2005-12-13-- 09:51 PST

Dead week used to be my favorite time of year.

I guess, back when taking finals every semester was the norm, I was more prepared to have to take them...ugh. My one final this semester (my last final ever) is Thursday morning at 08:00. I don't think it will be too complicated, but you never know. I finally got my other lab report thingy turned in... so at least that's done. I just really would rather not have to take any more exams. It kind of bums me out, too, that I care so little. Oh well.

I'm taking a red-eye flight out to corpus this time around. I haven't ever done that before. While getting in at 09:00 I guess gives me a whole other day to hang out, I imagine I'll probably be asleep for a large chunk of it.

Anyway

I should probably be heading in to campus. I was going to do this update last night, but joevegh.com was down. I'm not entirely convinced any one but me noticed.

I will try and post some more before I go home for the holidays, but I should be updating from the road, too.

2005-12-05-- 21:23 PST

Good Lord.

I'm getting too old for the crap I used to pull in undergrad.

We had this lab assignment due today. We've had it for weeks.... but we didn't really have a firm due-date set until last Friday.

Earlier, this seemed fine, becuase I was busy with other stuff...

At anyrate, I worked all day yesterday on it, and ended up going into work this morning at 04:45. Ugh.

Anyway, it's done, and it was nice to have a full day of work over with by 14:00.

I came home and made bean soup with the hambone left over from Thanksgiving. Good times.

Anyway.

I've been cooking a lot lately, it seems. I ended up making that hard candy I mentioned before. It turned out pretty well.

I made root beer, lemon-cherry, and peppermint. They pretty much tasted like what I thought they would, although the root beer was more carmel-y and less sasparilla-y than I would have liked. It was still all pretty good.

Well. I am pretty exhausted. I think I will go to bed.

2005-11-XX || Back to the Vault Main Page

2005-11-30-- 23:51 PST

Whew. My stupid term paper is finished.

I guess it's not really stupid, since I wrote in on my research, but the fact I had to do it for a class and try to keep the text limited to 5 pages made it much more tedious than it needed to be.

oh well.

In other news, I started making hard candy. I did a test batch the other night (it was basically just sugar-flavored), and I'm planning on making some cherry and lemon drops for this party I'm going to on Saturday. So... that could be fun.

Anyway, as promised, here's some pictures from thanksgiving:

The Ham, post brine, post rubdown, pre-cook, sitting in one of our filthly ovens:


The Ham after cooking (and initial carve); the brisket is up and to the left:


Marie's Turkey, which as usual was excellently prepared:


That's pretty much it... I was too distracted with food, friends, etc. to take anymore pictures.

I'm going home in ~2 weeks for the holidays, so I'll plan on making up for the deficit then.

2005-11-28-- 16:43 PST

Hey folks.

Hope everyone's holiday was good. I know I promised pictures of Thanksgiving, but I was sort of tied up...between cooking, eating, drinking, and hanging out, I only took 2 pictures. They were both of the ham. I will post them in my next post from home.

I'm sitting at work right now. I've been trying to finish my term paper, but I've been procrastinating at every possible turn. It's almost done now, though, so I guess that's good.

I'll be heading to the gym in a few minutes and then home to proofread/watch TV/make candy.

I've decided I like melting sugar on the stove. I think tonight I'm going to try for some sort of simple cherry-drop thing... I don't know... we'll see.

Anyway. I also realized that I haven't posted any impressions from 'Goblet of Fire'. It was good.

I also saw 'Walk the Line'. Also very good.

I also saw 'The Ice Harvest'. That I really enjoyed, but I don't think it will be everyone's cup of tea. It was much less a comedy and more a noir-ish, bloody, dark thing with some funny parts. Think Grosse Point Blank's humor meets Chinatown's sudden scenes of violence....But with less 1980's music and more Billy Bob Thornton.

So... yeah.... I'm going to the gym.

Only 2 1/2 weeks of class left. And then I'm done forever (with class in grad school).

I'm out.

2005-11-23-- 15:09 PST

The Thanksgiving preparations have begun.

The ham is in the brine. I'm reducing my apple juice/cider to 2 cups for the glaze.

Dave has just pointed out to me that I could have saved several hours of simmering by buying a can of apple juice concentrate.

The bottle of juice informs me that it was made from concentrate anyway.

Oh well.

The brisket is marinating... I will take it out this evening and dry rub it, in preparation for the crock pot early tomorrow morning.

This should be good.

Pictures will follow.

2005-11-18-- 13:53 PST

I am so freakin' exhausted.

I haven't slept very well (or much) this week, for whatever reason. Yesterday was rife with myriad computer problems in the lab, and that took a lot out of me as well.

We're getting ready to go see 'Goblet of Fire' this afternoon (we have tix for the 15:30 showing...)

Right now I feel like I could sleep through the whole Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Man. I am a massive nerd.

Anyway. I will get coffee down by the theatre, since the coffee shop in Barnes and Noble validates parking.

In other news, I picked up Mario Kart DS. It is sweeeeet.

I was sitting in my living room and, via the magic of wireless internet, was racing my buddy Mason from all the way across the country. Pretty cool stuff.

Well, I have to wrap up some last minute things here at the office before we head to the theater. I'm sure I'll have something to say about the movie once we get back.

2005-11-15-- 23:18 PST

Well, as I'm sure you've all heard by now, they cancelled Arrested Development.

This makes me sad for America, on several different fronts.

As such, I think I'll talk about something else.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I'm making a ham this year (among other things). It should be exciting, I think. I've never cooked a raw ham before; I think I've found a pretty good recipe. There will be brining. There will be glazing.

I'll have to let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, I'm going to get back to playing Resident Evil 4...I picked it up used for Gamecube last weekend, and it totally rocks. Check it out.

2005-11-12-- 14:52 PST

Well, the weekend is here.

Our poker night went pretty well. I ended up the big winner. Once again, my feelings on dealer's choice v. no-limit hold 'em are somewhat justified, as I continue to do better with a max-bet sort of situation.

Anyway. I went and saw 'Saw II' this morning. It was pretty good. Not quite as good as the original, but still worth seeing.

I say this realizing that most people out there are like... 'whatever, stupid horror movies are stupid'. I'd just like to point out that I felt the same way before someone convinced me to see the first one, and I was quite surprised that it isn't what I'd classify as a lame-slasher flick. There is more gore than you'd get in your typical non-horror film, but there's also a much more involved Serial-killer/psychological thing going on. The previews never bring this up, of course, which is what I think has soured many people on the franchise.

So, to make a long story short, if you don't mind a little blood/guts and intensity, rent the first 'Saw'. If you like it, see 'Saw II'. (though you could probably wait for it to come to video and not miss out on much).

Enough with the movie advice.... I guess A&M lost again today...but it wasn't quite as much of a slaughter as it could have been. As per usual, it wasn't covered by ABC out here (stupid regional BS), so I've still only seen one game this whole season. I guess this year just isn't going to work out to well for the Aggie contingent (which my sister pointed out to me this morning is just like every year'. Oh well. We won the Big XII championship my freshman year there, so I guess that's something.

I should probably clean my room today, but I don't think I'm going to. I am going to go find something else to occupy myself with, though. Later.

2005-11-10-- 13:59 PST

Sorry that I've been so lazy this week.

I haven't really had much to post about in the past few days.

Johno and I went and saw Shopgirl. It was good.

Kasi was in town for the weekend, so she, Yoshie, and I ate some food from the Thai Bhuddist temple buffet thing on Sunday and then went and saw 'Elizabethtown'. That was a lot better than I had thought it would be. I'm still not really sure where it ranks on an absolute scale, though.

I've spent the majority of the week getting caught up on my classes. My time at home during the evenings has pretty much been saturated with November sweeps on the ol' TV. That's kind of pathetic I guess, but something is still not jiving well with me after my trip. I think the initial day of tiredness has propagated through the enitre week, since I haven't really had a chance to sleep in, and I've been forcing myself to stay up as late as I can (since I was falling asleep at like, 18:00 PST for a week on the east coast). That may not be the best idea, in retrospect, but tomorrow is a University Holiday, so I'll probably sleep in a bit before I come into work.

Well, I am a Graduate Student. We don't really take breaks on single-day holidays....I still have homework to catch up on, as well.

Anyway, in other news, we're having a poker night at our house tomorrow... that should be fun.

I also found some motherboards at Fry's for only $19.99, so there's a possiblity the 'build our own TIVO' project may start up again this weekend....Although I had to break down last Sunday and get a VCR to replace the old one...like I said... it's November sweeps.

Ugh. I'm going to get some coffee and tidy up this outline for the next publication we're getting ready to write...hoo-ray.

2005-11-05-- 13:21 PST

Well, I made it back in one piece.

There are some pictures up in the 'Sights' section.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip. I saw some interesting talks, my talk went well, and Boston was a pretty cool place. Fortunately, the weather behaved nicely while we were there.

Wednesday, Dave Humbird and I took most of the day off to go up to MIT and Harvard... so that was fun. We also popped up to the Harpoon Brewery for a free tasting. Their beer is not bad, and it was free...so...good times.

Thursday night we went back up by Harvard to check out this place's famous 'Scorpion Bowl'... it was some fruity girl-drink, but it came in a giant bowl with 5 straws. Also, we had a pu pu platter there, which I had not had since my youth.

The flight back was ok, ending my first trip on Jet Blue. Apparently headwinds make the flight back to Oakland about an hour longer than the flight out to Boston... which totally sucked. I knew I had been on the plane for a long time when Food Network (they have DirecTV on the flight, btw) started showing the same stuff that was on when we first took off.

My main goal for today and tomorrow is to get back on a normal sleep schedule... but I woke up early this morning with little desire to go back to bed... so I'm not sure what that says for my plans.

Anyway. I'm going to start getting caught up on some of the movies playing in the theatre that I haven't had a chance to see over the past few weeks due to conference-related preparations. Then maybe I'll take a nap and do some laundry.

Enjoy the weekend. Here's to hoping the weather where you are is as nice as it is here.

2005-11-01-- 15:33 EST

A brief update from the road.

I'm sitting here in Boston at the Hynes convention center 'Internet HotSpot'

I gave my talk this morning; It went pretty well, I guess... the response seems to have been good. I have a meeting I have to hit up here at 4, and once that's done, the day is pretty much over. There's a poster session at 5, but we get 2 free beers, so that's more or less not a serious professional endeavor.

Anyway. I need to get some more coffee (I've been hitting up Dunkin' Donuts every day thus far for teh java.... eh... it is pretty good, but it ranks up there on my list of highly overrated things).

But more on that I when I get back. I think I may wander about tomorrow and do some site seeing, as there is no 'Plasma Science and Technology' session tomorrow.

2005-09-05-- 23:29 PDT

What movie opening in the next couple of months am I most amped about?

No, it's not 'Goblet of Fire'....

After viewing the rest of the 'Firefly' DVDs in the past few days, the obvious answer is 'Serenity'. Now, granted, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a huge Joss Whedon fanboy, but I did enjoy the original Buffy movie, and 'Firefly' was quite excellent. I would say it even surpasses 'Odyssey 5' in the list of Sci-Fi-TV-shows-cancelled-well-before-their-time.

Space prostitutes, for crying out loud.

Anyway, to make another Harry Potter v. Firefly comparison... the void I now feel, knowing there are no more Firefly episodes in the can.... I daresay I would gladly forgo Book 7....

Yes I am a huge dork...but then again, I never claimed I wasn't.

2005-09-02-- 19:37 PDT

Happy freakin' September, people.

Labor day weekend is once again upon us; tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of my passage from mere graduate student to PhD degree candidate. Hooray, I guess. Good luck to all the 3^rd years out there whose quals are going on now. It will all be over soon.

Work was totally lame today. I made some progress on this new modelling code I've been working on, but I stumbled upon a pretty big problem that I should have caught several weeks ago. All isn't lost though, as some of the work I've done in the past few days will still be worthwhile once things are working correctly. At this point, I can't really say what the problem is...though it is probably my fault.

In other news, I'm making barbacoa tomorrow. Not the traditional way, but with a rump or tri-tip roast and a crockpot. It should be good. Give me a call tomorrow if you're hungry around dinner time and want to drop in. I probably can't eat that many tacos by myself.

I went down into Oakland last night to the Stork Club to see one of my local favorites, Pants Pants Pants. The were good as always.

On a related note, my dislike for Pabst Blue Ribbon remains. I don't care if it is the yuppie's new Zima... I had a few of them over the course of several hours last night and did not feel too well today, at all. Not really what I would call hungover, mind you, just not well.

Plus, it does taste like ass. Bring on the High Life, people. Then again, for $2 a bottle with only mild discomfort, I can't really complain.

Well, I've got to get back to sitting around, and then enventually go to the store.

Peace out, homeskilletz.

2005-08-XX || Back to the Vault Main Page

2005-08-29-- 21:21 PDT

I came across this little program called Rasterbator that makes rasterized images of image files, which you can then print out with acrobat.

What better way to test it, then, than to make large posters of Abe Vigoda and Joey Lawrence? (these are both 16 sheets of letter size paper):







Anyway. I should probably do something more productive now.

2005-08-28-- 11:23 PDT

So, I went to this thing last night. If you're out here in the East Bay with nothing to do on a Friday or Saturday night, I'd recommend it. The muscial score wasn't too bad, for my tastes (with a couple of exceptions), but the visualization was really cool. It kind of reminded me of that 'The Mind's Eye' video from back in the day (although this was fueled by more recent technology).

Plus, the novelty of having images projected onto the planetarium dome from about a dozen LCD projectors into one seamless, full-dome image is pretty awesome. I did feel myself getting a litte motion-sick, though....but I got over that fairly quickly by looking at the floor for a few minutes.

In other news, I went and saw the 40 Year Old Virgin on Friday night. It was really funny, and I've decided that I really do appreciate Steve Carell. I can't wait for the second season of the American 'The Office' to start.

I hope to start adding some more photo galleries and content to the other sections of the website, but I'm not sure when I'm going to have the time or motivation. Work is going to be pretty hectic this next 2 months (I've got to put together a talk for this conference...), and as I mentioned, I start class tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get into a decent routine and make some time to work on this site some more. Anyway. I'm going to head out and enjoy the rest of my last weekend of 'summer vacation'.

2005-08-26-- 19:11 PDT

Hooray! I'm finally free of those damn Harry Potter books! I can do something else with my leisure time now.

Like, for instance, play this Nintendogs game. I have a virtual pug named Listermint now. He's pretty cute, but I haven't found a satisfactory way to take a non blurry picture of him off of my DS. Once I figure that out, then I will post a few or something.

Not too much else has been going on. I had to waste an hour a work today getting ready for the building wide power shutdown tomorrow, which is guess is required for some 'preventative maintenance' to the system. All I know is that I had to kill all of my simulations and hit about 50 power buttons before I left work.

Oh well, it gave me an excuse to throw out some milk in our lab fridge that had expired back in late May.

Other than that, we've been playing this game called Rumis, which despite being for Grades 1 and above, I am abysmally bad at. I haven't won a game yet.

Classes start on Monday. I was going to take my last 2, but I apparently can't get credit for one of them...my schedule is up in the air for the time being. I probably should have checked the status on that a while ago, and then I could have been prepared with a backup class. I have looked, though, and unfortunately I just don't think they're offering anything of much use this semester. I'll probably have to wait and take something else later, when I find something better, or become too desparate to wait any longer. Ugh.

Hooray for graduate school.

2005-08-20-- 00:39 PDT

Well, I put together a gallery of those pictures Julie sent me of my sister's dog. There's also a shot of me, her, and our cousin Cori at the Barton St. Pub in Corpus from my last trip home.

The end of the summer is almost upon us; I start fall classes on the 29^th (my last 2). Then I may actually be done taking classes for the rest of my life. (doubtful, but I can dream, can't I?).

Anyway, I've been trying to shop around for a laptop. I have to give a talk at AVS again this year, so I figure I ought to buckle down and get my own. Plus, I've been wanting to have something I can blog from while downstairs in the living room (we do have a wireless router, after all). Unlike shopping for desktops, though, I feel kind of lost. Having to factor in the weight of the system, and the odd fact that I won't really be using it for games is kind of throwing off my 'yeah, that's a good deal' radar.... Our on campus computing store thing has some decent deals on IBM thinkpads, though (which include long-term service contracts)... but I'm still not 100% sure that I don't want a Mac. But we'll see.

I haven't really got any plans for the weekend yet, though I will probably succumb to the lure of the remaining 2 Harry Potter books before Monday arrives. Only time will tell.

In other news, part of San Francisco exploded today, but it fortunately wasn't terrorists. Hooray.

Well, I'm tired, and it's the weekend, so I'm going to stay up for a while, and then sleep until noon. Goodnight.

2005-08-17-- 01:51 PDT

No, I haven't forgotten about my site. I've just been busy at work lately, and I've been spending virtually all my free time at home reading these damn Harry Potter books.

If I am going through some sort of 1/3-1/4 life crisis at the moment, perhaps this is my outlet. If nothing else, Book 4 is certainly making me take stock of my current place in life, and reminding me how glad I am that I'm not still in high school.

Anyway, Julie sent me a bunch of pictures she took of Vicky's puppy over the past few months, but I haven't had a chance to post them all in a gallery yet. Here's one particularly sickeningly cute one though:



Well, I'm endeavoring to get up early to send my Nintendo DS back to the Big N to get a misfiring pixel fixed (thanks for being cool, Ninty), and then to chat up the blood-letting technicians while I get my cholesterol checked.

I guess that means I should probably go to bed soon. eh.

2005-08-13-- 01:57 PDT

Well, I went and saw Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo with Johno this evening. I'm always pleased when a movie validates my distrust of critics in general. Just because it's a bad motion picture doesn't mean it isn't worth seeing.

Anyway, to give a more in depth rundown of my recent trip to Texas....(It was a fun time, if you haven't checked them out yet, the pics are here)

I got in late Tuesday (thanks for sucking Continental), and spent Wednesday hanging with my parents.

I had pizza with Malak and Hilary (and Kienitz had come into town) and all the wedding guests, etc, on Thursday, then went to the bachelor party....

Malak's 'day with the groom' started before sunrise the next morning, since we all had to drag our asses out of bed and drive from Corpus to Port Aransas to hop on the Scat Cat for an 8 hour fishing trip.

It was fun, although none of Ted, Mason, Kienitz, or I caught a single fish. Malak passed out after about 5 minutes of fishing, and slept for the remainder of the trip:



The rehearsal dinner was that night, and it was fun; there was hummmus, baba ganooj, Texas BBQ, a margarita machine and Popeye's Fried Chicken.

The wedding was on Saturday afternoon, and was a Syrian Orthodox service held at the Greek Orthodox church in downtown Corpus which albeit small, was very pretty.

Sunday I went up to Austin to hang out with Dakota, Ian, and Nick, and a surprise 4^th friend of mine, who's apparently been on a 'surprising people' circuit since he got out there in January. I won't make it too obvious, although he is featured in the photo gallery. So, I guess.... ***SPOILER ALERT**** in the photo gallery.

We played some poker and Xbox. Nick is getting ready for law school in the fall at UT, so he's apparently been hitting the books pretty hard, as we found out the following morning ;-):



Monday I visited some more family and lost at shuffleboard and pool to my cousin Johnny (although I redeemed myself with a game of foosball).

I left Tuesday night, and almost missed my connecting flight, due to a delay on my flight from Corpus to Houston (Thanks again, Continental, for still sucking). It was probably the busiest trip I've made home, ever, but it was also one of the most fun. I am very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow until at least noon. Have a good weekend, I'm out.

2005-08-10-- 18:59 PDT

Well, I made it back. The pictures I took are now up in the 'sights' section.

Enjoy.

I'll talk more about the trip later this week.

2005-08-07-- 19:31 PDT

Well, I'm updating from Austin. Texas is hot this time of year.

I get back on Tuesday night, so I'll hopefully have pictures up sometime Wednesday of all the fun I had, and all the fish I didn't catch.

Also, several hundred pictures of my sister's dog.

2005-08-01-- 23:33 PDT

Somehow, it's already August 1^st. I'm headed to Texas tomorrow for Mal and Hilary's wedding (on the 6^th), and for some rollicking good times in Austin in the few days following.

I don't have much else to report at the moment, other than the fact that I'll be coming home with a ton of pictures of my sister's puppy, I'm sure, so keep your eyes posted upon my return on the 9^th.

I may even post from Texas. Hooray.

2005-07-31-- 20:23 PDT

Well, Kasi came into town on Friday, so we've been bummin' around Berkeley most of the weekend. We went down to visit Yoshie and Gary in Redwood City, which was fun (thanks for dinner, guys!).

We went and saw Crash earlier this afternoon (that's the one with Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, et al, not the ' lets have sex in a car and crash it' one with James Spader and Holly Hunter), which I would highly recommend to anyone looking to watch something good and intense.

We also got some Vegan Japanese at Cha-ya, which was excellent as always. Anyway. I'm going to go chill out until Iron Chef America comes on. Later.

2005-07-28-- 21:52 PDT

It seems that 25 has brought on a quarter-to-third life existential crisis. I've been finding myself questioning the real purpose behind having been in school for so freakin' long.

What the hell am I going to do with my degree?

Oh well...I guess I'll figure something out in the next year and 10 months.

In other news, I've been playing that 'Uru: Ages Beyond Myst' game for the PC, since it came with my new video card. It's quite immersive, although I find myself having less patience than I had back in '94 when I played the original. Also, I decided to make my avatar look as much like myself as I could (well, about 15 pounds lighter and wardrobe notwithstanding), which has a tendency to creep me out from time to time:

I've also been spending a lot of time playing the original NBA Street for Gamecube, which I picked up used the other day for $7. It's pretty addictive. Johno and I have been b-ballin' late into the evening on most nights, and we seem pretty evenly matched. While the game does seem to have a level of built in randomness when it comes to shots going in or not, it's not quite as frustrating as NBA Jam for SNES, which we had been playing extensively prior to picking this one up.

I have a feeling Street vol. 2 will be purchased before long (and then eventually 3, when the price drops significantly).

Well, I'm going to go chill out for a while. I just finished cleaning up my room (slightly) and the bathrooms, since Kasi is coming into town from Dallas this weekend, and will crash here for a night or two.

2005-07-27-- 20:41 PDT

I went and saw 'The Island' this early evening. I think I can say that I'm as confused as Michael Bay as to why the Box Office is so dismal. (Although I don't know why anyone would run an ad campaign that brought up the fact that it was 'from the director of Armageddon'.)

Anyway...the movie is basically a combination of 'Logan's Run', 'Blade Runner', and 'Bad Boys'. What's not to like? If you're a fan of Sci-Fi and stuff blowing up, I'd highly recommend it.

In other news, I finalized my new auto insurance policy, and In doing so have saved myself an assload of cash...Hooray.

Uh...also, I feel like I haven't really contributed much of interest to anyone on the site for a while. So here's a random picture from the archives. The Corpus Christi Art Museum (in C.C. TX), back in 2003...which I've just decided is oddly reminding me of 'Logan's Run':

2005-07-25-- 17:43 PDT

Another year older.

Well, I made it to 25. Hooray.

The saturday BBQ was a success. Today we had pie. Tonight I may go to the movies or something, but it will probably be low key.

I haven't been much on celebrating my birthday for the past 7 years or so, but it always seems that friends push me to do something. Oh well. I guess that's a good thing (thanks guys).

In other news, I'm poised to save a bundle on my Car Insurance (not because I'm 25 now...rather because I'm dropping 21^st Century for someone cheaper.) So I guess I'll spend some time tonight getting together all the necessary documentation to make the switch. Wow. I didn't realize how 'adult' my Birthday has become until just now. Maybe next year I'll hire a clown or a mobile petting zoo, or something.

Cheers.

2005-07-22-- 01:53 PDT

Not too much else has been going on this week, other than work and softball (we won our game tonight....hoo-ray). Marie is apparently throwing a Birthday BBQ for me this Saturday, foiling my plans to hit the big 2-5 on Monday by my lonesome, in relative obscurity.

In other celebratory news, I just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad, who have been married 33 years today. Love you guys, and I'll see you soon.

2005-07-19-- 00:59 PDT

I just got back from the Beck show. It was awesome. The key highlight of the evening was about an hour into the set, when his band decided to eat dinner on stage (they set up a table over by the drum set) and then beck proceeded to play several songs acoustic and solo. towards the end of doing this, the band starting playing their silverware and glasses as accompaniment and totally rocked the house.

During the encore, Beck also invited several people up on stage to dance, so that was also cool.

Le Tigre also played, and they were also bad ass.

The first opener was this trio from LA called 'TV Sheriff and the Trailbuddies'. They were interesting...wore cheesy costumes and had some pretty sweet video mixes going on in the background while they did some rap style songs about macaroni and cheese and jerry springer/lewis.

All in all, it was well worth the price of admission

In other news, the stuffed cabbages turned out well, and the new Charlie and Chocolate Factory movie is pretty sweet.

I'm going to get some sleep, but here are 2 things that are ridiculously cute:

The March of the Penguins (go see it if it's playing in your area...pretty amazing stuff)...

and another picture of my sister's puppy:

2005-07-17-- 02:17 PDT

I just finished re-reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I had almost forgotten just how freakin' awesome Roald Dahl was. I'm going to see the new version of the movie tomorrow with A.J. ... and I have very high hopes for Tim Burton's vision of the book.

Anywho. I'm making stuffed cabbages tomorrow night (töltött káposzta, in Hungarian).... so I'm anxious to see how the uninitiated react to a homestyle Végh family meal. I only hope I can do justice to Grandma Eileen's recipe. While I've made a few of her dishes before, I've yet to do this one, so hopefully it will turn out alright. More to follow.

P.S. ... If anyone out there is still playing Diablo II, drop me a line. Vicky and I started some battle.net characters last night; we've got a sorceress and a paladin. Any more diversity would be greatly appreciated.

2005-07-14-- 02:37 PDT

Up late waiting for my laundry to dry.

I just added some Panoramic Photos I made from multipe camera images using some software that came with said camera. They're up in the 'sights' section.

I'm going to fold my undies and call it a night now.

2005-07-12-- 19:21 PDT

Ugh. I wish we had AC. I know that those of you in Texas right now (or pretty much anywhere else in the US) are like:

'wtf?...it was barely 80 in Berkeley today...'

but I tell you what, I wouldn't give a rat's ass if it was 105 outside right now if I could keep the inside of my room at 72 all day. It's probably 85 in here right now. ewww.

On that note (and since I've always been a fan of the concept of 'Xmas in July'), I'm posting some pics from Xmas last year down in Corpus Christi, TX, where it snowed for the first time in like 60+ years (and on Xmas eve, for that matter!).

So there're pictures of that.

There are also pictures from the beach 5 days later, when it was once again pushing 80.

In other news, my cousin Chris has been in Hungary for over a year now, and my Aunt Mary (his mom) just went to visit him a few weeks ago. They were fortunate enough to track down some of our relatives (my 2^nd cousin once removed, et al.). You can read about it all on his blog, which also has some pictures (including those of the Végh family in Pincehely). Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway. I'm hot and tired, so I'm going to go eat some Otter Pops now.

what?...

Keep cool as ye see fit, and I shall keep cool as I ... uh ... see fit.

2005-07-09-- 16:31 PDT

I'm getting too old. Went out to the city last night for Chris Roper's birthday. It was a good time, but we came back home afterwards and Marie and I made pancakes and waffles for everyone.... Didn't get to bed til 4:30 or so. As much as I love sleeping til 1 on Saturday, It's not as much fun when I still only get 8 hours of sleep.

Anyway. My sister got a new Pekingese pup (named Zhou Mei), which is quite adorable:



The previous Simpsons reference/beer contest is over. It turns out I only had one reference, because I screwed up the second one. No biggie.

Even with my BIOS not being fully functioned, this new video card is pretty awesome. I just started playing that XIII game that came out a while back... it's running silky smooth at a decently high resolution with 4x AA and AF. Sweet. I think I'm going to get back to playing that now.

I also fixed some dead links I had in the archives for last month, which I don't think anyone else noticed.

2005-07-07-- 22:11 PDT

So, apparently my POS motherboard is 'idiot' proof, in that it doesn't have any of the advanced BIOS feature enabled. Fortunately, the folks over at eMachine Upgraders have a modded BIOS that might very well allow me to change the AGP aperture size on my T2825, thus fully enabling my new video card to kick even more ass.

I'm sure that you all care.

In other news, TeamBanzai! rocked the house tonight... I think we notched up a 20 something to 5 or 6 win against some chemistry team. ('we're talking softball...'). They were cool about it though, so...a good time had by all.

I'm still a little tipsy from softball 'warmup' so, to make a good natured effort to get people to use the new commenting system, the first person to post a comment on my site will recieve a free beer. Additional beers to those identifying the Simpsons references in this post (by using the comments...winners of multiple beers possible).

For those STTNG fans out there, Wil Wheaton entered and was eliminated from the world series of poker today:

Wil Wheaton out
Wheaton was crippled by Paul Darden when Wheaton had [A][J] versus Darden with [J][J] and a jack flopped. In Wheaton's final hand he had [A][J] on the button and raised to 600. The big blind raised all in with [7][7] and Wheaton called. A seven hit on the flop.

Anyway.

Get to commenting, people.

2005-07-06-- 20:35 PDT

And just like that, HaloScan is installed (and gives me something else to add to my 'Miscellanea' page).

In other news, the season finale of Beauty and the Geek is on tonight (which I'm taping right now), so be sure to watch that.

Uh. Anyway... that's about all I have to say for now. I'm going to set up HaloScan for the time being with comments for all the posts from this month....Then eventually for everything in the archives, I guess. Until then, drop me a comment or soemthing. Woo.

2005-07-05-- 23:41 PDT

Well, my new video card (MSI GeForce 6600 GT) arrived today. Seems to be working pretty well at the moment. I had some initial issues before I defragmented my hard drive, but that boosted my 3DMark05 score by about 800 points. I'm still a little below where I think I should be, but I'm going to do a reformat and reinstall over the next couple of days (I'm having some other stability issues, anyhow), so we'll see what that does for things.

As such, I may be having some sporadic updates through the weekend.

In other news, I think I've caved and will be adding HaloScan to this site to handle my commenting. I will eventually probably write my own as I had planned, but I'm realizing I probably won't get around to it for a while, and I'd like to get a system in place before too much longer.

More updates are around the bend... I still have a ton of pics to post and loads of terrible poetry. Hooray.

2005-07-04-- 17:49 PDT

Happy 4^th!



Deep Impact was a success! Check out the cool pics and videos

2005-07-03-- 15:01 PDT

The pig roast yesterday was... well...decidely porcine:



In other news, the space probe Deep Impact is set to smash into the comet Tempel 1 tonight (around 10:51 for us on the west coast). Unfortunately for my friends and family it Texas, I don't think it's going to be visible for you guys. However, NASA TV should be having a live coverage via webcast, so if you're up late, you can watch the data as it comes in.

I'll be up at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, watching the live video coming in from their telescopes.

For those of you who hadn't heard or weren't aware, the planetary society's COSMOS 1 solar sail failed during launch, but the overwhelming support for the project has me thinking we may see another one before too long.

I'm off to another bbq this afternoon, so I'll report back on the events of today later on.

2005-07-02-- 16:33 PDT

Well, just a brief update today. The pics from Texas are up. I'm on my way out the door to a pig roast, but I have more to blog about, so I'll probably be back on later tonight.

Until then.

2005-06-30-- 22:57 PDT

I posted pics from my sister's birthday present. For those who weren't in the loop, I gave her an autographed copy of Bruce Campbell's new book, since he came to SF shortly before I went home to Texas. I also got to see his new film The Man with the Screaming Brain.

By the time I met up with Vicky, I had her so confused as to what I got her, that I decided to push things a little further. I found an old pocket mirror in her room, and wrapped it in several layers of paper and tape. I wrote 'Trogdor the Burninator' on it, just to add to the confusion.

Confused she was.

Then I was like... just kidding, I got you that Bruce Campbell book you wanted. She laughed (that's the last picture in the series). Then I said 'hey, look inside'. She was like 'Oh...my...god... you met Bruce Campbell!'.

Then she cussed me out for 5 minutes. A good time was had by all.

Anyway, I have several more galleries from the trip, but I'm too tired to put them together now. They will follow shortly.

2005-06-30-- 02:11 PDT

Well, I'm back. I went and saw War of the Worlds tonight. It was good. However, as a result of not being around tonight, I haven't yet downloaded any of my pics from the trip home. They will appear soon.

But I'm going to bed now.

2005-06-14 -- 22:41 PDT

Phase III Complete

Awesomeness Factor 10 achieved.

Here are two terrible hints:


This is the hand stamp I got during Phase III. It's of an old-timey telephone...symbolic perhaps?


This photo contains all the truth of the whole project. Too bad the exposure time was so short. I've auto-leveled it in Photoshop to get it to this stage.

In other news, I made a big ol' batch of beef jerky to take home to people in Texas, so look forward to that, if you're there.

2005-06-13 -- 19:32 PDT

This post is predominately for my sister Vicky. She turns the big two-oh on June 27^th. I'm working on a kick ass present.

A 4 phase present.

Phase I (the financial investment phase) is now complete.

Phase II (The posting of the clues and initial taunting phase) will begin shortly.

Phase III (code-named the awesomeness factor of 10 phase) will (with 99% certainty) occur tomorrow.

Phase IV (the 'not that Phase IV phase') will consist of a final taunting and gift presentation upon our meeting in Texas this Friday

I figure it will be more fun for all concerned if I follow this diabolically convoluted procedure, rather than just giving her the gift. Plus, it's an easy way to fill blog space. Have fun Vick:

Phase II: The Clues (to taunt you):

-You don't know what I'm getting you
-You will be excited about it
-You will also be jealous for at least 18 days, perhaps for as long as years
-You can probably figure out what I'm getting you with a little effort
-I may enjoy your present more than you
-You will only be told of the full scope of the gift if you can correctly determine the true nature of all the clues and phases
-The gift is in multiple formats, so to speak
-3 of these clues depend heavily on the successful completion of Phase III
-1 of these clues doesn't depend at all on Phase III
-If confronted, I may or may not be of any help
-One or more of these clues may be false

At any rate, I'll post confirmation/disconfirmation of Phase III tomorrow before I head out to Texas. Speaking of which, I may not be posting much until I get back on the 28^th there will most likely be pictures.

2005-06-11 -- 23:23 PDT

Fun in the sun down in Los Altos today. Johno had his annual birthday bbq at his parents house, replete with swimming, hottubbing, and billiards. A good time was had by all.

However, the highlight of the day (from the standpoint of shear ridiculousness, at least) was in our dinner trip to Chevy's.... There had been a party of pre-teens at an adjacent table, and this guy was there making balloon animals and hats for them for most of their meal. We were fortunate enough to grab the balloon man on his way out, and for a mere contribution of ~1 dollar per person, he made johno the most insane piece of wearable balloon art that I've ever seen:



Higher res photos will follow once Katy (Johno's girlfriend, also in the picture) sends me the pictures she took. Unfortunately, my digital camera batteries were all dead when I headed out this morning, so we're stuck with this poorly lit camera phone picture for the time being.

2005-06-08 -- 19:23 PDT

I hate the trend networks are following today towards more reality television. I don't mind the fact that there's something on besides reruns to watch during the summer, but it bothers me that quality shows are becoming underappreciated. What's more is that these damn reality series are so cheap to make (since they don't have to pay actors), that they can drastically trail other, traditional TV shows in the ratings, and still be renewed for multiple seasons, while the higher quality, more expensive show gets the axe. From a budgetary standpoint, this makes sense, but for the typical TV viewer who's into some new quirky drama or sitcom, it can really suck....Hard.

As staunchly opposed to this genre as I am (previously, the only reality show I really watched was 'The Osbournes'), This summer season has put a few chinks in my I-hate-this-crap-reality-tv-crap armor. My current weaknesses? Beauty & the Geek and The Scholar.

I've only seen the debut episodes of both these shows, but I've really enjoyed both of them. 'Beauty & the Geek' is intriguing me, becuase I could probably be on this show. I mean, these guys remind me of a linear combination of myself and some of my former roommates/friends from undergrad. Don't get me wrong; I'm not nearly as socially inept as some of these guys when it comes to interacting with the opposite sex, but on the other hand I haven't been on a date (or otherwise romantically linked) with a girl in like, 5 years.

Further, I have no idea how to operate in the current day's dating world (let alone in sexually liberal Northern California...I was intimidated enough at the prospect of playing the field in conservative Texas). Every time I think about putting myself out there, I either a.) becoming slightly nauseous, or b.) inevitably decide it wouldn't be worth the hassle, and crank up my bitterness dial up to 11.

Plus, I have ridiculously high standards.

But, enough about me... this show isn't really a dating show anyway. For those of you who are unfamiliar, here's the set-up: They took seven intelligent, geeky guys and paired them with 7 hot women (though I personally think only 2 of them are super attractive on a looks-only basis) who have 'social skills' but very little academic strength. Then, they have each couple compete against the others. Before each set of challenges, the guys have to teach the girls about some subject (like 5^th grade geography or spelling), while the girls teach the guys how to do things like dance and give massages. Brilliant! I don't care if this is Ashton Kutcher's brain child, it is worth watching.

With 'The Scholar' (this one basically pits a dozen or so head-of-the-class-high-school-senior types against each other to compete for a full ride scholarship to whatever college they can get into), I'm just drawn in by the shear nostalgia factor.

On the first episode, for example, they had a scene where some of the contestants were hanging out together at the house they have them all living in, chatting away about going to college, etc. It reminded me very much of my own experiences competing for scholarships in high school.

Aside from that, this show is also entertaining because you end up with all these kids with varying backgrounds and personalities, who get thrust into this situation (which for most of them is a new experience) where they're surrounded by a group of kids that are academically on their level. It kind of reminds me of my experience coming to grad school, only on the show these high school kids haven't had any of the udergraduate social interactions that help teach people how to react to these situations. Anyway...

'B&G' is on in a half-hour, so I'm going to get dinner before then.

2005-06-05 -- 15:21 PDT

Whirlwind adventures in SF yesterday. Chris calls circa 2:45 to lay down the plan: Meet at 3:30, head over there, eat some sushi, and then...we'll do something else.

After some further rock solid strategizing on our part, we ended up in the Mission, abandoned the Sushi idea and ate some Mexican Food around 20th and Valencia.

Then we went to the Castro. No one seemed to heed my suggestion not to go up 20th. The the view from Dolores Park was nice:



But then we proceeded up a giant hill, down the other side, up another hill, etc. We eventually got where we were going, only to realize we didn't want to do anything there.

At this point, the wind had picked up, and A.J. had pulled his arms into his shirt for additional warmth. (P.S. travellers, always bring a jacket anytime you go to SF).

Then we walked around in circles for a long time, eventually deciding (I thought) to head back to the Mission. I was leading the way down 18th for 2 blocks when suddenly we decided to hang a left, back towards Market, which we followed for a while, eventually landing at Grove and Gough for some dessert at Citizen Cake. It was very frou-frou, but also very good...I had the Turkish Delight with Ouzo sauce and candied Kalamata olives. Who knew you could candy olives?

After dessert, it was back into the Mission, to meet up with Jeff, who had BARTed in later with Marie. Since the others were totally lame, Jeff and I ended up heading to a bar while everyone went home, and later made our way over to Paul's place.

Paul was even more lame, having ditched us for Ben Stiller. But we broke into his apartment complex and Jeff henceforth schooled us all at Dr. Mario. Circa 04:30 this morning, having suffered bitter defeat at the hands of the XBOX NES emulator (I had boldly claimed I could beat Jaws in 15 minutes, but Jaws proved more wily and alert than I at this early hour), we crashed in Paul's living room, and returned to the East Bay a few hours later after BART started running again.

It was fun, but I no longer have my youthful resilience in matters of staying up all night, catching 3 hours of sleep on someone's floor, and then being able to function well the next day. Suffice it to say I just recently awoke from a nap.

At any rate, I'm still tired. No fancy website updates this weekend, this is all you get.

Deal with it.

2005-06-01 -- 20:29 PDT

Happy June 1^st everybody. A few random items for today:

The 'Vault' page now contains the beginnings of the Archives, where the April entries of this log now reside. Each month, the oldest month will go there, as well. Hooray.
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In other news, allergy season is knocking me on my ass as of late. I've been working to find that sweet mix of benedryl and coffee that will allow me to breathe without instantly sneezing and yet keep me from passing out at my desk in an anti-histamine induced stupor. The results are questionable.
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My next little project for this site is going to be to write my own comments system in PERL. I realize I could just as easily sign up with HaloScan or some other similar thing, but this should be more fun. Plus I can make it play music whenever you post a message. Or not. The possibilities are endless.
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I was going to write something about this but it's pissing me off too much to try.
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You should all check this out. I'm pretty stoked:

   Cosmos 1:Solar Sail

It's nice to know that my planetary society dues are doing something cool. And it should be visible from Earth once it's in orbit!

Sweet.

2005-05-XX || Back to the Vault Main Page

2005-05-29 -- 23:35 PDT

Well, today I helped Yoshie and Gary move down to their new place in Redwood City. It's amazing how quickly you can load up a U-Haul with 10 people.

At any rate, I'm full of pizza from the 'thanks for helping us move' dinner....and I'm tired.

Goodnight.

2005-05-28 -- 00:26 PDT

Success!

My games arrived yesterday. Super Monkey Ball 2 is at once the most ridiculously cute-storied and highly addictive multiplayer video game involving monkeys inside balls that I own.

The other revelation for the day is that if I had known in undergrad how easy sopapillas were to make, I would probably weigh 100 pounds more now than I do. Thankfully (I guess... sometimes I think it's more of a mixed blessing than anything) some of health-concious California has rubbed off on me, and I probably won't be deep frying more than once every 3 or 4 months.

So full of dough; so full of honey...:

2005-05-24 -- 21:34 PDT

Well, I finally called EBGames.com about my 2 gamecube games that were ordered some 20+ days ago. Apparently they've determined that they were lost in transit somewhere (Another big thumbs up for the USPS 'tracking' system)...ugh.

Good news is they're sending new ones via 2-day air for no additional charge. They should be here by the end of the week now.
I won't hold my breath.

In other news, I just added a few more small photo galleries to the 'sights' page. One's from Boonville Beer Fest 2004, the other is from a hike Jeff, Marie, Paul and I took up at Redwood Park in the Oakland hills this past March.

Enjoy.

2005-05-22 -- 15:55 PDT

Ah, lazy Sundays....

I've started screwing around with some stop-motion animation. The current test can be seen on the 'endeavors' page.

Once I can think of a decent story line and find some more suitable (and hopefully freeware) editing software, we should be golden for a few-minute long short of some sort.

Anyway, I've been inside long enough for such a goregous day; I think marie set up the kiddie pool in the back....I may go hop in it and read a book. Later.

2005-05-21 -- 11:51 PDT

Man. So many parties to go to, so little time. Jeff and Ross threw a party last night to celebrate the installation of new windows at their place.

I'm late for another party/BBQ as I'm working on this, and I have another to go to tonight.

It's like I'm in college or something and the semester just ended....

Oh wait, I am.

Nevermind.

2005-05-19 -- 22:49 PDT

Well, the Star Wars saga is complete (or is it?).

I would whole-heartedly recommend Episode III to people. Sure, it could have been even better, but it did what it came to do, and I left the theater very satisfied. I won't say much more out of respect for those of you who haven't seen it yet, and don't want any of the details ruined.

For those of you who have seen it, and are curious about those pesky Sith Lords, these guys have a pretty decent description pieced together from the comics, novels, video games, etc. Wikipedia has a slightly more concise article as well.

In other pop culture news...did everyone catch the season finale of CSI? Don't get me wrong, I love Quentin Tarantino...but that guy is nuts.

2005-05-17 -- 23:18 PDT

I haven't been this excited about Nintendo since Christmas 1988.

Revolution will have downloadable access to 20 years of fan-favorite titles originally released for Nintendo 64, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and even the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

Freakin' Sweet.

Lord knows how much they'll charge for it....
Lord also knows I'll gladly pay.

In other news, I had dinner at Burger King tonight. Whoever did the artwork for the new Star Wars Collectors' Cups either isn't that good of an artist or has some sort of bizzare John Madden obsession. Maybe that's the surprising 'twist' that's been rumored for Episode III.... A Star Wars football videogame franchise can only be around the corner.

Here's hoping Palpatine 2006 can nab that much coveted NFL license.

2005-05-16 -- 18:27 PDT

I spent pretty much all day yesterday grading exams. Ugh. Saturday was fun, though:



I ended up not taking many pictures (just that one, actually), but, as you can see, a good time was had by all. Nothing says excess like 8-bit nintendo on a huge-ass screen.

I'm more excited about Episode III than I probably should be; I haven't really figured out the best way to gauge the online review buzz. People either seem to really love it or really hate it. Apparently the writing and acting still suffer (everyone seems to agree on this point), yet some people are claiming it's much better than the other prequels (and maybe Episode IV, according to the New York Times). Being better than I & II I can believe, but contrary to most, I actually like Episode IV the best of all the films, so I'm really intrigued by those claims in particular. I guess we'll find out on Thursday.

In other news, E3 is this week...I'm anxiously awaiting more details on Nintendo's new console (tentatively the 'Revolution'), which is already looking pretty sweet.

I should put together some new photo albums in the next few days, and will hopefully have some interesting new 'tests' of a new project I'm getting started on. Again, we'll see.

2005-05-13 -- 11:39 PDT

I had to proctor the final exam for ChE 179 today. I got bored, so I started writing in haiku.

I'll probably have some pics of the Star Wars/Video Games Extravaganza sometime on Sunday. Keep it real.

2005-05-12 -- 18:57 PDT

So, this weekend we're watching the Star Wars prequel DVD's in preparation for ROTS next thursday. Then we're playing video games. You should come over. My place, 4 pm, Saturday the 14^th.

Speaking of the videogames thing, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of some new (well, used) gamecube games via the USPS.... I don't really know why they bother with the whole 'tracking' system that they have. I know my pacakge left Philly, PA on May 5th. I know from past experience that they won't tell me where it is again until the try to deliver it here in Berkeley. Ugh.... Why even go through the trouble of buying the barcode readers, setting up the website, etc., if they're not going to use them? On the flipside, though, if I miss the delivery, I only have to walk a few blocks ot pick it up later; FedEx and UPS are way out in BFE (i.e. Richmond).

In other news, Yoshie is leaving soon. We played racquetball today for possibly the last time... I guess it's sort of sad, but on the other hand I was really getting tired of her kicking my ass.

Also, here's the picture of me with the aforementioned astronaut, Don Pettit:



Special thanks to Kasi for the picture and the dinner invite. That was taken in the library of the stately Women's Faculty Club Hotel here on campus, btw.

2005-05-10 -- 20:47 PDT

I had dinner with an Astronaut last night. That was really cool.

He apparently gave a pretty badass talk to the Chemical Engineering students during the day, but I was at a totally lame awards ceremony, so I missed it.

Fortunately, I got my hands on the DVD of all the cool movies he showed, and I hear a copy of his powerpoint presentation will make its way back here at somepoint in the near future.

At dinner, he had a really interesting story about being up in space for so long (he was one of the people marooned on the ISS when Columbia disintegrated). He pointed out that being up there for ~6 months is about the amount of time it would take to get to Mars, and then having to pilot the Soyuz capsule back to Earth (which had some malfunctions on the way down) provides some test of the astronaut's ability to function mentally after the stress of space (i.e. as would be necessary after landing on Mars).

The other guy that joined us for dinner had some really intersting points as well. Namely, that the radiation long feared as the 'end all' problem of sending people to Mars may not actually be that bad for us. Apparently there have been some studies that the heavy ions in space radiation may actually stimulate the cells to be healthier in certain dosage levels. (Apparently solar flares will still kill you pretty good, though.) Bottom line being, that contrary to the current NASA policies at the life sciences end of humans in space pushing for decades of further testing, maybe we should just hurry up and go? That would r0x0rz. As I said, it was really cool.

Talking with the astronaut reminded me of how much I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, and sort of solidified my recent idea to maybe try and get a job with NASA just doing something related to the space program.

I can only hope that by the time I die, a commercial flight to the moon (or Mars) isn't out of my price range.

In other news, the piñata is dead. Only its sweet, sweet innards remain.

2005-05-08 -- 13:21 PDT

Well, we're back from the 9th Annual Legendary Boonville Beer Festival. It was a pretty good turn out of brewers and samplers this year. The only real downside was that it starting raining right after dark (which persisted all through the night). They brought in a ton of Port-a-Potties this time around, which was nice, since the run through the rain from the tent to the toilet was only about 30 yards.

I wrote a PERL script this morning to generate photo album pages for me; The pictures have been added to the 'sights' page. There would have been a few more from this morning, but the rain necessitated a hasty exit. Plus things were really wet.

In case you were wondering, the piñata is still going to happen; I have more pictures to post, but I was going to wait until we smash it open.

Now that I have this PERL script, I should also be adding new galleries soon.

2005-05-07 -- 01:32 PDT

I've decided to head to the aforementioned beer festival tomorrow. Catch you all on Sunday.

2005-05-05 -- 23:21 PDT

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody! Wondering how to celebrate? Make a Piñata!

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it will be dry enough to fill with candy and smash until tomorrow. More pics to follow.

Oh well. It was still fun.

2005-05-04 -- 19:31 PDT

Well, today was boring. We recently changed the file system on our blade server at work, so that I can now access all 9 of the 'node' hard drives as individual directories. Problem is that my data was strung across them all after previous backups, and moving 25-30 Gigs of partially compressed simulation data, uncompressing it, etc, etc...is not the smoothest thing in the world... ugh...but I think it's good to go, finally, so I can start processing it tomorrow.

After numerous revisions, I got my abstract submitted for AVS 2005 this morning. Should be a good time; I've never been to Boston. Hopefully the committee scheduling the 'Plasma-Surface Interactions' session will be receptive to what we're trying to do.

Enough about work! There's a new 'Lost' on tonight. Finally. Four episodes left this season. If you haven't been watching, I think it will be out on DVD in August/September. Get caught up and catch it next season.

I was also vaguely reminded of this today, for reasons I won't go into in great detail. You may know why, if you know why. (What does that even mean?). Peace Out.

2005-05-03 -- 23:26 PDT

My buddy Malak e-mailed me today with some comments on the website. The gist of it was:

"it is the internet, who wants to read?...here are some pictures for your website..."

Unfortunately, Mal, I'm not sure that half of the stuff you sent was appropriate for exhibition in a public forum...but I'll post those soon. For instant gratification purposes, though:

Here's a picture of Mal with a large flounder.



I will try to get some actual photo galleries up and running this weekend, which may consist mostly of this year's Boonville Beer Fest, assuming we actually go (weather and motivation permitting).

In other news, I've become a total technophile for these new DualDisc CD/DVDs with the Dolby 5.1 surround mix on them (they're single discs, CD on one side, DVD on the other, typically with DVD-Audio/DVD 5.1/Videos, etc, on the DVD side). I just picked up NIN's new 'With Teeth' album, which I've been enjoying quite a bit, in and out of surround sound. If you're interested, I think you can still stream it for free off of myspace.com. The new Beck album, 'Guero', while not technically a 'DualDisc' did come in a CD/DVD version, and is pretty freakin' awesome. The DVD mix has some wacky visual accompaniment that I would highly recommmend to any Beck fans out there.

2005-05-02 -- 20:03 PDT

I converted the two short stories I had over to the new format and added them to the 'Words' page. Also a poem. More will follow.

I was going to mention this yesterday, but I forgot....Around 1:30 Sunday afternoon, some old lady knocked at our door and asked me if we "could do something about your yard" in reference to the ridiculously overgrown fenced in area to the left of our driveway. I thought maybe she was our nextdoor neighbor, but it turns out she's that crazy lady that lives around the corner. She once jumped out in front of my roommate marie with some flowers and made her take them home.

Upon recognizing this, I sort of zoned out, overcome with rage that I had been pulled away from doing nothing to listen to this lady bitch about something she had no business caring about. She said something about picking the weeds early enough to put them in a salad, and then proceeded to tell me how much fun it would be to do some gardening.

Unfortunately, she was right. After actually looking at our yard, I noticed it did need weeding. So we weeded it yesterday. Hopefully wacko lady won't notice for a few weeks, otherwise she may be coming back with future complaints and expect us to actually care.

In other news, my labmate Yoshie got all of her committee members to sign off on PhD Thesis today, so she'll be filing for graduation on Wednesday. Congratulations, Yoshie!

While the image quality kind of sucks, I'm enjoying the convenience and portability of my camera phone. Speaking of which, mad props to the guys at BitPim. I'd recommend it to anyone whose phone it supports.

2005-05-01 -- 23:59 PDT

Well, May is here already. Tonight was the premiere of Fox's 'Animation Domination' block of shows....Ugh. 'The Simpsons' has now passed beyond episode 350...which, by my count, is the '2 times as many as optimal' mark. Woo....

Fortunately, 'Family Guy' is back, and I was pleasantly surprised with tonight's triumphant return episode....I guess Fox can still make a good decision every once in a while. I'm also moderately entertained with 'American Dad' although I don't think it will be around for all that long. At any rate, I really think they should move it to at least a half an hour separation from 'Family Guy', since (as Seth MacFarlane himself has admitted) they're basically the same show, and having to sit through a very unfunny half an hour in the shadow of the previous 30 minutes of hilarious 'Family Guy' just makes it all the less bearable.

Oh well. In a perfect world, 'Futurama' would just now be finishing up its last season, 'Simpsons' would be long gone, stuck forever in highly rewatchable syndication, and 'Star Trek: Entrprise' would be around for another 3 seasons.

Alas, a perfect world it is not.

2005-04-XX || Back to the Vault Main Page

2005-04-30 -- 11:50 PDT

Well, placeholder pages are now up for all the sections. More stuff will follow. I've put a link to my old website in the Vault, but that will shortly be revamped to fit the new scheme; my goal is to seamlessly integrate it with the content of this site....That is to say, the stories/etc on my old site will end up on this one, so the archived old site should point to the corresponding new site pages. Anyway, check it out.

2005-04-30 -- 02:33 PDT

The buttons to nowhere are now in place. Tomorrow I will be adding at least half of the pages that they link to (or rather, pages that are the links to half of the buttons), so that's something to look forward to. Anyway, not much else has been going on, lately, aside from the humdrum activities of computer maintenance and abstract/paper revisions at work, and web design, video games, tv, and beer at home. I guess we're going to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tomorrow. I never read the books myself, but I am a fan of Martin Freeman, whom you may have seen in the excellent British sitcom "The Office", or as the comical porno body-double in Love Actually.

At any rate, I think it should be pretty entertaining, and decent way to spend an afternoon. More to come tomorrow....

2005-04-28 -- 23:13 PDT

So, some progress today. I still haven't settled on a background scheme, but as you can see I've been playing around with some ideas. I was screwing around with the <DIV> tag in order to do some layered thing...but I wasn't good at it right away, so I quit.... Anyway, more graphics are in the works, and I'll be posting some photographs and other diversions soon, so if you've for some reason already been coming to my site on a regular basis, keep your eyes peeled for updates. I guess one day at a time is the only way to approach the daily update schedule, so we'll see how that goes.

Oh, and btw I have a camera phone now. And a handlebar moustache.

2005-04-27 -- Sometime during the day

Well, I've done it.

Welcome to joevegh.com. Soon, there will be links from here to many other parts of the site, which as of this moment are still rolling around in my head. The weekend is the time for major updates, so expect some, well.... uh, this weekend.

Mostly, this site will house my quasi-daily musings/ramblings/what-have-yous, but also other things. Like stuff I've written. Pictures of marmosets. Archival works. Sweet 3D renderings of tacos, and other raytracing-friendly taste-treats.

A plethora of hyphenated words.

But seriously, there're some things I've been wanting to fool around with, in the realm of programming/writing/animation, and I figured that putting in the effort to buy my own domain name would serve as some sort of impetus to get me off my lazy ass and actually do something creative once in a while.

Photo Galleries. Recipes. Movie reviews. Obscure details of my PhD Thesis work. Details of other hobbies that I may have once had.

It's coming soon.....