domain

Wahahahahaha!

So GoDaddy is having a sale on domain names and renewals. I tried to use the coupon code for the renewal (BUY2010 = $1.17 for 1-year or 1-year renewal. Go buy one for yourself!) but it seems that .info sites were off the list. Oh well.

So I did the next best thing. I bought another one.

For the time being, I won't be moving anything. But when the time comes, and there will be ample warning, I'll move the site over to the new address.

What is the address you ask? Oh. iismojo.com! Yay! Now the name of my blog will be the same as the URL!

The interweb just got that much more cluttered with crap.

japanese baseball league

What?

No. It sounds strange to me too. I'm not really sure why the Japanese Baseball League is so interesting and important when it comes to databases, but it is.

Let me explain.

So I came into the computer lab today (where I am currently, and currently avoiding starting yet another project) to finish some homework assignments that are due tonight at 11:59. It's pretty fun stuff. Databases seem to be the most captivating of all aspects of computer science. If you haven't caught on the sarcasm yet, I'm not sure I can lay it on any thicker.

Well, the assignments that I have to do is a barrage of multiple choice questions. To make sure that people don't just get the answers from answering wrong a lot of times, they have some fail-safes. (Calm down. I'll get to the JBL in a second) The first of which is the 10-minute delay before starting again. If you get it wrong, you wait 10 minutes until you can restart the assignment. Although the benefit is that you can take it as many times as you want... with a ten minute delay...

The other? Random answers. There is one correct answer each time they ask, but there are multiple right answers that can show up. An example (non Computer Science):

Fill in the blank

An apple is _______ .

Okay. There are a few correct answers here:
Red
Delicious
Round
a Fruit

And multiple wrong answers too:
Black
15 lbs
Made of metal
a port for highspeed internet
etc..

Now... each time you start the assignment, it randomly picks 1 correct answer and 3 (or more) incorrect answers. Yikes. So none of that, "Well, it wasn't a, b, or c. It must be d," for this assignment.

Here's the kicker. Each of the questions (there were 12 on this assignment) started with the exact same phrase:



EVERY QUESTION. Now I don't know about you, but I really don't care about the latest Japanese Baseball League scores. I just don't care.

open

Yikes. My last post was about 2 weeks ago. I need to be better about this.

Well, tomorrow is a Federal Holiday. And we all know what that means: No school or work... except that I have to work.

Yep, that's right. My work (which told me NEVER to divulge what/where/who my employment is via blogging) is going to be open for the holiday. I have to say that the sign reading said news on the door was a huge disappointment on Friday when I walked in. Oh well, I guess that there isn't much you can do, especially when you feel the dread dread of walking in the front door each time you go.

I've been thinking a lot about my job right now. I'm feeling very overwhelmed with school and work at the moment. I don't feel appreciated at my job either which doesn't help the whole situation. We (my bosses and I) had a talk the other day about my job. They didn't think that I had been doing as much as I could have so they threatened me with the "Official Warning." For fun, I decided to count how many times from that moment on that I heard the words, "Good Job" directed toward me. That was 3 weeks ago. Friday was number 1. (Which was after I told my boss about that)

So school and work move ever forward. That and Steam games going on sale. I bought 2 recently and I don't really have a computer to play them on... nor the time... But for $7 for two games, I'm not going to feel much remorse. I'll have time when I become a millionaire.

I have a good feeling about: 4 8 15 16 23 42 as the lotto numbers.

Oh, and yes, I've gotten back into Lost. Season three. Don't ruin it for me.

goodbye week 3 hello week 4

With school going on, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of excitement going on in my life. In fact, it's all been pretty boring. I rarely have time to really get out and play, and when I finally get some time, I feel too stretched thin to even WANT to go and do fun things. Yikes. And yes, the picture above IS my calendar from last week...

School this week was a little rough. I had 4 assignments and a test this week and honestly, I don't know how I'm still alive. The classes that I've been taking this semester are funny because half of them are pretty hard, and the other half look and act easy until right before a test or assignment.

I was feeling frustrated with my Biology class this week too. This is the one that the teacher sent out an email saying, "If you are not a Pre Med or Physical Therapy, etc, don't take this class." Well, sadly I don't have much choice. I'm taking the class and there is nothing you (nor I) can do about it!

We had a test on the first two chapters of the book. I was really excited about this teacher because of how she spoke the first day of class about not wanting us to just regurgitate information. She really wants us to learn. I have a lot of respect for teachers who understand that, but her test did NOT reflect that.

First of all, she had the test as the final 30 minutes of class (a two hour class mind you) after a lecture with new information. I thought that was just a crewel joke. Yes, it does weed out those who just cram before the test. What she fails to realize is how LOW LEVEL her questions are for wanting us to really learn. "Define xyz…" WHAT?!?! So after a long lecture with new information, you expect us to remember definitions? THAT is not good teaching… it's called being vindictive.

Luckily, all my classes made the assignments and test due last week, so this week is going to be a breeze. Thanks for all the great planning university! But with a week with only 1.5 assignments due, it does give me time to play "get ahead"… or "catch up" in some places…

Oh, funny conversation I overheard this week:

Girl1: Hey! How are you and Ed?
Girl2: Ed? Ed who?
Girl1: Oh. Aren't you married to Ed?
Girl2: Sorry, no.
--At this point, anyone would move off the subject--
Girl1: Are you sure?
Girl2: --pause-- yeah.
Girl1: Who are you married to then?
Girl2: --pause-- John
Girl1: --pause-- Oh.

Girl2 Leaves

Girl1: I'm pretty sure she's married to Ed.

greatest snow on earth

Now, the slogan of the state may be a lofty statement, and as we have seen this season, the snow hasn't been up to snuff, but this week was absolutely pristine.

Forecast for the previous week....

Monday: Snow

Tuesday: Snow

Wednesday: Chance of snowy showers

Thursday: Snow

Friday: Snow

Saturday: HUGE snow storm.

Yeah, you heard me. It was amazing.

Friday, 2.0 and I drove up to Brighton for night skiing (boarding). On friday, chains or 4x4 was required, but we were in luck. We loaded our gear into the trooper (nameless as of yet), switched into 4x4 and started the trek. I had a group

of friends that were going to meet us up there about an hour after we were planning on arriving, so she and I drove up the snow-covered roads to the

top of the canyon.

It was the most amazing snow I have ever boarded on in my life, and any misgivings I have had about Utah snow were thrown out of a high window. Imagine taking a path and loosing sight of the gear strapped to your feet because there was just too much fluffy powder.

Any Google search you do with the words, "Utah" and "Snow" will bring up pictures like this one:

or this one:

But I promise you, THIS is what it looked like on Friday and Saturday. We didn't take pictures because one, we are dumb, and two, I didn't have my camera and my phone is too hard to use with gloves on. But still.

Well, because of the snow on the roads, like I said earlier, 4x4 or chains were required which kept the crowds on Friday down to a bare minimum. There were lines, but no wait was longer than a minute.

But sadly, this did mean that Mojo's friends who were coming up later couldn't make it. Little to my knowledge, they didn't have a car with 4x4 and so they called it quits. It's too bad. I would have sacrificed a half hour at the bottom of the canyon to wait for them (in all my trooper goodness), but alas, they didn't even text me until I was down for the night wondering why they hadn't called me when they got there. Sad.

Saturday (not the 2-for-1 deal so no one else wanted to pay full price -- I have a pass so I don't need to plan around that) was the same. The only downfall was that my goggles (new this season) were awful. I'm going to take them back. They would fog up inside the lens (not just the inside of the google. Fog in the part you can't wipe) and I just couldn't see. I tried the whole not wearing them thing, but with the blizzard, it did make it hard to see with snow smacking my eyeballs.

Next time (this Friday after I return my my goggles) we'll get some great pics.

After snowboarding on Saturday, we rushed down, got changed and went to a Golden Globe Birthday, where we came up with the shows that we were being nominated for, and then won our own prizes. Imagine Mojo in his tux from high school accepting this award for best actor in a TV series Second Degree Burn Notice:

spring semester here i come

So yet another semester has begun, and we all know what that means… time to pay lots of money so I can be poor again! Yay!

So I tried to come up with some good ways to cut costs in any way I could. I sold one of my textbooks online. It was the first textbook that I have ever sold back at any point. I got $60 for the book so it’s a wonder why I haven’t done it in the past. So I’ve got that going for me. All the other textbooks are sadly outdated because they co

me out with a new edition every year… just to screw with me…

So I’ve decided to cut cost by trying something new: Renting a textbook.

Chegg.com is a website that will rent textbooks. It’s a genius idea. I head about the website in my Biology class. One of the other students brought up the fact that you can rent from them which is perfect for my needs… I don’t need more textbooks lying

around my room for years to come. Plus, with the website, because they are trying to promote reprinting of books and going green, they plant a tree for each book that you rent. How cool is that? Plus, when I ordered, it was $20 cheaper than buying used online.

So my Biology book came in the mail yesterday.

It came with some great goodies. First, the book. Because without that, this would be a pretty pointless transaction.

Next, a small explanation about the tree that was planted for renting a book from them

Now, you’d think that was it. NO! Yes, that’s right, a FREE chegg.com pen

What? Still not convinced at how amazing this company is? Well, don’t worry, there is one more thing that just puts them over the top…

[I left it in the other car. I'll have to post a pic later.]

Yeah. My very own slap bracelet to keep forever and ever. Heck yeah. Could this be any cooler?

Well, I guess if I didn’t have to get a textbook… but let’s stay positive.

nightmare

Have you ever had that nightmare where you go to your class one day and when you walk in, you don’t have any of your books or anything else. It is only after you sit down that you realize that your teacher is handing out an extremely hard test that you had completely forgotten about? Then, as you look at the test, you realize that you have no idea what is going on and everyone keeps talking to you about how easy it is.

You then, in a panic start to write your name at the top and then read the first question. Then the horrible words spewing forth from the mouth of your teacher:

“Everyone, hand in your test. You’re time is up.”

As you realize that you haven’t written anything except your name, you slowly walk to the front of the room. And turn in your exam. You know that it’s going to get no credit and all you can think about is dying right then and right there. Suddenly a cool breeze comes wafting past. It’s colder than it should be, like someone opened up the door to the outside and some winter winds came rushing in, although you know that it’s not that cold.

Oh great. You’re naked. In front of the class, and for some odd reason, they only now are beginning to notice that you are naked. Luckily, you are in a class of 95% males (I’m a male, so that makes sense) but that seems to make you more nervous because all the guys you know from the class start pointing and whispering… then laughing historically at you.

As you run outside, you see all the girls you ever dated (who knows why they are all in the engineering building) and they all want to come talk to you, somehow oblivious to the fact that you are naked running from a class. After a calm conversation, where you step lightly as to not let them know that you are naked, they then want to introduce you to their boyfriend.

Yeah. Those dreams suck. So guess how my day went today…

Well, I guess this whole story starts on Monday. I hadn’t looked at the schedule the week before so I didn’t know what days I as working. As I gazed on the organization of my life dictated by those who seem to be in charge of even the most minor details of my life such as where I’ll be every morning at 8:15, I found something that I thought might be a discrepancy.

I brought it up with my coworker who makes the schedule.

“Hey, I have a final at 1, and I don’t get off work until 1 on Wednesday.”

“Are you sure,” she replies, “because I gave you Tuesday off for your final on Tuesday.”

A sudden rush of doubt creeps into my mind. I pull out Grete (the handy G1) and start to look up the class website. At the bottom of the Schedule page, I saw in clear, bold letters,

Final Exam: TUESDAY Dec. 15, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

It was then that I decided I needed to plan my day to get everything done so that I could get some studying done.

Go to work… check.

Get home and eat

Go to the Service Auction

Be back with enough time to study. Perfect

Well, the Service Auction went later than I expected. I was in charge of getting all the audio set up (which I did and I totally rocked the audio system’s world) so I had to stay till the end so I could put everything away.

I got home at about 10:30. That’s not to late, well, except if you are feeling sick and have a deep desire to go to bed so that you can be alive for the test the next day.

Tuesday:

Wake up, and study

Eat Breakfast

Relax for an hour to calm the nerves.

Head to the test.

To maintain the calm relaxed exterior, Mojo needed some sweet music to rock out to all the way to school. Grete gets plugged in (how cool is she?) and Pandora starts. Well, I must have been listening to some more mainstream (who? Mojo?) calmer music because a familiar, Mojo-wishing-it-was-forgotten song came on the air.

Hands Down (Acoustic) by Dashboard Confessional

Now, why would this song want to be forgotten? Oh, that’s right. It’s the song that reminds Mojo of the first (and probably only) girl to break his heart.

Awesome.

Now to the test itself, let’s just say I didn’t feel as good about it as the last test. And the last test I felt pretty good about… and didn’t do “pretty good.”

Yikes.

I think I may just change my expected graduation date to 2019.