Linkstew

I like sleeping. Like, a lot. And once I'm asleep, I'll do anything to stay there. What usually ultimately gets me out of bed is the urgent need to do something: Having to go to the bathroom or to a meeting at work have been the primary things waking me up these days. And when neither of those come up, I just been sleep in absurdly late.

Nothing I've tried has worked to wake me up, because my cunning sleeping mind always works out some way to shut up the irritation. And even if the noise does wake me up, my half-awake mind is usually on my subconsciousness' side, and would far rather stay in the happy fuzzy glow of being half awake than actually get up.

So I've decided that what I want/need is a Simon Alarm Clock. Have the first several beeps start quiet, to gradually wake you up, and then have it get more insistent if you don't start playing. Make it configurable, so you can set how high you have to score to turn off the alarm clock. You'd probably want a way to detect if the player is trying and getting close, just in case the player sucks at Simon. The battery cover would have to be optionally screwable, to protect the batteries from your devious unconscious mind. And there are more details I could ramble on about, but it's a fairly straightforward idea that doesn't need that much explanation.

It would totally work! I'd buy one.

How come every time I buy Legos, people think they're not for me? Today at Target, for example, the lady carefully explained my gift receipt, in case the recipient of the "gift" wanted to return the Legos...

On Friday in my (Visual) Perception lecture, I was playing with my glob of yellow Office: mac silly putty that I'd gotten at MacWorld SF. Stretching it and rolling it and making balls and breaking it and making sheets and so on.

Also on Friday in my (Visual) Perception lecture, Professor Palmer was talking about photons, and how they're emitted by light sources and bounce around and about and sometimes into our eye... And then he made eye contact with me, and said "so you can think of a photon bouncing around the room kind of like a bouncing ball of silly putty."

So I quietly put away my silly putty and managed to pay attention for about 5 minutes before getting distracted by a particularly uninteresting light fixture.

So several of these, or maybe even all of these, were featured on slashdot at one time or another. However, they've been gathering up in my bookmarks, so I figure it's time to archive them all in one shot right here. First, in honor of the release of MechWarrior 4, here is Battletech done in Lego. Next, this page is a lot of links to other Star Wars Lego resources. A lot of the links on that page are great, and a few have some plans, to boot. If you want a particular link for Star Wars Lego, check out The Star Wars Trilogy done in Lego, long before the Star Wars sets were released. Another Japanese page features Lego renditions of The Matrix, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and more. Then, here's a desk built out of Lego. And finally, here is the Holocaust rendered in Lego. Please don't be offended by that last one, it's art.

Golden Silly putty has a little less utility than the Golden Slinky noted yesterday, though it's significantly cheaper. Then, of course, there is this insanity which passes for Silly Putty's web site... "Silly Putty University"? At least Slinky doesn't have a web page that I could find.

So I got myself a nice springy metal Slinky today. Playing with a Slinky is a very meditative act. Great way to distract oneself, too. Then, of course, there is the 14 carat gold plated slinky, or, if you want something that still looks gold but is more durable and cheaper, there is the brass slinky

Cthulu, that name which strikes hearts into the fear of men... Or something like that. Fnord and all that, or maybe I'm crossing the line. All the same, you can grab your plush cthulu right here. Sweet, eh? And green, mind you. The green is compulsory.

New Transformers in Japan. Maybe I'll stumble across some at AX.

I've been checking out this new game called Mordheim by Games Workshop, and it looks like a lot of fun... I'm thinking about picking it up to play with people in Berkeley, because it doesn't require getting everyone together like a role-playing game does, but your gang builds experience and gains power. Read a review here at portent.net.

Though I won't walk eight more. The kicker was, it was really hot today, though I don't seem to have gotten sunburned. I'm a bit tuckered out now, certainly, though it was worth it, in the end. It would figure, though, that when I got back after all that effort, we had a really bad dinner, and lunch was bad, too. So I'm hungry now. Unfortunately, I'm also fairly broke now, too.

Wait, why did you walk Eight Miles?

Because I was out of Dr Pepper, and there was a bookstore I'd heard about that I wanted to check out. Said bookstore is the main reason I'm now mostly broke, though the walk to and from the bookstore was only about half of my total walk.

The Best Laid Plans.

Some time ago, I read that a bookstore in Oakland called Dark Carnival imports Terry Pratchett books which are not available in the United States. I had held off going, because, according Yahoo! Maps!, 3086 Claremont was, in fact, in Oakland. It was near a BART station, but I had still been too busy to go. So I was going to finally go before I had to head back to Bakersfield for the summer.

Just to be safe, though, I thought I'd look up the phone number of the store in case I got lost. When I pulled up their listing in the Yahoo! Yellow Pages, I noted that the store was, in fact, in Berkeley, and not in Oakland. So I checked out Yahoo! Maps! again, and This is where it showed me the store was. I figured, "Hey, Cool, that's not too far away, and I've never seen Clark Kerr, so I'll just walk over there tomorrow.

And those were my plans as I went to sleep. I would get up, eat lunch, walk to Dark Carnival, and then go get some Dr Pepper. It should be noted at this point that Keith recommended me to a Safeway on Shattuck, and so that was where I planned to go. So with that, I went to sleep.

What About all this Walking you Mentioned?

Oh yeah, that. So, feeling pretty good about myself, I set out for... Wait, should I switch to the third person? Feeling pretty good about himself, Benjy set out for... No, that's not so great, it would get confusing when I became omnipotent and knew what I was thinking.

So, feeling pretty good about myself, I set out for the Clark Kerr campus. Before I ever got there, I decided that living that far from campus was pretty much out of the question, no matter how nice it was. And for the most part, I'd say foothill looks nicer on the outside. Clark Kerr reminded me too much of some places I've seen in Southern California for me to really like. The grass was dead in some spots, and it seemed dusty, and it was too huge, and the dominating feature of the landscape was a mountain with dry grass on it.

With my mental image of the Yahoo! Map as my guide, I attempted to locate the bookstore. I got confused pretty quick when I came across Claremont Avenue while I was still walking along the street next to Clark Kerr. But I figured, hey, Claremont Avenue, that's where I want to be! So I followed Claremont. And I stayed on Claremont until I finally found Dark Carnival. I had to walk a long way on Claremont, though, and by foot, I don't think that via Clark Kerr is the optimal route to Dark Carnival.

So You Made It, Now What?

I went in. Duh. First impressions are everything, or so I've heard, though I've never really believed it. My first impressions of this bookstore was "Wow! This place is great!" That was my impression as I left, too, so I don't know why I distinguish it as my first impression, but I'll leave that as thought fodder for the reader. I wish this place were closer to campus, though, because if they were, I'd visit them a lot more.

Anyway, it was a fairly archetypical hole in the wall bookstore. They stocked more books than could possibly have fit in the store, and there were little nooks and cranny's all over. It was great fun, looking around. They even had an iMac up front, along with an older all in one unit on the floor in one corner.

But I was there on a mission, so I made a bee-line for where the Pratchett would be. Before I got ten feet into the store, though, I saw Carpe Jugulum, and knew the place would be great. I decided not to get Carpe Jugulum, though, because it was $42.95. Eventually I found the Pratchett, and was a bit disappointed at first, because all I saw was the American releases I already had. As I was about to leave, I almost kicked over a knee high stack of paperbacks, which upon closer inspection, I realized was the imported Pratchett I was looking for. I quickly sorted through the stack and pulled out all the books I didn't have.

The only Discworld novel that they didn't have was Moving Pictures, which, it would figure, was one of the ones I did not have. I also chose not to buy Witches Abroad, because, in theory, that should be being sent to me any day now. What I ended up buying was The Bromeliad, which is a hardback collection of Truckers, Diggers and Wings, for $30.95; The Carpet People, which was co-written by Terry Pratchett, aged 17, and master storyteller Terry Pratchett, aged 43, for $11.95; Strata, which was a novel exploring the idea of the Discworld which was released shortly before The Colour of Magic, for $11.95; and Pyramids, Sourcery and Mort, for $14.95 apiece. Yeah, I blew a bit of money, but it was money I would have spent over the summer anyway, and I feel it is worth it.

Books in Bag, I began my Trek Back Towards Campus

Following the directions given by the apparent owner of the store, I went up the street by the store until I got to College, and followed College towards campus, passed the store with the sign in the window that said "Star Wars Legos", and eventually got to Telegraph Avenue and got some cash out of the bank.

Wait, Star Wars Legos? And You Walked Past?

Yes, I walked past. Though I didn't get all the way to Telegraph before I turned around, went in the store, and bought the Naboo Swamp set and the Naboo fighter. If I hadn't just spent so much money on books, I would have also bought a Sith Infiltrator and a Lightsaber Dual. What a sucker I am, though. The store had the prices marked up on all of the Star Wars merchandise nearly 40%. However, the two sets I bought were still reasonably priced, and the Naboo Fighter has some excellent pieces. Right now, I have a battle droid sitting on my keyboard.

If you're interested in getting some Star Wars Legos for yourself, and you can't find them anywhere, I got them from Sweet Dreams/Toys, at 2921 College Avenue.

Lego's Also In Bag, I then Made My Way to Telegraph

I already told you this part. I got money out of the bank, and headed towards Shattuck Avenue.

At this point, I'd walked about Four Miles

Once I got to Shattuck it was about Five Miles. I stopped in front of Games of Berkeley, and just before going in, I remembered I had just spent around $150, and had no more money to spend. So I began walking down Shattuck in the direction Keith told me Safeway was. Keith had said it was three of four blocks, and I believed him. It's a few more than that, and it's also partially uphill. It's about a mile from Games of Berkeley, making six miles that I'd walked.

Weren't you tired?

Yes. I walked into the Safeway and found myself face to face with a display advertising a 12 Pack of Dr Pepper for 4.47. I promptly walked out, crossed the street, and bought two twelve packs at 3.37 apiece from Longs. I then had to carry all of that back down to Hearst, making a total of seven miles. And then I carried all of that up Hearst Avenue, making the eighth mile, though that trek up Hearst is so steep it counts for eight miles by itself, especially when you have 24 cans of Dr Pepper in your backpack.

Damn figgerjurbingurbing...

I found no Star Wars Legos today in my quest, which took me to FAO Schwarz in San Francisco, so instead I bought a couple of more sets of Ninja Legos. So, desperate for Star Wars Legos, I went out and won an Auction at eBay for a Snowspeeder and Speederbikes. I think my Lego mania in the present has been at least mildly quelled, though I suspect when I find a store that has the other Star Wars Lego sets, my checking account is going to take quite a hit.

FAO Schwarz, by the way, has got to be the scariest toy store I have ever been to. At the entrance, they had a man dressed as a Toy Soldier. Just inside the store, there was a huge display that made Small World at Disneyland seem pretty nice. And it was PACKED. There were about 8 billion people in the three floor store, and they all seemed to want to be in my way. And to top it off, they didn't have Star Wars Lego Sets, so my endurance of the insanity was for naught. I don't plan on going back there on a weekend again. Perhaps early on a weekday morning, when there will only be the racket of the display.

San Francisco today was, in general, incredibly busy. Apparently there was some sort of pro-marijuana march today in San Francisco, so there were a ton of people all over. So besides huge crowds, there was quite a lot of *ahem* smoke drifting around.

I just had an order of Chicken Fried Rice from Mandarin House on Southside, and it was great, as usual. However, I've come to notice that all of the Chinese places around here seem to put the shittiest vegetables in their fried rice, which leads to me having to go through a lot of effort to remove all the vegetables from the rice.

So the semester is all but over. All I have left is one more math quiz, my last 61b project, and the finals.

I don't think I did so well on last Thursdays math quiz, but that's alright. I've worked it out, and if I get around a 94% on the final, I'll get an A-. If I do better than that, it's possible for me to get an A in the class. Since it's not too likely that I'll actually do that well on the final, it's probably a pretty safe bet that I'll get a B in the class. I'd have to do pretty poorly on the final to drop below a B- at this point, I think.

On Friday I got my Psychology paper back, and I got a 92/100, which really surprised me. I was expecting to do a lot worse on this paper, because I had to incredibly tweak the results to make it at all possible. It's difficult to explain, but basically, I figured out at 5 am the day the paper was due that the topic I was trying to write on simply couldn't work as a Psychology paper. So I'm pleased with my grade on that paper. What I'm not so pleased with, however, was my performance on the second midterm. I got a 31/40, which isn't so bad, but the mean for the class was 39 and the standard deviation was 1. In otherwords, I did poorly on what was obviously an incredibly easy midterm. Thankfully, the class isn't curved. At this point, however, if I get a perfect on the final, I'll get an A-. Barely. And that's iff I get a PERFECT on the final. Well, to be a bit realistic, I guess I can get a perfect OR miss one question. Since this probably won't happen, I guess I'll probably get a B or a B+ in Psychology.

So that's two B's, and two classes to go.

In 61c, I've pretty securely got an A. I just have to do acceptably on my final, and I've got my A in the class. Though if I have a really bad day, I could get a B.

In 61b... I have to do pretty well on my last project and the final to get an A in the class. I don't think a B+ is out of the question, though an A is still certainly possible.

The moral of the story is, I'm not doing too bad in my classes, though I wouldn't mind it if I were doing better. I don't think there'll be a problem keeping my GPA above 3.0 to keep my scholarship, though from time to time I get a little worried about my grades being good enough to get into the CS major here at Berkeley. Though when I think more rationally about it, the only real splotch on my record so far is my Math 1B grade.

Today was a very good day.

I got my housing situation for next fall taken care of, I got my copy of The Colour of Magic in the mail, I finished my 61c work for the rest of the year, and I found an excellent English 1A section to take next fall.

The English 1A section in question will cover Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Girl Interrupted and miscellaneous poetry. I'm actually looking forward to this, while at the same time dreading English 1A in a general sense.

The Colour of Magic is, of course, the book that started it all. It's the first of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and if it were more readily available, would be the book I would recommend anyone start with when reading the Discworld.

My room next fall is as about as choice as a room in the Units can get. It's room 612 of Deutsch Hall, which, in and of itself, probably doesn't mean that much to you. What might mean more is that it's a sixth floor room with a bay view. I think I'm going to get a QuickCam Pro and put in my window next fall to share the view. My view will be something like this.

In other news, I won a Kern Press Club award for my Critical Review of They Might Be Giants' Severe Tire Damage last Friday night. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the awards banquet because I had to go to Residential Computings spring hiring session on Saturday (See 1999-04-24).

I'm still working on my schedule for next fall, but I do still have a few days, as my Phase I of Telebears registration isn't until April 30. Right now, I know for sure that I'll be taking Math 55, Electrical Engineering 42 and 43, and English 1A Section 22 or 25. I need one more class, and I'll probably take a class that satisfies my American Cultures Requirement.

I went to Target yesterday, and I was going to buy some Star Wars legos, but they didn't have any, so I had to settle for Ninja Legos instead. They're neat, but I would have far preferred Star Wars legos. I'll buy them as soon as I see them, though. That's for sure.