I am SO getting Wipeout Pure

Wow. I was just reading the IGN review of Wipeout Pure, and get this...

'The game ships with 19 different pieces of audio from the likes of LFO, Orbital's Paul Hartnoll, Photek, Tiesto, and most notably Aphex Twin. The series' former composer, Cold Storage, has even lent a new track to Pure'

A CoLD SToRAGE track on Wipeout Pure?!? Oh man... Wipeout is Wipeout again!

If you're feeling a bit lost at this point... the Wipeout series has been one of my favourite game series. CoLD SToRAGE did the music for the original Wipeout and Wipeout XL (and part of Wipeout 2097, the European version of WoXL). The series music went breakbeat with the newer games, and there isn't a single CoLD SToRAGE track on Wip3out, Wipeout 64 or Wipeout Fusion. I was HUGELY surprised to see him back, and I paid a visit to his forums and it looks like it's true, he did a track called 'Onyx' for Wipeout Pure.

Maybe it's that impulsiveness kicking in again, but this has pretty much convinced me to get a PSP. I've already listed my MuVo 2 on eBay. (Go bid on it!)

And I'm going to spend the rest of the morning listening to CoLD SToRAGE. Get his music off his website - he has pretty much all of it up there for free download. Hats off to you Tim!

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Now Playing: CoLD SToRAGE - Acid Rain

How brain dead do YOU want to be today?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, flip-flopper extraordinaire and resident turncoat, yours truly.

Simply put, I think SLI is great. It'll give your gaming the kind of boost no overclocking or CPU upgrade (unless you're still running Pentium IIs, in which case I suggest you crawl out from under the rock you've been hiding the past 5 years) can give you. I personally enjoyed it, and still am. Nothing like playing Deus Ex Invisible War with everything turned up at 1280x1024, 4xAA and 16xAF. By comparison, the 9800 had trouble at 1024x768 with no frills.

Is SLI a good investment? I'd have to say, unless you really have nothing better to do with your money, then no, it isn't. I could think of any number of things I could spend the $400 on, and in retrospect, I'd say jumping on the SLI bandwagon was a pretty impulsive decision. So yeah, I'm selling my second 6800 GT.

And I'm thinking I'll get a PSP in the near future, once prices are stable. And I'll probably sell my Muvo 2 while I'm at it too, since the PSP doubles up as an MP3 player. That, and I ordered myself a slim PS2 a couple of days ago. Maybe I'm being all impulsive with the credit card again, but $100 did seem like a pretty damn good deal!

That aside, it's been a pretty dull week. I missed every morning class but calculus on Thursday. And I walked out of that halfway through because, simply put, vector components simply isn't the most interesting topic when you're half brain-dead from being up for 26 hours at a stretch. They ought to call that class 'Calculus 2 for dumbasses who barely passed calculus 1'. Government was a waste too, we ended up watching a 70s movie (The Candidate) which I could just as well have downloaded and watched on here.

Don't even get me started on the farce that is the Schiavo tragedy. I don't care whether you think her feeding tube should be restored or not, the way the whole case is being manipulated for political gain is... well, to be honest, expected. What better way to fire up the far right neo conservative pro life base? Except you're forgetting about everyone else. Then again, your average Bubba is more concerned about how much he pays for gas and whether or not he gets that tax cut than he is about corruption in the government. Oh, and we can't have them homos holding hands either. And those baby killers need to be put to death too while we're at it.

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Now Playing: Sasha - Baja

Side note - If you cannot pronounce my name correctly, please, just stick to Sam. It's a lot less painful.

What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold? *

So I get off the bus at Dobie, get the elevator to floor 22, enter my suite, only to find 5 people playing with what looked like about a hundred Pokemon cards laid out on the floor. Ok, so maybe they weren't Pokemon cards... but close enough. You know your friends circle has reached a new low when you have people going "I'll now attack you with this creature using this enchantment, so now I have 18 HP while you only have 2!"

I believe Thach is to blame for this.

Believe it or not, the room was actually in a fairly livable state when I got back. I just need to wash the sheets and blanket, pay a visit to HEB (I have absolutely NO food here - zilch) and get the receipt from Duval Villa. Though I guess I could probably get that tomorrow.

And I ended up missing my morning class. Way to start the end of spring break. (hmm... 'start the end of spring break'...) I ran into Stacy in the elevator though, and she made it to class, so at least I'll get the notes. That, and I did make it to Philosophy. Calculus section was cancelled.

I don't believe I've mentioned Tiesto's new album yet. It's called The Parade of The Athletes, and if you're into any kind of electronica (or even if you're not) I'd highly recommend it. It's a LOT better than his last effort (Just Be) and the music is actually a lot like trance[]control. Give it a listen.

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Now Playing: Tiesto - Victorious

* One's a sick duck - I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore. Thank Sean Connery on SNL Celebrity Jeopardy for that one.

The West Wing is better than your favourite TV Show

It is.

I thought after Game On and Shutdown there was no way this show could top itself, but it did. That last string of season 6 episodes (8 through 18) are just some of the best TV I've seen.

So I spent yesterday with Sarah's cousin Sajid. I'll say this - you don't want to be in any car he's driving if you value your life. No exaggerations here - he was driving with his right hand on his cellphone, left hand alternating between steering wheel and gearshifting, leg doing the steering half the time, all while driving at 100 mph (that's 160 km/h to you people across the Atlantic), weaving through traffic on a VERY busy I-45 in a turbocharged Audi S4. Yes, I'm still in one piece.

We watched Office Space for the 3rd time and ended up going to Walmart at 1 am. And today I had lunch at this Japanese restaurant. The food was actually pretty good. The embarrassing part was that they only provided chopsticks - and all 6 other people on the table had no trouble using them. I like my forks damnit.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of TV shows, I have to admit the latter half of SG-1 season 8 did disappoint me a bit. Don't get me wrong - Reckoning, Threads and especially Moebius were just great. But I really thought they had something going with the whole Trust conspiracy which they effectively killed off - rather tamely too. And what about all the political stuff that finished off season 7? I was hoping for more focus on that - and I was hoping Woolsey was going to make a comeback. Still, it's not bad at all.

Atlantis so far is great. I only watched as far as the 13th episode and I'm really liking it. The characters don't yet have the appeal of SG-1 (you really can't match the Danial and Jack dynamic there) - with the exception of McKay maybe - but on the whole it's looking up.

Tonight I'll probably watch some Enterprise, and maybe some 24 season 4 (which I hear is really good).

Now I think I'll go make myself some Ramen noodles.

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Now Playing: Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

(Someone save me. Please.)

Springbreakland

9 days of constant slacking off with no distractions whatsover - what more could you ask for? Ok, so maybe there aren't no distractions. I AM living in the same house as an annoying 11 year old girl who likes to steal my laptop to IM my friends when I'm not looking and type random stuff in MS Word.

The best part is that I can actually slack off. No tests for at least a week after spring break, no assignments due and no reading to be done. Pure, unadulterated 'no-work'. I was planning to go to Boston at first, and then Florida, but I think simply relaxing here in Houston and catching up on some sleep I haven't lost yet was a good idea.

So I spent the day with Sarah's cousins. This was the first time I met them in about 10 years, and it was pretty good. They're all married with kids now; who would have thought....

I think I'm finally going to get my driver's license here. Sarah's going away for the next three days (to Austin of all places - can you say bad timing?) and Nisha's going to be at school, so I can spend the day running over people in my uncle's SUV. Fun for the whole family!

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Now Playing: U2 - I Will Follow

And I almost forgot...

U2 is coming to Houston.

I'm going, and you had better believe it.

Muahahaha!

Sods.

MacLaurin series, polar coordinates and onion rings

Not a lot more to blog about. Well, I did go to this black tie/toga/lingerie party on Saturday but unfortunately didn't get lucky. Though that had more to do with the fact that I didn't find anyone particularly interesting in the crowd. I didn't drink (do I ever?), but that wasn't the case with Dan. I left early but I hear he got incredibly drunk... and threw up a number of times. More details on his blog. (If you want details that is.)

Just got done with calculus a short while ago. That had to be THE most boring lecture yet (not that I go to lectures very often as it is) - but polar coordinates and the sigma function just do tend to lose their novelty quickly. Thankfully that's over, for the time being at least.

Right now I'm at Simkins. Not the most interesting place to be. (Unless you're into all male dorms that resemble prison blocks) I'd steal Thach's speakers but I'm just too lazy. You have to hear these things though. I just KNOW I'm getting them next semester. Biggest subs I've seen on computer speakers yet. And the guy has them connected via analog? What a waste....

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Now Playing: Nothing

For the greater good of the Republic

So I started playing PlanetSide again. Different empire this time though; I'm playing Terran even though I have a Battle Rank 18 character (that's Level 18 out of 23 to all you 'other-MMO'-ers) as a Vanu. Maybe I'll play it more often now, I don't know, but I figured I'd give it a try. For a month at least, and I'll see how it goes from there.

Watching all those guys working their (usually lazy) asses off makes me glad I dropped out of CS. There's no way I'll be able to live through 4 years of that. I mean... no, I just won't.

I did start a blog with two of my semi-delusional (one moreso than the other) friends. Please do pay a visit to Procrastination Incorporated for your daily dose of nothingness. (And details on the famed 'Pinkyblog Massacre')

Speaking of nothingness, it turns out that's about all I'll be doing on spring break. Air tickets to Boston are way too expensive, so that's out, and I'm not really keen on Florida. Houston it is then I guess. It does give me a chance to get that damn driving license I keep putting off though.

Guess I'll get back to burning DVDs. 500 gigs of hard drive space is never enough.

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Now Playing: U2 - City of Blinding Lights

Midterm Report

It's a bit past 4.30 am. I'm not sleepy and I'll probably end up missing calculus in the morning. Seeing as how I have nothing better to do... the blog it is. (It's always the blog when I have 'nothing better to do')

Ladies and... the rest of you, I present to you, the Midterm Report.

Classes

Classes are a bit of a mixed bag so far. I'd say my easiest A this semester is going to be Government 310L (US Government 1) - though that might change with Calculus, more on that later. The class is easy... though the others I know in class seem to disagree. Hey, it's not my fault if I knew the names of the Speaker of the House, House Majority Leader, House Minority Leader, House Republican Whip, House Democratic Whip, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, Senate Republican Whip, Senate Democratic Whip, the only Independents in the House and Senate, and all nine Supreme Court Justices beforehand - and you had to learn those. Lazy bastards. And NO - Tom Daschle is NOT a Senator. A 91 on the first midterm, 110s on all but one quiz, a multiple choice/definition type test format and class material I seem to know beforehand - I'll kick myself if I don't make an A in this.

I though getting an A in Math 408D (Calculus 2 - Sequences, Series and Multivariable) was going to be harder - especially given all the scary stories about infinite series. I missed over 60% of lectures and discussions, didn't do a single homework, didn't practice even one problem (well, except that one improper integral - but that was easy) and prepared for the midterm by going over the whole chapter in about 25 minutes. A 90 on the test was... let's just say more than I expected. I think I already said that. So yeah, I think I'm headed for an A in this too.

Philosophy 304 (Contemporary Moral Problems) is one class I was expecting to make an easy A in. It's not going to be that easy apparently. Krecz is a great lecturer, but he jumps around a lot (not literally) and notes are a bit difficult to take - especially since he can be very vague at times. I got an 85 on the first test because I didn't quite know what was expected (honestly I thought I'd do better) in terms of framing the argument. I'll be paying the TA a visit tomorrow though and sorting that out so there are no more 'misunderstandings' and problems with semantics on the second test. I still think I should make an A in this class. And if I do, that'll mean I won't have to overwork myself in...

History 315K (US History 1). Where the hell do I start. Now Eastman is a great lecturer. She's organized, notes are easy to take and the lectures themselves are interesting. It's the reading. The reading sucks. And I do mean sucks. Really sucks. It's usually a hundred pages a week, and on top of that you have to prepare answers for specific questions for the discussion sections. Here's an example of a reading from a few weeks ago. That one was actually on the test. Speaking of the test, I have no idea how well or bad I did. She does give a review sheet with 6 questions, of which two will be on the test, so you pretty much know what's coming - but the amount of researching required for those questions is just insane. If it weren't for that study group we'd be in F hell right now. If I can make an A in Philosophy, I can easily get away with a B in this. But I'm not taking any chances. Transfer to business depends on maintaining a 3.8+ or in the very least a 3.7.


Everything Else (Yes, my categories of Classes and Everything Else pretty much fit)

I think 'everything else' is pretty much covered in the posts below, but I'll sum it up here anyway. The apartment is pretty much finalized - we're going with the 2 bedroom/2 bath apartments at Duval Villa. I'm apparently a bit nerdy, but not as nerdy as Dan or Sanju. Reuben was just being himself on MSN but forgot about the fact that Chris and I have blogs. Staying up late made me a bit delerious once. I almost stabbled Elizabeth Ashbridge in the back with a pitchfork. I went down to Houston and found out that there's actually someone who sleeps more than I do. A whole number of blogs have popped up out of the blue - some coherent, some... well lets just say they're not quite there yet. I got four people addicted to 24. I myself got addicted to SNL Celebrity Jeopardy. I can now write an effective rebuttal to the Pope's argument against abortion. I saw some titties, but had to part with some beads. I sold some hardware and made some money. I used the money to build an insanely-expensive-and-better-than-yours-computer. I got addicted to Iron Maiden. I stayed addicted to U2. I got stuffed with food on my birthday. I am now managing 3 independent sovereign countries. I will now stop going over all my old posts.

There's a whole lot of 'everything else' that I just couldn't be bothered to blog. Even though I have nothing better to do.

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Now Playing: U2 - Ultra Violet

I blog, therefore I am

To anyone who actually READS the posts in my blog, I appreciate it. No, I really do. If you have a blog, then trust me, I don't do the same. (Unless your name is Sanju and you have a blog called ChutneyTales with a post entitled 'The CS Life Crisis' of course - read it if you haven't already, absolutely hilarious)

Speaking of Sanju... here's a little gem from the conversation the lot of us were having at lunch today. For some odd reason we were talking about elevators and rooms at the FAC...

Saagar: "So if it's FAC 221 on the second floor, FAC 121 on the first floor, shouldn't it logically follow that on the basement level it should be FAC -121 and not FAC 21?"

Sanju: "No... if you try to get to it on the basement level you get an ArrayIndexOutOfBounds error."

At the moment, he's at the Painter Hall Labs trying to figure out what I hear is an insanely difficult CS project. Good luck 315ers - you do know I'm laughing my ass off at you right?


Onto other things... the Calculus test was insanely easy. And they said sequences and series was supposed to be the hard part of 408D. I'm actually looking FORWARD to multivariable after this, if that's anything to go by. I got a 90 on the test, and if my preparation and the number of classes I missed was anything to go by, I should be looking at a D.

That's all I think, for now. I won't bore you anymore. Go on, get back to your lives. Or your CS 315 projects.

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Now Playing: Iron Maiden - Brave New World

How nerdy are YOU?

Yes, I have nothing better to do. Yes, I'm a sucker for these.




You can thank Dan.

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Now Playing: Nothing