roguelazer's website

I guess I've been neglecting this blog for a while. It's all right- nobody reads it anyway, so who's going to notice? But I'm a bit bored today, so I thought perhaps I'd post again, just for old times' sake. As you might be able to guess, I'm back in Fall River again; I'm home for the summer. I made it through my first year at Harvey Mudd College with my lowest grade as a B- (in Chemistry, obviously).

Not too much exciting going on since I got back. I spend a couple of hours every day taking care of my grandparents- driving my grandmother to see my grandfather at the nursing home/hospital, doing errands and chores, etc. It's not glorious, but somebody has to do it and I have a pretty free schedule. I ended up going back to the Country Club, mostly because nowhere else would hire me. Unfortunately, it's been a very slow summer at the Country Club so far, so I'm not exactly making much in terms of money. C'est la vie.

What else...? Well, I had a birthday a few weeks ago. Woo, I'm 19. Apparently, it's one of the uninteresting years between 18 and 21. Who knew? Anyhow, I got some good loot. Mainly, I got a totally awesome pair of Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones (sealed, circum-aural, etc.) and a HeadRoom Total BitHead headphone amp. Combined, they let me hear more detail than I ever dreamed possible in music. Of course, I've got to put them to good use, so I've taken my iPod Color and installed Rockbox on it, giving me the ability to play back my Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files on it. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in honor of my incredible new headphones, I've taken to encoding some of my music in FLAC format. It's not easy to tell the difference between q=0.7 Ogg Vorbis files and FLAC files, but for some things (Brian Wilson, Lisa Gerrard, and some others), the extra quality boost leads to really incredible sound in the headphones. And I've been listening to a lot of new music lately. Since I went to see the Richard Thompson show on Friday, I've been listening to a bit of his stuff lately. And for the last few months, I've been on a Dead Can Dance fling (including breakaways like Lisa Gerrard's solo albums). 's all good.

Perhaps you (my imaginary reader, that is) read this blog because of my up-to-the-minute tech information (that was sarcasm, if you didn't catch it). Well, there's lots of interesting stuff going on in the tech world. I guess the "biggest" thing since I last posted would be Apple's release of the iPhone. However, it doesn't particularly interest me. It's just a well-done smartphone, and, importantly, not one that I can afford. I would have been happier had they released a new Newton, but we all know that that will never happen. However, I am very impressed by the latest Leopard betas. Mac OS X 10.5 is shaping up the be a very well-done release. Perhaps I'll have to get me a new Mac this October...

Well, I'm gonna sign off. It's been fun, imaginary reader. Ciao.

Yep, I'm back in Fall River. The plane ride (Sat. Mar. 10) was, as expected, painful and long. But I am indeed home. Yay me.

I just read Chris Clarke's "How to Explain Things to Libertarians". It is officially an awesome piece of writing that I recommend everybody read - particularly those of you who may be tempted by the writings of Ayn Rand et al. But hey, I'm just a crazy leftist, what do I know?

As you may or may not know, HMC shares what is essentially a backbone line to the Internet. Sometimes, if you get it just right, that can mean really, really excellent things. As this photo shows. No, that's not doctored. If you go to some of my photos on flickr, you can see more of these insane speeds. And I just wanted to say that that is awesome.

As I sit in the VLSI lab waiting to meet with Prof. Harris and the rest of the Clay-Wolkin group, I thought I'd post my Geek Code on this blog. Ya know, just for fun.

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1.2
GCS/M/MU d-(+) s:+(:++) a18 C++++$ UL*++++>$ P+>++ L++++$
E--- W+++>$ N++ !o K w++(--) !O- M++$ !V-- PS+(++) PE(-)
Y+>+ PGP++(+++) t+ 5- X+ R tv b++++>$ DI+ D++ G++ e>++++ h
!r-->++ y-->+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

What's the matter with southern California, eh? It was 81 degrees Fahrenheit here yesterday! It's FEBRUARY! The way I understand it, that means snow and ice. At the very least, shouldn't it be cold enough to require long pants? Crazy weather...

So, only one more day left in the week, and I've only got two classes. Then it's the week-end! Woo!

I almost forgot to mention... I bought a guitar! I was looking for something small and dorm-room-ish and ended up narrowing it down to either a Martin Backpacker, a Little Martin, or a Baby Taylor (of either the mahogany or spruce variety). After playing all three, the Backpacker sounded like it was being played from inside a tin can and the Little Martin sounded like it was underwater. Both Babys sounded absolutely excellent, and I ended up going with the mahogany for its slightly richer tone and great look. So far, it's been treating me pretty well, but I'll keep you apprised of the situation.

Hello again invisible readers. Just thought I'd relate all of the terribly interesting things that have been happening lately...

• Chemistry test today. Could have been much worse. Trust me. Quantum chemistry can get hairy, but it didn't.
• Did some more work on CSS/PROFILE today. Eugh. Can't the various people who want to know about my finances (IRS, Department of Education, College Board, Harvey Mudd, Bank of America, etc.) just get together and only make me go through all of this once instead of a million times?
• Watched yesterday's House today. 'twas awesome, 'nuff said.
• Also watched yesterday's Stargate SG-1. I noticed that Claudia Black has full billing now, neat. It wasn't a particularly innovative episode, but it was well executed, which makes me happy.

Yay? I guess that's good stuff. Now I've got to go do some homework. It never ends.

I've just gotten around to upgrading my version of Beryl to the latest svn/prerelease (through the xeffects overlay) and, wow. It's a huge improvement over 0.1.4. Much faster, more stable, and more featureful. I can't get over how awesome tabs are (under the Grouping configuration). I have yet to find something they're useful for, but they're still totally awesome.

In other news, mechanics midterm today. Woo. Well, I suppose it could have been worse.

Okay, that's enough mucking around with the blog I suppose. I've got a chemistry section quiz tomorrow that I ought to be studying for.