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Alright, I just finished a major section of my report, time to play a game. Name that movie.

"Sugar cane, sugar charlie 3... Say again, Dog One is open. Send in the 'dozers. I'm waiting here to tie in my flanks. Over."

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I hate writing under deadlines. The words are coming slow. I think I need to take a walk.

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No, I did not just find out I have more siblings. Keep reading. So, I've known my friend Nate for over four years now. We met when I was hired at EA. He trained me as a tester, showed me the ropes, and is an overall nice guy. Hell, he's one of the most talented people I know.

In the four years I've known Nate, we spent countless hours together. Hundreds of hours collaborating as the bestest audio testers the NHL franchise has ever seen (or is that heard?). We had numerous bowls of pho together during lunch and even more overtime meals at the EA cafe. We've discussed just about every subject there is to talk about.

So colour me surprised when about a month ago, Nate tells me his sister and mother are coming over to Japan to visit him. Until that day, I always thought Nate was an only child. I didn't believe him. He told me it was the straight truth. Oh Nate wasn't done with the surprises yet. He has a brother too. Weird.

Is it a case where these are step-siblings? Nope. Does he hate his siblings? Nope. Do they not get along? Nope. He just never brought them up. It's just weird to me. It's like you thought you knew someone, but then you find something about them that surprises you.

Actually, this kinda reminds me of when my Mom found out my Dad was thirteen years older than she was... on their honeymoon... but that is a story for another day.

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I had an interesting evening tonight. I spent most of it working on my project. From a software perspective, this is the probably the most ambitious thing I've done. Though that air-traffic control simulator I did in 2002 comes pretty close. Anyways, for this project, I had to write a small software tool to help me get another part of my project done. I've never done that before. Writing software that will help me write another piece of software. I feel so grown up.

After verifying that my tool actually worked, I made my way down to Koerner's to see the SJC crew after their holiday dinner. The turnout was really good. The highlight was seeing Woba completely drunk. I had fun pulling him off women the entire time. I was there less than an hour because I had to get back to my work. We actually made our way to the Pit, but it was closed, so I basically went home.

I am maybe a day and a half away from finishing the code for my project and then comes the dreaded report write-up. Who knows how long that will take. The good thing is, the minute I hand in the report, I officially go on holidays.

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I snagged this link off another web site. If I didn't know some people living in Arizona, I'd just be sad, but I'm also concerned. Poor Carolyn and Suzanne.

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It appears, Jeopardy uber-champ Ken Jennings is not without a sense of humour as this clip shows.

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Dinner was less than ideal tonight, meatless tortellini. I almost considered not going to SJC for dinner, but I went anyways for the social interaction. Considering I didn't really eat lunch or breakfast, this dinner left me hungry as hell at 11pm. So, I walked on over to the McDonald's in the village. When I got there, it was already closed! They shut down early for "upgrades". That McDonald's closes early more times than any other restaurant I've ever seen. Plus, they always have the longest lines. Anyways, so I'm waiting for a steak to defrost so I can fry it up and get some protein.

My field trip today was quite productive. I got my extra RAM and my ink cartridge. The RAM installed without a hitch. Everything is more zippier in Windows XP now. Half-Life 2 performance is great now. It used to stutter after every level loaded as it cached elements to the hard drive. With more RAM though, the stuttering is gone and it plays as smooth as a freshly shorn scrotum. However, in the process of twiddling with HL2 after installing more RAM, I discovered I had been playing under the "Easy" difficulty level the entire time. I know I picked "Medium" at the beginning of the game, I'm not sure how it got changed. Anyways, among gaming geeks, playing a game on "Easy" is akin to being the adult champion in a kids' karate class. There's just no honour in doing that. I've set it back to "Medium" and believe me, I saw the difference immediately. This basically ensures that I'll have to play the game again during the holidays.

Well, my steak is ready for cooking, I'll see everyone later.

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I've been east of the Safeway on 10th Ave. maybe three or four times in the last month and a half. The trips off-campus have been few and far in between. It doesn't help not having TA job this term. Plus, I've been busy with school work. Tomorrow, however, I am taking a trip all the way to Granville and Broadway. Yep, that's far for me now.

I'm going to pick up some more RAM for the computer. Running Matlab has made me realize how much faster things could be with more memory. That it will also help Half-Life 2 performance is also a nice bonus.

I'm also going to purchase a new ink cartridge for my printer. I have three assignments to hand in on Wednesday, each supposedly worth a credit each. Yikes. My assignments are of dubious quality right now. I'm hoping if I print out the graphs in colour, that'll make a good impression.

After that, the plan is to high-tail it back here to the womb to work more on my project. I sent a copy of what I have working so far to a friend last night. He didn't seem too impressed. I need to get a lot more work done.

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