Productivity and Coffeehouse Invasions

What a productive weekend! Suffice to say that in the past 2 days I've done more useful stuff than the last 5, when I was supposed to be reviewing for four midterms. I've managed to make a massive grocery run, do assorted errands, cook a kickin' meal (see previous entry), make arrangements for flying to Montreal (for CEC, woot), and doing half the fluid mech homework to boot! This is unheard of, doing half the assignment 3 days before it's due; typically I'm the kind of person to start the problem set about 12 hours before it's time to hand it in. So! Jason, Paul and I hit up the Beanery to jam...well, less 'hit up' and more just 'invaded'. It was fun; hopefully it can be a nigh-weekly occurence. Pictures follow:

Jason on bass, Paul on drums, and yours truly at the piano.

Me while playing. Do I always look this ridiculous at the piano?

Anyway, I figure that I'm going to set a new record as well and sleep well before 1:30am. Hooah! (pluggage, in case any Vancouverites read this: Tomorrow evening, UBC Jazz Bands play covers of pop tunes arranged for big band, in "Pop Goes the Big Band!" 8pm Music Building recital hall.)

Tasty tasty

I just set a personal best for a tasty meal, I think. I managed to make a spaghetti casserole. So I go to Safeway, buy the sausage meat, veggies, etc., then I take it all back to Gage. Boil the spaghetti, dice the veggies, put it in a pot with the sausage meat, mix in the sauce, combine with pasta, put it all into a big dish, cover with cheese, and bake. Sooooo tasty. And it was a huge dish too so I think I'll have enough meals for the next 4 or 5 days. Jello is cooling in the fridge too. Will have that in another, oh...2 hours or so. Good food, taking the Saturday easy...life is good. Gotta do homework tomorrow though. Drat. Speaking of work, I just had an extremely gruelling week -- 4 midterms in three days. Now, it wouldn't be so bad, except included in those midterms was electromagnetism (PHYS 454), which is definitely not a happy course, and the midterm was horrible horrible. Microprogramming (EECE 259) and probability (MATH 318) went pretty well though, I think. Electronic circuits (EECE 254) came somewhere in between. I'm justifying my no-work day today by virtue of the sheer pain of the last three days. But! No work today! So I'm off to...do nothing. Maybe play some video games. Eat Jello. Ah, blessed nothingness. Being bored is so awesome. [EDIT 12:38 am] Let it be known, that Jello made with ginger ale instead of cold water, is possibly the tastiest jelly innovation in dessert yet. Next step: Cascading Jello innovations, by layering multiple carbonated jello flavors with suspended cocktail fruit and cool whip. Hooah!

Not cool, Apple

Geez, Apple. I thought you were cool. You had your new MacBook out and sure, I got a PC instead but I was pretty sure you would understand. Then I go and try to visit a website of a really awesome band but it turns out they need Quicktime to run...so sure, I go to the Apple website and go to install Quicktime. But lo! I can't just install the codec. I have to take your bloated player and iTunes, to boot. I have a better player already, as well as a music player. I don't need all this crap. So boo on you, Apple. Looks like I have a better offer. (This post has been inspired by late-night crankiness) On another note: I just realized that I'll be in Europe in time for the Montreux Jazz Festival! Dude. I mean, duuuuuude.

20th Birthday Hijinx, and a farewell to a computer

I'm typing this post on my brand spanking new laptop. Sorry, all you Mac fans, but this bad boy has the Core Duo and is working just dandy for me. I couldn't help feeling a little sad as I packed away my desktop, though -- I've had the rig for 2 and a half years (I bought it for first year), and I'd probably still be pretty satisfied with it if I didn't have to worry about taking a computer with me to Germany. I guess it's going to a good place, though -- Alice is happy that she's getting herself a new old computer that might actually be able to play games without lagging all to hell. So yeah, Germany! I'm leaving early May for Wurzburg, Germany for an 8-month co-op position with the Technical Physics department at the University of Wurzburg (Link on the right). At this point I don't really know what I'll be doing in terms of work...but hey, I'll be in Europe! Half the reason I took the job was, of course, to travel! There will be many places to go to -- I've got Austria on this list for sure (Salzburg, Vienna...all the noteworthy places for music), tonnes of places within Germany itself...a week in England would be cool, as would the Mediterranean, especially Greece. Italy is on the list...yeah, there are going to be lots and lots of places to go to. Really open-ended at this point, I don't know many details myself but hopefully that'll clear up soon. And as for my 20th birthday...yeeeeah. It was messy. Pictures later...maybe? I really don't know if I should... >_> [EDIT (1:00am) - It's kinda hard falling asleep now, without the really loud drone of the CPU/case fans of my old rig....I guess I'll have to get used to this.]

Pictures from E-Ball last night! It was a ton of fun. Remind me to go again, next year...The Fizz contingent at E-Ball...

The Ball Model Team...at least, those who came to E-Ball (many notable absences!) Me, Mark, and Carolyn at dinner

A new web-home

Well, with the death of bandgeeks.org (though it was more euthanatized), I will be posting here from now on, I think! (I would do the livejournal thing otherwise, but the whole friends-listing thing and everything just seems to be a whole lot of bother). So! This past week has been one roller-coaster of a ride. Spent the entire weekend getting our E-Ball model to work, while simultaneously preparing for a whack of midterms and co-op job interviews. The hard work (and copious amounts of stress) paid off though, when I got a co-op job (at the Technical Physics department in the University of Wurzburg, GERMANY!), and we helped Engineering Physics win both the Ball Model competition and E-Week! Pictures to come.