The ultimate remix!

OMG! Did you know that if you google "You have been waylaid by enemies", the first hit you get is my blog?

I know what you're thinking, "TOM! That's not exactly unusual! That's the title of your blog!"

True! But I stole the sentence cos I'm a dirty stealer. It's actually a nerd-culture reference. In that you might hear it up to 12 million times each time you play Baldur's Gate.

So, I'm back at uni. We can pretend that has been the reason for my bloglessness. I don't mind the courses this time around. One of my lecturers plays the crazy old coot quite well. Instead of writing notes on the coursework I just write down the almost philosophical rambling.

"Software holons. For example, a person's heart is a holon, I mean, if you tear it out of someone's chest it will keep beating. For a while. [Accompanied by a beating-heart hand gesture.]"

"[Turns to new slide.] So, here's a quote, well, what can you do with a quote, well you can read it, I suppose."

Gah! I just got cereal in my eye. I swear to god. You're going to have to excuse any spelling mistakes I make. I know what you're thinking, "Oh, Tom. The old 'mitigate spelling mistakes thanks to cereal in the eye' trick." But it's true.

I started a full time job. The whole first month is training. I'm being paid to learn! If only I wasn't learning otherwise-useless business rigmarole. So much powerpoint. You guys think a two hour lecture is bad? Try staring at dotpoints and clipart for EIGHT HOURS.

By the end we're all delerious. One guy in my group responded to a question with "Sorry, could your repeat that again? The question's not going into my brain."

I'm far worse. I find I'm putting the dotpoints to music in my head. "Find two IDs to merge together, and be absolutely sure as to whether, it should stay that way forever -ever -ever, -eh -eh -eh, under my umbrella -ella -ella".

The ultimate remix!

Hmm. And that's all she wrote.

And by 'she' I mean 'he'. And by 'he' I mean 'me'.

With the funky C and EVERYTHING.

It's time for my semesterly first-exam recap/tirade.

But first I'd like to thank people for stopping by my blog day-in day-out despite the fact I haven't updated in a month. Know that I do the exact same for you. Feel the updateless love. And I'd especially like to thank all those people (or one repeat offender?) from the Netherlands. You must have something better to do.

So, it was the worst. The worst. Have you ever gotten into an exam and there are terms that are completely new to you? No, me either til now.

Façade? Façade?! With the funky C and everything? That's not a database-related word! I can scale-up, drill-down, roll-up and pivot. I know quorums and hashes, kerberos and collision! Ok that last line sounded Dr. Zuess-ish but they're all legitimate terms, trust me. Anyway, I can do all these things, and that's the question you ask?

Anyway, questions were asked, questions weren't answered. It wasn't a good time.

I suppose when you've written a number of books about your field of study, writing straightforward exam questions holds no interest. Better to just ask questions about topics that were side-notes to the material and email the most ridiculous answers to your colleagues.

Alright. It's probably my fault. I didn't really have time this semester to give any of my subjects even a half-assed attempt. These few months nearly killed me. So I'm thinking.. that I might not bother going full-steam ahead next semester in order to finish at the end of the year. Maybe just do 2 units. And then graduate half-way through next year. Plus side: I might actually enjoy uni again. Minus side: I'm wasting time in the marshalling area when I could be out in the real world.

Is that too much to ask?

I wish I had time for blogging.

I'm in a rut. I don't like it!

I want a random event to cause an exciting series of events to befall me. Perhaps with a minor complication that I resolve in the end to everyone's satisfaction.

Or so.

I remember this place. I would write words here, once. Well blow the metaphorical dust off this virtual page, bitches.

Cos I'm back.

So where have I been? Between uni and those 5 hour blocks of SVU on TV1 (watch it), I have no time to myself these days.

Ok, I lie. During the holidays I had more than enough time to pick up a keyboard and jot down a little somethin' somethin'. But, ya know.

The holidays weren't overly eventful. But there were some awesome times.

And some not so good. I spent a lot of the time doing an assignment using OpenGL. Haha. Yeah. An experience akin to beating your head against a wall and then drawing with whatever pours out. But the freaking blood just won't dry where you want it to and- Alright, this analogy is over.

Some mandatory blogospheric stuff:

My cousin is being paid to blog with one of the media organisations. THANKFULLY NOT SMH. God, the SMH bloggers are tools. It grieves me that they're sponsored to spout the same junk that any half-decent blogger writes on a daily basis. With the same number of grammatical errors, just more sensationalism (posing as poignancy).

Hopefully she'll try to do something different with hers. It's troubling news. It could really go either way. Whatever the outcome, go team extended-family!

I've been reading a lot of IT blogs lately. For a long time I resisted blogs that professed anything other than a constant stream of madness, but I feel I should at least play the part of an IT student. My current favourite: Coding Horror. Although, many of them just pander to what the nerd-community wants, ie., posts about how firefox ownz etc. But who even cares; if you're being catered to you're being catered to.

Just to finish off, three times in as many days I've noticed people misuse the phrase "or so" where they should be saying "and such", "and so forth", "etcetera", "and the like" or finally "or some shit".

In fact I'll look it up right now. Answers.com tells me:

or so

Approximately, especially alluding to a number, as in Four hundred or so guests are invited.

Thanks, Answers.com! How else would I have peripherally discovered there's a movie called That's So Raven: Disguise the Limit.

Most insane movie title ever! Teen movies don't have to make sense anymore.

Much like blog entries.

I hope.

Jess: That's like the simplest multitasking ever! The kind where you don't have to think about the other thing till you hear a huge "BEEEEEEEEEEP FUCKERS!"

Wow, still March. Is it just me, or is March the month that won't END. I don't know what's going on.

In answer to Jess's question, 133t ski11z allow me to discover incoming google searches. But while we're back on this, let me just say that the web-community is starved for toucan-related information!

Actually, I hate to be the guy who posts his google searches, but they're always good for a laugh so here's incoming searches for this week:

• toucan (enemies)
• nondescript white van
• you have never been a friend to me
• why did you have to go msn names
• How many emos does it take to screw in a light bulb

Best answer to the last one wins a prize!

Hmm. Pandora is too clever! For the last half hour it's been playing me music I like! But music I like so much in fact I already have it on my computer.

Oh, If you're random and you know it, talk to Tom day struck again on thursday with: "ACT THREE: a dishevelled drunkard meets me on the Northern Line"

Where are ya comin from?
What?
Where'd ya get on tha train?
Epping.
Ahww! The Epping?
*slight head shake*
The uni?
Yeah.
My sister's going to uni.
Mm?
Yah she's doing some fancy stuff. But I didnt cos Im a dumb cunt.
Mm.
So what's your degree?
.......Information Technology.
Huh?
Information. Technology.
Wah? One more time?
*loudly so carriage can hear me* Information Technology.
What's that about?
Information, mostly. *Lady behind me snorts*
Where-
This my stop.

Well Snorty, you can roll your eyes and try to exchange glances with me all you like, but I don't see you trying to get Creepy's attention away from me. So I won't exchange back.

Exchange back?

Anyway.

I've been having a kinda shitty day. I got an ouchie. On something sharp. I still don't know what it was. I was running you see. I run fairly quickly (as opposed to that slow kind?). Anyway, I'm not a bad runner. And only when I was across the street and down the road had I noticed what seemed to be a minor scrape against a pole had actually torn apart my tshirt and left slashings on my shoulder!

Anyway, it looked pretty cool. Like I'd been in a sword fight! I wanted to take a photo. But after 20 minutes of driving home it really hurt and needed lots of band-aids. And I was pretty pissed off generally so I wasn't going to amplify that by some prolonged scavenging for a camera.

So. I'm eating yoghurt. Blackforest flavoured. Seriously. Yoplait know their stuff. It actually tastes like some sort of blackforest cake smoothie. And why coffee shoppes, or even the lesser "shops", doesn't already make those, I have no idea.

I also voted today. I really went in there uninformed and it shits me. But I'm too busy learning about computers and their problems to learn about Australia and its problems. I didn't risk giving Labor OR Liberal a 1.

I hope the country doesn't explode.

If/When I start my politcal party, THAT will be my tagline.

You came off a little creepy!

You know, people have been getting my blog by googling for the words "toucan skeleton".

This pleases me.

In other news, I'm back at uni this week. O-week was good fun as usual. I joined a lot of societies whose meetings I will never attend. Good stuff.

It has already become apparent that I've bitten off more than I chew, or even fit in my mouth really, in that I'm taking 5 units. While 4 is all they allow you to do. But the computer let me punch it in, so we'll see how that works out. If nobody sees me for weeks you'll know I've sequestered myself into study or have suffered a nervous breakdown.

The software-project unit that I'm taking is especially fearsome. They've yet to even tell us what company my group will be headed out to week-after-week. The whole thing's an organisational mess, as are most computing subjects at Macquarie, they didn't even tell us how to contact our other group members. It was implied that we should socially engineer this information from the student numbers and the addresses in the "TO:" line of the group emails.

It wouldnt've been easier to, I dunno, write a program to send out that information to us? You teach people to do that all day!

In any case, I'm just glad I'm on top of things at the moment. I was feeling a stupendous cold coming on the weekend before I went back. So I took enough to vitamin C tablets to protect my body from bullets, let alone disease. I've been gradually weaning myself off the tablets with orange Tic Tacs. Blogging was meant to take my mind off the fact I'm on my last Tic Tac. Alas.

The only reason I have time to post this is I left my 3 hour lecture 2 hours early. The air conditioning was on full blast and I wasn't ready for that kind of temperature. I had to go outside. Into the rain. Where it was warm.

You guys would tell me if Thursdays are "If you're random and you know it, talk to Tom" day, wouldn't you? To name a few from last week:

Guy on the train platform who kept offering me cigarettes? You came off a little creepy! Girl who sat down at a table with Emma and I at the bar, obviously not drunk enough to have any excuse to do so? You're totally uninteresting, back from whence you came! Random guy who approached me and said "you look as if you like metal" and had a 20 minute conversation with me about Nightwish? Full marks!

My feet hurt. Yesterday I wore thongs to uni. It's the done thing! You're meant to look like you don't care. And frankly, we don't, so that works out nicely.

But it turns out I had a practical in a laboratory that day. What does this mean, boys and girls who have felt the icy grip of OH&S at their neck before? Yes, enclosed footwear. So with five minutes until the prac begins I ran to Mac centre and procured a pair of very cheap (and the ladeez tell me: also quite ugly) shoes. I return to class in the nick of time for the practical advisor to tell us that "Enclosed shoes must normally be worn! But there is no practical today. Please sign your name and go."

Leaving me with a twitch in my face-punching hand and a new pair of shoes. Anyway, they're comfortable, I might go running in them or something. They're really springy. I don't know why you need to know that. But it doesn't make it any less true. (Words for this blog to live by.)

Quote's at the bottom today! Why, you ask? Why does it matter?

Tom: I bought myself a Macquarie t-shirt. I haven't decided whether it's cool or not.
Sophie: I was going to get a USyd one but it looked too "blah blah blah cheerleaders blah blah OMG".
Tom: Yeah, mine's in the exact font you're talking about.
Sophie: Just promise me you won't wear it to Macquarie. Everyone will take the time to be like, "Tom, WE KNOW."

ANYTHING other than VB

Tom: This is just not cricket:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=48eHkZfnGug
Jess: Oh man.

Watch it. Waaaatch it.

So, it's Australia Day and has been for 2 hours. I've been out for late night coffee with Jess and Maddie, 'cos it's been a while. And now I'm spazzing out.

So this entry comes of having absolutely nothing else to do. My torrents are slow and I think I just may have squeezed the last remaining video that's actually entertaining out of YouTube.

I haven't really done much since my last entry. I went to Jacqui's place with the intent to make cupcakes while watching R-rated movies, because we appreciate the contrast. But I was late, so we didn't do either. Yep, best blog ever. "Here's all the things I didn't do." I also didn't have an epic space-battle with the queen of the space-demons. So let's move on.

What we DID do was watch A Mighty Wind, which is a great movie. Once you realise how much of it is improvisation. Which may have coloured your judgement. So forget I said anything. See it. If you like it, see the latest one, For Your Consideration.

Which is exactly what we did today at the Dendy. Not as Mighty or Windy as the former, but still chuckleworthy.

I have to tell you about the cafe we went to. On the menu amongst the food and drink listings was a paragraph that read something like:

My name is [such and such] and I have a bike named Lucy.
LUCY!!!

As if this didn't make them awesome enough, the ambient music was YouTube stage recordings. And they had the restaraunt's mySpace written on the specials board. Not that I condone mySpace, but still!

I wholly recommend it but cannot remember it's name. Look for the.. big.. yellow one in Newtown.

For only the geeky-inclined: I spent yesterday learning how to use .NET functions. I think mySpace should probably be MySpace, but I can barely bring myself to type it. It feels wrong. In any event, Visual Basic auto-fixes your capitalisation of variable names now. That's just weird. Also, I guess I've been using too much... ANYTHING other than VB because it seems I can't deal with lines missing a semicolon anymore. I really need the closure!

PS. When you're watching the atrocity video, keep your eye out for the 'O RLY' at the end. 20x better than any owl.