Good news by e-mail came my way this morning: My group scored 100/100 on our Computer Architecture project. Our presentation was “the best of the term.” Man, that feels good.

I got back to the great state of Minnesota on Friday, but not before stopping in a quiet little town called Madison to pick up my friend Paul. In reality, Madison is anything but docile and small: Home to the University of Wisconsin Madison and The Onion, Madison is everything that I wish Terre Haute to be. Who couldn’t like a place where the tallest point in the city is a badger? Just to make sure that everybody knew I was from Minnesota, I wore my Gophers hockey jersey. You see, the Badgers were playing a series with the Gophers in Minneapolis that weekend, and there is a healthy rivalry between the two. Imagine wearing a Team USA hockey jersey in Toronto last Sunday – you get the picture. Some people gave me awkward glances but, fortunately, nobody painted a giant badger on my car. Thing is, I’d bet that most people can’t tell the difference between a badger and a gopher. Perhaps due to my infiltration into hostile Badger Country, the Gophers swept the lesser rodents in the series.

As we were leaving Madison, I noticed a very nice Porsche/BMW dealership along the road, yet another amenity that Terre Haute lacks. If one wants to see Porsches (remember, two syllables!), one must trek over to Indianapolis. Quite a way to go just to see the finest automobiles ever built. Which reminds me… Chris Welty wrote a humorous series of articles entitled “Porsching,” which I highly recommend. Look closely at the URL, and you’ll realize that Vassar isn’t just a Simpsons creation; it’s a real school, with real students like my friend Liz.

Seems that Rose just released Winter Quarter grades on the Registrar’s page. Here’s a live look at my reaction. *sound of me alt-tabbing over to the other window* *sound of me alt-tabbing back to this window* Woohoo! First 4.00 quarter at Rose!

Finals are done, let all rejoice! Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. marked the end of Winter Quarter, notoriously difficult for sophomore EE’s, CPE’s, and ME’s. I think I did fine as far as grades are concerned. More importantly, I feel that I actually learned something, rather than just ingesting knowledge for tests: everything can be described mathematically. This engineering thing won’t be so bad after all…

So it seems that I have abandoned my website. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy thanks primarily to a Computer Architecture project. Fortunately, that’s now finished. If you’re interested in the results, I made a website with all of the pertinent data.

Late Friday night, I went bowling with a group of my Brothers. We knocked down the pins at Vigo Bowl – nice bowling alley, really shady neighborhood. As we were entering, a crazy woman drove by and yelled nonsensical obscentities at us. Minufo responded in kind, but the rest of us hurried inside, not wanting to find out if irate Hautians pack heat. Once inside, we played several games, watched the NHL Super Skills Challenge, and had an overall good time. Upon departure, we trekked to IHOP for some late night cheesecake and shakes. Healthy, no? I’ve still yet to eat pancakes at IHOP. From there we returned to the House, only to find a party going on. (Did I say party? I meant casual gathering. Yeah, that’s it…)

Despite how I feel about drunken parties, this one seemed almost appealing to me. I decided to relax for a few minutes before doing anything else, so I sat down in my desk chair. Big mistake. I didn’t think that I was tired enough to fall asleep in my chair at 1:00 a.m., but reality proved me wrong. The next thing I know, it’s 3:00 a.m., and I’ve just awoken with a jolt when Will, my little bro, walked into the room. I had a strange recollection of Perenic asking me for a ride to IHOP, but it seemed like a hazy dream. Giving such matters no further thought, I brushed my teeth and went to bed.
Later on Saturday, several people commented that I was “completely out of it” Friday night. Curious, I got a first-hand account from my roommate, Minufo. It turns out that Perenic and others had come into my room at about 2:00 a.m. looking for sober people to drive a bunch of drunks to IHOP. Apparently, they tried waking me up. I became semi-concious, stuck in a delerious stupor. I’m told that I mumbled giberish for a while, refused to drive, then agreed to drive, all while maintaining minimal control of my extremities. I even stood up and was about to leave, still rubbing my eyes to vanquish the cataplexy. At this point, Minufo stood up for my best interests and said that I shouldn’t drive anywhere, especially since I had returned from IHOP not two hours prior. The possy left, and I sat down, returning to my blissful slumber.

I was doing MSYS (Mechanical Systems for you Non-Rose people) in my room not but a few hours ago, when I heard the soft serinade of a TV sitcom coming from Dzwonek’s room. Every so often, the show would be punctuated by laughter. “Boy,” I thought, “must be a funny show!” Oddly, the laughs sounded strangely familiar. Of course the sitcom had a laugh track, a device shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Wanting to discover who laughs, ye-haws, and chortles for the Several shows, I did some research into the matter. That, or I was desperate for a topic to post about, seeing as how I haven’t commented in almost a week.

It seems that most of the laughs in use today found their virgin utterance on the sets of I Love Lucy or The Red Skelton Show. Both shows had live audiences and numerous sight gags, causing frequent laughter with little dialogue. Red Skelton’s show was particularly apt for laugh recording — he would do pantomine skits almost weekly. Think that shows would be better without laugh tracks? Try watcing Cartoon Network’s new versions of classic Flintstones episodes, which lack a laugh track, and compare with the original version: the original is funnier. (Source)