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(running New Zealand Standard Time, GMT +12, so i get my days before the rest of you slackers…)

Day two of my big adventure; road trip with my brother up the Hutt Valley through our old stamping grounds. In the afternoon we'll be at Tim's 25th birthday party in masterton, hopefully not getting too drunk for the evening drive to Palmerston North.

Staying with the folks that night.

For the last two weeks, my 4x4 truck my only mode of transportation, has been in the shop. I live in Texas, the biggest state in the continental Untied States, it's 45 miles from where I live, to where I work. I have no truck, I have no life.

I received a call from the Toyota shop today, "Tex, we've encountered a problem with your truck, we would like you to come down and take a look at it yourself."

Dammit, this is not good...

I took my truck in to find out why it was leaking 90 weight gear oil from the front pumpkin. It turns out that my front axel quite literally twisted into two seperate pieces. What was going to cost only $1,000 is now going to cost $2,200+ to fix. This is a severe blow. Especially since I was planning on buying my motorcycle this month.

I've been riding with anm to work everyday or else I would not be here now. It is going to take another week for the part to come in from California. Then it'll take a day to put it in. This is bad, very bad. This is the hell that is my life.

I’m tired, tired of being me and tired of being the person I try to be:
At 11.22am today I came out to my mother. She found something that I wrote last year, something angsty and currently emotionally insignificant about that certain someone, and confronted me about it. There were a few tears, but I’ve come out of it (pun not originally intended) very unscathed. She kept hugging me and saying that she doesn’t mind, that it’s going to be alright. I cried a lot, but I think it was out of utter shock rather than any other particular emotion. I think more than anything it was uncomfortable in its newness. A bit too much reality for me.

Movies are a ‘filtered reality’ (the only profound line of the Blair Witch Project), a place to escape into when reality is too awkward. Movies have their own encased truths - I like to be convinced of something I would never ordinarily believe in. I’m making my first “movie” next Friday. I’ve got a script, actors (acting students at least), extras and a camera operator. All I’m missing is a video camera, but that should be remedied soon.

Maybe I should feel different. Maybe I should feel changed. Maybe I should feel.

Oh.... homecoming week next week. Let's all gather and prance in joy, as we celebrate our supposed superiority (what the hell does crazy hair have to do with school pride?) And i think i'm the only one that doesn't give a fuck about their stupid hitleresque ways... Plus, i lost a girlfriend to some senior to take her to homecoming... (see here)... That just adds to my hate. But it's football. And they're elevated to godliness. For doing that. HOW does that work? Are a bunch of yokels from Palookaville really gonna make it big on their mad footballing skillz in the real world? Ugh...

My friend came over today -- the one that I "left behind" in 5th grade (I skipped, avoiding the sinking quagmire that is fifth grade, and he didn't). I was tired. It was friday. I felt so fucking horrible... I passed out. Honestly. I felt horrible about it. But there was a bed there and I laid down, and when I woke up, whatever Fox movie that they were running against the Olympics was on... I'm still tired. I'm bleary-eyed. The only reason I came on was to try to figure out exactly when R.E.M.'s new CD would be due out... they're still working on recording it in Dublin, from what I read. I can't wait; I hope (deeply hidden R.E.M. pun) they try another Up. (I like it; it's techno, without being too airy or harsh, juuust right. Ugh...

Life sucks. I dislike high school. I want a new computer! or at least a synthesizer. I'm growing restless. I hate sine waves. I hate people that charge for something that should be in the public domain. $5 per 8.5x11 sheet of paper? Cripes, just gimme the damned file and I'll print it! But no, that is not the way of the world.

Ugh. Got homework. Don't want to do homework. want to SLEEP, DAMMIT! But I can't, so I won't.
Life sucks.

I need something to do.

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Well, why the hell wasn't I invited?

3:35 BST

The neighbours are having some kind of orgy next door. It sounds as though maybe 3 couples are having sex at the same time. (or they maybe have a porn movie on with a really good sound system) But no, there's a lot of slapping sounds and knocking of furniture on walls, combined with male screams and female gasps...

But what is really bugging me? Well, my other neighbour has obviously woken up and put some loud music on to drown out the sex sounds from this orgy. And I think one of the participants is providing a running commentary to someone over the phone.

And I need the sleep, dammit.

13:45 BST

Well, for once I got the sleep. But it seemed that I missed you online :( Anyway, whilst waiting for this silly server to install software, I have written shadow girl just for you. :)

I was just thinking about all the drugs I'm on. I mean, the doctor felt they would be good for my "condition," but they require so much of me that I'm thinking about not using them. Yes, I'm thinking of not taking my... uhhh...

Retin-A and Benzamycin.

Ok, so I didn't have you fooled. I may be quirky, but I don't require psychotropics, yet. Still, it is true. I despise them. Retin-A makes my face disgusting, greasy and smelly, and Benzamycin dries my face up and gives me a light, refreshing chemical burn. Ugh. I will admit though, that they've near wiped out my zits.

On DMan: I intended to keep silent on the issue, mainly because I'm not some glistening member of the e2 gliterati, but the thought occured to me when this week's school paper came out. One of our columnists, (nameless), is an incredibly poor writer, with a sense of rebellious humor ripped from Andrew Dice Clay (read: all the idiocy and misoginy without the Lenny Bruce-ish satire). However, people feel that he's cutting and fresh, mainly because he barely understands sarcasm, and can use the passive voice decently. When it came out, I was talking to a friend about the article, and how horrid it was. She agreed.

Katie: I do think he's bad. A lot of friends though, have been duped into thinking that he's "subverting" the system.
Me: Yeah, but he's done it so much, it seems more like a pattern of conduct than anything.
Katie: Agreed.

So, what does this have to do with the issue at hand? Many people feel that he was eliminated as a political martyr. I don't. He was a troll. He was purely hateful. While I disagreed on a lot with him (privately. I'm too wimpy to debate), I did concede a few points. Ignore the man behind the curtain. Big Brother loves all of you. Jokes aside, I don't really miss him or his venomous harangues.

So, the school paper came out today. Luckily, I wasn't on layout detail, so it looked semi-decent. I got published. We watched "Camelot" in English.

Well, it's the same day as my September 22, 2000 write up, but thanks to the vagaries of Everything, this belongs here, doesn't it? :)
Well, in contrast to my comments about burn out and pain from earlier, I have happy things to talk about.
A few weeks ago I was selected as a Beta Tester for Shiny Entertainment's game, Sacrifice. I got alot more info tonight, and will probably get to start playing on Monday. Yay me!

That's about all I can say because:
a.) I signed an NDA and
b.) I actually like Shiny. They're a good company.

But once the game is close to release, I should be able to share my thoughts about the game, and about the experiance of beta testing. Yay!

I've been fiddling with jcwren's luke_repwalker.pl from Perl Monks. I think I've finally tweaked it to work properly with E2. In other news, I finally have a free weekend. Now maybe I'll be able to catch up on the massive load of personal stuff I have to do....

---

Scratch that, it's still glitchy. Well, I'll fix it in the morning.

I went shopping today, in the pouring rain. Met up with seven other girls at Stacy's house before heading to Target. I volunteered to be a driver, being one of the most experienced of the group. I don't trust other people driving me around in the rain. Nothing personal. I trust my ability to avoid accidents, but you never know with other people who have had their licenses less than a year, if that.

We met a few more people at Target and began our long search. We were on a mission to find costumes for the senior Mock Rock, which will take place on October 6. It's so hard to decide what to wear when there are ten girls arguing about it. "No, my thighs are too big to wear leather pants," or "I'm too short," or "My hair is too long to fit under a wig." (that was me, sorry). Somehow we managed to decide on leather skirts and bright colored halter tops. It was a painful process which involved taking command of every store we looked at, storming the dressing rooms and running around with no shoes while searching for other options. All while trying to run back and forth across the parking lots without getting soaked.

We ended up at Haloween USA, which just opened last week (?), looking for tights and wigs. I voted for everyone getting the 'Super long 60" blondie' wig so that I wouldn't have to have fake hair. But it was a little too expensive for our predicted one minute and twelve second performance. So was the rest of the stuff we had already bought, but no one said anything. Why does everything have to be so complicated?

I drove my half of the group back to Stacy's house. We made a list of what we had bought to give to the rest of the girls who hadn't been able to come along. I guess they have to go find stuff on their own. Drove home in the rain, which was coming down harder and faster than ever. The roads were at an almost-flooded stage; I could feel the wheels leave the ground much too often to be at ease. Braking was scary. But I made it home.

Began a new drawing about an hour ago after waking up from a lengthy nap. My self portrait is almost finished, and the critique went surprisingly well. I hate drawing myself. Glancing in the mirror to brush my teeth is one thing, but staring at myself for hours while drawing all the imperfections I see is humiliating.

My eyelids are begining to droop. Twelve hours of sleep per day just doesn't seem to be enough. Goodnight.

i am.. really depressed, more than i care to try and explain to anyone, really don't think anyone would want to hear it anyway. i just want to get away from the feeling.. i haven't felt like this since christmas. not sure what to do with it.. my head is so sore and my brain isn't good for much but producing whining bullshit or whatever you want to call this. i guess i wouldn't be writing this here if i didn't want to feel like someone gave a shit.. ploy for sympathy? i don't know.. i think i was just hoping all of this would pass after i got all that sleep but it just feels worse now knowing it isn't caused by lack of rest.

i cried a lot last night.. i don't know what's going on in my head right now. i just want to be able to be close to you.. i need that.

today, i hide my eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

i think i'll pull myself out of this today, whatever it takes, because it's stupid to stay in it knowing i don't have to. it's just i never really figured out what was bothering me so much.. i guess it is a lot of little things. i don't want people to get sick of me.. namely, you. i feel like you might. i've yet to find anyone that could handle the way i slip sometimes without just getting mad at me.

i sketched again for the first time in at least half a year, last night.. not just doodles or.. anything, a sketch like the ones i used to. i couldn't finish it, didn't want to, wasn't in it enough but.. i can still do it and that feels good. i used to sketch a lot more, before i fell into whatever it is i fell into that flipped my creative output to text rather than images.

i found myself pondering last night, all of the people who told me that they would always be there for me, but never were, or really are not now. it wasn't a very nice realization but i guess it is the way of things and stuff, isn't it? i'm feeling better now.. just watch my mood progression in this daylog.. i'm so lame, i really am.

i shall believe.

Previous Log | Next Log

Today the 256KB leased line direct connection to Jaring from the office is finally up. There was actually no leased line, since the actual connection was via a 10Mb UTP connection to Jaring's node in the same building.

Since, there was no leased line, there was no direct payment to telco involved in this connection, and we managed to save about half of the connection cost. It cost us about USD 10,000 per year.

By some coincidence, today Jaring sent some survey research firm to interview me regarding users expectation of ADSL and SDSL.

Got a haircut today. It didn't go that well. It looks a bit strange..

For the rest of the day, It was evilly uneventfull(sp?). I browsed and noded on everything2 almost all day. Fixed some bugs at my community site(jazz2online). Talked to some people.. Submitted some nuke requests. :)

New writeups: the war - we'll be together - brand new day

Alas, birthday number 21

Birthdays, bloody birthdays, everyone makes such hoopla over birthdays. Especially the twenty-first one, 'round here.

Must have somthing to do with the American
obsession with alcohol. I mean, nobody goes out
on their eighteenth and gets completely drafted;
noone spends the whole day voting in all the
local districts, either.

So whoop-de-doo. Now I can legally drink. So I had a glass of wine for which the waiter forgot to charge me at dinner. And he gave us free dessert, also. I regret leaving him only eight bucks for a tip (the bill was less than $30.00, barely).

And I watched The Green Mile, and leveled myself up to Crafter, by noding up Project Gutenberg's copy of Erewhon.

Neither really feels like an accomplishment, but really, this was just another day

---

Seems like it was pretty much the same sort of thing for all of us, really.

...Heresay...Theresay...

I'm writing this daylog last, flying right in the face of the fact that I'll only get downvotes for it. I daylog for the sake of daylogging. So nur.

1:45 PM EST -- Nothing matters but the Tuesday from a weekend point of view

Some people, nay, most people, are blessed with a device called a "weekend". This wonderful artifact grants peace and serenity for a slight bit over 48 consecutive hours following the recieving of a paycheck. This divinely granted time is most commonly used to relax, try new things, or kludge together code just for fun.

Nope, not me. I've got work. 2:00PM - 10:00PM, every bloody weekend. And why? Because I've got classes during the week. I'm very convinced that I should try to get a job on campus next summer.

4:00-like PM EST -- I'll TELL you what way I want it

You know, if I ever get my hands on the guy who put Backstreet Boys songs in the Meijer muzak, I'm gonna kill him. Or her.

10:45 PM EST -- Free Parking

Most of the time when I get home, there's a nice, happy parking space waiting for me in front of the house. And if not there, in front of one of our next door neighbors' houses. Or, in a desperate attempt, actually IN the driveway, hoping the first person out the door the next morning (I'm always last out) will move the Pinto and not wake me up to do it.

Our neighbors from across the street were being arses again, taking up all viable parkage in front of all three houses. Add to this the fact that my cousin and his wife (Because "cousins" doesn't seem right) decided to visit, taking up the driveway...

Ah, well. My cousin's wife (Right, that doesn't look right, either) is an engineer... she can talk on the same wavelength as I do. Very sweet. Always nice to talk in person to someone who can understand you.

3:00 AM EST -- It's morning. I'm here. That's all that matters.

See, here's the trick, I just finished talking to my cousin (Or his wife... I'll follow consistent terminology next time, I'm tired now) about a half hour ago. Always fun to try to dissect a conversation that started with my slipshot IPMasq LAN and went on to my doodles, college, and Earthbound. A fun time was had by all. Much was learned.

Now here it is, 3:00 AM, and I won't be able to wake up in time for anything, let alone the physics homework I need to get done. But hey, intellectual to semi-intellectual discussion was quite worth it, I say. I don't get that sort of opportunity at work, I'll tell you that.

(Noded as soon as I got back from a four-day trip from Tampa to New York to be the best man in a wedding.)

Lunch at the Malt River Brewing Company. The oatmeal stout tasted much lighter than a Samuel Smith's; I was disappointed, but then I'd had high hopes. A sampler followed:

1. Apricot Wheat - a nice clear wheat beer; the apricot taste dissolves into a floral aftertaste.
2. Maibok - Nutty and has a bit of a bite to it. Hoppy.
3. Layla's Dark Lager - Probably named for Clapton's remake of Layla, this was earthy, with an organic taste I couldn't quite place.
4. Pilsner - At first hard to distinguish from seltzer after a mouthful of a vegetable pizza with a bechamel sauce, this pilsner was actually surprisingly hoppy, but felt smooth.
5. Malt River Red - More complex than I thought, with a plum-like taste giving way slowly to a spicy floral taste.
6. Old Albany Pale Ale - Tasted at first like ... well, I'm not sure, but it starts subtly before the hops appear later on.

Unfortunately, the maple porter was out of season, but maybe it'll be on next time I'm in town.

The ceremony was a mishmosh of Jewish and Catholic traditions, including a priest, a rabbi, several blessings, readings from both testaments, a ketubah (marriage certificate), a shattered glass, and (afterwards) a hail of candy confetti that was to show up in interesting places for the next 24 hours.

We all caravaned to Birch Hill for the reception. The trip involved around a mile of unlit roads twisting through the woods. I said something about how many horror movies begin this way, but that didn't sit well with the driver, who was the maid of honor and a sister of the bride.

At the reception, the wedding party was lined up and formally announced as we promenaded into the room to form an archway. I remember saying that unless I befriend royalty, this is probably going to be the most formal wedding I ever see.

During the second dance, we careened about merrily, bumping into each other. The maid of honor took up dancing with a bridesmaid, so I danced with the groomsman escorting her. I suggested he dip me, which we accomplished to some applause, and we swapped back to finish the dance.

Later, they dragged me out to fast-dance, to encourage the others, and I was very glad when the maid of honor's fiancé relieved me of the task. I can waltz passably, but anything faster and I look like a dancin' fool.

Chrissy fed Adam a piece of cake to the tune of the "Jeopardy!" theme, and then the DJ switched to "Mission: Impossible" as he fed her. I don't get either choice.

While calling out styles of "the swim" for the dancers, the DJ made a memorable boo-boo: "Okay, now backstroke... Now the breaststroke... Now doggie-style, er, dogpaddle!"

The same DJ later announced that the groom wanted to dedicate a song to the best man (i.e., me). It was "Dancing Queen". This turned out not to be Adam's idea at all, but a caper the DJ had decided to cut. I'm not sure if he thought I was gay because I was dipped earlier or what. I don't even like disco songs, let alone ABBA.

At some point I ended up singing along to the Grease megamix with a nice young lady, and after that I was going out on the dance floor a bit more often. By the end of the evening, I had ended up sticking a peacock feather in my hair and joining a "New York, New York" kick line.

The peacock feather attracted lots of good-natured laughter, but also some painfully troglodytic reactions from a guest. He affected a lisp and pretended to fawn over me, so I just said "You've got a really strange sense of humor." Later, this same guy pointed at my attempts to dance and cackled so loudly that suddenly I was back in middle schoo, trying not to hate myself for being uncool. Damn it, this was the first time I cut loose and just enjoyed dancing, and he nearly slapped me down to the self-confidence level of ten years ago. This guy is about to be the father of triplets, and I hope he treats them better than he treated me.

I went to the largest comic book convention of The Netherlands (yeah, I know, I'm a geek....) which is still small, in comparison to those in the USA. Spent too much money there on stuff I wanted to buy. This year was the first time Gen Con Benelux was also organised at the same time, so they combined the 2 conventions. Just as I left the convention, a friend called me and asked if I could look for a few Spawn issues that he still was missing. Too bad for him, since I was already in the car on the way home.

I got home, looked through the stuff I bought, and came to the conclusion that I forgot to look for a few issues, and that I bought a few things I already had (silly me).

In the late afternoon I wasted some time on IRC. Thank god a sweet lady was there, so it wasn't really wasted at all.

At 8 pm I went to a friend of mine, to watch a movie. He bought a few new ones on video (from the bargain bin). He had quite a few good ones (12 Monkeys, The Jackal, El Mariachi, From Dusk Till Dawn), and a few not so good ones (Scream 2, Mission: Impossible). Since most of us hadn't seen Mission: Impossible yet, we chose to watch that one. What a mistake it was. Well, mistake may be the wrong word. None of us really thought the movie was good. Instead, we made fun of it the whole time, which was pretty amusing.

When I got home around midnight, I wasted some more time on IRC, and went to bed, since I didn't feel like going out anymore.