momiji

So, I should really be asleep, as I need to be up again in another six and a half hours, but I've got too much on my brain. I've been reading old SR campaigns, mostly about the sequence of events leading up to Crash 2.0, as I'd like to write out some backstory for Ally, and I think that's what sparked off this late-night ramble. I was lying in bed, a particular line of synth running through my head (Coburn - We Interrupt This Program (Interrupted Vocal Mix) - I may upload this and some of the rest of the SR playlist later), when I was suddenly struck by an overwhelming wave of longing for a place I've never been, and which may not even exist, save possibly Tokyo in the quiet hours of the early morning. It's neon lights at night, clusters of skyscrapers looming over the water, concrete and steel girders, empty subway stations, the feeling of being alone in the midst of civilization. It makes me miss Boston a little, in part because New England has a way of getting in your blood, and also because Vancouver, while I love it, has a little less of that neon-grit edge that Boston and NYC have. Some of you may remember a bit of an essay I wrote back in '05 (god, was it really that long ago now?) about cities, and a lot of what I said then holds true now. This, plus my rampant techno-fetishism, probably explains the deep draw cyberpunk has on me.

In conclusion, have a cool Tokyo nightscape pic while I decide what my chances of actually falling asleep are.

EDIT: Also, I know I have expressed my desire for mirrorshades in the past - these are pretty much exactly what I'm looking for (cap from Hackers). Leads would be awesome.

Got my Bio 200 midterm back today - 90 = A+ = very happy me. This almost makes up for all the Cs in everything else. My new mp3 player is somewhere between Seattle and Richmond, which also makes me happy - I hope it doesn't get held at Customs, and thus arrives tomorrow, but who knows.

We had a little Halloween party last night - low-key, but fun. Sat around and had chips and canday, and played DDR and Gloom and Rayman, and got a bit tipsy. Good times.

And last but not least, best of luck to all my friends doing NaNo this year. I, as usual, am not, but am going to instead try to motivate myself to write _something_ this month.

Seriously, guys, this is getting ridiculous. Latest casualty in the ongoing technological death around me? My laptop battery. It was fine a week ago. Then suddenly it could only hold 40% capacity. Now it's saying 'irreparable damage to the battery has been detected'. Nevermind that it was working fine when I went to bed last night, and all I did was run the battery gauge reset (which shouldn't damage the battery, it just syncs the software with the actual charge capacity). And Lenovo US says my battery doesn't actually exist. Lenovo Canada has it - for a nice big $180. I'm going to try running the gauge reset again, but gah.

Also, Creative has some good prices on refurbished mp3 players. Can anyone give any input on buying manufacter refurbished electronics? I'm always super-hesitant about buying used, but I don't have the money for new right now...

So, today started out as a normal bad day - slept badly, felt kinda sick, left my USB mouse at home when I was going to be on campus all afternoon, that sort of irritating shit. And then around seven, I get a call from my landlord, who lives upstairs, saying 'Are you home? The alarm just went off'. And of course, I'm on campus - which means bad things are happening.

Turns out our house was broken into - cops think two people. They got in through one of the windows in my suite, tripping off half the the alarms, went into my bedroom and rifled through the nice-looking jewelry box, taking nothing, pried the door to the the upstairs half open with a crowbar, most likely (the deadbolt was almost totally ripped out of the door), setting off the other half of the alarms, and then riffling through my landlord's bedroom. Luckily, we had some fucking stupid thieves - they only made off with one laptop, which was pretty new and didn't have much installed on it. My video games and systems weren't even touched, including Jon's Wii. They ripped off all the alarm panels, probably thinking that it would kill the alarm (only kills the sound, the control panel keeps sending alerts), but they fit right back in and still work fine. So we're going to beef up security some in hopes of thwarting a second attempt by the same guys.

Downside: I managed to accidently throw my two weeks from new CD player into a wall. 'How did you do something like that accidentally?' you say. Well, when you don't realize it's balled up in some blankets, and then toss said blankets onto the bed with a little more force than was probably necessary, this wonderful thing called momentum sends the heavy things flying fast into walls, and scuffing paint. It's toast, and I can't find the receipt, so I'm out $25. This is not a good year for me and personal electronics - two mp3 players and a CD player D:

Upside: I have a shiny new giant silver Ikea bookcase, full of stuff, which means the stuff isn't on my floor, and it actually looks more like I _live_ here now. And I found my Seishirou bling, which I was positive I had lost at a con sometime long ago, and was never going to see again.

Also, OMG, Lady's in DMC4 and wearing hot pants? WTF? Trish too, but she doesn't look any trashier than she did in DMC.

I can't tell if it's because Excel is too user friendly, or too non-user friendly, or some strange combination of the two, but it takes forever to figure out how to accomplish some seemingly simple task. Like adding a linear line of best fit to a graph. This is in part because searching the help for 'trend line graph' gives adding a trendline to a graph as the tenth or twelfth hit, rather than, say, the first.

In giving thanks for small miracles, however, the three-month garbage strike has finally ended, which means come Wednesday morning my week-old three bag of mashed yams will be gone, along with some truly sketchy hot-pot leftovers. And my video card, integrated though it may be (look, it was like $200 cheaper, okay?), is still awesome enough to run Halflife Source, which means I have something to do when I actually have time to play games again.

I have just spent the last three hours working on stats. It's all very simple stuff, but the data sets are really big, and my graphing calculator batteries are dead, so I can just program the set in and then let it run all the functions. On the plus side, it's the worst of all my current assignments, and it's _done_. I had my first midterm yesterday, which I'm fairly certain I did terribly on - I didn't realize it was yesterday until Tuesday afternoon, at which point it was too late to do much other studying than rechecking my notes (I don't pull all-nighters to cram, it would just make me do worse). I think I passed, though, which is a start.

Thanksgiving on Monday was fun - unlike my mother, I almost managed to get the amount of food right so we weren't swimming in left-overs for a week (too much mashed yam, though). Unfortunately between this and a large cell bill from August, I should probably not spend money on anything other than food until next month, really - although I think in the confusion I've paid my next cellphone bill as well (Rogers doesn't list late payments until the next billing cycle, which is really confusing).

My dad is coming next week, my house is almost clean, I'm helping Jon go shopping tonight - life is largely pretty good.

- Jon is really cute in glasses <3
- Had another mp3 player death (my brother's old one) over the weekend, so I bought a CD player until I have enough for a new mp3 player
- Thinking of joining Fencing Club, but I'm not sure I want to sacrifice my Thursday evenings for it
- This has lead me to wondering if my old fencing instructor remembers me - probably not.
- And fencing gear is pricey. Damn.
- For the first time since moving here, I lost money converting from USD to CDN instead of the other way around.
- I impulse-bought a 1GB flash drive today. It was only $15, okay >.>?

Icebreaker on Friday went surprisingly well - a ton of people showed up, and we managed not to run out of food despite that, so everything went well. The afterparty was a bit more low-key, as half the people who were supposed to come, didn't, so there were only six of us. We got a bit tipsy and sat around playing Rayman for the Wii anyway. It may have worked out for the best, given my lack of furniture >.> I did, however, take the delivery of a table and four chairs last night, and am getting a bed today (king-size!). Hooray from people moving and getting rid of stuff for free!

Managed to cut back on some of my work commitments, too, so zomg, free time again. Now if only I had my memory card... Although I still have Twilight Princess to finish off.

Got some of my scheduling worked out - one game ending in a few weeks, and we hired someone new at work, so in a few weeks my schedule will be better. I'm also getting better about actually getting work done on time. This still leaves very little time for blogging, though, as some people may have noticed. Been getting lots of stuff done for the club, though, which is good.

In school news, my vertebrate anatomy lab sucks, my cell bio lab is awesome, and one of my profs has encouraged us to lick toads. Being a biology student is a strange life.