* You are viewing the archive for March, 2004
I did some extensive internet searching and found out that my imaginary requests have been answered. They’re bringin’ back MT. Dew Livewire! I saw a girl drinking it during history today, and I just got this warm and fuzzy feeling that I used to get when I partook of the sweet orange carbonated beverage. Life was hard without it. Oh, it was so hard. I will soon be replenished. Oh, that glorious day!
I’ve had a good few days as far as electronics go. I got my laptop and car cd player fixed.
First, the laptop: I noticed it was running slower that everyone elses’, so I took it to IAIT (the computer guys of our campus). They put a new motherboard in it. I was pretty happy. The guy that was working on it couldn’t get the wireless to work, so he just slapped in a brand new card. That was pretty nifty too.
So I took it back and started messing with it. It didn’t seem to go any better so I took it back. They put a new processor in it. It seems to be working better now, although it does seem to overheat still. I ran 3dMark03 all night. It should down after about 8 hours I believe. Then I ran it for around an hour and according to MBM I got up to 194 degrees. One of my friends is going to test his and see how hot it gets. I might have to take it in again. Maybe I can get a new video card.
I fixed the car CD player by sheer dumb-luck. I happened apon an article on the internet about fixing CD players. It turns out that sometimes the laser gets out of alignment and quits reading CDs. I figured I’d see if that was the problem.
I put a CD in first, and it didn’t work as before. So I start taking it apart. There were 3 screws holding it in the dash that were near impossible to get out. I couldn’t get the 3rd out. So I was about to give up. I figured I would just try it again. I stick a CD in, and it just starts playing. I was quite happy. I got a read error again after a few minutes, but I re-inserted it. It continues to work successfully.
Man. I like tennis – quite a bit, actually. However, I loathe women’s tennis. It actually has nothing to do with the fact that they’re worse than men (which they are). It all has to do with the fact that they feel it necessary to scream all the time.
It’s rather ridiculous, actually. You see this in more sports than tennis, too, but this is the main place you’ll see it. I mean, my sister plays softball, and some of those pitchers are screaming every time they let go of the ball. They prefer to use the term “grunt”, though I think that’s just because they want to make it sound better than what it is.
Part of my problem with it is that I don’t think half the people (read: girls) that do it do it naturally. It’s just the thing for them to do. Monica Seles did it, and she was pretty good at tennis. That must mean her secret power came from her grunting. I prefer to think of that as invalid logic, but I suppose logic doesn’t typically apply to people’s daily choices. And I do believe this to be a daily choice; one day they weren’t screaming, the next they were.
This isn’t really a post about spring break, though I can see why you would get that idea. Basically just wanted to say that the reason there weren’t many posts over the last week is that we were on spring break. We’re lazy like that.
After class today, I’ll start posting stuff again. No fear.
The UN is unhappy that Israel killed the leader of Hamas. In case you didn’t know, Hamas is a terrorist organization responsible for 52 suicide bombing against Israel in the last 3 years. Only the US and Australia voted against the resolution condemning Israel. I’m glad to know that the 2 countries I’ll be living in during the next year aren’t stupid. How can the UN condemn Israel for that? It’s ludicrous. That’s like saying we shouldn’t kill Osama bin Laden.
We haven’t had a good political discussion in a few days, so I figure I’ll start one.
I’m doing a reading for economics right now that touches on this issue. There’s some really interesting stuff. The best example out there is the veteran’s health care system in the US, which is, of course, free. I could tell you about the other examples in the book (England and Canada), but they’re basically the same thing.
The big problem with free health care is the quatity demanded always exceeds quatity supplied. That results in long wait times. That could be a problem with an emergency situtation. Here’s some stats:
55% of VA patients wait 3 hrs or more to see a doctor for a few minutes, and it is not uncommon to wait an entire day.
For those requiring urgent care, 1 in 9 wait 3 hours or more.
For those requiring specialized care, they can’t even be seen for 60 to 90 days. They must wait months more for surgery or other special procedures.
I personally wouldn’t want to walk into an ER and wait 3 hrs for urgent care. This is the problem w/ socialism in general. It looks good on paper, but in reality it doesn’t work.
In England, they went from a ratio of .73 staff to hospital beds in 1948 to 3.1 in present time. (They’ve also had to eliminate a bunch of hospital b/c of lack of funding.) These extra staff are not medical pros, but bureaucrats.
Herein lies the problem. Bureaucrats take up all the funding, and service becomes inefficient. Real businesses can’t operate this way because they would lose money, but our government does everything this way. Why? I’m still not sure.
well, im packin’ up. possible this may be my last post for a week or so… i don’t do much internet’ing at home. but maybe you’ll get lucky, and i’ll say something or the other. but all in all, im probably more excited about the NCAA tournament starting today than i am that i’m going home for spring break. call me crazy, i don’t care. call me crazy mary if you want.
see ya, pals. <– Friends reference.
I’ve been reading the prologue to the Wife of Bath’s tale in The Canterbury Tales. This is one of the most boring things I’ve read in a while. I don’t like it at all.
On top of that, it just keeps going. I was tired of it after 5 pages, but now that’s it’s reached about 19, it’s only gotten that much worse.
Here at Rose, we have a drag section of Calculus. They start it half way through the first quarter for those who are doing bad. Then they add to it when others fail. The funny thing is though, this class more than 1/2 girls. Which is amazing consider 80% of the school is guys. And they say women are the smarter sex.
My chem teacher has this weird habit of stalling eye contact. Instead of scanning around the room and making eye contact briefly w/ people, he stops on one person for about a minute. It feels really weird when he stops on me, because it’s like he’s talking directly to one person.
I’d also like to take this oppurtunity to complain about the weather. I thought spring had sprung, but now winter is back. It’s too bad.
I was reading Google News (isn’t Google great?), and happened upon this story. It’s another one about ‘The Passion of the Christ’ being anti-semitic.
I have yet to actually see it, so I can’t make any judgments from experience–only word of mouth. The more I think about it, though, the more I think the movie probably isn’t the best thing out there. Mel Gibson can say what he wants about it not being anti-semitic, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of the people who see it are probably truly uneducated in the history of it. The problem, for me, lies in the fact that if there’s such a big controversy over it, many people will walk away with a sense of anti-semitism, which can’t be a good thing.
I went to the Blues game last night. That was a lot of fun. They won 5-3 over the Bluejackets. We ate at this real good place on the Hill called Guido’s. Great Italian food. It was nice to get off campus for a day. I thought I had more to say than this, but I sure can’t think of anything else now.
