| Dr. AWESOME!! |
[16 Jul 2008|02:50pm] |
Anyone a fan of Joss Whedon? maybe? His newest project is online this week for free, and it's really cool. This is the one. Stops time. Dr. Horrible. Tell your friends.
http://www.drhorrible.com/
Only up until the 20th. Watch it while you can. And if the site is too congested, there is always iTunes...$4
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[16 Apr 2008|09:36am] |
This is just the funniest thing ever.
I ordered 3 feet of zipper chain to make my own zippers. They charged me $6, at $2 a foot. What I get when I open the box, is 20 feet, in two 10 foot packages, and an apology, saying the other 'item' is on back order.
So I now have more zipper tape than I could possibly use in my life. 90% off is one hell of a discount though. I'm glad I didn't buy it in the store.
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[03 May 2007|05:10pm] |
Finals are done. And I go home tommorrow. These last two weeks were pretty much chaotic. Our semester long final project, designing a processor, came down to finishing it in one night. We took off for class with all the component thrown together, but under the assumption that it didn't really work. A series of technical problems gave our 30 minute speech actually only 15 minutes of talking, and another halfhour to discover that the processor actually DID work, at least to some extent, resulting in a good grade for that 30% of the grade it counted for. All my exams took place either monday or tuesday, and were either really ok or really not ok.
Whenever we had a free moment, me and Ruthie have been watching Heroes, which is an utterly amazing show. Very well written, and very inspitational. In other news, Ruthie had been planning to go to Connecticut for this Southwestern Program/Internship. Thing is, it's kinda not a really good deal. They send you to some foreign town with no contacts, and you have to make it on your own while trying to sell books door to door for 80 hours a week for 3 months straight. So she got talked out of it, and now she's gonna be free and like coming to Akon and just not being held prisoner by an evil corporation. YAY!
Speaking of summer, I am most excited to see my dremel and workbench again. The ability to make stuff and not just think about it. With Tom and Gunnar and Angela and everybody there too.
So, I haven't seen most of you all year, my idea: Beginning of the summer party. Before everyone gets swept away into summer jobs and trips, we all need to get together and stuff. My question: When does everyone get out of school?
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[16 Apr 2007|08:11pm] |
So, this weekend was my boxing match, a.k.a. Fight Night, as hosted by some frat on campus for charity. I talked Ruthie and a couple of my other friends into coming to watch. So I get up there, put on the gloves, and get ready to fight.
So this dude I'm fighting, he's my weight, but all arms. He's like a gymnast/weight lifter dude. We get in the ring, and I can tell right off that I'm way faster than him, more experienced, and more accurate fighter. But he was stronger, and much angrier. After I jabbed him quite hard in the face a few times, he lost his temper and starting throwing everything he had at me. If only I could have been able to kick him, it would've been different. Stupid boxing. His gut was so open, and one serious sidekick would've knocked his breath away and turned the tides. But I couldn't get close enough for anymore good strikes. He was just going wild, and it was all I could to to try and cover up. So for the next 2 and a half rounds, he pretty much beat the crap out of me. He got my nose, which didn't hurt, but he kept hitting me in the head, right through my guard. I saw stars a couple of times too.
When it was all done, I wasn't even tired, or even feeling bad. I thought the entire thing was kinda funny, how I was all bloodied up and not even hurt. According to my friends, I got more points in, as in solid landing punches, but they obviously called it for him for having beaten on me so much. The ringside doctor gave me a go ahead, cause I feeled fine, nothing working wrong. I went to the bathroom and washed up a little and rinsed the blood taste out of my mouth.
But then, not 10 minutes after the fight was over, the adrenaline starting to wear off, I sit down for water and suddenly get nauseous and dizzy. Since I wasn't hit in the stomach at all, this set off a few flags. I'm leaning over a trashcan on the verge of vomitting, and the doctor comes back and determines that I need to go to the ER. Kyle drives me, Ruthie and Andrea over to the nearest hospital. By the time I get there, I could already walk on my own again, and was no longer sick. In fact, I was wisecracking and goofing off to all the nurses and doctors. Me and Ruthie go back and explain the situation to 6 different people, and I get a CAT scan. Bad news: I did suffer a mild concussion. Good news: No bruising or bleeding on the CAT scan means it's not too bad at all. By this time, all I had was a huge headache, and bloody boogers, but otherwise fine. Maybe an hour later, they let me go, and who do I see? Not only my friends who came to watch me fight, but all the other friends of mine from the floor are waiting for me in the lobby. It was sweet to see all that support.
I feel really bad for my parents. On the way to the hospital, I had Ruthie call my parents, but I didn't have my phone and they didn't know anyone elses number. So they were at home freaking out that I might have died and they couldn't contact me and find out. But Angela saved the day with Facebook (yay!).
That night Ruthie stayed up all night to wake me up every hour to make sure I didn't get worse or die in my sleep, doctor's orders. (Apparently this is common with concussions?) But I survived, and am feeling 98% of my normal self. If I move around or run too fast, my headache comes back, but that's about it. It should be better within a week.
Even though I lost the boxing match, I still got to show everyone how tough I was by sticking it out against that one dude, and brush off all kinds of potentially painful injuries. So yeah, I'm doing fine now. But I don't think I'll be boxing again anytime soon. It's an angry person's sport, and I just don't get mad, fighting or not.
Pictures on facebook:
http://unl.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090640&l=2cf05&id=17220590
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[07 Mar 2007|01:06am] |
School was cancelled last Thursday, due to snow! It was great, cause Thursdays are my longest days. So, I find out about this at 5:30 in the morning, and immediately go to the basement and start my laundry, so I'll have clean and dry clothes to play outside later. I'm going up and down the elevator, when out of the blue, I take the stairs, and lo and behold: the power goes out. For like 2 hours or something. And I was that close to having been stuck in the elevator. Quite creepy, but I lucked out. So there was no power at the dorms. The emergency lights kicked in shortly, but til they did, it was pitch black everywhere, gave me the shivers. When the power came back, I finished my laundry, and ate breakfast, and by then other people were awake to do fun stuff. So I had fun all day.
On Sunday, we had "Free Ice Skating" for $2 down the street, so of course, we all went. I've gotten so good at ice skating: I've gone at least once a month all year. But this time, I got to ride on the ZAMBONI. You know, the big machine that wets and smooths the ice. Yeah, it was a real accomplishment for me. I had been wanting to do that for a long time.
Spring Break is coming up. I had originally planned on working, but I have much more important things to do. Like goof off and work on projects that are too unfeasable in the dorm environment. And, there's a DDR tournament coming up when we go back to school. So I need to train for that. It's great up here, but I do miss everybody at home.
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[16 Feb 2007|04:19pm] |
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So, we won the drawing for the apartment style dorms next year. So me and three other guys from my floor will all be roomates! Yay. Now, I prepare for the weekend...
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| When you fight, everything else in life gets the volume turned down. |
[09 Feb 2007|01:48am] |
Tonight, we had a guest instructor from a school in Omaha come teach us at TaeKwonDo club. So after wrestling a wrestler and boxing a boxer, I got to spar Master Storm, a 5th degree. It was one of those moments, were I didn't have to hold back anymore. He wanted me to stop pulling my punches like I have to with all the underbelts. (I'm one of the few black belts in the whole club) And we both kicked it up a notch. Not like dangerously, but I'm talking at least double strength from what I normally fight. I had seriously almost forgot what it felt like to land a real punch, and to get hit to where it shortens my breath. It was like sparring against the black belts back home or at Mr. Garza's tests, or the police cadets. It was one of those awesome days where you just feel like new person afterwards. When you have a good fight, nothing else seems to matter.
The earlier part of this week sucked major balls though. Several homework assignments, projects and tests accumulated to overload me this week. 1 all nighter, and the next night up til 4. At least it's all over, Friday's are just blow off lectures for me, so I'm up til 2 by choice. Actually not, since I'm going to bed immediately.
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| Tau Kappa Epsilon |
[04 Feb 2007|01:05pm] |
So who thinks it would be a good idea for me to join a Frat? Yeah...me neither. But the two Nick's that I hang out with on my floor caught wind that there was this new "different" kind of frat that was trying to start a charter here at UNL. And their target membership was nerds, basically the people in the honors dorms and "the kind of people who wouldn't want to join a frat". Nick and Nick had gotten excited about hearing about this: if we were the ones who actually start and run the show, we'd be able to make it how we wanted, let in the kind of people we want to. It would be the same stuff we do now, cause we wouldn't be in a house, and we'd have 'corporate funding': i.e. alumni paying for everything we do. I had expressed my initial concerns to them, but they were still ready to give it a shot. So yesterday, I go to lunch with them and the recruiter. He's buying us lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, and there's only like 3 other guys there.
So he starts talking. And I start listening. And I start getting pissed off. "Redefine the image of frats on UNL campus" he would say one moment, and then talk about wild parties and publicity stunts. "High academic standards" meaning a gpa of 2. Only hanging out with sororities? Renting a party house?
I didn't get it. The only potential positive aspects of a fraternity don't seem to materialize until you graduate, when you have the free networking with other alumni. Everything else was complete and utter bullshit. The entire greek system is a flawed subset of the college. They isolate themselves from the normal people. It's a level of involvement and mandatory community that changes who you are. Sure, they do their 'required charity and community help', but big deal. This group, and the stuff I was hearing was crazy. These were guys who "didn't want to join a stereotypical frat" but everything they were talking about was completely to the contrary.
Now I'm pretty confident in my self control, but I don't think I would ever force myself to be in a situation which places so much social dependence on fitting in with people I want nothing to do with. "Leadership experience" they talked about. Why, so I can forge a path parallel to those I despise? Lead others to an idea I don't believe in? I don't think so. I value my independence, my freedom from commitments, the ablilty to retain my own personality. To make my own choices. So I'm not going to join. After we ate, I thanked him kindly for buying us lunch, and we left. I won't be going back, and I think the Nicks kinda see what I'm talking about. I'm not worried about them joining anymore either. I know it's generalizing, there's probably some great things about some frats, and the people in them who do believe in that type of social structure, more power to them. I'm not so against frats in general, but I am against me being in one. And even more against this one trying to be something they aren't.
I'm an independent. Always will be.
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| Internal Clock Man to the rescue! |
[29 Jan 2007|07:39pm] |
I was recently asked if I could have a superpower, what would it be. Not like, be a superhero, or comic book character, but like if John Garcia, in this world right now, could have a super natural power what would I want to have? Obviously, this would need some thought. I wouldn't want a showy skill, that everyone can know about and draw attention to myself, but instead something subtle, that I could keep a secret. As much fun as flying or being able to shoot fireballs would be, they wouldn't be very practical. So I came up with something quite original: my power would be a highly accurate internal clock. Think about it though; you wouldn't have to wear a watch, and you'd always win at the guess the time game. In a fighting situation, imagine that you can remember exactly how long it takes for your enemy to throw a punch. Now compare that with the time you know it takes for you to dodge, and you have the perfect counter. And as the fight continues, you can gain valuable knowledge about his remaining strength by the lengthening of time between attacks etc. In the normal world, let's say you're in Vegas, right? Time the slot machines, the roulette table, and bam! you're rich. Your whole life would be far more efficient, as you could greatly increase your ability to multitask, without losing track of time. You can cook, mixing it every 7 minutes, while also doing something involved and otherwise distracting, like play a videogame, or watch tv. The possibilities are endless, and I think it's a sweet awesome superpower to have.
So my question to yall: What superpower would you want to have right now? If you wouldn't care about people noticing, showy powers are fine.
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[08 Jan 2007|12:52pm] |
Back at school, in Nebraska, and there's snow on the ground! not much, actually, very little at all, since it's all but melted, but still.
So, my costume for comic-con is gonna be Revan from KotOR.
He's one hell of a bad ass, but only if you've played the whole game before.
Still, it's complex and flashy, and it'll be pretty cool. And I'm still planning on doing X-wing pilot Luke, i.e. the orange jumpsuit one.
So, I was talking to the anime club peoples up here, and they're all planning quite a few costumes for the next NebrasKon. So, Tom, I think this could be a great market to look into for making props, I've already got one guy interested in me making him a Hellsing cannon.
Ok, well I've got to go to class. Bye!
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| 2007 |
[02 Jan 2007|12:52pm] |
It's a new year yay!
New Years eve was all night goofing off, eating junk and playing games at Sean's house.
Last night we watched the original Star Wars Trilogy, back to back. Those are possibly the three greatest movies of all time. Uplifting and inspiring, and very emotional and sentimental.
This is my last week before going back to school. Work is so different now, now that I'm a college kid among high schoolers, instead of how it used to always be the other way around. It's so easy being in Texas, I don't have to prove anything to anyone down here, I'm already accepted and liked. So going back to school is going back the struggle of trying to fit in again.
Plans for 2007:
Church. Once a week. for 16 weeks. My present to my mother, who had been asking I go for the last few years.
Boxing. Taekwondo is great, but there's only so much you can get out of fighting with your feet. I want to feel the satisfaction of punching somebody for real, like from the days of beating up the police cadets with my old instructor. And I'm perfectly fine with getting high on adrenaline.
Girls. Who knows. I'm not looking anymore, I'm content to be alone. If I fall for another one and it works out, fine, but if not, who cares. It's really more trouble than it's worth, and I'm too tired of it all anyway.
School. I have double the workload of last semester, and I NEED all A's. So my days of missing class and 12 hours of sleep a night will most likely be on hold. Basically, I've got a lot of work to do.
So basically, this will be a fast semester. No more idle boring sitting around. I know what I'm gonna do, and it'll be summer before I know it.
Oh yeah, for Christmas I ended up getting a pocketknife. It's pretty sweet.
http://spyderco.com/catalog/closeup.php?product=200
And it's legal to carry in Nebraska.
And for my birthday (4th) I'm gonna be getting a bunch of tools. I know because my dad brought me to Home Depot to pick out the ones I wanted.
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| Christmas |
[25 Dec 2006|11:51pm] |
It was a good Christmas. It was weird, cause it just felt like another day. It also didn't feel right because Angela wasn't home. And the fact that I was so tired, just completely exhausted, and didn't feel like moving (midnight mass yesterday didn't help either). Our dad woke up me and Nick at 10:30 to open presents (a first in our household). I had told my parents, truthfully, that there really wasn't anything I wanted or needed for christmas. So instead I got cash, which I plan to buy a few trival yet extremely particular items I could use, and to fund more projects and stuff that I plan to build, yet previously couldn't afford. So everyone's happy.
After that, and pancakes, it was off to Charles and Liz's house for dinner and family. Except it wasn't fun, just idle, boring. Family gathering like that really make me miss Angela, more so than when I'm at school or work. Then where to? the movies, cause we all like to get in free. So dessert was popcorn, and "Night at the Museum" was a really good movie.
This break has been so busy. Just every single day, always something or other going on. And I'm not getting my regular 12 hours of sleep a night like I did at the dorms. So yeah, I'm off to sleep. See yall again hopefully before we go back to school.
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[02 Dec 2006|06:16pm] |
Fire Alarm at 2:30 am last night (this morning?). As one can imagine, it's not exactly warm up here anymore, in fact, this week was the coldest yet. So we were not at all happy to hear the alarm go off asking us to evacuate the building in the middle of our game of Apples to Apples. But we went outside anyway, and stood out there for the better part of 45 minutes. Meanwhile there was determined there was no actual fire, but the fire and police departments continued to have a field day getting all the unconscious drunks out of the building, tagging them with a nice Minor In Possesion while they were at it. Including my neighbor, Ben, who was carried out on a stretcher and was taken to the hospital. He's still not back yet, but from what I hear, he's gonna be fine, aside from his excessive drinking tangent he has been on recently.
So basically, sucks to be him, drinking isn't a good idea, and it's fucking freezing up here.
PS- I started watching Firefly, and yes, that show does indeed rock!@!
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[19 Nov 2006|09:26pm] |
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 hungry and sore |
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-Hurt my toe last week: We were sparring at Tae Kwon Do club, and I kicked someone, who blocked in a way that made my toe hit the bony part of his arm. Well, anyway, it was painful, and it turned all purple and swollen and stuff. I originally thought it to be broken, but as it seems to be getting better, I would assume that it was simply sprained.
-Anime Nebraskon: Yesterday, I went to the only Anime convention in the state. It was small, but not dissapointing. It was actually at the school, and most of the people there were members of the Anime club, but it was a lot of fun. I got to meet quite a few new people, and get to know people I already knew better. The dance was fantastic too; it was a real techno rave, and we broke out the glowsticks and danced for hours. It was really amazing. I totally couldn't even move this morning either. Oh, and Sam Fisher went over well too. That was his last con, as now Nick is inheriting the costume.
-Floor drama: I don't even know what's happening on our floor anymore. Recent events have thrown me into confusion about what to do: Run with my gut even though I risk messing everything up with a high probability of failure; Carefully plan into a safe and potentially boring relationship; or just forget all that and stay single for a while more. Why does everything have to be so complicated? Of course, rumors of other people's situations makes my dillema seem trivial. Another good thing about going home: I don't have to worry about this or schoolwork for a while.
Today, I have to finish my homework and study for two tests tommorow. Then I pack and leave Tuesday, and hopefully see most of yall the next week. Right now, I plan to go get food, as the dining halls are opening in 5 minutes.
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[05 Nov 2006|06:41am] |
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Happy Guy Fawkes Night!
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| Sam Fisher makes another appearance on UNL campus! |
[02 Nov 2006|01:15am] |
Halloween was pretty fun. I went trick-or-treating with a couple of people from my floor in what we later decided was the ghetto of Lincoln. Some of the people gave us some weird looks, apparently we were "a little old to still be trick or treating?" Compared to the hauls I used to get back in the good old days, I didn't get shit; I ate pretty much all the good candy (chocolate) within a 24 hour period. The rest of the night consisted of watching "Halloween" and "Rocky Horror Picture Show", both of which I hadn't seen before. Both were equally frightening.
Today, I met with my advisor. Good thing too, cause registration starts on Friday, and I didn't exactly know what I was gonna be taking. Now I get to look forward to 17 credit hours of entirely technical classes. Woo?
I've also realized that I have almost gone to more dances this semester than I did all of high school. Funny huh?
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[23 Oct 2006|12:17am] |
What did I get done this last week?
-fixed my chair. You know how the chairs rock back right? I taped pieces of phonebook to the bottom of the back. Now, it doesn't rock anymore. I don't like to be working on something, and suddenly get that feeling where the whole earth if falling out from under you. My chair is now quite stationary, and I am happy with it.
-danced Sam Fisher style. There was a costume party halloween dance, which I attended. It was quite painful, as 90% of the music was whatever you call that "hip-hop" "rap" or "r&b". I hate all of that kind of music, but fortunately there was a little old stuff, like "Twist and Shout" and "Thriller". So that made up for it. And I'm not so bad of a dancer, at least I wasn't the most embarassing one of our group.
-Texas beat Nebraska. Everyone was freaking out both because we almost won, and because I didn't seem to care either way. I was kind of distracted by the fact that it started to snow (not enough to even show up on the ground, but still), and that I don't really care about football in general. What's the point of putting importance on the outcome of a game that I have no control in? I'll rather take pride in winning my own games than supporting a team of fat stupid people I've never met.
-finished Sudoku program. Over my vacation, I killed time by analyzing a Sudoku book, and developing an efficient solving algorithm. I got it programed in Java and it'll solve any puzzle that doesn't rely on double pairs. If anyone WANTS to see it, I'll email it to you, but I still have quite a bit of work left to do and polish it up, add a GUI, etc.
And that's about it. I'm still alive, and everything is smooth sailing.
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[20 Oct 2006|06:04am] |
This last weekend, I managed to fly home. It was lots of waiting in the airport, waiting on the plane, more waiting in some other airport. It was relaxing cause I didn't take any luggage, and I had nothing to worry about. Yay! I didn't get around to visiting everybody in Round Rock, but I did see a surprising number of people. It didn't even seem like I had been gone for very long, but it's already more than half of the semester gone. Home, however was kinda boring. Real food was a welcome change of pace, and my mom had really missed me tons, but I didn't have alot of money for gas or to do anything, so I ended up relaxing at the house for a while. Good thing about the dorms is that there's always something going on to keep one busy. I flew home and guess who was on my flight to Memphis? Sensei Matl from judo. I talked to him for a while in the airport, he has some cool stories of back home in the Czech, and he's like really old, so he knows all sorts of cool stuff.
Yep, that was my vacation, but now I'm back at school. Unfortunately, my relaxing weekend meant that I blew off most of my homework and studying for this week, so now I get to play a little catch up.
Halloween is coming up soon too, which is exciting. Several parties in the coming weeks give me the opportunity to break out Sam Fisher again.
PS: I got my haircut. Like...most of it's now gone. It's great to get that whole double-take, almost-didn't-recognize-you from everyone I know.
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[10 Oct 2006|02:59am] |
In recent news:
Another point for the good guys!
and in weather:
High's of 54 today in Lincoln with scattered showers. Lows of 27 expected Wednesday with a chance of snow in the coming week.
(I went out and got some snow gloves today, just in case)
See everybody this weekend, hopefully!
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