The Recovery

The LAN was followed by some computer withdrawal, as I could nto get my computer before Fri, after which I had to work until ten. Thanksgiving was fine. We went to Beaver Dam, where my Grandfather lives, for Brunch. The Friday after Thanksgiving was long and gruelling, as was today. I worked from 2-10pm on Friday and 9:30-2pm on Saturday (today). I hope to either LAN tonight or go see Bowling for Columbine at Westgate.

In the vein of movies you should see is Equilibrium, which is described on slashdot as a sort of Brave New World meets Matrix meets Fahrenheit 451 sort of movie. You can check out the Trailer Here. There's a nice little Video Game (including PC) buying guide up on Shacknews as well. Remember, don't buy Shinobi, as it's supposed to stink. Also, the guide recommends Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which has gotten pretty poor reviews. So, Don't buy that one either. I know what I want: Gameboy Advance E-Reader.

Being the good news reader that I am (I have no idea what this means), I checked out the BBC news web-site to find fighting had broken out in the Ivory Coast Story. However, the French are actually involved in this dispute, as they are trying to mediate the conflict. It's nice to see a current/former power actually mediating disputes in Africa instead of treating it like a sess pool that shouldn't be touched with a ten foot poll, like the U.S. does. Also, the U.S. is warning of more terrorist attacks in Africa. I love how an Islamic National Group took responsibility for the attack. Hint: This is not a particularly good way for the terrorists to escape arrest. So of course, authorities arrest a bunch of Palestinians who are Islamic. Go figure (sheesh!).

On CNN There's a story about the Disney Cruise Ship Magic's troubles with the Norwalk virus. Apparently ~1/10th of the passengers and crew have acquired the gastrointestinal disease. Sounds like fun in a sort of diarrhea sort of way.

Today's Music
Trapt - The Game

Lan Ho!

Well, it looks as though we'll be lanning at Mark's Dad's office, so w0007. In other news, I've been working on my Stanford Application because my dad's bribing me to do so. Not much other news than that. I do have some interesting news, though.

Today's News
Scientists Debate Human-Mouse Hybrid - No, not the computer type, either. Read it!
Facial Transplants on BBC - Again, read it!
American Soldiers run over 2 South Koreans

Today's Music
Trapt - Headstrong

Contemplation

I don't really feel like talking about me today. Monday was normal. I got a good nigiht's sleep. I had NHS induction after school (which was preceded by me going to the doctor's offfice). Then Greg, Marcus and I went to Best Buy, Circuit City, and finally Target to see if we could get ourselves a copy of Hegemonia, but alas, no dice. Tuesday (today) we were suppossed to have a lan after school, which did not materialize becuase Mark wasn't on the ball. So hopefully tomorrow, we'll get something together. But what I really want to discuss is time management. It always seems like I don't have enough time to:
1. Read
2. Weight lift
3. Do homework
4. Play computer games
5. Do chores
6. Blog
7. Find Music
8. Post on my favorite Message Boards
9. Work
10. Practice Music Stuff
11. Sleep
Note, that each of these categories can be sub-divided into categories themselves, thus creating an incredible number of things that I want to do but cannot. It's sort of staggering when I think about it.

Today's News
Own your own Hobbit Hole - LoTR gone too far, to say the least.
Astra 1k Satellite Fails
Time Warner Considers Giving Content only to AOL users

Today's Music
Pressure 4-5 - Melt Me Down

Today's humor
Penny-Arcade - Friends don't let friends buy Monster Cable!

Wrap-Up
4 Days and finally an update. I've really got to get on the ball. So, let's see. I've been pretty busy lately. Thursday we had Madrigals after school. The same went for Friday after school. After Madrigals, we went to see the new bond flick, Die another Day, at Point on the Ultrascreen. However, because we got there so late, we sat in the second row. So, it was tough to tell what was going on. Saturday, I worked form 1:30pm-4:00pm and afterward, I had the actual Madrigal dinner from 5-9, or so. I also received my Command and Conquer Generals CD in the mail on Saturday. It blows my mind. After Madrigals, I went to see Die Another Day a second time. I didn't think it was any better the second time around. In fact, I got bored. On Sunday, I worked form 10-15pm-3pm. It was boring and the cashier behind me (lane 15) was annoying as hell. Afterward, I watched the Packer Game (boo!) and the Simpsons. Jerome stopped over to show me the poster for our project, that he worked tirelessly on.

Now, let me digress a bit. If you haven't checked out Hegemonia yet, by all means please do so. It is absolutely gorgeous and is a blast to play. The playable demo is out and Greg and I are having a blast playing it. I also wish I could talk about the C&C Generals Beta, but I can't because it would violate the NDA, but at a lan...

Today's Music
The Crystal Method - Boom

Today's News
Computer Recycling - A lie
Navy Seizes 100 Midshimpens' computers
DOS and NT 3.5 Dea - Also Interesting: Windows XP won't be dead until 2009. Unfortuantely, WinME will be supported until 2005 *shudder*
Billboard Fits Driver's Radio Station

Quickie
Ok, I've been really busy with makeup work and Madrigals the past few days but have been good overall.

-Peace Out
Today's Music
Tom Petty - Lost Children

Immaculate
Tuesday was another busy day. We had jazz in the morning, and I felt pretty terrible. I had to and still have to make up three science labs. I felt really out of it all day because I'd had too much sleep, I think. It always happens when I come back after a period of oversleeping. But that's the price I pay. I hate making excuses for things and I hate it when other people make excuses. After school, we had academic bowl. Our team (team 'khkckhkh') consisting of myself, Kelty Carew, Kelly Boyle, and Colleen Welch squared off against Josh Schaeffer's team (w/ Jessie Roho, 2 others I can't remember, sorry). We won, narrowly. I have to hand it to Josh Schaeffer. I believe him to be smarter than I. I was just faster (or so I say). After school, I finished up my English paper and did scads of homework.

Wed. was as close to perfect as a day gets. . . at least up until this point (more on that later). Madrigal started out well (we did not have to have play practice). Then Science went well in that I got to make up all my labs. I also managed to correct my English paper, which I was very proud of because I had a sort of epiphany regarding symbols in Death of a Salesman. But I'm sort of extolling my own virtues so I'll stop. I did well in Spanish, we watched a good video in ideas class on Sigmund Freud. Band was dull. We had a sub in choir. Gabe and I worked on the crossword, but didn't quite finish it. Math was pretty good, if not unproductive. English was unrpoductive as well. Gabe and I finished the crossword thanks to a little on-line help. After school, we didn't have jazz band, so we had academic bowl instead. There were some absolutely hilarious moments:
Kirsten: Russian Siberian camps are known as:
Kerry: Siberian Fun Zones

Kirsten: The largest order of instects, which contains, beetles, weevils, .... is:
Zupan: Insectae
My team beat Zupan's team (others: Zeph Marcus, Dirk the exchange student, some freshman). It was really close and was a hard fought battle on both sides. After school, I had a voice lesson and then I started my homework, which up to this point, has not been going very well.

Today's News
Delta 4 Rocket Launch Successful
Da Vinci Robot Approved for Surgery
DMCA notices served to price comparison site - This is such a load!

Massive Massive Massive (m3) Update

Ok, Sorry, I should've updated more, i Know, but I've been sick since Wed. the 11th. It all started off w/ a sore throat that progressed to a really freaking on-fire throat. I would've gone to school on Thursday had it not been for the fact that I had to catch an early morning flight to visit the campus of Michigan on Fri. In other words, I h had to save myself for the campus tour. Well, I made the flight out, felt sort of miserable, but I was impressed. Their engineering department, along with the music department has its own separate campus, which is both bane and blessing. They have two more buildings scheduled to go up on the campus in the next couple of years and all their facilities and courses are top notch. They even spent their tobacco settlement money on building a new engineering facility.

On to Saturday: I went to the Badger football game after touring the central campus. The Badgers lost but it was a pretty good game and gave me a feeling for the epic size of the "Big House" (Michigan's Football stadium). It was big and parking was surprisingly good. Although, they sure could have improved upon their Armour Hot Dogs, or as I like to call them, Sewer Seepage sticks. They were burnt, tough, and tasted more like something left in a peet bog for a couple of days than any hot dog I've ever had. Condiments (i.e. 2.6 gallons of ketchup) were especially necessary. Afterwards, we rendezvoused w/ some friends (Dick + Andrew for those of you who know whom I am talking about) and slowly wandered back toward central campus where we at at Dominick's a restaurant, which I liked a lot.

Sunday I flew back and my sinus (left) exploded. I encountered seering pain as we were descending. I thought my eye / skull was going to explode. It subsided a little bit but still hurt like a sledgehammer and a syringe being directed at my skull. So, I went to (insert horrifying shreek) Urgent Care where they told me that I had a sinus infection and gave me some antibiotics. Moving forward, I could nto sleep at all Sunday night because of the terrible pain in my sinus and the terrible cough that I developed.

I went to school today at lunch. I encountered much chastising because I had missed, at this point, four days of school. Of course, my friends claimed I was playing video games, etc. which sadly was not true. The rest of the day went fine. I went to the real doctor and got some cough medicine with Codeine (breakfast of champions) to help me get to sleep. I then went to show choir and skipped out on Madrigals. Then I did some homework, fiddled with the new hard drive that I got (model: WD1200JB) and I sit here currently copying some of my files in preparation of reformatting my RAID array. *whew* I guess that about does her.

Today's News
Intel 3.06ghz Review on Hardocp
Nvidia Geforce FX Preview on Hardocp - Note: Won't be released until Feb.!!!
U.N. Weapons Inspectors return to Iraq

Weekend Review

This weekend was characterized by one thing more than anything else: Flame War. I engaged in a huge flamewar on PCGN. Also, we had a show choir performance at the Memorial Union w/ the Wisconsin Singers on Saturday. Paradoxically, we were there for 7 hours and we performed for 8 minutes. Sunday, I went over to my mom's co-worker's house again to do some tech support, which was good because it took very little time and netted me some cash - always a plus. Also, we had a Madrigal Rehearsal, which went rather smoothly.

Monday was a horse of a different color. I'd apparently forgotten to do a graph for science and had a very difficult English impromptu to do. I think it went "ok". I'm not really sure though. I've been reading some interesting stuff lately, too.

Did you Know That:
TRW managed to develop a truck-based laser that can shoot down missiles.
America's Defense Budget is > than that of all other nations combined
George W. Bush's defense spending increase > any single nation's total spending on Defense
Edgar Allen Poe First Theorized the Big Bang
The Earth's Magnetic Poles are about to Flip

Today's Music
Tom Petty - The Last DJ

Today's Tech News
Indiglo Case Mod

Friday

Friday has come at last and what a day it was. I woke up at 5:50 and thought it was actually 6:50, so I was hurrying to get ready when I had more than enough time to make it to Jazz band. School was ok. Nick Heckman gave me a good idea for a literary piece... I had a total of 3 quizzes and tests (math, English, English). The que-st on Death of a Salesman was quite difficult. After school, I had to get fitted for Winter Fantasy. Then I proceeded to Target, picked my pay checks, went to the bank, bought some shoes, got a car wash, got in two arguments about war on Iraq, went to see The Ring and then came back home to write some more vitriolic against war on Iraq. I sort of wish that political arguments actually got you somewhere (i.e. persuaded people to take yoru positions).

Today's Music
Trapt - Headstrong

Today's Tech News
Nvidia has released a new WHQL certified version of its driver suite Detonator v. 40.72

Today's Humor
Penny-Arcade

Hardware Woes

Today was another day of drudgery in the life of Kerry. Thus bringing the total to: about 9,356 days in my life, so far. As I went to check on the oil in my car, I openend the hood and noticed that the cap that was supposed to keep the oil in the engine was missing. So was some oil (it was everywhere). To add insult to injury, I had to re-install XP last night because my hard drives desperately need a reformat. I really need a Western Digital 1200jb or a Seagate Barracuda V.

Today's News
U.S. and France agree on U.N. Resolution regarding Iraq
Dick Gephardt steps down as House Minority Leader
Notre Dame Professor Cracks 109-bit Crypto key Read this one!

Today's Music
Ours - Leaves

Slackdom
Today's a half day, w007. Unfortunately, I have a voice lesson and a Madrigal Play practice, though. Adding to Yesterday's post, I beat Kingdom Hearts, and I've got to say thate Square really knows how to generate those tear-jerker endings. As I was looking through the voice credits I saw not only Haley Joel Osment, and James woods, but also Billy Zane!!! Billy Zane pwnz j00. Unfortunately, I also saw the dreaded name of "Lance Bass." Arggghhhh!!! Also, I installed win XP last night.

I've been having some pretty cool reveleations lately:
1. If Wi-Fi's range does get increased like it is supposed to, we could have a neighborhood permalan.
2. We got a Dem. Governor and Attorney General but lost the U.S. Senate, Legislature, State Senate and State Legislature.
3. Natural Selection pwnz j00

Today's Music
12 Stones - The Way I feel
Ours - Sometimes

Today's Tech News
Case Mod: PC in an NES
Doom for Nokia 7650

Recap

Wow, (notice how I always start these w/ an interjection of some sort?) I can't believe it's been six days since I've updated. I'm sorry, my bad. Because I can't even remember what I did on Wed-Fri. I'll just sort of summarize from Sat. Onward.

Saturday
Woke Up late, watched the badger game, went to show choir, went to Denny's after show choir
Sunday
Lots o' Homework, YAY! Oh, and I beat the Hades cup in Kingdom Hearts, because there's always time for KH.
Monday
In a word: crappy. Went through the usual morning routine, realized that I had to do an Ideas paper that I hadn't done the reading for, had to finish up my English During ideas, choir, and math. But luckily, most of my teachers handed out very little homework. After school, I had a madrigal play practice immediately followed by a show choir practice. I also stayed up late watching the Packers kick some Dolphin Tail (pun intended)

Special Note: It's election day today. So get out and vote (preferably for anyone but Scott McCallum

Today's News
U.S. Kills Cole Bombing Suspect

Today's Tech News
The Advent of the Blue LED
802.11b over an 11 mile radius
NV30 Benchmarks (note: it's Japanese)

Today's Music
Injected - Faithless