A wise dog once barked to me, "If you climb too many trees, one day, you'll become a tree yourself." And so, yesterday, while prancing through campus with a wine goblet filled with aged owl's urine in hand, I learned the true meaning of his words.

It was around noon, and the day was absolutely gorgeous. There were dead bodies everywhere and the smell of feces was simply overwhelming. I even hurled a few times trekking up the hill toward central campus. There, I met an old friend of mine for the first time ever.

me: hey, aren't your michelangelo from the teenage mutant ninja turtles?
michelangelo (mi): uh... yea.
me: awesome, dude. c0wabunga!
mi: uh... no?
me: uh... yea?
mi: uh... no?
me: uh... yea?
mi: uh... no?
me: uh... yea?
mi: shut up!
me: no, you shut up.
mi: no, you shut up.
me: no, you shut up.
mi: no, you shut up.
me: no, you shut up.
mi: oh hey, I gotta get going. I need to meet a friend down in collegetown for lunch. Say, care to join us?
me: oh no thanks. I have nothing to do, so I'll just stay here for another hour or two, then head back home.
mi: cool, later dude.
me: take care.

And so, my celebrity friend departed like whisper in the wind. It turned out that yesterday I did not turn into a tree. And that, I conclude, is because I did not climb enough trees. Ergo, the wise dog's prophecy was not fulfilled.

So remember, my imaginary friends.... true dreams arise from true jeams.

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After what felt like an extremely short semester, I am finally done. And here, my friends, are those wonderful mp3 radio instructions.

Like usual, there weren't any especially memorable moments this semester (contrary to what I may have misled you, invisible reader, to believe in a previous entry). In fact, in a month or two, by mid-summer break, I don't expect to remember anything that happened these past several months. (Reason why I keep a weblog.) Thank you my langolierian neurotransmitters.

On a similar note, I didn't get much sleep last night. I gotta drive ~3.25 hours home (in an hour or so, maybe). I'm waiting for an email, which will very likely make me or break me! I have this frightening bump on my left forearm.

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Here's an awes0me update on this painful project my friend Jian and I are working on. First, about the project..

We call this "the mp3 radio." The lucky user creates a playlist of mp3s on his computer, then hits the "Broadcast MP3" button. Then, like magic, MP3 data of your selected songs will be sent through the RS232 serial connection from COM1 to an external microcontroller. There, like magic once again, the data is sent to a decoder and finally transmitted through frequency-modulation (FM) to a nearby radio. Here's the GUI part of it.


click to enlarge

Surprisingly, this is actually created from PHP, the same language NuTang is written in. However, it requires the GTK module. The serial com stuff's already been coded—mostly, with some minor bugs. All in all, this project t0tally r0XoR, except it's killing me quickly.

So, now that I've made your day, I'm gonna head to bed. Lat0r.

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This sucks. Outta the blue, I get a slight sore throat.

It's come to the point of the semester when things start to suck.. projects deadlines suddenly seem around the corner, tests pile up, and those small, endless errands reproduce like inner-city, illegal amoebas. The big upcoming project is a MP3 FM radio. Yes, you know that will r0X0R!! So folks, get ready—get ready to do the "ECE dance!!" Another concern is my summer plans. Right now, my goal is to land a nice, poorly-paid research job. Other than that, I gotta take Chem over the summer, and I'll be ready for a year of anguish and anxiety— aka. senior year!

So anyway, I thought I saw a giant cat, but it turned out to be a freak of nature.

I did my laundry 2 days ago.

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Spring break, this year, totally roX0RD! In fact, I did absolutely nothing, other than sleep, eat, and watch television. Moreover, I watched every episode of VH1's "Fabulous Life of..." That show truly put things in perspective for me. Everyone who's not a pop superstar has a shitty life, except Bill Gates.

Towards the end of break, my friends and I came up with this brilliant idea of driving down to Mexico. However, once we entered Mexico, our map spontaneously combusted and we shortly found ourselves lost. That night, we camped out on the side of the dirt road.

Deep into the night, a slight rustle terrified me, waking me up. I saw a chupacabra standing before me, whispering some really gay incantation. AnywayzZzZ~~~~, I slapped it in the face.



And then it happened....

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A week till spring break. I think time goes faster as it goes on, literally.

I've gotten hooked on the apprentice. It is the ultimate show.

The show brings back fond memories of my own apprenticeship, with Jack Blacksmith, back in the primeval days. Jack was a lazy bastard. Day in and day out, he would send me to the forest with a paper hatchet. Relying on the power of the paper cut, I had to gather fire wood and hunt game for the day's meals. I did this for over three years.

Then, one weary night, I came home and found Jack drunk. He looked up as I came in, and proceeded to yell gibberish at me, calling me foul names like "Ginkgo biloba breath." I felt the rage crawl up my spine, like an Egyptian spider ascending the pyramid of arthropodista. I've had enough.

In a sudden surge of adrenalin, I leaped over four mountains and sliced off Jack's face with my hatchet. "I quit!" I retorted, and left.

"You're fired..." he slurred back.

I never saw Jack again. Although, several years back, I did try to look him up. The locals all told different stories of his whereabouts. Some said he had retired into the forest, having lost his face, and changed into a bear. Others said he soldered an iron mask permanently onto his head and became a merchant of Venice. Whatever the case, I hope he knows that I will always miss him.

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