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Everything's Best Users Snapshot

   #   Users                   XP  wa7  inc Level   l_XP l_wa7
    
   1   Pseudo_Intellectual  13808   96   13    10  13795  110
   2   jessicapierce        11874   90   45    10  11829   98
   3   dem bones            11422   47   65    10  11357   44
   4   DMan                 11067  165  174     9  10893  163
   5 * Saige                 8935  104  120    10   8815  101
   6 - pukesick              8913   36   31    10   8882   37
   7   Segnbora-t            8893  133  204    10   8689  121
   8   Deborah909            7036   63   35     9   7001   68
   9   N-Wing                6557   85  109     9   6448   81
  10 * tregoweth             6334   40  106     9   6228   29
  11 - JeffMagnus            6307   30   49     9   6258   27
  12 - pingouin              6266   27   12     9   6254   29
  13   knifegirl             6132    4    7     9   6125    3
  14   yossarian             6128   20   34     9   6094   18
  15   ModernAngel           6078    7    4     9   6074    7
  16   Jet-Poop              5693  116   58     9   5635  126
  17   Lometa                5646   83   85     9   5561   83
  18   ideath                5593  116   91     7   5502  120
  19 * dannye                5576  143  132     8   5444  145
  20 - General Wesc          5491   32    5     9   5486   37
    
  21 - hoopy_frood           5488   25   15     8   5473   27
  22   sensei                5485   66   76     7   5409   64
  23   Tem42                 5422   97   64     8   5358  102
  24   novalis               5325    1    1     9   5324    1
  25   bozon                 5246    9    6     9   5240    9
  26   moJoe                 5222   44   18     9   5204   48
  27   /dev/joe              5110   74   77     8   5033   73
  28 * Asamoth               4517   90   88     8   4429   90
  29 - nine9                 4444    7    3     9   4441    8
  30 * yam                   4256   37  139     7   4117   20
  31 - Sarcasmo              4243    2    3     8   4240    2
  32 - alex.tan              4229   70   35     7   4194   76
  33   ariels                3963    4    1     7   3962    4
  34   juliet                3961   74  131     8   3830   64
  35   Uberfetus             3696   39   63     5   3633   35
  36   Sylvar                3614    0   -1     7   3615    0
  37 * Templeton             3602   76   90     5   3512   74
  38 * RockLobster           3598   84  113     8   3485   79
  39   kessenich             3528   14   23     8   3505   13
  40 - knarph                3516    4    4     8   3512    4
  41   Quizro                3426   43   16     8   3410   48
  42 * CaptainSpam           3417   17  104     8   3313    3
  43 - Woundweavr            3373   14   22     8   3351   13
  44   bitter_engineer       3363   25   40     7   3323   23
  45 - discofever            3335    3    3     7   3332    3
  46   sabre23t              3331   61   75     6   3256   59
  47   ailie                 3245   20   37     7   3208   17
  48   Lord Brawl            3080   10    1     8   3079   11
  49   artfuldodger          3029   20   11     6   3018   22
  50   Xamot                 2909   10    3     7   2906   11
  51   hatless               2900   11   24     8   2876    9
   *   EBU #51               2900   30   24     *   2876   31
 

Server time: 00:03 Sat Jun 10 2000 TZ +0100 not UTC since May 26, 2000

* = users rising up in the EBU; - = users falling down in the EBU
l_ = last (previous) value; inc = increase in stats value
wa7 = ((stats + (6 * l_wa7))/7) = weighted average with denominator 7

sabre23t: Random Nodes

More notes later in the afternoon.

sabre23t: Nodes to node

• E2 Done --> Todo -->
• Malaysia Done --> Todo -->
• Others Done --> Todo --> smoochie, ice-blended

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 01:05:24 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) mod_perl/1.21
Number of nodes: 559075 (1719 new since June 9, 2000)
Number of users: 15508 (31 new since June 9, 2000)
Number of links: 1910468 (19324 new since June 9, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.051 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 3.417 links per node
Link to user ratio: 123.192 links per user

New Nodes:

• Glass Cleaner
• The Big Apple
• I am going to the Tate Modern Tomorrow.
• Bermuda
• Nodeshells Marked For Destruction
• Chris Morris
• Nodeshells Marked For Destruction
• ...if you know what I mean and I think you do
• coloring book
• Zoloft
• People Who Write Better Nodes than I Do
• 1:150,000,000,000,000
• It's not what the node is, but who the noder is
• helmet hair
• Neo-Platonism

Users Online (33): [Deborah909] [tregoweth] [Jet-Poop] [Lometa] [ideath] [dannye] [bozon] [yam] [hatless] [tftv256] [fondue] [Wyclef] [achan] [tonto] [f1r3br4nd] [birdonmyshoulder*] [mcSey] [m1a9366b] [jkfghldagv] [The Custodian] [skid] [Ereneta] [eric+] [Doremus] [Halcyon&on] [thoughtcreft] [sunhill] [Hedgehog Emperor] [ralph noder] [samgrover] [Eye In The Pyramid] [masterbrownshoe] [JadeJewel]

JeffMagnus node count: 3717 (13 new since June 9, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 6307 (50 more since June 9, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 1.697 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.665%
JeffMagnus node of the day: Everything 2 Civil War

I've lived in New York State all my life. And I can honestly say that I could not imagine living anywhere else. New York amazes me. If your in The City you could find yourself in the country inside of an hour. You've got great skiing in the winter and sunny beaches in the summer. In fact I've got to say thats one of my favorite parts of New York State, is Lake Ontario. I remember a few years back, on a clear, clear night, I stood on the shore of Lake Ontario and I could see the ambient light from Toronto and the Thousand Islands. That lake is beautiful, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I was still living within a stone's throw.

But tonight my mind is in The City. I'm listening to New York State of Mind by Billy Joel. I've got it on repeat. It's one of those nights. I just spent the night out with Debbie, wandering the streets of Saratoga. Saratoga is about 200 miles north of New York City, if I am estimating correctly. And it is not a whole lot like The City. But as we walked we heard a couple of guys playing bongo drums. And it just reminded me of a recent trip to New York, walking through the subways, hearing people play a trumpet, or sing. And thinking I love this city, from the tallest building, to the guy singing in the subway for spare change. I've always wanted to be a writer. And I hear Billy Joel sing "it was so easy, living day by day", and I wonder: Could I do it? Could I live with out knowing where my next paycheck was coming from, just so I could live in New York and try to make it as a writer? To give up my miserable job, I'd do it in a second. But to give up the comfort of a home, bills that I know will get paid, so I could live as a writer (maybe doing that living in a box) in the Big Apple? What do we have to give up to pursue our dreams, or do we have to give any thing up at all?

3.30am

My wife wakes me up. The dawn chorus is just starting outside. "There's drips coming through the back bedroom ceiling!" she tells me.

After staring blankly for a few seconds, I groan something. The meaning is "Oh, no, not again!" We've had more problems with water in this house since we moved last summer than in ten years at our previous house. (See also May 13, 2000 and May 15, 2000.)

We mutter random thoughts until she decides to flush the toilet and turn the taps on to see if it's the overflow leaking. The drips certainly slow.

We both lie down, awake and annoyed, as the sky very slowly brightens. "I'll see if anything came out of the overflow," she volunteers a short while later. I hear her unlocking the back door as I try to re-visualise the plumbing. She returns to report nothing visible.

"Well, maybe it's not connected at the tank end," I hazard. The overflow pipe exists purely to take excess water from the tank to somewhere safe outside. I'd checked the pipe existed previously but it was unnecessarily awkward at the time to check much beyond what I could see from the loft hatch.

I made some tea and then pulled on some clothes. I went out and got the ladder from the shed. My wife organised a torch - mains electricity might be a bad idea around who knows what leaky pipes...

Carefully treading on the joists, I made my way towards the tank in the loft. Hunched over due to the lack of space, I clambered over the mains feed (which crosses the loft space at waist height). Not too bad the first time.

Had this been another house, I'd not have believed what I saw. The overflow pipe ran from the outside wall towards the tank. However, it didn't actually connect to the overlow outlet - it was just resting on a joist. The ceiling below was quite damp-looking. We'd definitely had an unhandled overflow... sigh

I picked the pipe up and inspect the fitting it was intended to connect to. No way did it simply push in. Hmm. There was a threaded connector, screwed tight against the outside of the tank. Doing nothing useful. Hmm. I couldn't see how it would connect the pipe, so I went and reported back.

"There should be a neoprene washer," my wife surmised. After a second look at the joint (and a failed attempt with some filler) I concurred.

In the meantime, I'd fiddled around with the ballcock (which should, of course, have prevented the overflow in the first place) and it seemed to be cutting the water off properly now. It had been dripping...

5.30am

The situation was under control. No hope of going back to sleep. I let my back ease up. The last crossing of the mains pipe had been an effort. I gave trying to doze and got up at 7am. Unheard of for a Saturday morning.

Woodpigeons seem to be the last to join the dawn chorus around here. That or they keep going after all the other birds have shut up.

1.15pm

The roof space gets hot... Well, it's fixed. I visited a local plumbers merchant to try to get something to fix the overflow pipe to the overflow outlet. In the course of the discussion, I discovered that the outlet on our tank was fitted the wrong way 'round. Hmmm...

So I headed back to see if I could reverse it. It was too furred up. I had a think and a chat with my wife. We came up with a number of solutions, none workable. Until she remembered we had some waterproof tape that might be both flexible and strong enough to do the job. Good thinking!

So, back into the loft carrying a lantern (no grue is gonna eat me), a torch, a pair of scisors and the tape. It goes on great, clinging to the screwthread on the overflow outlet and to the overflow pipe. So, to the moment of truth. I plunge the ballcock down, opening the valve and wait for the water level to reach the overflow.

Ye-ay! It works. No leaks! And the water splashed happily onto the back bedroom window and down onto the patio. Nothing through the ceiling.

Another job well bodged.

17:25 EET

Things did get better yesterday after all. I had a great time playing MTG for the first time in years, and the pot certainly brought a nice twist to it. :)

My CEM noding project is still seriously under construction, mainly because my crappy home ISP's stupid mandatory WWW cache has a lot of problems with E2. I hope I'll be able to at least submit this writeup.

A part of the enduro racing world championship is being held right here in Hämeenlinna. My parents' house is just between the two competition areas, so noisy bikes have been going back and forth all day. But since I've been working with my music all day, I haven't been able to hear much else anyway. While I'm usually extremely critical about my own work, the track I have been finishing today sounds totally funky. The inspiration is going on strong, so I'd better go back to the sequencer to work on some new noise pollution..


To be continued...

Received my evaluation report from the tests I took March 27, 2000. The results were not surprising but somewhat discouraging Validity suspect it says, but I don't know yet what that means. Investigative, artistic were indentified as areas of interest.A score within 40th-60th percentile is considered average in comparison to the norm group. Academic assessment produced results that are inconsistant with my level of education. They suggest it's possible difficulties with concentration, short-term recall and/or the use of inference. No surprise there for me. Abstrct reasoning scores were the highest in the 90th percentile range , as well as the Computer Operator Aptitude Battery Assesment in the the 90th percentile. This was a complete surprise and appears incongurent with the rest of the test results I think. The recommendation is for a neuropsychological evaluation for assessment of cognitive functions, attention, memory, and the ability to make abstractions. Great! Finaly some sense here. No doctor has ever done so much as a neurological exam or test since the prolactinoma was diagnosed. Gee you think all those hormones runnning rampant in my body could affect my cognitive abilities?

It is a disease that will be with me to the end of my life. I have no control over this part of my mind. It is like losing the use of one's legs. It is as if my legs are a part of my body, but I no longer can control them.

I fight this disabilty's grip on me, but I do not fight God and it cannot touch the breath of God that is in me. Every day is a new battle to hang on to my relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I think of this relationship as a privilege, given but not deserved.

I see mysef as a person who does not seem to fit in,and I tell myself , There is Christ among the thorns. Christ always blesses me when he is recognized, especially among the thorns of this world. Gifts of self-acceptance and love are a part of Christ's love.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
-John 8:12 (NRSV)

Devotion

Ahh, well last night was interesting, much drinking and laughing at the expense of others whom were more or less sloshed out of their minds. Isn't that what life is made of? Actually it was just two of us drinking and my best friend babysitting so to speak, though I personally didn't have more than a couple of Mike's Hard Lemonade (An excellent source of vodka!) coolers, and a bit of some weird blue electric lemonade. I don't actually like drinking, and don't quite understand why I bothered other than that I was upset with my father at the time. (I recall throwing a bottle at the ground and yelling obscenities followed closely by "dad".) Any way, drinking due to depression is quite stupid methinks, but oh well. I'll have to make a point to stop that mindless activity.

Interesting things that happened before I was drunk:

• We went to the liquor store and as my friend purchased the alcohol the person running the till asked if she had an airmiles card. I joked that at least they weren't giving away free gas coupons with every purchase, but it went straight over the ladies head and into a bottle of rum, or something.
• My friend that ended up far more intoxicated than myself bothered me about wanting any alcohol at all. Isn't it ironic? Or is that.. hypocritical.

Interesting things that happened while I was drunk:

• Cried real hard for ten solid minutes after walking through a mud puddle at the start of my favorite tree-shrowded path. The week's events seemed a thousand times worse when I was intoxicated. Of course, afterwards I was perfectly happy again and had a fun night tending to my drunken friend whom doesn't remember much past 6pm.
• Talked to friend in New Jersey whilst he was high and playing minesweeper. Managed to slip "put some honey on your dick" into the conversation as I was still a bit out of it.
• The landlord walked by and I fell onto the grass in the backyard. This was after I had some of that electric lemonade.. hm.
• Joke-flirted with my best friend to the point that any one would have thought we were together, though we really aren't, I swear.

My friend was here, being the only other person drinking last night, and now his brother is here, though he's gone out somewhere. His brother is probably bored out of his mind, strumming away on a guitar behind me, pondering things beyond my comprehension because I really don't know him very well. Ah well..

I'm craving a mean game of pool tonight, though it probably won't happen any way. My parents seem content to sit in the sweltering heat and stare mindlessly at the television set, though I suppose I can't blame them for relaxing. I'm pondering how it is I'll mooch a ride to New York for July 1st, anyone? He-he.

My sister's oldest rabbit died last night, Rosebud. It was quite sad.. it passed away while I was still drunk, actually. I stood out on the porch behind the house as my sister held it, caressing it's ears and crying her eyes out. I put my arm around her shoulder and petted the rabbit a little, tried my best to be compassionate though I was feeling strange. I looked up at the sky and noticed a star as rosie's heart stopped, and told my sister that was her star, and the one just over from it was her old rabbit Backster's star (he died long ago). I told her as soon as the two stars were close enough in the sky, they'd star-hump and Backster's would fall from the sky. (I completed it with a hand motion.) This made her laugh just a bit, so it was good. I helped her set the little thing into a box and wrap it in a towel, and promised to help her make a neat tombstone thing for it today. (Though, I was still sleeping when she buried it and didn't help, oh well.)

It's odd that I had anything to drink at all last night, but the ironic part is, I wouldn't have been nearly as good at comforting my sister if I'd been sober. Not to mention I wouldn't have finally cried about the things I needed to. Ah well, a fun night.. trying to think of something to do this evening, and then tomorrow it's off to visit the grandparents and my aunt's little baby.

I grow tired of near constant conflicts in this househould between various induhviduals.. living alone seems like it would be nice, to me, though I probably won't for a long while. I think I'm done, for now.

As of now, I'm in Kissimmee, Florida trying to survive my "vacation within a vacation." Well, the odds are a bit against me because I have to leave my computer in North Carolina while I use my brother's ThinkPad instead. The ISP access is even worse, because I'm using his company's network as opposed to my ISP. As they say, "we will adapt."

My place to stay is in a rental home, with enough rooms for my brother, his wife and kids (they're quite the terrors), and my older sister and her friend. I have my own room, so I can get some privacy. I'm going to touch base with #everything within a few minutes after I download the IRC software...

I'm so tired in just about every way possible. Tired of fast food, tired of not having a home, tired of driving, tired of people saying No. I feel sick to my stomach and i just don't know if I've made the right decision coming to grad school here.

On the up side, Bud's San Francisco Ice Cream is really yummy.