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| Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - Third Time's a... Charm? | |||||
| Posted 11:59 PM (MST) | |||||
| Well, it's already the start of the third year. Crazy, huh? Anyway, we've already had our first power outage, many Nerf wars, many sessions of late night Smash Bros, and even some Rick Rolling. It's gonna be a fun year! | |||||
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| Friday, March 7, 2008 - Quarantine Zone! | |||||
| Posted 10:24 AM (MST) | |||||
| Special
Report from Ground Zero! Well, it seems that New Mexico Tech is being ravaged by an outbreak of a really nasty virus. It affects the stomach and intestines and causes "a rapid onset of vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps." Sounds fun, huh? It's called gastroenteritis and it seems everyone is catching it. The Student Health Center is constantly full with sick students. That's gotta be tough for the people working there! Usually this type of thing spreads silently and you just hear rumors that people are getting sick. Well, people start missing class too, but that's always the case with sickness. This time, they felt it was urgent to let the students know about the spreading pathogen by sending out two e-mails to everyone. They've also installed hand sanitizers in Chartwells. It feels like some sort of quarantine zone, I tell ya! It's like being trapped in a village where everyone is turning into zombies and the few remaining healthy humans are left huddled in a house with barricaded doors and windows and an armed shotgun while the zombies are screeching outside and clawing at the doors and windows! It's like a real life Resident Evil! I'm glad it's Friday, though! Spring Break will hopefully allow the virus to stop spreading around campus. Plus, those of us in good health can stay far, far away. I feel just fine at the moment, so my next move... will be to get the hell outta here! |
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| Monday, March 3, 2008 - Leaping Across | |||||
| Posted 11:50 PM (MST) | |||||
| All
right, here we go again! Well, it has been a bit since the last update,
but Spring Break is only a few days away, so everything's fine! In
other news, "The Hamdy Show" (a.k.a. CS 324) is still as
interesting as ever. I think I need to start a record for which class
periods he shouts his trademark phrase in. I'm pretty sure he does
it in every class, but maybe he'll miss a day or something. For those
of you unaware of his ramblings, his trademark phrase is "No
Free Lunch!" I swear, that's gonna be the phrase written on his
tombstone! Speaking of Computer Science, there are a few interesting news items and announcements released in the past few weeks. First off, in CS 222, our final project is all or nothing. This means no partial credit will be given for anything; if it doesn't work perfectly during all test sessions, you fail with a nice big zero. It's a little unnerving, but I think we'll be able to test it ourselves thoroughly. I'll definitely be spending at least a few hours in Visual Studio's debugger making sure that everything is doing what it should! Like Hamdy would say, "They say: Hamdy, if this doesn't work perfectly, you're fired! Here's your pink slip!" I guess that's the mentality. In more general news, I'm guessing that Toshiba's feelin' pretty Blu right about now. During the past few weeks, the high-definition media format war has ended. This means that consumers can now stand behind one format, which is good for the market. That media format, which won the war, is Blu-Ray, spearheaded by Sony. HD-DVD is dead. The big turning point was when Warner Bros. went from being format neutral to being Blu-Ray exclusive. After that, about 80% of the market was dedicated to Blu-Ray releases. From there, it just went downhill for HD-DVD. First, Best Buy and Netflix announced their preference for Blu-Ray. Then, the final nail in the coffin arrived: Wal-Mart decided that they would only be selling Blu-Ray Discs (BD) and DVDs from now on. A few days later, Toshiba (the main backer of HD-DVD) bowed out gracefully, if pain-stricken. Fire sales are now in effect, so if you're one of those guys who still owns ATRAC tapes, BetaMax tapes, and LaserDiscs, snap yourself up an HD-DVD player on the cheap! Now all that's left for me to do is to upgrade my PC with HDCP-compliant hardware and I'll be Blu-Ray equipped. I'm glad I waited until the victor was decided, since I would have gone with HD-DVD! Anyway, see ya next time! |
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| Thursday, February 14, 2008 - Lovers of Loving Love | |||||
| Posted 11:55 PM (MST) | |||||
| Ah,
Valentine's Day... what a great time to be at NMT, where everyone
else is single too and everybody just pretends it's a normal day.
How refreshing! So, yeah, today wasn't too bad. For the most part,
it was just class and video games, which is just fine by me. For a
few hours, a few of us got together and played some Super Smash Bros.
Melee, which was quite entertaining. Afterwards, we ventured to Chartwells.
Today they actually had some stuff that looked appetizing, including
a little table in the middle of the dining hall with cookies and frosting,
which was cute. Not a bad Valentine's Day, overall. In other news, the writers' strike is over, but I'm sure everyone already knows that. It's a bummer that most shows will have to wait until at least April to start showing new content. Some shows though, like 24 and Heroes, are just skipping the spring season altogether. 24's taking a whole year off! Whining aside, it's a good thing that the writers are back to work. It means food for their families and entertainment for us. Now let's just hope that the actors don't go on strike on June 30, which is when their contracts expire! I'm sure the studios will be trying as hard as they can to avoid that, though. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I implemented the site's new style to the archive pages and error pages, eliminated the archive index page, finished the minor parts of the design, and moved last semester's blogs into the archive. I'll try to keep up the posting, since people seem to enjoy it. The site is fresh and new and everything's working. So, I expect you all to check back often this semester! |
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| Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Pardon Our Dust | |||||
| Posted 11:59 PM (MST) | |||||
| Redesign
time! I spruced up the website a bit. I've made all of the major changes
now, however, I'll be updating some minor things around the site.
It's not yet finished, but I thought I'd present it to everyone early,
since it looks pretty good as is. So, send me an e-mail and tell me
what you think! On to other business! I thought I'd take a minute to mention that all of the progress Chartwells made last semester in actually becoming a somewhat decent place to eat has reversed itself totally. Now, they're even worse than before! Gah! It's really not-so-much about the taste of the actual food, but it's the selection. Last semester, you could choose from pasta, a pasta dish, mexican w/ sides, a main course w/ sides, asian w/ sides, sandwiches, salads, or standard lunch fare. For dessert you could choose from a healthy array of things, including a hot cobbler dish, soft serve, and ice cream. Now, it's either pasta, mexican, asian, sometimes a main course, salad, and standard lunch fare. They never have any hot cobbler anymore and their ice cream selection sucks! No one wants lemon and raspberry sherbet. That's why it sits there for days on end! Hello! I've had to resort to cereal twice this semester already... thank God they weren't out of milk like they usually are. It's all laziness. They never restock or check things. The milk containers can stay empty all day and no one notices. They can be out of forks and not have any more for thirty minutes! Geez. However, I should have realized one simple fact: It's Chartwells. I think that, among other things, has made me decide to try for an apartment in Altamirano next year. There's no question in my mind now. Other than that, everything's fine. Wait a minute, what's that smell... it smells like roses... hang on, no, it's chocolate...wait, no, it's candy...oh no, that's not it...that is the smell of Valentine's Day! Run for your life! Every single for his/her self! The sugary sweetness and romance is coming! Arm yourself! |
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| Monday, January 28, 2008 - The Smell of Burning Metal | |||||
| Posted 11:59 PM (MST) | |||||
| Well,
I finally got the scoop on what happened over the weekend with the
whole "lockdown" thing. Apparently, some crazy townie with
a vendetta came onto campus at midnight and set a car in the Fidel
parking lot on fire. He then proceeded to walk around campus brandishing
a gun and striking at eye-level windows like a true maniac. Those
lovable townies - whatcha gonna do about 'em? Personally, I'm not phased. Stupid people do stupid things and I bet you this guy had a few too many and decided to come have some fun here on campus. I bet a raging fire is really interesting when you're drunk. Yes, I know it only takes one lunatic, one gun, and one bullet to kill, but I'm still not too worried about it. It keeps things interesting around here. |
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| Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - Challenges | |||||
| Posted 11:54 PM (MST) | |||||
| "I
expected times like this - but I never thought they'd be so bad, so
long, and so frequent." - Despair, Inc. Frequent seems to be the current situation. So, we're back again. Please pardon my "deer in the headlights" expression. The semester has begun, and so far it seems like it won't be too bad. I had my two computer science classes today, and both classes seem to be interesting and not extremely difficult either. Tomorrow is Physics and Linear Algebra. Since today went so well, I assume I'll be curled up in the fetal position in my closet tomorrow at about noon talking to my chest of drawers. I'll be quite surprised if things turn out the same way tomorrow. If by some aligning of the planets my semester seems to be looking quite decent, I'll be quite content. Tech has a way of making you feel comfortable in your nice new little house... before detonating the C-4 hidden underneath every nook and cranny! Well, so far things are looking up, but we'll have to see. (Story continues on page 123.) |
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