My computer has developed a nasty rattle, and it is driving me insane. I have to keep my foot against the case all the time or I get headaches. So my task for this evening is to take the computer apart and see if I can eliminate the rattle.

Oh, and I might order a laptop tonight, if Dell's webpage stops acting stupid. If I select a DVD drive and WinXP Pro, it tells they're incompatible and I have to select the 16x CD-RW/DVD combo drive, a $379 increase. Then when I select it I get, you guessed it, a compatibility issue and it tells me to select the DVD drive. I hate them.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 30 November 2001 at 5:26 PM

What a shocker, eh? Even though I kidded him about it, I really thought michael had a pretty good chance at winning. I was a bit concerned about his tendency to post right before the deadline. I tried to get him to post in the early morning hours on a couple of occasions, but he thought that it wouldn't be in the michael ethos; he does everything right before the deadline, and there shouldn't be an exception just to win a bet. (A bit of a fool perhaps. There was a dollar at stake here!)

Anyway, tonight we saw Jimmy Eat World, Tenacious D, and Weezer. All three were good, but I think michael's favorite was Jimmy Eat World. It was his second Jimmy Eat World show, and I assume you only go see a band twice if you really like them. (Just kidding.) Tenacious D was really good. Jack Black is just insane, and so are his songs. And even though I could barely make out a single word that Rivers said between songs (and sometimes during songs) the weezer set was excellent. They had a great set of songs.

I have a cold, so I'm going to get a few hours of sleep before I have to go do a cs101 debugging thing early tomorrow morning.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 30 November 2001 at 12:20 AM

well, damn.

Im sorry everybody. I lost track of time, and well, we all know happened. sigh.. I feel like I let you all down, and for that I feel awful. to everyone who had faith in me and believed I could win: Im truly sorry.

although, honestly, Im proud I made it as long as I did. it was really an exhausting experience. and you know, Ive been thinking maybe its about time for another one of my famous 6 week sabaticals. what do you think? I think Ive earned it.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 29 November 2001 at 1:16 AM

the new acm officers had their first meeting today. it started at 9:00 (dave scheduled it around "smallville") and its just now wrapping up. it took longer than I thought it would, but I think it went well. Ive been a very casual member of acm for a couple of years now, and its good to be actually involved in acm decisions now. we made a list of most of our events for next semester, and Im pretty sure that in the coming semester acm will be a lot better than it was this semester. not that that would be too hard. acm has been pretty bad this year. but I dont want to get into it, because Im not very good at ranting. dont worry, you didnt really want to hear it anyway.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 27 November 2001 at 11:37 PM

I was watching MTV2 a few minutes ago and saw an ad that I thought was very amusing. It was for a fitness video called "Belly Dancing for Fitness." According to the ad, Veena and Neena will help you "unlock the ancient secrets of belly dancing, and get the body you always dreamed of." Further, according to one of the ad's testimonials, after watching this video "your hips will shout 'hallelujah.'"

This bothers me a bit. Imagine an overweight person. Now imagine that person doing a belly dance. Do you see why this scares me? This is the last thing I ever want to see.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 27 November 2001 at 1:54 PM

If only they had pictures.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 27 November 2001 at 12:55 AM

it appears that aaron has redesigned his site. and I noticed that in doing so, he happened to remove his links section. more importantly, he removed his link to -273. he apparently no longer wishes to be associated with our site. I thought things were different. but I guess I was wrong.

confidential to aaron: so.. thats how its going to be, is it?

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 26 November 2001 at 11:33 PM

Gene showed me his iPod today, and I must admit that I'm very impressed. He has more than 800 songs on it, and it still has a gig of free space. Plus 20 minutes of skip protection and 10 hours of battery life. Wow. The only caveat is that while the front has that cool whitish look like the iBook, the back and sides are chrome, which looks kind of tacky and as soon as you touch it, it looks even ickier with fingerprints all over it.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 November 2001 at 2:21 PM

my dad made me a little angry tonight. while we were eating dessert "60 minutes" was on in the background, and they were doing a segment on arab-americans and how the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks has affected them. my father did not approve of their appeals for an end to anti-arab sentiment in this country. he stated that instead of speaking out against prejudice, they had a responsibility, being arabs, to denounce the attacks and to do everything in their power to uncover the terrorist network in the united states. he reasoned that those people know people who know people who have ties to the attacks, and because of this, they have a responsibility to find osama bin ladens u.s. affiliates. I tried to argue that most arabs (and by "most" I mean "nearly all") in this country have no clue who is behind this nor do they have any clue how to find them. but apparently, according to him, all americans with middle-eastern lineage (including those who are neither arab nor muslim) are required to clear their names now by unrooting the enemy amongst us. sigh..

Ill have to ask artemis how the manhunts going.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 25 November 2001 at 9:24 PM

I almost forgot, for anyone wondering about the show last night, my cousin was very good. I had no idea she could sing. I was impressed. anyway, I dont have time to really give a review of the show or try to describe the music, because I have to get back into columbia in time for dinner. so Im leaving now, but she said shed get me a cd of hers, and when she does, Id be more than willing to let curious readers listen.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 24 November 2001 at 2:43 PM

The cap came off the salt shaker while I was shaking salt over my french fries while at Denny's tonight, basically ruining my fries. And I really needed all the food I could get, or so Luke, the sober one, and Jared, the more sober-than-I one, told me. I ate a couple of the fries, but now I cannot get the salty taste out of my mouth. But "Well, Hello" was good, at least the part of the show I saw.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 24 November 2001 at 1:34 AM

Much like michael, I am also going out to see a band tonight. I am going to see a band called "Well, Hello" at Marina Pointe as soon as I finish typing this up. If anyone else is interested in going, feel free to stop by. I must hurry now, because Jared wants to get there before they start charging a cover.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 23 November 2001 at 8:07 PM

I somewhat recently learned that one of my cousins is a budding musical artist. I overheard my aunts and uncles discussing her somewhat scandalous performance (she apparently used the f word), but although a tape of her performing supposedly exists, I had never been able to aquire it. however, this evening I will have an opportunity to see for myself. she is going to be at the hi-pointe tonight at 9:30, so I encourage all readers who are currently in the st louis area with nothing better to do (and who check our site so obsessively as to see this post before 9:30) to stop by and see her in action.

(if youre wondering what to expect, Im told by her younger sister that its sort of like "hip-hop meets fiona apple." yeah.. I know. but shes family.)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 23 November 2001 at 7:49 PM

this morning I was awakened by a loud beeping. yesterday morning, too. you see, the resident of room 205A (david warner) left his alarm clock on when he left for break. some might have found this amusing, but sleeping-michael finds very little amusing. I was forced to go to the circuit breakers in the kitchen, much as dave was forced to a couple of months ago, and kill the power to daves room. unfortunately, dave and I share a circuit, so I couldnt kill his without also killing mine. thus I had to turn the circuit back on in order to use my computer. this might not seem unfortunate until you consider a fact that I, at the time, overlooked: daves alarm clock has a back-up battery. thus, this morning, just as yesterday, I was forced to go to the circuit breaker. (I actually tried using my earplugs first, since they were right by my bed, but I could still faintly hear the alarm, and something about faint repetitive sounds prevents me from sleeping, so I eventually had to leave my bed.) at least I had the forethought to shut my computer down before killing everything this time. of course its all turned back on now, and the cycle is ready to repeat.

someone remind me to to kill the circuit to daves room tonight before bed.

oh, also, happy thanksgiving.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 22 November 2001 at 3:04 PM

Have you ever tried to configure a laptop at one of the big computer manufacturer's websites? I have, and it isn't an experience I would want to repeat. They claim to let you configure computers with the components you want, but the actually don't. And does hp know anything about wireless internet connections? It's website certainly doesn't. I think I may wait until I get back to my fast ethernet connection to do continue my online shopping.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 November 2001 at 10:39 PM

damn. I thought aaron was done for. sadly he managed to post even though he lost ethernet; he had a modem.

Im not at the point where I want to resort to modem usage just yet, though. not when I can telnet to hilton, and post using lynx. wheeee.

(the internet better come back soon or I am going to go crazy.)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 21 November 2001 at 7:13 PM

david alerted me to some disturbing information this evening. it appears negative273 was nearly hacked.

greymatter, the cgi backend that we use to manage our site, provides us with some rather useful features. among them, we have the option to "view control panel log." this allows us to see who has logged on and what theyve done. but it also allows us to see who has tried to log on. so when browsing the control panel log this evening dave found the following

[11/20/01 05:24 PM] [65.7.109.79] Invalid login attempt: No such author as michealdixon (*edit*) registered

[11/20/01 05:24 PM] [65.7.109.79] Invalid login attempt: No such author as michaledixon (*edit*) registered

he thought he should bring it to my attention, and I was rather suprised to see it. especially since they knew my password. (instances of my password in the quoted text have been replaced with *edit* to prevent further attack.) faced with such a mystery, its important to go over the facts. we know that:

a) our attacker knew that I often went by "michaeldixon," all as one word.

b) our attacker does not know how to spell "michael."

c) our attacker lives at my house. (IP address 65.7.109.79)

having turned these facts over in my head the last few minutes I only have two things to say:

"michael" is spelled m-i-c-h-A-E-L.

and, dont try to hack your brothers website anymore. he will find out. (and so will your mom.)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 21 November 2001 at 2:06 AM

When I was taking German classes in middle school, we would spend one Friday a month studying German "culture." While this doesn't sound all that bad, when I mention that studying "culture" actually meant looking at slides of Frau Doud's last trip to Germany, you might revise your opinion. Needless to say, these slideshows came complete with commentary. My favorite was her story about driving on the autobahn, the notorious German highway with no speed limit. She showed us a slide of a speedometer indicating that they (Frau Doud and her husband) were travelling at the exciting speed of 120 km/h. She then told us they were driving in the super-fast lane, where only the fastest cars on the autobahn were supposed to drive, when they attained this speed. She followed that up with her belief that she had never driven that fast in an automobile before, and doubted she would ever go that fast again. For those of you following along at home, 120 km/h is about 75 mph.

I'm home for the first time this semester. I wish I'd come back sooner.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 20 November 2001 at 9:54 PM

just about everybody has left for their respective homes by now. dave and scott are both gone, and so were about 75 percent of the people in personal finance. robotics was cancelled, due to the fact that only 6 people showed up, and it looks like I have a long lonely night of television and coding ahead of me. I want to at least get all of .h files done tonight for the c++ version of my face finding code, and maybe Ill write some of the source files, too. of coures, the next gloompuppy comic is also a high priority of mine, so I need to work on a few panels for that tonight as well. but at the moment Im hungry, so I think I will go get a snack.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 20 November 2001 at 5:04 PM

in a few minutes I have to go grade labs for cs101. and I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I really dont want to.

that is all.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 19 November 2001 at 6:52 PM

for those readers out there who were concerned, I made it safely to st louis. so you can stop worrying now.

also, for those readers out there who are also gloompuppy fans, there is no "MU student news" published this monday, which meant no rush to get it finished, and I spent all weekend with my family, so there is no comic yet. it will probably be up sometime this week, so just be patient.

also, Im tired. just so you know. I think Ill go to bed.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 19 November 2001 at 1:23 AM

so lets see. Im finally back from springfield, and Im about to head back to st louis, but I thought Id post before I left, just in case I dont feel like it when I get back home.

anyway, Im sure youre all dying to hear about my weekend. last night we stayed at the luxurious drury inn, and we had the privilege of sharing the hotel with some the very noisy people with no real concept of bedtime. but it was all right, since I got to stay up late and watch "a few good men" on tv. the next day I awoke early (by my standards) to enjoy the continental breakfast (a muffin), and then met my grandparents in the lobby around 11:00. we then ventured off for lunch at the lambert cafe. for those of you not familiar with it, its a located somewhere between springfield and branson (a very interesting little part of missouri), and they tout themselves as "home of the thrown rolls." after an hour and a half wait, we were finally seated, and since we all had plenty of time to look over the menu before we got a table, the food came rather quickly thereafter. I had the shrimp (as you probably know, Im fond of shrimp), my brother and sister had fried chicken, my grandparents both ordered chicken and dumplings, and my dad got the chicken livers. all and all, the food was pretty good, even if their methods of distributing it were a little odd. servers would wander through the aisles with large pots of various food items, and at your request, they would scoop them onto your plate. I passed on the black eyed peas, as well as on the fried ochre, but the fried potatoes were pretty good. the rolls were fairly good, too, although their delivery method made me loathe to ask for as many as Id have liked. you see, its the "home of the thrown rolls," which means that someone carried a basket of rolls around, and if you wanted one he would throw it to you. I sort of preferred to focus on my food, since the whole atmosphere was a little much for me. but it was interesting, and the shrimp was good.

anyway, Im going to have to get on the road eventually, and the later it gets the less Im going to like driving, so Im going to bring this post to a close. Ill try to remember to post again when I get back into st louis, just to let you know Im okay. I know how all you readers worry about me driving at night.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 18 November 2001 at 7:07 PM

Im sleepy. my sister tells me that this is impossible, because its during the day, but I must dispute. (she also doesnt seem to like it when I mention her in my posts. but what can she do about it?)

anyway, me and my brother and sister are going to springfield with my dad today. we are going to meet my paternal grandparents there for lunch tomorrow, but Im not really sure whats on the agenda for this evening. probably just hanging around a hotel room with my dad and brother and sister. I can think of things Id rather be doing, but I guess I will try not to complain.

excuse me, laura has just pointed out that she will be there, so it cant be as bad as Ive made it out to be. apparently wherever laura is is the place to be.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 17 November 2001 at 2:06 PM

I don't think I had anything to eat today except candy at the gaming contest, and now I don't feel so well. Surprise, surprise. And tomorrow I have to work on graphics. Not that I want to, but I have to. It's basically the only assignment between me and Thanksgiving break, which isn't so bad, but I'm still not so keen to work on it. Maybe if I put it off, it will magically get done for me.

Speaking of magic, I (and just about every WashU engineer, based on the people I saw in the lines) saw Harry Potter tonight. Time permitting, I'll write up a review. But time does not permit tonight.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 17 November 2001 at 1:47 AM

I was just about to complain about how Im here at home and I finally have the cartoon network, and now they refuse to play dragon ball z for me. but just as I went to type it, an ad came on advertising two hours of dragonball z every saturday from 1 to 3. so guess what Im going to be doing tomorrow afternoon.

at the moment, however, theres this neat gorrillaz music video thing on cartoon network. Ive always been a big fan of their animation, and the music seems pretty cool so far, so Im going to stay up and watch some of it.

wash u cable really needs the cartoon network. sigh..

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 16 November 2001 at 11:38 PM

Lots of fun things going on here. michael and I were both elected to the ACM Exec Board tonight; I'm president and he's secretary. I ran unopposed, but michael had to fight his way through a rather crowded field.

Before the elections, Gene Tien gave a talk about the Mac OS X and showed off one of the new ibooks. I had previously flirted with the idea of getting an ibook, but set it aside and started looking more at Windows-running laptops. After playing with the ibook a bit tonight, I was really impressed. And the ibook really does pack a lot into a rather small price tag. Here's another cool feature: you can write programs in Java and natively compile them to run on OS X. I am really tempted to get an ibook and do some development on it. And Apple runs a student design competition that Gene tells me has very few participants. As you may have guessed, I want an ibook.

On an entirely different subject, michael and I are going to see Weezer and Tenacious D the week after we get back from Thanksgiving break. They'll be at the Family Arena in St. Charles. I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

I think that pretty well catches you up on what's going on here. If anyone has any experience using Apple products, and wants to weigh-in on my ibook conundrum (should I play it safe and stick with Windows, or should I try something new and go with the ibook?), leave a message in the guestbook or send me an email. Actually, even if you don't have any experience with Apple products, I'd love to her your opinions. Hasta maņana.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 November 2001 at 1:14 AM

I just got done working on robotics with zach, and I find it interesting how similar our code for the photographer robot is to the code for the lego robot in our previous lab. the biggest change is simply the introduction of object oriented design. other than that its startlingly similar.

in a few minutes I am going to an acm meeting. I have decided to run for the office of secretary. Im hoping to take over the webpage and the mailing list and possibly make flyers for different events and whatnot. also, it would be nice to be part of board meetings as well. so we will see how that goes, I guess.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 15 November 2001 at 7:25 PM

There is a poster in Mallinkrodt advertising a "Greek Gods and Goddesses" contest that is being run by one of the WashU fraternities. I think it is some sort of beauty contest, but that is beside the point. The picture they put on the poster, to help them advertise their "Greek Gods and Goddesses" contest was a picture of Michelangelo's David. Now, I'm not all that familiar with the Bible, but I am fairly certain that David was the kid who defeated Goliath and later became king of Israel. I think his son was Solomon. And I also think he was not a Greek God or Goddess. In fact, it is probably sacrilegious to suggest that he is.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 15 November 2001 at 4:39 PM

I was in the acm lounge just a while ago preparing my schedule for next year when I heard a knock at the door. I didnt answer, but moments afterwards the door opened and two cleaning personel entered.

"hi, " I said.

the two women said nothing. they looked confused to see me there.

"...do you need me to move?" I asked.

"huh?" the first woman replied.

just as confused as her friend, the second woman added, with a heavy accent, "we clean?"

"okay, sure," I said as I returned to my course listing. yet there was silence. I looked up to find them still looking at me, puzzled. "am I in the way?" I asked again.

they said nothing.

"do.. you.. need.. me.. to.. leave?"

"VACUUM," she responded emphatically, gesturing towards the floor.

upon this, of course, I gathered up my things and moved to the graders office.

the weird thing is, I feel kind of bad for some reason. as though I either should have tried harder to successfully communicate with them or not have tried at all. the way things stand, I cant help but feel they were pretty annoyed with me, and I really wasnt trying to get anybody mad at me this morning.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 14 November 2001 at 10:51 AM

We made another small change this evening. We reworked the header a bit. Hopefully it's a bit less dense and a bit easier to use. We also cleared out a few of our links. michael wants to make icons for the sites we link to, but I prefer having the sites as text. Feel free to weigh-in on this in the guestbook. I am tempted to remove the links from the front page entirely and make a links page. This would enable us to link to a larger number of sites, but could mean that our links get visited less. It's something to think about, I guess.

Anyway, we'd appreciate some feedback on the icons. If you have an idea for an icon that would better represent some of our sections or just want to tell us what you think of the icons, send us an email or leave a note in the guestbook (the book icon at the top of the page will take you there).

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 14 November 2001 at 12:11 AM

I took a quiz today to determine if I am a "blogaholic." now, many of you have probably suspected I was, given the frequency of my posts and my rather zealous attitude towards posting, but as it turns out, I only scored 28 out of 100. I scored higher than only 16% of the respondants. the results had this to say:

"You are a casual weblogger. You only blog when you have nothing better to do, which is not very often. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you'd post a little more often, you'd make your readers very happy."

that seems like a pretty fair assessment, I think. although, Im not sure about that last part. I have a feeling our readers could care less if I post more often, especially since posting once a day is already a stretch for me. I really dont think the quality of negative273 would be improved that much by additional posts on the subject of how I have nothing to say.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 13 November 2001 at 11:42 PM

Yesterday, while walking by the library I noticed some four-foot tall wooden letters, painted orange, and placed on the balcony around the library. And these letters scared me. I was scared because they proclaimed the one week of the year when I have to pretend not to be associated with the School of Engineering and Applied Science. That's right, this week is "ENWEEK." What is EnWeek? It's the week before Thanksgiving when a small subsection of WashU engineers do their best to reinforce all of the engineering stereotypes that the rest of us try very hard to dispel during the other 51 weeks of the year. During "EnWeek," these engineering students (feel free to call them enginerds, geeks, or EnCouncil members) dye their hair red and wear orange camouflage tshirts and orange hardhats. And worse, if things could be any worse, they plan events like "Battlebots" and "Black-Box Challenge." ACM is sponsoring a gaming contest as part of EnWeek. And it's scheduled for FRIDAY NIGHT! Is there anything that proclaims your engiNERDINESS more than going to the CS Graders Office to play Worms on a Friday night? I don't think so.

I can't wait for this nightmare week to end.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 November 2001 at 2:59 PM

sigh.. how come chris hill gets more fame from this site than we do? something doesnt seem right.

oh well. I think some gundam wing is just the thing to take my mind off of these terrible injustices. and dave just happens to have some brand new tapes, so things are looking good.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 12 November 2001 at 11:24 PM

Hello again fellow readers, I return to bring you an update on one of my past guest posts. As some of you may recall, I wrote a review of Face The Jury a few months ago detailing my experiences in being judged by the panel of appearance experts found on said site (if you don't remember my article, you can find it in the archives for May 2001).

A few months passed, and my FTJ account lay dormant and forgotten until this past Friday, when I started receiving IMs about it. What started as a trickling-in of "U R so right man!!!1 Nice article!!" messages became a full fledged deluge of both congratulatory and inflammatory missives. Apparently one of the administrators of FTJ came across my article here last week and decided to, without asking permission of either myself or David and michael, post it to the front page of Face the Jury in the "Members Voice" section. You can imagine what kind of response I got from an article that basically thrashed all aspects of Face the Jury. A positive one. That's right, in the past three days I have received upwards of 40 emails on my FTJ account, numerous intra-site instant messages, and countless AOL Instant Messages congratulating me on "telling it like it is". It was getting so bad I had to block all non-buddy-list users on AIM because I couldn't do any work on my computer without being interrupted numerous times.

In another interesting twist, my FTJ "rating", which had previously languished at a modest 6.023, skyrocketed in three days to an astounding 7.5. Apparently (and I hope you're taking notes out there guys), girls are even more attracted to sarcasm and mockery than they are to upside-down visors and bleach-tipped hair. I've been propositioned on IM (further necessitating the blockage of random messages since my girlfriend may get the wrong idea) and jumped to a rating higher than 90% of the other males on the site. It is fortunate that Face the Jury provides me with stats like this, how else would I accurately judge my attractiveness in comparison to a variety of pictures ripped from Abercrombie ads and blurry webcam ab shots? It's like class rank gone horribly, horribly wrong, where the ranking is entirely subjective (wait, that actually sounds a lot like class rank...).

The point to all this is threefold:

a) Nothing on the internet is private, no matter how little publicity it gets. This makes me wonder why so many ".com" companies spent millions of dollars on advertising, since I spent zero dollars advertising my article and ended up getting more hits than bilge like mytvtaxi.com.

b) People will always steal your work without asking or giving any credit to the source. There are many people on FTJ who think I wrote the article in the intention of being published on the site. One person even accused me (in the much-maligned General Forum no less) of writing it just to get votes. Damn, they've seen through my elaborate plan. Write a post for -273 in the hopes that someday, somehow, someone from FaceTheJury will randomly stumble across it and publish it, uncredited, on their main page, therefore allowing me to achieve the elusive and oh-so-desirable #1 ranking. This person, in a nutshell, validates all points I made in my initial article.

c) I have gotten much, much more attractive since the beginning of May, at least that's what the distinguished panel of appearance experts is telling me.

In conclusion, I encourage all of you to watch your backs. You never know who could be scouring your weblog for publishable material...

Comments: 0 Posted by chris on 12 November 2001 at 4:34 PM

I dont have much time to write this, because Im very busy right now with the new gloompuppy comic, but I wanted to post quickly in case I dont have a chance later on.

anyway, I decided to make the new comic twice the size of a normal one, like a sunday strip, in order to make the art more enjoyable. I may end up making a smaller version for the cadenza, but the online version will be the big one, so you all have twice* the gloompuppy to look forward to this week.

* measured in area.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 11 November 2001 at 11:15 PM

another close call tonight, as far as the contest is concerned. but I have fifteen minutes, and thats plenty of time. besides, this post wont be very long, because I dont have much to say. its a quiet evening for me tonight, since rachel is out at shattered with some friends. I was asked to accompany, but I declined on account of not liking eighties music or smokey rooms with lots of people in them. (otherwise put: Im not very cool.) but it leaves me time for quiet reflection.

actually, tonight happens to be one of the worst nights I could have picked for quiet reflection, so maybe I will focus on drawing gloompuppy strips instead.

sigh.. I really wish cartoon network showed dragonball z and gundam wing on the weekends.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 10 November 2001 at 11:54 PM

I want to go see Weezer when they are in Saint Louis the week after Thanksgiving. Anyone else interested?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 November 2001 at 11:49 PM

Guess who had their screen name listed on nickd.org? No, the answer is not *insert random person whose name is not on nickd's buddy list here*.  Further, I actually had an MP3 that nickd mentioned on his site. I am either very indie or very much a loser. I'll go with the former for the time being (or until I sober up).

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 November 2001 at 11:06 PM

After posting my last entry, I sat down on my bed, picked up the most recent Rolling Stone, and flipped to the back page where Rolling stone has various charts. On that page I was surprised to see them report the TRL top ten list. What has the world come to?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 November 2001 at 9:43 PM

I seem to have lost my electric razor. Should you find it, please tell me where the fuck it is.

In other news, there has been a huge spike in the voting for the Aaron Beckerman/michaeldixon posting contest. The number of votes basically doubled in one 24-hour period, and for the first time in recent memory, michael has taken the lead, 220 votes to Aaron's 198.

There was something else important that I was going to mention here, but I forgot it about three rum-and-cokes ago.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 November 2001 at 9:37 PM

I would just like to say that I really dont care for cs342. and I dont think Im alone. in fact, one would be hard pressed to find someone who has taken it that actually did like the course. you dont believe me? here is the opinion of a past student:

"They really need to teach C++, and all they did was make me not like C++. Learning C++ and learning design patterns at the same time is not a good idea. The patterns are actually pretty cool, but you never get to really learn them because you spend so much time learning C++."

and I agree completely. 342 needs to be split into two classes. one that teaches c++, and one that teaches design patterns. everyone who has ever taken the class thinks this is absolutely necessary, and theyve thought it for at least a couple years now. in fact, students have expressed it at every opportunity, and the administration has not done anything to fix it.

sigh... at least Im getting an all right grade in it.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 9 November 2001 at 5:50 PM

I promised you a more in-depth discussion of our color changing code, but I haven't finished it yet. So you'll have to wait for it. However, I am interested in hearing what everyone thinks of the customization system. I'd really like it if everyone could leave some feedback on the system in the guestbook, and perhaps mention the hue/saturation combination that you prefer. That would give everyone some color examples to play with. Also, we had to switch from gif to png images in order to accomplish the on the fly image rebuilding, so if you have problems with the images, please let us know.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 November 2001 at 12:02 AM

"Look! It's a secret message! From my teeth!"

I cant really talk right now, because Im working with my cs342 group on our lab which is due tomorrow, but I just wanted to post about "the tick." I watched the series premiere this evening, and it was pretty good. live action super hero stories take some getting used to, but that guy from seinfeld plays the tick, and he was a good casting choice. its just hard to get used to seeing him in a blue muscle-suit. still, very enjoyable show. I recommend it.

Id say more, but I have to go. maybe Ill elaborate later.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 8 November 2001 at 8:16 PM

For most of you, this site should be displayed in shades of grey right now. Did we redesign again? No. We decided to let you pick the color that you want the site to be. Last night michael and I wrote some scripts that generate images on the fly and change the color of the tables based on hue and saturation values provided by you. These values are then stored in a cookie on your computer so that once you find a color scheme you like, -273 will always appear with those colors.

At this point you are probably wondering how you provide the values that let you specify the colors. Well, you need to go to our customization page, which is available in the title bar at the top of every page or by clicking here. Just put your values in the form on that page, click the button, and everything should change. If you have any questions, please post them to the guestbook.

It's late so I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow I'll post a detailed description of how this works.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 8 November 2001 at 3:39 AM

various things of interest, none of which were able to motivate me to devote a full length post to them:

my brother has yet to respond to my -273 birthday greeting. this leads me to believe, as I probably should, that he wants absolutely nothing for his birthday this year. which is good, because now I dont have to find him a gift.

dave and I have a neat new feature on -273 in the works. were starting to flex our cs muscles more and more on -273, and this time I even wrote some of the code. anyway, it should be fun, but I cant say too much yet. look for dave to make an official comment on it in the near future.

I had an econ exam today. I think I did well. micro has been rather easy so far. unlike macro. the differences between my micro class and last semesters macro course is not even funny. I want to find my macro teacher and punch his mouth.

I have a 441 exam tomorrow. I have been understanding the material better this half of the semester, but Im really not sure how well things will go. I still need to do more studying before bed, and Ill do some tomorrow before class, too.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 7 November 2001 at 11:29 PM

Id like to take this oportunity to wish my brother, john, a happy birthday. so, um, happy birthday, john. by the way, I didnt get you anything yet. what do you want?

(...my little brother is 17 now. isnt that weird?)

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 6 November 2001 at 6:43 PM

It's not that I desperately want michael to make the stickers, but every time I mention that I'll just go ahead and make them myself, he gets all upset. So it's not that I want him to make the stickers so much as he doesn't want me to make the stickers.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 November 2001 at 12:57 AM

dave wants gloompuppy to have a message board so that he can give feedback to the comic. I was wondering what the negative273 readers thought about that. respond in any way that is convenient to you.

also, I have nothing of interest to say right now. I was thinking my time might be better spent if I started working on the negative273 stickers dave so desperately wants me to make. Ill post the design when I have it done.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 5 November 2001 at 11:41 PM

I did a bit of shopping over the weekend. As those of you who visit the webcam have probably already guessed, I picked up a nice looking Escaflowne model on Saturday. I also bought a little wireless kit that lets us beam TV signals to areas that don't have cable jacks. The system works pretty well, and we now have a TV with cable in the kitchen, so we can watch TV while cooking or doing the dishes.

This morning when I woke up, I had this cool idea for the mobile robot that Chris and I are working on. It seemed like it would make using our pyro sensor a lot easier. But now I can't remember what my idea was. If you think of it, let me know.

Now, it's dinner time.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 November 2001 at 11:19 PM

Im sorry about the short post yesterday. by the time we got back from the movie last night, it was almost midnight, and so I had to cut my post a little short in order to get it posted by the deadline. but for those of you who were curious, I now have plenty of time to elaborate.

the dinner that rachel made was fettuccini alfredo with sauted shrimp. it was very good. you may or may not be aware that I am very fond of shrimp, and I am also fairly fond of fettuccini alfredo. needless to say, I enjoyed my meal very much.

I also enjoyed the others, although, as ouranophobe points out, movie previews had me on the look out for the twist ending, and thus, it was pretty easy to spot. but still, rather enjoyable.

but anyway, I need to get back to work on my comic, and the MUSN people went on a shopping spree today and finally bought some memory for these very terrible computers, so they probably want me to shut things down now.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 4 November 2001 at 3:41 PM

It is with a heavy heart that I report to you that I will not be coming into 9.15 million dollars in the near future. According to numerous sources on the Internet, Mr. Ogali Charles is running some kind of scam. Apparently, once I set up an account for him, he'll start requesting funds from me in order to complete the transfer. And then he will never actually the money. You can look here and here for more information. The latter one is especially amusing.

This has me rather upset, as I made some rather "large" purchases this evening in anticipation of getting more than $9 million dollars in the near future. Does anyone know if you can return custom jewelry and get your money back? If not, I have a large gold and diamond necklace with the phrase "-273" that I am willing to sell for much less than I paid for it. Perhaps an aspiring rap star, who has yet to pick a nickname for him- or herself might be interested?

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 4 November 2001 at 12:36 AM

Damn, that was a nail-biter. I really didn't think michael was going to post today. I kept reloading the page over and over to see if he had put anything up. Then I realized that I could check and see if he had logged into greymatter recently. So I checked that at 11:56 and I saw that he was logged in, but there still wasn't any post. Then, as the clock on my computer rolled over to midnight (the clock on the server was still at 11:58), I reloaded the page. I understood why it had taken him so long to post. I mean, it would take me hours to come up with something like that, and he managed to write it up in two minutes! Damn, he's good.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 4 November 2001 at 12:02 AM

hi. today I saw the others and rachel made dinner. bye.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 3 November 2001 at 11:56 PM

I received the email that appears at the bottom of this post earlier today. I'm really not sure what I should do. It seems pretty clear that they are offering me 9.15 million dollars, but I have no idea how to set up an account that will hold 30.5 million. I think I'll have to ask my personal finance instructor about this on Tuesday. Maybe he'll be able to tell me how to go about arranging to receive 30.5 million dollars. I mean, you can't just dump 30.5 million dollars into a regular Bank of America account, can you? If you can help me, please drop me a line. I just hope someone doesn't answer before I do.

CONFIDENTIAL

OGALI CHARLES

LAGOS, NIGERIA

ATTN:THE PRESIDENT/CEO

REQUEST FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION/ASSISTANCE

MAY I CRAVE YOUR INDULGENCE TO OPEN THIS BUSINESS DISCUSSION BY A FORMAL LETTER OF THIS SORT. IT IS PERTINENT THAT BUSINESS OF THIS MAGNITUDE SHOULD HAVE COMMENCED PROPERLY WITH A FORMAL MEETING OF YOU AND US TO ENABLE US KNOW OURSELVES, HAVE A FORE KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATURE OF THE BUSINESS, DISCUSS AND ACQUAINT OURSELVES WITH THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND FUNCTIONS OF PARTIES CONCERNED, AND APPROPRIATE SHARES ACCORDINGLY. HOWEVER, FOR TIME FACTOR, CONFIDENTIALITY AND PERSONALITY OF PEOPLE INVOLVED HERE IN NIGERIA, WE HAVE CHOSEN THIS APPROACH FOR THE REMITTANCE OF THIRTY MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS ($30.5M USD). PLEASE BEAR WITH US FOR MAKING THE INITIAL CONTACT THROUGH E-MAIL. BUT MY PARTNERS ARE INSISTING FOR A MEETING INORDER NOT TO FALL INTO A WRONG HAND AGAIN.

WE ARE MEMBERS OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE FOR BUDGET AND PLANNING OF THE MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM. THIS COMMITTEE IS PRICIPALLY CONCERNED WITH CONTRACT APPRAISAL AND THE APPROVAL OF CONTRACTS IN ORDER OF PRIORITIES AS REGARDS CAPITAL PROJECTS OF THE PAST MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA. WITH OUR POSITIONS, WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY SECURED FOR OURSELVES THE SUM OF THIRTY MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS ($30.5M USD). THIS AMOUNT WAS ACCUMULATED THROUGH UNDECLARED WINDFALL SALES OF CRUDE OIL DURING GULF WAR.

HENCE, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF THE TOP OFFICIALS OF THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION, (ALHAJI SANI AHMED, ENGR. COLLINS IKE.) WITH THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA. WE PLAN TO REMIT THE SAID AMOUNT INTO AN OVERSEAS ACCOUNT BY AWARDING A NON EXISTING CONTRACT FROM MY MINISTRY (NNPC). TO THIS EFFECT, I DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU SIR, IS TO PROVIDE A VERY VITAL ACCOUNT IN WHICH THE FUNDS WILL BE TRANSFERRED. MY COLLEAGUES AND I HAVE AGREED TO COMPENSATE THE OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT USED FOR THIS TRANSACTION WITH 30% OF THE TOTAL REMITTED. WE SHALL KEEP 60% AND REMAINING 10% RESERVED FOR TAXES AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES.

IT MAY INTEREST YOU TO KNOW THAT LAST TWO YEARS A SIMILAR TRANSACTION WAS CARRIED OUT WITH ONE MR. PATRICK MILLER, THE PRESIDENT OF CRAINE INTERNATIONAL TRADING CORPORATION AT NUMBER 135 EAST, 57TH STREET, 28TH FLOOR, NEW YORK 10022 WITH TELEPHONE NUMBER (212) 308-7788 AND TELEX NUMBER 6731689. AFTER THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN BOTH PARTNERS IN WHICH HE WAS TO TAKE 20% OF THE MONEY WHILE THE REMAINING 80% FOR US. WITH ALL THE REQUIRED DOCUMENTS SIGNED THE MONEY WAS DULY TRANSFERRED INTO HIS ACCOUNT ONLY TO BE DISAPPOINTED ON OUR ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK, AND WE WERE RELIABLY INFORMED THAT MR. PARTICK MILLER WAS NO LONGER ON THAT ADDRESS WHILE HIS TELEPHONE AND TELEX NUMBERS HAVE BEEN RELLOCATED TO SOMEBODY ELSE. THAT IS HOW WE LOST $8M TO MR. PATRICK MILLER.

THIS TIME AROUND, WE NEED A MORE RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON, A REPUTABLE COMPANY TO DO BUSINESS WITH. HENCE, THIS LETTER TO YOU, SO IF YOU CAN PR0VE YOURSELF TO BE TRUSTED AND INTERESTED IN THIS DEAL, THEN WE ARE PREPARED TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU. WHAT WE WANT FROM YOU IS THE ASSURANCE THAT YOU WILL LET US HAVE OUR SHARE IF THE INFLATED AMOUNT OF THIRTY MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS IS TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

IF THIS PROPOSAL SATISFIED YOU, THEN REPLY TO THIS MAIL URGENTLY SO THAT WE CAN NEGOTIATE THE MODALITIES INVOLVED.

BEST REGARDS,

OGALI CHARLES

__

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Sign Up Now! http://www.onebox.com

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 3 November 2001 at 8:07 PM

I went out today to get some lunch and noticed that I was low on gas. I hadn't filled up since the time when I refilled the tank in Urbana prior to driving back from the ACM conference, so it's not too surprising that I needed gas. What was surprising was the price I paid for gas. For the first time in probably a couple of years, I paid less than $1.10 per gallon. Apparently this little "war" we're in hasn't affected petroleum prices that much. Which is odd, considering that during the Gulf War prices went through the roof.

I may have to look into this a bit more. I wonder if OPEC intentionally lowered prices, or if this is just the market at work?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 3 November 2001 at 1:01 PM

Has anyone else seen the ads on TV for the "Mystery Date" game? Has anyone else found it rather odd, if not somewhat weird and disturbing?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 November 2001 at 9:07 PM

sigh..

so its finally over. I got the 550 midterm all turned in. it was a day late, so I lose 10% right off the top, but I dont think Ill lose many more points than that, and the whole thing is only worth 10% of the final grade, so all in all its only a percentage point lost. anyway, Im doing well in that class, so I think my grade can handle it.

also, I dont have anything else to post about right now.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 2 November 2001 at 5:14 PM

I feel like rearranging my room. I want to slide my bed down the wall so that the foot of the bed is closer to the closet. This would accomplish two things: it would move me away from the window, which is a constant source of noise and light (two things I detest while trying to sleep), and it would allow me to set up my collapsible chair near my computer, so that I can recline while I browse the net or watch DVDs. So that's what I'm going to do tonight. Or at least this evening.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 November 2001 at 4:39 PM

I've mentioned before that I am on a committee looking into updating the email packages for the engineering school here at WashU. Well, we have a regularly scheduled meeting every Friday at noon. Today I got up and walked over to the Sever for the meeting, only to discover when I got there that the meeting had been cancelled because one of the administrators had left for vacation a day early. I was not amused. They sent out the email telling us about the cancellation at 11:53 am, at which time I was already trudging through the parking garage on my way to the meeting.

If I could think of a way to get back at these CEC people, I would. Until I think of something, I will have to be content with thinking mean thoughts.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 November 2001 at 3:20 PM

We made a few changes last night. Comments?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 November 2001 at 10:41 AM

Im really sleepy. I very much want to get all of my work done as soon as possible so that I can go to bed. but I just thought I would post before I forgot. so.. um..

so I was wondering. does anyone know what is happening neurologically when you sleep? Im very curious as to why people get tired, why they lose cognitive function without sleep, and why people seem to need a consistent amount every night. also why do some animals need more sleep than others? Im told that cats sleep more than they are awake, and Ive also heard that giraffes only sleep 2 hours a day. (although Ive read more recent estimations put this number closer to 4 hours.) I need answers.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 1 November 2001 at 6:59 PM

My entire body aches, I can't hear anything out of my right ear except a constant, high-pitched ringing, and my feet feel like people were jumping up and down on them. Actually, now that I think back on it, people were jumping on my feet. And hitting me. And pushing me all over the floor. But aside from that, the Sum 41 show rocked. There were crowd-surfers and mosh pits galore, and I almost lost my shoe when someone stepped on it and it came untied. Also, for reasons not entirely clear to me, I have a large amount of gold glitter all over my left arm. I first thought the opening band was fairly bad, but I revised my opinion after doubling over with laughter when the lead singer spent a good minute exchanging expletives with some tools near the back of the floor at Mississippi Nights. Let me offer some friendly advice to all of you who might want to get in an argument with bands at concerts: the guy with the microphone will usually win that argument without much difficulty, since your shouts will be drowned out by his request that someone in the audience hit you repeatedly in the face. I would have obliged him (the singer from Unwritten Law), but I was too far away from the gentlemen to assist. So I just laughed instead.

During Sum 41's performance, one of the band members from the first opening act (Gob, which we missed) came on stage and took his pants off. I could have lived a full and happy life without seeing that, I assure you. At the end of the show, everyone from all three bands were onstage, and the Gob members were only wearing underwear. Again, I don't think anyone was all that impressed. But Sum 41 rocked; an excellent, excellent show.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 1 November 2001 at 12:49 AM