log 517

finally got most of my tasks done. Just one more test, some left over of an assignment and it’s back to normal. No more 4am nights,….at least for a few weeks.

Tonight I kinda switched my schedule around. Usually I ate around 6, done washing the dishes around 7 and start working till things are done.  But tonight, I just kept on working after I got home. Manage to finish the assignment at 9, then go on with the cooking, eating and cleaning. Time for some well deserved sleep.

It’s been a while since I last saw a movie in the cinema, because I have a stupidly busy schedule. The prestige has been on my list of movies to see since I saw the trailer a few months ago. Maybe my heart is just not in it tonight, I just didn’t quite like this movie. Production, acting, and everything else is great, just the story itself is something of a let down. Basically, it’s about two bitter rivals battling it out, triggered by the death of the magician’s assistant. A bitter rivalry it was, stupid too. You see these two continue to sabotage each other’s act/career just because they are jealous of each other. Till the very end, one of them finally dies.  Neither of them take the bright or right path and go with very under handed tasks to destroy each other. The frustrating thing is they do a douzen of these little thing knowing it won’t fataly wound the competition. It’s like watching two sissies fight. If one truely hates the other so much, just grap the gun and get it over with.
With that said, the whole movie is like north american politics. You try and cheer for the lesser of two evils. Oh and the background is supposely set in turn-of-the-century London,…hmmm…what’s the British accent? Other than the wardrobe, you’d probably dont’ realize it’s suppose to be London. Oh and the magical machine that has such significance to the conclusion, Ed agreed with me on this one, if I or anyone have such a machine, first thing is fuck the audience. Who cares about the audience if you have a machine that can duplicate anything.
…anyway, you’d probably notice by now I’m not too into writing about this movie neither. Seriously, I really wanted to watch "running with scissors". My brain needs some intellectual stimulation more than some hollywood thrill.

feeling so tired today. My project partner wanted to start on the assignment today, and the time she choose? 9am. I don’t even get to classes that early(provided I scheduled my class to start around 10ish). And it didn’t help that I was working on another assignment till 1 last night.
Worked on the assignment the whole day, and progress isn’t as fast as to say if I worked alone. Being a perfectionish, working and explaining my thought process is really stressful and exhausting. Think of it this way. Normally my brain is already already working hard on solving the problem in front of me, in addition, I will have to structure my thoughts in an logical and presentable manner. This went on for hours.

Around 2, I realized we skipped lunch, so we headed out to Cora’s Breakfast & Lunch. I read a blog review of it and decided to give it a try. The food is good, service wasn’t up to my expectations. It’s not bad of a place for brunch but I prefer fancier, more up scaled places for brunch. Anyway, I had the bananas chocolate-noisettes(banana + nutella in crepe). The portion was huge, about 12"x4".  I couldn’t finish the whole thing. I also had a latte. The combination of the two is giving me a caffine/sugar hangover right now.

Anyhow, sorry Ms. Mars. you know I want to give you some new jdramas but I’m just too tired to head out. And for tomorrow, there’s the possiblility of a review class. The prof is still deciding. Be a man and make up your mind!  I actually wanted to go to the local garage and put the winter tires on. It’s about that time to do so. Been so occupied with stuff and assignments, I even forgot to call V.  ….it’s not all bad, I went to the optometrist the other day, now if only I have time to shop for a new pair of glasses. About that visit to the optometrist, I really like to see her. There’s just something about her that makes me thing, "now that’s a woman who I can settle down with". Soft spoken, gentle and caring. Of course a millisecond after that thought, my brain is stabbing my heart with a rusty knife yelling "I didn’t go through all that planning to Japan just to have you stop it right here, right now".  And back to the usual insanity I call a life.

eventhough I’m on my study week. I’ve got so much stuff to do, you can’t really call it a break. Tomrrow(today actually), I’m going to get the car to the shop for a scheduled maintenance, and I’m going for an eye exam in the afternoon (hope I pass, ha ha).   Anyway, they are going to do that dilate my pipul thing which will make my eyes super sensitive to any light. I really should ask someone to drive me there and back but instead I’m taking my chances and gonna travel by foot. I’ve done it once before and I’m pretty sure I can do it again. Just hope I do alright playing frogger on bayview. : ) 

It might be the taurus sturborness but I’d always believe that if I can do something on my own, I should.

So what about the xml flash thing I said yesterday? I started it, got some good result but I forgot to do any planning(which is rare). So I got the bits and peices to do what I want, it’s just not a complete application.   It was so funny, I got everything working around 7, then it was oh crap, I got 5 lines of data for each logo but don’t have a template or any pre-concepted area to display them. That kids, is why you always spend at least 50% of the estimate time on planning and not production!

while I’m on study week, I wanted to take a step outside of school assignment and work on something I like. I started working on a web page to parse xml files via javascript. It’s for a friend who’s building a really cool site to document logo designs. Anyhow…after a couple hours of effort, I’m thinking I should move to another language. Javascript is just as I left it years ago, plagued with cross browser incompetibility. Works on IE, won’t work on Firefox, if by change you have it working, then there’s also the Mac browsers….pain in the ass… I’m just going to do it in flash. Flash in many ways is platform independent like Java….man, do I ever love Java.

Don’t really know how to feel about today. Certain bad things happened, certain good things happened, and something that’s both good and bad happened. I accidentially scretched the front lip of my car while parking today, though no serious damage was done. …that wasn’t so bad now that I think of it, still the sound wasn’t pleasant. Today, I’m suppose to have 2 midterm tests, oddly enough, both of them got canceled last minite….and I studies so hard the night before. Actually this sem hasn’t been that great, all my profs form the 5 course decided to push back the test schedule and everything ended up this week. (I’m still upset about the 77 I got for DBJ, by my intelligences I should be getting 90 and above) I’m kinda left with this feeling of incompleteness. I pushed myself so hard this week, the end of the last 2 tests were suppose to be a signal to start the fireworks. So…around 2, no tests, no fireworks, no nothing.   The really exciting thing about today is that I finally got my hands on Penny Tai’s new album. She music just gets better and better. Oh and I was able to get the cd+dvd version from TW. Last time I dropped by the store, the sales lady told me they were getting the hk version that only contain the cd. Does make me wonder whether it was my luck that got me this, or did she see my demand and met it with supply?  In any case, I really enjoy the material on the DVD. Rather surprised that it was only marked for $17.xx CND.  I mean if I was to purchase it in TW or HK, it might just cost equal or more. Let me show you a photo of it.

Oh the mag cover on the right, that’s the magazine which keeps my designer spirit alive. Well, that and the tri monthly resurgence of my designer ich and of course the occational freelance  jobs I take up.

So…this is it for now. I’d probably take a day off this weekend and start working on assignments during my study week.

it’s not that I haven’t tried and put enough effort into it…. there’s just so much to do. In many ways, I think the school is intentionally making it difficult to take on a full course load so they can milk the students for $$. Longer you stay, more money they make.  3 midterms down 2 to go.

came across this music video while watching Sade videos on youtube today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGMhrDlOP7Q

There should be more music like this and less of the other crappy stuff.
And this video should very much be aired on tv….though indie stuff never really gets half a spot light.  Anyway, watch it spread it!

feeling high today. 2 days and 6 cups of tea(with a spoon of instant coffee), and I’m minites away from finishing an annoying assignment. The assignment itself isn’t difficult, just stupid. The main objective is to write xml/dtd/xsd.  But it needs to be presented in a java applet. The xml stuff alone takes less than an hour to complete. But the java applet takes a lot more effort, and the shitty thing is the java part isn’t getting marks. WTF?  The prof should just write a generic java applet and run the student file through it.

just messing with you, the friendster database is probably under maintenance again.  (of course I mosaic the postal code, eventhought I used a fake one, there’s still some truth to a good lie)