I stayed in Toronto this weekend and was able to relax a bunch which is always nice.

I had my rock climbing training session at the Toronto Climbing Academy Saturday afternoon, Matt came too, and we had a really good time. Rock climbing is definitly something I could get in to. I might even get my own shoes/harness so that I don't have to rent. I will be going again with people from work on Wednesday, and if it goes well I'll probably start going pretty regularly.

After rock climbing we went and saw the movie Serenity and it was a really good way for Joss Whedon to end the series. Stupid Fox, grumble grumble, only cancels good shows, grumble grumble.

Today I made a custom Linux LiveCD based on Ubuntu with all of my Graphics assignments on it (as well as Matt's Battleship game). So, as long as I have an x86 compatible computer that can boot off of a CD I will always be able to run the programs I created in Graphics. Linux (and its associated packages and libraries) changes too quickly to depend on it being able to compile old code, so this CD gives me a snapshot of Linux at the time I took Graphics. I already can't compile some of them (without modification) on my new Linux installation due to GCC4.

Finally, I started adding some stuff to my ray tracer, but I don't have anything to show for it. Soon maybe...

Not too much happened this weekend, I basically just went home to visit Kim. I spent most of the weekend sick and I think most of the people I know are also sick. Booooo.

I took the train instead of the bus to get home this weekend. So much better!!! And with my ISIC card it isn't more expensive. So yeah, no more buses for me.

I watched Crash and it was pretty good. Especially because Sandra Bollock wasn't in it too much (she only had a few lines)...hahaha, just kidding, Sandra's alright. :) I really did like the movie, it deals with racism beyond the typical white vs. everyone else boundary.

I also dropped my distance course. I think not taking courses on work terms is much better than taking them. I should have lots of time now to do whatever I want (ray tracer, rock climbing, reading, maybe even work on my website).

Last weekend was sweet, I did lots of fun stuff and saw lots of people. Both Kim and Mike came to Toronto and I hung out with them and Alex and also Adrienne and Matt all at various points in the weekend.

Mike came down on Thursday and I watched The OC with him and Alex at Alias...soooooo good. That show rocks hard core. Hahaha. We also chatted a bunch and ate some grapes. Mmmmm...scurvy-reducing food.

Friday Mike came back to visit people at Alias, and later we got supper at Spring Rolls. Then we picked up Kim at the bus station and took the subway back to my place. I got to see a bunch of stuff from Mike's trip to California and we generally had a good time (mostly involving more food...I ate soooo much this weekend).

Saturday we went shopping at the Eaton's Centre and then in the evening, Matt, Adrienne and I saw Apocalyptica at the Guvernment downtown. The show was even better than last time I saw them. They had a new fourth member (they only had three last term), and the stage was much better (they had cool skull chairs to sit in and it was much easier to see). Also, the crowd was much more into the music so there was a lot of good energy going on. After the concert we went to Loblaws to get drinks and food. I got a gigantic smoothie thing...mmmmm...5.5 servings of fruit. Haha.

Sunday I took Kim to the bus station to go home and then I met up with Mike and Alex to go rock climbing at the house of a guy from work. It was really cool, and I think I'm going to try to do a training session at a proper gym, and then try to go regularly with people from work. Maybe I'll even buy my own equipment eventually. After rock climbing we went to Spring Rolls for one more supper before Mike had to go home.

Here are some pictures of me rock climbing.

Rock climbing -- cheating with my hand on the wall

Side view of rock climbing

Rock climbing with large spread

Last weekend I went to Waterloo to visit Mike and because I didn't really have any reason to be anywhere particular in the world. Mike just got back from Pixar and California so it was cool to hear about all of that. He also brought me a Pixar shirt and some other fun stuff. Pretty sweet!

On Saturday night, Mike had to go to Toga (frosh leader) so i just hung out at the house. Angela and Kirsten moved in that night so it worked out really well because I got to hang out with them for a bit too. We watched the season premiere of The OC and chatted a bit before Angela went to Bomber with a bunch of other people.

On Sunday Mike's parents and sister took us out for food in Waterloo park (yay picnic!) and it was pretty nice. Bagels and cream cheese and salmon and stuff. Being a student makes me really appreciate when people give me food.

Next weekend is Apocalyptica, I'm starting to get excited!

I've been working for a week and a half now, and things are pretty good. The job is sweet and Alias rocks as usual. I'm living in North York again which means the commute is crappy (40-50 minute subway ride, plus walking on both ends), but I do lots of reading on the subway so that is OK.

I have lots of plans for this term; I want to work on my ray tracer some more, and I want to go swimming regularly. I'm also going to see Apocalyptica again on September 17th. I am technically signed up for a distance course too, but it is looking like it would require effort, and after a day of working I just don't feel like effort. I can't help it. We will see what happens.

Here are some pictures of my room:

Corner number 1

Corner number 2

Corner number 3

Corner number 4

I'm in Toronto now. things are still a bit up in the air since I can't actually move into my room until Wednesday, but it's all good. I'm staying in the room next door, so I'm not unpacking and everything is a mess.

I went downtown this afternoon and bought "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. I've been meaning to read it for a long time but just never got around to it. It will keep me company on the long subway rides to and from work this week.

That's about it, pretty crappy post I'd say.

Yesterday was fun. Kim's family rented the arena in Ilderton for her cousin's birthday so I got to go ice skating (in August!) with just her family. Private rinks are fun! I really enjoy skating, even though I am not so good. After skating we all went back to Kim's aunt's house for shish kabobs and various other yummy foods. It was a really good afternoon.

I start work next Monday, so I'll be moving back to Toronto on Sunday, but for the rest of this week I think I will continue to do nothing much at all.

I'm home in London now, which is pretty sweet because I can just relax for a couple weeks with nothing to worry about. I will almost certainly accomplish nothing, and I'm OK with that.

I'm reading the complete Chronicles of Narnia, and it's pretty good so far. Also, I watched Donnie Darko last night and that was a really cool movie. It gets to go on my movielist. That bunny is the creepiest thing ever.

Hmm...so yeah, not much else happening. It looks like Apocalyptica is coming back to Toronto in September so Matt and I will probably try to check that out again. Oooh, I also forgot Jen's birthday and have absolutely no good excuse. So I stole her an eCard to make up for it. Haha. At least I'm not as bad as Ryan though.

Well tonight was special. I was supposed to have my Databases final, but five minutes before the start the professor informed us that the Registrar's Office, which is responsible for printing the exams, did not print anywhere close to enough. He attempted to get the correct amount printed out, but not having access to good equipment on short notice he pretty much failed. Apparently there is a policy that states that if the exam is more than 30 minutes late in starting it must be rescheduled to a later time. By 8:00 we were still short 40 copies so we ended up not writing this evening.

This kinda sucks because the exam will likely be rescheduled on the last day of exams. Also, I was ready for it today and wanted it to be over with. But I understand that sometimes things go wrong and stuff doesn't work out. What I don't understand is the reaction of many of the people who were supposed to write with me. There was a lot of intense anger and what seemed like no attempt to understand the professor's situation. He is obliged to follow policy. If he were to get us to wait longer than 30 minutes and try to force us to write the exam, any student who wasn't happy could complain to the registrar afterwards and cause a lot of problems. It's not unreasonable to suspect that some students leave an exam unhappy, that happens regardless of other circumstances. Students who originally thought it would be OK to disregard the policy might "suddenly" change their mind if the exam were to go poorly for them. For the professor, it just isn't worth the hassle.

Even if everyone "agreed" that it would be OK to have the exam tonight and disregard the policy, there would still have been the potential for students to complain to the registrar afterwards about feelings of peer pressure. I'm pretty sure anyone who disagreed to having it tonight (given the opportunity) would have been treated severely be the rest of the students. It was a pretty nasty situation.

I am somewhat sympathetic to those students who have plans that may be disrupted by this event, but not too much. This is an upper year class. By now everyone should know that things can happen and exams can get rescheduled. There are a million things that could disrupt an exam at any time of year, it doesn't take a lot of effort to see that. You take a risk by planning something before the end of the exam period. Normally it works out but sometimes it doesn't. You have to be prepared to accept that. It isn't the professor's or anyone else's responsibility to fix it.

So every once in a while I read Fark which is basically just a news aggregation site. It links to news articles and gives a short and normally amusing description of the article. Today there is a link to a BBC article regarding when the US will leave Iraq and the summary is:

"Bush rejects pulling out of Iraq early. Undersecretary of Innuendo Glenn Quagmire heard to comment, 'Heh heh allll riiiiiiight'"

For anyone who has watched The Family Guy that's just hilarious. I'm still laughing about it.

Part of what I love about shows like The Family Guy, The Simpsons, Futurama and others (generally animated) is the social commentary -- both in the shows and generated by people influenced by the shows (as above). That statement communicates a lot of information about a whole bunch of issues. I don't know why the commentary is more prevalent in animated shows though. Maybe because the people who might try to stop it don't pay as much attention to animation because they think it's just for kids. Such a silly opinion. Some of the best TV is animated. Oh well, someday people will learn, or the people who don't will die and then there won't be any people like that left.