Monday, December 24, 2007

Hornets, Saints


IMG_1015
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.
On Saturday I went with my parents to watch the Hornets (N.O.'s NBA team) play the Timberwolves. It was great, and I cannot stress how talented Chris Paul, our point-guard, is. Not only is he one of the NBA's leaders in assists per game, but he is also the leading scorer on our team. We absolutely crushed Minnesota, and we're going to another game next weekend! I took a few pictures and posted them.

Yesterday I went to the Saints game, which did not go so as well. No pictures either. I guess it's turning out to be a very sporty Christmas or something.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

POP

I am watching The 100 Greatest Song of the 90s, on VH1.

I always knew this, but it definitely helps reinforce how great pop music was in the 1990s, and I'm wondering if we'll ever have another decade where the quality of pop music is so high.

Friday, December 21, 2007

ORD

Hello!

I currently write from Chicago airport! There was a problem with my plane, and it was fixed or is still being fixed. It is hard to tell. Anyway, you can tell that I have been here a long time because I actually shelled out $7 for the one-time use Internet, something I normally consider to be an outrageous proposition.

But, dear readers, I believe I owe you a bit of closure. I did eventually submit my paper, although not until 4 in the morning. Normally I call it quits way before that, but I was writing with some friends and that gave me the strength to push forward.

The next day I bought Guitar Hero 3 for my roommate's Wii. It is great in many ways,

I am also going home today, which should be a lot of fun!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Stay on Target...

I am still writing my paper! The deadline isn't until 6am, but hopefully I won't have to stay up that long. However, due to some last minute experimentation, things are going to take a bit longer than I would have hoped... On the bright side, my experimental results now look better than they did!

I charge forward!

Marl!

This website is both terrible and interesting. Terrible because of it's hilariously bad descriptions of stock trading, software and the general get-rich-quickness of the whole thing. I like that they call the software a robot.

Interesting because stock trading software can now finally be bought by your average Joe Schmo. Now I'm not saying managing your own investments is a good idea, but it seems like if you wanted to, you might want tools similar to what big financial firms are using, and from what I have heard, most actual stock trades are made by computers, and even many trading decisions are made by computers.

Update:
Oh wait, I was wrong. It seems like you can't actually buy the software, you can only subscribe to the newsletter where they tell you which stocks "Marl" recommended.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

GoogleCal SMS Messages

Most recent GoogleCal SMS Message: Reminder: ECOOP Deadline @ Wed Dec 19, 2007

Oh man! I knew I was supposed to be working on something, but I couldn't remember what it was...

The Final Push Towards the Sun

I am in the final stages of writing this paper.

The proof has been TeX-ified. All the experiments that we will do have been done. I have to finish writing one last section, and then it's binge proof-reading. I have a feeling that I will need to make changes, but that's cool 'cause I want this paper to be rad. It's not due until tomorrow night/Thursday morning at 6am, but hopefully I won't have to use that much time.

After that? A little hangin' out in the 'Burgh before some full-scale hangin' out in the City that Forgot to Care. Be back for the new year.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Car Troubles...

My car has been a very frustrating part of my life for the past couple of weeks, and it all came to a head this weekend. The first thing that you should know is that it's always been very hard to lock myself out of my car. I have this number pad on that outside of my passenger door that I can use to type in a code that will let me into my car even if the keys are inside. However, when I went to Buffalo, NY for Thanksgiving I made the unwise decision to remove snow from my side windows by lowing the windows all the way down. Instead of the snow falling outwards, as I would have liked, it fell inwards. "Eh, what the hell," I thought. "It's just water. Nothing the interior of my car can't handle." Think again Nels!

The next day my power locks stopped working, along with the "one-touch" window lowering functionality and my keypad. Looking at my car's manual, I could see that all three of those items were on the same fuse, so I figure the water must have shorted it out. "Oh well," I thought. "I'll put in a new fuse at some point."

Flash forward to Thursday night! I discover two parking tickets on my car, $25 each. Apparently my residential parking pass expired a month earlier than I though. I was really lucky there were only two, since I basically never drive my car. I talked with my roommates, and they gave me the "visitor's" parking pass, because we only get two real parking passes per address. It says things like, "you may not use this on your own car" and "may never be used for more than 5 consecutive business days" all over it. I am worried.

Sure enough I discover a third parking ticket on my car last night. The description says, "Using Own VPass." Boo. That's three parking tickets in three days, for those of you playing along at home. And at this point I am not entirely sure where I am going to put my car on a regular basis. Status: Still Unresolved

Nonetheless, this morning I decide to try and get the fuse in my car fixed, and in the process of pulling the old fuse out of my car, proceed to lock my keys inside. No number pad to bail me out this time, because it was precisely what I was trying to fix at that very moment. I don't know what to do. I go inside Pep Boys. They don't have the fuse I want. They don't have a door opening service. I call up AAA, join, and they send some guy out. On the Rad Side, I got to see the AAA man jimmy open my lock with a Slim Jim. I think I'm going to buy one of those. On the Bad Side, after I got back into my car, I went to Car Quest, found the correct fuse, and it still didn't fix the problem. All this while I was supposed to be working on my paper! Status: Still Unresolved

Friday, December 14, 2007

Rock Band

I just played Rock Band for the first time in my life, and it was absolutely incredible. Definitely one of the best video games of all time, at least from my music loving, constantly beating my hands on my leg in rhythm perspective.

It took all I could muster to leave the lounge and come back up to my office to work on this paper.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Writing in a One Horse, Open Sleigh

I am currently writing a paper for the ECOOP deadline next week! (It is the academic conference for all things object, or so the web site tells me.)

Actually, you should be scolding me for taking even a small break to post! Nevertheless, I actually think the writing is going rather well. I can't say that I actually enjoy it, but at least I understand the story I want to tell and it's work that I am somewhat proud of, so I want to do a good job. Yay! The only lame part is that I will be spending almost all my remaining time in Pittsburgh working on this paper. The deadline is next Wednesday (actually, Thursday at 6am), and I leave next Friday.

Okay, well back to work for me! Let me know if anything important happens in politics or global finance that I should be aware of but am not because of my not watching TV.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

That Movie 'Proof'

I know none of you guys may be wondering why I haven't been updating for a while. The answer is that I am trying to get stuff done for a paper deadline that occurs on December 19th. It's for a conference, the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. The main tricky thing that I've been spending all my time on is this proof, see. I am trying to develop a baby programming language that doesn't allow you to violate certain atomicity properties. To show that you can't in fact write code that violates your own invariants, I have to do this proof of soundness, and basically it's been pretty slow going for me. I will say that I have learned a ton, but it's pretty nerve-wracking to do a proof that may not actually turn out to be true.

The only kind of lame part is that the 19th is like right before I go home, and the day after our department holiday party, so basically I won't have much time to hang out around here with the cool Pittsburgh people before I go home. Sad face.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Wingdings

Saint Louis CathedralThis weekend I am back in New Orleans for a wedding! 

A good friend of mine from high school, former band-mate and current guitarist for the band Cowboy Mouth is getting married, and so far everything has been really nice! We went out on Thursday for some last minute celelbrations of bachelorhood. Last night we had the rehersal dinner and (as I found out a little bit too late, because I was supposed to be there!) the actual wedding rehersal. But the dinner was great. It was full of toasts and great food at a restaurant called, Muriel's which is right on jackson square. The wedding starts at 3 and probably will go on the rest of the day, but it takes place at the St. Louis Cathedral, which is really kind of awesome inside and out!