I'm at work right now
But I don't feel like working. CAD is soul-draining (-2 BM).

Coolness
Is the best way to describe Christmas Eve. We had a few new family members this year (births/marriages), so it was cool. I was also sore all day from paintball. Fun sport, but it really takes it out of you.

Applied physics
Played paintball today at my aunt's house up in Woodland. There's some logging areas around there that are perfect, with lots of trees and uneven terrain. A great time was had by all. I didn't play extraordinarily well, but I did manage to single-handedly (and successfully) storm a fixed emplacement after sneaking up on it for ten minutes. I managed to avoid any real painful shots, but after the main game had ended, a few of my relatives, one of which is almost psycho about these things, did the "ten-paces-turn-and-shoot" thing in the front yard. I tell you, getting hit by a .68 caliber round traveling in excess of 250 ft/s is really painful. Especially if it hits you in a sensitive area. That's why I wear a cup and a neck protector.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, traditionally spent at my grandparents house in Tigard. It's my dad's side of the family, and they're cool people, so I'm looking forward to it. Also, I know I'm a typical guy, but I still have shopping left to do, and I've barely started the wrapping. I know, I know, spare me your lectures, I'll get it done tonight, I promise.

Oh
I finished Force Heretic I: Remnant. Yay. On to number two.

Thus continuing my tradition of forgetting things in my main post and choosing to make a new one instead of editing. I bet a bunch of comments for the last post will end up on this one anyway.

Well now...
Yeah, yeah, no updates for awhile. I know you guys are all salivating to hear the latest tidbits about my life and adventures, so here goes.

LAN party. Just about everyone who reads this was there, so my impressions. First, my computer was acting gay for the first couple of hours, which is pretty unusual and was starting to annoy me. ZoneAlarm kept locking down my computer whenever I deactivated it for gaming purposes, and that could only be fixed by a restart. Then, I couldn't see LAN games of BF1942 or StarCraft, if you can imagine. It finally un-fucked itself, much to my delight and surprise, and then the real gaming could begin. Lots of WarIII, BF1942, and the longest game of StarCraft I've ever played. My only real regret was that I didn't snag as many files as I could've, especially music. C'est la vie.

The main reason why I haven't posted any real updates for so long is because I haven't been doing much. I spent most of last week at work, doing pretty much nothing because the main project I was supposed to be working on couldn't start until today. I'm not going to go into extreme detail, but I'm in charge of updating our files for each of the store regarding placement of products on shelves. I use a CAD program for this, in which I make a floorplan of the store, place each shelf, then write what's on each shelf. Then, when we have the plans Walgreens is going to use to convert the 11 stores they bought, I have to make a step-by-step map detailing weekly changes. It's about as exciting as it sounds, but it's really not bad.

Tomorrow, I'm going to play paintball with about 10 members of my extended family. This is sort of a yearly tradition, with all of us gathering over here the night before and watching MST3k for a few hours, talking, then hunkering down and leaving early the next morning. I'm psyched, as always, for the visceral thrill of the hunt and the kill, for the feeling of taking one's life into my own hands. At least, that's what I tell myself. It is fun, though, and I'll be sure and updated you all in readerland about the various painful injuries I sustain.

Ooh! Ooh! Behold the greatness I have stumbled upon: The Adventures of Edward the Less

There. Happy now?

News update
U.S. soldiers to Saddam: "President Bush sends his regards."

I don't know about you, but to me a line like that demands that execution-style gunshots be fired immediately following. Imagine Clint Eastwood saying something like that. You know the other guy would get a couple in the head afterwards. I understand the political implications of a U.S. soldier executing Hussein like that, but I bet you the guy wanted to pull the trigger so bad...

The sky comes down
I'm working once again at Hi-School Pharmacy. A lot's changed, actually; most of the department office has been rearranged, some of our servers have been switched around (Battlehammer is now Trinity, for instance. Go figure). The most striking thing is, being in the corporate office is like being on a sinking ship: you can tell the people are scrambling to get off. The corporation isn't actually doing that badly, but the owner is selling off large portions and automating others, including the computer department. Most of the old-time computer guys are in the process of leaving, too. It's kind of depressing, and I doubt I'll be able to work there this summer. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

This makes me glad I don't work in retail. Or at least, retail where physically beating customers is discouraged. It's like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where the dumb, annoying, and incompetent get spaced, and everybody else lives happily ever after.

Creative stop
Last night was the PSU Mega gamer's first Counter-Strike Tournament/LAN party. I have to say, it was a little underwhelming. The tournament was supposed to be double elimination, but it wasn't very will organized, and it took nearly two hours to get the first game going. For me, it was even less exciting because I was using my "new" laptop (formerly Becky's) that can run Half-Life, and therefore CS, just fine, but it has some unexpected problems running Valve's Steam engine.

A land flowing with milk and honey
At least you hope it's milk...

Ooh...sorry. That was bad. Sorry. Let's just move on.

Back home now, finals are over. The math one, who knows. I passed, but not well. Physics went much better, I just blasted through the first three quarters of the test and labored over the last one. I think I did okay, though, especially if he (the professor) curves it. Philosophy isn't even worth discussing, since I kicked its ass so far we won't even have to deal with it again. Coincidentally, I would recommend philosophy classes to any of you college students. It's fun just to argue.

Anyway, this post's title come from the fact that my internet connection here does not spend most of its time shaking hand with the unemployed and thusly can actually route packets in an expedient fashion. It's a moment of pure rapture, kind of like this, but with internet instead of bacon.

Also, I started and finished Cloak of Deception before I could put it on my sidebar list. Live with it. Now, on to Force Heretic I: Remnant.

Under pain of death
It's actually not death that's so painful, it's what comes right before.

...

I took my philosophy final exam today. There's really not much more to say than that I totally kicked its ass. Barely studied, even. It's always nice to have a class I can do well in without really trying.

Although I promised that I wouldn't start reading again until finals were over, all of the work that I've been doing on my new Star Wars RPG campaign has gotten me back into Star Wars in a big way (I know all of you girls out there are interested already), so I've been reading Cloak of Deception, a kind of prequel to The Phantom Menace. It's pretty good; lots of politics.

This is absolutely hilarious. Those of you who know me and my family would agree it's classic humor. Females: caution before entering.

Baby, why you gotta make me hit you?
For some reason, all three services I connect to via Trillian (AIM, Yahoo, and MSN) can't seem to stay connected for more than a few minutes at most. This is no good. What's worse, none of these services let me know right away, so I'll keep on chatting at nothing for a few minutes until it says "Fatal error (couldn't receive flap): Error Code 10054" or something just as cryptic. Then it'll reconnect, and do the same thing five minutes later. Maybe this is God's way of telling me to get studying.

Setting 'em up
And knocking 'em down.

I finished the last half of Ring last night in one marathon session. Andy says, and I would certainly agree, that the main theme of that book is the insignificance of mankind in an apathetic universe. Personally, I find that few somewhat pessimistic, but the book is well-written anyway. The entire thing is gloomy and melancholy, but quite interesting despite that. Though every main character is technically human, they've all departed from humanity as we understand it, either through an overlong life, or the machinations of technology. The ending was also quite good, managing to be uplifting despite the fact that the universe more or less comes to an end.

Next up, after finals, I'm finally gonna finish the New Jedi Order series. I've waited a long time to discover the resolution.

The unrighteous quake at my feet

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

Now that we've cleared that up...

You could warn them, if only you spoke Hovitos
Today was the second-to-the-last day of math class, and we were discussing our final exam on Wednesday. My professor says, "You can have a full notebook sheet of paper for notes. It's not going to help you, but you can have it anyway." I'd never thought anybody could be so intimidating without the obvious ability to kill me six times before I hit the ground.

If anybody can tell me what a spetzdöd is, or what the word means, I'll dispense some mad props. Or something to that effect.

I have a roughly ten-page paper due tomorrow that I've barely started. Granted, it's just discussing my engineering project, but I'm still not looking forward to doing it. The math and physics I also have due tomorrow are distinctly secondary.

I talked to my mom today, looks like the same guy I've been working for for the past couple of years has offered me a job again over Christmas break. For those couple of you who don't know, I worked for the information systems department (read: tech support) for Hi-School Pharmacy, a chain of pharmacy/variety stores in Oregon and southwest Washington. It wasn't a particularly fun job, but I guess I was good at it and a paycheck's a paycheck, right? Anyway, it'll probably only be 8 or 10 days at most over the month I have off, so it shouldn't interfere with my life too much.

Still looking at the housing situation for PSU next fall. I'm pretty much dead-set on trasferring, so it's to my advantage to do things early and get set up. I did some quick calculations, and with one roommate in a standard one-bedroom, I'll spend roughly $4,500 a school year on rent and food. At UP, I spend $6,600 for the same deal, except the room's smaller and I don't have to cook.

This is cool. I found it on Dave Barry's blog.

Or, why I hate mass transit
I went to another book-signing/seminar thing at the downtown Borders. This one was sort of a benefit for the Endeavor awards, which is an award given to the best SF/fantasy authors in the northwest. In attendence were Ursula le Guin, Steve Barnes, Steve Perry, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Tananarive Due. It was the usual deal, where people would ask their questions, and the authors would try to answer. The questions were all the usual fare, stuff like "how do you know an idea's ready to be written?" and "how do you know when a story's done?" The best aspect of this whole thing, though, was the fact that there were five authors up there, all of them pretty respectable. It's always food for thought. Though, man, Steve Barnes gives speeches. All of the authors were coherent, but Barnes was like an orater. Tananarive Due, his wife, was teasing him about it. It was funny.

The weird thing was, as Ursula le Guin and Steve Barnes were sitting down, I was struck by this huge feeling of deja vu. It was like I had seen them somewhere, live, before, and I'm pretty sure I never have. It was just an odd, nagging feeling. Can't explain. The sad thing is, there were many people there who knew this authors personally, having attended so many of their conventions and things. They were all total fanboys and groupies, which is kind of sad considering I was half the average age of those attending. The sad thing is, I could even imagine myself sitting there 20 years from now, in the same sort of way. Hopefully, though, I'll be on the other side of the table 20 years from now, if all goes as planned.

I bought on of Steve Perry's books, The Man Who Never Missed. I'm reading it now, but it's not quite 200 pages, so I'll probably have it finished by the end of the week, and I can continue with Ring. It's literally about a man who never misses. He's single-handedly rebelling against the military, and he's disabled 2373 people with 2380 rounds. No joke. Even better, he hasn't killed any of them, just gifted them with a 6-month vacation to the sick ward.

I swear I did not attempt to fix this test at all, but the answer's still really cool:


Which PA character are you?

Bevalier. Bradstreet Bevalier
Is my Mormon name. At least some of you already knew that, but it's funny anyway.

Real food comes from the microwave
Brad knows this.

So, dead week begins. I feel like that one episode of Star Trek, where Worf has to go through that gauntlet of Klingons wielding pain sticks. It's kind of like that, but with more math. Sadly, much more. My calculus and physics finals are almost immediately sequential next Wednesday, so it's like getting kneed in both nuts at once. For you ladies, let me just say "that's a bad thing." I have some seriously crazy studying to do this week, and it's not going to be fun, at all. As my painful analogy suggested.

I watched Spirited Away last night. It is a weird movie, kind of like Alice in Wonderland, with that added twist of Japanese weirdness. That's just about a perfect description, so I'll let you see for yourselves. In watching that, I stayed up to about 2:00 AM, so Brad is tired now. I also read through the entire Queen of Wands archive, so I've added it to my sidebar.

Also, nobody responded to my post of my username. I'm not quite sure what that means, but it is mildly disappointing.