You're Asian, you must be smart, right?

Recently?

It's been busy.
Busy as hell.
I'd kinda forgotten how busy a full eighteen units was.
Not to bitch too much, but school is swatting me around, inflicting numerous small wounds before it strikes the final blow.

Besides that, in the past weeks I've (in sorta chronological order but not really at all) :

Explained to a Japanese exchange student the meaning of the word, "dildo" (大人のオモチャ)

Set up and sorta participated in a Lion Dance show

Finished a sudoku puzzle nearly every weekday (the ones in the school paper are super easy :-X)

Beat the Hard Campaign of Advance Wars DS (DS Wars?)

Started anew, gave up, started yet again on MUDding

Found out my HDL (good cholesterol) is higher (better) than the recommended level, my LDL (bad cholesterol) is lower (better) than the recommended, and my overall cholesterol is below (better) than the recommended.
To celebrate this happy event, I've been eating craploads of eggs (<3 eggs)

Studied like crazy.

Been debating whether I ought to buy Phoenix Wright or some other DS game instead

Saw The End of Cinematics

Went to a benefit dinner emceed by my dear brother.

Started going back to kung fu on a regular basis.

Finally broke in my new shoes.

And God knows what else. Some debauchery, some brief moments of slacking, and a bunch of lab time.

How long until Thanksgiving? I could use another summer break.

Went to SF this weekend with Sean and Ave. It was nice. As always, the day was overcast, the wind was strong and chilly, and the air was moist. It might be that I would get tired of the weather in SF if I lived there long enough, but currently I can't think of a place with better weather.

I think I'd been to the Metreon before at some point, but hell if I can remember when that was. Altogether it was interesting to see for the first time, but I wouldn't plan any trips solely to see it again. Sean did get a nice pic of me in front of some PSP advertisement though.

Oh, also saw some kids playing with the eyetoy. I kinda wanted to give it a try, but the kids lined up to play did not let me make a fool of myself. I guess they figured if they let a Chinese person start playing the ping pong game, no one else would be able to play for the rest of the day.

As per normal, we also swung by the Sutro Baths. Really, just wandering around out there is enough to keep me occupied for a while. The rocks in the area were slippery with moisture, so we didn't do too much of wandering around besides the main ruins. I did a bit of wandering around on the rocks, getting as close to the ocean as I could while trying not to fall in.

It was awfully nice just sitting there. I've never spent much time in coastal towns or even towns that are close to coastal towns so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I don't get to see the ocean much. In fact, I've probably seen the ocean from above more often than I've seen it from a beach perspective. That being the case, it was just nice to see the waves crashing into rocks with the sun setting in the background. The clouds were lit brightly, but not so much that you couldn't look at them without being blinded. There was a rock that I probably could have jumped to where the birds would gather, take off, and return to once in a while.

It was so nice in fact, that I decided to go down to a small cove where there was a bit of sand and a bunch more rocks to experience the coming of the tide. I stood on the rocks as the water crashed around me and pooled not quite high enough for me to become worried. Ave was playing his usual game of tag with the waves on the sandy beach.

So, as I was standing there taking in the scenery, the waves, and all that nature crap, I didn't notice that a wave larger than the others was coming in. I did notice it in time that I was able to scrabble up some rocks and receive just a mild wettening of the left side of my pants and wet socks and shoes for the rest of the day. It's a good thing I didn't actually get ripped out to sea, since I very well may have drowned considering my limited swimming ability.

After that, we got some dinner at Gordo's and started heading out of the city and back home. All in all the process took us maybe an hour.
Getting out of the city that is.
Apparently everyone decided to leave at once and the roads were moving at an ungodly slow rate. A mind-numbingly slow end to a spontaneously fun journey.

Teh awesome



Comfort Eagle
The Distance
Mexico
Shadow Stabbing
Frank Sinatra
Excuse Me, I Think I Have a Heartache
Comanche
The Guitar Man
No Phone
wheels
Guitar
Love You Madly
Never There
Daria

So the Vegas trip was fun. We left town around three-ish, drove six hours until we decided to eat at a Mimi's Cafe in some random place. Bakersfield maybe. After discussions of juggling, Perplex City, baby oil, and other random crap we arrived in Barstow around eleven at night. Or maybe it was closer to midnight. In any case, we dicked around for a bit until the ass of our caravan made it and went to bed only to wake up not more than four hours later.

We ended up at the DARPA Grand Challenge event a little bit after it started, and spent close to twelve hours there. I could talk about each individual thing that happened, but I've come to the conclusion that most of the world does not share the same sort of enthusiasm for engineering and design that DGC participants and I tend to. All the same, we got to talk to a few of the teams that were participating in the final event as well as those who had failed at the preliminary qualifications that took place prior. They all had a fair amount to say on how they approached the project and what design decisions they made based on their resources. As a student, I'm rarely faced with projects of this scope and so hearing others talk about what they did and why they did it helped me to learn a fair bit on the kinds of thoughts and considerations that should be taken when making decisions.

As for the competition itself, the consensus was that the course itself was sorta, well, easy. It was shorter, flatter, and less obstacled than most had expected. Most competitors had SUVs and at least two teams were sporting Hummers in preparation for an off-roading sort of expedition.

Caltech was eliminated in a funny way at the least. Apparently they went under some power lines which made the car think it was off-track. It then tried to adjust course to correct.
Over some barriers.
Almost right into some media.
So yeah, I thought it was kinda funny anyway.

Another interesting elimination was Team Ensco. About 2/3 of the way done with the track, after getting pretty close to the most difficult part of the competition, they got a flat tire. Pretty much everyone just got really confused when it happened. Apparently after doing all that work, no one bothered to buy run-flats. I can only imagine the irritation.

In the end, Stanford won the match. There was a fair bit of cheering as Stanley (the Stanford team's robot) passed up the previously leading Red Team (Carnegie Mellon). Which reminds me, Red Team actually hired a skywriter, a poor one, to write their team name above the competition. The first time, he wrote it in such a way that anyone looking up would be blinded by the sun while trying to read it. The second time, it took him so long the first letters had pretty much faded when he finished the last few.

Back in Vegas, we checked into the rooms and blah blah blah. Among other things, I played this sword game. It had a large, upright, circular sensor thing you had to keep your sword in. You then used the sword to strike enemies and parry blows on screen. It was fun, but very difficult to control and so I felt kinda helpless while playing it.

Also, we dropped by this place, Gameworks, to see the arcade. After going in and making cursory rounds to see if there were any machines worth playing, I met back up with the group.
"Hey Yann, they have Virtua Cop 3 over there."
"Are you kidding?"
"No,"
"'cause if you're lying to me, I will destroy you. I will absolutely kill you. I will rip your throat out with my bare teeth and shove things into the opening, blah blah blah"
"At this point, I wish I was joking."

I was not lied to, there was indeed a Virtua Cop 3 machine there. It was even turned on. And stuff! So I quickly grabbed one of those shitty card things, put some money on it, and proceeded to play it with Alex.

The stage select screen of the game invites you to pick either the easy, medium, or hard campaign to play. Figuring Alex had never played before, I shot at the easy campaign which was on the left side of the screen. Oddly enough, this had the effect of shooting in the direct center of the screen and selecting the normal campaign.
At that point, I began to sense bad things afoot.
Once in the actual game, it turned out the game was just broken. The guns would shoot nowhere besides the exact middle of the screen, which made it hard to kill the various enemies littered around the field. I almost broke down and wept at that point, but at the very least, there were other games in the arcade that were fun to play.

There was more than one turret type game in the arcade, but the more entertaining one was one where you had to open a door, go into the game, sit down, lock the door and put on a seatbelt before the game would start. Once inside, all you really had was a joystick that aimed and rotated the turret. The nifty thing was that when the turret rotated in the game, the actual turret sorta thing you were sitting on rotated as well. In retrospect, there was actually no reason for the turret to rotate since there was just one screen and that rotated with you, but it's that kind of unnecessary flourish to a game that makes it, fun, or something.

Ghost Squadron was also a fun sort of play. The machine I played it on was kinda crappy though and so pulling the trigger didn't always fire the gun. That made it more difficult than normal to stay alive in the face of enemies who are firing things at me.

We also did wander the strip for some time, checking out the sights, the Bellagio fountains, and the many men standing on the side of the road with stripper/whore cards flicking them to make noises in an attempt to make you interested. Also, walking around with open containers of alcohol was a new sort of experience. For one brief moment, it felt like drinking was not a sin.

Now, on the way back, we went to "John's Incredible Pizza". I wouldn't mention this except that they had some interesting pizza. In particular the pepperoni and peanut butter sticks in my mind (hahaha), as well as the fiesta pizza. The first, while it sounds gross, was quite good. I mean, I might not order an extra large one for me and my friends, but I did not regret picking up a slice or two of it. The fiesta pizza on the other hand, was something I could see myself eating regularly. I love Mexican food, I love pizza, combining the two only brings joy to the world. As one person said, "It's like biting into a bean burrito".

Anyhow, now it's back to another week of school. There are worse things, but I'm pretty sure that there's a circle of hell where the primary punishment is to make the sinners live the life of an engineering student in his senior year.

At the very least, I have a Cake concert to look forward to tonight.

So, things have gotten better. With the beginning of a new school year, I'm feeling more active and social and all that jazz. The summer was getting a bit in the way of lonely and boring as hell.

So, last year I went to see Nnenna Freelon with Shefali, and it was quite great. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and afterwards, when she talked about coming back the following year and doing a show called "Blueprint of a Woman", I said right there that Shef and I ought to go see it. The show is actually being held this weekend.

on a not really related note, some recruiting meeting for the Uni's DARPA Grand Challenge team the other day. I was kinda surprised by the turnout of people, and the amount of people who actually expressed interest in the project. It's questionable how many are actually going to stick around, but it's looking pretty good so far.

In any case, one of the discussions we had at the meeting was whether any of the people interested in joining the team were also interested in heading to Vegas/Barstow to check out the race. A bunch of the team members wanted to go and see the race, and maybe even talk to some of the teams, advisors, and the people from industry who are probably gonna go check it out.

Now, the problem here is is that those two events are the same weekend. It took me a bit to realize, but there was an obvious answer as to which I should go to, even considering that I'd be seeing the show gratis and would have to pay about a hundred to go to Vegas. As a graduating senior, I absolutely need to make as many contacts as I can, since I'm in dire need of a job at graduation. As much fun as it is sending out applications and doing voodoo magic to increase my chances of getting a reply, I'd much rather have someone who is interested in me personally, as opposed to my application/resume, and willing to give me a chance at their company.

So, once again, I'm denying my spirit and soul in favor of my pragmatic mind. I've kinda gotten used to it now, since I've been having to sacrifice spending more time in Chinese, Japanese, and other random classes that interested me to take all the damn EE classes that are required for graduation. I have of course debated whether EE is the right major for me several times within the last few years, and even now I wonder what could have been if I'd majored in say, physics, Chinese, Japanese, Neurobiology, Cognition, or whatever. Sometimes I really wish I'd spent more time learning literature, writing stories, and taking in culture. The funny thing is, a friend who did just that (he studied comparative literature instead of computer science) feels that he wishes he'd learned something more practical, something which related more to the world and to people than writing essays about novels and stories most people have never heard of.

Just when I thought my slew of computer problems was over, Murphy's law reared it's ugly fucking face and pissed all over me some more. So far, the story begins with replacing my brother's motherboard, which burned out, quite literally. That took a while, then we had to replace his power supply as well, and blah blah blah.

A while later, my mobo stops responding as well. The computer turns on, but doesn't beep or do much of anything. I end up replacing the motherboard and things are good. That was maybe a month ago? I dunno, my sense of the passage of time is very poor. Anyway, a week after that, I wake up to find my computer turned off. I usually leave it on overnight, and so this was sorta worrying. I turn it on again, and just as it hits the Win2k splash screen, it powers down. A bit of fiddling convinces me I have to fix the power supply, so I go and buy a new one. A nice 500watt Antec with modular cables; excessive, but I figured it'd last and I'd be needing to upgrade eventually. The extra wattage should come in handy at that point. So that brings us to a day or two ago, when I finally received and installed it, and got my computer working.

As of right now, the Master File Table on my secondary drive has been hosed or something along those lines. The computer doesn't recognize it as a formatted file system, and so I have no access to it. This is quite enough to make me hate computers even more than I already do. Moreso, this makes me hate Windows even more. In any case, I'm running EasyRecovery on it right now, and luckily I can probably salvage most of the drive.

Fucking computers.

I am going to see the doctor in approximately eight hours and twenty minutes. I have this lump in my crotch right now, maybe about the size of a pea, that has been there for a few days at the least. It hurt reasonably much when I first noticed it, and now it hurts much less so. I think it's an in-grown hair, but risking losing the boys does not seem like a reasonable alternative to going to the doctor.

The problem I have with going to the doctor is that I always feel kinda like an idiot for doing so. More likely than not this is going to be nothing important at all, and he'll send me off with a good word and I'll leave with the knowledge that he probably had better things to do with his time. Furthermore, I've had doctors examining my crotch area and the things in that area since the day of my birth. I would bet that I've had my package looked at by doctors more than most guys. Luckily, I haven't had to undergo that since junior high or so and it looks like I will be breaking that trend later today.

On a semi-related note, my recent rash of computer problems seems to run parallel to the fact that my building blocks of life have had a lot of problems in my lifetime. I'm just a lucky guy I guess.

Also semi-related, I've had this small lump on my upper back right up near my neck for a while now. A few people, non-doctors, have looked at it and most agree it's probably an in-grown hair. I think I may ask the doctor about that as well. I've been meaning to do so for quite some time, but the last time I went to see the doctor about it, it turns out my insurance ran out or something. There was some error in the database in reinstating my insurance that had expired at some point when it shouldn't have and so I had to miss my appointment and suffer just a little bit more. Hopefully this does not happen tomorrow.

Lastly, I leave later today. Probably around 4 or so, after my last class of the day. I am hoping very much that they have Virtua Cop 3 in one of the arcades. I somehow don't think this is going to come to fruition. Short of that, it'll be nice just to see the vehicles in action and talk to the people who designed them. And of course hopefully I might find some folks who happen to like me and want to give me a job when I graudate.

Here's hoping at least one of those happens anyway.