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I can't sleep

I'm too hyped by the thought of travelling to rest. It's some stupid time in the morning here in the UK, but I cannot sleep. There's nothing on TV except talkshows and low-quality pornography.

I imagine that my neighbour is very angry with me right now - I am running the washing machine and generally clomping around the house making noise. I've got so much to sort out for tomorrow - sorry, today that I have to start now or simply not have enough time.

My eyes are feeling puffy and sticky and I keep yawning, but I simply can't sleep. I have to stay awake to get all these chores completed.

Yes, I'm panicking.

13:35 BST

Well, If I don't get any net access at the trade show in Amsterdam, I'll be seeing you all in 2 weeks' time.

Heck. How on earth will I last 2 weeks without E2 access?

Work, again. Eight hours in a dish shop on a rainy Saturday. Nothing really interesting occured, just the slow re-stocking of the 'glass wall.' It took all eight hours. Exciting? You bet. And I managed not to break anything. My record holds; I am the only employee to have broken one thing in my entire career at Pfaltzgraff. My one and only breakage experience was a Naturewood birdhouse magnet, $2.99, which I dropped while dusting. It takes hours to dust the whole store, by the way. I can mop faster than that. And I hate mopping. I hate dusting too. Sigh.

Got home from work around quarter to six. Paged Mary, we went to Wok In Wok Out, the best Chinese restaurant in Holland. The buffet rules. Of course, I can never eat enough of it to justify paying the required seven bucks, but the variety is worth the price. And it's all quite yummy. We then went to the Star Theatre and saw "Whipped." Pretty gay, overall. Got a headache from the random no-attention-span movement on the screen. Tried to ignore the couple behind us making more noise than should have been appropriate during a public display of affection. Buckis.

And now I am home, stuffed full of Advil and waiting for my headache to disappear.

I've often noticed certain divisions amongst the noding community. Sometimes we'll express biases, silently or otherwise, that make little or no sense. Freedom of expression is a valuable commodity, but I do question whether some of the E2 populace really understand their personal motivation(s) to gravitate toward intolerance? Just pondering, friends...

With that said, I did update one writeup in particular.
Sunday, spring, rest.

Helped G with a contract over morning coffees, in the sun, on the balcony of artespresso in Kingston. A good agreement, she's getting into. She thinks she's finally going to get rich. She's scared, but glowing and buzzy. I'm really proud of her.

Shopped for stuff in The Body Shop, the staff are so cool there. Committed.

Took out a storage space in a secure facility, enjoyed shopping for a padlock, decided on a Master combination job.

Cooked a big steak - biodynamic - sugarsnap peas (still in season and so sweet) and thin tender asparagus for dinner. Made some new e2 friends, I think. Watched This Life.

Must pack for Sydney tomorrow, two days away from home this week.

there's something about sounds in the night. when something wakes you up and you have to do that running through what is familiar and what is scary.

last night i woke to a large thump. and i thought, 'what have the cats knocked over now?' one of them has been on mouse watch, sitting at the top of a cabinet, waiting, waiting. but this one, zot, slipped up stairs into our bedroom and sat on my stomach. i patted her and listened. i thought i heard footsteps, but figured they were from next door, late night returning. or the possibility that a friend with our keys had come in. and i kept trying to listen. my beloved rolled on her back and started doing that really lovely snoring she does, a sort of warm sigh (not like the really loud window rattling snoring she sometimes does). This kept me from hearing everything else, and my other neighbors were up: a man and a woman in their kitchen talking about something.

noises in the night, in the wee hours of the morning, lying awake and trying to interpret them: the cars going down which road?, the cats chasing mice or shadows?, the music half dreamed or whispering from a neighboring house?, the shouts from an violent fight or drunken shenanigans?, the scratching from night creatures or tree branches?

i curled around, trying to get back to sleep. and that's when the lights turned on.

still unsure as to whether this was our friend, popping in late to crash on the bed (but this would be very unlike her), i got out of bed and called out... sending at least two men commenting to each other to hurry as they rushed out our front door downstairs to the street, bottles rattling.

called the police, went downstairs, grabbing heyoka's fencing foil (i'm really untrained, would have stabbed myself in the foot). And saw the truth: tv gone, place a bit ransacked, front door smashed open.

it's pretty ridiculous, and really depressing. that people have the need to break into homes where people are sleeping, just for a little money, and causing so much distress in the wake.

they got a decent haul: the tv loaned by a good friend; the digital camera we got with wedding money, still containing 200 pictures, including the last pictures of our lovely recently lost Cat, and trips abroad; the vcr i picked up last winter when heyoka was ill, to help her pass the time; a little lunchbox marked radioactive with just postcards and love letters in it; heyoka's very expensive handbag, with her wallet containing four seperate currencies, and her passport (which she needs for work almost weekly) that shows the history of her visiting me in the states; and three bottles of wine, waiting for candlelit evenings where the only sounds would be our talking until sunrise.

about a thousand quid's worth of loot, and about a thousand memories.

The other thing they stole was our time, now we have to deal with the police, the locksmith, the passport office, the insurance, warn the neighbors, be up worried for the next few weeks (for they are sure to return for more). now i wil find myself looking with suspicion at people hanging out in the area. now i have to reassure my wife that everything will be okay. now i have to keep thinking what if, what if i had been up earlier, when i first heard the sound.

and i realise, that the first thing our cat did when they came in, was come upstairs, and sit on my chest, holding me down, as if to say, 'you can take what you want, but not my friend', and this is a good thing.

When gnarl's sleeping next to me, my noises in the night alarm doesn't go off. Most times, when he's off working nights, anything will make me sit up suddenly in bed with the "what's that? who's there?" questions buzzing in my head. I hear the neighbours' window open, and I think it's the bathroom. I hear a cat jump onto a roof outside, and think it's someone trying to break in.

Wrapped in his arms I felt so safe, I was so sound asleep, I was blissfully unaware of someone forcing the door open. I didn't hear people moving around downstairs. i didn't hear them unplug the TV, the VCR and ransack my suitcase. I heard gnarl leap out of bed, and say, "who's there?" and I was still bleary, in "go back to sleep, it's nothing mode" even though a light had been turned on and off and there were now people running down the stairs.

It was 4.30 a.m.

Gnarl headed for the stairs. "No, call the police. Now." Oh, and, maybe put some clothes on? And I didn't think to go the window and look for a car. But, I wouldn't let him go downstairs unless he had something big and heavy in his hands. Just in case. Couldn't find anything. No point throwing a cat at them, kitsune was under the bed hiding and zot was walking around looking baffled. (But that's normal. She always looks baffled. She's a very easily confused cat.)

And the sitting room looked like hell. My suitcase had been opened, and the dirty socks and other grubby clothes from my last trip to Amsterdam were thrown around. Coats were on the floor. There was a big gap where the TV used to be and the VCR. The digital camera was gone (along with all the pictures, good ones at that, of Budpest and Amsterdam that I had been too lazy to download. The pictures of my gone, but beloved cat. Pictures of friends. Really cute pictures of gnarl.) And my handbag. My shiny lovely horribly expensive brand new Osprey handbag. The one I bought to make me feel grown up. Gone. With my wallet, my phone, my makeup, and, oh shit, my passport. My passport full of the history of my travels (the evidence of a long-distance love affair, crossing continents and then the explorations together). My passport that I need on wednesday. And, to complicate things my name has changed since that passport was issued, so I can get a passport in my new (old) name. But, I have plane tickets to the US in the old passport name. Which I will have to pay to change. I will probably have to spend most of tomorrow standing around at the passport office in Petty France, pleading. I have no ID. It was all in my bag. With my bank cards.

At least I'll get to replace the serial-killer-with-a-hangover photograph.

My wallet contained a pile of cash, in four currencies. They probably thought they had hit it big, when they found about 5000 florints in there. Sadly, the Hungarian currency is big on number and low on value. That's worth less than ten pounds. The stash of Polish Zloty were worth more, as were the 200 Dutch guilders. My wallet contained all my receipts. For the new handbag. For all the other crap in my handbag. For all my still unclaimed travel expenses. That will be a hassle to deal with.

They were in the middle of unplugging the stereo when they ran away--the stuff that had been piled on top was all over the rug.

I dialled my own mobile number over and over again, just to see if they were stupid enough to answer, just to piss them off. They kept hitting the hangup button. Then I got the phone cancelled.

They took the four bottles of wine from the kitchen. Damn good wine, too, the stuff we had been saving. They overlooked the bottle of single malt whisky, though.

They made the flat smell of horrible aftershave that made my flesh creep with their presence. They took our sleep and our security away. I have no idea how long we will have to spend filling in forms and standing in queues.

And I know they will come back. They found good expensive stuff, and they didn't get to check out the upstairs. I'm sure they've been watching the place a bit, they probably know that there are computers upstairs.

But I'm still glad I feel so safe and secure, that I can sleep so deeply with another person. But I hate the idea of all those nights when he will be away, and the nights when he will be alone when I am off travelling.

I miss them, hamsty and heb, I miss getting to watch snippets of their romance blooming over IRC. I saw heb Thursday night, excited and happy about Friday's impending flight. And, I realize I'm a little jealous of them, of what they have. I remember what it was like to be in love and I miss it.

I guess I've been thinking about this a lot this weekend. I went and picked Karen up in NY Friday morning and I will see her later today, and tonight, and monday morning. And, having been able to touch her again, even just as a friend, has brought back so many memories of our past. I remember the little vaccination scar on her left shoulder. I remember the times we've spent living together, the good and the bad. She is my best friend now, and I miss her head in my lap or mine in hers, as we watched tv.

The other day my dead bolt ripped half way out of the door. It was poorly installed, and not screwed in tight enough. And, seeing what happened to heyoka and gnarl, I'm starting to get worried. Some fucker keeps not closing the front door to our apartment building. I pass through that door at least six times a day and it is always open. A couple nights ago I came home just after midnight and it was open. I don't mean just unlocked either, I mean it swung in the breeze when I opened the other foyer door to the outside world that can't be locked. Any criminal could just walk in to our building and have easy access to eight apartments. An obnoxious note on the inside of the front door is in order. Not, that dead bolts are actually that effective when it comes to kicking down doors, but they're better than the nothing I have at the moment. Well, ok 240 lbs of growling, barking, snarling great danes would be a deterrent, but only after they kicked down the door (they're normally quiet), or, if they broke in today, turned the knob and pushed a little hard. I guess I have to go buy a dead bolt today.

I hope our noding lovers and having a wonderful time enjoying each others presence. I hope you didn't feel all weird from my present. There were no hints or implications intended by it. Of course, I would have paid good money to see the look on your face when you opened it.

Evening...

17:12

Downloading 3DMark 2000 soundtrack from madonion.com - I noticed that they have it right there. I tried Napster but it was slower than your average dog...

I noticed that 3DMark 2001 won't support OpenGL either. Hmph. I still think DirectX stinks - Well, this card + DirectX 7 seem to work somewhat better. Thank God ATI supports OpenGL and stuff. =)

<CONSPIRACY>I'd like to know exactly how much Microsoft sponsored MadOnion.com - they did that, judging from the credits. Maybe SGI should bribe them to make them support OpenGL, with John Carmack in the corner saying that future Quake-like (widely lisenced) engines will blow up the instant someone even suggests adding DX support... And hire some hitmen from Russia for the negotiations, truncheon and Mauser are Good Arguments =) </CONSPIRACY>

Earlier today, I played Mechwarrior 2 and 3, and signed the tuxgames.com petition (http://www.tuxgames.com/petitions/) for a bunch of games - previously, I guess, I had only signed Half-Life petition, or something like that. But MechWarrior 3 and Starcraft running in Linux would definitely Rock upon this valley of boredom.

...but with Microsoft appearing in MW3's credits, I think it's too hasty to wish that MW3 will be ported.

17:36

Still speaking of 3DMark 2000: Since Second Reality was adequeately ported to C64, I bet someone will port some of the 3DMark's demos to C64. This music is inspiring SID-wise, BTW...

19:09

Thought Railroading: Saw IDNS stuff in Slashdot. Found one page there that let me test how nicely my fonts come up in Unicode (http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/misc/unitest/). (Russian works fine, as does Chinese - Greek was slightly mangled, as was something and other else. I guess.)

I thought of adding some stuff in Russian to my web page the page via Unicode escapes, so I installed GNU Recode. Now, inputting Russian was tricky, how do I choose keyboard setting? Well, the WM dockapp for changing keyboard (cyrillic support and all) didn't work that well.

I installed wmusic instead - a dockapp that beats wmxmms hands down. Why? Feature list had things like "Super stylee rotating arrow". What else you can wish for from an XMMS controlling applet?

And that fux0ring mail host is still down. %&#@&*!!!

21:15

nighthowl:~$ nmap -p 22 rieska.oulu.fi

Starting nmap V. 2.12 by Fyodor (fyodor@dhp.com, www.insecure.org/nmap/)
Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (0 hosts up) scanned in 60 seconds
nighthowl:~$ ping -c 10 rieska.oulu.fi
PING rieska.oulu.fi (130.231.96.18): 56 data bytes

--- rieska.oulu.fi ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Grr...

OK, now I'm officially annoyed!

Today's trouble: The cell phone display has died completely. I'm getting it to the repair tomorrow. I can receive SMS and read them on the small screen, but sending them is kind of hard when the display is gone....

Well, tomorrow's trouble then: The Stuff starts tomorrow. Noooo problem. The fact that my mail server (rieska.oulu.fi) is down is a real problem. Why, you may ask?

nighthowl:~$ host www.tol.oulu.fi
www.tol.oulu.fi     	CNAME	rieska.oulu.fi
rieska.oulu.fi      	A	130.231.96.18

That's why. The thing handles the department's mail and WWW. And the WWW wonderthingy has the schedules, you know. I should have checked out the timetables earlier... this is what I get for being busy with irrelevant junk...

Batman and Robin in TV.

00:15

TosiTV marathon in TV - a whole lot of really cool videos. =)

Oh yeah, in the dark, the porn stuff crawls out of the place where it has been hiding... Now I've seen another Big Odd Thing: SMS chat with the hot mammaz d00d! Now that's spectacular. Let me guess, 5 mk per message? I guess that in the lonely times this "lady on charcoal" is typing furiously SMSes...


Other day logs o' mine...

We adopted Sam from the local Humane Society in 1991. Number Two Son was 5 and so overcome with sadness when he walked in and saw all the dogs and cats caged, that an employee took him out front. He told me to go ahead and pick one out for him, this is how Sam became a member of our family. She was left by her prior owner because of chewing problems. I had already trained two dogs, well they had taken me and my father through General Obedience School twice!

A simple enough problem to break I thought and she is a Golden Labrador-Labrador Retriever mix. Both breeds are known for their intelligence and gentle disposition. They're wonderful family pets, especially around young children because they are more patient and forgiving than most dogs.

Number Two Son named her after Dr Suess's character from his book Green Eggs and Ham. He called her Sam I Am and later on it just became Sam.

Number One Son was 9 years old had just adopted Kiki so he and I spent two very enjoyable summers training the dogs in general obedience and agility. Both dogs won several awards -- Kiki and Number One Son, 'Most Improved Team' and Sam and I, 'Third Place Novice' in obedience. I'm a firm believer in obedience training in dogs having trained five dogs, helping many neighbors with their dog problems. It's a hobby and I'm no professional, anyone can do this. It takes only 10 weeks and is such an enjoyable experience for the owner and the dog -- the end results are that in a very short time I have a well behaved dog for their lifetime!

Last night on my walk the worst thing I could imagine happened. Sam was attacked by a pit bull. We had just crossed a street and she kept glancing behind us. I turned around and smiled at a young man walking behind us on his way the Circle K at the near by corner. Suddenly a pit bull streaked from around the corner and I let out Sam's lead expecting the usual getting to know you snuffling that happens when two strange dogs meet. But that didn't happen. Sam also expected a friendly sniff but the dog reared up and began furiously biting at her face.

Sam was at the end of her lead and the choke chain was choking her while they fought, so I dropped it and said, Okay. Which is a command that means to her she's free to do what she wants, usually scamper around the park or play.

The pit bull was relentless, it tore at her throat and caught her on the right foreleg shaking and tearing it violently. Sam began to fight back, I reached in to pull them apart a tooth grazed my hand.

At first small drops of blood spattered on the pavement then bigger and faster ones appeared..... I could see a trickling stream soaking and staining the long, downy soft fur on her leg.

I didn't know it, but I was screaming, helpless to stop this dog. The young man who had appeared behind me grabbed the pit bull and pulled him off. Sam took off running heading for home, I ran behind her for awhile until my heart felt as if it would explode and break all at once.

A mile and half away, Sam made it home without me and concerned, my husband drove around looking for me. We went back to where the attack happened, by then there was a police officer and a small crowd of people gathered.

One of the neighbors hearing the screams, had waved down the officer and she related that this same dog had actually run into her house and attacked one of her dogs. She took me over to the dog owner's house to get their phone number. The dog has no licence and no proof of vaccinations.

Blood was everywhere Sam had walked through the house. The hallway, on my shoes from the fight, the bathroom where we tried to stop the bleeding and in the car when Number One Son and I took her to the veterinarian. She underwent minor surgery last night where a drain was placed in her leg in one puncture wound where the tooth had penetrated completly through the muscles and tissues of her leg. It had entered from the front and exited from the skin in the back. There's a tremendous amount of bruising and swelling on her leg and several bites and abrasions around her eyes and muzzle.

It has cost $225.00 so far and a night of hearing snarling and screaming...my shoulder that I had physical therapy on last summer to regain flexibility, aches, my hands are sore .....I wonder if I'll need shots for rabies. I had them before when I was 9.
The vet said,
No, the shots I had do not act like vaccinations.
They do have rabies vaccinations for humans but are only given to people like vets who work a lot with animals because they are risky to take. She herself had only been able to take one because it caused such terrible headaches.

The vet insisted I call Animal Control since this was a second attack. They said an officer will be out this afternoon to take a report. No one would answer my questions about what would happen. I love dogs and I'm worried they'll put this dog down, a sad situation for me as well as the dog's family...

The Officer will answer all of your questions tomorrow, was all they would tell me.

I called the owner to let her know the costs of the vet care and to tell her the vet had insisted that the incident be reported to Animal Control. She says her boyfriend is the owner and will try to get him to pay part of the costs. She was so very glad to hear Sam was okay! And I promised to keep in touch with her to let her know how Sam is doing.

The young man who stopped to help us, well he went on his way and didn't leave his name. I may never get to thank him for his help. At the moment I am resigned to grieve and at a loss over how this will affect everyone..

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
Genesis 9:16 (KJV)

Devotion

Thank you to all the sympathetic souls who voted for my utterly immature, miserable daylog yesterday. I really don't deserve it. You see, it didn't turn out to be a bad day at all. From here on in I promise not to dump my inside-the-head funk on y'all unless it's absolutely necessary.

And perhaps that was how I really felt just then, but I really was lying to myself. While it's true that I don't have a clique, I do have friends scattered here and there, and I eventually scared up two of them, both of whom cheered me up and gave me some great treats. First off yesterday, when my mum woke up, she expressed her desire to go shopping - first time in six months she's done so - so off we went to The Bay. I bought some clothes off the clearance rack: two skirts and one cardigan, all for the office. I was still in a mood, and pissed off that I couldn't afford anything better, and petulant that my mum wouldn't fork out for the stuff I did find.

I really am a spoiled little bitch.

I think, really, that the root of my upset yesterday was about my decision not to go back to school. Like I said yesterday I'm wondering how wise it was to defer, stay in Toronto with my parents and work instead. This was, I hasten to remind myself, a choice made entirely by me. It's too late to go back now, so I might as well make the best of it.

Mum bought some stuff for herself and we went to catch the subway. I was still feeling lonely and terrible and we missed the departing train because she was tired again by then and couldn't run. I was so fraught and impatient with my mother's constant fatigue that for a split second I considered pushing her on the tracks to put us all out of her misery, before I immediately stifled the thought and became utterly overcome by self-loathing. Then I tuned in to the guys who are always there playing violin and synth on the Bloor platform - they were playing, with the help of the synth, Hayden's Emporer Quartet. I went over and gave them a dollar and listened.

Just listened.

Listened and tried to forget about my pathetic, self-absorbed misery. Tears filled my eyes and started streaming down my face. Then I noticed an old Chinese guy watching me and looking at my mum, who by this point was obviously nauseous and needed to lean on my arm. His eyes were so full of concern it stopped me crying right then and there. Mum didn't notice I was snuffling, but I didn't mind, because an absolute stranger did and silently acknowledged it, and somehow that made things better. Then the next train came and we headed home.

None of us felt like cooking so we ordered Pizza Pizza pizza.

I went online on E2 while I ate my pizza from a tray and caught a question in the chatterbox that started me on the way to recovery. Mary_Magdalen asked if Richard Simmons and Gene Simmons were related. A vision of a Simmons family reunion popped into my head and made me laugh so hard, for a second I was gasping for air.

After dinner I called a friend who I've been out of touch with - mainly because he has a slightly possessive long term girlfriend, who since becoming his fiancee has become a bit more friendly to me. Guess she thinks the threat is now passed, which is funny because there was none in the first place - anyway I digress.

Note to self, before I go on: just because there's nothing to look forward to doesn't mean there's nothing to look forward to.

We hung out for the early evening, him showing me some new music and plying me with hash brownies (yay!). We watched Iron Chef with his roommates and girlfriend (theme: Codfish; best line, describing a codfish roe and vodka ice cream dessert created by Iron Chef french and presented in a vaguely rabbit-like shape: "there's something cute about that fishy little rabbit.") After Iron Chef my pal had plans to help some dj friend I didn't know select records for a party he is playing tonight, so I took my leave and went home.

Got back to the sounds of my parents obviously having sex. Errrrrggh. Usually when I come home and they're still awake they come out to greet me, but their door stayed shut and from its general direction one could discern bed-squeakings and sheet-rustlings - ugh! They hadn't expected me back before midnight. I didn't want to mar their post-coital bliss so ventured up to the apartments down the street, where I know a few people.

Jo, one of two registered massage therapists who live together in the building, was home and just as bored as I. Jo is not perhaps a genius, but she's a really nice person, and great for girl-talk. We gabbed about how we were starting to fear that we weren't the marrying type - she, because she was too fussy, and me, because I'm too worldly. Then she read me a Glamour magazine quiz to discern my sexuality. I scored mostly 'c's which apparently means I should embrace my inner dominatrix - whatever.

Best thing though was that she offered me a free massage, which wound up being a two hour job. She did this thing with my shoulderblades where she worked her fingers underneath them and lifted them up like wings. It felt really weird, but amazing. I hatched a plan which she enthusiastically agreed to - I'll do her laundry once a week if she'll give me a massage - yayyyhoo! She hates laundry and coin-operated machines, and I kind of like doing laundry and our flat his its own machines. Can't beat deals that work out well for everyone.

Got home and by then parents were sleeping. It was 3 a.m. so I hit the sack too.

Today, today is just the same as yesterday, minus lack of endorphins. We're going to church at 4 - I have to ask my parents to go 20 minutes early so that I can confess. New nodes coming up: Rudyard Kipling: GUNGA DIN and whatever I feel like. Maybe some fiction. I haven't written a story in ages.


Why do I include a synopsis, and worse, why did I refer to myself in the third person? Both are now deleted for everyone's relief. Appy-polly-logies.

No time before mass to confess. I am still a scarlet woman.

I GOT A LOT DONE THIS WEEKEND! Sounds nice, huh? Well, brace yourself for the sad part - weekends are supposed to be free! Here's what I did:
  • Went postal - I've ordered a new cellphone, and I thought that I had learned from last time, when I accepted the default option of "Home Delivery". I'm almost never at home, so I just have to wait for the package to timeout and pick it up myself. Well, back to the "Home Delivery" option. I apparently didn't tick the right checkbox. "OK, small problem", I think. "I'll just wait for the timeout date." That is August 28, 2000.
    FOLLY! The damn thing reaches it's timeout date, and a new note appears in my mail. It looks exactly like the first note - except there is no timeout date. I go to my local post office and ask the to check if any package has arrived. The package number is written on the note, so the friendly clerk feeds the terminal the number. Odd looks all over the place. She tries again. And again. Finally, she looks puzzled and says: "This package was signed for and delivered on August 21, 2000." This is somewhat disturbing. The package was cash-on-delivery, so I haven't lost any money so far, just some hours of work (I'll get back to those...) and 2D10 sanity points. The next day, I call the delivery service - they acknowledge the existance of a small package belonging to Rollo. They are quite busy, and will maybe deliver it later in the evening. I leave work early so I won't miss the delivery - it might be the only chance I get. Postal workers are fickle! No delivery individual shows up. The next day (August 31, 2000) I call the delivery service again. They state that they are extremely busy. I hang up and leave for Linköping.
  • In Linköping, the annual company-sponsored crayfish party is held. Since I'm a half-assed vegetarian, I don't eat the filthy motherfuckers. But I do drink beer. Lots of beer. Everything is extremely amusing, especially when we help our esteemed R&D boss stagedive. After that, we decide that it can't possibly get any better and leave the party at it's best.
  • Today, we checked out the new apartment. It was promising, but the wallpaper was >20 years old and it might be a bit expensive. But we'll handle it.
The trashcan experiment is going badly again: I've been letting the trash pile up in our room until my roomate (Ender02) empties the can. I think I'm going to get sick of this and take out the damn trash long before he does :-(

Node tended: Tupelov Tu-144 - removed a snotty note to m-dee-m-a, added circumstances about the 1973 crash.
New writeup:Why the obliteration of privacy can be a good thing (idea)
Still to add a write up:I need help on this one, guys (idea). by Templeton.

OK, let's get started. This has been a slackass day. I mean, it's true that I've spent all summer with my ass in a chair and my eyes glued to a screen, but that was for work. It's vacation time now. This is my big vacation. Yup, four days, the long weekend. Fun fun. Camping was a faliure; the stove had a hole in the fuel tank and all sorts of other things went wrong. A few things went right too, but in any case we ended up back home two days early. And we got up this morning, and we've had our asses in chairs, eyes glued to screens all day so far. So my vacation so far consists of tuning my Linux box. I need to go climbing, or hiking, or something!

On the other hand, my Linux box is getting better all the time. But I should really be doing less productive on my vacation. Next thing you know, I'll have the print server working! The least I could do is play a game or something, but no, that would be too much fun.

My day started early this morning, I got up and headed out to church. I discovered something I hadn’t noticed in my three years of being in college. I discovered that it’s easy to tell when your going to a church in a college town. Here is how, five minutes before the service is to start there is hardly anyone there. Ten minutes after the service has started people are having to stand because there is no room. After church I headed home and found a nice parking spot. It’s like finding treasure or cookies in the dinning hall that can’t be used as hockey pucks.

I spent the next big part of my day surfing the internet. I wrote up a few new nodes; pussy whipped, College Life, A dream log for yesterday, Dumbest question you’ve ever been asked, and a node on Sarah Michelle Gellar (she is very good looking). In doing research for the node I found several different sites with very nice pictures.

I went to a actives on campus thing today. Nothing like 40,000 people crammed into a small building with a bunch of organization all buying for your membership. And the way they set up the booths is very funny. Never would I expect to see the Aggie Atheist and the Aggie Sister’s for Christ right next to each other. That has been about the biggest block of my day. I put off doing my homework as all good college students do. I have a date tonight with my girlfriend, and then it’s back to the grind of school work.

Its raining again.


After Labour Day, it always rains. Or rather, its grey and damp and shitty until the middle of October, when it gets sunny and crisp for five whole days and then it lapses back to being grey, damp and shitty.

I first noticed the pattern while in my OAC year and from there its been consistent. Maybe I'm just becoming too aware...

I'm listening to boards of canada at a volume I'm sure is making neighbours are unhappy, but I don't care. If I could turn it up louder, I would. There is nothing anyone can do about this until 11pm when the anti-noise bylaw kicks in.

I hear tires on wet pavement during the silence between songs.

Summer has left us. The season is dying.
This weather makes me sad. I feel so empty.

It rained so hard here today that my neighborhood was converted to a giant puddle. There was no possible way to enter my car without stepping in at least 3 centimeters of water. My nextdoor neighbor was outside when I was leaving for work at 16:52 Eastern; she was just staring at the miniature rivers flowing over the grass in the common areas. The funny thing is that it had only been raining for about 15 minutes. I made sure to unplug my computer. This is being written on my work computer. I don't care about them.

Sunday, Boring Sunday.

Today I was very boring and lazy. However, I did have a pretty good weekend.

I wrote about having to go to a party on September 1, 2000. The party went smoothly without much in the way of conflict. Aaron's girlfriend was marginally friendly to me, but it seemed painful for her to do so. Her best friend Jemiah was there with the mock-up of the cover of her novel that is coming out in February. Its one of those 250 pg trashy vampire horror-type novels. She seemed to mock it, yet act proud of it at the same time. I guess its hard for her to accept that she wrote a totally formula book since she went to Reed College and all. All the talk of books and publishing has got my brain working in high gear though, so I am going to spend some time tonight getting some plot written out.

Alex's ex-girlfriend had already been at the party and left by the time we got there. So, another conflict avoided, which was good. I had one drink, and I was very nice to everyone. It was a pretty good time. I'm proud of myself for remaining friendly and nice among all that hipster-ness that makes me feel ill most of the time.

On Saturday, Alex and I spent the whole day together doing fun stuff. It was such a nice day, even though it was raining. Its days like the one we spent together that make me fall in love with him even more. He is so wonderful.

We went to pick up the glass for his thrift store table he's refinishing, and then went to the nursery to get some grass seed for his yard. I like going to the nursery and looking at all the plants. I had to restrain myself from buying another houseplant since I don't have much more window space for the ones I already have. After that, we went to Trader Joe's to get some groceries. Then, we took the food back to his place, put it away, and went to go get lunch. We went to Zupan's, which is a grocery store on Belmont in Portland. I love their deli sandwiches, so I got one of those, and Alex got some fresh sushi. We sat by the window near the florist area of the store and ate our food while talking about anything and everything.

After that, we went over to Hawthorne street, and went to Ground Kontrol, which is the coolest retro arcade. All 80's video games at 80's prices. I played some Dig Dug, Burger Time, Tetris, Ms. Pac Man, and Missile Command. It was so much fun! It was getting hot and stuffy in the arcade, so we walked down the block to the used bookstore and started wandering in there. What fun! Alex bought me three books that he wanted me to read. We went back to his house, hung out for a while, then came over to my house and made dinner. Grilled cheese, bean with bacon soup, and glasses of milk - a nice dinner for a cold and rainy day. We rented a movie, The Craft, and settled down for an evening of silly witchy girls. After the movie, we decided to play Upwords. I actually won for a change, but only by about 8 points. After that we were both nodding off, so we retired to the bedroom to cuddle. I fell asleep with my head on his chest.

Got up this morning and read the paper with Alex, and then he went home to get some yardwork done before it started raining again. I ended up trapped in front of the TV since The House of Yes was on TV. I watched that, then got trapped into the next movie, which was some straight to video thing with Reese Witherspoon in it. Finally got online, emailed the people who won my eBay auctions, and I'm writing this down.

Slow day, but a good weekend. Tomorrow I must concentrate on the job search again.

Nodes That I Wrote Recently:
One Headlight
Bringing Down The Horse
The Sky's Gone Out
Ground Kontrol
The House of Yes

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
The Wallflowers - Bringing Down The Horse
Fiona Apple - Tidal
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar - The Ram's savvy business skills are evoked as Venus contacts Neptune. A financial meeting of the minds can produce unexpected profits. When was your last visit to the theater or concert hall? Treat a partner to a night on the town.

I love the bitter taste
That metallic flavor on my tongue
When I feel not good enough
It makes me want to prove I am

I will not let downvotes on a daylog get to me.

See, there are many, many, BLEEDING WELL MANY times I hate the fact the store I work for is open 24/7/364.25. Today is no exception. Not only was it another dismal day at work, but I had to miss the annual Labor Day party my cousin hosts. And when you have a cousin that communicates on the same level as you, as well as him being MARRIED to someone who communicates on the same level as you, you miss something when you miss an opportunity to visit them. Like, intelligent conversation. Or just bantering on about Weird Al songs.

Doesn't help that I didn't get much sleep last night, leaving me a weaving, bobbing mess at work. Though I AM glad, in this case, that my job is more gruntwork than brainwork, so coming in groggy isn't as much of a downside, as long as my muscles respond when I want them to. (PING? PONG!)

Ah, well. Tomorrow's Labor Day. Damn straight I have to work again. And it IS a union shop, oddly. Figure that one out.

Tuesday is when Oakland University kicks back in session. Schweet. All I have to do is buy the books there (Since Bigwords.com hit some delays in my order) really early in the morning and fight the crowds in the bookstore. Fun fun fun fun fuck.

Today. Today was just another day. There was nothing spectacular. I shall endeavour to make it interesting nonetheless.

I realized today that I am having difficulty writing. My writeups haven't been the most wonderful as of late, when I even managed to write anything up. I wrote Ordinary World today, the lyrics to the Duran Duran song. I was quite surprised to learn they hadn't been noded already. Perhaps a new flurry of lyrics on e2 is in order.

Perhaps not.

Today I read the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It's the story of a group of native tribes in Niger who are eventually overtaken by Christian missionaries, though reading it you wouldn't begin to suspect such until more than halfway through the book. It's a fantasically written story, and I highly recommend it.

I lied. This will not be interesting at all. I have admitted this is habit, though unintentional.

For they who have read my writeups regarding my current object of desire, things have not changed. I've neither seen her nor spoken with her since the last noded time. I am uncertain as to whether, having faced buoying rejection on Friday, I should ask on Tuesday when work and classes resume, or on Wednesday, so as not to seem overly eager. I shall see what I see.

In other news, I had the good fortune recently of meeting someone on e2 who struck rather close to home, so to speak. It goes something like this:
  • I introduced my best friend from high school to e2
  • He introduced e2 to a friend of his still at said school
  • Said friend then introduced e2 to herfriend
  • Said friend then noded on e2, and was found purely by accident by myself, when I clicked her name on accident in New Writeups
We've since become friends, much to my pleasure. She is a friendly, empathic person of unusually good spirits. I appreciate her friendship a great deal and am pleased that everything and its successor, everything2 were created so as to bring me both this friend and this tie to home.

What else is there? I've found I dread the weekends, particularly holiday weekends. I need people. I have been immersed in people for the past two weeks, including weekends, as I worked and attended classes. I miss people, an extreme step forward for someone as reclusive and mistrusting as myself.

I've also found difficulty in maeutic teaching. I attempted discourse with someone regarding the non-absolutism of right and wrong. The greatest struggle was in attempting to have the idea of both shed in entirety. Perhaps the idea of subjective thought is too firmly displaced by dogmatic teachings to allow the board to be wiped clear. I simply wish I could more clearly elaborate that though something may be true for one, and indeed for many others, it is not necessarily true for all, nor is it the place of one to decide that for another. I will work on that.

To close, I requested several writeups of mine to be nuked. They lacked content, were written early on, and all had negative reputations. If you find something of mine you don't like, please do with it whatever pleases you, but please extend me the courtesy of /msg'ing me so I can either attempt to make it better or file a nuke request.

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