Trivial Matters

I watched the third episode last night, and I’m starting to wonder if the storylines are getting out of control. It seems each character has their own now, and even when they are in the same room (like FuturePeter and Noah) it is on different paths. A complex storyline is one thing. Lost has done well with their large cast, but they did so by focusing on only a few players at a time each episode.

Unless they are going to start making connections between the different arcs, the writers should limit themselves to two or three per episode. FuturePeter, Noah and Sylar, and Parkman could make for a good episode by themselves. Then follow that with Nathan, Tracy, and Hiro and Ando the next week.

Mohinder wasn’t in last night’s episode, and I didn’t miss him one bit. His story can wait, as can Claire’s. We’ve seen what she becomes (or can become) so the events leading to that don’t need to be spread out like this. Her’s and Mohinder’s stories are similar enough that they could work well together in a single (or perhaps two-part) flashback episode toward the end of the season.

On side note, the premier episode of Life came on after Heroes. I was under the impression that it was going to be this Friday (in its regular time slot) and I wonder how many viewers new to catch it last night. It seems that Friday’s ep will be the second for the season, so they’ll miss a big part of the story arc if they weren’t watching Heroes (or knew that it was going to be on after). It is available in Hulu though, if any of you missed it.

After a long day of writing math, and then reading about math, and then writing some more math, I like to unwind with a good number logic puzzle. There’s a UK company, Conceptis (http://www.conceptispuzzles.com), that puts them online for free each week. I started going to their site years ago when I was doing them on paper in Games Magazine.

In that time they’ve more than doubled the number of different puzzles available, and I’m just now exploring the new ones. Specifically, Battleship and Hashi. Battleship is like the board game, except you use number clues to determine how many ship segments are in each row/collumn.

Hashi is a bit more difficult to describe. It is a sheet of arranged numbers, each number being an “island.” The number represents how many other “islands” it connects to by a “bridge.” As you build bridges, you start cutting the islands off from one another because you can’t cross two bridges. However, you can two bridges connect the same islands (though no more than two).

I’ve done all of the Battleships for this week. It took me a few days to work out the strategies for the harder puzzles, but now that I have them down the rest will be easy. Hashi strategy is another matter. It’s going to take me a bit longer to work those hard puzzles (though it still makes my Calculus homework look easy).

So if you’re bored, or just need a distraction. Head over to Conceptis and try some of them out. They also have sudoku and kakuro which you can play online or print out. In fact, most of the games can be played online, and all of them can be printed out for the train, bus, etc.

Way back in May, when I finished all of my Army training, I had no work planned between then and my scheduled deployment. To pay the bills I asked my sister to hook me up with a job at her work. It’s a video lottery/deli/bar… thing… and I basically filled in at the different locations when people called out sick.

After my orders were cancelled, I stayed on. As I was coming up with Plans B, C, and D I found that none of them involved me getting a better job in Portland. Either I was going to deploy, or I was going to move to Corvallis and finally finish school. The latter is still the plan, and I stayed on at the job because I didn’t see the need to find another one only to quit at the end of the year.

Then last week I started a new project, and at the same time I started school. So now all of my free time is gone, and I’m wondering if I should quit the job. Quiting school or the project is out of the question, as I’ve made commitments to both myself and my friend.

So the question is, have I made a commitment to my employer as well? Is a minimum wage job worth keeping out of some sense of obligation?

I watched the debate last night with some friends at the Living Room Theater downtown. It was a packed house, and people stood in line for over and hour to get the 46 extra seats they had in the theater (I believe they were showing them in all 6 theaters).

We got a table in the lounge and watched it from afar. (I hope they install another TV at the other end of the bar.) I think the crowd was almost entirely for Obama which seems to be typical for Portland. I’m sure there are McCain supporters somewhere, but they stay out of sight.

Polls are showing that Obama won the debate. Personally, I don’t think either of them “won” in the sense of walking away with the whole thing. Obama kept his ground against the personal attacks, much more so than McCain. I got tired of hearing the word “fundamental” (from both of them) followed by the fact that Obama has yet to go to Afghanistan and therefore does not know what is going on there. Personally, I think if McCain himself couldn’t find Bin Laden in the 900 days he said he was there, he’s not going to find him from the White House in the next 1461 days either.

Regardless of my views, I think a nice time was had by all. And I’m glad to live in a town where something like the presidential debate can draw such a crowd of people. (There were a dozen other venues and theaters hosting similar parties.)

One of my biggest fears in class is becoming “that guy.” You know the one. The guy who has to have his imput on everything the instructor says, whether his opinion was asked for or not.

In grade school, “that guy” was known as the “teacher’s pet” because he seemed to be encouraged to speak up (especially if nobody else would). College, however, is completely different. “That guy” is usually wrong, or out of line, and seems to only hinder the learning experience.

There was a “guy” in two my classes last term (and it was the same guy). In one class we were doing a group project, and his group had decided to meet early to go over the presentation. This guy was not only a no-show, but he showed up late for class that day. He then proceeded to volunteer his group to go first on presentation day. (He was late that day too.) And every day leading up to that, in both classes, he was always interjecting about his experiences in the rice paddies of Cambodia (or some such nonsense).

My Thursday night government class has “that guy” too. I haven’t entirely passed judgement on him yet, but I don’t have my hopes up. And I may become “that guy” in my writing class, being the only actual writer. I’ll try my best to refrain from speaking up too much, but we’ll see.