This has been a really superly awesome weekend.

Friday, there was the rehearsal for Matt & Missy’s wedding. It was really quite simple; basically, we did a couple of run-throughs for the main event. It wasn’t all that bad at all, in comparison to the last wedding rehearsal I was in at age 5; that rehearsal seemed to drag on and on and on and.. Bleh. Time tends to drag when you’re a bored 5 year old kid 🙂 Anyhoo, dinner was at a very fancy Huntsville resturaunt called Luciano. I had a ribeye that was quite spiffy, indeed. Their medium rare was pretty much my idea of rare, but it was still quite good. As long as they don’t cook chicken that way, I’d be quite fine with it.

And, Saturday came the afforementioned main event. It was a very awesome and beautiful ceremony. It went pretty much without a hitch. Matt was 15 minutes late in arriving, but it turned out to be a fashionably late kinda thing 🙂 It was a mixed Catholic/Baptist wedding, so it wasn’t a Mass; it was just like a Mass, for the most part, sans the Eucharist. Also, when we said the Lord’s Prayer, it seemed as though the Baptists had a few extra lines in it at the end.

The reception was pretty awesome, as well. Matt had a Simpsons groom cake. I danced a little at the end, but other than that I mostly chilled with his brother Jake, his friend Will, Liz and Josh. Ryan Cantor and Brittney Piertzak were also there; I haven’t seen them since high school. There were four of us non-married chaps there to try to catch the garter; Jake, Will, me and someone else. It was the someone else that caught the garter–the rest of us really didn’t put up much of a fight 🙂

It was definitely an awesome weekend.

Oh, I wish I could be in Rome for this..

One month until Episode III.

It’s almost like when ROTK came out; you’re losing an occasional annually visiting friend or something–instead of every year, though, it’s every three. In that nerdy sort of way, of course. Mainly, I guess now I’m just seeing the movie for the FX and the score, both of which I think, will be quite amazing–it would have to be after a frickin year-and-a-half of post-production *hangs on by a thread to nerdy little hopes*

It’s been really uber nice around here. The last 3 or 4 days have been in the 70s. I think we have shaken off the mild winter for warmer days. Bah, in the end I think we skipped over winter altogether.

I played some poker over the weekend at mwshook‘s bachelor party, and won around $200–of course this was all in chips, so it was merely a simulated game 🙂 Still, being the first time through, that was pretty damn awesome. I haven’t played poker, really, since high school. And, if that was for anything, it was pennies.. We played some Cincinnati, Cleveland (variation on Cinci), Spit in the Ocean, Texas Hold ‘Em, and some draw/stud. It was a nice little party; I really didn’t know anyone there, but it was a really friendly group. Anyhoo, Matt gets married this weekend. w00t!

I think I’ve discovered that if I get 7 or 8 hours instead of 6 or 7 in sleep, I’m much happier. Maybe I should give up my night owl ways, as fun as they are. Of course, that’d mean *GASP* less World of Warcraft time. Oh, no!

Thank you, Slashdot. You have given me whole minutes of hysterical laughter on an otherwise bland afternoon.

An Automatic Computer Science Paper Generator

If only I had thought of this when I was an undergrad; not only would I have had smashing and entertaining technical papers, but I would’ve had an awesome senior project 🙂

So, here I am; Saturday afternoon. I have chosen to geek out. I am rebuilding both of my computers. Chris, a friend of mine from around these parts, has given me quite the scheme. I am rebuilding my laptop and my desktop with new swap partitions. I am taking my secondary slave drive in my desktop, creating a new partition in FAT16, and using that partition as swap space. Theoretically, with it being the first partition on the drive and the fact that there’s no NTFS overhead, I should get at least somewhat of a performance increase. I’m skeptical that it’ll increase performance all that dramatically, but it’s worth a try. It’s always good to squeeze your machine for all it’s worth. The laptop will be similar, although it has only one drive, in that I will make about a 4GB partition of FAT16 for swap. We’ll see how it goes. Fortunately, the laptop mirrors my desktop in terms of settings and such, so all I have to do once rebuilding one is copy over settings and documents from the other. I don’t even have to bust out the nightly backups. What I need now is some good (free, if possible) ghosting software.

I finished reading Episode III. The story is definitely quite awesome, and I can only hope that the movie only adds to its kewlness.

the rest of the story…

So, I’m in Publix yesterday, about to get some wings. I gave up wings for Lent, so my mouth is watering over the prospect of having them, once again 🙂

Right as you walk in the door on the left side there are magazines and books. The very first book I see that stands out..

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

My heart races; is it a joke being played on poor little geeks like me that are eagerly awaiting what is mostly the final Star Wars movie ever? I walk up to the shelf and snatch the book, as if it’ll disappear on me if I don’t act swiftly. The book looks very distinctive, with a picture of Anakin/Obi-Wan locking lightsabers, with Darth Vader (in the suit, of course) larger and behind them, all with an orange lava backdrop. The title is sans the Episode III that seems to have become part of the standard subtitle of Star Wars prequels. Some guy named Matthew Stover wrote it.

Oh, ok. Here’s some plot for those who can peek in-between their fingers at it

Got back from AZ the night before last. The rest of the trip was very pleasant, indeed. The Cubbies ended up going 2-2 while we were there. The 3rd game was rather interesting because it ended on a flubbed double play. It was at Ho Ho Kam, so the Cubbies were fielding in the 9th with 1 out. If I remember correctly, there were runners on 1st and 2nd. A ground ball was hit and tossed over to 2nd for an out. The baserunner did not get out of the way of the throw and blocked the throw to first; instant double play because of player interference. It was one of the odder Cubs wins that I’ve seen, spring training or otherwise.

It was definitely a very nice trip, for sure. It was definitely one of the more relaxing vacations I’ve had; took my mind off of everything but baseball.

So, the rest of the weekend has been slacking, so far. It’s been a really nice weekend, that’s for sure; I’ve even turned on the air conditioning. I think it probably won’t last, though, knowing Alabama weather.

SciFi Friday was indescribably awesome; SG-1 ended on a really nice note, and so did Atlantis. Galactica is becoming more and more awesome every single time I watch a new episode. I think that the series absolutely blows away the original disco incarnation of the story 🙂 There’s just so much happening on so many fronts. It’s definitely something that makes every episode uberly interesting.

I’m watching SG-1 right now; it’s the first one that had McKay in it. His character seems almost more pompus and arrogant than how he is now on Atlantis. He called Carter a “dumb blonde” *snicker*

I got a new game called Rise of Nations. So far, the game looks a good bit like Age of Empires. It might even distract me from WoW a little bit. Of course, it’s trading one gaming addiction for another. lol.

Tomorrow is Easter; I can’t believe how quickly this year is going, so far. Next thing ya know, it’ll be the middle of July or something. It’s rather ironic that it seems the older you get, the quicker time seems to past. I think that the work world makes you way too busy 😛 lol. It makes everything fly by in seemingly short amounts of time.

Oh, and I can renew the wings addiction tomorrow. w00t! 🙂

But, tell me have you seen the marvelous breadfish?

Well, Cubbies have gone 0-2 while I’ve been there. Both days, they lost fairly big (5+ runs). I think I brought bad mojo on my way down here or something. Yea, that has to be it 😛 Tomorrow, they play in Ho Ho Kam (their home winter ballpark). I can only hope they’ll do better and maybe end 2-2 during my stay here.

Arizona is pretty frakking awesome, as usual. It’s been in the 70s pretty much the whole time. Both games, we’ve been in the shade–therefore, I have been able to keep my pasty white fascade; definitely a plus. lol. Eating, even in a spring training ballpark, is about as expensive as a good steak dinner at <INSERT STEAK HOUSE HERE>.

NetZero has proven to be adequate for internet, although rather slow. I can still chatter away online, and it doesn’t take too long to download the email. Nevertheless, 20th century internet still sux0rs 😛

So here I am in AZ. w00t! It’s about frakking time. This last week has crawled beyond all belief :-\ I had to finish up a little project for work before this trip, so therefore I stayed there until 1am. It was awful, especially the next morning after < 4 hours of sleep. UGH!! Ahh, well.. at least I got it done. That was definitely a plus. The flight here was fairly uneventful. We stopped in Chicago (w00t!!!! x 10), and stayed there in a layover for about 3 hours. Too bad I couldn't have plopped down there for the night or longer. It's surprisingly cool here, in the low 60s. I hope this isn't what the entire week will be like. In years past, it's been low 70s at night with mid 80s to low 90s during the day. I want some heat, dang it :P The hotel room's "free" internet sux0rs. The ethernet port doesn't work, so I've had to resort to NetZero. It'll do, I guess. At least I can fairly comfortably chat and check email & LJ. 20th century internet really sux0rs 😛

Go Cubs.

Just one of those Mondays. Seems like just about everything could go wrong. Well, it wasn’t totally awful, I suppose. Same troubles, different day. I suppose if there weren’t any troubles or problems, then life wouldn’t be all that interesting. I have a project for work that I need to finish before going to Mesa. I think I should more than likely be able to knock it out. If not, then boy won’t my face be red 😛

I achieved Level 16 in World of Warcraft this fine evening. That was fairly awesome. I also got these cool wizard robes for my troubles. This game is so involved and drew me in so much that I looked at the screen and it was 8.. I look up again, and it was 10:30. Not even EverQuest could do that. lol.

Other than that, a fairly uneventful weekend. Saw the Cubbies on TV on Saturday, but they lost *sigh* Prior went down today, apparently quite hurt. They didn’t say it was anything serious, but knowing their luck that probably means nothing and he’ll miss half the season. Bleh. Hopefully their season won’t end before it begins.

Anyhoo, off to do the slacker thing.. And sleep! *ZZZZZ*