Ch^H^H...Train of Thought

English Skills

Hmm. 20%? 40%? I'm an engineer apparently.

In CS terms, my brain's:
--generic parser : good.
--regex bug list: sorta good.
--data export core: sorta bad.
--internal hashtable: absolute shit.

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)

Exploding Toads

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7654561/?GT1=6428

What a crappy way to die.

Telepathy

There's an article that talks about a cluster of neurons which seem to react depending on what a person percieves from their environment. The writer's take is that it gives us something sorta like mind reading since it will react the same way whether it's you or somebody you're observing does something.

Okay..... so what, try to find somebody who's got a really good set of these neurons and make the real-life version of the tv show "Profiler?"

Never wear jewelry while playing sports.

20050422:
At lunch, Robert walked back from basketball with a really shocked look on his face.
After standing there for a minute, he proceeded to tell us how he was out playing a game with the 3com people and he was about to score the tiebreaker for a win. While running down the court, Bill charged at him and ran into a pole. When Bill was about to run into the pole, he tried to grab it to save himself but his left ring finger got caught on some bolt. The force ripped his finger right off. He had enough of his mind to say "my finger; there's my finger" and pick it up before they rushed him to the hospital.

Ew. I think I'm going to be sick.

Email -> Stupid

This article says that email makes us stupid.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/22/email_destroys_iq/

I can't think of what else to say :P

Inner European?

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

"Oooh, ain't that grand?" :P

Speaking of drinking, a link swiped from Maha's livejournal. Woman sentenced to probation for driving while drunk on Listerine.

Things That Don't Exist

Sock puppet movie!

Oh, and in case you can't understand them, here's the lyrics.

What would your Anime life be like?

A warrior for good with no special powers? Definetely a tragic ending waiting to happen.

Thai Food

I went with Brian to take a class on cooking Thai food at the Viking HomeChef Stor and Cooking School. It was pretty fun.

We made:
Thai Beef Salad with Lettuce Cups and Sticky Rice:
Tom Kha Gai (a soup)
Thai-Style Stir Fried Vegetables
Pad Thai with Shrimp

They also had some Mango Sorbet, Thai Iced Tea, and Ginger Cosmos for us when we were eating the results of the day's work. The food turned out well, but I did manage to cut myself with a knife. I think I want to take more classes sometime.

Fire!

Okay, super soaker, flammable liquids, and a small wick.
How come I didn't think of this earlier?

Dormroom Disco Dance Floor

http://web.mit.edu/storborg/ddf/index.html

Dude, now if they made it so that you could use the sensors to play DDR. That would be so cool.

Sega Fantasy VI

http://www.hcn.zaq.ne.jp/cabic508/rsf/frame1.html

All of a sudden I feel like powering up my Famicom system and playing a round of RockMan 3.

Bringin' it back to the old-school.....

A user group came up with a challenge: spent a month using old hardware to do what you normally do on your current computer.

http://desnoyers.org/retrochallenge/

Triforce

So the glyph known to gamers as the Triforce appears to come from Japanese history.

Now how about the ones in FFX?

Cooking anybody?

Now that I have a day job, I can finally schedule in a few things I've been meaning to do....

I want to learn some new dishes. Anybody in the Bay Area wanna go with me to take some of the cooking classes at
Sur La Table? Ooh... garnishing....

Can't say it like Scooter can

Hung out with a bunch of people over the weekend as well as worked on some of my own stuff. Met some new people as well as bumped into some old friends.

On Friday, went to D&B after work.
YT got ass drunk. Apparently I missed out on some of the weirdness since I left, but there's supposedly a video of her ranting. I was just a tad over buzzed. Even then I played EJ, YT, and Peter (I think it was those three) Daytona 500 and lucked out placing first by a few tenths of a second. I guess maybe I CAN drive under the influence.... just kidding.

On Saturday, I woke up late, worked a little bit on the Acura's clearcoat, looked into some stuff on electric violins, and then went to DNA Lounge and the Cal Wushu afterparty.
At DNA, Kinson and his band 8past was on stage. Their performance was awesome! Also ran into Joyce and her coworkers as well as Jennie and Stacie. Oh yeah, Debbie sounds really funny drunk.

On Sunday, I woke up even later, did some laundry, and then cleaned up the mess from working on the Acura yesterday. I dropped by Cyn's place for a little while and then hung out at Peter's in Mountain View. Oh, and on the way through Mountain View I saw a Geo Metro with a Red Suns sticker and a Porsche with the license plate 4NEK034.

Need to get some sleep before work. Tomorrow, gotta try to get the pictures from Brian and download stuff off my camera.

The Bell-Ringer of Notre Dame

After Quasimodo's death, the bishop of the Cathedral of Notre Dame sent through the streets of Paris that a new bell ringer was needed. The bishop decided that he would conduct the interviews personally and went up into belfry to begin the screening process. After observing several applicants demonstrate their skills, he had decided to call it a day - when an armless man approached him and announced that he was there to apply for the bell ringer's job. The bishop was incredulous.

"But, you have no arms!"

"No matter." said the man, "Observe!" And he began striking the bells with his face, producing a beautiful melody on the carillon. The bishop listened in astonishment, convinced he had finally found a suitable replacement for Quasimodo. But suddenly, rushing forward to strike a bell, the armless man tripped and plunged headlong out of the belfry window to his death in the street below. The stunned bishop rushed to his side. When he reached the street, a crowd had gathered around the fallen figure, drawn by the beautiful music they had heard only moments before. As they silently parted to let the bishop through, one of them asked, "Bishop, who was this man?" "I don't know his name," the bishop sadly replied, "but his face rings a bell."

{WAIT! There's more!}

The following day, despite the sadness that weighed heavily on his heart to the unfortunate death of the armless campanologist, the bishop continued his interviews for the new bell ringer of Notre Dame. The first man to approach him said, "Your Excellency, I am the brother of the poor armless wretch who fell to his death from this very belfry yesterday. I pray that you honor his life by allowing me to replace him in this duty." The bishop agreed to the man an audition, and, as the armless man's brother stooped to pick mallet to strike the first bell, he groaned, clutched at his chest and died on the spot.

Two monks, hearing the bishop's cries of grief at this second tragedy, rushed up the stairs to his side. "What has happened? Who is this man?" first monk asked breathlessly. "I don't know his name," sighed the distraught bishop,

{Wait for it...}

"but he's a dead ringer for his brother."

Free Oski!!!

Check it out, Oski's being released back into the wild!
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/ (mirror)

....or not.