Saturday, February 23, 2002
Goddammit, I rip van winkled...AGAIN |9:39 PM|
Well, since I've only had 2 meals in the last...oh dammit, 3 days, and I didn't take Adderall before going to be because I wanted to make sure I slept soundly, I seemed to have accidently slept for more than 10 hours. Dammit. It doesn't help that I stayed up for 24 hours, slept for 2, stayed up 24 hours, before going to bed. HOWEVER, my headaches came back, and I found that if I keep pumping myself full of caffiene and ibuprofen that they go away and stay away. That does mean sleeping is a little tougher.

I have a lot of stuff to say, but all I can say is banter lowers my IQ. I engaged in several hours of banter that was not "Clever banter" with Vorpal on friday. Of course, he was drunk at the time. At one point, after several minutes of silence, we were waiting for an elevator, and Vorpal says in a pride filled, slightly shocked voice:

"I'm wearing...a cowboy hat!"

Neither of us could stop laughing for several minutes, and we had to lean on the sides of the elevator to keep from falling down. Geez. "I...am a banana!"

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Friday, February 22, 2002
Requiem for a one. |2:56 PM|
A friend of mine's most rebellious, most iconclast pet died last night. I had little to offer in comfort other than sympathy, but I did my best. I'm glad she's doing alright on the grief front, she's a tough trooper. I'm sure she'll be okay, she has friends near her.

Someone taught me a long time ago that one of the best ways to express a sudden, almost shock-like, emotional reaction through text is an "Oh, " followed by a name, and then a short, perfectly honest statement on your feelings. I use it so rarely, yet it is a perfectly genuine statement and expression, that over time it hasn't lost it's power to me. I wonder if it's as effective on other folks as it was on me. I truly hope so.

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These are people who hummed, hummed. They were all my friends, and they hummed. |1:26 PM|
Using an example of a complicated light refraction/data storage medium, and the combination of 2 of the so called "simple machines" that drive mankind's technology, I managed to extricate myself from a complex spring clasp that was affixing a piece of body ornamentation to my neck. In other words, I put on a necklace last night that I haven't worn in some time, and thanks to this fashion whim, managed to be trapped in the damn thing. The metal components had been bent in an incredibly bizarre way, and I couldn't get wire cutters close enough without slicing my throat or the necklace. My needle nose pliers were unavailable at the time that I realized the damn thing was stuck. A good policy to keep is that you shouldn't cut into your neck for any reason, even if you're SURE you are not about to trigger a comical geyser of your internal life juice. The last thing you want is a necklace and possibly a shirt ruined as a heart beat rhythm'd fountain of unleaded people gasoline splashes off your vanity mirror.

I was pretty sure the day was going to go poorly when, despite being late for work, I was standing in front of a mirror straining against a tiny safety pin, desperately trying to remove the necklace and get to work. I failed to remove the necklace, and I had to return home for both my badge and my pager. Oh, and I left my wallet behind. I did get the hemp off of my neck when I arrived at work, using a CDROM of Lexmark printer drivers as a mirror and my needle nose "Finger Removin'(TM)" pliers.

I was incredibly impressed by a woman last night who remembered the name of Jim Carroll, when all I was able to remember was part of the chorus to "People who died". It took her a while, and we both had to keep singing "People who died, died" and there was a lot of humming.
I was also impressed by another woman's knowledge of Zoroastrianism, and my host's Cajun cooking ability was superb. Mmmm. Cajun gumbo. Sushi restaurants have taken the place of several local businesses. I don't know what that means, but I intend to try them out even if it means risking Fugu poisoning.

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Ahhhh |3:53 AM|
My headaches seem to have passed. I keep feeling the beginning of one come and go, like someone jiggling the doorknob to your house and then moving on. It still makes me jump, and think "Oh, no, how long will this one last" but I've been headache free most of the day. It's so wonderful.

I was so close to buying a kite today, but I couldn't find anything REALLY impressive, like a metallic parasol kite or one of those 250 MPH racing kites. Also, I don't have the budget for vitamins, and my body is showing major signs of vitamin deficiency. However, I did buy a package of this (the package claims) ultra teeth whitening toothpaste, and some aloe vera. I'm getting rid of my damned scars, and I'm dealing with my teeth. I go through toothbrushes like some people go through toothpicks. I have "thin enamel" (whatever that means) so keeping my teeth white is damn near impossible. But so long as I'm trying to look my best, I might as well try to deal with some of the more persistent physical defects. Now if I could just even out my eyelids, and maybe straighten my shoulders. Eh, another time.

By the way, I'm up so late due to a shindig/dinner party. I had a good time. Good morning folks out there.

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Thursday, February 21, 2002
This post is covered in monofilament wire. |12:01 PM|
I saw "Die Hard" a little ways back, after not having seen if for years. I'd seen the sequels relatively recently, and they muddied my recollection of the first one. There is a reason this movie was a genre maker, and it made all the other movies described as "Die hard on a boat" or "Die Hard in space" or "Die Hard on a Zeppelin" really shallow and weak by comparison. Those movies were all crappilly executed in my opinion, the hero seemed invincible and there wasn't any humor. Who cares if the bad guys are re-grouping so that a dozen are running at Steven Van Damme Segal, he's just going to kill them with his death ray eyes again. Die Hard's hero was very much mortal, and there was a fair amount of humor despite all the bullets flying into crotches and knees.
The reason I was considering all this was I trying to remember a movie that was strictly action that came close to being as impressive that has come out in the last several years. Yes Tombstone was incredible, as was Braveheart or Gladiator, but those were westerns and historical movies respectively, I'm trying to stick to strictly action. Best answers so far have been "The Fugitive" and "The Matrix", but I can't come up with any myself.

I guess I still feel guilty for enjoying the animated movie "Spriggan" as much as I did. It's certainly a movie that could be appreciated by those who are not total anime dorks, and it would give them enough background on the standard anime archetypes where they could view other movies without being totally lost.

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Luddite? Is that a floor wax? |11:14 AM|
My boss called me a Luddite for hating spam so much. He said it was here to stay and that it was like not buying things because they advertised on television. I said that was an unfair comparison, the commericials on television were paid for, and the money supported the show I was watching. At no time does money from X10 or Visa go from those companies to my ISP. If getting spam was something that made my internet service cheaper, then I'd be all for it. But the fact is that spam takes up bandwidth, hard disk space and energy. In reality, spam is costing me money. If you eliminated all that traffic it would mean less need for infrastructure, and thus a cheaper internet.


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6 OF A FUCKING KIND? |2:02 AM|
Okay, let's cover a little bit of poker here. The second highest hand they have odds for in the goddamn game is a 4 of a kind. You need to have 5 cards of all the same suit, in a straight (2,3,4,5,6 etc) to beat that. Those are long odds, incredibly long odds. Throw in a wild card, and you have a chance, still incredibly long odds, of getting 5 of a kind.

Getting higher than that is difficult.
Getting beaten by it when you've got 4 damned aces in your hand is like being punched by a car. I lost at least $10 going up against what I thought was going to be a 4 of a kind, that turned out to not just be 5 of a kind, but...6 OF A GODDAMN KIND.
I need to write NASA to find out the damned odds on this hand were.
Goddamit. I'm still reeling. Oh, and the bi chick and this [edit: correction, different guy entirely. A nice guy, actually. Oh drat] "possibly hitting it off". Goddammit.

Oh, and I owe a shitload of money to people. And I'm not in college. And my six pack isn't developing very well.
BITCH BITCH BITCH.

I'm still alive. I just may not have power or love or money.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2002
|1:07 PM|
The image below (which I turned off for sake of one called Sulzanti) is being fed from old, crappy hardware that I've been nursing back to health over the last couple days. The remarkable thing about this setup is that the hard drive that contained Win2k was formatted during installation. The installer told me there wasn't enough space to install without formatting, and asked if it was okay if it intialized the disk. I said "sure!" out of sick curiousity. It installed, despite a lack of a CD in the drive, and any sort of indication of where it was getting the install files from. When it was all done, I had a fresh, clean copy of Win2k on this Hard Drive, with no sign of any of the previous files. SHODAN is operational and I can't explain why. I'm going to reinstall the shoutcast server, as well as the other servers that this computer used to do. At the moment, Sulzanti is downloading "Spriggan", which is an excellent anime movie. I blame Sulz for my anime addiction, but at least he hasn't led me astray.

Yet.

Outside it is staggeringly beautiful. It's easily the nicest day I've seen in weeks. Yes, I'm blithering once again about the weather, but it cheered me up. It's barbeque weather.

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Stupid Cam |2:35 AM|
By cobbling together various bits of hardware and software, I present, the Fridge cam.



Feel the frigid action! Oh yeah!

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Tuesday, February 19, 2002
+5 Golden Shovel of Bullshit |9:42 PM|
So we got a call yesterday regarding the recent CERT advisory regarding possible holes in SNMP.
Actually, this is fucking boring. Let's just say "Cuba exploded". Dell asked us why Cuba exploded, and how that would impact our printing. Though we had no idea cuba exploded, my boss managed to spin quite an impressive line of BULLSHIT that convinced them that we were safe. Given that short reprieve, we jumped into action. With less than an hour's research, I learned more about SNMP, I mean, cuba exploding, then the people we were having to answer to, as well as all the Lexmark people would with whom we could get into contact. That meant my boss had to again produce written, magical bullshit to cover our asses until someone from Lexmark could make an official statement. While the rest of the goddamn world made statements the same day, it took Lexmark an additional 36 hours to come up with their own, legal bullshit. The goddamn company is run out of a barn.

In other news, I forgot to buy ham at the grocery store, my father's car was hit by a guy who then sped off, and my cousin was hit by a car. My cousin is badly bruised and lost 2 teeth. My father is just really pissed.
I, on the other hand, am hungry.

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My boss made this |1:01 PM|


Geez. I managed to stab myself underneath my tongue with a straw, and the filling on these crappy cupcakes is unusually creamy. In fact, it resembles....well, semen for crying out loud. This sucks.

I'm making some cookies tonight with the last of my groceries. Who wants some peanut butter cookies? Anyone? Anyone. Meh.

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We'll save the day! With Team work! |12:58 PM|
Next monday is when this whole insurance, ticket, electricity issue comes to a head. I'm running out of time and options. If I had my Time Warner W2, I could do my taxes, get an advance on my refund, and be saved. Sadly, my W2 from Time Warner was never sent to me, and payroll at TW was out yesterday. This is a very poor situation.

Some of the things that have been explored have been sperm donation, which was rejected as the actual trial period is 6 months, plasma donation, which doesn't pay well enough, pawning things, which was rejected as I lack anything worth pawning. At this point I've got organ sales and bank heists to fall back on, but if I'm breaking big laws, why bother worrying about a ticket?
I wish I could say the day was going to be saved by an army of friendly lesbians, but that fell through. I did ask if there was any chance they could save the day. I suggested a musical montage in the fashion of a bad 80's movie, whereby the lesbians rally together and raise the money by pluck alone.

I'm amazed that I'm not going to be able to weasel my way out of this situation. My power may get shut off and I may lose my license. Usually I panic about such things, then find a solution, handle the situation, and go on with my life.

I was walking around outside last night, barely awake, and I had one of those self questioning moments. I can't take a step back from myself, and observe myself, because then, who would be doing the observing? When I was younger, I used to be fascinated sometimes by just moving my hand. "I'm doing this. I'm moving this hand, only I can do this." It's like trying to roll your eyes back far enough to see yourself, or trying to move your head in such a way so that you see the back of your skull. It always throws me for a loop.

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Monday, February 18, 2002
Yeah, I'm a bad ass |7:56 AM|
I'm in a really damned good mood, despite it being both monday morning and my current financial woes. I ate a healthy breakfast (Just in time.) and found a box of granola bars in the car from last week. Also, they are finishing up the road work outside of my place of employment, making the commute here much, much faster.
Still no news on the female I'm trying to ask out. She apparently left town last week, which seems to always be the case.
I was awake all of last night, typing weird things, posting some of them on message boards. I spent the rest of my time fixing up my old computers, which meant locking my cat in the bathroom all night. at one point I had 3 of the 4 functional computers in my house gutted and on the floor. The first thing my cat would do upon seeing them would be to jump into one of the cases, or just vomit on a motherboard. At that point I would have my cat for dinner.

My boss is being constantly offered puppies by one of our Overminds. She is rather desperate to rid herself of these puppies. My boss is tempted to accept, and then eat, one of the puppies. Then ask for another.
Today I will get my W2's mailed to me, and then I will do my taxes. With any luck, I should have a hefty refund.

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Sunday, February 17, 2002
What? |10:37 PM|
I don't really recall most of the weekend. I don't know if some kind of sleep deprivation bill came due, or if the money situation depressed me to the point that not even my medication could fight it, but I seem to have spent most of the last 24 hours in and around my bed. I remember being called by a couple people, and I remember trying to sleep through the fantastically obnoxious alarm clocks I have, but other than that it's all a blur. The only thing I can clearly recall is the feeling of my eyes closing, over and over.

I had a dream where I found a check for a couple thousand dollars from some damned magazine. I had apparently leaked some key info to them, and they had gratefully payed me. Looking at the check I realized it wasn't really for cash, it was a fake check that showed the value of a bunch of coupons they had given me. In the odd reality of the dream, the check changed back to cash, but only for $300, then back to coupons, then back to cash for the full amount. That's when I realized I wasn't being an incompetent check reader, it was some sort of dream.

I also dreamed of being sent to war in my neighborhood. I hated every damned second of it. Not so much "The horrors" of war, but the minor annoyances. I was always reloading, cleaning up the people I had shot to death, having to duck and hide while other people defended my out of ammo self, just annoyances building up to intolerable levels. Really stupid stuff.

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