All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Tonight, I was driving home on I-10 West from CA-57. The whole way back, essentially all drivers were extremely aggressive. I can’t remember any cars that allowed a few car lengths of buffer zone around them. If they weren’t aggressive, they were the complete opposite — driving too slow for the flow of traffic.

I was engulfed by frustration as I-605 drew near. I tried to get to the number 1 lane so I could go North. I promise my signal lights work. I was signaling for a mile trying to get over, but nobody would let me. The car behind me was tailgating, so I couldn’t slow down.

I ended up going South — the opposite direction. Argh!

I had to exit on Valley to backtrack. Immediately after the off-ramp, I saw that there was an on-ramp going North. I got back on, but I had to cut someone off speeding towards the on-ramp trying to get around the street traffic. (I think they were headed for the shoulder, but didn’t realize it.)

California drivers are idiots, and I’m ashamed that I’m one of them. No matter how hard I try to be a good, defensive driver, it seems to be in vain.

What do you think? If you’re a native Californian, and you’ve seen our traffic, how does it compare to where you reside? If you are a Californian, do you agree with my thoughts? How could we help the mentality of drivers?

Note: The photo isn’t from tonight — I just wanted to use something.

Today, my co-worker — who also happens to go to Citrus College — told me our grades were online. I was scared, but I logged in a saw that I earned a “B” in English 102 and a “C” in Great Religions of The World (Philosophy 101). Gadzooks!

I thank God and all my family, friends and co-workers that supported me.

Posts written during this semester (Spring 2007):

• Put your syllabus into your calendar
• Lessons learned from a studying frenzy
• Essays and finals galore, oh my!
• One final exam remains
• My finals are over

Esther called me up a little while ago. She was lost somewhere in La Cañada Flintridge and needed help to find the rest of the way. With two pieces of information — where she was and the destination address — I easily gave her directions for the rest of her journey.

What rocks: Yahoo! Maps

I wrote a review of the service last year. Since then, Google Maps did add support for multiple destinations, as well as reverse destinations.

The feature of being able to drive to/from the center cross hair slays Google Maps! Why hasn’t Google implemented this feature? Pfft.

My buddy, Dave, popped in with an unexpected friend (who shall remain nameless for his protection) while I was catching up on the last 4-5 episodes of Heroes. I was blown away with how the characters all come together at the end, no pun intended.

Dave’s trying to learn some card magic to take with him when he goes to China this summer with people from his church.

It’s fascinating that while I haven’t really done card magic in at least a year, I can still pick it up and perform. It really is like riding a bicycle! My showmanship needs work, I’m sure. One simple card trick I performed for my anonymous friend still blew him away. If you would’ve seen his face, and you knew the slights, you would’ve erupted in laughter and amazement, like Dave did.

A few years ago, I did a walk around at The Block at Orange. Some friends took turns capturing me on video while I went up to random strangers. Then, after a huge crowd surrounded me on one of my last performances, we got kicked out. I should build up to do that again sometime — it was such a rush!

Anyway, back to the present-day! Most of today was spent watching TV shows I’ve saved up for the last few weeks. Napping felt really good, too.

I would love to say that everything is out of my head and written down in my system, but I’m not sure if that’s true. In any case, I felt I needed this day of nothingness.

How do you feel when you get these days?

Yesterday was a blur. The past couple weeks have been a blur. I had to write two 3-5 page essays. I know that sounds short, but if you hate writing essays, it’s tough to scrounge quotes and analysis of those quotes. On top of that, I had an English final on Tuesday, then a Philosophy final yesterday morning. (The official class title is “Great Religions of the World.”)

I have regrets about the semester. I didn’t do as well as I should have. I didn’t take efficient notes like I said I wanted to, which led to a lot of cramming because I didn’t space out my tasks.

The difference between the Bryan of past semesters and the Bryan now is that I still stuck it out. After the drop and withdraw deadlines, I knew I couldn’t go back. I had a few “please see me” notes from Mrs. Eisel after a few of my essays. Some students would freak out or just drop the class. You know, the mentality of “I don’t want to deal with this!” Since I met with my professor, she was gracious enough to offer an extension so I could redo some of my essays that needed it. At my English final, I was actually sad to see her go, along with the rest of the class. How many professors can you say that about?

Cool — so, how did you do?

I won’t lie. In philosophy, I went into the final needing a 78% in order to pass the class with a 70%. There were 20 questions at 5 points each: 5 true/false, 5 vocabulary questions (that asked the definitions of 3 words), and the rest were short answer. Out of the two hours given to take the exam, I finished in one hour. Some of my answers weren’t thorough, but I left no question blank.

I was more fortunate in English, which I wrote about on Tuesday, titled “One final exam remains.”

I’m going to drive out tomorrow to drop off self-addressed stamped postcards to my professors’ offices. That way, I can get my grades before the official ones get mailed out and posted online.

I know you can’t tell from the picture above, but I’m relieved!

I’m on a break at work. I need coffee, and I’m not going to walk to Starbucks. Our kitchen has brewed coffee, so I’ll try it.

Ugh! Bitter!

My AeroPress is still rocking since I bought it almost two months ago! Have you read my Aeropress review? It’s worth buying! I rarely go to Starbucks anymore, except to buy more coffee beans.

[View on Flickr]

AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker

Aerobie, Kitchen, $23.99

This morning, I took my English 102 final. It was pretty laid back, especially because it was open book and open note. I was just shooting for a B or a C. There were a few works of literature that I didn’t read carefully: “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen and “Antigone” by Sophicles. The other two I had to write about were “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston.

I also received my last essay (on “Their Eyes Were Watching God”) and essay 2 (on Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night“) from a couple of months ago, which happened because she didn’t receive a hard copy. I received a B and a B+ for those two. I was so stoked, you don’t even know!

*** When writing an essay, here’s my tip. While analyzing quotes, ask yourself, “So what?” Don’t leave any question in the readers’ mind about what your point is.

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be studying for my Philosophy 101 final exam on “Great Religions of the World.” It’s cumulative of the whole semester, and I need to have 43 vocabulary words memorized.

Oh, I need to turn in my essay sometime today on “A Raisin in the Sun”. That’s what I’m doing at the Arcadia Public Library right now.

For the rest of you in finals week, keep the end in mind. It’s almost over!

If you connect to the internet wirelessly, a firewall and antivirus software won’t prevent possibly sensitive information — transmitted from your laptop to the router — from being seen by packet sniffers. Why do you need to implement a security system like this? (My emphasis added.)

Uses of packet sniffers: “Spy on other network users and collect sensitive information such as passwords (depending on any content encryption methods which may be in use)”

The bits that fly through the air are probably unencrypted by default. In a setting where the wireless access point is wide open, your data can be transmitted in plain text.

When I bought my Linksys WRT54GL and installed DD-WRT last July, I didn’t realize I didn’t need to use Hamachi and Remote Desktop to prevent packet sniffing.

Five months before I bought my new router, Scott Hanselman wrote, “Configuring PPTP VPN with alternate Linksys Router Firmware.” Here’s some additions I’d like to offer:

• My server IP is the same as my router.
• Dynamic DNS through DynDNS is free!
• In DD-WRT v23 SP1, you can find the PPTP Server settings under Administration > Services.
• Generate a password from GRC, and see Microsoft’s Password Checker.
• I manually selected MS-CHAP v2. It seems secure enough to encrypt all my packets.

Today, I’m at the Arcadia Public Library working on an essay and studying for finals, in addition to testing PPTP VPN for the first time ever. Trying to scare my mom, I printed to my home printer. I browsed my home computer’s shared folders. Lastly, I was sniffing packets with Sniphere. Filtering my assigned IP address at the library, all of the packets showed a bunch of gibberish. Yes!

Unlike the Hamachi solution, there shouldn’t be any downtime because my router is always on. Also, I don’t need to keep my computer on, unless I need file access. I think this means I don’t need Hamachi anymore.

Besides buying the DD-WRT-supported router, which I needed anyway, this setup was free!

You know I use Bloglines. However, I still find it a hindrance to subscribe to comments for a specific blog post using RSS.

I tried coComment a long time ago. I didn’t like it. (Is it better now?)

Teach me something. Do you subscribe to comments? What the easiest way?

I love subscribing to comments with e-mail. The WordPress plugin that accomplishes that is Subscribe to Comments by Mark Jaquith. It rocks. As a commenter, it’s the easiest thing to check the box before I submit my comment.

If you like that, Comment Email Responder allows you to respond to a comment in such a way that they know it was specifically intended for them. You click the envelope next to the commenter’s name, fill out your reply, then submit your comment. That’s really simple, too. For one of my posts here, one commenter has replied multiple times — rather than just one and done — and I’m sure it I owe it to that plugin.

I want need to make sure it’s simple for you to keep track where your conversations. Shouldn’t you do the same?

What else can you integrate into your blog to promote more conversation?

I finally finished reading my last novel for English 102: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. I’ll take a break to mention what’s coming up these next couple weeks.

• I’ve got an essay due tomorrow. It needs to be about “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• Friday, May 11^th, at 11pm, our band (Phantom Scream) has a show at The Airliner Club in Los Angeles. That’ll be the highlight of my days ahead.
• Next Tuesday and Thursday, I have my English and Great Religions of the World finals, respectively. English is open-book and open notes, so that’s okay. Religion is not even close to being like that. That’s why there’s that big gap this weekend. If it’s possible, I’ll be surgically attached to my textbooks and lecture notes.
• I have another essay to fix (for English), and I’m aiming to get it done by next Thursday night. On a positive note, Prof. Eisel was really nice about it. I thought she was going to grill me!

If I can help it, I’ll never simultaneously take two critical thinking classes again.