August Rant Archives
This handy little file contains each and every one of the rants I posted for the month of August. I didn't actually start my site until August 20th, so this will be the shortest of the archives, by far.

Grace is Totally Useless
August 30th, 2001 - 6:15 PM
It should be noted that I'm not talking about Divine Grace, as that is quite useful, and I make use of it almost daily. I'm talking about The All-Powerful Grace, Lord Of McLanahan's (TAPGLOM). As you all know, I filled out an application for McLanahan's last week sometime and went to drop it off yesterday. When I got there, one of TAPGLOM's minions informed me that Her Holiness had the day off, but that She'd be in until 4PM today. So I figured that if I showed up at 9:45 in the morning, right after breakfast, I'd get an interview right away, since I'd be the first in line. But much to my dismay, the toady working that day told me that TAPGLOM was very busy, and that I should try back between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. This timing upset me greatly, since it fell right in the middle of my designated homework block. But when TAPGLOM says frog, the world jumps, so I came back at 2:30. The grunt working at the desk that day told me that TAPGLOM wasn't going to be available for the rest of the day and that I was to try again tomorrow. So I went back to my room, because who am I to question TAPGLOM? But eventually I figured that I was a prospective employee, and if TAPGLOM is too busy to see me, then we'd make an appointment. So I went back to TAPGLOM's lair, for the third time today, and tried to set up a time to drop off my application tomorrow that would be convenient for Her Holiness. Just as the crony was about to tell me to give up, I was faced with TAPGLOM herself! She proceeded to tell me Her life story, and I had to shield my eyes, lest Her holy visage blind me. Apparently TAPGLOM has been working 14-hour days all week, since the first two weeks of college are always so busy. And to top it off, there's a football game this weekend. She then told me that She has no way of knowing in advance when she's going to be free, so the best I can do is keep trying. Well, as much as I like the prospect of working 30 seconds from my dorm, I'm giving up. I threw my application away when I got back to my room, and hopefully that's the last I'll see of TAPGLOM.

Well, it's good to get that off my chest. Now I can talk about the rest of my day. I overslept this morning, and got to my Artificial Intelligence class 25 minutes late, winded, hungry, and smelly. I got a shower as soon as I got back to my room, but that doesn't help the poor girl that was sitting next to me for an hour. Apparently all I missed was a Star Trek clip, and that's no loss, really. All we really did in AI today was take a look at our big programming assignment for the semester. We're allowed to work in groups, so naturally I'm working with Neevred. We're supposed to make a nurse-scheduling program, which is similar to what Schafer did for his doctorate thesis. He told us flat out that we won't be able to find the best solution for the problem. We just need a good one. He also didn't give us any specs, but we eventually dragged those out of him. It looks like this program is going to take a lot more time than Quintessence, and be a lot less fun. My next class after AI was Calculus, where I did mediocre on the first quiz of the semester. We get to drop two out of seven at the end, so I'm not too worried. Then I had lunch and did lots of homework. My two significant assignments were around ten Statistics problems and a Greek quiz. Each one of the Stats problems was about ten times harder than anything we've ever done in class, so that was a real treat. The Greek studying went a little better though. I spent an hour and a half on it, and I should be able to rock the quiz. I'm going to study a little more before bed though, just to make sure. And now it's time for Baldur's Gate. Wish me luck!

Job Interviews Aplenty
August 29th, 2001 - 4:45 PM
I've got a job interview today at 6:15. The job is for food service, which I didn't really want to do, and it's like fifteen minutes away, which isn't an overly long commute, but I could do better. One of the ways in which I could do better is by applying to the McLanahan's across the street. They're still hiring, but the person who accepts the applications wasn't in today. She'll be in until 4:00 tomorrow, so I'm going right after breakfast. Hopefully she'll interview me right there, otherwise what's the point of her being there when I hand it in? A thirty second walk beats a fifteen minute walk any day of the week. And unless they put me in the deli for some reason, I'll be doing stocking and cashiering instead of food service. I've got many years experience ringing stuff up, and if I can handle fifty pounds of chicken gizzards on Food Stamp Day, I can handle a Ramen and Mac & Cheese run.

My homework plan is holding up perfectly, and I won't be doing anything productive today, except to ask Avi or Zach to help me with some Calculus extra credit. My evening line-up looks good: Dinner, Interview, Baldur's Gate, Family Guy, Baldur's Gate, Neopets, Sleep. Ah, the stressful life of a college student. Speaking of stress, my eye is still twitching, though not as bad as yesterday. The only positive thing I can say about this is that it makes me look more diabolically insane without any effort on my part.

Update (7:12): Well, I skipped my interview today. I got to Findlay commons at about 6:05, with ten minutes to spare. But when I went to get interviewed, I realized that the slip of paper that tells me where to do so was back in my room. I wandered around for a while, and it never once occurred to me to ask somebody where I should go. So eventually I gave up and took the Campus Loop back to my dorm. I've never had a date, but at least now I can say I stood somebody up. About 10 minutes after I got back to the room, Casey calls me. She was the one I was supposed to have the interview with, though if I had known her name, I could have asked for her too. Naturally, I didn't think of that either. Anyway, she was very cool about the whole thing, and offered to reschedule for 5:30 on Friday. I won't be missing this one. This is a much better situation anyway, because it gives me time to see how the McLanahan's thing is going to work out before I commit to food service.

I Wanna Baldur's Gate All Night... and Homework Every Day
August 28th, 2001 - 6:42 PM
I know that's terribly corny, but that's my new motto, at least for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Since I'm done classes at noon on those days, I figure that I'll do all of my homework then, so that I don't have to do anything on Mondays or Wednesdays. So my current plan after class on Tuesday and Thursday is to eat lunch, work until dinner, and then enjoy myself for the rest of the night. One of the primary ways that I enjoy myself is through playing Baldur's Gate for hours on end. So if this plan works, I won't be doing anything productive after 6:00... ever. Of course, this scheme will probably be screwed up by my future job at the dining commons, but hopefully I can work around it. Wish me luck.

Artificial Intelligence rocked again today! As soon as we got in, we watched like a 20 minute clip from "West World," a rather entertaining movie about AI gone wrong. It was made in the 70's and it was cheesy, but there's no need to repeat myself. After that was basically an open discussion about the topics we read about. Besides an incredibly arrogant guy who sits a few rows behind Neevred and I, CSE 481 is perfection. After AI I had breakfast, Greek and Calculus... la de da. Well, I'm off to play some Baldur's Gate now... but I suppose I'll take a break for Gilmore Girls. :)

Oh... I almost forgot. My right eye has been twitching constantly lately. People have told me that it's caused by stress, but I don't really have anything to be stressed about right now. Well, besides the whole eye-twitching thing. So the twitching is stressing me out, which is causing even more twitching. Sort of a biological Catch-22, if you will. I'm just counting down the days until they can duplicate my mind and implant it into a machine. :)

It's Not The Heat... It's the Humidity
August 27th, 2001 - 6:51 PM
As much as I hate using such a trite saying for the title of this rant, I felt that it was disgustingly appropriate today. The temperature was only in the low 80's, but the humidity was somewhere around 99%, as far as I could tell. At least there wasn't much chance of getting dehydrated, since you could practically drink the air. Of course, I'm complaining for no reason, since we certainly had worse days than today this summer, but as far as I'm concerned, when college starts, it's fall. I just wish that the weather would agree with me.

Class was pretty average today, so I'm not going to bore you with an account of my day, like I've done previously. But I will tell you about my quest for an empty room to sit in between classes. Like I mentioned on Friday (See "Two More Weeks of Evil"), I managed to find an abandoned classroom to hang out in between my two classes in the Willard Building. Well, it seems that the room is only abandoned on Fridays, so on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'm out of luck. I found a new room down the hall and started to do some calculus, but about 30 minutes before my second class, a couple of people wandered in, obviously very excited to start their English class as soon as possible. So I was once again homeless, searching desperately for a place to sit and work that wasn't the floor of a hallway. I finally found salvation around the corner, just past the men's restrooms. There were some chemistry notes on the board, but nobody was inside, and nobody came in the entire time I was there. The room even had full sized desks, which is a big deal, since most desks up here are those crappy ones built onto the arm of a chair. It's hard to take good notes on a surface that's barely larger than a sheet of paper. Anyway, as long as the room holds up for Wednesdays and Fridays, I've found my own personal study lounge.

I got a call today about a job application I put in last week. I applied for a mailroom job in my residence hall and as a cashier for a little convenience store in one of the nearby buildings. The mailroom decided to throw away my application, and the convenience store passed it around the campus like a cheap whore. It ended up at a dining commons on the other side of campus, which is where I received the call from. Originally I wanted to avoid food service, which is why I only applied for the two jobs I did. But in light of my suicidal TV, I've decided to take whatever I can get. I've got an interview on Wednesday, and I'll probably take the job, even if it means having to shave my beard. It's a sad, sad day for Mecherath.

The Noise! The Noise!! Make it STOP!!!
August 26th, 2001 - 10:21 PM
If any of you have been reading my site much, you know that I rarely use multiple exclamation points or all capital letters for emphasis. The fact that I'm doing so now only serves to reinforce the horror that I experienced this afternoon. The room that Leah and I share in Atherton has a window that faces College Ave, the main street up here. It's cool to be really close to all the places I like to visit, such as the Arcade, the movie theater, and the mini-grocery store, but it's a double-edged sword. Since our window faces the street, and we always have it open to keep the room cool, we hear everything that's going on outside. This isn't a problem during the day, since we obviously aren't trying to sleep, and all we hear is the occasional tidbit of conversation from the driveway. It becomes more of a problem at about 2 AM on Friday and Saturday nights, when all the drunks in State College are standing on the street corners having shouting contests. I'm never really sure who wins, but it's usually the people standing closest to us. Leah and I can handle this weekend noise, since we're usually up until the wee hours of the morning anyway. But the noise really becomes a problem on days like today. It seems a local radio station, which I'm calling WPCM 103 (We Play Crappy Music) was having a festival of sorts today, which naturally occurred across the street and started at about 11 AM. The festival featured a few crappy games, like Who Can Stuff the Most Marshmallows in Their Mouth at Once, and live performances by bands from a variety of genres across the board. Though their musical styles were greatly varied, they all had three things in common. They were all very loud, they all swore like sailors, and they all sucked. Now some of you might not agree with my musical tastes, especially when it comes to Ace of Base, but I assure you that all of these bands blew monkeys. Absolutely nothing was good about them, unless you were high, or drunk, or both. The fun ended around 8:00, which was nine hours too long.

So Many Games... So Little Money
August 26th, 2001 - 2:45 AM
I was over at Llahned's tonight, watching Saturday Night Live and reading PC Gamer. I'd estimate the episode of SNL as about average, meaning that slightly more than half of the skits were funny. Of course, it was an old episode, and Destiny's Child was the music guest, so I wasn't expecting too much. Anyway, the PC Gamer is far more important to this discussion than SNL. The magazine featured, among other things, a list of the top 50 PC games of all time. I've only been playing computer games for a few years, but I think I agreed with most of their rankings. Starcraft, Civilization II, and Baldur's Gate were all high on the list, which I was happy about. They ranked Half-Life as the greatest game of all time, which I can understand, especially if they're counting all the expansions and multiplayer versions in the same thread. I would have put Baldur's Gate or Civ II in that spot, but then again, it's not my magazine. I also saw a bunch of ads for games that will be wasting my money in the future. Two of these games are Civilization III and Battle Realms. That's basically my birthday present this year. :)

I did do something besides drool over new PC games tonight, but not too much else. Llahned and I had burgers for dinner, then saw The Mummy Returns at the HUB with Llon and a mutual acquaintance. This would be the second time I saw the movie, and even though I know it's just a mindless action movie, I liked it a lot. Of course, there are two very good reasons that I like this movie. I love Egypt, and as such, have an affinity for any movie that takes place anywhere near the Nile Valley. I also love Brendan Fraser, for no good reason. After the movie Llahned and I went back to my room so I could show him Baldur's Gate, since he had never gotten a chance to check it out before. I also showed him my extensive book collection, in an effort to guilt-trip him into borrowing one and reading it, but he wasn't biting. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Bingo X-Treme!
August 25th, 2001 - 12:01 PM
I played Bingo last night, and I'm proud of it. They have Bingo up here every other week, and I'm there each and every time. And it's more than having a mild crush on the Bingo caller. I go to Bingo because I've won before. That's right, for absolutely no money, and a couple hours of my Friday nights on alternate weeks, I have won a Game Boy Color, The Sixth Sense on DVD, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000 (which I sold back to Best Buy). I know what you're thinking. What kind of college student plays Bingo on his weekends when he should be out getting drunk and getting laid? Well, in an effort to be as little like my former roommate as possible, I have never even had a significant conversation with the stereotypical college student. I'm a nerd, and proud of it. Anyway, back to Bingo. I was joined at the table by Leah and Llahned Nemonj. Leah bailed out early to hang out in Esor's room with Sitrucky and Elocina, who if you remember, are visiting this weekend, but Llahned and I went the whole distance. Neither of us won, but I came close on at least 3 separate occasions. Last night they also debuted a new round for the unluckiest person in the room. When the round starts, everybody stands up. A number is called, and anybody who has that number on their card sits down. Numbers keep getting called until only one person is left standing. That person gets to pick a prize, to make up for the fact that their cards are obviously cursed. Naturally, I didn't win that either.

After the game, I parted ways with Llahned and headed back to Sekna's room, where we watched Romi and Michelle's High School Reunion. I had only seen the very end before, and was only moderately amused. After watching the whole thing in its entirety, I can appreciate it as a movie that is fun to watch every now and again, but that I'd never want to own. Janeane Garofalo turned out an excellent performance in this movie, though she only had a minor role. There was a really bizarre dream sequence in the movie though, which is kind of good, because at least you know it's a dream. After the movie I played Baldur's Gate for a while and headed to bed. Then I woke up, read my webcomics, took a shower, and started posting. The rest is history.

Two More Weeks of Evil
August 24th, 2001 - 4:55 PM
As you can clearly see from my title, my dorm room is going to be without a TV for another two weeks or so. I think I can handle it, but I don't know about Leah. It turns out that when my TV took up a career as a Professional Futon Diver, it severely damaged its picture tube. Luckily, Sharp picture tubes have a two-year warranty that covers all damages, including acts of gravity. Unfortunately, it's only the tube that's under warranty, so all labor costs have to come out of my pocket. The estimated costs are $125, which comes to almost $135 after tax. This happens to be exactly what I got when I returned my useless Intro to Digital Systems books, so it all works out. I'm no more broke than I was before the TV destroyed itself. I'll still need a job if I want to do anything that costs money however.

Today went pretty well, especially since I slept an extra hour, rather than subject the White Building to my presence. That's right, I slept right through my designated work out time, so there's an extra 120 calories that I'll never get rid of. C'est la Vie. If you remember, my first class on MWF is Intro to Digital Systems, which I eagerly attended, minus my textbooks. We learned how to convert between number systems, which I already learned over three years ago. Next was Greek, where I was quizzed on the alphabet. I passed the quiz with flying colors, which would be impressive if it was intended to be difficult at all. After the quiz, we learned all about accent marks, which gives me another reason to hate Greek. Every word in this accursed language has an accent mark, and depending on how the vowels change when the word is declined, the accent moves around. This is only the case for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns, or almost every word in the language. Luckily the teacher doesn't expect us to learn all the accent marks, just those on verbs.

After Greek came lunch, which I ate quite happily. I sat with the usual crowd of Leah, Akira, Esor, and Llon, plus a mystery friend of Llon's. We were later joined by my friend Llahned and his roommate, who I had never met before. Llahned and I talked about Bingo games past, until it was time to head to my next class. Statistics went surprisingly well today, since sitting at the front of the class allowed me to actually understand what the teacher was saying. I even volunteered to answer three or four questions, and was wrong every time. It was mildly embarrassing, but the good news is that I learned from my mistakes, and I now own Elementary Probability. I spent the time between classes in an unused classroom, reading one of the books I got from the Science Fiction Book Club. Discrete Math went pretty well today as well. We learned about all of the different logical operators, and I actually understand how they work.

Well, my first week of college is over, and boy are my arms tired. But seriously folks, it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be, except that I now have monkeyloads of homework to do. And to make matters worse, Elocina and Sitruc are visiting for the weekend, so I'll never get anything done. They'll be staying in Esor's room though, giving me some time to update MVK, so don't worry.

I Want My TV Back!
August 23rd, 2001 - 1:36 PM
Well, it's Thursday now, and I still haven't heard anything about my TV. I dropped it off on Monday, and they said they were three days behind. Three days from Monday is Thursday, so what gives? I guess I'll give the guys working there until about 5:00 to get in touch with me... then I'm gonna go take some names. I woke up at about 7:10 today, which is a once snooze improvement over the rest of the week. Maybe one of these days I'll get up at the time I have my alarm set to. AI today was awesome, since Schafer started the class with a clip from PI, my favorite movie named after a Greek letter. Of course, PI also happens to be one of my favorite movies named after anything, being one of the 15 or so DVDs I own. We went over some mildly interesting notes in class, and besides the one or two times Neevred had to wake me up, I actually paid attention. After AI I had some breakfast, sans Neevred, then went back to my room to crash for a while. I actually dozed off for about twenty minutes, but my Calculus class starts at 11:15, so I was in no danger of missing it. We learned about drawing stuff in three-dimensional space today, a task too daunting for me to even think about. We have about 30 problems due for homework next Thursday, and I just pray that I don't have to do too many drawings.

I just got back from lunch, consisting of a mild sausage sandwich, some french fries, and a bowl of green Jello. I thoroughly disgusted Esor (Neevred's girlfriend) and Akira (Esor's roommate) by attempting to drink my Jello through a straw. This proved to be a very difficult, so I settled for a spoon and called it a day. Well, I'm off to play some Baldur's Gate. :)

All Hail Mad Jack Bonney!
August 22nd, 2001 - 5:16 PM
I just came back from my first round of MWF classes, and to celebrate, I wasted time by following some links provided by my roommate, Leah. In his live journal, he provides the world with four useless sites that provide alternate names. I found most of my aliases to be useless, but I did like "Mad Jack Bonney," provided by Fidius.org. It turn's out that Leah's name came out to be "Mad John Bonney," which would make us Pirate Cousins, in addition to roommates.

Enough pirate talk! It's time to talk about my day. I woke up a 7:20 again today, two full snoozes after I intended. After waking up, it was off to the White Building to do a little morning exercise. Apparently half the campus had the same idea, because the exercise area was crowded as monkeys. Deprived of using one of the new-fangled exercise bikes by a bagillion other students, I had to settle for an old-school one that was actually shaped like a real bike. I figured I'd be good to go for about half an hour, but I was tired after ten minutes. I figure I can slowly work up to an amount of time worth writing home about. On the bright side, I did burn 120 calories. After my brief exercise period, I took a shower, read my webcomics, woke up Leah, and went to breakfast.

My first class was Intro to Digital Systems, which is fun at any time of day, but a real treat a 9 AM. The class was basically a waste since, besides getting the obligatory syllabus, all we did was learn computer number systems. Nothing beats learning binary, octal, and hexadecimal for the umpteenth time. After that I had Greek in my regular building where I and the rest of the class tried, with limited success, to say the Greek words in out text book provides as a "Pronunciation Drill." The fact that a bunch of the Greek letters look a little like English letters doesn't help at all. In fact, it makes things harder, because you're always saying the wrong letter. After Greek, I had a two-hour break in which to eat lunch, which I did, very well, I might add. After lunch I had my statistics class, Elementary Probability. I'm actually pretty good at probability, at least when it doesn't involve calculus. But this class is taught by G.J. Babu who, despite being named after an excellent Seinfeld character, is unfathomably annoying. The problem is that both his accent and his handwriting are impossible to understand. This makes taking notes, or even learning anything at all, quite difficult. I'll just have to read the book a lot, I suppose. And my final class of the day, which I only recently got back from was Discrete Math. This class looks like it's going to be cool, if only that the teacher rocks. She has an accent I can understand, and besides making her "i"s look like "n"s when they start a word, readable handwriting. She also told some mildly amusing jokes and informed us that for a few minutes every Friday, we'd have "Historical Mathematician Storytime," which I suppose is better than learning math. :)

One Down, Seventy-Something to Go
August 21st, 2001 - 1:20 PM
Well, I had my first set of classes today, and they were wonderful. Well, not really, but at least they didn't suck total monkeys. I had to wake up at 7:20 today so that I could shower, check my mail, read my webcomics, and still make it to my 8:00 class. That class happened to be Artificial Intelligence, which is a pretty cool class. The teacher is Steve Schafer, who the bodily form of one of the members of the PSU-Trinity. The PSU-Trinity consists of three gods: Redifer, Computer Science, and God. This is not meant to be blasphemous, mind you, just slightly amusing. Anyway, AI turned out to be pretty cool, except for the fact that we'll never be using LISP or ProLog, two languages I was sort of looking forward to learning. We're doing all the coding in C++ instead, which I suppose is alright, since I use C++ more than anything else. AI is also cool because my friend Neevred is in it, even though he refuses to eat breakfast with me. After class I had a quick breakfast with some random guy who also happened to be in my AI class. Small campus. After breakfast I had Greek, which for some reason meets in a different building on Tuesdays than it does on any other day. The teacher was pretty cool, and she basically told us that we're going to be completely clueless for the first few days, and that's alright. Luckily 25% of my grade depends on attendance and participation, so I should be able to salvage a few bad grades. After Greek I had MATH 231 (or Multivariable Calculus), taught by <gasp> an Eastern European. She's pretty easy to understand, as far as teachers with accents go, but we haven't gotten to the hard stuff yet. My Tuesday mornings are packed, as you can see, but I don't have any classes left. My Thursdays are the same, except that I don't have Greek. So at least two days of the week are pretty easy. :)

$300 of Repairs on a $250 Television
August 20th, 2001 - 7:10 PM
This is one of the possible scenarios that the Electronics Unlimited guy described to me when I dropped my TV off there today. According to my description of the problem, he surmised that there was something wrong with the picture tubes. If it turns out to be repairable, it'll probably be only about a $85-$100 job. But if the picture tube is beyond saving and needs to be replaced, it becomes a $300 job. Now I don't have to be an Economics major to figure out that doing $300 of repairs on a TV I only paid $250 for is insane. It would be cheaper to buy a new one. So anyway, they're going to look at my TV in the next few days and give me an estimate. If it's repairable, they're going to go ahead with it and give me a call. If it needs to be replaced, I told them not to bother, but they still get to keep my $35 deposit. But I'm willing to part with it for the chance of a cheap repair. My dear friend Llon has agreed to be my chauffer for the repairs, under the conditions that I walk back with him when he parks his car, and that he gets to keep my TV for dissection if I decide to part with it.

Anybody Got a Spare 27" TV?
August 29th, 2001 - 2:00 PM
Yep, that's right. Last night I broke my new TV. I bought it over the summer and only took it out of its box on Saturday. Alright, let me set up the scenario. I had just finished building my TV stand, 2 hours of back-breaking, tool-borrowing labor, and I was getting ready to move it into its designated spot on the floor. My first task was to move the futon out of the way, since it dominates all the empty space on the floor. After doing that, I had to pick up the TV, since it was sitting in the spot where the TV stand would eventually be. Since there wasn't a convenient space on the floor to lay it down, I set it down on the previously relocated futon. Then I turned back to the TV stand's now-empty lot to clear the various wires out of the way, when I heard I very loud crash. I figured some idiot down the hall had dropped something, and I was in the process of half-chuckling to myself when I turned around. Apparently my TV had made the noise when it took it upon itself to do a belly-flop onto the floor. Now it only fell about 6 inches, but when you're a television, and your belly happens to be quite breakable, a belly-flop of any size is significant. I stood the poor thing up again, listening to the formerly-attached parts rattle around inside, relieved to find that the at least the screen was intact. Givng in to some kind of morbid curiosity, I hooked up the cable and plugged the thing in. Luckily my TV still worked, but not entirely. Cable worked fine. Video games worked fine. The sound worked fine. Even the picture came out fine. The only problem was the colors. Instead of the picture coming in full color, like it did before the TV's suicide dive, it was coming in Black and White Deluxe. My TV now displayed what could be considered ordinary black and white, but with parabolic bands of red, green, and blue color. This was better than nothing of course, but worse than I would have liked. Well, there goes my spending money for the semester...