Monthly Archive: May 2003

There’s this feeling in the air

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Tue. May 27, 2003

It was just last night when I decided to go for a walk. It’s that time of year when many trees are blossoming. So, as I took the long walk from campus to the plaza for some food, I enjoyed the faint scent as it was carried on a light breeze. It really brings back memories of the years I spent living in the suburbs. Our house had a crab apple tree in the front yard, and every year the tree would just turn pink and full of blossoms which would gently float to the ground.

Now, I’m not generally one who enjoys the warmer weather, but it’s occasions such as this that make it tolerable.

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This past weekend Steve and I took the bus to the mall. I suppose we just wanted to get out of the apartment for a while. I was pretty much determined to get a pair of jeans while I was there. Somehow, I ended up buying a pair of jeans at the GAP. Well, gee. That in itself isn’t an amazing feat. But you see, over the past little while I’ve been attempting to not buy into the whole trendy scene when it comes to clothes. My clothes aren’t out of date, or too geeky, or nerdy, or plain ugly. I’ve just got a distinct style. Anyone who knows me can attest to that. So why did I decide to get jeans at the GAP? Well, after walking through the mall for a very long time, I was unable to find a good pair of jeans elsewhere that had a height of 30″. It’s ridiculous. I’m not that short (5’8″). You’d think that they’d sell more pairs at that height. Yet, the GAP had a good selection of jeans with a very wide range of sizes. I was amazed. Besides, it’s just jeans. It’s not quite what I’d consider some of the more trendy stuff at the store.

Anyway, I must’ve gone through many MANY pairs of jeans while in store. It doesn’t seem to be consistent. I mean, I tried one pair, and it had several more inches of waist than I needed. I tried the size lower and I couldn’t breathe. Anyway, it was getting late, and I didn’t want to leave the mall empty handed. I ended up getting a $30 pair (really good deal). Now, let me tell you, I was not used to the lower-than-I’m-used-to-but-not-low-rise jeans. Actually, I believe that it’s a 9.75″ rise. Wearing it for the first time at home, I felt damn awkward. I’ve broken the pair in since then, and now I think it’s a decent pair. I just need to not be so self-conscious wearing them. I might even consider going back into the store for a different pair when the time arises.

Holy crap. It’s not like I’ve found a cure for cancer or something. LOL.

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Digital retribution

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Tue. May 20, 2003

Seriously, this past week has been quite the adventure with this cursed computer. This past Wednesday I set out to replace my CPU fan bacause it was sounding like a washing machine…or a sputtering jalopy (I suppose). Well, I bought the $10 fan and easily made the replacement. It was placed properly, but didn’t cool down my CPU well enough. I was getting errors in the BIOS saying that it couldn’t proceed further. I got to the menu displaying the problem, and it stated that my CPU temperature was 120°C. For those who don’t know, at 60° the CPU starts breaking down…so you can imagine the problem. The CPU just gave up and stopped working altogether.

So I’ve spent the last few days looking for a replacement chip. Unfortunately, the motherboard was pretty old. I mean, two to three years doesn’t seem like very long, but in computer time that’s a lifetime. So yeah, I ended up shelling out for a new system: case, power supply, motherboard, chip, and RAM. It’s much faster, but I’m wondering what I’m going to do with all this power. I mean, I can only type so fast. The only solution is to get into gaming again…but ooh, that’s so not a good idea.

Well, that’s the end of my computer woes…I spent all of Monday trying to get it all together again. I wanted to just transfer all my parts from the old system to the new one, but as you well know things are never that easy. Long story short, I ended up installing my OS at least 4 times trying to get it to work. Eventually it did…however I did something totally ridiculous. I’ve always been a fan of better-safe-than-sorry computing. However, in the process of getting the system up and running again I let my guard down and somehow ended up getting two different viruses.

TWO???

Yup. One was the Lovgate mass mailer, and the other the Pinfi virus. I didn’t have an antivirus on at the time, and by the time I did, it was much too late. My system was spiralling out of control. My outlook email file jumped from 48MB to 1.2GB. This was all due to my outbox being filled with 4300+ fake emails ready to be shipped out to everyone in my address list. Luckily, none of them went out (to the best of my knowledge). After many hours of scanning, I finally got it all cleared out. However, the system was just not acting properly afterwards. The result was me clearing my hard drive yet again, and reinstalling Windows.

I’m rather mad. I’m not so much mad at the bastards as much as I’m mad at myself. This should NOT have happened to me. I’m a careful user. I’ve been stung before. I feel violated.

So here I am, finally settling in again. I’m a tad cautious hoping that nothing out of the ordinary happens anytime soon. I don’t want to have to reinstall my OS again any time soon.

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I promised myself I wouldn’t become one of those people

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Mon. May 12, 2003

You know, one of those people that whip out their palm pilots in class and start scribbling away. I don’t think I’m quite one of those people, but I think I might be close.

I decided to get a palm the other day. So far, I think I can honestly see why many people swear by them. I’ve been able to stick my schedule on there, as well as all the labs I’ve signed up for. That’s particularly important to me right now since four of my five classes have those wretched things. Ooh…I’m not too happy about them. As long as I keep using the thing, I should be fine. I’m determined not to let it become just another glorified paperweight.

Hey, in other news.

My roommates somehow labelled me the acclaimed chef of the apartment. Well, that’s probably the nicest way of saying that no one else can cook something that doesn’t come in a can or in a box. Well, I got to test out those skills this weekend. Our floor held an Iron Chef event…except it wasn’t really Iron Chef in that there wasn’t a theme ingredient, a time limit, or a guy in a flashy outfit yelling Allez Cuisine! Instead, each apartment would cook a main course or dessert and would be judged on it. I chose to do a dessert, and went with my soft pretzels. I decided to cut them short and not knot them (ha!). They were covered in cinnamon and sugar and looked quite nice, albeit for the occasional one that ended up looking like a penis. Oh, that aside, the baking went well–except for the few times that the smoke detectors went off.

In the end, I ended up winning the dessert category with perfect 10′s across the board from all seven judges. The prize was a $20 gift certificate at the local grocery store…which should pay for the ingredients nicely. So now, besides being the acclaimed chef, I’m now the award winning chef. I’ll reluctantly accept the title.

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Party house

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Fri. May 9, 2003

That’s the particular representation this very unit had in past terms. Being that this is the first time I’ve lived in res, I feel very priveleged to have someone come in, clean the main area, buff the floors, etc. Terri, who is a very awesome cleaning lady, came by to do her monthly check of our suite and just couldn’t help but comment on how clean the place is. She was recounting times when the place was just disgustingly messy and you couldn’t step anywhere.

So, yes. We are a very clean bunch. Although, I will admit that my room needs a little bit of help. Actually, when Terri told her story, I couldn’t help but feel the urge to at least tidy up a little bit. I mean, I’m not a horribly untidy person. It’s not “dirty”…just untidy. There’s a big difference. It just so happens that in comparison to the other three people’s rooms my room is usually…the one that looks like a tornado went through it.

You know, I’ve been waking up early every morning. My classes start at 1:30 and go straight through to 5:30. So then what possesses me to wake up at 8:30? I mean, I manage to eat a good breakfast, but other than that I end up doing very little just waiting for the fun to begin. I’m sure this time’ll become more useful come next week when I’ll be buried in work, but still. It’s not a bad habit at all. I’m just surprised by it. I do remember past terms when I had late classes. I would just sleep right through until I absolutely had to get up. Now…

I’m just puzzled by it.

No worries. This is going to be one hell of a term.

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I will devote my life to it…

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Tue. May 6, 2003

It’s now getting a bit late in the month, and I’m getting settled in my new digs here in Waterloo. I have to admit that I was surprised by the state of this place. It’s not that it’s a festering rat hole, or like one of the student slums along University Ave. No. This place is pretty immaculate.

Mackenzie King Village is a suite style res with four bedrooms (and two bathrooms). It’s much like the first place me and Steve have lived in–except it’s not a dump!

I really don’t understand what would possess students to ruin the places they live in.

“Oh look, let me see if I can punch a hole into the wall…*BAM*…Cool! Let’s do it again!”

Personally, I don’t want to live in such conditions, and I won’t have any tolerance for it. I have been blessed to find roommates who share those sentiments. The fact that they just all happen to be from my high school is just icing on the cake.

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