World Literature Final Extravaganza

While preparing for my world lit final exam, I used the study sheet prepared by the professor to aid in memorizing facts about Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, Epictetus, Justin Martyer, and many others.

Upon receiving the exam, one of the first questions I saw was similar to (but not the same as) the following:

Which masterwork featured the character Gilgamesh?
A. The Odyssey
B. The Aeneid
C. The Epic of Gilgamesh

I’m so glad I studied into the wee hours of the morning for this thing. I can’t decide whether to be happy or depressed.

New slang word of the day

Titanic: To fail horribly and miserably at something. An epic failure.

“Some guy in the dorm burned popcorn, set off the smoke detectors, and got the building evacuated. It was titanic.”

“Man, I totally titanisized on that test today.”

In Which Venetian Blinds are Evil and I am Stupid

A few days ago, I decided to go running. Rather than carry my keys with me and have them all jingling around in my pocket, I decided to leave them at the dorm.
This posed a problem. How would I get back in my room? Leaving the door open and/or unlocked is rarely a great idea. So I pulled my room key off my keyring and scoured the hallway outside my door in search of a good place to hide it. The terrain was sadly lacking in flowerpots and welcome mats; and I, thinking inside the box, didn’t remember that I had an entire lounge in which to deposit objects.

But behold! The venetian blind at the end of the hall. At the very top, between the frame and the top of the blind, there was a gap just large enough to insert a key. So, I did. Just to be sure I’d be able to get it back out, I used the tip of a pencil to pull it out again. Confident that my room was protected by a sufficient amount of security by obscurity, I jogged out of the building.

Returning thirty minutes later, covered in sweat and not thinking very coherently, I returned to the window blind. With the skill and precision of a ninja, I slowly, carefully, grabbed at the key. It jingled slightly as it fell out of sight, deep into the internal mechanisms of the blind. Oops.

Fortunately, I’m apathetic.

The End.

Afterward
Several hours later, armed with various tools of prying, some guys from Penn3 figured out how to dismount the blind from its lofty perch above the window, and the key was restored to it’s rightful place in my pocket. It’s really hard to remove window blinds when all parties involved are laughing hysterically.

Productivity, and the Attack of it

So, I’ve innocently been trying to do homework and adjust to living in a dorm with 200 other people again.

Then Kyntt Stories was released early. Then Ubisoft went insane and released Sands of Time, Ghost Recon, Far Cry, and Rayman: Raving Rabbits for free. Then EA, trying to top Ubisoft, released the original Command and Conquer for free. I was told of all this information by various parties within the span of about 24 hours.

Just as school started. I think the world has declared war on my work initiative.

Back at School

Captain’s log: heading 118

Have arrived back at school. Penn 2, though it has lost over half it’s members, continues to rock.

My new roommate, Andy, bears a somewhat uncanny resemblance to one of my best friends back home, Danny. Of course, they act absolutely nothing alike.

LetNet Wireless has improved drastically, in part because it now has to play nice with Windows Vista. Last semester, it took me several weeks of tweaking to obtain a connection that was dropped after 30 seconds. Last night, I connected in about 30 seconds with the graphical wireless configuration tool Wicd and Ubuntu Linux 7.04. Then I spent twenty minutes or so trying to get le XP-using RA online. I’d say it’s an improvement.

The Freshmen are interesting. It’s rather strange to be regarded as an alpha male. We walk to Saga or chapel, and they all sort of fall in behind Jr., Tim, and myself. Also, I haven’t really seen much of a few of them. It might have something to do with Jr.’s description of my military experience in Vietnam (?!) and the following conversation:

Cory: So, James, I hear you went to boot camp. How was that?

James: Eh, not so good. Two people died. I killed them. With my thumb.

I can’t imagine why they would be avoiding me.

Movie inspired fantasy #3476

Description: Chasing a moving vehicle through deserted alleyways in the middle of a large city.
Status: Completed

Now, to work on movie inspired fantasy #3477: Catching previously mentioned vehicle.

I have a vague idea that I’m easily amused…

EnglishMajoryness

I know my declared major is computer science and engineering, but I occasionally ponder whether or not I’m really pursuing the right degree. Am I actually an English major in some parallel universe? Sometimes I wonder. I’ll make a list to double check.

• I write stuff down. An immense amount. Scarcely a day goes by when yours truly hasn’t jotted something simply “because.” Over spring break, I wrote an essay at least one page in length every day. Partially for personal entertainment and enjoyment, and partially because it helps me keep a perspective on things and observe my thought process. Also, partially because “they just happened.” In addition, regular scrawling help me observe the lurking horror of my truly awful syntax, grammar, and editing errors.
• I tend to think of life in terms of what a great story it would make. Waking in a panic at 7 A.M. because of roommate’s fire-alarm clock, running to class an hour before it starts due to early morning disorientation, and holding the door for a random female becomes a decidedly epic tale of betrayal (how could you do this to me, clock?!), plot-twists (where is everyone?), and chivalry (the handicap button totally counts). I would continue with more examples, but The World At Large is probably better off not knowing exactly how I perceive things.
• On the flipside of simply enjoying life as it comes, I frequently attempt to direct and control it by composing sentences, paragraphs, and occasionally entire conversations in my head before initiating a join to normal socialness. These snippets of text frequently undergo revision a few times until I see it fit to release them into the wild. It is a jungle out there, though. There are nasty tribal people with spears who like to kill my fragile text and ideas, usually requiring me to reply shortly afterward. It’s tough to speak while mourning the loss of loved precomposed dialog.
• Perspective has a habit of killing the excitement brought on by the previous two bullet points.
• Technology interests me. Strongly. It’s the ideas of many people come together to better the world through communication, reason, and learning. Most of it is text-based. Think about it. It’s all currently about doing fantastic stuff with words. Connecting people, linking ideas, and creating new ways of thinking about information.
• That reminds me, the ultimate killer app has not yet been achieved.

Basic word processing functions

Basic spreadsheet functions

No need to save

Simple file format, pretty much just a zip file with XML and whatever inside. Images, video, MP3s, etc.

Ability to export PDFs.

LaTex support! Teh maths, they need notes about them. Kformula has a wonderful system. Embed or fork that off, maybe?

Allows text windows. Position text anywhere, take notes on images, write notes in the virtual margins etc.

Dump any file into a note in-line. Drag n’ drop from a browser, file manager window, etc.

Completely brainless outlining

WikiLike CamelCase linking

Very small and fast. Instant, if possible. If the user is coming up with new stuff faster then the program can process it, it’s too slow. Load time must be minimal, regardless of notebook size.

Open source! Cross platform! USB key compatible! Anyone should be able to use something like this. Palm, Generic Windows boxen, Macs, Ubuntu, TabletPC, etc.

Get a peer-to-peer note server going, while we’re at it. (low dev priority. SAMBA shares will hold users over in the meantime).

OneNote does some of it. Tomboy does some of it. Basket is a nice example of the whole “dumping” concept. None of them are perfect.

I shall call it “MetaApp”, and development of a prototype will commence eventually using Python and wxWidgets.

Copyright JamesGecko, 2007.

Oh, right. Enthusiasm displayed over a detailed spec list for an obscure software product targeted at a decidedly niche market. I guess I am an engineer after all.

Tree Robs Bank

For several undisclosed reasons (which those who know me can probably guess at), I find this news story hilarious.

Another Elaborate Prank Call

I now know that my anonymous prank caller has been reading my blog! Taking my advice, they have improved upon the previous call immensely.

Here is a quick, probably rather inaccurate recap of the conversation.

Her: Hey, this is [name I didn't catch], and this might seem kinda strange, but I saw your hootenanny skit, and I thought it was really clever, and you seem to know a lot about debate, so I was wondering if you wanted to meet up? I have some questions I wanted to ask you about it.
Me: Um, Ok. Yeah. This is totally not a prank call.
(I should have asked her for her full name so I could mock it like Strong Bad)
Her: No, it’s not. Really.
Me: You’re calling at 1 am.
Her: Am I? Oh, yeah, I guess it is. Sorry, I didn’t notice. Also, I’m kinda attracted to you.
Me: You’re attracted to me.
Her: Yes, I am!
Me: This is a prank call. Besides, check Facebook, I’m taken.
(I should have yelled “Denied” in my moderator voice and hung up.)
Her: Oh. But I still want to meet you! Can we talk?
Me: I guess. You can email me.
Her: Want to meet at MSC? There are people there, that wouldn’t be weird.
(At this point, I’m giving her the extremely tiny, minuscule benefit of a doubt against my better judgment. Perhaps she is simply insane, or really, really tactless. In any case, meeting a random stalker in broad daylight tomorrow can’t hurt. She does mean tomorrow, right?)
Me: Sure.
Her: Ok! I just got out of the shower, give me time to get dressed and I’ll be down there in 15 minutes.
(Riiiiiiiight.)
Me: Can’t you just ask me the questions now?
Her: But I like to see facial expressions. The phone is so cold and impersonal, don’t you think?
(I am holding the volume-cranked headset away from my face. My roommate and I are laughing quite hardily.)
Me: Dot Dot Dot. No. This is a prank call. I’ve gotten like five within the past month. They all tell me to go down to MSC at either one or three AM.
Her: Really? That’s horrible! But I’m serious. Besides, this is at one fifteen, not one.
Me: (muffled laughter)
Her: Well, I’ll be down there anyway. I guess I’ll just wait for you for a while. You can come, I’ll wait anyway…
Me: I’ve enjoyed talking with you. Nice prank call, by the way.

Yes. This was totally not a ploy to make me walk to MSC in the freezing cold in the dead of night. At the end of this trek, I would find either (a) nothing. Or (b) a bunch of guys who would likely abduct me. Either way, it’s better to stay in the dorm. The calls are getting a lot more elaborate. This ranks high above the “This is maintenance, does your sink work?” call I got a few months ago.
So, if it’s the same person (or persons) pranking me, I now know they have a girl friend. During Hootenanny, there was a group of guys yelling “Turn the stage!” during several skits. I’m told that they yelled it during The Tree Skit, though I was too absorbed in the performance to hear it. This call might come from one of them. I do hope that they left the poor Cookie Skit girls alone. The cookie skitters suffered enough.

In any case, I give this call a four out of five stars. In addition to being rather humorous, my stalker paranoia level has been raised to “amber.” Well done!

Rehearsal #2 Thoughts

Taking a skit from a rag-tag band of Monty Python fans practicing original material at the campus duck pond to the same group of people performing the same skit on a rotating stage in an empty gym with bright lights shining in everyone’s eyes and the echo of the cast’s voices rolling across the vast expanse of mostly-empty chairs is a fairly substantial shift. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t be the same, but I didn’t expect to have this much trouble making the jump. Fortunately, after three or four run-thrus, things are smoothing out.

I am no longer developing stage fright and forgetting my monologs as soon as the stage spins round and the bright lights shine in my eyes.

This is partially because the bright lights are shining in my eyes and I can’t see anything.

This is also partially because we’ve been having a blast putting this little skit together the past few weeks (or has it been months?), and even if the audience doesn’t get a few of the jokes or enjoy it, we will. Immensely.

Finally, I believe our drastic improvement is due in part, if not mostly, to a little prayer session the cast had up in the commuter lounge shortly before the second rehearsal. Caleb had been Calebing his tales of failure, woe, and chaos, and the mood was generally what some might describe as “glum”. The glass is nearly always full for me, but I must admit that even I was starting to get a bit down. So we gathered around a chair and just started praying. I don’t know. I have difficulty praying out loud (what comes out sounds suspiciously like an un-translated version of my internal thought process), but when we prayed together, the Holy Spirit showed up. I just find that fantastic. God cares enough about our silly little play that he is actively empowering us to see it through. Then, we started improving. I mean, we’ve been incrementally improving for a while, but this was a noticeable difference.

So I’m pretty psyched about this. We’re following some great acts, and with God’s grace, we’ll rank among them. I am slightly disappointed that we, The Tree Skit cast, won’t have a good, reasonable reason to randomly get together and skit after this is over. But finals approach, and all good things must end, I suppose. Besides, I hear Brian has plans for a documentary about another relevant, age-old issue which will be filmed and submitted to a future film-fest. Perhaps we can collaborate on that, or something similar.

So, to Brian, Caleb, JB, and Micah; I have enjoyed working with you guys immensely. The show will start in less then twenty-four hours. Two things:

• Let’s do this.
• God-bless.