Keener's Blog

Saw this on lost_tv. The winning numbers for the Irish lottery are: 4 8 15 16 23 24 and a bonus number of 19. It's at this website. Truly scary indeed!

Checklist:
1. Authentic cheesesteak in Philly (Done)
2. Authentic deep dish pizza in Chicago (Done)

My latest addition:
3. Authentic Seattle coffee (Done)

Note: I made it a point not to buy it from Starbucks. This is also a rare event for me since I never drink coffee.

Wow...The Pens just signed John LeClair. Who cares about playing defense. The Pens could just be a pure offensive team now with all the players they've signed. How's this for a power play unit: LeClair, Crosby, Palffy, Lemieux (at the point), Gonchar. Yikes.

My old phone has died. After 7 useful years, the dialer stopped working. Actually I think some of the numbers stopped working because I could call certain phone numbers but others, like my parents' number, just wouldn't work. I finally got around to buying a new phone -- a Vtech 5850 which seems to be working quite nicely. My only complaint about it is that the base of the phone where it charges is quite warm all the time. Hopefully it won't spontaneously combust.

Alright so this writing everyday for the first week in Corvallis thing isn't quite working. I've finally got an apartment and my stuff has finally arrived from Pennsylvania (after being more than a week late). I've changed most of the addresses that I've needed to change. My car license plates are now from Oregon plus I have a brand new Oregon driver's license. I've even got an internet connection at my apartment, so I'm almost completely settled.

Got a call from my moving company telling me that my stuff will not arrive for another couple of days. As a result, they'll pay for a rental car so that I can wander around town. Went to see my department and got a mini-orientation. Then went apartment hunting. Saw lots of badly constructed, lousy apartments with likely mold problems. Realized that the NW corner of town is the expensive area. Drove to Eugene to do some exploring.

So much for writing a diary entry every day during my move. This is three days late but oh well. Left Seattle around 9:00 on Monday and drove down to Corvallis. Thought Albany, OR was Corvallis and got lost there but figured it out eventually. Found the motel I was staying at after some effort navigating the one-way streets in downtown Corvallis. Decided to check if the Hilton had any last minute cancellations but nope, all rooms were taken. I had to pick the worst possible week to come down to OSU. Drove to Salem to do some shopping and bought a Logitech MX1000 laser mouse.

Looks like I'll be starting a new chapter in my life tomorrow. I've decided to split up my life so far based on where I've lived. Let's see...that puts me on Chapter 4. I feel like I'm watching the end of a multi-part movie like Lord of the Rings and the screen is fading to black for the end of The Two Towers. Well I certainly have a lot of fond memories of Chapter 3. It was an eventful 7 years.

The NHL lockout is finally over and it was worth the wasted year. I never sided with the players during the dispute and I'm glad they got what they deserved (although some owners and GMs get the blame too like the morons that run the NY Rangers). Salaries, especially the higher end ones, were way out of control. I'm glad there is finally a salary cap (plus revenue sharing) so that small market teams like the Pens can survive in the league. It's going to be fun during the buyout period watching all the free spending teams buyout their expensive mistakes.

Speaking of the Pens, I can't wait to see Sidney Crosby in action this fall. Argh I had to leave Pittsburgh right when the team was starting to get back on track. Assuming Kovalev signs with the Pens, the Pens sign a top notch defenseman, Crosby debuts this year and Evgeny Malkin joins the team, Pittsburgh might have a decent team this year. Add in the the fact that the Pens have been stockpiling young talent the last few years, the Cup might be on its way back to Pitt. Now if they can just build a new arena in the city...

Since it's my last 24 hours in Pittsburgh, I thought I'd compile of the things I will miss and not miss.

Things I'll miss:
1. All the friends I've made over the last seven years.
2. My apartment at Stonecliffe. Terrific staff and terrific location (right by a Giant Eagle and Miracle Mile Mall).
3. Monroeville. Great suburb to live in with everything nearby. The only downside is the traffic but if you know the short cuts, you'll avoid all of it.
4. Carnegie Mellon. I spent way too much of my life at CMU but it is THE place in the world to do research in machine learning.
5. Dave and Andy's ice cream .
6. My favorite restaurants -- Lucky, The Green Forest, Fatheads, Hunan Kitchen, Uncle Sam's Subs, Mad Mex
7. Shopping (thumbs up to Gabriel Brothers, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Syms).
8. The Penguins. Hope they can stay in the area and turn into one of the dominant teams in the league. The cheap student tickets were a great bonus too.
9. The Steelers. I became a fan after seven years here.
10. The small town feel of the whole city.

Things I won't miss:
1. The weather -- nasty snow in winter, horrible humidity in the summer.
2. Potholes.
3. The Squirrel Hill tunnel. Enough said.
4. Watching my car turn into a rusted shell from all the winter salt.
5. The poorly designed city -- on-ramps on blind corners (eg. the Churchill on-ramp to 376), super short on-ramps (eg. the Squirrel Hill on-ramp to the 376), badly coordinates traffic lights (see Bates Street and Blvd of the Allies), wacky 5 lane intersections (see the bottom of the hill at Murray Ave), narrow lanes (see Squirrel Hill), one way streets with a single lane going in the opposite direction for the bus only (see Fifth Ave), making heavy traffic from the east and west have to go through tunnels to get into the city, etc.
6. Oakland -- those annoying panhandlers, non-existent parking, having my car broken into.
7. Poor quality and expensive produce.
8. The lousy bus system.
9. Lack of top notch Chinese restaurants (apologies to Lucky and Hunan Kitchen).
10. Roadkill and the constant danger of hitting a deer with my car.

Note to self: If renting a car, never ever rent a Pontiac Vibe again. That thing is a piece of junk with the worst handling in the world.

I'm now officially homeless. Today a big moving van rolled into my apartment complex. My personal belongings along with my car were loaded onto the van which then started its journey to Albany, Oregon. It's always a strange feeling when you've moved. After everything was loaded I stared into the empty apartment. I guess the realization that I'm moving on didn't hit me until I saw my vacant apartment. I realized I would no longer live in the same apartment building that I had called home for the last 7 years. It finally dawned on me that I would no longer see all the friends I saw every week or go through the same routine everyday. I had lived in an awesome location. There was a grocery store and Target a couple of blocks up, a medium-sized mall about 10 minutes away on foot, several banks within walking distance, etc. I had become so familiar with the surroundings that I had taken the convenience for granted. Now, I'm going to have to readjust all over again, much like what had happened when I first arrived in Pittsburgh. Hopefully the adjustment is easier, now that I'm a little more experienced.

Took me long enough but I finally finished Icewind Dale II. It was pretty much a hack-'n-slash, linear progression, lots-of-Fedex-tasks game. The final battle was pretty tough until I realized that I had 2 anti-magic scrolls in one of my character's scroll case. After using those scrolls, Isair and Madae still took some time to take down but in the end they were no match for my band of adventurers. To win the final battle in Icewind Dale II:

1. Pump up your party members with Bull's strength, Cat's Grace, Hope, Haste, Iron skins, Shield of Lathander, potions, etc. Make sure your healers have tons of the full heal spells.
2. Take care of the mage on the far east side first. Just gang up on him with all your party members.
3. Summon lots of friends to act as a buffer between you and the twins.
4. Take care of the other characters (not the summoned ones) in the room.
5. Dispel Magic on the twins. Then use the anti-magic scrolls on Isair and Madae.
6. Attack Isair and Madae with everything you got (ignore the others).
7. After they regenerate at the pool, summon more buddies to distract one of them.
8. I think you only need to kill one and the game ends. So once again, attack with everything you got. Keep a healer available at all times to do a full heal on team members that are about to die.

Baldur's Gate II still remains the best ever Bioware game. On to Neverwinter Nights!

Woohoo! I saw Revenge of the Sith at the midnight showing of opening day! George Lucas redeemed himself with this one. It's an outstanding movie. Ian McDermid does an amazing job as the manipulative Darth Sidious. I finally understand how and why Anakin turns to the dark side and the whole series ties in nicely with the original Star Wars movie. Like Yoda once said, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

This is strangely appropriate...

Which internet subculture do I belong to? [CLICK] You are a Conspiracy Theorist! Holy cow! You actually did an online quiz? Little did you realise that the information you gave us is being sent to an unknown government agency for evil use against you! Don't try to leave, we are already watching. More Quizzes at Go-Quiz.com

If you're an academic and need to organize the research papers you've read, check out CiteULike.

After reading about Ipod batteries not retaining their charge after 18 months plus the fact that Apple charges a ridiculous $99 to replace the battery, I decided to stick with removable battery mp3 players. I canceled my Shuffle order and ordered a Creative Muvo N200 with 1GB of flash memory from Amazon (which turned out to be the same price as the Shuffle). The Muvo is far superior to the Shuffle. It's got an FM receiver, an FM recorder, a voice recorder, and a screen. I'm loving it so far!

Yet another early exit from the the playoffs. For the 3th time in 4 years my floor hockey intramurals team lost the first game of the playoffs. This time it happened in dramatic fashion. With the score 2-1 for us with less than a few minutes to go in the final period, the other team scored to tie it up. The game went to overtime and we lost after an extended period of time was spent scrambling in our own zone. This loss was also against a team that has had our number. We've played against them for the last 3 years and we've lost all 3 games. I think I know how teams like the Calgary Flames feel now (until last year, they never made it past the first round since 1989).

This game was also my last intramural floor hockey game at CMU. It's tough going out with a disappointing loss but overall I had a lot of fun playing 5+ years of floor hockey there. I'm also happy to come out of that league without getting a stick in the eye, losing any teeth or needing any stitches.

I had a craving for wings on the weekend and since I was out by Quaker Steak and Lube, I decided to order a bucket. My original order was for Parmesan and Pepper (their best wing flavor in my opinion) but somehow, the order was messed up. Since it was snowing and I was in a hurry to get home, I didn't realize they had made a mistake until I arrived home. Upon opening up the bucket, I found out that the two flavors contained inside were Garlic and Atomic. The Atomic wings are the notoriously spicy wings from Quaker Steak and Lube. As a sales gimmick, they even get you to sign a waiver.

Thinking that I could handle any spicy food, I decided to try it (besides, I already paid for it). The first bite seemed kinda bland. It tasted like chicken with some tasteless sauce on it. The second bite was equally uneventful. The heat started on the third bite. I started to sweat on the forehead. Then a few tears. Then a lot of tears. Pretty soon I was crying, having a runny nose, and sweating profusely. But I loved the flavor! Also, the more of the sauce I ate, the more immune I became to the heat. Perhaps it was my tongue getting numb. I even ate 5 more wings. When the wings ran out, that's when my entire mouth started to just burn. I drank water but that cooled it temporarily. I then remembered that yogurt helps take the heat away. Fortunately I had yogurt in my fridge. The yogurt worked as advertised.

All I can say is that I survived 6 atomic wings that night. The next day, I polished off the remaining 6. I'm pretty sure this was the spiciest food I have ever had, easily surpassing "The Man" at Dixie's in Seattle and the Thai chili paddies I had in Malaysia.