Now microblogging/twittering over at twitter.com/ztuni

Hey, I know I haven't updated this in awhile. Anyway, I've now begun
microblogging (aka twittering) over at http://www.twitter.com/ztuni

This allows me to post in small snippets quickly from my phone, so it
works out pretty well for me. As of right now, I usually stick up a
few notices a day, though that'll probably eventually die down as this
has

Anyway, feel free to go check it out. And if you're in Cali, PLEASE
don't waste a vote on a mainstream candidate. Check out Chuck Baldwin,
Alan Keyes, or Bob Barr (constitution, independent, and libertarian
nominees, respectively) And cast a vote for one of them instead.

So I entered a contest...

IBM's "Master the Mainframe" contest.

It started Wednesday morning at 9:00AM

The first 700 to complete part one would win a free t-shirt.

The first 60 to complete part two win $100 gift cards and a certificate

All students to complete part two get the opportunity to put their resume in IBM's resume pool that they and their affiliates look at.

The top 5 finishers (as far as their point system goes) of part three win an MSI wind laptop, the linux edition. (80GB HDD, 1.6Ghz processor, 10 inch display, so it's an ultra-portable, which makes it ultra-sweet)

The top 2 finishers, in addition to the laptop, get an all expenses paid two day trip to Poughkeepsie, New York to tour IBM's mainframe lab

Looking at the prizes, I determined the contest was important enough to get up at 9 AM and get a free t-shirt at the very least. After completing part one, I went on and started (but still haven't finished) part two. The money is meaningless, the certificate would be kinda cool though. Part three is where I need to come in top 5, though top 2 would be pretty sweet, I'm not gonna lie.

Anyway, I got an email today:


"Have we got some good news for you? Answer: Yes! Due to your prolific display of basic mainframe skills (as well as your poetic stylings), you have won an IBM Master the Mainframe Contest T-shirt!

Expect to find your T-shirt in your mailbox in the next six to eight weeks. Just in time for the winter T-shirt season!"

No word on how many are in the contest, but there are at least 1403 signups... :/

Oh well, I won a free t-shirt!

FANTASTIC!!!

Think of the experiment they did at the end of supersize me. Now
repeat with a burger instead of fries. What do you get?

http://bestwellnessconsultant.com/2008/09/23/1996-mcdonalds-hamburger-karen-hanrahan-best-of-mother-earth.aspx

"The" Weekend and short update on classes

So for labor day we got a four day weekend (Friday-Monday). My physics teacher canceled class on tuesday, turning it into a five day weekend, which was amazing. The house now looks fantastic, we have our soap box derby car built, AND I beat half life 2, and half life 2 episodes one and two, AND I'm now fully caught up on The Office, and can't wait for the new series to begin (Sept. 25) (half life 2, btw, is an amazing FPS (first person shooter) developed by the creators of Portal, the incredible game that invented the genre for first person shooter puzzle games. They're both played on the same engine, and the story behind half life 2 is one of the best plotlines I've seen in any game anywhere. So that was great fun)

As far as classes go, most are going okay. I had to audit calc 3 (which, luckily, does not affect financial aid) not because I didn't know the material but because the teacher a) doesn't mesh with my learning style, b) doesn't give any partial credit, and c) is just an awful teacher.

Physics is still going, I have complaints but the teacher is fine and expects a reasonable amount of work (note to future calc professors: 4 hours a DAY outside of class is a LITTLE excessive for calc III. It's easy. Oh yeah, and on your tests, put stuff you actually taught instead of expecting us to be able to extend dot products of vectors for example to whether two planes are perpendicular or parallel or neither

I have a funny(?) story about CS I need to tell, but later.

and humanities is just being itself. Nothing special there

First few weeks of school:

Classes:

Calc III: originally scheduled to have the best teacher, now have the
worst teacher. Had a test last thursday that I didn't do very good on
because we never went over any of the material in class or on the
homework

Physics Lecture: Meh. Test later today. Okay teacher, pretty easy

Physics Lab: Again, meh, the lab instructor is awesome, the labs
themselves are kind of annoying

Computing and Algorithms III: was originally scheduled to have one of
the worst CS professors around, instead got the best teacher in the
entire school. Awesome.

Computer Science Lab: Wait what, there's a lab for Computing and
algorithms III? It's at 8 on wednesday morning, why would anyone ever
show up for a voluntary set aside study time at 8 in the morning?

Humanities: Decent teacher, interesting(!?) material. Favorite quote
(after discussing homosexuality in the greek culture a long time ago
and how it relates to today)

Person: "What if my corn turns gay?"
Everyone else: "??!??"

Yay for comments that aren't relevant/don't make sense I think.

So yeah, that's classes....

Also, fraternity life is awesome. Right now we're recruiting new
members, and we have two or three that are seriously looking at us, as
well as 6 or so others we think might join. That would bring us up to
18 members, 2 short of the number we need before the alumni will hire
us a full-time cook... :D. We'll probably only end up getting 4 this
term, but we're growing, and that's good.

----------------
Now playing: Basshunter - Vi Sitter I Ventrilo Och Spelar Dota
(Extended Version)
http://foxytunes.com/artist/basshunter/track/vi+sitter+i+ventrilo+och+spelar+dota+(extended+version)
(Yay for pointless but addictive swedish videogame based techno?)

YAY

So my laptop broke. I have just received my new desktop computer,
built from scratch. I'm happy again

Sweet

lol... this post brought to you from Chicago International Airport,
through the use of some kind soul who configured their laptop as a
router... or something like that. Point being, I'm getting free wifi.
So here's the first and only blog post I'll probably ever make from
Chicago. later, before I get dc'ed