Outsourced

So yes, I learned that the power series representation of a function is a Taylor series. That would have been nice to know before the one question quiz I took where I was utterly confused on how to express a function as a Taylor series. I still need to figure out Taylor series in general, though. Thank goodness for Nitin, the math genius.

But hooray! We moved to polar coordinates, which make much more sense than they did in pre-cal. But then he started talking about 3 dimensional cartesian coordinates, and it was less fun, but still infinitely times better than sequences and series. I hate all those kids who are taking M408L who are working on integration. Yes, I'm talking about Alvin and John. Boooooooooooooooo. Hiss.

Oh, and I also gave in and got into this Facebook thing my sister told me about a long time ago. So add me as a friend and help me accumulate more friends than anyone else: Facebook me!

Rem to the Linger!

I'm very disappointed to learn that tonight is Craig Kilborn's last show. I had never been a huge fan of the late night talk shows, but after I discovered Kilborn during my freshman year of high school, I was hooked on his show.

I recall working on homework as I watched his show at midnight. Back then he didn't seem to have a lot of real sponsors, and they'd generate funny advertisements for fake products / sponsors.

In the News was and still is great. They'd take or cut some video clip and use it over and over again for several shows or even weeks. You had to see it for yourself, but the way they played "I can't talk right now, I've got chest pains. Chest pains," and "I say it was funny," after talking about something else was just hilarious. Also they had an awesome video of two people trying to chase a turkey-like bird and it would tilt its head and neck as if it was going to run one direction but then run the other way. It totally faked out the people chasing it. Great stuff, good times.

I also remember that Five Questions used to have a different opening scene in which some Native American looking guy stands back as some fat guy's stomach expands and explodes.

Then came Yambo, and of course the first person to go had the better chance of winning.

Next was recreation of a press photo, which I always found highly entertaining.

And What Up was always cool as well. Goldie was my favorite.

Kilborn also 'discovered' Dido. Countdowns were always fun and led to anticipation.

I guess if you never watched Kilborn, you wouldn't understand a lot of this. If that's the case, you missed out on a great talk show. Conan O'Brien's got nothing on this.

I'm back home for all of two days. Alvin was kind enough to drive myself, Tommy, John, and James back to Katy. It's nice to be back, though I forgot to bring back a hub that I took to college, so my PC is without internet connection. I'm going to have to take my PC with me when I go back, because my laptop overheats too easily. Blah.

We (the same group as in the car minus Tommy plus Nitin) decided to go see the 8 pm showing of Hero tonight, though there were many bumps in the road along the way. The overpass at the Grand Parkway and I-10 was blocked off by a policeman. Several of us attempted to take that route, only to find us having to go down the feeder to Mason to get to the other side. Some people then missed the turn on the feeder and had to make yet another U-turn.

I thought that the overpass was closed for construction purposes, but apparently there was an accident of some sort, though I don't know what it was. John said he saw a flipped car, and I spotted an ambulance. There were several police cars around as well. The person at the box office told me that they had to shut off power and evacuate the building because of the accident and that it was unlikely that they would be reopening the doors soon. So once everyone finally arrived, we headed off to AMC to catch the 10 pm showing.

It was totally worth the wait. Hero is one of the best movies I've ever seen, with great choreography and cinematography, as well as an awesome plot. The method through which the story is told is quite interesting as well. Personally, I think this blows Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon away. Everyone should see Hero.

Ugh. I'm supposed to wake up to catch a ride back with Alvin around 9 or 10, and it's almost 4 am right now. I kept hearing this "Bwooooooooop, bwoooooop, bwooooooooop" sound, and for a while I thought it was either a distant car alarm or the television (which I wasn't really paying much attention to).

I had fallen asleep around 2, but I woke up and realized that I needed to shower and brush my teeth, which I continued to do. In fact, I'm not sure exactly when I started hearing the sound, but it was after I randomly woke up. I started to get annoyed by the sound and change the channel, but the sound was still there. So I then start thinking that maybe someone is playing some loud albeit strange music, so I peep out into the hall. I didn't see anyone in the halls, but after a while I did hear some voices. So I decided to go investigate.

I was in my boxers, and I decided that I had better put on some clothes. I made sure to grab my keys, wallet, and cell phone to make sure I wouldn't get locked out. Surely enough, that sound was the fire alarm. The first person I encounter on my floor doesn't appear very panicky or worried. We briefly talked about it, and she said, "Surely the RA would come knock at our doors if we needed to evacuate." I replied that maybe she had already evacuated on her own. I decide to go down to the first floor to see what's going on, especially since I want to get out of there if there's a fire. The girl I ran into and the other people on my floor looked like they were just going to stick around a while.

In the stairwell, I ran into Jeff Washachek, who was evacuating with a friend. Those two and one other person we ended up following were the only people I saw in the stairwell. The fire alarm sounds were particularly loud and echoing in the stairwell.

We finally arrive at the first floor and exit. Right when we reached the first floor (which is actually still two stories higher than the street level), the alarm halted. We passed by a fireman, and found many people in the lobby and a few people outside.

After talking around a bit, we learned that it was safe to go back to our rooms, the elevators would not be available anytime soon, and not much else. Supposedly they refused to tell us what caused the alarm. So Washachek, his friends, and I had to hike back up the stairs. Those 11 flights sure are tiring. Washachek had to go to the 18th floor. I feel sorry for the people on the 27th floor. 14 steps x 26 flights = 364 steps. That's a lot of steps.

So here I am, now. I'm feeling a bit less secure, since the fire alarm would definitely not have been loud enough to wake me up if I was asleep. I mean, my not-as-loud-as-advertised alarm clock is louder. However, I guess I'm just grateful that my room didn't burn down or anything. Ok. Sleep time.

First of all, I was admitted into the CS 315H class on Wednesday. Huzzah for honors. However, I had to drop tennis, but it's worth it. That said, I completed my week-long assignment, only to accidently overwrite the source file while attempting to package it up. I ended up having to rewrite the whole thing within a 2 hour time period before the deadline. I coded about 500 lines in 1 hour and made the deadline with time to spare. But augh! That wasn't fun.

On a better note, someone told my calculus professor that she couldn't hear him too well, so now he's going to try to speak louder. I also whooped everyone at ping pong yesterday. Gregory Gym is awesome.