Alcohol A Goose

I'm definitely not cut out for rum; it has a fiery taste. And tonight, Chill convinced me to add milk to my Rum & Coke (it didn't take much convincing). It was a horrible mistake. I mean, besides the fact that the milk is starting to spoil, it was beginning to solidify in the drink. It almost looked like a milk shake ... to start with. In the end, it kinda looked like I dropped a cookie into a beer. I can't say it changed the taste much, but it did alter the texture. *shudder*

***
School's going good for me. My classes, Machine Architecture II (MAR2) and Optimization (OPT), aren't too hard. MAR2 is GBA development, but it hasn't gotten exciting yet. I guess in all our classes, labs start slow. But I was hoping to make a game for the GBA. We have the power to, but we aren't yet. And I'm pretty sure we don't have a Final Project, so much as an inclass programming exam. See, if it were my class, I would build upon one program (game) to add the new techniques. Today we learned about the GBA timers. That could easily be attached to a game to put on a time limit. Oh well. I was frustrated at first because the lab required us to: get fonts to work with the tile map/palette, get a timer to run, and get an interrupt to trigger to simulate extended timer functionality. We had fonts running in a bitmapped environment (different than the tile environment), and this program totally revamped our font creation. The Powerpoints aren't very easy to jump through to find information on this tile mode, so I was lost for half an hour. I basically had to splice a few programs together (again) to get it working. Surprisingly, I didn't copy too much for this assignment, so I actually learned something. The way the lab assignment was written (or how I skimmed it) didn't give a lot of information on how to use the timers. The GBA has 4 timers; each timer is capable of holding 16 bits of data. The lab wanted us to have a 32 bit timer, so I just combined two timers together (they're made to do that). What I didn't read is that we were supposed to be using one timer and keep track of the time in a seperate integer. The interrupt is triggered when the timer overflows (loops back to zero). So for a 16 bit timer, this occurs every 65536 counts (for us, clockticks). The interrupt then increments a counter to hold the overflow. The time integer is the overflow counter * 65536 + the timer. So ... I had to rewire my program, but it wasn't too hard. Even though I started out frustrated, I finished before my other friends. Wooh.

The quizzes in MAR2 aren't all that great, but they aren't worth much. We didn't get Quiz 1's results before Quiz 2, so a lot of us missed the same questions twice. I've got the feeling I'll miss them again. I guess I'll just have to study.

Optimization started good, but is sinking. We were working with ASSEMBLY (wooh!), and I was pretty happy. I like ASSEMBLY, though I don't know why. Maybe it's just the idea of working in ASSEMBLY. I guess it's because the language isn't hard to understand. Thus the labs we had to do with strategically attacking logic. It was a good workout for my brain. I could probably make it a hobby, you know, to just program random algorithms in ASSEMBLY. Heh. Unfortunately, we're now using Intel's VTune to monitor "our" programs' performance. The lab assignment over the weekend was to just read the VTune tutorial. I did that, but I didn't open the application. Thus when we had to use the application, I was totally lost. I caught on after a while, but it bores me. I mean, I guess I like knowing which functions are slow. But these aren't my applications. In fact, I've totally forgotten the algorithms used in the Huffman compression algorithm. I might have some idea, but I don't know how to improve upon it (which will be tomorrow's lab). And Tuesday's lab required us to write a document about our benchmark. *sigh* It was so "shallow and pedantic". Maybe I just wasn't in a good mood.

The Optimization quizzes aren't going so well either. But I'm doing slightly better on them than the MAR2 quizzes. Luckily, this class doesn't really give much weight to quizzes either. Wooh!

***
My friends are beginning to bore me. In high school C++, I often asked friends for help with the programs. This might just have been because I was getting Senioritis. In almost every other class, I was a lone wolf. I may have talked to friends when I could, but I would do my work by myself. C++, Photoshop, and HTML were the only classes I asked for help in. Two of my friends are always asking for help (either from me, the lab aides, or each other), and the other one doesn't ask very often (though he could use some help). More often than not, I'm stuck sitting to one of my needy friends. Now, I might be cool and all before lab, but when lab comes, I put my game face on. I prefer listening to my music with headphones on, thus having to pause my music to listen to them is a bit distracting. Also, they generally finish before me (and the other friend). Since they're asking for help from us, we have to stop what we're doing to help try to fix their problem. I don't really like solving other people's problems when I still haven't solved my own. So I generally come off as grumpy and irritable in lab. Which is true, I am easily irritable in lab. I don't know if I should move my seat for lab or what. I would be better off helping my other friend that sits across the room. We carpool together (he's Red from SGP), so we're stuck waiting for each other to finish the labs. And for the most part, he takes the entire lab period. He's a pretty quiet guy (like Loj), so he doesn't ask for help when he needs it. I mean, he could walk over to my apartment if he really needed help. (On occasion he comes over to loot my internet.) Oh well.

My online friends aren't much fun either. Let's just say they aren't very conversational. Yeah, I guess if I'm browsing the interweb, too many AIMs become distractive. And if I'm on CoV, I don't notice any AIMs. But I wish I didn't have to initiate a conversation just once. How do I know that I'm not just bugging the recipient? I mean, some of my "conversations" appear as mere Q&A or possibly even a survey. "Do anything fun today?" "And that was?" "Ah." ... "Did you have school today?" "Which class?" "How was it?" "Learn anything?" "Stab any good people?" Maybe I'm just ranting; I'm sorry.

***
For something totally cheerful though: Chuck E. Cheese is coming down to Florida!!! He's planning on going to Full Sail in the fall (unfortunately close to my departure), but he is going to tour the campus at the end of Jerkuary. It'll be great seeing an old face; I didn't even see him when I last returned to IL. I was intending to visit my parents down here that weekend, but they can wait. I don't know how long he'll be down, but I guess he and his aunt will be getting a hotel for the trip. Chuck didn't say much about a rental car, so I might get to cart them around. That'd be cool and all, but I'm not sure how either of them would like sitting in the back of my coupe. Well, I'm sure it will be a marvelous weekend.

***
I'm moving across the apartment complex late February. I'm gonna have to guess that changing my address isn't going to be very fun. I should probably just tell my bank to stop mailing me.

I'm wondering if my student loan needs to be mentioned on my taxes this year. I don't think I can afford to pay tax on it if I have to.

***
Well, hon, it's getting late here. I'm gonna get some sleep; I still have a chance to get ten hours tonight!



P.S. I suppose I owe Kit this much:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now (even if we don't speak often), please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want -- good or bad -- BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.