Quickie Update and MEMS stuff

Sorry I missed yesterday. I had a paper to finish revisions on and email in, and my section of another paper to complete and email to my group leader. I completed both, however, and I finished a final exam this morning as well.

To make up for the delay, I shall bore you out of your skull with blathering tell you about microelectromechanical sensor devices.

( And if you didn't understand micro-electro-mechanical, you really will be bored )

Now that my diaristic obligations have been fulfilled, I shall nap. Or try to nap. Or just lie in bed for half an hour. Yeah.

Tamari! Tofu! Err, bean curd!

I was just browsing the FAQs, trying to find info on having multiple LJ accounts, when I stumbled upon FAQ Question #167, about the server clusters upon which the accounts are stored. Naturally, I immediately followed the link to learn which server cluster I was on.

Apparently, "packbat is on Soybean."

Somehow, I find the idea of naming a server after a vegetable quite endearing. I wonder what the other ones are called.

Free Comic Book Day

It has come and gone, but I am fortunate! As it happens, the comic book shop near campus still had some free comics left over.

Wait, let me start at the beginning.

This afternoon, around 1730 hours, I walked out of my dorm room to take the campus shuttle down to Rt. 1, where the shops are. It was thundering, so I brought an umbrella. My umbrella is terrific, by the way – a classic red and white color scheme, with a hefty aluminum shaft, a fake wood handle probably made of chipboard, and a five-plus-foot diameter when opened, it was a great deal. Probably cost me eight bucks at the campus store at MC. (That is, not the local campus store. I haven't even looked here.)

Returning to the tale in progress: by the time the shuttle reached my stop, the rain had started to fall. It wasn't a heavy shower, though, so I just left my umbrella closed as I walked the thirty feet to the local Potbelly Sandwich Works to get dinner.

The sandwich shop was quite nice, although mildly inconsistent. The first thing I noticed was the decor, which was tasteful in a wooden diner way. It reminds me most of the general store in the TV show Northern Exposure, if you've seen it. The menus and so forth on the walls were beautifully done; the wall behind the sandwich-makers, painted with helpful lists of condiments for the sandwiches, was par for the course. The only real discontinuous point for me was the muzak, which appeared to be a mix of mainly-modern rock music. They did play some Sting as I was leaving, though.

Oh, the sandwich was delicious. I ordered the veggie, with mayonnaise and onions, and it was quite tasty.

After leaving the sandwich shop, I turned to catch the shuttle at the other stop on the way back. As it was still raining, I decided to go ahead and open my umbrella. Immediately after this, as I idly considering the idea of visiting the comics shop, I was hailed by a young kid hanging out of the door of a shop a couple doors down. At closer range, I found that he was hawking the tattoos being sold at that shop. I declined his offer, and he replied with the near-equivalent of "Aw, c'mon..."

I was highly amused to hear the exact same exchange repeat with another person after I'd passed. A few minutes later, I reached the comic shop.

The first thing I noticed upon entering Liberty Comics was the collectible trading card game in progress. My attention was immediately hooked. After setting my umbrella against the shelves by the door, I proceeded over to the table, discovering to my disappointment that the game was not, in fact, Magic: the Gathering; it was The Lord of the Rings. Then I turned to the shelves of comics.

I would guess that there were about three hundred different series of comics on those shelves, on that one wall. That is the impression I have, in any case. As I walked down the shelves, wondering which books I should investigate further, I noticed the Employee's Picks section, and one called "Fable" stood out from those. I'm not actually sure just how much it stood out – it might have been the only fantasy comic there, it might have had the best art, it might have merely been furthest to the right – but I picked it up, and read the introductory adventure in the first couple pages. It turned out to be a well-drawn fantasy satire of some kind. I put it back.

I believe it was near this point that I noticed the sales sign, advertising several deals, including 50% off on back issues. I would later discover that this sale expires tomorrow.

In any case, after circling the store and glancing over the racks of back issues, I returned to the front of the store again, where the game was still in progress. Most generously, one of the players fetched me a folding chair from beside him so I could sit between the players and watch. Thus I spent the next couple hours being shown some of the basics of the Lord of the Rings game, as the two players competed.

Occasionally, one of the players would leave to serve the customers. During these breaks, the other player (who later introduced himself as Mark) planned his moves and chatted with me about a few miscellaneous things. One of these things was the "Game of Thrones" collectible card game, which Mark verified was actually based on the renown fantasy series by George R. R. Martin. He also verified that the series was a good one, but with long books, so it was a slow read. He also joked that if I started now, maybe GRRM would finally finish the fourth book by the time I read the first three.

Eventually, the game ended in a close win for Mark. That done, soon a series of conversations sprung up between the storekeeper (whose name was not John, since that was the name of the game shop owner who Mark confused this shopkeeper with), another customer (whose name I have also forgotten), Mark, and myself. They were fun conversations, spanning bad comic book artists, good comic book reviewers and their reviews of said bad comic book artists, the currently-in-theaters movie "Unleashed", another movie whose name I didn't catch, the Agatha Christie novel Ten Little Indians (also known as And Then There Were None), the M. Night Shyamalan films (all four), spoilers and why they never should be given, the comic book series "Fable", and the TV series The Twilight Zone and Amazing Stories.

As it turns out, the storekeeper is a fantasy comics fan. He said that he would help me pick a few to check out tomorrow. And, while the store was closing, I got copies of the Free Comic Book Day samplers of "Flight" and "Ex Machina", and read the whole of the latter before even getting off the shuttle on the way back.

Today was a totally excellent day.