Listened to Can's Can Box (Live 1971-1977) again. This thing is sweet. Live Can really makes "jam" bands like Phish seem like amateurs.

Speaking of bands, one band whose fanbase puzzles me is the Dave Matthews Band. I suppose it has to do with the fact that they straddle the border between a "musician's band" and a "pop band". They seem to be one of those bands, like Pink Floyd or Rush, whose fanbase places them on a pedestal because they have some actual musical/instrumental talent, thus seperating them from the scores of "popular" bands. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me are how these bands are worshipped as being "the best musicians ever" by fans whose only frame of reference is what they hear on the radio alongside DMB. Yeah, compared to Staind, they're downright virtuosos. But there are so many out there with far greater instrumental talents.

I'm desperately trying to find an old Zappa quote, but I'll have to paraphrase it: Radio, especially American radio, plays such a narrow range of music that it's impossible for listeners to discover what their musical tastes actually are. In a seperate quote, Zappa states: "It's impossible to have a hit record in America unless you pay off." If you listen to radio, read this Salon.com article and come to the understanding that what you hear on the radio isn't there because of quality, but because radio stations are paid to play certain artists/songs. Who chooses those songs? The labels that do the paying. What do they choose? They choose what's marketable.

Most people have no idea how narrow the range of music that they've been exposed to really is. I can't help but laugh at the people that claim to like "a little of everything" - a typical response of a radio listener whose "everything" is paper-thin.

I don't dislike "commercial" bands. I like quite a few bands that are lucky enough to be placed on the radio and made "stars". But I recognize the fact that they weren't put there for their talent (and, indeed, one need not listen to radio long to stumble upon many artists with zero talent). They were put on there to make money. College radio is a little more "open", but still not great. Internet radio can be excellent (gotta seperate the good shows from the crap), but you need broadband to get a quality audio stream, and you don't have a cable modem in your car.

The hard part about "discovering" beyond the radio norm is that you typically have to know what you're looking for in order to find it. The chicken/egg paradox comes into play. If I ever come up with an answer for a good starting point, I'll let you know.

Phoenix couldn't put up a fight in NHL 2002. I sweeped them in the series, 4-0. Bring on the Avalanche.

Derek came over for a few hours today. In all, it was a clean gaming sweep for me: I won 3 RalliSport Challenge races out of 4, both Halo deathmatches, both Ring King best-of-5 matches (though he took one of the the distance, but got pounded in that 5th fight for a 1st round K.O.), and one Tecmo Bowl showdown (which now contains the rule, "No using San Francisco, New York, or Chicago, but especially San Francisco" (SF has one pass play that is impossible to stop)).

Stacey came over for about an hour to watch some RalliSport madness, before she had to go off to babysit (for the second time today).

Despite claiming that the homework would be posted by noon on Friday, my professor has STILL not posted the homework for C SCI 60 on the class website (it's 7:08pm Saturday now). Frankly, I think he has no call in expecting it to be completed on Monday. We'll see what happens then. If it's not posted by the time I wake up tomorrow, I'm not bothering with it.

It turns out that we can now remotely login to CSU Fresno's "Triton" servers remotely, using SSH. This wasn't possible before, as I remember. So now I can do all of my C SCI 112 work from home, without physically having to be on campus (and without having to buy a SPARC workstation). VERY nice. I've been working on getting UNIX shell accounts on servers running on SPARC architecture, and I do currently have one, but "Triton" is local and fast, and since it's the server that everyone is expected to work on, I shouldn't experience any "quirks" from different hardware, etc.

I own five books on data structures/algorithms (though two books are identical except for the programming language), and I really, really, really want a 6th. But the 6th one would be no run-of-the-mill book. Rather it's the Bible on algorithms: "Introduction to Algorithms, Second Edition". Interestingly enough, it's no "intro" to anything - it's supposedly a very complete and advanced text.

I also want Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3 Boxed Set", which runs like $150. More realistically, I want "The C++ Standard Library", which is like $60 and a great reference on the C++ Standard Template Library.

My C SCI 1 homework is basically done. And, as mentioned above, my C SCI 60 homework remains unposted. That's it for the weekend's homework. Got some more reading to do here and there, though. But for now, it's NHL time.

Stacey came over for the day and we celebrated our 6th month together. She gave me the most heart-melting letter. Unfortunately, the gift she ordered for me has yet to arrive from overseas, so she wasn't able to give it to me yet. I gave her my gifts, though, after wheeling myself around the mall this late morning/early afternoon to finish buying for her. She was visibly pleased with them, so I was happy (gifts with thought put into them tend to go a long way).

We got Day of the Tentacle running on my XP machine using ScummVM. It runs fine, although there are a few graphical glitches. I think I'm going to try the Dreamcast port of ScummVM... that's gotta be interesting.

I'm thinking my weekend timetable for walking is premature. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I know right now that I won't be walking tomorrow. So perhaps the recovery will be closer to 2 weeks. I suppose I can manage another week of wheelchairs and crutches. I can walk on the side of my foot a bit, which makes navigating my apartment and stuff a bit easier. But even that, I need to cool it on.

My mighty digital avatar LA Kings managed to beat Dallas in 6 games, and have a 1-0 lead on Phoenix in the Cup quarterfinals. The real challenge likely awaits after Phoenix: Colorado (who will undoubtably beat Edmonton and advance).

I have some reading on quantified logic to do. I find the quantified and propositional logic being taught in C SCI 1 and 60 to be tremendously boring.

Hey kids! Assembly language is fun!

(completely unrelated):
Kelly Osbourne's cover of "Papa Don't Preach" is actually rather enjoyable.

I am experimenting with various ways of taking notes in class on my laptop. The advantages are legibility and organization. The disadvantages are the inability to easily draw diagrams, my tendency to rely more on mental notes than written notes, and my tendency to exhibit general inattentiveness in certain classes. Mental notes (or, more often, learning by osmosis) are valuable, but I need to keep some more concrete notes. I use Notepad, which uses a fixed-size font, allowing me to "draw" diagrams with ASCII characters as I see fit. I could use a "scratchboard" program that lets me draw rough diagrams with a paint-style program, but there's no way I can be as precise with a TrackPoint input knob as I can with a pencil and paper. So, my options are:

(a) All paper notes - ugly handwriting, less-than-organized papers, etc.
(b) All electronic notes - Difficult to handle non-text notes
(c) A combination of the two

The hard part with (c) is managing the two (i.e. which paper goes with which electronic notes). I need to devise some sort of labeling scheme. I currently date all of my electronic files (ie. 091302.txt for 09/13/02 notes, stored in a folder bearing the class designation - i.e. C SCI 112). I suppose I could label my papers the same way, so that I can always track down the electronic note to coincide with a paper note (though not easily in the other direction).

In NFL2K3 news, I destroyed the Browns, 40-13, and the Titans lost, so I hold 1st place in the AFC South all by my lonesome. In NHL 2002 news, I completed the regular season with the best record in the Western Conference, and am now up 3-2 in a series of 7 against the Dallas Stars.

Yesterday was the 6 month "anniversary" for Stacey and I. Unfortunately, due to classes and schoolwork, we were not able to see each other yesterday. We'll be celebrating together on Friday after classes. Stacey, I'm incredibly lucky to have you, and though we'll hold off on presents while yours ships to you, I have a letter for you. Love you, Stace. See you soon.

Favorite current commercial: "Zane? What kind of name is Zane? What happened to names like Bill, or Dick, or Chuck? Or Hank.... Hank the Tank. Hank...."

Beat the Steelers, 21-17, in a grinder. Better yet, the Giants beat the Titans, so now I'm tied for 1st in the division.

Edged out the Cowboys, 17-10, in a game that should never have been that close. I threw 3 INTs, two in the endzone on what should have been TD-scoring drives. The third was on a pass that could've gone the length of the field for a TD, but I underthrew it and the beaten DB was able to haul it in. A last-second drive before halftime got me back in the game (brought the score to 10-7 Cowboys), and my defense managed to hold them scoreless in the 2nd half - this after Emmitt Smith ran roughshod over me in the 1st half.

The purple coloration at the end of my broken toe is starting to recede to its proper flesh-colored tones. The pain is also lessened, though I can still feel that I should not put weight on it. I'd like to start walking by this weekend, but we'll see.

I've posted a lot about my NFL2K3 season (7-3, one game behind the Titans in the division), but I've also been playing through a season of NHL 2002 on my PC. Currently, my LA Kings are 31-16-5-1, 1st place in the Western Conference (2nd in the overall league, behind Philadelphia, who is out to such a large lead that there's no catching them). My team was hanging at .500 in November and December (game months), but went about 7-3 in both January and February, and am currently 9-1-1 in March (with 2 games left). I'm playing the game on the hardest difficulty setting, though I've bumped down the opposing goalie slider a tad (I was tired of games where my team would have 40 shots - including plenty of quality shots - and 0 goals, while my opponents would be held to 9 shots and get 1 or 2 goals from those... I still have to outshoot my opponent by about 3:1 to win, but at least it's a winnable and not-entirely-unfair challenge).

I've got Adam Deadmarsh and Ziggy Palffy flipped to the opposite of their natural wing positions (Deadmarsh at RW, Ziggy at left). Since Deadmarsh is right-handed and Palffy is left-handed, this creates good one-timer opportunities for the far corner of the net. However, I'm having a lot of problems with them (especially Deadmarsh) shooting wide on breakaway approaches to the net. I may try switching them back to their natural spots and seeing how that goes....

Installing the latest bleeding-edge beta of Mozilla onto my laptop.

I very much appreciate the fact that the program asks during install if I want a system tray utility or not, and is UNCHECKED by default. No Windows program that installs a systray utility should leave this part out.

Mozilla now imports IE bookmarks correctly, thank goodness.

Penny Arcade's opening line in today's post nailed it: "This is not the site to go to if you want to be sad all day."

Dear Derek (in case you're reading): A new FF Tactics-style game has released on PlayStation 2, called Dynasty Tactics. It's developed by Koei. You *will* buy.

Note to self - C SCI 1 homework due Monday.

Does anyone else want to skip the September 11th anniversary overkill? Some entities, especially certain TV networks (read: ABC) are going overboard.

It's not enough that ABC is dedicating the WHOLE day to the 9/11 anniversary tomorrow, but their 9/11 programming is already in full-swing today. It's good to memorialize, but this is as commercialized as memorials come. Anyway, I will certainly not be watching ABC tomorrow.

New version of Trillian out. But if you run Trillian, you already know that.

New version of Mozilla, too, though this one is a couple of weeks old (didn't notice it until now).

Dismantled the Texans in Week 11 of my NFL2K3 season, 36-7. Over 300 yards and 3 TDs for Mark Brunell, and over 120 yards for Fred Taylor and Stacey Mack combined (Mack came in for a series after Taylor injured his hand... Taylor returned after the half to carry the load). Pass defense is still very suspect, despite hauling in 3 interceptions off of David Carr (bet Dallas wishes they could've done that in real life on Sunday). James Allen also had far too much success running against my defense, though I did sit in zone coverage D's most of the game.

My LucasArts "Adventure Collection" is backordered, and the order is supposed to be filled "within two weeks" (this from a message sent last Wednesday). I want it now! Also, "Monkey Island Madness" goes for over $20 on eBay! Argh. I'm going to have to cough up more than I want to to get it. But dang, I want it.

Ever played "Dynomite"? It's a game from Pop Cap games, and can be found either on MSN Gaming Zone or here on Pop Cap's website (this link goes directly to the game). On MSN, you can download a copy of the game that you can play offline. I downloaded it (as well as a couple of other Pop Cap puzzle games - Bejeweled and Alchemy) onto my laptop, and entertained myself in C SCI 60 this morning with it. Also played a little Civilization, though I righteously suck at it so far. I remember playing Civ (this is the original, mind you) on Kyle Melching's computer back in junior high. Gotta love those DOS/Windows 3.1 days. Well, not really. The games were good, but that's it.

Does anyone else miss BeOS?

Well, I'm managing to wheel myself around campus and get to my classes. I skipped my music class, which is entirely skippable this week, except for Wednesday's discussion on the term paper. That class is so far from the rest of my classes that I will need to get a ride over there and back. I can't possibly wheelchair myself over there... not if I want to get there before class ends.

I'm over at Stacey's place, doing some coding on my laptop while she works on some artsy, schoolteacher-ish project. Definitely a bit of a culture clash. And yet, she's the one with the more powerful laptop. :(

Got an assignment in 115 to get done in two weeks. I'm using some of the linked list templates from my textbook, but they use some aspects of C++ that I don't fully understand yet, so I'll need to hit the C++ language texts tonight.

My toe has basically stopped hurting, as long as nothing touches it. The tip of the toe is still purple, although a lighter shade than before. It needs to hurry up and heal, so I can walk on it!

Beat the Redskins, 14-10, moving me to 6-3 on my season. Ha! Eat that, Spurrier!

Lost an overtime heartbreaker to the New York Giants in my NFL2K3 season, 23-20. I'm frustrated that the game doesn't zoom out on pass plays when the computer is on offense... makes it awful hard to pass cover. This was a real dumb change by Visual Concepts, and I'm really hoping that it's not like this for online play, because that could really damage the game for me.

Last week, I broke the big toe on my right foot. On the same day, I also went through hell with a dead car battery. (As one might surmise, the latter led to the former). After multiple visits to car places, and multiple visits to the university health center, my car is back up and running, and my toe is taped up and (allegedly) in the process of healing. I am staying mobile using crutches and a wheelchair. It's no fun, but I am supposed to be able to start walking again after about a week after injury (so, later this week). We'll see.

Anyway, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fresno State Bulldog football teams both lost games that they should have won. The former lost due to a couple of key mental mistakes, the latter due to blatently pro-Oregon calls by the officials (so blatent that ESPN announcer Warren Moon, who has no vested interest in Fresno State, was shocked). In better news, the NFL expansion franchise Houston Texans (led by former Fresno State quarterback David Carr) won their opener against an improved Dallas Cowboys franchise.

Last night, I went to a wedding with Stacey. The wedding was of one of Stacey's oldest friends. It was enjoyable. I was on crutches at the service, and in the wheelchair at the reception. The highlight of the evening was when I wheeled myself out onto the floor for the tossing of the garter, stood up on my one good leg, and plucked the garter out of the air with my left hand. There was no bobbling, no unsteady hand. It was a solid, firm catch with my non-dominant hand. All were impressed, as I sat back down into my chair with wheels, and rolled myself back towards Stacey and the dinner table. Stace just shook her head and snapped a picture of me, holding my prize.

I've helped Stacey build her website. I'll put it in my links section as soon as I finish putting that section together. Her site has pictures from the wedding.