not long now

The end is near

Two weeks and regular classes are over. December 2 is the last day of classes for me and then it's time to study.

I'm waiting for DoomRPG to be released for my cell phone. Currently it's only offered by Rogers wireless and not for my carrier, so I'm forced to wait. I've been waiting for DoomRPG for a year now, it's still the last post in Carmack's blog (accessible from the links section to the left).

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opens in (North American) theatres tonight. I'm thinking of maybe just spur-of-the-moment going to see it. Who knows, it depends what my girlfriend feels like doing later. Yeah, 3 years in and I'm still whipped :P

-Lord Voldemort is back

crossroad of life

Dropouts

School is starting to take its toll on me. I'm taking more classes now than I have in recent years. I'm enrolled in 5 courses, and I haven't done that since my first year... when I failed my first class ever: Intro Chemistry 1. There are currently four classes in which I'm enrolled that I can handle. The fifth isn't going too well. Previous posts in my blog point in the direction of that class, Algorithm Analysis. I've discussed it before. With a course-load of five classes I feel I've had to choose one that I must sacrifice. The smart thing to do would to have not taken the course at all and spared myself the failing grade. Instead, I'm enrolled in it, doing the best I can with the available resources. I'm learning in the class, don't get me wrong. I'm picking up enough information that in the case I need to repeat the class, I'll know enough to get that passing grade. But currently, it's too tough when compared to my other classes. Multivariable Calculus is tough, too, but I'm putting lots of effort in that class to ensure a pass. It's better to complete Calculus with a passing grade and fail Algorithms than to put as much effort into both classes and fail both of them, right? Neither class is a requisite to any other classes I'll be taking, so I'm aiming for a 55% or better. I say 55% because any average overall grade lower than that and the student is put on academic probation. Fail to bring your overall average higher than that at the next semester end and you're out of school for a semester. Do it again and you're out a year. Or something like that. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion. Dropouts.

Most well known of the worlds dropouts from school is this man, Bill Gates. Famous for not completing his degree at Harvard, and going on to develop the (unfortunately) most popular operating system for computers. Another you might have heard of is Steve Jobs, the guy who brought you the iPod, and many other Apple products. And how about Steve Wozniak? The brain and engineer behind the Apple computer.

There is a theme here, they are all figureheads in the computer technology world. I, in no way, am touting myself as a future figurehead in the world of computer technology. I'll be happy with a solid position in a game development company as design guy. I'm just tired of school now, it's weighing down on me. I've been going to school for 3 years already, I've failed two classes. I've repeated them and passed. I've covered computer science, english, philosophy, or at least the basics therein.

I have an Algorithms midterm this coming Monday. I have a 4-part (6 to 8 page) essay due in Philosophy by Wednesday. I have another test in Multivariable calculus on Thursday. Instead of studying for any of them or writing my essay I'd rather read game-design theory or flesh out the ground-work for my games. I'd rather spend an hour reading reviews for newly released games, on either PC, console or handheld/mobile, finding out what worked for them and what doesn't. This school hasn't taught me game design (well, maybe it has this semester with Dr. Allen Paeth's Modelling and Simulation class). Nobody here wants to teach me what I want to learn.

I'll get to my essay now. I've got the weekend to write it and study for my Algorithms class. I'll do the best I can for Algorithms, if that even means putting off the essay until Monday night. I'm in no way intentionally sabotaging any of my classes. Just with a course-load as I have, I'm having a hard time making time for everything that needs to be done and attention payed to. That last part refers to my girlfriend, whom I seem to be neglecting this semester as school has taken priority. I don't know how other people do it. I'm sure I'll know how by the end of the semester, though. I'm only enrolled in 4 classes next semester.

-Not dropping out, I'm not smart enough for that.

hallowseve

Happy Halloween
It's Halloween again, and with it comes the feeling of having to dress up. My girlfriend is a devil this year, she was a cow last year. And with the cow, she won first place in the costume contest at her work, which won her $50 in gift certificates to the theatre in town.

We drove all over town last night looking for devil horns she could wear. Almost two hours of looking we finally found some, only 2 blocks from where we started. And yes, we drove all over town. Along the way we found a mask for myself, so I'm here typing this blog while wearing a $0.94 mask, a devil mask.

We're not doing much tonight. We'll set up our pumpkins in the back patio, because that's the entrance to the basement suite in which we live. We're probably not getting any trick-or-treat'ers tonight, but we'll be ready if there are any.

Halloween festivities going on in Medievia today, as well. I've already donned my costume and walked through the Gods offices begging for treats. Unfortunately they are all no-rent treats, which means when I'm done with the game today, the treats disappear, which is very disappointing.

Animal Crossing is celebrating Halloween today as well, so I'll be trick or treating there later tonight.

-Trick or treat, smell my feet. Give me something good to eat

upon a highschool day

Bad Attitude

I mouthed off one of my professors today. He didn't like me already, and I didn't like him already because I knew he didn't like me. In fact, I believe he just doesn't like standing in front of a classroom full of what he believes to be challenged individuals, teaching a subject he believes a highschool student should be able to catch onto in 5 minutes or less.

I seem to be falling into my highschool habits. I had a few teachers who thought I had a chip on my shoulder (and I never really quite got that idiom). But that's not a bad thing; I never failed a highschool subject. Maybe I was angry back then. Maybe I'm getting angry now. It really seems to work for some people whom I know to be angry and quite intelligent.

This one professor said to the class, "Judging by the blank stares on your faces I may as well be speaking French to you" (this guy is from France and has the horrible guy-french accent). I responded with, "You're just speaking Math to me," which didn't really seem to be a problem.

Later he comes hovering over my shoulder as I'm supposed to be working out the proof for some algorithm complexity. He waits, I keep my pencil still. He waits longer, I pretend to be thinking hard. I'm thinking this guy is wasting valuable class time that I'm not going to be able to make up. I'm thinking he should be going over the example on the board and doing it slowly so the class can grasp the concept. Instead, over the course of a 80 minute lecture, he covers three examples by leaving it for the student to work out (by himself so as not to plageurize) and then he quickly goes over the proof on the board. Anyway the professor hovers over my shoulder and waits. Waits longer. Sees I'm not doing anything. He turns to walk away, I relax. He sees that I moved and begins hovering over my shoulder again, apperantly thinking I've discovered the solution.

Now when he waits and sees that I've still not solved anything he says to me, "You really have no idea where to start, do you?"

I could have taken that to mean, "Let me give you a hint" but the past has proven he's not here to help. And the pompousness carried over in his accent. So I simply told him, "I really don't understand why we're doing this," because I was taught to always ask questions. Always ask why. And I don't find too many opportunities when I get to ask the question why.

Why can go on a long time, and I don't believe one can really understand the whole picture until that why comes down to the fundamentals.

"I really don't undertstand why we're doing this. How is this going to help me in my profession?"

He replies, "You want to be able to find out the complexity of your algorithms, don't you?"... Uh, no! I don't. If I was interested in that sort of thing, I sure would. But why do I need to express interest in complexities? So I tell him, "If I wanted to know the complexity of an algorithm I'd look it up on Google."

I didn't mean to offend. I don't think he was offended. But apperantly other students thought it was a big deal.

-Bring back the highschool habits

Leaving on a prop plane

Oh Brother, where art thou

My brother has arrived, visited and left. One whole month, and it really feels like it came and went so quickly. We played computer games, gamecube games, mind games. It was great fun, and it won't be for another 2 years probably that I'll get to see him again.

Classes

I'm kinda sucking with school right now. My classes are tough and I hardly find enough time to get everything done on time. Except today, yesterday was the end of my mad dash to complete an Algorithms assignment, a two-part Philosophy essay and write a Multi-Variable Calculus midterm. So, naturally, it is Friday and I get to play. Except I haven't had a chance to play (except for two hours this morning after driving my brother to the airport at which time I was doing some MAD Dungeon Siege 2 adventuring.

Oooh, and I made time (1.5 hours) to work on my moth simulation. I haven't done that in a while.

-Back to lecture and then working on another class project

Of knapsacks and ceiling wax

Of Knapsacks and feeding cats, broccoli and queens

This year is tough. This Algorithm Analysis course I am in is being taught by a know-it-all math wizard who expects nothing less than perfection from his students. And since I am far less than perfect I'm a prime candidate for his French snobbery. By now, however, he realizes how poorly his entire class is doing so out of the kindness of his heart (or something like that) he is awarding a standard point on the last test for keeping your booklet neat and readable. 24 out of 25 of those marks are legitimate knowledge testing questions, and that last grade is actually counted toward your final grade. It's a 'question' on the test. You can get less than a perfect score if you answered 100% of the questions correctly but failed to do it in a tidy way.

The Knapsack algorithm has proven to be kind of fun. I can say the same for the (N) 8-Queens problem as well. I think I'll post the algorithms so they are available on the interweb. It turns out that good algorithms that are easy to understand are so hard to find on here. Maybe the thought police force people to take them down so the students of the future don't have a source to plageurize from.

Dungeon Siege
My brother bought Dungeon Siege II on the weekend. It came at a bad time, seeing how I had 3 assignments, one essay and a test to study for. Never-the-less we played. And it was fun. At this moment I can find nothing more satisfying than beating the crap out of a big unique monster holding my breath hoping he drops the next item to the set I'm collecting (night).

-Car battery died, been riding my motorcycle all week.

bugged eyes

Least I could do

I just spent the last two hours with my eyes glued to the computer monitor reading through a years worth of LICD archives. It's an entertaining strip.

I get cable internet and TV today. w00t, I finally have another way to waste time at home.

-To class now

the struggle

Disgruntled Professors

I don't know if this is common only to French people or if it's a magical force that insists at least one of your professors must be a complete jackass. I'm registered for Algorithm Analysis in the computer science degree here at UBC. Well, I was under the impression that I might not have met the prerequisite to the class so I requested a waiver. The professor gave me the "I doubt I'll let you in. To satisfy you, I'll ask my colleagues" speech. He emails me his reply, "No, because of two things. 1) You'll be an extra paper to grade and 2) I'll have to slow the class down and explain everything to you twice". So I politely replied through email asking him to reconsider. His answer, "No".

Well, I checked the calendar and I didn't need a minimum grade in any of the three requisite classes. Just to have passed all three. So I apologized to him in his office. "Let me check. Hrm, you're right. You are in my class. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it." Then he went on about some issue with plaguerizing my homework. I straightened that out by showing him where I quoted my source. He's out to get me.

-French or disgruntled. Same thing, right?

blecketybleck

Nothing Really

Done the school thing for a few days, went to some classes.

Algorithm Analysis
Could be an alright class. I figure anything that teaches you how to do something better is worth while. Though my first lecture left me feeling like I know nothing about computer science at all. If I apply myself (I spent the last 3 hours refreshing myself with sorting algorithms) then I can pull a good grade.

Introduction to Philosophy Term 1
I've always enjoyed philosophy and am glad to be taking another. This is my first philosophy class since my first year of university (three years ago, Logic and Critical Thinking) and think I can really perform well in it. Our first lecture was a 'field trip' to the gymnasium where the Presidents from the universities of Ritsumeikan (Japan), Mexico, Korea, Singapore, and British Columbia were assembled to discuss the term 'Global Citizen' and how each of their universities was doing their part to contribute to the world. Our goal was to decide if the colloquium could come up with a solid definition of 'global citizen' or if it was just a bunch of crap. (Crap).

Modelling and Simulation
Holy crap, this class seems to be made for me. That doesn't mean I'd have the best grade in the class but it does mean it'd do a better job than most of holding my attention. Since I've been working on my own simulation (ie Codling Moths) for the last year and a while I thought it was in my best interest to find out really what I've been doing wrong this whole time. The professor frowns on real-life situations encountered in every day life such as standing in line at a bank (queuing theory). Instead, he rather prefers to simulate things that can be turned into games (game theory). I think I like that last part. Sadly, I'm on a wait-list. Second on a waitlist, 6 others in line behind me. 20 people in the class. 18 of the registered students showed up to class, I took up seat 19. I hope I can get in.

Been reading TUX eZine. Nice read for casual Linux users.

-Wireless 'net working with my Linux partition. w00t

back at school

School has begun

Year 4 of my degree has just begun. I went to school today for the orientation, not because I felt I really needed to be oriented but because I need to win the tuition prize offered as a free raffle today. The free pizza lunch and rootbeer floats was a nice bonus, too. And seeing my friends and getting a hand finishing up my wireless setup in my Kubuntu partition.

I'd had the wireless setup 90% done. I just didn't know how to modprobe wlan0 and iwconfig, etc etc.

I'm performing my third motorcycle skills test tomorrow. Third because I failed it the first time and it expired a month after I passed it the second time. When I pass it tomorrow I'm good for 11 months from then (not a full year because I've waited a month since renewing my license already).

-No news, bye bye

naksup trip

Back from the vacation...

...and it really wasn't all too exciting. The drive took about 4 hours to get to our destination, and it wasn't a bad drive. But when you pay to stay a night at a hotel, or in our case a chalet, I guess it's nice to make the most of your time. But we got there just after 7pm and checkout was 11am. So it was pretty much just a place to stay before we moved on to the main accomodation.

That accomodation wasn't what I thought it would be, either. To stay at this inn we paid $30 more than the chalet, and a price increase like that tells me "Bed and Breakfast". But I was wrong. It was just an inn that charged more. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice place, but it would have been everything I was expecting I could leave there with a full stomache. At least this place didn't have checkout until noon.

The drive back was nice. What took us 4 hours on the way there took only 3 hours to get back. Now I get to sleep in "my own bed" and not have to worry about missing a checkout time. I can wander over to the cupboard and find some cereal when I'm ready and eat without having to drive into town to find somebody who will take my money in exchange for cooking me food.

-Always nice to be home

Oh, but wait. What's the deal with hotsprings anyway? It was just a small heated pool of water with another part of the pool blocked off, featuring hotter water. We didn't stay long because it didn't really hold our attention long enough. Next time we do a vacation, it's going to be some place with a beach-front and something to do at night.

-Good to be home.

pixelperfectilicious

Back from the dead

I don't know what caused it in the first place, but my dead pixel has fixed itself. It's functioning as normal, no more blue dot on dark backgrounds.

Homeless

I did the walkout with the landlord today and handed over the keys. I have no home any longer. For the next two weeks I'll be sharing the bottom bunk in my girlfriends brothers room. School starts some time between now and then. And finally, I'll be able to move into my new home.

-Vacation at the HotSprings for the next couple nights

dead pixel

THE HORROR!

My first dead pixel. My monitor on my laptop has its first dead pixel. Those of you who own a Sony PSP (Playstation Portable) know what I'm talking about. I've got one dead pixel in the upper left quadrant of my screen. It's a single blue pixel and it shows up on black and other dark colors. It's terrible. I just hope nothing more comes of this. I can think of no reason it should just appear like it did. It wasn't there 15 minutes ago. I just set the laptop down, made juice and came back and there it was.

-It's not going away.

burneded

Camp

You busy yourself preparing a campfire, lighting it expertly ... it ignites instantly. Orange and red flames shoot up from the timber.
Flames lick at your clothing and it begins to smolder.
OH NO! You have caught fire!

-crispy

basementsuite

Basement Suite

My girlfriend and I looked at a basement suite yesterday in the evening. We were scheduled to be the first people to look, but when we arrived it was clear we weren't the only ones there. 3 groups had been shown through by the time we arrived, one was still hanging around building raport with one half of the couple showing the suite. Another man arrived as we did and was shown the suite at the same time as us.

It was a great looking place, it has a natural gas fireplace (one that you can turn on and off) and nice carpet. A big(ger) bathroom (than the one we have here) and it was below the ground. That in itself should be enough for us, and hopefully it keeps cool without running up the electricity. Well, at least that was the plan. When we left we had the feeling the couple was telling everyone that "these are the people I told you I liked."

So we left there with a little hope, but only a little. It was nice to hear this morning when they called us back saying it was a choice between us and another young couple. And even better when they called back 6 hours later asking us if we were really serious about the suite and could pay an additional pet deposit. We have the suite and make plans tomorrow.

-Was starting to feel unlucky with the whole house-finding thing

Chemical Warfare

Acid Burn...

...in my lungs and eyes. Coming home from grocery shopping just now I was walking up the far steps, rather than taking the elevator in the middle of the building. I've got my grocery bags and they are all in one hand so I can open doors along the way. Coming up to the landing of the first flight of stairs I inhaled something I wish not to inhale again. My landlord is coming down from the third floor and asks me, "Do you smell something burning."

I try to reply, do the normal 'inhale so you have a breath to speak with' and all I come out with is a thought 'Ack, my lungs and nose are burning. Cough! COUGH!' and I manage to squeek out "no,butican'tbreath" *COUGH*COUGH* where I pick up my pace, try to keep my head low (in case it's like smoke, where there's a layer you can get under so you can still breath).

I managed to get into my apartment (on the top (third) floor) and set my bags down. I went to the balcony and inhaled clean air (while still coughing up my lungs) for a few minutes. I can breath in my apartment at the moment, mostly, but I can sense it creeping in here. Some breaths I inhale breath in a good plume of this shit, whatever it is. Probably cancer causing, if it's not somebody's suicidal idea of a sick joke.

And what am I still doing in my apartment blogging this when my eyes have become reddened and I've coughed so much I've almost thrown up twice. Like I said, I can still breath in my apartment, but when I poked my head out in the hall again I almost collapsed for my own safety looking for clean air to breath. And my landlord is walking around breathing in like he's immune to it. He thought it was from my apartment but I'd invite him in if he doesn't believe me. He's looking for the source as is. And I've got to get out of this place, so I'm holding my breath while running down three stories of this apartment building to the parking lot below. I have to get more boxes to pack with anyway.

-Now I've got this powdery texture in my mouth.

[Update]

Well shit, the fire department is here knocking on a door down the hall from me, it turns out that's the source. My neighbors across the hall have left their apartment, taking their cat with them. I've got two cats, and one carry case. If it comes down to it I'll take both cats away in the carry case. And my laptop.

I went out on my balcony again to breath and Diane, the managers wife, asked how I was doing. She was talking with the fire chief and they didn't seem to find it important to yell at me "Get the hell out of the building" so I guess I'll stay here (for the cats safety) until they tell me I've got to leave. Fuck it, I'm turning on my vents (over the stove and in the bathroom) right now and taking my cats downstairs. This sucks, I'm starting to cough again. My computer where I'm sitting is 20 feet from the door, it's still creeping in.

[Verdict]

Brian, the manager of the building, kicked some people out this morning soon after I left to drive my girlfriend to work. And a good thing she worked today, too, because Cystic Fibrosis and fucked up air do not mix. She's a tough girl but that stuff brought me to my knees.

Here's what happened. After Brian kicked the people out of the building (squatters in a friends room or whatever) the people didn't take it lightly. After they appeared to leave, but didn't really, they sprayed mace/bear/pepper-spray throughout the hallways and ran out of the buildings with their mouths covered. That's the story I got from Brian and his wife. The fire department came by, inspected the place, decided it was pepper-spray as well. 'Interrogated' the woman in the room that was busted up this morning and she made up some story about a friend of hers having a can of mace in her purse that must have exploded by accident blah blah blah. The fire department flushed out the halls with industrial fans and all is well now. I just had to wait downstairs for 10 minutes with the cats (one of which gouged a big red streak in my gut with his claw) while the halls dispersed.

-I can now leave the cats safely at home while I get packing boxes

moving

Back to the topic at hand

I'm moving. My girlfriend and I are getting out of our little apartment and are attempting to move into a little basement suite. The problem with moving is you've got to bring all the stuff you accumulated in your old place to your new place. And in our case, we now have two cats. It was simple enough to find a place beforehand, we just happened to move into an apartment that allows cats. Now, however, no-one wants to take these cats. Until today; I think I may have found a home for the four of us. A basement suite that has us pay 40% of the utilities and has a bath tub. We don't pay utilities where we're at, but I guess it's something we'll have to do if we want to bring the cats with us.

-Gotta grab more boxes this weekend

awk stuff

Hey, I learned something new today

Here's a file I have, this is just a small example of it:

*** Week 1 @@@ sfm_146 smm_146 wfm_0 wmm_0
1989,3479 m1 s121 e141
2449,3503 m1 s121 e141
2555,3539 m1 s121 e141
2652,2849 m1 s121 e141
2349,2229 m1 s121 e141
2617,3004 m1 s121 e141
2713,3097 m1 s121 e141
3356,2684 m1 s121 e141
2725,2193 m1 s121 e141
2016,1992 m1 s121 e141
2813,2569 m1 s121 e141
3000,2796 m1 s121 e141
2851,2628 m1 s121 e141
2320,3693 m1 s121 e141
2270,3087 m1 s121 e141
2538,2173 m1 s121 e141
2647,2702 m1 s121 e141
2669,2445 m1 s121 e141
2217,2498 m1 s121 e141
2565,3155 m1 s121 e141
3212,2145 m1 s122 e142
2338,1808 m1 s122 e142
2009,2752 m1 s122 e142
4142,2074 m1 s122 e142
2605,2691 m1 s122 e142
2756,2689 m1 s122 e142
2337,2698 m1 s121 e142
2959,2286 m1 s121 e142
2554,3128 m1 s122 e142
2761,2578 m1 s121 e142
2894,2183 m1 s122 e142
2789,2265 m1 s122 e142
2315,2834 m1 s122 e142
2846,2133 m1 s121 e142
3218,2455 m1 s122 e142
2023,2796 m1 s121 e142
2683,3119 m1 s122 e142
2570,3545 m1 s122 e142

That is the output file from my program regarding moth matings and their locations. The first pair is the (x,y) location of the mating. The second number beginning with 'm' is the mate type, 1 for sterile:sterile, 2 for sterile:wild and 3 for wild:wild matings. The third bit that starts with the 's' is the start time of the mating session. The 'e' is the time they finished mating. My moths are pretty in sync with each other, maybe that's something I should fix later.

What I needed from that file was all the mate start times. I had to find an easy way to parse that data, but how to do it? A friend of mine suggested a quick 'awk' command on it that went something like this:

cat _MatingLocations.txt | awk '{print $3}' > tmp.txt

which just takes the 'third word' from the file and spits it out, in this case I piped it to the tmp.txt file. The tmp.txt file looks like this now:

1
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s121
s122
s122
s122
s122
s122
s122
s121
s121
s122
s121

And as you can see, it's got a '1' printed at the very top. You might have noticed that is the third word from the first line '*** Week 1 @@@ sfm_146 smm_146 wfm_0 wmm_0' and is something I might not want. So now I grep'd the file to output only the files with the 's' in it.

grep s tmp.txt > filter.txt

which looks the same as above, just without the 1 at the top. Now I want to get rid of the 's' in front of the values so I can run those values through another program to get the mean value. To remove the 's' I simply grab the substring of it like this

cat filter.txt | awk '{print substr($0,2)}' > inp.dat

which outputs data like this

121
121
121
121
121
...

and can now be read by other programs as numerical values. awk made it a whole lot easier to parse the files than writing a custom script in, say, matlab to do it for me.

And speaking of matlab, I could then open matlab in a terminal 'matlab -nodesktop' then load the data 'load inp.dat' and then calculate the average of the values 'mean(inp)' and then save the data of the average value 'save -ascii avgData.dat'

And to grab a few words from the raw text file I could

cat file.txt | awk '{print $2 " " $3 " " $4}'

-Thanks awk

12 boxes

12 boxes and hardly a dent

My girlfriend and I, along with our two cats, are out of this apartment at the end of this month. We don't know where we're going to end up. We've given our notice that we'll move out at the end of the month, but we haven't found a place to move into yet. If it comes down to it, we've got a 3 bedroom place to move into with another couple, temporarily.

We've packed up most of the pictures on the walls, the books on both our bookshelves, candles, ornaments, etc. The little stuff. 12 boxes worth, and it appears we've hardly made a dent. Though that would comprise the majority of the things to pack. Our clothing dressers will remain full and we'll move them as one.

There's the entertainment stand with our TV and stereo. Got out appliences to pack up. The bigger stuff. I think we've done a good job. Nice to start early so we're not in such a frenzy later. And we've got storage to put all this into, in advance, so that's nice. And it's free to us.

-Hope we find a nice place to move into, soon

1984 - orwell

Big Brother is watching you

I just read the first few pages of Orwell's book 1984 and this is what I think of it so far. The character, Winston, is who I've been introduced to. He's just come home from work and poured himself a glass of "Victory Gin". He's about to smoke a "Victory Cigarrette" and is about to write in an illegal diary. Well, nothing is illegal, as they say, in this society as there are no laws. But possession of such a thing would surely result in his punishment by either death or 25 years hard labour.

His apartment has a single camera mounted in it. The government is watching and listening to him at any given time. The same to all its citizens. Winston is about to write in his journal and is not sure who he's writing to. He writes a date, April 4th 1984, but is not sure if that's the correct year. Nobody knows for sure what the correct date, plus or minus a year, is any more. He decides to write about the movies he watched the night before.

It appears the government entertains its people with movies of war. Winston writes gleefully of witnessing a massacre of refugees; seeing a frightened man, viewed through the gun-barrels of a helicopter, shot full of holes while swimming away from the helicopter. Another of a woman in a boat full of children trying to calm her son, holding her arms around him as if that were enough to protect them from the bullets. And if that weren't enough, the 20 kg bomb dropped onto the boat would do them in. And he recalls a particular shot of a childs arm propelled into the air falling just short of a helicopters rotors.

Some society to live in. And this all within the first few pages of the book. Sounds like a book I should read, maybe not a happy book, but an important one none-the-less.

-When does Emmanuel Goldstein get introduced