Well today for work I got to visit the famous Virtual Cave from NCSA. I also played my first game of Quake II. I played it in 3D, it was awesome. It's actually a hack called Cave Quake II. The technology was too amazing! I looked at other stuff as well. Very fun.

I've complete the user modification scripts for davedash.com. I have one question: Should users be able to change their usernames?

Currently, you can. I was reading through slashdocs and they mentioned that using the slash system you could not. I was wondering if people see this as a hole where abuse can crop up?

In general my theory is to make things as open and customizable as I can, if they become a problem than shut them down.

Anyway, your comments would be appreciated.

I am working this week almost full-time. But I do plan on getting... a system written so I can modify any user. I am very sorry if it appears that this site is taking a long time. Just to keep people updated here's what needs to happen: this super-user modification system that I will write this week needs to be coded. A journal modification system needs to be coded as well as a journal viewing system.

I've roughly laid out the algorithms for these three things. I want to get them online very soon. After that I'll tweak everyhting and work on a new layout.

On a personal note, talk to me if you don't already.

I wrote the following in the plane and told most of it to Molly, already so here's it's third incarnation.. the web-journal!

Yesterday was Raj Senapati's graduation party. It was very nice. More people showed up to his, than my party last year. This trip was very nice overall. [Note: I was in a town called Bloomfield Hills. It's rightly called that since it actually had significant elevation changes which are absent from those in central Illinois.]

I went to the 12:30 am showing of Austin Power's 2. Raj didn't think it was that great, but I thought it was awesome. I liked Heather Graham a lot too (albiet some say that she can't act) she was very fun and bouncy and perky. It also addressed my problems with time travel very nicely.

Anyway, I made it to my gate (G8 in fact... gate= g + 8) with sufficient time. I have double reservations for my flight back to Champaign and it came in handy since I got a seat. They are overbooked (as always) and are looking for volunteers to go take a flight to Minneapolis and then take a flight to Bloomington, Illinois and then ground travel to Champaing... gotta board.

Anyway (on the plane now) so they'd also pay for food anad everything and give me $300. I was once offered $600 USD (Winter Break journal entry) and it was simply to take a later flight. This however seemed inconvenient. Although if I had known how much time and they offered me more money, it would have been 'neat' to see Molly.

So yeah, up the ante to $600 and I'dve figured out something. I might be late for work, but oh well...

So I'm on the plane, I have a back row seat actually I had 3 seats to my disposal, but somebody took the one that faced the aisle for the legroom. So I have 2 seats. I've never been in the back seat, this should be fun. [Note: It wasn't too different from any where else on the plane.] I heard the ride's a bit bumnpier.

They didn't clean this plane very well... assholes.

My boarding card is neat (not 'neat').
It says I'm elite.
In fact "Elite Gold"... it's written in BOLD!

I love flying, it's such an ego boost. Like I feel like a secret agent. And you get to hang out with semi-cool people on mini-planes... and yeah plane's moving... wtf? oh yeah... hehe it has to take off.

My professor travels a lot and it seems like that would be a fun thing to do, just visit all these cool places. I want to fly and visit the world. Visit different places over and over again. It's so spyish. Like I piccture myself in Europe outside a coffeeshop, wearing ablack leather trench coat, sipping hot cocoa (I don't like Coffee). This is a mix of the last scene in Mission Impossible and Keanu Reaves in the Matrix. I think... [Note: Dave thinks wrong. It's more of the Saint than anything.]

Someone at Raj's party mentioned I looked a little young (for college) and tough looking. I think it's this darth maulesque look that I have. Well a mix of Maul and my brother because (dammit plane stop being bumpy) autnies who knew my bfamily said I looked like my brother. Anyway I like this look. It's not quite Maul, but I can do Maul's tough facial expressions. I have this urge to paint my face black with blue rather than red. I could do that for converge-con maybe... that'd be wierd... hmm need to find someone who can make me up.

This flight is stopping in Bloomington for some reason... it's a first.  Well enough writing journal. I wonder if I'll post all of it. [Note: I did.] Few minutes from take off...

Finally the plane takes off with a bit of speed. Seats in the rear don't tilt back. Hard to Sleep... tired... up late last night... please advise.

The plane's descending to Bloomington... the clouds just got really dark and ominous.... Champaign's only 10 minutes away [Note: 13 minutes actually].

There's something about my staying in Champaign, IL that's made me appreciate the simple fact that I'm alive. The ability to take a nice stroll around the block. To walk on a sunny day. To go for a swim. To have a moment to think. It's made me appreciate life. I'm going to miss living at a place where I have a lot of friends around. I think I'll do fine anyway.

I'm watching the Saint, again. That's a movie worth watching. The second time around is very cool, since I recognize the music. It all sounds so wonderful.

I once thought no timezones would be a good thing. However, the problem arises in not being able to assume similar schedules for people. (E.g. 8 AM is not necessarily a good time to wake up). Perhaps we should adopt a secondary time that would remain constant. This could be a great clarifier. Actually we have something like that called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Unfortunately we don't use it.

Yesterday I had this discussion with people in the Inquiry group regarding charges for services etc. The biggest irk was that Sprint is charging their E-rate to their long distance customers. This cost was suppose to be absorbed by Sprint's profits.

I think that we should establish non-profit consortium's that regulate things like the Internet backbones (and other communal utilities).

A logistics note: I plan on postings whenever reasonable rather than maximum one per day... so you may need to scroll down once in a while.

I made it to Michigan. It's nice and hot here. Grad party starts tomorrow. People here are running mad. Crazy I tell you.

In two more weeks I get to see something else that start's with M. Can you guess what that is?

I just came back from the Inquiry meeting at Purdue University. I must say I am jealous. The campus is beautiful compared to the U of I. The buildings were closer to each other and where there were open spaces there were water fountains and circular paths rather than quadrangles and diagonal paths every which where. Also, the Education School gets real money, unklike ours. I got to see the Liberal Arts and Education Building which was newly built in '94. Very nice. It had several computer labs that were phenomenal top of the line computer labs that were all run by the Education Technology group.

The other members of the Inquiry group, including my professor, were great people to hang out with. We rode in our professor's Volkswagen van and had interesting conversations about computing, robots, 10-10-626 among other things. I wouldn't mind visiting again.

Today was nice when I went outside... I was really laid back. I dropped some film at Walgreens. While waiting for the film to develop I stopped by a poster store and saw really cool Star Wars posters... including a Queen Amidala poster that was more elaborate than mine (most of the ones the store carried were more elaborate than the collection I have). Most posters had small problems that I didn't like. The Queen's had no Padme, which is okay since it should only be the decorated queen, but it lacked the headdress for the queen that I like most (it's the one they have on the movie poster showing all the main characters, I'd give you a link if I could)... it may have had it, but it wasn't the center picture. Anyway, there was another poster of Darth Maul, but it had a stupid thing that said SithLord on it that made it look silly. Then their were the posters for the good guys which had Jar Jar on it unfortunately (his only good lies in the fact that his amphibious race could fight for a few minutes against a droid invasion army). Anyhow, there was also the poster of bad guys which was okay too. They were all about $10 each. There was also really cool posters from the 80s or even 70s reprints of the original three movies. Very cool. I wish I had the money.

The next place I stopped by was a record shoppe. It had a rack of new albums including a new Orbital album which I am determined to preview somehow. Moby also has a new album out and so does Chemical Brothers, except Chemical Brothers will be out on the 22nd of June. I looked at posters and t-shirts and a few albums there. It was very nice. I must somehow acquire these albums... well at least the Orbital one... I'll maybe stop by best buy some day... or ask my roommate, Jason, to check the price on it (since he works there).

I have two requests. No more, no less.

1. Okay a small request. I need peoples opinions about this site. What's good, what's bad, and especially why. The only reason I ask is so I can keep it in mind when I design other sites.
2. While I am in Michigan this weekend, I won't be making too many major updates on my new website which is in development. Basically it's a good time for people to play around on it and tell me what they think, what they'd like to see, etc. If you are willing to do this, email or ICQ (preferred) me. I'll give you the details later. Thank you.
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My roommate mentioned that the Episode 1 book had a few things that the movie left out. I borrowed his book and read it within the span of approximately 22 hours. This is pretty good for me, seeing as usually it takes me a few days to go through 324 pages.

The book is much better than the movie. It's nice because you can read it and visualize what was left out of the movie. The Gungan were less annoying as a whole. There was a lot more dialogue, especially between members of the Jedi Council. In fact, the Council finally at the end agreed to Anakin being trained, only Yoda said that he disagreed with the council. It also had a lot more interaction between Anakin and Padme, and Anakin and Obi-Wan as well as more R2D2 stuff.

What may make it worth while to many of you is the fact that the Duel of Fates scene is a bit longer. Also Darth Maul speaks a lot more and more is revealed about his nature.

Overall I think the book is worth reading. It gives you a lot better of an understanding of what is happening. Of what Qui-Gon's relationship to Obi-Wan is and how they both relate with the force. There is also nice information on the Sith. It's a quick read if you've seen the movie, so go for it if you thought the movie was okay.

I don't remember when I last updated, but I'll say a few things. While moving out of Allen Hall I came across a large ammount of pennies. Hundreds of pennies... this will be very good when I add it to my collection. The Saturday after I moved out, my ICQ list shrunk manifold.

The other day I came up with this cool idea. Queen Amidala (or her handmaiden, Sabe) in the movie (and the book) had several different dresses. I'm sure she has enough dresses to complete both sides of a chess board. For the pawns they could use Padme. Now when Padme reaches the end of the board, she can say "I am Queen Amidala." This was just a random thought.

TITLE: I live.

Well all my stuff was finally moved today, and I'm even online. I was going to send an email to everyone, but I didn't know who cared, so I figured that if I just posted something that would cover most of the bases. Anyway, I will be in this apartment for half of my summer break. I plan on returning home on the 30th of June. During my stay I will be continuing my work on the Illinois Chickscope project and various other "side" projects which I am not at liberty to discuss. ;) If you need any other information just email me.

Posted: Saturday, 15 May 1999 - 21:08

TITLE: Old email.

I was digging through some of the old email sent to mattw@worldwidemart.net (for Matt's Script Archives) and found one from me, enjoy.

Posted: Friday, 14 May 1999 - 23:47

TITLE: I want to praise you.

I want to praise you like I should. Thanks everybody for making this year wonderful...

I've moved most of my stuff into the apartment at which I will be staying. I'll move the rest Saturday and start cleaning this place tomorrow (Friday).

I landed on a stash of pennies.