As if it couldn’t get any worse, there has been a stomach flu epidemic here in our hall (alas, Aaron and I did not escape.)

Apparently people all over the dorm got sick last night. So, ‘mudez was wrong. No electrical fire.

Basically this has become the UMR Disaster Week.

-Allyn

Yeah.  Them too.

-Aaron

Terrorism strikes close to home. Or just some international grad student who was drunk, tired, and retarded who decided it was a good idea to stage a bomb threat and get classes canceled for the rest of us. UMR is hittin’ international news!

Now you can enjoy the following images I stole from Facebook.

This is Rolla’s Homeland Security Response Team. I think it’s comprised of a trailer that probably cost ’round $300,000, two dogs and a metal detector. We apparently had a robot, but the team didn’t want to send it in right away because the batteries might die. Those things are a bugger to replace.

So. Yeah. I survived the terrorist attack on UMR. Or more accurately, I slept through the terrorist attack on UMR.

Happy Terrorist Day,

-Aaron

okay. This, is weird and stupid, but the whole idea that they hooked up a shot glass to a PC via USB is kinda cool. (in a dumb way)

-Allyn

The first step to help yourself is admitting that you have a problem…

but hey, I like that song.

-Allyn

Last night I got an email from Apple. It basically says: “Don’t buy Vista! Buy a Mac!”

I was very touched with Apple’s concern for me. They obviously don’t want me buying an inferior product. Go Apple!

(For any of you reading this, feel free to donate a MacBook Pro to my cause*)

-Allyn

(*Allyn’s cause is to get a MacBook Pro)

yum.

(btw, this is the only thing that Chartwells Catering has done right at the TJ Cafeteria so far.)

-Allyn

Well, the first two weeks of the second semester are almost finished. Classes aren’t all that bad. I like my calc teacher, I had my history teacher last year, and the TA’s for most of my classes are pretty good! Physics does not look like it is going to be a very interesting class, though. The teacher may very well be a very good physics teacher, but he also thinks that he is the single greatest thing to happen to the physics department since gravity.

The other interesting class I have this semester is IDE20. IDE20 is a design class for Freshmen. Basically you are put in a team with other people in the class and are given a problem that you have to solve by the end of the semester. Everything is done in a very official manner meaning that we have to submit designs and stuff like that. Our problem this semester is to design and build a machine that can stack washers under its own power.

From what I’ve been told by people who’ve already had the class, it can either be a ton of fun (if you get a good group) or a royal pain (if you get a bad one). Lucky for me, Aaron and I are in the same group along with another guy from our floor and a guy one floor above us that we already knew. We named our team the “High Flying Hobbits.” This is going to be fun.

In other news, I’ve rediscovered how much fun Starcraft is, and spent a good part of last weekend over at a friend’s suite having a LAN party which was mostly Starcraft playing. Another fun and incredibly addictive game that I’ve found is called Winter Bells. I don’t know if any of you have discovered the crack cocaine that is Winter Bells, but once you start you can’t stop. Basically you are a little rabbit that jumps from bell to bell in the air to gain points an height. Way too much fun.

Well, I’m in the middle of Calc homework right now, but I promise I’ll post quicker than I did last time.

-Allyn

btw Sanctus Real is an awesome band. (and Mute Math too)

Edit: My current Winter Bells high score is: 63354050 5647553215

This Christmas, I used my Best Buy gift cards to buy myself a set of these. Logitech X-540 5.1 surround speakers. They are sweeeeeeet!

They definitely beat my old 4.1 system that I pieced together out of a cyberacoustic 2.1 system and an old 2-speaker altec lansing multimedia speaker set. Logitech thought of everything. They put all the audio controls on a control pad instead of on a satellite, they even made the center speaker’s stand have the ability to clip on to most flat panel monitors!

One of the coolest things that it does, though is that it has dynamic bass equalization , which means that the subwoofer never distorts even when it gets loud! It also has this feature called “Matrix Mode” which takes a 2 channel stereo signal and converts it into a 5.1 signal. That is pretty darn cool. I really like this system.

-Allyn

Happy New Years!  I hope you are all having a good Christmas break, and are enjoying the time at home!

-Allyn