random and new contest

My obscenely powerful laptop confuses my supervisor with its speed.

It's a long and boring story, but it was kinda funny at the time. Everything worked out in the end. Oh and he gave me a laser printer for free, although the connector cord was somehow lost in transit so I've e-mailed lexmark to ask them for one. This is really ridiculous... I had to pick the printer up, move it about 15 paces from his office to mine next door, then go back for the power and USB connection cords. The USB connector was not there. We both looked everywhere, several times, to no avail. I surmise that it has vanished into the ether, along with my "the matrix" soundtrack and collection of metal pen tops, and many other things over the years. It may be for the best since the cable was frayed and looked like it wouldn't last much longer anyway.

I bought a USB flash key today... 2Gb for $130. It's freakin' tiny. I'm comparing it to a piece of "trident" chewing gum... it's the same length, about 1.5 times wider, and 1.5 times thicker. And that's with the protective "skins" and the cap on. Good thing it comes with a lanyard. No, I don't wear it around my neck as a fashion statement. Although since it's the peak of the tech, I'd surely be the most stylish of the geeks if I did.

There's lots to post about today. I got a hilarious e-mail from Joe that I'll share with you all soon. But I'll allow a day for the complex yet subtle nuances of this post to sink in first.

It has occurred to me that a good new contest would be the following:
What's the most annoying thing you ever lost. It could be annoying because it was of great value (monetary or emotional), or because you had it two seconds before and it vanished, as my printer's USB cable did, into the ether.

Socks are prime media for entering the ether (and are the only known objects to occasionally return from their adventures), I think the heat and whirling action of a dryer is particularly effective at attracting the holes in our universe that allow access to the ether. But the holes are only big enough for socks in this environment (think of the bubbles in a blender full of water; the blender cavitates the water and makes lots of bubbles, but they are small and fleeting). Other suggestions or theories that you've come up with regarding the ether and access to it are welcome. Or choose from this selection of rather star trek-ish suggestions, compiled by me with great scientific rigour, i.e. off the top of my head: Wormholes, mini black holes, galactic-fabric discontinua, temporal flux (a favourite), subspace rifts, or eddies in the space-time continuum (yes, but how did he get in there?...). Oh and I suppose the book and concept of "The Borrowers" can explain this, but that's hardly science. Jenn's suggestion some weeks ago of "sock gremlins" (was that it?) is certainly worthy of note. Perhaps these gremlins dwell in the ether. Maybe Eddie himself is a gremlin.

Thus Ends Transmission.

PS "Galactic Fabric Discontinua" would be a fantastic band name.

Greetings loyal subjects.

I apologise that you haven't had a note from your king in some time, but I've been very very busy. Taxes, nserc forms, becoming a member of APEGGA, looking for apartments, dealing with course stuff, preparing for labs, reading, writing letters, meetings, and particularly geothermobarometry have been taking up my life this week.

And I still haven't sent Joe his birthday present. I'm really sorry Joe, I swear it'll be with you soon!!!

APEGGA is the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta. I was not really interested in becoming a member at first, but then I saw that it allows me to stick the letters P.Geo ("professional geologist") after my title and degree, and more importantly I may get a sweet deal on car insurance as a member, to the effect that owning a car might just be a possibility. I just need to fill out an application form and stuff, and then apply to a certain insurance company that has this deal with APEGGA. In any case I wouldn't get a vehicle until after the field season.

The weather has been awesome here for the last five days or so. 6-8 degrees every day and sunny. The rabbits are out again, in force. I saw four last night near my house, and they're starting to develop brown colour on their backs. That or they'd been rolling in all the mud. Biking on Sunday was ridiculous... I went into the park for the first time (on bike), and spent three hours fighting through the most horrendous sticky mud ever. It was so sticky that it increased the diameter of my tyres by several centimetres, such that it was being peeled off by the forks and the frame, and the brakes. This stickiness also stopped it from flicking up at my coat, so my coat is still clean. My pants, socks, and shoes are not, but they're all old and I don't care. It took half an hour to clean the bike when I got home.

My tellular cellaphone stopped working for no readily apparent reason on Saturday afternoon. I'd been speaking on it that morning and it hadn't left my desk. It's fine in all respects except that it gets no reception. I took it with me biking, in case a tower was down or something, but from the top of the hill with a panoramic view of the city there was still no signal. Took it back to the store Monday night. The surly clerk threw it into a bag to send it off for fixing, and gave me a crap replacement. It's bulky, heavy, low tech, and has no scheduler (I may be screwed). I'm liable for a totally mind bogglingly ridiculous $400 if I lose or break it. It's not worth a tenth of that. What a fucking scam. Ten days I'm stuck with it at least. So it's staying at home. I'm not bringing it out with me at that alleged value.

BAH! enough ranting/complaining. Good day to you my people.

Friday fun

It's Friday and that's awesome. I have a meeting with a supervisor at three (15 min from now) and I'll be heading to the grad lounge at 5 for beer and dinner, and beer. I decided not to replace my blogger photo with the one from the previous post because I look like I'm about to murder you all, and also because the photo needs to be much much smaller for blogger to allow it, and I'm a lazy lazy man.

Please take five minutes of your day to laugh and relieve tension. Here's a python sketch I'd never seen/read before to help you. God it's funny.

In brilliant awesome news I got my nserc grant and will likely get a nicer apartment for next year. No car though, I did some math and discovered many things to convince me it's not worth it. Even considering the fact that a car would be more to me than just transportation.

Time to roll the rim...

Damn. Only one win so far this season: a donut.

I have discovered the terrific joys of "three cheeses" pasta.. you know it's like pasta containing cheese. Chiefly my love of these things stems from how much they facilitate laziness, here are the instructions:
1) Obtain pot.
2) Obtain water, place in pot.
3) Place pot on stove ring, apply maximum power.
4) When water boiling, place pasta in pot.
5) Wait 5 minutes or so... or whenever they taste right.
6) Eat like a starved madman.

You may well say that these instructions are very similar to your regular pasta cooking instructions, but yet... out of the same amount of work you get a full meal, not just part of one.

These are almost as easy as the canned stews and soups I so enjoy. Perhaps soon I'll combine the two meals into one awesome feast, at little expense of my valuable slacking time.

Should be 6 degrees and sunny tomorrow. This calls for biking.

Cheers mates!

I republished my entire blog and now I can see it all again. Although apparently none of you had any trouble with it. Weird.

Finally, the results of the parental advice suggestions:

Best one ever: "Don't be freeze until you see penguins." (translated from Spanish)
Although she didn't credit herself I believe it's Tobin. So congratulations!
Runner up: "Never pee on an electric fence."
From Jenn. This is of PARAMOUNT importance, especially to us guys. Thank you Jenn, I will never be able to look at an innocuous wire fence the same way again.

Took this picture of me recently to replace my current one for the blog. In order to get it online I'm just gonna post it here. I'm not a fan of "hello" or whatever. The "camera in the mirror" style is Travis'. I may replace it though, because I look absolutely furious about something. And I've had a haircut.

This weekend rocked; we went drinking for Patty's day, and last night went to see V for Vendetta. Please see it, it was awesome. Then we can discuss Orwellian control structures and governance, and how best to avoid them as a society. Hugo Weaving is brilliant.

Cheers mates!

Strangeness

For some reason I am still forbidden to view my blog. Why does the system hate me? Thus I'm still unable to review the suggestions from the parental advice thing... forgive me please!

I just watched the Swedish rally from last month, downloaded through bittorrent, of course. It was terrific, with some incredible driving and an awesome race for third between an Italian and a Swede (fighting for his first podium finish ever, and on home turf too). It was a rally through snow and ice, and saw a fair few wrecks and rolls, but as usual nobody was injured. It's always hilarious, though, when on the onboard camera they bleep out the swearing in languages I've hardly ever heard spoken, like Finnish.

[Car heading for bend at high speed.]
Navigator: "Haank eratlooonefsn, derrrptnoorkt..."
[Car enters bend too fast, the tail catches the snowbank during the slide and spins the nose in, the car flips onto it's roof, breaking all the windows, and slides through the deep snow. The navigator is almost buried, upside down, in snow that flies in.]
Navigator: "ka-funmkee stoghllllenna torrristooonten!"
Driver [fiddling with fuel cut-off]: "BLEEP!!! Herrasuuma flornsch!!! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!"

Then I tried to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix race, also downloaded last night. Unfortuately the version I acquired is not the typical production with the british announcers which is at the very least understandable, if not always the most scintillating reporting. No, I somehow got a version in portuguese, which I cannot understand a word of. I catch a driver's name every now and again but I have to rely on the ticker/pop-up info, which is in english (must piss of the portuguese viewers), to understand who's in what position or who just spun off. After about five minutes it had pissed me off enough that I just skipped to the end and watched the last lap. The Honda team is my favourite, even though they probaby won't win this year. They have Button, the young skilled Brit, and Barichello, talented but generally always overshadowed by Schumacher during his last seasons with Ferrari. On Sunday he didn't do well, finishing 15th. Button was fourth. Kimi Raikkonen was third, Schuey was 2nd, and Alonso won it.

Anyway, my 20-ish knights are seeking those that would lock me out of viewing my site, and will commit horrible deeds against them unless they unblock it. In more reasonable parts of my mind... it has occurred to me that if I get 403'ed, it's very likely that you all do as well. Therefore, at the moment, this post is pointless.

meuh.

Midday blog thing

And hence, the King opened a new Firefox window with ctrl+n, and he did indeed access his bookmarks, for to click upon "The Everyday Happenings of Grum", such that he might review the parental advice suggestions from his loyal subjects. However, all was lost, as the site spake the fateful words "down for maintenance". He considered the possibility of seeking out those perpetrators who were thus responsible, whence he decided to send instead a score of his most highly trained knights to deal swift justice. In the meanwhile, he was still able to enter new blog entries, and did thus, with intent to log his glorious exploits for all the interweb to observe.

And hence it was.

For details read previous. To save time read this one.

The famous "Via Appia" was of course known in the army as the "Appia Pipe."

If you get that joke, let me know. I bet none of you will.

In other news, the previous post was way too long. Here's a nice short recap:

I got drunk on Friday night at several venues.
I went skiing on Sunday at the most awesome ski hill ever.
Today I used the electron microprobe.
Plus other rubbish about auto racing games.

As a followup: NFS Most Wanted sucks for physics model. As such I bought the xbox (no, not the 360), with Forza motorsport, and a wheel. I'd rather have material goods than a slightly higher number in TD bank's computers.

Cheers mates!

Awesome Weekend

Hello friends... sorry, again, about the lack of posting.

First, there was nothing. Then there was beer. And then Grum chugged that beer within 4 seconds, in honour of Andrew's and Joe's birthdays. Although Joe wasn't there.

I only did this once on Friday, but I still drank a hell of a lot. It started after "FATS" (Friday Afternoon Talk Series), which was a really good talk about the Permian-Triassic extinction (the largest known, during which 95% of species became extinct). We (about a dozen grads) went to the Grad Lounge for drinks and dinner at about 5:30, and it was good fun. At 6:30-ish I left to grab a quick shower at home and change, and then headed downtown to an Irish pub called "McCools", where Andrew (geo buddy from UNB days, whose birthday we were celebrating), Will (friend of his), and a friend of their's Leslie had been eating. After a couple of pints we headed to Rich's house (another new friend) for more beer, and drinking games, at which I had my boddington's (which is great stuff), and Andrew got really hammered on gin and tonics. Then we went down the street with a bunch of the other people who were at Rich's place, to a bar called [something beginning with 'T']-house. I want to say "Taphouse" but that's not it. Anyway, there I showed off my chugging talent, and everyone got thoroughly loaded. Andrew and Will especially, possibly since they had both recently split with their girlfriends. After leaving that place we went over the street to another bar called Molly Malone's, where we soon got kicked out because Will was mindlessly (but still deliberately) pushing glasses off the edge of the table and smashing them. He wasn't angry or anything, it just seemed like an interesting thing to do at the time... Being a good friend I helped Andrew home, and slept on his spare bed since the buses and c-train were no longer running, and I had no cash for a taxi. Saturday I wasn't too hungover (I was able to eat and keep down a huge greasy breakfast, which is unusual for me), but still tired and basically out of commission for the rest of the day. I watched bond movies on my computer (note: Timothy Dalton sucks as bond... he's too angry, not suave enough). I went to Will's place at about ten that night with all my skiing stuff, as we planned to leave at 6:30 for a ski hill 2.5 hrs drive to the south, called Castle Mountain.

The drive was clear, the day was beautiful. I have never seen snow like that back east.... even right after a serious snowfall. The problem back east is that the mountains aren't as tall or as steep, and they groom everything. This was the proper skiing through untouched snow... and I can honestly tell you it's very hard work. It puts a lot of strain on your legs, ankles, and back because you have to force yourself to turn in the deep soft snow. But it was the most awesome skiing I've ever done. Being unused to it I fell several times, but never badly since it's so soft. But the steepness meant that skis could fall down the hill a long way, despite their 'brakes'. For true powder skiing I need to get to one of these hills first thing in the morning after a big snowfall. Also I need my own skis, since the rentals were complete rubbish. They were heavy yet flappy, and the bindings were rubbish. Plus the edges were far from sharp, and they seriously needed waxing. The lack of speed didn't bother me so much, but the lack of good edges was quite concerning at times (eg when I failed to turn properly on the steepest slope I have ever skied, bar none). This, and their refusal to put the bindings any tighter than level 6, combined with my lack of experience with this stuff to cause my many falls.

Regardless it was an awesome day and I was super tired by the end of it. I slept solidly for like 11 hours last night. Pictures may be to come, but I fear my camera was (again) in the wrong focus mode for most of the day. I've done this way too many times. Another particularly bad time was the day shaggz and I went biking in Tuscany. I lost like 15 pics of tuscan countryside.

Was on the probe this morning, looking at muscovite. It took three hours to properly calibrate the machine, and pick our points to run. Then we found out that it was likely (due to very high Na in the muscovite) that the mineral was altered and would be useless for geothermobarometry.

Bah! Oh well. I have grand plans to purchase an xbox tonight, but I may chicken out at the last minute, when standing before it in best buy. They have a pretty good deal on the old ones; $200 gets you the machine, 2 controllers, and 2 games. One of which may be Forza Motorsport, which is presently my motivation for getting the system. I've tried out demos of most racing games available for pc, and the best physics models still can't reach the level of Forza. One more to try later today before going out is Need for Speed Most Wanted. I tried it in a game store a few weeks back but found the simulation totally unrealistic. With any luck there are different levels of driving realism (I found this to be the case in a rally game I got in January).

Sorry about the long post. I will endeavour to get back into the habit of writing more often, that way I can keep the length down.

Cheers!

Piracy is good

Hi all! This be just a quick scratch in the ship's log 'afore I go cycling through the snow.

I do a hell of a lot of downloading of stuff these days. Illegally, of course. It now seems that the MPAA is suing search engines that provide links to bittorrent files (not the actual files themselves). And consequently there's been a lot of internet chatter about it. A comment in the isohunt forums made a rather apt analogy; it's like you're asked directions to the bank by someone, that person then goes and robs the bank, and you are arrested as an accessory. Although I suppose they will argue that a) you are aware they will rob it, and b) you are sending millions of people to do it every day. However, other good points have been made, such as the fact that just because a file says it is a particular movie/tv show, that in no way means that it is what it claims to be. There are innumerable false files out there that could actually contain perfectly legal content, and also files that could appear to contain non-copyrighted content that actually are pirated movies. The contention then, of course, is that in order to know for sure, someone has to download every single file to see whether it is illegal or not. Of course this is ridiculous, considering the millions of files available (a few dozen terabytes of data).

Anyway, instead of fighting the trend towards rapid direct distribution of audiovisual media, the industry should embrace it, as it is the new wave. If you want to hear an Australian professor's opinion, which I think is very sound, read this article. He basically presents a viable economic model for the new distribution system that keeps everyone happy and doesn't require that anybody sues anybody or even go out of business.

You can also download a video recording of the lecture, through bittorrent of course.

Cheers!

Ceilidh

I went to the geology dept Robbie Burns day Ceilidh last night (yes yes yes a month late). It was great fun with lots of scotch, scottish dancing, and of course haggis. There was a live celtic band playing (who have been doing the geol dept ceilidh for 15 years running) and a piper too. Basically I was there to finally meet some people, since it was the first social event for the department since I got here. Thus I didn't drink much. The event was an hour's walk away; luckily I got a drive home. I hadn't meant to walk the whole way, but while I was walking not one single bus with a number that could get me there appeared. Probably because it was snowing heavily so they were all behind schedule. Made the walk quite nice though.

I'm out of food basics again, like beer. Also milk, bread, margarine, cereal, and eggs. So I'm going to the co-op cause I really want some toast right now. Might go biking out in the direction of the Irish Cultural centre just to explore those neighbourhoods. There's so much suburbia out here it's ridiculous. The entire walk last night was suburbia. Every time I've gone biking I just can't seem to get away from it! Except for the three shopping centres and the university, and the corner stores, this whole NW region of Calgary seems to be suburbia. It's huge. Basically the city can be divided into three parts; the commercial district downtown, the industrial district to the east (south of the airport), and everything else, which is suburbia with the occasional mall/shopping centre, university, or park. Oh yeah there's also the native reserve in the southwest, but it's only partly within the city limits. I suppose most cities are gonna be like this, but here I just find it amazing how there's so much housing (that all looks exactly the same) for middle class types.

I watched the simpsons episode where they move to Globex Corporation's Cypress Creek perfect town just now... it's possibly the best one ever. Hank Scorpio is a brilliant character, and I think that the perspective on the typical "bond villan" is absolute genius.

Enough for now. Cheerio mates!

meuh

I've become such a blog slacker. I guess probably because it takes three extra clicks to get to the "create post" page to create new words, rather than the one it takes to get to the blog page to read my old words which are, of course, sheer literary brilliance. But seriously, I haven't had much to write about. And now I could spend ages telling you all gleefully about my new clothes in great detail, my trip to the music store (I left empty handed, unless you count the $4500 I saved by restraining myself from getting the keyboard setup I want), or TAing yesterday, but I won't because you won't find it interesting and I don't want to bother.

I must apologise to those I usually chat with in the early (for me) evenings. Since the Bond series download finished on wednesday I've been doing the same thing every evening; I get in around 6 or 7, make dinner, and eat it while watching a bond movie, and maybe an episode or two of simps. Thus it's usually 9 or 10 by the time I'm free to chat... and you've all gone to bed. So for the last week or so I've been incommunicado with ma peeps from the East side.

Haven't been able to bike much because as soon as I put my bike back together the weather decided to remember about Calgary being in a fairly northern climate... and has dumped about 40 cm of snow over the last week. I went biking several times anyway, but the salt will damage the bike so I'm going to limit my cycling acitivities until it's not so snowy/slushy.

I've realised that my rip to wrench exit signs off the ceiling has nothing to do with my mood at the time; I can be quite happy and relaxed, and still I'll see one and feel compelled to wrench it down. I guess I just know that whatever the situation it would be a very satisfying thing to do.

Someday I'll do it for real.

Tonight is Robbie Burns night for the geo dept. Yeah we're late but who cares. $2 single malts, haggis, and all sorts of scottish-type things.

Soon I'll post the results of the somewhat lacklustre parental advice contest.

Cheers mates!