posted by chip on Tuesday, the first of March 2005, at a quarter till six in the morning
Mum's the word, so I can't even tell you why. Great, huh? *shrug*. None of my business, anyway, and certainly none of yours.
In other news, my sister is awesome. Mainly that pic, but also in that she can get up in life's face and give it what for. I don't think most people could break up with a guy, and still have the guts to support him, even when he gets all clingy. My hat's off to you, Andrea. (Shit! There goes my hat! COME BACK, HAT!)
I've spent most of the night doing a lab report, and I finished around 3am. So why am I posting and not sleeping? Well, if you're only going to get 4.5 hours of sleep, what's another 15 minutes?
posted by chip on Sunday, the twenty-seventh of February 2005, at a quarter past three in the morning
I posted this on a friend's messageboard, and I liked it so much I've duplicated it for your pleasure. The thread was talking about Inuyasha, and how it was bad because it had 167 epsisodes, most of them filler.
Ok, I'll admit I've only seen two or three Inuyasha episodes (On Cartoon Network, no less), and I liked it solely on that. I figured that if it was badly dubbed and edited, and I still liked it, it was probably a pretty good show. That said, it can't be as bad as Naruto (or, equivalently, Dragonball Z). A typical episode of Naruto goes like this:
First, we rehash the last five minutes of the last episode.
Next, some staring at each other. Two minutes.
Perhaps some banter, and possibly an irrelevant revelation. Three minutes.
Some action. Thirty seconds at most. Real animation is expensive.
Three more minutes of staring, mixed with two more minutes of banter.
Main character powers up for a minute. This will involve lots of grunting, screaming, or groaning.
Sixty seconds of action. This time, accompanied by long-winded realizations made by the fighters in mid-battle, extending the action to about 5 minutes. Don't worry if you missed anything, you'll see this sequence again at the beginning of the next episode.
Occasionally they mix it up, and instead of powering up, they cry over someone who is supposedly dead. I have never seen ninja cry as much as I have in Naruto. I think there was less crying in Fruits Basket. I really like the characters and the idea of Naruto. I just wish they didn't drag it out to such an extreme.
posted by chip on Thursday, the twenty-fourth of February 2005, at a quarter till five in the morning
Q: Why do all the asian girls have white boyfriends?
A: White girls are crazy. White guys know this. Has an asian girl ever married a rich 70-year-old for his money? Has an asian girl ever cut off her husband's penis? No. Really, white girls ain't nothin' but trouble. Asian girls are the safe alternative, and they don't get wrinkles until they're like 80 years old!
Disclaimer: The views in this post are not necessarily related to my views, or the views of anybody living or dead. But if you can laugh at your own problems, you'll never run out of reasons to smile. :)
posted by chip on Sunday, the sixth of February 2005, at half past one in the morning
I entered the DDR Tournament at the Illini Union Rec Room in the light/standard division. I did pretty well, I guess. 3rd out of probably like 12 people. I feel good about it for two reasons. One, the two people who beat me really were better players. It wasn't a mistake on my part. (Though I probably would have had a better chance if I'd picked Telephone Operator. Maybe getting 3rd was worth not having to play that song. :) ) Two, I had a whole group of friends cheering me on, several of whom were girls. I don't think that's ever happened to me before. It felt pretty good.
Some guys from Iowa State were there, and they brought some BeatMania IIDX, and Pop'n Music. I really want to get my hands on some BeatMania, but I'm too cheap. So I'm making a program to simulate them. :)
Another day of broken dreams, but at least this time I got to keep the pieces.
posted by chip on Wednesday, the twelfth of January 2005, at a quarter past four in the morning
So as I'm getting in my car, to take Chrissy home, this guy comes up and asks for a ride. The guy's drunk as a skunk, and I'm thinking, "Oh, no... If I take this guy home, he'll puke in my car." On top of that, he wouldn't fit in my car, anyway. Two seats, y'know. So I told him to wait, and I'd be back to pick him up after I dropped Chrissy off. I came back, and he was still standing there, so I took him home. Turns out he lives over in Champaign, a little further away than Chrissy does. This dude was freaking lost.
After an interesting conversation and taking the long way to his place, he gave me a dollar and a cheap gold chain in return for the ride. Wait, no, upon further inspection it's two chains completely tangled together. His name is Ivan.
This got me thinking. (uh oh) As a purely volunteer effort, how much would it cost me to ferry drunk people around town? First, I'd need another car. There's no way I'm going to risk people puking in my RX-7. Something old, fuel efficient, and cheap on insurance. Like an '80s Honda Civic or Accord. I figure I could get one for about $500-1000. Then, of course, I'll need title transfer and license (~$150), and upkeep (Figure each month $30 for gas and $30 for shit happens). I'd need a phone line so people could get in touch ($10/mo for a basic no-outgoing calls line).
So, in total, I'd need $650-1150 up front, and $70 per month. Eeeh. I might be able to cover some of that in donations and such. Or...
My other idea. If someone's drunk, and needs to drive themselves home, they call me, and I drive them and their car home. It's a win/win situation, since all I'd need is the phone line, and I get to drive other people's cars. Oh, and I keep drunken idiots off of the road. :)
posted by chip on Saturday, the eighth of January 2005, at half past five in the morning
I think I finally understand why they call it drifting. The easiest way is to wait for snow. :) It snowed a couple of inches tonight, and I took my car out. Oh, man, it's like nothing you'd believe. You've heard the phrase, "dancing on a cloud", right? Well that's what this is like: driving on a cloud.
You can spin the rear tires whenever you want, even in fourth gear. I didn't try fifth, I couldn't get the car going that fast. Everything happens so slowly. You actually have time to think and appreciate what's happening. It's like a dream.
Oh, man. I haven't looked forward to snow this much since I was little and wanted to make a snow fort. :)
posted by chip on Friday, the twenty-fourth of June 2005, at six in the evening
Substantial props to the first person to figure out how this works:
I know, looks like line noise, right? Perl is truly a wonder-drug of programming languages. I mean, there's only two english words in the whole program. There are a few programming languages out there with the ability not to be intelligible, but I think perl takes the cake for actually being useful. I mean, can you really write "grep" in one line of brainfuck? I don't think so.
posted by chip on Friday, the seventh of January 2005, at a quarter till five in the afternoon
I came back to town to go to a New Year's Eve party last friday. It's probably one of the best parties I've been to in a long time. It was at my friend Art's apartment, and there were a bunch of friends there, and interesting friends of friends. At one point, I was just chillin' on the couch, and a girl sits down next to me and starts talking to me. (This is as well as I can remember. It's probably missing a few important parts.)
Her: You look bored.
Me: Really? No, I'm just chillin'. I like just sitting and doing nothing.
Her: Ah. I'm Lauren. What's your name?
Me: I'm Chip.
At this point she may have started rattling off a litany of puns based on my name, but I don't really remember.
Her: What's your major?
Me: I'm in Computer Science.
Her: Oh. Do you play Counter-Strike?
"Oh, man..." I was thinking, "The only girl at the party to talk to me, and now she's making fun of me." Actually, it turned out she *does* play Counter-Strike, and that she's a Psych major. Her parents are both engineers, so she's sort of the black sheep of the family. I found that pretty funny.
Today I was at Sunshine Grocery to drop off some manga I'd borrowed from Yan, and get the next batch of GTO and Marmalade Boy. This girl came in to buy some stuff, apparently a regular, 'cause Yan knows her. We wound up talking for a while, about astronomy, robotics, structural integrity of balsa wood bridges, and stuff like that. For being a high-schooler, she knows a lot. In fact, I think she might be smarter than most college kids.
posted by chip on Thursday, the thirtieth of December 2004, at a quarter past two in the morning
Grades went up today. (Yan actually called me to let me know they were up. The bastard.) For those who don't know, I was on academic probation last semester, and I was taking one of the hardest classes I've ever experienced: ECE 329, Intro to Electromagnetics. Furthermore, I got it in a 8am section, so I never went. Plus the class had homework due every class period (3x a week). Here's the scorecard:
CS 433
B-
CS 440
B
ECE 206
A
MATH 385
A
ECE 329
C-
A C-! I believe this calls for a "suck it"! My GPA for the semester came out to a 2.92. If I'd have known I was going to do that well, I would have slacked off a bit more. :)
