Quick. Urinal.net...

The Millenium Dome urinals are creepy. Looks like something is going to pop out of there and bite off your junk.

AC left my website open on my computer recently and I was ashamed to notice that I haven't updated in over a month. I've been busy, OK? Got a wedding coming up. And going to England. And going camping. And working. Etc.

The camping comes first, in Tofino again, leaving on Saturday (maybe?). That will be the fourth trip to Vancouver this summer, and the second to Tofino. The fifth will be after the wedding. The car is already at 70,000 kilometers (it started at about 48,000 when we got back from Montreal). Maybe another 10k before the semester starts? Insane.

Then back to Nelson for the wedding. It's coming together. We changed the time to 10am (in case you didn't know yet) and the reception is somewhere else now. Because 120 people are too many for someone's back yard (especially when they have only one toilet and it's tempermental...). We drove to Edmonton on Sunday to get tablecloths from IKEA, because there is no where in Nelson to rent them and it's about the same price to buy them anyway. Now we have 17 white tablecloths, which are handy for the wedding but sort of useless aftewards. What does one do with 17 white tablecloths? Unless we think of something, we'll probably just give them away. So if you come to our wedding, maybe you'll go home with a free tablecloth! Downside: it will be dirty.

Then back to Vancouver for a day or two, at most. AC has a Vancouver Folk Music Festival Meeting. Oh. I volunteered at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in July. Does that qualify me as a card-carrying hippie now? Maybe. I didn't really listen to that much of the music. Not really my cup-o-tea. I did chop a lot of stuff, food process some things, and wash a lot of fucking disgusting dishes. May I emphasize how disgusting the dishes were? Don't mind if I do. You know how when you cook bacon or sausages, there is that layer of grease in the bottom of the pan. You know, the grease you usually pour off into a can or something? Imagine if you didn't pour it off. Then imagine you were cooking enough sausages for 1500 (FIF-TEEN HUN-DRED) people on huge trays. And you left the grease to congeal for a couple hours. Then imagine me, scraping it off into a bucket. Only the bucket is small so I often miss, and have to try to pick up the floppy pieces of congealed fat with my hands. They fall apart if they are squeezed. At least I have rubber gloves. Oh, you were eating? Sorry...

Right. So we stay in Vancouver for a day or two. Then we drive back to Calgary so I can get on a plane to Heathrow. In London. In England. On a different continent. When I get there I'll take a bus to Nottingham. Yes, where Robin Hood is from. But I'm told they cut down Sherwoord Forest, so the Merry Men are no longer merry. Why would I make this insane journey? Because I sent a paper to a conference there (with some other people, of course), and it got in. So I get to go to Ubicomp 2004. Ubicomp is a conference about Ubiquitous Computing. I don't know anything about Ubicomp. But apparently some of the stuff I've been doing this summer is Ubicomp. Anyway, free trip to England! Yes, free. The professor I'm working with is paying for me to go. Which is nice, because I certainly couldn't pay for it myself. Too bad the timing is so crazy. I'm sure the jetlag will wear off by the time I come home. 6 days later. On September 11th.

So in the span of about 5 days I will get married, drive clear across BC at least twice, and fly halfway around the world. And I guess there is a bus, but right now that doesn't seem like such a big deal. Of course, I'm sure 4 hours crammed into a bus will be a lot less appealling when I've just been crammed in a plane for about 12 hours. Fun Times! And I'll be there for my birthday. But would you believe, I actually want to go? Maybe something is wrong with me...

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have lots of time to write updates on my website in the next month....

So we did the wedding thing. It was good. Stressful, but good. We did it ourselves - literally, ourselves. AC and I were running the show. The ceremony was pretty simple, but the reception was lots of work. We had some last-minute disasters the night before the wedding that made things a lot more complicated, but it worked out in the end. Luckily we had a lot of helpers, without them the day would not have happened.

Our photographers were awesome. There are some select shots up on the wedding website, which is at http://www.unknownroad.com/wedding. (Sorry, no clicky-link because I don't want it showing up in google...). AC was (is) gorgeous. You can also check out my sexy ass in my morning coat (it's like a tux, but you are allowed to wear it in the morning. All these rules...). Actually, you won't see my ass, because in the scanner my suit is entirely black. I hope the scans can do the photos justice.

The pre-wedding honeymoon in Tofino was great. It rained the first night. Our new tent held up pretty well. No leaking, but it was very humid in the morning. We built a tarp canopy and it was ok after that. It poured on the last day, and we had to be out by 11am the next morning anyway, so we headed back early. It was a bit harrowing doing the drive in the rain, but I think the worst driving was actually from Vancouver to Nelson. There was about a half-hour part where the highway was gravel (in preparation for paving). So, there were no road lines. It was also pouring and foggy. Luckily it was mountain passes, so you can only see to the next turn anyway! AC slept while I tried to see the road ahead.

We got lots of cool stuff from people. We have a lot of thank-you cards to write, but here is a preliminary thank-you to everyone who came. I know a lot of you traveled a long way, and AC and I both appreciate it very much. It was a great day because the people there made it a great day. Thanks thanks thanks.

We skipped the post-wedding Vancouver trip (thank god) so now I'm back in Calgary until tommorrow evening when I fly to FUCKING ENGLAND. That's right. ENGLAND. Far, far away on another continent. I still haven't figured out exactly how long my flight is, but the short answer is "long". Like at least 10 hours. 10 hours in a small tube, then 4 hours in a bus. I hope I don't lose it and / or freak out.

So I flew to England yesterday / today / whatever-the-fuck day it is. It was only 8 hours, instead of 10. But we did have to circle for 20 minutes, and wait 30 minutes for our gate to be vacated by another plane. Heathrow is under construction. Apparently we got in relatively quickly. Fun times. Not much to say about flying, except that it was long and mostly dark and I didn't sleep. I did see a few castles and country estates and things while we were circling. That was neat. Maybe my webcam actually got decent pictures of them...

("We" in this case is me and another student. I am happy to not be alone...)

So then we landed and walked for a few miles. This is where I began to regret bringing a duffle bag. Here is a tip: Get a suitcase with wheels. I usually take duffle bags places. They usually work out. Fits in the trunk of a car nice. Can be compacted when necessary. Etc. But not so good for lugging through airports. By the time we got to the bus station I just wanted to throw it into the street. For cars to run over. Cars that are driving on the other side of the road.

There are very few American cars here. It's strange. I've seen a few little Ford cars. That's it. No giant SUVs, that's for sure.

Anyway, so we got to the bus station. We waited about an hour for our bus, in a crowd of other bus-waiters. We watched some altercations. Bus drivers freaking out when people want to take 5 suitcases (your ticket permits two). That sort of thing. Then our bus got there. It smelled like urine.Normally, I might pause before sitting down for a 4 hour ride in a bus that reeks of urine. But I was just happy to be sitting.

We got to Nottingham without incident. We caught a cab to the place we are staying. It cost about 7 pounds. We tipped him 3 pounds. In retrospect, that seems like it was probably a big tip. It's hard to say. The exchange rate for pounds is about 2.2 dollars per pound, so a 3 pound tip is like 6 bucks Canadian. I'm not even sure we were supposed to tip. We went for food later (at "The Cow"), and an elderly couple told us that we did not have to tip. Nice!

The food at The Cow was good, but it seems people in England eat much larger portions that us Canadians. I ordered the "Large" fish and chips. For the price I paid, in Canada, that would mean I get two pieces of fish, each about the size of my fist. Here I got a giant slab about the length of my forearm. I finished it but did not touch my fries or peas. Another guy at our table ordered the "Large" Cow Pie. Yes, Cow Pie. Apparently that means food here. Anyway, it was half a lasagna pan. You know. The big ones. We dared him to finish it. He did. But he did not look well.

Now I'm in my room, which is actually pretty nice except the phones don't work. We have internet but I don't have a cable. Oops. I also bought a British plug adapter at the airport in Canada, but it doesn't take a grounded canadian plug. That is annoying. So I'm wasting my battery writing for my website, instead of trying to finish my presentation or something. It's ok because I arranged to borrow a plug adapter...

Now I just need to write an alarm clock program so I can go to bed. Note to self: Buy alarm clock...

So I survived my workshop. It was...interesting. I'm definitely only interested in a very small part of what "Ubiquitous Displays" encompases. Specifically, the hardware bit. So a lot of the workshop was totally un-interesting to me. Pity.

Not much else happened. Really. I went for dinner with some people from the workshop. One of the guys just came back from 2 years in the Anatarctic. So he had some good stories. Then we all went home to bed.

Summary of England Day 2: not very interesting...

Anyhow, we're on day 3 now, and it's my birthday. So maybe it will be more interesting...

Day 3 was better. The conference part of UbiComp started today. I think I'm not really all that interested in most of what goes on here. There is lots of stuff about user studies and mock-UbiComp scenarios that really makes me sleepy. There was only one paper today that I thought was interesting - it was about using particle filters to improve sensor input, etc. It was cool.

So the talks were basically a bust, for me. But there are about 100 different groups with posters or videos or demos or stuff here. Today they each got one minute to try and "sell" their thing. It's called Minute Madness. It was interesting. Some people did some weird stuff, like poetry and interpretive dance. One crazy guy got up there and yelled "HELLO UBICOMP, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!" (Hey, Crazy Guy - I've got a video if you want it...)

After that some of us from the iLab checked out the demos, posters, etc. They were cool. One of the demos is a game called "Bill" created by some group at Glasgow University. Their website is (possibly) www.seamful.com. But I'm not really sure, because the internet in our dorm rooms stopped working and I can't check. Anyway, in the game there were 2 teams of 2 and we had to run around with PDAs that had a map of the area on them. The PDA also showed coins that we had to pick up (by getting near them and pressing the pick-up button) and drop off. You could also steal from the other team, etc. It was interesting. We had a long talk with the guys from Scotland who made it, and they have promised to take us to the oldest pub in Nottingham - possibly it is called "The Old Jerusalem" or something like that. Anyway, it's near Nottingham Castle. I've never seen a real castle before. So that's kind of exciting....

I fell playing the game and got a giant grass stain on the shin of my pants. So now I've only got one semi-clean pair of pants left, before I have to either find a laundromat or become disreputable....

They served us a "Barbecue" today. It was just what seems to be standard British food, but they added a hamburger that was obviously not grilled. We almost had to go without ketchup as well, until I found the secret ketchup bowl. Speaking of weird stuff, they have something called "Brown Sauce" everywhere here. I haven't tried it yet, because anything described only by it's color seems wrong somehow. What is it made out of? Brown? I don't think I want to eat something made out of Brown...

That's about it. I'm going to bed now, because it is again almost 1 am and I'm fscking tired...

Day 4 was ok. There were some interesting talks in the morning. But I was tired.

In the afternoon we skipped the talks. Bad Students! Bad! We went into downtown Nottingham and got touristy. It was fun. First we went into some of the Nottingham Caves. Apparently the whole town is sitting on top of a network of caves. We went on a tour through a few of them. The tour guides were kind of cheese-mo, but the caves were neat. One part goes through some Victorian-era basements that were buried or something. It was along Drury Lane.

Do you know the Muffin Man?

We started out with a bunch of people, but someone took a long time to come out of the caves because he was chatting up the tour guide. Two of us waited for him, and in the meantime the rest of the group ditched us. So we wandered around and checked out some buildings. We wanted to go on the Halls of Justice tour (which goes through the various torture chambers of bygone eras) but it was 7 pounds. That's like 15 bucks. We didn't want to go that bad.

Next was Nottingham Castle. Only it's not a castle. Total scam. It's just a big house. At least it was free. There were some nice views from the top (I took some panorama shots, but I haven't figured out how to make my computer stitch them up yet...). We chilled by the official Robin Hood statue for a while. Then we checked ou the offical Robin Hood gift shop, where I learned that "Ryan" means "Little King" in Gaelic. AC thinks that is just *hilarious* and has been giving me a hard time since I told her. Nice.

Post-gift shop, we stopped in a chocolate shop for some ice cream and chocolate. It was pretty nice. Then we went to Marks & Spencer (ooh!), the train station, and back to Cavendish Hall where we are staying.

I also spent quite a while trying to find a fscking place that will sell me pounds if I give them my VISA. There was no issue at the airport, but I have had no luck in Nottingham. Huge pain in the ass...

In the evening we headed out to Kelham Hall for the conference banquet. It was a 45 minute bus ride. The place looked spectacular, and there was a great sunset too. And we saw sheep! Whole fields of sheep! The bus ride from London to Nottingham was basically sheep-free, and I was starting to think I might not see any. But no! Sheep! Baaaah! ...

(Did I weird you out with the sheep-excitement? Sorry...)

The inside of Kelham Hall was nice too. The ceiling was pink and that was kind of weird. But it's England. Ok. The main course of dinner was a weird slab of grey meat. I'm told it was lamb, but I was not impressed. Basically it was fatty and gross. But I did drink a lot of wine. I'm under the impression that each table was only supposed to have 2 bottles of red, but somehow mine managed to accumulate about 15. There were only 12 people at the table. It was not pretty...

I missed the bus ride home because I was sleeping and/or passed out. But I assume it was dark.

(The above may give you the impression that I will be happy when the conference is over. That's not entirely true. I'm glad the talks will be over. That is all)

The talks today I think were the most entertaining so far. There were two different hiliarious speakers from Japan. I sort of missed the first one because I was reading my e-mail and I couldn't follow his english without really paying attention. But the second one had some great slides. Very little information contact, but very funny.

Lunch was ok but it was raining. It's the first time it has rained here since I arrived. In England. Apparently this is rather abnormal.

The afternoon talks were mind-numbing. The closing speech was by some comp-sci luminary named Robin Milner. Apparently he invented ML and some other stuff. He was rambling about the "Global Ubiquitous Computer". I'm not even sure that's a good idea. But his talk really didn't make any sense, so if he's in charge I don't know if I need to worry...

Post-conf a gang of us went back to the Cow at Beeston for some pub grub, England-style. I think we all felt like we ought to party it up or something, but nobody made it past their first beer. Sad but true. We were beat. So we returned to our residence. Actually things picked up a bit there - we played foosball and I learned another two-player card game. I cannot remember the name, but it was fun. I lost every time. I tried to introduce my opponent to the other two-player card game I know: war. I think she was not terribly impressed. I almost had her beat a few minutes in - down to 5 cards! - but she rallied and eventually we just gave up. Then we watched some weird British TV. I called AC and was in bed by 11pm on my last night in England. Lame-o...

So I'm back in Canada. Actually I've been back for a few days, but I've been so messed up (jetlag and all) that staring at a screen was actually beyond my physical faculties.

The trip back was...long. I had a travelling buddy again (thank jebus), otherwise I think I may have actually lost my mind. We had to be at Heathrow by 4 pm for our flight. But the bus schedule was such that we could arrive at either like 12 am or 2:30 pm. Now, this was an international flight on September 11th, so I was a bit paranoid that an hour and a half might not be enough time. So, accepting that we would have a 4-hour vacation at Heathrow, we took the earlier bus. Which left Nottingham at 8 am. In the morning. We took a taxi to the station at about 7 am so that we could get breakfast. Nothing was open. We bought packages of "crisps" (in Canada, these would be called chips) from a newspaper stand.

Newspaper stand. Yes. The Newspaper stand. It did sell some newspapers, I suppose. But mostly it sold magazines. There were 3 racks: wedding magazines, fashion / tabloid magazines, and porn. Yes, porn. No Popular Mechanics or Time or anything like that. Just a rack of porn. Actually I guess it wasn't technically porn, because some of them were like UK Maxim and stuff. But what passes as standard bus-stop material in the UK would be sold behind the counter in plastic baggies here. So I couldn't even buy anything to read...(No, I didn't buy the porn, either)

Bus comes. We board. We ride for a couple hours. Then we stop for 45 minutes. They overbooked the bus, so at the previous stop they had to leave someone behind. He took a taxi or something for that leg of the trip. But his taxi was pretty fucking slow. And of course, we had to wait, because the bus had his luggage. WHY DID THEY PUT HIS LUGGAGE ON THE BUS? I do not understand. Oh well, I guess it just killed some of the time we would have spent waiting at Heathrow.

Before braving security, we tried to find food. We found a Burger King and a sandwich place. That was it. In Heathrow. Where like a million fucking people travel through every day. What was the deal here? While we were debating the relative merits of BK and Brie & Bacon sandwiches, one of our party found a "Guide to Heathrow". Said guide told us that, once we passed through security, we would be admitted to a veritable paradise containing many decent eating establishments. So we headed for security. Getting through security, etc, at Heathrow actually didn't take very long. It seemed like it wasn't that much more intense, September 11th-wise. They did random pat-downs but you didn't have to take your laptop out of your bag (hurray!). I guess there was like a wall of security guards after the actual security check. But they didn't bug us. There were some signs about not being able to take open fluid containers, so I downed my water jug before going through. No problem, except for then having to pee like crazy half way through dinner...

Past security, we again sought food. And found lineups. We had just decided that TGI Fridays was the place to be when the fire alarm went off. Yes. Fire alarm. So then we evacuated, being herded down to the ends of the various gates past fire doors. Fun stuff. It actually went off again while we were boarding, but it was in an area other than our gate so we didn't have to evacuate. I don't know if there was an actual fire. Annoying, though. Post-alarm we rushed back to TGI Fridays to be first in line. Then we waited for half an hour while they cleaned the place, before they let anyone in. Dinner was bland, as is all airport fare.

So that was the first 8 hours. Then we got on the plane and did another 8. Excitement. Adventure. This plane was not nearly as new, shiny, or nice as the one we flew in on. And it was much fuller. Naturally, we were seated beside the crying baby and as far away from the movie screen as physically possible. Travel-Cuts is cheap, but you're always going to be over the wing. Anyway, we watched Shrek 2 and Hidalgo. There was a loud buzzing over the audio tracks, but at least it was a moving picture to stare at. I finally nodded off during Hidalgo, but it only lasted about 15 minutes. By the end of the flight, I was just staring at things until I realized I had been staring for a few minutes, and moved my gaze elsewhere. Maybe it was the being-up-for-18-hours already. I did stay up once for 3 days straight, but I remember then feeling a bit of excitement or triumph even when I gave up and went to bed (after I started seeing spiders...). This voyage had none of that. I just wanted to be home. My travel-buddy definitely made it pass faster than it would have otherwise, for which I am quite grateful. Thanks `ryn.

So now I'm back. I'm still all fucked up from the jetlag. All day yesterday I kept having sudden sleeping fits, like I was going narcoleptic or something. Today seems better.

My TravelCuts thing says I flew 4,364 miles. That's a lot of bloody miles.

So, end Ryan's First Trip To England. Or anywhere, really, except Disney Land and a few places in Mon-tan-a. Was it worth it? I think so. I'm not sure I got a whole lot out of the conference, but I met a lot of good people, and that's nice. I had fun. I took a lot of pictures (most of them are crap) and maybe I will get around to posting them one day. Soon?

I am working on an NSERC grant application. I do not like doing this. Unfortunately, NSERC will give me a lot of money if I get the grant. So I have to do it. The deadline is Thursday at noon, so I don't have to work on it for much longer, but the last bit is the most work...

AC and I went down to Medicine Hat for a wedding on the weekend. But we're really busy, so we only went on Saturday. As in, drove down Saturday morning, and back Saturday night. We had to skip most of the reception, and it's lovely open bar. That's right. OPEN BAR. And we left at 10. Oh well. I can only handle 2 or 3 drinks these days anyway, then I'm either trashed enough to embarass myself, or feeling nauseous. Sad but true. (Oh, and congrats Dustin & Jenni).

We saw some sneaky cops on the highway. One normal cruiser with his lights flashing, sitting behind another car. Like he pulled it over. Only it's an unmarked car containing one (1) police officer and one (1) radar gun. And what do you do when you see a cop who has pulled someone over? You speed past and laugh - sucker! I'm assuming that when you do this, the cruiser will chase you down. I was going in the other direction, and only speeding a little, so I guess they let me go. But isn't that sneaky? Sneaky buggers...

I still haven't gone through the pictures from my trip. Or from the wedding. Or finished writing thank-you cards. Or figured out how much the wedding actually cost, so I can settle up with everyone involved in paying for it. I haven't done these things because the semester started and all the sudden I HAVE NO FREE TIME! It's a bit of a change from, say, the last 5 months. Ok, some of those months were crazy, but they were crazy with an end in sight. Now I'm busy working on my MSc. It's going to take at least a year. NO FREE TIME FOR A YEAR. Will Ryan go crazy? Tune in next week for an answer...

X-Prize! X-Prize! X-Prize! In case you haven't heard, the SpaceShipOne team won the Ansari X-Prize. There are some pretty cool pictures of their SPACE-SHIP on this page. That's right. SPACE SHIP. The Ansari X-Prize is a 10 million dollar (US) prize that was awarded today to these guys for making 2 succesful flights into space. That's right. SPACE. This is not NASA or any of the other space agencies, this is a team of dudes with about 20 million in funding. That sounds like a lot, but NASA spends waaaaaaaay more than that on a SINGLE LAUNCH. These guys built a whole fucking spaceship for 20 million and launched it a whole bunch of times. NASA spent billions to build the shuttle. So somebody's head is going to roll over there...

(I don't really have anything else interesting to post. I was just excited about the X-prize news)

Oh, and you can check out some of my pix from that England trip here. (They are not sorted or labeled in any way. Sorry! )

Today I have a hangover. This was not unexpected. I also have a canned ham. Unexpected.

Last night I went out with "the boys". We went to Molly Malone's, then Bass Brothers (?), then FATS. There were a lot of pitchers. There was discussion. Work. Wives & Girlfriends. Macroeconomics. You know, the usual. Arguments rose and fell. Nothing was resolved. The pitchers came and went. Good times. So the hangover, well, a small price to pay. If the alarm hadn't gone off at 7 am, the hangover might have been less severe. Next time I'll have to remember to turn that off...

Oh, right. The canned ham. Well. In Kensington, there is an old theater called The Plaza. The Plaza has Improv on Saturday night between 11:30 and 12:30. We discovered this on the way to the first pub. We made plans to attend. It's across the street from Bass Brothers, so we could see it. We could see the sign saying "Improv tonite at 11:30 pm". And yet we were late. We made it by midnight. We should not have ordered another round at quarter after 11. That was a mistake, in more ways that one.

So we go into the Improv. It's supposed to cost 5 dollars to get in, but there is no one in the ticket booth. We meander until a guy on a couch asks us what we are doing. We are nervous. We did not expect this question. We tell him we want to see the Improv. He says there is only half an hour left. We offer to pay him the 5 dollars each. He tells us to go in. Without paying. Free Improv. Score.

As we stumble into some seats, a man on stage is calling for volunteers. This is the critical moment that will lead to the acquisition of the canned ham. Mike says "Schmidt, go for it!". I am not thinking clearly. I am emboldened by...well...liqour. I raise my hand. The man on stage calls me up. I go.

I am given a horn and a bell. The improv-people are given a task: act out episodes from my life. I will honk the horn if they say something incorrect. I will ring the bell if they are correct. This is the game. I will not attempt to relate the 20 minutes that followed. I simply could not do it justice. I honked the horn many times. I rang the bell when it seemed prudent. The crowd laughed. Perhaps my inebriated state made it seem more comedic than it was. But I was, literally, laughing my ass off. Please, help me find my ass.

For my efforts, I was awarded the canned ham. Now it sits on my desk, as a reminder of...well, the vague memory I have of the Improv show. Do you, too, want a canned ham? Saturday. 11:30. Or 12, if you don't want to pay admission...

I have another story. I call it "Chocolate Fucking Disaster".

AC makes fantastic cakes. Not only are they tasty, but they come in whatever shape I request. For example, my birthday cake this year was a ninja cake. It was half an inch of solid truffle. Plus a ninja! Last year it was a kite cake. Cut into the shape of a kite. With little pieces of cake trailing afterwards. And so much icing .... oh so much icing! She made extra icing. I ate that icing for days. Yum. So AC makes me the great cakes. And once in a while, I try to make her a cake. My cakes are not as tasty. And they don't have the great shape. But a few weeks

ago I offered to make her a cake. A cake in the shape of the sun. A sun-cake. The cake I imagined was quite elaborate. I was going to need at least two round cakes to produce it. One for the middle of the sun. One for the "rays". It was going to be a masterpiece of a cake. This was my plan.

AC went out to yoga for two hours. I had two hours to make my cake. I found a recipe for chocolate cake. I laid out the ingredients. I was missing Baking Soda. I ran to Safeway. I ran back. I measured the dry ingredients. I measured the wet ingredients. Then came time to melt the chocolate. You see, I had to melt the chocolate and stir it in with the other ingredients. For the cake.

We have a lot of chocolate chips. 10kg, to be exact. They are left over from the wedding. We were going to make chocolate sauce for the waffles. We did not. So we have the chocolate chips. I thought I would use them. The recipe called for 4 ounces of chocolate. Here I hit a, shall we call it a "snag". I have thousands of chocolate chips. I need 4 ounces of chocolate. How many chips makes 4 ounces? I had no idea, but I was running out of time. So I made an "executive decision". I decided that a handful was two ounces. I threw in two handfuls. But it looked like not very much chocolate, compared to the cup of butter I was to melt it with. So I threw in another handful.

I melted the chocolate. I stirred it in with the other ingredients. I poured it into well-greased pans and cooked at 350F (pre-heated) for exactly 25 minutes. I followed the instructions perfectly. Except for the chocolate...

When I opened the oven, I noticed that a lot of the cakes had spilled over the sides. They didn't look very cake-like. They were flat. Now, I'm used to my cakes "falling". It usually happens. But these hadn't just fallen. They had never risen. The tops were crusty. Not burnt. Crusty. There was a crust around the rims of the cake tins. I broke some off and tasted it. It didn't taste bad. But it was chewy. Like toffee. Not very cake-like.

It became clear that I had used too much chocolate. AC soon arrived home from yoga. She found the entire situation hilarious. Once the cake had cooled somewhat, we cut out a piece. It had a texture that was....interesting. I think AC used the word "slimy". You could basically pick up the whole cake in one piece, by the corner. It was floppy. It was floppy cake. Now the floppy cake lives in a bowl in the fridge. It doesn't exactly taste bad. Just different. It's pretty good with ice cream. I've been cutting it up into little pieces, freezing it, and eating it with vanilla. Just stay away from it at room temperature.

This is the story of the Chocolate Fucking Disaster...

THIS IS MOSTLY LINKS, SO GET YOUR HAND OUT OF YOUR PANTS AND PREPARE TO CLICK!

That was a hack. From "mimi smartypants" (link), if you must know. Apparently she and I have similar sandwich-making neurosis. Halfway down this page you will find a screed about the time necessary to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm familiar with this issue. You might think it's a simple process, but all of my ex-roommates will assure you that this is not always the case. I have endured no end of harassment about my quest for "The Perfect Spread". I think that's over-dramatizing it just a bit . I want the peanut butter and jelly to be evenly distributed on each side of the bread, OK? Is that so fucking unreasonable? IS IT!???!

And then there was the coffee sipping. Ok. When I make a cup of coffee, I habitually over-estimate how much space I should leave for milk. So I have to fill the cup up right to the top. Then I have to suck some of it out, so I can pick it up without spilling. But try doing this, without spilling, while 4 grown men stare at you. Why are they staring? Because, for some twisted reason, they find it amusing and/or fascinating. Like they are watching a wildebeest being torn apart by jackals on wild animal show or something. Curiousity and Revulsion? Maybe.

I lied about the links. I only have one more, and you don't actually want to click it. There is a story on kuro5hin.org about web applications being the legacy apps of the future. Here. The author whines about how much HTML sucks, etc. Not very interesting. But I thought this comment was great:

That is all.

Oh, wait. I'd also like to point out that I am a terrible person for forgetting my sister's birthday. I haven't even called her yet! I'd do it now but I don't have a phone I can make long distance calls with at the Uni. So, sister: I'm sorry. Happy Birthday.

Conversation just overhead happening in the alley behind my apartment:

I wonder if she really means it...

Short Update: I went to Nelson on the weekend. I have a lot of work to do. Goodbye.

Yes, it has been over a month. For shame! Even worse, I have no idea when I'll get to post this, because whichever neighbour I was "borrowing" wireless from has either unplugged their hub or remaned it to "Tuna" and added a WEP key. For shame!

Tonight I made a rice+stir-fry thing. I even added chicken. I cooked the rice just like it said to on the bag - boil water and rice, put on lid, cook on low for 15 minutes WITHOUT REMOVING LID, take off heat and let sit for 5 minutes WITHOUT REMOVING LID, serve. Ok. While it was sitting for 5 minutes WITHOUT REMOVING LID I made the stir-fry stuff. So it sat for longer than 5 minutes. Maybe 10. That could have been the problem.

Anyway, I declared the stir fry done and tried to add the rice. Only I could not REMOVE LID. It was stuck. Really, really stuck. The instructions on the bag of rice don't tell you what to do in this case. It just says "serve". Nothing about removing the lid.

So I spent a couple minutes just pulling on it. That didn't work. The rice had kind of bubbled over or something while it was sitting there WITHOUT REMOVING LID, so I thought maybe it had glued itself shut. I spent a few more minutes trying to pry the lid off with a knife, but I couldn't get it between the lid and the pot.

Around this point I noticed that I could turn the lid. I could spin it, it just wouldn't come off. Eureka! Suction! But what to do? I figured heating it up might help, but I did not want to burn the rice (again). I've burnt enough damn rice. I always burn the rice. Not this time....

So I put it in the freezer. The pot was metal, so was the lid. Maybe it will contract, right? But, see, I have no patience. And I wasn't really interested in cold rice. So I took it out the freezer and went back to a combination of spinning and pulling. After about 5 minutes....pop! Off comes the lid. Out comes some of the rice. Joy! But for the first 15 minutes there....I was really kind of confused....

(The rice+stir-fry was mediocre....not enough vegetables I think....)

So, why haven't I updated in a month, you are not asking (because you stopped checking three weeks ago)? Because I was busy, that's why. Here is what I have done since November 16th:

1) finished a course project
2) wrote a conference paper with a guy from France, and submitted it, in about a week
3) started and finished another course project, in about a week
4) came up with a budget for about $300,000 dollars in equipment
5) designed and constructed and 3D frame for some profs
6) wrote a journal paper IN ONE DAY
7) wrote a 40 page technical report on the second course project IN THREE DAYS
8) wrote a 10 page paper on the first course project SINCE YESTERDAY

Number 8 followed right after number 7 followed right after number 6 followed right after number 5 followed right after you get the fucking idea. 16 hour days are fun, boys and girls. Now, if both the papers get in, and my course projects turn into more papers, this will have been a really good semester. If only some of that happens, I will be not disappointed. If everything is rejected I WILL RAGE LIKE NO MAN HAS RAGED BEFORE. (That's not true. I'll probably just sort of shrug, outwardly. But inside I'll be raging. Maybe....)

Anyway, next semester I only have one course. So maybe less work. But I'll probably have more papers to write. So maybe more work. Hurray.....!

Spending a lot of money on equipment might sound like fun, but most of the time it's kind of just a pain in the ass. I designed lots of stuff but WHO KNOWS IF IT WILL WORK. A lot of the things I designed this summer are getting close to being built, so I guess we'll soon find out if all the massive assumptions and estmations I made were right, or if I'm just a total fuckwit.

Non-work related news is slim. The downstairs neighbour plays loud music all the time. I went down there once at 3 am to ask them to turn it down and she said "sure". But she didn't! Surprise! We called the landlord and she stopped plaing it at 3am. But she still plays it all day. I hear the bass. duh-duh-duh-dununuh. I hate them. MAKE THE BAD THUMPING NOISE STOP. The landlord said we should call the cops if it's bothering us. Apparently you aren't allowed to be noisy in the day, either. But I can't bring myself to do it.....

Did you know you can get Maudite (Damned) and Fin du Monde (End of the World) here in Alberta? The have another one too, called "Terrible", and it is. You might like it you like Guinness. I don't. For those of you not "in the know", Maudite and Fin du Monde are Quebec micro-brew beers. They come in big bottles, kind of like Big Bear or Olde English. But classier, with a cork. They only cost about 5 bucks. I know, it sounds a lot like Big Bear. But I promise - better than Big Bear! Maudite was pretty much the only beer I would buy in Montreal. It's about 8%, so one is all I ever needed! HA HA! Sad but true. Anyway, look for it at your local liquor store! They have it at the one beside FATS, anyway. Yum!

Speaking of Maudite, kudos to Mr. Olsen and Dawn for the k-rad party the other night. Whatever night that was. I stopped working to go, but that doesn't mean I had slept or was aware of what time of day it is. Anyway, bad-ass cookies. Bad-ass!

And now it's time to go. Look for massive website updates in the coming weeks (maybe), because I'm going to Nelson and I might have some time on my hands (maybe) because I'll have no internet. THE HORROR! Then again, I'll probably just squander it reading papers or programming. Hello! Nerd! Ok that's enough of you...