log 517

Lately I’ve been feeling rather adventurous, driving through roads I’ve never driven before, especially places closer to the city core. Mostly because I’m feeling so much more confident about my driving skills. I’m even starting to go places without checking the precise location of my destination. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I’m still pretty insecure and like to get all the facts before doing anything. This weekend, I drove to Yorkdale Mall, then Lakeshore West. A few days before, I drove to the CHC office which is North of the Oakwood area. It’s not quite downtown but still, plenty of one way streets and crowded traffic.

To most people driving downtown is nothing special. Most people (stupid privileged Chinese people) I know had the luxury of doing stuff like that since highschool. Guess what, not me. I didn’t have access to my own car till last year. And I didn’t get into UT or those other universities downtown. Centennial College was somewhat near downtown but like I said, I didn’t have access to a car, so it was public transit through out my youth. There was also that thing with my mom constantly reminding me how dangerous the traffic downtown is and all, which just burns an image in my head, if I ever drive downtown I’ll have a 90% chance of getting into an accident.

Anyhow, I faced my fears, totally kicked it in the ass. Still I do prefer the roads up north. More room to move, higher speed limits(unfortunately, more stupid Chinese drivers, irrational driving behaviors, idiotic teens and all that). Good time to mention I hate parking in Chinese malls, there are always these stupid people who think they should drive 40km/hr+ in the lot. I’ve already lost count how many times I almost got hit. …there’s also those stupid people who doesn’t check their mirrors before backing out.

started a bad habbit since I went back to college. I snack constantly when I’m faced with boring assignments and test. Today while doing some revisions on the stupud database assignment, I realize I ran out of snacks. Good thing my sis is gonna stop by J-mart and picking up some seaweed rice crackers.

Man…what a day. It’s long weekend and most of my friends are busy so the hell with them, I’m gonna have some fun. Drove way down south to Yorkdale to get me a Belkin 6port firewire hub at the Apple store. Expensive but hard to find, and it’s around the same rip off price everywhere $60. Then I decided to go further south to a little computer store on Lakeshore West. Got the firewire 4/6pin cable there. Another hard to find item(at a fair price). It’s $13 per cable, too bad they only had 2, I needed 4. (btw, thanks Edmond for looking up the address for me) If you get the damn things at futureshop or any other places, it’ll cost you $50+. I already have 2 ps2 consoles. Anyway, I’m close to gathering everything. If anyone reading is interested, message me. I’m gonna test out the setup when I’m finished with my exams.

was quite tired today, after school, I ran around the city to gather the final pieces of documents I require to apply for a CNCC in hk. So I decided to take a little nap after dinner. Set my alarm to 9:30, thought and hour of sleep would be good before studying (yes test coming up). That hour turned into a good 6, now I fully charged studying at 3 am.  woohoo!

I’m not suppose to be one of those people who has headaches every now and then, yet I have one today. The cause? I thought of another great idea to create a great product. The only problem is that I lack the resources to pursue it. My head feels so heavy right now. Need to handle the stuff at school, get document for security clearance for work, write new specs for an up coming freelence, write a pitch for the idea that’s causing my headache right now,…. I need a second brain….or better yet, a clone to take on some of my tasks.   ouwee…  >.<

Sneaked away from studying today around noon to watch "The Island". It was a good movie. $$ worth spent. One of the reasons I want to watch it was that there’s suppose to be a lot of product placements. There was quite a lot of them in the movie, but it’s tastefully done. The product placements were subtle, and it won’t make you feel like you are sitting in a board room full of jack asses brainstorming for a new product while staring blindly at a prototype. The other reason to watch this movie of course, is because I’m sort of a science geeky type person. Cloning is something that really appeals to me. The plot itself is pretty straight forward, but good enough that you won’t be screaming at the screen telling the actors to get off their ass and start running for their life. The special effects were well executed. Lots of car crashes, stuff exploding. They even got the lighting and focus done right in those scenes where the clone and the original are together. A lot of people who watched are disappointed at how non-futuristic, not I. Maybe just because I much prefer practicality than design. Not much negative stuff to say about the movie, except Scarlett Johansson still looks better with her natural hair colour.

You know how people find themselves at a crossroad trying to choose the right career path? I’m at one of those right now. I got hired to be a web programmer. I’m working freelence as the in-between layer of programmer and designer. Got a start at my 3D rendering thing that I do. Also gonna built a web base content management system. The cms is something I’m looking forward to. When it’s completed, I already have several other places I want to sell the same model to. The 3D rendering freelence stuff is something I would really enjoy. I got a strange passion for creating photo realistic images, and of course doing some product design. So many paths….which is the right one for me?

Finally, it’s Friday. I caught up on most of my assignments and labs. And just being happy with it all. No deadlines to meet today which is rare, usually there’s the sys assignments. Oh I went down to the passport office today to get some documents sent out. It was surprisingly quick, those guys working there really improved over the years. I still remember first time I applied for a passport, waiting in that room for over 2 hours. Anyway, today I got in and out in just 15 mins.

Something did happen in the office today. There was this attratice lady who we traded glaces. Something in her eyes just saids if I ask her out, she’ll definitely say yes. But you’d probably know by now, I’m just not comfortable going up to a stranger and asking her out. Chances came chances went….oh well fact of life. It was wonderful having that sort of emotion again. Anyway, back it goes to that locked door sealed with cement, I got my business to run, 3 career paths to develope. Btw if you were thinking what I consider attractive, it wasn’t as though she has a super model’s body or that sort of thing. It was more about her smile. Maybe she just look too simular to someone I once liked.

Still great start to a weekend. Looking forward to getting my database assignment finish ahead of time. SQL are so easy to me, I think that assignment will take around 2 hrs to complete.

How many times have this happen to you?

Student: Prof xxxx, you’ve marked my assignment wrong. I should be given a mark for that…

Prof: Well let see, …(3 min of giblish excuses later)… I won’t give you a mark for that, it’s definitely wrong to me. Hey look, I there’s a mistake I should take a mark off here and there.

Well simular situation had happened to me before, but mostly in my youth. Nowadays, I’m much better at negotiating for marks. First thing you have to do is eliminate all emotions. Even if you hate the prof, cleanse yourself of all emotions. Then in that calmed state, speak or write to your Prof about the incorrect marking. Remember to use corporate communication techniques. Address him or her properly. Never start with tell them, they made a mistake. Anyone would take badly to that. Rather ask for a detail explaination of where things went wrong. If you are serious in getting marks, even ones you don’t deserve. Always rephrase what he/she said and use it against him/her. This way they are less likely to find a loop hole to get out of the situation. Your tone should have reflect a sense that they are not putting enough effort in their job, in another word, guilt them.

That’s pretty much all you need to do, but remember "corporate communication" means using proper language. Grammer, spelling counts. This technique can also be applied in other places such as work. Be imaginative, use it daily, and annoy the hell out of people you dislike.  ^_^  (or make just of situations)

About 5am this morning, I’d finish most of the assignments and whatevers that’s ergent, so I had a little bit of time on my hands. What did I decide to do? Hook up my 2 ps2 with the ilink cable.  Oh yea… that was fun.  If you don’t know much about this (you’d probably don’t, I couldn’t find any resources on the net), here’s a little explaination. The early ps2 models has a ilink port, commonly known as fire wire or ieee1394.  Anyway this port allows you to hook up one ps2 to another for games such as GT concept01, GT concept02, GT3, Time Crisis(series), Armor Core. Doing so will allow you have have multiplayer game with full screen display.

If you’ve been to autoshows where you’ve seen a 3 monitor setup for the GT series game, this is how they do it.  Aside from playing head to head, you can also setup the other ps2 to display the side/back/front views.  With it’s limitation, you can have 6 screens surrounding you displaying a full view around the car. Pretty cool stuff. You’d adjust the views on the display console’s control pad using the digital arrow keys.

It’s too bad I only have 2 ps2s…and not enough displays in my room to make the tri screen display. Maybe that’s something I will do. With the ps3 coming out next year, I’m sure there are people who will be selling their old ps2s. Gonna nap me one of those.  Heh if I have 6 systems, I’d probably invite my friends over and do a 6 man race.