Brown Game Rocked!
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: "Maintain Consciousness" - Relient K
Topic: Hockey

We defeated Brown 7 to 2 last night in an awesome game! There was fighting, foul play, and lots of fun times! We even scored our first two goals 5 and 10 minutes into the game. It was much more exciting of a game than Harvard was.

If you want to see the best hockey Cornell can play, make sure to check out the Brown game next year. Or travel to Rhode Island to see them play the next one.

Star Wars III
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: movies
Check out this trailer for SW III: Revenge of the Sith. It is an awesome trailer especially since I was just recently watching SW IV and heard all of this - now I can picture it in my head.

HAR-VARD.....SUCKS!
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: "I So Hate Consequences" - Relient K
Topic: Hockey
We cremated Harvard at last night's hockey game. We shut them out with 2-0 over the two hour game. There weren't any fights, but usually the Harvard game is pretty quiet because we always play Brown the next day and if you get into a fight, you are ejected for two games. Brown is a pretty hard team, so we usually can't afford to lose a player over a fight. That didn't mean that the tensions weren't high on the ice. There were many confrontations and explosions of violence. At one point we were even 5 on 3 because two of their players got removed for high sticking and cross checking.

I have to say, though, that one of the most interesting things about our team is that we almost never score on a power play. We had 5 or 6 power plays last night and none of them led to goals. In fact, most of our goals were within 1-2 minutes after a power play. In the four years that I've gone to Cornell hockey that tends to be the general trend for us.

As usual there were fish on the ice - no amount of police pat downs could stop that from happening. It was less fish than before, but I think that reflects the fact that this year a lot of the fans are freshman, since most of the upperclassman fans have graduated. So when they heard that we couldn't bring fish, they got scared. But they didn't know that they tell us that every year and it doesn't really matter. You can't really kill a trend like that.

Tonight is the Brown game, and you can bet I'll be taking pictures there as well. I really love my camera's ability to take fast action shots. Over the last three years most of my pictures had blurred elements, but this year with my camera that allowed me to manually configure all the settings, I was able to shoot at 800 ISO with a shutter speed of around 600. I'll see if I can get some better shots today, my seats this year aren't as good for photography as in previous years.

Taking a break from my morning hw bash
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been" - Relient K
Topic: random
Did you guys vote? I hope so!

I bought the new Relient K a couple of days ago. I got it in CD format because it's still not clear if WMA or AAC will be the format that lasts, and if I'm going to pay for music I want to be able to listen to it from now until I die, not until 2 years from now when they switch audio formats. The chords are awesome - that's Relient K's big strength. This is their fourth full album (not counting the Christmas album) and they continue their trend of exponentially improving their lyrics. If you shyed away from them around the time of their first two albums, definitely check out this release. They are awesome - I'm talking secular radio quality stuff here. If you like Blink192, Boxcar Racer, or Bowling for Soup you'll love Relient K. Speaking of being on the radio, they are being released by EMI this time around even though their official label is still Gotee Records. This has two consequences. First of all, you'll most likely find Relient K in the regular rock section of your music destributor, not in the Christian section - that's how it was at Best Buy anyway. Second, this means you may soon hear Best Buy on your pop station. I really hope they do get on the radio and maybe even MTv. They deserve it because their music is awesome. I'll be posting lyrics over the next few days.

If they do come out on the radio it'll be like Switchfoot. Some of you may not know, but they've been around forever. I have one of their first albums from ~4-6 years ago. Only now everyone's talking about them as if they were a new group because they finally got on the radio and Mtv. It's pretty funny - I wonder if that will happen to Relient K. I guess it's the Grateful Dead Effect because they had a huge following and a bunch of albums before that one pop song that EVERYONE knows.

Ithaca is getting VERY cold! My hands look like a boxer's hands because they've gotten so dry they are bleeding all over the place. In fact, according to the forecast, it's supposed to snow @ 4pm today. Who knows because the Ithaca forecast is always so far off, but if it does it will be the first snowfall of the year. It would also mean that I am officially an Ithacan after four years here because I accurately predicted that it would snow this week. I was talking to my grandmother and I said, based on how the weather has gotten recently and just on how the trees lost all of their leaves over a 2 day period as well as some things that I just can't put into words, I know it's going to snow by the end of next week. And here it is...maybe...well, it'll be snow AND rain, so it may be hard to tell if I'm right or not. And it definitely isn't going to stick because it's going to be too warm for that. Well, I'm certainly in no hurry for the snow to permanently arrive. It gets slippery, biting cold, and pretty darned depressing. I'm not THAT affected by SAD (seasonal affective disorder), but just like Superman (in one of his incarnations) life without the sun has some kind of weakening affect on me.

Well, I have to get back to stuff. At least this is a third "real" post in a row. q:o) I still can't believe it's been a year! Just to make it easy for you guys, here's the link to my first post ever in case you want to relive things. My first post - the beginning of It's A Binary World

Republicans take over the US
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: "I So Hate Consequences" - Relient K
Topic: News
So, sometime around 2 EST Kerry finally gave up and gave the election to Bush. Well, it was more like Kerry's advisors told him that the provisional and absentee ballots weren't going to have an impact in his winning Ohio and so he decided to exit a little more gracefully than Gore. Personally, I'm ok with Bush winning this time because he had the popular vote. I mean, he beat Kerry by 3 million! In an election where not too many people turn out, that's a pretty nice win. It certainly isn't a landslide, but it is impressive considering that fact that most people thought it would be a repeat of 2000.

Yet there are still some people whose votes will not count. I'm talking about the three states still coloured white - at least they were still white around 7 when I last took in some news. Essentially, there is no point in tabulating the votes there other than for curiosity's sake. Since they would have not given Kerry enough electoral votes to win even if they had all gone to him, they are inconsequential.

But how does that make the people of those states feel? Just because the other states were tabulated first doesn't mean that these states shouldn't count - and yet that's what it means. If I lived there I would be a little peeved that no one in the media was talking about their state - especially when they are Florida close.

Another election time surprise were all of the amendments to the state constitutions that passed banning gay marriage. The federal amendment didn't have a leg to stand on, but these other states were able to get prohibitionary bills passed. I'm surprised that people in these states didn't shoot the measures down. But then again, a lot of the places that added this to their constitution are states that don't have a large gay concentration so there's no one to protest or just vote against it.

Well, I must sleep for class tomorrow - my pillow beckons and I must answer the call

The Blackeye.....I mean Buckeye State
Mood:  chatty
Topic: News
So Ohio has become the Florida of this year's election. There's one key difference this year compared with the last election cycle - Kerry has not yet conceded despite the fact that he's almost certainly lost. I think that, more than anything else last time, the fact that Gore had called Bush and congratulated him really weakened his case later on. There's something that just feels wrong in the gut of an American, as competitive as we are, about someone who admits defeat and then takes it back and asks for a "do over". In fact, thinking back as a child - didn't you usually hate the person who called "do over" whenever you finally won. He would always list some spurious reason and depending upon who had the support of most of the other kids would win. In a sense, the "other kids" in 2000 were the Supreme Court. This year, however, Kerry is refusing to lose - for now. He's deciding to be the person who says, "let's wait an see what the impartial kid says," going back to my childhood metaphor. Only time will tell what happens, but I hope for two things.

1) It shouldn't go too long or people are going to get ticked that this is always happening
2) The Supreme Court better not decide the election again or I predict there will be a huge riot

PS - I guess my cynicism was unfounded - Osama did not appear caught right before the election.

To Bush the Spoils
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: News
Well, it's too close for the talking heads to call, but unless Kerry wins every state left, Bush has the office for another 4 years. There's been a lot of talk of litigation over the results. Aparently the Republicans were mad that some polling places extended their hours because that will supposedly lead to more Democratic votes. We'll see...I have a lot going on right now so I can't talk too much about it.

Voting and Anniversary
Mood:  chatty
Topic: random
First of all, every single last one of you who's over 17 better have voted or better vote today! Otherwise I don't want to hear any complaints from you when this president or that one instates some silly policy. I don't care if you want Bush, Kerry, or Nader in office. Although, seriously, Nader's not going to be winning any time soon. So go vote....or die! Ok, so maybe you won't die, but that's what happens when a rapper makes the slogan. Just go vote!

On another note, this is the first anniversary of "It's A Binary World"! One whole year! I can't believe it! It seems like only a little while ago that I took up blogging - a few years behind the initial group, but before the media started talking about it so much that pretty soon my parents may end up with one. Well, unfortunately I can't do the 1 year bash post because I have an interview, exam, and tons of homework for tonight. Perhaps tomorrow I can do it, but it may have to wait for next year. See how it all started by navigating back to 2 Nov 2003.

Just one more creative outlet
Mood:  bright
Topic: Lights Out
You may have noticed on the lefthand links that I added a link to a blog called Lights Out but there's nothing in the blog! That's because it's a story I'm going to be writing. I really like the idea of web comics like Megatokyo, but I can't draw for crap. So I decided to have a serialized story. Once I have a break - perhaps during Thanksgiving break, I'll be adding to it - if not earlier. I'll make a post here to let you know when I've added to that one.

life's little miracles - no I don't mean babies or a lil dog saving someone's life
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: the comforting hum of 6 hard drives
Topic: School Stuff
A lot of people believe that either a) Miracles are make-believe; a way for people to have hope in a world where it seems to be lacking or
b) Miracles used to happen back in the Biblical days, but there aren't any today

Then there's a small minority in category c. These people believe that miracles continue to go on. Some, like the baby found yesterday in Japan after being burried in earthquake rubble for a few days, are big. Others, like finding a dollar when you really need one, are a little bit smaller.

What a miracle really comes down to is a paradigm shift in one's thought process. Either you believe that all the ridiculously amazing things that happen in the world are by chance or you believe in miracles. Of course, sometimes people use synonyms for miracle so that they don't have to sound religious, but it's the same thing.

If there's one thing that Cornell Engineering has taught me, it's that there is a LOT of randomness in the world, however, there is no "chance".

Why am I railing on about miracles? (especially because I believe I've written about this before - at least in a different way) Because I feel that I experienced one that was both trivial and huge at the same time.

I was looking at my buddy list because someone's name caught my eye in the signon popup box. I didn't even get to talk to the person because they signed off immediately. However, on my way up my buddy list I noticed a friend of mine who's in my ridiculously impossible class. I talked to him by chance to see what he was up to and ended up learning that I had started to do a full half of my lab completely wrong! I had to use negative values for this part instead of positive values. I am SO glad that I talked to him because I would have hated working on this so hard and long and have half of it be wrong because of a sign error.

Instead of being mad that I had to do some parts, I was overjoyed at discovering this mistake while I could still do something about it. That is the fundamental difference that allows me to enjoy life and have more energy than others. (Not counting this week where I've been deprived of everything except love from my family and fiancee - and even there we have barely had time to have a passing hug - forget talking or spending time together.)

Well, I have to get back to finishing my impossible labs. Thanks for bearing with me.