spectr @blogspot

moved

2005-05-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Migrated to WordPress. Blog is now at www.rcboyce.com/blog, which you should be redirected to in about 10 seconds (assuming you're reading this as an HTML page). Which reminds me, new Atom feed is at http://www.rcboyce.com/blog/?feed=atom.

5k

2005-05-14T11:44:00.000-05:00

22:02 or so. Not too bad, although I kinda wanted to get under 22.
Big Show tonight.

tech stuff

2005-04-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

Local root own for OSX
Known since March and still no patch... 10.3.9 apparently doesn't fix it, so Tiger probably wont help either. Just don't let anyone touch your computer.

Also, nice new cluster over at DCL. Mmm Xserve G5s.

adobe + macromedia

2005-04-18T17:01:00.000-05:00

Adobe to Acquire Macromedia in $3.4 Billion Stock Deal
Holy crap. This has the potential to be great (Adobe combines Fireworks and Photoshop features, integration with Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator) or suck (Adobe kills off Macromedia Suite in favor of its own products). I'm pretty optimistic about the situation though. Maybe it'll mean that future Macromedia apps for the Mac won't be so poorly done.

i'm lovin it

2005-04-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Actual McDonalds ad. Proving there is such a thing as too much love for a hamburger.

frist post

2005-03-30T22:03:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I haven't posted in a long time. So what? There's not too much to talk about. I did pretty well at YMCA States and JO's. Third quarter is over and I think I passed most of my classes. Ooh, it appears that Gmail now does formatting. Fun. Web Developer toolbar for Firefox is proving rather useful.
Musical is next week. 4.5 hour rehearsals every day next week won't be fun, though I suppose the pit orchestra gets a bit of down time (in whcih I plan to do homework).

Netscape 8

2005-03-03T22:28:00.000-06:00

Netscape 8 is based on Firefox 1.0... With added suckiness. There are some cool features, especially in tab options, and the ability to switch to IE rendering is pretty convenient, but the interface... That program is painful to look at. I'd probably use it if it weren't ugly in every aspect possible.

still alive...

2005-03-01T22:48:00.000-06:00

Just not posting. Agora Days was pretty sweet, but it's kinda hectic now; getting into championship meet season. I'll be posting more (or at least have a bit more free time) around Spring Break, which is coming up surprisingly soon.

I leave you with a little Samurai Champloo lovin'.

Blogger ate my post last time. Let's see if this one works.

random title goes here

2005-02-21T22:47:00.000-06:00

Whee DDR. I went over to Luke's this afternoon for general funness. I played Magic for the first time in months. Also saw some Warcraft 3 (FT) and this interesting Battle Realms RTS. DDRing was nice, but Extreme American edition sucks so much, and the pads were pretty bad. And Captain Jack is creepy as HELL. Still fun though.

Swim practice was really nice. A bit hard, but I need to get in shape quick.

WOOHOO AGORA DAYS!

blah

2005-02-20T21:18:00.000-06:00

Argh, I sucked so much yesterday. I'd like to blame it on being sick, but I don't think that mattered very much. I totally died on the Geometry thing on the ICTM and then failed to keep Alex under control for the 2-person team. Then I went to the meet and totally messed up my 100 breaststroke. I didn't even make my seed time, and Jack Clifford beat me. Artem won though, and got his Nationals cut. That was cool.

Yay, Scoobs reminded me to listen to Dvorak 's Symphony #9. You know, the New World Symphony. We sightread it in orchestra last week. It totally reminded me that I had almost all of Dvorak's symphonies in iTunes. Hehe. I also bought Shostakovich's Festive Overture from iTMS. Uncharacteristically happy, but still pretty good. There are some spots that have those trademark harmonies of his that I love so much, but not anywhere near as cool as the string quartets.

babies everywhere!

2005-02-18T22:04:00.000-06:00

That Registration Day thing was pretty handy. No class (yay) as well as a chance to get to know our electives a little better. The day probably could've ended earlier, but Jono and I got to listen to some good old music. I also got to see that "I Feel Great!" Nutragrain commercial a few times. Luke decided that he had to make sure that EVERYONE IN THE SCHOOL saw it. Gargoyle came out today, and was fairly uninteresting, considering that it was like twice as big as a usual issue. That dating show article was pretty funny, I guess.

Yay for the ICTM. I get to be with mini-supergenius Alex Zhai for the two-person team. Of course, I don't remember anything about geometry. That's really annoying cause the test is really easy if you know the theorems for the problem, but if you don't, it's impossible. And I wish I knew who I was with for 8-person team. That's always fun.

Also, the Xbox has firewire support? Wait. No. The cables just catch on fire. Time to send Microsoft my address so they can give me a new cord. It might be a rare occurence, but I have a fair amount of AV equipment in the cabinet with my Xbox...

omg wtf regular updates

2005-02-16T22:22:00.000-06:00

A sign of regular updates? Probably not, I just have a lot of free time today.

I'm all caught up with everything that I missed yesterday except for chem, but I only have a few tests left to run there. Virtually no hw tonight, just finishing Emma (done already) and math (easy). Still got something of a headache but not too much. I'll prolly try to get out of fitness, cause of sickness & sectionals this weekend.
Japanese speech went well. The judge said I did good, though I stumbled a few times

Man was the Daily Show good. Steven Colbert revealed that he was a distant relative (by which he meant grandson) of Hitler, that he used to be a Columbian drug mule, and that he killed and ate a panda. Jon Stewart couldn't even look at him without laughing for the entire segment.

Cartoon Network now has One Piece and Naruto. Both quality Shonen Jump anime. I think I'll have to keep watching Naruto fansubs though, despite the fact that it's US licensed. Why? Because it's coming to Toonami 3rd quarter (this fall). Toonami runs once a week. There are 52 weeks in a year. I watched episode 121 the day before yesterday. It'll be over two years before I get to see new episodes if I wait. Plus it'll be dubbed.

If anyone has any plans for the now-11 dismissal on Friday tell me.

real update

2005-02-15T21:31:00.000-06:00

I think I'll write up a real post today. I went home early today cause I've got a nasty headache. Not really a good excuse, but it's like the worst headache I've ever had. I don't get headaches very often. I still have to do the math homework (no trig book), as well as make up the math quiz. Fortunately I have 2 free periods tomorrow, and the math quiz shouldn't take long at all.
I also missed the orchestra concert. Domier tells me that Max Goldberg wasn't there either, so John Mark was the only one. Oh well, he's plenty good, and there aren't that many hard trombone parts.
There really isn't too much going on before Agora days... That noon dismissal holds great potential for fun. I also just realized that tomorrow night will be the last homework that I have to do before Agora days. That's neat.

agora days final schedule

2005-02-15T20:24:00.000-06:00

Got all first choices except Halo and GitS. Not too bad. A lot of people have 3rd and 8th free, so there will likely be some gaming going on those hours.

stuff's happening

2005-02-10T21:29:00.000-06:00

I, for one, am glad I'm not on the chess team or in Journalism.

The (Parkland) ICTM is next Saturday! Yay! So is swimming Sectionals tho... It'll be tight getting to both, but sectionals isn't a big deal. The IHSA state qualifying times are faster than Y National cuts. And ICTM state isn't until April 30? That's a long time from now.
Also, early out omorrow! So DDR at the Union until 4 for me. Yay!

Agora Days are so close....

I seem to be in a good mood today.

more agora

2005-02-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

First (first choice):
Breakfast with Aria and Elizabeth
First (second choice):
Cohen Brothers Filmfest
Second (first choice):
Halo, Bulk
Second (second choice):
Badminton
Third (first choice):
FREE
Third (second choice):
FREE
Fourth (first choice):
Cell Game
Fourth (second choice):
Cell Game
Fifth (first choice):
South Park
Fifth (second choice):
The Way of the Fighting Game
Sixth (first choice):
Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell
Sixth (second choice):
Jazz Improv class
Seventh (first choice):
Japan Trip 2005 (This class is required for the members of Japan Trip 2005.)
Seventh (second choice):
Japan Trip 2005 (This class is required for the members of Japan Trip 2005.)
Eighth (first choice):
FREE
Eighth (second choice):
FREE

bored

2005-02-05T22:25:00.000-06:00

Not much going on. The only interesting thing happening before Agora Days is the Japanese speech contest. Which I should probably be working on.... :/ Watched Gundam SEED Destiny 16 (recap episode), anbudom.net, and WHAM -- new release, Jinki: Extend 01. So I'm rather pleased with that.

I still have a chance at going to the AIME, since they take the top 5% of AMC 12 scorers. That's pretty good too.

Take a look at this too. Pretty amusing, although the warning is no longer on Apple's site. :(

agora days

2005-02-03T21:29:00.000-06:00

My prospective Agora Days schedule:

1

-Breakfast with Aria and Elizabeth
-Cohen Brothers Filmfest

2

-Ultimate Frisbee
-Free if I can't get in.

3

-Free, but I'll prolly go steal food from the kitchen.

4

-Teaching Cell Game

5

-South Park
It'd be hella lame if I didn't get in.

6

-Ghost in the Shell
-Jazz Improv

7

-Japan Trip
I'd be all over Medieval Combat and Halo if I had a choice. :(

8

-Free, if I need a class, I'll go for Family Guy.

Links are a pain.

ARGH

2005-02-03T20:21:00.000-06:00

CRAP. I got a 99.5 on my AMC 12... Half a point from qualifying for the AIME. I got a 119.5 last year on the AMC 10, also a half point from qualifying. Blargle. Answeres are online: AMC 10 and AMC 12. Hopefully I'll do better at the ICTM. Probably not though, since I forgot every geometry theorem I ever learned. Calculator team looks good though, especially since super-genius Alex Zhai is likely to be the freshman representative, so I get to do e-a-s-y problems.
Japanese speech time. Later.

quick stuff

2005-01-30T22:04:00.000-06:00

Blah. This week's Gundam SEED Destiny is a recap, and new Naruto isn't out yet.
AMC 12 is on Tuesday. Remind me again why I'm the only person in the sophmore class taking the 12?
Betrayers of Kamigawa looks fun. As Dom put it, "Magic: Now with NINJERS".

house of flying daggers

2005-01-30T18:29:00.000-06:00

Saw House of Flying Daggers at the Art on Saturday. Pretty good movie. TOO many plot twists though. There normally isn't such a thing, but the characters' motives begin to contradic themselves. The fighting was pretty neat. And also, dramatic season changes. Like, summer to fall to winter over the course of three or four days. And if you like rape, this is the movie for you. Ew. It's PG-13, so not that kinda ew, but still.

firewalls et al

2005-01-26T22:28:00.000-06:00

History test went well, tho I did badly on the chem quiz. Only 10 pt quiz tho.

I'm becoming a bit paranoid about viruses or something. I've got two anti-virus programs running (though one's out of date), a hardware and a software firewall, and check what programs are accessing the Internets fairly often. Oh well, I don't think I've ever gotten Trojaned, which isn't bad for someone running XP Home.

Blah I have to go. More tomorrow or something.

harro again

2005-01-25T21:58:00.000-06:00

History test tomorrow shouldn't be too bad. I did alright on that math test/quiz that took the whole hour too. Japanese kaiwa quiz got delayed to Thursday for me, and the start of the speech isn't due until Friday. Also, Illinois came back to win the game vs. Wisconsin. So yay for that.
Swim practice was hard... Too much butterfly. 750 butterfly pull; I'll be sore for days.

I'm so 1336.

2005-01-24T22:29:00.000-06:00

I'm so 1336.
I totally forgot to get the math problem numbers and lost my English syllabus. Got a scan of the latter from Ford tho now, so thats okay.
Oh man, I got the new Pillows album. (Illegally... but it's pretty niche Japanese music, what're you gonna do?) Original torrent. I'll burn an iTunes CD w/ the album cover and better ID3 tags if anyone asks. FYI, the Pillows are the people who did the music for FLCL/Furi Kuri/Fooly Cooly.

ahh, to go to winter formal or not?

2005-01-22T18:42:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking not. Sorry, but I didn't get back home until just now, and I'm really tired and hungry. I'll prolly jsut do some homework and watch anime for the rest of the night. Wait, no. I have KOTOR2 to play, since its due back at Blockbuster tomorrow. I won't be able to beat it tonight tho... :(
Jake/Spencer/Taotao's appeal was denied by the provost. Unsurprising, but still sad. Good luck at UHS/wherever to them.

not an entry

2005-01-18T21:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't put anything up here since Friday. Blame it on KOTOR2. That game is teh own. I only have it till Sunday though, then it's back to Blockbuster.

Picasa 2 is out. I don't see a whole lot that's different from 1.6 or whatever, but it's still useful. Like the iPhoto of Windows computers.

Also, check out Whitespace if you're l33t enough. Best. Syntax. Ever.

short post again

2005-01-14T22:07:00.000-06:00

Blah missed school cause of fever. Showed up at 3 to pick up homework and say bye to Jake and Spencer tho.
Knights of the Old Republic II is a good game so far. I'm only an hour and a half into it tho.
LiveJournal's servers were dead for a while today. Haha.
Anyway, sleep now.

endings

2005-01-13T21:35:00.000-06:00

Well, unless some kind of miracle occurs, tomorrow will be the last day at Uni for Jake, Spencer and Taotao. Even though what they did was wrong, school certainly won't be the same without them. That reminds me, Jake's blog is back online.
______

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester, as well as being a 3:00 dismissal. Chemistry final won't exactly be fun though. Still, 3.5 day weekend, with parties at Domier's.
Also, youth orchestra concert at 7:30 on Monday at Smith Hall. Program follows:

Antonin Dvorak - Slavonic Dances 6 and 7

Franz Schubert - Unfinished Symphony (No .8) (both movement, for you Uni orchestra kids)

People should come. We sound pretty good.
______

I leave you with this:

H sub 2

2005-01-12T23:07:00.000-06:00

Iceland to be without oil power by 2050. Sounds good. Mr. Bergandine was discussing that yesterday, and how hydrogen wasn't a particularly effective fuel, since it's usualy created through electrolysis, which uses up electricity, which tends to come from fossil fuel. Of course, in Iceland, there's insanely easy access to geothermal power, so hydrogen can be made cleanly. Hmm... Lots of renewable energy sources? Iceland has no military? As they say, freedom is on the march.
But seriously, pretty neat. Petroleum reserves are supposed to run out around that time... and it's not as cold as the name implies.
______

Also, good luck to Jake/Spencer/Taotao. I certainly don't think the punishment is right, even considering what they did.

Mac stuff.

2005-01-11T19:52:00.000-06:00

It's so small...

Man that iPod shuffle... It's certainly a good price. $100 for 512 MB USB disk key/mp3 player is certainly nice. However, the lack of display is a bit dismaying. 512 megabytes is over 100 songs for most people, right? And there's only |<<>>| buttons for song navigation. If they had a display that at least showed the title, then you could at least tell if you were on the right song. But you have to listen t a bit of the song to identify it too? That seems hightly inconvenient. Nonetheless, I imagine I'll get one eventually. My semi-monthy playlists are about 300 MB in size, so that leaves about 200 megs for disk usage. Pretty nice deal, but I kinda expected some sort of navigation.

The mini Mac is also pretty sweet-looking. It needs more RAM, but all Macs do. Its really freaking small... I have an external Sony DVD burner that's about that size. (Well, smaller, but still. It's close.) If I had some more money to spare, I'd totally get a USB & monitor switcher/hub hooked up to one of those. Should be good for attracting new customers who like the iPod.

Maybe I'll say something else about iLife 05 and iWork... Just one last comment: the iLife logo reminds me of Katamari Damacy for some reason.

yay for snow

2005-01-07T23:03:00.000-06:00

Snow is t3h nice. Posting from the iMac... Mom wants me to go to bed, so I guess I'll post something tomorrow. My little sister takes he SSAT tomorrow too. She's really nervous, and I suppose thats' reasonable, considering that she probably won't do that well. On the other hand, she's in 6^th grade this year, so it isn't a big deal if she doesn't get into Uni this year.

sans titre

2005-01-06T22:01:00.000-06:00

I still have to make up history and math tests... How troublesome. Also, ANBU-AonE Naruto 116-117 should be out this week. And I still have Bleach 13 to watch. So yay.

Felling lazy still, so lame post time:
Overall (not an average of the below): 7
School: 7 (Nothing bad to speak of, but nothing all that fun. Except Japanese card making.)
Sleep: 7 (Slept okay, but did have to get up earyish cause of ice.)
Food: 8 (Leftover chili for dinner (again), but furikake and chicken for lunch was pretty nice.)
Exercise: 6 (Just weights. Skipped swimming to work on hw, then didn't get much done.)

short post #3

2005-01-05T22:42:00.000-06:00

It got late... So just this again.

Overall (not an average of the below): 6
School: 6 {I was tired, chem was boring, and math and hist hw are annoying me.}
Sleep: 4 (ARGH I woke up early today cause it was supposed to be icy bu then it wasn't. So that kinda sucked..)
Food: 6 (Leftover chili for dinner, boring everything else.)
Exercise: 8 (Easy swimming and fiteness, but enough to get some value from them both. I need to work on relay starts...)

a few points

2005-01-04T23:06:00.000-06:00

Blah too lazy to write up much for today.

(Ratings all out of 10.)
Overall (not an average of the below): 8
School: 8 {It's good to be back - not much hw either.}
Sleep: 9 (Slept well, waking up wasn't as much of a problem as is often is for me...)
Food: 7 (New Year's food in Japanese and hash browns (homemade) for dinner. Pretty tasty.)
Exercise: 6 (No swim practice, and I was a bit sore during weights. Also, the jrs/srs get out of fitness for health tomorrow. I hope Sally goes easy on us.)

daily rating

2005-01-03T22:35:00.000-06:00

Totally stolen from Domier.
(Ratings all out of 10.)
Overall (not an average of the below): 8
School: 10
Sleep: 6 (It's hard to suddenly start going to sleep before midnight.)
Food: 8 (Yakisoba for lunch, chili for dinner - there's not much more to ask for.)
Exercise: 8 (Swim practice wasn't too hard, but it was pretty fun. Backstroke's not really my thing tho. Nicole was there with Eunice; that was a bit odd.)

Tomorrow looks to be good as well. Japanese cooking in the morning, weights, music lesson, etc.

Quiz thing

2005-01-03T20:46:00.000-06:00

Movies
Best drama: Notebook [sure, I don't watch dramas] {I don't watch movies}
Best comedy: ~~Anchorman~~ WRONG. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle {second that}
Best kids film: Incredibles [whatever] {haven't seen, but it does look pretty good}
Best graphics: Day After Tomorrow [even though it sucked ass] {but how can you not love a movie where global warming leads to an ice age?}
Best acting: ~~Terminal~~ NAPOLEON DYNAMITE BITCH {I am so getting that DVD.}
Best story: ~~Notebook~~ I Head Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was good {whatever.}

Subbie teachers [Guess I can't edit this..]
Most humorous: Murphy
Most well-liked by students: Yi
Nicest: Suslick [Not from what I've heard..] {I thought she was okay, but other people seemed not to.}

Uni blogs
Most updated: ~~Elaine [who? .. whatever]~~ Jason He, for like 1000 words posted in 8 entries in one day.
Most HTML/CSS compliant: Boyce {this page doesn't actually validate quite right, and I'm too lazy to fix it. but it works well since i test it in Firefox and (usually) IE.}
Most interesting to read: Ford [I'm not allowed to change this one]
Most dial-up friendly: ~~Boyce Yours truly~~ {Jake or other people using the default "empty" template}
Most broadband friendly: Elaine [..]
Most photos in context: Uni Library [sure]

Subbie lockers {Stupid subbies. Baleeted.}

Television
Best news channel: CNN [I would have thought you would say Fox News..]
Best weather channel: Weather Channel [No shit]
Best quick-news broadcaster: CNN Headline News ~~MSNBC~~
Most unbiased news: ~~CNN~~ BBC fo sho
ADDITION> Most biased news: Fox [eat that]
Best kids' entertainment: Disney
Best comedies: ~~Disney~~ WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? HOW ABOUT COMEDY CENTRAL DUMBASS {BUT THAT'S SO RAVEN IS SO GOOD! Not really. Comedy Central definitely.}
Best anime: Cartoon Network {yep.}
Best cable service: ~~Comcast~~ That would work if Comcast was actually served in C/U.. {Insight because it's avaliable for my use.}
Best satellite service: DirecTV {I don't get satellite, never have. Can't comment.}
Best East Central Illinois news channel: WCIA 3 [there's only one..] {THat's just their slogan. But all the local stations suck majorly.}

Music {BALEETED}

Internet
Best search engine: Google {duuuuh}
Best toolbar for IE: ~~Yahoo!~~ The one that uninstalls IE?
Best site for research: ~~MSN Encarta~~ Wikipedia
Best free e-mail: ~~Yahoo!~~ GMail
Best movies research site: ~~Yahoo! Movies~~ IMDB
Best game site: Miniclip {w/e}
Best free blog service: Blogger {I'd agree.}
Best news source: ~~CNN~~ Daily Show
Best instant messaging service: Yahoo! That is such bullshit. MSN hands down.. people need to realize that. {Eh, I think Yahoo might actually be as good in the feature department, but Windows (NOT MSN) Messenger is way nicer than Yahoo Messenger.}
Best site for free downloads: ~~suprnova.org~~ {Nevermind.}
Best site for researching tech: ~~CNET Newegg~~
Best site for researching games: ~~Gamespot Gamespy~~ GameFAQs
Best site for downloadable games: Popcap [if you want adware too...]

Computer stuff
Best Internet browser: ~~Firefox [finally something we agree with]~~ {Opera, if you have the paid version. (I'd feel bad about usig a cracked version) Which I don't.}
Best media player: ~~Windows Media Player Media Player Classic~~ {Winamp 5 for me}
Best POP e-mail client: ~~Microsoft Office Outlook~~ Thunderbird {Outlook is only good if you like viruses :) }
Best free e-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird {yep}
Best word processing software: Microsoft Office Word {for now... we'll see in a month or so.}
Best free word processing software: OpenOffice
Best productivity pack: Microsoft Office Professional
Best free productivity pack: OpenOffice
Best registry cleaner: ~~System Mechanic~~ How about regedit. {I'm pretty sure its blasphemy to use a separate program to edit the registry.}
Best PC customization software: ~~Wincustomize~~ DO IT YOURSELF. BE LEET FOR ONCE. Yeah. That one modded .dll for WinServer 2k3 (that still works in XP) is nice.
Best antispyware program: Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE PRO PRO PRO
Best computer manufacturer: ~~Dell Alienware if you've got $$$~~ Apple... *ducks* {If you have the $$$ of course.}
Best wireless networking gear manufacturer: Netgear Linksys {They're the same company... I gots a Netgear - it was a good deal.}

Shopping (C-U)
Best tech store: ~~Circuit City~~ Sam's Club
Best grocery store: ~~Meijer Aldi~~ Schnucks {Not Sam's Club...}
Best clothes store: ~~Target Target is like a high-class KMart Jesus. How about like Famous Barr~~ Sam's Club
Best "general" store: ~~Wal-Mart I should have known... bush lover... you support outsourcing jobs if you buy at Wal-Mart. You will go to hell for that. I SAY K-MART! YEAHHHHHHHHH!~~ Sam's Club {Uhoh, I think it's owned by WalMart. But how can you resist 10-gallon barrels of cereal?}
Best office supply store: ~~Staples Office Depot~~ Sam's Club

Restaurants (C-U)
Best Chinese restaurant: Tang Dynasty
Best Italian restaurant: ~~Biaggi's~~ Last time I went there they messed up my order. The Great Impasta is awesome. {Impasta, but also Minnecci's.}
Best fast-food restaurant: ~~Za's Jimmy John's.~~ Sam's Club {Really. You could get like a whole lunch there from the sample trays.}
Best sandwich store: Jimmy John's {no contest}

NO SCHOOL OMQWTFGETUPANDDANCE

2005-01-03T06:57:00.000-06:00

OMFG NO SCHOOL TODAY?!?!?!? That kicks some major ass. Another day of slacking for me!

EDIT: Haha, the power's out at school, so Uni's server is down, so the images that I have stored over there are not online anymore. Most people should still have in cache, so don't go Shift+Refresh-ing for a while.

happy new year

2004-12-31T23:09:00.000-06:00

Yeah, yeah, only one (real) post since Christmas. Quit your whining.
______

Every year my family does this big Japanese New Year's Breakfast thing. It's quite tasty. And none of that lunar year crap either. But we do use the Chinese zodiac. Anyway, I just ate some of that うどん soup. It's got long noodles, supposedly symbolising long life. I think. Either way, it means lots of good food for me tomorrow.
Ooh, I get to open up the first page of my Non Sequitur daily calendar. How fun. And I really do plan to post some pictures of the Bose SoundDock or whatever it's called, and maybe some other stuff. I've just been relatively busy until today.
And I might think up a resolution (or a few) tomorrow. I generally don't do that until January 1 anyway, so I'm not actually behind...

listing thingy

2004-12-29T22:25:00.000-06:00

I've revamped that blog list thing. It's now fully XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS vaild, if anyone happens to know what that means. It's a good thing. Also, in case you didn't notice, it's on my domain now. So update your links.

Feedster Claim Tag...

2004-12-29T19:36:00.000-06:00

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster

Feel free to ignore this link.

merry christmas

2004-12-25T22:48:00.000-06:00

Woot it's snowing! I hope we have some on the ground tomorrow.
______

I hope everyone (what celebrates it) had a good Christmas. I got a lot of cool stuff. Like a domain name (nothing much there now), a watch, the way-expensive Bose iPod speaker set thingy, Civ 3 Conquests, and many other cool things. I'll post more stuff tomorrow. It's a bit late.

political stuff

2004-12-23T21:48:00.000-06:00

Well, since I don't have much else to talk about, I'm gonna talk about politics. Whee.

New York Times - Bush Tries Again on Court Choices Stalled in Senate

So anyway, Bush is re-nominating a dozen judicial appointees who failed to get through Senate hearings (or whose nominations were successfully filibustered) during his last term. But as they say, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again when your party is 4 votes closer to being able to break a filibuster. It's strange how people seem to leave off that last part. Also quite interesting:

Among the candidates the president said on Thursday he would renominate is William J. Haynes IV, the Pentagon's general counsel, who has been deeply embroiled in controversy over memorandums he wrote or supervised that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. Mr. Haynes's nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., was suspended when the issue erupted and he was asked by the Judiciary Committee to provide material about his role in the issue and failed to do so.

So now that there's solid evidence of abuse at Guantanamo, it's not such a big deal? I don't get it. On the other hand, if he's getting nominated to a Virginia court, it would surprise me if he was the liberal judge there. Virginia sucks.
______

I'm still not done with my history paper. It's kinda confusing since I have a few books that conflict slightly with each other. Oh well.
______

EDIT: Did some fiddling with the margins on the <blockquote> tag. Also justified quoted text.

Site updates

2004-12-22T21:15:00.000-06:00

I put up a new favicon... Unfortunately, its ugly as sin. 16x16 pixels is not a very large workspace.
I've been working a little more on a new theme. I wanted to have it up by Christmas, but I'm still wading through the vast mess of CSS that I've tacked on to the Rounders theme. All that's really left is the header background image and the profile containers. And the comment sections on individual pages. It should be done by the new year. Provided I don't forget abut it. Or get lazy.

I also seem to have a cold again.　めんどくさい　だな。。。
Fortunately, Christmas is soon. And that mean presents. And there's nothing a good capitalist kid loves more than expensive presents.

Christmas tree w/ lights.

2004-12-20T22:12:00.000-06:00

Christmas tree - Now with lights! And presents. And the camera's flash on.

I'm not dead yet

2004-12-18T21:25:00.000-06:00

My apologies for not posting. This last week before break has been pretty hectic, despite getting an extension on my history paper. Now that its break, I should have more time to write here. Or maybe I'll be more lazy and stop posting. Who knows.
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Gundam SEED Destiny had better find itself a moral plot twist soon, cause right now good an evil are pretty clear-cut. My favorite part about the original SEED is that neither side is morally right. But the only theme I've seen so far in Destiny is that Americans are racist dumbasses that like to nuke things. Which I guess is true enough, but not nearly as interesting.
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OMFG AN ARIANE-5 ROCKET ACTUALLY LAUNCHED WITHOUT CRASHING INTO SOME OCEAN! MAD PROPS TO THE ESA!
Reuters has the pretty pictures.

QDB.us

2004-12-13T22:31:00.000-06:00

VOTE!

http://www.qdb.us/43464 [UPDATE: DENIED!]
http://bash.org/?452211 (If it gets accepted... Which might take weeks. Or months.)

cations and anions? whatever.

2004-12-13T21:31:00.000-06:00

Still totally tired. I think I did bad on chem since I didn't have those cations and anions very well memorized. Oh well. Music club recital Wednesday; I think I'm playing.
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I've started watching Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai. I've found it to be relatively interesting, if a bit... perverted. But it is GAINAX, so I expect the show will turn ot interesting enough.
Although I guess GAINAX did Mahoromatic... I don't think that was supposed to be all that interesting. Oh well. Just 12 episodes, so no big loss if it isn't that good.

blargle

2004-12-12T20:37:00.000-06:00

I enjoy non-descriptive titles for my blog entries.
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I can't believe I'm still tired... I lost like 7 pounds too, since I haven't eaten anything since Thursday. Fortunately, I'm more or less caught up in schoolwork. I've got nothing actually written on my hsitory paper, but I think I've got a good idea what to say. Chem should be oka, but I need to find out which ions we were supposed to memorize... Otherwise that's fine. Math I need to finish 2 assignments for. History testiz I think I'm set. Prolly won't take it until at least Tuesday though.
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Christmas tree is nicely decorated. Also, I noticed that it didn't have a very good scale - the tree is actually pretty big. Now to find some gifts that my mom will get me... She's decided no video games, since I should be spending my time studying... Or anything else that might actually use my time. So, it looks like clothes and SAT study guides all around this year! Yay!
This just in - sarcasm isn't as effective in text form.

Konfabulator

2004-12-10T22:48:00.000-06:00

This Konfabulator program is pretty cool. It puts little XML/JavaScript apps called widgets on the desktop. [Official FAQ] I used it at one point on the iMac, but the always-there registration window (it's shareware) got pretty annoying, so I stopped. It was a pretty nifty idea though. In fact, the next release of OSX, 10.4, will include its own (likely superior) widget program. As a result, the makers of the program ported it to Windows. Seeing as I don't have Apple Developer access to Dashboard, I decided to start using it (and doing my best never to quit the program) on the PC. Its worked really nicely so far. [Screenie] I've also started learning some JavaScript for use in one of these things... Which I just put online for your enjoyment. All it does is change the transperency of the little "K" button. You can decrease transperency by clicking the "-" button or pressing [Ctrl+Shift+PgDown] and increase it by clicking the "+" button or pressing [Ctrl+Shift+PgUp]. You can also bring it to the front with [Ctrl+Shift+F4].
Download Konfabulator here.
Download my test widget here.
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Ah, I just realized I missed candygrams by being sick. Darn.
On a brighter note, Marquis and I submitted our Cell Game class to the Agora Days Supreme Comission. Yay.

sick AGAIN?!?

2004-12-09T22:48:00.000-06:00

Argh I missed school again today. So damn tired. Looks like I won't be in tomorrow either. Ugggh. I haven't finished math or hsitory essay... Not thinking coherently at all.
I think I've missed 5 days of school this quarter now. Very bad.

2004-12-08T22:31:00.000-06:00

We've got our Christmas tree up. No lights, but its pretty nice. There's no good way to take a picture of it either: it's too far for the flash to work well, but the chandelier is too bright... Oh well. Use your imagination.

1.0 final already?

2004-12-07T20:21:00.000-06:00

Thunderbird 1.0 is out. Pretty quick, since the release candidate was only from this weekend. Read my old post or something for features. I suppose if you use Eudora there isn't much need to switch (although I personally prefer it).
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I got my new 160 GB harddrive installed. More to come. Sleep now.

civ iii

2004-12-05T22:13:00.000-06:00

OMG Civilization III is so addictive. Its the reason I didn't post anything yesterday. Or work on any homework all weekend.
I really did just start doing homework. So I'd best be going. My target is to have 4 pages of history (with cites) done by Friday. We'll see if I make that...

Thunderbird

2004-12-03T22:24:00.000-06:00

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 Release Candidate 1 is out. (It's not officially stable, but seems to work fine for me. A few nice additions since 0.9 - Winstripe theme to match Firefox, and Saved Search Folders (a weird name for it, its like Gmail's Label system. Pretty useful.)

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I'm really tired, so nothing more for today. I might go to StudProd tomorrow afternoon. I'll write up something interesting tomorrow... Maybe.

words of the year

2004-12-02T22:07:00.000-06:00

Merriam-Webster has their top 10 most looked-up words of the year. "Blog" is number one, blah blah blah. Semms pretty dumb to me, seeing as it isn't even a real word. Go read something else for discussion of that. It is rather interesting that they added "blog" to the online dictionary due to the number of searches for it. (It'll even be added in the next print edition.) However, I like my idea better. If that gets put in the dictionary, I will cry for the English language.
Also interesting is number 9 on the list... "sovereignty". Maybe they weight the President's searches higher? (For those who don't know what I'm talking about.)
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Also, Illini men's basketball (#3) totally pwned #1-ranked Wake Forest. Which should translate to #1 in next week's poll. I think the real question is how long we can hold on to that title though...

One complaint.

2004-11-30T22:41:00.000-06:00

OMG. In the past 24 hours, all three anime series that I've been waiting for releases in have had new subs released. So I watched Naruto 110-111 (double-length episode!) today. Tomorrow holds either Bleach 6 or Gundam SEED Destiny 7, where everything now makes a lot more sense, having watched 20 episodes of the original since i watched episode 6 of it. Tomorrow also holds several pages of rushed writing of my poem explication. Yay.
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If I had one complaint about my life, it would have to be the monotony of it. The daily school routine is pretty boring. Of course, as evidenced by Thanksgiving break, no school is just as bad, if not worse. I think it's pretty telling that the only thing I have to talk about here is new anime episodes...
Which reminds me, the Fullmetal Alchemist movie should be in theaters while I'm on the Japan trip. That's totally awesome.

a short entry

2004-11-29T20:52:00.000-06:00

Argh Suprnova.org is down. Not that I wanted to use it for anything illicit...
I finished Gundam SEED. It's quite good. The series starts off pretty slow, but the pace picks up quite a bit in the last half of the series.
It looks as if we won't get to Age of Kings in hsitory... That's too bad. At least I have HISSS.
Chem homework is insanely long. Like hell if I'm gonna cut out 4 pages of that crap.
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Strangely, I seem to have very little to say today.

little-to-no progress

2004-11-28T19:36:00.000-06:00

I updated the thing. You know - that thing.
Luke, magical king of angst, was added (and I changed a little HTML).
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Froogle has Google Account stuff now? Sweet. That totally beats Amazon's wishlists. The privacy implications are significant, but oh well. I'd be sure to lose my Google cookie before doing any searches that I didn't want linked back to me. And I'd do it behind a proxy. But I guess the average Interweb user isn't that knowledgable... Sucks to be them, I guess.
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That brings me to my new favorite Firefox extension - Delicious Delicacies. If you're geeky enough to get it without having to click the link (or even afterwards), then you get a cookie. And it'll track all your Google searches. Oh yes.
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In other news, I somehow managed to not do anything interesting over break or get any work done. Hooray for unproductivity!

explication and whatnot

2004-11-27T22:13:00.000-06:00

That poem explication thing is kinda annoying. Like what appears to be 75% of the rest of the class, I'm doing e.e. cummings' "next to of course god america i. It is, or course, not easy to understand at first. Howeer, I guess that means that its all the easier to find the deeper meaning of the poem. Its still fairly tough to write pages of coherent thoughts on it.
I also found a recording of e.e. cummings reading a few poems (including this one) on Salon.com. It starts about 2:03 into the file.
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Gundam SEED still rules. In fact, I'd say that this week's Gundam SEED is better than the episode of Fullmetal Alchemist showing tonight, since FMA episode 4 is like the worst one in the series. And SEED 33 has that cool song that I posted yesterday. Hooray for Yuki Kaijura.

Post-Thanksgiving Post

2004-11-26T13:37:00.000-06:00

No post yesterday thanks to the delicious holiday known as Thanksgiving. I spent most of the day playing Civilization III (no expansion packs here...) and downloading the last half of Gundam SEED (subbed). The video was really high-quality... but the subtitles were in French. So into the Recycle Bin they go. So here I am, STILL downloading SEED. At least this time I know the subtitles are in English. (Even if they are from AnimeJunkies.)
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And here's my gift for the week: Akatsuki no Kuruma.mp3 It's the background song from Gundam SEED episode 33 (airs tonight on CN). Pretty good, should sound familiar to people who watched .Hack//Sign.

2004-11-24T13:45:00.000-06:00

Yay for snow.

A real half day...

2004-11-23T22:30:00.000-06:00

I think everyone knows what tomorrow is - that's right, the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. And if you didn't know, I just told you. So you can go back and read the first sentence and respond yes. And then skip this part. Up to here. Start reading again here. So yay for break. Those 25 minute clss periods are totally worthless... But it means I'll need to use both of my free ones to do math (probably).
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The last line of this made my day worthwhile. Oh, as well as Bill Maher on Larry King. I wish I got HBO. Or that he were still on ABC. That man is better than Jon Stewart.

The Main Stacks are cool.

2004-11-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

I think I did alright on my math test (tho prolly not great, I try not to be too confident about stuff like that), and the chem test went particularly well. I didn't really need my notes, and I think I got all the extra credit.
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Hehe, I got to go back in the Main Stacks today. I was looking for books on England's oh-so-cool New Model Army, but since the book pagers are pretty understaffed (being as its Thanksgiving break for the university), my mom used her staff card to go back in the stacks. It was pretty cool. My books were shelved on floor 9.5, since the Main Library is such a mess. And then I pulled out a book from 1822. Since I'm working in the mid-1600's the book was closer in time to the actual events than to the present. And thats just weird. I think I may have gotten too many books, like 8 or something... Oh well, I have all of break to read them.
Anyway, off to finish that crazy chem web assignment.

I think I'm better. I'd better be.

2004-11-21T20:43:00.000-06:00

Man, I miss way too much stuff when I'm sick. Cases in point:

Math exam
Japanese exam
English skit
IMEA!
Movie w/ Cole & ppl at Savoy 16
Unhinged booster draft
Movie at Annie's house

But hopefully nothing more, now that I'm feeling better. I do still have to make up the Japanese and algebra tests, as well as the regularly-scheduled chem test this week, so I'm not exactly out of the woods yet.
Stupid UIUC library, being closed today. Well, I guess its open tomorrow, so I'll go bick up my books then. New Model Army, oh yeah!
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Currently listening to:

String Quartet No. 7 - Dmitry Shostakovich - Borodin Quartet

a few things

2004-11-20T21:57:00.000-06:00

I didn't go to IMEA and instead went to the swim meet in Bloomington, as I mentioned yesterday.
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I've spent way too much time today playing SSBM. But now I'm back up to speed (more or less) with Mewtwo and Falco. And I hate you if you play Roy or Marth.
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Argh stupid ANBU not having a translator for Bleach. Can't one of the several AKeep translators help out on it for a while? Lunar is up to Episode 7 already... I might just have to start watching their (decidedly inferior) subs.
Gundam SEED and Naruto are both in serious ass-kicking mode right now though.
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Unfortunately, I couldn't/can't make it to the movie tonight (National Treasure) or the Unhinged draft tomorrow with Cole. Hopefully he'll be in town for Betrayers of Kamigawa... :3

still sick

2004-11-19T20:56:00.000-06:00

Looks like I won't be going to IMEA tomorrow... On the plus side, it means that I'll be able to swim one event at the meet tomorrow in order to get credit for YMCA championship meets (since I need to make it to 3 Y-sanctioned meets in order to qualify). I still feel kinda bad about skipping IMEA though, since its an honor to be accepted. But I guess it can't really be helped.
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EDIT: It seems I forgot to post this last night. Strangely, Blogger sets the timestamp before you submit the post, so it still shows up as being from Friday.

Scheduled downtime...

2004-11-18T22:34:00.000-06:00

Well, I seem to have lost my post. Not much happening tho - I missed school again today cause I still feel crappy, but I should be there tomorrow so that I can do that English skit thing and so I don't have to make up my chem test. I hope I'm well enough to go to IMEA on Saturday...

thinking is hard

2004-11-17T18:29:00.000-06:00

I had a bad day today. The math graphing section was especially depressing. For those not so inclined, the parabola is the set of points equidistant from the directrix and the focus.

blehy 2max

2004-11-16T21:23:00.000-06:00

I'm still sick. I left after history, so I missed chem and math. And since I have IMEA on Saturday, I have to take the PLAN tomorrow morning, killing 1st through 3rd hours. Which means I have to make up a Japanese reading quiz, a Japanese exam, my English play, and the first part of my math test. And of course, I, not being fully sound of mind, totally forgot that I'd be gone tomorrow until I left school today, so Ito Sensei and Mrs. Majerus expect me to be there... Oh well.
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Blah Colin Powell quit. (Yes, I know this was announced yesterday, and yes I know that it'd been expected for a year. It's still bad.) I think that the Daily Show put it best:

With Colin Powell's resignation, the Bush Administration has lost its most influential moderate. Also, its least influential moderate, its tallest moderate, its shortest moderate, its blackest moderate, its whitest moderate...

Its kinda sad that someone who's had such a major role in politics for the past 20 years is leaving. Even if I wouldn't agree with him on everything , Powell still struck me as a reasonable man.
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In case you hadn't noticed, I made a few modifications to the theme. Here's the original theme for comparison. And yes Jake, I really did make the banner myself this time.
Also, Trillian 3 is pretty cool, in case anyone was wondering.
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Currently listening to:

Reason (Single) - Nami Tamaki

blehy x2

2004-11-15T20:36:00.000-06:00

I was sick today and missed school. Very sad. I guess I missed out on a lot too:
[20:09:15] Spectr 060: whatd i miss today?
[20:09:44] icflames8: IMPORTANT STUFF
[20:09:59] Spectr 060: such as?
[20:10:50] icflames8: WORLD WAR II
[20:10:54] icflames8: AND THE CREATION OF...
[20:10:55] icflames8: rabbits
Or maybe I didn't miss out on much. Only homework was to finish math review sheet (argh), read a page of history (lunchtime ^__^), and study for Japanese (which I now have two quizzes in tomorrow). I certainly hope I'll be able to go back to school tomorrow.
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And everyone, turn on Atom syndication for your weblogs. It's really easy. (Image uploaded below.)

2004-11-15T20:35:00.000-06:00

Turn on Atom syndication for your blog.

blehy

2004-11-14T21:58:00.000-06:00

I'm kinda sick. I had to go to swim meet tho, since I have to make 3 YMCA-sanctioned meets in order to compete at States. I also had to go to orchestra, since I'd missed 2 of the past 3 rehearsals (and you're only supposed to miss 2 per semester).
Man, I'd forgotten how good episode 2 of Stand Alone Complex was...
And if you think Super Milk-Chan is stupid, then you're stupid.
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Also, if you have WinXP, I'd suggest getting MS's PowerToys, primarily the Virtual Desktop Manager (although it is kinda kludgy).
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Somewhat short entry today, sorry. I guess I haven't done much lately.

anime stuff

2004-11-13T22:23:00.000-06:00

Argh... Writing a template from scratch is a real pain...
Anyway, some bad news for anime fansubbing: Crustol, the king of dubbing shows that I watch, retired from translating. Pretty depressing, since I've watched Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto with his translations.
In other news, Gundam SEED really owns now. It's become increasingly more engaging since the beginning.
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Currently listening to:

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST - Ortiga - Inner Universe (OP)

and tidal waves couldn't save the world...

2004-11-12T22:01:00.000-06:00

Well, the half (and by "half" I mean 50 minutes shorter than normal) day was okay. I got back my absolutely dismal chemistry test score... Ugh. I certainly hope I scored better on the history test. I got 5 extra credit points on it, and on a 50 point test, that certainly counts for something. I went to Moonstruck with Tony, Annie, Ford, and Aria after school, where we drank hot chocolate, ate cake, and attempted to play 80 Points, despite the fact that Ford and I had never played before. Oh well. I had to leave at 4 so my mom could pick me up after the teachers' meeting. Of course, she was about 15 minutes late, so I stood out in the cold in front of the Union for 15 minutes that I would much rather have spent playing cards or whatever inside... Oh well. It seems that I've caught my sister's sore throat at least a little, so my apologies if anything I wrote here is completely senseless or badly worded/punctuated...
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This is incredibly depressing. I don't understand why someone in the UN doesn't try to do something about this. The US has something of an excuse in the quagmire we call Iraq, but there are other countries out there with militaries, and I'd say that UN intervention here would be much more appropriate than back in Kosovo (although I was only 8 when that was news).

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Currently listening to:

Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

Another boring day...

2004-11-11T21:27:00.000-06:00

Not much happened today. I kinda messed up my English speech and the chem test... Oh well.
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It seems that Illwill's (of drocon-yum fame) arrest is getting some significant press coverage. It seems that everyone thinks that he's responsible for the initial theft of the code. I dunno, if he's dumb enough to accidentally try to sell it (for $20?!?) to a government agent...
Anyway, I've got to go study for history. I leave you with this:

Uni High Blogger Blogring

2004-11-10T22:36:00.000-06:00

Ok, it's now up: http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~rboyce/blog/
Any additions, corrections, etc. should be emailed to me at rboyce+blog@gmail.com.
And yes, Google owns me now.
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Oh, it looks like Yasser Arafat died. Even though I'm not a tremendous fan of the guy, its always kinda sad when people die. I kinda wonder what killed him. I somehow doubt it was poison (of the intentional sort), but the circumstances are a bit odd... I guess he was an old guy, but I don't think it's normal for your platelets to just disappear.
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Anyway, I've got a chem test tomorrow, as well as a few (36) lines of A Midsummer Night's Dream to memorize... Later.
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EDIT: WTF?!? I can't use <hr> tags? Why not?

This is the place...

2004-11-10T20:51:00.000-06:00

Well, I just tossed on one of the default templates for now. Now that almost everyone else seems to have migrated, I think I'll set up the Atom feed equivalent of a blogring; basically, a page with links to everyone's blog and the corresponding XML feed. The feeds will be accessible through Firefox's Live Bookmark feature, as well as the usual RSS feed readers.

2004-10-17T18:41:00.000-05:00

Pre-sunset, October 17.

2004-05-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

This is really just a placeholder... I don't want anybody taking my name on Blogger...

Visit my active weblog at http://www.xanga.com/spectr/