Not too much has been happening lately. Last weekend I stayed in Toronto and just sorta hung around. I saw Tim Burton's Corpse Bride on the Saturday with Matt. It was pretty good, although I saw it in the smallest theatre ever. I think I'm spoiled by Silvercity and the like, but this was really small. It sat about 90 people, the screen was tiny and the sound was horrible. I don't think I would have minded, except that the ticket was the same price as at a Silvercity!

After the movie we went to the College Street location of Canada Computers which has apparently moved slightly further west along the road. Matt had to get a new power supply for his family's computer (which is the same model as mine, a Dell Dimension 8100). But, when we got back to the house, we checked it against my power supply to see if it was compatible and it wasn't! It really should have been since a power supply is fairly standard, but Dell apparently used to use non-standard power supplies. I hope mine doesn't die...or else I'll have to get a new computer...and that would be, um, terrible. Yeah.

After Canada Computers (but before the discovery of the incompatibility), we met Adrienne at the bus station and went to Salad King for supper. So good, I love that place. Adrienne brought me a birthday present, and it was pretty cool...a single giant pickle imported from Germany and contained in it's own can!

Pickle in a can

So cool! The can of coke is to give a relative feel for the size of the thing. When I eat it I will take a picture of it without its protective covering so it can be displayed in all of its glory. Stay tuned!

On Friday night and on Sunday I worked on my ray tracer a bit more and added a little algorithm to generate vertex normals for meshes. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, and after thinking about it for a while I realised that it is in fact a rather hard problem. A mesh is a lossy data format so the data I'm trying to recreate is not even really there. The best I can do is an approximation. And since I am not king of spline mountain, I can only do a rough approximation at that. Here is the cow mesh, rendered first without and then with phong shading using my generated vertex normals:

Cow with generated vertex normals

In other news, I got an email from my friend Mike with a picture of me in it at his house from a loooooooonng time ago. I figure that, given my haircut, I must have been in grade 8 or 9. Here it is:

Me in grade 8 or 9...scary hair

Rock climbing has been going well too. I'm really enjoying it and it is fun to go each week and see myself progressing. I've never really been a "sports" person...not at all. So it is fun to get into something like this. I've been able to do progressively more difficult climbs each week, and I find that I don't get tired as easily. This means I'm developing "technique" or something. But whatever, I'm totally happy that I got the equipment and I'm going to keep going at least once a week for the rest of the term. It is definitely good times.

I should try to update more often, so that when I do update they arn't gigantic posts like this one and the last one. Oh well.

Work has been great, nothing new to report there. Except...that I don't have to do a work report, again! Hahaha to everyone who has to do one. Also, rock climbing with Alias folk has been sweet all around. It's great having people to help/encourage you and I'm really enjoying the sport in general. My new chalk bag is fun too.

Last weekend Kim came to Toronto to visit and we saw the Wallace and Gromit movie (sweet!), went shopping and just hung around. It was nice and relaxing because we didn't want to accomplish anything in particular. On Sunday her mom was in Toronto to watch her sister's Field Hockey game so we met at the game and Kim got a ride home from her. We watched a bit of the game, and I must say, it is a strange sport. Very...um...special. Oh well.

Friday was my birthday (23), and the other co-op students at work did a bunch of really cool stuff for me. I was quite impressed! They decorated my work area (fairly well too given limited resources), and they got me a toy! The Airzooka! So cool! Also we went out to lunch at Betty's, the typical Alias lunch spot. Good times!

By a happy coincidence, some family friends from Ottawa happened to be able to visit my mom's house this weekend, and happened to be coming from Toronto. So, in addition to getting to see some really great people on my birthday weekend, I got a ride to and from Toronto! The weekend was pretty relaxing, we mostly just chatted and ate yummy food. But we did go for a walk on Saturday afternoon in Springbank park in London, which was really nice because of the Fall colours and such. I brought my camera and took a bunch of photos, and here are a few.

Thames river pumphouse

Dam on the Thames river

Kim next to the Thames

Glowing leaves in Springbank park

It was a perfect day for this sort of thing, so I'm glad I remembered to bring my camera. Also, I'm pretty happy with the results. I didn't spend much time setting up these shots or anything, and I think they turned out pretty well. I need to go out sometime and do some more careful shots. Such a good camera.

Finally, while I enjoyed my weekend, my computer chugged along at creating a new image using a mesh and phong shading. Here is Athena wearing her helmet. The mesh has like 15000 faces, so it took a little while to compute. I'm thinking about implementing a sphere tree to help speed up mesh rendering.

Marble athena head

I've got a bunch of stuff to update on today, since I haven't posted in a while (booo to me).

Thanksgiving was a good weekend, as long weekends always are. Only two turkey dinners this year though, but that is still OK I guess. One at my mom's house with my Grandpa, Aunt and cousin and one with Kim's family. The dinner at my mom's house was amusing because afterwards my brother wanted to go visit his friends' apartment so Kim, my cousin and I drove him over and hung out there for a bit. I felt a bit old and out of place, but it was very amusing to see my brother in his "natural habitat." The food was good all around of course. On Sunday Kim and I wandered around White Oaks mall in London, which I haven't done in a long time. It was amusing but I didn't buy anything. Next time maybe.

Work was pretty busy last week, I managed to do 37.5 hours even though I wasn't even in the office on Monday (because of Thanksgiving). But I got some good stuff done and I didn't mind staying later.

I stayed in Toronto this past weekend, and that was OK, except that none of my four roommates stayed. So the house was a little bit lonely. On Friday I stayed at work until 9:30pm, and on the way home the subway announcer was hilarious. He said all of the station names in strange voices, and when we got to Bloor he yelled out "OPEN SESAME!!!" just before opening the doors. The whole subway car laughed, it was hilarious.

On Saturday I went to Mountain Equipment Co-op to buy some rock climbing shoes and a harness. They were super helpful there and they even had a wall to test the equipment out on. I ended up spending about $160 for the two pieces, which is pretty good I think. Since they are going to be my birthday present from my parents I don't really mind what the price is anyway. I still might go get a chalk bag. Not sure yet. Here is a picture of my new stuff:

Rock climbing shoes and harness

The rest of Saturday I spent relaxing and watching episodes of Firefly. Such a good show.

On Sunday I finally did some work on my ray tracer again. I added support for vertex normals on triangular meshes. I do Phong shading now, meaning that I interpolate the vertex normals across each face of the mesh to produce a smooth shaded effect. It was pretty easy and produces really nice results. I also updated all of the documentation so feel free to have a look at the Ray Tracer section for more details. Below is a picture of a mesh rendered without my new feature and then the same mesh with my new feature. I think the second is a much nicer result. I'm going to look around for some more meshes and try to create some more neat images. I chose this mesh to start with because I didn't think this site has enough boobies on it. :)

Mesh without phong shading

Mesh with phong shading

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.