dracil

Manga music video - one of the few non-anime music videos. Seems like the manga was based off of Dragonball.

I got Pirate Card today! In my rush to get it after withdrawing some money for the card, I left my ATM card in the machine. Good thing the guy who was behind me turned it in to the bank. Anyway, so the card has the following uses:

* Buy one ice cream at Cold Stone, get one free.
* $1 off any slice and soda at Blondie's.
* $1 off any crepe at Crepes a Gogo.
* 20% off boba drinks at Sweetheart Cafe.
* $0.50 off any smoothie at Jamba Juice.
* Free fries at IB's Hoagies with purhcase of sandwich and drink.
* $2 off new CDs at Rasputin.
* Free drink at La Burrita or get a large burrito for the price of a small.
* Free doughnut at King Pin for every two purchased.
* Free Naan or free rice at Naan 'N' Curry per entree purchased.
* Free coffee or soda at Sufficient Grounds with purchase of any sandwich.
* 20% off at Cafe Durant with purhcase of $4 or more.
* 20% off at Noah's Bagels.
* Free drink (including Thai Iced Tea) at Thai House per entree purhcased.
* 20% off at Nefeli Cafe.
* $2 off every two burger's purchased at Barney's Gourmet Hamburger.
* Large coffee for the price of a small at Milano, I-House Cafe, and Espresso Roma.
* $2 off any "Cal" apparel at Futura.
* 15% off self-service and stationary at Copy Central.
* Free house salad or drink per entree with 4+ entrees at Gypsy's.

As you can see it's all Berkeley-centric. While Student Advantage offers more stuff in general, this one is more directly applicable 'cause I go to these places more often.

I'm testing a new counter today. Seems pretty good so far... offering some extra stats that other trackers don't often give. It also seems to be collecting a couple more hits than the others, probably 'cause it's new and hasn't been blocked off by hosts files yet.

Went to the BST meeting today. Talked about the upcoming presidential elections in Taiwan. Kinda interesting. I haven't been keeping up with Taiwan's current events so that was rather useful. Apparently there's a Blue Alliance and a Green Alliance now. And as expected, most people there favored the Green Alliance (which has the Democratic Progressive Party [very pro-independence]). I would probably vote for the Blue Alliance. My mother's side would probably also go Blue, while my father's side would probably go Green. There was a mainland Chinese infiltrator today too. =P Got slightly heated when I stated that the whole reunification/independence issue probably won't get resolved until WW3, and he took it to mean that I thought that Taiwan's declaration of independence would cause WW3, whereas what I'd meant was that if WW3 occur (personally I think it'll probably be because of the Middle East or because of a cold war between the US and China), and if China ends up on the defeated side while Taiwan is on the victorious side, then that would probably be the best time for Taiwan to declare independence. On the other hand, pretty much any other scenario would probably cause Taiwan to be forced to reunify. I also made a BST shared journal to entice members to join Tabulas. =P

And I'm finally as prepared as I'll ever be for my Psych 126 exam tomorrow. Studied with Jeanette and her friend Laura (who was studying her own thing). Now I no longer care.
Currently feeling relieved

dracil

Woo! Looks like The Kill Everyone Project is back online (they had server problems)!

Too bad the real-time statistics is too large to fit in the sidebars at the moment. I could adjust it, but don't feel like it at the moment. Maybe when I've got enough stuff that I need to rebalance the columns, I'll move the Online Stuff to the right with the Tagboard, since they all take up quite a bit of horizontal space. Or maybe when I change to a 2 column layout... Will probably need to use some Javascript to hide stuff then, since certain sections take up a lot of vertical space.

But for now, here are my stats. Shows how bored I've been.


Currently feeling giddy

dracil

Just finished experiments for today. Both mice were a lot more active, perhaps because they've been handled more now for scanning ID tags. Male mouse seemed mainly interested in trying to get out. It was standing on the toy a lot of the time, and it even jumped up and hit the plastic lid. Female mouse was extremely hyper, and ran around in circles most of the time. Probably ran 500 loops today. I think it was even chasing its own tail in the first trial.

The insepctors were also here today. Got a little freaked out when they asked me some questions (read: interrogated me), like what I would do if I found an injured mouse, or if I knew about some occupational hazard thing (they said something about mouse allergies). I told them I just started last week and thankfully they let me off. -_-;

Midterm was easier than expected. At least this is what I say now, but I may actually do poorly anyway.

Now all that's really left is my essay, and the CS project, and the History midterm, which I'm not gonna worry too much about.
Currently feeling amused

dracil

Theatre Rice Thursday, Friday, Saturday! Anyone wanna go? I'll probably be going to the Friday one!

Oh, and I now have a beta account on Tabulas! Took < 15 minutes from when I sent the email about payment to it being activated. ^_^
Currently feeling excited

dracil

Bah, what the heck is up with people tonight. Severely irritated now.

The irony is, I actually had the longest conversation tonight with Jorge (aka Tugryn), a person who I had only just met today (met meaning actually conversing. First contact was established quite awhile back when he discovered my journal).

Problems with the CS project ain't helping either.
Currently feeling aggravated

dracil

Whee, just made some Nekomimi usericons. For those who don't know, "nekomimi" literally means "Cat ears" in Japanese. It generally refers to a type of anime character (usually a girl) who possesses cat ears and a tail (and possibly, but not often, other cat-like features). It's one of my obsessions. ^_^
Currently feeling happy

dracil

And so our rent is late because Chester still hasn't written the check after 2 reminders. Hope the landlord doesn't check till tomorrow.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

Article here

But it's been slashdotted by now. Links to the actual source code and other discussions are in the comments on Slashdot.
Currently feeling amused

dracil

The difficulty of the CS project was WAY overhyped. Except for the initial problem I had with the program (apparently, if I loaded it from the file menu instead of within LISP, a crucial bit of code wouldn't get loaded. -_-), everything's been proceeding smoothly. I might even get it done by tomorrow, taking me less time than the other assignments.
Currently feeling happy and productive

dracil

So my roommate asked me for the screenname of the *other* "girl next door" and proceeded to make an fool of himself in the AIM conversation. The screenname was brought up when he commented that he needed to use a different screenname than his "Killershen" which sounded too violent. Then later in the night Sophia, her roommate came over to talk to Chester, and chaos ensued soon after. During the chaos:

* Jokes and taunts were continuously hurled at each other.
* Laughter.
* Shen got locked out (compliments of his roommates ^_^). He even went into #14 but didn't seem to have talked to the girl.
* The four of us wrote our Chinese names on a piece of paper.
* Sophia probably now thinks Apt. 4 is inhabited by weirdos. =P

This sort of thing *never* happened back when Jesse and Dave were still living here. Well, one reason being that Dave already has a girlfriend. But as for the other 2 of us, not sure if it was 'cause we were all Christians or 'cause of some other reason. Similar stuff did happen 1st year in college though. Unfortunately, the pranks and other stuff done back then tended to be a bit more destructive in nature. People got hurt. Err... bad memories.
Currently feeling hyper, reminiscent

dracil

Got IMed by Juny about half an hour before midnight to go get some boba. Got to her place by 11:55, and the thought struck us that the boba places might have closed at 12. Luckily, Sweetheart Cafe changed their schedule so that they are open till 1AM on Thursday. Which was good, 'cause I got to use my Pirate Card. $1.10 total off for the 2 drinks (she paid for me! ^_^). She got Melon Milk and I got Coconut Milk Tea, both with pearls. Never had their Coconut Milk Tea before, only the Coconut Milk I think. It was good, with a strong milk flavor. Now that boba there only costs $2.20 for me, I might go there more often, since that puts them at below Mandarin House's $2.50, although I think Mandarin House still gives a slightly larger cup, so maybe it's about the same.

Haven't had these late night excursions for food/drinks for awhile. Used to do it with Han quite a bit when we were in the same class, since we'd study and eat at the same time often.

BTW, the entry times don't take into account Daylight Saving Time, so this entry was actually posted at 1:12 AM.
Currently feeling content

dracil

As the image on the site shows, Hell has frozen over! ^_^

After 2 years, Infiltration 2.9 has finally gone gold! For those of you who have no idea what Infiltration is, it's a mod for Unreal Tournament. It's also the *most* realistic military simulation out there. Counter-strike, BF1942, and even America's Army don't even come anywhere close to it. Heck, and America's Army is even developed by the actual US Army, pretty shameful I would say. Sure this means the game won't appeal to the arcadish, bunny-hopping, rambo types out there. But that's the whole point. When you're out there fighting, you aren't gonna be worried about getting the most kills, you're gonna worry about not getting killed yourself.
Currently feeling excited

dracil

Eck, just saw how horrible the site looks in the Psych library computers (IE at 800x600 with buncha stuff disabled). Probably has to do with Tabulas using tables for my entries, while the rest of the site is pure CSS, especially since my OCF site doesn't have this problem. Guess I'll have to fix that later today. Good thing the entry styles can be edited.

In the library since I can't do my research 'cause Melissa didn't come to section today so I have no cardkey.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

Yay, I finally completely converted the [Charmander] - Standard entry style into a tableless CSS version. Looks exactly the same too, except I added an extra linebreak so that the book/music/mood have a little space between the rest of the entry. Now I just gotta test to see if it'll look right on the campus computers too. The weird thing is, the tables version looked fine on my IE6 browser at 800x600. That means they must've done something really weird to the settings, or maybe they're using IE5 and it's a problem with that.
Currently feeling accomplished

dracil

Well, just came back from Theatre Rice. Went with Fang and Jason. Collected Charlie at Dwinelle. This eventually formed into a group of about 10 because immoral people kept cutting in line! =P Went back with Han but stopped at Crepes A Gogo on the way. Crepes were good, except for 2 things. 1) The cheapskates only let me use my pirate card for 1 crepe, not both. 2) The crepes dripped on my pants, so it's stained. Almost laundry time though. In any case, this means I won't be going there again with other people, unless they have pirate cards too. Current total savings: $2.10.

Tomorrow... perhaps I'll try to finish my CS project, which I actually didn't finish today as intended.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Well, looks like Crepes A Gogo wasn't actually doing anything wrong. Just checked the fine print and it says "Cards are good for one use per day per offer..." so that means I could have only used it on one crepe. That just means the people at Sweetheart Cafe are just nicer since they let me use it for both bobas!

Also put a link from my old site to here. Might as well make use of it. I essentially announced that it's simply easier for everyone if we all just stuck with P2P programs, especially through BitTorrent and Animesuki.com.

That site is where it all started. My dad had a book on how to make webpages, which I pored over and experimented with using Frontpage. The site was created using templates, frames (later made borderless and unscrollable), tables, javascript, etc. There was even the random midi in the background, which generated quite a bit of emails from people asking where they could get the midis. It was also during this time when I became obssessed with counters, hit counts, and tracking as much statistics as I could from my visitors. Thus, despite the site being dead for a couple years now, it's still getting an average of 88 visitors/day.

Now, I mainly use text editors (usually notepad and editpad) to edit the code, and I've cast off frames and tables in favor of CSS. I even dabbled in PHP too (but not for Tabulas). I've come a long way. ^_^
Currently feeling nostalgic

dracil

the World as a Blog - see who's blogging around the world

RSVP - fun game. I beat all 8 tables with a score of 1245.

We Want Your Soul - The conservative Christians (the ones who think Harry Potter and Dungeons & Dragons are evil, demonic tools of Satan) will have a ball with this one. But seriously, anyone who takes a close look at it will realize it's really just an elaborate online quiz with humor along the lines of Bonsai Kitten or Manbeef.com (dead site, but they supposedly sold human meat). This one claims they'll pay you a lump sum of money in exchange for your soul.

Anyway, here are my results from their online quotation: Your soul is worth £41409. For your peace of mind, 18% of people have a purer soul than you.
Currently feeling amused

dracil

Left column was getting too long, so I moved the navigation stuff to the top, where I'd originally wanted it to be anyway.

Added the XML and Geourl buttons, but they look ugly. Will probably replace it with the standard clean-looking ones that I had been using before on my OCF site.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

As I mentioned earlier, I was gonna replace the ugly buttons with nice looking buttons, and I just did! Courtesy of Steal These Buttons! ^_^

Currently they're all hosted on my OCF site... I wonder if I should upload them all to my Tabulas image gallery to reduce dependence (if OCF goes down, all the pics here go down).

I also added this site to Blogshares. It already has greater value than my other sites. Interesting.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

I've also been blogging a lot more ever since switching to Tabulas, albeit with shorter entries.
Currently feeling content

dracil

This is the "official" Shared Journal for BST members!

For people just browsing through, the following is from the About Us section of the BST website.

Mission Statement:

Berkeley Students for a Sovereign Taiwan (BST), founded in 1997, is a grassroots organization based on the U.C. Berkeley campus dedicated to the international recognition of Taiwan as an independent and democratic nation. BST addresses issues of social justice and self-determination in Taiwan through political activism. BST engages in political action through educational awareness campaigns in the United States to encourage the establishment of proactive foreign policy in favor of Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence. BST seeks to build a strong, cohesive and sustainable community of people who are concerned with Taiwanese sovereignty and Taiwan’s nation-formation. BST is a vehicle for thoughtful action, made up of a coalition of people of all ethnicities, including first and second generation Taiwanese-Americans and other Americans.

Co-founders and Head Organizers (1997-98): Rosie Hsueh, Lily Hsueh

Members:
BST's members are grassroots activists concerned about issues pertaining to Taiwan sovereignty and democracy and come from all ethnic and racial backgrounds. BST also frequently works in collaboration with other social justice and human rights organizations such as Students for a Free Tibet and the Progressive Student Alliance.

Currently feeling patriotic, controversial

dracil

This shared journal is a gathering place for hobby gaming afficianados to gather round. It is not affiliated with BoardGameGeek.com although I do visit there quite often, and it was also where the name of this shared journal came from. FYI, I personally own and currently have in my room the following games:

* Puerto Rico
* Bohananza
* Wiz War
* Illuminati: Deluxe Edition
* Lunch Money
* Uno: Deluxe Edition
* Magic: the Gathering
* The Lord of the Rings TCG
* The Wheel of Time TCG
Currently feeling geeky

dracil

This is the Neko Neko Wai shared journal, a place for cat lovers and Megatokyo fans!

For those of you unfamiliar with the legacy of Neko Neko Wai, it was possibly the largest ever spam thread created on Megatokyo. For an almost complete archive of the now deleted thread, visit http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/w/rwa118/mtstuff/nnw/

As for what "Neko Neko Wai" actually means, "Neko" means "Cat" in Japanese, and "Wai" means "Yay".

Long Live the Wai! ^_^
Currently feeling giddy

dracil

Just made description posts for the three shared journals
(Board Game Geeks, Neko Neko Wai, and BST) I created. That should help people understand their purposes better.

Now, one of these days I gotta create some nice layouts for them too.
Currently feeling accomplished

dracil

Went to 7-11 for bread, but came home without the bread. It's a good thing I asked if the 10/03 date was the production date or the expiration date. It was the expiration date. Tsk tsk.

Still had a bit of leftover bread for tasty garlic bread. Real butter definitely tastes a lot better than margarine.

Wasted almost the entire day in front of my computer. Read a single article in that whole time, and fixed my knowledge base (I think) for my CS Project thanks to Seth, although he also benefited slightly. =P

Guess I'll try to study more after waking up.
Currently feeling unproductive

dracil

Added categories, so people can filter out entries. This was accompanied by some shifts between the columns. Merged the Affiliates with Online stuff and put it on the more spacious right. Likewise, moved the links to stuff I read to the left since they don't need as much room.
Currently feeling lethargic

dracil

Finally made it to church today. Conversely, Michelle wasn't there today, so I'm assuming she's at the retreat. Father Al's 80th birthday on Tuesday, and they're having a sing-a-long ice cream social to celebrate on Friday.

I'm still not being productive. Dunno how to study for the midterm I guess, and don't really wanna work on my CS project until Tuesday after lecture, hopefully after going to some office hours.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Tabulas has just added media files as a feature! So might as well make use of the feature! ^_^ Technically, we can upload whatever we want, just has to be below 7MB and we can only have 4 files, so expect these links to go dead in the future. I'm guessing the [4265] appended in front of every file is my ID.

Baldr Force - KOTOKO - Face of Fact MP3 - the opening song of Baldr Force, a really nice game, with the multiple angles on the story depending on which faction you eventually follow. The song's produced by I've Sound, and the song is sung by KOTOKO. Both names should be familiar to people who play a lot of Japanese PC games, as well as to Onegai Teacher fans.

Tales of Symphonia - day after tomorrow - Starry Heavens MP3 - This is a new group I discovered recently. Their official site is at http://dat-net.jp/. The song is the theme song from Tales of Symphonia, a new game coming out on the Gamecube.


My Sassy Girl - Pachelbel - Canon In D MP3 - from one of my favorite movies. This is from the scene where the guy gives the girl the rose. Listening to the song now still makes me feel rather emotional. What a touching scene!

Girldance Realmedia - a clip from a couple years back. I think this girl was only 10 when the clip was made, so she's obviously talented!
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Hmm, turns out I'm still not satisfied with my counters. No reliable keyword tracking... so putting back Extreme-dm.com's counter and giving it another chance. For some reason the Referrer Tracking 2 was not working properly last time I used it...

dracil

I got my cardkey today! Wasted an hour looking for video tapes and some alcohol for the experiment. Was told old videos were at 129A, but then I found out after like half an hour of searching that the boxes had been moved to G15 Tolman. The door was locked when I got there, but eventually someone came by and unlocked the door and I got the tape. Then I found out we were running out of alcohol to clean the container with, but found one bottle in 129B. Still don't know where they're generally kept. Managed to finish just as the other person was coming in to do experiments.

Then went to Bongo burgers and then to Tomodachi. Origami night. Made a Goldfish Balloon and a Hamster. They have some events, dunno if I'll be going though. This Sat, they're going bowling with Tomodachi website and I volunteered to help do it, assuming I can get the password from Lulu. Got Kathleen's journal links. Saw "The Cage" in Eshleman Hall afterwards. It's just a bunch of cages grouped together. Mmm, and as I write this, I suddenly have deja vu that I've been there before. O_o. I get these feelings occasionally, and then I'm sometimes not sure if my memory is fake or not. Some miswiring in my brain perhaps. Usually, they're fake... I think. They happen soon after an event, and perhaps it gets stored in my old memories, as well as in my more recent (basically current) memories, and then I get confused retrieving the memory.

Also joined the Rice Bowl Journals today, after having been their forum member for quite awhile now.

Now... to study for my History 118C exam... if I can force myself to do it.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Noticing a bunch of hits by people looking for this particular MP3. Well, today's your lucky day! I'll put it up for awhile, but seriously, you can save yourself a lot of time by using WinMX to find the latest Japanese hits.

And for those of you interested, Anime-Keep & ANBU just released the first Fullmetal Alchemist fansub.

Fullmetal Alchemist - Porno Graffitti - Melissa MP3 has replaced the Girldance file.
Currently feeling generous

dracil

Information is Knowledge. Knowledge is Power. With Power comes Responsibility.

But Power Corrupts and the Temptation is Great... Eve has Offered me the Apple. Will History Repeat Itself?

I Choose the Tree of Life... for now.

No, it's not some poem. It's just a bunch of cliches put together that sort of represents my moral situation at the moment. Those who know me know that I don't take Genesis literally since I am a Theistic Evolutionist. You'd also know that one of my favorite phrases is "Knowledge is Power," and that I do hold this belief (and if you didn't know, now you do). I suppose this might make me a dangerous person.... or a worthy ally. But knowledge itself is not inherently good or evil (as it is technically the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), but we must make the choice when we choose to wield it.
Currently feeling contemplative

dracil

So here I am, 2:30AM in Soda. Stupid program filled with bugs. Argh! Heck, even the professor did it wrong the first time and mislead us on the simplicity of the assignment.

Midterm went ok, actually spent most of the time writing stuff instead of running out of stuff and BSing for 15 minutes.

Um, yeah, I've been in here for so long today that I can't really recall much else. Yeah... Rebecca's also here, and her friend Boris was here for a lot of the time too. Also saw the guy-whose-name-we-still-don't-know (I think it's Andreas).
Currently feeling delirious

dracil

CS project is done! Yay! Good riddance! Surrounded by peeps still struggling with the filter conditions.

Didn't have to do research today either, 'cause the first part was already finished.

Looks like beta accounts now get 8 media files. Which means I can upload more stuff, which I might do after I go home.

Oh, forgot to add last night that I saved $1 from IB Hoagies, so my total Pirate Card savings is $3.10. Not that worth it though, because the $1 was from the free fries, which weren't that great.
Currently feeling relieved

dracil

As expected, putting all those MP3s up really increased my hits. Especially the Fullmetal Alchemist - Porno Graffiti - Melissa MP3. Hehe, I just did it again. ^_^ Old habits die hard.

Looks like the extreme-dm counter is now working properly, thereby putting the usefulness of cqcounter to last place, thus out it goes.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

This is the new board game I'm interested in now. I need some better 2 player games, and it's this and/or Lost Cities. But Lost Cities' rating has dropped down a bit, so LotR:tC is gaining my interest. That plus the fact that LotR:tC just won the 2003 International Gamers Awards's General Strategy, 2-Player Category award and that I also like LotR helps. Hmm... maybe I should go down to the Games of Berkeley today or tomorrrow...
Currently feeling okay

dracil

So I did buy the game today. Bleah, I should have submitted my chess solution for a 10% discount. I actually got the first move right (Knight d3-c5)! But I wasn't able to follow through and mate in 5 moves. >_<

Now I just need to find a vict... I mean, a friend to play the game with.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Whee, I converted Fang! My first convert! Now I just need to convert all the other peeps.
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Just played my new boardgame with Shen. First game I played the Dark side and he played the Light side. I completely crushed him 'cause he did something silly and got Frodo killed.

He insisted on a rematch of the same game and managed to get Frodo to Mordor with 2 pieces remaining. Then we reversed and I managed to do the same with Sam backing up Frodo at the end, just like the books! ^_^ At least I think that's how it went... too long ago, my memory's faded.
Currently feeling content

dracil

America's Best Cities for Dating 2003 - Got this off Dave's blog. Contrary to what my roommate Shen would have you believe, Berkeley's pretty good to hook up (ranked #4). Looks like Shubha's in the best city. Maybe that's why she has someone and I don't.

Then, found the following in the Protag forums. Haven't laughed so much for so long reading something on the internet before! I think I shall be visiting their site more often. ^_^
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/
http://www.zug.com/pranks/natural/
Currently feeling bouncy

dracil

Just created a UC Berkeley shared journal! That's 4 shared journals I've created so far. Love the convenience. ^_^
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Well, there's one for every other popular blogging site out there, so there must be one on Tabulas for all us UC Berkeley peeps to gather round too! ^_^
Currently feeling spirited

dracil

The Shift key on your keyboard is a hacking device - according to Suncomm whose stock lost $0.04 after someone announced that holding the Shift Key down would prevent their copy protection from being installed on your computer.

Hero expelled from school for saving girlfriend's life - because he shared his inhaler when she was having an asthma attack, despite having permission from the girl's mom that this was ok in such an event. The principal of Caney High School essentially implies that he would rather the girl *died* rather than having an allergic reaction from using an inhaler with the very same drug.

Was making my schedule for next semester and saw that they put the CS182 lecture at 5:30-7PM for next semester! WTF WERE THEY THINKING?!
Currently feeling pissed off

dracil

Today is the day it all started! One year ago, Stacee gave me a Livejournal account, and although I've now moved to Tabulas, I'm still blogging everyday! And I've gotten many others to start blogging too. ^_^

I suppose this means she would be considered the parent blog if I signed up for BlogTree.com
Currently feeling grateful

dracil

Just saw Cal Potato Chips at a grocery store on Telegraph. $2.99 with royalties supposedly going to the campus. The same campus that scheduled my CS182 class at 5:30-7PM and raised my tuition to $10,000 per semester? I don't think I'll be buying it.

Saw a guy with a "It Is Finished" shirt coming into the apartment, looks like another Christian in this apartment complex.

But most importantly, I'm pissed off at my Psych 126 GSI for deducting 6 points from my midterm because I used an experiment from my Psych 127 class and she didn't know the experiment. Um, look it up then? Especially when you even knew it was from my Psych 127 class. *fumes*
Currently feeling aggravated

dracil

I actually finished reading Naomi in essentially one day (I read like 10 pages before classes started). The book's quite good, but the protagonist is such a loser.

Looks like All Real has broken up. Checked their site 'cause I was listening to the We Will Not Be Moved, a song that I don't really relate to 'cause I'm not Asian-American. I was listening to that 'cause I was listening to 龍的傳人 (李建復's version 'cause it sounds more majestic) because my roommate was playing it earlier and decided to download it. If it weren't for the moving to New York part, I could identify with the song more.
Book of the Moment: Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi
of the Moment: All Real's We Will Not Be Moved
Currently feeling productive

dracil

Today was *so* unproductive, but had a lot of fun! ^_^

Karen came by in the afternoon, and we started watching Read or Die and Home & Away, then we went to Tako Sushi with Sam. I had Tonkatsu, Sam had Beef Teriyaki, Karen had Lion King Sushi, and we all had Sashimi special.

Then we went to see Kill Bill with Windy, Karen, and Karen's friend, Peter, at UA 10 in Emeryville. Since Sam and Windy were looking for parking, the rest of us three went to buy tickets, but they wouldn't let us buy tickets for Sam and Windy at student price without their ID, so Peter and I got back in line at another window and bought 2 more tickets. =P

The movie itself was really nice. So bloody and gory that it was actually quite hilarious. Karen seemed to be a bit squeamish though. I'm already too desensitized to be squeamish at the buckets of blood. Especially since real humans don't spurt out fountains of blood like that. In fact, I found delight in such scenes. ^_^ I noticed that there was one scene from the trailer that wasn't in the movie though. For those of you who've seen it, check out this trailer. The part where that old man jumps on her sword and then kicks her in the face was not in the movie. Wonder if it'll be in an uncut DVD version. Can't wait for Volume 2 to come out (in February).

After that, we went to Coldstone. Buy one get one free with the Pirate Card! Turns out Windy and Sam both also have Pirate Cards. So saved $4.79 (got $2.40 from Peter). This means my current total Pirate Card savings is now $7.89, almost all the way to the $10. The actual savings to me though, were only $0.55 (Boba) + $0.50 (Crepes)+ $1 (IB Hoagies) + $2.40 (Coldstone) = $4.45. Since 3 of these savings were shared with other people.

Meanwhile, my total costs today were $13 for the sushi, $7.50 for the movie, and $2.39 for the ice cream = $22.89. The cost of more extravagant socializing.
Currently feeling content

dracil

I got my first tagboard spam from Dan of postpost.blogspot.com. His email address is mailto:allcowseatsheep@hotmail.com in case any spambots wanna harvest it and give him some email spam. Perhaps next time I'll post up the IP address too.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

I put up an unofficial cam recording of the FF7 Advent Children trailer up. Get it here. It's about 44MB.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Bah, I really should listen to the lyrics of the songs more carefully. So just noticed that the lyrics to 李建復's version and 王力宏's version also differs in the Chinese sections. I'd assumed that 李建復's Chinese section also had that "moving to New York" stuff, but it actually didn't. So yes, I definitely like 李建復's version better. One version for Chinese people and one version for Chinese-Americans. But in digging up this info, I saw something about the song being written originally written by 侯德健, a Taiwanese who defected to the Mainland, got involved in Tiananmen Square, and then got shipped back to Taiwan by the Mainland government.

(Click below to see the two different lyrics)
of the Moment: 李建復's 龍的傳人
Currently feeling intrigued

dracil

Ack, spent the whole day trying to study, and only managed to actually get through 5 lecture slides. Feel very... dazed. I hate it when this happens. For whatever reason, nothing will go in, and I have to reread the same thing multiple times before it can sort of sink in.

Maybe I simply can't read lecture stuff on a computer. Must be on printed paper. Even if I'm not distracted with other stuff on my computer, I still can't concentrate for some reason.
Currently feeling blah, unproductive

dracil

Got back from studying with Rebecca at Sufficient Grounds around an hour ago. Today was a CS cram day. I think I'm prepared... but of course, I'm probably not. But I'm reaching the point of CS OD! >_<
Currently feeling tired

dracil

I bought two books at Barnes and Noble today with the $25 gift card from working at SISS. Still have $7.70 left so I can get a 3rd book which they didn't have for $0.65 eventually. I got A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, both books are from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series. I actually started reading the first book yesterday, when I downloaded the text online through Emule. I got interested in the series because of that new A Game of Thrones boardgame which looks pretty cool and I may get eventually, especially if the books really interest me. The question is finding time to play. It's really not that bad. Instead of 2 games of Puerto Rico, we can play one game of A Game of Thrones.
Book of the Moment: George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones
Currently feeling content

dracil

Bah, was late to my CS midterm because my History professor insisted we all finish the film shown in class which went FIVE minutes over. Running from LSA to Lewis is *not* a fun thing to do. As a result, I didn't have time to check one problem, so I know for certain I just lost 1 point. And I think I lost more points on another problem which I might have caught given the extra 5 minutes.

Besides this, was irritated quite a few times today by various other people.

BST film was bleah. Too slow, especially the death scenes.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Mozilla's servers were undergoing the slashdot effect as I post this, but you can use this BitTorrent link instead, which works.
Currently feeling geeky

dracil

Just uploaded the MP3 for Rina Aiuchi's ( 愛内里菜 ) Kuuki ( 空気 ). According to Oricon, it's the ending theme for two different shows,.あんぐら☆ＮＯＷ and √ｆ.

The link's here: Rina Aiuchi - Kuuki. You can also always see what MP3s I've uploaded in the Content page as well as the Media Files category.
of the Moment: Rina Aiuchi ( 愛内里菜 )'s Kuuki ( Ĺ
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Bah, didn't do that well on this midterm. But the mean was pretty low too, so I don't feel as bad (but of course, the class needs serious curving. A straight point scale would kill me at this point). Annoyed that I lost 9 points because my reasoning broke down in the alpha-beta pruning question and I made one crucial mistake that lost me almost half the points. I also did well on the first assignment, although it's only worth about 2% as opposed to the midterm's 20%.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

As has become customary. Several days after announcing my interest in a game, I bought it. So I went to Games of Berkeley, only to find the puzzle had changed. I solved it, but it didn't look right, since I could mate in just 3 moves. They fixed it, but they didn't fix it properly and I spent a long time trying to figure it out. I gave up and went home and checked with my chess program, and I was right! It was unsolvable! So I went back and made them fix it and I got my 10% discount. Just under $50 for the game.

Unless I happen to find people with lots of free time, looks like I won't be able to try it out till Saturday.

Oh, and they had some Initial D promo decks out, so I got myself 2 decks.
Currently feeling giddy

dracil

Back from more boba with Juny. Current pirate card savings are now $5/$8.99. Also haven't had curly fries in such a long time.

So looks like Vicky has a blog.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Last night I inspected the components, and I found the Kevan Lannister card was damaged. I went to Games of Berkeley today to see if I could get the card replaced and they opened up a second box and it turns out that that box had the exact same problem on the exact same card. Looks like a definite production problem. I've sent off two emails to Final Flight Games and am still awaiting a reply.... Meanwhile, I bought deck protectors for my cards.
Currently feeling disappointed

dracil

Bah, got another notice by Oakland Tribune asking me to continue my subscription with them. WTF, I was told explicitly that I was given a "complementary" subscription by SBC and that I didn't have to do anything after the period was over and they wouldn't bother me, but NO, I am getting a third notice. I didn't even realize I was even getting the newspapers until the 2nd notice, and I didn't know they were still sending me the friggin papers. WTF. Gonna call them in the morning and they better not be expecting money from me. They can go cry to SBC for lying to me.
Currently feeling pissed off

dracil

Went down to Eudemonia today and examined a third box of the A Game of Thrones board game. I bought it on the condition that I could return it immediately if I found the damaged card, and sure enough, Kevan Lannister was scuffed, straight out of the box. So I returned it, and the store owner (Tim) said he would be contacting the manufacturer (Fantasy Flight Games) about the problem. Looks like the Berkeley area was just plain unlucky. =(

But I finally got a response from FFG on their messageboard telling me to be patient and I'd get my replacement. I've probably been too impatient. But at least now that I know something's gonna be done, I feel better.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Spent several hours trying to pick good articles for my Psych127 article comparison paper. Even spent a good hour with Melissa during her OH to try to find the articles. >_< But at least I finally have the articles.

BST social event today. Went for Boba. Pirate card unuseable on the $2 drinks. Got their Pudding Milk Tea, which was interesting. They had actual pudding inside. After that, everyone came to my place to watch stuff. Watched Hoshi no Koe, Fanimatrix, and finally the main event, Wonderful Days. Wonderful Days is a big budget Korean anime movie with *lots* of CG rivalling Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and probably even surpassing it. The only difference is that unlike FF:tSW, it wasn't done completely in CG. And the plot was also pretty good too.

No one wanted to play A Game of Thrones though.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Oh boy! 6.5 hours of gaming tonight! Hai, Peter, and Leon (Dave's substitute ) came by. We played A Game of Thrones first. Leon was Stark, Peter was Greyjoy, I was Tyrell, Shen was Lannister, and Hai was Baratheon. I did pretty well in the game and actually got 6 cities. But then, everyone ganged up on me, but I still held out for awhile but lost one city to Hai 'cause I couldn't destroy his navy which eventually let him attack my coasts. On the last turn, the alliance broke down and everyone went for a free for all. Unfortunately, I lost another city to Hai. However, when the game ended, I tied with Leon and Peter in the number of strongholds, but I won the tie-breaker because I was one higher on the supply track than both of them. Hai and Shen got left behind with only 3 cities each. Oh, and I also reached my 6 cities because I backstabbed Hai earlier in the game when I attacked his helpless retreated units.

Shen retired for the night after that since it took about 4 hours total including learning the rules. The rest of us played Bohnanza twice. I won the first game with 23, and Leon had 22. The second game, Leon won with 25 and I had 22. Hai and Peter were the last two places both times. After that we were all too tired to continue, but we might have another session of A Game of Thrones next weekend. ^_^
Currently feeling content and tired

dracil

Kat's birthday today (or yesterday now)! I was the first one there at 9:15, and people slowly trickled in. Blew balloons while we waited. Sam Ou was the balloon blowing king. Sometime after 10, Kat finally arrived with Ben and her roommates and some other people. We were hiding in the bathroom and behind the counter, and managed to surprise her when she got too close. ^_^ Then there was cake and chit-chatting until 12 when we started to leave. Sam Chow tried to smack a water balloon at Kat but failed and then tried to throw it at her and it missed.

And currently it's Catherine's birthday. Rebecca's bday was Saturday, and looks like Laura's bday is next Sunday too. Wonder if I can make it. October really is a birthday month.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Ah, I just got YsVI - Ark of Naphishtim today and been playing it till now. I need sleep! >_< I like Falcom games. Changed my wallpaper to this game.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Interesting, looks like someone added my journal without my knowledge to http://www.cdot.org/taiwanusa_journals.htm. The BST site is also listed (twice) in their Taiwanese Student Associations section.

Thank goodness for hit logging. Wouldn't have known about this without it.
Currently feeling amused

dracil

To all the people looking for Kill Bill Bittorrent files, I recommend you go to http://www.suprnova.org for it. There's too many versions of it, so I'm too lazy to put them all up. Besides, people should be going to that site anyway for general Bittorrent stuff.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Anonymous confessions - need to let it out? Go post there. Sorry, no absolution for your sins by posting there.

Whoops, apparently Fang also had a birthday on Sunday. Too many birthdays in October!

Looks like research is starting up again. Gonna be stuck in there MWF for 1-1.5 hours.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Finally got the envelope for the MS class action settlement. Now I just fill it in to get my $16. Telebears proceeded uneventfully today, which is always good. I think I may take Japanese 180 as my 4th class. It's called Ghosts and the Modern Literary Imagination, TuTh from 2-3:30. Which still leaves me with 3 hours till my CS 182 class. -_-

Only good thing is M and W I'm completely free. But I'd rather have my CS classes moved to M and W instead of TuTh 5:30-7. Whoever was responsible for that should be shot. Wish I had a gun.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Mice were pissing me off today. The last mouse even tried to escape. As soon as I removed the cover it tried to jump out and even succeeded. But I caught it as it was jumping down from the edge and put it back in the cage. Stupid scanner was having trouble reading their IDs and the mice kept struggling. Ended up taking 2 hours for what should've only taken 1-1.5 hours. >_<

Read 2 chapters in my Psych 126 textbook. That sucked. Kept falling asleep while reading, so I had to resort to snacking on some chips to keep me awake.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

I feel spited. Albeit unintentionally. Or maybe unappreciated is a better word. But spite sounds so much better.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Just came back from Gaia.

Watched Beautiful Life at Tomodachi today. Then went to play board games with Peter and Leon. First I played Lord of the Rings: Confrontation with Leon. He won first game as Dark, I won second game as Dark. Then Peter was ready and we played Wiz War. Leon died first when he lost both treasures to Peter and I. Then I proceeded to kill Peter. After that, we played Bohnanza, where Leon and I tied with 28. then Leon and I played another round of LotR, just so I could show him how to win as the Light side. I smacked him pretty well with 5 characters reamaining alive at the end. After that, was lazy for a couple hours till I finally forced myself to come back.

Tomorrow, we play A Game of Thrones. We need 2 more players for a full 5 player game. Any joiners?
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Oh yes, got a haircut today. Saw Amy and her bf too there. Was rather unexpected and coincidental. Guess that barber shop is pretty popular.

Her bf noticed that I was in the class right after theirs, but Amy apparently hadn't noticed. I saw them once before, since I'm usually late because my stupid History professor has problems respecting our time constraints.
Currently feeling surprised

dracil

I want this!
Currently feeling greedy

dracil

I *hate* the campus library computers. Just noticed some more weirdness right now while using the Ed/Psych library computers. Changed some stuff, but dunno how this'll affect it on "normal" computers, and I can't test it till I get home and use my own computer. But for now, I removed the top-border from the center column, which was causing the weirdness, and added a bottom-border on the banner section to compensate.
Currently feeling perplexed

dracil

Left my board games there last night and went there again today at 4:30. We started by playing A Game of Thrones with Leon and Peter. I was Lannister, Leon was Stark, and Peter was Baratheon. I crushed them severely with them only having 3 and 4 cities while I reached the 8 cities. It only took 1 hour and ended on turn 5. Then we took a break for dinner, and then we waited for Karen to come (which took another 1.5 hours of waiting). After that, we tried another 4 player game. That really didn't work well, since Karen (Stark) didn't really know how to play even after the whole game, and Leon (Tyrell) actually made a Non-Aggression Pact with Peter (Lannister) in the beginning. Instead, Leon became very aggressive against me, letting Lannister win again. Lannister really seems too powerful, especially the 3-player game when he can basically take over Greyjoy's cities in the beginning and isn't under threat from Tyrell.

Then we played Bohananza, which Karen picked up quite readily. I won again with 23 points, Leon came close with 22 (we two are always the 1st two places...). Peter and Karen both had below 20 points.

No more gaming for awhile. Lots of stuff to catch up on.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Don't forget Daylight Saving Time has switched! Set your clocks back one hour.

Just finished reading 250 pages! From large textbooks! WTH is wrong with these professors?! And I still have another 100 pages to read tomorrow before I finally finish the reading for my two psych classes. As a result, didn't get to do anything fun today.

And I'm currently defragging.... why is the last 30% taking so much longer? Freed up 18.5GB just for this, and it's still taking so long. Also figured out that all those unmovable files Norton Speed Disk is showing is because of the Japanese and Chinese files I have. A sign of a crappy program written by sheltered programmers. Either that, or it's a sign of greedy businessmen who want you to buy a localized version to avoid this problem.
Currently feeling grumpy and productive

dracil

Woke up nice and early to go to Mass with Michelle. Then we went to get boba and food, except all the Boba places were closed. Too bad, lost sales for them. I got BBQ Chicken at Steve's and Michelle got stuff at Noah's Bagels. Then went to Fremont with Sam Ou for Laura's Bday. Saw a lot of stuff. We went to a corn maze that was pretty long (takes 30+ minutes to get out). It was too easy though, with so many people inside, since you can just follow other people. Of course, the map and the signs helped a lot.

Then we went to Banana City for dinner. That was good. $15/person (except Laura of course). Just before we had the Fried Banana, I mentioned a confession I'd read on grouphug.us. The confession stated that there was a guy at a party who was so drunk that he crapped into a frying pan and then fried it. It stunk up the whole place for a long time, and that person was him. The people who heard the story laughed so hard, especially with how the banana sort of looks like a piece of crap.

Finally got back at 9PM. Should I study or play? Hmm...
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Just got an email saying CS182 got changed from 5:30-7:00 to 2-3:30. My schedule's looking a heckuva lot nicer now. Except I can't take that Japanese class anymore.
Currently feeling elated

dracil

Last night after coming back, Chester and Shen were talking about how some of their friends had some Christian flash thing in their profile and were complaining about how "scary" it was. Then they started talking about how they never really see me express much emotion about my Christian faith and insisted that something must have changed.

It just shows how people don't know when they have a good thing. Do they really want me to be the annoying preachy fundie Christian roommate? If they really want, I can definitely give them hell (pun intended). Sheesh. Pretty ironic asking me this when I'd just gone to church.

But perhaps I should explain why I'm not so emotional about my faith. Faith has never really drawn me through emotions, unlike many others. Maybe for a bit when I first started going to fellowships, but I've generally preferred looking at it through a more intellectual perspective (despite the fact that I still think agnosticism is the only truly honest position we can take, albeit it's also the most useless position). The problem with emotions is that it leaves you vulnerable to blind faith and that's why we have Creationists running around saying silly stuff like evolution is about dogs giving birth to cats and uncles being monkeys and insisting that Creationism be given equal time in classrooms (of course, meaning Christian Creationism, and ignoring all the other creation stories). Being in the Cognitive Science major also tends to make me more cynical (and I was already cynical to begin with) about many popular beliefs people have regarding the supernatural and other stuff. There's also the fact that I know just how annoying it is to the people who're being preached to. Sure, to the preachers, they think it's like telling them about something good, like some restaurant with good food. But to the other person, it feels more like you're telling them to drink some poison. Or maybe to join the Borg Collective.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Frisky mice today. Trying to climb out of the cages while I read their ID, and more mice try to jump out of the container now. They're getting smarter...

Picked up a free demo of Metal Arms at EBGames today, but haven't tried it. Was there to get Galactic Civilizations, but neither branch had it, so I just bought it online directly.

Beat YsVI - Ark of Naphishtim today. Pretty cool last bosses. Still couldn't beat that side boss though. So many games have these. Special "minor" bosses that are actually more powerful than the last bosses.

Juny fell asleep again, so no boba again.

Vocab sucks (for psych 126).

Wonder what I'll be doing this Thanksgiving.

Oh, and before I forget. Bills. 56.25 for energy, 31.22 phone, $83.83 internet = $57.1 per person. Minus whatever's on the board in the living room.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

*begin rant*

To all the people who are coming to my site through search engines looking for Full Metal Alchemist stuff, it's Fullmetal Alchemist! This is not Full Metal Panic. And you should just ignore Google telling you that the most common search term is "Full Metal" because there's no "Fullmetal" in the English lexicon. If you say that Anime-Keep calls it Full Metal Alchemist instead of Fullmetal Alchemist, well, they made a mistake when they first started subbing, and they kept their error rather than admit to the mistake. Don't believe me? Check the official site and look at the title. It's two words. Fullmetal Alchemist.

*end rant*
Currently feeling irritated

dracil

Right foot got caught in a stone slab today, resulting in me falling down, and sacrificing my pants and the newspaper I was holding. Still got a pretty bad abrasion on my left knee (don't wanna think how bad it would be if my pants weren't there). Let it fester till I finally went to the Tang center at 4:30. Buncha red tape but I got it treated for free.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Yay, got 2 points back on my CS midterm!

Finally managed to go get Boba with Juny. More curly fries. Next time, we decided we'll try The Old Teahouse's chicken wings and see how that tastes. She came to my place for awhile (a good 2 hours or so) watching bits of anime. I finally really got her attention when I showed her The Cube (which is not an anime). What was just "5 minutes" turned into 32 minutes before she finally remembered about the time. Whee.
of the Moment: Zone's 僕の手紙
Currently feeling content

dracil

Just got an email from SOID (Students for Out-of-State and International Diversity) saying that Richard Atkinson announced in September (I think this was when it was announced, but they don't report the actual amount here) is thinking of increasing non-resident tuition by $5000 next year. This will raise the undergraduate tuition to $25000/year. That means a full $100,000 for 4 years. As if they couldn't screw out-of-state students enough.

Oh yeah, there'll be a SOID meeting next week to discuss this issue and how to fight it. Free pizza (but buy your own drinks). It'll be at the backroom of Kip's at 2439 Durant (no ID required) at 8PM.
Currently feeling pissed off

dracil

While going to pick up Juny for boba last night, a thought occurred. Wouldn't Halloween be the best time to do a suicide bombing? People would probably think all those bombs strapped on you were part of a costume. Then slip into Castro (or your favorite Halloween party place), and boom!

Yah, it's twisted. *shrug*
Currently feeling amused

dracil

Managed to finish the CS HW already. No more worrying about it! But I was so happy that I forgot to go to the Psych 127 MT review. >_<
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Today's the eve of Alholowmesse (middle English for All-Hallowmass)! Yeah, that's how I'm gonna refer to it. Just to be different.

Saw a girl in a bee costume last night, and our neighbors to the right have 3 Jack-O'-Lanterns next to their windows.

BTW, did you know Jack-O'-Lanterns were originally made out of turnips?
of the Moment: Danny Elfman's This is Halloween (aka my annoying Winamp alarm
Currently feeling okay