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Well, a recap of last night before I start talking about today. I didn't finish last night since I went to the volleyball game for CTRL-A and went to dinner right afterward.
Interestingly enough, at the volleyball game, Jen (Dixon) passed by the main gym on the way out from her aerobics class and recognized us! So she came inside to say "hi!". Jen (and Devos) played broomball with the CTRL-A team last summer. I didn't hear a peep from her since then so I thought she graduated or died or something, but this was a pretty interesting coincidence. We've got two more volleyball games left and so I invited her to come and play sometime so I gave her my e-mail address. We'll have to see if she actually shows up.
After the game, we (KNZ - who has some anime, JCC - the one who has all the anime, HNT - the computer guy, and I) went to my office to FINALLY move the club's audio equipment out of my office back to HNT's office. I was able to update my planner so I'll remember the two rec skating times this weekend (11 AM - 1 PM on Saturday and noon - 2 PM on Sunday) and we went to the Noodle Hut for dindin.
Oh yeah, before the game, as I was surfing for QYV sites, I found the site that Squishy was referring to (the one that her friend found about me not knowing if I'll be going into grad school or not). Anyway, it was Jean-Guy's page, which should be updated soon. Jean-Guy's also back at UW so I feel sorry for him!
One last thing that I found out yesterday. Apparently JCC did go out and buy Baldur's Gate for us except that he did not count one for me. Well.. it's always nice to feel left out. Serendipitously, I had already asked Laz to get a (cheap) copy for me. Whew! Everything balances out in the end.
Speaking of Laz, he should be a bit more careful, with all of his meticulous censorship of the name of the company that he's working for (since he's making rather liberal comments about the bosses etc.), he forgot that he has the name in his .plan file!! You better change it soon Laz!!
Anyway, after surfing for a bit, I figure I should actually try to track down some of these QYV references and see what these people are like. After the first year that I had my page up, I received two or three e-mail messages from other people who used the QYV handle wondering who I was etc. etc. I don't know what I'll do if I DO find out what they're like.. maybe form an organization or something.. heh heh.
This morning, just as I stepped into the Davis Centre, there was this large array of chairs set up in front of a podium, a small band was playing, and there were a lot of people milling about. A sign on the front door mentioned that Nortel was going to be making a presentation at 10:45 this morning, and seeing as it was already 10:40, I figured that I should come by and check it out (once I had dropped off my stuff). Well, the talk itself was pretty boring. Didn't say much except for basically telling all of us that Nortel was going to put 10.3 million dollars into the University over the next ten years mainly as scholarships in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Then Dave Johnson, the Minister of Education gave a little spiel about adding more money from the ATOP program. Sounds all fine and dandy, and the reason is to increase enrollment in the high tech areas so fill demand for these jobs. Quoted numbers were something like 30,000 jobs created in Canada alone in the high tech sector.
I'm a little skeptical. With all of this money flowing in to increase enrollment, they didn't mention anything about graduates going to the States. The US (using their quoted numbers) had 300,000 high tech jobs go unfilled. This is ten times the number of jobs that were created in Canada, and would explain why the salaries for these jobs down in the States are at exorbitant rates. I don't think any smart grad from UW, knowing the high demand for their skills in the States, would hang around up here for a job. What we have to do is increase the salaries of these types of jobs to stop the "brain drain" into the States. That would be quite expensive. Instead, they want to fix a leaky bucket by putting in more water. Whether it will work or not, we'll have to see.
Some good did come out of this however. They served us free lunch (for the people who were around) which was paid for by Nortel. This made up for the fact that I didn't have breakfast this morning and was feeling a little cheap for lunch. I took a plate of sandwiches up to my office, and went down for a second run. On the way, I saw ALee the CTRL-A VP (who didn't notice me in line). Last people I saw were Sam and Anil. Sam went to the same high school (She's really amazingly good looking), and Anil was my roommate last summer (and they're going out for those of you who didn't know). Anyway, I got more sandwiches, and that was enough to fill me up for the rest of the day. (Tonight however..)
Woo woo! Went by OGR's site (okay okay, it's CDMAG now) and came across a preview for System Shock 2 by Looking Glass Studios (The makers of Ultima Underworld and the original System Shock) well, actually, it's being made by Irrational Games Inc. but LGS asked them nicely. They'll be using the Thief game engine, so this should be quite interesting to see.. Two things that caught my attention, the first was the fact that this game will definitely have a lot of RPG characteristics (much like Underworld) which should make it stand out from the other first person shooters out there. The second tidbit was not just the fact that there will be a cooperative adventure, much like Baldur's gate, but that the only multiplayer aspect will be cooperative! Woo woo! This is what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, most of the people I know are very deathmatch oriented. Which is too bad, I prefer team oriented play. Hopefully, we won't be disappointed.
I just wanted to mention, before I forget, the function known as the Lambert W function. It solves the equation:
W(x) * eW(x) = x
And I've actually come across it twice now.. how bizarre. I'm putting it here so I won't lose the name (it's called W in Maple, and it took us forever to figure it out - eventually, I used Matlab to give me the right name).
Well, I probably should be going home soon. We got another winter storm warning with a forecast of 25 cm of snow (the last warning only dropped 5 cm of snow on us). I won't push my luck too far tho, so I'm gonna go get some milk, see if HNT's home, and try to get groceries for the weekend if possible. If not, then I'll just have to starve.
Oh yeah, just one more thing before I go, here's a quote from Stripes:
Preparation. The P word. It's the art of doing something right the first time.
Quite interesting, and very true.
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