Y2kk Update: This should be a short update, providing that you few readers out there keep your fingers crossed, and considering literally nothing has happened to me in the past week or so... My only real complaint is that my damn mark hasn't changed online one damn bit or byte for that stupid-ass, goddam Electricity course of mine. But whether or not I pass the course is really not what I'm concerned about right now. I'm going to move onto third year anyhew, so I guess that's all I could ask for... besides passing.. and besides being the top of my class...

I just think it sucks though that my damn professor hasn't e-mailed me back. Whether he'd be the harbinger or good or bad news, I don't really care... And yes, I know it would've helped to keel him over with guilt if I had simply arranged a meeting with him and looked him eye to eye, but still... I wrote him a bunch of e-mail messages. Good girl enough for me... The last one was not returned, and I was afraid to ask him yet again whether my mark had improved or not, because I was afraid of sounding like one of those annoying, redundant, repugnant kids in the backseat of a car whining, "are we there yet? Are we there yet?"... besides, considering there's still a blatant, goddam F beside my name on my online transcript, that probably means that I won't be passing the course, now will I?... but oh well, AOL, I've been lashed and alas... next year in Jerusalem I always say, whatever that's supposed to mean...

Besides that, my life's been a bore of a chore, and I guess last night was a perfect example of that... First, the day started out with the usual family bickering about who gets the crown jewels or the prized car or whatever kind of crap... what I mean is, my sister needed the car for an interview with some marketing thing on Tuesday. The problem being, she lives in a different city now, and it wasn't very nice of her to demand the car back when my brother has a summer school mid-term tomorrow night... But of course, although things were never settled between the two, my brother caved in as all brothers do to their sisters, and before we knew what bloody hit us, we were sitting in her damn apartment, waiting for her to arrive so we could donate to her the damn car... The thing was, when she finally did arrive, she brought with her a friend from her university days, and of course I didn't have a problem with that... a direct download problem, at least... I think...

But I did start having problems with that little twitch on my cheek, and Cherokee cheek in tongue, when the girls started blabbing their mouths off about gossip this and boyfriends that... it made my ears keel, if you know what I mean... It was psychological torture at its best, not only because I was forced to listen to girl talk for a bloody half hour, but because it pained me how my sister was wearing a short shirt and was showing off her legs up close to me the whole damn time... But still, there was one other reason why I was a bit perplexed and perturbed... first of all, it kind of hurt when I realized that if I can't take this kind of "social" talk, then how the hell am I ever going to survive being with a girlfriend?... unless I get a girlfriend who acts exactly like a male, meaning she grunts to communicate rather than gab about the Gap, but I digress... I guess men always go through the motions like this, of wondering how to tell to survive the opposite sex, but at least my sister's boyfriend is "social" enough to do so. At least he was able to partake at times in the gossip... While I? What the hell could I do? Obviously not with my sister's friends, but what about my own?... I mean, I just couldn't help but wonder to myself how damn boring I would be, just sitting there like a jumpman of a lump in front of the TV, if I ever had a girlfriend who cares nothing about my trivial pursuits in life... I've never met a girl who actually gave a damn about what I liked to talk about (although I thought at times the girl I talk too much did, but she was just faking it... as all women please...), and although we all "know" that a couple doesn't need to share similar habits and hobbits to be a decently romantic couple, I just have to ask myself... How the hell could anyone survive living with me, without realizing what a bore of a chore I am to babysit? Any guy would view themselves as lucky if they ever get a girlfriend... but I'd consider it a miracle if I ever do...

And as for women themselves?... I'll get into that in a second... because, well... my family and I were invited by my sister's boyfriend's parents out to dinner, and of course I was on my best behaviour... although from my standpoint, my best behaviour is my worst behaviour, as I just can't help but act like a stingent, rigid ass whenever I'm under agent fire to be nice and polite. The thing is, I want to be able to relax in situations like yesterday's, when I had to talk in front of people that I don't know, and act like I was comfortable around them at the same time... trust is damn hard to earn with me, because trust is when I can act like a jackass and the person still likes me in the end... few people ever have that kind of tolerance, and few people ever get to see that side of me, considering I'm always trying to be polite around perfect strangers... Every single damn time I sit with anyone I don't know, the stupid social morays my parents inflicted on my mind go into full metal jacket gear, and the nervousness that I get in the damn pits of my stomach just won't let me be who I want to be... And so I act all polite and everything, except though, the last time I tried doing so, my sister noted that I looked traumatized from the Sushi experience or some crap like that... And this time around? I couldn't tell anyone that the food was making me sick to my stomach, so I just tried every dish I could and pretended like I could actually stomach it. And of course I said thank you for the full course meal... of course I tried to look like I enjoyed the day. But truth be told, I hate getting into positions where I have to lie, and I do still lie, otherwise I'd never be able to forgive myself. But the thing is, as stupid as this sounds, to tell the truth about the food would have been lying as well, because the food wasn't really what was making the day bitter for me. In the end, it's always about me... it's always about damn IvanFian angst... because in the end, the only thing to fear is the fear within myself.

The thing is, my sister's boyfriend's brother brought along his girlfriend to the dinner, and the thing was, she was naturally the first thing that caught my attention... but after putting aside the fact that I was coveting another man's woman, I took a direct look at her face and noticed that she just wasn't beautiful to me... well, she had a beautiful body, but the face just didn't do it for me... And as I looked around the restaurant room, I noticed exactly the same damn thing from all four corners. There were a ton of girls with the most perfect of starved bodies, and there were a delightful number of Chinese in the restaurant with the most seductive of hair styles... but as soon as I ever got a good look at a woman's face? It all melted away, as even in the movies, and everyday on the streets, no women ever does it for me when I see who they really are... or at least, the way their eyes would look at me... I'm Shallow Hal in that sense. So few damn women are ever good enough for me in that retrospect, and I wish I was more open...

But there always have been exceptions... naturally, I was upset yesterday when I started thinking back to the year that's just past, with the girl I talk too much about... every year, I always have regrets, and every year I always have regrets about doing nothing about my regrets... And I did remember last night the smiles she used to gift me on her face... and even though I admit I couldn't really stand her personality at first, I don't think I ever once thought her face wasn't gorgeous... If I did and I have it in writing, then I'll stand corrected. But as far as my piddly wink wink brain can remember, her eyes never were cold to me... they were alive... they told me a story... And somehow, even when I didn't like her, I still knew from the way she looked at me, and just from the way she sparkled (literally... I was never a fan of the sparkles she sprinkles on her eyebrows, but they sort of grew on me after a while...), that one day she would sparkle a flame in me... and it sucks knowing that it already goddam happened, when all I want is to be a friend...

... what you leave behind... an endgame, when all good things must come to an end...

But I can't help feeling what I feel... I feel remorse... I feel fatigue... and I feel failure... and that's what ruined my night for me yesterday. That I'm always depressed, and depressed about bloody being depressed... depressed when I realized that so few women on earth look attractive to me in the end... and depressed when I started listening in on other people's conversations, and noticed that even if I ever got together with the girl I always talk about, what then? What would I say? What would I do?... I know it's not something you can plan out, but honestly... unless you've been reading my websites for the past three years or whatever, then you would have no idea just how boring I really can be... and if that doesn't turn off a lovely, lucky, ladybug of a snuggly lady, like a face does to me, then I don't know what will...

Which is probably why I didn't arrange a meeting with my professor... I mean, he's a man, not a woman, but still... I'd hate to be the one to bore him to death and scare him to Jebus with my smile, until he takes it upon himself the chore and the duty, of disgracing me back to the bloody third grade... although next year in elementary school could be fun...

nVidia: I really could care less about this whole nVidia cheating thing in 3dMark, but since the 3d News sites are so starved for tabloid controversies, why the hell not make it into the SARS headlines of the online kingdom?... We all know by now that little optimizations in the latest nVidia drivers allowed for a 24% performance increase in 3dMark03. I never did care about that program though, considering I'm a console gamer, and I really could care less about theoretical stats over the actual games I get to play... But still, all's fair in love and war. I remember nVidia pulling similar tricks with trilinear and anistropic filtering back when it was putting S3 out of business. I also remember them copying PowerVR's Tile Based Rendering, and Matrox's DualHead, although both were completely legal developments... And I also remember ATI's infamous "Quack" fiasco, where Quake3 FPS speeds were apparently far more important than playing the game itself, but I digress...

I collect PCI cards just for the sake of collecting. And others?... People seem to buy cards not to play games, but simply so they can boast about their potential... well, except for my cousin, who still is happy with Counterstrike on his GeForce 1, but since he used to brag about his card, I shall digress... either way, if you actually care about this publicity stunt, Beyond3d has some good tabloid articles about it all at: http://www.beyond3d.com/ .

ATI: Well, I hate reviews of drivers, but I might as well post a link to Firingsquad's Catalyst 3.4 driver report, just in case you're bored, at: http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/catalyst_3.4/default.asp . There's also one at: http://www.technologyvault.co.uk/news/Stories/2003/05/15/10530419721.shtml .

PowerVR: Oh my frickin' God... maybe I should play my Dreamcast some more, because as soon as I dusted off the old Kyro card in the system, news finally broke out on the internet... that golly gee, I saw over at Pvr-Net that a PowerVR Series 5 card is on the way and will be on shelves by the end of the year... Of course, the card will probably suck in the end, like the Matox Parhelia barely made a scratch in nVidia's and ATI's plans. But still, if only for my own nostalgic sakes, I've got to get this card at: http://www.electronicstimes.com/story/OEG20021003S0016 . Some in-depth discussions of this is also at: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5984&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 .

nVidia: X-bit Labs has a whole article up about nVidia and its cheating driver with 3dMark03 or whatever... I think I've heard enough about this situation to call it a year, but in case you're still entertained, follow the link to: http://www.technologyvault.co.uk/news/Stories/2003/05/15/10530419721.shtml .

nVidia: Just saw over at Savagenews that some new Detonator drivers have been leaked on the net or something. The unofficial version 44.10 is waiting to be quack its way through 3dMark at: http://www.station-drivers.com/page/nvidia%20drv.htm#detonator .

nVidia: Saw over at Savagenews that some new nForce/2 drivers are out. Don't know what version 2.42 does, but go ahead and download the XP version at: ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/nForce/2.42/nForce_WinXP_2.42_international_WHQL.exe . There's no ME/9x version that I know of, but the Windows2000 version is at: ftp://download1.nvidia.com/Windows/nForce/2.42/nForce_Win2k_2.42_international_WHQL.exe .

Y2kk Update: I had a dream... or at least, I had a dream the very first day I set foot in university... You see, I've probably mentioned this on my site before, but I'll mention it again, if only to save face with some mindless rhetoric... that all through my life, I've only had one goal, one focus, one damn dream... to simply pass second year of engineering without a bloody, damn hitch... That's all I ever wanted, it's all I've ever lusted, and in a sense, it was all I ever needed. Because a dream is often all we need...

All I ever dreamed of, was to seek and finally find some goddam proof that I was good enough, good enough to be me, to find some goddam proof that I was better than goddam Proof of Life... and my proof? To be goddam good enough to pass that goddam year that so many engineers before me had claimed was the hardest damn year of engineering in their lives... Whether second year was really the apex of damnation difficulty was never really the question for me. But I heard tales of it so many times in my youth that it reached near mythological status, as the vulture was to Prometheus, as the boulder was to Syphilis, as the stone was to Cronus. And all that ever mattered, was that second year was all that I've ever damn cared about... And on my first day of university, and on my first day of high school, and hell, maybe even on my last days of elementary school, I just knew... I just knew, that if only I could just finish second year without the slightest of glitches or goddam problems, that I wouldn't known, that I would've finally goddam known, that I was finally good enough... good enough to justify being me... that I was good enough to be the man that I've always wanted to be... This was my test. This was my initiation. To be a man. To be the man. For what must a man do, to be hers?... to have confidence... to be or not to be... To be the man, I had to beat the man... or beat the year, as I rather considered the phrase... and I knew, that if only my second year of engineering could be completed in one swift stroke, that my sole goal in life would finally be completed after all these years, and I could finally consider myself free... free to be me... to actually achieve... to actually try to soar instead of sore... and to finally feel for once, that I was right... for choosing to be the way that I am...

But some dreams just aren't meant to be... hell, my only dream just wasn't meant to be...

I failed.

... well, I didn't exactly fail, Birds of Prey style, per say... I failed a course... On Tuesday the 13th, a date that forever will live on in infamy, I checked my marks posted on the school website, only to find a goddam F instead of an IvanF, and a bloody blow of 47% next to my goddam Electricity course... The other courses I passed, albeit terribly enough to warrant the worst term average I have earned yet in University... not like it mattered anymore... because all I knew, was that I was gone, that I was finished. When it rains, it pours, and just to highlight my patheticness, pathetic fallacy was raining a true hellstorm outside of my goddam window... it was nature's way of spitting on my tears... not that I was crying, of course... not yet, this year, at least...

All I ever wanted was to finish second year, but thanks to one damn, lousy course, I was the one who was finished... and a burning behemoth began to swell in the pits of my stomach, as my gasps for air soon shifted to the most worrisome and nervous of gulps... to the most Canadian dry of throats, to the constant shriveling and slinking of those goddam chills up and down my spine... I was cold. Too cold to be hell. I was dead. I was as good as dead. Because here I was, the cocky no-name whiner, who whines even though he's never really faced a real hurdle in his entire damn life... and here I was, the spoiled no-name brat, finally faced with a barrier, a real impediment, an actual Cuban Crisis blockade, and I didn't even have the guts to tell my dad about it...

I wasn't just an embarrassment. I was a coward... not like I can blame myself for it... I mean, I failed... I failed the whole year... or at least, that was what I thought had happened... until I scavenged the university website for any hope that my life, or my life as I cared for it, could simply go on...

And I found it. And I confirmed it... as I was frantically checking every nook and cranny to find out just how the hell I can try to appeal this damn course, court ruling of theirs, I stumbled across a little FAQ that actually gave me the guts to tell my dad the truth... the truth is nice, when it's a truth and not a goddam privilege... And the truth is, if I had failed two courses, I would've been out, period, and trust me... that second failure of mine was closer than even I anticipated, as I only managed a 54% in Electronics, not that I expected much better... But as long as I only failed one course, as long as I have never been on probation (meaning as long as I passed first year with over a 60% average), and as long as my term average for second year is above 60%, I could go onto third year, albeit with some unwanted baggage and bags under my misty eyes... and the truth of the matter is, I was lucky... I got lucky... it's too much of a crying shame that I wasn't lucky enough to pass every damn course of mine, but still...

If I hadn't scored an 85% on my Digital Systems exam, I would've failed the entire damn year. I only ended with a 71% in that course, thanks to minimal bell-curving and the fact that I went into the exam with exactly 50%, but thank God it was enough, because just a couple percent lower would've sealed my fate... Because I only mustered 77% in my history course. Although that's obviously a good mark, it just wasn't the insurance marker that I so desperately needed... and my only other insurance was my goddam Discrete mathematics course. I went into the exam with a 64 or a 65%. I walked away with a smug, little thug, smirk on my smile, as I deemed the exam to be pretty damn easy, an effortless 75% all the way through... but it seems I'm always wrong at the seams, even when I'm sure I'm right... I saw my final mark in the course the other day, and screamed at the screen, bloody murder, and a "What the hell is going on?!"... because my mark dropped to a 56%... Hell, I must've failed the exam to get that mark, which is ridiculous considering I know I did half the exam goddam perfectly. There was no way that I could've screwed it up, unless I was screwed by a reverse bell curve or a Communist Superman or the goddam computer ghost of tempered Seabass, or some crap like that... but it's not like I'm demanding a total recall and total recheck of my Discrete exam or anything, because what if they actually marked me higher than I actually got?... truth be told, my term average, failure included, is a mere 61% this goddam Spring... it's the worst I've ever gotten, in a term that felt the goddam easiest... and I'm bloody hell afraid that if I ask what the hell happened on my Discrete exam, then that average of mine just might Krispy Kreme dip below the 60% mark that I so desperately require to pass to third year...

The Digital exam saved my ass... and I am indeed lucky to have survived second year... but alas, my dream of actually passing second year of engineering will now never come to fruitation, or even to goddam fruitopia, as I have to take that goddam Electricity course of mine as a sixth course my next Spring term... Now, I don't mind having so many bloody courses at once. Considering I never attend lectures anyhew, it won't make a dent on my schedule... but it will make a mark on my pride, as the greastest thorn in my side, as I can already hear the marching bands ringing their bells, chanting and mocking my name... I'm no better than goddam Cujo... Because all I've ever cared about, is the fact that all I've ever wanted for the past ten years of my life, is to finish goddam second year of university without a goddam hitch, a goddam glitch, and a goddam bitch... unless that bitch is in my bed... And regardless of whether I'll finally finish my second year the same damn time I finish my third year, and regardless of whether my e-mail pleas to my professor will provide for me the 3% that I so desperately want, the truth of the matter is... I failed... I may not have failed the year, but I failed my dream... of actually deserving to pass... And that's something that I can never give back to myself. It's something that I can never redeem, not even for coupons. It's something that I can never live for again, or die another die... It's something that I can never, ever forgive myself for... and I guess that's my new dream. To never forget this day. To never forget the failure that I am.

I should've known that this would happen... I was so damn unprepared for the Electricity exam. I couldn't even do the examples in the book before the bloody exam... and I just knew that something went wrong after I left that examination room, but nobody bloody believed me... my friends simply scoffed me off and told me lies, the same true lies that never turn out true, but I'll save that little mental scuffle of mine for my MSN site whenever I have the time... But if there was any true indication that I was going to fail Electricity, it came just thirteen minutes before the goddam test. I was walking my way to school when a beggar conveniently leapt out of the shadows of a convenience store. Since I was in a rush, I simply waved him off, even though I knew something was Family Man peculiar about him. And normally, and nominally, when I brush guys like him off, they simply nod a polite goodbye and wish me on my merry way... making me feel extra guilty in the process, but I digress... And because of that, because of guilt, I had made a tradition. I now normally give a dollar to a begger every day that I have an exam, simply out of spite, simply so he can buy a Sprite, and simply out of hope that it would at least relieve my guilt and calm me down enough to think clearly for the goddam exam. But whether I'm now bloody superstitious or not is quite the amusing question I guess, as it just so happened that the only day that I did not give a dollar, the day that a beggar gave me the middle finger thumbs up, was the day that I ended up failing a goddam course... and potentially the year... I really should've known... Never cross a guy with a D cup... a Dixie Cup, I mean...

Or I should've known how things would go, considering how damn badly the course had gone for me all year. No matter what I did in Electricity, things simply would not go my way. I missed two easy questions on the mid-term, simply because I didn't read them goddam carefully enough, and I ended up getting 35% as a result. I may have taken the writing assignment as a joke, but I still put a lot of work into it to try to make it sound as passable and plausible as possible, only to receive a 60% in the end for my failed Engalish efforts... and of course, there was the notorious cheating fiasco, which ended with the TA docking off a percent or two from my final mark... and of course I agreed with him back then, since my course average was hovering around 60%, and I really didn't think that one or two percent taken off would make a great big, Jaw Wars deal in the end...

I should've known. The fates of this course had it bloody in for me since day one, since equinox one... since I bloody hell bought the book that said, "we're going to screw you over"... If only I had gotten those 2% back from that goddam TA, my professor probably would've passed me, as it's ridiculous to fail someone with a 49% or whatever... but it seems that I myself sealed my fate in stone, as it was I who never took the cheating issue to course court, and it's not like I can now rip out Excalibur from the damn magnets I could never goddam calculate in this Electricity course of mine, to save the world and to save my ass this time around...

I don't have many dreams in my life... I obviously have wet dreams though, as it seems my only remaining hope is to simply rekindle the lines of friendship or at least the lines of communication with the girl I talk too much about, who apparently isn't talking to me over the internet anymore... I obviously have dreams of being a famous psychologist or some video game programmer or some crap like that, if only because I so admire the men and women who do achieve such goals... we men are so goal oriented, yet I only had one object oriented goal... and it hurts to know that you can't even achieve that one, when others can achieve so many... To become what I want to be, to be the man that I wanted to be, I knew that I had to prove to myself that I am capable of such a feat, of commodoring such a fleet. And as a test, as my only true proof that I am the person that I say I am, I challenged myself to such a simple dare... dare to dream, I say... to finish second year engineering without a goddam failure... but apparently, the fates have a funny way of crushing every dream I have beneath their sandal feet, like the untied thongs of G-strings pulling on their goddam, zero G-spots, but that's besides the point...

Either that, or it was I who crushed my feet underneath my own 100 pundit pounds of weight... which is what I fear goddam happened... because, well... After I told my dad my story, and after seeing the look of dismal disappointment on his face (though he tried to hide it afterwards), I remember that I had promised to practice my driving that day, and I nodded my head when he asked if I was still determined to do so... I mean, I hate driving... and on a day when I was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, akin to the one after my goddam OAC programming exam, I didn't think the two were really meant to go hand in hand, toe in toe, drinking and driving in tow... I was afraid that I so desperately wanted attention from my friends, I was afraid that I so desperately wanted to ruin my own dreams simply for the sake of a story, that I subconsciously allowed myself to fail that goddam, easy course... just so I could feel... and I was now afraid that subconsciously, just to get my own attention, just so I could feel some more, I would purposely make a mistake while driving... and take my father down with me... But I shrugged off the feeling, knowing that I wasn't stupid enough to let these thoughts get to me. I had been making excuses for God knows how many months to avoid driving, and I for sure wasn't going to let a goddam, nagging feeling get the best of me. So I took the wheel... and how did I fare?

I guess the better question is, how did I fail?... the same way as I did in my Electricity course... a crash and burn... or almost, if my dad hadn't stopped me straight in my tracks... I almost hit a car. Twice... in the same damn spot that I almost hit a car during my first days of driving... I know what I did wrong... I didn't slow down enough at a goddam red light to notice that I didn't have the right to turn right... all I can hope for now, is that I did not fail on purpose... with a purpose... I have a license to kill myself, it seems. Because that's the only damn license I can goddam earn with my goddam, failure skills...

But who really knows whether I'm the guilty partisan or not, right? Who really knows if I'm looking for a storming or a whipping in Bastilles? Contrary to the anesthetics of Anatasia, not even Freud has the answer... unless he's become some omnipotent devil down there in hell, next to Saddam and Kenny from South Park, but I digress... all I know is that sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar... a girl who talks too much is just a girl I talk too much about... and a failure is just a failure... and it was just a failure, when I could barely muster a 38% in Algebra last year... but I never much cared for single year... I only cared for second... because the second year was the real deal, the real McCoy, the real reason for me to belong... the real reason for me to exist, or at least, for me to dream... whether it was a stupid dream or not is not the question... because all I know, is that now I know, why so many goddam students told me that second year is the true test of who you are... the true test of what you're capable of... the true test of what you want in life... the true test of what you want to be... and now I truly know the truth...

Dare to dream, I say, but a dream is never just a dream... And all I had was a dream. And it hurts to fail... it chills me to the bone...

ATI: Hmmm... it just occurred to me... Since long before I got my Radeon 7500 card, I've wanted to post Radeon tweaks on my Tweakui site. The problem is now, I just don't care about tweaking anymore... Sure, I still want to learn some new WindowsXP tweaks like how to load the entire kernel into memory or whatever, but still... I just don't care anymore, as no matter whether I tweak or not, my computer has no use except to browse the bloody internet... I don't know whether I'll ever get to my Radeon tweaks this summer, but until then, I might as well let you few readers know that I saw over at Rage3d that some new Catalyst drivers have arrived. Version 3.4 has new DivX acceleration for the upper echelon of Radeon cards... of course, mine is not included... So go ahead and download them at: http://ati.com/support/driver.html .

nVidia: Saw over at Savagenews that some new Detonator Drivers have arrived. Version 44.03 probably does stuff, but since I've officially earned the right to pout and depress myself, I'm going to ignore writing anything relevent... So get the new drivers for Win9x at: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=win9x_44.03 . And the WindowsXP version is at: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=winxp-2k_44.03 .

Y2kk Update: Well, that's all folks. That's all she wrote... My second year of university is now officially over... unless of course, I end up failing one of my electrical courses or whatever kind of crap, and end up having to take the whole damn term over again next year, but that's besides the point... The point is, the only thing I actually care about, is her... the girl that I always end up talking about, especially when I wish I wouldn't... and the fact of the matter is simply this, that in the summer, I seriously doubt that she'll ever bother to write...

But first things first, since I missed an update last week thanks to untimely exams, I think I'd better recap some things here and now before moving on to melodramatic, sentimental crap... How'd my exams go? Beats the hell out of me... literally... most of them beat the hell out of me, or so I fear... For Electronics, I already mentioned several weeks ago that I didn't exactly fare very well. I mean, I got ten bloody percent on the mid-term for Christ's sakes, and I don't think I pulled much higher than even that on the final... but thanks to the bell curve and thanks to high lab marks (thanks to my partner of course), hopefully I will manage to pass that course... of course, no matter how I do, it would all be in vain if I don't end up passing Electricity, which has been a course so damn easy for all the damn geniuses in my class that we've never needed to normalize or bell curve or any of that crap... not once... while I was left to simmer in the gutters of being proclaimed as the greatest cheater of them all, one cheater to rule them all, but I digress... Short story short, I felt like I crapped in my pants after that exam was all said and done... thank God of course, that I didn't do it literally... again, I mean... But after realizing how damn hard that exam was, I simply shrugged off the undeniable feeling of failure that I felt, and simply assumed that like it was for Electronics, other people probably didn't fare well either, and a bell curve would pass me at the end of the course when all good things finally come to an end... The problem was, maybe it's because my little circle of elite friends just happen to be the most elite at Electricity or whatever kind of crap, but still... it went beyond them... No matter where I turned, no matter who I asked, everybody I found admitted that the goddam Electricity exam was of all things, easy... Of course that terrorized the hell out of me, and I still have a bad feeling about that exam to this day... I did horribly on it. I got killed on it, and there's no denying it... my only remaining hope now is that the vast majority of the classmates that I did not ask are simply as dumbass as me...

But that's the thing actually... me being a dumbass, or a St.TA Dumb Ox, I mean... my friends? They're turned the tides of... well, Tide, against me, so to speak, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean... I call my friends geniuses for a reason: because they are. Whenever in doubt, they still manage to pull off marks ten or twenty or whatever percent above me, no matter how hard I study, no matter how hard I try to think... except... well... of course, to counter my arguments, they simply bring up the fact that I passed programming last term with almost 80%, even though I failed the mid-term... and although of course I was proud of my mark, I wasn't proud of the fact that my friends had finally found a weapon to fight back against my constant bickering and whining... So thank God in a sense I failed my Digital mid-term miserably. After getting 35% on an exam that most of my friends found to be damn easy, I had finally found a way to shut my friends up again so I could retake my fateful post of being the loser of my out-crowd... and that's why... um... that's sort of why I didn't know whether to pout or Pine or Cheer or let slip the tides of Tide when, thanks to some psychotic or Free Tibet or whatever kind of TA, our Digital Exam marks ended up showing on the internet weeks before they were ever supposed to be shown (and disappeared the day after from a stern whipping and lashing, I'm sure)... and, well...

I got 85% on the Digital Exam. I didn't know whether to giggle or wiggle or wrought in fear...Turns out that I got the best out of all my friends. And turns out that now whenever I complain about my Electricity exam or whatever, even though my Digital mark will mean nothing if I don't pass all my courses this term, they just point out that I beat them all on the Digital exam, and that I have nothing to complain about... and dammit, I guess I've taught them the ways of whining all too well... Who's da man? Y2-Yoda's da man! Or, um, nevermind...

I guess I should also mention that I was given a different scare that night when I learned of my Digital exam mark (which will not be my final mark, since when you couple in that lameass 35% I got on the mid-term, I only have about a 70-75% in the course...), started getting real excited about it, and told my friend over MSN Messenger my mark, only to find that... well... to find that he claimed he failed the course... and, well... It turned out in the end that he passed Digital, but nevertheless, I spent an hour or two that night trying to prove to him that he didn't fail the year... I mean, it was the only thing I could do, right? He was one my closest friends here... We had even made a pact over this Digital exam... but you know what was the saddest thing during the night, at least to me?... It was that I found myself to be trying too damn hard to help my friend out, and all for the wrong motives... I was just too damn happy about passing Digital with a killer exam mark, that no matter how hard I tried, I really couldn't feel sorry for my friend, no matter how hard I wanted to... I tried, I really did, because it seems so inhuman not to care... and so I spent the night trying to console him, when really he really didn't even need me to... Or if you want the short story even shorter, I was trying to be his friend not because I was his friend, but because I wished I was a better person, somebody who actually cares about others... if only, to wish upon a star... but I truly did feel like a Pinocchio at times like this...

Especially when my dick gets as long as his nose did, every single time I lie when I get horny to that goddam girl I always talk too much about... Yesterday was my final exam of the year: History... although as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a real exam in my eyes at all... In my opinion, my exams ended Monday, when I left my Discrete Mathematics exam with a decent feeling in the pits of my belly... or actually, it was a mixed bag of cats of a feeling, as I felt pretty confident about the exam, but felt absolutely dismal about what was going on with the girl I talk too much about... I now forget if anything happened between us that day... I do remember wishing her luck, and of course I remember wishing her luck before the Digital exam as well... but that was the extent of our contact, I suppose... it was arms length all the way, with pleasantries here and shallow looks there... It didn't feel real. It didn't even feel like the Matrix, as she wasn't even wearing Carrie-Anne leather suits or anything... I mean it when I say for the past few months or so, every single time the girl I talk too much sees me, she shuns away and pretends like she never laid eyes on me once... as if she didn't even want to know me anymore... and trust me, over time, a thing like that from the only girl you care about right now, can really eat and ebb away at a man's ego... if I have an ego left, that is... I don't even have a goddam eggo in my house, but that's besides the point...

And thus came yesterday, which I considered my day D-Day, my day of reckoning and hand of NOD... because unless I can find an excuse to call her up or e-mail her in the summer for a bloody copywell of coffee or some crap like that, this would be the very last time I would be able to see her for four months, four bloody months, if not longer... So naturally, I wanted to make a lasting impression... until I looked up at the sky and noticed that pathetic fallacy was not exactly on my side... and I know I've said this before (or simply thought it a million times fold), but to me, pathetic fallacy exists... if only to prove to me just how pathetic I really am, as a foreshadowing of stormy roadblocks ahead... for when it rains for me, it pours, and I always know that I'm going to royally screw up something, or even everything I truly care about in that day... And seeing those clouds crackle over my lonesome head yesterday afternoon?... priceless... Mastercard priceless... I knew something would go down, that my hard on would go down hard, and that something would happen that will keep me licking and kicking my assclown of a face over and over and over again for months...

And when I finally made it to the exam room and saw the girl I talk too much about, flaunting and flirting with a parcel of fabio guys, all surrounding her at once, shooting looks like blanks?... I just knew IvanF, the weather mean man, was not wrong again... I waved to her with much hesitation as jealousy got the better of me, and you know what she did?... she didn't even wave... not even like a light wave... she barely even nodded, but she did see that I was there... I mean, how can she miss a loser like me?... and she gave me a gaze of sternness in one eye, and a glare of solemn sorrow in the other... So all I could do was put my stupid hand down and wave e a little nod back, as she simply went back to all the buckets of guys who were strangely twirling their hair at beforehand... We then both walked into the exam room, or at least, she walked in long before I could... I didn't even know that she was gone... Thinking that it was all said and done and that this Oedipal sight, of seeing her throw herself at five guys at once, would be the last memory I ever have of her for the summer, I almost ended up accidentally ramming my head into hers when I didn't notice she was on the floor (not the way I wish she was floored...) as I was setting my bag down for the exam as well... and, well?... I then popped the question... of course, not that question, as even I'm not that smittenly insane... But I simply told her good luck, and asked if she'd like me to e-mail her in the summer sometime, even though I fully remembered all the conversations we had when she fully admitted she ignores the e-mails of the guys she loathes more than she loves... and loves more than loathes in droves... and what was her response as I noted through the windows that the skies were still damn cloudy up above?...

"Tee hee! I'd like that very much!"...

And, well... the way I wrote her comment, it sounds alright what she said, didn't it?... but I immediately knew something was wrong when she said it, as she spat it out so damn quickly that it almost seemed like a reflex, whether it be out of politeness or fear... She almost sounded like a business women, telling me what I wanted to hear and then scurried off to regret the lies she had just told me for tears... But then again, despite the overwhelming urges I felt that I had just put my own foot in my mouth, or my foot in my dick, or anywhere but the hole in her body that I wished it could fit... nevertheless, I still tried to get a hold of myself, if only to think clearly for the exam, as for all I know, she actually did mean what she said to me... like I always mean what I say, right?... right?... Okay, screw it. She's as foobar honest as I am... and sadly, that can't be good for business... that can't be good for anyone...

Until a ray of hope, a Rey-ray of sunlight, finally did seep through the clouds up above... literally... Because by the time that pointless history exam was finally over and done with, I noticed something... I glanced out the window, and noticed the Sun was shining, as if it had never hid its face like hers away from me ever once before... I then noticed where I was sitting, I then noticed where my Peng Shui had me siting, that I had sat directly in the path between the girl I talk too much about, and that precious little coat she brought because of the weather... and, well... once again, the truth of the matter is, for the past few months, she's only talked to me when I've thrown myself at her like the most desperate of men, when her instincts of politeness simply cannot allow her to pretend like I'm not staring right at her goddam face... She only seems to acknowledge that I exist when I'm less than two feet away from her, and by golly gee Cheese Whiz, I didn't notice yesterday until sunlight had finally shone on that very spot, that I had sat less than two feet away from her wonderfully bathed-in-light bag... bingo...

If I hadn't subconsciously done such a thing, she would've left without ringing or writhing or even saying goodbye, as all girls seem to do to me, no matter the time or place... But instead, thanks to the bag, I managed to get caught in the corner of her eye, and a hell of a bunch of crap pleasantries began as I walked her to the room that she claimed she had to flee to... I joked about how popular she was. I ribbed that she was the queen of the computer engineers here at university. We laughed over my fear that she wouldn't e-mail me back, as she claimed that a lot of guys seem to have the same fear about her for some odd reason... And when we finally departed ways, for a moment I even felt content. I had begged the Sun and stars that finally shone outside to simply give me one, last, fulfilling conversation with the girl I talk too much about, if only to find some sort of closure for the summer... and in a sense I did, as at least I was able to prove to myself that I could still make her laugh...

Not like that means very much, as every single one of those gaggles of guys she was with seemed to achieve the goddam same... her smile is a dervitive of popularity, an evolutionary gift to get every engineer to like her, but I digress... And getting her to accept my e-mails, either through politeness or guilt, didn't achieve much either when apparently, a ton of suitor guys are vying at her e-mail door and her own trap door down below as we speak. And the thing about our Friday conversation as we trolleyed and trolloped down the stairs (if only that meant something...), was that neither of us ever acknowledged anything of the past. I pretended like I wasn't pissed at her for ignoring me, and she pretended like she had never ignored me in the first place... I had a pleasant conversation with her and nothing more, and while in a sick sense that's what I begged the fates to bring me, in the end, after all I've been through with her, it simply was not enough. It simply was not what I wanted... After a taste of honey, how could I not want the whole beehive?... oh behave... So what exactly do I want?

I ask that same damn question every single damn year at this very same time... call it Spring Hey-IvanF Fever, if you will... and each year the times may change, people change, but the lust seems to last forever... for I truly am a diamond in the rough, or a carbon copy loser in the rough since I know I'll never be able to glisten or shine... well, without vaseline or Pine Sol at least, I mean... But either way, I will e-mail her sometime, if only to keep my promise, if only to find some real closure... or actually, if only so that I can slowly rebuild whatever trust, not tryst nor triste, we two seemed to have together before this trial and tribble-ation term ever started in the first place... But it'll be four months... four long months, after we descended four bloody flights of stairs together one last time... and something just tells us, that no matter how much I wish I could believe in something between us, that in the end, just like it was for all the other girls in my life, nothing was ever real in the first place... What is the Matrix? I am the Matrix. For nothing I am seems to be real... except my undying obsession of wishing upon a star, that someday, I actually will be able to care... that I will finally be a real boy, but that's so sappy, that's so goddam puppy, that now I have no choice but to digress...

ATI: Well, this won't affect me much, since I don't play games. But it seems that ATI has canned the upcoming Catalyst 3.3 drivers, although 3.4 is chugging along the way. Saw this news at Rage3d, where I get most of my ATI news: http://www.rage3d.net/.

ATI: Simply because I'm a Nintendo fan, I'll mention this report over at EEtimes, talking about ArtX, the company that made the N64 and Gamecube video cards that was sold to ATI. I don't know what they said, but pay your respects to: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030421S0028 .

ATI: In case you're bored, saw over at Rage3d some Radeon whatever reviews you might read for no apparent reason whatsoever. OC Addiction has a Radeon 9800 Pro review up at: http://www.ocaddiction.com/reviews/video/radeon9800/ . VR Zone has a PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro review up at: http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/PowerColor/9800Pro/ . And Beyond3d has a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9200 review up at: http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/sapphire/9200/ .

nVidia: Saw over at Savagenews that some new Detonator drivers were released. Don't know if they're official or not, but version 50.06 is somewhere over at: http://www.9down.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=824 .

Y2kk Update: Well, it hasn't been exactly the most joyous of weekends... and it hasn't been the most pious of weekends either, no pun intended... because, well... just in case you don't know, for us Catholics at least, it's Easter Sunday today. And lo and behold, it's my birthday too. I'm an Easter Bunny this year. Woohoo... yahoo.ca for me... Of course, things haven't exactly been going the way I planned in my life right now, not that I ever do any of the planning. I was hoping that having my birthday on an Easter Sunday (and not dropping that chopstick on New Year's Eve) would actually lead to some luck and hope this year for little ol' me come exam time... but alas, things never end up that simple and easy for me, now do they?...

I guess it's history repeating itself all over again, and I'm not talking about those trials and tribulations I've gone through every single damn exam period I've had in university... I'm talking about the only other time in history that I can ever recall having my birthday on an Easter, which was way back when I was in Grade 4. That was the year I became close friends with that so-called best friend of mine... it was also the year that all because of a video game, I refused to speak with him for 40 days and 40 nights straight, and had to get a teacher to straighten the Medusa raft of a rift between us out... So obviously, although the pain and humiliation that we inflicted upon each other that year obviously led to somewhat of a male bond later on in life, it certainly didn't lead to any fast healing or guru yoga teachings between us back in Grade 4... and yet... that year, for some damn reason, I made a sleepless, hollow request to this friend of mine. I told him that my birthday was on Easter (or Easter Monday... I forget which one now...) and that maybe he should stop by for a hello and a jello (or now, "ello") or some crap like that... I never expected that he would take up my offer. Not once, as I was that slow, and really that damn dumb... Afterall, I was such a little hermit, refusing to have any friends over for my birthday whatsoever. All I wanted was peace and solitude and quiet, that's all... what I got instead, was misery a la miserables... all I ever want is what I plan. But alas, that's never what I get, now is it?...

In the end, nothing happened that day... well, on official record, that is... but I've been ashamed of that birthday of mine for God knows how many years by now... because simply put, short story short, I was a jackass, without a movie to sheath my sins. When my friend suddenly showed up at the door to what I thought was a non-invitation, I was shocked. I wasn't expecting anyone at all, so obviously, I was shocked... but not exactly perturbed. He was my friend afterall, and we could play some video games and gummy bears at the very least to pass the time, as long as he didn't hog all the points again that is... But the real problem came when I saw who he brought over... his brother... now, I don't know what I had against his brother, but I obviously had something. Whether I gave him the cold shoulder because I barely knew him, or whether it was because he had a reputation for being a class jerk, I may never know. All I know is that on that Easter birthday of mine, I was so damn pissed that my friend had come unannounced, and so damn pissed that he had brought along his brother without asking, that I just sat on the couch like a pouch of a pooch of a puddle of a potato, and refused to do anything with the guests in my house. I still remember just sitting on my ass with my arms folded across my chest, as my friend was bored out of his mind, and his brother just kept demanding that we do something or some crap like that... and what I'm most sorrowful about, is that when the both of them finally left an hour later, I was far more relieved than guiltful... it was a painful reminder that I hadn't grown any more mature, or any more social, since the entire damn month that I thought myself to be higher than my friend, and higher than God... and I did this all on Easter... and while that may mean nothing to most of you two readers out there or something, I swear to God, it holds a deep meaning to me. It's memories like this that forged who I am today, in the blind hope that I will never act the same way again... but we all know that wish never came true...

I can't say that this Easter Bunny birthday of mine has been thrilling or anything, but I don't really have much to complain about... well, at least, nothing that I didn't predict a mile away... Of course, it's exam time, and like every year, as I shed a single tear, all I want for my birthday is to pass my goddam university courses... and for my two front teeth to be straightened, but God knows I will never get braces... Because alas, things are never that simple for me... I for sure failed my Electronics exam last week. My only hope is that half the class fared a fail as well, but really... I don't think the chances of that are in my favour at all... And tomorrow? I have my Digital Systems exam... it was supposed to be an easy course... I even felt that the mid-term was easy after it was all said and done... and yet I failed it. I failed it miserably, simply because I made little mistakes here and there, and didn't realize that the three questions I left blank ended up being the most valuable questions on the damn exam (there were no number of marks assigned to questions at the time, so I assumed they were worth nothing). So obviously, I'm worried about what tomorrow may bring, for tomorrow may never die, but I sure as hell can. And I spent my entire birthday today studying... or, well, I was supposed to spend it all studying. But I'm writing this update now, aren't I? Obviously, I'm sickened by the fact that for the next few years of my life, if not more, if not forever, my birthdays will be amongst the most goddam, traumatic days of my so-called adult, unadulterated life... and with that said, you few readers out there might as well wish me luck...

But ay, there lies the rub... because what luck can IVT 420, the day that Hitler was born, the day that Bowling for Columbine should've been booed off the stage, can honestly bring?... Of course, despite my current, decrypted, academic situation and everything, my family tried to make my birthday feel all special and everything. So after asking me if it was alright or not, they took me out to dinner, to the same Chinese restaurant that we always go to when we're bored. And since I'm all about tradition and refusing to change, of course I obliged with a smile... but you see, it was there that I finally realized what the greatest birthday gift was of all time... I was scared...

I knew when I said yes to this whole restaurant thing that I might get nervous when push comes to shove, but I always tried to bite my lip and tell myself it's just my racism talking or whatever... But apparently, I wasn't the only one with that little voice inside their head that night... Because you see, I always laugh at the newspapers here in Toronto when they try to be all politically correct and everything, and blame the 70% downturn in Chinese restaurant attendances on Western folk racistly believing the Chinese population to be the sole harbingers of SARS... But what the newspapers refuse to print, is the fact that the missing 70% of the Chinese restaurants is normally filled by us Chinese, not Western people missing in action. Because when we went to the restaurant the other night?... It was a Saturday night in one of the biggest Chinese restaurants in the city (Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto so to speak...). Normally, just to get a seat on a regular day, you'd need to make a reservation hours in advance, or simply wait in line for God knows how many years... But last night, even on a vacation weekend for most Chinese?... well, as my brother put it, it was a ghost town. The requisite 20-30% of the place, filled by Western people, was all there... but as for the rest of the little shop of horrors, which is normally filled by Chinese folk who refuse to eat anything but the finest cuisine?... well... suffice to say, we felt alone in the universe that dinner... it was kind of cool, actually... for the first time in our lives, I think our Chinese food was actually served early for once... if you count half an hour of waiting early, that is... well, it's early for a Chinese restaurant at least...

But the thing that really startled me, actually came when we arrived at my grandparents house later that night. Because like usual, after the generic greetings and smiles and everything, I kissed my grandmother on the cheek like I always do... and felt a rush of a gush of regrettance over it just moments after, for the first time that I can ever recall... and why?... because I was terrified, if only for a moment, that I could've contracted the disease at the Chinese restaurant (even though it literally had nobody in it), and just sealed my grandma's fate with a kiss of death of innocence... and as unnecessarily melodramatic as that was of me, and as illogical as my feelings were, there's no denying that for a brief moment in time, I was scared... and obviously, things like this go beyond this Chinese community of mine. At Church this Easter morning, I was surprised to find that the communal handshake of peace had been admonished, or at least temporarily banned, if only to prevent against the spread of SARS. I felt at the time that such a restriction was completely unnecessary, considering we don't live in Toronto where all the corona cases reside, but after thinking about it for a second... well, even if massive Church quarantines are a bit premature (for every place but Montreal, I gather), suffice to say, it'll make a lot of folk a lot more comfortable about going to Church... well, for the few people who still go to my Church, that is... and at least it lets me know, that I'm not the only one with rash and mass hysteria over this stupid little thing...

And that was my birthday, or at least, that's been my birthday so far. To sum up my 21st birthday like a 21st Century Fox, hymn hymn: I've had study this, SARS that, and all in all, it definitely hasn't shaped up to be a breathtaking birthday that I'll be reminiscing about ten years down the road... but at least I won't be beating myself over it with an ugly stick, or a shit stick, or a juice box, like I still am over that Easter Island birthday of mine more than ten bloody years ago... and, well... since I'd better get back to studying, I guess there's really nothing else to say, but to wish myself a very happy happy happy happy happy anniversary this glorious IVT420 day, simply because it all sounds like so much goddam fun, doesn't it?... no thanks, of course, to a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone...