log 517

I hate working with databases after developers mess it up during development. It just so happens that’s happening in my project right now and I need to clean it up before Sunday.  sigh….so tired. One thing I don’t get is why would you use tinyint to store a boolean? I know mysql doesn’t have bool, so use char(1) instead. It’s much more migratable to other DBs.  Honestly, mysql was a poor choice to begin with, but being a team player, I will just have to bare with it.

##tv##
Saw this on cnn while scanning through the channels today. Racist? Not really. It was just a theme party that got totally taken out of context. A few photos were shown on the show, then a lengthy debate with some overly educated idiots(with the exception to the black guy who pointed out right away the solution is to get better education to the black community as to due away with the negative associate of black people being criminals). Honestly, after viewing the pictures, it looks just to be a typical theme party with the theme being "gangsters". (yes, one guy in the photo who body painted himself black was totally out of line, that’s racism, but nothing else stands out as racist) 

Anyhow, after a min of the debate(bs), I got bored and changed channels. What I saw was an episode of Fresh Price of Bel-Air. The episode was about the Banks family under going the witness protection program living in a trailer park surrounded by stereo typical portrayal of Southern North American white folks. You know, overweight, in denim overalls, bad teeth, shooting off shotguns. Ironic isn’t it? That is so much more racially inappropriate. Not only that, it slipped passed all the censorship crap in the US as well as Canada, and is now on a Canadian channel for kids(YTV). 

Enough with the stupid things people say. Yesterday, I got some good cds, none of which are new but just good stuff I’ve missed out. 

##music##
Bebel Gilberto [Bebel Gilberto]
Massive Attack [The best of Massive Attack]

I actually saw the MA cd/dvd last week at an HMV but they jacked up the price to $38. I found it for $26 at BestBuy. As the title saids, it has the best hits from Massive Attack and the DVD has all their music videos. Remember the really cool one from the 90s "Teardrop", with the fetus in the womb singing. That’s in it.

fav track [I Against I]

The other cd Bebel Giberto, was somewhat hard to find. I was actually looking for her previous album released back in 2000. I decided to buy it after I heard her track on the "closer" soundtrack(hate the movie, eventhough Natalie Portman was in it). Her music is something that would come in handy as background music if I ever hold a summer party outdoors.

##stupid memories##
Yesterday in the lab, a pretty girl sat beside me. Her fashion style is somewhat gothish. Wearing boots with multiple straps and a ruffly blue dress. Obviously working in the lab, I didn’t notice how pretty she was till I packed up and was about to leave. One thing I remember though, she smelled like chocolate. I wonder if that’s a new fragrance or maybe she was just eating in the lab.

woohoo, finished my research demo application. Honestly, I thought it would keep me company till 5. Oh well, back to my decaffeinated life. ^o^
(since friday, my daily coffee intake averages 3 cups per day.)

spent most of my day hammering away at a html/css template for the group assignment. It looks fabulous from both aesthetic and technical views. I think it’s my best yet. I’m still making the conversion from table to div tags. I can’t believe my second coffee lasted this long. My first cup only kept me awake for 3 hours (3 hr online meeting).  Eventhough I’m not sleepy, I should get to sleep. There’re still plenty of work besides the weekly grocery shopping.

(as you can tell, my previous plans has been canceled. Work comes first!)

First thing I got to school, the alarm was sounded as the school’s basement level caught fire(or so I’ve heard). I stood there, watching people walking by not knowing exactly where they should go. After a few mins, I remember my class is at the other building, and so I headed over there via ground level instead of the bridge.  At the lab, I got my setup ready and proceeded to logon. 2 mins in, a message popped out saying the server is shutting down. Turns out the server room cooling system malfunctioned, and fried the servers. My whole morning went pretty unproductive.

Today for lunch, I got a yogurt pafet and a cup of fruit. The cost is about the same as the not so great salad I had last week, only tastier. I know, not quite a "manly" lunch, but heck, whatever satisfies my sweet tooth. The price doesn’t justify the product but on Thursdays, I don’t have enough time to eat out.

In one of my classes today, I believe I saw the women of every geek/nerd’s dreams. She was working on a Mac book pro, running Windows XP via bootcamp, and browsing Canada Computers site looking for a printer cable.

An unwelcomed guest
Today, my second class is a 4 hr lecture. Normally this class is only 2 hrs long, but since the Prof will be absent for 2 classes, he decided to hold the make up classes early. So the first 2 hrs and manditory, and the later optional. Just as the optional class started, another Prof(Robert Boyczuk) came in. He starts bitching about how his students are not attending his class because they are in our optional class. Man….what a dick! The optional class was scheduled with consensus of the students. Anyhow, it’s 6th sem college for sakes. The students choose not to attend his class, he should be thinking about what he’s doing wrong, not bitching at another prof. Maybe his classes are boring, or just not so important, honestly I don’t care. The bottom line is that he’s got no right to come into our class and start compaining and making threats about going to the CS chair about it. Fucking prick.

When do you know your hair is too long?
When it gets in your way while eating.

N was right, I stayed up too late last night. well..sort of. I woken up at 7:30 just as I planned but I stayed in bed debating with myself whether I could actually get a parking spot at Finch station. (I didn’t have $6 exact change for the gate, so I’d probably needed to stop at the gas station which would put me behind) All the debating and running scenario got me tired and went back to sleep. Eventually, I got up at 11:30. Knowing plan A is far from possible, I switch to plan B (which came up while debating with myself). My destination changed to Scb town centre instead. I haven’t been there for at least a year. That mall seems to be going down hill and the store I had in mind isn’t there(wasn’t quite sure if it had ever been there). Since I couldn’t find it on the east end of town, and driving south is too stressful, I opted west. Checked my map for an approx location and the way I went. I like going to Yorkdale Mall, not the trip itself because there’s no convinient entrance driving southward which I normally do, but I like the mall. It has more of the expensive stores which are less common(even the shoppers dress better).  Obviously, I found the store I was looking for, got the gift in a little blue box in a little blue bag. Pic? Don’t think so. The gift itself is actually better than what I had in mind. Their products look rather different than what I saw on their site(they need a better photographer for product shots, as well a model or something to show it’s actual size). So…that adventure ends, with missing pastries. Maybe on Sat, I will just go for it.

Feeling like I’ve missed an opportunity of a life time right now. I turned down a friend’s invite of a road trip to Montreal . I want to go so much but there’re just too much riding on this school sem that I can’t afford to miss a lecture. sigh…..
If I wasn’t in the PRJ project, I’d probably drop everything and go. I can stand to set myself back 4 months but I just can’t risk affecting the future of my team mates.

To a more positive note, let’s see tomorrow’s plans. Stop by Eaton centre to shop for a gift and visite Athen’s Pastries on Danforth. I guess the order of things will be getting the gift first, then head over to Athen’s. Doesn’t make sense carrying pastries around while I shop. : ) 

With the group project, everything is back in the way it was. It was rather interesting how the prof announced(again) that he now is our client(for the purpose of the course), so we are to ignore any input from the other prof(our actual client). My team mates doesn’t seem to be too fond of doing any actual SQL stuff. Maybe it’s just me, but sql, stored procedure and any other database matter are rather easy. But what’s done is done, I will let ROR do its thing.

As the project went on, our primary client finally had time to read the e-mails we sent a month ago. For some stupid reason, he doesn’t want the system build on ROR. So that means a total platform change, with the possiblity of db server change (mysql is for those who can’t afford a real db, heh heh). After an hour long meeting, we’ve somewhat agreed on moving to .net if it must come to it. I really should push for the java/oracle but considering I’m the only experienced one, it’s better to go with .net and c#.

Today’s Monday, so I went out for lunch. I finally got my french toast fix. : )  4 big pieces topped with fruit, and a cup of tea. I like having lunch at Kiva.

This wednesday, I plan to go out and have some fun. Saw something on tv about Athen’s pastry and bakery over the weekend, it attracted enough attention that I just might go and try it. Since I will be traveling downtown, I might as well shop for a gift. M’s b-day is coming up soon and by that time, I’m usually swamped with work. Already have an idea of what to get, just a matter of whether it’s available.

woke up a bit late today(really late, 1:30), had a breakfast and rushed out to the super market as usual. When I got there, the parking situation was so bad, I thought it was christmas again. Next week, I’d be sure to wake up earlier just to avoid it.

Later in the day, I went to Indigo for some interior design mags. While browsing, a guy came up to me and ask if I’m into archi and he has a "friend" who’s looking into a good school for it. Can you say pick up line? The archi mags are 2 shelfs away. If i’ve kept track of things, I’d say the number of men vs the number of women who’s shown interest in me is about the same. I’m just as popular(or unpopular depending on how you read the numbers) with the gents as with the ladies. It’s a time like this when I wonder if I should get a tatoo on my forehead printed "straight".  ha ha

Something about last night. After a very fulfilling meal hosted by H, I headed out to my car and found the SUV next to my car parked way too close. So close that I wasn’t able to open the driver side door. I did what I had to do and entered from the passenger side(it’s not my first time). What’s interesting is that the SUV’s driver side door is next to my driver side door, which makes me wonder how the other driver got out after his/her shitty parking job. And why wouldn’t he/she just do an adjustment.

had the weekly group meeting with the prof today. I was quite overly defensive on just about every matter, swords and katanas in hand. If you were in my position, you’d probably will too. Seeing that he took quite a number of shots at my group last time. This is a quote from one of the matter:
P: "why did you choose to use mySQL knowing that it doesn’t check foreign keys?"
Me: "why did you offer it?"

heh heh. If you are a developer, you’d probably know the answer is so obvious to which shouldn’t even be asked. Mind you this isn’t a business meeting or a project proposal. It’s a progress meeting.

Sigh….another thing that came up was how much work we will actually do, since ROR makes building an application so easy. He’s implying that with ROR, our job becomes too easy. Depending on how you look at it, this project is suppose to be give us some field experience. So…let’s see what we are actually doing.

-learning a new framework
-learning a new language
-same old OO designs
-same old DB tasks

Looks to me it’s just exactly what any another web development does.

Anyhow, if anything goes wrong, I’m still up for some JAVA + Oracle love.