Clairgustance

Injecting lab rats everyday is more stressful than I thought it would be, although the source of the stress is less the actual working with the animals and more the other aspects of the lab. Strange inconsistent equipment and shortage of testing chambers create time constraints which result in me having to wait for everyone else to finish before I can use them. The actual testing session only takes an hour, but I don't get to leave until 6pm or later because I have to wait for the equipment to become available. Juggling 2-3 different experiments at the same time, although each not that bad on their own, gets really taxing after a while. I seriously better get a break next semester seeing as I've pretty much overclocked the hours I need to spend at the lab per week.

In other news, I decided to quickly skim through all the files of Pokemon I've played before and see who my main team members were and if the way I name my team has changed at all. Some of these were on the R4 that I started just to get a certain version exclusive or whatnot. Sadly I found that my file on the Pokemon Yellow cartridge apparently got corrupted and the data was gone.
:(

So I guess, like the meme goes, let me show you them:

Blue - Dude

Charming - Charizard

Flitter - Butterfree

QT - Lapras

Thunder - Pikachu

Puffy - Pidgeot

Silver - Ellix

Cinder - Quilava

Gaiety - Eevee

Whoopah - Quagsire

Fleecy - Flaaffy

Lufia - Lugia

Sapphire - Kev (M)

Gex - Sceptile (M)

Torrent - Kyogre

Blitz - Manetric (F)

Gaiety - Latias (F)

Bahamut - Salamence (M)

Ruby - Gingly (M)

Atash - Blaziken (M)

Masa - Flygon (M)

Jasper - Starmie

Ikshu - Gardevoir (F)

Raiden - Manetric (M)

FireRed - Gingly (M)

Piers - Blastoise (M)

Saxon - Nidoking (M)

Flutter - Butterfree (M)

Zhong - Arcanine (M)

Elysia - Raichu (F)

Tien - Dragonite (M)

Diamond - Ellix (M)

Fervis - Infernape (M)

Ethos - Azelf

Zing - Luxray (F)

Brumey - Empoleon (M)

Larch - Torterra (M)

Tatsuo - Dragonite (M)

Pearl - Exia (F)

Sunny - Infernape (M)

Sai - Scizor (M)

Tesla - Jolteon (F)

Cavall - Lucario (M)

Eddy - Blastoise (M)

Loren - Alakazam (M)

Zoba - Garchomp (M)

Platinum - Exill (M)

Wolder - Torterra (M)

Kenzo - Lucario (M)

Wyvern - Salamence (M)

Arroya - Blastoise (F)

Zener - Espeon (M)

HeartGold - Xei (M)

Tomaw - Feraligatr (M)

Qi - Alakazam (M)

Amber - Ampharos (F)

Shiro - Dragonite (M)

Mushi - Scizor (M)

Agni - Arcanine (M)

EDIT: (May 6, 2010) Update~

SoulSilver - Ellix (M)

Jasper - Typhlosion (M)

Liodora - Ampharos (F)

Lazuri - Vaporeon (M)

Machis - Sceptile (M)

Kyan - Metagross

Uluru - Flygon (M)

EDIT: (May 30, 2012) Update~

White - Ellix (M)

Knick - Haxorus (M)

Li - Espeon (M)

Guilo - Blastoise (M)

Fowler - Archeops (M)

Castor - Chandelure (M)

Meira - Jolteon (F)

Rhizo - Krookodile (M)

Minori - Serperior (F)

Katusdo - Emboar (M)

Ibashi - Samurott (M)

Why

Escarpment

Another photo dump of the nice overnight trip to Niagara Falls shortly before school started. I was happy that I got to go somewhere this summer, and it was pretty fun and at a nice pace for once. Stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel and had dinner at The Keg in the hotel, which surprisingly was also the site of the breakfast morning buffet. Hot breakfast to-order + The Keg seating = very nice. Some generic falls pictures out of the way first:

The Falls

View from Embassy Suites hotel room


American Falls


Horseshoe Falls


Maid of the Mist


Niagara Scow (center right) - the old ship that's now stuck upstream of the Horseshoe Falls


View of some hotels on Canadian side - Embassy Suites at center left


Horseshoe Falls as seen from the Maid of the Mist

Bird Kingdom


Free-Flying Aviary - it's like the Toronto Zoo pavilions where you get to walk around inside where the birds are flying, and there were surprisingly a lot of birds there.






Bearded Dragons and Turtle - Bird Kingdom also had a reptile section where they had a LOT of large snakes and lizards.

Niagara Falls Botanical Gardens



Castor Oil Plant


Tomato Garden - they had a large vegetable garden with squashes, pumpkins, cabbages, rhubarb, carrots, hot peppers and such growing at the time.


Lantana Camara - actually an extremely invasive species and known as a "noxious weed".

Butterfly Conservatory - Part of the Botanical Gardens



Owl Butterfly - seen from the top - the namesake owl eye pattern is seen when the wings are closed up










Butterfree used Gust!

No UPS, you are the demons.

The Logitech mouse I was using ended up malfunctioning, but Logitech gladly offered to replace it as the mouse came with a 3 year warranty. The e-mail exchange with their service rep was short and brief. One week later, they shipped it off to my address via UPS Ground and said I would not need to send anything back. Sounds good to me, thanks Logitech.

Unfortunately, UPS has had extreme difficulty in finding where I live. In fact, it seems they have trouble noticing that I'm not actually living in the US. I've quadruple-checked that Logitech had delivered to the right address, and nothing is wrong with it. Not really sure what is up with UPS. The supposedly one-week delivery is now an indefinite-week delivery...

I admit it is kind of fun to track the package each day too see what kind of antics UPS is up to.

MEMPHIS, TN, US

8/18/2009
8:20pm ORIGIN SCAN
9:51pm BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
11:43pm DEPARTURE SCAN

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/19/2009
4:41am ARRIVAL SCAN
8:04am DEPARTURE SCAN

CINCINNATI, OH, US

8/19/2009
1:26pm ARRIVAL SCAN
3:06pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MAUMEE, OH, US

8/19/2009
7:03pm ARRIVAL SCAN

8/20/2009
9:16pm THE RECEIVER HAD NO INVOICE ON FILE AND REFUSED THIS DELIVERY / RETURNED TO SHIPPER

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/21/2009
10:45pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MEMPHIS, TN, US

8/22/2009
2:30am ARRIVAL SCAN

8/24/2009
6:18am OUT FOR DELIVERY
2:38pm THE RECEIVER'S LOCATION WAS CLOSED ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE

8/25/2009
1:35pm THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
10:37pm THE COMMERCIAL INVOICE IS MISSING AND IS REQUIRED FOR EXPORT

8/26/2009
9:18pm THE COMMERCIAL INVOICE IS MISSING AND IS REQUIRED FOR EXPORT / RELEASED BY CLEARING AGENCY. NOW IN-TRANSIT FOR DELIVERY

8/27/2009
12:31am DEPARTURE SCAN

NASHVILLE, TN, US

8/27/2009
4:22am ARRIVAL SCAN
8:24am DEPARTURE SCAN

CINCINNATI, OH, US

8/27/2009
1:43pm ARRIVAL SCAN
1:49pm DEPARTURE SCAN

MAUMEE, OH, US

8/27/2009
5:37pm ARRIVAL SCAN

8/28/2009
1:02am DEPARTURE SCAN

WINDSOR, ON, CA

8/28/2009
8:54am ARRIVAL SCAN
9:32am IMPORT SCAN

TO BE CONTINUED...?

It just gets sadder with each day...

Also suspiciously, the "Return to:" address is listed as OLIVE BRANCH, MS, US on the UPS site. The package has yet to make it over to Mississippi, but I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually made a trip there too.

EDIT: I think they've done it. It took a second try and a lot of wasted time backtracking, but I think it's going to make it.

HyperText Mark-Up Language

I dug up this really old book in my bookshelf called "You Can Surf the Net!" by Marc Gascoigne. It's from way back in 1995, and I don't remember how I got this book, and I'm not sure how much of it I read. I have a feeling it was from one of those bookorders from primary school.

There's a section called "It's the TLAs" which descibes the TLAs - "Three Letter Acronyms". Basically they're acronyms used while chatting, supposedly, although I'm not sure why they used to be called TLAs since most of them are not three letters (the author mentions this too). It may just seem funny because the list was published so long ago and just seems silly today. Some of them seem too contrived to ever really work. It's believable that the more complex acronyms could have been used occasionally but were simply done away with due to their rarity and length. Most likely, the list is just the author's suggestions of possible acronyms that could be used on the internet (in 1995).

AFAICT --------- As far as I can tell
AFK ------------ Away from my keyboard
B4 ------------- Before
BAK ------------ Back at my keyboard
BCNU ----------- Be seeing you
BFN ------------ Bye for now
BRB ------------ Be right back
BSF ------------ But seriously, folks...
BTDT ----------- Been there done that
BTW ------------ By the way
CUL8R ---------- See you later
DYJHIW --------- Don't you just hate it when...
EOF ------------ End of file
FAQ ------------ Frequently asked questions
FOAF ----------- Friend of a friend
FOC ------------ Free of charge
FWIW ----------- For what it's worth
FYI ------------ For your information
GAL ------------ Get a life
GIGO ----------- Garbage in, garbage out
HHOJ ----------- Ha ha, only joking
HHOS ----------- Ha ha, only being serious
IAE ------------ In any event
IMHO ----------- In my humble opinion
IMNSHO --------- In my not so humble opinion
IMO ------------ In my opinion
IOW ------------ In other words
IRL ------------ In real life
ISTM ----------- It seems to me
ISTR ----------- I seem to remember...
ITRW ----------- In the real world
IYSWIM --------- If you see what I mean
JAM ------------ Just a minute
L8R ------------ Later
LMHO ----------- Laughed my head off
LOL ------------ Laughs out loud
MUG ------------ Multi-user game
NALOPKT -------- Not a lot of people know that
NBD ------------ No big deal
NRN ------------ No reply necessary
OIC ------------ Oh, I see
OMG ------------ Oh my god!
OTOH ----------- On the other hand
OTL ------------ Out to lunch
OTT ------------ Over the top
RFC ------------ Request for comments
ROFL ----------- Rolls on the floor laughing
RSN ------------ Real soon now
RTFAQ ---------- Read the FAQ file
RTFM ----------- Read the manual (it seems a word is missing... :P)
SITD ----------- Still in the dark
SYL ------------ See you later
TCB ------------ The trouble came back!
TDM ------------ Too darn many
TIA ------------ Thanks in advance
TTFN ----------- Ta-ta for now
TTYL ----------- Talk to you later
TVM ------------ Thank you very much
VR ------------- Virtual reality
WRT ------------ With regard to
WYSIWYG -------- What you see is what you get
YCT ------------ Your comment to
YHM ------------ You have mail
YMBJ ----------- You must be joking
YMMV ----------- Your mileage may vary

For even more acronym goodness, try these Sporcle quizzes:
Common Chat Acronyms
Obscure Chat Acronyms (A-D)
Computer Acronyms

Lost in Translation

Attempting to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and my need for a BPT fix, I am posting some random frames that I've drawn on the site. If you want, try thinking of a short caption to describe the picture when you see it. Then after each picture, highlight the text to see the actual caption that I was given to draw a picture of. I also put the actual caption that the person who saw my picture responded with, and you can see if you interpreted it the same way they did. I guess it depends on how well my drawing managed to convey the previous message.

Previous:
|The Queen's gynecologist was just a little *too* happy during her exam..|

Response:
|doctor happy w prank of placing pea under angsty royalty in red|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=59310





Previous:
|The G-force of extreme jumping cause a mans head to rip off|

Response:
|happy head less guy wearing all gray falls outta airplane hes so happy|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=45347





Previous:
|SCIENCE PIE!|

Response:
|Alfred Einstain loves sciencepie|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56408





Previous:
|Roland and Eddie arrive at the dark tower and eat Spagetthi|

Response:
|cowboys eating meatballs looking at a cactus|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=55966





Previous:
|Morgan Freeman as God smites martians. Tiny man rejoices|

Response:
|black star trek person gets zapped by aliens while happy person looks|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=55197





Previous:
|New Leg amputee had dream of dunking b-ball at NBA game|

Response:
|poor kid remembers the basketball accident that cost him his leg|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=58323





Previous:
|asian man in white suit mad cuz he loses in pacman to a masked frog|

Response:
|Scientist and his devil frog experiemnet beats him at pac-man.|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=58315





Previous:
|A grey Grimace is run over by a ruthless red Hummer|

Response:
|Hummer (the vehicle) happily runs over grey Grimace (McDonalds)|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56417





Previous:
|A firey three eyed dog is attempting to zombify a sad man.|

Response:
|3 eyed red werewolf mauls some poor guy. Bones n guts showing|

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=56365



I hope the site gets operational soon. :\

MLIA

I found out that I really should have been tagging my posts from the beginning, but I never realized that was what the "Labels" were. I hastily went over old posts and added some tags. I placed drop down menus on the side for the Labels because BlogSpot won't do it for me unless I "upgrade my blog" or something, and I think I would be too lazy to reorganize everything after the switch, so I'm leaving it for now. Another minor thing is that I made a quick link to the main page in the header. If I bothered to learn some decent coding maybe I could make this thing look nicer. =\

For some reason if you try to look up certain labels, especially the ones that have a lot of entries, the page doesn't end up showing all the posts with that label and just stops after a while. I can't seem to find any way to go to a "second page" of posts or anything.

- Rant ahead -

In other news: the styluses that Gateway uses for their tablet PC are horrible and break very easily in a very short time, usually without any apparent reason other than that you have used it. I haven't dropped or thrown around any of the styluses I've used that have broken. Perhaps I'm pressing too hard when I write, or something. In any case, researching online shows that this problem is well-known for other people using Gateway's tablet styluses, not just for me. (The model I have is the CX2724.)

Since Gateway's manufacturer's warranty was only a year, I had to use the extended warranty from the Best Buy in Markville Mall to replace styluses from then on. The first time I tried to request a pen replacement with Gateway, they simply sent a new one over. The first time with Best Buy, the guy wanted me to send in the whole laptop in order to replace the stylus, which upset me greatly because then I had to go backup my data and whatnot. When I returned on a different day, the employees working at the Geek Squad desk were different. The one who helped me said he was familiar with tablet PCs and recognized immediately that the pen simply needed to be replaced. He filed an order for a new pen and I got to take my laptop home, very happy and relieved.

The next two or so times went off without a hitch either. One of the visits was to replace my laptop's backlight which was causing my screen to flash and tint everything a disgusting pink colour. I definitely had to send my laptop in for that particular problem.

I just visited again last Friday to do another stylus replacement, for what must have been the fourth time. I encountered the same Indian guy as from the very first time I tried to replace the stylus with Best Buy. He told a second employee to try to calibrate the stylus with the laptop. Since the stylus was broken, he couldn't click anything with it, although the cursor followed the stylus around. I watched painfully as the employee went back and forth between the Control Panel and Calibration option with the touchpad and tried to use the stylus again, wondering why he was repeating the exact same thing if it never worked. It was clear that he wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing.

After a futile 10 mins he deferred back to the Indian guy, who again declared that I had to send in the whole laptop for "diagnostics". When I demanded to know why, he said that "the problem might be with the pen or it might be with the laptop." I explained that the previous times I've replaced the pen it worked fine after I received the new pen, and that there isn't any problem with the screen. He then told me, "Well, the other guys who replaced your pen are wrong. You have to perform the proper diagnostics." It's unfortunate, but that's just a bad excuse to compensate for the fact that you two employees are completely ignorant of how tablet PCs work, by simply tossing my problem into a service queue. It clearly doesn't mean a thing to you, but it inconveniences me. And then I realized it: this particular Indian guy works on weekdays, and the two times I ever had a problem was when I went on a Friday. When I successfully replaced my stylus before, it was always on Saturday when the other technicians were working there.

Returning the next day on Saturday, I met a different employee who hadn't helped me before at Geek Squad. He told me that he owned the exact model of Gateway tablet PC that I have, and he also knew the problem was because of Gateway's terrible styluses. So like the previous times, he filed an order for a new stylus and I took my laptop home.

Overall, I would not recommend Gateway laptops (especially tablet PCs for obvious reasons) because it is just way too hard to use their products as they refuse to sell parts in Canada. Why in the world are they selling laptops in Canada if they refuse to provide adequate support here? When I needed to buy a larger battery to get a longer battery life, there wasn't a single location in Canada that sold Gateway batteries. I had to opt for ordering from a supplier, at an extra $30 US above the regular price. I never thought I'd run into that kind of problem when I bought the laptop, so I guess it was lack of research on my part.


tl;dr -> if you ever need to visit the Geek Squad at the Markville Best Buy, go on Saturdays and avoid weekdays.

Wo probs

Broken Picture Telephone is a really interesting game which plays similarly to the well-known game of Broken Telephone. An initial message passes from one person to the next, and when it reaches the last person we see how badly lost in communicaton the initial message became. BPT achieves this by using text and drawing prompts. If you are shown a text prompt, you are given 10 minutes using very limited drawing tools and space to portray that message with a drawing. If you are shown a drawing prompt, you have to type up a message describing the picture the best you can in a limited space. When the whole chain is complete, the frames are revealed to all the players who can see how the game began, and how it progressed towards the end.

Here are two snippets from two different games (click for larger pic):

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=59252

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=44939
(Yeah I spelled it wrong :[ )

Of course, very rarely does the initial message stay throughout the entire course of the game, but it has happened in very rare occasions. Sometimes themes from the beginning of the game become lost, only to suddenly re-emerge again near the end. BPT really lets you see what the most prevalent motifs are in the minds of people from around the world. There is actually a fairly large player base from Europe and southeast Asia, aside from North America. These themes are usually encountered when a drawing isn't very clear, and thus the person defaults to a common symbol or image that they are familiar with. It is not uncommon for someone to draw a pizza, beach ball, or slice of cheese, only to have it described as "Pac-Man". It's also been a common complaint that most people mix up the "peace symbol" with the Mercedes-Benz logo.

Some common motifs that seem to pop up in many games include:

Green aliens/martians
Jesus
Pac-Man
Cats, dogs
Super Mario
Poop
Godzilla/T-Rex
Satan/the Devil
Cacti
Apples, bananas
Barney the Dinosaur
Ninjas
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

And more recently, Obama and Michael Jackson have been popping up. As someone once said in the comments to a game, whether you describe a brown blob as 'poo' or 'melted chocolate ice cream' probably says something about your personality.

Another thing to behold is the ability of some amazing artists who can create such masterpieces even when using drawing tools which are even more spartan than MS Paint, even more impressive when taking the 10min limit into account. It really matters, especially for me since I can't draw very well and thus draw verrrry slowly. The top artists can be seen here.

The unfortunate reality right now is that the site is defunct. The site gained such popularity that the servers crashed and now images don't load up properly anymore, meaning nobody can play right now. It's sad because the site just got a bit more publicity when named one of the top 100 websites of 2009 by PC Magazine, and I'd imagine there are a lot of interested people flocking to the site only to be completely confused when they find that they can't actually play the game.

A single person owns, designed, and maintains BPT, and it has reached a level of popularity that the owner did not expect. Part of the problem is that he is only one who can make changes to the site, but he maintains a rather remote rapport with the fans. The news section (or "Blog" as it is called in BPT) is in a discrete part of the header, and recently he hasn't been updating much. He didn't actually respond until a few days after the site became dysfunctional, and seems sort of ambivalent towards fixing the site. Of course I can't tell if this is really the case since he hasn't updated us since.

During BPT's run it has had its fair share of problems, and there are a lot of ways it can be improved. There are sometimes trolls who post as many inappropriate pictures as they can, effectively ruining the natural course of the game. Most of these trolls are the unoriginal type whose weapon of choice is the tired old "crude phallus drawing". However there were some more original trolls that attacked BPT. One such troll started tons of games with the initial prompt: "Pokemon trainer catching a _____" where each game featured a different Pokemon. Another troll responded to everything with Star Trek. There was a really big push for better administration to curb the trolls' actions, but the owner never really followed up on those. More experienced players know that if they encounter a frame with an inappropriate picture or message, they should just "begin anew" by ignoring the frame and posting as if they were starting a new game.

Despite the occasional trolling and glitches, the site is easily addictive. I first started at the end of May, drawing with the mouse. Stats class made me take a break, but afterwards I returned and started drawing with the tablet stylus. It definitely allowed me to draw faster so that my pictures didn't look as plainly unfinished as it did before. I'm not sure that the quality of my pictures has really improved that much, however. If BPT ever does get fixed up, I'll definitely start playing again.

My profile

Telephone
Broken Telephone
Chinese Whispers
Arab Phone
Whisper Down the Lane
Gossip
Stille Post

Early

Last year I made this post where I commented on finding a bird's nest in my front yard. Well this year it turns out that the nest became occupied (or a new nest was made in the same place) by a family of robins. Unfortunately we were too late to catch seeing the eggs, but we were able to observe the robin mother as she was brooding until the eggs eventually hatched, the babies developed into fledglings, and then left the nest. When I read up about the nesting habits of robins online, it matched rather well with what I observed happening with the robin in our front yard. Since they decided to reside in the lilac bush right beside our window, we were able to spy on the nest frequently, probably to the chagrin of the birds as they often stared at us when they noticed our presence.

Initially, we mostly saw the robin mother sitting in the nest, so we suspected that she had eggs in the nest. She sat there for most of the day, always awake with eyes open. I admired her ability to do that without getting insanely bored. During this time I never really saw the robin father come to the nest. The mother is shown in the hidden nest here:

Soon after the eggs hatched to yield three babies, and the mother began to make occasional trips to find food. The babies were still really small and most of the time were covered by the tall sides of the nest. Only when the mother returned would they immediately pop up from the nest, straining their necks to get at the food. This is a shot of the baby birds shortly after they hatched.

Eventually the babies began developing some plumage. Their characteristic red bellies began to show too. At this point the mother was still brooding during the day and especially during bad rainy weather. However, the birds eventually grew larger, to the point where it was almost comical since the chicks were all barely wedged into the nest. By then I rarely saw the mother near the nest again, except at night. However both the mother and father showed up at various points in the day to feed the fledglings.

The mother sitting on the fledglings:

Fledglings when mother was absent:

After about 2-3 weeks fom hatching the babies will have developed enough to be able to start learning to fly. Eventually they will leave the nest out into the world, mildly assisted by the parents as they try get independent at flying around and finding food. This matched with what I saw on the day when the fledglings finally left the nest. It was then when I was able to actually get a good look at their feathers.

Fledgling perched beside nest, ready to leave:

Fledgling on the front porch as it was leaving:

I was a little saddened when the robins were gone, and hoped that they would be ok. The survival rate of robins in the wild is understandably low. I was glad that all three chicks survived long enough to be able to leave the nest, at the very least. I managed to get some shaky camera footage of one of the fledglings that was perched beside the nest on the day they left the nest. Two of the fledglings left the nest around noon, but this one in the video stuck around until 6pm. Not sure why it did that, but I hope the parents didn't forget about it.

Apparently robins may nest twice in a single year during the summer, but at two different nesting sites. I found the robins in our front yard in mid-July, so this was probably the second time in the summer, if it had nested before. I'm glad I was able to observe something like this so closely, and it reminds me of the duck family that also lived in our front yard a few years ago. I guess there is just something about the front yard that birds really like? The website I read states that robins mainly determine their nesting site by judging the ability of the spot to support the nest from below, which is why they often nest at the base of places where branches fork out. It also explains why the robin I saw last year at Wonderland would nest immediately below the tracks of The Bat. There sure is a lot of structual integrity there, but I would still think sitting under a roller coaster all day would be detrimental to the robin...

Most info I read about was from this site: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/robin/

Early to bed, early to rise
The future is for those who get up early
He who arrives first, stays better
Morning time has gold in its mouth
He who sleeps doesn't catch any fish
The early bird catcheth the worm

Esculent

In the past while I've dabbled in a bit of baking, mostly as a way to kill time. None of them are really all that impressive, but for things I just made for the first time they turned out pretty good. Luckily, they were all at least edible, some were even delicious! Most of them came from the same dessert cookbook so there are a lot of 'chocolate' recipes, not too much variety.

Chocolate Almond Cheesecake
The first cake I ever baked, it was actually pretty simple to make. Unfortunately since I didn't know the nuances of cheesecake-making, the cake came out of the oven looking wonderful but as it cooled it developed a humongous gaping hole across the middle. My sister then decorated over said crack using the almond whipped cream. It tasted good, in the end.

Neapolitan Cheesecake
This one was a bit of a failure. Although it tasted ok in the end, it was supposed to have three distinct layers on top of the crust. The bottom pink strawberry layer failed because I didn't drain enough water from the strawberries and the puree was too watery. This caused some of the layer to leak out of the pan when it was baking. The crust was also much too hard due to the recipe calling for the use of cocoa. If I ever attempt this again I'll use a crust from another cheesecake recipe.

Chocolate Amaretto Cheesecake
This one is my favourite of the cheesecakes I've made. It tasted the best and was probably the most easy to make due to the fact that it doesn't involve baking. It uses gelatin so after you blend everything together you simply let it set in the fridge. I hijacked the almond whipped cream from the Chocolate Almond Cheesecake recipe. Since I didn't have a pastry bag of any sort, I just dabbed the cream over the cake. It might've looked a bit neater if I had piped it instead.

Choco-Almond Fluff
The recipe for this one was really short, but strangely involved a lot more effort and surveilance than I expected. Admittedly it was supposed to be a Choco-Orange Fluff, but I couldn't be pressed to spend $5 on a tiny bottle of orange extract which I would probably never use again. I just used the almond extract we already had from making the previous cheesecakes. Not much variety to be had, but again it tasted ok, and was indeed fluffy.

Collector's Cocoa Cake
I decided to move on to a cake that was not a cheesecake! And luckily it still turned out ok, none of the sticking-to-the-pan problems I've heard of. There were two choices of frosting you could make in the recipe, this one being a 'buttercream frosting'. I was afraid the frosting would be too sweet but it was fine, and the cake ended up being pretty tasty. The cake didn't seem as fluffy as other cakes, but it might have been because the recipe called for baking soda instead of baking powder.

And here's a close-up on the frosting. Yum...

The cake slice reveals how the cake layers weren't very flat, but it definitely turned out better than I was expecting.

Cupcake Bouquet
My sister did most of the work for this one, as a Mother's Day gift. I just assisted with making the cupcakes. She then arranged it into a bouquet and hand-painted the pot. Turned out looking really charming. The cupcake frosting was actually pumped out via a Ziploc bag with a hole cut in the corner, again citing the lack of a pastry bag.

Ham and Spinach Quiche
This is not a dessert, but a quiche. Again, rather simple to make, with all the work coming from the prep where you have to cut up the ingredients. The recipe originally called for celery and onion only, but I found the celery didn't flow with the texture of the quiche so the next time I replaced it with mushrooms, and added ham and bacon too. If I ever feel particularly adventurous, maybe a homemade pie crust next time...?

Other undertakings included a pasta pie, chili con carne, and gazpacho.

Compunction

It didn't feel like it was that long ago, but I seemed to have neglected this blog for a long time. I guess I'll just use this opportunity for a photo dump and to distract myself from the fact that I'm not sleeping at a proper hour.

This summer I've been preoccupied with Broken Picture Telephone, which I will elaborate on in a different post. Of course, the habit has been mercilessly routed due to the site having fallen into a state of disrepair. Another event of note is the first time in a while I've actually attended class during summer for school. I never went to summer school during high school, but thought it prudent this summer to take the statistics course that I didn't have room for during the main term (which was already over average course load). It worked out for the better, and I appreciate being able to eat dinner at a time earlier than 10pm again.

I reluctantly admit that earlier this year I did a lot of posting on the Gaia Online forums. Although the overwhelming population of users on that site is definitely...of a younger age group, the only place I ever post in is the 'Word Games' Forum. For some reason I have a real penchant for those silly 'Word Association' or '4-Letter Acronym' games, and since the Gaia forums are so active, it effectively feeds my obsession (and devastates my productivity). Another plus is that most the users who frequent the 'Word Games' forum post rather sensibly and intelligently. It wasn't surprising to find that many of the regulars are actually a bit older than the general population, attending college or whatnot.

The way this website hooks onto younger users is kind of devious. They offer daily promotions where they force you to watch a trailer video for a recent movie (usually the likes of Mall Cop or 17 Again and their ilk) in order to gain an item you can dress up your virtual avatar with. Not to mention that they constantly push their 'Gaia Gold' upon you, which are like cash points you can purchase from stores or online in order to be able to buy more virtual merchandise. Of all the things you can buy, I consider this one of the most useless. Perhaps if a lot of people know you on Gaia and you want to impress them, you may drop some cash to make your avatar look spiffier, but there isn't really anything past that. And of course, it's an extremely transient moment of enjoyment, at best. On the other hand, I can understand if someone was really enamoured by the avatar system and just wanted to buy themselves a nice avatar. Personally when it comes to paying for extra 'features' in games I usually forego the minor cosmetic updates.

On another note, I just recently started an account at My Anime List, which really does seem to have a very Facebook-esque interface. Not sure how regularly I will update the site (hopefully not like how I update this blog) but it's a good way to keep track of all the shows you've watched. It also reveals my pathetically long to-watch list of shows. Currently I'm indulging in Canaan, Zetsubou Zan, Umineko, and Natsume Yuujinchou, in those times between PCAT studying sessions. As the deadline for studying approaches, these anime-viewing sessions are quickly becoming endangered.

Finally, due to some sort of self-imposed obligation, here is the exam schedule for the spring term of 3rd year. I was very relieved when I found that it was much more reasonable than the monstrosity that was the Fall term exams.

Exam Schedule
BCH370 - 04/07 - 3-4pm - MS2378 - Biochemistry Lab
GLG110 - 04/20 - 7-9pm - EX200 - Geology
PCL362 - 04/23 - 2-4pm - BA2195 - Toxicology
PCL365 - 04/28 - 9am-12pm - BN3 - Toxicology Lab
PSL302 - 05/01 - 9-11am - EX200 - Physiology

Photo dump to follow, soon.