my 3 days of halloween

Day 1: Thursday.

Smart people got in IV on Thursday to avoid all the police blockades and checkpoints. Lots of loud music and daytime beer pong, nothing out of the norm, cept it was like, weekend level of craziness on a weekday.

I spent my afternoon registering for W10 classes and driving all over Goleta to track down my package cause USPS was too lazy to ring my doorbell to deliver it. I was home at the time too. I hate USPS.

I actually planned on getting some work done that night. Didn't happen. I ended up going to Japanese club party.

Wifebeater + sweats + hat + hoodie = no one got my costume.

Beer pong, some shots of all sorts of whiskey, more pong, then more shots of some vodka, then some more shots of dark stuff... I think. No buzz, at all, but it was enough to knock out a roommate and housemate, and black out other roommate.

There were enough people walking around at night to make it impossible to drive around.

Day 2: Halloween eve!

Drove to class in the morning, bought a day pass, and left my car locked away on campus for the rest of the weekend.

Took a fatty nap in the afternoon instead of doing programming. Ditched lecture, even though I drove, and went to section, and it was like, the next building over right after section.

Pregamed like 5 shots with the house. No shots = no buzz.

Decided to screw the hoodie, and wear a beanie instead of a hat = "OMG I didn't recognize you, you're kinda scary, do something!" Hell no. I could barely do any dancing while sober, and you want me to do it with some alcohol on piss nasty floor. At least they got the costume. Freezing cold the whole night though.

Crashed PAPhi party, no DJ, no outside music. Took shots till they dried out, then just had a bunch of beer. Swigged some friend's personal handles, and got handed some more beer. Still no buzz.

Went to Zeta house to say hi to some friends. I accidentally hit some girl, I don't think I know her, or I just didn't recognize her. I don't know. Too dark. Funny part is my friend said she found a huge bruise on her arm when she woke up, then blamed someone else. Hmm..

Then crashed at a sorority house on DP. They made us food. :D

DP is the usual craziness. Waves and waves of people and tons of cops and big lights. On the walk there every intersection had like 2-6 officers pulling people (usually visitors. Seriously, they stand out) aside for sobriety tests.

The only cars on the road were taxis, the Domino's delivery car, and cops. All other cars got pulled over the moment they pass a checkpoint (pretty much every intersection). Outsiders usually do not know how to drive here. You don't swerve around people, you're supposed to stop. Swerving = "look at me! Write me up for DUI".

Day 3: Halloween.

Bunch more people came during the daytime, driving around looking for parking. Saw a M3, if it parked anywhere in the direction he was going, I'm sure that car's worth nothing now. Money can't fix stupid.

The house never looked this clean. We had two ghetto closet door beer pong tables set up, and covered most of the floor with plastic. Everything that wasn't a chair or a table got shoved into a closet or another room.

When I say ghetto closet door beer pong tables, I seriously mean ghetto. They're like, closet doors rest on cardboard boxes/chairs/books/5gallon water bottles/whatever happened to be in our living room and tall enough.

Didn't even bother dressing up. Too cold. I just threw on a shirt and some jeans.

Friends came, and brought friends, and we ended up having a bunch of people in the house. Went through two 30 packs of beer, some more beer, and a bunch of random wine coolers and stuff.

How we got the beer was a pretty funny story too. We had our over 21 friend buy it, other people asked her to get them beer too. They wanted her to buy eight 30 packs and she couldn't push the cart. Everyone ended up getting carded and no beer. So they all headed to Vons and she had the courtesy clerk grab all of it and push it out for her. Vons > Albertsons.

Oh, and we got Bud Light instead of Coors, cause I wanted Coors (imo, the better cheap beer), but I lost a beer pong game against the Bud Lite people, so we were stuck with nasty Bud Lite. Friend brought over some (even cheaper) Milwaukee's Best, and even that was better than Bud Lite.

Our neighbor/manager dropped by and gave us some sangria before they headed out to mess with the visitors at DP. Good stuff that sangria. One of them was dressed in full tree camo (like, when he stood still he really looked like a tree), he said he had tons of fun just jumping out at people from the dark.

When we headed out, I swigged 1/3 of a fifth... by myself, cause everyone else was already drunk off beer. Then took a few more shots.

Headed out to Lambda house. Same thing really, indoor music only, way too many guys, not enough alcohol, and everyone got thrown out at midnight. Took some shots here too.

Actually got lightly buzzed after that :D Only took alcoholic status to get there.

Chilled at Zeta house afterwards. Lost a roommate here. So then we ran around everywhere looking for him. He got thrown out of the Zeta house last time we were here, so he might've gotten killed or something. Turns out he managed to get back home and knock out.

So we all headed back. Buzz kill. That pretty much concluded Halloween weekend.

Our neighbors complained about our parking all weekend. We parked on the inside, and our friends parked on the inside, and they complained. What, so now you want to park on the inside after all the times you park in front. Then they wanted to tow our friends cars cause they're not tenants or whatever so they could have space for their friends to park. I'm gonna kill those bitches one day. Oh, and we pretty much said fuck you and everyone parked whatever for the weekend. The great part was after Halloween, they backed out of the inside, and parked on the outside. I'm gonna kill those bitches one day.

I was the only car left on the top floors of the parking garage. I guess everyone else got towed, or they parked in the garage I was supposed to park in (I parked in the lot that was only to be parked in when all the other lots filled up). Yes, people got towed, for not activating their permit, or not updating their permit, and stuff like that. Tow company made major $$ this weekend. When I was driving my car back, some guy though it would be a great idea to reverse out of a parking lot, onto a 7 lane road, at the intersection, in front of a police car. Loser couldn't even get to the next block before he got pulled over.

All the cars left on the street on Sunday morning had one or more of the following conditions: dents, broken mirrors, broken windows, scratches, a bunch of penises drawn on them, or it was missing altogether.

House smelled like alcohol morning after too. Nasty smell. Everything was sticky too. So wiped down everything, and disassembled one of the beer pong tables. Someone took my flipflops, so I went out and bought another pair. Took out the trash. Moped and wiped down everything. Hosed down the trash cans. House has never been cleaner.

So once again, Halloween was crazy, but not that fun. I also further established that I'm the alcoholic of the house... it's just sad when you're the tallest and lightest person in the house but can still drink more than everyone.

I'm still a bit hungover, I think I'm sick cause I keep sneezing, and I have this super confusing programming assignment to finish by Tuesday and instead of working on it, I'm updating before I forget. Horray!

Oh, we still have a mini-keg of Heineken left. Good stuff.

followup work on car

This post contains a continuation of a project started in this post. =)

First time getting home during daytime, with the garage being empty, so I figured I might as well fix all the small sloppy things I missed last time. Plus, my replacement passenger side headlight has been sitting in my closet for a while now.

Lots and lots of work involved for a very small, almost unnoticeable change.

In order to access the headlights, I once again had to remove my front bumper. Easy stuff now. While I lied under my bumped to remove the mounting screws, I got a whole mess of engine dirt in my eyes, and the bottom of my front bumpers still just as scratched up, but this time with additional colors. How I ended up with red/green/blue paint scratches under my car I have no idea.

Then I had to heat gun open my passenger headlight to grab the clear lens. The seal wasn't too tough this time, which might explain why I had condensation in my headlights. Then I also had to heat gun open my replacement headlight.

Then, I completely removed and disassembled my headlight internals. I didn't do this last time out of laziness; but it seriously takes a whole lot of work unscrewing 3 very stiff 3" long screws. Seriously it does, and it means the headlights needs to be reaimed. I also painted certain parts of the inside the projector to reduce the "squirrel finder" glare. They never really hit the signs they're supposed to light up anyways. If I want to read signs, I'll just use my high beams instead *whistles*.

I also refocused my lens so that the cutoff actually looks like a cutoff, not distorted with a bump smack center.

Then it was sunset, so I put everything back together, sealed the headlight using my replacement--not melted--headlight cover, put the bumper back on, and cleaned up and called it a day.

!-Break to a few short side stories on other stuff

Saturday morning, yes, morning. Our water heater needed fixing (and so does everything else, but today was water heater day); the pressure release valve completely corroded shut, the main water-in control valve doesn't work, and the water and mineral deposit in the tank needed to be flushed out. Long story short, had to shut off the house water source cause the water heater water source shut off didn't work, then slowly slowly drain all 30gallons out before replacing the value. Then everything worked after that. Nasty colored water got flushed out.

Over the course of two weeks, doggy managed to break the welding holding together the locking hinge on our metal gate leading outside and separated our wooden door from the hinge leading to the hillside. As a temporary fix, mom moved our wooden rocking patio chair to block off the path to those gates. Doggy breaks everything.

Wednesday night, mom comes home and couldn't find doggy. Clever dog figured that he can crawl under the rocking patio chair to reach the other side. Then he went hillside exploring; normally that's perfectly fine, except that hillside has access to the backyard of everyone on our street, and on the street at the bottom of the hill. It also takes him a while to come back when we go out to call for him, but before he always came back, usually really really dirty. This time he didn't. So my mom spent all night looking for him. Turns out he got caught by animal control. He jumped down into someone's backyard, and couldn't jump out. They called animal control, then doggy gave animal control hell. Supposedly, it took many of them a very long time to actually catch him, then they weren't strong enough to actually drag him into the car, and probably got flung around a lot, before they finally just held him in place and got him into a cage. Then they spent the next 12 hours trying to get the tag from him. I'm guessing he tried to bite them. When they finally got the tag, they called our vet, in Walnut, who gave them at Walnut phone number that didn't work, then gave them mom's work number of where she worked 6 years ago, in West Co. Luckily she went back to work for that company so they actually got a hold of her. Course they were completely baffled at how a dog from Walnut got to Monterey Park. Then they didn't dare putting the collar back on him. When they got in contact with my mom, she said she'd come pick him up during lunch, they responded with, "NO PICK HIM UP IMMEDIATELY". When she pick him up, he flung the cage he was in around and completely trashed the place. Then charged straight out, causing much grief to everyone working there. They were all like, "nooooooo, he took so much effort to catch". Mom then called him back, put his collar on him, and he dragged her out. Then animal control just threw all paperwork into the car and he obediently stayed in the house after that.

My lawn looks like this!

It's a wonderful patch of weeds. There are a few blades of grass here and there, but the weeds make the lawn pretty green too! People driving by wouldn't be able to tell with just a glance.

--end tangent.

Saturday afternoon I decided to wash my car, I didn't get very far cause the house water was shut off. After the water heater was fixed I got around to washing it.

Well I figured, since I was going to get dirty washing the car, might as well disassemble my driver side headlight to refocus that lens and reduce glare too. So once again, removed bumper, opened up headlights, disassembled everything inside, put everything back together, and then back onto the car.

So then both headlights were correctly focused, but not properly aimed. When it was dark out, after I ate dinner with connie+friends, turns out my driver side was aimed so far up that it could light up street signs on traffic lights from the stop line, significantly higher than most people's high beams. My passenger side was aimed so low that it only went about 20ft in front of me. I probably pissed off a bunch of people when I was looking for nice dark place with a big empty wall.

They're still not perfectly aimed, they don't point perfectly straight, one of them is slightly sideways, but that's ok, as long as the height is correct. I also have them aimed slightly higher than what I had before, because the bumps of light are gone.

Stock:

Before:

After:
There's still a little bit of glare (I actually couldn't see it in person, but the camera caught it). But the cutoff is a lot sharper from farther distances now, while maintaining the same amount of blue/purple flicker.

Next thing I'll do to these is make them twice as bright! But before that, some other side projects I have in mind... foglights, LED tail lights...

Plus, I have a cool new paperweight, taken out of my extra headlight.

It'll come in handy when I want to retrofit another projector to replace the high beam reflector. Something I might do much much MUCH later.

a pre-midterm update

I felt like I should update, so it doesn't seem like I disappeared or something.

Fall has been... fun, I guess. I like my professors, they all speak perfect English, give helpful lectures that are actually worth going to, and reasonable amounts of homework that actually helps. Big change from last quarter, where all my professors had accents and boring lectures, and loved to assign ton of homework every week that we all used solutions manuals for cause they were really just busywork.

But no one really cares about my professors anyways. So onto some more interesting tidbits of fall '09... like, parking.

So our house (it used to be church before it got converted into a house) kinda looks like this, with blue being the misc. things my car can't drive over, like bushes, concrete blocks, trashcans, etc.
I live in #A, it's the house in the front.

So theoretically, we can fit about 12 cars easily in here, staying on the gravel and pavement, with everyone being able to get out, or being blocked only by people living in the same complex.. (blue)

Which, really, is more than we need. #A has 4 cars, #A2 has 1 car, and #B has 4 cars. Screw leaving space for our neighbors, their backyard is twice the size of ours, and they can park on all of it.

So what ends up happening the girls in #B like to park in front, instead of in the back near their house, cause god forbid, they can't drive a car correctly in reverse. So, they park in our spots in front, usually not in the most space efficient way, forcing us to park in back, then parking behind us so none of us can actually move our cars. Then our lot looks kinda like how purple is outlined. 10 cars, 7 spaces, what do the 3 remaining cars do? If it's one of #B's cars, they reorganize the back area until they all fit, but only for them. They don't like us parking there.

If it's one of #A's or #A2's cars that needs to get parked, we get a bit creative. Since #A2 is the on site manager, he can park where ever he wants. The rest of us get a bit creative (yellow). The goal usually is to block #B's car that took our parking spot from moving, while allowing out neighbors to get out (we share a driveway). So it usually involves us parking horizontally behind their car, cause if one of us needs to get out, we can move it, or parking on our walkway, which is wide enough to fit a car, but it blocks everyone in the back from backing out.

Then we just stay blocking them off for a few days, causing them to not have cars to go to work/parties/whatever. We get angry notes left on our cars. :P

But now, we've decided that were just going to use our front spots that can easily fit 6, for 4 cars (red). We were nice enough to park nicely so one or two of their cars can park in front, but since they all park like crap and usually leave no room for us, they can stay parked in back. So that if they park poorly in back, or they can't get out cause they can't talk among themselves to move cars, then its your problem, while we can all happily open all our door all the way without them hitting anything.

Then once, our on-site manager decided to just park on the lawn (white), cause he can and someone took the spot right in front of his house. We used to leave space for him to park with us in front, but the girls in #B usually get to it first, then it's all downhill from there.


The joys of parking drama.

trip home

My dad notified me today that my electric engineering textbook got shipped to Monterey Park, instead of to UCSB. Since I actually need that textbook, I came home to get it. Horray for unplanned trip home.

I also brought my stereo home with me, cause I really don't have the space for it there, and I really don't use it there.

Now it's at home and I can blast music to my hearts desire :D

...and I found out my subwoofer has a peak output of 600w. That's crazy sexy. My Sony subwoofer is only 280w. Any equivalent replacement is well out of my budget, making upgrades ridiculously impossible to afford. I guess I'm holding onto it for a long long time.

Then I found out that my amplifier is one of the best Pioneer amplifiers ever produced. It can power just about every speaker you attach to it.

Not bad for a 20+ year old system. I just need to upgrade the speakers.

If I only had the money.... :(

new tires and wheels

My dad insisted that I get new tires, since mine was losing traction and about 3/4 dead. Sure it could have lasted at least until winter, but he insisted.

So I got a new set of wheels, which came practically new with tires. I get rid of my steelies, I get new tires, it cost a little more than how much new tires would cost without the wheels, and I don't have to pay for it, win-win I guess.

They were shipped in two boxes, but grouped as one shipment. UPS delivered box #2 on time (Monday), then realized box #1 was still in the warehouse, so the next day (Tuesday/today) they dropped off the other box. Right when they got here, I switched them on, and everything else is still going as planned.

Sure, I'm still on crappy stock tires, but they'll do for the next two years or so. Then I should have enough saved up for performance tires.

I like how they look, even if they're still OEM wheels.

Crappy cellphone camera cause that's all I got.

my side project

While I waited for the matte frames to get in for my other decorating project*, I found some IKEA frames that the previous tenants left around.

So I printed out some stuff for the frames, while testing my printer colors. All of them are slightly off-colored cause I was trying to calibrate the colors on my printer while I was at it; but you can't tell anyways, it's artwork, not photographs.

It's currently Metroid themed. :D

Course, none of them are perfectly aligned cause IKEA didn't make the frames exactly identical and I'm not very good at nailing stuff in a straight line.

Thankfully my other project uses foam adhesive pads, not nails.

what i plan on doing with my wall

I ordered some Black matte frames to match the ones I already had. You really can find anything on the internet. Then I'm going to find somewhere to print out the pictures below and put them into the frames.

Let me know if you have higher quality versions of the following pictures.