Dead Week, Finals, et al

Date: 2002-03-10 20:03:30

Tuesday last week I had two English things due the next day. The easier one was my final paper for writing for engineers in which I discussed embedded web servers. (I think I should know a thing or two about embedded web servers, since it is my senior project, after all.) I finished that nice and early, leaving me all evening to work on an essay for romantic American literature. I felt especially uninspired, so I wandered over to Gem's apartment, booted Elssbett, and broke out AbiWord.

Inspiration failed to come.

I lost count how many little Gnome games I played in an attempt to clear my head. I wandered over to the Content Collective and typed up a treatise about trolls. I was about ready to call that good, and work on my paper, when I double-checked the headlines. Then I noticed a full announce tile in the Content Collective. Something about Bitscape's music tastes. Obviously, I had to respond. I got lucky enough to find Bitscape only just started with the thread, so I had plenty of opportunity to engage in an epic crapflooding war. It was great fun.

When it was all over, we had typed 181 tiles and flooded Content Solutions with full-announce headlines. After an hour of trying to beat Bitscape for an arbitrary tile, I decided it was enough, and I really did need to work on my essay.

My essay sucked, but at least it was done.

I'm not sure much more post-mortem is necessary for the crapflood. I did it because I had the opportunity and because it was amusing. I probably wouldn't do it again, at least not anytime soon.

Last week was dead week, which was absurdly thrilling. I managed to turn in a few papers in my various English classes, some of which sucked worse than others. Friday afternoon I took the final for engineering electronics. If I had any nagging doubt coming into the final that maybe second quarter electronics would be fun, it was entirely removed after the final. (I think Dr. Frohne is a little disappointed that I'm not taking electronics two. I'm not.) I left, first, after two hours and fifteen minutes of test-taking, not because I was done, but because beating my head against my pad of engineering paper for any longer would not have a positive affect on my grade. I feared that it might even have a negative affect.

Saturday night Gem and I watched two Babylon 5 episodes and ran out of sci-fi. We wandered over to Blockbuster around 2100 and contemplated our DVD-rental options. We ended up with Unbreakable and Tomb Raider.

SPOILER WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS AN UNBREAKABLE SPOILER.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Gem and I agreed that the ending was not, in the parlance of her literature class, a legitimate surprise ending. We were not allowed to believe that that ending was going to happen, aside from Elijah's frequent references to three specific local disasters, only one of which contained a sole survivor. Apparently our good friend director, producer, and writer M. Night Shyamalan decided that he wanted a surprise ending, and there was nothing anyone could do to dissuade him from one. I think the surprise ending would have been sufficiently legitimate had we seen a wide shot of David Dunn getting onto the train and seen, in the distance, Elijah leaving the cabin. We would have thought nothing about it until the end, at which point it would have been clear.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Non-spoiler synopsis: I liked Unbreakable, but the ending needed a little help. (It seems that this is the popular opinion of the movie.)

We finished Unbreakable at 0000 and thought about regenerating but couldn't resist the urge to watch Tomb Raider. (Probably the early hour made it that much better -- sleep deprivation was an excellent way to suspend disbelief.) It was a fun movie, at least, complete with a strong female character, so Gem liked it. (Does anyone think that the swinging beam thing in the first temple, in Cambodia, was maybe just a little phallic?)

I have two finals this week, then I head home. Thermodynamics tomorrow at 1200, and romantic American literature Tuesday morning at 0800. My grade is out of my control in my other two classes, which is just slightly unnerving. I'd like to have my TCP/IP stack running before I head home, so I can write an HTTP server (and quite possibly the code that will run the demonstration front-end and play samples, the details of which still need to be established) over break. Ideally, when I get back to College Place for spring quarter, I'll be all ready to implement my code on the DSP.

Tomorrow at 2000 MST shall be mass irc. I would like to discuss the possibilities of getting together in meatspace during my spring break with those who frequent Content Solutions from the vicinity of Boulder.