I've decided that I won't be doing my Masters in Computer Science after all. I have decided that I'm going to learn to paint better and become a starving artist.

Cost of a ticket: $10
Tickets sold: 120+
Money we saved by not paying the band because it wasn't the one advertised: $600
Consoles given away: 3
Beer Anne knocked over when she won the Gamecube: 4
Watching Dr. Grundke accept his new PS2: priceless.

So there was a bit of an issue with the band. Apparently they cancelled on us a week and a half ago and the Warehouse felt it wasn't necessary to tell us even though we were paying for them. I'm using us as in the royal us, because I didn't have anything to do with organizing this event, for that kudos go out to Sean Smith and Patrick LaRoche.

Other than that band issue, the night went very well. The turnout was pretty impressive considering we are in the meat of crunch time at the end of term.

Since we were mostly all at the Waterfront Warehouse fiasco last night, no one mentioned that there was another sighting of Aqua Teen hunger Force on CSI. Episode 518 actually has prolonged coverage of the open sequence from ATHF. Clearly someone on the crew of CSI is a fan of ATHF and presumably got permission to have it on the show - at least twice now.

Oh boy. Today is the day that we get to lose an hour of time — right around the time that most people are experimenting with ways to get 25 or 26 hours into the day, we get one with 23. But I'm not in classes this term so I can't say I'm that concerned. :)

To be honest I had forgotten. Thankfully my computer knew what time it was and that I wasn't relying on my ghetto alarm clock all day :)

So it turns out that Google maps are a bit cooler now. You can actually get images from space — rather from satellite imagery that Google has for the entire continent. Maybe they weren't joking about the lunar lab they were building.

The above image is actually of the subdivision where I grew up. Definitely cool to be able to zoom in on an area like that — kind of makes you feel a bit like Big Brother.

To celebrate how nice it is finally getting these days, I have decided to start a cleansing. Both of my parents did this a while back and they said that at the end of it you are feeling great — less run down, more energy, sleeping better, etc.

Basically the rules are that I'm not allowed to eat anything that comes from an animal — basically no meat or dairy. Also no refined sugars, fats or anything else processed or chemical laden. Fruit in the morning, but only in the morning. Salads, whole wheat pasta, tomato juice, carrots and cucumber are what I have to hold me. If this doesn't sound like something you would like to do, it is only for ten days, so really not that bad.

Depending on how I feel after the ten days, I may well continue with a similar — perhaps not so strict diet. As well I plan to start a bit of walking/jogging. I'm hoping that the social pressure of telling everyone about my plans will encourage me to stick with it.

So bottom line, I have 10 days... you can start the pool now if you want, but so far so good. :)

In order to continue funnelling my money into Subway and maintain my cleansing regiment, I am forced to eat the Vegetable Delite Salad. Now I don't have any issue with the salad, while it may not satisfy me in the same way as a double cheese melt, it is certainly better for me and I think that is the whole point. However as a regular to Subway and a recognizable one at that, the staff know me — and my sub habits fairly well. Mike and I also made a bit of scene yesterday [in jest] when they didn't have any Cold Cut Combos left. So today they tried to pretend that they didn't get any more in and we all joked around like we were good friends. When I then ordered a salad, let me tell you that I didn't hear the end of it. Mike of course wasn't without his snide remarks — which I will admit were pretty funny. But the salad was good and I am still alive so I will continue to hold out.

I ate in the University's faculty club today for the first time. Fortunately they had a nice buffet with lots of salad stuff and some rice with mushrooms. I did glance longingly at the bacon bits (which actually looked like real bacon bits) and the grated cheese, but I resisted.

I went there in an attempt to explain why I was going out west. I'm not sure how much more closure it generated, and I know that I didn't get any information out of it, but I did score a free Red Bull on the way back to the CS building. Of course I can't drink it until after this whole cleansing debacle, but the price was right.

I'm sure everyone has noticed, but my site has been experiencing intermittent outages and egregious formatting lately. I assure you that if I were responsible this time I would admit it, but it actually has to do with tech support migrating to new servers and config files going every which way. I won't go into all the details because I don't have the complete picture myself, but know that work it being done to remedy the issue.

I can fix it so that when you access the site via torch, you won't see a version of my site without CSS. That should be OK now, but the problem with www.cs.dal.ca/~bate will probably persist until Monday. For those of you who saw the version of my site without CSS, let that be a lesson of what you can do with stylesheets.

If you haven't seen ABC's new show Eyes, I fully recommend that you do. The production value of the show is amazing for a new show — rivaling Las Vegas even and the dialogue and story line of the show is beautiful. The brief synopsis is that Judd Risk Management is a private investigation firm that operates on the edge of the law. The characters are all employees (or owner) of this firm which engages in various levels of espionage for its clients.

So if you like crime drama and high tech action without the legal protocol stuff — again very similar to Las Vegas then you will certainly enjoy this show. It is on Wednesday nights on ABC at 11pm ADT.

I'm pretty sure the worst is behind me. The serious caffeine withdrawal hit me on Friday night. My body's way of punishing me for my usual breakfast of chocolate and Pepsi. The biggest thing that I miss is the dairy products — cheese especially. Even though I don't eat a lot of it outright, it is in a lot of things that I eat. However my serious cravings for a pizza have passed and I'm not hungry all the time as I once was.

As promised I do feel better as well. Even without my caffeine fix this morning I don't feel nearly as run down. There is something to be said about how much better I feel when it is sunny outside as well. I managed to get outside a couple times this past weekend for walks which were nice.

James: Sorry I made it past day 4. :)

It's official. Mac OSX 10.4 aka. Tiger is going to be available on April 29.

The list price is $129 USD, but the educational canadian price is only $89.40. And in case anyone is wondering why they should upgrade, a visit to the Apple Mac OSX page should fill you in. However I will list some of the highlights:

• Spotlight — This is a whole new way to think about your file system. Instead of navigating your directories to try and find files that you need, simply search and Spotlight will find it, whether you are looking for contacts, email, documents, movies whatever. You can even keep customized meta data on your files that will aid in future searchs. And your searches can be saved as auto-updating smart folders.

• Dashboard — All those quick tools and reference information available at your fingertips. With one keystroke you can have access to the latest weather, stock tickers, calendars, or whatever else you want in the form of an interactive widget that floats above your desktop.

• iChat AV — An updated version of this powerful video and audio conferencing software which will allow for more than two parties to participate in audio and video chats.

• Automator — Streamline your workflow with a simple tool that lets you automate tasks that you may perform frequently. And do it without programming — no Applescript knowledge required.

• Other updates include added features to Safari, Mail and Quicktime.

While I will agree that this upgrade contains a lot of merit on its own, I would say that power users are the ones who will benefit the most. The customizations that you can now perform directly within the operating system itself is pretty exciting.

The iTunes Music Store Canada is now offering a free song every week. The US store has been doing this for a while but up until now they haven't been offering one in Canada.

This week's freebie is: "People Come On" by Boy.

Just a reminder to everyone: do not leave your belonging unattended in a public location. This is especially true of valuable items like laptops and mp3 players.

Ten full days. And then I celebrated with a pizza from Peter's. However good it was, it didn't really do anything for me. I'm thinking that I might just introduce a couple of things back into my diet (occasionally) and continue my own modified cleanse for as long as I can, because it seems that I might have a bit of will power in me after all.

This morning I was awoken by the sounds of struggle. I had caught the mouse in not one but two of the glue traps I had set out only last night. He had dragged one of them over to the other one. At first I thought that was pretty stupid, but unlike what the packaging for these traps said, "Once in, trapped forever" is not the case, because in the time it took me to download the photo from my camera the little bastard managed to get away sans a bit of hair. He used the yellow cord that you see in the photo and I guess managed to get his limbs free and then in my rush to throw on a pair of pants to take him outside in, he escaped.

I'm hoping that he'll be back soon in one of the traps, and there is the distinct possibility that there is more than one mouse, but I'll deal with that in due course. Damn. So close.

Two large creative software companies are going to become one. Adobe Systems Inc. has reached an aggreement to aquire Macromedia Inc. for $3.4 billion USD.

Adobe are the makers of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, GoLive! and a number of other professional graphic tools — stalwarts of the graphic design community. Macromedia is definitely best known for Flash and Dreamweaver, but also creates Freehand, Fireworks and Contribute. Several of the tools from Adobe and Macromedia overlap in purpose however, so it will be interesting to see which products continue to be developed and which products will have their features merged or eliminated.

The merger still apparently requires shareholder approval. Source: MacWorld.

Dan over at SimpleBits posted an interesting article about jockeying for elbow room on an airplane. The post has diagrams as well and some of the comments include other diagrams. An amusing read. :)

This week is a busy week in browser town. There are new versions or updates available for Opera, Safari and Firefox.

• Opera — release of new version 8. This new version boasts a number of improvements and it took me quite a while to get it downloaded today because the demand is so high.

• Safari — updated with the recent release of OS X 10.3.9 to version 1.3. According to David Hyatt, there are a number of improvements which change the rendering to make it faster and more like it will be in version 2.0 due out with Tiger in a week and a half. One of the things I noticed about it so far is that it now handles CSS colouring of <form> elements. They also changed the shortcut key for viewing the source which is kind of annoying. I also read today that there is an issue with this new version of Safari with Java apps, so I imagine that a fix for that will be out soon — probably in the guise of a security update.

• Firefox — A security fix discussed at The Register. I guess there is some trouble in paradise, but as usual, there is a swift response. This new version is 1.0.3 and is merely a bugfix release.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Gordon Moore's famous law that stipulated that the number of transistors per integrated circuit would grow exponentially. Essentially saying that processor speeds would double every 18 months to two years. And for four decades this had held true — and Intel estimates that it should for another couple of years before they start running into theoretical limits. Alternatives to silica based transistors have been popping up, such as carbon nano-tubes, molecular adders and others that while promising probably won't make it into any sort of commercial production. (At least not outside the US gov't ;P)

I for one look forward to the day when we are able to break free of our traditional computer model and explore an entirely different paradigm for mechanical computation.

I've been a big Matchbox 20 fan ever since their debut release in 1996 with "Yourself or Someone Like You". I was at the impressionable age of 14 at the time and well something just stuck with me. Recently Rob Thomas who is the lead singer and songwriter for Matchbox 20 released an album called "Something To Be" as a solo effort. You may have heard a single from that album called "Lonely No More". The music video from this song is actually available on the iTunes Music Store under (surprisingly) Music Videos.

If you are at all a fan of Matchbox 20 this album will not disappoint. Rob maintains his excellent songwriting and brings to the listener a range of genres that will captivate you as you listen. I bought the album from iTunes Music store a few days ago and I have already listened to it a dozen times.

I feel like a young boy again. I haven't had a middle ear infection for a long time. I did have an inner ear infection aka. labrynthitis in October of 2002 — although looking back I didn't mention it on my site.

So I spent an unnaturally long time waiting at the Family Focus clinic yesterday to walk away with a prescription for antibiotics that I should only use "if it feels like it is getting worse". Which I'm fine with since the doctor told me that I should take ibuprofen in the mean time and try to keep the ear warm. I also suffer from the typical male problem of not ever wanting to go to the doctor — but I think that I should look at getting that remedied as well if I want to live past the age of 30. :)

As you all know from my close encounter a couple weeks ago, I had placed glue traps in various places in my room. In the corners and other places I've seem it or suspected it of venturing. Other than my initial contact, the traps were largely unsuccessful. It was my assumption that the mouse had learned his lesson and might avoid the traps, but that is giving the mouse a fair bit of credit. None the less there was no activity in the traps except for one which has fortuitously attracted a large number of ants each of which has become stuck. I am also experiencing an influx of ants in my room so I am thankful for any ally in that battle.

However my trap situation changed yesterday when I returned from work. I was doing my usual trap round (I like to be optimistic) when I noticed that one of the seven traps I have located around my room was missing. Not just moved, but no longer anywhere I can find it. And this trap was even on a floor mat so it would not have been easy for a half trapped vermin to drag it somewhere. I haven't done a full hands and knees search of my room yet, partially because I'm afraid of what I might find, but I did look all around the corner of the room where the trap had been with a flashlight — I even pulled out a couple of drawers in my dresser to see behind them and no sign of mouse or trap. I have visions of the mouse with this trap stuck to his back scurrying about the room and somehow dragging this thing into a hole in the baseboards.

As this mystery unfolds I'll be sure to report back. :)

Today the first test flight of the new Airbus A380 commercial jetliner took place — successfully. This thing is huge. It has two full passenger decks and many other incredible features. Apparently Singapore Airlines will be the first to fly it commercially in 2006 — but unfortunately I didn't see Air Canada down as a customer at this point. In fact the only North American customers that I noticed were FedEx and UPS. In any case it is worth a look if you are at all interested in avionics or air travel in general.

Just a note that PCPC will be holding a Tiger Release Party on Friday April 29 from 6pm until 7pm. For those not interested in upgrading (or switching) right away there will be demos going on and probably more than a couple hardcore Mac geeks to answer any questions you may have.

Copies of Tiger will be sold on a first come first served basis and I guess there will also be giveaways — although they didn't say of what — possibly copies of Tiger (or maybe iPod socks. :))

So... when the wind blows and your bedroom shakes — that is a bad thing right? It has been ridiculously windy all day today. Environment Canada says that it is 52 km/h gusting to 72 km/h and I believe it.

In case you ever wanted to generate a random Subway sub, try my Random Sub Generator. It is still alpha, but you can use it to generate fully random subs.

Upgrading as we speak. Very exciting. Spent some time to back up most of my files — the important ones anyway. I will add more as I have it.