我的第一个汉语作文！

二零零七年五月了，我又回到大学学习。我还在大学学习汉语。今天我住汉语班认识了两位新朋友。 现在我来介绍他们。

我想介绍的第一个朋友是Sun。她是韩国人。她的家有四口人：爸爸，妈妈，一个哥哥和她。她今年二十三岁。她的专业是经济学。她也学习西班牙语。她现在有一个男朋友。她男朋友是台湾人。Sun 有空的时候，她玩电脑。

我介绍的第二个朋友是 Parisa。她是加拿大人。她的家有四口人：爸爸，妈妈，一个妹妹和她。她说她妹妹今年十五岁，但是 我不知道她多大。她的专业是法语。她也学习西班牙语。Sun 和 Parisa 一起学习西班牙语。 Parisa 现在有一个男朋友。 她男朋友也使加拿大。她有空的时候，她喜欢看书。

I just like to write it and all to practice. This way, I'll be Chinese in no time!

再见，茴芹

A Rough Draft of Page 1

I'm looking for feedback, of course. Serious critique! The page isn't quite finished being penciled, but I would like to know if the layout works, if it's interesting, boring, inproportional, etc...
I will ink and tone this page when the rest of the chapter is done. I like to be able to go back and change things if I change my mind halfway through, or whateves.

Untitled 7, Page 1

I Thought I Would Die...

On a rather regular Tuesday night, I got my first migrane. I've heard all about the wicked headaches from television commercials trying to pawn painkillers off on me, telling me about how they work fast to relieve symptoms so that you can continue working hard towards the Enlightenment meta-goal of progression and eventual Utopia.

Damn, my head hurt. I couldn't sleep and I decided, at about 3:30 in the morning, that I should probably see a doctor. The pain was almost unbearable, and fuck you Aspririn, you didn't help.
The nice people at the hospital took my symptoms and then gave me a fine cocktail of drugs that contained muscle relaxants, anti-inflamitories and a couple Tylanol 3 with codine. In about 20 minutes, my headache had vanished and I was left with exhaustion. I went home with my partner and fell asleep immediately.

6:00 am, about 2 hours after I took said cocktail of drugs, I was woken up by a serious wave of nausea. This quickly turned into immense pain in my chest and the inability to breathe. I managed to wake Wei up and demand that he call for an ambulance. It took them 20 minutes to get to our place (because I was still awake, and breathing enough on my own to not need resuscitative support, I wasn't top on the priority list for the emergency paramedics), and it was the longest 20 minutes of my life.

Let me tell you, slowly losing the ability to breathe is one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. It's a complete and total loss of control over the simplest of body functions. After Wei managed to get me to calm down a little, all we focused on was breathing in and out. After the paramedics arrived, I was rushed to the same hospital again for another cocktail of drugs and some tests. The drugs took away the pain in my chest and I was able to breathe again. Then, I was just tired...

So, it turns out that I shouldn't ever have pain killers with codine in them. What a way to learn that lesson.

Another lesson: People don't really have that much time. Death is going to happen, and should I do something meaningful with this life-time that I have, or do what I want? What should I do?
I really don't like the idea of suddenly turning off one day, not being able to see or talk or exist anymore. I don't remember being born, I really hope that I don't remember dying as well.

A Tech News Afternoon

After a rather grueling weekend of learning how to write Chinese, I decided to take the afternoon off to catch up on some news. While I will most likely regret it in the future, I haven't removed the Google desktop program that came bundled with DIVX, and it pops up to give me links to the latest news postings. Every once and a while something hits my interest and I have to take a look. I also had the chance to looks through my EFFector email newsletters for the first time in a long while. Here are some interesting stories I've picked up and wanted to pass on:

Microsoft agitates for open-source patent pacts: Apparently the world is exploding with Microsoft and Open Source (again -_-). This time Microsoft is accusing Open Source software developers of over 200 patent infringements. Microsoft is, however, taking a long time to contemplate whether or not to proceed to court on the issue. It could open a pandora's box that the company may never recover from.
The issue: Microsoft is bellyaching over patents that haven't been tested in a court of law. Untested patents are dangerous, as a patent has no legal weight until it is upheld by a court. If the patents are not upheld, then the code currently being debated would be "up for grabs".
This is also another bullying exercise to limit competition from Open Source software. You can talk bull all you want, Microsoft, Open Office is still a million times better than your overpriced, inefficient Microsoft Office. The PDF export feature is worth the program alone.

Using Technology to Enhance Humans: This is an interesting think article that will be rendered irrelevant as soon as IBM starts marketing the Intel Neuron Chip Set.

403 Checker: This is a safe piece of software that takes a large sampling of URLs and tests whether or not they are blocked by your country's government.
A shout out to my Chinese friends: use this software. I would like to know what the results are, especially after reading this article.

That's all currently. I've been looking through some old drawings, so I should be posting them in the near future.

再见！茴芹

Double Completion: One New and One Old

I finally finished my Yoga Mat Bag today. The entire project was a series of comical errors, including sewing it up the wrong way and then fearing that I had mistaken my gauge and made it too short :P

Nonetheless, it's finished and I'm proud. I can safely take it with me on the bus up to my University and Yoga it up where ever I please. Most likely I will not do this, but the fact that I have the potential makes my life far more fulfilling.

In Other News...

I spent the day cleaning up the room, finishing my unpacking and organising the massive amount of knitting supplies I have accumulated. As such, I came across many old, unfinished projects. I frogged a few of them and wound the yarn up nicely to be used on a better idea in the future. I did, however, find two sides to a cute little handbag I made last summer, still sitting on their needles, waiting to be finished up. I did a quick three needle cast off, sewed up the edges, threaded a sparkley red ribbon through it and slipped on two gold buttons as an added touch. Voila! New handbag for my use. I used to love making knitted bags; they are generally quick and very useful.

Perhaps I should make some more...

This is the detail for the handbag I just finished up. It has a zigzag lace pattern that showed really nicely with this yarn. Here is the lace pattern if you're interested:
Ripple Lace (multiple of 9 sts +8)

Row 1 (RS): k1 *[k2tog] three times, m1 [k1, m1] three times, rep from * to last 7 sts, k2tog three times, k1
Row 2 (WS): Knit across
Row 3 (RS): Knit across
Row 4 (WS): purl across

I got the original pattern from here.

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

This morning witnessed a significant internet revolt against digg.com for censoring and banning at least 2 users for posting the encryption key for HD DVDs. The publishing of this key gives Linux users the power to copy DRM protected HD DVDs to their computer and is considered a copyright circumvention and thus illegal under the DMCA.

As a fair use activist, this revolt is a two tiered action. The first being a serious blow to companies and studios using DRM to prevent consumers from copying HD DVDs to their computers. DRM signficantly limits personal use of a product purchased by consumers, while trying to curb internet piracy. Unfortunately, this key won't reach into the depth of personal use protection and the inane perversion of the DMCA by major companies against individuals, a only a portion of the internet community and computer users will utilize this key, implemented into an decryption system in the BackupHDDVD software, on their Linux OS. However, many bloggers on the web are now receiving take-down notices through the DMCA, specifically for copyright infringement. Again, this is a perversion of the DMCA as a string of HEX numbers can not be copyrighted.

The second tier to this revolt is against the take-down and banning on digg.com, which apparently violates their Terms of Use. Digg has presented itself as a democratic alternative to the editorial process on internet new sites like slashdot.org. Good on the internet community for using their left click button to do something for fair use and copyright issues.

More on the issue can be read at:
BBC News
CNET
Rud-0.com