See her plugin in action at the Constellation blog.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, but for now, the most important thing to know is that I’m trying out WordPress for the blog. Observations on multi-blog setup for Debian Etch are in the works. For now, know that getting individual themes for blogs is a bit of pain in the butt, unless you’re willing to symlink your personal themes to the system WordPress directory. That will be fixed.

Keep an eye out.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’ve made an authoring tool for this page yet. In fact, I’m typing all this in on the MySQL monitor. You wouldn’t believe how much of a pain it is to have to escape every single-quote!

More details to come, assuming the load doesn’t kill the server.

Second, Japanese wrestling games. The game we played (the name of which I’ve forgotten) pitted such greats as “The Samurai” and “The Viper” against other famous wrestlers such as “Black”. Yes. That’s the full name. We breezed through two rounds, and ended up at a cage match that we absolutely could not win. Even after draining the other guy’s stamina to zero, he would break the pin and proceed to pound the living crap out of the pinner. If the pinner was lucky, he would have enough time to tag out so that the other unfortunate victim could enjoy being creamed by a guy with no spine left. We ruled it a case of computer assistance and moved on…

Finally, no doubt the one you’ve been waiting for, the 16-Bit Pornographic Terrorist Taser Game. It deserves no other name, for no other name would do it justice. Picture two dirty old men (who look remarkably like the Mario Brothers) running around a building, picking up magical “H” coins (for ‘ecchi’), riding elevators, setting bombs(!) on computers(!) and zapping people with tasers until they fall off the screen. You get, by the way, 500 points for knocking someone to the next floor down, and 1000 for knocking them all the way off the bottom of the screen. Those fortunate enough to place all the bombs must run like hell to the exit or face certain annihilation and the prospect of replaying the board from scratch.

The reward for successfully destroying a SimNation’s information infrastructure? A peek at a supposedly gorgeous anime girl. The more computers you destroy, the fewer clothes she wears. If you’re really good at using your taser (as we were), you are treated to a nude shot–though the bottom naughty bits are pixelated out. How’s that for incentive?

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think this game sends the wrong message. After all, you can’t just hit your computer until porn pops out. (Not that I know from personal experience, but I have it on the word of a very trustworthy source.) And yet, I’m intrigued. This game, as presented in an arcade cabinet without any further context, leaves me wanting more.

After all, the backstory must be a hoot. And think of the instruction manual!

Next time, we experience the game that started a revolution. No, not “Pong”.

Jikai! “Zero Wing”!

For great justice.

Well, guess what sort of day I had. Go ahead.

I arrive early in the morning to drop off my car for an inspection. The first thing they tell me is that I’m not on the list. Then they find out that I am–but the name is written in a distinctly different scrawl, as if it was placed there as an afterthought. Nobody knows who put me there.

Having dropped off my car, I hitch a ride back to campus and head to my class in Clark B104. I figure that I’ll be right on time. However, I notice that the basement of Clark Hall has not only B’s, but A’s and C’s and so on, up to G and possibly beyond! (I stopped at G.) And in all of these, there is no B104.

I turn around and head to Rockefeller, thinking that I transposed the two most common venues for STS courses. However, Rockefeller has no B104, either. (It does have a B83, though.)

So I head to the STS course office and poke my head in. The person there is busy on the phone, and doesn’t see me. I wait for a few minutes. Someone else (a plant science grad) pops in, and we get to talking. It turns out that both of us are looking for B104.

Person gets off the phone and we enter.

“We’re looking for Clark B104.”

“There is no Clark B104.”

“Huh?!”

“Professor Hilgartner’s seminar is being held in Comstock Hall.”

“Ack!”

And so we hurry over to Comstock, where Prof. Hilgartner proceeds to not recognize me as the person who asked about his seminar the day before.

Moving along, the courtesy van that was going to pick me up to get my car back was late. Very late. We talk for a bit, the driver and I, and surprisingly, I manage to make light conversation. This never happens to me.

I arrive at yon honourable dealership and find out that my car, which had some horrible burning smells once upon a time, refused to emit those smells for them.

It is 5:30, and I need to get back to my research group. I call the number that I’d entered into my cellphone, but I learn that it’s wrong. I must’ve guessed the wrong campus exchange.

I rush back up to campus (possibly ducking past a red light or two) and arrive at my research group ten minutes late. The door’s locked. I dial the campus number I remember and spend the next few moments waiting for the prof to answer the phone. I get an answering machine that is decidedly not hers.

I run up to my apartment to check the number. Looks like I got all of it wrong, not just the exchange. I hurry back down and enter the correct number.

Answering machine. The right one. But isn’t she supposed to be in her office?

I return home and leave a somewhat confused message on her machine. Instead of research, I’ll go and do library stuff.

I find the book I’m looking for where I expected it to be (but the computer desktops looked different last time I was here), and try to check it out.

My ID doesn’t work. I no longer exist.

I fear I might’ve scared the folks manning the counter, as I was beginning to feel a horrible break in reality, and it was showing.

“My ID was working fine yesterday.”

“Do extramural students get to check out books?”

“I did last semester.”

“I don’t think extramural students have ever been able to check out books.”

“But I did last semester!”

“Are you a student?”

“Yes, I’m an extramural student.”

“Full time?”

“Extramural is part-time.”

“Right. Do you work?”

“I’m doing some work as a research assistant right now, but I don’t think that would kill my library privileges.”

“So you’re a student.”

“That too. Extramural, like I said.”

“Full time?”

“No, extramural study is part time.”

At this point, I become a bit flustered. I’m not just in an alien reality; I’m doing a cheap ripoff of the (in)famous “Who’s on First?” sketch.

“Are you on leave? Are you even taking any courses?”

“I’m not on leave; I’m just an extramural student. And I’m taking courses, hence the ’student’ part.”

“Have you ever registered for classes at Cornell before?”

“I’m beginning to doubt I’m even registered now.”

“Huh?”

“I just registered for this semester this week. And I certainly hope I was registered last semester, because I wrote Cornell a check.”

“Full time?”

“Extramural. I’ve always been extramural. If I’m not lucky, I’ll always be extramural and I’ll be stuck behind a counter somewhere.”

Unspoken addendum to the above: “…asking stupid questions.”

“Have you ever been employed by the university?”

“I’m working over at Information Science, but there’s nobody there now, so don’t bother calling. I’ve been a student employee before. And I still don’t see what this has to do with checking out this book. Can’t I get a manual loan?”

“I don’t think extramural students can check out books.”

“But I did last semester!”

Finally, she goes to talk to someone in back. The definitive answer–which I overheard–was “I don’t know, but you should tell him to talk to our library services people.”

I get a card with an office to visit and get out. Minus the book.

I meet my friend Seiji on the way back from library hell. He’s having trouble with astronomy. I tell him that Vega is a bluish-white color. It proves useful to his homework. He tells me that the new arcade down the block has the original “Street Fighter” game. I’m impressed. We decide to go take a look in an hour or so.

And this is where it stands. I’ll have dinner, play some “Street Fighter” old-school style, and hope this all works out when I wake up tomorrow.