December 30, 2000

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JeffMagnus node count: 4072 (1 new since December 29, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 10417 (-10 more since December 29, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.558 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.517% (Via alternate method: 0.931%)
JeffMagnus node of the day: God

I'm in North Brunswick, preparing for what, if you believe the radio weatherman, is to be the storm-to-end-all-storms; or, at least, the storm-to-end-the-year-2000.

I have no heating oil. I have no money for heating oil. Therefore, I'm going to bounce a check to the oil company, in order that I not freeze to death... if, that is, the oil company actually makes it to my house before the aforementioned storm begins.

Maybe I should concede defeat and head back to South Jersey.

kanon42 and I have been thinking about a road trip to every Wawa convienience store. I'd be happy with just one, if they have hot cocoa.

My last day back home in Kluang. I'm flying off early tomorrow morning to get back to Sydney, in time to see the new year's fireworks on December 31st for the first time. Every previous year I've been back in Malaysia or Singapore during the New Year's so I've always missed the Sydney Harbour firework party.

Already burned my mp3s ripped from my CD collection to CD-R and removed my CD-RW drive to bring back to Sydney. The trouble is, I've not packed my clothes yet. Arghh...

I live in Northern Kentucky, so there isn't much "authentic" Mexican food around. But today my Mom took me to a small restaraunt that was actually ran by Mexicans and was at least more authentic than Taco Bell or the Tumbleweed. In the end I realised that this meant the food was more like what real Mexicans would eat. Blech. I'll take good old American-Mexican food anytime. Is it really that awful to like something that has been catered to be a bit closer to what you're used to? I suppose if I ate the real stuff more often I might grow to like it, but I'm not planning on doing that. I just know I'll feel guilty if I choose the Tumbleweed next time I'm in the mood for Mexican.

I got my car to a shop finally. It sat in a parking lot for like a week and a half for no good reason. My parents, and therefore me, are great procrastinators.

I'm hoping to attend a New Year's Eve party. My girlfriend and I attend a few parties a year. They're all actually put on by her friends, but since we've been together for 5+ years (Heh, 69 months on Christmas Day), they're all pretty used to me. These overnight parties are the only chance I get to spend the night with her until I get an apartment. Isn't that sad?

The main thing that will stop me is snow. Unfortunately, here in KY, a few inches is enough to shut everything down. This was great when I was in school, but it tends to suck now.

I feel like this bout of depression is brought on by a loss of idealism, or a realisation of the inexistance of such, or merely the lack of sensation...

I live sheltered by my own construction. The sensations I experience are limited to a small spectrum, I feel no love, no remorse, no euphoria, no angst, only something in between and untill now, its leaned on towards abstract happiness, but now its tipped over onto mild depression.

Still, I will be on the happy side soon, it requires but a little reasoning, and maybe some childlike play in the snow.

Borrowing from Freud's construct of the psyche, Fuck my Superego!

12:45

I'm baa-aa-aack hoo-oo-oooome! =)

Now, if I only could just get the daylog metanodes up to date...

Anyway, yesterday's odd surprise: I went to the post office, with tax return paper in my hand, thinking they've probably sent a few pennies back.

They returned a lot more than I expected.

I got a Palm m100 (that I picked up from the post office while I was there...) for virtually nothing (except that my heart has still not got to the right pace after the shock). Someone pinch me, I must be dreaming... =)

<PINCH>

Ow! Why did you pinch me, and why is this Palm widget still in front of me in the table?

Anyway, I got the synchronization to work in Linux with no problems (should get the USB cable - I was already out of free serial ports...)

I'm using the widget's IrDA port, and my Nokia, to synchronize my AvantGo. I just tell the phone "Sit! Roll! Play FaxModem!" and tell Palm to synch. And it synchs!

I think the calendar in this is a lot better than 9110's calendar. Plus, it has a working web cache. =)

Oh, one bad thing about sync: it uses IR port to send stuff - and infrared light has a habit of going everywhere within line of sight... ::gets paranoid about security::

21:35

Yep, I definitely need a vacation after this "vacation"... =)

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded, But Mentioned A Bit Late: Dream Log: 26, 2000 vote with your wallet

Noded today by y.t.: Gesture

Updated:

simonc is happy

warning: this writeup contains gushing and soggy sentiment, in addition to the nodist's typically wordy, adjective-ridden and self-centred reportage style. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!, God Bless, and please move along, nothing more to see here.

Christmas 2000 was the best ever. My beloved SO took herself off to sin city Sydney for four days, which left me blessedly alone at home, with nothing to distract me from myself. I spent the time in a most uncharacteristically productive fashion, with the last two years taxation paperwork taking most of my CPU cycles -- ordinarily I'd hate doing this menial mindless filing but hell it felt good. Go figure. Also did some maintenence to galaga (our home server) and rescued a forlorn beige G3 from the brink of abandonment. Spent quality time on E2, lurking as usual, feeling my regular feelings of inadequacy * and laziness, but hell that felt good too. Rode my bicycle every day, ate prociutto every lunchtime, and watched reruns of Chicago Hope every night. Pure bliss.

Gemma came home on Boxing Day afternoon, which was lovely. I took her to a nice lunch in the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Australia the day after. Rather than returning to work, I called in a couple of vacation days and have hung out with her for this week.

Big medical news in my life on Thursday afternoon, which while significant, is not appropriate to daylog.

Got a gentle zen stick from break that perhaps I could get some more Nipponese noding in sometime in the future? Bless him, I took his counsel to heart and have made good progress against my fear of noding. Updated Asakusa, Ebisu and Ginza. I'm feeling a new confidence, plan to keep it up.

Was a bit jealous of the noders party in Brooklyn last night -- wished I could have been there. Although E2 has no place, it is somewhat geographically USA-centric (not that there's anything wrong with that); to that end, alex.tan and I hope to get together for a sherbert in the early new year in Sydney. I've never met another Everythinginan, and I'm quite sure that all my problems would be reduced to mere trifles with more IRL Everything 2 Action.

* My fear of noding (an acquired malady), is that I always feel like I could do better with my writeups. As I've learned the personal importance of synergies with erudition, node what you know, and earn your bullshit, I feel often like I'm ripping myself off (and therefore this amazing community) by not putting in enough proper research in my tawdry writeups. One being one's own worst critic and all. I'm not relaxing my standards, but I am very happy to get my toe back into the nodegel and nuking the real crap and updating and fixing the updatable and fixable. YMMV.

Back to Sydney on Tuesday morning for a couple of days. Hoping to deliver the paranoia-inducing intranet project and a strategy to extricate myself from the really really big evil software company project in my first week back. Then I'm gonna be free as a bird....

Dear Gwen(nie - crossed out),

I can meet you in the larnex Please stamp my letters and take a cup of coffee if you want it.

xx Love Mom
\
for you Gwen

P.S. Please stamp thise letters one is a thank you for the stationery.

- slowpokes
- cards Happy New Year blank ones
go to bank about bank machine card for withdrawls. I would like the new card send in the mail.

I drove for an hour. The dead were everywhere, their corpses ruined beyond definition... like victims of a medieval plague, or a morbidity of the planet itself.

Suddenly, for no reason, I remembered the words of Heidigger: "Hitler can't touch you, unless you invite him into your heart."

That idea seemed appropriate, fifty years after World War II, as the terrible scene unfolded before me like a metaphor -- a metaphor for empty, drained and desecrated human lives. SOMEHOW I KNEW THAT THE DEAD HAD ALL CONSPIRED AT THEIR OWN DOOM.

Theirs was the Fate of the LIFE-SUCKED. They were the willing victims of the COSMIC VAMPIRE.

ONLY A FOOL DARES TO WAR AGAINST
THE UNITARY AND INCORRUPTIBLE UNREALITY ITSELF!

(smash!)

ANTAGON IS THE INEFFABLE ANTITHESIS
AND THE MONAD OF DENIAL.

Critical Mass was interesting last night for reasons completely beyond the functional-non-functional flux state of my bicycle - as we cycled down Robson Street, home of Boxing Week mass consumerism, people waved and cheered. People were friendly as we cruised around Burrard and Georgia, the business district. And yet only as we scuppered along Hastings towards the wrong side of the tracks did the onlookers urge us to get a job!

Perhaps they were projecting.

As we went past the Vancouver Art Gallery a second time, a pedestrian started running after me; I slowed to see what they had, which turned out to be a button for the hat which was slipped on top of my helmet:

Make
Every Day
A
Goodness Day

Finally a philosophy which I don't think I'll be able to find anyone in challenge of.

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...

I just got home from my grandfather's house in Ohio. We headed down on the 26th, planning to return on Thursday the 28th. This daylog covers Dec. 26-30.

The trip down took 8 hours, and it wasn't until we got there that we discovered that my grandfather had gone to the hospital for a test but had had to stay for fairly urgent surgery, since one of his carotid arteries was nearly blocked. My parents and I were very worried, and went to visit him Wednesday afternoon; he seemed happy enough, but I was still stressed. The surgeon made a mistake - she told us there was a "chance" of a stroke and then, 2 sentences later, happened to mention that the chance was only 1 or 2 percent. You can imagine my relief!

The operation was Thursday morning fairly early, and my parents told me I shouldn't go since I would just be bored. I woke up at seven anyhow, afraid that if something happened they wouldn't wake me (as if it would make any difference whether I was awake, but I wasn't being very rational at the time). I spent the morning dozing and reading about 150 pages of The Eye of the World. It was weird - I was going cold-turkey from caffeine, and the book seemed more real than reality, which was broken when I fell asleep during the less exciting chapters of the book.

I thank my lucky stars that everything went okay with the operation, and my grandfather got home yesterday. I had already had dinner, but I sat there for most of his meal - it was a relief to see him at home at last! My mother had to call the parents of one of my friends, so I talked with my friend at the end and worked out what everyone's plans for New Year's were. Luckily, my friend Amanda was having a party, so I didn't have to plan my own from 500 miles away!

Today (Saturday), I rode home again - 2 days later than originally planned. I slept and gazed out the window pretty much all the way home. Note: being the only vegetarian in a family on the road isn't fun - lunch was Burger King fries, 2 orders of mozarella sticks and an ice tea. Odd how you have to specifically look for unsweetened ice tea these days.

I just got home about 3 hours ago, had dinner and wrote this daylog. Maybe I should have kept a paper-and-pencil journal and typed it up when I got home - it would be nice if I could remember the way I felt in more detail. Oh well - live and learn.

I woke up at about noon and spent most of the day on adcritic and here on e2.

I went to the gym tonight. I almost didn't go because of the cold weather. I didn't want to get out of the gym into 50 degree cold air wearing shorts and a sweaty shirt. Brr. So I compromised and brought along a change of clothes.

I got to the gym and there was a woman cleaning the men's locker room. I thought about just changing anyway, but I didn't feel like causing trouble so I took one of the toilet stalls to change. I dont't really care if some woman who I don't know saw me in my underwear, especially if it's in a men's locker room.

Then something happened for the first time in my life. It wasn't a big thing, but it certianly meant something to me. It's amazing what little things can make a big difference in your self-confidence.

While walking on the treadmill, a very athletic attractive lady chose the treadmill next to me to start running. This wouldn't normally be all that noteworthy, except that usually the treadmill-filling rule at the gym follows the same pattern as the urinal choosing rule in men's restrooms, and there was only one other person using one of over a dozen treadmills. Typically people take every other treadmill until they all fill up, and only then are the ones next to someone used.

You have to keep in mind, that all through high school I was used to people going out of their way to avoid me (I was a geek amongst the gifted students, so effectively a geek of geeks). So after about 5 minutes of running, she goes elsewhere, and so I thought that it was odd that she chose that treadmill, but didn't really think about it too much.

Then about 5 minutes later she comes back to the same treadmill and starts jogging again. I felt kind of socially awkward, as I always do when I'm in a convenient speaking range of someone else, and I'm not saying anything. I didn't want to start a conversation because I couldn't really think of anything to say, especially to someone who looked as good as she did; I'd probably make a fool of myself.

But after a few minutes, she starts a conversation with me. She had looked at the numbers on my treadmill and thought it said I had been running for 14 miles. I told her that it was only 1.4. She asked me how long I had been going there, and I told her about two months. I gave her several opportunities to let the conversation end, but she kept the ball in my court. She apparently was not trying to avoid me; this is a situation I'm not accustomed to. We talked for a few more minutes until I had to get some water (I had forgot to take a drink before starting to work out).

Anyway, the gym was closing so I finished off with some weights. I was actually done with the treadmill - 30 minutes was my target and I had passed that while talking. They were already turning off the lights, so I thought it might be weird for me to go back over and run some more. I hung around for a minute near the front of the gym talking to the attendant, while hoping she would leave so I could say bye. I remembered I left some clothes in the locker room so I went back and go them. On my way out, she was still running, so I figured I'd see her there again sometime.

It really means something to me that an attractive lady comes over to me and starts a conversation. As far as I can recall, that's never happened to me before. It's amazing what little things can change your attitude. And she has no idea how much that meant to me, and how much it has brightened my day/week/month/life.

9:01PM

I got a response back from Sara. Still nothing new. I'm going nuts. Her responses are getting longer, so at least she's spending some time on writing me back. I've got to decide what I'm going to do when she gets back. The time is approaching. I should find out what she's got planned and if she sounds like she's got some free time I'll ask her out.

TC invited me to come along with her and her friends to South Beach tomorrow night. I'll give her a call tomorrow and see if it's still on. I should give CR a call as well and see what he's up to for New Year's.