Halloween Birthday

Happy Birthday to xvenusian!

USC 55, WSU 13

It was great to be able to watch the USC vs. Washington state game again yesterday. This week my team performed well early and never let the Cougars back into the gane. With Matt Leinart doing well as the quarterback and Reggie Bush taking a back seat in the offense, it seems like Vince Young, of the Texas Longhorns, will win this year's Heisman Trophy. I think Matt and Reggie are going to steal too many votes from each other and split their fans, and the rest of the nation will vote for Vince Young and he'll win. Who know though, there are still four weeks left in the season.

Halloween in SF

My buddy and I went out to SF on Friday. Here are some of the pics. I think I'm too old to go clubbing now, but it's worth it to see the outfits some of the people wear. We went as Hans and Franz, from Saturday Night Live, but I think that a majority of the people there didn't get it. Man, do I feel old now.

My New Monitor

Yea! My new monitor is here. I wanted to take pictures of the box and everything before I hooked it up, but I forgot. So now it's up and working, so here is the first picture of my monitor:

The picture quality is very nice and in the first five minutes I have not spotted any stuck pixels. Satisfaction level with my first LCD monitor purchase: Extremely high. I'm going to give the monitor its first real test with Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Look for the short review tomorrow.

Funny Costume Idea

I can't believe I never thought of this:

What a great costume. Not what I'm going to be this year, though.
Thanks for telling me about this, Tina.

Personal Stress Level = Green

My midterm is over. I don't know how well I did, but nothing I do now can change the results, so I have to relax now. The professor will post answers on Saturday, so I'll check and see if any of his numbers look familiar.

1 Hour and Counting...

Midterm at 7am. Wish me luck.

BCS BS

Sports news controversy this week:
U. of Texas has passed my USC Trojans by the slimmest of margins in the BCS Rankings this week. I am not really concerned because as long as USC is ranked 1st or 2nd we will make it to the Championship game, and then it will be decided who is really the best team in the nation. Also, USC's strength of schedule will improve and UT's strength of schedule will worsen as the season progresses, which will most likely put USC back at number 1 as long as they don't lose.

Another reason why I can't be concerned
right now is I have a midterm for Phase-Locked Loops in 16 hours. Yuck!

Broken Monitor

Last week my monitor fizzed out on me. Every once in a while I would notice the edges of the screen "buzzing". Kind of the same effect as when you degauss the screen, but not as severe. On Thursday night it just pooped out and turned off like those old TV sets (shrinking to the little dot in the center...wee). I think it's some kind of thermal issue because now I can get about 5 minutes of use out of it and then it will go black again. Then I have to push the power button to turn it off for a couple minutes and the cycle begins anew. It's all rather annoying so I ordered a 19" flat LCD monitor off of the internet. I like to play videogames so I used this article as my main source of research:

19'' High-End Gaming LCD Roundup June 2005 (from www.firingsquad.com)

I chose to go for the cheapest monitor on the article, the Hyundai ImageQuest L90D+ 19'' LCD. It should arrive at the end of the week. Look for my early review sometime this weekend. I hope to remember to post a 1-month, 3-month, and 1-year review also.

Will my new monitor really do this?

HSX Short Season

It's about time I getting back to discussing my trading activities on HSX. Like I mentioned earlier, now that summer is over a lot of movies are doing really badly, which means this is a good time to short movie stocks. This last weekend I chose to short the movie, Doom, starring The Rock. Even though the movie is based off of a popular videogame it's coming out at a bad time of the year for movies and the previews they showed really did not make it look like a good movie. Anyway, the movie stock dropped H$6 on it's adjust on Sunday, earning me a good amount of money. Yea! Probably won't have much more HSX news until I'm done with my midterms. Bye.

Studying

Today I tried to focus on school. I got some reading done for all ofm y classes and got started on my homeworks for the week. I am still a little apprehensive about the midterm I have on Wednesday so I guess I am going to really have to sit down and study for that one on Monday and Tuesday. I was happy to be able to watch Desperate Housewives for the first time in a long time (without taping it of course). Working all these long hours the past month at work has really made me forget the simple joys in life.

Football and Midterms

Well, I just finished my 3+ weeks of working every day. My reward: getting to see my USC Trojan Football team play the UW Huskies live. It was fun cause my friend from USC, Roberto, came over and watched the game with me. Oatmealgal, are your Cal Bears ready? After that it was back to studying for school. I have a midterm coming up this Wednesday morning and I am having trouble with the homework for the class. I have been emailing the professor and he is doing a good job of getting back to me very quickly. I hope I pass this class. I also have to get a group meeting set up for tomorrow for my other class. We have two weeks to get a short presentation ready and we are still choosing the case study we are going to use. I have a feeling this one is going to come down to the wire. I am crossing my fingers...now.

Recovery

I guess working those long hours last week burned me out. The most memorable thing that happened this week is USC's close victory over Notre Dame. Work is starting to let up on the difficult work schedules, but now my clases are starting to take up my free time. Only one more quarter of class after this one and I will have a masters degree. Yea!

I'm Home!

SPending 14+ hours at work sucks

Long Hours

I'm on the last leg of a 14-hour shift. It wasn't meant to be 14 hours; I was supposed to be home 4 hours ago... but this is the world of test. I must find a way to escape....

Pretty Good Saturday

I made it! My class from 8am-5pm was actually pretty good. It was Project Management Basics with Professor Peng. He kept the lecture moving pretty smoothly and my friend Venti Frappuccino kept me attentive.

After class I went to work and since I had
to go late after class, the time there didn't seem as long either. Thank you to my coworker, Bob, who stayed late a couple hours to cover me while I was in class.

I thought I wasn't going to have enough energy to go to the party, but then I discovered it was a birthday party so I had to show up. I went had a couple of drinks and had a really good time.

And to top things off my USC Trojans beat the Arizona Wildcats. Although it wasn't the blowout people expected so many college football fans across the nation will be yelling for Texas or Virginia Tech to be the new first place team. Whatever. Next week it's USC at Notre Dame!

Marathon Day

Well, it's 7:15am and I am about to start a horribly long day. First I have class from 8am till 5pm. From there I go to work and finish the swing shift, which ends at 10pm. Lastly, I will probably drop by a friend's house do show face at a little shindig he is putting on. That's already a 16+ hour day. Yuck. Wish me luck. I'll try to give you updates along the way.

3rd Week of Class

Well, I just had my third week of classes. I talked to my professor for Phase-Locked Loops and he said if I can do the homework then I'm in good shape for the class. I guess that makes me feel better for now. We'll see how I do on the midterm. For now I am attempting to reread the chapters from last week before I move onto this week's readings. I hope this stuff begins to make sense soon.

Power RB

Here is a picture that defines the reason why USC was able to pull out a win over Atizona State: the power running of Lendale White. I don't know why the USC offensive coordinators do not start out every game with Lendale White carrying the ball. Although Reggie Bush is an exciting, gifted play-maker, I believe that White's power running through the middle of the field is a more important element to the USC offense. By utilizing White early and often, you force the opposing team's defense to condense on the middle of the field to stop the run. This allows the wide receivers to get open on the sidelines and give them more deep room behind the linebackers. I know Norm Chow knew this, and that's why in the last couple of years Lendale White has had more rushing attempts than Reggie Bush. Now with inexperienced offensive coordinators calling the plays, they are trying to be to fancy all of the time and almost running a one-dimensional offense. They better get their act together soon.

High Blood Pressure...

What an exciting game! My USC Trojan Football Team had to rally from a 21-3 deficit at the end of the first half to beat the Arizona Sundevils 38-28. In the last three games the offense as a whole dominated the other teams' defenses. In this game the two running backs, Lendale White and Reggie Bush, had to do all of the scoring. As for the unsung heroes of the game, the defense should get a lot of credit for making 5 interceptions, and the offensive line should all get huge steak dinners tonight for allowing the RB's to run all over the field. As usual, there are a lot of haters in the College Football World, and so many people will cry that Texas or Virginia Tech should now be ranked number 1, but I'm going to support my Trojans and just say that you will have to wait your chance to play them in the post season. On some of the discussion boards I've been reading, a University of Florida fans has been making a big ruckus about how great his team is. Well, after they got blown out by Alabama today, I hope he can stand to be a little more quiet this week. I love college football!