Wednesday, August 31, 2005--Today was the third day of class. After starting off my day with some really really boring CS188 homework, at 1pm, I went to
CS170 Discussion... it was boring. We covered stuff I already knew, like Big-O and Mathematical Seduction.
CS162 Discussion... was cancelled because it's the first week of the year, so I went to the HKN Cory Office to hang out.
CS170 Lecture...
After a break, which I took at the HKN Soda Office doing the new CS170 homework, I went to
CS162 Lecture... I sat directly behind Melody, but I think she's starting to avoid me in spirit, even though she'll still converse with me when necessary.
Dinner at XRoads...
Something of a boredom...
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Anyways, Good Night!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005--Today was my second day of class. I had my first class at 12:30pm, right after lunch (which I ate at Crossroads), and it was
CS188 Lecture... Nadia, Abhishek, Vik S, and Ellen Z were in my class, along with probably other people that I didn't notice. In any case, it seems that this class will
not be primarily about language AI and game AI, but AI is still cool anyway. Unfortunately, it seems that Prof Russell didn't actually read Turing's 1950 paper,
Computing Machinery and Intelligence, because the way he described it was just plain incorrect. (I've read the paper. I would know.)
Right after CS188 was EE125 Lecture... Amy was also in my class, which I had forgotten until I saw her just today.
After chilling out in the HKN Soda Office with the UPE people that I don't know (except Kaisen, whom I know from Microsoft), I went to
CS188 Discussion... It's in some low-end building that has no hallways or something. We learned about the differences between Scheme and Common LISP.
On this day:
In 2004: The first day of 2nd-Year College classes
After that, I had dinner at the GBC, then I ran off to the TBP Meeting with the TBPeople.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
Ugh! Homework! ...Good Night!
Monday, August 29, 2005--Today was the first day of class. Fortunately, I didn't have any classes until 3pm, which was my CS170 Lecture...
Then, since it was too early for dinner (4pm), I went to the GBC and bought some pop tarts. Then, I went to the HKN Cory Office, where I saw Tracy, but then, she left, and then later, everyone else left, so I got kicked out of the Office. So instead, I went to the HKN Soda Office, where I hung out with Stephanie (whose username seems to be SSL), Ellen, and some others I forget.
From 5:30 to 7pm was CS162 Lecture... apparently, the whole gang from CS184 is back, including me, Mark, and Sasha. Also, apparently, professor Kubi is very anti-Microsoft. (But he still uses PowerPoint, which is cool.) Also, Melody was in our class.
Me: Melody! You're in this class? Awesome! Join my group for the project! (That was not a question.)
And then I asked for her cell # and was
denied! Man, that sucked.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
Finally, I went fencing. Unfortunately, Jasmine cancelled out in the last second. Thankfully, Vivian (who said she was more interested in Tae Kwon Do) came, which made me happy. Thank you, Vivian. Because of that, it was a Good Night!
Sunday, August 28, 2005--Today, after screwing around at home, I went back to Berkeley. Funny story. According to
The Facebook, Faith Chien from Leland is in Griffiths (my building), but she didn't specify where. So today, I spent about half an hour exploring my entire building looking at all the nametags to see where she was. However, I had neglected to check my own floor under the assumption that if she lived on my floor, I would have run into her already.
And it turns out she was on my floor. On my way back from visiting Ada and Evonne on the 3rd floor, I ran into her.
Her: Oh... hello... They told me we had a senior on our floor. I guess that must be you.
(Clearly she didn't know me that well.)
Me: ...Faith? You live in my building on my floor and I didn't find out until just now?
Her: Yeah, well, I just moved in this afternoon.
Anyways, classes begin tomorrow. I'm not so excited about the classes as I am about seeing my old fiends again.
Especially at Fencing practice...
she is supposed to be there.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 2) Total: 4
Anyways, I'm going to have a Good Night!
Saturday, August 27, 2005--Today, I went to my father's company's company picnic, where we had Armadillo Willy's BBQ. It wasn't as good as Dixie's BBQ. Then, again, Armadillo Willy's is like a corporate owned restaurant while Dixie's is privately owned, so yeah. But Armadillo Willy's is still good.
Afterwards, I went to Kellie's where apparently, Kellie plays Starcraft now.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6
Good Night!
Friday, August 26, 2005--I went to get a health checkup at the doctor's because I haven't had a health checkup in 5 years.
Other than that, I spent most of my day uploading journal entries to
Viltris.com.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 2) Total: 3
Anyways, so Franklin and I played a game of MTG where we each took two decks and played 2v2. It was my Slivers and Rats vs his Counter/Control and Ninjas. In the beginning, I was taking the lead, amassing my Sliver and Rat army, until Franklin played a
Winds of Rath, which destroyed everything. Then, I slowly began rebuilding and managed to bring out a
Nezumi Graverobber, and flipped him to become Nighteyes the Desecrator. Then, I played
Marrow-Gnawer. Franklin, upon seeing the craziness I could do with those two, played
Wrath of God. Then, Franklin played out his
Ink-Eyes, which he then used to reanimate my Nezumi-Graverobber, which he then flipped, with which then used to reanimate my
entire rat army, including good old Marrow-Gnawer. So in the end, I was facing down about a hundred rat tokens.
Anyways, enough about Nezumi tokage. Good Night!
Thursday, August 25, 2005--So today, I went home. It's kind of funny. My mom picked me up and wanted to try eating at the cafeteria (Crossroads), so we went, but it was closed because of Calapalooza (or was that Caltopia, I can never remember).
Even funnier was that Daphne (Leland girl who is now an RA in Davidson Hall) was right behind me, and she was like "Oh no!" when I tried to pull open the door, but nothing happened.
On this day:
In 2003: The first day of Freshman College classes.
Anyways, I spent most of the day playing FF8 for some odd reason. Then, I went online and didn't do very much. I probably should have done more. Oh, well!
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7
Good Night, sirs and madams!
Wednesday, August 24, 2005--Yet another temporary journal entry.
Anyways, today, I woke up early again (7:30am, I dunno why). I spent most of my time upgrading my new
Web Journal. Right now, I'm in the process of migrating my old entries. There's probably a way to automate it, but I don't feel like doing it manually at this point in time.
Also, I met up with Lei at about 4:30pm and hung out with her, then I went to dinner with her at Crossroads.
Lei: Hey look, it's Teresa.
Me: Who's Teresa?
Lei: She was in MAH. You've met her.
Me: No, I haven't.
(It turns out that I hadn't.)
Later...
Lei: You want to go sit with Teresa and her friends?
Me: Who did Teresa come with?
Lei: Josephine (?), Elaine...
Me: Kuo?
Lei: Elaine Kuo, yes.
Me: She and I don't get along to well.
Lei: *laughs* Then, I guess we won't be joining her group then.
Later, some guy named Jeff joined us for dinner to try to invite us to the ABSK Welcome Night BBQ tomorrow.
Later, on AIM...
Viltris: hey tiffie
[Tiffany]: hey
Viltris: so i've met not one, but two people in the DC telling me about the ABSK bbq tomorrow night
[Tiffany]: do you want to come?
Viltris: i'd love to go
Viltris: but
Viltris: i won't be at berkeley tomorrow night
Viltris: give my regards to
Viltris: um
Viltris: you
Viltris: hi tiffie
[Tiffany]: are you interested in absk?
Viltris: no
Viltris: just interested in you
Viltris: and in food
[Tiffany]: why?
Viltris: why what?
[Tiffany]: why would you love to come to absk welcome night if that's not what you're interested in?
Viltris: because i'm self-centered
Yeah, so after chilling out at Lei's some more, I went back to my dorm to watch TV and do nothing in particular.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Hmm... I wonder if Vivian reads my journal? Hmm... I wonder how many references there have been to Vivian in the past I dunno how long. Hmm... I wonder how far back this section of the Journal goes?
I wonder if it'll be a Good Night.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005--This is yet another temporary journal entry while things are being migrated to
Viltris.com. It'll take a bit of work, mainly because there's just so much shit in here, that and I'm putting it in a database. It's all about new infrastructure that makes maintenance easier. It'll eventually get to the point where to update, all I have to do is add a new database entry, and everything will be taken care of. Even archiving and addendums!
Anyways, today, I had meant to sleep in, but for some reason, I woke up at 8am. (Actually, I woke up at 7:30am, but forced myself back to sleep for another hour. Funny, isn't it, that when we're in a new local, it's sudden easier to wake up early in the morning.) Anyways, I spent most of my morning and afternoon working on
Viltris.com. Soon, it'll be time for the unveiling. Soon. Actually, it's presentable now, if you go to
http://darkfiend.viltris.com/, but it's still under construction. (You'll notice quite a few holes as you go clicking around.
On this day:
In 2004: First appearances of Guillermo, roommate; Joyce S, girl next door; Irene (IVY), other girl next door; Lynn, Aura, and Minjung, girls downstairs. (Lily, I believe, has already had an appearance in this journal.)
Anyways, at night, my roommate David and some friends Laura, Alina, Raymond, and Melissa went out into town to go visit places and chill out. It was amusing. We all adopted fake names, except my real name was better than my fake name, so I just used good old Dwayne.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Ahh, Good Night, folks!
Monday, August 22, 2005--(I'm still posting in here, because it'll take a bit of time to completely migrate everything over to
Viltris.com, which is finally up, by the way!)
Anyways, today, I moved into Berkeley. It's kind of funny. I said I wouldn't have internet for a while... well, I'll let that story develop as it comes.
circa 11:30am I arrive at Berkeley. Funny story, because I have to go borrow a cart, but the cart is underground, and I don't have access to the elevator, so I have to drag the cart up the stairs, move in, then drag the cart back down the stairs to return it. What a silly little system.
circa 12pm I discover that my Internet workshop was supposed to be at 11:30, but I missed it. However, I'm able to gather the necessary info and go to the workshop at 12:30 to sign up for my internet connection.
After lunch, circa 2:30pm My Internet finally works. Wow, that was fast! I also received a call from the guys at
BlueHost.com confirming my contact info for
Viltris.com. I also discover that
Viltris.com is working. w00t!
circa 3:30pm I go to the new student Convocation, where I meet up with Vivian.
Me: Excuse me, may I sit here?
Vivian: Oh, hi!
Michael Chang: Dwayne, what are you doing here?
Me: Free food. (Notice how I didn't tell him my
real reason.
circa 9pm There was the RHA Casino & Dance Night. Me and my new floormates went, but the line was so freakin' long that we didn't get in until 10:45ish. Vivian had hinted that she would be here, but I suppose that she just gave up after seeing the stupidly long lines. Oh well. At least I still had fun meeting up with Minh and running into Sherry, Joyce, Kate, and Cesar.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Wow, first substantial entry in a while. Obviously, I had a Good day. Night!
Sunday, August 21, 2005--You won't see me for a while after today, because tomorrow, I'm moving into Berkeley, and I won't have an Internet connection for a few days.
On this day:
In 2003: I meet Kim Hung on the Chancellor's Lawn.
Anyways, today, I finished up Tutorial #8 for
my "Project Viltris" Tutorial site. I'm almost done with Tutorial #9. The issue with the domain names is still being resolved, but by the time I can actually work on them, hopefully, they will be
completely resolved.
Also, I played MTG with Franklin today. He tried to make a Ninja deck based on my Kamigawa Ninjas. He lost most of the games in the beginning, but once he realized that the secret to success with Ninjas was in
dirt-cheap flyers and in
Shuriken, he started winning.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 5) Total: 9
Anyways, this Night was Good, but hopefully tomorrow will be even better. If I'm lucky, I'll see her again.
Saturday, August 20, 2005--What did I do today? Let's make a list.
- I worked on Tutorial #8 for Viltris.com
- Had Fire Pot in Cupertino Village
- I had Viltris.com registered for a real host, so while it's being transfered, the old Viltris.com will no longer redirect to my GeoCities site
- And, um, that's about it
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6
Good Night!
Friday, August 19, 2005--Today, I finished Tutorial #7 for
Viltris.com. Two more to go, and it'll be time to renovate my website.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Slow day. Good Night!
Thursday, August 18, 2005--Today, I worked on Tutorial #6 for
Viltris.com. Yes, I do intend to move that to a real server. In fact, assuming that the beginning of the Berkeley school year doesn't conflict with any of my plans, it will be soon. Yes, my renovated website will be on Viltris.com.
Also, I played some FF4 Hardtype. You know what the funniest thing is? Oh, sorry. Spoiler tags!
*4*
So today, I finally get my ass kicked by a boss. You'd never guess who it was. You'd think it'd be a fiend like Cagnazzo or Valvalis, but no, it's the stupid little Dark Elf with his Dragon Breath that does 300 damage to all my chars, who only have 1000 life. Even funnier is the way I beat him: I cast Haste on Tellah! Tellah of all people! Why? Because he had Cure3.*4*
Anyways, I'm going to go work on Tutorial #7 now. After I finish Tutorial #9 (which is the last one in the series), I'll go renovate my website. I promise.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Ah, I bid thee Good Night!
Wednesday, August 17, 2005--
Happy Birthday to Nadia!
Anyways, this morning, my mother brought Franklin to the oral surgeon to get his wisdom teeth pulled and me to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. So all in all, it was a very toothy morning.
While I was at the oral surgeons, I picked up the Aug 8 (?), 2005 issue of Time magazine, which had a special on 13-year-olds, and one of the sections mentioned
Xanga. WTS?!?
On an unrelated note, it's official. If I moved to Washington and never came back, would you miss me?
Anyways, other than that, I've been working on
Dark Fiends and tying up other loose ends.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
So, this Night, it be most Good, most Good indeed.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - Addendum--I'm tired of searching. Please, let this be the one.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005--Let's see... I'm trying to remember what I did today, even though I actually
wrote this entry today, so it should be fresh in my mind.
I woke up. I updated my journal. I had lunch. I worked on
Dark Fiends. I had dinner. I came online.
Wow, that was a boring day.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 4) Total: 7
It might have been a boring day, but it was also definitely a Good Night!
Monday, August 15, 2005--Today, I bought a joystick (the Logitech Extreme 3D) so I could play Combat Flight Sim. The problem with Combat Flight Sim is that it's
too realistic. I'm having problems just learning how to fly the damn thing, let alone shoot down my enemies. I much prefer a more fantasy flier, like TIE Fighter.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10
Also, I know that this journal section has gotten a little big (> my personal 100k limit), but I'll fix it later.
Anyhow, Good Night!
Sunday, August 14, 2005--Today was a combination of me running maintenance on my computer, me playing Diablo 2 and making raids on the uber-bosses (more on that later), and me playing FF4 (hardtype, supposedly). (I had gotten FFChronicles for myself for my birthday.)
Anyways, the uber bosses:
So Justin was able to collect 2 sets of keys, so we used them to open a portal. The first one took us to Uber Izual, which we fought and killed quite easily (thanks to the Life Tap on Dracul's Grasp). The second set of keys took us to another fight against
Uber Duriel. Once again, thanks to Dracul's Grasp's Life Tap, we
killed him, except it was way easier this time.
I also learned something new.
Never use the Life Tap charges on Marrowalk, because every time you do, you get killed. Just let Dracul's Grasp kick in instead.
So there we have it. Also, since Justin did a run against Uber Izual earlier this week, he also had a second Mephisto's Brain, so we had 2 Brains and 2 Eyes, but we needed Diablo's Horn.
Fortunately, Justin, with his mad trading skillz, was able to trade off the 2 spare body parts for some runes, then traded those runes for Diablo's Horn.
So then, we opened the portal to Chaotic Tristram, where we fought the 3 Brothers in Uber form. Unfortunately, we got our ass kicked, so Justin recruited some help from a Paladin Smiter who, once we cleared the minions guarding the portal, killed all 3 Brothers for us. I got this
Standard of Heroes as a reward. Granted, it doesn't actually
do anything, but it's a nice souvenir.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
That's all there is today. Good Night!
Saturday, August 13, 2005--
Happy 20th Birthday to me!!!
On this day:
In 2004: "Holy shit! I have negative one of nothing!"
So today, I woke up, got on the taxi, and rode out to the airport, where I waited around for about 3 hours. (Matt wanted to leave as soon as possible, so we arrived at 9am when my flight was at noon.) Good thing I had bought that MP3 player earlier this summer.
So at 2:20pm, my plane touches down in San Jose. Hurray! I'm home!
Apparently, my Aunt had bought me an MP3 player. A Creative Muvo like the one I had bought, except this one had 512MB of disk space, so I can fight twice as many songs (even though I'd be hard pressed to find more songs I'd listen to).
So at 5pm, Justin arrives with Ryan and Mark. 20 minutes later, Vivian and Jasmine arrive (because they got lost).
People who didn't come to my birthday party: Alex (disappeared off the face of the earth); Abhishek (couldn't make it); Alan (booted from the SSS and/or would rather be playing WoW, I'm not exactly sure which, or both); Tracy (invitation rescinded); Nadia (not in San Jose).
Wow, that was a pretty bad turnout. Although it was better than last year. This year, though, I had infinitely times as many girls showing up at my party, which is always a good thing.
So we went to Taste of China for dinner, where I suggested that we order 2 of every animal. (Vivian: Uh, that's kind of a lot of food. Jasmine: I think we should order some vegetables.)
Unfortuntely, the girls had to leave early because they needed to by torches. Funny story. Due to some miscommunication (or possibly done on purpose, because Jasmine's like that), Jasmine's mom would be holding a party tonight, the same night as my birthday. So Jasmine and Vivian were sucked away into that party.
Vivian: We have to go now. See you at Jasmine's place. You... are coming to Jasmine's place, are you?
Me: I dunno. *looks at the gang* How about this? We'll decide later, and I'll call you and let you know.
Vivian: Okay.
I'm 99% sure that that was
not an invitation, but somehow, we still decided to crash Jasmine's party anyway.
Once there, we ended up playing poker, watching an NFL football game, and hijacking Jasmine's Super Nintendo to play Street Fighter 2.
Jasmine's mom: Hey, that thing works? I thought it was broken.
Justin: It was.
We also played with Jasmine's torches briefly.
Me: *sets a napkin on fire*
Justin: Dude, put it out! Friends don't let friends light themselves on fire.
We also had the cake that I bought, with
two candles (because we didn't feel like lighting 20).
Me: It sounds like you and Jasmine knew what I wished for.
Vivian: I dunno. I think we were talking about something else. I don't remember anymore ><.
Me: Ah, it doesn't matter. If you already know, then you already know. If you don't know, it'd be unwise for me to bring it up. What matters is... Chocolate cake is delicious.
Vivian: Haha, yes it is.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7
Man, what a long day. Good Night!
Friday, August 12, 2005--
Last day at Microsoft...
So to celebrate my last day, Weiye (my mentor), Jackie (my (and Chao's) PM), Matt (my tester), Chao (my officemate who also ends today), and Suresh (Chao's mentor) (Chao's tester couldn't make it) went to Todai for lunch. It was a good lunch. I'll miss these people. I should e-mail these guys eventually with my Berkeley e-mail, huh?
After lunch, Weiye said I didn't need to do any more work, since I'm done for the summer. However, there were a few bugs that were bothering me, so I spent until 5:30pm fixing them. Then, I said good bye to everyone and went home from work for the last time this summer.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
The rest of tonight was finishing packing and watching TV for several hours. We (Matt and I) also hit up Maple Garden for the very last time. Ah, it was a Good Night!
Thursday, August 11, 2005--Today was an unmemorable day that was caught between 2 memorable ones.
On this day:
In 2003: Convo with me and Lei about how girls with boyfriends are more flirtatious...
Also, Matt took down the internet today, so I just played Rise of Nations.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
Once again, I say, "Good Night!"
Wednesday, August 10, 2005--So today, my officemates and I went to a Sushi Lunch as to commemorate our summer. Except Sushi was changed to Red Robin. And Lunch was changed to Dinner. So we had a Sushi Lunch at Red Robin for dinner.
While we were there, the guys (while I was making a trip to the bathroom) told them it was my birthday, so the Red Robin people came out singing happy birthday and bringing me a sundae. I would have enjoyed the sunday, except that I had filled myself on the bottomless fries. They're damn good fries. And you get unlimited fries free with the order of a burger.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
I should end my journal entries with something different than "Anyways, Good Night!"
Tuesday, August 9, 2005--This is another day that I don't really remember.
On this day:
In 2003: I play my first MTG booster draft, at Hedayati's place.
Anyways, today, I played Rise of Nations. It's a pretty good game. The problem is that there aren't any single player campaigns, so it's mostly about multiplayer (and practicing against the computer). Still, it's a good game.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6
Anyways, Good Night!
Monday, August 8, 2005--I don't know why, but this entry wasn't posted until August 16, more than a week from the day it was actually posted. Oh, well. Can't be
too big of a problem. Except that I don't remember what happened.
Other than it being my last week at Microsoft. I'm going to miss the place.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7
Oh, wait. I remember what happened, now. I went to the company store today and bought a fuckload of games, including Halo for the PC, Rise of Nations (and expansion), and Combat Flight Simulator 3.
So I played Halo today. Awesome game. Awesome game indeed.
Anyways, Good Night!
Sunday, August 7, 2005--
The portal opened today!
Justin and I were playing Diablo 2, so Justin transmutes his
3 keys. He gets a random portal to the
Forgotten Sands, where we'd be facing Uber Duriel. We battle him, his sorceress Shalis (level 82) and my druid SiniticWulf (level 78). After some chaotic battle, during which Shalis gets killed once, we finally manage to clear a field of all monsters, and then we start fighting Duriel proper.
"Looking for Baal?"
So then, we're fighting him, and I'm chugging Full Rejuvenation potions like mad. Then, finally, Justin decides to bring in his assassin InkEyes (level 83), and using her, we
finally defeat Uber Duriel for good. We received
Baal's Eye, which is 1/3 of the puzzle that we need to battling the 3 Brothers in Chaotic Tristram.
So there we have it. Two people take down Uber Duriel.
The Ladder resets on Monday. Hopefully, we can still fight the optional uber bosses in non-ladder. We'll also have access to Carise's stash of stuff once it happens.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Good Night!
Saturday, August 6, 2005--Today was basically preparing for my presentation on Tuesday and playing Diablo 2. I finally hit level 75. Man, after level 70, levelling was so slow.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 1) Total: 3
Good Night!
Friday, August 5, 2005--For some of the interns here at Microsoft, it's their last day. So, we gave them a send off.
Also, my officemate Dan (who was the only person in our office who was leaving today) showed me the screenshots for the procedurally generated MMORPG he's creating. Those are some pretty damn good screenshots. He has more ambition than me when it comes to game programming.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Good Night!
Thursday, August 4, 2005--There's not a whole lot to say about today. It just wasn't memorable at all. And it hasn't been in the past. However, a very memorable day is coming up.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
Anyways, Good Night!
Wednesday, August 3, 2005--Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
I made another check-in to the Source Depot. Yet another piece of my code is now a part of SharePoint. I was so happy that I went home early to celebrate.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
Good Night!
Tuesday, August 2, 2005--Today was a really long day. Thankfully, I got a lot of work done today, so it all works out.
On this day:
In 2004: I beat Golden Sun 2.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Night!
Monday, August 1, 2005--Shortened day of work, because I was bottlenecked. Oh, well.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9
Good Night!