Welcome to the February 2002 Rant Archives. These posts are from the brief period of time when I used blogger, so they aren't archived very well. Some of the internal links might not work, though references to outside sites should be just fine.
. Posted at 11:06 PM
All of my hard work finally paid off. After spending 45 minutes doing my Greek homework and another 45 minutes frantically reading the Odyssey, I finished all of my homework for the week. I just finished planning out my schedule for next semester, and now I have nothing to do until after spring break except go to a handful of classes. I hope to get lots of Paper Mario, Baldur's Gate, and Alpha Centauri time in, and I'm definitely going to work on that spell list I've been making. There's also a significant chance I'll work on some portion of the website, though that's not a definite thing. Neevred and I are going to be the only ones still here on Friday night, since he's hitching a ride back with my parents on Saturday. That would be just fine, except that the dining commons won't be serving dinner on Friday. There is a place on campus where we can get sandwiches and such until 4:00, so I can get dinner then.I got two midterms back today, brining my total returned up to three. There's still two being graded right now, one of which I'm not looking forward to. I got around an 82% on the Greek midterm, which is about what I expected, but I would have liked it higher. My CSE 331 exam was stupendous, and I scored 104%. That would have been wonderful, except that my friend Resnad managed to get 106%. We both got the same grade in the end though, since the professor doesn't allow exam averages above perfect. My CSE 465 and Stats exams are due back after the break, and I'm just hoping that I did well on CSE 465. As for Stats, there is nothing on earth that can save my grade... Guess that can't be helped now though. I'll just have to do better on the rest of them. Leah is going to be watching the Grammy’s tonight. I'll have my headphones on the whole time, but that might not be enough to drown out the stupidity. I've got nothing against the Grammy’s personally... just all award shows in general. Guess I'm just bitter like that.
Currently Listening to: Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come on Eileen
Link of the Day: Bejeweled - Some friends of mine discovered this last year, and while I was never quite in love with it as they were, I still played it occasionally. There are a few games out there that are exactly the same as this one, but since I don't know which came first, I'm just going to play this one. I like to play on the highest difficulty level, to get my heart racing. I choose to ignore the fact that I suck at it.
Posted at 7:53 PM
I had Calculus at 8:00 this morning, and I didn't wake up until 8:05. It was no big though, since I can learn the material really well from the book. The class is just for people who are struggling with the material. I've got to go to though, since we usually have quizzes at least once a week. After suffering through Calculus, I headed back to my room for a quick nap. I was only planning to sleep until 9:30, since I still hadn't taken a shower, and I had Greek at 10:10. By the time I woke up from my nap, it was 10:05, so I had to throw on my shoes and run out the door. I made it to class on time, just barely, but I was winded, dirty, and had a funky taste in my mouth. Hopefully incidents like this will teach me not to take naps during the day. They never do me any good. Apparently checking my account balance on-line every five minutes doesn't make the money appear any faster, because I still haven't gotten my tax return. I'll really be screwed if I don't get it before spring break, because I only have $30 in the bank, and I have to use that to pay for my driver's permit. If I'm feeling spunky, I might even get a few hours behind the wheel next week. I really, really don't want to learn to drive, but I suppose I have to at some point. Nobody can make me buy a car though...
Currently Listening to: Vertical Horizon - Best I Ever Had
Link of the Day: Gilmore Girls.net - I really hate that this site has the .net extension in its title, but I can overlook that, since it's a really good site featuring my favorite show of all time. I watch News Radio and Frasier when I think of it, but I absolutely never miss Gilmore Girls. It's so chock full of witty dialogue that I can't turn away.
Posted at 3:55 PM
I started playing Heart of Winter today, which is in the same vein of games as Baldur's Gate, except that in this game, you create your whole party; there are no NPCs. I decided to have an equal opportunity adventure, so I made half of my characters female. Can somebody explain to me why every single female character in a fantasy setting has to be young, attractive, and half-naked? I mean, I like scantily clad adventurers as much as the next guy, but I'd also like some realism in my fantasy settings. For instance, one of my characters is a human paladin. If you don't know, paladins are holy warriors of justice, and usually walk around with big swords and really heavy armor. So of course, my character is walking around in a leotard. She could at least wear leather armor or something, like my male characters. My cleric and druid both have short dresses on, which is at least a step in the right direction. And if I ever do get some armor for her, it won't do any good. I mean, what good is plate mail if your arms, legs, and a substantial portion of your cleavage are exposed for all the world to see? That just asking to be stabbed through the chest.
Currently Listening to: Men at Work - Land Down Under
Link of the Day: City of Heroes - This is one of the newest MMORPG's to be created, and it should officially be released sometime this summer. It's kind of like EverQuest, but instead of adventuring as a wizard or warrior, you get to play as a superhero. There's a whole mess of superpowers and origins available, so you can easily emulate your favorite superhero. This is one beta test that I'm really hoping to get into. Even more than I was hoping for Warcraft 3.
Posted at 11:14 PM
I have ten minutes to kill before my next class, and instead of wasting my time on the Kill Everyone Project, I've decided to post here instead. I'm actually rather disenchanted with KEP, especially since Leah quit last week. Without somebody tangible to compete with, it's just no fun at all. Not that it was much fun in the first place, but it's a time-waster, and no less productive than any of the video games I play. It's finally nice out again, and I couldn't be happier. It's a few degrees colder than I'd like it to be, but it feels great not to wear a jacket. I mean, I adore Trenchie and Commodore Mel, but sometimes it's nice to be outside without them. My one teacher decided to go easy on us this week, so there's no quiz in Greek, and no short paper due on Mythology this Friday. That means if I decided to be studious on Wednesday, I can have all of my homework done for the week. That leaves all of Thursday and Friday for just hanging out, with short breaks to actually attend classes. Or I might just put the homework off until Thursday night... who knows?Currently Listening to: REM - Gardening at Night
Posted at 12:01 PM
If there's one piece of advice I can give you about playing video games, it's to save every two seconds. If you save, you'll probably never die, but if for some reason you haven't saved for an hour or so, you're destined to die. This tragedy has just befallen me while playing Paper Mario. Nigh upon 90 minutes of brave adventuring was wasted becuase I got cocky, and decided not to save. It might be a couple days until I'll be able to stomach doing the same exact thing a second time. It's a good thing I'll have plenty of homework to keep me busy...Currently Listening to: Billy Joel - Keeping the Faith
Posted at 12:43 AM
Leah and I have been watching a lot of Card Captor Sakura lately, and it's pretty darn entertaining as far as anime goes. We're watching the subtitled version, since the dubbed versions that appear on TV aren't nearly as good. The show ran for three seasons and has 70 episodes total. The first season has been released on DVD, but there are only four episodes on each one, which means there will be eventually be 18 volumes. At $15-$20 a pop, that's a whole lot of money. That's why I try to stick to buying series that only ran for one season or less. It's a lot cheaper that way. I finished all the homework that I'm going to do this weekend, so I guess it's time to play a few hours of video games. Maybe if I'm feeling frisky, I'll read a little Lord of the Rings. Only time will tell.
Currently Listening to: Aphex Twin - 4
Link of the Day: Anime Meta-Review - This is a really cool anime site that I discovered yesterday. The Australian guy who runs it has reviewed a whole bunch of anime, and I tend to agree with his views on the series and movies that I've seen. The character on the main page of the site is kind of creepy though...
Posted at 9:43 PM
The DVD player on my PS2 has been acting up lately, and it just sort of gave up while watching the fifth episode of Outlaw Star last night. Other movies work just fine, but I can never watch disk three of Outlaw Star on it again. It's been added to the pile of rejected movies, along with Bring it On and Shrek, both of which Leah owns. I cleaned off the discs in question using a cloth I have for my glasses, and hopefully that will work. We also rearranged Leah's side of the room so that the TV isn't near the radiator anymore. We're not sure if that was causing the problem, but it certainly wasn't helping. Llahned and I will find out tonight if my efforts to save my PS2 were fruitful.
Currently Listening to: The quiet pitter-patter of Tidus' feet as he runs through the Calm Lands
Posted at 5:25 PM
Currently Listening to: Jimmy James rant about Mother's Day
Link of the Day: The Kill Everyone Project - This is a moderately twisted site that I discovered while reading Real Life Comics. Every time you click the mouse, somebody in the world dies, and we're slowly going through all the countries of the world. I suppose it's kind of morbid, especially for a pacifist like me, but since it's not really killing anybody, I don't feel bad. I just see it as an exercise in team work. Thousands of nerds wasting their free time in unison. It's really beautiful.
Posted at 6:58 PM
I increased the resolution on my monitor yesterday, and I'm loving it. It's like a party on my screen, and everyone's invited. It's nice to have windows open at a reasonable size without maximizing them. There's nothing I hate more than horizontal scroll. In other news, Thon is this weekend, and I'm less than excited. I mean, I know it's all to help kids with cancer, which is a really good cause, but my cynical nature forces me to be skeptical. In the first place, it's kind of silly to accept donations to dance for 48 hours. It's hard and everything, but what does making a couple hundred kids stand for two days accomplish? Why not have them build houses for the weekend, as a sort of added bonus? I can't think of anybody who would sponsor people dancing in a gym, but wouldn't sponsor them building houses. Also, the way it currently stands, it's basically justifying the existence of fraternities. It's pretty much the only good thing that Greek Life does, and it's a long-standing policy of mine that we would be way better off as a campus without frats. At the very least, it would be easier for me to fall asleep on Friday and Saturday nights.
Currently Listening to: Turtles - Happy Together
Link of the Day: Entropy Effect - This is a site run by one of Llon's friends, and it's pretty entertaining. It consists of the random posts of a few guys, and is mostly concerned with mocking George Bush and business majors. Always a good time.
Posted at 11:14 PM
Well, after a brief hiatus for the purpose of midterms, MVK is back, and better than ever. I've signed up with blogger.com, which allows me to type my posts into a text field, after which they will be automatically published onto my site. It took a little bit of effort to make the automatically generated pages look just like the rest of my site, but I think I've managed to pull it off. There might still be a few bugs to work out, so if my page starts acting screwy over the next few days, you'll know why.I had three exams yesterday, and I'd be lying to you if I said they were anything less than torture. My mythology test in the morning was probably the best of the three, but unfortunately, it's only worth 10% of my grade. The Statistics test I took later in the afternoon was worth 20% of my grade, and that's 20% I'll never see again, because I absolutely bombed it. The exam was open notes and open book, which didn't do me much good, since the book is useless, and my notes were tragically incomplete. I think the rest of the class had similar difficulties though, so hopefully the curve will save me. My CSE 465 exam later that evening went fairly well, and I'm expecting around an 85%, which should easily beat the average. It's worth 25% of my grade, which is a lot for a midterm, but I'm thinking there will be a small curve in that department as well.
I haven't played any Final Fantasy X lately, which isn't an indication of a newly charged work ethic, just my general boredom with the game. I could have killed the final boss twenty hours ago, but the game has so much extra stuff to do, that I just feel compelled to do it. I'm a good way through the insane number of side quests, but I've become disenchanted with the whole process. As such, I've been playing Paper Mario on the N64 emulator I picked up recently. It’s a little buggy at times, but it's playable, which is all I need for a game as wonderful as Paper Mario is.
Currently Listening to: Peter Gabriel - Your Eyes
Posted at 2:42 PM