A long day at work, failing computers and dealing with transfer credit from Belize and problems from other departments and all kinds of bizarre crap. I sat out rush hour in the coffee house watching the traffic go by, unwinding by reading Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy. After reading the first section, on the life and death of Socrates, I read this in the second section, on Epicurus:

We are often, in the words of the Epicurean poet Lucretius, like ‘a sick man ignorant of the cause of his malady.’

That is who I am. Too many problems, too many self-destructive habits, too many fits of depression whose cause I cannot fathom. Bad news today, of course, with my plans and schemes and dreams unraveling, and even if I finessed my way out of these problems, I still have yet to address or even discover the reasons why I keep fucking everything up. Too tempting to ignore it all and sink deeper into this mess, but it all seems so insurmountable, and so stupid, really. Get your life in fucking gear.

It is the little things, a good book, a decent cup of coffee, great music, driving fast, the stupid little monkey pirate figure I bought for my father today, a vicious article somebody wrote for Maxed that had me in stitches last night, the laugh of someone in my office, that keep me going. But these fragments are not enough to shore up these ruins (My God! An allusion to T.S. Eliot? What a fucking geek I am!), not enough to sustain my life while I ignore the important things. Or perhaps these things that give me pleasure, as Epicurus might suggest, are what is truly important, and everything else is just around to support those things.

Still, I can quote Epicurus all day and that won’t get my fucking thesis written.

Factgirl's fact of the day:

The rarest blood type is Bombay blood (subtype H-h) found only in a Czechoslovakian nurse in 1961 and in a brother and sister in Massachusetts in 1968.

-it's a fact!

prev daylog next daylog

I just woke up. I should really stop waking up so bloody late. I have to wake up early to practice playing my bass. But then again, I have a good excuse. Then again, everyday I have an excuse.

I'd like to think that today's excuse actually warrants not waking up early to practice, as last night I had a jazz gig. It was at some unexciting cafe in Jaffa, in the old quarter. We played outside, and there was enough breeze to be pleasant, but not enough to overturn the pages of our Real Books. The gig itself was quite informal. It wasn't to a jazz-loving audience, but more of background music. This is negative in that:
a) Your playing is not as well appreciated.
b) You get less positive feedback on good solos, and at end of the show.

On the other hand, the positive sides are:
a) You can fuck around more. I took a solo on every number. That's hardly ever done.
b) There's no need to practice beforehand. I mean, I played with a drummer (who I think is going to be the greatest drummer in Israel in 3-4 years), with whom I play a lot, but with a guitarist whom I had never seen before. He wasn't too bad, but he did have a bit of a problem with up tempo tunes. Oh well. I a real show, that would never have taken.

It was quite fun. The drummer had about a liter of beer during the show, so he got progressively happier. I was feeling the beer a bit myself, but I only had about half a liter. It was either the beer or the laid-back atmosphere, but I allowed myself a wee bit too much freedom, I think. They wanted to play a song I didn't now, so I agreed, and read it prima vista (at first sight). A bit crazy. Also, I took the head of The Days of Wine and Roses, that I don't know so well, but isn't supposed to be too hard. However, we played it bloody fast, for some bizarre reason (and I counted us in!) Well, I had to sight-read the head really fast, and did it surprisingly well, but not perfect. It was so fast, that the guitarist (who knows the head well), told me to take the head out.

And it was 2 hours, which is far too long for a jazz gig. By the last two numbers, I had to go really bad. Okay, now I know why I played that song so fast. Anyway, the drummer went to the toilets twice. He just got up, told us to start without him, and then came back in the middle of the song and joined in. I guess I should have done the same. Oh well...

All that for $40. It sucks to be a musician.

It's quarter after three and I am wide awake, which seems to be happening more and more often these days. I have to go to work in a matter of hours... yuck. What else is there to do than come back to Everything and tell you all about it? Yeah, so I take an occasional nap in the afternoons when there's time. Maybe that's what keeps me awake. Well, I know that's what's keeping me awake right now. But who can resist laying down on the couch to rest your eyes after eating a batch of pancakes, even if it is two in the afternoon? And so what if my naps usually last longer than most of my normal sleep patterns do? A couple naps quickly turns into six hours rest, and I'm left wide eyed all night. And of course, sleepier than ever the next day. How do I break this cycle? I am hopeless.

AFTER EVERYTHING IS OVER, Ragnarök has come and gone again, I will still have meetings to attend. Not that there is something critical that I should do instead - this week has been slooow, but I wouldn't complain if something vaguely interesting happened every now and then.
"The fun parts of what we do here are Not For You. Every attempt to enjoy yourself will be punished with a power drill to the head. Now get back to work."
Hmm, where did the hackish aspects of my job go? Everythings seems so...managerific these days. A quest for the holy Grail of hacking (a half-full can of Coke)might be in order - ksh, here I come.

HEADFIRST: I've scrapped a great number of five-year plans the last two days. I'll go by instinct (In my case it's known as a randomizer) instead.

UPDATE 15:55: Passed through meeting hell, came out unscathed. Top quotes: "The customers will act like lemmings, like they are supposed to." and "Whoa, we are forming alliances, we are digging bridges!". New meeting scheduled, this time with my real boss. Hopefully there is a massive raise in it, just waiting for me. (I can dream, right?)

NODETENDING: Fat Agnus had its various parts dissected to a greater extent.

TODAY'S SOUNDTRACK: Saint Etienne - Tiger Bay.

bright and shining start

Didn't sleep last night, didn't want to. I started On the Road for a bit and gave up when I began to feel the restlessness of fatigue poisons. The TV won't stop blaring about the DNC and the only thing I could care about is how many protestors get their head cracked for daring to try to exercise their First Amendment and how many cops will be lauded for 'keeping the peace' with a bludgeon. My father has left for the dental office and I am free to roam, sleepless state or not. { a small pause } I just had to kick one of the cats out so it wouldn't piss on the Dodger Stadium pennant. A good primal scream would be nice about now.

interruptions

I took a short three hour nap before getting woken up by a cordless phone. I got some less than comforting news from my mom, and I couldn't go back to sleep. Sometimes I don't know how I can handle this except by not feeling anything at all. I finished pulling the Florida pictures out of the Mavica floppies and went outside to water the plants around the house.

a moment of something ineffable

I was watering below the balcony when a yellow-black butterfly landed against my chest. It was heavy - I felt its weight in a way quite surprising for a flying insect. It fluttered off in a second, leaving me behind feeling much better. I shall have to Jain-like towards insects for a while in order to repay it.

lack of memory due to lack of importance

Not much else of interest occurred after that. I talked to Tom and conferred his non-appearance on Balboa Island, but beyond that it was a fairly uneventful night. The Powerpuff Girls TV show of the night kicked ass, and the last episode was incredibly funny in its sendup of Chemical X as a drug to be dealt by Mojo Jojo, but if I'm mentioning TV shows obviously it was boring. Guilty Kids: "We promise, we'll never take it again." Naughty Kid: "But how was it, having superpowers?" Guilty Kids: "It was awesome!" That is so not for children only.

I'll keep this one nice 'n short:

Tip of the Day:

If you're going to be sitting around at 4 in the morning, just about ready to go to bed, and if you have to get up in the morning, and if you're feeling thirsty, and if you're the sort of person who occasionally does things without thinking about them, then...

...do not keep full bottles of Jolt Cola within easy reach.

In order:

I signed up for E2 today.

I got laid off today.

Coincidence? I think not.

However, I have a serious nagging fear that the hunt for a new job will take, um, longer than expected.

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow


9:35 BST

I managed to sleep from 5:30pm to 6:30am - That's 13 hours!

Hmm. I've been getting 15+ upvotes a day, but never seem to increase my XP total by more than 5 per day... Strange. It's not as if XP matters that much, but I wondered if anyone else had seen this?

My bastard of a Project Leader has decided that the racks aren't quite right. So he's asked me to basically do all the past 2 weeks' work again.

Death is too good for someone like that.

12:30 BST

There seems to be some confusion about Big Brother (the TV show) at the moment. According to the radio, Nasty Nick was put down by 2 other contestants - However I cannot find any reference to this...

...

Love via text <-- I wonder if this is happening to me? It's too easy to get the wrong end of the stick, it's too easy to misinterpret those words. It's selfish to think that you could be writing about me. But I want this to be true so much.

I am unhappy.

I am angry. An ex-colleague whom I know to be lazy and incompetent has got a position higher than mine. I can only hope their new boss will see them for what they are.

Sigh, I know that's a bad thought. I know I'm morally wrong. I know that I should wish this person the best. I know that wishing someone ill makes me ugly to the outside world. I know that I should love my enemy. For what reason is hate easier than love?

11:20 BST

I just saw the X-Men movie! Yay!

It's only just opened here in the UK, and I dragged 8 friends along to see it. I thought that there would be huge queues, so I forced everyone to turn up ludicrously early. But the cinema was almost empty.

We had a nice curry afterwards, and much bollocks was spoken :-)

12:17 EET

Great.
I just love it when a dumbass client decides to do a 180-degree-flip and have 90% of the work already done reconstructed. Just when everything seemed to be going well, they showed up with a list of inceribly idiotic demands. This is especially enjoyable when the project has already missed the deadline because of screw-ups from the client, and all the money has been paid.
I think the only word suitable for this situation would be...
ARGH!

And what's up with all the people whining constantly about day log upvoting/downvoting? Sheesh! I for one couldn't care less either way. Go ahead, downvote this like a wild animal if that's what you think is right. I won't stop posting these logs even if they all get -10. No matter how many levels I drop, you can't stop me from noding.
And what's this, noders crying on the chatterbox about day logs being illogical (?!) and uninteresting? Well, Boo-hoo! What, was this site renamed to "Everything Certain People find Interesting 2" without me noticing? Just shut up and node, will you?

Yes, I am downright cranky. The day hasn't started that well. Thankfully the weekend is approaching...


15:27 EET

Phew! A brand new prototype is finished! I haven't worked this hard in a good while.
And let me tell you.. If this new version doesn't satisfy the client... Well, postal workers won't keep the reputation of being the worst office-killers for long. :) The customer is always right is a phrase that should've left unsaid.

I skipped lunch again, simply because I couldn't afford one. It's sad to be an employed person with not enough $$$ for a french bread and ice tea. The next paycheck arrives in a month , and will be so small McDonalds workers would laugh their asses off at me.

This sucks. Why do all the good jobs require intelligence, experience and education?


To be continued...
Sheesh. Just went on a mad music noding spree covering lots of Belle and Sebastian EPs and Ben Folds Five albums too. Great fun.
This was all sparked off because I spent half of last night, when I should have been working, attempting to solve the burning, frustrating problem I mentioned yesterday. I had been listening to the instrumental at the end of Woman's Realm (the best track from Belle and Sebastian's new album), and thought I recognised it. Well, the answer (in case you were at all concerned for the state of my sleep) was found last night and came as a great relief. I had even emailed the band to ask them to help me! I have noded the answer in Woman's Realm.

So now it's today. I'm hungry as it's nearly lunchtime already.

Big Brother is really exciting at the moment. It's how I switch off in the evenings. That and reading Harry Potter books.

Is it all downhill from here?


What now, last night I found myself drinking alone in the moonlight, again. This behavior scares me. I've never been this low before, amd I'm unsure how to deal with it. I went to visit anm and his wife late last night, but when I went home, I went for the vodka. Screwdrivers, until the laundry was done, at which point I was so exhausted that with or without the alcohol I would have gone to sleep immediately.
I find myself keeping friends on standby for nights like this, as what? Justification to drink? Who knows, but it makes me feel better when there is someone else around when I drink, even if they do not imbibe. I don't know where to go from this point...

went to drink with my boss.
it was itself kind of freaky situation, but on top of that something the boss said to me made me freak out even more.

boss: "do you like indian food?"
me: "sure. it's one of my favorit food."
boss: "do you want to go india?"
me: "yes. someday. i would like to go visit india."
boss: "i mean soon. i mean do you want to be relocated to indea for a year or two?"
me: "well, no."
boss: "why don't you think it over before you make decision."
me: "...."

well, i've just came back to here a month ago. then what.
do i really have to go there?
hmm....
For the first time in my life I have been the one to tell people what to in relation to work at the lab. I have ordered antibodies from a company and they call me, me, to ask how they should treat the protein sample I gave them.
This makes me feel like there is something a bit askew with the whole thing. I mean, I haven´t even finished my education yet. I´m just a mere student, they are the pros. Still they seem to think I am in a position where I can order them around. "Do this." "No, don´t do like that!!! Are you mad or something?!"
But after having gotten past the feeling that I´m out on thin ice, pretending to be some sort of scienceperson I think I managed quite well. Ahem, I think...for the love of God let´s hope I gave them the right instructions or the wrath of my supervisor will come down upon me!

posthumous buys new shoes:

yes, well, at lunch break yesterday, took a quick jaunt to the Woodfield Mall and picked up the pair of cool, comfy slip-on clogs that I've been wanting for a month. So now I am the owner of a brand new pair of brown suede Merrell slip-on-comfy shoes. woohoo.

posthumous gets in an argument:

two nights ago on #everything, my attempt at giving kenata advice backfired severely and he ended up getting rather upset... guess that's the last time I'll dispense friendly advice to him.

posthumous has a messy relationship talk:

yes, once again, this whole thing with her is becoming messy; although it's almost over. we're both moving on sunday (coincidentally) so despite having thought that a long distance relationship would work, we're not going to do it. well, I am not going to do it. haven't know each other long enough to be able to survive something that emotionally taxing.

Which sucks, but it will be best in the long run.

posthumous becomes weirded out:

i find it almost unspeakably bizarre to learn that Saige lives less than a block away from me.

however, chances of a real life encounter are slim to none, considering I'm moving from this town on Sunday. Not that I'd want anything to do with that evil, evil, liberal anyways :P

posthumous gets headaches:

-----
tuesday aug 15 2000
-----
eaten:
	730am: poofs cereal, milk, water
	1145am: chicken burrito, 2 cans coke, asparagus, chips
	6pm: chicken lo mein/milk

headache:
	began surfacing round 945am, gradually going in and out... not bad while on way to
	schaumburg for lunch at 1100 but has since gotten worse..
	cooled off for a bit, then got worse around 530ish... pretty bad after movie theatre, 
	pills seemed to help.	
	okay when i went to bed.

behaviour:
	typical workday + some driving around
	went to movie theatre at 630pm

treatment:
	1 excedrin approx 215pm, intent to take more.
	1 excedrin at 245pm
	2 advil at 945pm
	
theories:
	?? lights/eye strain... ??
	watching movie?

-----
wednesday aug 16 2000
-----
eaten:
	730am: s'mores pop tart/water
	12pm: meatloaf sandwich, mac & cheese, coke
	7pm: chicken lo mein/milk

headache:
	not too bad, felt it around 1030am, but went away after lunch.
	slightly worse after work.

behaviour:
	typical workday

treatment:
	1 advil around 630pm

theories:
	eye strain/stress over her.

I had this amazing conversation with him last night. It was emotional, intimate, erotic, and filled with insights. It ended after 2 in the morning, and I get up at 5:30, but, it was worth every minute. It made me dream dreams I can't repeat here. It affected me so much I woke up early and wrote a great daylog about it. But, I can't post it, not yet at least. It reveals a bit too much about him, about his feelings, and I don't think he's ready for you to know that about him.

Some of my sentences verged on the erotic, I couldn't help it. The night was so charged with it. And, I fear they may still be too much too soon for him. I may push too hard, and right now, I wouldn't dare do anything that I think could scare him off. Whatever we have, it is growing, and I like the direction it's headed. I like the feelings I get when I see him walk into sight. I like the fact that, on some level, he likes me too and I think it goes beyond friendship... I hope it does.


That evening: masukomi realizes she needs to apply the "Would you shut the fuck up?" rule to herself in these matters and does so now. No more daylogs for now.

thursday morning

yesterdays meetings went well. very well.

unfortunately i couldn't sleep a wink last night. i am terribly tired. but i am in good spirits. the sun is out and the weather is nothing short of perfect. i anticipate that the glorious day will be interrupted by the mid-afternoon-downpour that has happened almost every day since summer began... but i like the rain, too.

the blame game at work seems to be winding down. i think finally some people are accepting that i'm not just a set of tits on legs. despite what's been going on i am envigorated by my job again. despite the outward annoyance at working until ten i am secretly glad that i have a reason to.

the weekend is coming up. i have to decide some things:
  • what kind of dead animal flesh should we grill?
    last weekend it was chicken for me and steak for him, plus portabello mushrooms in a spicy sauce. he suggested salmon or tuna or maybe even swordfish for me this weekend but i have done that before and want to go with something unusual. but not ostrich. i tried that and it's too much like beef for me to enjoy. i'm not a pork eater so that's out. he's allergic to shrimp so i don't even want him cooking any on the same grill he will be eating from. hrmmmm. think, think, think.
  • what shall we do outside?
    as mentioned on August 14, 2000, we went to see battlefields in manassas last weekend. it was absolutely gorgeous. but since that's been done, i have to come up with something else... if ocean city and the other beaches around here didn't suck so fucking much (i really get annoyed by boardwalk-beach-towns with their shitty beaches and $2 t-shirt and flip-flop stores) i'd say lets go to the shore. but... maybe scott's run again, or some place similar we haven't been.
for now, i must go do work. more later...

Afternoon...

19:33

OK, I tried wmtv and it kind of rocks. Even if IMHO it's really, really absurd to watch TV from a really really really small space. I mean, 64x64 pixels isn't much to fit a TV set into...

I got something that packaging calls Antennenverteiler ("Aerial distributor") as written under it) and got finally my cables arranged so that there's an antenna cable for both TV and the computer. I realized xawtv started working when I put myself to "video" group.

It's still kind of buggy. wmtv, upon launching wmtv, says "xawtv must not be setuid root", when xawtv clearly is not setuid root. Hrmph...

This bit of writeup written with Mozilla M17... hopefully more points coming later =)

21:37

Yay! xawtv really is much cooler than the Windows program that came with the card. Channel list with last pictures... I can watch South Park while I IRC. Kick ass! Too bad they only show reruns now...

23:42

Look! I have a "channel list" with icons on my screen! With content that updates way faster than what IE4 channel bar used to (last time I used it)!

And this real time picture! Updates much faster than any of those Windows Media Player things! Man, this thing also conserves bandwidth! Right now nothing goes over PPP, and and it even works when I close the line.

This also has this thing called teletext - it's kind of like the Internet, but it shows TV listings much faster and is kind of easier to browse, you know, all addresses are numbers less than 1000.

But when I clik on the WWW addresses on the screen, they don't work. I guess they'll need to work on it.

(OK, these were honest opinions, not an attempt to make fun of geeks who say things like "Pencil! They do exist after all! How do I use them? How do I turn the power on? Hey, is that black thing a solar cell?" =)


Other day logs o' mine...

My writeups for today: callback wmtv dockapp Jyrki

I am trying to overcome my overwhelming fear of everything! Not this place, but just about everything else.

I sat and watched the tour groups walk by this morning. All the new freshmen on the campus tour. I realized how much I wanted to be taking classes. The sun was out and the day was bright with excitement, yet no, I am not taking classes. I cannot afford this place anymore and I have been too lazy to actually figure out where I might go instead. Now the semester starts in a week or so and it is too late for me.

I worked on my resume last night. A friend of mine has been telling me about this great sounding job, a few steps below a UNIX admin but with amdin potential. I had been hesitant to accept the job because I felt that if I took it I would be giving up on going back to school. How ridiculous a notion! To think, sitting here on my ass doing nothing, planning nothing - how in the heck is that any better? It's not, it's about 8 million times worse. At least if I had this job I would be making some money and that would bring me closer to being able to afford school. But alas, that is the thought process that I have been following as of late.

MarilynM quit her job yesterday. I hate when people I know quit jobs that I also have. For the last three weeks or so I find myself sitting at my desk everyday thinking, I should just quit. Even though we don't work the same shift the knowledge that she has quit is going to drive me crazy with thoughts of quitting as well. Although, yesterday wasn't so bad. They asked me to tape and they only ask the best people to tape and that made me feel good. Even though I hate the job I still want to be the best at it.

So I decided to conquer my fear of the world, or at least face it. I put my resume on monster.com and I sent a copy to my friend. I don't know what will happen with this job. It would be so perfectly Debbie to struggle with a decision like this for so long only to find out the position isn't available, or worse yet, I am not qualified. I don't think that will happen though, I was under the impression that if I applied for the job I could have it. That's probably the scary part of it. I have no problem with change, it's the speed with which change comes about. I can't handle super quick changes, I need to ahve some time to get used to the idea of change. Not a super long time but at least a week or two.

And graceful exists never seem to be my strong suit. For instance, take a look at my daylogs. There is no real end to them, they just stop.
I just love playing phone tag... NOT!!! Today's game is with an insurance adjuster who needs to inspect some damage to my home. What happened? Sunday morning I noticed that the carpet inside my bedroom closet splashed whenever it was stepped on. Not good! Well, guess where my water heater is located? Uh-huh...

Now, a quick story: Only a few weeks before son #1 was born the water heater in our old apartment blew. It was so bad that the whole ground floor of the building got flooded. What a friggin' mess!

Anyway, these two incidents are making me wonder if this is some kind of wacky coincidence, or if there may be some connection between my pregnancies and water heater disasters? Heck if I know, but this makes me kinda nervous to think about having a third child! ;oD

melodrame, it's Time for you to Die.

My Compsci final exam is at 3PM PST today. Wished I would've studied more. I hate laziness, I wish I was a more disciplined person. One of the reasons why I don't think I should have a girlfriend. Anyways, if you're reading this hopefully your positivity powers can reach me at that time so I can do well in the exam. I think I'll do okay. I mean I did pretty bad in the midterm, but I made really dumb mistakes. Well wish me luck, otherwise it'll be my time to die.

I'll make another entry when I come back. I'll be playing with Perl then and tweaking my gateway.

Oof. What a relief. Exams are finally all done, you can pull my finger. Well I can finally sleep more than 4 hours. My God, I've been awake for 20 hours and I still can't sleep. Gonna go download Debian Potato =)

- Sown is cool, you will all become major fans someday .
- the e2 front page looks incredibly weird and jumbled up on the IE installed on my lavender iMac here at my new job.
- speaking of which, my office is just across the street from The X-Games. Fabiola da Silva is there.
- I don't know where to buy a nifty nightgown or pjs in San Francisco, but I need to find out.
- I am sleepy today and have moving stuff into my flat to look forward to when I get home. At least I have my stuff now. Even if it's all in boxes.
- BY THE WAY. Neither the iMac nor the IE is my fault, okay? I just take what I'm given. (At work, anyway. At home, I'm thinking about getting a Palm VIIx with wireless net access]. I don't like PDAs all that much but can't afford a replacement laptop at this point. If you think this is a bad idea or a good idea, let me know.)
- Never mind nightgowns, I want a set of velvet lingerie.

Also, the correct answer to "How can I get some cane sugar Dr Pepper?" is "Be one of Wintersweet's favorite people." But I'll refrain from noding that, because only 7Ghent and Starrynight and maybe Kazeryu or Ktinga would have any clue as to why this is true.
Well, today has certainly been eventful. I woke up at 2:49 a.m., went on a long, brisk walk. I think I'll do that more often. It's good "me time." I don't take music. Just my keys and a cell phone. Nothing to hear but my own thoughts, the fountain in the middle of the apartment complex, and the distant roar of a car or two. I had to come up with some ideas for the implementation of a network in a new building, along with a bunch of day to day sysadmin stuff.

When I got off work, I found out my grandmother had died. It's a weird feeling. I was closer to this grandmother than any other grandparent because my mom used to leave me with her when she went to work until I went to kindergarten. She developed Alzheimer's disease when I was in my mid teens. Because I went to school out of state, she didn't recognize me over the past few years. A distance developed between us, and I don't really know how to feel right now. I'm sad, but not as much as I would have thought. She was 90 years old, and had a stroke, apparently.

My grandmother was a big influence over me. My love of reading is almost certainly due to the fact that I was around her all the time when I was learning how. She always had books around. She is the only woman I can recall ever spanking me with a switch. The greatest sadness is that I could not have good conversations with her when I was old enough to really appreciate them. I think that last sentence really started the grieving process for me.

Can I get a witness?

I don’t think anyone could call me a bad person today. I have worked my ass off for the last two days trying to get all the Compaq crap shoveled up, and I did it. I am not leaving with a big pile left for someone else, and I should get a good reference out of it.

Now, about that job you’re gonna give me...

I still need to find a replacement job. I hope I find it quick. Are you there God? It’s me, Kim. Please give me a sign that a new job its on its way to me soon.

Perhaps that sign was today. One of the people who has worked here for years got arrested at work for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. I think that perhaps the powers that be have finally woken up and realized that we have a bunch o’ stoners on staff, and maybe, just maybe, they should be more proactive about weeding them out. No pun intended. :)

I don’t know where I’m going, but I sure know where I’ve been.

The job hunt goes into full swing this weekend. I will probably have to make an Office Max run this weekend for more fancy resume paper. I’m almost out. Nothing says “hire me” like a resume on fancy paper! Or, at least I hope so.

Nodes That I Wrote Today:
none

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
none

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar - Pace yourself. No sense going on a fishing expedition when the Moon loses power. Finish odd jobs and don’t start major enterprises. Comfort loved one on the ropes as Juno merges with Uranus. Take a respite from romance.

The result is a wonderfully aromatic, sweetly satisfying tea.

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 23:58:13 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 657950 (2840 new since August 16, 2000)
Number of users: 18065 (78 new since August 16, 2000)
Number of links: 3055125 (27515 new since August 16, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.421 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.643 links per node
Link to user ratio: 169.118 links per user

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JeffMagnus node count: 4030 (1 new since August 16, 2000)
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JeffMagnus node of the day: God

I would really love to stay and write down all of the intricate details of my day, but again, I am in a hurry. Of course, at 3:30 in the afternoon when I am dragging and the food coma has fully set in, there is nothing to do.

But now, at 7 p.m., I have to rush home to my box-filled bedroom and quickly unpack the rest of my crap so that my room looks respectable tomorrow when everyone is over for the housewarming picnic.

Yes, housewarming picnic. We decided that it's much nicer to be chatting and drinking wine and eating cheese outdoors during sunset than cramped and spilling things on one another in our tiny living room.

We figure that after dark a large majority of the attendees will leave, for fear of flying, biting critters. This will leave the perfect number of guests to wander back to our house with, sit comfortably on the couches with, and tell stories with.

Oh, it will be so nice.
I have to go clean up so they think I'm organized (which I'm not, by any means).
i had an exciting day. i'd forgotten what they were like. i got up and did things and had adventures and conversations both long and intricate and snack-sized and superficial.

i woke up too early. i think that someone had called at 9:30, but i forget who. so i played on the computer for a little while, then went back to bed. until noon, when the doorbell rang. and lo! it was my new handspring, fresh from the factory and in fine working order. it has the cutest stylus - chrome and clear plastic, and both ends unscrew to reveal a reset tool and a screwdriver, respectively (the old one was plain ol' black). i hotsync'ed everything back onto it and was happy. i went and took a bubble bath and read science fiction comics.

sparky stopped by to show me his tattoo (which is really pretty damned impressive), and i eventually threw him out so i could work on my housing situation, which is once again grim. another friend, colleen, came by and we fought politely over the computer and the 'ipalm.' (i admit to being selfish - i just got it that morning and was overworried that it would break, like the last one.)

she came along to see an apartment, which turned out to be a good deal for $700: three rooms, two baths, and the all-important washer and dryer. we went to subway and stuffed ourselves full of big sandwiches with lots and lots of half-hearted jalapenos. we went hiking, stopping downtown along the way to say hi to this kid who lived in our dorm, whose girlfriend literally appears to be 12. creepy pedophile.

the park, where we went hiking, was depressing. it looked like it was dying, the trees and tails eroding away down the hill to the beach/mud flats. dead trees stuck out of the ground at odd angles, trunks trapped in the dark mud. colleen didn't see what was wrong with it. it didn't look natural, because if the trees couldn't survive there, other vegetation should have come along and wiped them out. and they weren't all big strong trees, but some of them were easily a hundred years old. the beach was polluted, but kids were swimming, anyway. we smoked cigarettes on a fallen log and carried the butts back in our hands.

colleen lives in the glen (apartment complex), so that's where we went. the glen is depressing as well, for entirely different reasons. it's full of kids, but there's no benevolent adult influence, like there is in the dorms, no supervision. and, with nothing to rebel against, they seem much more defeated. going there is like entering a post-apocalyptic city controlled by street children.

we went 'skating' in the parking lot. skating in colleen's world is going back and forth. no tricks. which is fine with me, because i was always a pretty shitty skateboarder, and it doesn't take much to dissuade me from doing things that will inevitably lead to bodily harm. we ran out of cigarettes, and so went to the campus store. the building has been taken over by football players, the university of washington huskies. evergreen has no football team. half an hour later, the clerk got back from the computer center (he points at me and says, 'she knows where i was,') and sold us camels.

campus gets dull quickly. we went downtown, to this trendy vegan coffeeshop place that must be cool, as it was mentioned in time's sleater-kinney-centric article about ladyfest. people were rowdy on the streets, as we walked the other way to go to the cash machine. a guy going into the sports bar that used to be an all ages club hooted at us, and stared. so i told him he was a moron. 'fuck you, you anorexic bitches!' he yelled after us. going the other direction, a group of middle aged men made loud comments. i restrained myself.

and as we crossed the street, boys who looked fresh off the base in a shiny black car stopped us to ask for advice in planning their evening. they wanted to drink, and i was the only person of age in our group, so i became responsible for guiding them to entertainment.
me: 'try ben moore's.'
them: 'what about thekla? we heard that was cool. we don't care, we just don't wanna go to no gay bar.' (this is the point where they are no longer nice boys.)
'yeah, go to thekla.. you'd love it.'
him: 'what? why don't you love it?' he's suspicious.
..so i backpedal. 'oh, i love it too.'
all better. 'ok. so.. where are you ladies going?'
me: 'um, we're going this way.' and i walk away. everyone else catches up and starts yelling at me, because 'they were kind of cute!' right.

we get to the coffeeshop and it dawns on me that, oh yeah, it's thursday and thus it's queer night at thekla. oops. we enjoy ourselves, eating hummus and roast garlic. i drink oly's, my girls drink root beer and chai. some guy puts his sunglasses on my face, then comes back loudly demanding i give them to him. the waitress comes to our table often to apologize for the service, takes our order again, then disappears for another hour. i get stuck with the bill.

i get a ride home, and the rest of the night (morning) is uneventful.

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