April 1, 2002

I did something stupid last night.

I fell off a moving vehicle.

Yes, I was drunk.

Ok, it was after a party. Well, technically after a post party, since after the party a bunch of us headed over to Mark's place. But whatever.

Party was ok. Spent a fair amount of time hitting on hot chicks and not really getting anywhere. What else is new?

So, we're headed home. It's me, Karl and Jeff. Karl's going to drive, Jeff's going to his place, and Karl and me are headed back to our fraternity house. I get out there and call shotgun.

Now, Jeff claims that he automatically gets shotgun because he was in Karl's pledge class. I say that's bullshit because Jeff didn't initiate, and brothers should get it over anyone else. So, I grab the door, and start to open it to get in.

Karl decides to resolve the argument by starting to drive away. What he didn't realize at the time was that I, being drunk and stupid at the time, would start to move with him.

So, I'm running alongside the car, and Karl's speeding up. Eventually I trip or something, and roll onto the road. Karl guesses that he was going about 15-20 kilometers per hour when I fell.

So yeah, Karl turns around and comes back to pick up Jeff and me and drives us home. The net result of the night was that I was down about 20 bucks, some PEZ, and up one painful scrape on my knee and a hole in my jeans.

Heh, still an enjoyable night though.

Ok, so it's half 2 in the morning and I have been listening to the same playlist for what seems like 4 hours,

even though it is probably only two,

I don't know, sometimes I think things happen for a reason,

sometimes not.

Then I think that none of it matters so why give two shits.

Then I realize it's stupid to think that way because things do matter, and they should matter.

Why?

Or maybe the question should be, why not?

Well, because one can philosophize, and theorize, and contemplate, and solve, and create

for as long as one remains on this earth,

in this form that we know as being human.

But the way I look at it we can never truly know anything, and I mean truly.

We can't know this because our language is constantly evolving and has evolved over time. I mean we can't even say that we really know what "time" is and how much of it has passed even if we could come to "define" it.

Like, not to go off on a total tangent here, but this is serious.

I think Orwell was talking about some pretty hardcore shit in 1984.

I mean it is definately possible that anything before 1900 could be false. And I know it sounds insane, but it is possible and you can't deny that it isn't because there is no one living that can visualize a "true", "real" memory of that time.

I guess what really got me thinking about this was Nietzsche, but more recently, reading 1984 again.

But then, when I went to Amsterdam, for some odd,^{and I mean really odd}reason, my friend Jared wanted to go to the Torture Museum.

I was like, ok, ummmm, I guess so.

So we went.

I was walking around that place, and it was freaking me the fuck out!. I was disturbed kinda, and then, out of nowhere came O'Brien and his voice was echoing in my head.

And I thought how incredibly possible it was that all this Medieval shit was fake.

Pure bullshit.

Created to influence us in some way, whether it be subconciously or not, that we have it better than back then.

^{If we can even define better at all.}

I don't know, maybe that's pushing it a little. You could say I am highly prone to wonder just how complex certain aspects of the way the world works are.

Perhaps this is just pointless babble, but there really is no way of "truly" knowing anything.

I wonder if I am going to be miserable like this on the inside forever.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Tommorow is another day.

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OH SHIT, IT'S APRIL FOOL'S DAY! Happy noders! Do a happy noder dance in hopes of a fun day! yay!

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:) :0) :-)

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I am serious about this though, really.

I have something to confess, and I must ask for the indulgence of my fellow noders. During the last thirteen months, I have been performing a series of subjective experiments within E2 and with myself. I do not wish for my acts to be taken for some kind of treachery, like Benedict Arnold or JohnnyGoodyear, for that was certainly not my intent. I had hoped to conduct a series of benign investigations into the behaviour of E2 as an environment.

During my first few weeks of my original account on E2, I had great admiration for daylogs and I kept myself well involved with the constant stream of salutations in the cheddarbox. Looking at my former behavior, I had been like a figure-skater during a World Circuit, energetically entwined with the world outside the confines of my daily comics. However, in my new account, I felt free of what I had exhibited in my former account, and one aspect that I did not expect from my alternate account was that I found a place from which avoid daylogs. I also withdrew myself from the textual flirtations and practice of catboxing.

I attempted, in my write-up on How to recover from a failed BIOS update, to take an outsider's vantage point on a non-social situation and speak from the point of view of an actual participant. The material for this write-up came out of the chore of being designated computer nerd to my friends during their first year of University. Judging from the kinds of responses I got to this write-up, this anthropological exercise hit fairly close to the mark.

To test the affect of malicious softlinks on the reputation of write-ups, I applied my interest in the poultry of the world with some helpful advice. I then softlinked it to Earn Your Bullshit multiple times. Interestingly, that is the one node that earned the lowest Reputation. Perhaps that mirrors my own interest in these more advanced techniques of bird mind-control of modern days.

Now we come to the biggest stunt I've pulled with my alternate account, trying to not promote the deletion for dollars of Butterfinger McFlurry. I chose Butterfinger McFlurry because I felt that its Reputation belied as huge a number of strong opinions as the toilet seat node and I have observed that it still engenders heated debate in the chatterbox. With this act I endevoured to not convince others to contribute money to E2. sabby puts it best in the statement accompanying his donation "Donated $2 to nuke that there butterfinger mcflurry there node."

These experiments have been a learning experience for me, and, as I continue to process it, I intend to write-up my thoughts on everything, as I did with Save the Bay.

I hope that it is obvious that I have been able to center within myself a comfortable space for never expressing affection to others in this otherwise warm and fuzzy medium. It is very difficult for me to ask that those write-ups I wrote as .derf be repatriated to my account. I, and others, have grown rather fond of him, and I fear he may protest such treatment. I'm glad to be a grand figure for E2 is such a fascinating toy, a network of lines that encircle, a network of lines that enlace.

fin


The life of a veteran.

Well, here it is. It's that day again. It's my Birthday, I'm 19. Wow. After thinking about all the new things this will bring... I realize that nothing new comes with the responsibilities of being 19. At 16, you can drive. When you're 17 you can consent to sex and sign legal documents. At 18, all sorts of nifty stuff happens: You get to vote, smoke, gamble, enlist, get drafted... and you usually transition from High School to College or work during this time period. Those years are fairly exciting. When you turn 19, unless you live in Canada, nothing new happens. So while I'm happy it's my birthday, I'm mildly happy. It's not like when you're a kid, and you have a big party, and there's friends and cake and tons of colorfully-wrapped presents, and picture-taking and all that jazz. Being a teenager, birthdays can tend to just be a rather solemn occasion. You get the "Oh... Happy Birthday" when you tell your friends what day it is, and you get a nice meal and some cake with your family.

Of course, it's also fitting that my birthday falls on April Fool's Day. All throughout Elementary school I can recall jokes like "Haha! You were born on April Fool's Day. You're a fool! Haha!"   Not that it internally scarred me, but when your birthday falls on a holiday based on playing pranks and making jokes, it's not always something to look forward to. It's also rather convenient that I tend to be a humorous guy, I joke a lot and have an odd sense of sarcasm -- so I've been told my birthday is rather fitting. I guess, sure. Okay. I don't have any siblings, so at least that relieves me of any pranks, beatings, or other kind gifts I might receive on my yearly holiday.

Looking back at the jokes my family has tried to pass off to me is interesting. Trick candles will always be memorable. Those are the candles you just can't blow out - They just keep burning. Well, my family tried this at my birthday dinner one year, at the Red Lobster (a seafood restaurant). We nearly burned down the place. Nobody could put the candles out and they had burned down so far and were sparking, making it rather impossible to remove them from the cake. Luckily a waitress extinguished them with some water before we incinerated anything. I guess it was funny in retrospect.

Tomorrow, classes begin again for me. So I'm spending most of my "special day" moving from home (for Spring Break) back to college. The commute is roughly 2 hours, maybe a smidgen more. I'm not looking forward to going to classes with a gleeful anticipation, but life goes on.

I suppose the highlight of my birthday this year is the new iMac I've been gifted with. It's one of those new G4 iMac's with the small, round base and the swivel, flat-screen monitor. Very cool indeed, and quite powerful as well. At least it will be attractive sitting on my dorm room desk. My roommate thinks it's the hottest thing, and so does my ex-girlfriend - so at least that's three of us who can sit around and admire it.

So Happy April Fool's Day to you all. Happy Easter season, too. Cheers...

Well, well, well.

Last night I had the pleasure of getting drunk with a few E2 noders, not only because getting drunk is a staggeringly popular thing to do in this manusquire, particularly, but because there are actually other noders living here! Who would have thought? That said, I must bequeath mad props unto Templeton, strange fruit and discofever. The four of us, plus one non-noder, converged upon Templeton's place in the Faubourg Marigny, to eat, drink, and be merry. Most of the talk revolved around the beloved E2, of course, which often was a constant source of consternation to my non-noder friend, Cris.

strange fruit was kind enough to invent new pronunciations for our E2 names: Templeton is "Tem'plee'ten," discofever is "disk'off'äver," and I am "avva'leen". Webster 1913 look out!

After such a fun outing, I'm forced to conclude the following:

Noders are people, too!

I might even go so far as to exclaim:

EVERYTHING2 IS PEOPLE! EVERYTHING2 IS PEOPLE!!! You've got to warn them! Soon they'll be rounding us up like cattle! (Er... uh... Sorry, I got a bit carried away there.)

Note to self: Buy Templeton a pack or two of Sampoerna Milds as pennance for my bumming so many from her the other night. :)

Here it is, 3:30 A.M. and I've already been attacked! April Trolls Day it's not, so far, but my friend's girlfriend calls up.

"Hey! We need your help. It's an emergency."
"Hey! What's up?"
"Hey! Rob's been arrested! We need money to bail him out."
"What did he do?" If he did something dumb he can rot.
"He smarted off to a cop, who took him in because of outstanding warrents."
"How much?"
"500. But we got 100."
"I don't have four."
"Well what do you have?"
"I dunno, maybe three?"
"APRIL FOOLS!" Here was my chance to say! "Fuckin' bitch, you don't talk to me for a week, ignore me, and this is the shit you pull on me! Fuck you!" Then hang up and APRIL FOOLS her sorry ass when she calls back. But I don't. Instead:
"Very funny."

Yeah, very.


Dad Diary:

The maternity ward: if you take the noises that come out of the women during birth out of context, it becomes a lot more interesting.

So far, I've pulled two shenanigans:

1. I sent email to lots of friends saying "It's that time of year... hope you remembered to set your clocks forward!". Nobody fell for it.
2. I created Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on our local library server, then sent a message to local librarians saying how wonderful it is, it's #1 on the bestseller lists, etc. Nobody bit -- I didn't hear a single peep from anyone about the book, and I didn't get any reactions to the e-mail in which I confessed it was a hoax. Maybe the stereotypes about librarians are true...

For posterity's sake, here's how the library record appeared:

     AUTHOR    Rowling, J. K.

      TITLE    Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix by J. K. Rowling ;
               illustrations by Mary GrandPre. 

    EDITION    1st of April ed.

 PUB. INFO.    New York : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2002 

  DESCRIPT.    410 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

    SUMMARY    Harry Potter, a fifth-year student at the Hogwarts School of
               Witchcraft and Wizardry, is determined to defend his alma mater
               from the evil Lord Voldemort by joining a mysterious magical
               fraternity, despite the cost to friends and family. 

      NOTES    Sequel to: Harry Potter and the goblet of fire.

   SUBJECTS    Wizards -- Juvenile fiction
               Magic -- Juvenile fiction
               Schools -- Juvenile fiction
               Secret societies -- Juvenile fiction
               Wizards -- Fiction
               Magic -- Fiction
               Schools -- Fiction
               Secret societies -- Fiction
               England -- Fiction
               England -- Juvenile fiction

      GENRE     1) Fantasy fiction.

  ADD. NAME     1) GrandPre, Mary ill.

Wow, I didn't realize it was April fool's Day until I started to read daylogs, were did the time go? It seems just the other day it as January, now its April. This month is so busy for me.... My girlfriend and I both have birthdays this month. My older brother has his wedding this month as well. Its wierd, all things get placed on the back burner when a wedding is going to occur. It makes it frustrating to hear nothing but wedding talk at family gatherings, espically when I'm not at the finacial point to be married. So I'm stuck in the middle, apart of the planning whether or not I want to be. So that sucks....

I hope everyone had a happy Easter in case you don't celebrate it, I hope you had a good weekend. I spent the time at my girlfriend's. They really celebrate Easter.... It was my first time painting eggs, and my first Easter basket ever. Does that mean I lived a sheltered life?

Oh and its also the opening day of baseball, America's Pastime if anyone still cares about it