Skittles: The New Packing Material.

I've heard of packing peanuts, but I've never heard of or seen packing Skittles. It's all my crazy mother. I asked Dad to send me my games (Myst and Riven) from home and my mom got ahold of the box and I guess decided that Skittles would make a great packing material. So she put some in those little snack sized zippy bags, and I'm guessing there were about 4 bags in there. It was kind of hard to tell because the bags exploded during shipping and there were Skittles all over the inside of the box. But it was kinda fun digging all the Skittles out to get to my games. Alas, I have no time to play, but eventually I will have to for a project. Ah, having to play a game so I can do homework :). And I have Skittles! Dad says little round candies should have chocolate or peanutbutter in them. But I love the little Skittles! I love them good! I need them or I will explode! That happens to me sometimes.

Grimm makes me grim!

Actually Grimm makes me a little less grim today as compared to yesterday. Yesterday was brutal. I spent all evening attempting to implement this CEGUI stuff in Ogre3D. It does not play nicely. It doesn't help that it's poorly documented, and all the tutorials that do exist all use the demo code which doesn't really work well in an actual game. But good news is CEGUI is going bye bye!! I almost did the happy dance right there in the Bunker, but refrained because I knew I'd get laughed at. A few of us programmers on the project met after class and talked about things and decided we could do a "GUI" using some of the Ogre libraries, namely Overlays, MouseMotionListener and MouseListener. It shouldn't be too bad, though I still have a couple things to figure out, like how to load a material and what a material is. I'm really hoping that's not going to be too hard, I've spent enough time this week banging my head against the desk. Stupid GUI and it's importance to the look and feel of the game! :P

Told you I was allergic to Atanassoff

So as some of you may know I will on occasion, especially after spending many hours there, say that I'm allergic to Atanassoff, the computer science building. I have news for you for those of you who have scoffed at me and told me I'm crazy and that it's all in my head. I very well may be allergic to the building. I was talking to Gloria, the undergrad adviser, and it turns out that the building has closed air circulation to reduce the cost of heating and cooling. This isn't unusual by any means, but the current air has been in there 10ish years, and black or blue-green mold has started growing on some of the ceiling tiles in the basement, and possibly other parts of the building. Penicillin comes from the blue-green mold Penicillium notatum, and I'm allergic to amoxicilln which just so happens to be part of the penicillin family. So it's no wonder that after about 30 minuets to an hour of being in the computer labs in Atanassoff that I get all stuffy, sneezy and coughy. The mold probably isn't the only contributing factor. I'd be willing to bet there's a fair amount of dust and other things that I'm most likely allergic to that also help set me off. It's not a good thing that I'm allergic to the building because I spend a lot of time there, but at least now I know I'm not crazy in thinking that I am.

Basketball season starts in 18 days!!!!! I got my season tickets yesterday, it was so exciting! I can hardly wait. I love basketball season. It's the most wonderful time of the year. So I've already scoped some of the preseason rankings, and I must say we are sorely underrated. ESPN has us ranked 22 in the preseason pole, and something I read elsewhere has us finishing 6th in the Big 12. I'm calling bullshit, especially since ESPN has Iowa ranked 16th. They totally don't give us the credit we're do. We probably have one of the best backcourts in the nation, Blalock and Stinson rock! I'll give them that our frontcourt is a little shaky with Homan graduating, hopefully we'll have a good new big guy to take care of things. Hopefully I'll have time on Saturday to go to the shootout and scope out the team and the new players. Regardless of what the critics say, I'm psyched for the new season. I've got season tickets and from what I've read it looks like it's going to be a good and exciting season. Go Cyclones!

Oh boy, shiny things!!

I was walking to the library tonight to go meet with my group to finish up our proposal for English (ugh), and I was between the library and Atanssoff when I see.... two racoons crawling out of the gutter. They were so cute, they looked like weird, fat little kitties. One of them gave me this funny look, and I wasn't sure if it was going to hiss or meow at me. Then they both slunk under a car as I walked by. Racoons are neat, and kinda scary, and they make me think of shiny things. They do this because, racoons like shiny thigns, and I like shiny things. Sometimes my mom makes fun of me because I like shiny things and get shiny object stupor like a racoon. Ashley laughs at me too when I'm channel surfing and they're showing shiny things on QVC or something I almost always get stuck and have to pause and watch for a few minutes until the annoyingness of their voices infiltrates my brain. What can I say, I love shiny things. Anyway... highlight of my day -- seeing racoons crawling out of the gutter by Atanassoff!

Things I must remember

Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. - Sanskrit Proverb

Work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like no one's watching, learn like you'll to live forever, and live like you'll die tomorrow.

And the biggie:
Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive. - Elbert Hubbard

meh

So it feels like forever since I last posted, but really it hasn't been that long. I think it's just that this has been a really really long week. Kind of the too much to do and not enough time to do it all in. I seriously think we need like 36 hour days, that way I could actually get my 8 hrs of sleep plus still have 28 hours to work.... wow 28 hours a day to work on stuff... that would be fantabulous. This having too much to do, and having group projects where part of the group doesn't do any work, or doesn't let any one else know that they've done any work till class time the day it's due, really eats up a lot of time. You spend time doing not only your part of the project, but theirs too because you don't already know they've done it. Really makes me mad, and it eats up a lot of time I should be working on other things. There are two other pretty big things I need to be working on, and unfortunately they're both "due" about the same time. I take GRE's Nov 10th, and Grimm is due Nov 15th. Those are my two really big things right now, and most of the time I don't feel like I have enough time for either, let alone one or the other.

The GRE's are especially plaguing me, I have no time to study for them, and if I don't do well there's no way I'm going to get into grad school. I'm not sure that even if I do do well on them I'll get in. Most days I think I probably won't because I'm pretty sure I won't do well enough on the GRE's to compensate for everything else. It's really going to come back and bite me in the ass too, because I'm putting off applying and interviewing for jobs so I can focus more on grad school, but I'm not having enough time to do grad school either. It's like my classwork is eating up all my time this semester, and I can't afford to let that happen. And the worst part is it really is all classwork, I haven't even had time to just go chill with my friends the last couple weeks. Consequently some of them are a little ticked at me because they feel like I'm just blowing them off, when in reality I'm blowing everybody off. That just makes things worse, because not only do I not get to hang out with my friends, but some of them make me feel guilty about it. The only time I get to see anybody is if it's in class or class related. Grrr! I don't know what to do. I'll probably end up working myself crazy so I have a better chance at the GRE's. In reality, no matter what I do it'll be wrong. If I take time to chill with my friends that's time I don't study and time I don't get much needed sleep. On the flip side if I study all the time I don't get to see anyone, and then people get upset with me. Pretty much a lose lose situation.

All your base are belong to us

So I don't have anything real or significant, just a few funny odds and ends. It has been decided that fobonics/chinglish/engrish, is probably one of the most hysterical spoken languages. And as most of you probably already know All Your Base Are Belong To Us is probably the funniest and most popular video demonstrating this. Also notably it has a very well documented and fairly long Wikipedia article which I find entertaining because it's so pointless.

Other random bits of entertainment:

• Go to www.google.com
• Search for "failure"
• Click the "I'm feeling lucky" button

If it's still working it should take you here. If I hadn't been on campus I probably would have been roflmao.

Update: Studying (or trying to find time to) for the GRE's is not so much fun. If I want to get into grad school anywhere I'm going to have to do really well. But on the bright side, I know I want to go and I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go. I got my last (hopefully) degree audit from ISU!! *insert happy dance* And, I'm going to have enough time that I'll be able to pick up my Design Studies minor. Grimm, the adventure game I'm working on for one of my classes this semester, is owning my life. Ogre3D (rendering engine) doesn't play well with others. I've been trying to implement the gui stuff for the game and it's been giving me fits, I finally get one thing working and something else breaks. Talk about frustrating. It doesn't help that neither the Ogre nor the CEGUI (Crazy Eddie's GUI) have decent documentation or tutorials that make much sense. I'm getting closer, I know what the problem is, but I'm not sure how to fix it, it's an issue with a singleton object. Probably the worst part about this is this project has been in the works for 2-3 years, and we've got a November 15th deadline to get it entered in a competition. If it doesn't get done on time I think Chad's probably going to cry. But it will get done, things always do... kinda funny how that manages to happen, well, as long as we bust ass.

Take off every 'zig'!!

INTJ - that's what's wrong with me.

So I got this email today from WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) today and there's some seminar series (which I will most likely not attend) about learning about yourself and choosing a job path. To sign up for this seminar series they first want you to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and I was a little bored, curious and it was only gonna take me 5-10 min so I took it. Turns out I'm a INTJ - Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging. A Mastermind Rational if you will. It doesn't explain why I am the way I am, but it does explain some of the "rational" behind some of the things I say and do... or don't say or do, depending on the situation.

In other news I'm about 90% sure I want to go to grad school, and I think I want to go for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) or some sort of computer graphics/game technology sort of master. Google and I have been digging around for schools with such programs, and I've got quite a list, but I'm having a slightly difficult time narrowing it down to my top 5 or so. There are 3 that really stand out: Carnegie Mellon, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgia Tech. And actually, when I got to looking at it ISU's HCI program isn't too shabby. I'll apply here, but mostly as a backup, I kind of feel like it's time for me to go and leave wonderful old l'Ames. Some others I'm looking into a little more are Purdue, Michigan, Virginia Tech, Washington University and DePaul. I dunno... I'm slowly getting there, which scares me, seems like I'm not moving on this stuff quickly enough. I really need to get on the ball if I want this to happen. Yeah, things will work out, but only if I push them... nothing is just going to magically fall into place. But the motivation is kicking in, so that's good. There are a few people's brains I'd like to pick about the matter, and I'll get to that too, which will help resolve a lot of this. I think it's all coming together finally.

I seriously need to stop writing so late... I start to lose all train of thought and end up sounding like a bumbling idiot. I guess that's not really much different than any other time of day though :)