August 27, 2000

Everything Day Logs
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Time: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 00:27:53 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 668855 (703 new since August 26, 2000)
Number of users: 18384 (18 new since August 26, 2000)
Number of links: 3250564 (16741 new since August 26, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.382 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.860 links per node
Link to user ratio: 176.815 links per user

New Nodes: [Santo Gold] [Is it wrong to get something for free?] [Johnny the Conqueror] [giant intercity catapaults] [www.abnormality.co.uk] [the Alaska subsistence debate] [Things Falling Apart] [superbad] [Is it wrong to get something for free?] [How to check the coolant, and what to do if it is low] [lizard] [Transparent Mind Theory] [$9.99] [People Who Don't Think They're 'Cool' Enough To Node] [dog page]

Users Online (32): [Pseudo_Intellectual] [DMan] [dannye] [ModernAngel] [wharfinger] [Uberfetus] [ailie] [icicle] [JustSomeGuy] [Zari] [robwicks] [siren] [Cid Highwind] [mcc] [tribbel] [Pteryx] [kaatunut] [StopTheViolins] [jeremy f] [Luquid] [asqui] [TheNastyCanasty] [lemuru] [Ender02] [girlotron] [Zeolite] [cethiesus] [Chihuahua Grub] [mikl-em] [Antisonic] [knowledge_is_power] [Triton]

JeffMagnus node count: 4038 (1 new since August 26, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9543 (6 more since August 26, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.363 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.604%
JeffMagnus node of the day: what will occur the day after Windows NT becomes open source

School starts tomorrow. God, I'm nervous. Not about being a senior, but about going to Hope College for French class. I don't even know when classes start at Hope. Who's to say it's the same day as West Ottawa High School?

I can already feel the eyes of college students measuring and weighing and judging me as I walk in the room. I can hear their giggles and rude comments, their opinions of my language ability and cautioning everyone not to talk to me. I can see the professor, staring, trying to hide a smirk but failing quite miserably. My hands shake with nervousness, I drop everything, I want to run and hide from those prying eyes. Everyone bursts into scornful laughter, tears stream down my face. Utterly humiliated, I sit in a corner, alone, and cry soundlessly.

These are the nightmares I've been having for months. Says a lot about my self confidance, huh? I know everything will work out. At least I hope it will. It should, anyway. Maybe. Dammit! I hate being so helpless!

Drove to Gainesville to see my high school chums. Ate two chocolate-covered donuts at KRISPY CREME (which is suspiciously located next to a head shop). Drove around and soaked up the oppressive, spooky, run-down atmosphere. Played Tekken in a fraternity house. Listened to Polygon Window in the car on the way home.

Been a while since I did one of these ...

So I'm officially out-of-work. Sort of. I've left my full-time job and now only have a part-time job which, fortunately(?) I can do from home. Working from home would be a tremendous boon if I were married with children and had to take care of the kids or something, but now that I've done it exclusively for a week, I find I miss the mild social contact that comes from working in an office. So I spend a couple of hours on the computer in the morning and then sort of look for another job in a distracted, half-assed manner. No doubt eventually I'll either run out of money or be bored to tears and have to look for another job in earnest, but for now ...

One problem (the main one, I think) is that I'm not at all sure I want to continue with what I've been doing. I find this somewhat worrisome. I mean, aren't I supposed to know what I want to do with my life now that I'm twenty-eight?

Anyhow, the trip to Washington, D. C. was good. It was nice to get away. I took my laptop, but only plugged it in on the last day. I didn't even check my e-mail, I just listened to a bunch of mp3's while doing my morning exercise and ablution. Saw much Smithsonian (which I had seen before) and the new (newish) Holocaust Museum (which I hadn't and which is very good). My Dad bought a dozen soft-shelled crabs and, man alive, them's good eatin'. On the plane ride back, I remembered that I forgot to see the new Roosevelt Monument, so now I have an excuse to go back.

Other than that it's been slow. Read The Sound and the Fury again and found that I actually understand parts of it now (ho-ray for second readings.) I probably should read more Faulkner, but, well, football season's about to start :)

back | days | front

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Hoo boy, I shouldn't listen to War of the Worlds and read HP Lovecraft alone. Check out today's dream log for details...

It's my Mother's birthday today. I will be doing the normal activity of buying a card from the local supermarket and signing it quickly before I walk round to her house. Why is there a slight stigma on supermarket greetings cards? They have the same design as the cards from a "proper" card shop. I suppose it's just snobbery.

15:25 BST

Yay for my Mum!!

She took pity on my poor keyboard woes (see yesterday for details) and bought me a brand new Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro! I shall try not to spill any drinks on this one.

My Good Deed for the day

One of my Mother's friends called around at her house to wish my Mum a happy birthday. She had her surly 15 year old son with her. I asked her (rather crassly) what was wrong with him (like 15 year olds need a reason?) She replied that he is asthmatic and refuses to bring his Ventolin out with him because he doesn't want to look uncool - meaning that he is always short of breath.

I took him aside and told him that I was asthmatic too. He tried not to look too interested, but implied that I couldn't be that asthmatic as I don't carry my inhalers with me. I then produced the two inhalers that had been hidden in the leg pocket of my cargo pants. The look of realisation on his face was quite amusing to behold - especially as it turned into a bright red blush as he realised what a dick he'd been to his Mother...

He thanked me for the advice - a 15 year old boy said thank you!? This has indeed been a good day.

17:35 BST

Second Good Deed for the Day

I pointed Lometa in the direction of the academic discounts for Microsoft software, so she doesn't have to pay full whack for the software her son needs for his schooling. I also pointed out that many schools have group or site licenses already, so he shouldn't need to buy another one. And if he doesn't really need to use MS software, then I pointed out that LaTeX is very good.

---

More later, peeps

Sunday for me started with a call from Arvind in Sydney, informing our answering machine that Avinasha was arriving back from Sydney at 11:15, and would we collect her please. Poor old Avi is a student of ceramics at the Australian National University, and has won a scholarship to the prestigeous Hong Il University in Seoul, Korea. But the local Korean consulate has given her merry hell in the approval of her entry visa. It has reached the point where the frigging local Korean authorities have become just-plain-obstructionist. She was to fly out once last week, and again yesterday, but has now had to return to this capitol city to provide even more proof that she just a student, and not some Aussie emmisary of Osama Bin Laden or something. Took her home, poor love. She's now going to miss the start of the Korean semester.

The best thing that happened today is that I got my newly repaired PowerBook back, hallelujah. Spent three or four hours setting it up again and getting my data off the loaner notebook. I've been feeling like I've been missing a limb. LinuxPPC rocks, although I'm collecting a TurboPPC distro this week from the local office, which I'm really looking forward to.

I've got a 6:30am flight to Sydney tomorrow for work, which means early to bed tonight. This week coming means a new sendmail install, migration of a dozen mail domains to the new box, a new BRU-based backup sytstem for that box, and more fscking drama with netatalk and Quark between whom no love is lost. And just for fun, the continuing website wars with our senior management. Must not lose my cool. This too shall pass.

i want to be everybody:
i want to live off government welfare for a year or two, just for the experience. i want to be a poet, a philosopher, a puppeteer, a nurse at a psychiatric hospital, a world leader, a graveyard shift convenience store worker, a prisoner on death row, bill gates, john lennon, idi amin, don burke.... just for the experience.

and then one day i just want to stop.
and i want to buy my own bookstore and live above it and find the world again.

try telling that to your career guidance counsellor. *sighs*

today i almost blacked out. there was all this static in front of my eyes, like when you stare too closely at the pixels on a newspaper picture. i wonder if that is what dying is like, suddenly fading to black? i wonder too much.

I don't know who the fuck I am anymore. Am I really the antisocial shit everyone and their mother thinks I am, or am I just playing a part so real that maybe the part is playing me nowadays? I remember the kid I was in kindergarten and the rest of elementary school, when I really thought life was good and there was no difference between me and the shinny happy people I want to shake some sense into nowadays. I liked the person I was then; I could look in the mirror without wondering whether I'd be able to stomach dealing with "normal" people that day. Fuck them. Fuck everybody.

I don't even know if I'm happy anymore. Yesterday I'd have said that I always, deep down, liked the person I turned into. Today? Today I'm sick of being shit on and patronized by people I once thought I had some common bond with through school or "brohterhood" or some such nonsense.

I respect myself, but what the fuck does that count for for anyone else? Do I have to start compromising my beliefs to be accepted or understood? Do *I* even understand what the hell I believe in anymore?

"Ian, are you okay?!" Can I just be reflective or quiet for 30 seconds without someone thinking I need to be locked up??? Maybe it's b ecause it's 3:00 AM on a Saturday night, but would it be any different if it were a Tuesday afternoon? Would it be okay to sit alone in the hallway and write then, but not now?

I used to ask questions no one else could answer, but lately I've been asking questions I don't have the vaguest idea how to answer myself. Is this some adolescent life phase? Will these idiots ever stop staring at me? Am I going insane?

I wish just for a day Icould be the ki I was in kindergarten. I see myself in pictures from back then and I almost cry for the smiley kid I see in the pictures. Where the fuck did I get so out of touch with everything? Did the world shit on me, or was it the other way around?

I find I have the most in common with the people the "social" side of me says I shouldn't associate with, but isn't that telling me I shouldn't associate with myself? Is all of this just self pity? Why do I have to sit in the hallway to be comfortable enough to write stuff like this down?

We signed five guys tonight. I like all of them. Will I feel that same way once they *really* get to know me during pledgeship, and is *that* the real me? The antisocial asshole again? Even then, theuy seem to like me more than random strangers at parties who I make an EFFORT to be nice to.

I need a girlfriend.

ghostbusters was playing as the midnight movie at the inwood. i sit on the curb outside, pointlessly waiting to find out that all seven of the friends i invited are going to stand me up. while sitting outside i see a carload of cute indie/punk girls pull up and park next to my truck. each one cute enough to make me shiver. but three of them!? what's a lonely indie-kid like me to do? just keep on sitting there because it is impossible for someone that attractive to be interested in me, of course.

walking out of the movie i accidentally bump into one of them. appologies are exchanged. we go our separate ways. while walking away i notice her give me a very obvious second-glance. while getting in my truck i glance over to see another one of them fully engaged in what i would consider to be "checking me out" this is the point where looking back i wonder why the hell i didn't do something, say something, why am i so worried about embarassing myself in front of three girls that i'll likely never see again? hell, she saw the kool-aid man t-shirt, the little heart pin on the strap of your shoulder bag, your chucks are an even more abnormal color than theirs. you've got the good records pin to match the good records sticker on their car, both your vehicles even have the same mr. t experience sticker on them. they can probably even hear the cat power playing on your stereo, cody, you are in!

just one problem: i have a crippling fear of asking girls out

and i really don't want to be that guy. heh, i should stop this now as i'm about two years too late for teenage angst

i drive away, the thought of that same 30 mile stretch of I-35 back to denton, that same one i travel twice a day five times a week, is not pleasant to say the least. i go off on my own. adventuring. driving at night with the windows down. exploring abandoned back-roads and lonesome highways. look now look again, the wayward bus, distant plastic trees, and appropriately enough the charm of the highway strip all have time to play out before i get home. i get lost several times along the way, but then, that's really what it's all about anyway isn't it?

I was lucky enough to have some good friends over yesterday. Which lead to more and more people coming over. I'm thinkin about renaming my home from
Casa de Tex : a private club with memberships available.
to
Grand Central Station
I know it's corny, but it's an inside joke between my friends and family.

Tomorrow is the last day for registration for me to take the CCNA certification, I hope I make it. The class won't actually start until Tuesday. This will be fun, I have not been to college, I mena actualy college, (not counting Police Academy) in 4 1/2 years. To say the least I'm filled with anxiety over this situation.
I still look forward to going, and think this is gonna be like a major flashback.

<<   {hojita} Day Log Navigation   >>

Today has been a very blah day for me. I have accomplished almost nothing of value save emailing a lot of friends that I needed to. I guess in part that's a very worthwhile thing to do, but I feel sometimes like I could spend my life in better ways. This recurring thought, which comes often to me, I always realize is hypocritical, because I know how much I enjoy conversation. So enjoying it, but feeling like I am just pining my life away mulling over randomness. I guess that's all there really is, tho.

IM is sucking my life away. I've gone through a migration between ICQ and IRC to IM to back to ICQ and then finally back to IM. All of which because of how well any program logged conversations at one point. Not that I'm obsessive about saving conversations or anything (*blush*) but more that I just like to keep a record of things. It's also nice to know that when I'm having a really good or momentous conversation that it will be there to look at the next time I use my computer. *smile* But, now that I'm back on IM that too many people I know use, I end up sitting here trying to node, or write email, or do something and I just end up talking to lots of people. It's not a bad thing, just I'm never sure how to balance it against other things.

I never know exactly what to write in a Day Log. I have this issue with my own journal. I thought once about writing some sort of public journal in the same way that Jenni from the JenniCam does. It wasn't that I didn't want people to know what went on in my life, but more that my life is tied up with the people around me. I might not mind writing about my life, but it's rude to say the least to write personal things about other people without their permission. So, for me, a Day Log is my random thoughts for any day, boiled down to avoid anything personal regarding other people. It seems...dry...almost, to say it that way. But...I want to write about me, to force myself to put coherent thoughts down about what happened, but...it seems a farce of what I actually have to say.

I was sitting by the window on the bus, a Hoppa, with a low floor, and as we were driving along, the driver opened the doors.
We were passing a young black guy, who was cycling parallel to us at the time, looking fairly chilled and smoking what looked like a reefer. I thought the bus driver must know him and was going to shout hello, but instead he shouted:

"Hey, pull your pants up, you can't ride around like that!".

I looked over and his shorts had fallen right down, and he was showing his arse to the world.
He grinned and pulled them up with one hand as he cycled along.

Everyone on the bus stayed stoney faced but it really made me laugh.

I have a headache. They've been getting more frequent, and I'm not sure what to do about them. Of course, I could always take medicine, but that's admitting defeat; I prefer to just tough it out for as long as possible.
I just learned about this site today. It's different than any other site that I've seen, which I find intriguing.

This morning started out stressed. I awoke around 7:00am just way to early for that time to exists. It's seems they paint the doors in my dorm with some kind of super paint that nothing will stick too. And so my poster kept flapping against it ever time the fan would go by. Kept me up most of the night. I know a sane person would get up and either move the fan or fix the poster but that would require getting out of bed. After I final up and quit complaining about the poster keeping me up. I realized that being back in school now I didn't know what time church started.

So I went to the trusty old web and looked up the web page of my local church. Discover that they web cast the sermon now. I thought about not going and just watching from my computer. But then decided that I better actually be there. If I where to start singing I would wake my roommate, Cid Highwind, and he would get pissed off.

Well I went to church came back around 11:45 or so. I changed cloths and got on to everything2. I wrote up a couple new nodes. Then it was off the lunch. Tonight I have a date. Yes hell has frozen over. With some luck it might be a really good date. I'll write about it in tomorrows day log.

Dear day log, it's been a while since I wrote to you. That's because my life sucks, or at least is damn boring.

Anyways, I just thought I'd share my experiences with TI calculator cables with you.

Today, I finally decided it's time to fix my broken, homemade design TI-86 <=> PC parallel port cable. So, at approximately 11 pm, I dug up my soldering iron, left it heating and went get the remains of my TI cable which was ruined 3 months ago by my little brother and his friends. This time, I managed not to burn a charred hole in the table; but that's another story. So, I grabbed the iron with self-confident motion of my hand, moved it towards the cable port, hit my hand and burned the skin on it. Damn it. But I let that not discourage me, skillfully fixed two places where the ironing had broken, straightened the twisted stiff wires and went testing it.

Testing... testing... test says OK. Get image from calculator. Not OK. [repeat 100 times]. Oh dammit. I remembered from my earlier experiences that holding the cable right way might help, let my aura mix with it and bring positive energies or whatnot. No work no. So, I digged up the diagnostics tool, a batch file calling over and over again a COM file writing and reading into LPT port. It showed that, again, writing 02 does not bounce 10 back like it should do, it bounces 10 1/2 of time and 00 1/2 of time. This was familiar, and using old methods I found the trick: hold the calculator in about 50 degree angle against tangent of earth's gravitational field, at such height that the bottom of calculator will be slightly below the level of two piled books. Hand must not be supported by anything but be in free-float. It is imperative that the wire section of calculator is twisted, even though that may cause short circuits. And lo, I managed to create a working mode! And even maintain it for 2 seconds.

Much time later, I transferred a single file and was grateful.

0:58 EET
(on August 28)

I used to hate sunday nights. Back when I was at lukio - and before that in elementary/secondary school - sunday night meant having to go to sleep way too early, for an early start on monday. There was rarely anything good on TV, so the only activities were doing homework etc. This made the whole evening suck.
Nowadays things are quite different. I don't have to wake up for work until 10 o'clock, there's no work-related stuff to worry about and the progarams offered by Finnish television are at least watchable. (Seinfeld and a golf-related-show is all you need! :)) Even the life-obsessed IRC friends crawl out to chat after being away since Friday. I wonder how I'll feel next year, re-aquaintancing myself with the joys of education again?

Btw, if anybody out there has a good collection of house/techno vinyls from 1991-1992, check out my updated home node for a wanted-list! I'm trying to track down some classic (to me, anyway) records and it has turned out to be more hard I first imagined.

It only bothers me at night. The fact that I don't know where the creep is or if he's waiting for me or what he wants or if he'll harm me. It's only at night, when I'm coming home, when I'm alone in front of my door, putting the key in, vulnerable. It's only at night, when I'm watching TV, wondering if he's outside the window, watching me.

On the positive side, I had a very successful horseback ride yesterday. Well, I didn't fall off. And my horse only freaked out once because a horsefly was on his butt. I'm really pleased to discover that I can ride a horse after 15 years. The horse seemed to be a calming influence on me too. Now, if I weren't so sore...

Tomorrow, if I get an answer from Director of HR, I'll accept the offer and start my new job. If I don't hear back from her, I'm not sure what I'll do. I want to get that paperwork done and then get out of here - go stay somewhere else for a while. Anyway, it'll be really good to have the whole issue settled. I've accepted that fact that I'll have to work for this stupid large corporation for a little while longer. Now I just want to get it done with and close this chapter of my life. I figure I can get into the company I want to work for in nine months.

When I last noded on the Everything Day Logs it was July 5, 2000, so I just want to follow up on some of the major issues left undone, for the benefit of my millions of fans:

• The performance at the Dadafest happened and went very well thanks for asking. The piece is entitled An Introduction to WaWa it's a self-reflexive dada parody, or some such appropriate nonsense. YOU know what I mean. I'll node it eventually.
• The play I was writing got better and got finished (cuz it had to). Performances will begin in a week or two. And I can see what I think of what the director has done with it.

Work is odd, no, really. The internet company I'm employed by is going more corporate, more cool people are leaving, and I wonder more and more if there's anyone with a brain near the rudder. I'm sad. But I'm staying for the moment. I still have some good work to do. And I like my laptop. And I still have a lot of friends at work that I don't want to leave in the lurch. Oh yeh, and there's also the hope that my stock options being worth something someday. I will quit the place within 6 months, I know that for sure now.

And I'm not sad when I look toward the future. The next couple job hops for me promise to be to companies doing very interesting and even important things for the future of the 'net (or the world or somesuch large body). Node my words, Things are going to start happening to me now!

In Everythingian news, I'm past 50 nodes now! I'm level 2 with a hell of a lot of momentum. I'm noding up obscure musical effluvium faster than you can say pingouin! Recent musical write-ups I've writ include: Pere Ubu, you were wrong when you said everything's going to be alright, and hugo largo. In the write-ups I writ that Everything really really needed, but somehow hadn't been done yet (I think of this as community service as opposed to personal indulgence): VJ, my mr. bungle write-up, and Nighthawks at the Diner. White Shadow, famous "Van" families, and First VJs ever on MTV, those are just my dorky ideas.

Right now, I can't node too good, it's late, talk to you soon, Everything, g'nite.

We wouldn't let mom smoke in our dorm room--I hated the stuff and my roommate was asthmatic. However, across the hall, with two of our dear female friends, she was welcome. (They had a the page of the student handbook that had a list of the illegal items in a dorm room up on the wall--as a checklist of what they had already.)

So, my mom's hanging out smoking, and my friend Deb is folding her laundry. She also had some of the laundry of her boyfriend as well, and was folding quite a few pairs of men's underwear as well as her own.

This intrigued my mother, and she asked, "Whose underwear is that?"

My friend, not knowing if the truth would offend, said, "Oh, all the girls are wearing it nowadays."

That was enough for Mom. I didn't hear anything about it from her, and in fact, later, she said, "You know that girl Deb that lives across the hall from you? She's nice. You should date her." This was after meeting my then-current girlfriend, (and now-current wife) by the way.

mrichich's mom