bytex64.net

I went to the Chicago Auto Show yesterday with my family. First, a short Linux-related story.

I currently have OpenBSD on my Thinkpad, and its apm suppport is... slim to nonexistent. I at one point tried installing Plan 9, but it did not like the video card. Nobody likes this computer's video card. X can stand to be around it long enough to tell it a few things, but then the video card vomits all over text mode. So I'm trying to get back to Linux on it, and since this brick lacks a CD-ROM, the easiest way to do that is to turn the swap partition into a fat partition, put loadlin/kernel/initrd on this partition, boot DOS, load the setup from loadlin, and install packages from the third /home partition. Well, I had this all set up so that I could do it on my way up to the show, but I was stymied by Loadlin's inability to load the Slackware 10.2 kernel. Bollocks. Loadlin is not ready for the DOStop.

While looking at cars, I was thinking, "If I could afford them, are there any cars here I would consider getting instead of another RX-7." I'm happy to say that, barring someone handing me a large sum of money and buying a M5 or a Porsche 911 Turbo S, I found nothing. Not even the RX-8, though it is rotary powered, managed to catch my eye for more than a few minutes.

The RX-8 is touted as the next generation of rotary-powered sports car by Mazda, but it's a little too big, and a little weak in the engine to really compare it to a RX-7. It's as though the Chuck Norris-like superiority of the RX-7 has faded into the conservative middle-aged car that is the RX-8. Like a major-party politician, it aims to be everything to everyone, and in doing so fails to stand out to anyone.

Sitting over in the VW section was Stanley, the VW Touareg that won the DARPA Grand Challenge. For a roboteer like me, that's like meeting a celebrity.

Apparently now that the Civic has morphed into a sleek-bodied bullet, something has to maintain Honda's image of creating dowdy cars that only broke college students would drive. That new car is the Fit, winner of the award for "cheapest feeling new vehicle." Shoddy fit and finish, insubstantial feel of controls, and the hollowest door sound I've heard since the Geo Metro all combine to leave an impression of Hondas of old.

One of its innovative features was called the "Magic Seat," which allowed the seats to be folded in different ways to squeeze the most available space out of the 5-door mini-wagon. One of these configurations was "Long Mode," which is "just the ticket for ridiculously linear objects." Man, I totally forgot about those ridiculously linear objects. You know, linear in a farcical sense, completely ludicrous linearity. I'm determined to incorporate the phrase "ridiculously linear" in my everyday speech.

It's come to my attention that there are several different variations on typing styles, especially when it comes to typing 'cd'. I type it using the index and middle finger in a single chord-like motion. Others, I've found, use "proper" fingering and use their middle finger for both. One variation on the latter technique is to use the middle finger to roll from 'c' to 'd' in one motion. Initially, I hypothesized that people who were used to command-line interfaces (CLIs) would prefer the two-fingered approach (which I call the "modified" approach), and others would type it with one finger (or the "standard" approach). My findings were surprising.

All but one of the people I asked were familiar with some form of CLI, and frequent use of the 'cd' command, but two out of these seven people typed it the standard way. The one person with no significant CLI experience typed with the standard approach as well. In the course of asking questions, though, I found that everyone who used the modified approach was self-taught, and everyone who used the standard approach was either taught by a typing tutor, a book, or a class. It remains to be seen which method is faster (and it's hard to say, since I consider all participants to be experienced typists), but there seems to be a clear correlation between being self-taught and using the index finger for the 'c' key. Perhaps that's actually the more natural way to do it.

And for the answer to another age old conundrum, check this out: Yellow Fever.

For everyone who didn't hear, I wrecked my car last Thursday. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that an unmarked police car teleported into mine, demolishing the right front area of the car. Yes, I'm fine. The car, however, isn't driveable. I went home today to try and get it started, to see if the engine was salvageable, but there's a short that drained the battery. The plan right now is to find another RX-7 with a busted engine, and swap engines. As always, my family and friends have been supportive. My parents even paid the (close to $200) tow bill as my graduation present. :)

But let's rewind, to some things I missed mentioning. Friday before last I went to a party that had a bunch of familiar faces from TVD. I wound up listening to this guy who loved to talk, which was fine, because he was good at quoting funny people. Turns out he's studying to be a teacher, and assistant-teaches in Rantoul. "I'm sorry," I said. At some other point in the night, I was surrounded by three girls, and we were discussing the pronunciation of the word "pwned". We agreed that it was pronounced "poned", and not "owned", as it was suggested to me before. One of these girls was the third ECE girl I've met. I have quite likely collected them all.

I also got to try some soju, which is apparently some sort of Korean vodka. I had the Jinro sweet-potato variety shown in the article above. Its taste and smell was very similar to a good quality vodka, except for a subtle sweet taste. I liked it, and I'll have to find more.

Two beers, Two rum and cokes, and a shot of soju later, I was drunk enough to scribble "NOOB" on a friend's forehead while he was passed out on the couch. Good times.

A friend of James gave him some beer from the Fort Collins area, and the beer torch has been passed on to me since James isn't really a beer fan. Here, for your education, is a mini-review of what I've had so far:

• 90 Shilling Ale - Passable. Apparently it's a "Scottish-style ale mixed with an English-style pale ale," whatever that means.
• Never Summer ale - Absolute piss. Stay away from it at all costs.
• Fat Tire Amber Ale - This was probably the best so far. It's got a similar taste to Grolsch Amber Ale, but is more full-bodied. "toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors," the bottle says.
• Wilburfest - Pretty good. A "German style fest beer," with a taste that's familiar and inviting to a German beer lover like myself.

Man, though, I can't believe how awful that Never Summer Ale was. Ugh. Now that I look, though, all the good ones were from Fort Collins, and Never Summer Ale was from Boulder. New beer maxim: No beer from Boulder.

I held her hand as she lay dying on the pavement. "I'm sorry," I choked out.

"Don't be," she said. She gave me a weak smile that let loose the torrent of tears I'd been holding back. "Remember me," she whispered.

"Always."

So today (now yesterday) was my birthday. My dad wins the prize for being the first to wish me a happy birthday at 3:12pm, followed by my roommate Lauren at 6:20pm, then Chrissy shortly afterwards at 6:32. Of course, everyone in my family wished me a happy birthday when I got home around 7, as well as Chris, Danielle's boyfriend. With my communications thusly documented, let it be known that the rest of you suck. :)

So I'm 24 now. Not that it makes a big difference. I stopped counting at 21, really. Big props to my mom for throwing together the last-minute birthday dinner (Chicken Kiev, noodles alfredo, and lemon cheesecake), and my brother for the card. My presents? A treasure chest of asian foodstuffs from AM-KO, a plate and bowl, a waffle-iron/griddle, and a set of shelves. Nothing special, but hey, I'm 24. The cool stuff came later, though.

My sister gave me a haircut, since my hair had grown to within scant centimeters of my mouth. The curious thing is that the blonde from halloween had grown out far enough that the resulting cut makes it look like I've got frosted highlights, which I guess is cool. While I don't really care what I look like, it does occur to me that the ladies do care, and I do care about the ladies. :)

So it turns out my brother got that MR2, and I got to drive it around. It's... small. The footwell seems cramped compared to my car, which I know has a cramped footwell. The clutch engages close to the floor, and the brakes are touchy (which is probably because, compared to mine, they have no air in the brake lines). It is a nimble little car, even without power steering. My one big complaint is the shifter, which has poorly defined shift points and sloppy action. That might just be because it was abused, though. I had trouble finding gears when down and up-shifting, and pretty much had to trust that I was hitting the right gear. I'm sure I'd get used to it, but it was a bit disorienting.

Afterwards, Andrea and I went to the auto shop where Joel (her boyfriend) works to put my car on the lift and see what I can do about my exhaust. I've got a pretty clear idea of where things should go and what I'm looking for, now, and it was pretty cool to see my car up on the lift. What was really interesting is that we found out that my car has a limited-slip differential, which I didn't know I had. I'm actually pretty excited about that, since it was one of the modifications I was going to put in, anyway. "Yeah, that's limited-slip, almost posi," Joel said. Knowing that was probably the best birthday present anyone could have given me. I'd been holding out on dry-pavement drifting because I thought I didn't have limited-slip. Now that I've found this out, I'll be burning rubber left and right. }:->

Yan and I had our Iron Chef Battle last night, and oh, man, what fun it was. It was Yan and Kan Kan against me and Erickson. We didn't have two kitchens, so we had to do the battles in series, and it took close to six hours all told. Greg was our Chairman Kaga, and chose the theme ingredient for us. In true Iron Chef style, we each had an hour to prepare at least three dishes from the theme ingredient: pineapple.

Yan won the coin toss and decided to go last, so Erickson and I went first and (in between rocking out to music on the stereo) came up with pineapple stir-fry, pineapple ramen and vegetable soup, and the amazingly creative pineapple pizza boat, which was a hollowed-out pineapple shell filled with tomatoes, green pepper, chicken, tofu, pineapple, and covered with shredded cheddar cheese. As an added bonus, we threw pineapple chunks and juice into some Hawaiian Punch, creating Super Hawaiian Punch.

After an hour of cleanup, Yan and Kan cooked up a storm, with Yan demonstrating his rapid-fire chopping technique. They created four dishes, starting off with a simple salad with a pineapple vinaigrette, then moving on to pineapple rice porridge and pineapple bamboo chicken, and finishing with almond dofu made with coconut milk, pineapple juice, and chunks of lychee. Their drink was apple cranberry juice with pineapple and lychee chunks, spiked with pinot grigio.

After all the points were tallied up, Yan's team won, but it didn't really matter, since we had so much fun cooking and tasting. Everybody agreed that we would have to do it again sometime. I think we all learned a lot. I learned that if you're cooking for Indians, you should err on the side of hot and salty, and that dessert always wins over no dessert.

Big thanks to Seejay (disclaimer: I don't know how to spell his name) for videotaping the first half, and mad props to James for his outstanding analysis. We got well over two hours of footage that will show up in the next VFS (and probably in more detail in some sort of VFS special). Everybody thought it was a lot of fun, and we're planning on doing it again, soon.

*cranks up Oleander's cover of "Boys Don't Cry"*

I saw Brittney tonight. Which is to say that I thought I saw Brittney tonight, but it wasn't really her. I guess it's not weird that I think about her every so often, wonder what she's doing and if she ever found her way out of this existential treadmill we call society. I haven't heard from her in almost five years, but I guess I should back up a bit.

Brittney and I went to high school together, and she was one of the few people there that I had actually gone to grade school with. We rode the same bus, and we were good friends. She loved to read, and was one of the few people there I could relate with on an intellectual level. Oh, yeah, she was cute, too.

Well, as fate would have it, during senior year, I came to develop feelings for her. And so, of course, I denied it, and pondered it, and discussed it, and rejected it as stupid, and beat my head against the wall about it, and got paranoid, and finally admitted to myself that I liked her. Then, after another similar journey, I finally worked up the courage to ask her out. *sigh*. She didn't go for it. I was as heartbroken as a pubescent little emo kid could be, and it took me a good year to be completely over it.

Now that's all poor and tragic, but the thing I'm kicking myself over now is that I destroyed our friendship. Not that asking her out changed her opinion of me, it's that I thought she thought less of me for it. I stopped trying as a friend, and withdrew into myself. I was selfish and stupid, and that's what destroyed it.

And so, I miss her. I'd like to be friends with her again. I want to discuss how awful popular music is, or what she thinks about the latest Harry Potter book (though I have no taste for it, myself, I'm sure she loves the series). I want to apologize. But I can't. She's gone. And I know I shouldn't be, but I'm still kicking myself over it. The penalty of being an idiot, I guess.

*sigh*.

I'm such an emo bastard.

I just read a friend's blog about how there's no meaning to life since we're all just made of meaningless atoms. But on the other hand, she's right. Of course there's no meaning. Not defined by the electron, anyway. The universe is just a huge, immensely complicated machine. But then, so is a computer. Follow me on this analogy for a bit:

At its most basic level, a computer is composed of transistors. Tiny little switches. By themselves, they're useful for a number of things, but you can't really say that they have any meaning. When you start putting them together, you gain the ability to form logic gates. Still, these don't really mean anything by themselves, but the output has some relationship to the input. That is to say, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. These gates are built up in ways to provide more useful logic, until eventually you have something like a word processor or a game of tetris. And even this doesn't have any meaning, until you use it. There are two lessons here:

1. The universe is quite possibly a very large, very complicated computer.
2. What you get out of life is dependent on what you put into it.

You've heard the phrase "Garbage In, Garbage Out," right? Well, life is the same way. If you don't put any meaning into your life, you won't get any meaning out of it. :)

Chrissy: But there's a saying, right? "Dicks before chicks."
Me: (trying not to laugh) Um, I think it's "Bros before hoes," but yours works, too.

Man, things are getting fucked up early this year. But that's another story I'm not going to relate to you. What interests me currently is a couple of new albums I've found through my friends.

The first one is The Postal Service's "Give Up", which I was pleasantly surprised to find has a definite bleep influence. (No, not bleep.com, more like 8bitpeoples) If I had to guess, most of you would find this sort of thing cheap and strange compared to real instruments, but I enjoy it a lot. Truth be told, I could do without the vocals, but overall I liked it.

The second one is The Decemberists' "Picaresque", a strange little group of songs that range from seafaring ballads to political rants to soft acoustic lullaby. Overall, I have to say "meh", though. It's good, but I didn't really get into it. I did really like "Of Angels and Angles," though.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, a pricing bug up at Amazon.com left the Evangelion Platinum Collection sitting at $6. Of course, they caught the mistake, but it was nice to think for a while that I could get one of my favorite series, digitally remastered no less, for less than a good meal at Chili's. Apparently if I complain, I can get a $15 gift certificate, but I don't feel like being an asshole today.

Do I have an irrational fixation on pistachio pudding? No, we have a very loving mutual relationship, the pudding and I. I love the pudding, and the pudding loves me. There's nothing strange about it. O_o...

I declare today an un-day. It's not a bad day, I just don't care enough about today to continue it anymore. Let's just forget about it, and we'll skip to tomorrow.

Which is just a sideways way of saying that there's something wrong with me. I've had an inkling of that since I woke up this morning, but I still haven't figured out what. I feel angry, apathetic, anxious, cynical, intolerant, and impatient. I know, I know, all those things describe me on a good day, but today there's been nothing to balance it out. I think I'm getting crapflooded by hormones or something. Fuck you, endocrinological system.

Ugh. I've got to clear my head.