2010 to do

I managed to let Christmas and New Year’s Day come and go without a blog post, so I’d like to wish a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you.

So, I am not really into making New Year’s resolutions, because I always seem to come up with one unachievable thing that will take far longer than a year to accomplish. I’m still working on my resolution from 2005 (at least, I think it was 2005), which was to learn to be ambidextrous. I’m actually pretty decent at writing with my left hand now.

Anyway, this year I’d like to just make a short list of very achievable things I would like to do, so here we go.

1.) Take a roadtrip to Massachusetts and maybe somewhere else.
2.) Upgrade Kalmiya with an SSD and some RAM.
3.) Install a cold air intake in Evey.
4.) Go to a doctor about my freaking ear.
5.) Finish the story I’m writing with at least 50,000 words.
6.) Memorize pi to 200 decimal points (currently at 80).
7.) Finish memorizing the Architect’s speech.
8.) See Creed again during their spring tour.
9.) Make at least one new friend that’s pretty spontaneous.
10.) See Panic! At the Disco, even if their tour this year doesn’t come close by. Four years of waiting is long enough.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I can get most of the things in that list done.

I also plan to make a detailed post about Evey sometime in the near future. All I’ve really done so far is post pictures of her, and I want to do a little more than that.

-Philip

 

So, you want to drive in Baton Rouge, but you don’t have a license. Here are some handy tips I’ve picked up from other drivers in the LSU area and downtown.

1) Make sure to ignore street signs. Some handy ones to ignore downtown are “DO NOT ENTER” and “ONE WAY.”

2) Don’t bother learning what the colors of the lines on the road mean. Just pretend like you can drive in either lane on a two lane road with yellow lines in the middle. It’ll all work out.

3) Make sure that when a two lane road of traffic flowing in the same direction is merging into a one lane road that you wait until the last possible second to merge. Don’t bother waiting in line like everyone else. You deserve to be in front.

4) When traveling down River Road from downtown towards the Tigerlamd area, ignore when the speed limit changes from 35 to 45 to 55. Just go 40 the entire way. It won’t piss off anyone behind you.

 

Things that piss me off, part 3?

I seem to recall making a list like this before, but I have no idea how many or what they were about and I don’t feel like looking, so let’s just pretend like this is number 3. :D

So, here it is, things that piss me off, part 3.

Driving:

-People that slow down to about 3 miles per hour to turn.
-People that turn from another street onto the one you’re on and then go really slow, especially when there’s no one behind you.
-People that get into the wrong lane in a situation where they know they’ll have to merge soon, only to pass up everyone who is waiting their turn and then merge in front of them.

Life:

-My hair.
-Humidity.
-Shopping for business casual pants.
-Companies that don’t provide customer service that makes up for product inefficiencies.

The Internet:

-Self-righteous pricks that comprise 90% of the Reddit community (and slightly less of Digg).
-The FSF.
-Mainstream media sites that report on technology.

I think I will definitely add to this list at some point in the future. :P

-Philip

 

What I Got – 2008 Edition

See: title.

-2 GB SO-DIMM PC2 4200 RAM
-Slim, USB-powered external DVD burner
-Kenwood KDC MP538U head unit
-Netbook sleeve
-Folie à Deux


-A really nice shirt
-A beanie
-Boxers
-A few gift cards
-A couple of Speed Racer things

With all of this crap, I’ve mostly been messing with my Mini 9 and getting it all set up like I want. I also installed the head unit in my car. I’ve got some pictures of the progress of both of these that I’ll share later.

-Philip

 

Survey Results

So here’s some results from the survey I gave a few weeks ago.

-11 total responses
-Less people like when I write about anime, games, links, lists, movies, music, opinion, pictures, Tiger Weekly, TV, or Video. Out of these, the least liked appeared to be movies.
-More people like when I write about college, family, friends, humor, technology (which surprised me), and WTF. Out of these, the most liked appeared to be friends.
-Apparently, I forgot to put “Life” in the choices of the question that had to do with categories readers liked and disliked. Whoops. That was an important one. I think I forgot to put it because I just realized it’s not showing up in my sidebar’s list of categories. Uhhhhh. o_O
-I should definitely not be lazy in posting pictures. You guys like seem to like that.
-Some of you think I wouldn’t care about your opinion so you don’t comment. I actually strongly encourage commenting on my posts. I really like to hear what others have to say about my posts or whatever.
-Whether or not I should make more pages like my About Me page is pretty split.
-Who or what the heck is Goulet? Because apparently, I need more of it. (Is it this guy?)

And with that, the survey is closed. Thanks for your time if you answered. I really appreciate the input. :D

-Philip

 

I thank everyone for your comments on my last entry. It was interesting to see that people of many different political beliefs agreed with me. Though, I guess that shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise since the article I linked to got upmodded on Reddit – a community filled with enough liberals to hug a whole rain forest (haha, a tree hugging joke). I guess it’s nice to know that being open-minded doesn’t mean abandoning your beliefs.

I have traditionally posted on Thanksgiving about being thankful and what I am thankful for. I’ll admit, I forgot, but being thankful isn’t limited to one day of the year, so I won’t let that stop me from at least saying that I am very thankful for my fiancée, my family, my friends, and all of the other important people in my life, as well as our health, well-being, and all of the material things I have, both that I need and don’t need.

I didn’t go shopping on Black Friday like I used to do. There were no deals I really wanted besides the Dell Mini 9, and that was online. I already had about half of my Christmas shopping done anyway, and I got even more done on Sunday.

School is coming to a close for good. Getting a masters degree seems like a waste since my degree by itself is actually useful, and I have a feeling once that degree is in my hands, I’ll never want to sit in a classroom ever again. But hey, I may change my mind, so we’ll see.

This entire semester, my management professor has been referring to a “Wild Card” assignment. In our syllabus, the exact line used to describe the assignment is:

Students have the choice of earning 30 points through an additional project relevant to the course.

See that key word? “choice“. Now, reading that, you’d think that meant the assignment was a bonus assignment, right? Nope! Wrong! Just last week, our professor informed us that “choice” apparently means you don’t have to do it to pass, but you’ll lose 30 points if you don’t do it. Pretty much, it’s kind of like saying you don’t have to take an exam, but if you don’t, you’ll fail it.

To do this week:
-Meet with Carolyn Bourne for my ISDS 3075 class
-Make cheat sheet for my MGT 3830 class
-Write “Wild Card” paper for my MGT 3830 class
-Write final case paper for my MGT 3830 class
-Finish presentation for my ISDS 4125 class
-Prepare for ISDS 4117 presentation
-Go to the registrar’s office
-Go to the bookstore and buy my cap and gown
-Write my (last?) Tiger Weekly article

Oh, and I’m sure you figured this out, but I’ve implemented a new theme…again.

-Philip

 

“Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet” may not strike you immediately as great song name, but it’s a freaking awesome song. So is “What a Catch, Donnie.” Really looking forward to this new Fall Out Boy album. Three songs and an acoustic are released in some form so far and they are all incredibly awesome.

And speaking of entertainment-type-things, my fall TV shows have been back for some time (minus Lost, of course :( ). Heroes is looking better than last season. Smallville somehow managed to stay good even though 3 characters that have been in the show since season 1 died (aka, actors left) and 1 that was only in 1 season got written out (bye bye Supergirl? :| ). The Office has been great. Holly is pretty awesome; her and Michael will probably be the new Pam and Jim. New Family Guy too, but that’s not really as exciting for some reason, even though I love the show and both new episodes have been awesome.

Construction on the interstate during rush hour kind of blows, almost made us late to the Death Note movie. There was nothing I could do until I got to the Geismar exit and could get to Airline to bypass it all, but I managed to get Michelle and Samantha and get us there just in time where we only missed like two minutes. It was good, and the experience was different even though I’d already seen it subtitled. Watching it dubbed was kind of weird, but watching it with lots of other people and in a theater was pretty cool. I heard a lot of people crying at the end. Oh, and if anyone reading this has only seen the anime or read the manga, the movie ends differently, and they’re both totally worth watching (third movie is optional).

Speaking of the third movie, L Change the World, we also watched that this weekend, but subbed and on my computer instead of dubbed and in a theater. It wasn’t really a Death Note movie, and the only main character in it from Death Note was L. It wasn’t canon to the Death Note story, but they kind of tried to tie it in at the end, which didn’t really work since *spoiler* Nate Rivers really isn’t a Thai name, therefore Near cannot be the little boy */spoiler*. L as a character is pretty funny though, so watching an entire movie about him was interesting, albeit completely separate from anything even slightly Death Note related besides everyone’s favorite detective.

We (well, I, since Michelle fell asleep) also watched a Korean movie called Volcano High (lots of movies this weekend!). It really didn’t make too much sense to me, to be honest. The story wasn’t very meaningful, which surprised me for an Asian movie, but the fight scenes were very reminiscent of The Matrix, so that was pretty cool. Oh, and I bought the crappiest little DVD player I could find to put in my room at my parents’ house so I can stop borrowing my parents’, since that’s a big pain. It was $30 from Wal-Mart, and I was almost surprised that it came with a remote control and that it worked!

We went to Japan Fest today with Shai. That was pretty fun, though I remember there being slightly more stuff to do last time I went…or maybe I’m imagining things. That was a long time ago, after all. We ate at Chili’s, and the only reason I bring that up is because I wanted to say that aside from Roul’s, Chili’s has the best burgers ever, and that’s really weird to me because Roul at least has some special kind of burger – you can see the herbs or whatever in the burger. But Chili’s just has…burgers. But they’re really, really good. Go figure. Oh, and uh, not that today was my first time having their Strawberry lemonade, but that stuff is also freaking delicious.

This week’s to-do list:
-Monday: study for ISDS 4117 exam, do small group assignment for MGT 3830
-Tuesday: group project meeting for ISDS 4117
-Wednesday: do part of big group project for ISDS 4125

So I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed at the moment.

The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are amazing, and anyone that doesn’t think so probably isn’t very awesome themselves. :P In a couple years if I feel the need to get a new laptop, I honestly have no reason to get a MacBook Pro again with the updates to the MacBook line.

Bleh. Long updated, I need sleep.

-Philip

 

My Last Will and Testament

Just in case I die tomorrow, here’s my will. :D

To Michelle, I leave Kalmiya, my Kia, Celery, and all of my shirts.

To Adam, I leave my 100% real and official copy of Windows Vista Ultimate.

To Keith Carroll, I leave the rest of my bendy straws and all of my Creed CDs.

To Becca, I leave all of my pants.

To Ed, I leave all of my copies of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and my Apple logo stickers.

To Cesar, I leave my accounts to all of my Web 2.0 sites.

To Ashley Payne, I leave my shoes, my muffin mix, and the rest of the Internet memes from the past 3 years except for Rick Rolling.

To Drew, I leave all of my episodes of Heroes.

To Team IS, I leave you this link.

To everyone else, I leave you the packet of data that contains this sentence.

-Philip

 

5 Things I Love About Quiznos

5) Their bread. (It’s much better than Subway and especially Blimpie.)

4) Side Caesar salad.

3) Baja Chicken sandwich.

2) Steakhouse Beef Dip sandwich.

1) Raspberry lemonade.

-Philip

 

Bulleted Lists are Fine

Because I’m lazy, I’m going to make a nice bulleted list of what I did recently that I haven’t written about yet:

-Keith Carrolled it up on Thursday
-Went shopping with my mom (for Michelle’s birthday presents) on Friday.
-Watched Juno (I liked it) on Friday.
-Watched Mr. Woodcock (it was okay) on Saturday.
-Went to eat at Ryan’s with Michelle’s family on Sunday.
-Went shopping with Michelle (I got a new shirt, oh boy) on Sunday.
-Became a big rock star today.

-Philip