Felocity

How much spam ends up in your inbox every day? Numbers well into the double digits, if not more. How would you like knowing that one person is making big money off of this?

How would you feel knowing that Slashdot has started a SnailMail junk mail campaign against this person? An article out of the Detroit Free Press offers some news about poetic justice delivered to one of the bigger spammers of the net.…

Today (referring to the last 24 hours) was a whole mix of things. My last final was finished, I had lunch with Sra. Strolle and Jessica, and I found out my $140 in books (2 books that is) equaled $7.00 in the eyes of the bookstore. The two books are back in my room. Add to this an afternoon of relaxing, beating Breath of Fire 2, and idle chatting with friends, and you get most of the day. With the routine stuff out of the way, on with the fun stuff: LoTR.

I was over at Gretchen's by 8:30, as we were driving all the way to Santa Clara for the midnight showing. The place: AMC 20 right near Great America. The time of arrival: about 10p. Gretchen and Karen went to Starbucks, while Mark and I stood in line. The whole line standing thing never really bothered me all that much because you can always make idle chatter with those around you. We were driven under the small overhang by the rain, and by about 11:30, they moved our line into the theater.…

Here is the time log off the top of my head regarding the Bay Area Animation Society X-Mas party.

6:30a Alarm went off, and was quickly silenced. The original plan was this would get me out of the house around 7 so I could be at Mrs. Brown's by 9 to help with setup. This didn't quite work as expected.…

I have spent the evening learning ActionScript for Flash, and with every passing question, I grow less and less fond of it. My uni seems to honestly think that Macromedia's Flash is the end all solution to all the world's multimedia needs. I laughed. Then, I began to wonder if other people are thinking this as well. A lot of people for their ITAP were talking about Flash for interactive television. I don't see how they figure this, but I suppose they are entitled to think that.

When I get home this evening, I think I may have a large amount of the apartment to myself. It seems Jake is doing a LAN party at Charles to capture images for his Media Tools project. That of course means he will be over there working as well. Raul may be there, but that's not too bad since he is either out watching TV or mixing his music. As much as I bag on his mixing, it's not always bad. I hope to get a bit of work done for BAAS, at least have an example of content layout so everyone can see handouts at the X-Mas party. I figure if I can get people excited about it, they will be more willing to help with content.…

Java is today, work is today, work is tomorrow, and finals are next week. I can almost count the days left on one hand, which makes me quite ecstatic. It's not that I look forward to Roseville either; I just need to unplug from Monterey. This Saturday is the BAAS X-mas party, and Sunday Gretchen and I plan to do some shopping up in Santa Cruz. But that is all ahead.

Looking back, yesterday we wrote our course evaluations for CST 337. I honestly do not believe I was harsh in writing down "this class is not an upper division course, does not provide relevant material, and is a mistake to be labeled as an MLO class as it did not in any way satisfy the stated Major Learning Outcomes." For the CSUMB crew, you know what Dr. Tao's reaction will be when 30+ kids said something along those lines. Work was stellar, and so was the little Tech Meeting we had for the end of the year. I ended up giving my gift to Sundy (she wanted the stretchy squeaky dog thing), and I really didn't want Jake's $2 bottle of cider. Probably because I know he just grabbed and didn't put much thought into it. That and I have cider. He took offense when we all asked him if he took it from Eric, but last year he gave a Jack antenna ball (which was from the lunch I owed him) and thought that was funny. This year, almost every tech tutor told him not to pull that again. Makes me wonder what next year will bring. o.O…

I can't place what is out of place today, something doesn't feel quite right. Maybe it is the fact my glasses have taken on an abnormal tilt in their slightly broken state, maybe it is the fact I picked up fanfiction and read it (something I do maybe once every few months) and enjoyed it, or maybe it was just the simple fact that things have seemed slightly "off" ever since I woke up this morning. I wish I could place it, but as is often the case with this feeling, I doubt I can.

I didn't have to be in Java today it seems. I am sitting here in class and Ahrens is helping people and not really teaching anything. While I am happily in favor of doing minimalistic work over the next week, the necesity to sit in class makes it a bit more daunting. Jake sees my idle time and being done early as a chance to rely on me to help him with his Media Tools homework, I see it as time to finish projects I have had to wait on all semester. I should probably sift through my writing and find what things I want to put up. I could say the same about my photography, although I'm not totally sure where my images are. Most of them are physical images and need to be scanned in. I should probably get back into photogrpahy, as it is something I have missed quite a bit. There is a lot of beauty around Fort Ord, and it's a certain kind of beauty that is unique to this place.…

I have heard mixed reactions to the new Winamp put out by Nullsoft. Being a person that doesn't mind trying a new version, I went ahead and threw it on my PC. It launched, it looked pretty, and the playlist feature was simply amazing. I enjoyed it, I really did. So why now am I running Winamp 2.8.x again? The answer is simple: I opened Internet Explorer.

Now, I wouldn't even be complaining that the audio decided to stutter and lag. I suppose when you do several things on a 512mb 700mhz PIII, this is "normal". After all, in a technology world, this thing is considered obsolete. Curious just how much I was hurting for resources, I flicked open the Task Manager. Winamp 3 (Studio.exe) was taking about 15 clock cycles and over 20mb of RAM. That was even more than Windows Media Player at times. This is also a massive jump from the 7mb RAM that the old Winamp used to take. I was curious if other people were having this problem, so I went to the Winamp forums. There was a complaint thread. After reading that I really decided not to go to Winamp 3. And it had nothing to do with the program. It was all about the moderators, who would make comments to forum posters. Someone would raise some valid concerns about the product (for example: will the lite version not have video support? I never use it.) and you would get a reply like this:…

The hum of my printer is filling the otherwise empty appartment. I have had the place to myself almost all day, and managed to stay ahead of things that are due. In honor of having free time, I broke out SD3 and resumed the game I have forced myself not to touch for about a week. 10 levels, 3 God Beasts later, I had to call it quits due to an inbound headache, and a need to print my papers so they really were "done".

There is something odd with my printer. I swear it knows when finals are for me. It prints everything fine up until this morning. I flicked on the printer only to be greeted with lights flashing that aren't supposed to flash. The cause was no ink, the problem was no ink on hand to replace it. A trip to Office Depot was made, and ink was acquired. Gretchen was good company, and we got a chance to briefly catch up on things. We stopped by borders for some recycled magazines, and touched briefly on the OU2 landfill issue. There is a lot surrounding that, and someone like Tony would probably be better in the loop than I. Actually, I think his roomate Mark is the one taking the lead on it. Long story short, we have a lovely landfill with toxic crap situated a bit too close to us for comfort. As for what the military will do about it, that remainds to be solved. Whatever it is though, it is likely that we won't be around as students to see it through.…

Last Sound didn't happen. I wish I could have blamed UPD, the school, or something, but instead I must look at one simple fact. Nobody showed up. After 20 minutes of cold, I felt ample defeat, and retreated back to the appartment. I need to send extended thanks to Erin, as she was the only person that watned to go and actually went. Everyone else backed out or had an excuse. Too tired, had homework, didn't want to disturb campus, it didn't matter, everyone had a reason handy.

Getting away from the night's downers, I turned in my Java project today. For those that are interested, you can always witness this programming "thing" at the following location: http://home.csumb.edu/h/heuserrudolph/world/cst336/. This also means that the work for that class is done as well. My Lab portfolio is almost done for 311, and that means all that is left is a cover letter and portfolio for 300 (plus whatever 336 has in store). I like the feeling that there is nothing pressing, although I am probably going to get a jump on other things that are due just to keep ahead of the curve.…

It's 4 hours away. I am trying to start a tradition on a campus that not only lacks tradition, but is unmotivated when it comes to wanting to do things. My hope is this is so random, so different, and so refreshing that people will want to do it. It's raining. "Fuck it, let's party in the rain." I am so hoping this will be a success. I don't care if I am the only one out there. This will be at the end of every semester. Others said they want to come. Maybe bring others. I'd be happy with 5, including myself.

Creativity versus campus-wide lack of motivation. Story and results about 1 am!…

It's an all night party here on felocity, and the postings just keep on coming! I have returned from a food break with Kari, where we went to Dennys and marveled at the spoons. Unlike normal spoons, these have been deemed "wang spoons" and are somehow tied to their teardrop shape. We ate food, talked exes, Internet relationships, and about Patrick and her, and eventually realized we were starting to drift towards the tired side of things. It was a nice escape from homework and projects though. Now it's back at the appartment, Raul came home in the hour and snagged my spot so I parked a ways away, but I didn't mind the cold air really. I don't have work until 2, which means I can take advantage of the time to sleep and then get some work done. Maybe I can finish my Java problem tomorrow at ASAP. That would be pretty sweet.

Also need to campaign for Last Sound and remind everyone I know about it. Knowing the University though, I expect a low turnout this time around. Doesn't mean we won't be loud though. Tomorrow morning, I must also get my gift for Erica's little shindig she is holding at her place a block away.…

Monterey has gotten cold. You know, like December cold. It's not that I mind the cold either. Honestly, I come a bit better equipped than most to deal with frigid temperatures. I don't mind the cold, as there is something I really miss in curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book. About the best I can hope for right now is a thermostat at 80 degrees or more courtesy of Skiptrack.

Last night, Eric came in here to play some games on the Hex so I crawled up into bed and watched for a bit, and ultimately ended up falling asleep before 11:00. It seems my body has caught on to the whole "you didn't sleep much this last weekend" thing, and is attempting to compensate in case this weekend goes the same way. I am spending every spare moment in an attempt to get HW done so I can enjoy my weekend.…

I think the times where I update and redesign and launch my page seems to always fall in line with things that are going on in my life. I also always seem to have about 2 month foresight in the theme itself. Anyway, here it is, Felocity v 3.something or MechanicalRuins.net v 10.0.

http://www.felocity.org…

I am finally at a point where most of the stuff that was "due" is done, and I can start to refocus. The first thing I did when I got home from Anime Club was fight to get AIM to connect again. It seems that around here the disconnections are a frequent thing. I still haven't got used to coming back and finding the Internet flickering on and off like those marching lights you can buy this time of year. After finally getting it up, I looked to see who all was on, and then settled in for something I have longed to do for quite some time, mix some music. Currently, a bass and drum make noise, begging for me to develop it a bit more, although I appreciate it's perfect unbalanced sound. I am thinking of titling the working versions "Copper Tubing" but that's just a working name. I may eventually put up a sample if I feel gutsy enough to start sharing my music again. The last piece I invested serious effort in had a female vocalist and the topic wasn't incredibly pretty. It sounded almost Cake in nature with the roving bassline.

So what was today? Well, much like Monday, it was very busy. I slipped into a sleep state some time in the morning, I think it was near dawn, and then awoke by 8 to get everything ready for class and for my 9a meeting. Because I apparently forgot to tell Jake about meeting this morning, I had to deal with his griping while I tried to encourage him out the door. I guess I am getting sick of it because I finally reminded him that he is getting a ride, not the one driving. Seems this pissed him off a little. I didn't really care since my waiting on him made me more than 10 minutes late to my meeting that morning. The meeting with Ruth itself was okay, although it would have been easier if we were sent up to date paperwork. We spent more of the meeting fixing the paperwork than we did doing anything else. The meeting almost got out late, and I flew to my Java class. I found out that stuff wasn't due yet, but managed to complete Problem 4, Problem 5 (due next week) and do most fo Experiment 2 (due Thursday) all in that class period. With a 1p meeting, I skipped the Financial Committee meeting at noon in favor of food. The plan was something quick.…