Time For A Change

I was in the mall earlier today getting some new sunglasses, and a salesman from a cell phone kiosk approached me. I was walking by, and he stepped up to me and said: “excuse me sir, can I ask you a question?” to which I replied: “no”. But don’t you think it is odd that he already asked me a question to begin with? I certainly do, it’s just a little redundant.

I know what I am about to say will come as a surprise to a lot of you. So prepare yourselves, the following announcement is so shocking it is not for the elderly or those with heart conditions: I have decided to give up RockStars. I know what you are thinking, “did some one hack into his blog and decide to pull a prank on us?” No, I just want to pursue a healthier lifestyle. I want to be more active and in better shape, and hopefully that will give me more energy for my long days. I am sick of being tired all the time and merely functioning in the fog of a self induced insomnia. All of the stimulants in the RockStars do help for a short while, but then I am ready for a nap that I cannot take (because of the caffeine I just can’t sleep). Hopefully getting rid of that and more exercise will increase the longevity of my mental and physical stamina. However here is my disclaimer: I love coffee and tea. Those I will not give up. Just consume them in smaller amounts. It’s not just the caffeine in the RockStars that do this to me; there are many other stimulants in there such as Taurine, Ginseng, and biblical proportions of B-vitamins and such. That is what I need to be away from. I will let all of you know how this goes, especially after a long day, short night and long day again when the can tempts me, that 24oz cylinder of delicious liquid, composed of chemicals nearly a narcotic in strength. That brings me to another problem: my tolerance. I have a caffeine tolerance so high that I have to consume 24oz of RockStar, a cup or two of coffee and a few Coke-a-Colas just to meet my physical quota. All of this is on a daily basis. Shocking I know, that much in a single day could kill an ox or anything smaller in size. I figure it’s best to quit while I’m ahead, instead of going through a multiple organ failure. That does have me concerned slightly now as well, you realize, just because I have been living like this for so long. This is not a rock bottom, a sobbing confession or a requirement for a weekly meeting. I just want to try something different. And I will miss my high tolerance; it is actually something that I am proud of. I am about to join the ranks of the wussies. Moreover demote myself to the likes of those I used to laugh at, the ones who look spun on Meth after a can of Pepsi. Ugh, the humanity. That’s all for today folks. I just can’t muster any more (stupid RockStars).

T

Mayhem: From Labs To The Big Screen

To be honest with all of you, I'm not in much of a mood to be blogging this evening. I just thought it would be a nice break from doing whatever it was that I was doing a moment ago- which was nothing. Yes in deedy this evening is another break for me. I do have things that need to be done this weekend, but I have two days to do them. Only one could possibly be done at this time of night and that is home work. To be honest my brain is way too tired to be toiling with the likes of that weight at this hour. So I shall fill every one in on my day, and as usual, our opening act is school:

Calculus III- doing the Max and Min of functions with two or more variables, and frankly it’s messy. Lots of side calculations and time consuming, ink wasting, mind numbing good times. Yes, that’s right you read me (if I said you heard me and you thought you did you should see a doctor) correctly, I do actually enjoy this from time to time. I am a nerd. It is a badge that I display proudly whenever and wherever I get the chance to let some one know I am smarter that they are (it does happen frequently and everywhere). I just get worn down by daily grinds and good time being shoved down my throat. More-over: cake is not as good if you are choking on it. “Let them eat cake” is an under statement, it should actually be: “when his mouth is full, bend him over”. That ladies and gentlemen is how the institutes of higher learning treat you. And when you are out, you hope it is worth it. I certainly do (actually it damn well better be, or there will be truoble).

Modern Optics I & II- as promised last time, here is the whining complaining and oh- so aggravating details of my lab this week: I let my laser warm up so there wasn’t any confusion there, and the first section went surprisingly well. The latter part was another story. What we had to do was observe some polarized light in a couple of different syrups. And by syrups, they were glass cylinders filled with a sugar solution. Keep that in mind. The light was linearly polarized, passed through this stuff, and polarized again, with a blotch on a viewing screen (the ‘blotch’ was actually the incandescent lamp bulb filament focused through all of that with a lens of about 48mm). them when you rotate the second polarizer the colors change. And it really works, you rotate and there is a different color of the rainbow with every turn, it’s pretty cool. However, the problem comes when they asked me (and the rest of the class) to explain why. The answer is that the sugar molecule has a helical structure and as the laser light hits the molecule, the electrons oscillate in the helical pattern and radiate the light out in different directions. Do you think they bothered to mention a damn thing about the structure of the sugar molecule in the lab manual? No. and was Shanghi- Sue the TA any help? No. all the sudden I had to learn chemistry, with no hint from anyone, except listening to other student’s spill the beans under the TA’s hushes. Now, enough of that.

Time for my movie review: 30 Days of Night. I finally went to see it after a few other attempts failed by unforeseen circumstances. The movie started out well, with the character introductions and ‘histories of left for later in the movie’, and foreshadowing galore. It follows a small town sheriff and quirky and weird and the on edge survivors of the town over run by vampires for a month. Good golly did it have gluttonous amounts of gore. The acting and writing left a lot to be desired, even for a horror movie. In fact, the female lead only seemed to have one tacky line in the film: “I’m going with you”. Which was promptly followed by another voice: “No, it’s too dangerous, you stay here.” Painful isn’t it? The movie was peppered with a lot of that crap. The action and suspense was good, and so were the special effects (the gore, THE GORE! Hehehe). There was also the Renfield character, the guy betraying his own kind to save his neck, and gets a sort of Stockholm syndrome from them, but ends up morally conflicted and sad, and doesn’t see the end of the film. And don’t try and give me that ‘you just ruined it for me’ crap, because if you couldn’t see that coming I’m surprised you haven’t been hit by a bus or two. Back to the movie: now the vampires. Why is it that every time there is a vampire on the screen they have to be hissing or screeching or snarling or any combination of those? Yes they have fangs, but not Down-syndrome; they can close their mouth from time to time. Please. I get tired of just the teeth. C’mon people please get a little more creative. There really is a little more to work with I promise, and it’s not scary- it’s dumb and tacky. The best part of the movie was the ending, and I do not mean that in a negative way. That was clever and an interesting way to end a vampire flick. I really was surprised with that. Not the best however, just different. All in all this was a so-so. Not terrible, but wait for the dollar theatre.

Now I am going to go up and read for the remainder of the evening. I’m still working on Don DeLillo’s Falling Man. It’s pretty good so far, and I enjoy reading him so much I am going to take as long as I can to get through this book. I even read the same paragraph two or three times just for kicks. Its that good. And tomarrow I will be a little busier. Until then folks I leave you with these inspirational words:

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday” – Anonymous (probably, or maybe I just forgot)

T

A Mental Re-Bound

What can I say? Work and school have had me in knots and 3 places at once, all requiring 4 hands and 2 brains. So It is going to be a little short today.

Work is going well, they doubled our work load on one of our duties. That is going to make it a little harder to do homework and blog here. Just when I get some free time. I may have to start blogging somewhere else. That’s all there is to tell about work today, so lets get started on school:

Calculus III- the test went fairly well. The only thing I can gripe about on that is the study guide. The professor gave us a sheet to go over, and the biggest portions on that paper were the smallest on the test, and the smaller “blurbs” were half of the exam. Needless to say, there were area’s that I under studied for. I’m just thankful for partial credit. Also on that subject, I think he did that because most of the material is not that difficult and you can’t have 40 A’s on a curve. It just doesn’t work that way. Still a little under-handed in my opinion.

Lab for PS & E II- the competent lab partner has returned. He didn’t withdraw as I had previously thought- just slept through the alarm clock a few too many times. So the lab went well. This time it was calculating the electron charge to mass ratio by accelerating them through a helium filled glass bubble. It was pretty cool looking, not very unlike the picture here on my blog. It was nice to have some one who knows what they are doing, and not dragging dead weight around (this means you Pud John Paul Jackass!).

Modern Optics I & II- the labs are grueling and this new section we are getting into has got my head spinning. The home work that I did Monday and Tuesday took me ‘I don’t know how many hours’ instead of the usual 2. And the lab is coming up Friday, so I will un-doubted-ly be able to fill much of this page with all sorts of drawn out pissings and moanings.

Other stuff- last night my goal was to do a grand lot of nothing and give my brain a rest. Mission accomplished. Tonight I am going to try again to go see 30 Days of Night. For those of you who are not familiar with what that is (I’m guessing most of you- except From Russia with Love- who I have a feeling is dreading to see it- I love you honey, hehehe) is a new movie about vampires that word of mouth speaks well of in high volumes. I will let all of you know what I thought, moreover give you an e-Piece-of-my-mind here on my e-soapbox.

T