12.30.2005
5:48pm
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill

So what does incubus mean, anyway? From David Downing's Into the Wardrobe that I am currently reading: "An incubus is also a spirit of the night, a demon who lies down on people as they sleep." Certainly gives me more insight into the music group by the same name. The book is filled with other clarifications and explanations of terminology and nomenclature used by Lewis in the Narnia series. Definitely a recommended read if you are a fan of C.S. Lewis or his creations.

12.29.2005
1:27pm

Still relaxing and enjoying myself on vacation. On the 27th I went to Roanoke with my family for a full day of shopping and to see Fun with Dick and Jane. I exchanged Dad's defective Harmony 880 remote for a new unit which fortunately worked without any problems. The Logitech web site was having huge load problems from the 25th through the 27th but I was able to log-in yesterday and configure the remote without problems.

I've been doing a lot of reading since I got here, finally finishing the Narnia series two nights ago. I picked up a couple books on aquarium fish when we went to Roanoke so I've been looking through those and getting some information about freshwater and saltwater setups. What I think I'd like to do is a 30-gallon freshwater species tank with about 15 female bettas of varying colors. I didn't have any luck before keeping two female bettas together but I read online that they should be kept in groups of at least 3 for compatibility. My biggest problem would be finding a store in Melbourne that has female bettas... in the past it was hard to find even one of them, let alone 15. I could always order from an online livestock dealer that will deliver fish straight to my door... but then I don't get to inspect the fish ahead of time and make sure they look healthy. If I decide to go ahead with the aquarium project I'm going to have to wait until I get some money to do it. The investment for a proper setup is pretty substantial.

12.25.2005
10:38pm

Christmas Day is almost at a close. I hope that everyone had a great holiday and got to spend some time with their family. Today we opened presents around noon and had dinner right after that. Brittany brought her (boy)friend Shane over so my parents got to meet him. She headed out of town for the rest of the day while Dad tried to install the new under-counter CD radio I got for Mom and I put together my external hard drive enclosure. I asked them for a firewire hard drive so they just got a 3.5" 160GB hard drive and a separate firewire/USB2 enclosure so that way it is upgradeable. I also got quite a bit of clothes, new sneakers, some bath towels from Hawaii, cologne, a luggage set, and of course a couple gift cards. The grandparents gave me and Brittany cash like usual, but this year there was a twist: we had to solve one of those ball-bearing maze puzzles before the money was released from the container. They're called "Billz Box" and it's definitely an entertaining way to give somebody money as a gift.

I got my Dad a Logitech Harmony 880 universal remote for Christmas so I will be setting that up for him tomorrow. He doesn't have much equipment in his home theater, just a 56" DLP TV, a DVD player, a HDTV dish receiver, and a Denon audio/video receiver. Logitech's web site was down today due to high traffic (all those people who got remotes as gifts today were trying to set them up) but hopefully it will be working tomorrow. We aren't going to make the shopping trip to Roanoke until the 27th since crowds will be big tomorrow. Circuit City is having a good sale on DVDs this week so I'll probably pick up Volume 2 of Family Guy since my parents couldn't find it before Christmas.

12.22.2005
11:33pm

I'm in Christiansburg, Virginia now for Christmas break. My sister decided to return home as well so the whole (immediate) family is here now. I will be hanging around until January 4th most likely, then going back to Palm Bay for a few days of work before school resumes. My trip up here on Wednesday was about 11 hours and it was nice driving. Hopefully going home will be just as easy, with no icy roads or traffic jams.

Only three days left until Christmas... I think my gifts for the family this year are definitely better than past Christmases. It's weird how the excitement at Christmas shifts from gift-receiving to gift-giving. It might be that I already own most of the things that I really want/need, or maybe I'm just getting more mature. Either way I'm still looking forward to the holiday. Today I kept myself busy repairing a couple things around the house, converting some Christmas cassette tapes into CDs (The Creative Smart Recorder that came with my Audigy 2 ZS is actually a breeze to work with), playing with Brittany's new kitten, watching a movie with Dad (The Craft), and reading some more of Chronicles. My books from Amazon arrived before I left home so I'll also be digging into those soon. No schoolwork on my mind--I'm on vacation.

And the real reason for this blog post... final grades came in today. Matt actually called me tonight to see what I got in Deshmukh's Microcomputer class and Digital State Machines class. I'm very impressed with the final results and grateful for teacher grade curves. Well here they are:

Class	Grade
Electronics	A
Signals and Systems	B
Multifarious Systems	A
Digital State Machines	A
Microcomputer Systems 1	A

12.18.2005
2:11pm

Another lazy day at home. More reading and likely watching a DVD later today. Last night I went and saw King Kong at Oaks with Dan, Tim, Kevin, and Chris. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly and think it deserves the high rating it has gotten. OK, so it did feel a little long in some parts but it wouldn't be the first time that has happened in a blockbuster movie. I actually have never seen the original King Kong movie so this was my first experience, but I've read that Peter Jackson was very accurate to the original story. CGI Kong looks great and certainly more detailed than the various dinosaur species you will see on Skull Island. There is a good blend of action, suspense, and comedy which kept me from getting bored. Looking at the new numbers on BoxOfficeMojo, I think Kong will turn a profit before next week is out.

12.16.2005
6:38pm

"And the weight of the world is off my back
When we fell, we got up
and crawled out the cracks
Excuse me if I take some comfort in that
Happy today, happy to play
with the weight of the world off of my back"

It feels good to have nothing to do. I was able to play catch-up this afternoon and get some things taken care of that got postponed this week and the days leading up to exams. Right now I'm kicking back and reading Scott Adams' free e-book called "God's Debris" (Scott Adams does the Dilbert cartoon and keeps a blog)

12.13.2005
8:15pm

Two down, one to go. I think I did pretty well on the Microcomputer exam today.

Grades known so far: Electronics: A, Signals and Systems: B.
I'm very happy about the latter grade (not that the first one wasn't a delight as well). Signals and Systems was the most difficult class I've had yet in my college career.

12.12.2005
9:20pm

One exam down, two to go. Unfortunately I have one tomorrow after a full day of work at 6pm. That gives me the rest of tonight to study, and that's it. I just learned about CRC methods and now I've got to try to memorize every single thing we did in class so far (I hate comprehensive exams). If I ever become a teacher I'm going to give my students unusual tests.

Narnia did well at the box office this weekend, raking in over $100 million if you count both domestic and overseas. So it's a good chance they will be making at least one sequel. *Happy*

12.10.2005
1:05am

I just got back from seeing the Chronicles of Narnia. Very awesome movie with lots of cool animals, special effects, and music.

A few comments:

• The movie sticks very closely to the book but you will see a couple new things. The important thing is that they didn't leave out any critical bits of information.
• Liam Neeson should not have been the voice of Aslan, even though he does have a nice tone (I kept picturing his other roles instead of just hearing the voice of Aslan). They should have used a lesser-known actor IMHO. After seeing the movie on the big screen I'm also confident that their original choice of Brian Cox wouldn't have felt right either.
• Aslan looks awesome. The animation and mannerisms looked exactly how I thought they would for a powerful, compassionate, oversized lion. I think even Lewis himself would have approved.
• They kept showing off the CGI cheetahs more than was prudent. I mean they pop up a lot in the second half of the movie and it's obvious that the producers were simply going for the 'wow' factor.
• The Narnia landscapes will not disappoint. Cair Paravel looks as impressive as I imagined and Jadis' castle is stunning (from the exterior--interior could have used some work).
• The battles are LOTR-esque as others have said. I didn't find that to be a negative, but you won't see anything groundbreaking.
• A full trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 2 precedes the film (at least at our theater it did).

So go see it! Disney already has plans for Prince Caspian and I want them to keep making the Narnia books into movies

12.8.2005
12:34am

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." - C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

"Lewis was fearful of the book being made into a film. Above all, he feared it would make Aslan a kind of Disney creature, whereas in the book he wanted to create an animal that evoked awe, as well as conveying a sense of unutterable tenderness" Link. Looks like Aslan will be a creature of Disney after all, but maintaining the vision that Lewis intended.

I re-read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe tonight after doing homework. It only took about two hours but I read quickly as a refresher and not really for enjoyment. I forgot how little actually takes place in that one book--it really is of appropriate length for a feature film. I find it surprising that Disney is planning to make "Prince Caspian" next instead of following the logical order of the Narnia books.

12.7.2005
11:55am

Yesterday was the day of good tests by some twist of fate. I got back my Microcomputer Systems test with a 89/100 which was far above the class average. Dr. Earles confirmed that I am indeed exempt from the final exam so that leaves me with 3 to worry about. She also reccommended graduate studies but I'm still not planning to do that.

I'm looking forward to seeing Narnia (the full name of that movie is far too long to spell out...) on Friday. I think I'm going to Cinemaworld again so that I can see it in DLP--remains to be seen if I will have anyone going with me. Dan and Cory might be interested in going; they were willing to go to Harry Potter after all.

12.6.2005
2:32pm

Well I got some excellent news this morning in Electronics. Thanks to the last test we took, I now have an A in the class and might not have to take the final exam. I'm still in shock because I didn't expect to do that well on the test. About 8 other people also have guaranteed A's in the class.

Signals and Systems is going to be my worst final exam out of the bunch, despite the fact that it is not comprehensive and we will be allowed to use notes and the textbook during the exam. I still don't understand or remember most of the stuff that we covered. I think the real problem is that so much of it was not easily visualized. The MATLAB project dealing with discrete time fourier transform is due that day as well.

My group still hasn't started the web site project that is due next Thursday, due to scheduling conflicts. We are definitely going to crank out some code tomorrow after Electronics review; hopefully we can get the majority of it done before Saturday so I can use the weekend to study.