Lorem Ipsum

OK, first I just want to get this off my chest:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed egestas blandit urna. Curabitur ut wisi vitae mauris fringilla vestibulum. Pellentesque adipiscing ultrices eros. Aliquam eros sem, varius in, pretium in, commodo in, dui. Proin at erat ut tortor sollicitudin venenatis. Maecenas quam. Aliquam nulla. Suspendisse convallis leo ac diam. Suspendisse faucibus, sapien id gravida nonummy, lorem sem adipiscing libero, eu accumsan augue nulla vitae dolor. Fusce commodo. Nunc posuere enim hendrerit ipsum. Etiam volutpat hendrerit sapien. Pellentesque sodales iaculis neque. Maecenas venenatis sagittis tortor.

Nullam eget dui et tortor tempor laoreet. Pellentesque sem purus, sagittis in, scelerisque sit amet, adipiscing ut, odio. Duis mauris dui, ullamcorper sed, egestas sed, volutpat ut, metus. Phasellus nonummy augue ut sapien. Nulla sed magna sit amet justo eleifend condimentum. Fusce lobortis dapibus pede. Duis vel orci congue orci convallis laoreet. Aliquam ut nisl. Mauris at purus in felis pretium facilisis. Praesent eget sapien aliquam odio accumsan molestie. Sed tempus aliquet diam. Duis a felis a risus accumsan ultrices. Mauris id wisi. Proin consectetuer. Maecenas vestibulum faucibus massa. In sit amet velit.

I think I just have a strange passion for Lorem Ipsum. For those of you who do not know, Lorem Ipsum is a typesetting convention used by many graphic designers to demonstrate a page's layout without having distracting text. It's basically Latin-like gibberish with a normal letter distribution. I think it's fascinating. Further study (Google) has informed me that it is in fact based on a quote from Cicero, but that's besides the point. On another note, I managed to accidentally delete all of /home/harley, thinking I was in /var/tmp/portage. Some things I can recover (eBooks and stuff), and other things I cannot (code I've written -- Not enough of that to be missed, though -- and some games that took me months to find). What really gets to me, though, is the fact that I lost all of my school stuff. Again, most of it will not be missed. What will, however, be missed are my 40 pages of math notes from this semester, and my 60-odd pages of math notes which I was going to need for review over the winter as I am taking part 2 of the course in the winter semester. Oh well... No use crying over spilled milk. Really sucks, though... Now Reading : Molecular Biology of Oncogenes Coursepack - Barid Mukherjee Now Playing : Dio - Master of the Moon

Enlightenment

I was checking out an article called "Four Alternative Linux Window Managers", and I figured I'd give something new a try. Now, I am a hardcore-devoted KDE user and not a big fan of GNOME, so I figured "Why the hell would I want something other than KDE?" But then I got to thinking: sometimes I get in class a little late and I can't wait through the whole KDE startup time (remember, sometimes KDE doesn't like me) so why the hell not? I may even like it more. Well, I gave Enlightenment a try, and I'm really impressed. In fact, it's quite easily customizable and surprisingly aesthetically pleasing. I must try out other WM's... So far, though, Enlightenment is the sexiest. ;) On another note, I watched Battle Royale at Skrud's house last night... That movie was insane. For those of you who have not seen it, I will watch it again any time. I don't even wanna say anything more about it, because if you don't know, then you haven't seen it. If you haven't seen it, you'll have to come join me to watch it sometime soon. :D On Saturday night, Skrud, Leilani and Ed came over (with Climan and Laura showing up later) and we watched Ju-On 2. Now, this is the sequel to Ju-On, which is showing up in theatres in a week and a half as "The Grudge" (with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman). The original was the only horror movie that ever really creeped me out... But the sequel was surprisingly bland. Don't get me wrong... It had its moments, but nothing compared to the original. I guess the first one desensitised me to its really creepy imagery. Ah well, I still had lots of fun. OK, gotta get to bed. Class starts again tomorrow after this suspiciously short-feeling long weekend.

Owwwww...

So I wake up an hour early this morning only to discover that EVERY TIME I BREATHE I FEEL SEARING PAIN!!! Turns out that I had over-exerted myself in my reaching up and down at my Tai Chi class and pulled some muscles in my chest area. Now I have the distinct honour of feeling pain no matter what position I may find. I can lay on my back, but if I lift my arms to be able to read I feel more pain. This sucks. I mean, I'm managing to use my computer with small amounts of pain shooting across my chest, but it's just because of the good dose of Aleve I took... On the bright side I managed to finish my book this morning while trying to ignore the aching of my body. It was all about the development of our Alphabet and stuff... What I found to be quite interesting was the fact that while I did know that English used to have two letters for "th" (Thorn - Þ, and Eth - ð) - Thorn being pronounced like the "th" in "Thursday", and Eth like in "bathe" - Thorn managed to stay in our alphabet for quite a while, being written as a "y". So "the" would look like "ye": So in fact, Ye Olde Orchard is really "Þe Olde Orchard", or properly pronounced, "The Old[e] Orchard". I understand that the meaning is there, but when we are using "Ye" in that sense it is actually incorrect... It's sad that I think about this stuff... But I find it interesting, goddamnit! =Þ (Note the Thorn... hee hee hee) Owww... Now Reading : Hmm.. I dunno what to read now... Maybe James Clavell's Shōgun... Or Clive Barker's Books of Blood... Or Simon Singh's Fermat's Enigma... I've got a couple of books by Greg Egan... But then again I have like 6 Christopher Moore books to read. Bah. I'll probably read the Books of Blood. Now Playing : Hound Dog - Rocks (Awesomely Cool Naruto Theme)

Stupid Hotmail...

I know I avoid Hotmail at all costs, but I DO use it if I need to for stuff that could potentially involve spam. So I decided that I should make use of my extra Gmail invites and invite myself to create a 1 GB bobo account. I can use it for all things that might involve getting junk mail, and I guess I can keep those really big emails that I don't feel like getting rid of and would take up too much space in my archive (like the 100 MB of pictures that was sent to me recently). So if anyone wants to send me e-mails about retrieving lost millions in Nigeria, send 'em to larley@gmail.com This was all prompted by two particularly annoying incidents. The first incident involved my posting an ad to sell stuff on McGill classifieds. I checked my e-mail and there were like 20 new e-mails and 5 or so in the spam folder. The 20 e-mails were from this same spam group that has been e-mailing me for a long time (and they always change their e-mail (Dai.ly.sav.ers@www.gdsesisjdkjf.com becoming D.ail.ysav.ers@www.dshfjkdgnjk.com, etc.) even though I've been telling hotmail every time that they are junk. In my junk mail folder, however, I found e-mails regarding the ad. And one piece of spam. I KNOW I deserve it for using hotmail, but still!!! The second incident was on my birthday. I had been told by Zach that he had send me a gift certificate from Amazon.ca. Not knowing of my allegiance to Gmail, he had sent it to my usual hotmail address, where I RARELY get spam (I never understood how it managed to stay so clean for such a long time). I don't get the e-mail. I can't access the gift certificate. He has to contact amazon.ca to void the old one and send me a new one. I don't get it. In desperation I start going through my nearly empty spam folder. Not there. Guess where it was? THE FUCKING TRASH! Argh! I shall repeat my mantra: "Stupid Hotmail... Stupid Microsoft..." Rant #2: My "Molecular Biology of the Gene" midterm exam was postponed from Oct. 14 to Oct. 21... This was apparently due to the Biology department intelligently making the exam conflict with two or three OTHER exams in the Biology department. Now, normally I'd be jumping for joy if an exam was postponed, being a major practitioner of procrastination. However, the exam now happens to be in direct conflict with my "Mathematical Models in Biology" midterm - ANOTHER EXAM IN THE BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT!!! Kind of ridiculous, no? So I sent an angry letter to the Chair of the Biology department, and discussed the matter with my teacher, and they will TRY to come up with a more convenient date for the makeup exam. Though I know they will somehow screw it up. Can't they come up with a system that has all the course information for all students and works out midterm schedules based on what has the least conflict for everything? I mean, I'm sure they have one for organizing the times and locations for classes (though I often find myself doubting that too...) I wish I were a CompSci major - I'd be working on a viable, open source solution to be implemented by all universities. :P On another, more calming note, I started taking Tai Chi classes last week, and it's turned out to be quite enjoyable. I mean, I will always need more practice, and you can't expect to fully learn something as soon as you walk out of the class. I have to work at it and spend much time trying to get it almost right, only to go to class and be shown a more fine-tuned version which I must try to emulate. Along with the forms, I have learned a lot of different exercises and stretches that are good for those days (i.e: every day) where a lot of time is spent sitting down, and there are some great ones to relieve stress. I'm very happy I finally worked up the initiative to sign up and apply myself to Tai Chi. Soon enough I'll be out there on the mountain doing Tai Chi amongst the trees... ;) Now Reading : Letter Perfect, The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z Now Playing : Rhapsody - Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II