My day today:
Wake up at 7:45 to get to breakfast by 8:20, shower, etc, wait in line for hot breakfast for circa 10 minutes
Finish breakfast at 8:55, run from Barnard over to Pupin for Literary Humanities.
Get out of class at exactly 10:50, run to catch the 10:50 shuttle, miss it, take the subway uptown to Mickey Goldberg's lab
Get there at 11:30, talk for an hour with him and other PIs (Ning Qian is really cool, but I need to know more math and Matlab)
Leave at 12:30, sprint over to 168th & Broadway--can't find shuttle, run to subway
Sprint from 116th & broadway to rotunda for scholars orientation, sign in, sign up for seminars, there aren't any drinks left except diet coke
2:00, start walking back to my dorm, run into Jack, hang out for half an hour, stop in my room to take stuff out of my bag
2:35 Run over to Mathematics for honors math a
3:55, class ends, run over to Pupin to get a good seat for intro compsci in fifteen minutes
5:25, class ends, walk over to Lerner to get dinner with a friend
6:00 end dinner early because we both have more class, run over to Pupin again for Frontiers of Science
7:30 class ends early so instead of sprinting to the train station, I chat
7:55 sprint over to the train station, go to ultimate frisbee practice
10:30 practice is over, get back to my dorm
11:00 start checking shit on the internet

Today was perfect.

So . . . my laptop has been fail for a while. And my friend tried his insta-magic fix for my bootloader, and it failed (everything has been failing for this--something was corrupted with my partitions) and so I deleted my partitions (Fedora, swap space, xp, oh how I miss you) and installed windows 7 instead. First, wifi worked out of the box. Then, I started freaking out because I couldn't play some dumb game (I freak out about dumb stuff) and then went to system updates, selected only the update I wanted, and none of the other ones, got the perfect update for my system, and continued on my way. It was gorgeous. Visually, I don't particularly like it. And there are many, many problems with compatibility--it can perfectly pretend to be another OS, but I needed to click ok multiple times. Anyway, my tower is in need of formatting--I have been thinking of moving that forward to Windows 7 as well. I am quite happy with the ease of use. It seems a lot like Vista, except backwards compatible, faster, lighter on my system, and more easily customizable. It combines what I thought was nice about Vista (ease of use for Vista-capable products) with what I liked about XP (worked with everything, had loads and loads of software).

Anyway, if any of you need to format your PC partition for any reason, as far as I can tell, Windows 7 (stable) is a pretty good option. I haven't played around with any of the software that comes with it, but it's probably still not as good as the stuff that comes free with most linux distros/macs.

In the end, no matter how close you get to someone, you will always be separated by at least your skulls. Your brain won't flow into the other person's brain, you will never think in unison, you will never remove redundant thoughts to expedite brainstorming.



. . . for now.

Okay everyone I am officially ready for college!

Fuck you power point on a topic we couldn't find any processed data about (fuck yeah Generation Kill)!

Fuck you restaurant that has peanuts everywhere (fuck yeah Qdoba)!

Fuck you unreasonably lonely math course (fuck yeah . . . um . . . learning?)!

Fuck you French (fuck yeah Asterix)!

Fuck you work (fuck yeah I can't describe how much I love my English class right now in only one sentence)!

Okay so excluding English I am totally officially ready for college!111

I need a job.

I am reading Generation Kill for History with JRoss. War is fucked up! I have read about war before, but it was never like this. We just had an assembly today in school about how war fucks you up, but the kids I'm reading about now seem to eat war for breakfast. I'm not sure what to think anymore, all of my preconceptions about war have been a tad fucked up. Aw man should I start collecting info for getting CO status I don't even know anymore.

:D

THIS IS WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

I MISSED THE JROSS SHERMAN CLASS
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMP
TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTAL WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
:

Hi guys.

I just made a text-based zombie/apocalypse adventure game with Matthew Dannenberg. If any of you are interested in trying it out, please comment, and I will hook you up. It was coded in python, and if you have a mac, you will have to play it using the .py extension. Sorry guys, but Matt is too fucking lazy to download an application maker for macs because "Macs can already use files with extension .py". Yeah right Matt. Whatever. Maybe some people are too lazy to type "python untitledZombieProject.py". LIKE YOU. Okay, anyway, ranting aside, it is pretty epic, no joke. And I'm not just saying that because I wrote it. Okay so maybe I am. Anyway. Please enjoy! Also, I need feedback.

Nakamura

PS: If anyone knows how to print in a less ugly way in python please share.

I was taking the bus today, and we stopped for a little while because the car in front of us was on fire.


That is all.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

Thy List:


1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Come on, really? No one has read the complete works--we lost a lot of them.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J. R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (??? Doesn't really fit.)
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (I've read a little)
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B.White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (This I should reread)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Heard it's shit, but the other person said it was like gatsby. We'll see.)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

And . . . that's that. I have a little over one in four, but some of those books are ridic and bogus, and there are some exceptions e.g. INVISIBLE FUCKING MAN WHAT THE FUCK SEMINAL FUCKING LITERATURE YOU GODDAMN HACKS. Okay whatever I am just pissed off that the great gatsby was the only book on there that I loved beyond belief. Catcher in the Rye was actually pretty decent too, I gotta say.

EDIT: So I looked into this meme . . . and it's a lie! I do a little bit better on the real list of the big read. http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
An explanation of the real purpose of the big read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read

So . . . it makes sense that Brits would be confused/unfamiliar with Invisible Man. Cools my rage a little bit.

( Yeah I don't really know why )

Why didn't anyone warn me that Harvard is a shitty version of Yale?

Warning: This girl is unreasonably adorable.



I don't know why, but this makes me feel a little uncomfortable to watch. Anyway, in other news, I just finished my first week of school. The only thing I did poorly was French, so yay.

Yay for DL's first few minutes in Philly . . . too bad I wasn't there rabble rabble rabble.

Edit: aw man bbcode!=html I feel dumb.

01) Bold what is true about you.
02) Underline what is half true.
03) Italicize what you wish was true about you.
04) Add one true thing about you to the end of the list.
05) Tag five LJ friends.
06) Ask me anything about the bold/italicized/underlined.


• I miss somebody right now.
• I don’t watch much TV these days
• I own a lot of books
• I wear glasses or contact lenses.
• I love to play video games.
• I've tried marijuana.
• I've watched porn movies.
• I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.
• I believe honesty is usually always the best policy.
• I curse sometimes.
• I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.
• I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
• I have broken someone's bones.
• I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal.
• I hate the rain.
• I'm paranoid at times
• I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
• I need/want money right now.
• I love sushi.
• I talk really, really fast.
• I have fresh breath in the morning.
• I have long hair.
• I have lost money in Las Vegas. (I lost a penny in an elevator D:)
• I have at least one sibling.
• I was born in a country outside of the U.S.
• I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.
• I couldn't survive without Caller I.D.
• I like the way that I look.
• I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months.
• I am usually pessimistic.
• I have a lot of mood swings.
• I think prostitution should be legalized.
• I slept with a roommate.
• I have a hidden talent.
• I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
• I have a lot of friends.
• I have kissed someone of the same sex.
• I enjoy talking on the phone.
• I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
• I love to shop and/or window shop.
• I'm obsessed with my Livejournal.
• I don't hate anyone. I dislike them.
• I'm a pretty good dancer
• I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
• I have a cell phone.
• I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.
• I've rejected someone before.
• I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
• I want to have children in the future.
• I have changed a diaper before.
• I have a lot to learn.
• I am shy around the opposite sex.
• I’m online 24/7, even as an away message.
• I have at least 5 away messages saved.
• I have tried alcohol or drugs before.
• I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past.
• I own the "South Park" movie.
• I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Livejournal.
• I enjoy some country music.
• I would die for my best friend(s)
• I'm obsessive, and often a perfectionist.
• I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
• Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
• I have dated a close friend's ex.
• I am happy at this moment.
• I’m obsessed with guys.
• Democrat.
• Conservative Republican.
• I am punk rockish.
• I go for older guys/girls, not younger.
• I study for tests most of the time.
• I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I’ve ever met.
• I can work on a car.
• I love my job.
• I am comfortable with who I am right now.
• I have more than just my ears pierced.
• I walk barefoot wherever I can.
• I have jumped off a bridge.
• I love sea turtles.
• I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup.
• I plan on achieving a major goal/dream.
• I am proficient on a musical instrument.
• I hate office jobs.
• I went to college out of state.
• I am adopted.
• I am a pyro.
• I have thrown up from crying too much.
• I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved.
• I fall for the worst people and have been hurt every time.
• I adore bright colors.
• I usually like covers better than originals.
• I hate chain theme restaurants like Applebees and TGIFridays.
• I can pick up things with my toes.
• I can't whistle.
• I have ridden/owned a horse.
• I still have every journal I’ve ever written in.
• I talk in my sleep.
• I've often thought that I was born in the wrong century.
• I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions.
• I wear a toe ring.
• I have a tattoo.
• I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with.
• I am a caffeine junkie.
• I am completely tree-huggy spiritual, and I'm not ashamed at all.
• If I knew I would get away with it, I would commit at least one murder.
• I've cosplayed or know what cosplaying is.
• I have been to over 15 conventions.
• I will collect anything, and the more nonsensical, the better.
• I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner.
• I'm an artist. I like to draw.
• I am ambidextrous.
• I sleep with so many stuffed animals, I can hardly fit on my bed.
• If it weren't for having to see other people naked, I'd live in a nudist colony.
• I have terrible teeth.
• I did this Meme even though I wasn't tagged by the person who took it before me.
• I have more friends on the internet than in real life.
• I have lived in either three different states or countries.
• I am extremely flexible.
• I want to own my own business.
• I smoke.
• I spend way too much time on the computer.
• Nobody has ever said I'm normal.
• Sad movies, games, fics and the like can cause a trickle of tears every now and then.
• I am proficient in the use of many types of firearms and combat weapons.
• I like the way women look in stylized men's suits.
• I don't like it when people are displeased or seem displeased with me.
• I have been described as a dreamer or likely to have my head up in the clouds.
• I have played strip poker with someone else before.
• I have had emotional problems for which I have sought professional help.
• I believe in ghosts and the paranormal.
• I can't stand being alone.
• I have at least one obsession at any given time.
• I weigh myself, pee/poo, and then weigh myself again.
• I consistently spend way too much money on obsessions-of-the-moment.
• I'm a judgmental asshole.
• I'm a HUGE drama-queen.
• I have traveled on more than one continent.
• I sometimes wish my father would just disappear.
• I need people to tell me I'm good at something in order to feel that I am.
• I can speak more than one language.
• I can fall asleep even if the whole room is as noisy as it can be.
• I would rather read than watch TV.
• I like reading fact more than fiction.
• I have pulled an all-nighter on an assignment I was given a month to do.
• I have no piercings.
• I have spent the night in a train station or other public place.
• I once spent Christmas completely alone because there was a miscommunication on which parent was supposed to have me that night.
• I've been married and am now divorced.
• There have been times when I have wondered "Why was I born?" and may/may not have cried over it.
• I like most animals better than most people.
• I own a collection of retro games consoles.
• The thought of physical exercise makes me shiver.
• I have hit someone with a dead fish.
• I have written/read erotic stories.
• I am compulsively honest.
• I was born with a congenital birth defect that has never been repaired.
• I have danced topless in front of dozens of complete strangers. And not been ashamed.
• I have gone from wishing I was a boy to reveling in being a girl to feeling like a boy again in the span of five minutes, and not cared a whit for my actual sex.
• I am unashamedly bisexual, and have different motivations for my desires for different genders.
• I sometimes won't sleep a whole night or eat a whole day because I forget to.
• I find it impossible to get to sleep without some kind of music on.
• I dislike milk.
• I obsessively wash my hands.
• I always carry that something significant around with me.
• Sometimes I'd rather wear a wig in day-to-day life than use my own hair.
• I love talking about myself to the point where I need to be stopped.
• I often sing whenever I can and I'm good at it too.
• I have experienced some type of traumatic abuse in my lifetime.
• I've experienced visions and dreams which I know/believe are from my past life.
• I have deja vu so vivid that I feel faint.
• I love Harry Potter.
• My parents are not together.
• I don't believe in love.
• I hate people who walk incredibly slow.
• I have extreme contempt for the vast majority of people.
• Sometimes I don't shower before work.
• To me, procrastination is like a disease!
• I want to sleep now.
• I enjoy watching two guys kissing each other.
• I am a typical Gemini born.
• The more I searched the less I've found.
• As a child I was a huge crybaby.
• I'm feeling alone very fast.
• I'm living in a fairytale and I'm the noble Princess, who saves the day!
• I always have to spell my (real) name.
• I want to die in my sleep.
• I have a strange laugh.
• If they let me, I can sleep 12 hours in a row.
• I wish I could transform myself into a boy every now and then.
• I dance in the rain and don't feel like a fool.
• I have a favorite stuffed animal that I will not ever get rid of.
• I sing 80's hair metal songs into my hairbrush on a daily basis.
• I have a speech disorder.
• I'm infatuably attracted to men with long, blond, curly hair
• I sometimes have the urge to take a shot of whiskey or open a can of beer at odd times in the day.
• I have a weakness for guys with nice bodies.
• I plan to move to another country at some point in my life.
• Ever wanted to be a certain fictional character.
• My dreams are so vivid, they feel real.
• I'm a huge geek, the comic-book and video game kind, not the smart kind.
• I can get jealous easily!
• My computer and harddrive are pretty much my most prized possessions.
• I prefer to buy CDs than download music, free or otherwise.
• I haven't had my first kiss yet.
• I have had teeth pulled.
• I listen to music in at least five different languages.
• I think boys/guys/men are icky.
• I prefer dim lights or candlelight to bright lights
• I fully acknowledge that I love lame jokes, because they're lame.
• I get happy when I buy food (especially meat) on sale.
• I can find beauty and something to love in anything around me.
• Desperate to find where I belong
• I have nearly died more than three times in my lifetime.
* I am houseproud.
• I've suffered from an eating disorder
* I get the feeling that I’m kind of a loser through maybe 40% of each day
• Someone considers me their soul mate...and I think I do too, no matter how ridiculous it all is.
• I want to live forever

Aw man I had to go through to my friends page to figure out who I am friends with so I can tag someone. I should spend more time on LJ.
I tag . . . hmm . . . Matt, and Becca, and those three people I stole from DL.

Okay so I installed xp on my new computer (vista was driving me nuts) without first checking to see if toshiba had drivers for xp. I had even thought, "Hmm, before I install anything, I should definitely download all of the drivers to my flashdrive so that I can just be up and ready to go in a few minutes."

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD MISTAKE. Toshiba doesn't support XP if you're downgrading from Vista Home Premium. So I asked, "Okay, so let's say I upgrade to Vista Ultimate and then downgrade to XP." Nope, they don't support that either. Basically, they suck. So I go over to realtek and get drivers from them, and I put them on my new computer, and I right click them, and the screen blinks, and there isn't a dialogue box or anything, and it's just done. It was a really small file. But I'm not sure what the difference is, and I damn well can't use my wireless. If any of you know how to help me out, please say. I just don't have that little icon in network connections that says, "Wireless".

I am a little pissed off, but I am going to look at the bright side of this and just say that it will be a good opportunity to catch up on some of the reading I have been meaning to do.

Nakamura

http://www.mediafire.com/?n0buo12gl8f

Pretty disappointing, but Gary Gygax was very good.

:< seniors are gone forever . . . forever . . . until I see them again like in a week. And I think I'm going to see Shannon tomorrow. But yeah. I am pretty sad. My year is going to be lame without them to hang out with. Maybe I'll go to Penn and see some of them there.

Sigh. School's out. Time for summer. I'm dreading my summer job a little--I love it, but it requires energy. Also, I might need to get a worker's permit. Better get on that.

BTW I'm working in a lab that rehabilitates paraplegiac mice and sticks stuff in their brain and puts things around their pelvises to help them walk. Good times.

Exams next week, World Science Festival tomorrow, cousin's wedding next weekend . . . good times. My prediction for grades: 4 A's, 2 A-, 1 B+.

I had a dream about mice. There were mice running through my house, and I would jump upon them, catch them using my fore-arms (should've known it was a dream--you're going to catch mice with your hands or not at all) and then decapitating them. Then I think my dad was putting them in a blender but I'm not sure. It was very weird--we didn't even save the brain tissue.

From ghosthair who got it from ephemerall

For the first three people that reply to this post, and who re-post this challenge: you win.

* For your prize, I will send you a gift.

* It might be something I've made, or something cool from my hidden stash of fabulousity. It might be music, or a gadget, or a toy, or a rubber duck, or a book I think you might enjoy. A love letter, a useful object, or something else that is awesome or maybe just taking up room in my house.

* Whatever it is, I promise I will get it to you in 365 days of your posted comment or less, and I will need your snail mail.

* The only thing you need to do to receive your gift is PARTICIPATE.

* Be one of the first three journalers to reply to this, and post this very same thing in your journal, and YOU are the lucky giftee.