dracil

Waiting for Ron to give me the rent... he went off and ordered cable TV by himself. He better not be expecting us to pay for that, since neither Leatha nor me agreed to it, especially considering he went and ordered the Silver package.

Got dragged out early for BST tabling because apparently Connie didn't show up. Weather was not bad today, actually cool, and we were in the shade.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Well, today was the last usage of my bus pass. So made one more trip to Safeway using it. The first bus which came after 35 minutes of waiting just passed me by, pissing me off to no end. Especially with the hot sun. WTF was the bus driver thinking? That I was sitting on the bench enjoying being baked in the sun? Sheesh!

Oh, and I burned myself with the oven again.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

Tabled again today. In the shade, so it's good. Also cashed some checks at the bank.

Surprise visit by Shen and Chester today. So naturally ended up playing some board games. Chester won most of the games today. I only managed 1 win in San Juan (he won 3), and Chester won both games of Ticket to Ride. Shen didn't win anything.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Oi, I actually forgot to post last night! First time!

So what happened yesterday? Leatha disappeared with her bf. Ron came back very late at night. And... I guess I didn't do much else. Finally finished off the 3rd book in the Hitchhiker series.
Currently feeling surprised

dracil

Time for a defrag.... I've decided to finally dump Norton Speed Disk. I seriously don't want to waste another 12-24 hours using that piece of crap, especially since it's been using MS's approved APIs (i.e. less efficient). It's just *way* too slow for that. So do I go for PerfectDisk, Diskeeper, O&O Defrag, or VoptXP? The only one I did not hear any horror stories occuring was PerfectDisk, so I'm going with that one, although Diskeeper seems to have a better speed/performance rating. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1585337,00.asp was pretty insightful. Then again, the reason Diskeeper is faster is because it's designed to be defrag through multiple passes.

On a side note: If I'm not online tomorrow, you know what happened (I got really unlucky and something went wrong with the defrag).

And man, it's hot here. Reached 33 degrees Celsius! That's outside, not inside.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Well, because of the defragging, I cleaned out a lot of junk from my computer, and updated a lot of programs to newer versions. And yes, the defragging went without a hitch, and much faster too!
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Will this be me in 10-20 years? I hope not. Then again, I don't really play RPGs. The only role-playing I've actually done was a month-long stint during the first semester of college. Then I got lazy and the Dungeon Master got married.



You can read all the strips related to this starting from here.

On the other hand, this blog does show what a normal, real-life gamer family may be like. Lots of pictures!
Currently feeling amused

dracil

Well, I am now in possession of a class pass again! Was ripped off by $12.50. But the problem is that there are people who are willing to go up to 2x the normal price. Stupid idiots jacking up the price. I'll still save more than paying for the bus when I go grocery shopping over the course of the semester though. And if I missed out and had to get it from a friend, I'd have to pay $22.50 more to make it fair for them (because of the replacement costs).
Currently feeling content

dracil

(backdated)

No tabling today, so made use of my new class pass. Those punch/juice things are still the cheapest drinks I can find anywhere when on sale. Fried chicken prices have gone up again. 99 cents for 1 gallon. Although you can't drink too much of it, 'cause it's so sweet.

Helped David carry drinks and food to the BST meeting. Lots of people there. Looks like some people may become regulars, which is good. People went off to the DFC afterwards, and I went home shortly after with some other people who had already eaten or weren't hungry enough to eat there.

Oh, and you know what sucks? "Tabulas is down for some maintenance. We will be back online shortly" right when I try to post my entry. Thus I had to backdate this entry.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Tabled with Connie today. Some interesting conversations... from East Asia, to Southeast Asia, to Japanese porn...

Borrowed a game from Joyce today too. It's not too often that I get the chance to play Chinese RPGs.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Ugh, more tabling.

And just got repeated wrong number phone calls. Really irritating, especially at this time of the night, as both my roommates are sleeping now.

Almost done with vocabs!
Currently feeling blah

dracil

So had lunch with Rebecca today at Jupiter. I had their pizza and Rebecca had a sandwich with salad. I still think BBQ sauce on pizza is weird.

She basically "interrogated" (as she described it) me about my testimony the entire time. Then we had a heck of a time calculating how much tip to give. I keep mixing up my method, so end up calculating too much tip for some reason. So Cancun next time?

Afterwards, I went to pick up Michelle's mail, and when I went back, Connie came on the same bus I was on, so we talked for a bit on the ride home. That's twice now that this has happened.
Currently feeling content

dracil

BST social event today, which was lunch at Epicurean. Some old timers came, as well as some new members. It was good. They even gave us some free Ghirardelli chocolates after dinner. Probably because there were so many people, so they got good business.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Well, I'm finally done with memorizing all my words for GRE. That's like what, 1500-2000 words? Now, I should probably go back and run through it and see how many I actually still remember. -_-

Or maybe I should make sure I haven't forgotten all my basic math in college... bleah.
Currently feeling accomplished, sorta

dracil

Oh joy, career fair tomorrow. Just snuck up on me. -_- If I hadn't gone to Safeway with Diana today, I would've not known about it till probably Wednesday. Still, nothing particularly interesting, at least tomorrow.

OTOH, checked CalJobs, and there were two interesting jobs. One was a Game Tester job, which Connie had mentioned to me while tabling last week while we were talking about job searching and she said she'd seen them being advertised on Craigslist. Qualifications aren't that high, and there are even 60 positions. And it actually pays better than my summer job at the SISS office. O_o Then again, as Karen said when I mentioned this to her, it *is* a QA job after all...

Another job, probably more prestigious (actually requires a college degree for one), is Associate Data Producer, for Gamespot. Looks like you mainly have to make sure the site is up-to-date with the latest news and info. Which is what I already do on a daily basis to an extent. It's also in San Francisco, a heckuva lot closer than Foster City (that's like, what, 2 hours travel time/day?), which is where the other one is located at. It probably pays a lot better too.
Currently feeling interested

dracil

Whee, feeling panicky after I looked up grad school info. Where am I going to get my letters of recommendations? *sigh* The penalty for not socializing with the professors over the years.
Currently feeling nervous

dracil

Career fair today was blah. Walgreens wouldn't sponsor H-1B, which would be necessary since there thing takes 2-4 years. Possibly Safeway? The favorite store for Berkeley college students. There may be a few more better ones tomorrow, although I've never had too much luck with the real tech companies. The ones on Thursday might be easier (the only day with companies that accept Any Major while hiring International students).

I downloaded Sims 2, and played it for 30 minutes before putting it away, probably not to be touched for a month or so. The reason is Fable. Lots of people at EBGames trying to get it today.

I'm tired earlier today for some reason. Maybe 'cause I woke up rather early to go to the career fair before the big lunch rush. Guess that's good as I'll be sleeping earlier too.
Currently feeling tired

dracil

Got up even earlier today for the career fair. By Jenny's request, I went to Expedia to find Galen to say hi to him for her, who had some difficulty remembering who Jenny was (well, he asked for the last name). Regardless, I used it as an opportunity to maybe get closer to him, although probably not successfully. I don't possess the skills they want really. Although they do hire international students.

Then I saw Catherine Hsiao at Wells Fargo. So again, used that opportunity to be able to talk a bit more comfortably. She wanted to keep in touch too. I didn't mention my international student status though, so I dunno if it'll eventually all just fall through because of that.

Finally, Laura came by today, during which I found out she was also at the Career Fair, but for Johnson and Johnson, which I didn't go to, because I'd gone in the past. She asked, and confirmed that they do indeed, reject international students because of trouble they've had in the past (some guy nearly got deported because of some lost paperwork for his visa). Bleah. We went to eat at Sun Hong Kong and she treated me (thanks Laura!). While eating, we discussed about Christianity and stuff. I'm finding this to be a pattern recently.... same thing happened when I ate with Rebecca last week. We had a lot of leftovers, so I got the meat dishes (one of them has veggies) while she took the veggie dish.

And yeah. I'm tired again... and it's only 8:20 pm! Oh yeah, I did end up helping table for BST a bit today too.

Thoughts of some of tomorrow's companies... All the following are looking for Any Majors and accept international students, unless noted otherwise. Deloitte and Wachovia Securities are both looking for analysts, which doesn't seem that interesting to me personally... Google is looking for CogSci majors, but not international students, at least officially. Mann Consulting looks interesting. You're a consultant, and the Associate Consultant position is kinda like tech support. Job description says you go around with wi-fi laptops with a huge database and you have to fix any problem. I guess like the Rescomp. OTOH, I didn't get accepted for Rescomp (was an alternate). >_< St. Giles International = teach ESL. Usually I would think they'd prefer native English speakers for this... on the other hand, they may just send me to some other part of the world if they hire me (locations: Worldwide).
Currently feeling tired again

dracil

So St. Giles International was really advertising their creditation program. Bah, they shouldn't be there then. Mann Consulting was definitely interesting, but I wonder if I came off as sounding too eager (and hence, desperate).
Currently feeling okay

dracil

I'm getting tired of anime (and movies or books for that matter) that have a hard time killing off their characters. Take Naruto for example. It's been 100 episodes, and the only really major character that's been killed off was from the older generation. Bleah, kill someone from the younger generations! I mean, there's this major attack on the village, and no non-combatants got hurt? That's so unlike war. And the characters all love using these abilities that are so deadly (which is constantly emphasized) to themselves, but actually have very little noticeable effect after the battle's over. The only deaths they use liberally are in the flashbacks, which don't count. And speaking of flashbacks, there's way too many of them! Basically, after awhile, there's no more suspension of disbelief whenever it tries to give the impression that someone important's probably going to die.

Now, take Elfen Lied for example. In the first episode, a character type that usually does not get killed gets killed. The anime also has no qualms about maiming some of the major characters, so at least, you can wonder if this is the episode where someone important is going to get offed. On the other hand... the anime does seem to give the characters a lot of second chances, so it's starting to become a pattern too.

Now, let's take the Song of Fire and Ice series for an example from books. Now the story's about war, and like war, a lot of people die, including the major characters. Thus, you do have to keep guessing on which characters are going to be the unlucky ones in each book. On the other hand, there *are* a ton of characters. From the character themself, to their siblings, to their parents, to their children, to their relatives, to their guards and retainers and so on and so on. That, and each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, so in a way, there is no central character who is guaranteed to live to the end.
Currently feeling annoyed

dracil

If you have a Kryptonite U-Lock, did you know your lock could be broken with just a pen? Read more here.

Seems like a good chunk of people didn't want to go to Nicole's bday thing. Partly because it wasn't well planned out. Apparently though, the hidden motive for the girls was clubbing...

Looks like I'll be going to Milpitas tomorrow...
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Surprise rain! Cold!

So I went to visit my relatives at Milpitas today. 50 minute bart ride and about another 30 minute car drive. Ouch...

Had lunch at some Chinese restaurant in the area. During which my uncle kept lecturing about the importance of networking and socializing. It continued again once we got to their place, which seems.... like pretty much most other family homes I've been to in the US (I guess there's no reason to deviate from something that works...), although with the addition of some food.

My uncle is leaving tomorrow again, and I didn't prepare for staying over, so I went back at around 4PM + travel time.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

So GRE math review has begun. Yeah, it's stuff I know. But, a lot of this stuff I haven't used for several years so it's good to make sure I remember all those little tricks to speed things up.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Forgot how... "addicting" music can be.

BST game night today. It was a Jeopardy game with a bunch of Taiwanese trivia. Apparently, quite a few people don't know how to play Jeopardy...

After that, we went to the DFC for dinner, where we (or at least me, and some others) tried to tease people about their supposed gossip.
of the Moment: songs by T.M.Revolution
Currently feeling alright

dracil

Eek, I just finished the Mann Consulting questions.... part of the screening process. First I was greeted with a nice little message saying that their hiring rate is about 1/200. Then I had to submit a cover letter, resume, and additional info. Then there were 9 questions I had to answer (ok, so I guess it wasn't a phone interview as I was expecting).

A bit worried about the DHCP and Microsoft Exchange server questions (never used the latter at all...). Some of the questions felt like trick questions. Ok, I think I thought too hard on that one and picked a wrong answer (the you-shouldn't-do-this-to-the-client answer). Maybe it wasn't really a trick question after all. >_< And the other questions were of the how-would-you-interact-with-the-clients variety. There was one question asking which line had the greatest number of misspelled words... The last question asked me what are the four most common sites I go to for help.

Edit: Ok, now that I no longer have the question in front of me, I went ahead and tested it. So the question was about what you would do if a client's computer would hang during startup. First option was after restarting, hold down F4 to enter safe mode. Second option was the same, but holding down F8. There was another option about using the OS disc to repair. There may have been another option, but if there was, I forgot what it was. Finally, the one I finally picked was to tell the client to try again, and then call back if it still happens.

The dilemma was between the second and the last option. The reason I was skeptical of the second option was because I always tap the F8 key instead of holding it down to enter safe mode. And I remember why now that I've tested it again. The annoying beeps when the buffer fills up with the key presses (even gives me a "keyboard error" at the beginning). Oh, and it doesn't work. At least not on my computer. The reason it worries me though is that, afterwards, I decided to check Google to see what people say. And as expected some sites actually do say "hold down the F8" key. On the other hand, some sites do state my method, which is to tap the F8 key repeatedly. So maybe it's just a wording issue... but anyway, that's why I was wondering if it was a trick question.
Currently feeling jittery

dracil

Apparently, there are a lot of VIPs at Berkeley. Most people already know about Chen Shui-Bian's son. So apparently the son of the police chief of Taipei (or something like that) is also here. And according to him Lien Chan's (former?) secretary's son is also here, with the actual secretary being in exile here. Unless of course, that guy was lying. Hmm... or maybe I'm being too cynical.
Currently feeling thoughtful

dracil

Oh yeah, this is old news, but KOTOKO has her own radio show now. It's called Kotoko no Koto. Too bad I can't listen to it here, although the first show's floating around the internet.

Oh, and here's a PSA to get young Asian US citizens to go vote. http://www.leastlikely.com
Currently feeling amused

dracil

Looks like Discordi found a new server for those of you who want to try it out.

And by chance, stumbled upon Nexus: the Jupiter Incident today. Guess what? It's the game that was formerly known as Galaxy Andromeda which was previously known as Imperium Galactica 3. Looks like they found a new publisher, which is great. Demo actually runs ok on my system, so I'm surprised, and happy.

Anyway, today we had a BST dinner. We went to Koryo Korean BBQ for dinner. Lots of meat dishes. And even more side dishes (of lesser amount of course). Was filling, but of course, a bit expensive. People didn't want to grill the meat themselves too, so it was done by the restaurant. Apparently, although the option is available, most people choose for the restaurant to do it, based on what I saw at the other tables.
Currently feeling content

dracil

Tested my ability to solve computer questions by friends when Charlie IMed me about stuff. Thing is, based on the questions I was asked on that job site, work tech support questions differ quite a bit, and deal more with admin/client and lots of networked PCs, rather than stuff about an individual PC.

Out of a sudden inspiration, I started looking at stuff for sale on Craigslist, as well as free stuff. The free stuff list has a lot of nice giveaways. e.g., free 17" monitor! I can imagine someone making a living by going around picking up all this stuff and then ebaying it. Then I saw a very tempting computer deal, and started reading about all the latest tech stuff out there. Haven't done that for a long time, so it's nice to see what's changed.
Currently feeling sleepy

dracil

Hmm, more job searching. Web developer for http://www.menuonweb.com? They really do look like they need someone to fix it up. First thing I would do if they hired me would be to fix all the spelling, grammar, and broken links. The easy stuff. Then it'll be the PHP and MySQL stuff, which'll actually test what my skills are.

Spent some more time looking at computer components. Probably my latent desire to upgrade my 4-year old computer surfacing (it actually has had some upgrades over the years, but the truly necessary upgrade [CPU+mobo+RAM+and probably a non-Dell case] is gonna cost a pretty penny). Come to think of it, I've never really installed a CPU + heatsink before, so I wonder how that'll go when I eventually do buy the parts to upgrade my computer. Expensive paperweights are not good.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Decided to sell my Xbox for as much money as I can get. Want to get some new stuff for my computer instead. It's also more useful. Xbox = gaming only. Computer = everything else too. Not to mention that for various *ahem* reasons, computers have a lower "maintenance"

Driving lessons and GRE/applications are gonna take maybe up to $1000 I think... >_< the driving schools generally say 6 hours, but my aunt said hers said 10, and she took 12. The Berkeley Driving School is having a special offer of $35/hour for certain times on weekdays, which is cheaper than the $50/hour lessons my aunt had.

Emailed the MenuOnWeb guy directly today. See, the problem is, one of the banners on the site uses Simplified Chinese, and my resume states that I was an officer for BST, and it's actually relevant to the job (web stuff), so I can't really just remove it.
Currently feeling contemplative

dracil

Good news, I got a call from the guy at MenuOnWeb and he seems interested. It's a 10hr/week job so I can continue doing whatever I need to do for grad school and so on. I just need to name my price. Thinking maybe $20/hr... he even offered stock options, but I don't think I'll take that.

Bad news, my roommate moved into the living room, claiming my typing makes it hard for him to sleep. Hence, rent adjustment.

Today's the Mid-Autumn Festival! Most people in BST actually forgot I think. Had a nice discussion about Taiwanese identity, and then a bunch of us ended up eating at Fondue Fred's. It was actually rather good this time I think, although towards the end I got sick of it. Only 4 pots, but it was enough for about 8 people with 2 people eating less.
Currently feeling okay

dracil

Just to be sure, I re-read my OPT regulations, and I think I may be screwed. If I'm reading it right, I can't accept any part-time employment at all. >_<

So wrote some emails to SISS and gonna try to call them tomorrow (oh joy).
Currently feeling anxious

dracil

Well, I just called SISS, and they said the job's ok! :D
Currently feeling happy

dracil

Wondering if I should get some anti-static equipment. At least back home, we had tiled floor.

Here in Berkeley, it's a carpeted floor with no mat. I've been lucky for the past several times, but... luck may run out. Especially since (unless my mind was playing tricks on me), I believe I've had static shocks touching the door knob on my room twice before... I'm also more worried because I'm going to be dealing with more equipment at once (and thus higher value) this time.

$5.29 for a 2' anti-static wrist strap. Or $24.99 for a complete mat, and a 10' anti-static wrist strap. Both at Radioshack. Hmm...
Currently feeling concerned

dracil

Whoops, I need insurance. Scratch $392 over the year... which is actually cheaper than 1 year of SHIP at UCB... but that's 'cause I also chose the cheapest plan.
Currently feeling blah

dracil

Alrighty, registered for the GRE, Nov 3!
Currently feeling sleepy