I have an interview! Yaaay!

Stolen Moments

Today i'm living in stolen moments between when I should be doing things. We all agreed to get up at 6:30 and do more Prelab stuff. I woke up on my own at 6, and I can't sleep (Who needs sleep, i'm never gonna get it). Then 3.25 hours (Precisely) with Spike and the lab of hell, then Lectures (and perhaps a tutorial), then meeting with my 241 prof to get my face rasped off, then Kendo, because appearantly Nationals are this weekend, and I'm supposed to practice. Really, I just want to be asleep....

Refusal of Despair

I have a lovely epic post of misery that I'm not posting, I get to keep that one in the drafts bin. Much of this has been aleivated now. Appearantly, who would have thought, but actually going and doing a crapload of circuits problems awakens the dormant knowledge from previous terms. I feel much better now. Still a lot of work to do, but I feel like i've accomplished something.

Starting to seriously think about Law School.

I've started habitually reading Wikipedia and Philosophy again. That's a good sign. I may pull myself out of this with my feet up yet. Just remember folks, i'm not one of those guys who runs the race and wins, and doesn't break a sweat. I'm in the pack, and I get lucky a lot, and I get shitkicked a lot, but I have the advantage of having a whack of people who want to get me back on my feet, and I haven't given up and laid down in the ditch yet. Time to take that energy and refine. Build. Discover. Become.

More Cartoons

Trevor is baaaack

Commerical

I found this commerical on Transbuddha. It's bloody hilarious. I wish more commericals were this clever.

My weekend, in D Major

Wrote my third midterm on friday, which went ok. Not as good as Wed., which was spectacular, or as bad as Thu, which was spectacularly terrible. Simply ok.

After that midterm, went to 36 for Batch, numerous drunk engineers who seem to know who I am, no idea how. I think someone forgot to invite all the ladies for this one though, and not as packed as usual. Might just be from the summer. Frosh everywhere. Everywhere, acting like they're 16. Shit, I'm pretty sure some of them are 16.

Anyway, then went to MOT at POETS. Bartender wasn't the usual one, and they brought those bloody SI Twisters. tsk tsk tsk. Wentworth made me chug a moosehead on camera, and that's just disgustin'. They've gotten it in their heads to get live music for these things, and they had this band in there called 'Lucid'. Allow me to paint you a picture:

Start off with Hanson. Now, ugly them kids up a bit and dye their hair. Now make them produce a sort of angry droning whine, slam on drums and play some incoherant chords.

Now turn up the gain on the amp like, ALL THE WAY. Those kids must be deaf or something, because POETS was totally evacuated onto the Patio. There was like, a couple of the aforementioned drunk underaged frosh inside POETS head slamming to whatever was happening 'musically' in there, and about 80 other people out on the patio, trying to escape that shit.

All in all, probably the worst OT i've ever been to. Maybe I didn't drink enough. Ok, I definately didn't drink enough, because you have to be DRUNK at these things, and I probably only had 4 at batch, which for a big giant scotsman is insufficient.

Now, all of this was made up for yesterday, when I woke up at about noon, went down to the lab (People are STILL doing convocation, they've been convocating for like, 4 days.), and had an entirely successful debugging session on the assembly code produced by Todd and myself. Friday, we couldn't even figure out what address it started at, and when we left, it kinda works. They make us write 'Diaries' for these debug sessions, so we've been writing ours in the style of 'dear diary', with a distinctly 'Treasure Island' Motif.

Then Seacalf came down from Guelph and we went to see Batman! If you haven't seen that movie yet, it kicks serious ass. Jon probably has a comic book continuity issue with it or something, I know it's certainly mutually exclusive with the original batman movie (By which I mean the Michael Keaton one, not the Adam West one). If you haven't seen it, go see it now! Or come down to waterloo and come see it with me again! it's awesome! I forgot how hilarious Seacalf is too, wish that kid was still living with us. Pure Hilarity. The night ended with our discovery of a drunken teenager peeing next to my car in the parking lot (Lucky for him he wasn't peeing ON my car, or i'd have tossed his ass on the ground and he could pee on himself). What is this, a third world country? There's a bathroom less then 100m away, in a building YOU JUST CAME OUT OF. At least find an alley or something. Jeeze.

Happy Father's Day to any of you who happened to both have children and be male, i'm off to finish that assembly code.

My GENE 411 Argument

GENE 411 is a course on Engineering Law I want to take. The problem is that I don't really have time to take it in my schedule, because it's listed as a List D elective, and I have lots of those I need to take for my Cognitive Science Option. I do however need to take a List A Impact Course. List A courses suck, everyone I know dreads taking them, not because they're hard, they're not, they're just really, really boring. So i'm endevouring to get GENE 411 put on List A so I can take it and satisfy that requirement at the same time. The associate chair of my dept. said that if I could provide a good argument, he would take it to the Faculty Operations Commitee for discussion.

My argument for the inclusion of GENE 411 in the list A electives is as follows:

List A is, as you have mentioned, a category designed for courses which are relatively non-technical (although certainly some of the courses currently listed are more technical then others), and speak to the impact of technology on society. I gather that we are required to take such a course so that, as Engineers, we have garnered some insight into how our designs and actions figure into the larger construct of society; In effect, to realize that we are part of a bigger whole, not simply living off in our own little Engineering world.

I would argue that GENE 411 (and indeed GENE 412 as well) does just this. GENE 411 is, in essence, a course on Engineering Law, especially pertaining to Canada. Law is a binding construct in society. Law establishes roles, and responsibilities for the citizens of the enforced jurisdiction, and the laws of a country or area are arguably one of the most dominant affecting factors for those who live under those laws. Law is not technical in the same sense that we tend to think of as technical. It is rigorous, logical, but in the same way that linguistics is logical. One cannot gain understanding of law and use that understanding to design something. One understands law, and uses technical training to design something that is in accordance with law.

GENE 411 is not however about law in general, it is about engineering law. An Engineer is someone who uses technical skills and experience to develop technology in a manner above all, that is safe. This safety, as you know, is imperative to society, so that we don’t have bridges collapsing on us and so forth. One of the most important ways that society is protected from potentially unsafe technology is through engineer law. By legally binding professional engineers to be legally accountable for their designs, we may ensure that the effects of technology on society, at least from the standpoint of reliable and safe designs, are positive ones.

If you feel I have made a sufficient case for the movement of GENE 411, I would appreciate your taking it to the Faculty Operations Committee for discussion. In either case, please provide me with feedback and your thoughts.

Black plague of engineering death

So today I was given a big, big, bigass project in one of my courses. I have to essentially write a compiler in C++, he pulls up the grammar for the language, and my jaw just drops. This thing is fucking huge. It's probably the biggest project we've started University. It's due July 25, the Prof says "Yeah, you're pretty much going to need all the time you can get between now and then to get it done". Sweet.

What does this mean? It means i'm not coming home to Richmond Hill until finals are over. The next two weeks are midterms and ugly labs and finishing my Assembly project. The next two weeks are scrambling to finish more ugly labs whilst blowing a weekend in Montreal for Kendo Nationals, and the next weekend in Ottawa for Whitewater Rafting. The next two weeks will be further scrambling to do that compiler, and Finals will start a week later, meaning studying for those.

Exams end on the 12th, so i'll be back around then for a couple weeks, then frosh week, then work, wherever that may be.

So, if you have any interest in seeing me in the next few months, i'm very willing to entertain anyone who wants to come up here, but other than that, i'm stuck here until the 12th of August when I will go up to my Exam proctor, and exclaim in my best Cartman voice "Screw you guys, i'm going home".

Rainy land

I love the rain, have I mentioned I love the rain? And lightning and thunder.

Because I don't feel like studying

I've been conned into listing my top ten songs of the moment.
I'm going to do this out of my decimated iTunes library, which is fortunately been funneled out of Todd's decimated iTunes library, supplmented by some stuff I found myself. Todd has an bitTorrent addiction, so i'm pretty ok.

Disclaimer: I am not in on the indie music scene. I don't care about the, you know, cutting edge shit that's coming out of the UK like Kaiser Chiefs, or the amazing new rock scene in Montreal like Arcade Fire. Not my bag, so if this makes you roll your eyes, you may feel free to eat me. =o)

In Alphabetic order by Artist:

1. Piano Man - Billy Joel - Best of
2. Comfort Eagle - Cake - Comfort Eagle
3. The Scientist - Coldplay - Rush of B-Side to the Head
4. Orange - Dandy Warhols - Come Down
5. Shakin' - Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia
6. Such Great Heights - Iron and Wine - Garden State Sndtrk.
7. Bubble Toes - Jack Johnson - Brushfire Fairytales
8. Better Together - Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
9. Pledge of Allegiance - Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets are Kept
10. In the Shadows - The Rasmus - Dead Letters

If you read this, you're next.

Hapland

If you like puzzle games, this one is good, and HARD.
It's called Hapland. Basically you have to get a guy into each of the doors, which will turn on the portal. It is not easy to do this, and you will restart many, many times. It is however amusing. There is also Hapland 2 which is in my opinion much, much harder. Click on everything.

Practical Applications of the Philosopher’s stone. For drunks.

Hehehe. As a professional drinker, I say, thank you gentlemen. Daddly needs his medicine, and if this will cut back on my having to steal from children, I say "Engage! Let us hurt ourselves toward to bilcion, warp nine. Stardate, your mom".

Magical Trevor!

Everyone Loves Magical Trevor, cause the tricks that he does are ever so clever! Look at him now, disappearing the cow, where is the cow, hidden right now....

Winds and Rain

The muggy air around me begins to swirl, turbulent and frenzied. The sweat on my chest chills. Windows rattle and doors shutter. The heavens open up, and the swelling clouds release at last, pouring down water to replace the beads on my forehead. Lightning streaks across the sky to pre-empt the clap of a glorious natural exclaimation point. And I am in my element again.

Ooo. Look, I'm irresponsible

So, I didn't really feel like going to Lectures yesterday, and instead went to POETS at noon, and began the consumption of the precious potation (That'd be beer). And when class time came around, still didn't feel like going, so just kept drinking with the Engineering Lads and Lasses. Then came home, went out for dinner with Nathalie at Jane Bond's (Sort of a Quasi-vegitarian 70s place, very good food, and After Eight Martinis), Came back, and started drinking various other things with my housemates and other guests, including some form of Greek Brandy, which was quite fine indeed, Margeritas, and Irish Whiskey.

Also ran into Erika and Chris who were around and Drove over to see me, they seem to be doing well too, passed on Madagascar in favor of further drinking. Oh, watched Closer too. Good movie, I can see how It would unnerve most people, don't recommend watching it with your boy/girlfriend. Stayed up talking to Alanna about some of her stuff until about 2.

This weekend i'm in Waterloo, going to get some Linguistics and 241 done, perhaps be encouraged to do a few 241 questions, because appearantly Midterms are coming up, and people usually do this thing called 'studying'. Reputably, it increases your marks (Not that my marks are bad), so I might have to try it.

If you're in town or have anything to say (Or need CS100 help), drop me a line, i'll probably be in most of the weekend.


*Spontaneous BC Vacation Memory* Went for dinner at this Austrailian-Canadian place in Vancouver, Ordered a Margerita, my parents had never tried one. They both think "It tastes like bird shit"*