School, day 3

The crazy stuff just keeps happening. Today I ran into Nick, my roommate from first year at Queen's, in the lobby of the tech building. Turns out he's taking the paramedic course, and he has a few classes in the same buildings as I do.

I had my headphones on, so I don't know if he was calling my name or not, but he saw me walk around the corner and I guess had the same reaction as I did when he caught my attention. Sort of a "holy crap that's Nick", except he'd replace "Nick" with "Scotty", unless he was surprised by a mirror.

I'm a bit curious as to what crazy thing will happen tomorrow. I'm almost afraid to find out. I have an interview with the course coordinator just before noon, so I have to remember to take a copy of my resume for him, and I'm only mentioning it here so I'll remember. I'm sure something weird will happen either before or after that, and will thus fuel the blog.

School, day 2

I had one class today. It's supposed to be a 3 hour lab where we learn a program called Robohelp, which is an HTML help file authoring application. Sounds like a fun course, and the class starts at 3, so I get to sleep in like nobody's business.

We got our lab swipe cards, and it's awesome because I don't have to take it out of my wallet for the scanner to pick it up. I'm definitely going to put it into something innocent-looking just so I can get that futuristic feel of passing an everyday object over a scanner and having it recognize me. Or I might just leave it in my wallet and pass the whole thing over the scanner.

I won't be giving an update for every school day unless something funky happens. Today a new student joined the program, and he knew one of the other students from the English program at Ottawa U. Crazy.

I'm a student

I went to Algonquin today, with the intention of finding out if I had been accepted to my program, and if so, to find out when I could register. The registrar's office was a zoo, and I had to wait in two different lines, but finally I got to talk to an admissions person, with most favourable results.

She made a call to the course coordinator, and he told her that I had been accepted. After getting an email for posterity, she registered me for my courses and took part of the tuition payment. After printing a copy of my timetable, she showed me where to get a student card, and I was off for another long wait. The entire process, aside from waiting, took less than 20 minutes, and even with waiting took less than an hour.

The line for a student card was much, much longer than the line at the registrar's office, and after just over an hour I was in the chair getting my picture taken. It turned out terribly, as was to be expected, but at least I have a card.

Following that I bought a notebook and a pen, and then went off to Tim Hortons before class. I wasn't expecting the process to go so smoothly so I didn't bring a pen or a book or even a bag to carry stuff in. An oversight on my part, but everything fit into the bag I got from the bookstore, luckily.

My initial impression of Algonquin was that there was food everywhere. I think every building has a food market of some type, and there's one whole building dedicated to the food court. I didn't go there, but I'm sure I will someday. Following that, I noticed that things aren't placed very conveniently. There are many places where there are vending machines with no change machine nearby, a fact I noticed very acutely between classes.

I had a class that ended early, so we all had an hour and a half to kill. I was hungry, having not eaten anything since a bagel for breakfast and a cup of coffee, so I set off in search of an ATM, and then something to buy with the money.

The ATM search didn't go so well. I knew there were some around, but I couldn't remember where I had seen them, so I just kept wandering around. Finally I found one in the main building lobby, but it was out of order. After cursing a bit I wandered off again, and finally found an old machine that miraculously still worked. As soon as I had the money, every food outlet on campus closed, so I started searching for a change machine so that I could have a vending machine feast.

Now that I know where a few change machines are, I have to wonder why they decided to put them where they did. Sure the one I used was beside some vending machines, but they were on the 3rd floor, and not even in the main part of the hall. There's another one outside the main entrance, and I think I saw another one but I'm not sure. I put in my $20 and got all the change in loonies. Wonderful.

The building I was in at the time is a maze. Its twisting halls of insanity wrap around a core of malice, and only throught blind hope does anyone manage to find the room they're looking for. I felt my sanity slipping away a little more every second I spent in it, and I got lost twice. Not just lost, REALLY lost. As in, hoping I see something familiar soon, wondering if I'm ever going to get out, despair setting in lost. A map would have been useless, as this place obeys no laws of architecture or physics.

I was lucky to find someone who knew the way out, and escaped with my life intact. But that's a tale for another day.

I think I'm going to like this course. It'll probably be a lot of work, but it sounds interesting enough to be worthwhile. I hope I'm right.

Feeling the crunch

My parents are flying in for a visit tomorrow, school is starting on Monday and I still don't know if I'm accepted, and I'm sure there's something else going on that I've completely forgotten about. I should really be cleaning my apartment (have a bathroom and kitchen to mop up, not to mention a pile of dishes to wash and maybe a living room to dust), but instead I'm sitting here complaining about how much stuff I have to do.

I think I've found the unemployed version of the "I have so much work to do" complaint, traditionally delivered over a cup of coffee or pint of beer while not doing anything else. I've seen it from students, I've done it as a student, I've seen it from professionals, and now I've done it as a bum. It's a universal truth, people prefer to complain about what they have to do rather than do it.

My msn icon is Professor Farnsworth throwing up his hands in exasperation, which has matched my mood for a good week and a half now. I also have Bender getting electrocuted, but I tend to save him for when I have so much going on I can't keep up with it. I'm sure that'll happen sooner or later.

Eventually I might have to pull out Zoidberg sitting in the dumpster, but hopefully not for a while.

I like using Futurama characters to represent my mood.

Haircut

I got my hair cut after my speech therapy appointment, and I'm not so sure I like the new style. It's decent, but something just seems off about it. I have no idea what.

I got it done at First Choice, by the first man I have ever seen working there. It threw me off for a bit, but soon enough I got used to it.

I'm usually of the opinion that male barbers are only allowed to work in barbershops that look like they've been there since the beginning of time, with the swirling pole and chairs older than my parents. Ideally everything should be dunked in that blue stuff, and he should only have maximum 2 pairs of scissors.

Although First Choice isn't old enough, the chairs are modern, and there's no swirling pole to be found, he had the last 2 points down pat. I think he was the only person I've ever seen actually use the stuff in the blue liquid, and he only had 2 pairs of scissors; one for cutting, the other for thinning. He had an old brush for cleaning off the neck, and not one of the new ones with the soft bristles. This one was rough.

He was obviously an old school barber working in a new age shop. No wonder they had him stuck at the station that you can't see from the door (there's a pillar in the way).

He messed up a little on the sideburns, but that's forgivable. when he was shortening them he shaved the place where they were meant to stop, but then forgot to shave the hair under that point. It was at the end of a long, gruelling haircut (I hadn't gotten one in at least 4 months, and I grow hair like you wouldn't believe), so I guess I can cut him some slack.

This is an outrage

Loblaws has gone too far. There shall be no escape from my wrath, and my vengeance shall be swift and terrible.

The reduced the package size of the cookies I like.

I always get the no name fudge-dipped peanut butter cookies, normal price $1.99 per package. This package used to contain 21 cookies, which would be just enough to get me through to at least Thursday or Friday. As of Saturday, they changed the package. I noticed the colours were different, and I remember thinking there were less, and today I confirmed my suspicions. I bought another package today and took not of how many were in each row of the package.

There are now only 18 in the package. And yet they have the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to still charge the full price.

They must be stopped.

The wheels are turning

Today I dropped off my transcript at Algonquin. The entire process took about 10 minutes, and although it looked like it would be a bureaucratic nightmare, their system actually works quite nicely.

The outside of the registrar's office has a bunch of windows where you go to tell them what you need. The person in the window punches up your information, and if you need to see someone inside they give you a ticket and send you around to the side door. Once there, someone calls the number on your ticket and leads you into the depths of the office.

I was only in there long enough to explain my problem and give them my transcript, but it looked like an all-out flurry of activity was taking place. Yet, nobody seemed to be in a rush. I suspect all registrar's offices exist in an alternate plane of reality, but the time dilation factor in this one wasn't quite as bad as at Queen's. I swear I once came out of that office earlier than I went in.

On my way back I deposited a cheque, so I have a bit of money to work with now. I wanted to get a haircut, but there was going to be a half hour (at least) wait, so I'll do that tomorrow I guess.

So yes, stuff happening. The fix is in and the noodles are boiling in the pot.

Updates

In the unimportant audio department, my Winamp equalizer settings got wiped out and I have no idea how I had them set. Everything sounds wrong now, and no amount of fiddling with it can make it good again. I have something mostly decent now, but it's still not right.

In the frustrating beyond belief department, I sent out a bunch of emails to everyone involved with the transcript fiasco. Turns out Queen's never got the request for my transcript and OCAS didn't know there was a problem. My email alerted them to the fact that something had gone amiss, and they sent another request with priority. I'm just waiting to hear back from Algonquin on if things are going to work out.

I guess I should have asked these questions a long time ago instead of hoping things would just work out. Curse my passive nature!

So much pizza

I've eaten pizza 3 straight nights. The first 2 were because Steve lives really close to a Pizza Pizza, and they have a nice cheap walk-in special. On Friday night I got a large pepperoni for 10 bucks, and then sold 2 slices to some lazy friends for 2 bucks each. On Saturday I got a medium peperoni for 8 bucks (I wasn't as hungry, and I didn't need to save any for the morning). All told, I got 2 pizzas for 14 dollars after making the money back on the first one, and that'a s tough deal to beat.

Today I got groceries and bought the pizza I always do. I refer to it as Operation Good Pizza, and if they have any in stock then it's a success. Today, Operation Good Pizza was in full effect, and so I had pizza again.

I have no idea what to make tomorrow, but I can guarantee it's not going to be pizza.

Games

I just got back from a lan at Steve's place, and I'm wiped. It was a bit unusual because it started on Thursday and finished today, but most people couldn't make it on the weekend.

It started with the acquisition of a new game: FlatOut. In one play mode it's a fairly crappy racing game with a gimmick where the driver gets hurled from the car if you crash. In another game mode, it's the most fun I've ever had.

FlatOut's demolition mode is incredible. You and 7 other cars are plunked into an arena and the last one moving wins. Anything goes, and you're not defeated until your driver is launched out the windshield. We played for hours on end and nobody got tired of it.

We also played the usual allotment of CounterStrike, and I still sucked at it (but I was slightly better than normal). I managed to get a kill with the grenade, and I made a few good shots with the AK-47. Hitting a sniper before they can get you is a great feeling, especially when you can hear their shout of disbelief.

We did something a bit different and played Age of Empires 2 for a while. This was a good thing for me because I'm actually good at that game. Greg and I used to have marathon sessions where we'd play 1 on 1 on the biggest map possible, expand for as long as we could, then have an all-out war. These games usually lasted around 3 hours, but once it went to 6. Yes, 6 hours to beat 1 person. The balance of power shifted several times, and I think I finally won by building a wonder. Or maybe he built one and then I crushed him, I don't really remember.

Anyway, we had 6 players, so we did 3 teams of 2. We wound up with the type of map with rivers running through it, which was good because the marshlands that cross the rivers are easy to wall off. I was the Turks, and I took good advantage over their gunpowder units (lots of cannons, bombard towers, and gunmen). I had 2 full groups of elite gunners for my main attacking/defending corps, and my multitude of cannoneers turned out to save the day.

As soon as I got the marshlands to my island walled off, they started getting destroyed by cannon boats. The boats have better range than the bombard towers, so they were defenceless. A few attacks on my outlying mines made me decide that winning this battle through force was a bad idea, so I built a wonder. If the wonder stays up for 350 years (about 10 minutes), you automatically win, so it's the easiest way of beating your enemies as long as you can defend it. The cannon boats made their way around to where they could hit the wonder, and easily took out the trebuchets I had put up for defense. I forgot that they only automatically target buildings, so they just stood there and got shot. Fortunately the boats had to come closer to hit the wonder, and my bombard cannons took them to school.

That attack repeated itself a few times with a rush of the teammate's ground forces, but I managed to completely block off the marshland with my own ground units, and it became a bloodbath.

The wonder stayed up and my team won. Hooray!

Some Starcraft and a bit of Warcraft 3 filled out the rest of the gaming activity, and I did badly at both, as I tend to do. I didn't get the long period of inactivity I need to be an effective Starcraft player, and as a result I couldn't get the war of attrition started. If you let me, I'll establish bases everywhere I can and consume every available resource, then send wave after wave of whatever's cheap until you can't defend yourself anymore. Then, and only then, I bring the heavy artillery and mop up. It works astoundingly well when I have the chance to set it up, but if I get rushed it's hopeless.

In both Starcraft games we played the same map and I was the Terrans both times. I set up a very effective chokepoint the first time, and I easily defended 3 or 4 waves of attacks, both Zerg and Protoss. Then someone figured out that I hadn't quite finished building my air defenses, and it was all over before I could even blink. I have no idea what units they were using, but they attacked from outside of missile range and my marines couldn't stay alive long enough to shoot them. The second time the ground defences were less extesive and I started pumping out anti-air units as fast as I could, and that time I got swarmed by Protoss carriers. That in and of itself wouldn't be too bad if the defences would focus on the carier and not the fighters it launches, but there isn't much you can do about that. A short period of mopping up and I was done for, yet again.

Last thing we did was a game of poker. Actually two games, one before dinner and one after. Most people had left the lan at this point so computer games would be mostly pointless, and we wanted to get in some poker anyway. In the first game we had 7 people, Steve went out first (as he always does no matter how well he actually finishes), and I lost a lot of money to Mat on a bad call. I don't remember what I had, but the only thing that could beat me was a flush. He had the flush. Afterwards I went all in on something else and lost to something just slightly better, and my night was over. I finished in 3rd place, so not good enough to win my money back. Steve and Mat went heads up, and that only lasted 1 hand before Steve was defeated.

The second game was much worse for me. I consistently lost money, and finished 4th out of 5. I went all in with a short stack on kings and 5s, and Cid beat me with kings and 6s. Heartbreaking, really.

I think Mat won that game too, but I wasn't paying attention.

I hate audio

My speakers are acting funny. It started earlier when my headphones suddenly didn't work, and the problem has shifted and morphed into a best that denies me my rear speakers (sometimes).

If I run my speaker test, only the front speakers play their test sounds. Well, more specifically it plays the front sounds out of both the front and rear speakers. If I switch the front and rear plugs on the sound card, I get all 4 sounds, but the front ones play from the rear speakers.

I have no idea why changing the plugs makes all the speakers work, albeit backwards. I have no idea why it turns my 4 speakers into 2, and I certainly don't know why I even care. I barely notice the rear speakers at the best of times, and usually they're just in the way. Still, I paid for a 4 speaker set, so I'm going to use all 4 of them.

Earlier the headphones were only playing out the left side, but I think that might have been because I didn't plug them in all the way. I'm not sure, but this seems like a likely culprit.

Sometime in the past 24 hours, the jack that I was plugging the headphones into suddenly stopped working with them, but it still works for the speakers. Random hardware changes worry me, but they're working just fine now.

Appointments

I have an appointment for speech therapy tomorrow. I have to be at the Rehab Centre for 1 o'clock, and I already know the 85 goes right to it, but I'd rather not have to walk up to Carling.

I know I could take the 86 to Hurdman station and transfer to the 85 there, but I don't feel like comparing the schedules to find out when they meet or how long I'll be waiting. I don't know if that's just because I'm lazy or if I'm just sick of planning things.

Regardless, I'll probably check it as soon as I'm done typing this, because I tend to do things after saying I don't want to, just to make a liar of myself.

Lousy contradictory nature...

As promised

The team blog has launched.

Be afraid

I make no claims as to the sanity of anyone involved.

New blogs on the horizon?

Kevin and I are discussing the possibility of setting up a team blog. No real reason, it just came about while he was asking for some help fixing his layout. He invited me to his, but couldn't give me power to change the layout. I asked if I could make a post, and he said no, but pondered making a team thing for us, and possibly Greg, and maybe other people someday.

If we do this, I want a say in either the name or the layout. Not both, because that defeats the "team" aspect, but I at least want to be consulted. And possibly insulted, which will no doubt happen regardless.

If (or when) it happens, I'll link it here so all my regular readers (aka Steve) will be able to read what happens when the 3 of us put our heads together.

Get out of my head!

While waiting for the elevator just a few minutes ago, the guy beside me got a call on his cell. Although I only heard a snippet of his ringtone, I recognized it. Despite the recognition, I couldn't (and still can't) think of the name of it.

It's driving me crazy.

I can sing it in my head, and it's a fairly generic, fast dance beat. I've probably heard it a hundred times and not thought about it, but now, now I can't get it out of my head.

No matter what I listen to, it's still there, taunting me with its namelessness.

A look at walking

Here it is, 4 am, I'm not particularly tired, and I don't feel like doing anything. In days past I would have gone for a walk when I felt like this, but it's raining and I don't want to go outside. I've only been walking in the rain at night once since I moved to Ottawa, and it was a bit unpleasant because I wound up walking down the side of Baseline that doesn't have a sidewalk. I know better now, but I still don't feel like going out.

I started to wonder why I like walking at night so much. Sure it's cooler and less crowded, both of which are huge bonuses in my book, but are those enough to outweigh the bad parts?

For one, skunks are nocturnal and like to live in cities for the easy access to garbage. I saw it in Kingston, I see it in Ottawa. Fortunately most of the streets here are better lit than the ghetto was, so I can actually see the skunks before I get into spraying range. In Kingston you practically have to step on the skunk before you see it, so even that bad point isn't as bad as it could be.

Another thing, all the weirdos come out at night. Sure some people are just out for a walk, but there are definitely some creepy people around. I haven't seen many, but I know they're out there. Lumped in with the creeps are obnoxious drunks, who I normally only run into if I go to a Tim Hortons. They're especially bad around Steve's place, but he lives really close to Algonquin, so that's to be expected.

I'm trying to think of more bad points, but I'm out of ideas. I guess if I can only think of two downsides to night walking, and both of which aren't all that bad, it must be a good thing.

The world just looks different at night. Lights and shadows combine into unique visual tapestries, and things look so much cooler by moonlight than they do by sunlight. It's a colder, starker kind of light, which lets the inner beauty of everything show through.

I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Thunder

There's a storm raging just outside my window. Thunder and lightning and rain, with clouds so thick it's prematurely dark. The rain direction is pretty erratic right now, so sometimes it's hitting the windows and sometimes it's not. I closed them most of the way to compromise. It won't keep all the water out if the wind shifts, but it won't make the place unbearably hot and stuffy either.

Whatever just happened out there, there was a series of 3 or 4 thunder rolls that went on for almost half a minute. And the view outside just got completely obscured by mist and rain. And just as I looked there was a thunderclap seemingly right outside the window. My ears are ringing a little.

I can still see the building beside mine and the ground, so it's not a horrible storm yet. Everything past the building is a wash, so it's close to being one of those storms that makes you feel like nothing else exists. I love those types.

Beginning of the end?

I'm playing Yahoo pool with my brother, and occasionally the cue will release early. To shoot you drag the cue with the right mouse button.

I've noticed in Opera my mouse gestures sometimes don't work properly, and they're done by holding the right mouse button.

Sometimes in Guild Wars I have trouble moving the camera. Take a guess what button you hold to move it.

I think my mouse is starting to go. I'm pretty sure you can't just replace one button, so because the right one is going, I'm going to have to replace the entire thing. I'm not sure I can really afford a new mouse right now, but I might need one.

I've had this mouse for several years now. It's served me well, and I'm going to miss it if I have to get a new one.

Quote of the day

"Your names are all the same, as far as I'm concerned."
-one of the ladies from the rental office to two Chinese girls in the elevator

I'm sure she meant it nicely, but they got off before she could say anything else. Still, wow.

Delays

I'm still beating my head against the wall. OCAS still hasn't gotten my transcript, so I fired an email off to the registrar's office at Queen's. Their contact page says that at peak times a response can take 2 weeks. Great.

Nobody believes me that they move on on their own time scale in that office. 1 minute can take days, or a day can take 2 seconds. They can receive something tomorrow and sent out a response yesterday. It's like the fifth dimension, a place where time has no meaning.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should send something to Algonquin so they don't cancel my application out of spite.

Runner up, again

Yesterday was Srol's birthday, so a bunch of us went to the buffet (it was supposed to be a surprise, but he's a sneaky one and figured out what was going on) and then played some poker. The buffet wasn't as good as usual, according to Mat, but I didn't eat any of the things he was complaining about and didn't notice much difference in quality. The pork was more meat and less fat than usual, so I can't complain.

There was a lack of quality in the ice cream department though. The chocolate was empty, so that left 3 tubs of vanilla, one of "green", and one that turned out to be maple walnut. I initially thought it was vanilla that some chocolate had fallen into, so I took it because it was closest to me. I was pleasantly surprised upon tasting it.

The "green" ice crwam is just that, green. It's an awful shade of green, and the flavour listed on the side is actually "Green". Thaila ate it once, and it's the only thing I've ever seen him not finish. The mystery of the green ice cream is one not meant for mortal minds.

On to the poker. We wound up with a surprisingly large number of players (9 or 10, depending on if you count Dan and Isaac playing together because neither of them could afford the full buy-in), and for some reason we decided to play with less chips than normal, and we messed up the values.

Usually whites are 25, reds are 50, greens are 100, blues are 500, and blacks are 1000. Last night we took out the reds and moved everything down a denomination (so greens were 50, blues 100, etc), and then someone decided that we needed 1000s, so we made them red. The first few hands were complete pandemonium as we all tried to remember what was what, but we fell into the old routine pretty quickly.

People went out fairly quickly, surprisingly, and other people won hands right when they needed to to stay alive. I took 2 big hands back to back and then started slowly losing money, but I managed to outwait Mat, and so it was Steve and I head to head. Again.

During the heads-up play Steve and I got the exact same cards 3 or 4 times, which was met with a combination of surprise and laughter, and splitting pots never hurt anybody. He managed to bluff me out of a lot of my money (I lost my nerve somewhere along the line), and although I won a few hands, the chips kept migrating back to him.

Finally I saw my break. I was dealt a 9, and 2 7s and a 9 came up on the flop. With 2 pairs I decided to go all in, counting on the hope that Steve didn't have a pair or a straght draw, and hoping that the turn and the river went my way. I showed my 2 pairs, and he showed me his pocket queens. I was sunk. The turn was an 8 and the river was a 4, and all my money ran away from me.

Luckily the way we play the runner up gets his buy-in back, so I came out even. Still, I haven't won a poker game in quite a while, but as long as I keep finishing second I can't be too upset about it. Looking back now I can see times when I folded and shouldn't have, or bet when I shouldn't have, but hindsight is 20/20 and it doesn't do much good to dwell on it.

I need to be gutsier when I play, and not fold to every big raise. Unless I have nothing, which tends to happen more than I like to admit.

After checking the bus schedule, I bought some tickets off Steve and ran to the bus stop. Apparently their schedule is out of date, because it said the last 118 was at 12:59, and the bus stop said the last one was at 12:30-something. I waited a few minutes just in case, but when a bus didn't appear, I forlornly walked home.

It's not quite an hour's walk, but it's close. I left the bus stop at 1:02, and I was halfway up the elevator at 1:51. It's a fairly boring walk when you're alone, but it was a nice night so I didn't mind. Plus the peace and quiet was nice.

It was a good night.

I have teeth

I had a dentist appointment today, my first in 3 years. I'm not sure how I managed to go so long without seeing a dental professional, but I did. I was worried about it because my dental hygiene isn't exactly the best. I've flossed once this year, and that was right before we left for the appointment.

I have one cavity, and apparently if I dodn't get it filled within the year I'll need a root canal. Despite that, everybody described it as a small one, so I don't know if they're overestimating it or if small cavities are insidious, or what's going on.

In addition, I have a wisdom tooth coming in sideways. It's my only one, but how is it growing sideways? That makes no sense at all. It's breached the gum just enough to make it a problem, so it's going to have to come out. Otherwise it'll just catch a lot of bacteria and rot (or something, I'm guessing here), and that'll be even worse for me. We didn't make an appointment for surgery, and I have to talk to the surgeon they referred me to. He'll know what to do about it.

As a last kick in the pants, I need to floss more. Apparently I have the beginning stages of Gingivitis, and the easiest way to prevent that is to floss and stimulate the gums as I do so. I guess I'll have to do that, as much as I hate flossing.

For no checkups in 3 years, I think I did fairly well for myself. I still have no idea how I got that cavity, but I'm not going to worry too much about it.

Duplicate Heroes

Greg, Kevin, and I are currently in a group chat, where we designed a new superhero, the amazing Pickleman. With the power to squirt brine from his eyes and make anyone it hits sick, he would be a formidable asset to the side of Good. His nemesis, the oppositely-tasting Sugardaddy and his spoiled whore minions.

As Greg put it:
[01:23 AM] greg: sugardaddy and the spoiiled whores vs. pickleman and his gastroitestinal eruption inducing brine

Unfortunately there already exists a PickleMan, as seen here. I'm not the type to dabble with copyright infringement, so the idea has passed on. I think.

I think I may have convinced both Greg and Kevin to start updating their blogs again. If so, I welcome them back to the land of internet writing.