May 3, 2000 | May 4, 2000 | May 5, 2000

Everything Statistics

           Statistics on day 0      -1     cur  last cum ave increase 
Total Number of Nodes:  494150  492728    1422  1058  1240
Total Number of Users:   14122   14093      29    32    31
Total Number of Links: 1275194 1254618   20576 15552 18064
Current node_id:        529170  527680    1490  1199  1345

Everything's Best Users

User         XP on day 0   -1  cur last cum ave increase
Pseudo_Intellectual 9393 9164  229 160 195
jessicapierce       9009 8851  158 435 297
dem bones           8999 8895  104 245 175
pukesick            6123 5960  163 125 144
Saige               5592 5442  150 110 130

Server time: 00:34 Thu May 4 2000
Your fellow noders (30)

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Yet another day without Everything Snapshot. What happened to Everything Snapshot since April 20, 2000? On May 3, 2000, May 3, 2000 was a nodeshell , whereas May 4, 2000 is not yet in existence. On May 4, 2000, May 4, 2000 was a nodeshell, wheres May 5, 2000 is not yet in existence. That may be significant, right? Perhaps, JeffMagnus script did run but only managed to create a nodeshell.

Yesterday's not done yet, but today, I am thinking of noding on ...
The HTML Metanode, Invalid "ul" indent, Invalid "h1" in "ul"/"ol" ...

I just got my postcard from Oregon from the FAMOUS pukesick

...and gracious me if it ain't homemade! It's a thin piece of cardboard with some blue paper and visual airline safety instructions taped to the front. Very professional-looking, I must say.

Anyway, it reads (with my comments in italics): "Jet-poopicles, {Hmm. Going for a jessicapierce vibe, pukey-wookey?} Look, the safety instruction is sporting a mullet! {I think he means the dude's hairstyle, which is less than mod} We are off to a good start {smudged word}, having survived my trans-Atlantic flight a bit back. I have been working lots lately and not much slacking, however, I did get married {Hey! Congratulations!} to someone at the 24 hour Church of Elvis last weekend in Portland, that was fun and good after staying up for 48 hours. Please be on the lookout for baby-blue earmuffs for me; I am in desperate need of a pair {pukesick is the only person I know who needs earmuffs in the summer} Summer is creeping up, yay! You live in NM, do you own a dog(s)? {Sorry, no}"

So there you have it. He just got married, and he needs earmuffs. Have you sent the happy couple a wedding present yet?

Today, or it was yesterday, anyway here at least it was today, I went looking for an apartment to rent. This soul-crushing had its obvious outcome, and my soul, what I have of it, is well crushed tonight.

Also, the Lesser Kahuna is being sneaky on the theme of giving me absolute power on the WWW site of project X.

Of course, this makes my life very difficult, since project X is currently unstaffed and inexistent, but it is expected to suddenly appear and operate in July 2000 - courtesy of yours truly. Not even pr0n seems to make me happier. I'll go home and bang my head against some Japanese homework.

Today I refused to clean up my room. Not wanting to find any little bits of sadness buried under the blankets. Sunbathed. Ate peanut butter with my beer. Resolved that sleep is very close to being an absolute good. Heard nervous Julia pacing while I read her stories. Seduced the entire swim team of my old high school in my mind because I was so gawky unpopular then

Spoke carefully, lukewarm, and I may regret it later, because accidents will happen

Decided in favor of happiness.

Erected a statue to the ingenius failures of my good friend Mike.

Saw Bruno in the doorway, sweaty on rollerblades, and listened patiently to the newest episode in his monumental failure to get laid.

Smiled at the photographs in my head.

Said to myself that I want to write poetry again. Decided that "poetry" was an impoverished and misused word like many words.

Shrugged, too thankful sleepy to think.

Another We Can Refund It For You item: American Beauty. What a film. Astonishing. Saw this with my s.o. last night, and at the end of the film we both sat there, embracing, tears running down our faces. You should go see this. See it in a theater. Don't miss it.

In my name, known as the day I was forced to write a review of American Beauty in Russian on a mock exam.
A rather terrible experience, as American Beauty is a good movie, and Russian is a bad language to write about it in.

Another day, another exam. Todays exam wasn't exactly the best I've ever done, but I think I'll pass.

What else? Ah, just before I went to bed last night I cleaned up my room, and that's a pretty biblical even. Today I am thinking of cleaning up my computer desk and that would be an even bigger event! So stay put, you might hear about it on the television later to night. =)

I woke up on the couch at work. Played a few rounds of Civ CTP, and checked to see if a good night of sleep worked its magic and maybe now my VirtualHost directives work properly. They do. So I'm noding. With this last piece of important business out of the way, I'll go home, tape a plastic bag over my cast and shower. I'll go back to work for a while. Around noon I'll go to the hospital to finally get my cast taken off (yaay), and go back to work. Around 5 I'll take a nap on the couch until 10:40, then I'll drive to my night job.

14:47 EET

A friend (who goes by the user name Jope in here) visited the office today. He looked at the site I am currently working on and uttered a sentence I won't easily forget:

"You're a real web designer now!"

Now, most of the l337nux people reading this are laughing their asses off at the moment. Because of all the scorn directed at us lowly new media workers by people who think they are "k3wl", one might wonder if such a statement is meant to be taken as an insult or a compliment.

At least it means I'm doing a good job.

Doesn't it?

FOOD:

1 cup coffee
2 plain veggie burgers

---

i'm in a better mood today. more relaxed. chilled. i got a net postcard from juliet at epcot center, she was wearing a pink tiara and was hugging her man. a cute picture.

my boss is back in the office today, he was in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. he's covered in road rash (even though he was wearing denim and leathers), and has a broken shoulder. his helmet was completely destroyed, but better that than his head.

i was gotten by the ILOVEYOU virus. i recieved it via e-mail from my new boss. i opened it. i saw my computer chugging away and promptly turned it off. i didn't send it to my entire address book (i don't think), but i did lose all of my .jpg and .mp3 files. i don't particularly mind. almost all of the pictures i want i have on my webpage (http://www.slack.net/~ophie) or within that account somewhere, but. BUT i am sore about losing the picture of me with the wu-tang clan.

My son was late from school. I called one friend, he's out of town on a field trip, so no way of knowing if he rode the bus home. Corey's phone is busy, checking IM I don't see him online. compman912 says hello he says my son rode the bus home and is at Corey's. He's sweet enough to tell Corey to quit hiding from me and tell Lometa's son to call home.
Number One Son walks home from work, the car is still not fixed, kind of odd walking passed him on the way home from the grocery store the other day as he walked to work. He grabs the basketball, bouncing it out the door and down the sidewalk he's off to play a pick up game at the park.
Number Two Son calls and wants to know what's for dinner. Pizza I say.

A few minutes later I've forgotten all this activity. The pizza's in the oven and I'm thinking the boys are in their rooms doing homework. Chris comes through the front door red faced ,it's hot, still in the 90's at six o'clock, and asks when is dinner going to ready.

I would think after so long I would get used to this forgetfulness, but it always catches me off guard, it's especially alarming when it comes to my kids.

The Lord says,
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
- Isaiah 42:16 (NIV)

Devotion

I'm not sure what's happening today. Something strange is in the air, this is certain. I've been getting weird vibes from everyone I have come in contact with. Maybe I should go home and go back to sleep (mmmmmm, sleep). Time seems to be non-existant today. Its already 11:00PM(EST)? I have a very, very bad feeling about this.

Things to do today:

• maintain sanity
• stop talking/typing in fragments
• destroy the next person who emails me about the "ILOVEYOU" worm.

---

Updates:

1. Ate at Don Pablos and was reminded that tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo, so I'm taking tomorrow off.

Well, I'm proud. The two Windoze computers in our house are now sharing files via the network.

That's no bloody challenge. I'm bored stiff already. Thus, I'll soon see if I can get the Linux box to do the same thing.

I went to get my oil changed at the local Valvoline, and they say:

Valvoline guy:"Umm, your transmission fluid sorta smells like its burning. You should probably replace it. $69.95."

Me: "Well...... I should probably do that, shouldn't I?"

Valvoline guy: "Umm... yeah. I'll give you $5 off the oil change, too."

Me: "Allright.."

So I ended up spending over $100, when I had just planned on spending $25. Yiick.

The Geek I Am. My desk blotter is a double-width pad of quad-ruled graph paper - that's the kind of gamer geek I am. For the past few weeks the top page was a map of Griffin Island. Now that I have the scanner working, I've scanned the map onto ickis. Unfortunately, I have never solved the problem of translating maps to bits; I have a very nice TIFF file of the map, but no clue what I can do to make it interact with other information I have compiled about the setting.

More than you wanted to know. -or, The Geek I Am, revisited. The sunburn I picked up on my balding pate last Saturday has been itching and peeling and DRIVING ME DOG MAD. I had to rub moisturizing lotion into my hair to keep my scalp from unattractively flaking off all day. It looks like I'm using styling gel or somesuch, and that is so not me.

The Lunchbox of Notre Dame. That has a funny ring to it. On an unrelated note, had lunch with ™-. at The Pub, my standard Killian's with a side of taylor-ham-on-a-cheeseburger. Lunch kills me. She loaned me her copy of Disney's Beauty & The Beast. Her sister is getting married, she is stressing coordinating the bridal shower.

Wu-wei. In a surprise display of affection, my mother invites me to join her and Dad for dinner at Red Lobster. She makes me nervous. It seems as if every time we meet in other people's company, she finds an excuse to bring up some stupid thing I've done or remind me of some painful and/or embarrassing episode in my life. So, while this friendly gesture is... well... a friendly gesture, I am wary of letting my guard down. She does the same thing to my father. What makes me shudder: I see this same bitchy mean streak in myself, in my worst moments. =(

A Different Drum. Sometimes when I am playing an .mp3 in WinAmp (which really does whip the llama's ass, usually) under NT4, and I am dialed-up to the Internet, the system locks up and the .mp3 cycles at whatever staticy rattly buzzing point the system froze. "Stable operating system", snort. Shirley MacLaine is doing a book-signing at the nearest Barnes & Noble tonight. My roommate got the ILOVEYOU virus, but deleted it before I could snag a copy. The "Big Game" lottery jackpot is up to ~$200M in tomorrow's drawing, I kicked $5 into the pool at work. Ivan, my mom's cat, came to see my apartment for the first time today... fortunately my roommate's parakeets were safely shut away in her room.

- / +

Thursday. Heather is something cunts buy tickets and stand in line to feel sorry for. Kyle is a bastard asshole. I accidentally out Will Smith to his mom re his creative writing attempts. She yells at him in front of everyone for not trusting her enough to share his poetry with her. He gives me one baffled, stricken look and then she has dragged him outside. I forgive him for trying to touch my breast. Ivan is a bastard asshole too.

After work, Gladiator. Forty-five minutes in, I realize how badly I want to leave. This movie is not good for me. It is all bad imagery. Dying killing dying killing and the honor bit doesn't register with me. This movie is making my head worse. I don't mean that watching simulated death makes me immoral. But letting endless destruction in is not a good idea. I don't want anything unrealistic for myself, I don't mean for my life to go all Precious Moments but my gut is telling me to get out and I am telling my gut to shut up and take it.

This film was grisly and I knew it was going to keep being grisly and I knew there would be no hope in it. For public appearances, I stayed. Why the fuck? For two people whose opinions I don't care about, and one who would have understood, later, had I left.

After the movie it is "meeting a lot of people you instantly hate" time. It's over in five minutes but I hate it a lot. I am surrounded by boys whose game it is to be loud and girls who wield the bravery of short skirts and no bras.

Maybe some of them would be surprised to know I cry all the way home. It's from my shitty kids, and my headache from sitting too close to whirling dusty death for two and a half hours, and because I hate myself for slipping into the easy role of "girl who stands quietly to the side, not being introduced," but mostly I cry becuae I am so sick of failing to listen to what I need.

None of you here know how shy I can be or how stupid and out of place and stupid and stupid I can feel.

I scribble notes all the way home so I won't lose any of how rotten I feel. My notebook is in my passenger seat and that's the way I like it.

After work and my classes in the The educational equivalent of Siberia, I went out to see Bebe Neuwirth in Seth Rudetsky's Broadway Chatterbox. However, on my way to transfer to a train to Times Square, I've bumped into a guy who in turn dropped and broke his glasses. Anyways, he has found me and I will not push him off like anybody else would do. The guy's a parking lot attendant who really needs to keep his job and he has to get new glasses as soon as possible. I gave him $40 to pay for part of the expense. Afterwards, I had to take another $40 for the Bebe interview.

I was supposed to watch the tadpole while my wife went to the hospital today, but I got a rather thorough ass chewing this morning from my boss for leaving early yesterday. Leaving this morning was not an option. Wife thinks she has Strep Throat, and has been trying to get me to come home early from work since tuesday. I feel like an asshole, but I know she'll be able to handle taking the boy with her to the doctor. He's two, so he is a handfull, but not so much that it's going to kill her or anything.

Well, that's what I keep telling myself, at least.

I've decided I no longer want to take over for my boss. I'm going to have to come in Saturday and Sunday, which sucks.

The day was just great. Too many things broken. I ran around here at work making sure people were really doing what they were supposed to do until about 6:30 pm, where I crawled home to a very silent wife and sleeping tadpole. The girls were in foul moods, and the long haired one and I fought again. We eventually called a truce, and decided to use secret code words to help calm ourselves down. I can't divulge any specifics, but it involves monkeys.

Monkeys are intrinsically funny.

I see Scott Hall walking down the street, spiffed up and postering for his own show at the WWII tonight. I tell him he looks famous. He's nervous, not nervous.

I take him out to dinner at Joe's and insist on paying because he's the star tonight.. he's never fronted a band before. He told me, four years ago, he and some friends were playing "pass the guitar" and he realized that they all had songs of their own to sing, but he didn't. If these jerks can write songs, why can't i?! So he decided that when he had ten songs, he would do a show, with his friends (some from the band, others from elsewhere). So this was the day for Scott Hall and the Setbacks, a temporary band. Some friends open for him. It feels like a family. My dad would love this.

The World War II is actually the World War II veterans' club in Northampton, graced with a periscope that looks out over the town, a bar with cheap beers, and three pool tables. So this is where you can go to be away from Smithies, Umass frat guys, all those other caricatures, this is where the twentysomethings are, with the local music that's been pushed out of the Iron Horse by our local entertainment monopoly. This is it, rubbing elbows with the veterans, laughing. Rah rah. I was never comfortable at a bar, especially when i don't know anyone (but the band!)

It is not a disappointment. But i leave after the show, after congratulating him, because it is almost two and i have to work. Always have to work. The Neil Young song he played stays with me throughout the coming weekend.