Newsletter

Newsletter!

Welcome to my sort of regular newsletter! It's been over a month since a real, substantial update. Yeah, sad day. I have a lot to get through, so let's get started. :)

Since I generally end up typing novellas, if not before, definitely today, I'm going to condense story segments into bullet points, and subsequently, those into links that focus on that bullet point. My word processor informs me that this entry is easily 10 pages. If you want simple access to the whole entry, click here.

• Grab and Go
  My school has a pretty bad dining hall. I mean, everyone complains about college x's dining hall, but I'm serious. Here's a few articles:
  • Aramark: The high price of low quality (Aramark runs our dining halls)
  • University brethren unite, form farming collective to subvert UDS (University Dining Services)
  • U needs to show Aramark the door out
  • My job isn't all Disneyland (a, what I think, surprising article written by a relatively famous cook the residents of my dorm building love. It is no stretch at all to say that he's many people's favorite part of living in Middlebrook
  • What's behind your lunch? In parts one, two, three, and four, implicating a connection between Aramark, and no joke, the mob.
  • Cook feuds with UDS
  The only thing I've had the last 6 weeks I've been down there is gross Pizza or a burger. I mean, I eat some sticky spinach and carrots too, but ehhhh, yeah. Anyway, however bad they may be, they feed me, so there are a few, I guess you could say, arrangements I must make.
  One such arrangement is called Grab and Go. The bright idea here is to make sack lunches for kids who can't make it to the abominable food offerings for lunch in an actual dining hall. If you're considerate enough to inform them via a web interface the day before, there will be a white little bag waiting for you in a refrigerator downstairs the following morning. The sad bit is they aren't considerate enough to put actual food in the sacks. Generally when I order a simple Turkey and Cheese sandwich, say, I get like, a slice (one, one slice) of some processed meat, and some white stuff that I can only assume is supposed to be cheese on bread of my choice! Hooray for choices! I convince them using a drop down interface to put this crap on some sourdough bread. They also give me cookies (which I can't eat for worry of food allergies), an apple, and -unflinchingly- a bag of plain Lays potato chips. I'll get to that in a sec.
  So this is my lunch every day, generally my first meal of the day because I'm usually in bed during their offering of cold eggs from abused chickens (that's the latest thing. Apparently UDS abuses their chickens or something).
  The web interface intrigued me. It appeared very insecure. The full page loads, then on realizing that you're not actually logged in, it redirects you to some standard log in page. It's not too difficult to stop the page before it redirects. Anyway, I assumed that I could just refrain from logging in, make my own HTML form and replace all of their drop down menu boxes with my own options. Place orders for people, order a beer, or a car, or whatever, that sort of thing. I made some big stink about hacking or some silly notion like that. Well, it turns out their web interface is quite secure. It even does field validation to make sure you're not doing anything dumb like submitting your own HTML form. So, so much for being insecure and 'hackable.'
  However, there are two fields you can do whatever you want with, as long as each is 30 characters or less. The first name and last name fields. Well, I was pissed off about getting plain Lays every freaking day, so I started to complain, passive aggressively I guess, by saying my name was "I would really like" "something besides plain Lays" or something similar. Mr. something-besides-plain-Lays would constantly be frustrated by failure in their inability to give him anything other than plain Lays day after day. And I know they had some other stuff at one point because the first week of classes I got other chips. Like, good chips. I mean, plain Lays are great, but they wear on you day after day so much that I get sick thinking about them. The grease, ahh, man, I can't stand it.
  Here's where this all gets rather exciting. Each sack is labeled with what the student ordered, like this:
  
  
  By a stroke of luck, one day I said my name was "Please oh please," "anything but plain Lays" (notice the comma after Please oh please). Here's the result:
  
  The comma's gone! In it's place, everything is shifted around! Salad Dressing: Sprite? Beverage: Roast Beef and Cheddar? I got a glimpse of the little printed out sheet on which the card swiper person marked my order on after pickup, and everything was normal there. It was just this label that was messed up. Some poor confused sack filler even wrote question marks all over it, as I'm sure is apparent.
  
  Well, that's interesting, I thought. So I considered why this would happen. The comma was gone and everything was shifted. Well, I bet the data sent to the label printer is in comma delimited form. I could find out if I put in two commas and ordered another lunch. So that's what I did.
  
  Yep.
  Notice how my Beverage is no longer my Sandwich, and my salad dressing is no longer my drink. In the one comma picture, instead of my dorm building listed in bold on the bottom, None was there, that's the salad dressing usually. In this two comma picture, sprite shifted from Salad dressing to dorm building spot. Therefore, there was some order of drink, salad dressing, dorm building.
  
  I kept going. Three commas:
  
  This time my name was something like "John" "Olds,studentid,," which is why my student id is in there twice (well, I mean, before I smudged it out). Notice how those two fields got filled in right.
  After this three-comma go, I had enough information to deduce the order, which is this:
  firstname lastname,studentid,email,date,sandwich,beverage,saladdressing,hall,time,bread
  Yeah, I'm posting the order. Maybe that's a bad idea. Don't do anything I wouldn't. It is vital that you read on before deciding if I would or not.
  
  So I gave it another shot, filling in only what I needed.
  
  Notice the salad dressing field. Yesssss. It worked.
  
  Again again!
  
  I figured, maybe if they won't give me good chips, I might be able to get some extra food instead of the cookies I can't eat. I was starting to get hungry. Of course, no such luck.
  
  Of course, what followed this was rather unexpected.
  
  I got a cease and desist letter. Great.
  
  I responded.
  
  
  I got a reply.
  
  Way to go different chips!!!??? Right?? No. No new chips. I'm still eating plain Lays every freaking day. The self censoring word 'freaking' really doesn't put the right emotion into this. Every, well, so anyway.
  
  
  
  Passive-aggression is stupid and should be shamed. However, famous personalities such as Wile E. Coyote, Bob Sagat, and even 'Acura Integra' have been understood, as it were, to have recently picked up Grab and Go from the Middlebrook dining hall.


• Thanksgiving
  For thanksgiving, I went to Utah! I think one of the funniest parts of the trip happened before I was even there. I slept through my flight and missed it. I had decided it was a good idea to not sleep the night before. There I was in the chair nearest the airport gate door, and I missed the plane. In fact, when I went to figure out what happened, the airline person behind the desk was like "Are you John Olds?" Apparently she had paged me numerous times. Numerous. Sleeping is dangerous. Moral? Never sleep at all.
  Yeah, it was a blast seeing family and friends. I really miss the people in Utah while I'm here, especially my family. For example, my siblings. I sort of gush about them from time to time, but they're just so cool. Oh man. So cool. I miss them a lot. I got three thanksgiving dinners (one with my dad and this girl he's dating and her family and friends, one with my mom, and one with my dad's family). I saw this girl my dad's dating a few times, and she's a very nice lady and I like her, but I really guess I just don't know how to act about it, because I mean, well, frankly, she's not my mom, you know? Her family seems pretty cool though.
  I liked hanging out with my mom a lot too. So much so that I think I've decided to spend a lot of next summer there just hanging out and helping around the house.
  My goal for that week was to learn to ride the unicycle. In that I failed. I still can't do it. Partially this is because of lofty goals, partially because I don't have the equipment I thought I had. I do have this unicycle, but while I had been telling people my uncle gave it to me a few years ago, I realized that when I was first learning (or trying to learn) how to ride it, my sister wasn't even born, so uh, it's at least, at least 9 years old. Great. So what that means is this is a kid's unicycle, which was also confirmed by my neighbor here (I brought it here). It's too small. Oh well.
  While I was there, apparently Jimmy Carter came to some Barnes and Noble's bookshop somewhere near downtown for a booksigning. My response was, and still is, an enthusiastic "isn't he famous??" Well, yes, he is. So I guess I just don't understand what he was doing in Salt Lake City, at a Barnes and Noble, signing books. This isn't very important to the scope of this entry, as I had church stuff to do instead, but I just would like to point out that Jimmy Carter is, indeed, a famous former US president, and for some reason I just feel like his actions are unfathomable, even though I have no reason to feel this way.
  It was great to see church people there, but I unfortunately saw a distinct lack of highschool friends. I attribute this to my inability to motivate myself to call anyone, and my departure early Saturday morning Thanksgiving weekend. Sorry guys, it would have been fun to see you all.
  On the way back through the airport I had some time to kill so I bought all of the Chronicles of Narnia in one book form at a gift shop for 20 dollars. I read through The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as the Magician's Nephew on the plane. I decided that the current canonical ordering for the books is silly and wrong, and I plan to read the rest in the order in which they were published (this is not chronological, but that's okay. Right things don't always make sense. I have a great argument for this, ask sometime.). As such, I have since had time to read Prince Caspian. I read some of the Chronicles of Narnia before, when I was younger, but decided that in anticipation of the super-exciting upcoming movie, I should brush up. I guess that's not super related to Thanksgiving.
  The other good part on the way back is I got off light rail one station too early, so instead of getting back on, I walked a few miles in the snow with a broken, overweight (I had to pay the overweight fee at the airport, and because of its weight, the handles got ripped) duffle bag. Of course, I couldn't make off that easy. I had to have unicycle parts digging into my back from the duffle bag the whole time.
  


• Bike lock fun!
  It's been getting rather cold. In fact, a few days before I left for Utah for Thanksgiving, my bike was so cold I broke the key trying to unlock the frozen bike lock. The brakes were so cold that when I tried to apply them to not trash some kid, the brakes stuck and I was nearly thrown off my bike (again). Of course, after that I stopped using my brakes. What's a few kids?
  The tires were also sort of flat when I finally unlocked the bike, and as I rode they inflated. Talk about cold air.
  So anyway, I'm down to one bike lock key and don't plan on ruining it. The major problem I'm having is that my bike lock freezes and then I'm unable to unlock it. My first goal was to just use pliers. I went through at least one key like this. I decided that this wasn't working and since then out of fear of ruining more keys, I've been storing my bike in my dorm room and office until I can get a suitable plan together.
  I had a fairly reasonable plan of getting a lighter and melting the ice out. However, it turns out there isn't any oxygen in my lock, and the fire doesn't like to burn so much in there.
  On the other hand, plastic melts. This I knew. I didn't need a melting lock to remind me. Since I was holding the lighter close enough to actually have any effect, the lighter end melted off too. Now I'm down one lighter. I managed to keep my fingers.
  Today I went to Target to get a torch lighter, you know, the kind that are impervious to wind and things. Of course, I didn't remember until I left that this sort of lighter needs to be filled with butane, which I don't have. Drat.
  In explaining my precarious position to a few colleagues, I was informed that there exists some sort of deicing spray, and was subsequently laughed at for my ignorance in the matter. Which is actually pretty funny. Deicing spray? Like, there's apparently some sort of lock deicer, which is exactly what I need. Well, they didn't have that at Target either.
  So I'm still no better off.
  Update: I just bought some butane at a gas station on my way home from church today. I filled up my lighter and it rocks. I am leaving my bike outside for tomorrow morning, so hopefully it works and I'm not late to class. Again.


• Racquetball smashing
  I smashed my racquetball racket. I mean, I usually do that. No change there. The change is that I smashed it against a wall and the strings shattered.
  
  So I had to decide if I wanted to restring it or not. I went to the store to see if that was even possible, and called a few people, but it turns out that since I had destroyed the plastic bit on top so much it wasn't even restringable without new factory ordered parts. It was rather frustrating how the employee at Gart Sports rather rudely informed me relatively often how horrible my racket was, and how it wasn't even worth it. I was quite offended. I like my racket. I paid good money for it. Really.
  Anyway, so I ended up buying a new racket that looks like this, if that isn't it exactly. It turns out it's the same one my roommate bought recently. Let me assure you there is no way I paid the 149.99$ listed on that website. I'm cheap. There was a sale.
  Needless to say, racquetball has resumed. In fact, I'm even taking a racquetball class instead of weight training next semester.


• 5K run (walk)
  This morning, I ran a 5K around Lake Harriet. Update: It was called the Reindeer Run. I guess I don't really know the purpose for it, as far as charity or such goes. Today the high was a balmy 18 degrees. For some reason when people ask me the temperatures around here and I tell them, their response is "Celsius, right?" No. Fahrenheit. I live in the US. We use the Imperial System. Update: The temperature will continue to drop around here too. In fact, I'm pretty sure yesterday the Mississippi was flowing. It looks frozen solid today. The whole thing. Though I'm not surprised. Today the high is 9. It's probably best I continue to burn myself with butane. It was actually much warmer than I thought it would be with wind chill and all, so I ended up wearing 3 layers and was sweating and hot the whole race. It's sad to say I have no pictures.
  A 5K is a lot shorter than you'd think. I started off complaining quite a bit, with various side aches and other effects of not being in shape, but managed to run at least a mile before tapering off to a walk. I was with my neighbor Adam, who slowed down with me, which was nice of him. The best part though was about half way around the lake, we saw our friend Alex who we were with, who is quite in shape, and we suspected had already finished long ago, cheering us on. At first I was quite firmly of the opinion he had returned half way around the lake to mock our speed, but imagine my surprise when he said we had maybe a hundred yards left. Of course, since we were only half way around the lake I didn't believe him, stopped running, and started looking around to try to figure out where we were. Either there were two identical buildings on opposite sides of the lake, or we were all the way around the lake. Finding the latter more likely, while still quite unbelievable, we ran the last hundred yards quite excitedly. It was over much sooner than I thought it would be. It wasn't so fun during the race, but in retrospect it certainly wasn't so bad.
  


• Miscellaneous
  
  
  • I switched majors. From Computer Engineering to Computer Science. Big change, happy day. I'm pretty stoked. I get to code next semester. That, and all I'm taking is a Math class and 3 CSci classes. Well, and 2 PE classes. My schedule for next semester is here (minus CSS goodness). Unfortunately with my switching up of my schedule, I don't get to take the Philosophy class I wanted. Boo. That's okay, my Tuesday mornings more than make up for it.
  
  
  • Recently there has been a big backlash at Sony-BMG for releasing CDs with a rootkit and spyware on them. It's a very big deal, and Sony clearly did the wrong thing. If you don't know anything about this, or need a news-thus-far account, I suggest you go here (make sure to look at parts 2 and up). Anyway, my most recent Switchfoot CD Nothing is Sound features this atrocity, and apparently Sony has issued a recall for all affected CDs. This whole thing doesn't effect me, since Linux is awesome, but it's the principle of the issue, so I'm going to do the exchange thing, after, of course, making a thorough rip of the XCP program, just in case I might need it or something, I dunno.
  
  
  • My car is for sale. It makes me sad, but alas, it's hard for me to drive when I'm MPLS and it's in SLC.
  
  
  • The Monk Christmas special is on this weekend. It's good, and I recommend you check it out. It's on the USA channel. You can use my schedule webapp for guidelines and more info, but I think the times are broken, so I'd take the data on there with a grain of salt. Check your local listings. New episodes start January 13. I also recently watched the Red Green movie, and thought it was surprisingly good. It was rather amazing how well the characters transferred from their very methodical TV style to the big screen. It really was the big screen too, as we watched it on the projector. Woo woo.
  
  
  • My neighbor was doing random Google searches and found one of my middleschool documents in an obscure folder on my webserver explaining mathematically how 2+2 does not equal 4. Of course, this is wrong. But anyway, this reminded me of other middle school documents I wrote, and I found a short story I wrote. I'm pretty sure it was middle school over elementary school at this point, but I don't have a good way to pin it to a date. It's hilarious. It's a great story, I think anyway, especially for a middle schooler, and I'm quite impressed with myself. While this only serves as proverbial self back patting, I thought it was decent enough to put a link to it here. It's in original Word document form, for shame, I know, so if you can't open it and want to, let me know. If you're wondering what the Visual Basic code is at the end after the "DO NOT PRINT" or whatever inscription, in one of the cut scenes, there's some computer thing talking to some rodent, and they switch some channel or something so that you can't listen in on their conversation and it goes to static. At least, that's what I was attempting. But the stuff that's supposed to be static is basically a ROT-encoded message (with my middle school modifications to the algorithm), and the VB code at the bottom will decrypt it. The error message is the decryption code number. This all makes sense if you read it first. The unintended consequence of this is focus is taken off the great, simply great plotline. I'm looking to make a movie if anyone's interested. Either of you Warner Brothers, especially.
  
  
  • I'm super excited about the Nintendo Revolution. Man, I almost can't contain myself.
  
  
  • I haven't shaved since mid-November, and I'm sort of liking it. I also haven't had a hair cut in a while, and while I probably look gross and terrible, since I really could care less of what anyone thinks of me right now, I'm enjoying the laziness. Woo woo.
  
  
  • My roommate bought a large aluminum steel (probably, it's magnetic) pole and planted it in a bucket in the middle of our room. Of course, this is preparations for Festivus, as explained in Seinfeld Episode 166, or this Wikipedia article.
    
  
  
  • My roommate and I were up until like, 3 the other night watching videos of what can only be described as Extreme Walking. It sounds silly, I know. When extreme sports sound silly to me, you have no idea how silly this sounds. Except, it's totally awesome. Here's a link to my roommate's blog discussing the best videos, and here's a link to the main guy's website. You can watch what I think to be the best video on Google Videos here. And then, unrelatedly, some other good Google Videos are this one, this one, and this one. It's unfortunately far too easy to waste a whole bunch of time on Google Videos.
  
  Another one of those tests
  It's funny because while largely I think the main result is true for one reason or another, I disagree with select points all of the summary.
  

  Your Inner Child Is Sad

  You're a very sensitive soul. You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have. Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone. You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

  How Is Your Inner Child?
  
  
  Okay, now it's back to studying!