makumaro.net

The Thrill

• Listening to: Pachelbel - Canon in D Major

Was yanked out of bed by the sound of my housemate’s voice. That was earlier in the evening and I had just watched the last episode of Initial D, stage 4. Top Gear (a BBC production on cars) recommends the Honda S2000 as car of the year, and the intelligent Ryosuke even talks about how impressive the S2000 is in the right hands. Doesn’t this kind of talk itchify you to want to try such a car?

I have a whole night to fiddle with my assignments and get them to look presentable and contain at least a shred of competency on my part. I’m not sure why people wait until the last minute to do anything, especially assignments. Most times it is the lack of confidence to tackle questions that causes inertia to answer them. You stumble through them and just before the due date, suddenly you feel more equipped to handle the questions and now your limiting factor is time. Heh, in Uni, one could take a break from class just to get the work done (not recommended, and shows a poor lack of discipline on one’s part). Working it’s tougher as you can’t sleep at odd hours or skip work.

Law subjects are a pain. You know there’s a section or sub section in some Act that states you can or can’t do such and such a thing. It’s digging it out and then deciphering the various headings that makes this task such a time consuming one. The worse thing of all is you’re not even sure your interpretation of the law is correct.

All this suffering and I’ve had 5 years of Uni to know it’s not worth it, yet I still do it. Heh, not that I want to and I vow to myself I’d never repeat something if it was too painful for me to bear. Maybe it’s the rebellious streak in doing assignments REAL late that gives these activities a kind of kick and make you high. Although at this very moment I can’t really imagine WHY on earth anyone would subject themselves to such misery.

Writing a law essay has given me a poetic prowess. *sigh*. I digress, back to work.

Personal Lack of Humour

• Listening to: Tammin Sursok - Whatever Will Be

Semi tired. Mentally.

You do things and you know the expected outcome, yet you still do it. You don’t worry about the consequences until it’s done. Then ouch.

* * *

Assignments. Heh, it’s not changed very much since before. If I had a personal interest in it, like computer programs, I’d be doing it day and night. With essay questions, calculations and common sense, I fall short. Was discussing things with a few friends and I notice a more meticulous streak among other people in providing answers. I have a very general, overview kind of attitude towards things at times. As long as I get the general picture, I feel like I can get away without needing to know the rest. I mean I do want to know the rest, but the drive to know it isn’t there (unlike how to overclock a processor and get every ounce of juice out of it, or the like).

Got to type out that assignment. Add an ‘s’ to that word.

Midnight Oil

Heh, been making better cups of coffee (with my own machine) and I’m wasting about 2 to 3g of coffee just to be able to pack my portafilter and tamp it properly to get at least a 20 second extraction time. Still not perfect, but the coffee does come out quite decently. Haven’t had much improvement on the milk, but the texture is there to a certain extent.

Geez. Working full time now and I have to put up with doing assignments. Heh, I thought I finished university and could be smug with having graduated with a degree (or two). Burning midnight oil a bit (work performance is going to suffer a slight bit tomorrow, but it’s Friday I think I can manage, with a little help from coffee).

As with my usual self when I’m trying to do work, I tend to veer off and do everything else. I’m like 80% migrated to my new computer now, with my older 160GB HD sitting snugly together with the new 220GB one (nice 380GB of space, but hardly the whopping ideal). So let me recount what I’ve been doing today.

Trying to keep cool. Apparently the weather’s decided to heat up again and it’s already the end of February, no reason for it to be so grouchy as such.

Trying to overclock my new PC. Didn’t have much luck with my previous one, and my current Athlon 64 3800+ X2 can easily clock upwards of 400MHz. I just haven’t figured out how. Everything I have on it is good stuff, except the el cheapo Kingston RAM. Well, I wanted 2GB of RAM and was already paying quite a premium for that. Been acquiring knowledge off the vast library that is the Internet (weird writing style today) and I think I’ll have some luck with it over the next few days, particularly AFTER I hand in my two assignments.

Read about new camera stuff. Canon just announced the EOS 30D. Heh, I was excited about the 20D as it marked a huge improvement over the 10D in terms of performance and everything else. The 30D just plonks a bigger screen, some ergonomics onto the 20D and they give it a new name. It’s hard to be excited over something like that. Nikon’s D200 sounds nearly fantastic (I for one would get it just for the larger viewfinder, but then again, I need to explore every nook and cranny of my D70 and becoming an ‘expert’ before justifying the hefty price tag that is the D200) but apparently there’s been some manufacturing issues with it, with a certain banding effect on pictures and the not too stellar battery life with RAW images. Always good to wait for 3rd or 4th batch of a product to iron out the defects before acquiring it.

Then there’s the announcement of the 105mm VR Micro Nikkor Lens. Heh, not too excited about a VR macro lens, but if it helps image sharpness, I don’t see why not. It also carries a hefty price tag of USD$750++ and while I’d like one, the Tamron 90mm Macro lens is something I’m more keen to acquire, at a considerably less price. Different focal lengths, different lens characteristics, it’s up to the buyer. Brand loyalty is one thing (go Nikon!), practical application is another. Heh.

Heh, so many ideas to explore (haven’t even unpacked the Canon Pixma iP5200 I acquired) and a lot of these ideas are contributed by consumerism. The next big break on the horizon is Easter, where hopefully I get a long weekend to do some stuff (although I imagine it’d be spent catching up with friends and just relaxing). So many working friends now just talk about the notion of going home, sitting there and doing absolutely nothing. We are so exhausted from the daily workload that it feels good to just do nothing. I would like to do everything, given that time permits.

Now why do I get a sense of deja vu writing the words “Back to work!” again?