we were on our way. And that’s when the phone rang and I woke up.
That’s all.
Time to pick up
May 18, 2002
The retreat was so fun. I didn’t really speak much to the new people like I should’ve because I decided I just wanted to have fun and do whatever I want to do instead (for a change). So I spent the three days talking to the people I usually speak to anyway, making fun of the same people while they call me an asshole and punch my arm. I didn’t even take any pictures but who cares. Now that it’s over, it’s back to work as usual after this four day weekend.
Thursday: tae kwan do (or dragonboat practice sometimes)
Friday: volleyball or basketball
Saturday: tae kwan do
Sunday: dragonboat practice
Monday to Wednesday: rest and get ready for Thursday
That’s my new exercise schedule. I’m gonna try it out and see if I suffer heart failure or not. I’m even back on creatine just to max my energy.
What a crappy update! Send your complaints.
One more update before I go
May 13, 2002
These guys are a bunch of crazy assholes. Not only are people willing to talk for peace but their own leader has called for stops. They still won’t go. Too bad a remote explosive detonator doesn’t exist for their kinds of bombs otherwise… “beep” and kaboom. Assholes.
At least we have a little good news.
Hello Supernintento Chalmers
Nevermind the title.
Thanks Dennis for updating. What sucks is that I sleep so late now I read it already so on my retreat there won’t be anything new to read. Oh well, his heart was in the right place. The sudden breakup of The Reckoning is rather a shock to me (even though I’ve never heard them play or ever seen the band members other than Dennis). I thought things were happening with them from what Dennis has been saying in the recent while. As for a new band name, I suggest the Leongs/Leungs/Liangs. Just get Harrison for bass and me for singer and the pseudo-band from highschool will once again be reborn. Oh yeah, you gotta fire whoever’s on guitar and hire Jon too . . . he’ll bring at least 1 song to the band. By the way, they want their porno disks back Dennis.
Eri is coming to Vancouver in July and she’ll be staying for about two months! After those two months I think I’ll be heading over there for a while so I kinda get the feeling it’s my last days in Vancouver (for at least a year) even though I probably won’t leave until September or October.
I’ve had a really strange experience three nights ago but I don’t know what to make of it yet so I won’t write about it. And I also think time is going by too fast. When school is over, summer’s usually last forever but it’s already mid-May and I haven’t done much of the things I wanted to do. Bah. No updating until Wednesday. It’d be cool if I could update with my palm and a modem (think 150 updates per day).
Anyways so I’m off to my retreat tomorrow (some “rec center” with an Indian name in Squamish). I also get to meet the 9 new guys they hired. I know two of them already, one being Daniel. I saw another newbie who was as short as a fire hydrant. Well, maybe not that short. I feel so old in this job. Ok bye.
Best Sleep In Ages
May 10, 2002
I slept more than 10 hours today and even though I’ve been doing so ever since school ended, for some reason this was the best sleep I’ve ever had. I woke up with a big cheerful smile even though the Kelowna trip I’m planning at work isn’t going very well. We need 35 people to go to break even and yesterday we had 13. Screw them. I put in quite some time planning some really cool stuff but oh well. It is life. I’m going away on Monday and won’t be back until Wednesday for our annual work retreat. No boozing though.
Finally, someone updated. Actually when I asked why nobody is updating anymore, I was basically just asking, why is Dennis not updating anymore. He’s pretty amazing. He’s reading four books at the same time. I can only read two books at once because I forget what happened the last time I read. Usually I try to read one fiction and one non-fiction. The fiction is purely for fun while the non-fiction is usually some sort of learning/self-improvement thing. Anyway we will be finishing that blasted ss2 game soon I hope. It’s getting to me how we’re so close but not finishing.
End.
Nothing much
May 09, 2002
I got my camera back! The bulb was dead. It was rather expensive to get it fixed - $55 for the bulb and another $100 for labour and then the government wants a cut of that too. Luckily, VISA guarantees stuff you buy (on certain cards) so it’ll all get reimbursed. I thought what a shitty camera I had because I had it for a year and a bit and the bulb dies on me but it turns out the flash has been used over 2000 times. I figure that’s not too bad.
I wonder why nobody is updating anymore.
That is cool
May 07, 2002
I just finished watching a dragonball tv special about Trunks’ future and what do I see in the credits? Dream Theater did a couple of the songs. That is soooo cool. I was always thinking that DT’s heavier songs would sound so good in a great battle type environment and voila. And they spelt it Theater, not Theatre too.
I’m off to my tkd class all hyped up now. Bye.
Ack
May 06, 2002
Sorry Dennis for not playing SS2 yesterday. I was cleaning up the place and I guess the time just whisked away with the dust. After the starcon2 failure, I downloaded Master of Magic. It’s like Civilization except with magic. It reminds me of that bbs game we played back in the day where it was like BRE except with magic. It was published by Microprose which explains why the opening menu and even the freaking sound effects sound so much like Master of Orion. The things that were awesome and that sucked about Civ are also in this game. A nice feature about the game is that even though you start with a single race like Elves or Gnomes, when you conquer other cities with different races, you can build different racial units. Master of Orion lacked this. The game crashes once in awhile which is weird for old dos games. I was never frustrated with crashes until the introduction of windows 95.
Boo-urns Boo-urns
May 05, 2002
I really wanted to play Starcontrol II all of a sudden so I found the game and tried tinkering with the old config.sys and autoexec.bat files to run it in dos. I got the sound to work but the colors are all screwed up. The game runs as if I had an EGA display when the game was made to take advantage of a whopping 256 colors back then. So the game looked like big crap. Plus it froze for some unknown reason. I think I have to find a driver for a VGA display but I’m just tired of restarting so many times so fuck it. No SC2 for me. The game was sooo good though.
Wee!
May 03, 2002
Suddenly, when things looked bleak, Eri surprises me yesterday morning (she woke me up at 7am) and says she got a job! She’s been job hunting for the past many months and has been feeling down but then suddenly she got a job that she really wanted. So yay for her! I’m busy making a big surprise for her. Well, it’s a big ol’ package with her name on it. The contents are top secret. Sorry hon, you’ll have to wait to see what’s inside.
And yay for me. That same day, I discover that I passed that old darn English course (re: May 01 update) and therefore I can graduate. And after that first class at that martial arts place, I suddenly have all this new motivation and energy to train. I know what it is. I’m new and therefore crappy at the place. I don’t like being crappy so I have to work extra hard to get good fast. So yay for me too. My hamstrings hurt but like they say, No Pain. That’s all they say.
GMAT
May 02, 2002
Thinking about possibilities in my future, I chanced onto the Graduate Management Admission Council website (the makers of the GMAT) and started doing some sample questions. Is it me or are they rather easy? I scored 100% on the Quantitative questions and almost 100 in the Verbal questions (I missed one or two grammar correction questions). I haven’t done the analytical writing stuff because it’s pretty hard to know if I did well or not. Of course I’m not saying that the GMAT is a breeze and I’ll ace it but it’s nice to know that it’s not as hard as the LSAT.
It’s May Already?
I just finished exams not long ago though…
I passed that english course! I must’ve pulled a whopper of a good final because I beat my estimate by a lot. I was guessing between 40 - 55%. Now that I know I passed this course, I’ve assured my graduation because I have enough credits already. I’m still waiting on one course but I think I passed it before even writing the final anyway.
This while has been filled with working, coffee, and occassionally going out with chums. I admit that I smoked a bit this little while but it’s nowhere near what I used to smoke. I don’t plan on buying any cigarettes either.
Today I went to my first class at the martial arts place next to my dad’s store. The guy’s pretty nice and he’s a good teacher. The private lesson was mainly about basic stuff but it focussed more on tkd (and therefore the legs) which I haven’t trained much of. It’s a little more formal than I’m used to too, with uniforms and belts, bowing and the whole nine yards but it’s acceptable. I’m gonna train a lot to get some flexibility in these old legs o’ mine.
I’m sneaking this into the April updates
May 01, 2002
There’s really no point to today’s topic. I’ve been thinking of a simple design for a photo album and here’s what I’ve come up with first round. It reminds me too much of windows so it sucks and crashes. Sorry, this opens up in the same window with no navigation back. Maybe I’ll make a photoalbum design to display my photoalbum designs. Anyways, the file is a little big (slightly under 100k) because I don’t have a good graphic compressor (PS5.5 still). Don’t mind the weird weird message and pictures, they’re just for testing and they’re all changeable of course.
To Eri: Don’t be sad honey. Ganbare and I will buy you white chocolate mochas.
I forgot to congratulate Daniel for getting the job. Congratulations. Doesn’t mean you’ll be beating my Bejeweled score anytime soon though. Dennis and I have been playing ss2 for the past two nights. I think we’ll be finishing it really soon - like maybe 30 more minutes of gameplay. And lastly, I’m still waiting for two marks (one of which determines whether I grad or not). I got another back, I missed an A- by 1%. Sucks ass but at this point, I’ll take anything over 50. All that coffee today is wearing off so don’t disturb me while I nap.
