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JeffMagnus node count: 4088 (0 new since January 8, 2001) JeffMagnus experience: 11293 (82 more since January 8, 2001) JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.762 XP per node JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.514% (Via alternate method: 0.926%)* JeffMagnus node of the day: The Everything Credibility Problem
Well almost. I've been out with her once and it was fandabbydozy, and I did almost everything right. Ok, so I have no idea if that's true, but it seemed to go coolio.
We were out from 1:30pm to 6:10pm, had lunch, did coffee and went to a gallery. I'm not saying any more though because I've probably already jinxed the whole thing.
Update: Evidently I did because it ended pretty quickly (another two 6 hour dates - too much, too soon?). Bah. I am now trying to reverse the situation. Wish me luck.
Update 2: I have failed. Curse those pesky kids.
This all happened 'yesterday', but this is the current daylog - so be it. PS Never tell anybody I used the word fandabbydozy.
I hate cramps.
Stayed home from school. I really would rather have gone, if it meant avoiding the pain. I wish I were anything but female. My dad stayed home today as well (my entire family was sick from one thing or another), and kept asking me what was wrong. What was I supposed to say? Dad, I'm having my period right now. I don't think so. I can barely talk to him about simple, every day things.
I felt better around one o'clock. Cut up some pumpernickel bread with whipped cream cheese, managed to hold that down. Things were looking up. I got dressed, brushed my hair, put my contacts in, filled out some more scholarship applications for next year. By then it was time to head on over to Hope.
I went straight to Graves Hall, since it's the only place I know how to get to on campus. I had the man behind the desk sign some stuff, and he sent me with the other secretary on over to Maas something-or-other. She brought me straight to the front of the line, where I registered with the computer for French 342, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3:00 to 4:20pm. Another semester of hell, I'm sure. What a way to end my senior year.
I decided to brave traffic once more and get a car wash on my way home. The line was horrendous, but thankfully a nice man in a blue car with a white hanging thing on the rearview mirror let me go in front of him. I was behind a green Land Rover, who was denied access to the car wash and forced to sit through some vile swearing from the attendant accepting everyone's money. He looked like such a nice old man - I didn't know such words could be spewed from such wrinkled lips.
I got one of those Ultimate washes that cost nine bucks. Listened to my music too loud while waiting in line, then watched in amazement as the sudsy water and soapy sponge things surrounded my car. I will always have fun getting my car professionally washed.
As I was pulling out into the parking lot after having my car dried by huge metal tubes, and was rudely cut off by a silver neon. I only shook my head and put my sunglasses back on. As I was driving home, I noticed the nice man in the blue car with the white hanging thing on the mirror was still behind me. I sped up, just to see if he would too. He did. I was going 60mph down Lakewood, and he was still right behind me. I turned. He turned. I turned again. He kept going. So it was all good once again.
I cut up a cardboard box and created a new box from the pieces and several scraps of foam-core poster board I had found behind the dining room cabinet. It was something to do. I then decided to finish my painting of the fighting spoons, but I didn't get it done. But I think I'll line the new cardboard and foam-core poster board box with red velvet and put my painting in it. I'll have to cut it into several pieces so it'll fit, but that's fine. By the time I'm finished with this realistic project, I'm sure I'll be well past level 6 and capable of posting a picture of it on my home node. Keep your eyes open.
I am now placidly installed in my new apartment, in the Tlalpan area of Pandemonium Central. This is part of a 5 apartment minicomplex, that includes a cat and parking space I have no use for (I don't have a car, nay, I don't even have a driving license, what's more, I cannot drive). I have many windows, the place is quiet. Since this is a rooftop apartment, I could string out the shortwave antenna wire; I can now marvel at Voice of the Andes, WWV, the BBC and several fanatic Christian preachers from Tennessee. The breakup with my ex-SO went smoothly enough, but why do I kid myself ? It is still in progress. There will be many waverings, bouts with angst and late night calls. And I will have it easier, clearly.
Today work at the Irritating Lump Company restarted, sort of ... Slackery abounded, and I whiled the day away. Well, I had a sort of productive moment in the morning, but it did not last really long. I saw Miss Nice and my good buddy mibarra, a real hacker. The Caveman, my arch-nemesis, is muttering that he wants to reduce Internet use and access throughout the company. He started grumbling about ICQ, and then brilliantly observed "¿Are we sure that everybody needs email in here ?". My take is that the 'net should be used more not less. But he is a caveman, and a lover of paper and things written in quintiplicate (I am not exaggerating).
Napster works again for me. Joy. And I noticed a lot of real music. Searches for Jordi Savall, Lully and Ivano Fossati returned screenfuls of stuff. I am reading Midnight's Children, which is dense and tasty stuff, not unlike a good curry. I cooked a half kilogram of dried beans, which means that I am now condemened to eating beans for days - no complain.
Var the Stick by Piers Anthony is a piece of crap. Oooops, I am not being a very good literary criticist, am I ?. OK, let me rephrase that: in the words of Ortega y Gasset, as later confirmed by Tzvetan Todorov, literarature requires a suspension of disbelief that, as the bulgarian critic underlined, should be confined to one element in the narration. The "novel" I mentioned (notice the insulting quotes) requires a suspension of good-taste. The protagonist is like Forrest Gump, but less charming: Forrest Dump. The characters appear to have been whittled from the stick mentioned in the title. The book ends in the most melodramatic, sticky, obvious way. In other words, it is a piece of crap !.
I noded Nubia, which seemed a really necessary node to me. Now, if only someone explained to me WTF is the deal with the nubians joke. It must be one of those mysterious ineffable cultural USA things that will forever baffle (ineffable/baffle, notice the lovely concinnitas) me. I also noded some obscure photography thing. That one, my friend, is a nodemine.
stone age -oO*Oo- bronze age
For my own future reference, today the new backup schedule takes effect:
Time Host Action 3:00 xmiso Outback archives Outlook 2000, Favorites 3:10 voxel mysqldump > threee_database.txt.gz 3:12 weekly voxel tar > voxelbk.tar.gz 3:35 xmiso retrieve three_database.txt.gz and voxelbk.tar.gz from voxel via FTP 4-7 xmiso Compaq Online Backup performed
My dreads were put in again last friday, a harrowing 6 hour process involving perming, backcombing, waxing, and many lather, rinse, repeats. I like they way they are, they're nice and fat and thick. However, until my hair starts growing and the dreads start laying down, I have a Sideshow Bob/Yahoo Serious/Sonic the Hedgehog/Don King thing going on. Life goes on.
Seeing as I had already had them for the entire weekend, I was used to having them, and more or less forgot about my new "radical" change (I don't get it. I had dreads last month...people are stupid). The people that mattered made the right comments, and the less desireables made their typical responses.
By far, the best response I got was from my History teacher. The conversation went something like this:
Him: Ahh, are you planning a trip to the carribean? Me: Nope. Him: Well, do you atleast have something good to smoke? Me: Sorry, not on me.
Crazy hippie guy. Hippies make the best teachers.
I realized one of my old friends is turning into a druggie/white trash kid. He resolved to quit pot this year, lasted about five days reefer free. If I recall correctly that's a sign of addiction. Trying to quit and failing, I mean. I might get him a subscription to High Times when his birthday rolls around, that or a bong. Would that be so wrong?
My friend (an other one) has taken out a bounty on my poor little head. All because of one little picture. Yeah, the same one that think's i'm a raging homosexual if you recall from, I think, the 5th. He's going to rip my leg off and beat me to death with it once he sees what I just sent him.
Puts pinkee to corner of mouth, laughs.
Me must... sleep... zzz.... zzz...
Well, I still can't believe that it's 2001. Its been eight days now, nearly nine, and still, every time I see the number 2001, I get a weird feeling of disbelief. Its as if my mind is fighting with a strange number that pop culture has somehow told me should be significant. My mind is almost making it significant, and this feeling is very strange for me. I'm not one to get excited about such things; even holidays are usually just another day for me, nothing special. I have to put my own meaning to things like Christmas, because my literal mind doesn't let the spiritual, supernatural stuff get in the way.
2001. Two thousand and one. Such an odd combination of characters. Something is fighting to be different; I see the symbol as I've seen so many times before, in movies and so on, but putting the knowledge that 2001 now represents the current year is very strange. It's just a number.
I didn't experience this when 2000 rolled around. Just for 2001. Apparently the shift from a one and three nines to a two and three zeros didn't flip any switches, but add one, and weird things start to happen...
I had to go back to school today after a horrible winter break. I was sick for most of it and I lost Jesse (Him, my ex) forever to His own ignorance, so I would say it wasn't that great. I actually was not in that bad of a mood today, surprisingly, because I've been feeling depressed lately. But I got through all my classes successfully and I didn't have much homework to do for them.
The low point of my day is when I was walking to my calculus class to get help during lunch. I knew He would cross my path, but I would not go out of my way to avoid Him. Sure enough I saw Him, and He walked by me with His ex (the girlfriend that made my life hell for so long). We looked at each other, but I tried not to. When I was a little past Him, He muttered "bitch", which was obviously meant for me. It just made me so sad that at one point we were all each other had, and now we were reduced to muttering obscenities to each other in passing.
I have journalism with Him, and I did my calculus homework the entire time so I would not have to look at Him. It hurt so bad, I was so sad that I could not speak. I had to leave school because I could not be there any longer, not with Him within the same vicinity as me. He stared me down at one point, every time He did something His ex was with Him. She has too great an influence on him, they will probably be back together in a matter of days.
Once sadly, but now luckily, that is no longer my concern.
I'm getting perilously tired of these little broken promises.
Upon waking, I washed some clothes in the sink, and decided to take a shower in the scary bathroom. I panicked. There were no towels. Finally, I discovered the towels. I hope they were clean. One was pink, and the other was blue. I wondered if the pink one was for girls and the blue one for boys, but I used them both. The pink towel was really too small.
I decided to leave for the office, as I was very scared of the possibility that I would have to eat fruhstuck in the hotel. I managed to avoid the fruhstuck, and struck out for the office. Daniel had told me the previous night to simply take three left turns and I should find the office. I didn't. I wandered around lost for a good deal of time, really wanting fruhstuck. I considered going back to the "hotel" and eating fruhstuck there, and starting over. I tried to call the SuSE office from a payphone, but they didn't seem to know where I was either. Eventually, I found the office.
When I got to the office, Edith helped me to find the cantina. I now completely understand Josh's quandry with the kaffe machine. I figured out which spout to use in much the same manner. (This is referring to some writing by my co-worker Josh about his trip to the German office. He couldn't figure out which spout to use on the coffee machine in the cantina. He tried to get some help from a nice German lady, who seemed intent on explaining the types of coffee, but not wich spout. He finally just pushed a button, and she rushed to shove his cup under the appropriate spout.)
I had already written some things here, but somehow lost all of my changes. I ended up going to a nice lunch with Marc Ruehrschneck, Stefan Fent, and Michael Radziej. These are a bunch of guys who had been in my company's office in Oakland at one time or another. I ran into Michael first, as I was sitting outside typing up the previous section of this node. (God bless power adaptors and the airport network.) He hollered "Leah!" and was very happy to see me. I found out that he was mostly happy because he was planning to send a package to Oakland, and now that I was there, he didn't need to worry about the custom's forms. I take it that I get to be the Post Office ;-) As we were talking, Marc came up, as we had planned to go to lunch. We ended up stopping by and picking up Stefan as well. We dropped in to see Bernhard Hölcker, but he did not come to lunch with us. I had some nice bier and chile con carne at something like a "Porno Cafe." (There is this deli next to a big porno warehouse in Oakland that we eat at all of the time. It is horrible, but we are regulars there for some reason. We call it the Porno Deli.) It was pretty good actually.
Later I also met Daniel Bischof (yet another person whom I knew from Oakland). We talked for a while. He gave me his number so I can go have some bier with him some evening. By the time I get back, I will be a raving alcoholic. Seems I have promised to go have bier with half of the company.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I spent some time translating a few PPC SDB articles and some other stuff. I ended up having a nice dinner at McDonald's. Don't ask me why.
When I got back to my hotel, I was trying to read a little bit, but it was very cold. I then discovered something that made me feel very stupid. The radiator's had little dials on the sides of them that you could use to make them get warm. I know it sounds strange, but I had not noticed them before. I noticed I am getting some kind of infection in one of my fingers. Probably from a hangnail that I had. I tried to draw out some of the infection with some toothpaste (I know it sounds strange, but it works.) I decided to go to the Apotheke and get some antibiotic cream in the morning.
I reflected upon a few things that are strange to me about Nuremberg . . no one asks me for money on the street. In short, I don't think I have seen a single homeless person. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like a city with homeless people. If just one person would come up to me and try to bum a cigarette, I think I would feel better. Hell, I might give him the entire pack. Also, I have noticed that Germany seems to be very insistant on having the most modern telephones of anywhere that I have ever been (except for maybe Switzerland). Everyone has those really nice cordless phones that look more like cell phones to me. All of the payphones require prepaid Telefonkartes to operate. It is a mystery to me where one is to acquire such a karte, but Marc was so kind as to let me use his for the time being.
[ Dream Log ]
Okay, so, technically I'm supposed to be attending a lecture right now. I am not. I just slept a bit too long. (Sometimes I thing E2 is going to make me suffer.)
Today's greatest thing was that I'm ahead one step in trying to figure out how to see more dreams. I had one dream today (will be noded later), and I think I had that because the TV wasn't on.
Last night I watched Blazing Saddles.
More to be done today, Now, onward to the Usenet...
Whoa, night falls soon =)
I now remember why I got the process-table module for Perl... Need to hack the YiffCam software to use that creatively. =)
Cool discoveries: Gnus can migrate! Cool!
TV: pictures of lunar eclipse from north Finland... moon is red.
Strangest thing that happened today: Coffee stains formed yin-yang pattern on the bottom of cup.
Hacked my webcam a bit further, as described above. It now uses the process table module to search for command lines that match certain regexp, by default, "xawtv|gnometv|wmtv", and gives different error message if a) grab fails and b) such program is running.
Other day logs o' mine...
Noded today by y.t.: Dream Log: January 9, 2001
Today I was a guinea pig in a Psychology experiment here at school. I got a call yesterday evening from a nice girl in the Psych Dept. who asked if I wanted to continue helping with experiments. I had only done one last semester, and it was kind of neat, so I said "sure!" So then she asked me if I had a history of epilepsy, to which I said "no," and then she asked if I ever went into convulsions while watching Pokemon, to which I said "Pokewhat?!?" No, I'm kidding...
I arrived at 11am, and told the experiment would last 45 minutes to an hour, and I'd get paid six bucks. Decent. I had to sit at a computer, and look at groups of letter flashing at me. Each time, one of the letters would change, and I had to hit the space-bar to stop the flashing, and identify the changing letter. This took about a second each time, and lasted about 40 minutes until I was finished. Note - the letters were white on black background. So currently, my eyes hurt like a bitch, but I've got six bucks to buy lunch with, so I'm not complaining.
Also today, bought a bunch of textbooks from the school bookstore. Here's how it totalled up, and I still have 4 more to buy I think (these were just the cheap ones I could afford right now):
Philosophy 243 Course Notes ........................................ $21.35 Catholicism at the Dawn of the 3rd Millennium ........... $30.95 St. Augustine's Confessions ........................................... $12.99 Ondaatje's In The Skin of a Lion ..................................... $18.95 Woolf's To The Lighthouse .............................................. $ 3.95 Behn's Oroonoko ............................................................... $11.99 Contemporary Political Issues ........................................ $40.95 Judgement in Managerial Decision Making ................. $47.95 GRAND TOTAL (with tax)................................................ $202.32
Hmm... that six bucks doesn't seem so great anymore for some reason.
Must think about GUIs, dream about GUIs, live and breathe GUIs. I can't believe how much work I'm getting now, and how much I need to be involved! Last year, I was bored out of my mind and I wanted to quit if my situation at that time continued into the new year. Now there are so many things to think about, so much to do, and seemingly not enough time to do it in. How I can take some time to compose this day log is surprising!
Well, it seems as though that the company does indeed need me. Our product units are in dire shape in terms of GUI design. Their usability are horrendously complex. It's no wonder three days are needed to train people to operate our products.
I am just so glad that people are actually listening to me and what I have to say, and that the awareness of user centered design has reached nearly everyone in our division here in Toronto.
I got my hand on the Beatles' number one's CD. It was, of course, spectacular, but, being the easily distractable, hyper- attention deficit disorder individual that I am, I was attracted to the shiny, colorful images inside the CD booklet. Mostly they show album covers of the various singles ensconsed therein. Most of the covers are in English, but ever now and then you see something about "Les Beatles" or some scribblings in Chinese. What really got me going was the Spanish album covers. For some reason, seeing those famous Liverpudlians, in their string ties and floppy hair, grinning out from an album cover proudly emblazoned with "Los Beatles" and " Submarino Amarillo," made me laugh my ass off. Yay! I finally learned how to pipe link!
