It's been quite a busy weekend of sports for a sports fan such as me. On Saturday, the college football scene is fired up, and OSU was completely swamped by people dressed in their red shirts, jerseys, shorts, almost anything possible that can be worn in red was worn. OSU had a home game versus in-state rival Marshall, and although I didn't watch the game, it came down to the wire, but OSU always seems to find a way to win close games as they pulled out this one 24-21.
The tennis fans in me enjoyed the traditional "Super Saturday" of the US Open with two men's semifinals and the women's final. Actually I only watched the men's semis since the women's final really didn't interest me that much. Both Hewitt and Federer played very well in their respective matches and won in straight sets. So the final seemed to look pretty interesting on paper where you have Federer, the current ultimate all court player versus Hewitt, who is the human backboard in men's tennis at the moment. Unfortunately, except for the 2nd set, the match was pretty boring as the Fed Express rolled through Hewitt 6-0, 7-6, 6-0.
Also, the football season started on Sunday, and so far my fantasy football team is holding up ok. As of now, I'm only 1.5 points behind, but my opponent has used all his players, and I still have Steve Smith in the Carolina/GB Monday night game, so I just need Smith to give me more than 1.5 points for the win!
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Friday, September 10, 2004
It's Friday already!
Wow, I think we should have Monday's off more often, because this week just feels like it has FLOWN past. At the lab today, there was a meeting with all the graduate students and our lab director, John Volakis, to discuss student concerns and such. Most of the student's concerns seemed to be about the shuffling of offices, but Dr. Volakis reminded us that we had about 20+ new students coming in the fall, and the constant moving was necessary to accomodate the new students and squeeze as much out of our rooms. The good news is that the ESL lab will undergo an expansion in the next 3 or 4 years where a new building will be built that will connect to the old one. In addition, new renovations will also be done in the building to bring the building out of its aging World War II look.
The American men didn't fare too well today as the US Open resumed its schedule from the near rainout from yesterday. Andre Agassi fought back in his match against Roger Federer and evened the match by taking the fourth set 6-3. But Federer regrouped and pulled out the match in the 5th set 6-3. Andy Roddick, the defending champion, almost matched Joachim Johansson serve for serve as these two big servers dualed it out into the 5th set. However, Roddick dug himself in a 0-40 hole in his service game as he was behind 4-5 in the set. He saved the first two match points, but he hit a backhand long on the 3rd match point for Johansson to lose the match. Looking at the statistics of the match, you probably would have figured that Roddick had the match won. He had more aces, won a larger percentage of his service games, and won more points overall. But tennis is kind of funny in that you don't have to be better statistically; you just have to be the better competitor in the match and win all the crucial points.
The American men didn't fare too well today as the US Open resumed its schedule from the near rainout from yesterday. Andre Agassi fought back in his match against Roger Federer and evened the match by taking the fourth set 6-3. But Federer regrouped and pulled out the match in the 5th set 6-3. Andy Roddick, the defending champion, almost matched Joachim Johansson serve for serve as these two big servers dualed it out into the 5th set. However, Roddick dug himself in a 0-40 hole in his service game as he was behind 4-5 in the set. He saved the first two match points, but he hit a backhand long on the 3rd match point for Johansson to lose the match. Looking at the statistics of the match, you probably would have figured that Roddick had the match won. He had more aces, won a larger percentage of his service games, and won more points overall. But tennis is kind of funny in that you don't have to be better statistically; you just have to be the better competitor in the match and win all the crucial points.
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Are you up to the challenge????
My friend Scott showed me a video that he and his friends (known as the Kline Four Group) at Northwestern University made, so here it is...The ALTOIDS CHALLENGE!!!
Meanwhile, a thug gets pwned by...a karate instructor!
Meanwhile, a thug gets pwned by...a karate instructor!
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Happy Belated Labor Day!
Ah...I'm back once again in my cool and cozy dorm room at Ohio State after spending the long weekend back in my real home in Pennsylvania. It was pretty fun and relaxing to stay at home for a while. Almost immediately after I got back on Friday, I went with my mom to the Scion dealership to take a look at the xB. Now, my mom had poked fun at me for a while about how boxy the xB was and such, but she was really surprised (as was I) to see how roomy it actually was despite the short length and height of the car. Even nicer I thougth was the fact that Bob, the car salesman who talked to me at the dealership, just gave me the keys and said to have fun testdriving the car (i.e. no salesman sat in the car while I was test-driving it). The xB itself was a really fun car to drive, kind of like a large go-cart :) The centrally placed odometer took a bit to getting use to, and there was no stereo installed in the model that I drove. Apparently, the dealership customizes the car to the buyer's preference, so that's why they leave it out of the car. Overall, despite my mom nagging me about the car's shape, I was very impressed with the xB as it is a very practical and reliable car. With taxes and tags, the xB costs about $16,000, and it has a very nice standard feature set that satisfies all my needs. However, I'm still kind of deciding whether to get it or not, and my parents want to see if they can sqeeze a bit more out of the Acura before I get a new car. I'm now driving a 2000 Honda Odyssey around on campus, as my parents wanted to have a mechanic that they know take a look at the Acura and evaulate whether it was worth keeping or not.
My parents held a pretty large BBQ at our house on Saturday, and I think we kind of overcooked for this occasion as I brought back about 12 or so fully-cooked hamburger patties that are now sitting in my fridge. Ah well, at least I won't have to cook for a while :)
Grr...the rains have put on hold a great matchup between current #1 player Roger Federer and the old warrior Andre Agassi as they squared off in their quarterfinal matchup. Federer got off to a pretty good start and took the first set 6-3. But Agassi , who has usually played percentage tennis late in his career, began to find the range on his groundstroke and fired back in the second set. Along with some unexpected errors from Federer, Agassi rolled off the 2nd set 6-2. The third set was played pretty closely by both players in the 3rd set, but Federer managed to sneak in a break at 5-all and served out the 3rd set at 7-5. At deuce in the first game of the 4th set, the rains suddenly came out of the sky, putting this great match on hold till some later date. Although I think Federe will likely win this match, I'm pulling for Andre as he has hinted that he might be retiring soon, and it would be great to see him go out on top at the US Open.
In sad news, as I woke up on Tuesday morning, I heard my mom talking on the phone and sounding upset and sad. After she hung up, she told me that one of her friend's daughters had been found dead at Princeton. :( The cause of death is still unknown, but hopefully the investigators will find out what happened. It's always tough to lose those who are closest to you :(
My parents held a pretty large BBQ at our house on Saturday, and I think we kind of overcooked for this occasion as I brought back about 12 or so fully-cooked hamburger patties that are now sitting in my fridge. Ah well, at least I won't have to cook for a while :)
Grr...the rains have put on hold a great matchup between current #1 player Roger Federer and the old warrior Andre Agassi as they squared off in their quarterfinal matchup. Federer got off to a pretty good start and took the first set 6-3. But Agassi , who has usually played percentage tennis late in his career, began to find the range on his groundstroke and fired back in the second set. Along with some unexpected errors from Federer, Agassi rolled off the 2nd set 6-2. The third set was played pretty closely by both players in the 3rd set, but Federer managed to sneak in a break at 5-all and served out the 3rd set at 7-5. At deuce in the first game of the 4th set, the rains suddenly came out of the sky, putting this great match on hold till some later date. Although I think Federe will likely win this match, I'm pulling for Andre as he has hinted that he might be retiring soon, and it would be great to see him go out on top at the US Open.
In sad news, as I woke up on Tuesday morning, I heard my mom talking on the phone and sounding upset and sad. After she hung up, she told me that one of her friend's daughters had been found dead at Princeton. :( The cause of death is still unknown, but hopefully the investigators will find out what happened. It's always tough to lose those who are closest to you :(
Some links to pass the time...
In my previous blog I usually posted some humorous or interesting links for my handful of fans out there, so here are a few to pass the time :P
Interesting news report from Iraq
How fast do you type? I'm rated at 98/93
Interesting news report from Iraq
How fast do you type? I'm rated at 98/93
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
The cost of being a student...
Well, the compiling problems are slowly going away. My friend Ryan, who is also my officemate, helped me get going with compiling the Taucs code on my office PC using Cygwin, which sort of emulates Unix. Ryan already had Taucs running on his machine, so he showed me two libraries I had to download to get it working. Unforunately, one of the libraries called Altas has a very involved installation process that optimizes the code when you compile it, and from 1 pm till around 4 pm when I left the office, Atlas will still compiling on my office pc -.- Hopefully, it'll be done by the time I come to the office tomorrow.
My credit card also got a pretty good workout today as I paid ~$150 for some new disposable contact lense after my morning eye check up to make sure the trial lenses were working ok. Also, I got to the parking office today to get myself one of the new parking passes, which set me back $68. Man, everything is so expensive these days -.- And to think that I'm maybe looking to get a new car to replace my Acura. I've been reading up on the xB, which has kind of grown on me the more that I see it. For around $15k, you get a very spacious car with a good selection of standard features, and it's not boring like a Camry or Accord :P When I go back home this weekend, I'm gonna drop by the local Scion dealership to give the xB a test drive.
There was a good US Open match this evening featuring Roger Federer, the current number 1 tennis player in the world, and Marcos Baghdatis, a qualifier from Cyprus, an island off the coast of Greece. Although Baghdatis got off to kind of a nervous start, he showed some good fight and gave Federer all he could handle as he run down balls and hit some blistering forehands. Baghdatis even managed to take the 2nd set in a tiebreaker! However, Baghdatis showed that he wasn't quite fit enough to compete with the top tier players just yet as he began to show signs of cramping at the end of the 3rd set and start of the fourth set, and Federer basically rolled through the match from there. However, big props to Baghdatis for giving the NY crowd and tennis watchers a great performance (^_^)b
My credit card also got a pretty good workout today as I paid ~$150 for some new disposable contact lense after my morning eye check up to make sure the trial lenses were working ok. Also, I got to the parking office today to get myself one of the new parking passes, which set me back $68. Man, everything is so expensive these days -.- And to think that I'm maybe looking to get a new car to replace my Acura. I've been reading up on the xB, which has kind of grown on me the more that I see it. For around $15k, you get a very spacious car with a good selection of standard features, and it's not boring like a Camry or Accord :P When I go back home this weekend, I'm gonna drop by the local Scion dealership to give the xB a test drive.
There was a good US Open match this evening featuring Roger Federer, the current number 1 tennis player in the world, and Marcos Baghdatis, a qualifier from Cyprus, an island off the coast of Greece. Although Baghdatis got off to kind of a nervous start, he showed some good fight and gave Federer all he could handle as he run down balls and hit some blistering forehands. Baghdatis even managed to take the 2nd set in a tiebreaker! However, Baghdatis showed that he wasn't quite fit enough to compete with the top tier players just yet as he began to show signs of cramping at the end of the 3rd set and start of the fourth set, and Federer basically rolled through the match from there. However, big props to Baghdatis for giving the NY crowd and tennis watchers a great performance (^_^)b
Taucs and Tennis
I resumed my battle with the compilers today, but the errors continue to plague me. I'm trying to compile a set of codes called Taucs that solve matrices, and althought the website mentions that there should not be too many problems compiling the code on OS X, I have found otherwise. However, I had thought of an idea just after I left the office, so I'm going to see if I can expand on that idea tomorrow when I go back to the office.
The US Open tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows, NY started this week, and I managed to catch some of the live evening matches on USA network. Juan Carlos Ferrero, last year's finalist, had a very difficult time in his matchup before finally pulling it together in the last set against Tomas Zib. Ferrero still seems to be finding his range after missing a good part of the beginning of 2004 with chicken pox. Maria Sharapova, this year's woman's winner at Wimbledon, got all that she could against American Laura Grandville before winning the last 3 games in the third set to take it 7-5. After winning Wimbledon, the expectations on her get higher and higher, so it'll be interesting to see how she handles it. Andy Roddick had the easiest day as he only lost 4 games against Scoville Jenkins and packed some major heat in his serve, clocking it at 152 mph in the beginning of the match. Scoville Jenkins was the winner of the Boy's 18 and under US National tournament at Kalamazoo, and the winner of that tournament always gets a wild card into the US Open. Unforunately, the wild card gets you bracketed with the defending US Open champ, and Roddick was the defending champion. However, the crowd got Jenkins going for a bit, and he managed to play a bit better in the 2nd and 3rd sets as his nerves calmed down, but Roddick was serving too good and kept his errors to a minimum to comfortably get through the match.
It's hard to pick a winner because the depth of the men's and women's game have risen dramatically, and having to win 7 matches over a span of 2 weeks is a daunting task for any player. I'm just hoping that there will be some memorable matches to see in the next 2 weeks, and with roudy and energetic NY crowd, there's bound to be some ^_^
In tech news, Apple publically announced the new iMac, and it now looks like one of their new digital displays except it's thicker and made out of plastic. Apparently, the designers of the iPod were given a chance to express how they would design the iMac, and if you look at it from the side it does kind of remind you of an iPod. After watching the Mac Expo keynote speech introducing the new iMac, I was thinking "eh, it looks kind of cool, but not overly groundbreaking..." Then again, I guess these iMacs will find a home for the non-power user that don't demand for 1 GB of ram and the fast graphics cards like me :P
The US Open tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows, NY started this week, and I managed to catch some of the live evening matches on USA network. Juan Carlos Ferrero, last year's finalist, had a very difficult time in his matchup before finally pulling it together in the last set against Tomas Zib. Ferrero still seems to be finding his range after missing a good part of the beginning of 2004 with chicken pox. Maria Sharapova, this year's woman's winner at Wimbledon, got all that she could against American Laura Grandville before winning the last 3 games in the third set to take it 7-5. After winning Wimbledon, the expectations on her get higher and higher, so it'll be interesting to see how she handles it. Andy Roddick had the easiest day as he only lost 4 games against Scoville Jenkins and packed some major heat in his serve, clocking it at 152 mph in the beginning of the match. Scoville Jenkins was the winner of the Boy's 18 and under US National tournament at Kalamazoo, and the winner of that tournament always gets a wild card into the US Open. Unforunately, the wild card gets you bracketed with the defending US Open champ, and Roddick was the defending champion. However, the crowd got Jenkins going for a bit, and he managed to play a bit better in the 2nd and 3rd sets as his nerves calmed down, but Roddick was serving too good and kept his errors to a minimum to comfortably get through the match.
It's hard to pick a winner because the depth of the men's and women's game have risen dramatically, and having to win 7 matches over a span of 2 weeks is a daunting task for any player. I'm just hoping that there will be some memorable matches to see in the next 2 weeks, and with roudy and energetic NY crowd, there's bound to be some ^_^
In tech news, Apple publically announced the new iMac, and it now looks like one of their new digital displays except it's thicker and made out of plastic. Apparently, the designers of the iPod were given a chance to express how they would design the iMac, and if you look at it from the side it does kind of remind you of an iPod. After watching the Mac Expo keynote speech introducing the new iMac, I was thinking "eh, it looks kind of cool, but not overly groundbreaking..." Then again, I guess these iMacs will find a home for the non-power user that don't demand for 1 GB of ram and the fast graphics cards like me :P
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)