Stephen Donner's Weblog

New Depeche Mode coming October 18th, can't wait! I didn't care for Exciter much, so here's hoping they'll bring the magic back.

I have a feeling Smallville is on its last legs.

The last 2 seasons have been pure dreck. Absolutely horrible in every possible way.

It looks like, aware of this all-too-correct public perception, the producers/writers are stepping it up and bringing the series to where it should have been a couple years ago.

Received a perfect score on my 1st H113 - History of Western Civilization test. That should tell you something about the class (actually I did prepare a good bit).

In the words of the immortal Kovu, "Rock!"

I keep waiting for ABC's Invasion to move past its insinuations and get cracking with the actual plot...

You'll note that plot and story are not synonymous, at least not if you're trained as an English or Drama major--this I learned from my L202 Literary Interpretation class--plot is what moves the story along.

I just did very poorly on my E301 - Literatures in English to 1600 test. I didn't get time to even bring in the critical essay into my own essay, and that was one of the chief components. What made it so hard was that the topic I chose, "Personal integrity and communal obligations," as it pertained to both Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, has little or no supporting discussion in the essays found in the Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf, at least that I could see. Sigh.

I hope the grade on my paper turned in last Friday fares better.

(It would feel so good to give my professor a software widget and ask him to write testcases for 50 minutes, but alas, it is me who must conform to the rigors of this tough-as-nails English class.)

Completely swamped with school right now; someone throw me a lifeline, please!

Wikipedia has now moved to a round-robin DNS-hosted solution:

C:\Documents and Settings\Stephen Donner>nslookup en.wikipedia.org
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.2.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: rr.pmtpa.wikimedia.org
Addresses: 207.142.131.204, 207.142.131.205, 207.142.131.206, 207.142.131.210
207.142.131.213, 207.142.131.214, 207.142.131.235, 207.142.131.236, 20
7.142.131.245
207.142.131.246, 207.142.131.247, 207.142.131.248, 207.142.131.202, 20
7.142.131.203
Aliases: en.wikipedia.org, rr.wikimedia.org

My English paper out of the way (handed in electronically), it's now time to move on to the 2 most pressing items:

* My Spanish workbook, due Tuesday along with its test.
* My History of Western Civ test.

I'm still honing this puppy, but my paper on "The Dream of the Rood" is close to being finished.

Due tomorrow at 5pm.

I'm not happy with some of the more long-winded passages; they either border on or are plainly run-ons, and that stinks. It's too late now, as I've handed it in. Bleh.

Lost's 2nd season opener has me absolutely floored.

Wow, what's in that hatch is intriguing, to put it mildly.

I don't care what anybody says, Rank 1 - The Airwave will forever be the definitive trance song.

Period.

It's Fall.

You can tell because ABC.com, FOX.com, NBC.com, and TheWB.com have all been redesigned. CBS.com is the only one that hasn't.

I'm so entrenched in schoolwork at the moment:

* English paper due Friday by 5:00pm
* History test on the 26th
* Spanish test on the 27th
* Anthropology test on the 27th
* English test on the 28th

Gag.

Well, I know what *I'll* be doing for the next week and a half.

I hope I meet with some success, because I'm starting to feel highly pessimistic about this semester already, and it's only just begun.

I was just about to ask why there wasn't a Beowulf movie (the futuristic poorly reinvisioned Christopher Lambert one doesn't count!) when I found this website.

Looks interesting!

According to NBC, actors are not "real people".

"If you live in the greater New York City area and have a big event coming up where you want to reveal a "new and improved" you to your wife, girlfriend, family, friends or co-workers, download and complete our preliminary candidate questionnaire and email it with a recent digital photo to info@thequeereye.com.

Note: candidates must be real people — no actors will be considered."

Felt good to turn in my paper on the Age of Enlightenment to my A105 Anthropology class.

So much for expectations...

Threshold was bad.

Cool! A Canadian mystery series from 1998 called "Da Vinci's Inquest" is playing here on our local CBS broadcast station.

BIG SPOILER LINK AHEAD

For those of you who can't wait until September 21st to find out what's in the hatch of Lost, go here (but avert your eyes if you wish to hold the surprise for later!)

It's cool, but a little disappointing. I was hoping it would be more mystical in nature, but sure, it raises more questions than it answers, still (in typical Lost fashion).

Proving once again that America's innovations are highly useful to the population at large, Gillette introduces the 5-that's right, 5-bladed razor, the Gillette Fusion.

I hope they never entice me to shave with over 5 blades; that's just too much sharp metal scouring my face.

Trying to get caught up in all facets of my life (blogging is merely one such aspect) after a whirlwind of a school week.

Ebay acquired Skype a few days ago.

Saw both premiere episodes of Surface and Threshold over this past weekend.

Surface is _lame_. The acting is terrible, the plot isn't very interesting, and there are no scares to be found.

Threshold fares slightly better, in that there's a human element to the invasion: specifically in the type of "Body Snatchers" plot it contains.

I'm expecting Surface to be cancelled in short order.

The beginning of this movie was great, but then it spiralled down into a vat of total nonsense.

Not enough time devoted to the villain, but it had some funny insider jokes (verbal and visual). See it if you have the money and the time to spend.

Atrocious. Everything the 1st movie was--scary, moody, full of buildup--this movie lacked. It reeked of typical B-list Hollywood drivel.

Lame, with a few funny jokes. At least it didn't take itself too seriously.

I think I have the flu, or at least a terribly bad cold.

To add to this, my ragweed allergies are particularly bad this year (although they started late).

Last night I took some Benadryl Allergy, and today was Tylenol. The latter helps the most, since I've got the head and neck aches that accompany the flu, which I think it is.

Continuing with acquisitions, IGN.com was purchased by News Corporation. IGN acquired Gamespy, FilePlanet, Rotten Tomatoes, AskMen.com, etc. a while back.

Why I love the computer industry:

A while ago, Swan Labs acquires Pivia.

Now, F5 Networks has acquired Swan Labs.

What's going to happen to Network Physics, Radware, Packeteer, Expand, Riverbed, Tacit Networks, Orbital Data and others? My bet is that Cisco or Juniper might acquire more, now.

Read The Epic of Gilgamesh tonight
Read my history book--Mesopotamia
Read The Code of Hammurabi
Posted a response to classmate's viewpoint on Beowulf

Judge Judy
Judge Joe Brown
Judge Mills Lane
The People's Court
Judge Mathis
Divorce Court
Judge Hatchett
Power of Attorney
Curtis Court
Moral Court
Texas Justice

How many more judge shows do we really need?

I've made a conscious effort to denounce the slaggard in me and force myself to work on assignments that aren't even due for another 2 months, and I hope that the effort pans out in terms of reduced stress.

Part of that also means reducing, or better yet eliminating distractions such as my sporadic QA for Mozilla. Unless I've got all of my studies completed with no imminent tests, I really should be focused solely on my studies.

Commander in Chief, ABC's new show about a woman president, will _absolutely_ not remain on the air for longer than a few weeks.

That is my rather bold prediction, but one I think carries with it a lot of credence, especially since the _whole_ premise seems to be solely resting on the fact that viewers will want to see how a woman runs the country.

My statement above seem rather rank with sexism, does it not? However, novelty for novelty's sake doesn't usually work out in the long-run. It must be combined with some "hook" as it were, that keeps the novelty from being too novel, and lends it support.

(And lest you think I truly am sexist, I, for the record, would absolutely love to see someone other than a caucasion male run the country. I just don't think it makes for interesting TV.)