Late night out

I should write a little about yesterday, or at least what little I remember of it. It seems so long ago...... a grueling Chemistry test has a way of making this morning seem like ages ago.

Speaking of which, I woke up this morning at 0600 as is my usual custom now, and took my shower, did my daily things, and jumped right in to studying a little more, sort of a brushup on the things I studied WAY back, maybe even as far back as 3 days ago. There were some questions I was dreading being on the test because I'm not completely comfortable with that type of problem. So when 0730 rolled around, I left for class. The students were rolling across the streets in bunches, or waves as the case may be. I was surprised at how many there actually were. I was caught in a group as we started across but by the time we had crossed the street I was a good 3 metres ahead and just kept going. Ah! How good that brief reprieve was! Just walking down the street in the brisk morning air (and today was a beautiful day).

So arriving at class I was struck by how many people were there. It's a large class but still, that was more than I'd seen the entire semester, except at the beginning. As Mr. Yule has said, I think some students in there must have skipped class the entire semester, only showing up for the final exam! There was some trouble getting things organized, partially because there were so many students and partially because so many of those many students were not using common sense at all, or not paying attention. The professor would explain something and write a correction on the board in huge letters "Answer D on question 23 should be 1.20" And then someone would call out less than a minute later "Answer D should be WHAT?!" Apparently they can't read, or are just not observant!

I've noticed that often the professor will get there early and write on the board "pick up assignment at front desk" in huge letters. Then the students wander in, find their seats, sit there for a few minutes and then suddenly realize there is something on the board. Or even though he's written it, he'll announce it as well and then there is a mad rush to get down there. People are so amusing if you take the time to watch them. I've arrived early to class before in the Engineering South and stood up in an empty classroom on the second floor, surveying my "domain," watching over the passers-by with a hawk's attention. Every other student has white ear-bud-style headphones, which either indicates an iPod hidden away, or someone trying to make other people think that they have an iPod instead of a cheap, generic brand mp3 player :)

And 90% of the students seem to be talking on their cell phones. I was behind one girl who was talking with a friend on her phone and then said "Oh, I see you" and she was just ahead on the bench. Personally, I am almost proud of the fact that I don't have a cell phone and I honestly don't want one. I understand it makes it easier for people to contact me but it's almost like a little curse at the same time. Your life begins to revolve around your phone.

Oh, and one more observation before I get off of this tangent: The favourite place to walk (especially for those absent-mindedly talking on cell phones) is right in between those white lines. You know, those lines that are designated for bicycles? Then some biker comes whipping by at breakneck speed, weaving in and out all of the pedestrians, I hear that every year a few get run over and I wouldn't wonder. I've had a few bike riders charge me on the sidewalk before, I stand my ground though. Plant your legs firmly like tree trunks, legs spread apart and challengingly declare "You shall not pass!" Or er... something dramatic..... *mumbles

So anyway... chemistry, yes I was coming to that! The test went better than expected I suppose, but not as well as hoped of course. It was okay. I knew most of it but there were a couple of problems that I honestly had no clue where to begin. And when I have a few problems like that, chances are that those I thought I knew how to do, would be ones that I miss. It was a multiple guess exam, so several times I'd narrow it down to two possible answers and then have to pick the one that seemed most logical. Whenever I do that though, I seem to fall right into Murphy's laws and the 50-50-90 rule, which states in the simplest terms that whenever there is a fifty-fifty chance of getting something right, there is a 90 percent chance you'll choose the wrong one. And that ALWAYS happens to me! Just not born lucky I suppse ;)

I know I missed the bonus questions but those are usually very, very difficult anyway. In fact, they are so difficult that only those who are very advanced in chemistry would be able to answer them usually, and if they are able to answer them, then they don't need the bonus points anyway, so it almost defeats the purpose in my opinion. Anyway. I probably got a B in the class then. We shall see. Now I shall forever be a source of shame to my parents.

After that test I felt like going home and letting my brain just melt. I ended up watching a few more episodes of "Wanted: Dead or Alive" and messing around with various other things. At 5:30 I went to help Mr. Y move some more things from the old house to the new. It's kind of funny, I am a little but taller than him but I have long arms like my father so while he would be out getting the ladder to bring down some things from the shelf, I was able to reach up there and grab it. I know GW is taller than me yes, but perhaps I'm not really short after all!

Once we had everything packed, we went to the new house, unloaded it, and then were trying to figure out how to program the buttons in their Honda to open their new garage door motor. Mr. Y says THAT is man's dominion, pushing a button and opening his garage. That's power and control right there. He was looking at the manual and I was standing back after having tried a few things and suddenly the garage door started to close.

We stared at eachother and he said "did you do something?" I said no, I had not pressed any buttons for a minute or so. He checked his pockets to see if perhaps he had the remote controller in his pocket and had accidentally pressed it. No..... Then the door started to open again and stopped halfway. I thought perhaps a button was stuck on the car's programmable buttongs and Mrs. Y suggested that perhaps a neighbour might be opening their garage and I had seen a neighbour just pull up a short while before so I stepped outside, nothing. Meanwhile, the door is opening, then shutting, then opening, stopping, then shutting and we're scratching our heads.

Finally, it dawns on us all at the same time and Mrs. Y opens the door to go into the house and there is Rachel, holding the controller and pressing the button. A 2-year old had us all perplexed and spooked for a couple of hilarious minutes there! My but that was funny!

They served me dinner, which I gratefully accepted. I still feel like I'm mooching off of people but when I told Mr. Y that I had hoped to invite some people to my place perhaps and not simply be a "taker" all the time, he said that no one expects me to and besides, what would I serve? Raman noodles? I suppose. Either that or Macaroni and Cheese..... I can cook but I don't want to spend the time on it. After all, it's just me that I'm feeding right? That falls into the "after all, it's just me that I'm heating the camper for and I'm not that important" category ;) If I have guests or passengers in my car I try to be sensitive to whatever they prefer because I honestly have a high tolerance either way, cold or hot. Same thing if there was someone else visiting me in the camper, I would definitely heat it but when it's just myself, aw... I hate wasting money on me!

When getting boxes out of the attic and putting them into the new attic at Mr. Y's house, we came across a box that said "Nintendo shelf." Now I was curious, being that I've had quite a history with that sort of thing. I have a great book about the history of Nintendo if anyone wants to read it, it's actually quite fascinating! David Sheff was a very good writer for that sort of thing. Anyway, he said I could have the box as payment. It was really neat, there was some old games I'd never heard of and a few old Nintendo Power magazines! I bet those are collectible and it will be interesting to take a closer look at them. For me, it was a treaure, I love old electronics like that. I may have mentioned this, but I took the past Nintendo systems, wired some switches in parallel with the circuit boards and made my own wooden box to house all of them. It will play 7 different types of games technically. Just plug 'em in here and there. And actually if you do a google search for my name and append "Nintendo" to it, you'll probably see it. It actually isn't nearly as much as so many people made it out to be.

Oh, there is a funny story connected with it though. When I made this I casually mentioned it to a fellow gamer online and sent him some pictures, he wanted to share it and then it was posted on a huge "nerd news" site that gets over 60,000 views per day and then people posted about it all over the Internet on blogs etc. I had an e-mail from a guy with G4 Tech TV who wanted to do an over-the-phone interview with me for one of their shows and another guy wanted to interview me for his news site that he had. I was quite overwhelmed because I had NOT intended for this to be anything but a fun project for myself and it honestly isn't difficult to do, it's just that most aren't willing to try.
Anyway, the one guy who wanted to interview me for his site, contacted me on the Instant Messenger but didn't have enough time and so was going to try again later. A few weeks after I sent him an Instant Message and asked him if he was still going to do that interview about the "NEC." He said yes, he was hoping to but he still hadn't gotten back to that guy.

Well when I realized that he didn't figure out who I was, it opened the door for a lot of fun! So I said "yeah, that thing was neat and all but it really was kind of clunky looking." He said "lol, yeah, I suppose so."
Then I started bashing myself saying how "that guy who made it though, what a nerd! He probably is one of those guys who never goes to school, only sits at home and does goofy things like this."
"yeah, probably, I mean, it is kind of a nerdy thing."
"And I talked to him a while back. He seemed kind of stuck up to me, almost proud of himself and didn't really want to answer questions."
It was here that he disagreed with me and said "Well actually, he seemed like a nice sort to me."

I couldn't contain myself any longer. I said "you don't know who I am do you?" He asked who and I said my name and there was a long pause. Then some typing and "man, I am sooooooo stupid." I told him he did great and we both laughed about it. I guess that is one way of finding out what people think of you, when you start talking about yourself in the third person....

Ah, such good memories, but yeah, people seemed to take the idea and run with it. Most hadn't seen any pictures so their imaginations went wild and they called me a genious who came up with something the engineers at Nintendo hadn't thought of and I probably laboured for months on this (actually it was about 5 days and that was only because I had to wait for the glue to dry in stages) and that it was with incredible electrical knowledge. Uh... I took one class and er.... this was only soldering two wires onto a connector so no great skill there. Like I said, people are funny sometimes if you'll only stop to observe.

Dear Shadow,
Have you ever tried to fly?
-Bumble Bee Bill

Yes BBB, when I was about four years old I had just seen the movie "Pinnochio" and so I decided I would grab my umbrella and jump off the porch and float down just like him, it just looked like so much fun! Unfortunately I wasn't as graceful as he and thankfully the porch was not very high. Note to oneself: Do not try this from an airplane or cliff.