“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
– Voltaire

Ryan: ahh.. beer
Ryan: the 6th wonder of the world

Me: 8th
Me: The 6th wonder of the world is the sphynx or something.

Ryan: fuck you
Ryan: it’s beer

Me: hahaha
Me: you’re right
Me: fuck the sphynx

Ryan: god damned half cat

This just in: There is a difference between a Bran muffin and a Raisin Bran muffin.

The difference is quite noticeable. It’s the raisins, some of the most disgusting little dried up fruit imaginable. All muffin-sellers please adjust your signs accordingly.

I kick ass at public speaking. I have oratory skills that would make Hitler and FDR alike let out a low, appreciative whistle and say, “That man knows how to bring it to the mic”.

I should qualify this proclamation, the two recent speeches I’ve had to make were not of any instructive value, they were more about mocking friends whom had already consumed a few alcoholic beverages. So I suppose my expertise lies more in “roasting” among drunken friends than any real talent. Regardless, it’s the one skill I have that I am completely confident about; if approached in a dark alley and met with a thug who challenged me to throw down street style, I would propose it is highly probable that I would be declared the victor.

Last night I had a chance to thank Dr. Nico at a faculty appreciation dinner. The good doctor was the first computer science professor I had at Cal Poly and is the reason I am still in this major today. I was more than willing to thank him publicly, but when they added in a free prime rib dinner, that sealed the deal.

Honestly, my favorite part of the evening was simply getting to hang out with the professor, meet his wife, and have a beer (well, he had wine, but I had beer) with the man. I asked him how he decided to get into the biz of teaching, and he replied, “I’ve wanted to do this since I was about five.”

And that is why Phillip Nico is the man.

Last fall, my Vespa was stolen.

But when you ask a vending machine
For Reese’s Pieces
And get Corn Nuts instead…

that really hurts

The weather got warm this week; into the 80s on Monday here in san luis, but dropped down a whole lot today, down into the 40s.

Apparently Lauren is a bit chilly

Today I cut a 1/2″ piece of steel into two pieces without even touching it.

Under pressure I might concede the 6800 degree flame helped.

Two interviews today. Both for internships with the same company. This is a company that I’d very much like to work for, so I was ready, though nervous. Job interviews are strange things, you never know exactly what punches are going to be thrown and so what you’ve been training for may be nothing like what you see in the ring.

ROUND 1. FIGHT!

We went toe to toe for thirty minutes. My interviewer was ill, which put him at a disadvantage, but I feel I made a good impression and have a strong reference for this position. booyah.

ROUND 2. That guy with a chair came out of nowhere!

Upon discovering there was another interviewer for an equally enticing position at the same company, I went gDub style and busted in where I wasn’t invited. I gave him an ultimatum: interview me or forfeit a shiny new Intel Mac laptop.

Not surprisingly, they chose to interview me (them laptops are hard to get). Surprisingly, I felt my performance was much better during this interview. Maybe it was because the topic was more familiar, maybe it was a result of gained confidence from my earlier interview, or maybe the interviewer and myself were just on the same wavelength.

Ultimately, I think he was intrigued by the fact that I showed the drive to barge in where I wasn’t necessarily welcome to get something done.

I’m gonna go weld something.

UPDATE:  I just realized that the tshirt I’ve been wearing all day is on backwards.  If I hear back from either of these jobs I won’t wear it any other way.

Ok, two annoying things with my cingular service that I’ve found solutions to recently that I figure others (specifically my immediate family) might appreciate.

1. To delete a message WITHOUT LISTENING TO THE WHOLE MESSAGE, hit 77 (yes, the number 7 twice) while the message is playing.
2. To quickly make your cellphone silent, hold down the pound key. This is only relevant to more recent Samsung phones, but without this trick, you have to turn the damn thing off or navigate complex menus to shut it up.

I hereby promise this is the last time you will ever be in danger if learning something from this website.

Over at Pandora.com, if you tell it what kind of music you like, it will give you streaming radio of similar music. Now, it’s certainly not perfect, the algorithm they use seems to be based strictly how the music sounds, not the content of the lyrics. But as long as you keep this constraint in mind, the hit rate is surprisingly high.

If it wasn’t for Pandora, I would have never even heard of the Desaparecidos or had the opportunity to listen to “Wreck My Car,” by Scott H. Birham.

Life without Desaparecidos just isn’t worth living. Not this week anyway.

“Kernel programming is a black art that should be avoided if at all possible. Fortunately, kernel programming is usually unnecessary.”

-From the APPLE kernel hacking guide.

Apparently modifying the kernel is for those who are attracted to the dark side of the force. To that I say: I won’t lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any programmer has ever dreamed of. And I’m doing it for you, to protect you.

Ok, it’s a bit creepy, but I’m ready to do what’s necessary.

“I once made a pretty decent scale drawing of a pixel. That’s about the best I can do.”
–Shaun McCance

I feel that.

Three weeks, three job interviews. Job market’s looking up.

I have become a (relatively) competent geek.

Just one moment ago I realized, “Damn, a link I need was sent to me on my instant messenger client on my home computer, and that computer is quite far away.” Fortunately I was able to retrieve the necessary information through the following steps.

1. Remotely log on to my computer (securely) through ssh.
2. Find the directory where my instant messaging client keeps logs. This was simple enough, as I happen to know the correct directory off the top of my head, despite the fact that the directory is hidden and several levels deep.
3. From the command line, recursively search through all the files in all the log directories, quickly finding the necessary information.

Just think, if I were an english major, I might have had to drive home.

I want my very own Canadian.