A while back I decided to compile IdrA's match record in recent foreigner tournaments, for purposes of argument in this month-old thread (which, coincidentally, was bumped as I was writing this post). Here's an updated list of all of IdrA's recent match (BoX) results, for all you curious fans out there (tournaments are in no particular order):
flake v. - to back out of an appointment at the last minute, in the absence of new information relevant to your ability to keep the appointment.
Damn, people are flaky these days. I'll mention an activity or event or date to my friend/romantic interest, and my friend/romantic interest will agree to show up. Then, just before the event, he/she will call me up and say "I can't attend because _x reason which I knew about when I agreed to show up in the first place_".
This is really frustrating. You said you'd go to a concert with me a month ago and now, the night before, you "realize you have two papers to write"? Didn't you know that those papers were going to be due tomorrow three weeks ago, when they were assigned? Couldn't you have worked on the papers earlier, or at least called me earlier to let me know you weren't going to make it?
When guys flake, it's merely annoying. But when girls flake (on dates) it's downright infuriating - and it happens all the time! I would say that these girls are just not into me and only agreed to go out with me because they didn't want to say no to my face (which doesn't even excuse them for calling at the last minute), but several girls who have been interested in me (according to their friends) have flaked on me (multiple times!).
I'm beginning to think that flaking (by girls) is a standard part of the college dating experience. Now, when I call a girl up to make plans, I pretty much expect her to back out at the last minute. Flaking is really a dick thing to do to a guy like me, because I usually make lots of preparations for a date (borrow a car, reservations at a restaurant, or even something as simple as getting a bottle of wine). It really sucks to get all hyped up to see a cute girl, only to have her call and blow me off like she didn't even want to see me in the first place.
Flaking is a pretty good power play for a girl, because it demonstrates that she's not as into me as I am into her (she just can't be bothered to miss an hour of reading or sleep to see me). Flaking basically says: "Hey! I have a life, and it's more important than you. You, on the other hand, have nothing better to do than clear your schedule for me."
Sometimes I feel like punishing a girl for flaking on me (by flaking her back) but that won't work for two reasons: (1) as the guy, I make the plans. That means I have an even stronger obligation than the girl to show up and (2) god forbid, I actually want to see her and I'm willing to throw my schedule around a bit to do it. Of course, (2) is just another reminder that by flaking, the girl is trying to show she's less interested.
Sorry if this was tl;dr, but tonight I had a really nice girl flake on me for a date that we made a few hours ago, and it really pissed me off. I was looking forward to the date...now I just feel like a sucker.
Moral of the story: STOP FLAKING, EVERYONE! Girls especially!! It's rude, and unless the guy is head over heels for you, it'll just drive him off.
I just ran across a news bit at SCForAll about a Fomos video of progamers in fitness class. Since the vid was hosted at Daum, it was pretty much unwatchable for me (too much buffering). I downloaded it and re-hosted it at YouTube.
Most of it's pretty boring, but IdrA makes an appearance and the look on his face, together with the music and the ridiculous exercise he is doing, nearly made me fall off my chair laughing. Here's the clip (7:35 in):
Hey guys, I'm looking for a reliable, lightweight, safe automated incremental backup program for Windows XP. Any recommendations?
Freeware, shareware, or professional grade software is all ok (it's for an office where I work part time, and we have a budget for this kind of stuff). All I really need to do is mirror the hard drives of several computers to connected external drives, on a nightly basis.
Thanks in advance for any tips, I really appreciate it!
A while ago I was reading some advice thread here on Teamliquid and ran into a short but sweet post that gave some basic advice to people entering their freshman year of college. As I read it, I thought "fuck, I wish someone had told me this stuff when I was a freshman". That's the inspiration for this post: the top bits of advice I can give to people entering college, as I head out (I'm a senior now, so maybe I'm feeling a bit nostalgic).
Anyway, here goes. Things I wish I knew as a college freshman:
1) Don't neglect your family or high school friends. Over the long summer that preceded my first year of college, I got really tired of my parents and my hometown in general. When I got out to school, I was so excited to be out on my own that I fell out of touch with my old friends and didn't call back home enough. Of course my relationship with my parents has since improved, but I feel like I set myself back with many of my high school friends. Your friends from high school will be loyal to you forever - make an effort to keep up with them. Whenever you go home to visit, or even when you graduate, you'll want to have them around. No matter how gung ho you are about going off to college, there will be a time when you will miss your family and friends from back home. For me it took about 3 years to reach that time and learn this lesson.
2) Take the time to pimp your room. This one sounds kind of silly, but I think it's pretty important. Your room is your new house, and you should feel comfortable having people over to hang out or visit. Now that I'm a senior I've finally got a decent setup, but when I was younger I didn't really care about how my room looked (until, of course, it came time to have people over and I felt embarrassed I had nowhere for them to sit but on my bed). In general college dorm rooms are really stark and depressing, so get stuff up on the walls...make it colorful. Yes, I am serious, having lots of posters and a rug has improved my quality of life significantly.
3) Work hard to meet people during your freshman year. College is not like high school, where you'll be with the same people for 4 years and so can easily neglect friend-making duties during your first few months. You're no longer stuck in the same classes with the same group of kids, and you don't pass people in the hall - people just disperse after they're pulled together for whatever reason (living together, classes together). If you don't go out of your way to get to know people in the short time you live with someone/take a class with someone, you will probably never know that person. So take advantage of the fact that you're thrown together with other students whenever you live in a dorm or take a class, and make friends. Most people I know who have many friends/acquaintances are people who went really out of their way to meet a lot of people during their freshman year, and just kept up with those people as they went on to do different things in school.
In college, your academic and social lives are linked more closely than at any other time. You'll rely on your friends to study with you, work on problem sets with you, and share notes. You'll be more likely to attend lecture if you know you'll see your buddies there, and classes are more fun when you can sit with your friends and poke fun at the professor. There are several courses I've taken in which, rather than sit down next to someone else and introduce myself, I've just gone to the back of the lecture or discussion room and pretty much kept to myself. There's no worse feeling than realizing you're totally lost on a problem set and you've foregone all your chances to meet someone who could help you, or at least share your frustration.
Basically, don't think you can get away with being a great student without working on your social life, or vice versa - they're pretty much one and the same. Having many friends will help you perform in school and help you get a job when you graduate.
4) Figure out what's cool to do off-campus, ASAP. As a young freshman, I thought there was plenty of action going on around campus and didn't really take the time to learn public transportation and get out. This was a huge mistake! Now, 4 years into my college career, I'm finally learning the cool places to go and things to do in the bay area. I wish I had known about all of these great bars/hangouts/restaurants so much earlier! There will come a time when you want to invite a date/friends/a visitor out to do something cool in the area, and you'll want to be prepared. Plus, getting off campus and away from schoolwork for at least one night every week is really good for your sanity.
5) Stay focused on your shit, and keep your schedule packed. I have found that my performance in school and life is directly related to how busy I am - when I take more classes, work more hours, and do more stuff around campus I actually do better at everything I'm involved in. At the end of my sophomore year my long-time girlfriend broke up with me, and I went into a funk that took me two years to get out of. While in this funk, I put myself on cruise control in school and, though I kept myself busy with more antisocial things like gaming and watching SC, I had a really crappy time. This past quarter I decided to change my ways by taking a massive courseload and working 3 jobs. Somehow, even though I didn't have near as much free time as before and I wasn't making any extra special effort to meet new people, my life started to get back on track. Last quarter I made more close friends, did more new things, and had more fun than I ever had before. I guess the lesson that I learned is, if I just focus on my education and keeping myself busy, good things that depend on my surroundings, like friendship, sex, etc., will happen naturally.
Feel free to share your own college advice in this thread!
Stuff I've Written about StarCraft Updated 9.15.09
This list is mostly for my reference (and record-keeping, I'm an internet packrat like that). But maybe someone will find something worth digging up in here...the more useful articles are in bold. Also note that several of these articles are collaborations.
Pluralization with an apostrophe is easily the most mysterious and most infuriating common grammatical error, and I see it everywhere on TL (for example, you need look no further than the General forum's spot in the sidebar: "Firm's cut down on logos").
Pluralization with an apostrophe is the practice of pluralizing with an apostrophe (duh). Some nasty examples:
BeSt has a million gateway's. A million gateways' what? Note that even if "gateways" was possessive, the apostrophe would appear after the "s". The Smith's drove to Chicago. This means that "drove to Chicago" belongs to the Smith.
The only case in which an apostrophe is necessary for pluralization is for abbreviations with periods. For example: C.D.'s, Ph.D.'s. Note that abbreviations without periods (which, generally speaking, should be used instead of abbreviations with periods whenever possible) should not be pluralized with an apostrophe: CDs, ELOs, MSLs, OSLs.
I hope at least one person reads this and tries to avoid this common mistake. Reaching for that apostrophe key for every pluralization is hard work!
I also have a question for anyone who has ever made this mistake: why? I just don't understand why it's intuitive to stick an apostrophe in there.
![[image loading]](http://jwdunn.com/tlblog/cal.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://jwdunn.com/tlblog/firms.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://jwdunn.com/tlblog/fakestevemom.jpg)
)
