March Idiotness - The guy with the worst NCAA bracket of all time

Ok, I just HAD to post this story. It...well there are just no words. None. The unbelieveably vast pit of pure incompetence that lurks in this guy's head is just staggering. It must be read to be believed.

March Madness

Now I bet you're expecting me to talk about the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament, right? While I am thoroughly enjoying the tourney so far (even though my brackets are now totally screwed thanks to LSU's ousting of Duke and Gonzaga's jaw-dropping collapse in the final seconds against UCLA), I am in fact speaking of the Xbox 360 Gamerscore contest between Josh, Brad, and myself.

It's been pretty close between Josh and I the past week, and now that we are entering the home stretch it looks like it might be a photo finish. But Brad is still the dark horse in all this as he has a lot of games that could potentially put him over the top, but we'll just have to wait and see.

To ensure that we don't lose track of the time, I've put a countdown timer on my blog to track how much time we have left. It's set to expire at 12:01 AM April 1, so when you see the words "Game over!", it's done, no more, el fin.

I'm thinking it might be time to rent some games this weekend. Hmm...what to choose.

Fun with the CS lab Nazi

This is the week for funny spam emails. I just recently got this one from none other than the CS Lab Nazi: John P. Cropper:

You have been violating the quota restrictions on
your CS alumni account for CGI space and have now
received 33 warnings.

Your WWW and CGI areas have been removed and your CS
alumni account scheduled for removal in May 2006

John Cropper
CS 'lab' staff

Hmmm...33 warnings, eh? Let's use a little math to determine just how much I care:

(33 warnings - 33 messages from 'root' that were flagged as spam) + 1 annoyed email from Cropper - 1 sarcastically replied to email from Cropper = 0 care level

Frankly, I was tired of the damn "over quota restrictions" emails and I was going to actually do something about it...but then I realized it would be more fun to see how long they would stand for my deliciously obscene quota violations. Turns out that 33 is the magic number where they finally snapped. Looks like I'm losing my alumni account. Gee, I feel real sad you know?

True, I did have my forums running on there but after my time as a CS127a section leader was up, they didn't get used anymore. Plus I can always host them somewhere else if I feel like it.

Pretty fire gym

Ok, the spam e-mails have just started getting wacky now. Not the usual "Increase you penis size with cheap viagra + free ink cartridges!" But getting borderline insane. I mean, it's like they aren't even trying to sell you crap anymore. Now they just have raving lunatics with laptops and access to Babelfsih writing their ads for them. Take a look. Here is a spam e-mail I got a few weeks ago, with the subject line "XP PRO, OFFICE 2003 AND ALL AT ONLY $12-60 EACH, WE GIVE U LICENSE":

side mentioned principle pretty fire gym. here find news wife profession make. latter why black bad light social.
black here thus speaking pride.
my human commit. happened anything yours again.
wife here wife different? sandwich anybody studied bought light immediate, thats is few.
motor commit taught respect wrong, window latter being.

And here's one I got this morning (same subject line):

anybody back window sugar mentioned wrong. corner sandwich edge disappoint anything. miserable happened social?
happened bought again. fascinate added similar side disappoint here,
prison bought sandwich commit somewhere,
studied goes rich wanted.
night supposedto principle. find reference fascinate use, mischievous taught supposedto?

Wow. Just wow.

30 books you should read before you die

Found this through Fark of all places. Apparantly librarians all over Britain were polled about what books everyone should read before they die. Since I think this is a great list, I'm presenting it here. (I've hightlighted books I've read in bold)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Bible
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8. All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14. Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20. The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

So I haven't read a lot of these, but I feel good that I've read the top 5 (well not ALL of the Bible, but some if it at least). Looks like I've got some work to do. Oh and here's the original story.

Laser chess? Hell yeah!

Check out this sweet game called Deflexion! It's similar to chess, except some of the pieces have mirrros on them that reflect a laser beam around the board. To win you have to position your pieces (which are Egyptian themed) to strike the other player's pharoh (i.e. checkmate). Only $40 too. Man this would turn a few heads down at Starbucks :-p. Check out the site.