Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Well, the first week of classes have come and... are still not done yet. The end of the quarter is still so far away! I'm taking three classes this quarter and working 22 hours a week (to start, I'll cut back when classes get really time-intensive). You're all going to look at me funny when I say this, but Database Systems is going to be really cool. I know, that's weird to say, a week ago, I didn't understand how anyone could think databases were interesting at all. But then, after the first lecture, and the prof being cool, I realized I already like databases - I've been so impressed and loved Xml from the start. And now SQL (sea-kwel) is looking cool too. Also taking what I thought was going to be Assembly, but turns out is Machine Organization. A bit disapointing. I was looking forward to getting down and dirty and writing an AI Solitaire player and game like my mom did back in college. (Well, maybe I wouldn't have done that much, but still.) And of course, I have to take Physics 122 - Electricity and Magnetism. This is going to be an awful class and make me hate the quater. I know enough of this that it's going to be really boring and I'll second guess everything I do, but don't know enough to make it a really easy 4.0, so I'm screwed. I need to find out if I can and should take it for credit / no credit or something like that.
Went with Nick to Best Buy yesturday. Did you know that BestBuy.com has completely independant prices, and inventory, of the store? I wanted to buy Keane's cd, since it was only $6.99 online, so I went to the store to get it, and they had it there for $9.99. Now, normally I would have bought a good cd for $9.99. But not when I can get it online for three bucks less! That's 30% less! Unfortunately, with shipping (since when did BestBuy.com charge shipping?) it was about the same, which, of course, I find out when I get back home after not buying the CD. I also wanted to buy a DVD player (which plays DivX, reportedly), but that was apparently only sold at the online store. So I bought it from Amazon instead. Besides, Amazon has Return of the King for only $23. Yay for christmas money. I'm kinda regretting not buying Rise of Nations while I was at the store. Hum....
On the way back from Best Buy, Nick and I had an interesting conversation. He kept trying to advocate more, stronger government, and higher taxes for the rich. Sigh. Anyway, the argument ended up boiling down to me having a sandwich which could save the life of the starving man right next to me. As we were discussing this, and I was saying this man had no right to this sandwich, another bus patron turned to me and said, "The pharmacutical companies have drugs which can save the lives of a lot of homeless people. Don't you think they have a right to those drugs?" To which I answered a firm "No." <surprised> "Then you can keep your sandwich." I am still surprised at the quickness to which people jump to these conclusions. The pharmacuticals are the perfect example for this debate. "It's so obvious, you're saving people." Am I? The pharmacutical companies only exist because these people don't have a right to their drugs. Think about it. How would these companies exist if they just gave all their research, time, and investment away for free? Perhaps they would be supported by the government? But how does the government pay them when they can't tax these now income-less businesses and individuals? In fact, now it is paying not just for the drugs, but for the development, so it's taking an even bigger hit. And no, taxing others to death does not solve this dilema, nor make it right.
"And he decieves himself who believes that with the great, recent benefits, cause old wrongs to be forgotten." - Machiavelli, The Prince
Went with Nick to Best Buy yesturday. Did you know that BestBuy.com has completely independant prices, and inventory, of the store? I wanted to buy Keane's cd, since it was only $6.99 online, so I went to the store to get it, and they had it there for $9.99. Now, normally I would have bought a good cd for $9.99. But not when I can get it online for three bucks less! That's 30% less! Unfortunately, with shipping (since when did BestBuy.com charge shipping?) it was about the same, which, of course, I find out when I get back home after not buying the CD. I also wanted to buy a DVD player (which plays DivX, reportedly), but that was apparently only sold at the online store. So I bought it from Amazon instead. Besides, Amazon has Return of the King for only $23. Yay for christmas money. I'm kinda regretting not buying Rise of Nations while I was at the store. Hum....
On the way back from Best Buy, Nick and I had an interesting conversation. He kept trying to advocate more, stronger government, and higher taxes for the rich. Sigh. Anyway, the argument ended up boiling down to me having a sandwich which could save the life of the starving man right next to me. As we were discussing this, and I was saying this man had no right to this sandwich, another bus patron turned to me and said, "The pharmacutical companies have drugs which can save the lives of a lot of homeless people. Don't you think they have a right to those drugs?" To which I answered a firm "No." <surprised> "Then you can keep your sandwich." I am still surprised at the quickness to which people jump to these conclusions. The pharmacuticals are the perfect example for this debate. "It's so obvious, you're saving people." Am I? The pharmacutical companies only exist because these people don't have a right to their drugs. Think about it. How would these companies exist if they just gave all their research, time, and investment away for free? Perhaps they would be supported by the government? But how does the government pay them when they can't tax these now income-less businesses and individuals? In fact, now it is paying not just for the drugs, but for the development, so it's taking an even bigger hit. And no, taxing others to death does not solve this dilema, nor make it right.
"And he decieves himself who believes that with the great, recent benefits, cause old wrongs to be forgotten." - Machiavelli, The Prince
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Oh, what a break. It was quite fun. But it is quite good to be back home again.
By break started with coming back on Friday night after a frantic morning. No one could take me to the airport, so I had to take a shuttle. I was trying to burn stuff for people back home, but was running very short on time. The shuttle was a half hour late, without any warning. I managed to get everything done, but just in time to worry about missing the shuttle. But that all worked out.
Spent nights at Chad's house most every night. Seeing peoples like Chad, Ben, Pat, Jon, Thayer, and Harmony. T'was cool. Got to do the old time nothingness. Played Rise of Nations a lot, it seems to be a pretty cool, well-done game - a cross between Civilization and Age of Empires. It's just really complicated and takes a while to figure out what to get and what not to. I really like the infinate resources that games like it and Total Annihilation have.
On Monday morning I got to wake up and go to the dentist guy and get my wisdom teeth pulled. After they had me lay down, injected me with some stuff, and gave me "oxygen," I remember waking up in my parent's den. I don't remember anything in between. Apparently after the surgery my brother and I (Jonathan had his removed at the same time as I did) tried to talk about it, but I couldn't speak very well. I tried to reassure my mom with claims of "I'm cognizant." But, since I don't remember it, I don't think I was being perfectly honest there. So I woke up to the second half of A New Hope with blood drooling down my chin onto my sweeter. I have no idea how I got there, but it's kinda weird that I didn't question that upon awakening, only later when I tried to remember. So after watching and falling asleep to the Star Wars trilogy, Jonathan and I started watching Gargoyles. We watched quite a few. We skipped those which I didn't like as much, since I'll rewatch it all anyway. Jonathan apprently stayed up late for a few nights and watched the whole series (there are 78 22 minute episodes, minus the ones he skipped).
The whole tooth-extraction experience seemed relatively painless. Well, I did have vicodin to help, but there wasn't a lot of bleeding the first week at all. Of course, I couldn't eat anything which required chewing. I subsited for three days on pudding. Then I could chew, but couldn't open my mouth wide enough to fit in anything which required chewing, so it didn't help much. I woke up Christmas day with a huge blood-clot in my mouth. It was quite irritating, especially when I was waking up and had no idea what it was. So I pulled that out and used gauze to stem the bleeding. That worked okay. Sunday morning, right this photographer who was scheduled to take big, extended, family pictures shows up, I start bleeding again. This time it doesn't stop. I had to drive a few miles home to pick up the cameras (we didn't trust the photographer to do a good job, and with good reason, he did a horrible job - didn't know how to compose shots or frame them), and every half-mile or so I would have to hope for a light or pull over so I could open the car door and spit blood into the street. It was pretty cool, reminded me of Fight Club. I gained a new respect for big meals that weekend, they stopped burps from tasting like blood. Burps tasting like blood was probably the most disconcerting thing about the whole experience.
The bleeding started up again on Sunday right after my lunch with Jenn. I tried using a teabag to stop the bleeding, and it worked until I took it out. Then I couldn't get gauze to stop it, and I was hungry, so I just ate pudding. Surprisingly, I didn't bleed after that. So Monday morning, after yet another blood clot, I go into the dentist's office. I finally manage to convince him that it isn't clotting properly and I keep bleeding, and spend about an hour and a half half asleep in the office, letting him try different things. He finally gives me this one pain killer that tasted like really strong cloves (the spice), and some gauzey-thing soaked in something or other that was supposed to help it clot. That finally worked. After that I didn't bleed anymore. A few days later, with the assistance of a curved-tip syringe, I managed to get out the last bit of gauze and medicine.
Thanks to certain great people, we got to hang out at the movie theater and screen a movie. New Years Eve I didn't do much, Ben and I just hang out a few hours and watched Stargate. Saturday night I got to hang out with everyone for the last time in a while. What did we do? We watched UCB, always a good time. Thayer sat on Harmony's head. There were many Carl's Jr. chicken strips consumed. I learned two card games. Big Twos, and Spades. Pretty cool games for cards. Spades involved a bit more thinking than I would have preffered to put into a game at the time, but it was still fun - once I got the hang of it. Thayer and I faced off against Ben and Chad. Theyer and Ben had played before, Chad and I had not. After being at -236 points, Thayer and I managed to play high-risk and win 536 to 519 or something like that (play to 500). That game took a loooong time. But it was cool. Too bad it was only four people though.
Okay, time to sign off. Lates all.
"I don't know but I've been told,
Deirdre's got a Network Node.
Likes to press the on-off switch,
Dig that crazy Gaian witch!"
- Spartan Barracks March, Alpha Centauri
By break started with coming back on Friday night after a frantic morning. No one could take me to the airport, so I had to take a shuttle. I was trying to burn stuff for people back home, but was running very short on time. The shuttle was a half hour late, without any warning. I managed to get everything done, but just in time to worry about missing the shuttle. But that all worked out.
Spent nights at Chad's house most every night. Seeing peoples like Chad, Ben, Pat, Jon, Thayer, and Harmony. T'was cool. Got to do the old time nothingness. Played Rise of Nations a lot, it seems to be a pretty cool, well-done game - a cross between Civilization and Age of Empires. It's just really complicated and takes a while to figure out what to get and what not to. I really like the infinate resources that games like it and Total Annihilation have.
On Monday morning I got to wake up and go to the dentist guy and get my wisdom teeth pulled. After they had me lay down, injected me with some stuff, and gave me "oxygen," I remember waking up in my parent's den. I don't remember anything in between. Apparently after the surgery my brother and I (Jonathan had his removed at the same time as I did) tried to talk about it, but I couldn't speak very well. I tried to reassure my mom with claims of "I'm cognizant." But, since I don't remember it, I don't think I was being perfectly honest there. So I woke up to the second half of A New Hope with blood drooling down my chin onto my sweeter. I have no idea how I got there, but it's kinda weird that I didn't question that upon awakening, only later when I tried to remember. So after watching and falling asleep to the Star Wars trilogy, Jonathan and I started watching Gargoyles. We watched quite a few. We skipped those which I didn't like as much, since I'll rewatch it all anyway. Jonathan apprently stayed up late for a few nights and watched the whole series (there are 78 22 minute episodes, minus the ones he skipped).
The whole tooth-extraction experience seemed relatively painless. Well, I did have vicodin to help, but there wasn't a lot of bleeding the first week at all. Of course, I couldn't eat anything which required chewing. I subsited for three days on pudding. Then I could chew, but couldn't open my mouth wide enough to fit in anything which required chewing, so it didn't help much. I woke up Christmas day with a huge blood-clot in my mouth. It was quite irritating, especially when I was waking up and had no idea what it was. So I pulled that out and used gauze to stem the bleeding. That worked okay. Sunday morning, right this photographer who was scheduled to take big, extended, family pictures shows up, I start bleeding again. This time it doesn't stop. I had to drive a few miles home to pick up the cameras (we didn't trust the photographer to do a good job, and with good reason, he did a horrible job - didn't know how to compose shots or frame them), and every half-mile or so I would have to hope for a light or pull over so I could open the car door and spit blood into the street. It was pretty cool, reminded me of Fight Club. I gained a new respect for big meals that weekend, they stopped burps from tasting like blood. Burps tasting like blood was probably the most disconcerting thing about the whole experience.
The bleeding started up again on Sunday right after my lunch with Jenn. I tried using a teabag to stop the bleeding, and it worked until I took it out. Then I couldn't get gauze to stop it, and I was hungry, so I just ate pudding. Surprisingly, I didn't bleed after that. So Monday morning, after yet another blood clot, I go into the dentist's office. I finally manage to convince him that it isn't clotting properly and I keep bleeding, and spend about an hour and a half half asleep in the office, letting him try different things. He finally gives me this one pain killer that tasted like really strong cloves (the spice), and some gauzey-thing soaked in something or other that was supposed to help it clot. That finally worked. After that I didn't bleed anymore. A few days later, with the assistance of a curved-tip syringe, I managed to get out the last bit of gauze and medicine.
Thanks to certain great people, we got to hang out at the movie theater and screen a movie. New Years Eve I didn't do much, Ben and I just hang out a few hours and watched Stargate. Saturday night I got to hang out with everyone for the last time in a while. What did we do? We watched UCB, always a good time. Thayer sat on Harmony's head. There were many Carl's Jr. chicken strips consumed. I learned two card games. Big Twos, and Spades. Pretty cool games for cards. Spades involved a bit more thinking than I would have preffered to put into a game at the time, but it was still fun - once I got the hang of it. Thayer and I faced off against Ben and Chad. Theyer and Ben had played before, Chad and I had not. After being at -236 points, Thayer and I managed to play high-risk and win 536 to 519 or something like that (play to 500). That game took a loooong time. But it was cool. Too bad it was only four people though.
Okay, time to sign off. Lates all.
"I don't know but I've been told,
Deirdre's got a Network Node.
Likes to press the on-off switch,
Dig that crazy Gaian witch!"
- Spartan Barracks March, Alpha Centauri
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