Today is:

New style (Gregorian): 6 August 2000
Old style (Julian): 24 July 2000 C.E.
Fixed:
730338 R.D.
Astronomical (at noon):
2451763  j.d.
ISO:
Sunday, Week 31, Year 2000
Coptic:
30 Abib 1716 A.M.
Ethiopic:
30 Hamle 1992 E.E.
Islamic (until sunset):
5 Jumada I 1421 A.H.
Persian:
16 Mordad 1379 A.P.
Baha'i (until sunset):
Rahmat Kam'al, B'ab of V'ahib 9, Kull-i-Shay 1 B.E.
Hebrew (until sunset):
5 Av 5760 A.M.
Chinese:
cycle 78, year Geng-chen, month 7, day 7
Hindu Lunar (from sunrise):
7 Sravana 2057 V.E.
Hindu Solar (from sunrise):
21 Karka 1922 S.E.
French:
Decade II, Nonidi de Thermidor de l'Annee 208 de la Revolution
Mayan (long count):
12.19.7.8.0

It's 8:30 PM Saturday (my time) I logged off everything just before 8PM and logged back on just now. I never seem to be on when Jeff captures his snapshot of everything. One of these days I will make it though. I did have two nodes on his new node list, however they both suck so I am still kind of bummed about that.

There is a really nice hot guy sitting across from me as I type this node and I keep smiling at what I am typing hoping that he will notice me. I don't know why I do that. What is it about having a hot guy sititng across from you that makes you so much more animated? Also, you have to type just a little faster than you normally do. Why is that? I mean really, who is impressed with someone who types fast? If you think about it, they're not going to be thinking, wow check out that chick who types fast, if she can type that fast just think what else she can do with those fingers...oohh baby! No, instead, he would be thinking something more along the lines of wow, what a geek, doesn't she have anything better to do than type to her loser friends online? And of course cos I am nervous I keep adjusting my glasses, which of course does not help the geek image thing. You should have seen the look on my face as I was typing that last sentence. This guy probably thinks I'm really strange. Plus he probably thinks taht I moved computers so that I could check him out but in reality the other computer just crashed. I made a big show of rebooting it just so I wouldn't look like a dumbass but I doubt it worked:) It's hard for me not to look like a dumbass...it's just one of those natural talents I have. Oh well, you know what they say,

once a dumbass always a dumbass.



*sigh*

So anyway, as I was saying, one of these days I will actually make it on the snapshot. Maybe I will make an appointment with myself to log on tommorrow at 8. Or maybe I can bribe Jeff into pretending I was logged on. But no, I know he would not compromise his ethics, not even for the pathetic Debbie! Good Man, Jeff!

So I have nothing left to write about except for the fact that with this node I will only have one more to go to get to level 5! Woohoo! The silliest thing about it is that I will only have another 100 XP til level 6 but yet a huge amount of writeups to go. That nice looking guy sitting across from me just said hmm....I wonder if he said that to get my attention just as I had just been smiling and softly laughing to get his attention. In faact, I wonder if he is writing about me just as I am writing about him? Wouldn't that be cool? I was just considering asking him how to spell compromise because earlier I heard him talking to another guy who told me that he had won a spelling bee when he was younger. But I am not that shameless and besides, I didn't wanna look stupid. Although I am not really cerain that I did spell it right, I suppose I could always ask him...? My friends would laugh at me if they could hear me thinking...cos it's just typical Debbie thoughts...you all must be getting a little scared right about now...although if my mom were here she might be of the mind that I am going insane or falling to pieces or something like that. But that's a whole nother story. (What a silly phrase...whole nother story....)

Um... it's very early.

My last day log/My next day log

Went to a wedding today!

I think this was the first wedding I've ever been to. My cousin was getting hitched to her high-school sweetheart. I don't know her very well - I've got a big family and most of my cousins are much older than me. Or, there's enough of an age gap to have kept me from really growing up with any of them. Most of them were teenagers when I was just a kid, so they all remember me as a toddler.

Wow. No wonder people cry at weddings. I had no idea such a cheesy, overly dramatized ritual could evoke such powerful emotions. My family lives all over the world so I was seeing most of them for the first time in awhile. It was a very conservative ceremony, but very sweet. My cousin looked absolutely stunning. I'm not sure what about the wedding was beautiful enough to make everybody shed buckets... it's difficult to describe. The smile on her face, the four flower girls, the embarrassing speeches. But mostly the incredible love that was emanating from my cousin and her wonderful new husband. They've been dating for over ten years and they still look like a fresh couple. It was... well, optimistic, compared to some of the sorry relationships I've seen around me within the past few months. Weddings show us a little love, a little innocence. I left with a warm, tingly feeling.

The reception was at a posh country club in the city. I sat at a table with my brothers and my little cousin, and some cousins from the groom's side, who talked amongst themselves the whole night and ragged on the service. I gave up trying to small talk them and drank too much wine.

My aunt is getting Alzheimer's. She's so young - only 55, I think - but people are already saying she's acting like her mother did when the symptoms started. It runs in my family, which scares the hell out of me. My mother said that if I ever see the warning signs in her I should shoot her - and I know she's only half joking. The thing about Alzheimer's is that if you try and escape it with suicide, you have to do it before you forget you've got the disease. Yes, it's a morbid thought, but terrifyingly honest. Aunt Pat wants me to write her when I move, and I will.

I think I ducked when they threw the bouquet.

Factgirl's fact of the day:

"Ough" can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough, dough-faced ploughman strolled through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully."

-it's a fact

Speaking of personae, I need to borrow some of MoJoe's personality. I feel like a ghost on E2.

Bell Atlantic (okay, Verizon) workers went on strike. Everyone concurred at work this morning that we wouldn't really notice a difference in repair service. And I clipped this from Reuters, which I thought was hilarious:

As workers walked off the job shortly after midnight, managers took over their responsibilities, said Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe. During the strike, about 30,000 Verizon managers will monitor the phone network and repair problems.


I shall be spending my two days off work getting one impacted wisdom tooth broken, then yanked out. I am developing a numb, laissez-faire attitude to major dental work. Now I think, oh, another two hours with the dental surgeon. Years go by with no problems, and then within a few months I get a root canal, a crown, and a wisdom tooth extraction (no, I haven't had any wisdom teeth yanked before). Not to mention a filling. Christ, I'm falling apart. It seems as though I spend most of my time flossing.


I really dislike my co-worker "Bob." I think I've mentioned that before. His mere presence, or when he mentions something like policy routing, or prints something out on a certification, makes me clench my jaw, because 1) he's obnoxious, and though some people think he's worthless, most act like he's their fucking hero, so all these dudes consistently come over to talk to him, and 2) he's racking up certifications, and tests for certifications, but he doesn't know fuck-all. This, of course, taps into my insecurities about not racking up tests for certifications. This is the wrong attitude and I should obviously not care. Oh well.

I am also mulling over going back to school. One of my co-workers - one of the few I had respect for - used to dog me about going back. He's whip-smart, but had flunked out of a couple schools and went to several before getting his math degree. He came here as an intern (the first one ever) and quickly ascended to godhead status in operations/tech support. Anyway, he told me to go back as soon as possible, that I shouldn't let another semester go by. In fact, he was considerably more fervent about it than I, and was not unlike Coleridge's ancient mariner.

It wouldn't take long to finish, but I'm nervous about being out of the field, even for a short time (my degree is in English with a focus in creative writing - not English with a focus in routers). Also, I can't work as much as I tend to do and go to school full-time. Other people can, and that's swell, but it just wrecks me. I can't obsessively tackle, say, time-based access lists when I have shit to do for school. Something's got to give, so I think that I should extricate myself from this place before late August so I can start in the fall. It'll be weird, but probably better for me. Then, when I'm finished, I can get a better job with a Bob-free company, yay.

Sheesh, it's already the sixth, so I'd have to give my two-week notice...right about now. Ergh. I'm nervous.

Anyway. Today is my self-imposed deadline for getting two important birthday gifts. I'll be studying for a few hours, as well. And I may have time left over for BSD foo.

I've had much worse days ...

Actually, it was pretty damn good. I spent the day outside (NOT, I feel I must stress, sitting in front of a computer, oblivious to the rest of the world). I went to a park by the river that runs through town with my most recent ex. We broke up about two months ago, but it's still kind of weird (particularily for him).

I have to wonder ... when people say that they want to be friends after dating, are they ALL lying? So far, I've had two sort-of attempts and two total failures (of what I would consider significant relationships on both sides). However, nobody every really seems ready to deal with the weirdness and awkward pauses that will inevitably be a part of the frienship, at least for a while ...

It just seems like it's something that almost everyone I know says, but very few people actually want ...

Anyway ... end rant.
So, we had fun. He only hit on me once and, after a gentle rebuff, he proceeded to act like a normal friend. A significant step foward from the sniviling, pathetic boy who calls me up to whine about his life without me or the angry boy who treated me like shit. A little too flirty, but resigned to his fate works just fine for me.

So, a day where my relationships with friends got much better ...

Very nice.

I got up early this morning (actually I never did get to sleep). The first thing I saw was the sunlight in a million pin-points lighting up the blind in the bathroom after refracting through the frosted glass. I'd say it was a profound moment but I don't want to sound like that idiot in American Beauty ranting about plastic bags in the wind.

The vibe was lost completely when I looked out of the window. The garden had completely reverted to jungle so a couple of days ago I had a gardening company come in and chop it all down. All that's left now is a lawn and lots of gravel, a scene totally lacking in aesthetic qualities. My garden looks like a huge Kitty Litter!

For some reason while I was shopping I started reflecting on the nature of genius. I've never actually met one of these creatures and I doubt I ever will. For a simple reason, they don't exist. If you're hoping to meet one someday get over it! The idea of a genius is someone who is naturally gifted and never has to do any actual work and yet comes up with brilliant insights that no one else can match. Think of the character of the mathematical genius in Good Will Hunting. This guy never actually does any math and yet he's supposed to be hot stuff. But when I think about the many brilliant mathematicians that I've met this is what strikes me about them:

  1. They can concentrate very well for a sustained period.
  2. They don't let setbacks put them off, they persevere.
  3. They work all hours like maniacs.
At no stage do they slack off and say "Heh! I won't do any work today I'll just rely on my incredible gift to come up with the theorems". I mean, what do you think Andrew Wiles did for those seven years? You think he was sitting by the pool sipping cocktails and saying "Heh! I know the insight will strike me. Pass the ice"?

So why is this false idea of the genius so pervasive in our culture? I think it's because people would rather believe in magic than believe that someone else is just prepared to work so much harder than they are. Having said that I would love to have met Leonardo da Vinci or Einstein. Computer! Start holodeck program...

Noether's cool constant is 0.25.


Previous day log Tomorrow

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow


12:25 BST

I've looked back at my daylogs today, and a common theme among them is a rather depressing, angsty diatribe. I seem to be viewing E2 as therapy; I simply try to feel better by offloading my problems into a text box.

Well, Not today!

I'm going to make a conscious effort to remain happy for today, Whee! :-)

I woke up early as usual, there were hardly any cars on the main road outside my house; I could hear the birds singing and the wind rustling the trees outside my garden.

The sky was blue but has since become overcast; this is a good thing because I will be able to get some gardening done without overheating or killing any plants if I move them.

I'm going to my Mother's for dinner! This is pretty cool because I can catch up with all the news, see how big the sunflowers I gave to my Brother are, maybe borrow some books from my Stepdad, eat a lovely dinner and be a guest and relax (very nice!).

It's very dreamy to just laze around on a Sunday. Things move at a slow, surreal pace compared to the hustle and bustle of work.

All of these things are good, but there's something better! I'm going to write to the girl who contacted me through a 'net dating site; I went over her page again and she sounds really nice. It's so easy to be negative about new or little understood things (like me with girls/dating), but not today.

Today is a good day!

I think we're going Crazy
Her left eye is lazy
She looks so Israeli
Nicotine and Gravy

Happiness is tickling :-)

14:53 EET

My ass hurts.

And so do my shoulders. I got on the bicycle last night for the first time since autumn 1999, and after only approx. 15km I'm pretty sore. Sigh, I really need to get in shape.

We had a nice night though, 3 guys around a campfire with some weed, white wine and stuff to grill. This used to be a tradition every summer a few years back (without pot and alcohol though), but since most of the posse has moved from Hämeenlinna and the rest of us being busy most of the time, the whole custom has sort of faded away. Still, it was nice for a change.

ReXX has sent me approx. 20 SMSes from the electronic music festival held in Turku. Damn him! I already regret not dragging myself there without him reminding me about how cool it is every 5 minutes! :)
Speaking of fellow finnish noders, Card is one finn not complaining the summer TV programming here. They've managed to fit several documents of tasteless subject matter into tonight's schedule. And what could be more fun? If you ask me, a lot of things. But I guess there has to be something sick on since all episodes of When Animals Attack have already been broadcasted.

Time to continue working on the Big LightWave Project™. Four months until the deadline, but there's a lot of difficult and taxing work to do...


Track of the day:  DJ Misjah & DJ Tim - Access
Yeah, a classic! :)
(again with missing the erisian time, pealco)
:: Pungenday, day 72 of Confusion, YOLD: 3166 (survival)

today.. hrm.. well today sort of ran into yesterday when yesterday was today and then all of a sudden it was tomorrow.

so i took a shower, ate my golden grahams and logged on to e2, skinz.org, and i started up madtracker. shortly thereafter, when netscape crashed for the third time, i realized why, and quit loading pages in seperate windows at the same time, then decided i shouldn't run madtracker while my memory was being raped by communicator.

my girlfriend is off playing Rifts and i'm here fucking with litestep and madtracker, which isn't all that bad because i need to make a demo for interplay and i was kicking ass earlier. i don't know if i'll succeed, but hell, i'll give it a shot.


i also listened to alot of klf and wumpscut today. i don't know why.
oh, and i know a cat that sounds like a pigeon.
caffeine fueled

Sleep consisted of a short nap from 8 to 10. Watched Blazing Saddles for the first time - pretty biting racial comedy, but it was surprisingly not humorous sometimes. I think the best parts were actually two quotes near the end - "Where's all the white women at?" and "Badges? We don't need no steekin badges." I didn't try sleep after that until four or so. No good, lying prostate on the bed - I ended up pacing until finally admitting it simply wasn't going to work. I watched parts of two episodes of Cops - a guilty pleasure, but it's interesting to see the interaction between the law enforcement officials and the criminals. The LEOs always try to get some kind of admission, promising better treatment if you'd just come clean here and now. Think the best bet must be to plead forgetfulness. Pretty obvious criminals, so I missed seeing the "Are you detaining me?" play. I wonder what my friend did to get pulled in when he asked that. Went back down to my apartment and fueled myself with 2 No-doz pills - only the equivalent of four cups of coffee or so. If I never slept again I'd be happy. It's like a little death, and not the French euphemism. Reminded of one of Marla's many ex-boyfriends in the novel form of Fight Club. The one who never slept by application of heavy amphetamines, and died of a heart attack at 18. I'll sleep before the day is done. all engines are go

I do believe those No-doz have done it. I'm writing like a madman on various topics, and the ideas are flowing. Now if I could just get a legal caffeine substitute without the laxative effect - the rumblings in the guts is distracting me. Dear Lord do I love stimulants. Every once in a while I have to take a break from writing and just pace around the apartment or move to John Digweed in Sydney as represented by Global Underground's GU014. My eyes are crisp, my arms are flowing, and I feel alive. On other breaks I'll walk outside and listen to the birds in the crisp cold morning air. The sun's up, and I'm actually enjoying its presence.

breaking fast and flesh

Went out to Jack in the Box with my mother for food-like substance. Over a cappucino shake I explained various forms of extreme body modification. Hey, she asked. I think she finds them car-crash fascinating. When we got home I showed her BMEzine. I'm buying the book on BodModOrg 2000 - should go well with the Modern Primitives book if I can steal it back.

you remember what?

I switched to my dad's computer (mine lacks connectivity) to input a few pre-written nodes and found out one of my nodes had disappeared into thin air. Apparently a code bug - I messaged dem bones, who forwared me to nate. Back-ups may exist. Reading a new node gave me an undeniable sense of deja vu towards Life in Hell - apparently it had inadvertantly been copied out of a Simpsons book. Luckily, the noder has very mature about it, but a little fight over copyright started in the chatterbox. dem bones came down like a ton of bricks eventually. I mean, I understand and I appreciate the arguments, but in the end, it's dem bones' and nate's sandbox. I just node here.

when delaying the inevitable fails

Despite the large amount of caffeine earlier ingested I had to sleep around noon or so. Perhaps it was the emotional upset of seeing one's hard-worked node disappear into vapor knocking out of my earlier euphoria, or maybe it was just time, but I went back to the apartment to crash. Started reading, but pretty soon ended up face down with the book in one hand off the bed. I could feel it slow slipping, slipping out of my hand… it hit the floor and oblivion came. Woke up about 2 due to parental invasion, then fell back asleep until 3:30. When I woke up, I finished the book - The House with A Clock in the Walls. Kinda like an evil Henry Potter book minus the school, and Edward Gorey does the illustrations.

webmonkey vs spacemonkey

My dad recently went to Florida with my middle bro for baseball. He came back with 19 or so floppy disks of Mavica pictures. Guess who got to copy them onto the computer, and guess who's going to get to put them up on a website? It's not fucking Doogie Howser, for sure.

going to defcon 2

After dinner I played N64 with my two brothers. They were excited about buying F-Zero X and Mariokart 64. Too bad F-Zero X is a loathsome piece of cartoony crap compared to the first one and Mariokart is only a little better. It also became an opportunity to start fighting with my little brother, which ended in him stealing my pierced Pikachu out of my room. I really can't handle this.

Ow! Ouch! No!

It's so embarrassing - yesterday, I felt great: my workout almost felt effortless. Today I decide to repeat the starter programme - it's over a year since I did any serious exercise - and my triceps was agony.

Oh well, a couple of days off and I'll try again...

Yesterday | Tomorrow

I really, really, REALLY need a job. I've applied to a bazillion places, from stupid little dotcoms to (office) positions at Pixar. I'm not crazy enough to be applying for artist jobs or anything, I know I don't have what they want. So I'm sticking with the lower-level things. And I have had four interviews so far, with one tomorrow. None of which have worked out even to a second interview. Got any good leads for Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco areas? I have a BA and I speak Chinese and do HTML and general computer stuff. ... This is getting discouraging.

Yesterday my brain took a left turn. Somewhere in my head I knew it was Saturday, but thought it was the 8th. Knowing I had a doctor's appointment on the 8th I dressed and arrived at the office at quater to noon in plenty of time. The parking lot was for the most part empty and the office locked. Out to lunch I reasoned. After the car became too warm to sit in anymore, I got out and sat on a parking block in the shade of an oleander tree. Noon came and went, must be running late I thought and continued waiting. Soon I began to realize that it was a Saturday and not the 8th. Somewhere in my brain the knowledege was filed in seperate files and no connection ever made.

I climbed back into the car and cried not out of self pity, but out of a sense of compassion
I could see the woman sitting there on the parking block confidently collecting thoughts of what to tell the doctor, rolling small stones from the shade into the sunlight till one bounced up and landed in her shoe. Digging around on the inside of the shoe to dislodge the small stone, finally taking off the sneaker and dumping it on the ground then putting the shoe on and off in order that the toe of her sock would be just so.....those small moments before the cruelness of reality came crashing in.

I drove around for a while, long enough to seem to be at a doctor's appointment. I didn't tell anyone because...well my husband is on vacation, he works hard and doesn't need the stress, but mostly because she trusts me to keep these things in confidence.

My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me.
Psalm 44:15 (KJV)

Devotion

I really shouldn't be writing this node, I should be working on this program that I need to finish before I take a 3 week leave of absence.

I wonder whether my boss will make me cancel my trip to Israel if I don't get this done by Friday. He may try. Indeed he may, in which case I will likely say something very disrespectful and have no job waiting for me when I return.

We had a meeting last Wednesday, spoke to the client, worked out the details of where I'm to go with this worthless pile of code I started with. It was really clear when we finished, so I came back to my cube, and noded something or other.

That was Wednesday.

I don't know what happened to Thursday. Friday? Never noticed it at all.

The shit will hit the fan this Tuesday, probably. They'll want a demo, or run a few tests and I have diddly-squat for them.

Get off your ass, bitch. Do some WORK.

I don't understand the compulsion that drives me to ignore the task I have in front of me. I don't know why I won't focus - it's not like I'm doing much otherwise. One or two nodes, maybe, so even E2 isn't where all my time has gone.

Avoidance tactics.

Maybe my subconsiousness is trying to send me a /msg.

'Hey, Jane...You are trying to get fired so you won't have to quit.'
Shut up.
'You just want an excuse to back out of life'
SHUT UP, I SAID!

My subconsiousness is much smarter than I will ever be.

But I still need to get this work done - I can't quit, I need to eat, pay the rent, stay warm.

Life doesn't hand out exemption passes just like that. It doesn't matter whether I wake up every morning and ask myself 'when am I an adult?', because I am a grownup, grownup isn't about fun but being practical while retaining your sanity and sense of humor.

So get to work, Jane.

OKAY.

#0# >>

just tryin' to get myself some gravity...
           you're just trying to get me to stay.
thinkin' i been waiting for way too long
           i'm thinkin' about getting out...       
This is one of those days where I sit here and watch my fingers and wonder whose brain some of this stuff might be coming from because it surely doesn't seem like mine. I guess I feel.. detached, distant, all things along such lines of some sort of thought, circular recurring thought patterns that just keep spinning and spinning.

I rested my head in my hands just now and my face felt so small for some reason.. as if there was nothing there, it just didn't seem like me. I haven't told anyone, really, but my stomach has been getting sore again, like it did at Christmas.. too much stressing, I think. I'm tempted to just take off to the hill and sit alone for a while tonight, try to sort some things out. Very little is making any sense right now.. very little, except you.. you always make sense.

things are getting worse, but i feel a lot better, and that's all that really matters to me..

I'm not sad, really, just stressed.. stressed and worried and I wish it were so easy as everyone makes it sound sometimes. Maybe it is. We'll see..
Feeling much better today, sickness all done.

Of course, penicillin causes yeast infections, so my wife is still not all better...:(

Work tomorrow will suck. I didn't do the things I needed to on Friday because I was still feeling ill. So I will have to be at the office at around seven tomorrow morning to finish up before the rest of the staff gets in. Bleh.

Projects:

  • Crime statistics web site due this week. The code is trivial, but it will get national recognition from George W. Bush speeches. I am even getting a unique URL instead of piggybacking somewhere else.
  • Whiners want a big, obvious button from intranet to web site. Duh, type it in, morons.
  • Slashdot ripoff (code name: Intranet Message Board) is back on course.

I haven't been daylogging lately. I have been dumping into livejournal instead. I am not sure yet, whether that is a good thing. I noded Always the other day. I listened to that song on repeat today.

I have been pretty torn up inside lately. I know I need to fix myself. I've actually done things about it.. I am just not sure what is next. I don't want to make a wrong move. I've been reading "The Body Betrayed", I highlighted some things, and made my typical margin notes. Later tonite, I think I might read over the things I noted, and just "stream of conscious"-journal about what that makes me think, my feelings on it. I think that would be a good thing to do. It may help some people who care, but don't really understand.. but furthermore.. I think it will help me, a lot.
Not much of a log but it's been a bad day..
I wake up this morning to another dream where I die. They've become too frequent lately, and it scares me. I wake up and get ready for church. I hate the smell of old people. Afterwards, I go back home to enjoy the last day of freedom before being locked up again for the week. I had planned to do so much this weekend, but alas, procrastination has gotten the best of me and everything remains undone. Oh well.

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with myself. It's like there's two forces inside of me grasping and struggling for control. One facet of this is controlled by my constant loneliness. It tells me that I should be out enjoying the world instead of brooding over my self-pity. The other facet is controlled by, what my therapists say, is my severe social anxiety. This is normally the dominant of the two, and keeps me down. I wonder what my life would be like if...

I lost a good friend today, over a silly argument about society today. We went on for about 2 hours before he finally gave up and just walked away uttering a plethora of cusses. I then narrowly avoided a theological confrontation with someone else. Damn I'm on a roll today.

It rained again today. I like rain. It's like taking all the dirt and filth from all around you and wiping it clean. A fresh new start. Sometimes I like to think of my social ineptness as sort of a gift. It allows me to step back and see things in a different perspective. It also causes depression, loneliness, anxiety.. Well, it's almost time for a whole new week.

Barely touching the surfaces.

I think that a lot. I once wrote a poem with that name. That's how I sometimes define my life. It feels like I'm never quite doing things right, never going the distance, always reaching out but never grabbing hold. It sucks. I should be happy. But I'm not.

Every word that escapes my mouth was not what I wanted to say. I'm never saying what I wanted to say. I can feel it in the back of my throat, even when I'm typing, and it never comes out. Sometimes I just want to reach inside of me and grab onto that feeling or thought and put it into somebody's hand because it will never be understood any other way. Just like this.

There isn't much else to say. Just the surfaces for today.
I feel so frickin' cool. I decide to fritter away my paycheck on CDs, right? So I hit up a Wherehouse Music. I figure, hell, the used CD section there might have a real find somewhere in it - God knows it's vast enough...

I leave with the following used CDs :

The worst part is, I left behind Elvis Costello's 'Blood and Chocolate', Ween's 'The Pod', and Iggy and the Stooges' 'Raw Power'. Incredible selection - who sold all of these, anyway?

Today (SUN): Wake ~noon, root around the 'Web a bit for some campaign material, get DQ and rent a couple of movies: The Last Temptation of Christ and Natural Born Killers. After 'Temptation, a nap and dinner (stir-fried broccoli and peppers, and some bowtie pasta salad). My roommate and I watch 'Killers. I can't decide who is the more likable hero: Willem Dafoe's grating, whiny Jesus, or Woody Harrelson's flat-out diabolic Mickey Knox.
Yesterday (SAT): Rise around 9AM, coffee, shower, mail phone bill, bundle the eternal collection of newspaper off the porch, hit a garage sale for a few paperbacks (David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, and the last book in Frankowski’s Conrad Stargard series), drop off recyclables at muni center, groceries, salami sandwich on a bagel, stow clean laundry, scan grammar school class pics, read ~50 pages of Weber's On Basilisk Station, absorb the TOC of Sedgwick’s Algorithms, plow through half of Conrad's Quest for Rubber. Roommate invites me to the Lourds show, I decline.
D-2 All the cards, hardcopy journal scraps, notes to myself, coupons and receipts and business cards that litter my computer desk get filed away, transformed into bits, or discarded. I weed through half a dozen directories of "2Bfiled" and "tmp". I prune and harvest and salt away, straining and condensing, boiling down, distilling and rendering. Some combination of adjusting to my latest round of job responsibilites, eating well, vitamins and ginkgo, and closure in a handful of nagging concerns, has instilled a rare sense of peace and energy. It helps that the gloomy weather has broken, and that I have a full two-day weekend to myself for the first time in a month.
How hard is it to find a goddamn CD crate?

I hate it when you buy something and find that product has been discontinued or unavailable when you want more. For a couple years my CD collection has been in these cheap little wood crates that hold about 30 a piece, and that’s how I like it. No towers, no spinners, none of that shit for me. I like crates because I don’t have to move every single CD to keep them in alphabetical order when I buy a new one, like I did when I was using that shitty tower. And the crates I have are cheap, both cost and construction wise (one splintered quite nicely when I threw it against the wall), but they get the job done. I’m currently organizing my mess of a CD collection before I start putting 300 of them in the new changer I bought last week, and I’ve found that I need a couple new crates. I’ve been to Target, Walmart, K-Mart, and a bunch of other places, and nothing. Lots of towers and shelves and spinners and tiny neon racks that hold 10 CDs and cost $15. But no simple crates. Today I found the closest thing, some small crates at Target that only hold 25. They are more expensive, smaller, and effectively take up as much room as the CD crates in my pillar of Jaffa Blocks. (But they’re made of all natural pine! Who the hell cares?)

If this is my biggest problem, then I’m in pretty good shape. Well, I wish it was, but it’s not. I just felt like ranting. ‘Night.
Dad's back home, finally. doctors say "one night.. two nights"... finally "let him go home."

Dad on phone tonight: "Well the iv... I don't know what they put in me but it made me pee all day. Yeah we found a solution to the drought, just stand me in the middle of it and let me rotate. And they made me pee in a jar so they could, I don't know, COUNT it or something! With somebody watching me the whole time, and I had my own briefs from home but you know those little gowns. Tubes in my nose and and wires everywhere, I looked like a Halloween thing. But it's over. Yeah, now it's Thanksgiving!" Cracks up laughing, tells me this call is costing me a fortune and to go eat a vitamin and go to bed.

I got a new computer a few days ago, so now I booted it up. (Isn't it against the nerd stereotype to delay important things like this? =) It's a PIII-600MHz. Running the ever-damned Windows 98.

It has IE 5. It's actually a decent browser (much to my surprise), but a) I would never like to download it (reason being it's huge) and b) I would never use it anything less than this machine configuration (reason being it's huge). I miss Netscape...

It came with two sets of speakers. I can't accuse the machine of lack of accessories =) The strange thing about the speakers that came with the monitor was that a) when I plugged them in, they didn't make noise, and b) when I unplugged them, they made noise. Weird!

3DMark 2000 runs fine! Way cool stuff!

The keyboard is cool. I hope these extra keys generate X-catchable keycodes - the keyboard has 20 extra keys for CD controlling and then with labels "WWW", "E-mail", "DOS" and so on. Minor annoyance: when I push the WWW button, it displays "Internet Explorer" on screen with huge letters and kicks the said program on =)

Hmmm... Should I boot up Java hacks with the coffee cup button, or just bind it to "xscreensaver-command -lock"? =)


Other day logs o' mine...

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