Vacation

I still question the usefulness of such a kind of post, given there doesn’t seem to be any regular follower of this blog, but just in case I’m wrong…

I’ll be away for around 4 days starting from tomorrow, for a short vacation in Tuscany (Italy). It saddens me a bit to say it’ll be a eating and fishing-oriented vacation, yeah just like the ones of retired persons. But I’m not ashamed of that: eating and fishing are two of few the things I enjoy in life, though I think only new and interesting fishing locations may justify such a long travel. But it’s sad because if we keep spending our time together like some 50 years old fellows, me and my friends aren’t going to get in touch with girls even in a million years.

Not that I feel an intense urge for romantic relationships, but actually getting laid some times wouldn’t be that bad I guess. I know I don’t have the persuasion skills to convince a girl to have sex with me, and lying about my feelings to get laid is something I strongly refuse to do, but in the right situation, and with the help of alcohol, probably there’s some chance I could get near a girl and talk to her without panicking. My friends seem to be even more interested from the romantic side of things, and are surely more skillful than me in social settings, so I don’t understand why the behave like they don’t give a damn. Maybe they’re just too lazy to even try.

By the way, I hope the first days (the eating-oriented ones) run fast and without troubles, so I can concentrate on the fishing. It’s been almost a year since I had my last serious fishing session, and I badly need to fish: it’s an urge I’ve been feeling more and more in the last weeks, but I’ve been suppressing it because I needed to study. I also hope this time we actually land some nice carps, but it’s not a requirement for enjoying some time immersed in a quiet and relaxing environment, and water just has that magnetic feeling to me I can’t stop watching it.

I’m sure fishermen understand what I mean, just look at these fantastic pictures of the lake I’m going to:

That’s all, if I don’t get a food poisoning, drown, or die on the road, I’ll be back for Thursday or Friday.

Playing guitar, With Fire

It’s late and I’m going to bed soon, so I’ll be short. Don’t have that much to say anyway.

Today I mostly wasted my time because every time I looked at my books I couldn’t find a decent reason for studying. So I’ve done more interesting stuff I guess, but I mostly forgot about what I’ve been doing. I remember of playing around with Ruby Mechanize to see if I could use it to post comments on blogs, and indeed it can be done. But I was trying to comment on a blog where comments were disabled so it was a waste of time after all. But it surely made me remember how much my memory suck, because I’ve almost forgot how to code in Ruby. Well, fuck that, I no more get angry because of that, it’s just pointless to get angry at all, it just adds to my mental and physical stress.

Fortunately, my musical memory is reliable to the extent I can still dream one day I’ll be able to play guitar at the Speed of Light (reference for metalheads). I say that because today I’ve started to learn some pieces of “Playing With Fire” by Stratovarius, and I just LOVE that diad-based riff. I’m also playing around with the intro of “Pull Me Under” by Dream Theater, and realized how kick ass of an effect chorus is. One day I will own one, but for now the one embedded in my amp will do.

That’s all for tonight, I’ll try to make up for my laziness tomorrow, maybe with a new Flashback entry.

My life is a loop (geek version)

So, here’s a little proof for those skeptical about my programming skills. Took about half hour to write, it’s a C++ version, albeit less detailed, of the loop I described in My life is a loop. An iteration of the loop represents a day, while the meaning of the exit statement should be pretty self-explanatory…

void life() {
  int mood = NORMAL;
  void (*obsession)(void) = NULL;
  
  while(1) {
    int guilt = are_relatives_important(mood);  
    int studying = is_studying(mood, guilt);
    int working = is_working(mood, guilt, studying);
        
    if(!guilt || (!working && !studying && obsession == NULL)) {
      waste_time();
      obsession = waste_time;
      mood = min(mood + GOOD_DAY, NORMAL);
    }
    else {
      if(working) {
        work(mood, obsession);
        mood -= BAD_DAY;
      }
      
      if(studying) {
        study(mood, obsession);
        mood -= BAD_DAY;
      }
            
      if(is_boring(obsession)) {
        mood -= LIFE_SUCKS;
        obsession = NULL
      }
      
      if(!guilt && mood <= SUICIDE_THRESHOLD)
        exit(-1); // failed at life()
        
      obsession = find_obsession();
      
      if(obsession != NULL && free_time() > 0)
        obsession();
    }
  }
}