Weekend of Events.

This weekend has been a very eventful and productive one. 
I fixed a whole bunch of bugs in the software i'm writing, and sent it out yesterday morning after extensive testing.  I also spent most of the day studying for 241 on Sunday (And finished off the day with a respite to the lovely land of World of Warcraft, where I scored myself a third piece of Magister's Equipment. Yes, i'm a dork, no, I don't care).

By far the best part of the weekend however was going to Body Worlds with Cas on Sat.  It's kinda creepy to see dead people exploded all over the place in rubbery glory (and why they had eyebrows pasted on is beyond me).  Saw Matt Strickland randomly at the Science center as well.

Now, one of the things we did while we were there was to do a test on genetics,
where you can test yourself among several genetic traits like rolling your tongue,
and being able to smell freesia (Apparently Cas is a rarer speciment than I).  Something about the freesia stuck with me, and I wandered around in wikipedia land for a while along a trail of links until I stumbled on another article on inherited traits:  Color Blindness.

And... appearantly I'm color-blind.  Who knew.  The specific kind of color-blindness I have is called Deuteranopia, or Daltonism (After the chemist John Dalton, who had this condition, they confirmed it by doing a DNA test on his preserved eyeball.  ewww..)  So I guess in addition to the recessive gene I have which prevents me from smelling freesia, I also have a defective X chromasome which screws up my ability to see certain colours.
 
Lovely. =o)

Mandarin tonight! Booyah.

Vaccines tomorrow! Anti-booyah.

Oh, if anyone cares, the general consensus among the various people who responded to my earlier post about lingerie is that the only real time this is a good idea is if you go shopping for it together, which was basically what I thought. Lingerie doesn't replace a thoughtful gift, whether it be seasonal or random, but it is a fun thing regardless.

STRESS

I am very stressed out.

I have spent like, four days working on this problem at work. The output I was getting from my program was just absolute garbage. It looked Basically like this:



After hunting for days for what was causing it, I finally found it.
Instead of:

fopen(File, "rb");

I had typed

fopen(File, "r");

Which means it was opening the file in text mode, which ordinarly doesn't matter, except every time my program happened to run across data of the form 0x1A, it would treat it as the end of file, and return 0xCCCC.... which was a valid form of data for this program. Didn't crash it, just sent it wrong, but valid, data back.


ARRGGGGH...

Here's the output after I typed 'b' in that little line of code:




See how it's all nice and smooth and spikes at exactly one point, just like I want? Yeah. Very frustrating. Beyond that, I was chastised that as a human i'm allowed to make mistakes, but as a programmer i'm not allowed to repeat them (since I have had this problem in a different piece of code, but causing different errors).

Bah.

Sung Yong (My old, and favorite, Kendo Sensei) is leaving on friday, and unfortunately I can't go to his goodbye match. Not happy.

I feel like i'm being yanked in 6 different directions. I need to stop taking on things outside of my primary focus. It's not so much that I feel I have so much to do and not enough time to do it in, I just feel a LOT of pressure from all sides, and I have so many things that my mind is on, none of them seem to be going my way.

Curling was good on Saturday, i'm very sore. It's strange to see some of my older relatives, like my Great Uncle Charlie. I remember him being witty and cheerful, and now he looks around blankly, walking stiffly, saying little or nothing... I've never really been worried about my mortality, but I dunno. It makes me sad to see these people fade away.

*sigh* Anyway, I guess acting like a sick puppy isn't going to make any of this better, so i'd better just hikeup my bootstraps and get at it.

On the subject of lingerie

There's this Spence Diamonds commercial on the radio where buddy compares how guys look when they go looking for engagement ring to how he feels when he goes to a lingerie store.  It's a strange land where you don't know anything about anything, and you're nervous and scared.  This began a thought train that I would like answers for if anyone has any.

I don't really understand the practice of men buying lingerie for women as gifts for them.  Don't get me wrong, I think lingerie is awesome, and i'm certainly not complaining about this habit in at least some parts of society.  It's not the idea of going into a lingerie store that gives me chills, I think I would be perfectly fine selecting from among the myriad of various undergarments available.  What throws me off why a female-type-person would want to receive lingerie as a gift.  Gifts are generally things that the person receiving the gift will enjoy, I understand flowers, chocolates, general clothing, but the primary purpose of lingerie is that the person wearing the lingerie looks really, really sexy.

Isn't that more of a gift to the gentleman friend of said girl, rather than the girl herself?

So this is a call out to anyone reading this, I would like to hear your opinion on the situation.  Either post a comment on wherever you are reading this, or send me an email.

If you're a guy, do you agree with me?  If you have a girlfriend, would you buy lingerie for her for christmas or v-day?
If you're a girl, would you be offended if your boyfriend bought you lingerie?
If you're either of the above, what are your general thoughts on the situation?

I'm talking about as a gift here for an occasion, not like, the two of you are shopping and the guy buys you lingerie, that I understand.  I'm talking about as a gift on gift-giving occasions.

Harry Potter 4

I'd like to see Harry Potter 4 tomorrow, or if not tomorrow, sometime this weekend.

Is anyone interested who doesn't already have plans to go see it with others?

Total Nerd

You know how you know i'm a total nerd (As if you needed another reason)?

LSATs.  Most fun ever.  I did a general practice for it last night, runs you through 21 sample questions taken from across all sections of the LSAT, time limit too.

Perfect.  I own that sucker.  Too bad my marks are, on the whole, not spectacular.  Oh, and that not knowing what I want to do with my life thing.


So Sleepy.

God, it's almost December.  Fuck.

Holy Shit, Forms.

I got a package i'm supposed to fill out. Holy shit. They want it by the 19th. They're not getting it by the 19th.

Here's the MANIFEST for the package.

1. Application for Employment - Completed
Original and two photocopies.

2. Resume
Three Photocopies

3. Personnel Security Clearance Questionnaire - Completed
Original and three photocopies

4. Birth Certificate of Applicant, Spouse, and Dependants
Three Photocopies

5. Citizenship Certificate, if born outside Canada
Three photocopies

6. Marriage Certificate
Three Photocopies.

7. Divorce or Separation Documents.
Three Photocopies.

8. Education Documents, including Transcripts, for Highest Level of Education,
as well as documents supporting special qualifications
Three Photocopies

9. Six Recent Photos, Wallet Size.

10. Three recent reference Letters, to be provided by references, who are not family.
Originals and Two photocopies.

11. Driver's Licence
Three Photocopies.

Abuse and/or illegal use substances form, signed.




So appearantly I have like, 4 days to get married, aquire dependants, and get separated. Any takers?

Beyond that, I've been reading Access All Areas by Ninjalicious. Ninj was one of my mother's patients who passed away, and he's appearantly one of the major players in the world of Urban Exploration. The book is pretty awesome. If you're at all interested in this hobby, you should check it out (or if you don't know what the hell it is, you should check it out as well).

I am bored out of my mind.  I've done a lot of work today, it's been very productive, but I'm about ready to jump ship at this point.

1.5 more hours.

Tonight, hanging out with Kerri, and hypothetically Randeep is coming back so i'll hang with him too.

Jon, you around?

New things

So i've been having a lot of trouble with my Treo 600 lately.  I can usually not connect to the data network, the phone crashes and reboots frequently, and even though the meter shows the battery to be 3/4 full, I start getting low battery warnings.

My Suspicion is that the battery is royally fucked, and i'm beyond warranty, which means I could pay to get it fixed, which would cost an unknown amount, or I can retire it as my cell and get a new one.

My current running fellow is the Motorola RAZR V3.  It is a phone that oozes sex appeal, and I can get it for 100 bucks if I renew my plan and kill the data access.  Anyone else have any good ideas on a phone?  My ideal phone has wifi access too, but i'm willing to forgo data access for a while and get an organizer device for that later.

In other news, my parents aren't going to be home tonight, or the next night, and appearantly I have to feed myself.  This means i'm going out for dinner, because I'm lazy.  Presumably everyone is busy who's local to the GTA tonight and tomorrow, but if anyone isn't and wants to have dinner with me, give me a call or email me (soon).

--
C:\>Del Earth.* /q /s /y

How I was Cockblocked from 230 km away.

Singha told me of a rather amusing event, and it's worth recording. Here we go.

So Singha is looking through his photos on his laptop in the lounge, and some girl who's a friend of a friend of his, and is also really hot (and appearantly, really stupid), asks if she can check her email. After doing so, she closes the window and sees Singha's recieved folder open, and the following picture catches her eye:



For those of you who don't know, that photo is of Todd (left) and Me (right) on Monte Carlo night, decked out in EDCOM formal wear.

The conversation goes like this from there:

"Wow! Who is that hottie?"
*Singha looks at her perplexed, as she points me out*
"That's my buddy Angus"
"Angus huh? I'd like to taste his beef"
"Too bad he has BSE"
"What's BSE?"
"If you don't know what that is... then there's no way he'd let you taste his beef"


Solid Gold.

Psychonaut

Well, that agency contacted me.
Appearantly i'm moving to ottawa in the summer, assuming
my clearance goes through. And assuming I don't get snatched by
someone else by then.

I have to admit, it is pretty cool. The only thing that sucks is that i'll be in Ottawa, during the summer, where I know like, nobody. I guess it's not that bad to take the train back to TO on weekends if I want to.

So the next step is a suitability interview, 2 psych exams, and fingerprinting. That'll all happen in the the next little while I guess.


Upcoming:

Friday, Pub Crawl in TO. Might be going to that.
Sat. Maybe Nicole's BDay Party. We'll see.
Next Wed.: Murder Mystery at the Mandarin with Epson. Free Food, Free Drinks. What else could you want from your boss?
19th: Curling with Extended Family. I have a feeling i'll spend most of that time on my ass.
25th: Ascent to Godhood and the dominion of the universe.

Thems my plans so far.


In other news, appearantly the Edge is giving away blue man group tix. I would rather like to go. Shall i be a tool and start calling in? And who would I go with? Volunteers?

"It should be understood by those skilled in the art that amplifying the output signal from the charged coupled device 15,
whether analog or digitally boosts the image signal gain."

I understand that, does that mean i'm 'skilled in the art'?
The art of what?

What's more fun that searching patent databases for prior art?
...


Pretty much anything.

I realize that a lot of people don't listen to like, 10 hours of the EDGE (i.e. the radio station) every day whilst they sit at their desks, merrily hacking out code.  I am such a person (unless I get sick of listening to the same crap over and over again, in which case I start on MP3s I've heard over and over again).  There's a commercial that's frequently on for this nightclub called schmooze, or something like that.  Supposedly this place has a problem in that on Saturday nights, they've got way, way too many women in the place, and they need more guys.  To me this sets off red alarms right away.  What kind of place has too many women, and advertises this, and doesn't have guys just attacking the place like hyenas on an overturned oscar meyer truck?  This, in my opinion, indicates that there is a serious problem that isn't being addressed, it almost implies it.  Almost makes you want to go check out what kind of a train wreck of a place it is.  Almost.  Probably it's the kind of place you get herpes just from breathing the air.  And that shit doesn't go away my friend.

 
I'm not sure why I understand why people have such difficulty severing connections.  Actually, I do understand why they have trouble with it, what I don't understand is why I don't.  It seems rather unnatural to be able to surgically remove someone from your life.  Other people, if they've been slighted by someone, have a need to rant and scream and be angry, and that's totally ok.  Being angry is necessary sometimes to get those feelings out, there's no point in not being angry just because it serves no purpose, it does serve the purpose of relieving the stress and frustration someone has caused you.  I merely find that I deal better with severing stress and frustration rather than letting it get to me.  I find it rather easy to deal with people I don't like, very easy to be civil with them.  If someone doesn't like me, and feels the need to get in my face about it (e.g. Darcy), it doesn't at all frustrate me, I see it as an opportunity to screw with them and say things that will just frustrate them more until they leave me alone.  Hasn't failed yet.

 
Ah humanity, filled with such wonderfully diverse people.  Too bad we have to screw with each others shit all the time.

Booyah

Appearantly I'm not locked into the job at CSIS until I make security clearance, so I'm free to apply for jobs in Jan as usual.  That's good at least.  The job actually does sound kind of interesting.  Looks like I'd learn a lot about digital security and how to lock down software systems properly against intrusion (and by corollary, how people break those systems).  Summer in Ottawa wouldn't be that bad at least.  Besides, there's a train there so I can come back to Toronto pretty easily if I want to.  Fears somewhat alleviated.  If anyone cares, the interview was long and rather difficult questions were asked.  (Including if I had done drugs, and which ones.  When I told them I hadn't done any drugs ever, they wanted to know why not. Wow.  I get the feeling that having ever done drugs at any point immediately disqualifies you.)  I would be very surprised if they don't offer me the job.

--
C:\>Del Earth.* /q /s /y

Where's Calavera when you need him?

Happy Day of the Dead, again.

Does anyone else find it strange that Day of the Dead is actually two days?

 

I have an interview with a certain government organization in three and half hours.  I have mixed feelings about whether or not to tank the interview.  The job is very similar to what I was doing for the first two terms of co-op, and while I don't dislike doing .NET coding, I don't think there's a lot more I can learn from it.  Admittedly, I only applied because I think the idea of working for a spy organization is cool, but it's not like I would realistically have access to any sensitive data, I think that everyone who works there requires top clearance.

 

There is also the fact that the job is in Ottawa, I guess there's worse places to spend a summer.  If I do get through the interview (which I can easily do if I want to), the security clearance will take a while, and if I don't clear any part of it, that's a lot of time wasted that I should have spent looking for a different job.  I've never been one for tanking things just because I have doubts though, and who knows what other opportunities could arise from that placement.  I guess we'll just go with it and see what happens.

 I finally got sick of my computer being slow, so on my way home last night I bought a 100G hard drive and swapped it out for the 40G that was in my laptop.  This saved a lot of backup time, since I can just use the 40G as a data drive now.  Having 250% as much space as before, and having it run SMOOTH is very pleasing.

 Finals are approaching uncomfortably fast.  The fact that I've been doing a lot of things at work that are directly out of 204 is helpful, but I'm starting to get stressed out about it.  Work hasn't been easy this term.  It's been good, but challenging (which I like, but induces stress).  I have to get PCDEP done too, that needs to be finished soon.  I don't think anyone is around this weekend, so maybe I'll just code the whole weekend. 

 I am concerned also about a message I got earlier this week from a friend of mine who shall remain nameless who said she had a big problem and needed to talk to me as soon as possible.  It didn't sound good, so I get to find out what's going on there on Friday, hopefully nothing terrible has occurred.

Probably the massive intake of caffeine that I incur at work isn't helping things.  I'm working on about 6 hours sleep a night, so I'm probably accumulating a sleep debt, I definitely feel more tired in the mornings than I did two months ago.  Tomorrow will probably be a late night, so I think I'll crash early tonight.

There's a feeling of decisions to be made in the air.