[ news archive 4: 01/03-06/03 ]

6/21: This is the Duckpond v3 news page's last post.  so sad.  also short. 

6/19: Emily says i need to update this.  she's probably right.  she usually is.

so................check it out -- testbed #1, version #1 for duckpond v4 is up, including some summer photos.  nothing's operational, it's just a design/layout sketchpad so far.  also only viewable with IE4+ or Netscape 6+.

6/4:  No page yet -- but beginning to gather pictures for the epic year-end gallery -- six flags, senior prom & graduation.  until formatting appears, they'll be dumped here.  still no ideas for the full reformat, but that's ok since i'm Really Busy.  yeah 2 jobs.  gotta love that.

5/29:    home.

mothballing the duckpond for now -- senior graduation pics should appear in about a week, after that, nothing scheduled until the launch of duckpond.v.4.......for which i have not yet even started playing with concept art.  could take a while, especially considering i'm currently holding down two jobs and trying to pack.

if you're in town this summer (princeton, that is), toss me an email and we'll hang.  

5/16: as of midnight tonight, May has already given the duckpond as many hits as any previous month in its entirety (480).  seeing as it's now only halfway through the month, and there are still several end-of-year activities to go, this is could set quite a record...

5/15: ok...i lied.  now remaining: pef talent show

5/11: i know you're all wondering when the rest of the galleries will be up (pef talent show, manna senior banquet, servant team installation, jane's birthday, etc etc etc)......and i'm afraid all i can say for now is "not soon."  i'm barely going to make it through finals as it is......i might get some assorted pictures up here and there; makes for good study breaks; but i don't expect to see spring 10 and spring 11 completed until late May.

5/9:  support Dan Peng!  article  donation form  information for clueless people who never watch the news

5/6:  Jp = Done.

5/4:  lesson for life: when deliberately eschewing Houseparties for the sake of academic work, do not leave your room at any time during the weekend.  missing them is not a great loss, especially when your graduation is at stake, but watching every last guy you know paired off with every last girl you know, all decked out and smiling, will seriously derail your concentration, and start the whole whine&pine process so endemic to eighth grade schoolboys and so worthy of disdain among the rest of us.

5/5:  lesson for life, 2: alright....so however deflating Houseparties may have been, Lawnparties proved redemptive.  Kudos to John Paul for thwapping me to get out of my room and have some fun.  Pictures!

plus a duckpond hit update: new record!  the infamous "Day of the Mindy Wreathe" has been supplanted!
top days are now:

1. 59 hits: May 4th, 2003 (Houseparties)

2. 52 hits: May 3th, 2003 (Houseparties)

3. 50 hits: Dec. 8th, 2002 (the Mindy Wreathe)

thus, thanks to the Houseparties photo shoots, the last 48 hours have seen over a quarter of the hits logged for the entire month of April.

also, according to this, in the wake of HParties, my site was the 15th most requested directory on the campus unix servers...now, i'm sure that's nothing compared to the private servers (ie rizzo) but it's still pretty darn cool.

this is fun.

(data courtesy of CQ Counter)

5/1:  New use found for a Velbon MAXi 347-GB Tripod!   

with one leg at maximum extension,   it provides for an approximately 4.5-foot standoff range for my ongoing duel with the ubiquitous Princeton House Centipedes.  Now, that's no Excalibur: The Broom of Doom (my weapon of choice), but for a portable, emergency weapon, I'm quite pleased.

  one of the demon-spawned centipedes. approximately ½ full size...often 1.5+ inches long.

in other news, the last scraps of my dignity have now been sacrificed on the altar of screaming like a girl and jumping onto my bed. so much for concentrating.

Broom Kills:                     3?  hard to remember...possibly more.
Scalding Hot Water Kills:  2    that's what you GET for crawling into a sink
Tripod Kills:                      1

4/30:       Alumni!         

4/21:   Pending updates -- Jenitta's Birthday, Baptism Service, Aileen's Easter Extravaganza, Easter Night.

Easter stuff will be tossed here during construction...but this could be a slow process...much too much work to do right now...

Ok...so i'm procrastinating more than i expected...

4/15: www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

and i look forward to June, when i can reformat this web.  this whole transitional layout thing needs to go...

:4/10: analysis of the RIAA lawsuit against dan.  very well written & comprehensive.

for the record, search engines almost identical to the ones the RIAA are suing are freely and legally available all over the internet.  i recommend ShareScan 2 (if you find a better one please give me a holler).  and yes, i said legally; although i personally limit my usage so as not to draw the ire of the swamped OIT servers. 

4/6:  english.aljazeera.net -- interesting.

3/31:  reconstructing the Faith page...hopefully an update by midweek.  Only a year overdue...

      (4/7 update....or not.   eventually...)

3/26:

tribute to the seniors: the woody woo event horizon

click here for more information.  :-)

3/25: 

aww man -- so much for dignity.  remind me not to subject my fate to online quizzes ever again...

(Pretty Boy)
Find out what anime character cliche you are.

3/24:

hmmph.  see, now the friends gallery is backfiring -- too many pictures.  rather than flattering those who Are up, it sorta alienates those who Aren't.  sorry guys.  no offense intended...you'll have your day in the sun soon...err...on the web...err...oh whatever...

3/23: 

feeling typical today.  

"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future.  We almost never think of the present, 
and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future...Thus we never actually live, but only hope to live, 
and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."
- Pascal, Pensée #47, tr. Krailsheimer

Taking the occasional study break to play with The Gimp - a Linux based, *free* graphic manipulation program.  It appears, at first glance, to be slightly more powerful than my current editor -- Jasc PSP7. That said, these things are notoriously touchy and counter-intuitive (it took me over a year to feel comfortable with PSP)...so I'm sure I'll keep them both around.  PSP is certainly a whole landslide faster on my old 'puter...and has a much more user-friendly interface. 

These are the first tests, using mediocre pictures that are reeeeally hard to manipulate.  They're NOT reflective of the "ultimate ability" of either program -- ie, i could produce either image in either program, if i worked at it.  Rather, this is a test of what i can currently do, with the functions i understand, in under 5 minutes.

3/19:

a fun game! 

*removed*  not really all that funny any more...

3/18:

just for your information...if any of you ever come across a small fortune and don't really know what to do with it, one of these would greatly improve the functioning of the duckpond.  ;-)

oh -- and some really cool pictures here -- ruins of several really-early basilicas...Yehuda says 1st/2nd century...i'd guess 3rd/4th or slightly later myself, but then -- he's been there & i haven't...so who knows!

3/16:

Manna Spring Retreat pictures coming soon...3/17: now posted!

3/8:

people seem to think i'm not updating enough this year.  :-(  

ahh well.  i have been insanely busy.  classes are gnawing my legs off.

summer plans progressing.  Hebrew at ptsem looks like the plan...possibly a part-time job on the side.

the real wild card for now is whether i can pull my JP together in time.  my topic is sort of floundering, and i can't find an adviser.  about two months left, intermixed with all my other work.  guess what i'm doing for (all of) spring break?

and midterms should be interesting.  i'm running a gamble in Latin right now: given that i can't do the translation, but given that translation is only about 30% of the final grade, can i ace every essay and quiz along the way and thus pull off a B?  the professor thinks i might be able to...

greek on the other hand.......eep.   eep.   eeepeepepepepeeepepeeeepeeepACK.  4 weeks in and i'm probably 2 weeks behind....with 1 week until the midterm.  whimper.

electrical engineering is just plain amusing.  i just like telling people i'm in an ELE class.  they're like...huh?

faithbusters is.........persistently annoying.  most of what is presented as fact is just the result of approaching history with an atheist deconstructionalism...ie, if  miracles never happen, Jesus was never resurrected and Christianity was just some wacky misinterpretation of an apocalyptic prophet, then how could the Bible have been slapped together?  if you do enough reading outside of the class's reading list, this becomes patently obvious...but no less frustrating.

pef is going well.  the whole group seems a little more stable & healthy this semester.  manna, too.

it's sunny outside.  

3/4: go duckpond go!

2/26:

first stage of the pef website takeover complete: creating a simpler source code.  the new version has about half as much as the old one -- now i just have to rebuild all the individual pages.  

next step?  total content overhaul; new blurbs, new pictures.  unlikely to see anything beyond that before summer.

2/12: new link: www.princetonministries.com

mostly just a forum for now, but worth a look.

also coming soon, by request: some sort of tangible representation of my thoughts on Rel 251.  although that might have to wait until after the PEF slideshow is assembled...

2/9:  semester survival odds at 40%, but rising.

maximum latin productivity rate: 90-100, up from 60.  course minimum: 150.  this is not fun.

people have grown tired of my whining about being a classics major.  now i don't know what to talk about.

and the dust buffalo have grown territorial about my under-bed hiding spot.  i need a new one.  

are there any brave buffalo hunters around?  please bring your own spear.  someone ate mine.

sweet sweet brink of insanity: take me now!

this is me without fear...and a 62 pound hall pass. -dib

2/1:   processing ski trip pictures...preview posted...expect an update Sunday, and a full page by midweek.

1/17:  birthday part 2.

1/16:  birthday!!!

match-candles Rock.

hehe...cake and latin...

1/10: construction begins on winterlude gallery.  only another 80 megs or so of pictures to sort...

oh yes...and meet BREADZILLA!!!

1/5:    back.  swamped.  no updates scheduled until 1/19/03

.

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