steffo42

Okay, so I'm not going gung-ho INTERNET JUSTICE on my roommate. He might be a pretty crappy person, but that doesn't mean I've gotta get goony revenge fantasies about it. Besides, it sounds like he's been turned down for unemployment anyway, and we've managed to throttle back his torrenting just by casually suggesting that the FBI will find him if he downloads more than one movie a month, no need for us to get screwed over for impersonating a federal agency.

Still, the more I get to know him, the worse he turns out to be. He's apparently buying silver coins at under their market value because he's so convinced that the dollar's going to plummet and his money's safer in silver. He's got Jehovah's Witnesses books about the "Great Climax," along with a stack from the Left Behind series. Oh wait, not Left Behind, but "Left Behind: The Kids." (He is twenty years old.) Everybody's out to get him - teachers, landlords, and of course the government. It'd be one thing if he actually was christlike and benevolent, all trying to convert people before the Rapture or something, instead of stealing shit to sell on eBay, presumably to finance his fallout shelter. Any fun ideas for screwing with this guy?

So, our new roommate is a Bad Person. I don't mean this in the way that most people complain about their roommates, e.g. "he talks too much," "he's got terrible taste in movies/TV/music/professional sports teams," or whatever. (My roommate last year was obsessed with terrible reality television, but we got along great when it came to the important stuff.) No, my roommate (let's call him "Joey," because that is his name, and I don't give a fuck about incriminating him) is just a complete scumbag. The evidence:

During the summer, he works at Dorney Park, an amusement park back home. Despite it being a three hour drive each way, he continued working there every weekend until the season ended. This alone isn't evidence of his scumbaggery, but his reasons for doing so are:

• Every week he's come back to school with at least one new cell phone that he's found at the park, eager to sell it on eBay instead of turning it in to the lost and found. He has gleefully boasted about this to us, bragging about the fact that his girlfriend worked at a ride notorious for emptying people's pockets.
• He works until the season ends in order to be "laid off" by the company. At this point, he files for unemployment, and brings in $400 a month for doing nothing, spending it on parts for his car while he's a full-time student.

These would be pretty despicable acts on their own, but it gets worse. Every conversation with him has painted him as an unabashedly selfish hypocrite. While going to a publicly-funded school and collecting unemployment, he has:

• Claimed, on separate occasions, to be a libertarian and an anarchist
• Declared that California's referendum system for tax law is "the way it SHOULD be!" while I was in the middle of explaining to him why California is so utterly bankrupt
• Asked me if campus jobs would pay him under the table so that he could continue collecting unemployment and wouldn't have to pay taxes on his income
• Told eBay customers to "get a job and stop living off welfare for once, not everything in life is free!" after he backed out of sales of items he offered free shipping on

And, naturally, he claims to be a Christian. (Though, I've seen him leave Jehovah's Witnesses materials laying around. Maybe this kind of behavior goes along with their beliefs? I'd appreciate it if anybody could shed some light on this.)

I could go on, but for now I'll just close with this gem from his facebook profile:



I'm not sure I can add anything to that.

Point is, my other roommates and I are already sick of him, and we'd love to free up his bed for my girlfriend. Ideas so far:

• Get him busted for fraud/tax evasion/whatever. He's probably admitted (very proudly) enough stuff to us to be worth some warrants. At dinner the other night, he did say he'd be looking for a job next semester... but that's probably a lie. I wouldn't be surprised if he was already getting suspicious of us, except for the fact that he continued to brag about his stolen cell phone sales.
• Exploit his paranoia to scare him off. He already thinks the government is reading every email anybody ever sends, and that they can find any data you've ever had on a hard drive. Despite this, we can't get any bandwidth when he's home, because his sole hobby (apart from illegal street racing) is pirating and watching shitty movies. (I caught him watching The Phantom Menace last week. Seriously?) How hard would it be to set up a server on our network that would throw up a phony FBI notice when he tried to go to Pirate Bay/Mininova? Even if he didn't panic and flee to Portugal/swallow his cyanide capsule it'd just be fun to watch him squirm.

More suggestions are welcome.
 

World of Goo is one year old, and they're celebrating with a sale - name your own price for the Windows, Mac and Linux versions. I bought it last year on WiiWare, but I'm throwing them another fivebux so I've got something to play in class. Er, I mean, on the bus. Or something.

Anybody here have experience with (or heard from others about) the collars from Collar Factory? They look like they might be a little flimsy, but I can't really judge from the pics; plus, I don't know which might feel better of the faux fur or lambskin and all that.

And no, it's not for me. Not directly, anyway.

1 Kings 3:16-28 (New International Version)

A Wise Ruling
16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

19 "During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."

22 The other woman said, "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours."
But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine." And so they argued before the king.

23 The king said, "This one says, 'My son is alive and your son is dead,' while that one says, 'No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.' "

24 Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."

26 The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!"
But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!"

27 Then the king gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."

28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

hey a desktop meme


i think there's questions but i forget what they are

Every now and then I get these... I'm not sure what to call them. It's like the opposite of a lucid dream - I'm awake, but I can't realize it. I'll wake up early, usually a few hours before I'm supposed to be awake (4 or 5 onward) but sometimes earlier... but despite being awake, it's still like I'm dreaming. I'll carry on conversations with imaginary people, in strange scenarios... despite the fact that everything I see is unchanged, that it's obvious that I'm lying in bed. It's so persistent, too, irrationally so - I'm aware enough to glance at my phone, see what time it is, decide to stay in bed... and go right back to my weird hallucination.

This morning I was awake before 6, despite only having gotten to bed around 1 or so, and spent about an hour staring at the Caps Lock light on my keyboard while trying to ignore somebody apparently leading a session on how to effectively use Twitter. Am I cracking up? Slightly schizoid? Or do I just need to stop mixing alcohol and caffeine before bedtime?

Not that it has to be said, probably, but I am stressed as hell lately. I had a good weekend, which I might write about later, and it definitely seemed worth it at the time, but I should have gotten ahead on my work, first, instead of expecting to catch up on it. The longer I live, the more I understand why my father is the way he is.

Missed my first classes of the semester yesterday and today. I'm staying home sick right now - typing this while my chicken soup heats up. Woke up with much worse sore throat/congestion than normal, felt feverish on and off during the day. Condition hasn't changed much; though I don't get the chills too often, I'm really feeling weak and trembly right now. Hoping this isn't H1N1, I've got big plans for this weekend.

Haven't been posting much because I've been too busy with the real world. I'm doing loads better than I ever have here; I'm sitting up front, asking questions in almost every class, keeping up on assignments, maintaining a proper schedule to make sure I don't miss anything. It's so strange, actually knowing what's going on in my classes for once, instead of last-minute-cramming for every assignment, quiz, exam. I haven't been this on top of my studies since elementary school.

Maybe I'll write more later. For now, I've got to eat this soup, do my probability homework, and listen to the new Muse album a dozen more times.

I'm pretty sure I listened to the new Muse album literally a dozen or so times today. It is that good (if you are a huge Musefag (to use the technical term) like me). And you can listen to it, too, if you sign up an account at http://www.muse.mu !

I like the philosophy they seem to be following - once the music's out there, it's out there, there's no avoiding it, so we might as well give people the easiest way of listening to it so we can at least advertise crap at them while they listen to it. And if you do buy it, we'll throw in a bunch of other crap! I preordered the iTunes LP as soon as I knew The Resistance would be using the new format - track commentaries, exclusive videos, nifty animations and crap. Yeah, I know I could probably torrent the content eventually, but dammit, I like being legit sometimes :< Helps that iTunes 9 has some decent upgrades. The new visualizer (which might have been in 8, I have no idea) seems like it was designed specifically for this damn album.

Act I:

Act II:

Act III:

First week isn't going so bad, though I can tell things are going to get rough quick. Helps that one of my profs isn't even in yet, so I'm short three credits for this week anyway. I've raised my hand and contributed somehow, either with a question or an answer, in every period of every class so far; this seems like a good way to keep up on things.

Got my MSDNAA account activated again, now that the semester's started, meaning free Windows 7 RTM (:D!). No more worrying about my RC installation poofing come next year. Right now I'm splitting my hard drive between Vista and the 7 RC; plan on switching to 7 and some kinda Linux installation (though my VirtualBox VM has been getting the job done pretty well). Looking forward to Snow Leopard, too, though I'm going to wait 'til my friend's copy comes in before I get it, since I'm not sure how much of an improvement I'll really see on a first-gen Core Duo Macbook. When I do reformat, I plan on dualbooting Linux on this thing, too. And no, not just for the nerd cred (but mostly). I need to be able to claim experience with everything, dammit.

I'm very tempted to go to the local high-class pub for something called Beerfest tomorrow; apparently it's a 5-hour all-you-can-drink event with all the finest craft beers and microbrews. On the one hand, I do love me some classy beers; on the other hand, from some angles I appear to have a double friggin' chin now. Maybe I'm exaggerating but maybe that's a survival instinct that should be obeyed.

I've given up hope on finding my iPod Nano. Any suggestions on cheap, yet semi-decent MP3 players? Something that plays FLAC would be awesome. I can't justify spending more than a hundred, considering how often I lose this kinda crap.

Todo list for the weekend, for my own benefit:

Classes:

• Probability: Today's assigned homework. Do it Saturday while it's fresh.
• Technical writing: Asst. 1, rhetorical analysis. Should be easily done at work Sunday evening.
• Music: Download some of them sweet-ass Bach fugues.
• Electrical Engineering: Shoot self in head for taking a major that requires this shit Do as much of Asst 1 as possible; if problems the knowledge for which have been covered in class can't be completed, find office hours and plan on being there.
• Computer Architecture: Email prof about why the damn homework hasn't been posted.
• Operating Systems: Kick back and enjoy the fact that our prof still isn't here.

Other stuff:

• With new 3V-compatible LCD, finally get MSP430 hooked up, see if my awesome circuit works; if not, debug to best of ability. If lab is open tomorrow, get in and use logic analyzer.
• Go for a run Saturday, plan running routes for MWF mornings while at work on Sunday.
• Organize files on both computers in preparation for the coming reformattings.
• Either get my Google Calendars set up for SMSing so I can keep better track of my todo lists or, if that's insufficient, get started on my own twitter-enabled app to do it for me. I'd like to do that either way, but honestly, 19 credits + 2 jobs + 1 semi-internship-sorta-thing is already pretty heavy?
• Do up a daily schedule for each day, to be stuck to like glue, plotting eeeeverything out. Breakfast, planning time, social time, work time, everything.
• Play a video game or several video games.

Roommates back this weekend, school starts tomorrow. These will be the toughest courseload yet, but as long as I talk to my professors, stay involved, and make sure I make the right choices, acknowledge that I'm here to learn and all else is secondary, there's no reason I can't do all right. Attitude and self-discipline, that's the key.

So this is what I did with my evening. Was gonna get it set up as a terminal for my Linux VM, but VirtualBox doesn't seem to play nice with serial ports, oddly, the simplest damn thing you could ask of it. Anyway, 'til I sober up and figure that out, any suggestions on games/software to download for it?

Oh, also, traded icons with robocoon. This icon has supplanted Drinky Crow as my drunkposting indicator. What? You didn't realize that every post with the Drinky Crow av was written while I was at least partially wasted? Go back through my journal and relive the memories!

Last week before school starts. I work at 8 am almost every day this week - it'll be a great way of getting back into the routine. (Just can't fuck it up over the weekend.) Need to have the apartment back into a respectable condition before roommates show up this weekend, though. Here's the plan:

• Monday: Clean bathroom, buy books
• Tuesday: Clean kitchen, visit prof
• Wednesday: Clean living room, my room (retreat from roommate's side)
• Thursday: Vacuum, dust, find out what that horrible cheese smell is

I have a feeling the best possible thing I could do for myself this semester is to withdraw a bit from the online community. I'll still keep up on LJ, sure, and the FA watches and all, but on my own terms; you'll hopefully see me on AIM less often. I've noticed that my productivity increases vastly when I don't have a half-dozen distinct conversations drowning out my thoughts. It's just such a strange concept to be connected to the internet, yet disconnected from AIM; after all these years, it's like the two are one and the same.

Was going to write up my weird dream I had this morning but aaaaa coworkers are suddenly surrounding me what's going on

c. 250 BC: Archimedes of Syracuse, while getting into the bathtub, discovers the principle of displacement, cries "Eureka!" and runs naked through the streets.

2009: Steffo T. Steffington realizes, while scrubbing his junk, how to drive a 44780 LCD in 8-bit mode with only 3 pins and an 8-bit shift register. He, however, puts his bathrobe on before running to the computer to tell everyone, thus demonstrating an intelligence magnitudes beyond Archimedes' and supplanting him in the annals of bathing-discovery history.

(lol anals)

just went running in a flash flood
it owned

Okay got a week and a half before school starts and lots to be working on. Need to collect my thoughts here a little.

Things that MUST GET DONE:

• Clean apartment. Find filter for vacuum if possible, if not, just handle everything else, i.e. turn the workbench back into a dinner table. Have new roommate's side empty before he gets here, find permanent place for the Apple II, if possible.
• Renew/return library books.
• Buy textbooks.
• Wash and return police uniform. (finally quit, yaaaay)
• Return to normal sleep cycle. No more staying up past 1. (wasn't this a summer goal dammit)
• Make some legitimate progress on the prof's project and come back to his lab to go further. Avoiding it for feeling guilty about avoiding it simply does not make sense, agh.

Things that I'd like to accomplish:

• Finish that Python book, get a start on Factor, some kind of stack-based language. Yeah, I don't know either, that's the point.
• Do something with that Apple II to legitimize its presence in the apartment. At the very least, hook it up as a Linux terminal; ideally, do something truly unique, like a demo (ha!) or a Twitter apple (ha ha!).
• Construct a damn circuit already. I didn't buy you all those components for nothing dammit
• Get back into running/working out routine. Just a couple weeks with a friend here made a huge difference, but now that I've fallen out of that routine (and been making enough money to drink semi-regularly :s) I'm going right back up. Lifestyle changes, dammit. 8:00 class TR, but 10:00 MWF; if I got in the habit of getting up early every day of the week, I could get done with my workouts before classes, three times a week. Now I've just got to stop staying up til 4 in the morning with internet friends, fffff

I'd expect a site called College Humor to be a bunch of lowest-common-denominator dreck, like an eBaum's World for frat boys; I'm always surprised at how they're not only pretty clever and original in their self-produced material, they also happen to be a bunch of wonderful goddamn nerds.



Also, I own all of these games. I'm not sure how I feel about that. :s