I've started keeping a blog for my world of warcraft character Kazpah.

I'm still catching up on December, so if you're interested to see what a month of WoW is like, the November archive is probably a decent sample. The end of Nov is when life starts getting interesting for my character.

"Catspaw", you're probably saying, "we're being tolerant of your strange addiction to this game. But a blog? Don't you think you're taking this a little far?"

Although I'm blogging the story alone, there's a lot to be said and noted in this -- as in any -- virtual world. How do the characters communicate: voice, text, gestures, not at all? Everyone's fascination with what's behind the character: are they really female, are they only 12 years old; but no one asking. I enjoy watching how stories unfold not because there's a narrator, but because each individual player contributes a little bit of narrative and eventually this weaves into a larger tale. All this stuff.

But also 'cuz it's fun to blog. And it gives me an excuse to do two things. One, to reflect a little more on the game than just its surface lets-do-quest-A level. Two, to be overdramatic in blog form.

So even if only WoW-ers ever understand it, and even if only I ever read it, and even if all the things I'm extrapolating from it about society and online communication and coordination and all that jazz turns out to be faulty, I'm still havin' fun doing it. So there it is.

Photo from Tantek's photostream.

Who would have guessed that such an innocent looking bean would be capable of keeping me wide awake at 5 am?

...well, okay, most people would have guessed that. But shouldn't I have built up a resistance by now?! Shouldn't I be, like, immune to its effects.

Instead I feel twitchy and the strange desire to code something. Hmm.

I have a strange relationship with the mailman at my current apartment.

He buzzes my apartment at about 11 am in the morning. Sometimes I'm awake.

"Hello?"
"Hi there. I have a package here for you."
"Cool. Could you just leave it there?"
"Sorry, but it needs your signature."

So I put on my boots and walk around the corner to where the main door to the building is (I have my own side-door). He hands me the package, without needing any sort of signature, and we usually have a small conversation. He remarks how many packages I get from amazon, and I chuckle and usually tell him what I got this time (DVD, book, game, whatever) and we'll talk for a few minutes. He's a friendly guy and has a dull job, so I like to make it somewhat more pleasant for him.

Today I got a buzz at 11 am and, knowing who it was and expecting a few packages, answered it.

"Hello?"
"Package."
"Oh, uh, could --- "
"Needs signature."
"Oh, uh, k, I'll be there in a second."

I get there and it's not the usual guy! It's someone else.

"Oh, hey", I smile, trying to be friendly even though the buzzer woke me up. "You're not the usual mailman."

"No", he shakes his head. "He quit. Sign this?"

I sign it and he leaves without another word.

I wonder where the other guy went. I wonder why he quit. I wonder if he's happy. Just some random thoughts about a friendly guy I never got to know.

Recently a lot of people have been asking me a very important question: "If suddenly trillions of bugs drop from the sky and you have the last can of bugspray in the world, would you use it to keep them away, even though you know that aerosol cans are bad for the environment?" The answer yes. Dropping trillions of bugs on me breaks the treaty that I have with the environment, and we would probably go to war after a thing like that.

But there has been a more relevant important question that I've been asked a lot too: "How are you going to focus on your courses this term when you're going to Google after that?"

First of all, I think that this question is making a lot of false assumptions, like the idea that previously all I had to focus on were courses. Doesn't anyone remember my complaints for the last five years that although I loved my undergrad, I always felt a pull to spend more time on bigger fish?

And yet I coped --- with varying degrees of success ;) --- and was able to give my courses at least enough attention that I didn't feel like I was missing out on what that course had to offer me. By now I've learned how to divide my attention, and this term won't be any different.

For those who are wondering, Catsy's last and final term will consist of the following courses:

Natural Language Processing - I can admit that 20% of my desire to take this course is because they decided to use Python in it (yay!) and 80% of my desire to take this course is because the prof makes me laugh on a regular basis, even though the rest of the class often doesn't even notice that he's making a joke. Here's a compiled list of some funny Pennisms from the last time I took his class. If you're in CS, it's really worth reading. I still laugh at some of them. Oh, and if your math skills are up to par, you'll notice that 0% of my desire to take the course is about the subject. Anyone who decides to take a course based purely on the subject is in for a whackload of boring when they discover that the prof sucks. I don't mind the topic, and the prof and programming languages are cool, so this course gets a thumbs up by me.

Empirical Research Methods in Software Engineering - It's a grad course. Check me out, I'm taking a grad course. Not even a cross-listed one, like the one above, but a real genuine grad course. This course'll rock cuz the prof, Easterbrook, is cool (he even uses a creative commons license on his teaching materials!), and there won't be any pesky undergrads in the course, and cuz the subject matter looks pretty cool. But, and most importantly, it means that I don't have to take intro to web programming where I could learn what an "xml" is. Props go to Greg for convincing the dept that I could do this course replacement, even though it's "highly unusual".

Sci-fi film - At first glance, this English credit may look like a joke course. But first you need to know that I've never actually seen Bladerunner, and I only saw Back to the Future recently when Lao, developing a headache at my lack of classic sci-fi film repertoire, sat me down and made me watch 'em. Once you learn these things, you will begin to understand that this should actually be a required course for me. It would be unseemly for me to leave a CS undergrad without being more exposed to classic sci-fi film culture. See? Doesn't look so joke-coursey now, does it?

Introduction to Databases - Despite my best efforts, I still have to take this course. The last of the "required" courses. I've never heard anything good about this course, I've never heard that anyone has ever learned anything useful in this course, and I suspect that there's nothing in an introduction to databases course that's going to make me say "wow, that was time well spent". Everyone raise your hand if snore. Oh well. I'll sit in the back, maybe even attend some classes, and not cause a fuss. Only one required course in a term ain't bad.

And that is how I'll be spending my final undergrad term. ...Well, that and probably about ten other things. Is there such a thing as macro-level attention deficit disorder?

I have now attended at least one lecture in each of my four classes which makes me qualified to report on what the rest of the term will be like.

I've already...

• been scolded by prof (make trouble early, make trouble often)
• started counting how often a certain student asks stupid questions (7 times so far and we're just on the first class)
• learned something (can I go home now?)
• struck up a long friendly conversation with an ex-TA now-costudent who doesn't know that I wrote almost a page and a half of negative reviews about him in the TA evaluations (sometimes I'm inspired to write essays)
• decided on one class that I plan on attending exactly once more...on midterm day (boringtown!)
• mentally divided my classes into those that are shiny and those that will involve some combination of skipping, sleeping and world of warcraft (guess which)

It's been a productive two days!

ICQ Random: "Hi, I'm 25 m, looking for a good time."
Catspaw: "Hi, I'm 62 m, enjoy pretending I'm 16 f with young men."

...and then silence. Wow, that was so much better than just ignoring them.

Some of you have been pestering me for my sci-fi film schedule so that you can come and sit in on some of the movies. I know that none of you will, but in order to end the pestering, here's the list anyway:

Jan 13	War of the Worlds (Haskin, 1953) Selected excerpts from Earth vs the Flying Saucers and Independence Day
Jan 20	Forbidden Planet (Wilcox, 1956) Excerpts from Prospero's Books (Greenaway, 1991)
Jan 27	2001: Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) A Trip to The Moon (Melies, 1902)
Feb 03	The Silent Star (Maetzig, 1959)
Feb 17	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegal, 1956) Excerpts from The Blob and The Thing
Mar 03	The Day the Earth Stood Still (Wise, 1951)
Mar 10	The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976)
Mar 17	Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977)
Mar 24	Alphaville, une etrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Godard, 1965) THX 1138 (Lucas, 1971)
Mar 31	Metropolis (Lang, 1927)
Apr 07	Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)
Apr 14	War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005)

If you see any that you want to watch (and live in Toronto), apparently we're watching in a comfy theatre somewhere in Innis. More specific directions available on request :) Who needs {work, class, sleep, taking care of your children} (select where appropriate) when you could be watching sci-fi classics like these?

First off, Lawrence Lessig talks about the Google Book Search issues. This goes way beyond Google Book Search into the depths of who owns information and what that means for the rest of us. This is an excellent little video which makes the issues clear and easy to understand. I very highly recommend that you find a bit of time in your day to sit down and watch the presentation.

Secondly, a Canadian politics issue: Sam Bulte. For those of you who aren't aware of the issue, Sam Bulte is, to quote BoingBoing, "a Liberal Member of Parliament who takes huge campaign contributions from the entertainment lobby and then tries to enact draconian copyright laws that mirror the US's worst legislation, stuff that has criminalized tens of millions of music fans, to the detriment of musicians and fans alike."

Toronto Star columnist (and overall smart dude) Michael Geist wrote about this issue causing a lot of backlash against Bulte. Her response (worth watching) was to say that she refuses to be intimidated by Michael Geist and his "pro-user zealots". The funniest (and saddest) bit for me is the contempt in her voice in the video when she says "pro-user". When did pro-user become a negative term?

Michael Geist has an excellent response on his blog, and Cory Doctorow covered the story in the Toronto Star yesterday. There have also been public responses against Bulte from Toronto musicians to indie record stores.

If you live in Canada, please watch the video, read some of the links, and learn about what's going on before you head out to vote later this month.

The other day a prof asked me in the elevator whether I had any good classes this term.

"Neh, not really", I shrugged, totally disinterested.

"That's too bad", she said, and got off the elevator at her floor.

As soon as the doors closed, I realized that my answer was totally wrong. I did have some good classes this term! I'd just given the apathetic response out of habit. Damnit!

I wanted to hit the "open door" button on the elevator and yell, "Wait! I was wrong! I have this really good one where....no....wait!" But it was too late. In her mind, I was now the student who was bitter and bored. Damnit.

"I feel like I now want to e-mail her something positive to overcompensate", I told fLufFy and CPwr over brunch, totally dwelling over this issue that probably wasn't actually worth spending five seconds on. But I was dwelling anyway. "WOW I LOVE THIS UNIVERSITY. You know. Something like that."

fLufFy and CPwr, in their brunch-induced wisdom, suggested that it's best to just let people's evaluations of you take natural course. They'll get random snapshots, some more positive of your character than others, but eventually they'll all average out in the end and they'll get a clear picture of who you are, beyond a single snapshot's errors.

"But what if they don't have enough interactions for an accurate average?", I pouted, poking at my coffee cake.

The conclusion reached by the group was that it'll all work out in the end. Some people's impressions of you will be better, some worse, but everything averages out.

Paul Graham, smart dude, once said of people in their 20s:

It's hard to judge the young because (a) they change rapidly, (b) there is great variation between them, and (c) they're individually inconsistent. That last one is a big problem. When you're young, you occasionally say and do stupid things even when you're smart. So if the algorithm is to filter out people who say stupid things, as many investors and employers unconsciously do, you're going to get a lot of false positives.

For some reason, I find that little quote to be very reassuring.

I want a t-shirt that warns about it: "If I say something weird, dramatic or anything that in any other way gives you a very strange impression of me, please remember that I'm inconsistent. Wait for more sample points. Thanks."

On the other hand, no matter how many sample points you get on some of us, we're still weird, dramatic and strange. And perhaps that's not a bad thing. :)

Today I learned three things:

1. I have thrill issues.
2. Being fingerprinted feels even more violating than I would have guessed.
3. Even in a Place Of Evil (tm), cute things can happen.

When my family decided that we were going to go to Florida as a last minute family bonding vacation, the thought made me twitchy.

First of all, Disney World as a concept makes me sigh. After watching many of my friends' families head there when I was a kid, I decided that Disney World is where upper-middle class white American families without imaginations go when it's winter where they are and they think that throwing a vacation into their otherwise mundane lives will somehow make them happy.

On the other hand, my family wanted to go there for specific reasons. First of all, we'd never been. All of my friends went between the ages of 7-10, except for us. Secondly, my brother is a roller coaster fanatic and this trip would make him happy. Thirdly, my family wanted some sort of bonding vacation before I left for Google in four months.

So here we are.

A few things stood in the way of having fun. Rather than letting them ruin my time, I decided to try to deal with and/or ignore them so that I could enjoy myself so that my family could enjoy themselves.

The first thing to get past was the fact that half of the families in the park made me depressed: parents yelling at their kids, adults pushing ahead in line, *ist (pick your favourite "ism") comments being thrown around in casual conversation, etc. The second thing to get past was the rampant commercialism that's shoved down your throat at every moment. Buy this, buy that, you need this, and how did you live without that? And the third major thing to get past was the fact that the employees made McDonalds workers look like happy, enthusiastic go-getters. It was obvious that this was not the "happiest place on earth" for the people working the rides.

While I tried to swallow these things (they're still stuck in my throat), I can admit that I had an awesome time on certain thrill rides -- hence discovery #1. Who needs to focus on life successes when you can get adrenaline rushes like those from getting thrown around? Makes Canada's Wonderland look like a kiddy park.

The only thing that I complained about out loud for any long period of time was the fact that we had to get repeatedly fingerprinted and these fingerprints associated with our park ID which were associated with our passport numbers. I couldn't believe that I had to give this company my passport information, nevermind my fingerprints. I considered making a huge scene, but remembered that my family was trying to enjoy themselves; I'm not sure if having their daughter dragged away by security would constitute a "good time". But I still feel extremely violated by this -- hence discovery #2.

Number one cutest moment of the day (discovery #3): at a car special effects demonstration, the guy at the mike asked for a child volunteer to help him out. He specified, "How about a boy aged about 9 who likes to play video games?" which probably described most of the crowd. Along with the all the boys who raised their hands, a young girl a few rows in front of me thrust her hand up into the air. It made me smile.

Since the day before I left, one of my back teeth has been hurting. By Friday it started hurting a lot. I called a dentist, booked an appointment for my return, and have since been consuming Advil, which I never take, as if they were candy.

(I'd like to say that I stay away from Advil for some deep moral reason -- because taking drugs is unhealthy, because Advil is created through child labour, because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger -- but it's actually because if I have a headache, usually a cup of coffee makes it go away.)

So here I am, going on the incredible hulk ride for like the tenth time in a row because apparently, contrary to myth, nobody comes to florida in the winter and the lineups are virtually non-existant. I'm popping back Advil like it's candy. And it suddenly occurs to me: today's Monday. Monday is election day.

I voted before I left. My brother proudly announces he voted Green Party (I love that lil' guy) and is thus going to be disgusted no matter how the elections turn out. Based on realistic possibilities, there's going to be a range of fire and brimstone, which I will outline here:

Liberal minority: Wow. We narrowly avoided hell. Now nothing is gonna happen in the next few years since the Liberals are scared, the NDP pissed, and the Conservatives disappointed. And then next time the Conservatives will win, unless I can find that clause that prevents certain provinces from voting. I'm still looking.

Conservative minority: Everything you find happy will be taken away from you. Some puppies may be killed in a deal that involves preventing the death of all puppies.

Conservative majority: Ever read anything by Dante? Now might be a good time to start. Do you belong to a minority? Please step this way. Have you ever smiled at anyone who belongs to a minority? Shown them kindness in any way? You might as well join the line, hippie.

I'm gonna try to find my way to as many internet terminals as possible as the evening comes to a close, but everyone who knows my cell phone number can feel free to text message me from the web as the results trickle in. (If I'd had more time, I would have written a script to auto-SMS from the CBC website. If I'd had even more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.) That way I can know if I should just take a plane to some other country instead of ever coming back.

Sometimes elections can be more stressful than The Incredible Hulk - The Ride could ever hope to be.

First of all, thanks to everyone who sent me text messages last night. They provided a clear picture of how the votes were going in freakishly real time ;).

Secondly, yesterday I got a major discount on ice cream because I was wearing a t-shirt that had Tux on it and the dude at the cash was impressed that someone visiting the park knew what Linux was. We had a brief discussion about open source, and then he gave me a redicudiscount.

Today's my last day here, then back this evening to the land of snow and cold and classes. I'm gonna need an extra, extra large coffee tomorrow morning.

In the last few days, I've been wearing t-shirts that proudly display logos of organizations I support -- Firefox, Google, Linux, that sort of thing -- and I found I was actually getting reactions to them. Here's some of the reactions which amused me enough for me to note them:

I got a discount on purchasing Universal Studios ice cream because I was wearing a Tux t-shirt and the dude at the counter said he supported Debian and thought anyone wearing Linux gear should pay less for stuff.

A flight attendant stopped to have a conversation about operating systems with me because I was wearing a Firefox t-shirt. Apparently he was thinking of switching from Win to Mac but then he started playing with Firefox for Windows and it improved his experience so much that he was considering switching to open source entirely and wondered if I could offer any suggestions.

A U.S. security official at the airport, while x-raying my luggage, saw my t-shirt (Google) and said, "Hey, did you know we're suing you guys for not giving us data?" And then proceeded to explain to me that he totally approved of Google not giving this data to the U.S., cuz he'd be pissed off if some other government did the same to the servers in another country, and that he loved Google and hoped I'd have a good day.

Huh. How 'bout that.

In an effort to reduce comment spam, from now on only comments made within a relatively short amount of time from the current date will actually appear. And since nearly half of my comment spams are made from people who have been paid to manually comment spam, there is no indication that your comment disappeared into the black hole of comment spam.

Hopefully this will remove most spam without removing too much non-spam. Consider it to be an experiment.

If something borks and you're unable to comment at all, just leave a comment to let me know and I'll get on fixing it. (Ha ha ha, I slay me.)