Because I like talking

It might have been my most impulse-driven purchase this year, but today I finally got myself a domain name, SomeJerkTheMovie.com (no need to type it with caps but it looks better that way). I also set up a blogger account for it, which you can see here.

Curling: After two days of curling class, as opposed to the Open House which was more of a basic demo, we're still having a really good time and we're getting better. At the end of the last one my team (which Pyg dubbed something that sounds like The Fighting Berungee) participated in a 2-end game (think 2-innning). We tied 1-1 and made a few good shots. I was the skip; I think I did a pretty good job but there is plenty of room for improvement. I'm definitely looking forward to next time (tomorrow night).

Gaming For Hope 2006 is officially over with (well has been for a few days but ya know). It was as usual pretty stressful but this year was definitely an improvement over last year, a good trend that we seem to be following. The new tourney software worked pretty well and I think given a little more time to train other people on it things will be much better. Nina ended up doing most of the work for it this time because once she figured it out everybody would just ask her to do things for them. I could of course use it too but was usually busy with other stuff.

Went to check on my ING account and saw this in the "recent history" area: Mar 31, 2006, Interest Rate Change from 3.735% to 3.929%. Bonus. Granted it's not like now I never have to worry about money again but the fact that went up at all is pretty awesome.

The big topic as of late: the apartment. Nina and I are definitely renting it, we just need to find out if Andrew will be joining us. The landlord said he'll hold it for us until we can get Andrew over there to look at it. His grandfather died so he's not here right now but it looks like waiting won't be a problem. I'm not sure if I want him to say yes or no at this point. On the one hand it makes things cheaper for us, but on the other hand I'm really getting use to the idea of Nina and I having somewhere to call "our place." I guess we'll just have to wait and see, and my money is on Andrew saying no, based purely on the average skin color of the people you see walking on the street.

So, look what I did this morning. I suppose I'm supposed to say it's because I was bored with it or Nina told me to get rid of it or something but to be entirely honest it was a complete accident. I was just trimming it as usual and I guess I got lazy. At any rate, all of a sudden I only had half of it, and if I had tried to even it up on the other side I would have looked utterly ridiculous. I guess I look fine without it, but I'm still pretty sure that I will immediately grow it back in. In theory I could put it to a vote in the comments section, but I probably won't for two reasons. One, I'm not quite full enough of myself to think that all of you out there care enough about my face to participate in a democratic process. Two, I would just ignore the vote if it didn't turn out how I wanted, which would be a bit of a dick move.

P.S. I finally got the curling videos off the camera. I'm afraid I was pretty lazy with my camera, so it's only Nina, Pyg, and Kershaw. Mike took forever to go on his and I'm no video editor so it's a pretty large file (17 Meg I think). Grab it here if you wish.

First and foremost, I have this to say: I rock at curling. Okay well maybe it's too early to tell on that one, but several of the old dudes at the curling club told me I was picking it up very quickly, and I certainly enjoyed it. But perhaps I should back up on the timeline. Porkchop found out that the Norfolk Curling Club was having an open house this past Sunday. We formed a raiding party consisting of me, Nina, Porkchop, Kershaw, Pyg (who is apparently named Jeff, who knew?), and Sean (IBM, not MCCS). We were expecting to be six of ten or so people that showed up, but everyone involved (including the club) was shocked to see something like 60 or 70 people show up. We watched a quick video explaining the basic delivery and then worked through some practice drills and eventually tried some full-length curling, which was made much better when they let us try wearing a teflon slider on our front foot. This made things a lot smoother (and falling a lot easier). Eventually most people went home, and Nina, Porkchop, and Kershaw went into the lodge to watch, and it was down to me, Pyg, Sean, three other kids, and one club member, so we had a couple "real" ends (innings). We lost 2-1, but it was a lot of fun. I did pretty well throwing, but Sean and Pyg put me to shame with the sweeping. I kept falling behind the rock for some reason. As un-cool as it sounds, I highly recommend that anybody who has the opportunity to try it out does so. The nice thing is that nobody looks good when they're trying to learn so even the un-coordinated fit in just fine. I have some videos which I'll post sometime later.

Other things:
We're more or less in the home stretch for this semester, and I'm really looking forward to the end of the semester for several reasons: the end of this "loose ends" semester, the start of my summer internship, and the end of my tenure as President of MCCS. It's not that I don't like MCCS anymore or that I've stopped caring, it just wears on me having so many people count on me when most of the administrative types who I depend on don't help me. I wouldn't mind so much if it was just a matter of me staying on top of things, but I hate when my members are counting on me to come through and nothing I do will matter if the Media Center decides not to give us any projectors. (I guess I should have put Graduation on the list of things to look forward to but I still haven't convinced myself that I'm excited about a hot day spent wearing a black robe and an uncomfortable hat...)

Got a 97 on my second exam in Calc III, so now I just need like a 90 on the third exam plus a decent homework average to be exempt from the final.

Tomorrow we find out how the Algorithms mid-term went. It's 40% of the grade, and we need to get reasonably high marks for Master's classes to count, so I'm a little anxious to see that one.

Got to see my car for the summer and/or next semester. It's a Ford Tempo from the 1988 vicinity with 25k miles. That's just stupid low. It's a little ugly and it's got those annoying automatic seatbelts, but if it saves me from having to buy a car of my own until I have a full-time job I'll be ecstatic.

Back on the hunt for an apartment. Any future prospects will not be ruined like the last one. (And if anyone in the Poughkeepsie area knows of a decent 3-bedroom let me know.)

First the funny. We're doing the apartment search thing, and I just talked to a prospective landlord about we three viewing the apartment, and he said Friday is good and he's very flexible about times. His explanation was that he's a Poughkeepsie City Cop and (I quote) "I'm always very mobile, so as long as somebody isn't killing somebody else at the time I should be able to swing by for a few minutes and show you the place." Great stuff.

Now the awesome. Finally got my official offer for the IBM internship this summer, so everything is set. And it's a very good offer, too. I know that some people get all weird when it comes to discussing who makes what and all that, so this sentence serves no other purpose other than giving those people plenty of time to stop reading now so they don't see how much I'll make and get all huffy about it. That said, I apparently get a daily wage this year instead of an hourly rate, but assuming eight hours a day, the math works out to $27.29 an hour. Kershaw's new salary will still whallop that, but needless to say I'm pretty pleased with it.

Every once in a while I see one of those ads for ING Direct and say to myself that I should see what they're all about. Chris (co-worker at Marist) has apparently had an account there for awhile and likes them. So today Mom and I were talking about how I will probably need to buy a car soon and I decided to actually go to ING's website and get the details. Apparently all you do is set up an account there and link it to an existing checking account that you have at another bank. And then you can transfer back and forth. They're FDIC-insured up to $100,000 and the 3.85% interest is close to triple what I get with my Rockville Bank savings account, so I set up an account. Very exciting.

This is such a great spam message I had to share it. The subject was yelling about saving 90% of all my software purchases or some such crap, but the body of the message was incredible. Here it is:

thats suddenly friends did. least studied letters.
why disappoint very pride make? fascinate arms allow the somewhere studied. a motor servants.
tying fire anybody, wanted night whom somewhere?
allow motor purpose end happened? am night wife? end commit reply off supposedto pride,
wrong is already development, companion force reference tying off.

That first bit almost reads like a haiku. It's great.

Marriage and Family: top of the syllabus: "Marriage has been under attack in this country for the last seventy years." Words from the professor as we left class: "Have a happy and holy weekend." Enough said.

Calc III: Unfortunately Dr. Kirtland's father died recently so Dr. McGrail covered for him for the week. I learned nothing that wasn't covered in Graphics, and that promises to continue for a while.

Algorithms (Masters level this time): same damn class, but taught by a professor you can understand, and the final and mid-term are 90% of the grade.

Robotics: how can this not be awesome? Check out the first bot made by me and Anthony, otherwise known as Team Omega Force.

Lewis Black is coming to Marist February 19th. That makes Stephen Lynch, Dane Cook, and Lewis Black in three years. We win.

I talked to a guy at IBM on Wednesday about working in the Linux Technology Center for my next summer internship. More specifically it would be working with Xen in a speed team. Speed team basically means four students working together under the supervision of a full time IBM person. I have no guarantees yet, but things sounded positive. I might not know for sure until January, but that's still a heck of a lot sooner than the April I had to wait for last year.

We have a mailing list provided by the school for the Computer Society. I use it to send out the meeting reminders and that kind of thing, so all of the members have my email address (the GMail one). I get very few replies to my meeting reminders, but before big events I tend to get some questions or suggestions. But this is way better than any of that. One kid, Daniel Mayer, sent me an email entitled "Fwd: Fw: 6:33 PM Today." Good start. I figure it's a virus or something lame but I'm on a Linux machine at work so who cares. Here's what it was:

Chain letters are a nightmare when you know people who are superstitious. Feel
free to delete this if you're not interested.

GUARDIAN ANGEL

Forward this message the same day you received it
It may sound ridiculous, but it is right on time
We believe that something is about to happen. Angels exist, only sometimes
they haven't got wings and we call them friends; you are one of them
Something wonderful is about to happen to you and your friends.
Today at 6:33 pm somebody will address you and tell you something you have
been waiting to hear.
Please do not break this chain. Send it to at least 7 of your friends.

And it has an attached image, which I put here. Adorable.

But stick with me, my story gets better. Check out the header for the original message:

From: dmayer@senate.state.ny.us
To: karlquis@senate.state.ny.us, spowers@senate.state.ny.us, larose@senate.state.ny.us, dschmidt@senate.state.ny.us, lehan@senate.state.ny.us, daniel.mayer1@marist.edu, pmayer02@nycap.rr.com

Well done, state senator Mayer. So I look at the rest of the people that got it the same time I did. Let's see: Grandpa Bob, Sandy Mayer, Mathew Taylor, Nick Romanelli, Jay Gagnon, Deborah DiCaprio, John Gildard. Starts off normally enough with a grandfather and I'd assume a mom or aunt, then some kid I don't know, then my Secretary and me. But the last two are the Dean Of Students and the Director Of Security for Marist College. This is one upper-echelon chain letter.

Now that I type it I guess it's not as amusing but I just think a chain letter that starts in the New York State Senate and reaches both Grandpa Bob and the Marist College Director Of Security is pretty amusing. It's just too bad I can't tell the story at the meeting tonight without totally embarassing the kid.

That Snickers ad with the guy who wears a bunch of Snickers as a wig is so great. The thing that really makes it is when they show him take it off in his car with the sad song in the background as he completely breaks down. You feel so sad for him for like half a second and then just laugh. And that's good advertising.

For weeks, my Nexium has been trying to pull my stomach out through my belly button every morning. It's unpleasant. So I finally talked to Dr. Schwartz about it, and he switched me to Prilosec OTC. I started Sunday (two days ago). It's 20mg versus the 40mg in the Nexium, so it's half the cost, and it's a slightly different active ingredient. I don't know if it's the lower dose or the different ingredient, but this morning I woke up with just a little hunger twinge, had a reasonably large bowl of Gerber Oatmeal for Baby (it's so good) and feel fine. Maybe even good. It honestly feels a little weird, almost like I didn't really eat anything. I'm pretty happy about it.

P.S. Should be a couple more entries soon; I've been meaning to get around to writing about a few things but I've been pretty busy.

The nice surprise: a letter from Capital One informing me they're automatically upgrading my card to a Platinum Points card. Essentially, they send me a new card (with the same number), I call a number to say I'm gonna use it, and I start earning a dollar a point. Interest rate and all that stay the same, but I never carry a balance anyway and now I actually get something out of using the card, which is good considering how much a use the damn thing. My target: in the 5000+ points range, a George Foreman 8 in 1 Toaster Oven/Broiler/Rotisserie. Well, not really, but you have to admit it sounds awesome.

The questionable decision: giving these Algorithms homework assignments the heave-ho. All the homeworks combine to be worth 15% of my grade, and this class has long ago been certified as "pass it and move on with your life." Any future assignments that I actually can finish I'll give a shot, but the two outstanding ones are so ludicrously long and difficult (plus I'm just not very good at this class for some reason) I'm just saying fuck 'em. Tonight I decided my time is better served preparing for my two upcoming tests or working on any of the three final projects currently hanging over my head. No exaggeration (I think) it's either get a B or B- in all four classes or three As and a C. I don't even know (or care) which is better for my GPA, but I much prefer to look at the report card that says "Jay is rather smart but sucks at Algorithms" than the one that says "We cannot prove that Jay is dumb." I realize that the proper good student way to handle this is to just dedicate my entire life to school so I have enough time to get As in all four, but it would most likely result in the alienation of several friends and possibly the dissolution of my relationship with Nina. Fuck that, I'll take the C.

I bought We Love Katamari.

I made popcorn in the microwave today, and when I went to get it out I totally locked up, because staring back at me in the very spot I was going to grab the bag (the only available spot really) are the words "DO NOT HANDLE BAG FROM THIS END." But that was the only end available. I was just gonna grab it, then I picture the trip to the emergency room: "You grabbed it anyway? What kind of lunatic are you?! They put warning there for a reason you know." I turned the microwave back on for three seconds to spin it around. Crisis averted.

Links galore!

Apparently, Sammy L is making another terrible movie. This one is called Snakes On a Plane. Jeffrey Rowland over at Overcompensating made a great comic about it, and my coworker Chris came up with a T-Shirt design after seeing the comic and thought it would make a great shirt. He actually printed them, and is selling them here. It's fully known that he doesn't have the fanciest or easiest purchasing system, but as he explained it to me the selling part is just a way to cover printing costs of a minimum run. Basically, the "business" is just a way to allow him to say "that would be a great T-Shirt," and then actually be able to make it. I bought one, because I think it's a great idea and a pretty good shirt. The quality of material is top notch American Apparel. I want him to send one to Jeffrey Rowland.

Capital One has repeatedly denied my request for a balance increase, even after I've passed the one-year mark for flawless use of my anemic $300 limit, so today I decided to force their hand and call the "I'd like to cancel my account" number. Ten minutes later, I'm still with Capital One and I have a $1000 limit, finally allowing me to fit all my books onto one purchase. I'll probably use this card another 6 months to a year and then move to one with some rewards on it. I would also shoot for lower interest but I have never accrued any so it could be 1000% for all I care right now.

Played a one dollar tournament today. It started with 1424 players, with the top 160 paying out (granted 160th got three bucks but still). I used a few lucky rivers, some good hands, and some good betting (thanks Ogre) to finish 119th. I went all in with AK, got called by a guy who had like 4 times my chip stack and some other dude with a little less than me. The dude with less had A6 so I was in good shape over him but the other guy had pocket 4s with would have put me at a coin flip if that other jerk didn't have one of the Aces I needed. Nobody hit anything and the guy with fours won a ton, putting me out. And with a payout of 3.87, minus my 1 dollar entry fee, I got paid about a dollar an hour. And it totally rocked.

This week I've had pretty much nothing to do so I've been playing a lot of freerolls at pokerroom. Freerolls are tourneys that are free to enter as long as you have deposited real money to your account at some point. The max number of players is 2400, and they always fill up. This summer I played some and finished 1300th at my best. This week Jeff did a little tutoring in one and I (we, really) finished 175th. It seems something stuck after that. The next one I finished 134th. I played another one tonight.

So I was doing pretty well, then got caught by some guy with three queens or something and I'm down to 2000 chips when the average hand is like 2600. Fortunately I battle back and all of a sudden there are only 93 of the original 2400 people. I'm in 18th place and I have 45000 in chips. And I get pocket Aces, so I go all in. I get called by a guy with 80 grand. He flips over AK. This is almost perfect for me, because he can only beat me by getting two more Kings or a straight. He hit the straight on the river, to become a massive chip leader. Ouch. That Jack didn't come, I was chip leader and check-folding to the top 40 (money), probably the top 15 (more money). Instead I finished 93rd with no money. But hey it didn't cost me anything so whatever. And it was damn exciting.