It's December now and that means only 24 days until Christmas. But we still have exams. I guess you can't have the good without the bad. Season's Greetings!

I have finished what is quite possibly the coolest assignment that I have ever done. I have written a compiler for a subset of Java. It is called MiniJava and it handles multiple classes, object orientation, integer arrays and everything associated with that. It can only have integer and boolean variables and values, and the only I/O it supports is System.out.println(); for integers. So as you can imagine, there are only a finite number of programs that this is good for, epecially since you need to hard code all of your input. All told I think I spent about 16-18 hours on it - including some very unproductive late night hours. It wasn't necessarily the most fun assignment, but definitely the one I get the most satisfaction from. Once the assignment is done, I will post the source for those who care to take a look. Until then, I am going to just get some much needed sleep. Cheers.

That's the OS exam behind me, which is good, because of all of them, that was the one I was least looking forward to. Not that I look forward to them, but I think you know what I mean. What really gets me is that we have "quiet hours" - 24 of them now here in Glengary when we can't make noise. All this for exams? Where the hell were the quiet hours when I was doing my scheduling program for OS or my compiler - because all of my assignments have taken more work and preperation then all of my exams combined. I suppose it's because others are studying and everyone has exams at the same time, there is rationale there, but it's weak, and I don't know if I'm buying it. On an unrelated note, it was damn cold today. The one day I need to walk to my Aunt's place is the coldest day of the season - made me wish I had long johns or something... :/

"And another one's gone, and another one's gone..." In your face 3121 - another wildly successful exam experience!

Of course, how successful can anything be at 8:30 in the morning? But none of that matters now. The real secret is to go to all of your classes - pay attention - and get a good 7+ hours of sleep the night before you write. Trust me it's so much easier then. :)

I have written three exams in four days and each one I finished at least an hour before the allotted time. My compiler exam only took me 1 hour and 20 minutes out of three hours. And that time includes my "checking it over" period. I knew that things were odd when I was finished three out of five questions on the exam in under 30 minutes. All this and I still consider my exam next Saturday to be my 'easy' exam. This photo is of me doing my post-exam victory dance.

The truly funny thing was the note on the front cover of the exam: Budget your time wisely and don't panic. In other words, write the exam, walk home, call your family for 15 minutes, fix yourself something to eat, and update your website. But not once did I panic - so I guess it's all good.

I was wondering if anyone actually knew if the university has any sort of rights to the things you create for assignments. Say I wrote a really good essay for a class (yea right!) and I had a chance to publish it, am I allowed? The more pressing issue is whether I can share the source of a program I wrote. Bearing in mind that this was actually an assignment where I had to choose what to do. So it would be my belief that I should be able to continue working on said 'assignment' and make it open source - after they have been marked and returned of course. Hmmm... I'm going to assume that I can unless I find otherwise :)

You guys need to check out this list:

29 Quotes Taken From Actual Medical Records - hilarious. [link is dead - 2005-05-18]

This will be the last day that I work for Conference Services. Technically. THey are going to be contracting me to help them with the new piece of software that we just installed, but this is the end of my formal employment there. I have worked with them for 20 months. Luckily I'm not going too far, so I will still get to visit - Thank you Verity, Sherri, Alex, Michelle, Tasha-Lynn and all the other students that I have had the please to get to know through my employment there.

We are getting some nasty weather out there. I was just outside and there is some serious slush action happening. I feel very fortunate in that respect that I do not live far from the computer science building where we will be watching CSI later tonight. New episode too!

It occurred to me that people are leaving to go home for the holidays around now, so I just wanted to wish all of my readers a happy holiday season. I will continue to add content over the break - especially since we now have broadband at home! Oh and any reasonable site feature requests might actually have a decent chance at being implemented over the holidays so ask away. Cheers everyone!

I just finished my last exam! And I'll tell you - it was probably the most poorly formatted exam that I have ever written. The exam was two sheets of paper front and back. While other professors would have had the exact same exam on 6 or 7 sheets, this one was crammed onto two. So that pissed me off the entire time I'm writing the exam - I'm a guy who likes to explain my answers most of the time and having a space the size of two typewritten lines is not sufficient or even adequate for that matter. All told the exam was OK, apart from the bad formatting and irrelevant questions and vague instructions, I'm sure I did fine.

And to compound my absolute pissed state - it was pouring rain when I left the auditorium and I was soaked when I got home - soaked and cold.

To air out my apartment. Because for some reason, it was really hot and stuffy in here. Not anymore though - now it is just cold. I have "inherited" a bunch of stuff from my departing comrades - stuff which needs to be introduced to the ecosystem that is my apartment, as opposed to just sitting in my doorway as it is now. :/ And this isn't just stuff I can stick up on my shelf next to my dying aloe vera plant - no this is big stuff - like a desk. Of course I could put the aloe vera on the desk... but I doubt that will increase its chance of survival... oh well... we'll see how it goes. :)

• "So we should print these then?"
• "Yea go ahead."
• "Does it matter that 'available' is spelled wrong?"
• "Umm... nope."

I'm all alone on the network. It is very sad. I guess that is what happens when you are the last person in the building. (Yes, for those who are confused, my computer's name is Anna.)

I had my "first day" at my new job today. It went really well. I mean, we didn't do anything in particular, but it was good to get a thorough tour of the building and learn about some of the ins and outs of tech support. A lot of what we covered was for help desk staff, but it is good to know that as well... just in case.

I am seriously looking forward to working on the various projects that they have lined up for me. I will obviously keep everyone up to date as cool things happen.

Well it certainly started off well. I wake up to hear my cell phone ringing - wrong number - which normally doesn't bother and today I was particularly grateful because I had only 12 minutes before I had to be at work. Luckily I work about a 25 second walk away. That and they are pretty relaxed about being a bit late as long as I stay late - which is not a problem. The day went by pretty quickly considering that I didn't do anything. I did learn a fair bit about what is what and that sort of thing, but nothing was really accomplished... sounds like most of what I do :)

Today is my last day in Glengary before I go home for Christmas. Of course I am working tomorrow, but I'm staying with mike for tonight. But considering that I was supposed to leave on Sunday (15th) I can't complain about one night. So most of my stuff is ready to go just waiting for my mom to show with the car. Obviously my computer is still connected and that will be the last thing to be packed and I am just sitting here trying to kill the time... knowing I don't have any time to start any dev projects. Oh well... my next entry will likely be from my home in Durham... cheers!

Well. This was a day for the books - or the website in this case. After getting 6 hours of sleep last night I wake up to embark on a day of shopping and adventure in Halifax with my brother. The catch, we have to drop off my youngest brother and two of his basketball teammates at a camp in Truro. So the five of us set off at around 8:05am. It was raining - hardcore. We're talking torrents of rain. Lots of water everywhere. So as we are travelling on our way over Mt. Thom the rain gets even worse to the point where, I hit a puddle and it's all over. My wheels are off the road - shit I'm hydroplaning. So the foot comes off the gas and I hope to god that I can get a grip on the road again. Nope. Fishtailing right. Oh - one wheel hit the road - fishtailing left. Still going left. Sparks. Backwards. More sparks. Apparently my corrective steering lessons did pay off... and we are forward again and I pull it to the side of the road. No damage, no injuries. Some serious scare happening and the old heart a-racing.

So that was my bit of excitement for the day - we never did go to Halifax but the kids did make it to their camp thanks to my Dad and his car. Apparently commuting to Halifax (1.5 hour drive) everyday left my mother's tires quite bald. Well this is one bald man that is a little bit more grateful to be alive.

Oh and until I can figure someway for my web server on my computer to get out past our router here at home, there will not be any of the old pictures available. Any new photos will be added to my borg account because my quota has recently tripled. :)

Wow.

OK, let me compose myself. I even waited until the next morning to write this so that I may be more unbiased. I'm not going to say too much because I don't want to spoil it for those who have yet to see the movie, but to those people I say - "Go see it! Now!"

This is a movie with no beginning and no ending, it is very much a middle. And that is to be expected. I have no sympathy for those people who watch this movie without having seen the Fellowship of the Ring. Still it does stand well on its own and in comparison with the Fellowship. It does follow the book fairly closely, especially for the first half of the film. A couple things at the end were a bit different but I think that was to keep the movie exciting. The first movie's last scene is from the second book and apparently the third movie's first scenes are going to be from the second book as well. But the second book is longer than the others as far as plot advancement goes.

The movie had some really, really cool scenes - and I mean cool - especially involving Legolas - everyone's favorite wood elf. :) I was also quite impressed with their job with Sméagol/Gollum. It isn't easy to pass off a completely CG character in a live action movie, especially with the closeups, of which there were many. Very impressive. A pat on the back for Weta digital.

The pressing question is: was it better than the first one? The answer to that isn't simple. First of all, it is like asking which part of a movie is better, the beginning or somewhere in the middle. Each are used for different purposes. This movie definitely won if you are looking for hardcore battle scenes and pure coolness. However for cinematic value, I'm inclined to think that the first one was superior. Take comfort in the fact that all three movie were shot at the same time and there for are in fact one huge 9+ hour movie. (Longer if they all have bitchin extended editions.) A+, 5 stars, Peter Jackson - you are a genius. :)

Well, it is Christmas Eve and I'm sure most people are at home with their respective families (or out doing last minute shopping). While I do plan on posting another entry tomorrow, I just wanted to take this time to wish all of my readers a happy and safe holiday season. Thanks to a great 10+ months of using this forum and some great memories.

Merry Christmas.
~ rhuvok

Welcome back everyone. I am sorry about the outage, but like I mentioned, unfortunately it was a bit beyond my control. However, I do believe that this recent outage will constitute the longest period of time between subsequent posts on the forum - the previous record being the first weekend in August when my site was down for two or three days.

But it is behind us now. In more relavent Christmas news, mine was great. My aunt and two young cousins were down for a few days and made for a pretty crazy environment, especially since I am now quite used to living on my own. But I did have a good time, because Christmas is about spending time with family - and that is certainly what happened.

In other important news I backed up the contents of my computer onto about 18 CDs last Friday (27th). Yes, I did get a really nice DVD burner for Christmas, but A) the three DVDs that it would have taken to back up the computer would have cost about three times as much as the 18 CDs and B) I'm returning the DVD burner anyway... so it is still in its box. The point being that I am going to be formatting my computer as soon as I get back to Halifax when I can get a legit copy of XP. That's right... I think I might make the plunge into XP (I know there are a few of you out there that will be happy about that.) Not for any other reason than that's what I'll be using at work. Of course, I am still going to be buying the iBook shortly so you can all wipe that smug look off your face right now. SO that is my story... I hope that all of you had a great Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. :)

You have brought with you many great things: echo!, sonar!, the strike :), my new camera, a kick-ass Glengary pubcrawl, discovering the Mercury, Charife @ Elektrik Dreams, last night (I'll explain later), The Fellowship of the Ring Platinum Extended Edition, The Two Towers theatrical release, great new friends, and good times with already great friends.

Of course, you had your share of problems: Communication Skills, stupid's stuff in our apartment for too long, the continued absence of a girlfriend in my life, labrynthitis, hippies, and other people, events and things I'd just as soon forget.

Overall, I have no real complaints - considering the good times. I hope that everyone else had a great year as well. Cheers