I Should Be Studying

Even though my final is about 5 hours away, I'd rather talk about my new computer. It all started about a month ago when I found a barebone computer case for 100 dollars with a 100 dollar rebate. Yes, free. A barebone's computer, if you don't know, is usually just some sort of computer tower in combination with a mother board and a power supply, you have to put your own stuff in. This motherboard in particular has 10/100 network too.

So free computer? Why not, i said. Lo and behold, a week later, there was a deal for a 250 gigabyte harddrive. It clicked. Why not build a modest system that can hold alot of harddrives? The fact that it has all the stuff it needs to go on the internet, I could do something cool like a server or just have a common file storage area for everyone in the house. Since the case was free, I made it a goal to build the computer as cheaply as possible, reusing as many old parts as I can.

So with some brainstorming with BT, resident tech expert, we decided the computer should be able to do these things:

-An above average processor to handle lots of tasks at once, especially if multiple users are going to be logging in on it while a multitude of programs are running in the background.

-With three slots available for ram and since we're not building a power pc, two 512 mb ram sticks will save money and do what I need.

-A DVD-writer will help free up clutter. Even though there will be alot of harddrives, some things won't always need to be on there and can be archived.

-Lots and lots of freakin harddrives.

Here's the estimated total price of this budgeted "server"

-Barebones PC tower: $15 (after shipping and rebate)
-2.4 ghz p4: $120
-2 Crucial 512 MB ram sticks: $150
-Pioneer 16x dvd+-rw: $100
-250 GB Maxtor hd: $120
-200 GB Maxtor hd: free from other computer
-120 GB Maxtor hd: free from other computer
-64mb video card with tv out: free from other computer
-Miscellaneous parts (cooling fans, extra ribbons): $35

To a grand total of about $540 for a 2.4 ghz p4 with 1 gb of ram, 570 gb of harddrive space, and the ability to burn dvds and watch movies on an actual TV... all while serving my internet needs.

I can't wait.

It's finally finals week

Finals week sucks. Everyone is being all sorts of studious. Everyone should know me by now, I'm not a studious person, I am the epitomy of procrastination and I study at the last minute. It's more challenging that way. You never know, some day a very demented psycho genius will be like, study this book, i'm going to quiz you in 40 minutes. If you don't get an 80% or higher, I'm going to shoot you.

Yea, what are all you studious losers going to do when that happens? That's right, you forgot how to cram. You die, I live.

Sure, it may not happen, but it justifies my existance and my petty excuses to not study.

On another note

I was reading this article somewhere, it was saying that C grades are extinct. Not because people are smarter, but because people bitch more. Society also says that a C student is not an average student. Society says that an average student is a B student, and an exceptional student is an A student.

That's all well and good, but what happened to the above average student who's not exceptional? According to this article, C's used to be the standard. A grade of C meant you performed as expected of the teacher and you were allowed to pass. A grade of B meant that you performed more then as expected of your teacher. A grade of A meant that you performed well above and beyond what was expected of your teacher.

What do grades mean now? A, you're pretty good. B, you're alright. C, you passed dude. D, you should have failed but I felt sorry for you. F, you fuckin retarded fuck.

With that said, I stand by the fact that grades don't mean anything. And I refuse to study to conform to the struggles of trying to achieve these meaningless grades.

Cordially,

This Infamous Slacker.

The White Room Theory

So I've talked about plenty of personality types. Types of people in a social group, types of people out on the street, types of people in a team, etc.

I've been forming a theory lately though. I think people can pretend to be whatever they want to be, it's easy. You go into a group, they don't know you that well, you can be whatever you want. If you mess it up, no harm done, you leave the group.

I've been wondering though, what would happen if you took a group of people consisting of all people you knew into a plain white room with nothing in it. You didn't give them an explaination, you just sort of sat them all down, locked the door, and wait for their responses. What would happen? How would they act?

Obviously, everyone is different, so instead of trying to predict what would happen in that room, I'm just going to postulate on the types of people that might spring up.

The Optimist: He says, "So we're in this white room. It doesn't look like we're going to be allowed out anytime soon. Why don't we just say that we're hangin out. I mean, it's like going to someone's house. We can still talk to each other, you know, get to know each other. I'm sure we can come up with something to do. Come on guys!"

The Entertainer: He says, "We're in a white room? I didn't even know. I really didn't know why we were brought in, but i'm just doin the same stuff that I would usually do. Honestly, i'm me no matter where we are. I guess this white room is nice though, it put's me at the center of attention anyway, since there's nothing else in the room that's interesting."

The Whiner: She says, "What are we doing here? Why did you bring me here? This place is so boring, there's nothing to do here. I want to do something else, don't ask me what because I have no suggestion, I just know that this isn't what I want to do and I'm going to keep telling you that until one of you come up with an idea on what's going on and get me out of this place."

The Apathetic: He says, "Alright, so we're in this room. I guess it doesn't really matter what we do, I'm here with a bunch of people and I don't do anything except sit back and watch everyone else anyway. So really, to me, this night in the white room is no different than anything else that we do."

The Ringleader: She says, "Alright guys, why are we still in this room? It doesn't seem like anything is going on. Why did you bring us here? When are you going to let us out? I think we should be out doin something else, not just sitting here in this white room. Are you guys hungry? We should go eat. Then we can figure out what we want to do next. But seriously, you're gonna have to let us out."

That's how my white room plays out. If you guys can think of any more types or if you think the situation would be different in your point of view, please comment and I'll consider them all.

Crazy thoughts

I've been thinkin alot lately. You know, the kind of thinking you do instead of doing homework. Well, I guess some people do homework to avoid the kind of thinking I do, but I still do the thinking instead of the homeworking.

It's crazy how the little ironies in life come together. In an attempt to be as vague as possible, I'm sure you know what I mean. You go about living your life working your jobs, doing your school work, meeting new people, starting new hobbies, form relationships, eat food, take dumps, and whatever else. But then, in hindsight, you look at the way things turn out and you say to yourself, man, knowing what I know now, I wish I could go back and do it again. Or you say, man, i'm really glad things worked out, even though I had no idea what I was doing.

And you think back at the time when you purposefully did something, knew how it was going to turn out, but now, regret it. Maybe you went in with no expectations, completely expecting disappointment, but having it turning out to be the most wonderful thing in the world.

My advice to people has always been to not dwell in the past. Things happened the way they did for a reason. At least, I want to believe that. Because if I don't, and if I don't convince others who think like I do to do the same, then the future is going to suck.

For alot of people.

Crunch Time.

Tenth week of summer term is coming up. Tenth week is the last week so that means for some classes there will be finals, for other classes, last minute assignments to "prepare us for the final".

I'm not gonna say how hard it is or how stressful this next week is for me. I'm a procrastinator, I procrast because I'm lazy. I also fully understand the repercussion of me doing so. With that said, and since I can't claim it to be hard or stressful, i'm just going to bitch.

Within the next two weeks I have to:
-Write, rehearse and prepare powerpoint for a speech that will be presented on Monday.
-Finish programming assignment this Tuesday for easy class.
-Finish programming assignment this Wednesday for not so easy class
-Finish programming assignment by Thursday, followed by another program by the Tuesday after for a really hard class.
-Not fail psych test.
-Not fail Japanese Oral Final (Whatever I get on the final is my grade for the term).
-Not fail any of the comp sci classes' finals.

When I wake up tomorrow, it's going to suck.

Girl features that are hot.

This post has been done, but it's more up to speed.

Girls that are tech savvy.
I think girls that know how to use a computer the way nerds do are money. If some girl came over and was like, yea, you should open ports blah blah blah on your router and then download this FTP server program i use (which would solve a huge problem i'm having), i'd be like, wow. What are you doin tonight?

To me, a girl who just uses the computer for surfing the web and typing up reports is just senseless. Ok, here's my overexaggerated example: It's like a girl back in the day when phones came out going, "oh my stars, how ever will i figure out how to use this device?" and some big strong man comes over and goes, "Have no fears, lady, I will dial for you." *flex*

It's not just computers though, cellphones now have thousands of different features.. i cringe when I hear a girl go "yea, i just use it to call people, I haven't even bothered trying to do anything with it."

Girls that can cook.
What the hell happened to this species? Girls don't know how to cook anymore. They expect men to do it. They expect to eat out all the time. I'll cook you a meal, sure. But can you cook me one?

I mean, i understand the fact that in twenty years, both my wife and I will probably have to work. But, someone has to feed the kids. I don't mind sharing that responsibility, but if my girl is retarded and can't cook up a wholesome nutritious meal for my kids... well, let's just say she won't need to worry cuz she won't be the one i'm having kids with.

Girls who can be independant but prefer to rely on a man.
Ultimately, girls who are independant are hot.. but unfortunately, being an independant girl pretty much means they don't give a shit about a guy and can probably wait it out until some perfectly handsome, smart, rich, powerful man comes along and sweeps them off their feets (and, in my opinion, breaks their heart afterward, because just because he's perfect, doesn't mean she is). Which is depressing, because I can't fill shoes that big.

But those attractively independant types who are like, yea, I'd rather have guys around because I feel safer, it makes me feel needed. Best of both worlds, I can be confident that they can handle themselves when i'm not around, but at the same time, I can fulfill a role in their lives.

Girls who read my blog.
Seriously, no joke. If some girl is reading my blog regularly, please let me know. For you to be so interested in what I have to say makes me interested in what you have to say. You're hot because you are interested in my life.

Come get me.

What is going on in my world??

Today has been so crazy. Nothing happened to me, but alot of things around me are effed.

First, my boy who owns a cellphone store told me that some black kids came in and stole a couple of his top of the line display phones. That's a hard hit for someone who's just starting a business.

Second, my other friend calls me at 1:30 am telling me that he blew two tires in Camden of all places. Blow two tires at 1:30 in the morning in Ghetto Camdem on a rainy night and no immediate way back to Philly? Jeez.

Third, my other other friend IMs me just now saying he got beat up by a bunch of 40 year old korean fuckers who are allegedly in some triad or gang or gay frat. As pathetic as that sounds for 40 year olds to be beating up on college kids, it happened. Luckily my friend is a pacifist so if their alleged gangsterdom is true, it might be for the best to take a couple hits and to get away with no major harm done.

So as you can see, everything around me is whirling around at high speed, like the fuckin wind of Hurricane Charlie donkey punching the crap out of the coast of Florida.

I'm surprised nothing happened to me. I'm afraid to go to sleep now. Knowing my luck, my bunk bed is going to collapse on me and i'll get crushed.

A little explaination.

The last blog needs to be justified. I didn't actually put any description or background for the verses, so to the blind eye, it's probably just a cheezy, corny, somewhat clichè poem.

The fact is, I wrote those words on the fly, no correction, very little tweaking, and surprisingly, to a beat in my head. Yea, it's suppose to be a song. Still, a rather cheesy song. I'm just curious though, on those who read it.. did you feel like singing it?

Well, go back and read it again.. put it to some music. What kind of song is it? What genre?

I'll give you a moment.

Alright, what do you think? Because, unusually, in my head it is a country song. Yea, freakin weird right? I don't even listen to country music. If you were like, hey, sing a country song for me, i'll sing the same country song every else knows. That's right. Don't break my heart, my achey breakey heart.

A country song? I just don't think you understand.

Angel From Heaven

Angel from Heaven, sent from above,
She came down to Earth to give me her love.
A touch from her lips, made me wanna fly,
Sending me soaring high in the sky.

Her long straight hair blew in the wind,
Her bright cheery smile was hardly a sin.
She walked down the street happy as can be,
She walked on over just to see me.
She was singin, "Hi, how are you?"
I looked at her, she was too good to be true.
She smiled again, a twinkle in her eye.
If I couldn't be with her, then I might as well die.

Angel from Heaven, sent from above,
She came down to Earth to give me her love.
A touch from her lips, made me wanna fly,
Sending me soaring high into the sky.

We walked through the city, a classy little pair,
Didn't want it to end, so I said a little prayer.
I told her all the things I thought she wanted to hear
I was so focused that she told me not to stare,
She said that all she wanted was to be close to me,
Out came my heart, it was finally free.
I wanted to cry but I smiled instead,
I looked her in the eyes and this is what I said,

"You're an Angel from Heaven, sent from above,
You came down to Earth to give me your love.
A touch from your lips could make me wanna fly."
She did just that and sent me high into the sky.

Tennis readdicted. Or. The sprint away from the flash storm.

Ever since last weekend when I played tennis at 7 in the morning, I have had this urge to play. Today, we drove out of our way to buy tennis balls, then, ran around trying to find a tennis court. Upenn's campus was filled with pretty dorky losers who only wanted to play tennis to be cool. We waited around, didn't find anything interesting, and headed toward Drexel's Tennis courts.

Drexel's courts are incredibly nice. I was surprised. I had no idea that there was actually a parking lot, so the fact that it's sort of far away isn't that bad at all. We got there and found half of the tennis courts empty. It was fun.

As the sun was setting, dark ominous clouds rolled in from the west. Lightning flickered in the sky and we kept saying "just one more. Just one more." The clouds covered what little dusk lighting was still available, and we decided to pack up. We could smell the rain, it was coming. Kevin began bolting toward the car.

I jogged slowly, not too worried. Then, from behind me, I heard the rustle of leaves. Then, more leaves, then even more leaves. I didn't need to look back. From the increasing sounds, it was easy to guess that the rain had started pouring behind me. I began to sprint across the soccer field between the tennis courts and the parking lot.

The sounds grew louder, the rustling turned into large obvious splashes. Before rounding the gate to the parking lot, I turned around to get a quick glimpse. A literal wall of water had formed and was coming straight toward me. The tennis courts were completely drenched already, when just ten seconds ago, it was dry as... well, a warm summer's day.

I screamed to kevin to get in the car, forgetting that I had to hit the remote to even unlock the car. I fumbled between my keys, my bottle of water, and my tennis racquet. The car beeped, a most welcome greeting, and I opened the door and jumped in. As I went to close the door behind me, the wall of water came, and the left side of my body from my shoulder to my thigh was completely drenched. It was no more then a second of rain exposure.

The parking lot in the next minute turned into a shallow pond. I'd say about 3 inches deep.

A little rain isn't going to scare me though. I still want to play tennis.

I just woke up(3 am).

Well, let me explain to you the situation. Thursday, through my own self indulgences of video games and anime, I didn't sleep until 8 am. Woke up at 12 for class. I did all that stuff, came home, started the cool down phase for you know, napping or whatever. Next thing I know, Kevin is calling me, saying that his group was going to watch a movie and asked me to come. Sure. I can handle a movie.

Midnight comes. We go eat our late night dinner. Next thing I know, the girls decided to play tennis at 7 in the morning. We get home at about 2 after all the driving and dropping off-age of people. Sleep at 3.

Wake up at 7. Sure, I can handle tennis. I can always crash later. But then we decided to go to Atlantic City. And then we didn't. And then we did. And then we didn't. We went to King of Prussia instead.

Get home at 5 pm. Crash at 8 pm.

And here I am wide awake, fully nocturnal, and ready to do what else? Watch anime and play video games.

The cycle is complete.