Archive for October, 2003
It hardly feels like it’s already Wednesday. I attended a normal schedule of lectures and then waited around for a couple hours to meet with my CS group again. It’s looking like we’re going to meet every day for the rest of the week. While I was waiting I worked on some pseudocode with SQL for the project. I felt like I made good progress. The original meeting at 2 PM was cancelled because of a schedule conflict for one of the members. We would end up meeting at 6 PM instead.
I came home to find that Soul Calibur II had finally arrived. My enthusiasm was significantly dampened when I opened up the sealed jewel case to find a disc that was not new but indeed already scratched. I concluded that the seller had resealed the game and listed it as new. I’m getting sick of this shit. Yes, yes, the game plays just fine but that’s not the point. The point is that once again I have been sold an item that is less than what it was advertised to be. I paid for Brand New and I got something along of the lines of Good. This is at least the fourth time—and second consecutive time—I’ve received merchandise that was in a condition less than that which was advertised. It’s been an increasingly common problem when I purchase used merchandise on eBay or similar sites. Most of my transactions have been smooth and quite satisfactory but these few bad apples are really starting to put me off of buying used. I’ve been trying to save money when I can. Admittedly, I have unusually high standards for my belongings but I don’t think my expectations are unreasonable to receive an item in at least as good a quality as it was advertised. After all, you’re agreeing to pay a certain price under the good faith that everything is as claimed. Unfortunately, there have been more than a few cases where my good faith is undeserved. Regardless, I still played the game and once again enjoyed its joys and frustrations.
Titus and I finished up “You’re Under Arrest!” season 2 with episode #26. We also started “D.N.Angel,” which looks promising. It’s a drama-romance series with a dash of Harry Potter.
I had to be on campus earlier than usual for another CS group meeting. We wanted to catch the TA who graded our first part of the project to get feedback on what needed to be fixed. We finished at about a quarter to noon and from there I headed to the library to make final preparations for Statistics at 3 PM. In the end I wasn’t quite as prepared as I would have liked to have been but I think I put up a good fight.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning house on Aqualung and moving large chunks of data from Wolfwood to Freya, our Linux file server, in preparation for a clean install of Panther this weekend.
Titus and I watched episodes #24 and #25 of “You’re Under Arrest!” One episode left to go.
My first task of the day was to turn in my VLSI lab. Titus came to the 11 AM section of VLSI so we went to Junior’s for lunch afterward. With another deadline approaching in databases, I was scheduled to meet with my group at 6 PM.
The thought of studying statistics for five or so hours between lunch and six didn’t sit too well so I left campus to run some errands. I drove out to Austell to the next-closest bookstore that I know of, which would be Borders. Luckily, they had the first book of “Love Hina” in stock so I picked that up and headed back to Smyrna for groceries.
When I got home I eagerly checked our mail once again only to find that Soul Calibur had still not arrived. Curses. I decided not to take any chances on walking away from the Panther launch empty handed so I ordered Mac OS X 10.3 at educational pricing ($69) from the Apple Online Store. The whole process was pretty painless and I even got away with free shipping. They tell me that it should be delivered in the evening on the 24th. I’m still not sure how that works.
Titus and I watched episodes #22 and #23 of “You’re Under Arrest!” The latter finally ended a string of four or five cliffhanger episodes. The series is nothing if not about teamwork and comradery and the recent string of episodes played on the difficulties of maintaining such ties. It’s high drama and quite worthwhile.
Titus and I headed out to Tech to finish VLSI in the early afternoon. It probably took another 1.5 to 2 hours to finish getting printouts and other items we needed to turn in. The final stack had to be at least 30 pages. Earlier in the term my team turned in a 50+ page project for Databases and that’s only for Phase I. When did assignments become this large? For that matter how do the TAs really grade them?
On the way home we stopped at Barnes and Noble and MediaPlay. I finished the first volume of the “Chobits” manga in the early morning hours so I was looking for the next book in the series. I was also looking for “Love Hina” Vol. 1. I only found the former after visiting both retailers. It seems that I’ve been sucked into manga as well. It’s interesting and seems to read pretty fast which is a good thing when you’re short on time as I often seem to be.
Over the course of the day we watched three episodes of “You’re Under Arrest!” season 2 (#19-#21). These episodes were unusually serious for the frequently comical action series.
I also talked to mom on the phone and studied some for an upcoming Statistics test.
The highlight of my day was sitting in the VLSI lab for about four hours until nearly midnight. Here’s to excitement on a Saturday night.
Titus has been talking about trying to make burgers for several days now and we finally did so today. We each made our own using frozen paddies in a skillet on the stove. We technically have a grille but due to rules beyond our control it would be a huge hassle to use for something this small. Anyhow, we each made our own burgers. The results were mixed. We burned the first burger. The second burger was mine—edible, but unremarkable. The third and final burger was Titus’s. He seemed satisfied with the results.
I bought Soul Calibur II for the PS2 over eBay on Thursday. The seller was supposedly going to ship it yesterday afternoon and is listed as being in the Atlanta area. Now I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a package to arrive the next day in this situation. Regardless, I eagerly checked our mail twice today and no such luck. Waiting is the worst part.
For entertainment, I played with iTunes and read the “Chobits” manga I bought last weekend.
