Y2kk Update: The doorbell rang at my house yesterday night... Thinking it was my parents coming home or something, I fled to the door like a booster chair infant on Christmas Eve, ready and willing and oh so Shenhua waiting for Chinese take-out like a sick dog drooling all over their balls for their master (wait... does that sound good?...). And as soon as I got to the door, what did I found peeking through the egged and not so frosty windowsill?...

Children.

... wait a second...

WTF?

Children?!?...

... goddammit, it was Halloween...

... and what? I completely forgot about it? What the hell?...

The thing is, you know you're getting older when you don't even know Halloween is around the corner... either that, or I'm just going real senile from video games and goddam university... Because I keep reminding myself not to forget Remembrance Day this year. I keep reminding myself of all the presents I want to buy my family for Christmas (even though technically... all my money does come from my mommy, but still...)... But for the very holiday that was coming up first, for the very goddam holiday that was actually upon us, I completely goddam forgot that there would be children coming to my door?!... and goddammit, I may not have tricked or treated very much in my past, but I remember enough to know that I absolutely hated the houses that didn't give a crap about the kids that were coming to them... though honestly, this year wasn't very different in that retrospect. My parents never give out bloody hell candy, and I'm not willing to buy the good stuff to simply hand out for goddam free (and I'll never degrade myself into handing out that crap, toffee cheap ass stuff certain houses always used to give away...). But the thing is... this year, I didn't forget about Halloween because my parents forced me to. This year, I forgot about Halloween...

... because I actually forgot about Halloween...

... and somehow, that just scares me... more than even that Angel Halloween episode did on Wednesday...

... wait... hmm... ummm...

... oh, nevermind... I guess I am getting senile...

Anyhew, what scares me even more, is that I had to go to goddam school today... on a goddam Saturday morning?! I had to fucking get to school at nine in the fucking, Saturday morning?! And why? Because of a PEY co-op seminar crap thingy that I had to attend, otherwise I'll be kicked out of the goddam useless program... not like it'll even matter in the end, considering what idiot of a company would actually hire a slobbering, Halloween forgetting, sloth like me?... over all the guys with 4.0 grade averages and references up the wazoo, literally (they probably sleep with their managers... both male and female... to get that many goddam jobs...), but that's besides the point... Because the point is, today I sat in a class full of people I didn't even recognize by annoyances, listening to some pratty, petty PEY coordinator talk about how to improve our goddam resumes (and considering I have nothing to show on mine, the only way to improve it is to goddam lie...), and how we have to go to some mandatory one-on-one crap session to iron out the chinks in our portfolios or some crap like that... And when you factor in the fact that I had to friggin' wake up at 7 in the morning for four hours straight of this crap, you better believe that I was sure as hell pissed off when it was all said and done...

Well, until I checked my marks online at least... Because you see, I've been sure as damn hell afraid of getting my computer programming mid-term mark back for a while. My 61% on the second probability mid-term pretty much proved without provocation, that my 90% on the first mid-term was a fluke, as I reported long time ago, in an update far far away... and considering I had embarrassingly failed my programming mid-term last year with 42%? And considering I had just as embarrassingly failed my Digital mid-term last year with a 35%?... and considering I had half assed my way to just a 38% on my Computer Organization mid-term this year?... what annoys me to the greatest nth degree, is that none of these exams were hard! When I was fucking writing them all, they all felt easy as pie... although I'll never know if that's true, considering I'll never get some pie... and then what?! For stupid, easy, goddam exams... stupid, little mistakes that would've costed me nothing in high school, ended up giving me failing marks in goddam courses I find goddam simple... and goddam comprehensible... So obviously, I was a bit apprehensive when I finally was able to check this year's programming mid-term mark. But suffice to say, I finally broke my string of bad luck... although I know I'll never be able to break my habit of sheer stupidity...

I scored 83%. That's sure as damn hell better than what I thought I'd get... considering I thought I'd get nothing... hell, even a 35% would look good by my original standards...

And then I checked my mark for my first Digital quiz, and saw that they gave me 6.5 out of 10, which is 5.5 more than I thought I'd get, so... despite my entire day being wasted by morning travel and a completely incompetent co-op seminar, I personally consider today to be quite a good day in the end... or at least, a good day to die...

Except the Leafs just fucking lost 7-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers... and uggh... I was betting my success for the Linear Systems mid-term coming up this week on the outcome of that god-awful, bloody hell hockey match... but oh well, AOL... you win some, you lose a hell of a lot... back to no-name studying I guess...

ATI: Hmm... vierd... Diamond is back? Saw over at Rage3d that the company that merged with S3 (and soon went down under after that), has re-emerged to offer ATI and nVidia products... that's very weird indeed... But welcome news in the end, even though they'll never return to their 3dfx glory days at: http://www.diamondmm.com .

ATI: Looks like Firingsquad has a review between graphics on ATI cards and graphics on nVidia cards... after the latest nVidia driver optimization fiasco, I wouldn't be surprised if the latest games on the GeForceFX series are comprised of goddam stickmen... but you can see for yourself at: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/imagequality2/default.asp .

ATI: I've been expressing interest in PCI Express since... well... forever actually, since I think it's been in the works as long as AGP has, actually... But anyhew, ATI has finally declared itself a firm supporter of the new firmware or whatever. Read the latest report on this at Research Capital at: http://www.researchcapital.com/docid.cfm?docid=4738 .

Y2kk Update: Hmm... goddammit, I guess it's true... I do seem to do my best work at my worst, or at least that's how things have been going this year so far... I mean, I thought I knew as much as I possibly could've going into that computer organization mid-term last week, and more or less, I'm probably right about that. And it wasn't a hard mid-term... it's just that, immediately after I handed in my papers... I already knew all the stupid mistakes that I had done... They were all minor as far as I was concerned, but I knew that wouldn't be the case when it came to whoever the hell was marking the damn things, knowing how the goddam TAs have butchered my exams in the past... and I guess I was right about that, on one account at least...

I got back my Comp Org mid-term just the other day... and saw a goddam 38% next to my name... The class average was 58%, meaning that all thanks to some quasimodo errors that would've costed me nothing in high school, I completely failed a course I find easy, even after the class normalization... But that wasn't the thing that really threw me off that day. The thing is... I then checked my quiz mark for Linear Systems from last week, the course that I know literally nothing for and pretty much didn't study for one damn bit (considering I had the Comp Org mid-term to study for later that day). And the thing is... umm... the quiz was only worth 4% of my final mark, and the class average was 76%, so it's not like I feel I accomplished anything special or any sort of crap, but... ummm... I know that I messed up the quiz. I even learned what the right answers were right after from my friends, and realized that I was pretty much nowhere in the proper Chicago Cubs ballpark, but... ummm... for some odd reason, out of the damnest luck I've ever had since... well... since my probability mid-term a couple weeks ago, actually... all thanks to all the above, and no thanks to the Boston Red Sox curse whatsoever, I somehow scored 90% on a quiz that I knew nothing for and nothing about... and, umm... WTF?... I do this, yet I fail dismally in the one course that I actually knew as well as the back of my head? Or hand? Or handjob, or whatever?... What the fuck is going on here?!... Who's the damn monkey?! But I digress...

Because as much as I'd just love to whine longer and longer about school, there's one thing that always takes precedence in my mind... the girl... yes, the girl... the girl I always talk about... The thing is, what happened between us this week happened all the way back on Tuesday, and yet I'm still somehow Mr. furious at her, if only because she doesn't just not care... but I don't think she ever once noticed, not that I can really blame her, but...

Oh wait, that's right. I do blame her. How foolish of me to forget...

The thing was, because the "Design Center" for Comp Org lab testing was closed on Monday due to Canadian Thanksgiving (I know, I know... we can't even get the date right for Thanksgiving up here...), there was already a massive line-up just to get into the lab on Tuesday morning. And goddammit, the line-up was already that damn long... after I had gotten there at bloody hell 8:45 in the bloody hell morning... The thing was, the design center wasn't open yet, so I simply stood in line, hoping that I was early enough to get a spot without having to wait an hour or whatever kind of crap for somebody to leave. And the thing is... that's when she showed up, about five minutes after me... And the thing was, I was feeling real crabby that morning, for two reasons... One, the cold air outside had aggravated my cough all damn over again, and all my goddam incessant hacking away at my throat was tearing away at the goddam torn ligaments or whatever Smallville had inflicted me with like kryptonite just last week... And Laura Secord second?... well... I was pissed because she just had to show up... For the past three weeks, she's been hogging the design center computers for hours, not leaving for three hours at a time until her projects finally work, even when there's literally a line-up of about one hundred other people in the class, waiting for somebody like her to just get up and leave, hoping to test their projects out by the deadline of Tuesday, three pm... and I'm normally one of them, wadding and waddling outside like a beggar looking into a store's frosted window on Christmas Eve... But since she always gets to the design center first, it's not like I ever really held her academic greed against her. Fair is fair, I bare... although share, share, that's fair, now isn't it?... The thing is, I'm never happy when I see her anymore, but being the crappy gentleman that I am, I knew in the pits of my heart that I just had to give her my spot in line... afterall, there was no-one behind me at the time, so it wasn't like I was losing much in terms of personal pride and leeway, right?...

I was crabby about it all though. To pretend to myself that I wasn't being nice to her, I simply told her "I don't care about the line" as I walked out of the queue and quickly came back in behind her once she took my place... and it's not like I was being obvious in my generosity, so I didn't expect a thank you or whatever... it's just that... When the doors to the design center finally swung open that Tuesday morn, I started counting how many people were in line... and how many computers were available... and thing was... I was kind of stupid, actually... or a stupid kind of generous, at least... because I realized then and there, that I could've gotten a computer terminal, if only I hadn't played whipped boy nice... and, well... as we were walking into the lab, I overheard some Chinese people behind me, blabbing about in Cantonese, that they haven't even started on the lab project yet. Which was royally pissing me off, because they're not supposed to goddam use the computers for testing when they don't even have a bloody hell first draft of their computer programs up and running (you can type your program on any computer, but you can only test on the 20 in the design center)... unless they were going to sign up for a time after they had written their program somewhere else, but I digress... And then I was pissed off even more when I realized what the goddam hell all the people in front of me in line were doing with the sign-up sheet... because you see, I wasn't pissed off that every computer was going to be taken before I finally was able to step up to the Babe Ruth plate. I gave up my spot in line, so I was willing to deal with the consequences... because I didn't expect the consequences to be much, or to be that damn long... I mean, a group is only supposed to allowed to reserve a computer for one hour at a time max, and then it's up for grabs for whoever hasn't signed in for the day... it's just that... For the labs, we're supposed to be in groups of two... but the guy enforcing the laws of the sign-up sheet didn't exactly seem to care about that... because I swear to God... every single fucking group in front of me was reserving two damn hours of goddam testing time each, even though they goddam knew there was a massive line-up hoping and groping and J-loping outside to get their goddam Assembly crap tested by 3pm that day... Because instead of putting down both their own and their partner's name in the same goddam timeslot as I always have, they were putting just one of their names in the current timeslot, and then their partner's goddam name in the goddam timeslot below theirs... and what the fuck? The guy handing out the sign-up sheet never once goddam cared that the rest of us were being goddam shafted? What the fuck is up with that?... just when you start having some goddam faith in humanity, you're shown just how goddam inconsiderate the worst of the engineering world truly is... thank God I don't know what life is like outside of the engineering world...

But that wasn't really what kept me pissed off for the entirety of that Tuesday... It's just that, as the girl I always talk to was talking to me, I glanced over to the sign-up sheet, and noticed there was only one timeslot left for the current hour... and since I had let her in line ahead of me, it obviously went to her... I mean, I had given it to her... and she took it without hesitation, since she still didn't realize that I had deliberately gave her my goddam position in line... she picked up the sign-up pencil without even asking if I wanted it... But that was alright, right? I mean, yes, I wouldn't be able to test my Comp Org lab until 10 am then, since the last 9 am timeslot had just been taken by her, but that's alright, right? As a gentleman, or as a Rona handyman, I could live with that... except that... well... I quickly glanced over to the 10 am spots, and noticed that every single timeslot but one had already been taken by those goddam greedy mongers already at the computer terminals, who simply refuse to obey the rules and share the wealth of goddam time to the rest of the goddam line-up... and just when I was about to complain about the audacity of it all... just when I was going to whine and cry to her that nobody has any consideration anymore for their fellow men and women behind them... and just when I was going to goddam finally sign my name up for that last, goddam 10 am timeslot... guess what the hell she did?... guess what the fuck she did?

... wait for it...

... ahem...

... she signed her name in goddam pen...

...

... in my goddam timeslot...

In my goddam timeslot?! WTF?!

I was frickin' right behind her! I was even goddam talking to her (although not happily, I must confess)! I had given her my goddam spot in the goddam line! And even if I hadn't, I still wouldn't have had the goddam audacity to reserve two goddam hours of time when there was only six goddam hours left for the next hundred people in the class to test their goddam programs! And yet what the fuck does she do, but sign her name in goddam pen, sealing the deal and reserving herself the whole nine frickin' yards of goddam two hours of testing time?... when I was right behind her?... When I was right behind her ass?!... I mean, what the fuck does she think she's doing? Where the goddam fuck is her consideration? How goddam selfish or goddam ignorant can she goddam be?... I've tried giving her slack in my mind, since this reminds me all too much of all those goddam times I selfishly took something away from someone without even realizing that I was doing anything wrong... but goddammit, that doesn't change the fact that she cared about me so little - that she thinks of me so damn small - that she didn't even realize (or just didn't care) that I now had to wait until goddam 11 am just to test my goddam program, when I should've been able to do it at goddam nine!... Sure, I got my project done in the end. Sure, everything worked out by the end of my one hour of testing. And sure, at least I can be proud that I didn't reserve two goddam hours for myself with a line-up outside longer than a goddam amusement park's... but goddammit, what she did really hurt me. I'm being honest about that... Was I honest to her? Hell, when was the last time I was honest with her? I didn't tell her any of this. I just basically left after she went to her computer and I was left waning and waiting for two hours to pass... and the next day, she completely acted like nothing happened, and I'm sure in her mind, nothing did... but honest to God... I fucking swear to God, every single fucking week...

She truly does her best, when I am at my worst... to make me at my worst, so she can feel her best... just when I was starting to gain faith in her again, just when I was starting to care... just when I was starting to believe in hope, just once more... then... well... she signs her fate and seals the deal with her name in pen... what that goddam means, I don't know... all I know, is that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

Y2kk Update: Is it me, or is it that I seem to do my best work at my worst? And my worst jokes at my... ummm... worst, actually... or some crap like that... because if I remember properly... that is, if I can remember properly at all... I do recollect that I was somewhat sick in the days prior to my first Probability mid-term a couple weeks ago... and the thing is... I stand by what I said both two weeks ago to my friends and last week on this website. That quite frankly put, I did not have a fucking clue what I was doing on that goddam mid-term of mine. Just like everyone else I spoke to in the exam room, I ran out of time before I even finished the second goddam question. And hell, the only reason I was able to get to the third and final question in the first place, was because I skipped the first question because I couldn't seem to goddam get the right answer to work for me... but the thing is... ummm... although I am telling the truth, about how I felt during the mid-term... it's just that... well...

I think the results speak for themselves... because I refused to believe the mark that was up for me on the internet until I finally had my very own test paper in hand... but oh God... it's true... it's damn true... For the first time since bloody hell high school, I officially have actually gotten a 90% on a goddam major test or exam... and you'd think I'd feel an aura of fresh air or some Swiffer crap like that, right? And yet I stand here today (well, I'm sitting actually, but still...), pissed off and gravely hurt on more than one account... On one hand, I'm overjoyed, right? I finally have some breathing room when it comes to a course that I still believe is one of the toughest math courses I've ever had to endure... but the thing is... now I find that my reputation precedes me, because even though I only really told something like just one of my friends how I did last Friday, by Monday morning, all of them were patting me on the shoulder and talking to me as if I were some Malcolm in the Middle genius or some crap like that, rather than the usual monkey in the middle business down below... Now, if I felt I actually deserved my mark, I'd probably feel flattered. But after picking up my mid-term on Monday morning, I literally saw with my own eyes that yes, thanks to the hell of the bell curve, I scored an A+. But the thing is... none of my answers on that goddam test were actually right! It was as if the test markers just looked at my Probability work, and said that I'd "probably" get the answer right or something if I stayed on the current track or some crap like that... or if I actually had some IQ rather than ICQ, but I digress... I mean, it was ridiculous how many part marks they gave me on questions I had no clue how to do, yet my friends who normally get high Bs and As themselves were relegated to near failure status for this exam?... I'd like to feel overjoyed that I finally did well in something other than programming in this university of mine, but I simply can't allow myself to let my guard down, all because of the luck of one goddam flunk of a fluke, if only I had a flute of a goddam pussy... although I have no clue what the hell that's supposed to mean...

... but that's the half funny thing... My friends know that I'm "ashamed" of my high mark, although I admit it's quite shameful to be ashamed of a high mark... hell, I even told them the other day that I told my dad that I got a 70% on the mid-term and not a 90% (since before the bell curve, I had a 75%), simply because I knew that if my dad realizes how high I got, he'd expect the same on the next bloody hell mid-term, which I know I simply cannot guarantee... So now everytime someone comes into a room, my friends all plot and prod and pat me on the back and smile at me at how damn smart I am, as if I was the king of the goddam world... or hell, as if I was the gov'ner of California, except that I'm not Aussie or Spanish, whatever the hell that may mean... I mean, there's really no way to put into words... just how goddam aggravating all that cheery, cherry, leery comaradery of theirs got over the past goddam week... but still... I mean, I admit, it's nice to be the centre of attention and the whole of the fatal attraction for the first time since first year. And I admit, it's all in good fun, as I can't help but laugh and hide away behind my books whenever somebody comes along and sees me just hanging on a thread there... But goddammit, now I'm never going to live this down! Before this day, the only times I have ever done well in school have been on final exams, like when I shot up in both C programming and Digital Systems after the exams last year. And after those two alone, even though I literally failed a course at the same damn time, all my friends just snickered everytime I claimed that I didn't get something in some other course, joking that I'm really some genius behind a Jim Carrey mask or some crap like that... but at least, with final exams, no-one can really see how well you actually did. They can only assume what mark you got, but for this? For a mid-term!? ACK!!!... before, only my close circle of friends were shaking their finger and head at me everytime I claimed I didn't do well on an exam... but after yesterday! ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Literally people I haven't even met in the two years I've been at school, and already all the people that I still don't know the names of were already telling me to shut up, in a joking way of course, but still... to shut up, because I was complaining that I probably won't fare well in marking on the Computer Organization mid-term that I had yesterday! My reputation has been ruined thanks to one damn good mark! And ugghhh!!!!!!!!!!!... I'm not normally a religious man. But Superman, if you're out there, please save me!...

I'll talk more about my mid-term from yesterday in a minute. Right now, there's one other problem that's been nagging the hell out of my sides lately... quite literally, I mean... The thing is, I got sick sometime before the Probability mid-term. But I never would've figured that I'd probably get sick just days before my next mid-term as well... but like the clockwork of a cuckoo's nest, and the taste of warm cat's milk in the morning (or the taste of cat crap at work actually... don't remind me...), I started gagging and coughing and lurching over my gut as soon as the last weekend passed, and before I knew it, I was skipping school not just for the sake of skipping school like I normally do, but because I was so goddam violently ill that I could barely get out of my bed before noon... The thing is, it's not that I'm sick anymore. I pretty much started feeling better by the time Tuesday or Wednesday rolled around... it's just that... I have a new problem now. You see, I'm still coughing... and on Wednesday, when I was watching Smallville? Something happened... because you know at the end of literally each and every single Smallville episode? There's a horrible, teenie bopper scene between Lana Lang and Clark that always goes something like this: "Lana: Clark... I need to know your secret!... Clark: NO! You won't understand! I have issues!" And UGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!... just once or twice, I could've taken that kind of awful, woeful, grade 10 writing... but after suffering through it for two straight 24-episode seasons of goddam Smallville? The same damn, goddam ending in each, goddam episode, just ripping and shredding away at my sides and pride?... ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!... I'M GOING INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE!!!! That's what was going through my mind this Wednesday. And at the same exact time, I started coughing out a lung full of my own cat shit so damn violently, to the very terminal point of sheer, "E-equals-M-C-Moltrin pain" velocity that... ummm...

... I think I heard something snap around my ribs...

And now thanks to Smallville or some sort of crap like that, every single damn time I stretch or walk or heaven forbid, I cough again (which I just did... owwwwww!!!!!!), my damn right side of my abdomen just shrieks out in pain, as if I broke some wraddigity, ghaddigity bones or tore some ligament though not in the leg or some crap like that... And I can't figure out why this goddam problem won't just go away! I was praying that it would just goddam float away into nothingness like most of my hopes and reams before my goddam mid-term yesterday night, but by that point, it was hurting even more than it was the night that I did whatever I did to hurt it... So seriously, I'm not kidding. I'm not lying when I say this was how I sounded during the whole damn mid-term:

"Fuck... stupid Assembly question... umm... uh oh... - HACKKKKKKKKKKK - COUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - WHEEEEZZZZEEEEEEEE!!!!!! - ... uggh..... oh crap... OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Of course, I did my best to silence that last part of the whole ordeal that kept repeating itself every goddam five minutes, but still... last year, I wrote my Circuit Theory exam in that same damn room, ready to vomit and bodily puke over any answers that I puked onto the bloody paper with my pen... And this year? Every single time I tried concentrating on a damn computer question, I would cough again from lack of breath somehow, and end up holding my damn gut for the next five goddam minutes, trying to make sure that nobody but me could goddam see my goddam spleen splitting through my shirt... But in the end? At first, I thought I did alright. The exam wasn't hard. Anything to do with computers really doesn't seem difficult to me, at least as it stands right now... the only problem was... fuck... naturally, as soon as I handed in my paper, I realized I made stupid, basic mistakes at the START of each goddam two-page question on the goddam test sheet, meaning that unless the TAs mark leniently, I'm toast... I wouldn't be surprised if I pull a B on this exam, and I wouldn't be surprised if I failed with a bloody hell 30% either. It's all in the hands of the TAs that would be kings, if only they actually had actual personalities or power...

Of course, as soon as I left the exam room, I got none of the sympathy that I... well... quite frankly, never get from my friends when I'm discarded and disappointed, actually... But instead of them just ignoring me as usual, when I said I did bad and that I knew that I did bad, what did they do this time? Instead of telling me their usual generic statement, "it'll be alright!", they actually slapped me on the back (and side... ouch...) and told me that I was probably lying, smirking that I probably Aced the damn thing better than everyone else! And ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You see my pain? You see my dilemma! This is hell! This is like watching From Hell, in Hell! Johnny Depp goddammit, save me...

... and, ummm... okay... maybe I'm exaggerating a wee bit... maybe... point taken... Maybe I'm just trying real hard to falsify some sympathy for myself because it's the only real thing I crave in life... or maybe I simply don't like change... or hope... but that's besides the point...

But the day wasn't over then and there, although it seriously should've Slitheren been. The thing was, after every exam, I know that there's pretty much no way in hell that I can avoid the girl I always talk about... we always take the same train. She knows it. And I know it. And really, I'm not even that rude enough to try to avoid her when we both know where we're going to be... So as usual, we found each other at Union Station and started talking about a bunch of useless stuff that I can't even remember right now, as soon as we got on the train... And since the empty seating areas were kind of... umm... not empty... in the stupid train car she always picks, we were forced to relocate ourselves next to a rather lumbering, balding, old guy who was trying to sleep. And considering how loud both me, myself, and the girl I talk about always end up being, even though I wish we would both shut up?... well... I almost felt sorry for this poor chap... I mean, unless he or we were moved or moved by our speeeches of peaches, he wasn't going to get any REM sleep rather than good ol' RIP sleep tonight...

Eventually though, the girl and I got onto some topic about what men like in women. She went on a stupid tangent again like she did a dozen times fold last year, how no guy will ever like her because she uses too many engineering euphemisms, euphorisms, orgasms, and algorithms or some crap like that, in her daily speech to be understood... and like I've said maybe a dozen times to her in the past year alone, I tried to make her feel better by telling her she'd be perfect for more guys that she can ever once guess at, or possibly ever all do at once, all because guys love a woman who's a mystery... hell, mystery and Confuscious confoundness is the only part of the woman that keeps men interested when their other bits and pieces aren't fully working actually, at least in the world according to me... but the thing is, that's when the balding, old fat man cut into our conversation (well, he cut in earlier for something else... but he made nothing but just a joke before, so I thought nothing of it). The thing is... I don't blame him for overhearing our conversation, considering we were blabbing our asses and tongues off in cheek right in front of his ears. But the thing is... if he's going to overhear and intrude, can't at least do it goddam properly? The thing is, he grabbed me by the ghoulies arm I think, and told me that "I have a long way to go"... I knew what he meant of course, just from his eyes. Or at least, I though I did... I figured that something I had said about "men" was wrong according to him, and I almost got scared that he would prove me wrong in front of the girl that made me her bitch, by making me blush... But the thing is, he did think that what I said was wrong... and when he turned to the girl to correct me? You know what the fucking turd said?...

"Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Guys love a woman that's a mystery. It's what makes women so attractive to us."

... and, ummm... first things first, I tried to get back into the conversation by e-baying and saying, "that's my point exactly!" to the girl I always talk to, although I obviously ignored the first part of what the old man said since I was afraid I just heard it wrong... But the real kicker was this... It's not that I'm mad at the old man. For the ten minutes we talked about this shit after his comment, I honestly found that he was a funny and wise wisecracking, firecracker of a man, who probably got a lot of good tasting pie in his day... and he was great to talk with... but not to learn with... but I'll get into that in a second... But the goddam thing that really pissed me off? Was this... When I was telling this "female mystery" crap to the girl I always talk about yesterday, just like I had told her the same damn frickin' crap for the past two years we've been goddam married on the train, she always just shrugged off what I say, either as if she didn't believe a word I said, or as if she didn't even hear a word I said... I now know that either she doesn't listen to a word I say, or it's just that she's so goddam used to ignoring me now without pretending like she cares... although when she pretends to listen to someone else?... Maybe I just didn't say it clearly or hell, maybe I just didn't say it right at all, but honestly... it was bad enough when the balding old man thought that I said exactly the opposite of what I said. But it was so goddam sad to see the girl I always talk about, barely even acknowledging her head at what the fuck I was saying, while nodding profusely and smiling with glee at every damn goddam syllable that came out of that dying horse's hoof in the mouth... I mean, why the hell do I even bother with her? She doesn't give a damn of what I have to say. It's like I'm talking to a husband or something, because she's obviously paying more attention to what every single other guy out there has to say than goddam me... She's a gay man in a lesbian body, I swear to God...

But still, besides that faint prick of a twinge at my goddam painful side (... speaking of which... owww...), I really didn't mind that she seemed more turned on by a sixty year old than she seemed at me. I quickly got past my inferiority complex, and talked a bit with the old man, about this crappy male and female wisdom crack that he thought he was all drunk with power and enlightened by and crap. The thing is, while we were talking about that mystery stuff again, the girls in the seats goddam across the train car of ours, started tingling and snuggling and giggling in tangy, Gigli delight. And when we finally noticed, without even introducing themselves or apologizing that they've been watching us for the past five minutes, they simply barged into our conversation and asked if the guy stuff we were saying was true... Since the audacity of these girls hadn't quite kicked into my balls yet, and considering I'm always a whipped slave to any female that notices me, I stuck my head in a little closer, and told them the little non-very-secreted secret, that guys love women for being "problems they can never solve"... I loved the look on their faces when I essentially called the two of them "problems", especially considering it was a truth I didn't intend on telling to their faces... so since I was in the mood, I likened the whole damn process to a computer, claiming guys love messing with electronics because we have burning obsessions in our brains to analyze, understand, and solve whatever the hell we get as a trophy of an achievement. Of course, that's when the balding old man stepped in again, and said that I'm missing one fundamental difference: a computer is a machine that can be solved, while a woman can never be figured out. And that's the real beauty of women...

Well, duh... though since he for once said something that I didn't already say in the actual conversation, I wasn't taken back from his correction of my analogy. But instead of accepting his, I ad hoced a nice, fat hork on mine. I turned back to the girls and said, "technology always changes. A single computer may be solvable, but that's what upgrades are for. The world of computers is always changing, and there's always new problems to solve. That's why we love them, and the same goes for women - one great big unsolvable problem"... and, well, I said something like that... and of course, the girls were once again half offended that I was comparing them to goddam electrical boxes. So when they started ranting off the differences between themselves and computer machines again, or some crap like that... well, I forget how or why, but somehow, for some goddam reason... I said the real difference between the two is this:

"... But computers are expensive..."

... and, ummm.... cum... oops... and oww.... I immediately knew that I definitely said something wrong... I didn't mean anything by my last comment, really. But I had no clue why I said it... and hell, $600 billion lost AOL, I knew the girls would either interpret it as "women are cheaper than computers", or "women are too costly in others ways so just go for computers"... and goddammit, either way, I was fucked... so I simply gave up then and there with a seemingly friendly Shrek of a shrug, and simply admitted, "yeah... okay... I have a habit of being a little too blunt"... and since I was telling the truth, about my idiot of a mouth that is, I dearly did agree with the old man this time around when he resorted to retorting his old phrase from earlier, that "I have a long way to go..." before I ever get goddam laid... which I know is true, which is why I harbor no ill feelings against the old man, although shooting myself in the foot in front of two ladies I just might see again wasn't exactly my cup of earl gray herbal tea when this all started... So let's get the facts straight: the old man was nice, but a little too evil fatherly to me, a stranger, to ever consider friendly or goddam family... I'm pissed off at the girl I always talk about for never goddam listening to a word I say, no matter how many times I talk to her, or for just listening too much to every single other person on the goddam planet... But the people I'm most goddam pissed at? Definitely the girls on the other flip side of the train 48. I don't blame them for listening in on our conversation, considering I myself am the rudest guy I know. And I don't blame them for giggling and enticing and wetting themselves down below. But at least one of the girls should've said some sort of "sorry" if they were just going to barge into our conversation, even if they thought that just me looking over to them was a goddam invite... But what seriously annoyed me, was when they asked us whether we were U of T engineers or not. We admitted that we're third year comp engineers, and you know what they said?...

"Oh... third year and fourth year are easy. They'll breeze by before you even know it..."...

... and, umm... dammit... we were dealing with smartass Masters students here, although not exactly of the engineering variety, at least not from U of T's undergraduate program for sure (no engineering girl from U of T looks that hot and has that kind of articulate vocabulary at the same damn time... although if the girl I always talk about hears this?... owww...)... And yes, I know that in their opinions, third year and fourth year were easy or some crap like that... but, umm... On a day that I was scared that my little mistakes in every single question of my mid-term would bury me and embarass me to hell in the end... and on a day when I was still holding my goddam intestines in the palm of my hand, coiled around my spinal column, trying to prevent the whole damn show on the whole damn long road ahead, from hurting my insides any goddam more and more every single, shingle time I coughed in frustration... and, well?... let's just say I'd wouldn't exactly be the most disappointed camper in the forest if I never see those two nymphs of bitches again... then again, after the girl I talk too much about, I've been calling every girl a bitch, now haven't I?... ahh, the circle of forensic, Freudian, projection life...

Short story short, I know that if I wasn't sick... if I wasn't in pain from my gut-wrenching... umm... gut... and if I wasn't disappointed at how I did in that computer organization mid-term of mine... Then I probably wouldn't have felt threatened by that balding old man. And hell, I probably wouldn't have cared either about the girls across the train car that were being rude, intrusive, and intrinsically, intelligently shallow... but I'd still be pissed at the girl I always talk about, no matter how I was initially feeling, for always managing to piss me off enough to goddam think about her in all my hopes and dreams... short story short, although it's all thanks to some very different circumstances, I was as pissed off getting home last night as I was after the goddam Probability mid-term two weeks ago...

... which means I'll do well in the end, right?... right?... umm... I hear crickets chirping now, and locusts skinny-diving in my goddam abs, but... umm... right?...

...

... short story even shorter?... 'ow... because it all sounds like so much goddam fun, doesn't it?...

ATI: Well, it's all over the net, but I might as well report that ATI released new Catalyst drivers this week. Version 3.8 has a new Game Profile feature that allows you to save graphical settings for every single game and stuff like that. I have no clue what else is new, but go ahead and download if you're one of those like me who were too lazy to download it earlier this week at: http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html .

ATI: And just in case you're still in the mood for more Catalyst fun, if there's such a term, I saw over at Rage3d a bunch of reviews of the new Catalyst driver. See what Anandtech says about 3.8 at: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1900 . Beyond3d has their say at: http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/cat3.8/ . Some place called Ascully (never heard of them) tries to get their voice heard at: http://www.ascully.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=289 . And Firingsquad fires away with their opinions and benchmarks at: http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/catalyst_3.8/default.asp .

ATI: Meanwhile, while ATI's Catalyst 3.8 drivers for Windows is helping people with their pirated Halo PC copies, I'm not sure what the new Catalyst 3.2.8 drivers for Linux will be used for... well, I guess Linux junkies will download anything to theoretically improve performance, so if you're one of them, go ahead and catch the penguin ice cold at:

http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-linux.html?type=linux&prodType=graphic&prod=productsLINUXdriver&submit.x=18&submit.y=10

Y2kk Update: I finally went to vote yesterday afternoon for the first time in my entire own history, at least... It was the Ontario 2003 election yesterday, in case you ain't an Ontarian. And suffice to say, the whole "woman empowering - hear me roar" thing about voting and that kind of crap?... didn't exactly happen with me... I waltzed into the same Croatian Church that I attended my next door neighbour's funeral at. And right there in front of me were two people who asked for my voting paper or whatever you call that pink slip crap... One of the two was a real jakked of a blacked bruiser, who's arms spoke volumes, by being so pure in volume, that he certainly takes no guff from nobody except The Rock... he looked like he belonged more as some bouncer at the latest Ben Affleck Moonraper bash or some crap like that, and yet here he was, the taming of the screwed, acting as my liaison to this whole, damn, voting process thingy... And next to him was his boss... the boss of the big, black, booty daddy gorilla... was none other than what seemed like a timid, 80 year old lady who could barely stand on her own two feet... I mean, for Croatian Christ's sakes, she was wearing a bib that read "official election official" or some crap like that!... and yet here she was, controlling the whole Oakvillian Machiavillian voting process? Wasupwidat?... twas hard to believe at first... until the black guy screwed up the location of my name on the enumeration list. And God, you should've seen it... it was hilarious... how damn scared the bouncer guy got when he first saw the look of firery, sabertooth anger in that old granny's eyes... and, well... he fixed his mistake with every bit of haste and no hint of any hestitation, even though there was literally nobody behind me to get in line... he then forged for me a glaring smile and directed me to my John Phone booth, where I continued to watch him with my eyes like a hawk as his evil witch of a supervisor relentlessly refused to recall her own...

But oh well, AOL, I guess you had to be there... Short story short, how did I vote for my first ever vote, whatever the hell that question's supposed to mean?... well, the thing is... I wanted to vote Liberal, which I guess can be best compared to America's Democratic Party or something like that. But the thing is, my dad's been complaining about just how much of an alien kitten-eater the leader of the Ontario Liberal party has been for, ooh... say... about the past two months or so... if not the past two years... So I was in quite a tough jam, let's say. On one hand, I had my principles to uphold. I mean, it's not like I liked any of the Liberal's campaign promises, nor did I expect them to fulfill a single promise they made. I mean, since when have campaign promises ever come true? Except for blowing up Iraq, but I digress... the thing is, I didn't necessarily want the PC party (best compared to the Republicans of America, I guess) to stay in power, considering I hated their leader even more than I hated the Liberal kitten-eater from Mars... But by the time I went to the polling stations myself, I had devised the most clever of ruses of roses and Rhinestones... the most recent surveys showed that there was not a single damn chance in hell that the Liberals could lose this election. So fully knowing that whoever or whatever I voted for wouldn't exactly count for anything, I chose the low moral road instead, and tossed my dad a bone (does that sound good?...) by voting PC, just for the hell's bells of it... Of course, naturally, the Liberals absolutely decimated the PC party in the Ontario ridings this year. No doot aboot it... but my dad is at least proud that his immediate family voted for the only "real" party in Canada... so I guess I won on both accounts... I guess I got the best of both worlds... and it tastes fruity...

Which is definitely what surprised me today... my luck, I mean - not the fruit... In case you didn't notice, I didn't exactly update this download site of mine last weekend... wait, who am I kidding? Who actually visits this site to notice? But I digress... The reason being that I didn't update, was that I had a mid-term the Monday after... well, okay, so that wasn't the real reason why I didn't write any sort of noname crap... Truth be told, yokel's honour, it was because my brother brought home some new video games for me to play balls with my balls with. And it was also because it was his birthday... and my dad's birthday... and my grandma's birthday... all in one single weekend. So I really didn't get much studying done, or much writing done for that anti-matter whatsoever... Which is definitely why I was so damn freaked out on Monday, when I tried to study the whole damn day for my Probability Theory mid-term, with "tried" being the key word... short story short, I sure as hell have one short attention span, and an even shorter memory span, let alone a wing span... Because by the time the mid-term finally rolled around, accompanied by millions and millions of my own rollings of the eyes, I had gotten maybe what? Two, three hours of studying done tops? And when I went into the mid-term, I was shocked as hell... we had only fifty minutes to finish the whole damn mid-term... and goddammit, at six pages long? The damn exam, in mathematical terms at least, was sure as hellfire goddam long... and the sad thing was, after skipping the first two questions of this three question mid-term, I then spent what I thought was just ten minutes hopefully getting the last question right... only to look back at my watch to find that... ummm...

There were ten minutes left in the exam... oops...

Short story short, I didn't bother checking over the only damn question on the mid-term that I had actually done period, let alone done right... So really, I just rushed through the first two questions as quickly as possible, not understanding a damn thing about those disjoint, conditional pdfs and cdfs or whatever sort of crap I was supposedly writing about... and honestly, by the time the final buzzer sounded, I still hadn't even gotten anywhere on either damn question. So what did I do?... I made shit up, that's what I did! Because I have a rule here in university... when in doubt, put either zero or one as your answer. It's simply amazing how many times mathematical professors try to make their questions crafty, by making you feel so damn dumb when the final answer is so damn simple... and, well... In this case, because the course was Probability, in which you never really get a probability of 1 or 0, there really couldn't be any viable answers of zero and one. But I did my best guesses anyhew, citing answers of 10 and 0.222 and 0.72222 or some crap like that for each respective question, out of the top of my head... And honestly, I'm speaking the truth here! I literally pulled answers out of the shit of my ass! While pretending that I was articulate and intelligent, of course... And I literally left half of the goddam exam blank, although I pretended like I was simply so damn smart that I could skip the two dozen steps needed to solve each question... which is why I was sure as hell just as shocked as shit today... when I was told that our Probability mid-term marks were already up on the net... My friend checked his... he barely passed, and he's normally an honour (80%+) student... the class average had been bumped to 60% from the original 50%, but that sure as hell wouldn't help me I figured, considering I consider myself lucky when I pull 20% on crappy mid-terms these days... and, umm... I then checked my mark... and... ummm...

Ummm... I laughed out loud... because this was a joke, right?...

The internet said... my mark...

...

... WTF?

...

... was a 90%?!?!?...

... and, umm.... I laughed... a laugh of dismal desperation... because I knew that all the above simply could not be true... How on earth could I possibly pull a 90% out of ass on one of the hardest goddam math tests we engineers have ever goddam faced, when I didn't even show any work, let alone get any answers right?... because unless the damn TAs were drunk when they marked this thing, I wasn't supposed to get any marks for just goddam guessing at answers and grasping for straws... And the thing is, as much as I so dearly wish that this mark could truly be mine, I know in my heart that it's not... Because it happened in first year too. I saw on the internet that I got an 80% or something on a mid-term back then, only for it to be replaced by a 40% or something thanks to a typo error or some crap like that... and I fear the same thing happened here, because how in the blue hell could I ever pull a 90% on a mid-term that I knew absolutely nothing for? Unless the TA meant to punch a zero and then a nine into his goddam computer screen... and yet... it's been a whole day now... and my mark on the internet still hasn't changed... I mean, I can cross my heart and hope to die that my mark never does change. But I sure as hell ain't going to keep my hopes up until I see that goddam exam paper myself next week... so keep your fingers crossed... that I'll be able to keep the best of both worlds... or the best of both blunders in this case...

And last but not least comes you know what... the bitch... My bitch, who made me her bitch. The girl I always talk about, even though I no longer talk about her in the same gracious, gratuitous light that I once did... The thing is, she's been friendly like hell to me over the past week... that bitch... I figured she would eventually do this - completely ignore our history together, if only because she's a sex slave to being goddam social... But over the past two weeks, I've grown to appreciate her again somewhat. I no longer try to avoid her... and hell, sometimes I'm even relieved when both of us say a simple hello... but things will never be the same between us again, now will they? And ironically, that's all I ever really wanted after all that 'ship shit happened to us last year...

The thing is, I can't help but still question her motives. Was it me, or did she suddenly become real chummy with me all over again when it came to do-or-die time for our first computer programming assignment?... I skipped every damn class to make sure I finished in three days (not that I would've gone to class anyhew, mind you...) what some of my friends couldn't finish in goddam three weeks... So once the girl I always talk about learned from me that essentially, I was already done the project, that's when she conveniently let loose with the waterworks... that's conveniently when she let loose her own personal wetworks, by pretending to get all wet, by spreading open her own spreadsheats, and making me drip in anticipation that maybe, just maybe... there's hope in the haven of lucious heaven for me afterall... In other words, she whipped me like a goddam government mule covered in whipped cream thanks to her smile. Hell, it took me five goddam hours just to write an one page Readme file for my programming assignment the very last day, and why? Half because I was being a lazy ass, looking up video game info on the net... and half because as I promised, I stayed by the girl I talk too much about's side, helping her out as her goddam Java program established problem after problem... after goddam, apathetic problem... because she apparently can't get anything to work without a guy checking her insides... or... well, she at least can never get started on programs. After I give her a few pointers about pointers, and after I give myself hope that I can finally point my thing with a point, she actually kicks into intelligible gear and probably even outdoes me in coding... but don't tell her I said that...

The thing is, she's still friendly to me, now that the assignment's over. But either because she no longer visits the computer lab looking for work 24/7 now, or because she has no need to talk to me anymore... either way, the end result of all the help I gave her, was the same result as it was last year... I'm now back to being all alone... not that I can blame myself for falling for her beguiling guise for the umpteenth time... and not that I can blame her for doing what she does, whatever she does, rather than seek me out anymore as she did just last week... So I really don't know what she feels about me, and it's not like I'd ever ask again, considering the last time I asked didn't exactly respond as planned... I still can't forget all that's happened between us, and what she said to me over the past six months... but sometimes, just sometimes... she can whip me hard on enough with her lovely laugh (although she only seems to laugh at my jokes when I'm helping her... ain't that convenient?...) to actually fog me up and almost forgive her for mere moments, when my Big Ben gets its biggest at times...

She truly has a talent when it comes to controlling and really goddam confusing men... she should be an official election polling official or some crap like that then... Hell, she'd be a shoe in for a bouncer in the next Ontario election, I'm sure, if only the hourglass didn't follow the laws and grazings of stupid, white, kitten-eating men...

God, Michael Moore is such a money-laundering idiot... looking at his own title, it's no wonder why he put himself on the cover of his own goddam book... but, ummm... that's besides the point...

ATI: I guess not much news happened in the video card world as of late... The big Half Life 2 fiasco did happen, but if I'm going to comment on that, it'll be on either my Tweakui site or my Noname site, so not here... But I did see one thing interesting at Rage3d, which if you haven't noticed by now, is pretty much my only source for ATI related news in this day and age... It appears the X-bit labs has an editorial and an interview or something up about ATI's struggle to get from 0.13 micron technology to new 0.11 micron technology... although I'm sure it won't be as uplifting of a read as say, the rise to fame of Muhammed Ali, I'm sure that there's more than enough to keep an ATI fan interested at: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030929004713.html .