Bus error: Jake Billo’s weblog

And so it begins. Should be an interesting next few months.

And here’s the wrapup.

• Spring 2008 term has officially ended. For the past few days I’ve been trying to relax; as opposed to creating content for the Web, there’s been a lot of Halo 3 and other video games going on.
• I start again at RIM on September 2nd. Things haven’t changed much from when I was there last, which should make for a smooth transition.
• Hardware upgraded to a BlackBerry Bold as I’m a consumer whore with company loyalty. The screen is really sharp and the new processor gives a really responsive UI. The iPhone 3G was admittedly an attractive option but had two major buzzkills: no physical keyboard, and gimped push email. I had to trade my weaselled retentions plan in for something a bit more conventional, but I’ve now got a monthly plan encompassing some text messaging capabilities.
• Warren also purchased me an Invisible Shield for the device. I highly recommend this product. Resale value will be much higher and any new iPods will definitely get one of these.
• It’s move-in time for our neighbours, which means the landlord feels the need to test out his new bowling ball by dropping it down next door’s flight of stairs repeatedly. (In all reality, he’s probably using a hammer on something, but it sounds suspiciously like my initial description.) I’m hoping that this term, there’ll be some attractive girls in the same complex - but that’s probably a long shot.

Judge Jake has been updated. In it, I get stuck behind some idiots professing their love for HARDCORE anime at Waterloo. Also, idiot gets owned for not declaring his merchandise at the border.

Feel free to grab the MP3 file or subscribe to the RSS feed.

As I’m exiting my economics lecture this evening, I had the misfortune to overhear a conversation between two students leaving ahead of me. I didn’t make any special attempt to listen until the conversation took an unmistakably horrible trainwreck. Keep in mind that this is an economics lecture, and not a computer science or math class - so don’t expect arts courses to be any better.

If you’re debating going to Waterloo and aren’t a total social misfit, beware that you may be forcibly subjected to the following style of ridiculous conversation, which I transcribed shortly after hearing it.

Student 1: “So, what are you going to do when you get home?”
Student 2: “Lock myself in my room for two hours and watch anime.”

I honestly have no words at this point. This seems too stereotypical of a situation to be accurate. After all, Waterloo definitely has a number of Japanophile students who enjoy the medium - but seriously, about the only more goonish thing you could say at this point was that you were into cartoon pornography. Oh, wait.

Student 2: “Yeah. HARDCORE anime.”

The above statement was made without any sarcastic tone, and deliberately emphasized the ‘hardcore’ nature of the material. Just in case you aren’t too sure,

Student 1: “Hardcore?”
Student 2: “Yeah, the hardcore stuff… you know.”
Student 1: “Ah.”

Far be it from me to judge a person’s kinks or fetishes - wait, who am I kidding? Japanese, cartoon porn is pretty low on the scale of Internet nerd stereotypes. How much lower can this guy get?

Student 2: “But I have to lock my door in case my roommates find out.”

Shame? And yet you’re announcing your disgusting taste in self-relief material to another friend? What gives?

Student 1: “Oh?”
Student 2: “They want me to watch it with them, because they already have the MKVs.”

Oh, christ.

Student 2: “But their MKVs are all in Japanese, and I don’t know Japanese at all. They were like, ‘Oh, that’s OK, we’ll translate it for you!’”

There’s absolutely no more possible disgusting mental image than that. And the Internet is pretty disturbing as is.

Student 2: “So I have to download the subbed versions sneakily, and lock myself in my room to watch them alone.”

Ladies, have I got a real winner for you!

It’s notable how the tone of this site has changed recently. Most of my posts lately are about the wireless industry in Canada, or other hot button topics that I can rant about without giving a personal view of the situation - apart from being a CS student with clearly too many cell phones, today’s posts aren’t all about me.

Offtopic: Perhaps this is a good thing: I was accosted several weeks ago by someone I attended high school with and told “I shouldn’t write about people that I don’t know anything about.” The world does not work this way, and “know[ing] anything” was misused in place of “don’t say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say tell me what I want to hear.” Likewise, hilarity would not ensue if I were prevented from writing about Soulja Boy.

(I did indeed attend a semester of classes with this individual, which is a decent basis for knowing at least SOMETHING about someone. For what it’s worth, I don’t even remember the post, and a quick perusal of my former site didn’t turn up the allegedly inflammatory remarks.)

Apart from this, though, I’m almost done my first semester back at UW out of two. Of my courses, CS246 has been the most interesting and informative; I’d say my command line C++ skills are now significantly improved.

The big news, though, is that on May 1st I’ll be moving out from home again. I’ll still be in Waterloo, but living with some friends for a year. It’s something I’ve really been looking forward to; there might even be a good business idea when we’re all in reasonably close proximity. Significant downsizing of personal effects will be necessary, and all I’ve essentially done is trade a basement room 20 minutes away from school for a basement room 5 minutes away.

Still, exciting news and interesting times ahead.

From the UWaterloo LiveJournal community:

Google Maps and Google Earth apparently now both have high-res (the closest zoom level) images of Waterloo Region. The comments thread seems to indicate that the images were taken last year, sometime in the spring.