Yesterday was FAS Formal.

Originally, I was not planning to go. Reasons from things like “I don’t have a date to go with.” to “I’m at camp on the weekend, so it would be crazy for me to go there after.” to “I have time constraints.”. But in the end, I still went.

The reasons were all still there. I went dateless, but tagged along with a bunch of friends. I still went to my camp beforehand and got my Woodbadge II for Troop in the process. I still managed to get all the things done within the small amount of time I had between after the training camp and the formal, which includes going home, cleaning up, getting dressed for the night, and going to Mass. Did I regret my decision to go to FAS Formal? Not one bit.

It was unexpectedly fun! It gave me an opportunity to unwind, which was something that I realized now was badly needed. My focus has just been work, work, and more work with no breathing room to go out and have fun with friends. I really need to make time for more fun social events.

Still too self-conscious and too reserved though. I didn’t ask anyone to dance, but peer pressure kinda got me out there on the dance floor and ended up dancing briefly with two female friends. All the other times, we just stood around in a circle and just moved about. I’m pretty sure I “danced” (if you can call it that anyway) like a fool, but whatever. It was fun.

Also, Curtis Lassam: I still can’t believe you rickrolled the formal, but kudos to you my friend.

After the formal, our table of 7 decided to head out for drinks, namely bubble tea at the Bubble World by Metrotown. We talked about stuff, joked about, and generally had some fun.

Finally got home at 2 AM or so. Sure, I have work today, but I still woke up (and earlier than normal, which is mind-boggling) and wrote some good amount of documentation for my work project. I am working unconventionally though; my co-worker Santi is attending a talk about international studies, but we have a visit in North Vancouver as well. I spent a good amount of time working at a coffee shop by remote desktop and enjoyed a somewhat endless amount of tea.

Throwing this here just so I remember to do these things. Quite a few things that really need to be done, and then there’s the things that I’ve just been itching to do, but haven’t done yet.

In no particular order, categorized by when it needs to be done, by weeks relative to now:

By April 20:

• Pack bag for Wood Badge II second weekend trip, happening this weekend (April 18-20) – done hours before going
• Do writeup for Wood Badge II homework – done April 17
• Get a meeting date decided for Troop planning and misc. issues for the coming months (May till June/July) – delegated to another Scouter (the one in charge of the months)
• Send out this week’s announcements for the troop – done early April 18
• Get number of confirmed participants for Nite Hike – found a sad number, but done nonetheless April 17
• Get people in on the stage crew team for the AGM on the 27th – got two people on board for this April 22
• Make sure all teams are on schedule for the AGM planning stuff – kinda done..
• Check on AGM booklet team on their status – technically should be almost done at this point if we are to meet the print deadline – done April 16 by another leader
• Get Nancy to fill in the Supervisor Evaluation for co-op – done April 15
• Hand in work report – done April 15
• See if I can get off work earlier on Friday so I can get down to Langley for Wood Badge II training – done April 15
• Determine Scout of the Year – done April 16

By April 27:

• Clean up my desk at work – done April 25
• Do documentation for my self-initiated project at work
• Fix issues with said project as we find them
• Get student volunteers to help out with the CS booths during SFU Open House
• See if I need to contact all my teacher contacts made during my work term to let them know who to contact now that my co-op term has ended – work approved idea on April 22
• Send said email – done April 25
• AGM – make sure all planning is done, all bases covered, etc., etc. – done April 27

By May 4:

• Meeting for Troop program and misc. management issues – done April 22
• Fix a Scout’s computer – I’ve had it for a while now, but I told her I should have time starting on the 28th because work is done by then
• Clean up my desk at home
• Clean up my room
• Throw out the random junk I don’t need that I find while cleaning up my room
• Review scary math in preparation for CMPT 419 so that I will not “run from the room screaming if [Greg Mori] say[s] “eigenvector” or “covariance matrix”" (email from Greg Mori forwarded through csadvise back in December 2007)
• Buy textbook for said class – done April 16
• Pay tuition for summer

And other, no specific due date items that have, unfortunately, just hung around. Also unfortunately is that this is all the fun and/or important stuff:

• Work on my online game project
• Work on a Scouts-inspired project related to badgework management – idea from fellow Scouter in my group from his discussion with his group during Wood Badge II because:
  1. Existing solutions are reportedly bad and hard to use
  2. I would benefit from such software
  3. I can make it a web application, which makes it fairly easy to get to and use
• Finish work on my Scout group’s website (a run-away project of epic proportions.. really. If we did earned value analysis on this project, the SPI would be very, very, low, perhaps somewhere < 0.01)
• Create my website, so that the main page doesn’t suck
• Related to the above: since I will be creating something on my own, chances are I will only use WordPress for blogging and nothing else, which means I need to make a template for my website, then port said template to become a theme for my blog
• Review my commitments on things and see if I really need to start cutting back on various things. Currently, all signs point to yes.

And hopefully there’s nothing else. There’s already a huge stack here already and more would just.. well, let’s not go there. I want to go to sleep tonight right after this without nightmares of things that I have not yet done, or forgotten to do.

Well, it isn’t Archmage because MARI Telecommunications, who created the game, went bankrupt years ago.

But The Reincarnation is a fairly true clone of the original Archmage. Some positive changes from the original gameplay (such as passive research) and new units to use make for an interesting game.

I started playing last week on the Beta server with Amy, Anto, Michelle, and Min, currently in the process of researching my off-color spells. We have a guild too, so if you are interested, let me know.

So it’s April Fools today. Here’s some of the pranks I’ve seen throughout the course of the day (note: post will be updated as more stuff gets seen):

Inverted Chairs

Everyone knows that the Computing Science Common Room is one of the best places to hang around thanks to the comfy couches. I walk in today after getting my morning coffee at Renaissance to see that our beloved couches were inverted so you cannot sit on them.

Rickroll’d

People entering SFU through B-Lot today found themselves rickroll’d. The guy with the TV set disappeared after an hour or so – maybe he’s going around campus or something.

On the Internet

• Google and Virgin get together to bring you Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes. They are currently looking for users to colonize Mars. If you are interested, don’t delay and apply today!
• Viewers who clicked on YouTube’s front page links got themselves rickroll’d by YouTube
• Allakhazam’s Final Fantasy XI section is known today as Hello Kitty Online with the player of the month as Evil Hello Kitty. (thanks Anto for the link)
• Curtis makes some changes to his blog. He also has a April Fools post similar to this one.
• Now if only this was actually a film in production.. I would probably pay to see it.
• Blizzard delivers this April Fools Day with two announcements:
  • Introducing the Tauren Marine for StarCraft II
  • World of WarCraft introduces the Bard class – “only a true hero can vanquish evil with the power of ROCK!”