Convocation Ceremony
Today was the moment eagerly awaited by many. The Convocation Ceremony marked the end of my time as Bachelor of Engineering at Carleton. Carleton seems to have been a good choice.

While most seemed to find the ceremony very boring (I can understand why), I didn't. When treated as the last time everyone is in a group it took on a much more sentimental feeling. I savoured it. My only real gripe was the weather, the ceremony had to be in the fieldhouse (though they did an amazing job at perking it up). Also, that our Chancellor, Marc Garneau, didn't give one of his memorable speeches.

My diploma claims I graduated with distinction. That's good. I am, however, disappointed with the quality of the diploma itself. The signatures on it look like they were scanned at a whopping 100dpi. That, and I was hoping it would be in Latin. So, we've gone from leather to paper, fine manuscript ink to low-resolution toner, a strong baccalaureus to a meager bachelor; what will be the next step in diploma degradation?

One last thought is the lack of hats. I was expecting the usual sharp-cornered headpiece. Since it was not given, I bought a tassel because it will look good hanging off of the diploma frame.

My parents took me out to The Mill for a post-graduation dinner. They teased me about how my first "real-world" decision regarding the venue is simple, yet I could not make up my mind.

Time to move on with life. I updated my .signature file to say "B. Eng., Computer Systems." I have a feeling that the next four months or so of my life will be eventful, involving many changes.

San Andreas Planes
With many more hours of playing, I am now allowed to fly airplanes in San Andreas. The coolest addition to the game is something akin to a LearJet. It flies extremely fast. Another addition to the engine is the ability to ditch planes and jump with a parachute. Whereas in previous games jumping from any height would take at most 50% of your health, now you realistically die unless you open the parachute at a reasonable altitude. Flying this thing over military no-fly areas ("Area 53") is fun as well, because you get jetfighters after you.

In making room to on my WinXP partition to create the next batch of family DVDs, I came to realize how excessive IE is with its cache:

1.3G ./Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/Content.IE5/4LYRGXM3 1.4G ./Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/Content.IE5/KDY78H2V 4.5M ./Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/Content.IE5/ODARSD2F 2.6G ./Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/Content.IE5 2.6G ./Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files

As far as I know, I didn't even download that much with Exploder.

Convocation is coming up in 15 hours!