This is my first blog entry written from college. I'm in room 1501, in the Washington building of the Southwest area of the UMass Amherst campus. No classes yet; those start on the 8th. I've been here 3 days now. As a member of Commonwealth College (the honors university at UMass), I got the option to move in two days earlier than everyone else. So I competed for the elevator with 2500 students rather than 25 thousand. The wait was about an hour and a half to use the elevator, but I got ...

I'm loving it here in college. The dining halls have a lot of great food, and it's all-you-can-eat. The only downside is that the closest Dining Commons, Berkshire, isn't open until 10:30 am, when I'm in class. So I have to walk an extra 5 minutes to Hampshire. There are two other dining commons, which I probably will only eat at if I have classes way out near Franklin or Worcester DC. But, we're compSci people, and we don't always eat during regular hours. Sometimes, our 8-player Sta...

As I tend to do, I completely forgot I had this blog for several months. Shit happened. It's now the start of 2nd semester at UMass and I got too much shit to talk about. Where to start? I suppose I should tie up the loose end from the last article. The IBM Thinkpad I returned? Apparently, since I had attempted to install Linux on the laptop to replace the preloaded Windows 2000 in an attempt to see if it was a software problem, I had voided my warranty, and thus USANotebook refused to re...

When I was searching for colleges and told people that I was considering UMass Amherst, usually their first reaction was, "That place is a party college." I only now know how true it is. Every Saturday, people are getting drunk, stumbling about, passing out, throwing up. Either that or they're smoking weed. Occasionally I can smell pot smoke coming in my window, which, in my opinion, isn't as bad as cigarette smoke. But that doesn't mean I'd smoke the shit. Recently I was asked, "Are...