The not-so great race

If you haven't seen the show Parental Control on MTV, you shouldn't start watching it. But if you have, you know that the premise is two parents don't like their child's significant other, so they pick two other people for him/her to date while they and the asshole partner watch together on video.

The end of this particular episode with Asians was particular interesting. Of course, the daughter chose to dump her boyfriend for someone she just went on a date with, and afterward you get to hear everyone's reaction. What was the poor guy's comment?

"Man, she picked Brock from Pokemon over me?"

Leaving early

So I have a lot of stuff I ought to get done this weekend. I have Econ that I didn't do this week, I have Econ to do this week, I have Stats, I have 354 (won't get done this weekend). I have about 6 hours before band, so here's to getting all my stuff done.

An interesting scenario has come to my attention: Graduating in 3 years? I have 13 more courses to complete for my degree and then I probably need another two classes to get enough units overall. I don't know if it's possible: I would need to take about 50 units a semester, and I don't know if I want to be taking 50 units with Operating Systems. It would also mean I'd have to get an internship this summer to get a job out of college.

The good news: I graduate in 3 years, save my parents a year of college, and if I do get out, I could march my age out year at Crown. Wow.

So Bohemian

It is 4 A.M. again and I am still awake. It's getting hard to study in my room with people coming in and out, a lot of music/noise/TV, and the fact that Drumline was on my TV screen. Hahaha, what a movie. In all seriousness, I need to figure out how to get work done.

My econ did not get started, so that will be for the weekend and late to Nick (he doesn't care). My Music Systems program is done, but I did not start any work on porting Allegro 3 into Audacity. I can't wait to go to class and tell Roger "Yeah, so, I didn't get any work done on Audacity, but I did finish your homework on time!"

I have to wake up for states in 4.5 hours.

La Boheme was on WCPE Opera House. Pretty cool, but the random laughing and crying from the acting was really weird. I wonder if I could handle hearing an opera live...

My laptop will not charge. Dell Trobuleshooting doesn't have very good answers for it, so I Googled and the problem might be a very expensive motherboard issue. If I get lucky and put the power cord into my computer the right way, it starts to charge (like it's doing right now). I will visit the Computer Store tomorrow and see if they do repairs, because I would be pretty lost without my laptop if I had to send it to Dell.

Great classical music: I'm so glad you could join me!

Since I don't do peer-to-peer file sharing to get music anymore, my music collection has been, well, stale for about the past year. Plus my room can get pretty noisy when I'm trying to study. So I started listening to streaming WCPE.

As usual, they play stuff that bores me to tears, but they also played some really BA stuff. I'm going to start posting some awesome music that I hear on WCPE.

Ravel - La Valse. I think the CMU Philharmonic played this at the one concert I went to last year.
Vaughn Williams - The Lark Ascending

They're happier when we're not home

I called home on Monday, and no one answered, so I called my dad's cell. My mother picked it up. What was she doing? Running with Dad, well, she was sorda walking, Dad was running. Apparently he runs 5-6 miles a day, for the past couple of weeks. Maybe I'll get pissed at him for losing so much weight like they got pissed at me when I got back from tour. Speaking of weight, I think I'm getting back my college pounds. Time to get in shape for that first camp, whenever it is.

College is easy

The last time I wrote, I said that I had a lot of work this week. Well, I can say I am about halfway done with it. At least the hardest assignments are complete. 15-212 was done yesterday (ugh, the day after yesterday). I just finished my CDM homework. (People won't figure out what 354 means, and Computational Discrete Math just sounds, well, as difficult as the material is.)

I have Stats homework to do, I have a Music Systems program due Friday (which will get done tomorrow night (tonight) because doing homework on Friday night is lame), then sometime this weekend I have to get my Econ homework done. Wow. I will probably opt out of Kiltie Band rehearsal tomorrow (this afternoon). Depends on how much I get done while I am at school.

In Competition Programming this week, we did individuals again as they are still trying to evaluate where everyone is. I had done a couple of the problems in the eight-problem set on my own before the course started, so I thought I had an advantage, right? Wrong! There was a problem involving a lattice of trees getting watered that I started on first, and never figured out what the bug was. I did solve three other problems: a geometry problem involving counting distinct triangles, a very easy coordinate program, and a prime numbers problem. I probably could have done another problem which at first I thought was a scheduling/dynamic programming problem but it wasn't that difficult at all. When I am done with all my homework I'm figuring out this damn problem I couldn't debug. It will probably be something ridiculously obscure only visible to six eyes and not two.

For Roger, I'm supposed to replace in the beta of Audacity the code for Allegro (a music notation language he wrote) with a new version of it. I don't think it will be THAT difficult, if I can just find a couple hours to do work on it. I bet I will have those hours between classes on Friday.

And if I thought I was out of the woods, I made a little file on my desktop called death.txt. Here's what it says:
Mo Oct 9 - 36-225 exam
We Oct 11 - 73-100 exam
We Oct 11 - 15-212 due
Fr oct 13 - 15-395 due
Mo Oct 16 - 15-395 midterm
Tu Oct 17 - 15-354 midterm
Th Oct 19 - 15-212 midterm

Will next week be a week of reprieve or a week of preparation for the inevitable?

Adventures in ML

I'm close to finishing my 212 homework. ML is such a frustrating language. I don't really understand and debugging for me is putting random parentheses in places. I cannot wait for the midterm in this class.

I have that due Wednesday, 354 due Thursday, Stats 393 and Econ due Friday (although my TA for Econ is cool and will let you turn in homework late for no penalty). I have Monday after band (which I may or may not go to, missing rehearsal because of homework is lame), Tuesday during office hours, and then whatever time I can squeeze into the remaining days. Hopefully 212 will be done tomorrow.

Carolina is not starting the year off 0-3. Steve Smith had a pretty good first game back. Hopefully we will be seeing a little more of the same. More football when I do not have homework left, but I definitely threw away $5 in this week's pool.

It's really late, I have to get up early to go to Stats (because it's getting hard).

Coprs jackets and wxwidgets

My corps jacket came in yesterday. Felt like a million bucks wearing it. Kind nerdy, as in it's basically like a band varsity jacket, but it's drum corps, and I'm pretty sure no one at this school has the mental capacity to endure a season of drum corps.

I'm starting work with Roger, the computer music professor who teaches the Music Systems class I'm taking, on developing visualization for Audacity. I'm trying to build the source code for it, and I spent last night getting wxwidgets to compile, only to find out that the Audacity source has different build files it needs to use. Arg...

Competition Programming: The Price is Wrong

Tonight was going to the "hard" problem set day. I was doing individuals and had a problem set of 4 problems. I decided that a simple expression parsing and evaluating problem was the easiest, followed by a Plinko odds simulator, then a 3D geometry problem, and then a scheduling problem.

I thought I understood the expression tree problem, but the way I approached it was a mess, so I redid it being more precise to the problem specs, and my test input worked. I submitted, but my output was apparently incorrect. After about 20 minutes of looking through my code, I knew I wouldn't be able to find whatever the error was on my own. So with about 45 minutes left, I ditched it and went to the Plinko problem.

I ended up wasting a lot of time by accidently switching my dimensions of my array for the Plinko board and messing up my arithmetical expressions. With 5 minutes to go (10-15 if I hadn't been a moron), I tested and my odds (expressed as percentages) were off by 1. Roundoff error, gah! Having no idea how to fix that, I submitted. Didn't get that one either.

So I submitted 5 times and got 0 problems in 2.5 hours. Looking at the scoreboard, only two other people doing individuals scored one problem (the expression problem). I think I wasted a lot of time by not planning out what I was going to do, because it's easier to write good code by hand (and then typing up) than first on a computer. I could have found whatever messed up my expression tree, and then wrote a lengthier but more accurate way to expression fractions in the Plinko program. I do think I ordered the problems correctly, though. The geometry question would also have given me headaches with floating points, and the scheduling problem would have been a nightmare since I have forgotten all dynamic programming techniques pretty much.

So I don't think I have impressed anyone in the past two weeks of this class, which really upsets me. Hopefully I will just figure it out one week.

MSNBC needs get its fact straight: Super Columbine Massacre RPG

I flipped to MSNBC this morning and they were interviewing some guy about the Montreal shootings. They were talking about his blog, and brought how he enjoyed playing a video game reported as "Columbine Massacre" and whether the video game industry needs to take more responsibility since they "made" a game called Columbine Massacre. I could not believe that fact and looked it up.

What I got was this, Super Columbine Massacre RPG, not made by EA or Rockstar, but by some kid, with RPGMaker (a program that lets you make your own RPGs). I could care less about the intentions of this kid for creating the game. I am more upset by MSNBC for pinning responsibility for these kinds of acts of violence on the gaming industry. Poor journalism.

Jacksonville 9, Pittsburgh 0

It was a great game, with a lot of pride riding on it for me. I was impressed by both defenses, but Pittsburgh's offense was, in a word, nonexistent. The running game didn't get going, but neither side's running did, but Ben Roethlisberger did nothing. Maybe he's still trying to get into it, it was very uncharacteristic of him, making some of the mistakes he did. He did get away from sacks well, though.

I'll have to keep my eye on the Jaguars.

For the future Class of 2011

The Dean of Admissions at MIT is trying to relax "admission anxiety" by lowering the perceived expectations of college applicants, which leads to ridiculous things like doing research and starting businesses. Great read, my favorite line from this:

Jones has also rewritten MIT's guidelines to interviewers, telling them to look for a good match, not robots with resumes.

Almost exactly what I tell people about whether I like CMU: "It's a good fit."

Fun with Facebook?

If I followed politics, I'd probably have a heck of a time on Facebook gathering dirt on the children of political candidates that I was less fond of. Not to say that most college students don't participate in such activities, but there is still a large amount of voters who beleive otherwise and would go nuts if he saw pictures like these posted on his favorite candidate's blog.

Speaking of Facebook, have been very confused about the fuss over opening Facebook up. You can already be invited onto Facebook by a high school member, and then change your school/geographic affiliations afterward. Kind of like GMail, on which everyone and their mother had an account?

I'm getting more and more bored with Facebook, anyway. The most use I'm getting out of it is seeing people's tour pictures, which is always awesome.

Fire John Bunting

UNC beat Furman (Division I-AA) 45-42 to avoid starting 0-3.

Mack Brown left UNC to go to Texas and he has a national championship there. I think since then (I think this was 9 years ago?), we have been to like, 4 bowl games?

Fire John Bunting and hire a Mack Brown-caliber coach. I am sick of the suck in Tarheel football. It was and is possible to have both a great football program and great basketball program at UNC.

More NFL Week 2:

My top 5 in each league, currently:
1. San Diego - There's your offense. Philip Rivers was efficient, they rushed for over 200 yards, and their defense is probably the best in the NFL.
2. Indianapolis, 3. Cincinnati - The two best offenses in the NFL, but neither of them have a front 7 like San Diego. It's close, but I'm buying into the San Diego hype right now.
4. New England - Always finding a way to win, you can never count out Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. They're still that physical team, like Pittsburgh, that outmuscles finesse teams like Indianapolis that just blow out weaker opponents.
5. Pittsburgh - We'll see about Pittsburgh tonight. But they've proven that they don't need Big Ben to win.

1. Chicago - Granted, the first two teams they played were Green Bay and Detroit, but still, they look like the best team in the NFC right now. I'm really interested to see them play the Vikings next week.
2. Atlanta - I want to see them play on TV, and I want to see them play against a really good defense, which Tampa Bay has not shown thus far. I just don't know whether an offensive style like this can win a Super Bowl. Vick was okay passing, and maybe that's enough, as long as he and Dunn can both produce on the ground like they did the first two games.
3. Minnesota - Wins against two preseason Super Bowl contenders make the Vikings look pretty darn good, but those teams are now starting 0-2. Chicago vs. Minnesota is the game of the week.
4. New York Giants, 5. Philadelphia - Yeah, New Orleans is 2-0 and so is Seattle, but neither of them have impressed me as much as these guys have. They both looked great the first two games. They will finish 1-2 in the NFC East, because Dallas hasn't proven themselves to me, and Washington is just dreadful.

Frank Gore, the running back at San Francisco, caught my Fantasy Football eye last week with his two touchdown performance, and this week he puts up a 100-yard game. Alex Smith is also starting to show up, so watch out for the Niners, things might be happening there.

Carolina plays better in the second half of the season than the first, but please, don't start something like 1-7 like two years ago. Steve Smith was hurt that season too, but we had longtime Panther Mushin Muhammad, who became a Bear last season. Don't wait for him to get healthy to figure it out.

How did Crownstradamus do this week? 9/15 so far, but I'm 11/15 when I accounted for the spread.

Dallas vs. Washington: The battle of two old fart quarterbacks

In a football pool among friends this week, after the afternoon games, I was in 2nd place with my roommate Jack close behind. If the Redskins beat the spread (5.5 point dogs to Dallas), then I lock 2nd and make my money back. So we watched the Dallas/Washington game pretty intensely. And I have to say, the Redskins looked awful! Mark Brunell was ineffective, and their defense could not tackle for the life of them.

Now I'm not sold on Dallas yet, because I don't know if Drew Bledsoe is good either, but I am sure that the Redskins are pretty bad. I don't even know how much Clinton Portis could help them either, because their defense is just abysmal.

As for my pool, I am now tied with Jack and it comes down to the Pittsburgh/Jacksonville game tomorrow night (pick). My scenarios for winning 2nd are a Pittsburgh win with exactly 28 total points, or a Jacksonville win with less than 30 total points. This kind of pool is kind of exciting, but I catch myself rooting for weird situations, like for Washington to pull within 5 at the end of the game at least. But it does motivate me to watch more football.

Panthers 0-2

I decided to start a blog here. I'll talk about drum corps, sports, news, and maybe a little about school. If you want real dirt on me, you should check out my LiveJournal and friend me. I'll be a little more opinionated and personal there.

During office hours today, I checked out the GameTracker on the Panthers/Vikings game. I thought we had it, but apparently a fake kick turned touchdown plus a field goal in overtime did us in. Jake Delhomme did alright, but the completion percentage wasn't good. Keyshawn was productive, but we need Steve Smith now. Julius Peppers was a MONSTER, but sacks don't put points on the scoreboard.