Well, since February will be here in 20 minutes, I thought I would make a list of things I need to remember this month:

Feb. 3: CS365 homework due (yeah, perhaps I should buy that book…)
Feb. 6: Return of the board game party
Feb. 8: Puddle of Mudd concert
Feb. 10: Medieval studies test (more books I need to buy..) and CS311 quiz
Feb. 12: Second program in 494 due

Nothing much seems to be going on the second half of the month. Not yet anyway.

Here is an addicting but extremely frustrating game: http://www.whileyouwereout.net/things/pinguin.swf Please don’t tell me if you get a score higher than 587. I just don’t want to know.

My Illustrated Guide to Upgrading Your TiVo’s Hard Drive

I received my 120 GB hard drive today and I immediately went out and got myself a #10 Torx screwdriver so that I could install it.

So using this screwdriver and after a little bit of struggling (that thing was on there good!), the case came off.

Then I removed the 20 GB hard drive that was currently in there. I stuck both the old drive and the new drive into a PC.

After that, I put in the mfstools cd that came with my Hacking TiVo book and booted up the computer. However, it was showing that my TiVo drive was only 10 GB. After doing a little research on this, I found out it was locked. I had to get a DOS boot disk and copy over qunlock.exe to unlock the drive. After doing all that, I was finally good to go. So with a little Linux magic, everything on the old drive was copied over to the new one.

Then after about two hours, it was done. I took out the new drive and put it back into my TiVo.

And now my TiVo has 120 gigs!

Okay, switched commenting places.

So all old comments are lost, but hopefully now they won’t go down as often.

Taking a short break from working on my lab to post.

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to get some groceries and a few other things. I need some DVD-RWs so I can do some backups so that if my hard drive is to crash again, I won’t lose everything. However, Wal-Mart (at least the one closest to me) doesn’t seem to sell them. I stood there for like twenty minutes staring at the CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVD-Rs, DVD+Rs, DVD+RWs, and whatever else, but did not see a single DVD-RW. I did get some CD-Rs though so I could copy all my cds for use in my car. Then I don’t have to worry about them all getting stolen again.

Got some bad news today. I am not going to get the box set that I ordered. Apparently they were out of stock. And since it’s out-of-print, it makes it extremely hard to find. Especially for that cheap ($30). They go for about $60 on Ebay and Amazon has some used ones for $100+. Don’t really want to pay that much, so I’m trying to decide what to do.

As you may or may not have noticed, my comments are down and I don’t expect them to be back up. I suppose I will find another comment system to use, but it makes me sad to lose all of the ones that I had. Not that I can see them right now anyway. Hmm.

My new hard drive for TiVo will be here tomorrow. I need to go buy a #10 Torx screwdriver so that I can open up the case. All I have is a #15. Wal-Mart didn’t have one.

Today was a long day.

Now, in addition to all my other classes on Tuesday, I have to go to an extra one for 365 so I can learn how to do our project. You’d think we could just cover that stuff in class or something. Or have a lab on something we talk about in class. Instead, I have to stick around campus for another three hours on Tuesdays, thus putting my days from 9:40 am to 8:00 pm. Anyway, the project does sound halfway interesting anyway. We’re going to be working with XML and Java. Which really ties in nicely with 494.

I still haven’t found any motivation to get wireless working in Linux. Heh. I downloaded this program to display lyrics along with my mp3s and it’s got a karaoke function that displays a line of a song at a time. And the karaoke files are made by the users, so I’ve been making some of those. Yeah, I probably need to be working on my 494 lab instead. It’s due Thursday.

My best friend called me with some exciting news tonight. She is engaged. There is no wedding date yet (and probably won’t be for awhile), but she was excited nonetheless.

I need to see if I can find someone to work for me on the 6th. Since Brina is coming down, she will probably get here about the time that I have to go into work. Or while I’m at work. Plus we are planning the party for that night. And I would prefer to not have to rush home and all that.

I need to go grocery shopping tonight. When I finally got out of class today, I called Little Caesar’s, cause I had a pretty big craving for a baby pan pan and some crazy bread. Well, guess what? They don’t MAKE baby pan pans anymore. And they were “out of deep dish.” So I went home and made grilled cheese sandwiches with month old bread. I’m surprised the bread has kept as well as it has actually. It has a sell-by date of January 3. But it wasn’t green and it wasn’t hard, so I used it.

I bought a new hard drive for TiVo.

120 gigs for $40 (after rebates, of course). Should be here in a week or so. Yay!

I don’t really have a lot more to say today. Still exhausted. Still procrastinating. Still no Jewel CDs.

I’m starting to think there may be something wrong with me.

I spent $70 in the first 10 minutes I was awake this morning. It was like, wow, I’m awake, let’s shop. More CDs, of course. Four more (used) and a box set (new). (Hooray for Amazon and half.com!) Yeah, I don’t really know what is up with that. And it’s not like I’m rebuilding my collection to what it was before all my CDs got stolen; these are CDs I have never owned before. Though now I have a strong urge to go find all the Jewel CDs cheap because I feel really bad about not owning those anymore. I find it pretty sad that when I look in my Jewel folder on my hard drive, all I have is a promotional CD from Target.

So anyway. I am procrastinating. Yes, it is that time of the semester already. Something is due this week, therefore I must procrastinate. Perhaps I will get something done today. Perhaps not. We will see. I am reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and it seems to be calling me to pay attention to it rather than do my 494 lab. The fact that I’m exhausted really doesn’t help either.

So, I’ve mostly got my mp3s straightened out.

I’ve probably overlooked some duplicates, but for the most part, it looks okay.

I actually went and bought CDs today. Not one, not two, but THREE. Yes, I bought three CDs. Me, who never buys CDs for herself. And only one of them was used. The other two were new. Basically, because I couldn’t find the other two used anywhere. They are just that good. These are the first new CDs I have bought since…well, actually I bought that Puddle of Mudd CD a couple weeks ago….but before that, it was a really long time! Like almost a year. They really need to be cheaper. I would buy more CDs more often if they were like $10 or under. The two I bought today were $16 and $17. Such robbery.

Anyway, I finished reading Odd Thomas last night. Wow. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I will just say: Wow. Read it. If only my text books were this interesting, I might actually get around to buying them.

I went shopping today. Spent too much money but got a lot of cute stuff. :)

I’m having another board game party on the 6th or 7th, which will be fun. Brina will be here, so she can be on my team for Cranium.

Hmm…not much else is going on. I’m reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz right now. It’s really good; I’m almost done with it.

I want to go see Return of the King again.

Okay, so I finally got something on my to-do list done. :)

I moved all the parts in my crappy desktop over to another one, so I could get my files off (again). At least now I have a desktop that halfway works, so when I get TiVo’s new hard drive I can get that all set up. Now I just need to finish cleaning the apartment. I halfway started yesterday, but then got into the computer thing and now it is ten times as messy since I have desk drawers and random computer parts all over the living room.

I also need to clean up my mp3s. I have like 6 or 7 copies of some songs due to streamripping several stations, copying old files over, ripping cds, and downloading. So while I’d like to say I have the 1722 mp3s that winamp says I have, I really don’t, because half of them are duplicates.

Classes are going well. Besides the fact that I can’t seem to force myself to go to bed early enough to want to stay awake through them.

It’s really cold here. I don’t like it. Needs to warm up. My electric bill was crazy this month.

All righty.

I went and got my car, and that cost me a pretty penny. So I went shopping to make myself feel better. I got two new cute shirts, some Bath & Body Works stuff, and other things. Yay! Clothes shopping is the cure for everything.

Soooo…it’s been quite a night.

After work, I went over to Chili’s to have a couple drinks with some friends. Then we all went and watched a couple DVDs. Well, when I came back out to get my car, it had been towed. Yeah, don’t park in Wendy’s parking lot. Ever. So I’ve got to scrape together some cash so I can go get it tomorrow.

You’d think that the cops would be more concerned with drunk driving than with towing cars from empty parking lots. Such priorities.

I’m in a good mood. :)

There is a new version of gaim-blogger to go along with gaim 0.75, so it’s all quick and stuff to post in my blog again. Yay! And that’s really why I am posting right now. I’m just making sure it works all right.

Only 24 days till Puddle of Mudd! Yay!

Oh, and comments are down…that’s why it is taking my blog forever to load right now. Hopefully they will be back up soon!

Okie dokie.

I figured out the whole 365 thing. Apparently, we are going to be doing one project this semester using Java and XML, but that doesn’t start till February. So no stress. Also, my first 494 lab isn’t bad. I will probably work on it next week. Am going to get Linux working wonderfully this weekend.

Second day of class went well. Was a little sleepy, but it wasn’t too bad. I managed to stay awake. First week is over! Yay! I really like these two day school weeks.

Okay, I might have been wrong.

There may be programming in CS365, though the syllabus says nothing about it. Feel the stress.

So I’ve been trying to get wireless to work in Linux today. It seems to freeze whenever the yenta_socket module is loaded. I am going to attempt to compile the new kernel and see if it works better. I really hope I don’t break anything. I’ve already had one panic today. After I get wireless working, I will worry about sound. But wireless is my #1 priority so that I don’t have to drape myself over my screen while I’m in class so no one can see that I’m using Windows.

Speaking of which, here’s some fun links:
http://alt.venus.co.uk/weed/humour/msinstal.htm
http://www.robotcombat.com/video/switch_bill.mov

So, January is like half over now, almost. No class next Monday. KLUG meeting on the 22nd. CS494 lab due on the 29th. That is the rest of my month. February should be good. Can’t wait for Puddle of Mudd! Yay!

Okay, so well refreshed from my nap, but I had a really freaky dream…

I was a little kid, around eight or nine years old, and I had a loose tooth towards the back of my mouth. So after wiggling it around all day, I finally pulled it out (somehow knocking my laptop into a nearby sink). It was a little gross (I won’t go into details) and it knocked another tooth loose. Well, this tooth was an adult tooth I had already gotten in. So I was a little worried. A few days go by, that tooth comes out (not as gross this time), but three or four more adult teeth come out with it. So I go and tell my mom (played by a young Natalie Portman), and she thinks that she needs to perform oral surgery on me, and brings out this book about it and starts reading. I get scared and run away from home. I run down a few roads and come to what is apparently a friend of the family. It is an older couple and they are sitting on their porch. And I ask them about something (while doing back flips) and they start telling me about killing pigs.

Then I woke up. Very relieved to have all of my teeth.

What a day. A long, long day. I need sleep.

Okay, the rundown on my classes…

First, I had CS365 at 9:40 this morning. Which means I had to get up at 8:00. Oy. Of course, I had work at 9:00 all over break, so you wouldn’t think that 9:40 would be that bad. But that was like three weeks of my life; this is three and a half months. Well two days a week for three and a half months anyway. Okay. Class doesn’t seem too bad. No programming. There is a project, but I don’t know what that is about yet. Just seems like concepts and stuff. Not too bad.

Next was CS311. So far, easy. Today we went over stuff that I was taught in the sixth grade for a math team competition. Hopefully, it stays about the same as this. Easy A, if so.

After an hour and a half break for lunch, I had CS494. This will be the toughy of the semester. Quite a bit of programming, and I need to refresh my memory on C++. It’s been awhile. But it will be cool to get some experience with SQL and XML.

After that was medieval studies. Thankfully we didn’t do anything today but go over the syllabus. After three CS lectures and a full stomach, I was ready to head home. It seems a little bit different from last semester. Though still a TON of reading, but just one huge paper due at the end of the semester rather than two smaller ones during the semester.

Surprisingly, I did know some people in a few of my CS classes. That never happens.

I have to finish buying my books. My MS class requires like six different books. Ugggh. I don’t know if I will buy them all. Or at least try to get them cheap on Amazon. I still need to get my CS365 book too. I could probably do well getting O’Reilly’s “Java & XML” too. I ordered it once, but it got lost in the mail. I may try for it again. Yay for used on Amazon!

I am determined to come up with plans for spring break this year. It is my last spring break ever, and I have never done anything! Problem is, I am saving money to go to San Francisco in May, so I don’t really have the money to do so. Hmm.

I must head to bed early tonight in order to prepare for my first day of school this semester.

I am taking the following classes:

CS 311 - Discrete Structures
CS 365 - Programming Language Design and Implementation
CS 494 - Databases, Interfacing Methods, and Interoperability Standards
MS 202 - Medieval Civilization, part 2

Jewel was on the Sharon Osbourne Show today (which TiVo so kindly recorded for me) and she said that she is drawing a cartoon called “Punk Rock Angel Girl” that will be appearing on Nickelodeon. Should be interesting.

So, classes start tomorrow.

Well, for most people. Class starts for me on Tuesday. I really think I am going to enjoy my schedule.

I planned on cleaning my apartment today, but I didn’t feel good this morning and ended up sleeping trying to get my stomach to stop hurting. Then I watched Pleasantville and Moulin Rouge, and of course, “American Dreams,” “Malcolm,” and “Home Movies.” Now it is nearly midnight and I have not cleaned at all. Maybe tomorrow after work. Except I have to go to the grocery, because it just occured to me today that I may need stuff like school supplies and some food wouldn’t hurt either.

So apartment is still a mess. I haven’t accomplished most of the stuff that I wanted done before school started. Hmm. I need some motivation, I think.

It snowed last night.

All the schools were closed. I still had to go to work, though. The roads were fairly clear, though I did slide a little when coming off Alcoa Hwy.

I am working four days a week this semester: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. I’ve got a few more hours than last semester, so I will be getting a little bit more money. Yay.