Get more tone deaf

More appealing than Rocket Skates...but I still champion White Pony over anything I've heard so far...



I'll still get it. Even if I won't like it for long.

Carrots, cheese, peppered salami, and whiskey.

Gorgeous outside. Mujer got delayed so I had time to walk to the grocer and pick up some cravings and vices.
Maybe I was too engulfed in imagining how some girl's gold high heels could have both ended up in my apartment complex's pond, or maybe this guy used to be a spy, but on the walk back I didn't hear the Indian gentleman on the bicycle right behind me.
This guy had everything: the blinking light, the water bottle, foot straps, helmet, those crazy antenna looking mirrors that look like what a giant dentist uses on his giant clients...

"Oops, sorry about that. Excuse me." I let him pass.
"Nooo problem, sir."
"You need a bell."
Looking down at the bell on his left handle bar:
"I am needing to be using the bell. I think that is our issue here."

Wisdom.
People - use your bells.

Because of the koi pond

ender9284 just had to pretend that wasn't a burst of laughter coming from his office upon reading "because of the koi pond" and it was actually that he choked while drinking his water...I doubt anyone surrounding my office bought it...

Poor Case, inherited the bills of his housemate's koi pond.
Now the finances are completely koied up!

SJFU

Disclaimer: no photos. No (HD) videos. No links. Just me. Being pissed. I dare you to finish it.

A lot of people question their purpose in life. When those questions return "useless", "invalid", or something along the lines of "are you fucking kidding me?", they might be inclined to consider reevaluating their occupation, pass times, hobbies, addictions, or general consumption of oxygen.
That is, unless they are part of the SJSU administrative staff.

I might be taking advantage of my employer's willingness to purchase an M.S. degree for me, but at least I do so with a clean conscience.
I am getting a piece of paper and they're getting an employee with increased knowledge, skills, and some drive...allegedly.
In reality, I picked the campus that would send me a bill within Actel's yearly reimbursement limit.
I was nudged to go somewhere with more prestige, endorsed by a couple awesome faculty members at UCSD, but I really just wanted to make some money and step away from academia for a CA minute (oooh-ooh-oooooooh, everything won't change).
SJSU and Actel fit the bill.
If I get an A or B, tuition is 100% reimbursed.
A C, 50%.
A D, nothing percent - and I can only imagine, a bump up the "Who can we afford to lay off this quarter?" list.
So alright, I go to class some nights, I might leave work a bit early, but as anyone who has ever had to work from home knows, you tend to put in more than enough hours from the desk in your bedroom to counter leaving early to head to class.
In short, I have no problem with this arrangement, nor should Actel.

How can the SJSU staff cash their paychecks with a similar peace of mind when their unofficial motto is "Yes, we are incompetent. But we are training California's workforce to be pro-active, attentive, and distrusting of all others they might have to rely on...so we're still doing our job."?
I went to orientation for the College of Science and had some obese curly-haired cat in a Che Guevara T-shirt explain to me that they would without a doubt send me to the wrong corner of campus, only to be sent back, then told I need to speak to someone in another department who would without hesitation roll their eyes at me and tell me to print out a different form, sign it, and sprinkle pixie dust on it before anyone would even consider telling me to bring it to the people that actually use it...on the other side of campus.
I chuckled at orientation, thinking they're just covering their own asses for kids that are too dumb to read instructions.
Nope.

I am so sorry, but I am not able to locate your graduation application anywhere at this point. Unfortunately, it will be necessary for you to submit a new application.

Again, I am so sorry that I am not able to locate your application Scott. I will do everything I can to support you in the process, but it is imperative that you get the application in as soon as possible. It is not necessary for you to meet with an advisor again.

So - this doesn't really matter much. I'm not planning to walk. Getting my B.S. in C.S. is just a necessary step for obtaining the M.S.
If my B.S. piece of paper is delayed, who really cares?
I'm just doing this to make more money, which conveniently occupies those years I'd already be spending at a company to get experience and thus...make more money.
I printed out what was necessary and brought it over to campus.
This exchange, however, stung:

"Hi Scott. Thanks so much for bringing in this form promptly."
"No problem. I guess it's only fair that I come to the student service center more than once while paying for its existence." (The first time being the glamor photo shoot for my ID card, allowing me to return a book.)
"Well, I'm sorry we have to go through this process again. When did you turn in the form and go over your academic career before?"
"Last semester, with Hyang, Hyun, or Hyawn? Sorry, I don't remember his name, he seemed helpful though."
"Oh, with Hwon, last semester. That was before we started tracking these things."
"I'm sorry, isn't your department's entire charter to track 'these things'? [It's a bit disconcerting that tracking paperwork was beyond your stretch of competence until just last semester, Fall of 2009...]"

[Those words in brackets I wanted to say, but didn't. Probably because of Knob Creek's induced morning-after indifference.]

Arnold, Obama, Gary Coleman, fucking Gray Davis - I don't care who does it, but somebody, please cut their funding.
My tuition goes up yearly either way right? At least pay for someone to implement a web site that can do the job of any administrative body on campus better than these carbon footprints.
And fuck it - let those hobo crackheads chasing me down for a quarter on my walk to campus from 4th and San Salvador live in the freed office space, I don't care.
Win win.

How could they let this happen?

Software and Systems Integration (Alan and I) just completely owned, berged, pwned, dominated, etc. Andrew and Alex (pictured) at after lunch ping pong.
It was ugly messy.
The sushi at lunch tasted good.
The victory right after tasted better.

Collin O'McMicannery

At the risk of violating ITAR guidelines, I'm going to share an e-mail exchange with someone from Actel's office in Ireland...

======================================================
Hi,
I've uploaded the files to our web repository but I think I was given the wrong version of the repo control file. Please have a look.
Scott
======================================================

Hi Scott – my mistake. I knew that I was going to make one as I was under the weather (head cold – not pre St. Patrick’s Day drinking) while preparing this update. I copied over the wrong tagged version of the files. I’ve copied the correct files over to the share now so if you can try again you should now see the correct version. Thanks for spotting this!

Cheers
XXXXXX

======================================================

No prob. Hope you feel better - perhaps a pre St. Patty’s whiskey will help to kill the germs and let you sleep better!

======================================================

Who is St. Patty? Patron saint of hamburgers? We call “our” saint St. Paddy. =)

I’ll forego the whiskey and stick to the Guinness but I’m not sure that it cures colds. =)

Cheers
XXXXXX

======================================================

Ahhhh…St. Paddy! I’m a disgrace to my Great Grandma McGee…

Thanks, I will remember that. Enjoy the stout.

======================================================

So get your potatoes, throw on some U2 Dae Kim*, pour some Bushmills Jameson Powers whiskey, get out your Frank McCourt James Joyce, and let that consciousness stream.
Happy Hamburger Saint Day!

*I don't like U2. Here's some bleak Irish rock instead.
I think the Amurcans call it "shoe gazer" rock...

P-tex Snow Sliding

Stormy all the way from the bay to the mountains on Friday night. Saturday was completely sunny. Easily the best conditions I've ever seen on the slopes.
Employed the Flip Underwater Case after first stuffing some tissue in it and submerging it in a big bowl of water for about a minute and then making sure the tissue was dry. While this seems like kind of an obvious thing to do before stuffing your expensive camera in there only to find that the waterproof case is more water welcoming than proof, I had to read the suggestion online and go "oooohhhh...that's a good idea..." before ever thinking of it.
Took the video on one of the easy runs at Dodge Ridge. I was very proud of how well mi muñeca did, having only gone twice before.
I'm using YouTube for now. Vimeo doesn't seem to allow me to embed the video in 720p HD...
Portugal. The Man provide the audio grooves with "The Woods" from The Satanic Satanist.

Mus-talg-ic

I'm not much of a metal head. I don't really skate anymore either.
Nor do I employ any fuzz-face, metalizer, death-screech-face tear-static-core-black coffee-monster distortion pedals when I find the time to pluck the strings.

I do, however, have a special place in my heart for Deftones.
They're from Sacramento, about 50 minutes north of my home town, Awfulville...I mean, Stockton...and the band and their families did quite a lot for us valley kids, from skate-park fundraisers to local band exposure and shows.



Though my tastes have drifted to a less noisy (using the audio term, not the adult-annoyed-turn-that-noise-down kind of term) flavor of rock, I will still be picking up Diamond Eyes once the record is out.
Preview another track from said album here.

"Have I lied to you?...I mean, in this room?"

Excited about the announcement that Portal 2 could be released this year and Valve will release for Macs?
Of course you are.
Stumbled across this video in my own excitement.
Most of my millions of readers will not get it. At all.
Those that do, will be cracking up, I assure you.



"This would never happen at Black Mesa."

Pro duct timid tea

Between work, class, term papers, operating system process scheduler simulations, and my charity work at Arkham Asylum, this has been a busy week.

I rose to the challenge.

I made a list on Saturday. It was long. All but three things are crossed off: call Swarovski about my girlfriend's earring repair (tried today but they are on E.T. time, so I will phone home tomorrow), create report for simulator program project (come on team...lil' help?), and open the Flip Ultra HD.

I put the Flip at the bottom because I knew it'd come packaged with an excess of distractions.

I accomplished enough this week to feel deserving of opening it and embracing those distractions, but just to rub it in the world's face (for being against me), I went to the gym after class tonight.

Now I had no excuse not to enjoy my purchase. The Flip Ultra HD is packaged nicely. Opening it reminded me of the sexy unboxing of Apple products...

But who the hell cares? Let's see some video!

This is the first vid I took with the device, so quality should improve as experience increases, but I was quite impressed.

Also: My charity work at Arkham is complete. It is a better place now.

Kerbatman!!!!11!!!1!1!!one!!11!1!!!2

Your diversions smell like fish, Scott.

I was working on a philosophy paper for professional business ethics (read: reading some bull shit so I can write some bull shit) when I realized I forgot to eat dinner. Pretty standard occurrence for the Slobscot, but I generally feed my fish while I eat or while I'm preparing my own food. (You have to train them to get on your timetable ya know? Show them who wears the pants.)

Oh yeah, I got some fish!

Nitrate problem is a thing of the past, still need to keep an eye on it, but the brother says that "fish are part of the nitrogen cycle".
And he knows how to fly a plane! So I do what he says.
The green star polyp soft coral I got a while back is opening up more and more, so maybe he's right...that ragamuffin.

So now - if I forget to eat it's more of a big deal because then I'll forget to feed the fish. The critters can live off of the algae and whatnot, but the swimmers need something...you know...for the effort...you know...

So I was reading about the moral questions of forcing certain income distributions in a society, looked up, and remembered they gotta eat!

Some may know, I'm working on bringing the economy all the way back by paying off all my debts and then buying cool stuff. Namely, a Flip Ultra HD Camera along with the underwater casing, and a tripod.

But - I'm not opening it until I finish my paper and program because it will cause lots of distractions for sure...whew...side-stepped that land mine...he said whilst blogging...doh!

So eventually, you will get some HD videos from the Slobscot, but for now, I just grabbed the good old Olympus for a quick vid, then to iMovie, then up to Vimeo...because fuck you Blogger, you can't host a video any better than my TI-83.

Massive Attack provides the soundtrack with "Two Rocks and a Cup of Water" from the Danny the Dog Soundtrack.

Check out 1:48 - ish. Zoidberg dominates one of the other hermits feasting on some brine shrimp, knocks him right off the rock and into the sand.

That hermit got totally Berged!!!

Also, the persistence of the snail had to be included (filmed elsewhen).

She won't let a pump and strong current deter her from reaching that brown algae!

Under and in.

Hipster Hop

Very busy of late. Trying to finish OS Simulator program and a paper before a trip to SD.
Then you'll get a tank update...

For now, ponder this: Do they still make music videos?



Yes.