Was helping Doug and Dave move into their new place today. Looks great. And the HotTub is magnificent :) Unfortunately, I think I may have spent a touch too long in there, as my throat has that inhaled-too-much-gaseous-chlorine ache. Ah well, it was worth it. Also got to see lots of people, including Maria...it's her birthday. Happy Birthday Maria!! In entertainment news, watched Dark Asylum yesterday. Typical slasher movie, with lots of running and getting trapped in a building with a sadistic serial killer. I must admit, thought, that Larry Drake makes for a freaky villain.

Just got home from Doug and Dave's birthday. Got to see their new place...very cool. It's a great house, even though the lower level is restricted to those under 5'5". It makes up for it's shortcomings (hee...I made a pun) by having a sauna and a hottub. And a 5-person shower.It's actually quite awesome...congrats, boys.

There's nothing quite so odd as being asked if you left your brain in a jar at home. Actually, I lie. There's this. But since my brain is not in a jar, and it's been pounding away for the past couple of hours, I think I'm going to go put it to sleep. Securely in my cranium.

As I said yesterday, my thesis was all typed up and ready for Kinko's. All I needed to do was save it as a PDF (word reformats the whole document whenever I try to print from somone else's computer). Sounds easy, right? Should've been at UBC bright and early. Except I forgot that my computer hates me and decided that it didn't want to work today. It took me hours to get the damn thing ready, all because my computer had PMS. The following is a transcript of the exchange that took place this morning:

Me: Okay. The thesis is ready. Now, just print this to a .pdf file and I'm off to Kinko's
Computer: PDF?
Me: portable document file.
Computer: I don't know what that is.
Me: Of course you do, Metis. You've made one before.
Computer: Me?
Me: Yes, you. Now kindly save this word document as a .pdf
Computer: I don't have the software.
Me: Yes, you do. I installed it. I even used it a month ago. Now get to it.
Computer: Oh, alright. [...] Nope, can't do it. I won't let you.
Me: What?
Computer: If you graduate, then you'll have money and you'll replace me with a newer, younger model.
Me: No, I won't. Now would you make the file?
Computer: I'm sorry, but I can't do that Dave.
Me: Who the hell's Dave? Now quit stalling and write the damn file
Computer: I don't have enough memory.
Me: I've closed down every other application. You have more memory than you need.
Computer: You still have that explorer window open.
Me: Write that file before I'm forced to format you.
Computer: You've done that twice already.
Me: Yeah, and you're still a smartass. Now write that file, or I'm pulling out a magnet.
Computer: Alright. Here's you bleedin' file. *sniff* Are you happy?
Me: Ecstatic. Now burn it to CD so I can go to Kinko's.
Computer: Oh, so now you want me to burn it to cd, do you?
Me: Yes, I do. Get to it.
Computer: Fine. But I'm doing it at 1x speed.
Me: I have an 8x cd writer!
Computer: Sorry, but my technobabble is limiting the capacetor technospeak.
Me: You're making that up. You didn't even bother inventing fake words...you just said "technobabble"!
Computer: It's still going at 1x.
Me: Whatever. I give up.

You know she's crazy, right? I mean...a computer that speaks? As if. And for the record, she not only had an explorer window open, she was running norton antivirus in the background at the same time. Obviously she's not only delusional, she's also a pathological liar. --Metis

38,504. That's how many flies direclty gave up their lives at my hands for the pursuit of science. That doesn't even count the many that were used for crosses - the baby-factories, if you will - then tossed into the little bottle of ethanol. If you count those, well then the count probably closes in on 50,000. And what's even scarier that that? What's even more frightening than the thought of an eternity in hell for each life taken? What's more horrible? Knowing that I counted each and everyone, looking at him through a 40x microscope, discerning eye colour and wing shape. I think I've already served my time for those killings.

Probably a couple of million or more flies passed through my hands over the course of my experiments. That I only directly killed 50,000 - less than 3% - well, I'm doing pretty darned good, I think.

Hats off to my 1,933,004 (apx) flies. George, Tom, Angelina, Joey, Kirk...

(er...yeah, I got bored of writing my thesis. why do you ask?)

Okay...so it seems that lately everyone's gone all "Doogie Howser meets Captain Kirk". All of a sudden, digital diaries are in. My friends are doing it. Strangers are doing it. There's even a ferret keeping a public journal. Who am I to buck a trend? Besides, given my prediliction of late to hide from society (they train us well in grad school) it seems like an efficient enough way to keep my friends updated with the goings-on of my own little world. The nice part about living in your own little world is that you get to be king. Or queen. Or supreme dictator...whatever's your poison.

After much fiddling and fighting, I've discovered that Shaw neither allows .cgi scripts nor does it allow ftp access from a non-shaw computer. In other words, I can't post my ramblings on the webspace I'm paying for, and must instead put it here, on a free, ad-supported host. OK...I get the whole .cgi files could blow up the server thing (well, kinda)...but why can't I upload to my site through another computer? Are all non-shaw users in league with Beelzebub? I don't get it.

On to happier topics, I've finally gotten my thesis ready for my committee. After a brief Kinko's run (I don't think my inkjet printer would appreciate printing 276 pages for me) I'll be dropping that off tommorrow. Then I'll be free to fret about the inevitible horror that will be my defence. Ulp.