A few notes...

-My professor repeatedly goes to our site as an example during my Information Retrieval class. Hopefully, he'll go Tuesday morning and see this awesome picture. CoolKidsRoom as an example would be more appropriate for a class called "Lazy Ass Motherfuckers Retrieval".

-The A.J. in A.J. Smith must really stand for Asshole Jerkface.

-It's the end of Week 3 and I'm in danger of failing two of my four classes. I'm like the Chargers though, finish strong and look better than I am with what was really just a mediocre performance.

-One of the great AIM profile quotes I've ever seen: "there's only one 'return' and it's not of the king, it's of the jedi" (from Clerks II)

-One line that struck fear into my heart as I read it: "AzNBiGTyMeR has entered the server."

-The thing that kept ruining the inauguration for me: every time Obama stepped out of a car, walked outside or stepped to the podium, I'm terrified someone's going to shoot him.

-My two favorite podcasts: On the DL w/ Dan Levy, The B.S. Report w/ Bill Simmons

Thank you for your continued support of CoolKids.

Lazy Mondays: Wallflowering at the club

The Lazy Monday series is a collection of random observations and updates in my life. Things you can guarantee not to expect: quality and cohesion. Also, the other guy's randomness column had 'Monday' in it, so I thought it was a requirement.

- The great thing about Vegas is no two trips are the same. I speak as if I've been there hundreds of times even though I've only been there twice as a 21 year old and a handful of times in my youth.

Either way, not having to wait in line or pay cover at Tryst thanks to Kuya Warren's magic gave way to awkward dances, standing on the wall, and most importantly, a shitload of drinking and fun having. The best part of the weekend though was beaming with pride as I watched my Kuya Virgil graduate from culinary school with Magna Cum Laude honors. I can only hope I make my family as proud as he did two years from now.

- I don't join clubs or organizations unless you give me a title. I'll take 'Activities Commissioner', 'Hall representative', hell, I'll even take 'Staff Writer'. DO NOT WANT: 'Key Club member', 'band member', 'guy who shows up at events but doesn't really do anything'.

With that in mind, say hello to your new Vice President of the Informatics Student Association. The president and I are going to change the world...okay not really, but if you're in Informatics and you're reading this: please please please come to our events. /end begging

- When I study, I like to fuck priorities in the ass. So before starting the study process for my midterm, I chose to instead work on stuff from other classes instead. Why? For no fucking reason, that's why. I guess I look at it like a boxing or wrestling card. Put all the less important stuff first, then the real showdown begins. Hopefully that showdown starts sometime soon.

- The best part of Halloween is all the girls' slutty costumes the smile on the face of children while Trick or Treating.

- The Chargers are not a very good football team. Well did I lay the jinx down in my last Chargers post or what? "Build on this win" my ass. Thank the football gods for the parity in the AFC West and in the rest of the conference. We still have a chance to make a run. But first, someone get our outside linebackers some steroids. Maybe this guy knows where to find em:

Firefox 3.0 is out, go get it

The people who I talk computers seriously with (translation: my nerd friends) know me as a die-hard Microsoft sympathizer. On more than one occasion you can find me defending Bill Gates' buggy and sluggish software.

The most glaring example of this was my preference of Internet Explorer over Firefox. There was really no good reason for this except that I preferred IE's menu systems and general look, to the point where I could sacrifice the somewhat minor efficiency advantage of Firefox.

With the release of Mozilla's Firefox 3.0 today though, I have officially jumped ship. I've only been using it for 5 minutes and I'm already compelled enough to blog about my transition. The new Firefox has all of the security features of IE plus more, and more importantly they're much less intrusive.

One of the worst things Microsoft has been doing with Windows Vista and their recent iterations of IE is bombarding the user with all kinds of security warnings that makes you feel like your 5 years old and you don't know how to use a computer.

Firefox's warnings are much more subtle, but the real reason to go download this new browser is it's speed. Previously I found Firefox's efficiency gains over IE to be minor, but the speed improvements here are definitely noticeable enough to where I don't want to go back. My Informatics curriculum has made me something of a software-efficiency-whore and Firefox gets the job done.

If you don't believe me, then go ahead and load StatTracker side by side and see who wins. If you're not a fantasy player then try loading some MySpace whore's webpage that has way too much crap and clutter. Thank me in the comment section.

Some game got released today

As Nazer mentioned during the weekend, Grand Theft Auto IV comes out today.

Receiving GLOWING reviews and the most perfect scores I've seen since I landed that triple axel during my ice-skating days, I guess I will have to eventually buy this game and actively take part in every Informatics students conversation not having to do with Java or MySQL.

Net Neutrality and props

To: Nazer Adonis Edit: RAY
From: Lance
Re: Just Get Up And Go

Guys, I would just like to say Congratulations. Yesterday was the first time since the day this was born that all four of us posted something. I predicted Bukkake and you guys gave it to me...fuck that came out wrong.

I get jealous of Nazer sometimes when he talks about what he's doing in school because it's always interesting. In contrast, I know that what I'm learning is usually relatively boring and not something I want to post on the internet. I finally found something worth sharing though.

As most of you know, my major (as of now) is Informatics. Yeah yeah, I love making fun of how even I'm not even sure what it is, but without going into too much detail, it's the study of computer science, information technology (IT), and their effects on society. So I get a lot of technical stuff (a little math, and some programming and project development) as well as something of a social science education spinkled in.

One of the things we looked at briefly last quarter was the notion of Net Neutrality. The prospect of ISPs(Road Runner, Cox, etc.) having influence on where I'm surfing by speeding up or slowing down certain sites based on their business relationship (ie. how much money they're getting) is absurd.

The internet is a unique platform, and one of its greatest attributes is the fact that there are so many options for so many tasks. For searching, we get to pick Google, Yahoo!, Dogpile or one of the many other options. For blogging there's Blogger, LiveJournal, and Xanga, amongst others from an endless list. This kind of freedom should be a given for a medium that has thrived on the creativity of otherwise lesser-known individuals (like me and my three friends here, ok, more like the guy who made YouTube), and right now, a lot of companies are working towards eliminating that freedom.

The Net Neutrality issue is heating up a little bit with the looming election. McCain is skeptical on it, seemingly going back and forth, and Obama and Clinton have gone out of their way to support Net Neutrality.


My boy, BaROCK, supported neutrality in an interesting, and relevant way though. For two candidates with similar platforms, it's these kind of little things that make the difference for me.

So here it is, Obama's PODCAST and transcript on Network Neutrality.