What's Wang This Week

Since the flurry of activity last week around this blog (21 comments, a comment from an old old OLD friend, a comment from someone I've never met) I've been really hesitant to update. Especially after that "Steve" post, I really felt like anything I could possibly write would detract from the overall quality of the blog.

As the internet's foremost Dickolas Wang, I feel a great deal of pressure to provide quality blogging for you, my dear readers. I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of what my fans want from me, and I do what I can to provide. But how to proceed after such a high point, when all that's left is to go downhill, I don't know. I can't even think of any random quotes - and I know that there are more than 17 sitting somewhere in my brain.

I've come to the pathetic realization that I'm afraid of the sophomore slump.

At any rate, I'm inclined to keep writing stuff just so that stupid blinking text will not be the first thing I see on the page when I open it. So I figure I better write at least two more paragraphs.

Oh, how could I forget: to all o' y'alls who read my blog and have just finished their degrees:

COMBOLATIONS, ELIZAGERTH!

Is that enough to get rid of the blinking text on my screen? Why yes, yes it is.

Current Music: Radiohead - There There

Qui-Gon, take me away

Darth Vader's blog

And, while you're at it, Marvin the Paranoid Android's blog

Delayed Reaction: Steve

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Kwan

EDIT: (Apr. 26, 2005) Viva la <blink> revolution.

Current Music: Sloan - People of the Sky

Pet Peeve #2

That annoying asshole in the SFU curling club who looks like a stuck pig.

Pet Peeve #1

Probably the nicest thing about using not-Windows is that CDs don't try and launch some piece-of-crap player to play itself. On these other systems, you can just pop it in and it won't try to do anything incredibly obnoxious like occupy your whole desktop so that you can look at soft-focus promotional photos of Sheryl Crow or, less appealingly, Hawksley Workman.

I just popped in "Hail to the Thief" and I had this problem. As I tried to start playing in iTunes, the CD player spun up to speed, then back down, then back up, and then back down, refusing to play. Then it started to play, and then it started to play again... simultaneously, on something called the "Player". Now I can't listen to it in iTunes.

This has got to be the most unwelcome marketing ploy of them all. I really don't want to install Quicktime on my 200MHz Pentium to listen to Weezer's "Maladroit", and I would really like to be able to do OTHER THINGS ON MY COMPUTER WHILE I LISTEN TO Sheryl Crow's "The Globe Sessions". I swear, I have owned that album for about 3 years and I have listened to it a grand total of maybe 5 times, and the only reason is because I can't listen to it without it hijacking my whole workspace (and it won't work in our DVD player either). If anyone ever tries to do such a thing with any CD that I am attached to, I will drag this person outside, yell at them for a while, and then get a few people out with me to deliver the dreaded Rear Admiral.

Speaking of the dreaded Rear Admiral, I've been thinking about it and I'm starting to formulate something that might just be brutal enough to warrant the name. I can't really describe it in text, but some selling points are:

1. It does not require any props
2. It requires three people
3. It ends with saluting the victim

I'd like to try it out on that annoying guy in the SFU curling club who looks like a stuck pig.

Current Music: Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

What Office Space Character are YOU?

Pre-Hypnotized Peter

What Office Space character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Well, it could have been significantly worse.

Current Music: Kasabian - Club Foot

Random quotes from my past, provided without context #17

"NYIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

-- Derek Tsang

Current Music: Stevie Wonder - Superstitious

EDIT: (Apr. 22, 2005) Superstition. That's the last time I post a "Current Music" without first checking the official website.

Ahead by a century

From an Amazon review of Kasabian's debut album by Aidin Vaziri:

... the band finds just the right balance between primitive riffs and space-age grooves

From the Asbestos Concern's band bio:

... the smash hit "Girl, I Just Want You Back (To Stay) [Forever]" and its fusion of lo-fi guitars and club-ready beats

Ahead of our time, as always.

Current Music: Caesar's Palace - Jerk It Out

What's YOUR Pirate Name?

My pirate name is:

Mad Dog Cash

Part crazy, part mangy, all rabid, you're the pirate all the others fear might just snap soon. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

As they say in the business, HARRRRRRRRR.

Current Music: Beck - E-Pro

What's Wang This Week

I'm noticing that I've been unwittingly doing my Jowen impression a whole lot lately on this blog. This is not good. I can't do Jowen better than Jowen, so this blog is doomed to be nothing but a second-rate version of Jowen's blog, only about a less interesting person. I need to break out of this funk somehow. Thoughts? Comments?

Check it out, I figured out how to set the bookmark icon for this page. Now those of you using Firefox will see a little picture beside the URL, and those of you using IE will maybe see it in 2008 when the next version of Windows come out. That makes me happy.

I've added Garfield to my list of daily comics to read. There's really not much to Garfield; I'm waiting for some kind of week-long story arc to document Garfield's pursuit of the perfect lasagna or something, but I think I'm just going to have to settle for the week of comics involving Garfield burping to indicate that he had already eaten something. I've only recently noticed that a very large portion of their comics take place with Jon and Garfield sitting behind a table. It's like watching a puppet show.

I finally made a trip to San Francisco yesterday. I saw SBC Park and the sea lions barking just off the pier. I considered throwing them some food, but the crab cake I was eating cost $5 and I wasn't going to give that up. I'd post a picture, but I still have no camera. Speaking of pictures I'd post if I had them, I gave my lecture in stat 205B on Thursday and it went pretty well. The best part was at the end, where I took off my jacket to reveal my WWJD? shirt. At the end of the lecture I had 2 minutes left, so I said, "It's times like this that I like to ask myself, 'What would Jowen do?' And the answer is, invariably, end class early." My prof said that Jowen kind of looked like he had just broken out of prison.

I should mention that the J stands for Jowen, not Jesus. Then again, anyone reading this would already know that. Never mind.

And now, from the world of pictures that I can show you, here is my friend Victor getting the ol' plate-of-shaving-cream treatment from my friend David and me after his student seminar.

Ah, the life of a graduate student.

Current Music: The Killers - Mr. Brightside

T-minus 9 hr 35 min until delivering lecture #24 of Statistics 205B

• Notes typed up and edited: check
• Bottle of water in the fridge: check
• WWJD? shirt washed and ready to go: check

It's go time, bitch.

Current Music: Coldplay - Don't Panic

Random quotes from my past, provided without context #16

"Travis, did I ever tell you the story of how I came to be your daddy?"

-- Pete Chambers

Current Music: Big Wreck - Ladylike

What's Wang This Week

Nothing is Wang this week. I've got too much work for anything interesting to happen.

I'm deciding on what to do for housing next year. I've mostly decided towards staying in the same apartment, although I feel bad for pitching the idea of living together to my friend David and then backing out. I guess I did make it clear that I might stay in the same place though, right from the get go. My place is really nice, maybe a bit extravagant for my purposes but I'm comfortable here and my landlord is great. Still, the decision is driving me crazy.

Finally, check this out:

This is from Regan's CS314 project, a... get ready for this...

STRONG BAD DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION game!

It's stuff like this that makes me wish I had taken more coding courses as an undergrad.

Current Music: Keane - Somewhere Only We Know

1) Yes, I love technology 2) Calling all Grahams

1. I can't stop laughing at this.
   
   I've also seen a video of a cat getting swung around by a ceiling fan, which I laughed at, but I hate myself for laughing at it. Does that make me a bad person? I don't want to provide the link because I think it'll make me an even worse person.



2. Graham.
   
   I see that you have played Minesweeper Flags.
   
   I also see that you are undefeated.
   
   Well then, my friend, I challenge you to a duel. Three-button mice (wait, make that a wheel mouse versus your, what, 5-button mouse?) at dusk. Um, I don't know when. We can figure that out later. But make no mistake...
   
   

   it's on.

Current Music: Neil Young - Harvest Moon

Random quotes from my past, provided without context #i

"Yes, of course I'll marry you, Richard."

-- Nicole Kidman

Current Music: Neil Young - Heart of Gold