| < July 2003 | Matthew Loar > Blog | September 2003 > |
The 21st-Century Rough Riders.
Currently reading: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Already read: Casino Royale, From Russia with Love, Doctor No, Goldfinger, Moonraker
Planning to read: Why England Slept
[Editor's Note: This blog is conserving creativity for college admission essays. Therefore, this blog will be devoid of creativity until further notice. Meanwhile, we are pleased to be able to bring you this lifted content.]
A - Age: 17
B - Best Quality: Patience
C - Choice Of Meat: New York Strip Steak
D - Dream Date: Marathon coding session
E - Ex (most recent): Ex? As in explosion?
F - Favorite Food: Pizza
G - Greatest Accomplishment: Creating an operating system that actually implemented preemptive multitasking (really!)
H - Happiest Day of Your Life: When Josh told me TV Land was showing MacGyver
I - Internal conflicts: I don't have any. Yes, you do. Shut up!
K - Kool-Aid: Tropical punch or lemonade, occasionally cherry
L - Love: What everybody's got to do to somebody sometime
M - Most Valued Thing I Own: Swiss Army knife. It could save my life someday!
N - Name: the grand exalted Gooshiemeister, programmer extraordinaire
O - Outfit You Love: Whatever comes out of my closet on a particular day
P - Pizza Toppings: Sausage, pepperoni, and green pepper
Q - Question you want to ask: If all waves require a medium to propagate through, how does the light from the stars reach us through the vacuum of space?
S - Sport To Watch: Baseball, because it's simple enough for me to understand
T - Television Show: MacGyver, Stargate SG-1, Monk
U - Unique habit: Talking to myself, then slapping myself and shouting, "Shut up, you idiot!"
W - Winter: Break!
Y - Year Born: The last year that Halley's Comet was here
Z - Zodiac Sign: Aquarius (this is the dawning...)
Yay, my first day of school as a senior. Kinda scary, actually. It's like, why am I taking all of these classes, when I need like 2.5 credits to graduate? And I'm like, oh yeah, I need them to get into a good college. And why do I want to get into a good college? And it's because I want to get a good job. And why do I want to get a good job? And it's because I want to make enough money to retire. And why do I want to retire? And it's because I want to enjoy a few years of life before I DIE.
Oh, how melancholy. That's not really it. I want to go to a good school so I can learn stuff about computers, so that I can start my own business, and make some true innovations in computing. Imagine a computer that didn't require a nerd to keep it running, and yet was affordable and interoperable. Oooh, look, a big brass ring!
Today was OK. Not much to say about my classes until Computer Programming. All of the students were mystified as to where I came from, but it looks like I'm in good shape. This year, the AP exam is in Java, not C++, so we'll all be learning a new language. I, however, have worked with object-oriented languages before (namely, C++) while the others have just worked in C, which is not object-oriented. In that respect, I'm a little ahead of them. It should be a fun class, however.
What made it interesting, however, was when a messenger came in and handed me a troll. Really. It had pink hair, and here I am, getting this troll amongst my fellow programmers (all male, but of course), and thinking, "What the heck is this for?" I read the card, and discovered that the good doctor's reason for giving me a troll was because I had worked registration in the bookstore. You'd think I wasn't getting paid for it or something. Then I have Mr. Elliott for Auto. That should be a fun class, but Mr. Elliott scares me. At least it will get me into VICA. Then Econ was fun.
More fun ensued on my bus ride home, but that's a topic for another day, if I feel like posting it. I can only say that I am glad that the coming weekend will be three days long, as it will take me that long to recover from the trauma of starting my most stressful day yet. And that's not even including Key Club stuff, which is a topic for another blog altogether.
Meanwhile, there is a pink-haired rollerskating troll available to whomever
would like it.
Woohoo! I just got both my sound card and my 10/100 network card running on Sandy. I rock.
I'm making progress on the homework. The journals aren't actually due till Thursday, but I want to finish them tonight. And the first chemistry chapter isn't due till Friday, if I read the sheet correctly.
I don't want to go back to school. At least it will mean that I'll see people,
and Key Club will be meeting again. So much to do...
Woohoo! I just finished that infernal novel. My joy is beyond words. Now I just have those stupid journals, and the chemistry.
Meeting with Kyle tomorrow to fix his network.
I believe AMD was the first stock I ever bought. If I'd known then just how
good an investment it was, I would have sunk my entire savings into it. But
hey, that's the nature of investing.
I am hereby boycotting any and all other works by ANY of the Brontës.
I have to finish reading it, and then do the journals for both works. At least the journals won't be too difficult, once I actually sit down and do them.
If I read the chemistry assignment correctly, it's not due right away, but I still want to finish chapter 3 and tidy up the first two.
I am determined not to be mad for putting it off, since:
1) I didn't actually put it all off until now, just one lousy book, the journals, and 1.75 chapters of chemistry.
2) I object to summer homework on principle.
I'm considering writing a satirical romance novel, using the same language but
with a modern setting. I think I'll do that once I'm done writing my operating
system.
In case you missed it, here is Jen's email. Of course, this is my blog, so I had to annotate it.
_ There are three kids from Willowbrook- Libby Marcowitz, Caleb Reese, and Diane Reyes. Everyone else is intimidating. _
Wow, three people from Willowbrook. At least you know some people. I doubt that I'll know anybody at whatever college I end up at. I'll probably just have to befriend the IMSA kids.
_ My roommate is Roxanne. She's from California, San Francisco (which makes that song about San Francisco run though my head all the time)_
Which song? The one by Scott MacKenzie? "When you're going to San Francisco..." That one? That's a cool song.
_ Attached to my dorm is a seminary (oh, to be in Catholic college) which is completely odd for someone who went to public school her entire life._
It could be worse. Could you imagine going to the "Catholic University of America?"
_ My computer, brand new and bought by me, is shiny and useless and even more intimidating than my classmates._
Your computer cannot possibly be more intimidating than mine. And I built mine.
_ Classes start on Monday and one of my classes is in a building which does not actually appear to exist._
Which class?
_ My room number (by the way, as of now, my phone doesn't actually work, in the sense that we have no dial tone, but hopefully that will sort itself out soon) is 1-773--*_
Are you sure the phone is plugged in?
_ My cell is still 630--* and I get reception everywhere on campus except by this one building and by my dresser (only my dresser) in my dorm. _
Obviously, your dresser is possessed. You should burn it at the first opportunity.
_ My email is @luc.edu and my regular email is obviously *@yahoo.com (write to either) and my screen name is ***, although I doubt I'll go on AIM until my computer is less evil._
I'm sure your computer is not evil, unless, of course, it runs Linux. No one without proper training in Computer Exorcism should attempt to use it. At MIT, all of the computers run Linux, because they're a good deal responsible for creating it. Which I guess means MIT is the source of all evil. Now I want to go there more than ever!
Have fun Jen!
It turns out that Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, the makers of Keep Your Parents off the Net, which Dave Barry linked to a while back, made a very funny sketch called
Welcome to the Internet Helpdesk. It's too funny.
Saw The Medallion last night. I guess it had a decent plot for a Jackie Chan movie. The outtakes at the end were the best part, though.
Going to a party tonight. Yay.
I still think that, in most cases, the amount of work I have to do is inversely proportional to the time I have to do it in.
And so it is that I proceed to this window of which you speak.
Today was the last day of registration. As a sort of celebration, I finally went to see Johnny English. Despite what the critics say, it was an excellent movie. I would recommend anyone that liked Mr. Bean should see it, if they can still find it. I can't wait till it comes out on DVD, even thought it won't be quite so funny next time. This movie proved once again that movie critics don't know the first thing about movies. It was definitely worth the money, even full price.
I don't have to work tomorrow! Yay! Too bad I still have to finish this stupid homework. Oh well. I've scanned in photos from the district convention, the 4th of July parade and the Positive Party, I'll post them to the Key Club site tomorrow, hopefully. I need to write a business plan and rethink my business model...joy. I'm thinking of doing a little shareware on the side, but SamAMac Messenger (formerly Instant Message This!) is the only program I have that is anything near a marketable product. I seriously wonder if I could ever get the Ziggy program (Georgia) to install on another machine. Too many components. Oh well. She still keeps me company.
This concludes my blog entry for this evening. As always, should you or any of
your IM force be caught or killed, don't call me.
OK, here it is, the Boston report:
First of all, I went to Boston with my sister Aimee. We flew Southwest into Providence, then drove to Boston. Well, the first thing we did was stop for food at a restaurant called Friendly's (they're all over out there). I got fish and chips, and then we ordered this huge sundae. Anyway, we discovered that Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was on the way to the hotel, so we stopped by to look around. It was really cool. The campus is all brand new, with really neat looking architecture. Then we continued to the hotel, the Radisson Woburn. When we got there, I watched Knight Rider on TV, prompting one of my sister's best quotes, "It's not science fiction, it's technical fiction." Anyway, later on we went to see "Seabiscuit." It was good. Anyway, the next day, we got up and tried to make it to the 10 AM info session at Harvard, but were late, so we just walked around awhile. Then we had lunch downtown and headed out to Olin. It's really cool. First of all, they give you a full-tuition scholarship. The facilities are brand-new, they emphasize hands-on learning, and the dorm rooms are really nice.
The next day, we got up and went to see the Harvard info session and go on the tour. It was kind of cool to see all of the really old buildings, but I don't know that I would like to go there. I just didn't like the feel of the campus. The tour was full of old stories and superstitions. I don't know, it just didn't seem like the place for me. Plus, Harvard has a cross-registration agreement with MIT...
MIT was cool. We started out by having lunch at the student center, then went to the east side of campus for the info session and tour. Something I learned is that the term "hacking" originated at MIT. And at MIT, hacking has nothing to do with computers. Hacks are these great pranks that people pull at MIT. They just have to be nondestructive, creative, and anonymous. Somebody put an MIT campus police car on top of the great dome, somebody else ruined the Harvard-Yale football game, and somebody upstaged the Boston Pops by turning the Green building (tallest building in Cambridge) into a giant equalizer. MIT really sounded like a great place.
During the rest of our stay, we also visited the Museum of Science. It didn't hold a candle to MSI, but it was fun. We also saw the city from high up at the Skywalk Observatory, and visited the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. We ate in a lot of restaurants. We also saw a couple strange traffic lights: red over yellow and a flashing green. Very strange. I really enjoyed the trip, though, and could very easily see myself going to college in such a city.
If you want any more details, email me.
Realized that school starts in a week. I guess it's time to read Wuthering Heights. Interesting tidbit: Mrs. Mattingly, the bookstore lady, says that Wuthering Heights is her favorite book. I hate it. It's just like my writing: archaic words and unnecessarily long sentences, but without the wonderful puns.
Have all of this Key Club stuff to sort through. Jen never gave me the stuff she said she had for me.
Just 8 more days until I have wasted $30 on my reseller account. Set up a new voicemail number for SamAMac: 206-350-INET. It's free. I like free. If I actually got some customers at some point, I could get a toll-free number for $2/mo. That would be cool.
Updates to just about every site and blog I run coming RSN (read The Cuckoo's Egg and this will make sense).
Going to watch a stupid last-season episode of Enterprise that I missed tonight. Also, practice "lateral thinking" with new book I got in Boston. Bronte and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may join in the fun.
Oh yes, and my Boston report. I'll do that tonight. Yes. That's it.
Cougars won 3-2. Go Cougars.
Didn't see any Key Clubbers, but did see a Wheaton Kiwanian. Apparently, Glen Ellyn and Elmhurst were there too.
The parking lot still sucks, but at least it's free.
Realized I never got my ID back at registration. Must remedy this tomorrow. Also never got an assignment notebook.
Boston report can wait one more day. I'm tired.
Eleventh-hour appeal: any Key Clubbers who are able should come help out at freshman registration, or else.
Buenas noches.
Well, it looks like I'm going to the game alone. Poor me.
It has come to my attention that the technology department at WB doesn't know diddly-squat about proper computer maintenance/usage. And they wouldn't let me work there last summer. Bah!
Apparently, this year the school is using edline.com. I just logged into the account I created today. Interesting.
AMD is up 14.2%. Coolness.
Registered today. School sucks. Got lock on locker before books pulled a Houdini.
Boston update to come tonight. Black Sheep Airlines renamed The Freedom Press. Template change coming. Considering creating domain for Italian Ghetto.
Had an idea while walking home today that would have been really cool, had I
been appointed Tech Chair. Foolish Simko. Don't mess with the Gooshiemeister.
I'm back...
Boston was great! I'd be more than happy to tell you all about it, but I have to go to bed so I can get up and work registration tomorrow (I know, me working! what a concept!). Meanwhile, we are pleased to be able to bring you these photographs:
I have to catch Phil and Chris tomorrow, as it appears that the baseball game
is not free. Figures. Stingy Kiwanis.
Blogger's supposed to go down in 6 minutes...
Last post before Boston. Don't know if I'll be able to post while there. On a lighter note, my sister Aimee and I agree that the American film industry only exists to ruin British novels. And HaloScan has gone down.
Au revoir, all!
Woman marries cosmonaut on International Space Station.
Does anyone else find it ironic that Micro Center uses dot-matrix printers and tractor-feed paper for their receipts?
Didn't go to Jen's party today, because my mom had this big stink about going if I hadn't received an invitation. According to Renee, a lot of the invitations weren't mailed. Bummer, really.
Got MS Money 2004 Small Business today. Now I can keep track of all the money that my business isn't making.
Kyle IM'ed me today. Now I realize how nice it was when he was never online, but it looks like he'll be on more often now. Shucks.
Going to Boston on Wednesday. Where did summer go?
I sent an email to Peter (Former Tech Chair Peter) in which I told him about
the spam on the district reflector. Well, he just sent an email on the
reflector basically saying that it was being disavowed. Go, Peter! He so
deserved the job more than Ryan.
Well, I was finally able to post my entries from last night. Stupid Blogger.
Positive Party went well. My team won "Bigger and Better." Then Chris came over so I could copy some stuff for him. Might be sleeping over at his house tomorrow night. Then I'm meeting with Brianna on Saturday. Next Wednesday I leave for Boston. It seems I'll have to go to school for my life to slow down a bit.
Call from Kyle earlier confirms my strong suspicions that Radio Shack guys work on commission.
Mom criticizes my Best Buy Reward Zone membership. I'm sure it will pay off in the long run. A lot more than my reseller account has so far.
Man, I'm tired.
Get this, a New York Times Reviewer criticizing the leftist bias of a
Discovery Channel Program produced in cooperation with the New York Times.
I actually caught part of this program, and I realize now how leftist it was
when it actually made me think that Jimmy Carter knew anything about
diplomacy.
I just realized I was supposed to invite Allison to the party, but never did. Rats! I've been busy. I went on a bit of adventure tonight. I went to Crystal Lake to find the Radio Shack, and it took me awhile to get there. They didn't have what I needed, so the guy suggested a solution involving drywall plugs, so I went to Farm & Fleet to get them, since I was going there anyway. For those of you that don't know, Farm & Fleet is a store that has everything. It's like The Home Depot, K-Mart, Best Buy, and Pep Boys put together. Plus they have a bunch of stuff for horses and agriculture too. It's huge. Anyway, I could find neither drywall plugs nor the other thing I needed. Oh well. Anyway, I've been installing speakers in the Harveys' house. The previous owners had wired the house for sound, but took the speakers with them. They also wired the house for just about everything else too. The basement is an electrician's nightmare. There's conduit everywhere, and a lot of that stuff that Kyle had a derogatory name for (of course, Kyle has a derogatory name for everything. Why does he want to work at "Rat Shack" anyway? My dad has funny names for everything, like "suicide cord." But I digress...) Anyway, then I was reprogramming their remote to get it to work with the stereo, and it spazed out on me. Not only did it stop working, but it froze up the satellite receiver, too. Fortunately, via my infinite electronic prowess, I got both the receiver and the remote working again, and I think I succeeded in reprogramming it after all.
Well, I'm heading home early tomorrow to get ready for the party. If anyone wants to meet me there 5:15-5:30 to help set up, I'd greatly appreciate it.
In other news, I've finished reading Twelfth Night, but I still have to really journal it. I've also started reading Moonraker. Why can't we read Bond novels in English class? My guess is it's because Bond novels fit into the first of Matt's Two Categories of Great Literature. Those categories are:
It's entertaining to read.
It makes some kind of statement about something mutable (society, the law, etc).
In my humble opinion, if you read a book that doesn't fit into either
category, you've wasted your time.
I realized last night that my monthly payment to interAdvantage would be due
tomorrow, and I still haven't gotten a single customer. I'm going to start
looking for those notices from the County Clerk in the paper and sending them
junk mail-I mean, advertisements. I'm also going to redesign the SamAMac site
again, and try and make it look a little more professional. I'm also trying to
come up with some kind of innovative gimmick to draw customers. Any
suggestions? I'll be sure to remember you when I take over the world.
This is just about the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Anyway, I'm up here at the Harveys. I spent most of today getting ready for
the board meeting, which went well. Chris kept interrupting with funny
comments, but somehow we got stuff done. Brianna has already sent the email
like she promised. Rock on! This is going to be the best year ever. Anyway, I
finally gave my fellow officers the gifts I had bought for them at Convention,
and they liked them. I'm getting together with Brianna on Saturday to go over
secretarial stuff. And so goes things on the Key Club front.
Yay! I was just looking through my site stats and noticed that Googlebot had
paid my site a visit yesterday (Aug 3). So I checked, and now my site is the
top hit for "SamAMac Communications." Unfortunately, that stupid ODP still
comes up first for "SamAMac." I should never have become and ODP editor with
that username. Darn!
I just got back from my aunt's house. We were finishing the job of rescreening her deck. Fun fun.
Anyway, I just got an email back from Michelle. One day before our committee
orientation meeting, I find out that she does NOT want to the Scrapbook chair.
Ironic, since she wasn't my first choice for the Scrapbook and my sister said
she would be a good choice. I've already made two promises, so that pretty
much means that Michelle will be the Membership chair, and Caroline and Emily
will be the Scrapbook Chairpersons, like I had originally intended. I still
have not had confirmation from them, so I'm hoping they'll show up tomorrow.
Otherwise, the Scrapbook Committee could end up under the competent leadership
of...well, I'm sure you know. No, I don't think I'd do that. I'd get Nina M.
to do it, depending on her sports schedule. If it so happens that she won't be
playing badminton or whatever in the months leading up to Convention, that
would be perfect. Sigh...I still have to get all of the literature and stuff
ready for tomorrow, and I just remembered that I don't have a black ink
cartridge. Also, I'm out of money. Whatever am I going to do?
If you haven't figured it out already, I've been posting a lot of links lifted off of Dave Barry's Blog. Why? Because I'm too lazy to write about my own stupid life. Not that there's anything to write about. BTW, the new Key Club site is up.
P.S. Check this out! WARNING: Contains some disgusting content. Viewer
discretion advised.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those that live with dreams
deferred and this guy.
Well, I am now using Sandy, newly equipped with a 10/100 NIC to post this
message to my blog. Today has not been a complete failure. Now to see if the
sound card crashes the machine again, like it did the last time I tried to
start it. Wish me luck!
Well, today has sucked. I got up at 8 (after staying up really late working on
my Linux box. Linux sucks. I replace my stupid NIC and I have to rebuild the
kernel) and drove over to Kyle's (I had agreed to drive him to go give blood).
Once there, I called him on the phone, and he's like, "Let me get some pants
on." So I waited while he dressed and ate breakfast, and then we set out for
Westmont. But he didn't even know where we were going, just that it was in
Westmont. I got him to Westmont, and then he called his mom. She gave us an
address, but when we went looking for it, we ended up in Oak Brook. So we set
out for the one in Glen Ellyn, only to find that that one's closed on Fridays.
Then he suggested we go to Panera Bread for lunch. I so should have made him
buy me lunch for my trouble, but I didn't. Then after I dropped him off, I
barely made it to the gas station on the gas my mother had assured me was
sufficient for my journey. When I got home, I discovered that Chris's
invitation had come back to me, due to the problem of what town he lives in,
which I thought I had corrected in the database, but apparently didn't. Worse
than that, the VP Post Office, instead of simply returning the letter to me as
undeliverable, sent it to Carol Stream, where it was postmarked and promptly
returned to Villa Park, wasting the stamp. How nice. It's not even 1 o'clock
yet...
You are Barbosa's happy side! While during the
movie, all we see is his general angst, Barbosa
actually is a quite happy person. He enjoys
watching rainbows and catching butterflies.
One of his favorite things is to hold tea-
parties, with the entire crew. its true he
can't hold his wine, but tea and crumpets are
his lifeforce!
Avast! What Pirates of the Caribbean Based Random Crossover are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla
| < July 2003 | Matthew Loar > Blog | September 2003 > |