This city is ancient, over a thousand years old. Sometimes the shiny slickness of it all can make me forget that: flashing through tunnels, speeding past in a blur of advertising gimmicks and fashion addicts. Walking, the city acquires depth. Layers of ancient history settle like dust around you and suddenly the glittery modern façade disappears, like the glitch it is, under the weight of time. The invisible city begins to appear. In the long street of indifferent modern buildings, a gap, a hacked-back space revealing bare bone: a grimy, narrow medieval church, a Victorian timber merchant's warehouse, faded paint on wooden doors cracked and gnarled with age.  A green space, dotted with lichened tombstones barely readable and the outline, in the grass, of thick stone walls. All hemmed in by modern monoliths and trendy warehouse apartments and brightly lit, media-infested bars: but stare for long enough at these gaps, and they merge, and the modern city disappears, for a while.

In the invisible city, my ancestors walk.

Strange that I should find myself here. Emerging from the street where my friends live I recognise the name of this street in front of me, and realise that at the end of it is the church where my grandmother Lucy was christened. A famous church, with its own history - and some of mine. Standing here now there's a multitude of connections: to the living Lucy as I knew her, to her birth in 1898, to her parents and the fifteen brothers and sisters we found listed in the parish register. They walked here, where I'm standing. They lived here, this was their home patch. In the invisible city of which they are a part, the buildings and spaces are different, and yet the same. My eyes focus inward to the fast 3d model animating in my head: the gaps in the modern buildings melt and run together as cinemas and shops and streets and churches rebuild themselves, children in flat caps and worsted play with wooden tops or hang from the backs of horse-drawn omnibuses. Unknown but familiar faces. They disappear slowly, leaving the quiet road, no people, dusty Sixties clothing factories shuttered and dark. I walk on, back in the real city, but catching echoes of them in every old wall I pass.

Later, making notes, thinking further back, of the ancestors walking in Covent Garden in 1687. Christened in St Martin in the Fields, a large Romanesque church off Trafalgar Square, where it is estimated that seventy thousand people were buried in the graveyard before it was closed. It's paved over now. It's only about six metres square - but deep. Somewhere down there, no doubt, family bones, co-existing with these living ones here, which write this, now.

The invisible city and the real one have meeting points. Sometimes I am one of them.

with thanks to the locals

"IT WOULD BE FANTASTIC IF WE HAD A CLASS TOGETHER...SOMETHING COULD HAVE BEEN ARRANGED FOR THIS SEMESTER..."

"SWEETIE IF I SAY MEAN THINGS OR SAYING "I MEAN NOTHING BY IT"....ANYTHING WHEN IT COMES TO YOU AND ANOTHER GIRL, DONT TAKE IT LIKE I AM BEING MEAN TO YOU. I AM SIMPLY TRYING TO COPE WITH SOMETHING THAT I'D RATHER NOT THINK ABOUT...I PUT MY HEAD DOWN AND SAY "HE IS HAPPY, WE NEVER WERE" I'M JUST REALLY MEAN, ITS WHAT I DO"

"YOU WANT ME BACK?"



Tidbits of emails I recieved yesterday and today from my ex girlfriend. What the hell am I supposed to think? 3 and a half years with this one girl, and she just threw it all away one day. She fought for two weeks to love me, it didn't work. I miss her. I can't stand being alone, I can't stand not having someone to hug, someone to kiss, someone to love. But that's how it is now, things haven't changed, I would like to think they have but they haven't. A Cure song rings in my head from yesterday, The Kiss. I think of it all day and all night, I try to sleep but can't so I stay online. I wonder if I should think anything of this? As if it may be some incentive of wanting me back...

In January 13, 2001 I went to Master Jim's party in Paddles of New York City.

I've met up with a few of the folks who attended the Novice Meeting from a few days ago: There's Stan, the guy who looked like Abraham Lincoln, Paul the computer guy, Jeff and Lady Red who hosted last week's meeting, and of course Master Jim himself. I've also met new friends -- Master John (editor-in-chief of the TES magazine Prometheus) with his paddles, Master Don and his "be-owned" Dorothy Mouse. I noticed the masters and Ms. Mouse in the first minute in Paddles because Master John was spanking Ms. Mouse. Master John needed someone to hold her legs together, and I volunteered. Ms. Mouse was wearing a little velvet purple dress, black panties and garter belt, and white stockings over her long, smooth legs.

In one of the hidden dungeons in Paddles, I get to see Master John spanking Ms. Mouse. After his first spankings, I asked if I can learn how to give a spanking. Master John and Master Don gave me the honor of spanking Ms. Mouse, which I quickly accepted. I was not nervous at all in controlling my spanking ability, for I was a quick learner in giving enough of a *whack!* at Ms. Mouse's behind. I wanted to spank her more when she moaned after each *whack!* on her butt. Master John showed me some more equipment he usually uses. One is a leather paddle, but I have felt that my hand should do the job. However, my favorite piece of equipment was a furry mitten for stroking one's backside in between spankings. Spanking Ms. Mouse and stroking her was as good for me as it was for her, and it showed. Right through the speeches from Master Jim's friends, I stroked Ms. Mouse and spanked her during the applauses. I had a ball stroking her legs, and then spanked her in four steady beats to the outside applause in andante. I owe Ms. Mouse so much in gratitude for letting me do this -- giving a spanking and stroking her legs relieved a lot of the tension of having to touch a woman at all.

The party had a lot of scenes. I've seen my share of men and women being spanked, flogged, stroked, fingered, and tied. Everybody (of course) had a scene or two, and I had the chance to say hello to these folks when they're not busy.

Later in the night, I had this feeling that I wanted to do a scene with a domme. It took a lot of guts (and talking from a few guys), but I have finally managed to be the submissive for a small scene with two dommes spanking me -- Mistresses Chensey and Raven, one teaching another where to spank and paddle. They talked about how I needed to be trained as they pinched my nipples, and went to work. I liked (rather, *loved*) how they balance stroking me with a fur mitten, the prickly gloves and then paddling me -- very sharp, yet I was the stone-cold silent type. At the end, I kissed their shoes and thanked the Mistresses and thanked them for the "training." With the crowd behind them after the scene, I guess a few experienced types taught them how to paddle me hard. Being paddled like that is an acquired taste that I have liked, but it has taken a day or two to like it.

Today marked the third time in a week that I've gotten into a serious argument with an E2 editor.

I'm doing my best to keep my cool and argue for what I believe in rationally and calmly, but I feel like I'm just treading water.  All three arguments have basically ended with, "Your opinion is noted; E2 is staying how it is, now hush."

And you know what?  I sympathise with bones and the editors, who have to deal with 50 people a week asking for changes and tweaks and whatnot, and I certainly might have a shorter fuse than they do were I in their position.

It doesn't make being trivialized any easier. I guess I should just go back into my box and write my fencing and professional wrestling nodes and not question authority.
 

/me notes that the name of the site is everything2.com, not somethings2.com.  Just about every argument about E2 revolves around trying to turn everything into something.  Irony, ain't it grand?
 

Back in meatspace, today was the first day of classes.  One of my professors speaks with an incomprehensible heavy French accent; the other looks like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.  Even talks like him, too.  Other than that, pretty uneventful classes.

Came in 4th in a trivia contest at a local club!  Not bad, considering I had to get through the learning curve since it was an unfamiliar format.  Hopefully next week I'll win some prizes or something.

At said bar, had the hottest buffalo wings I've ever had in my life.  I was gagging for half an hour, and my tongue is STILL on fire four hours later.  Oh well.

End of line.

In the morning, 8.55 local time

I keep wondering who is this familiar looking woman who I've seen in my morning bus few times in last few weeks. I just can't figure out from where I remember her face. "faces form memory" springs into my mind from one Skinny Puppy song.. "Grave Wisdom", to be exact. This is annoying, why I just can't figure out this? Hopefully nobody else comes too soon to the office as I am listening to the Red Planet collection quite loud, and I don't want to turn it down. I need to track down two releases from this label and then I'd had them all..

a bit later in the morning, 11.10 local time

We were supposed to have mixing-jam-session today, but my friend informed that he cannot make it; so, it'll be moved into yet unknown future date. Well, this is second time this session was cancelled, so, who knows can we manage to arrange it until summer holidays. I wonder if there's notification in snailmail that i have received a packet. I ordered quite a lot new records the other day. Looking forward to get to listen to some new stuff.. :)

Afternoon, 17.20 local time

Just got home from work, had some nice food, made coffee... nice jazzy house CD playing, thanks to my visit to bookstore on my way home; I bought new a DJ-magazine, it came with mix cd mixed by Matthias "Matty" Heillbron presenting the best of Chez, Wave and Naked Music labels. Sweet sweet soul music. Music for your mind, body and soul. And yes, my records have arrived; that means a visit to the post office tomorrow after work. Cool.

In the evening, 20.40 local time

The cd is excellent. Let's listen to it again... :) I had the time to read the DJ-magazine. It hasn't changed much in the past 7 years, in which time I haven't bought this magazine. I kinda got bored of the UK/US club-scene soap opera. But I can forgive them for crappy magazine if they provide cd's that are as excellent as the one I got today. And cheap.

14:02

OK, Now I definitely woke up late.

However, now I know why the heck I don't see that much dreams: I don't sleep enough...

::yawns::

Last night's great stuff: None, Whatsoever. =) But I hope this day will be interesting...

Oh yeah, security scan. I asked SecuritySpace to run one of the free tests against my box (looked surprisingly as if they had unleashed Nessus...) and they told me I had two BIG holes. Of course, they didn't tell what those holes were.

Damn. Does anyone know a place where I could use fully functional Nessus? =(

16:17

Done Usenet, time for other stuff.

Wow. Emacs MULE + GNUS = Yes, I Can Post In Russian To Scare WaR3z D00dZ! =)

21:21

Hacked some Java stuff. My OO excercise, to be exact. Damn, this is going to look silly, but at least it follows the Principles of OO®


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: bones file GDSM

I'm having an awfully pissy morning today.

My car is still in the shop for repairs to the passenger-rear body panel after some idiot about a month or two ago did a poor parking job. I miss driving my car dearly and end up driving my sister's car. And her car is so dirty on the inside, I feel like I'm starting to become allergic to it. Camping outside would be considered cleaner than driving her car for 30 minutes.

This week, I've discovered that I actually have allergic reactions towards bacteria or whatever sort of microbes that are lurking around. My skin starts to swell-up just slightly, and I feel a heaviness in my limb accompanying it. I guess my skin is sensitive to certain microbes.

Having an argument with my Love last night wasn't so pleasant either. Let's just say that she should not be involved in a situation where it doesn't concern her. Thus, any opinions about it are not going to be considered by me no matter how much she insists on giving one.

So it's been a bad morning, today. Wednesdays seem to be like that.

But on the upside, I joined a fitness club yesterday, and I am looking forward to my fitness test tomorrow. I haven't seen any good-looking people in the club as of yet (except for the saleswoman who reminds me of a certain Friends episode). Maybe they might appear in the early morning. I am too accustomed to the youthful exuberance of university students working out in the same space.

4:05pm EST

I just had a nice little bout with my Love again. She's finally learned the persistence in arguiing, but I'm afraid she doesn't know how to execute effectively. For some reason, my brain gets into a "higher function" whenever I am put into situations requiring higher reasoning. The same applies to within the workplace.

I had just heard about one of our leading people saying that "they don't care about what UCD thinks about the prototype." I must say that this comment was disheartening. If this is the case, then all the work we are currently doing is for nothing, and I will have no choice but to quit because some people here do not respect what we are here for. And if they want to sell more products, we are the key. I don't see them making any more money or selling more products without UCD being in the strategy.

Forgive me, EDB, for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last daylog...

The management of E2 decided to go against their better judgements and made me an editor late yesterday. Just like the Oscars, here's a quick list of folks that I'd like to thank off the top of my head... Dem Bones, Nate, Demeter (who's still helping me get my "editor's legs"), Jinmyo, Uberfetus, Pseudo_Intellectual, hramyaegr, DaveQat (the very first person to volunteer to help me when I first arrived here), Wharfinger, and a ton of others who I owe a debt of thanks.
Additionally, folks like Gahachino, Witchiepoo, Mitzi, Trina, Aphrodite, Demeter (again), hramyaegr, ToasterLeavings and another metric ton of folks whose talent kept me coming back for more.
A special thank-you goes to Yurei, who is floating on a ship heading towards his home, for introducing me to Everything2.

I will do my best to add writeups that get killed on the monthly editor log, since I know a lot of folks would like to know how and when their nodes left this realm and went to Node Heaven.


The world is my snow globe. The big snow storm that was supposed to leave 3-6 inches last week passed us by without a single flake, and now it has snowed for more than a day for no reason. Weather is such a minor form of chaos theory, the atmosphere still creates unforseen eddys and currents like cigarette smoke rising in a still room.

Everything is blanketed with almost a foot of individually unique ice crystals. Trees and bushes are bent over with their newly added weight, as if they had put on their own version of "extra Christmas dinner pounds". My puppy bounds and leaps from drift to drift, his eye attracted by crystalline reflections. His usually boisterous barking is stilled, as if to become part of the stillness of the environs.

The kids sleepily peek out the window, visions of a snow day dancing in their heads. Alas, the city workers scurry like ants about their business, tirelessly clearing the snow from roadways. The schools will accept the disappointed tot's bodies, but their minds will be sledding and snowman-building.

Ever tried to link an Oracle database through a Microsoft Access front end, and then execute a pretty complicated query? No?
I did today, and I can tell you this: if you have large queries, try to execute them on the Oracle database instead of the Access application, because Access is so fucking slow in this case.
Ok, I can understand why. It needs to load all the data, and then execute the query, so there's some network activity involved, instead of when you execute the query directly on the Oracle database, because then it all is done on the server. I had to use Access because I don't have any Oracle Developer here, but since the query took about 45 minutes to complete, I'll try to find a different method, using a databaselink, if I get approval to make one.

Enough for my Access struggles, because I also had some fun building a few small sql scripts. And I finally managed to complete a script for a datawarehouse we are working on here. So at least I made myself useful on that.
At least I can play some music here at work. If not, I'd go mad. Ok, I can't play it very loud, but at least I can enjoy some tunes while working. In my cd player today were the following cds: Bruce Dickinson: The Chemical Wedding, Ayreon: The Dream Sequencer, Iced Earth: The Dark Saga, Nevermore: Dead Heart In A Dead World, Demons & Wizards, Kiss: Destroyer, Helloween: The Dark Ride, Kiss: Alive, Alice Cooper: Hey Stoopid, Dio: Magica, Monster Magnet: Powertrip and Rhapsody: Dawn Of Victory.

I also managed to do some shopping for blank CD-Rs, which I needed for trading a few Iron Maiden bootlegs. Yeah, I know, copying cds is illegal. But is it illegal to copy an illegal recording of a show? Hmm, yes I guess so. But what is illegal about it? The fact that I copy it, or the fact that it's an illegal recording? I know the band doesn't really mind, as long as they're not sold at outragious prices. Steve Harris admitted he collects bootlegs from his own band (the already mentioned Iron Maiden), so I don't think they would complain if they found out.

And since this is my first daylog of 2001, I've accidentally posted it first in January 17, 2000. I guess HAL is screwing with my mind.


School is getting more useless by the day.

First Period (French):We watched some movie.

Second Period (English):We watched To Kill A Mockingbird


Third Period (History): We watched ISU presentations


Fifth Period (Civics):We took notes on things about politics I already knew well

Save me, I'm wasting away...
11:29pm

Today I got the details. Sara didn't know that this other guy was interested in her. She didn't want to be the center of any trouble, and since she is in school and has to stay focused on her work, she doesn't want to get tangled up in a melrose place situation.

I feel good though, becuase it explains everything perfecty, and leaves me fulfilled that I did everything right, just under bad circumstances.

Here's what happened. She was very friendly to me and she seemed interested up until we met up with everyone else to go to the circus. It was then apparent to her that the other guy was upset that I had taken her out on a date. This must have been when she decided that it would be best to not be too involved with anyone if it was going to cause a conflict.

Rather than just tell me though, she just became very quiet and distant over the next few times I seen her. She still seems a bit shy, so maybe this stuff is just hard for her to talk about.

I didn't know any of this until today. But it explains everything perfectly. She was very close to me up until that point, and afterwards she was quiet and a bit more distant, but not unfriendly. She would still smile when I looked at her, and she still hugged me when we met and departed. This sort of tells me that she is somewhat interested in me, but not so much as to cause big waves in the long-standing friendships she has built with so many people. This still makes me feel good, just knowing that someone is/was interested in me. I wouldn't want her to burn bridges though, that would be a bad situation to start a relationship on.

Maybe things will change. I'm going to take it easy for a while and just be friends. There is probably still some potential there, but I am going to have to wait it out.

I'm here, but I'm not here today

Otherwise known as, I can dress down today! wooooo-hoooo!
I love those kind of days. I can slip off the mask that I wear and dress as I am, not as the image I put forth on other days to the customers. I can be seen as an actual person and not so much window dressing. I'm not working with customers on "I'm here, but I'm not here" days. Just doing menial grunt work.
It's GOOD to do menial grunt work, the kind of work that your hands do automatically without requiring your brain for concentration. It leaves your brain free to wander where it will.

However...my thoughts meandered so much that I got lost!
I became brain-tied!

I think I thunk too much today...

Heinous in Germany - 17 Jan 2001

The morning dawned, once again, much earlier than it really should have. Today was the day that Marc, Mario, and I had decided to go ice skating after work. Thus, I dressed accordingly with my "fuck redhat" t-shirt, with a hand-knit wool sweater, and some jeans. Of course, I also have my coat, hat, scarf, and gloves. Sometimes, I almost begin to believe that I don't really live in a place that doesn't have a winter, what with all of this traveling in the winter that I have been doing to places that do.

This morning, at the office, the B80 on loan from the Texas IBM arrived. (This is a really nice server machine with 4 processors and the capability for up to 16GB of RAM. It uses RISC 64 bit PPC processors.) It is really cold, so we are letting it thaw out for a while first. I can hardly wait to impose SuSE for the PPC on it. It really is a huge machine. They also sent a really big monitor. Not that we will really be using that too much.

I went to the ATM and got more money. There seems to be no easy way to check my account balance, except to pipe netscape through the tunnel, and use it at SuSE. That would be a possible, if not slow, solution. Seems I can't use the web banking from outside the States. After that, I went and had some pasta for lunch. They mentioned on the menu that they had a special deal on Margahritas. What a strange way to spell "margarita". I wonder what you put in a German margarita. It made me miss all of the good Mexican food back in the Bay.

After lunch, I went back to the office to "slave" away. Eventually, it was time to leave to go ice scating with Marc and Mario.

When we arrived, first there was the difficult task of determining which size of ice scates I needed. I ended up with something like a size 9 (43), but those started to really hurt my feet pretty bad when I started to scate on them. I thought, perhaps, that the size was too big, especially on my right foot, so I traded them for a size smaller (42). That size barely fit, but there seemed to be more support. I went for the second attempt, but my feet hurt like hell in a matter of minutes. Seems the ankle support was really bad, in addition to the blades being dull. Marc was nice enough to let me use his skates, and they were so much better. All in all, it was a pretty good time. I think Mario was a little upset about how bad the scates were as well (like me, he had to rent scates). Toward the end of the evening, I was side-swiped by this guy in a brown hat. I almost regained my balance okay, but completely lost it at the curve and fell flat on my butt. Boy did that hurt. I managed to get up, after swearing I couldn't move, and finished out the night.

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