I still have a hard time believing that my dreams have finally come true. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has taken not only the top spot of Best Picture, but all 11 of its nominations. This ties the record with Titanic and Ben Hur. It is about time that a Lord of the Rings movie took away what it deserved - Best Picture. All of the movies have won awards for makeup and costumes - along with the techincal sound and video editting awards, but for the first time, Peter Jackson was fairly recognized for the absolute masterpiece that he created. I know that these movies have touched my life in ways that I will carry with me always. Wow. Not only that, but the incredible success of Return of the King means that I think my list of Oscar hopefuls was more accurate this year than any of the past three years I have been "guessing".

On another note, Happy Birthday Karen!!

Spending the past 7 hours trying to develop a simple interface such that I can actually receive typed input into my Graphics package. I am starting to hate C (the language). I have something that is working, but creating a User Interface is by far the most excruciating part of this package. Not because I don't like designing interfaces, but because I have to draw everything out by hand. Yes I'm sure their are some widget libraries for SDL, but a lot of them are for C++. And in any case, whenever I try to install a new package or component into my program, I usually encounter more issues than it is worth. I should head to sleep soon.

"It doesn't breathe as well... the material makes me kind of warm. And the sweater..."

Was what I said when a nurse asked me whether or not I liked the new test bed at the blood donor clinic yesterday. If you have ever given blood at a remote clinic - like the ones in the student union building - then you are probably familiar with the beds they have. The ones that are essentially many plastic straps strung over a metal frame. Not uncomfortable, but not the height of comfort. But they had a new one there yesterday. Just one that they were testing out and as luck would have it, it was set up for left arm donors. And it was available when I got to the actual donation part of the process.

It was definitely more comfortable. Sturdy, padded, with a better recline than the others. It had like a vinyl covering or something. Some material that was quite warm, which didn't really bother me until I was all finished. Then I started sweating, but that passed when I finally stood up again. All told, it was a pretty quick trip through the clinic.

I will now take this time to urge everyone to donate blood if they can. I know that there are a lot of rules that disqualify some people temporarily, especially those who enjoy tattoos and piercings. However, if you are eligible to give, please try to make it out. And that's all I will say about that.

That's right... I have heard for a bit that there were plans to create yet another spin off from CSI, this time in New York. Now according to the radio, there are rumours that Gary Sinise would be the new Grissom. I think that this would be cool. I am a pretty big fan, and I know that he could do a pretty great job, but I'm worried that he might be too big of a star. Most of the actors who play in the CSI shows were relatively unknown before they started the show. The exceptions being the male leads - Grissom and Horatio. But neither of them were as well known as Gary Sinise. In any case, I hope for the best. I am not a great big CSI: Miami fan, but I have hopes that I can get into a New York version.

As a side note to this, I recently ordered the third season of CSI which is due to release March 30. Obviously, my copy won't ship until after then, but the order has been made. The bad news is that it will arrive just in time to be an incredible distraction for exams. But I will hold off and wait until I am working until I endulge. Yea right.

I am really, really busy for the next month or so... I apologize for the sad state that this website will become in that time. I hope to be able to make occasional posts, but they will likely be few and far between.

I know it is probably late notice, but I want to encourage everyone to come out to our St. Patrick's Day Party in the Computer Science building tonight from 8pm until 1am. The event is wet/dry and there is a $2 cover unless you are wearing something green.

So come out, have some fun and relax at the end of the week. You deserve it.

I'm glad that some of you made it out to the St. Patrick's Day party last night. It was a lot of fun for me - despite being there for over 10 hours. It was definitely worth the time that I spent helping to set up and clean up afterwards. It was worth it because I got to learn how to use the Society's new mixer that we bought. It is sexy 10 channel effects mixer that has plenty of volume to play with. The fact that we got powered speakers means that we have 2 or 3 sources of amplification. It also means that one could plug a microphone directly into the speakers and that would work. It was a lot of fun playing with the mixer - mike was there - and then some of the sound crew from the SUB came down and actually showed us how to use it properly.

The turn out was good. There were some people there that I didn't recognize. A few of the people tried to sneak in their own drinks, but for the most part we took those from them. It's funny that people would try to do it - seems like something that high school or junior high kids would try to do. But if you know the group that were trying to do it, you would understand that some of these guys are still kids - most of them in fact - mentally.

But all told I had a great time - lots of laughs and lots of fun.

It is that time of the year again when we celebrate the 3rd month, 14th day. 3.14.

This is now my fourth PI day since I started university - damn that was a while ago.

For those interested in reading more: http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/pi/

And here are some songs to get you into PI day spirit: http://www.winternet.com/~mchristi/piday.html

While I have gotten used to the fact that occasionally I might want to connect to the VPN, I just noticed something that was somewhat unusual. I was in the library and using the wireless network there. When I was getting ready to leave I closed all my connections to the outside world, but I forgot about the VPN and as such I put the laptop to sleep with it still connected. This wouldn't be an issue if you had a whimpy laptop that needed to be shutdown while not in use, but mine was still running. When I got back home and plugged into a landline I realized that I forgot the VPN software. I went on my way and tried to connect to torch. "No route to host". And when I tried to connect to its IP, that worked fine. So long story short - it messed up my DNS resolution and since it couldn't connect to vpn.dal.ca I couldn't even reconnect to try to fix it. Just my little rant. Cheers.

I finally ordered the uber-keyboard. It should be shipping tomorrow and arrive in about a week. It was expensive and although I do have to pay shipping, the fact that I am getting it from Saskatchewan and only have to pay GST means that I'm saving about $10 - even including the $25 shipping. I was just on the phone with the owner of ErgoCanada.com for about 20 minutes and he described the pros and cons of the keyboard to me. It sounds like I have made a pretty good decision. He mentioned that programmers like the Comfort Keyboard, which is the one that I am getting. He also said that they really like the Kenesis which is one I mentioned a while back. I guess that the documentation with it is pretty bad, which means that when I figure out how to use it I will put up a page with the information. :P

I just cleared over 300 emails out of my Inbox on torch. It feels refreshing.

Fun weekend - Friday night was our usual geekbeer/soundbyte only this time we have our own gear and I got a chance to man the sound board. It was a lot of fun and by the end of the night I was pretty wiped. Saturday night I went to the DSU student appreciation night. That was a good time - free finger food and another chance to don the suit and bust a move. That and see quite a few friends from first year. It was fun, albeit quite sweaty, but I've never let that stop me before.

As you may have heard, this movie is currently in theatres and doing quite well. Which is all well and good, but it is a zombie movie which typically one wouldn't expect to do very well. Regardless... I do plan on seeing it on Saturday. Most people that I know assume that the movie would reduce them to tears/a puddle of urine and have refused to go. But I can't see it being that bad. After all it is a movie.

And speaking of movies that have to be seen: Jersey Girl - yet another film by my personal hero, Kevin Smith. Penny Arcade made mention of Kevin on Wednesday which was kind of cool - when worlds collide. There was also a bit about Kevin in the paper that Chris was reading in HCI - apparently he was giving a talk of some sort in Toronto. In any case I hope to find some time in the next month to go see it, but things are definitely looking like I have more projects than time left in the term. Damn... who would have known that this university thing would be so time consuming.

Apple is slowly gaining a good hold on our faculty. There is a strong loyal group of students - a group which is growing each day. And now, the manager of Tech Support for the Faculty of Computer Science is on board. He even mentioned that he would be attending an Apple event for education and he was going to see if he could strike up a deal whereby we would receive a new Mac lab. That would be so hot. Sure... it may not happen while I am here, but if it converts just one person then it will be worth it.

Macs (OS X) are superior computers!

And I think that my keyboard should be arriving today. *crosses fingers*

Damn, Dawn of the Dead is a freaky movie. There is no hiding it, it is a straight-up zombie horror film. The beginning of it is worse in my opinion because you never know what is going to happen. Then the story comes together and they stop springing huge surprises on you. Some nice head blowing up shots and there is enough humour in it to keep you from losing your mind. All told... worthy of it's rating.

To those people who rely on this site to find out just what it is that I do on a semi-regular basis I apologize. I didn't want to say anything without the photos and I was just lazy about getting them online. The keyboard is definitely unique... I haven't really had too much of a chance to spend long hours typing on it yet, but I have had to do a bit of work and I'll tell you that it is taking something to get used to. It has made me realize that I clearly don't know how to type properly. And that is true. I don't. I have never needed to learn. I can type fast enough for what I use the computer for and that is programming. However I am going to try and learn in the near future. Once classes are over I might take some time and learn the proper skills.

But in any case I am pleased. It works with my laptop and it even has my ctrl and capslock keys swapped by default. I only wish I had had the opportunity to try out the Kenesis USB Advantage Pro - which is another contoured keyboard, but it is quite powerful. It wasn't what I was looking for as best I could tell. However there is no store that sells that stuff in Halifax so I was forced to base everything off reviews that I read. No complaints so far.