Since I'm still in the ramping up/finding shit to do phase at the new ol' job, things have been slow today. Slow enough that I've spent time looking over MIT OCW lectures on solid state device fundamentals. Don't give me that look. You know it turns you on.

Actually, it totally has me turned on. I actually resurrected some of my calculus skills to derive how to get from equation A to equation B in one part of the notes awhile ago. This may not seem like anything to most of you, even those with decent math skills, but it was neat to me even if it was pretty easy. Since I started focusing on computer architecture, software, and digital design in general back in school, my math skills have severely deteriorated since there's not a ton of math involved there. My new job is back on the analog side, and I'm totally stoked. But that also means that if I want to advance in my position, I've gotta do some studying.

The fact that I'm now going to be an "analog guy" is simultaneously neat and troublesome. Neat because, as the years went by, I started viewing analog stuff as being more and more hard-core. Digital just looked fucking weak. Okay, there's still some hard shit in digital, and part of my viewpoint basically came from the standpoint of "I'm not doing that, so it must be harder." If I'm not doing something or don't have the ability to do something, that's what I end up wanting to do. Just this stupid mix of OCD and a desire to be challenged.

The re-focusing on analog is troubling mainly because I'm an idiot. I always wanted to be a computer chip designer (which falls in the digital realm), but as time went on, I started to drift more towards the analog side of digital (i.e. low-level VLSI design, laying out custom FETs, etc., if that means anything to anyone), and of course, ended up in an analog position. So I'm like, "Good job, dumbass. If you had just focused on this from the start, you'd probably be right where you want to be right now - as a semiconductor circuit designer." Of course, had I done that, I'd probably be wanting to be a CPU architect or logic designer all over again, because I'm incapable of letting myself be happy with anything.

So why the fuck am I telling you this, when I swore not to go "online diary" with this fucking site? Well, because it's a slow news day. Yeah, there's this mess, which is an awful tragedy which is being met with the usual canned, infuriating responses from Bush and his prison bitch, Tony Blair. Not much I can really think of to rant about there.

Oh, and since we were on the subject earlier, I might as well link to Maureen Dowd's latest column.

Otherwise, the only big thing brewing is the next media circus surrounding kid toucher Michael Jackson. Just something to add to the pile of "big stories I could give less than a fuck about" which already includes Kobe and Scott Peterson.

There's some more shit I want to say about the whole gay marriage issue, but there's an article I want to read first before I do, so that will get put off until later when I'm at home. You can check out the comments for my post from a couple of days ago on the court decision if you need to be held over and wanna see me rip into someone.