i had a hard drive crash about a year and a half ago, but i’ve just let the hard drive sit in my closet since then. my roommate has an ide to usb cable, so i thought, what the heck. i plugged in the hard drive, and it started clicking, just like when it went bad. i gave it a couple of nice whacks with the palm of my hand, and then it started spinning up and mounted! so i was able to get off of it a couple of old school projects and some blogs i thought i had lost forever. sweet. i’ve posted the blogs on here. all of them from january 06 and back. some have bad formatting, but i am too tired to change them tonight. enjoy!

despite my recent troubles with [a lack of] females, things are going pretty well. lest someone think i am just doom and gloom, here is whats up:

• classes are not that bad. i am enjoying most of them, and i am not feeling stressed at all, even with midterms coming up. bio 100 is a joke. i am not going to lecture tomorrow.

• i am eating better. i decided that eating out needs to stop making up the majority of my meals. so, i eat large breakfasts, pack my lunch, and eat something yummy for dinner. today i made scrambled eggs (it was supposed to be an omelet, but that failed) with onions, broccoli, tomatoes, green and red peppers, cheese, and turkey sausage. it was excellent. now for lunches, instead of having chips and cookies as a side, i have fresh vegetables (thus the stinky broccoli burps) and a piece of fruit. sunday i made some lentil stew.

• i am running again. lifting is good, but i needed to start doing something aerobic also. i’ve lost the weight that i gained in japan, and with the better eating, i am building muscle quite decently also. i feel good, and heck, i think i am even starting to look pretty decent.

• i am getting involved. this week, i have something planned for every night. sunday was game night, yesterday was FHE, today i just got done with a tau beta pi meeting, and now i am going to hang out with leslie, tomorrow night is programming night with the roommates (we are setting aside a night a week to devote solely to working on non-school programming projects), thursday is an opening social for one of my various honors societies, friday night i am going to a choral showcase thingy (basically because there is a girl in it that i am interested in), and saturday is a stake activity at a ranch in the mountains (there will be horses!!!!). so, yeah, getting involved is fun stuff.

so, yes, things are going well. if i only there was a hot babe to go along with it all. that would be SO SWEET!! 58008!

this comic is about me:

ride

thanks jessica for sending that to me. sure, everyone makes fun of me for buying a scooter, but i like it. admittedly, that $2600 probably could have gotten me a car which probably would have helped me get more girls. well, it would not have been that sweet of a car… but perhaps if i had just mention the fact that i own a car without showing it to them, that would at least pique their interests. nevertheless, i enjoy riding my scooter, i enjoy only spending $3 on gas every two weeks, and i will just have to find another way to impress girls, such as my superior intellect…. HAH!

hypothesis: my inability to meet women is directly correlated to the amount of time i spend on the fourth floor of the clyde building. and also maybe because i am using the scientific method to analyze picking up women…

e xperiment: after a good deal of time spent there, i have determined that the fourth floor of the clyde has absolutely no women i am attracted to. so, i will use it as a control case. the wilkinson center is a the main hub of campus where probably the most people pass through in a single day. i began my observations there.

observations: after one hour spent in the wilkinson garden court, i saw at least five attractive women. i compare this to the zero attractive women i have seen on the fourth floor of the clyde in the last two years.

conclusion: i need to get out of the clyde building if i ever want to meet women.

now that i know where attractive women are (and are not), my next experiment will be to actually engage in conversation with one.

i feel probabilistic analysis is in order:

• A - the case that i am in the clyde building.
• B - the case that i am in the wilkinson center.
• C - the case that i see an attractive girl.
• D - the case that i talk to an attractive girl.
• E - the case that the attractive girl talks to me in a positive fashion.

well, so far, we know these values:

• P[A] = .9
• P[B] = .1
• P[AC] = 0
• P[BC] = .99

if i had to guess, i would say P[D] = around .25, and P[DE] = .000001, but that might be a little high…

i think i saw this on XKCD once.

http://doormouse.org/dinosaurchat/

thanks to my little bro goda who sent this to me. its a message style for adium (the instant message program of choice for macs) that makes it look like you and your chat partner are the characters from dinosaur comics. now every conversation can be witty and profound. HOW INTRIGUING!

see: http://wallythethird.blogspot.com/2007/09/sinking-of-bismark.html

well, wally, i’ve gone without the board since school started, and i plan on continuing this trend. i have a few reasons… first, time. i just don’t have time for that anymore. i’ve greatly reduced the number of rss feeds i subscribe to, just so i have less of an excuse to not do work. second, people. i will be honest, some of the newer writers rubbed me the wrong way. not really in answers to my questions, but i felt in general there was a trend towards laziness and antagonism in some responses. now, i am still friends with some writers, so i hope they don’t take this personally, since if i am still friends with them, i doubt it was them i was feeling unimpressed with. third, fun. i just stopped really being interested. so, yes, bismark has retired from being a boardie. it was a good run. i think i had some pretty classic quotes, and a number of writers even listed me as one of their favorite readers. i’m glad that i could contribute somewhat to that community, and i wish all who are still involved good luck. here are my board posts:

• 70 - #51382
• 69 - #50009
• 68 - #50008
• 67 - #50007
• 66 - #48689
• 65 - #46229
• 64 - #42650
• 63 - #42527
• 62 - #42243
• 61 - #42246
• 60 - #42244
• 59 - #42037
• 58 - #41907
• 57 - #41525
• 56 - #41633
• 55 - #41711
• 54 - #41339
• 53 - #41338
• 52 - #41152
• 51 - #41037
• 50 - #41044
• 49 - #40902
• 48 - #40189
• 47 - #39025
• 46 - #38950
• 45 - #38363
• 44 - #38194
• 43 - #38146
• 42 - #38043
• 41 - #38042
• 40 - #37946
• 39 - #37880
• 38 - #37661
• 37 - #37561
• 36 - #37487
• 35 - #37464
• 34 - #37146
• 33 - #37147
• 32 - #36761
• 31 - #36726
• 30 - #35384
• 29 - #34639
• 28 - #34586
• 27 - #34637
• 26 - #33913
• 25 - #33531
• 24 - #33485
• 23 - #33337
• 22 - #33291
• 21 - #33208
• 20 - #33249
• 19 - #33208
• 18 - #33039
• 17 - #32985
• 16 - #32946
• 15 - #32488
• 14 - #32243
• 13 - #32127
• 12 - #31875
• 11 - #31868
• 10 - #31743
• 9 - #31741
• 8 - #31827
• 7 - #31699
• 6 - #31643
• 5 - #31454
• 4 - #31363
• 3 - #31358
• 2 - #30162
• 1 - #30013

so, the hot water handle finally got fixed in our second shower (the one i prefer) a few days ago, so i moved over all of my stuff and hopped in there one morning. i turned on the water, and it started shooting out all in one fat stream. it wasn’t very comfortable. after my shower, i found out what was wrong. in the shower head, there is a plastic screw with a wide round head, which screws into the middle and pushes the water out around it to make the water streams. this was laying on the floor. so i stuck it in, and didn’t think about it. the next morning, i got back into the shower, and turned on the water. suddenly, this plastic screw came firing out of the shower head really freaking fast and it hit the ground. i am pretty sure it would have seriously hurt if it had hit me. especially since it probably would have hit right about the level of where guys don’t like to be hit… anyway, i got it back in there, and i think its in pretty tight, but every time i get into the shower, i am afraid of getting shot by the plastic screw. ouch.

it appears that facebook has decided to no longer allow programs like MoodBlast (which i blogged about earlier) to remotely update my profile’s status. see this blog post:

http://blog.circlesixdesign.com/2007/09/06/losing-facebook/

this is idiotic. it was a wonderful and useful feature, and i loved doing it. i wrote the following message to facebook:

Up until recently, I have been using a wonderful little Mac app called MoodBlast to update my IM, Twitter, and Facebook statuses. Unfortunately, it appears that there has been some difficulty created to make this once very useful process no longer work with Facebook*. Is there an alternative way that remote updating of my Facebook status can be done? If not, why was such a useful feature taken away? I have been a loyal user of Facebook for a number of years, and I am concerned by this. Thank You.

*Here is the blog post from the developer of MoodBlast:

http://blog.circlesixdesign.com/2007/09/06/losing-facebook/

i wonder if they will give me a response.

apple’s new ipod lineup:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/05/technology/apple_announcement/?postversion=2007090514

i want an ipod touch. but where is the sdk, apple? this is the newton everyone has been begging for, and yet we have to hack it in order to install anything! that screen is way too blank. either apple better start churning out apps, or they had better open it up. think of the flood gates that would open. but given that its called an ipod, i am not sure if we will ever see it or not. please steve?

update from last time - iso tentatively rejects microsoft ooxml:

http://www.noooxml.org/

its a step, but far from over. given the amount of influence microsoft has had so far, i could see this changing by february. be ready for an eternity of microsoft office updates at $150 a pop.

men’s housing shortage:

http://dontbotheriambeingcrazy.blogspot.com/2007/08/homeless-homeless-like.html

yup, byu approved housing is awesome, especially when they restrict it to a two mile radius. idiotic system. i guess i am lucky i got into where i am when i did. i wish those guys good luck.

i thought i would start sharing some sweet pieces of software i use. one i found recently is called moodblast.

http://blog.circlesixdesign.com/download/moodswing/

basically, it is a status updater. it runs up in my menu bar, and i press a hotkey, and a little text box pops up in which i type whatever i am doing or feeling right now. i hit enter, and it sets my instant message status, my status on this blog (see the column to the right) which is done through twitter, and my status on facebook. i like it. its my new thing. check it out if you have a mac.

if anyone is interested, my twitter is:

http://twitter.com/bismark

i’ve decided i will start posting links to articles i am interested in and making short commentary on them. it seems like a lazy way to make more posts, but whatever.

microsoft manipulating the ISO standardization process:

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070903110826712

its sad how powerful big corporations are getting these days. what ever happened to competing by ones merits instead of by force? i hope this straightens itself out. i will admit, most of my documents are in .doc format, but that’s because no one has made a ODF capable word processor for the mac that doesn’t run freaking slow on my ibook (i would lose years of my life waiting for neooffice to open up everytime i needed to write something). i wish apple would have done the right thing and made pages ODF compatible.

man arrested for standing up for his rights:

http://newsite.michaelrighi.com/2007/09/01/arrested-at-circuit-city/

this is just messed up. one thing that bugs me about many byu students is they start extending the principle of obedience to God to absolute obedience to any and all authority figures. that’s just not right. the government is a servant of the people. police officers serve us, citizens. we have inalienable rights, and no one can take that from us. one thing that frustrated me with the whole cheney fiasco was when people would say “he is the vice president, we need to respect him.” no, we don’t. if he is not fulfilling his duty as a servant to the citizens of this country, he deserves no respect in that position. sorry, that was kind of a tangent to the original article, but i that’s what i thought about.

i have only added one thing to wikipedia ever. i am pretty proud of that fact, though i doubt many people will ever read what i had to say. i like to go back every once and awhile just to make sure its still there. is that weird?

its to the page of william s. clark (the one i blogged about before).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Clark

i added this part:

“According to the painting of the scene hanging in the former Prefectural Capital building in Sapporo, the full quote is ‘Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money or for selfish aggrandizement, not for that evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for that attainment of all that a man ought to be.'”

it just makes me feel special that somewhere out there someone might read what i wrote and learn something from it.

i was listening to a piece on senator larry craig on NPR last night, and I started thinking about some things. in no way will i defend the man and his actions. but I have a question. a lot of people are calling hypocrisy because senator craig, who appears to have some homosexual tendencies, voted against extending rights to homosexuals on various occasions. but aren’t senators supposed to represent their constituents? and if his constituents voted him into office under the expectation that he would vote in such a way, isn’t he doing the right thing by voting that way instead of by his personal convictions?

this isn’t necessarily a good thing, but maybe it can help people understand why i act the way i do sometimes.

example: i refuse to buy anything besides an apple computer. this means that it will be a little while before i can afford replacing my current ibook. i could buy a cheap laptop, throw linux on it, and probably get similar use out of it, but i still want a sexy macbook.

this sometimes makes me come across as arrogant. i don’t judge people who don’t like the same things as i do, thats their prerogative. i just have rather picky tastes. i don’t know where this tendency came from. it seems almost a little out of place.

i am rather picky when it comes to food (see my last post), girls (dont get me started), and clothes. these are all pretty pointless things for me to be picky about, and they usually just cost me time and money.

i watched the movie resident evil last night because i was bored out of my mind. it sucked (see, there you go!).

i wonder if i should be less picky. i know i would be a lot richer. but how can someone just deny one’s personal tastes, especially if they are not particularly destructive?

for example, my mom keeps saying i am too picky about girls. its true, its been awhile since i’ve been in a real relationship. but why should i force myself into a relationship with a girl that i really am not into? i am still young. i am not balding (at least other people tell me so… the hair cutting chicks always tell me how thick my hair is… but i worry about that). i am not becoming overweight. i still have plenty of time to find girls that i really like.

if i can afford to eat the food i want and buy the clothes i want, is it bad that i demand that those be the things i get?

this has just been a string of thoughts.