Grad Schooligans

The life of a grad student... it's something I've missed out on so far really. I don't know if it's a symptom from the fast track program, or the fact that all my friends are graduated and have jobs, but it is something I haven't really had a chance to experience yet. With that said, I've decided to reprioritize my life accordingly.

1) School, A.I., and Intelligent Systems: Thus far I've just be scraping by in gradschool. I started college as an undergrad fascinated with computers, computer science was the butter to my bread, the who'e to my pimptastic right hand, the milk to my cow tite..... yes so, at some point it became something I studied for my class, and not really a passion. What's odd though is there was no loss of interest, no found boredom per se, it just some how happened. So first on the list is to refocus on school and exploring all their is to learn.

2) Wokring out: "You aint got no job, and you aint got shit to do" it's bloody true. In addition to studying a lot more, and exploring smaller interests, I need to get back into shape. Post on that later....

3) Guitar, having fun, etc. Man, I don't have a job, I'm free now as I was my first day in college, and I need to start acting like it and make the most of my time left in this magical little bubble. To that end, I need to find more things to do and stop spending so much time just sitting around doing nothing.

4) eh... on four, I really can't count past 3 when it comes to priorities, so I guess I'll have to leave it with the above.

Prioritasticly,
me

Maroon 4.5

So me, Rachel and Kristen went to see Maroon5 on Saturday (along with some of her gradschool friends). The sorted details of that fated night shall soon not be unforgotten {law&order sounds}

8:00 Nokia Live theatre
So the Donnas opened for Maroon5 and it reminded me of how bad I always feel for opening bands. I'm so much more a fan of the coheadlining approach ala John Mayer and Counting Crows from last year. The problem of the opening band is one of math really. There's essentially a threshold at which a concert becomes good. The sum value receives many inputs, but is essentially measured in average energy level per the following: ( X=(E/dx)/dt) where X > epsilon (the threshold) assuming E to be a function that describes energy per it's inputs (good performance, highschool girls screaming, etc)
Now the inherent problem lies in the fact that for a large venue (where 'opening bands' usually end up playing before big bands), the epsilon value is ridiculously high, and is on an order of magnitude higher than the band's set of inputs combined. Without the set of audience inputs the opening band really doesn't have much of a shot. (which individually are of much smaller magnitude then the bands, but which when combined, by the definition of theatre capacity, scale in order with the epsilon-threshold value)
Case in point, before the concert I glanced through The Donnas' blog on napster and they were talking about the incredible energy, etc from their own small venue tour, which they sadly don't get in a big venue. Poor poor opening bands. But they do get enhanced exposure, which could have future benefits... but I've dorked up this post enough already, so I'll defer analysis on that one.

Soo... Maroon 4.5 oh wait, my stupid law&order theme...
deing douing>{law&order sounds}

9:30ish Nokia Live theatre

So Maroon 4.5, we were greeted not by the usual sudden intro into song with flashing lights but by Adam Levine alone on a dark stage with a spotlight... well I was thinking shakesperian soliloquy (hehe stupid blogspot spell checker sooo won't know that one). Turns out instead that earlier in the day he had been working out with those stretch band things attached to a door when someone opened the door it popped the carribeaner into his chest leaving a 'laceration' and a fractured sternum. So basically he said he was going to do his best and play for as long as he could. Which led way for some humorous intersong banter as he described how drugged up on pain killers he was, and how he felt like Ozzie due to his immobility. None the less they did a sweet job on a shorter than normal set. Then for some reason, their drummer has been injured, but in a way that he can't play drums, but can play guitar and sing... who knows. Anyways, so once adam clearly couldn't do much more, he headed back stage and their normal drummer (who had been chilling backstage) came out and they did Seven Nation Army (White Stripes) followed by Highway to Hell (AC/DC) which were both badass. On Highway to Hell their lead guitarist jumped stage and went running through the entire lower level of the venue. (it was hilarious to watch out of shape ushers trying to chase him, god bless our fucked up civil legal court system). Of course the teenyboppers left in mass once Adam went off stage because they have no music appreciation, but it made for bearable traffic afterwards so it was good. If you have napster, maroon5 has another live version of Highway to Hell you could check out. Both songs were done incredibly well and it was an awesome way to end the concert.

Top of the schmornin to ye laardieshesses

Ah St. Patties... that magical time of the year where dallasites hang up their image obsessed culture to get really scholsched... or maybe it just brings others out of the woodwork to dilute the snoberati either way, bars are funner (oh yes, I used it) and more reminiscent of austin for this one magical day. St. Patties also brings on powers of drink that can conquer even the greatest of drinkers. I myself fell prey just last year to St. Patties... I thought I had enough supergreen gear on, with my leprechaun hat and my iron-on clover+claddagh shirt, but sadly not. This year I wouldn't be deterred! But what you might ask could top a festive hat and a new iron-on shirt ("Boof me I'm german Irish")? A cape! Yes, you read that right. After all what supergear is super without an appropriate supercape? So with time dwindling I set out to walmart, acquired the last of their quality st patties gear and headed home. After acquiring the sewing prowless of my mom, while getting a few good laughs as she would repeatedly verbally berate her sewing machine, my supergear was in full effect. You can get a chronological picturing of my supergear through out the night at Tool's blog. Now one might say, "but you're clearly trashed by the IHOP pic... some supergear that is!" to which I must remind you, "aha, but can wolverine not bleed? can he not even have his adamantium skeleton ripped from his body in X-men #25 of the fatal attraction series, but does he die? Nay!" Supergear is about the triumph of good over evil, and in this case the evil is being sick from booze. Triumph indeed.

TheGreenAvenger,
me.

p.s. The random older people in those pics on tool's blog were random people we just met at the bar that we invited to join our table. Something that doesn't happen when lights don't shine quite so green in dallas. (being at a cool bar helped also)

Tuopmac

The campout was this weekend and it was pretty sweet. Friday night was awesome the early push actually worked and everyone was there on time and people were sloshed. I'd like to thank the OG JC for channeling the magic of campfire punch through me, it has been a great gift from god for every campout. I'm hoping for lottery numbers for the next time. :) So... campout, Friday was sweet, everyone was drunk. Saturday I've never seen sooo many grown men shamelessly hold their crotches in front of 8 year old girls innocently playing on the beach. The lake water was retarded cold and everyone who emerged were grasping their crotches with hope of parts still being functional. (for all you ladies who are worried, I didn't go in the water so I'm functional and willing :-D ) Saturday night everyone wussed out and didn't drink... and went to bed early. But drinking alone in the woods was a nice change of pace, so I guess it's all good. So now a lesson...

How to correctly plan, acquire, and use campout bedding.
1) Check the air mattress to make sure it actually works before the camp out.

2) Blow up your air mattress before getting completely sloshed, otherwise you're done in 3 breaths and sleeping on steel.

3) If you blow up your mattress then 3 hours later it's flat, don't assume that if you blow it up again and goto sleep on it you won't be sleeping on steel in an hour and a half... because you will, and it will suck.

4) Don't sleep on steel. I know what you're thinking, "Isn't that mattress company called Steely, it's suppose to be good for your back right?" But I've come to learn that is not actually their name, and sleeping on steel is in fact bad for your back... and hip, and face... pretty much everything. Seriously, go find rocks in the woods and sleep across them before sleeping on a steel ridged floor in the back of a suburban.


And now for a story... So courtesy of my steal bed I was up early on sunday and packing/cleaning so I could get everyone on the road as early as possible, and in so doing what did I see? A miniherd of deer came running through the shrubbery right next to the camp. It's quite amazing to see six or seven deer run 15-25mph slaloming through trees 10-15 yards in front of you. They always seem so not bouncy and unagile when you see them eating along the road. That's their trick you see, they lure you in thinking thusly and then they agile you to death! muwahahahaha beware the dear and their agilitamatic powers. My alliance with them is complete, once I acquire the friendship of the raccoon lords you're all gonna pay.... what? raccoon lords can be easily bought with trash and left overs? those damn dirty procyonides (gratz wikipedia).


Plotting my revenge against the raccoon lords,
me.

beautifumacation

ok, so I guess the site is working now, except it's not. Because Microsoft blows donkeys on weekend trips to south of the border... it's true, I'm surprised you didn't know that. Anyways, so IE won't load the page right, so use Mozilla. You honestly should be using it anyways because it's vastly better than IE. Any small setup steps you may have to take (probably won't) over IE are good for computer literacy.

I think Microsoft has reached a crossroad per se, where they either need to scale down and spin off or reinvent the big business. As it currently stands I think they're approaching a critical mass. They have the resources and ability to produce really significant and competitive product, for example C# and the .Net framework. However they are becoming symptomatic of a large eye that casts it's gaze too wide. Way too many of their products are lagging both in a technology aspect and in a fit&polish aspect. Case in point: google is spanking msn search, firefox is spanking IE, windows media heavily lacks in the fit&polish section, etc. The whole thing reeks of the old big tech companies who floundered at the end of last decade. So, microsoft now has a choice of floundering like novell, Dec, packardbell, etc or reinvent and rejuvenate a la TI and IBM.


- Wen Rawks

And so it begins...

Well, I've done and lemmingized myself and acquired a blog. Well, I guess it's not that lemmingish since I had these way before they were even called blogs... but I digress. I'm back and I'm sexyier than ever with a sexyier than ever blog... well eventually maybe. In the mean time it's templataism for me.

So why the deuce do I need a blog? I don't, I also don't need omnimpotence, but I will acquire both successfully. So what am I going to put here? Well, barring dying in epic bellicose battles with ninjas, or dragons, or ninjas with dragon heads that breathe fire and throw shurikens at the same time!.. where was... oh yes, baring that, I guess I'll put my adventures in escapism, my treatiseses on things, and more than a fair amount of social commentary I'm sure.

Things to look forward to in the future:
...
that is all.

Slaying draginjas since a toddler,
me.