November 1, 2000

11:01

::yawn:: Good morning.

Not much stuff happening yet, as usual, I wish that Cool Stuff will happen, though!

Like, a new release of Schedulist or something. Kewl Perl for Folks™...

I must also figure out the requirements for Linux kernel 2.4... if there's any new software I should install, and so on.

11:08

Is this reverse paranoia or something? It's not that I would not trust anyone, because I do; It's just that it seems to me no one trusts me! =/

13:45

Bashing through Usenet.

Here's an idea for newsreader coders: slrn's scoring system is fairly kewl, but I would also need a "Good Poster / Bad Poster" markers. For example, if there's a someone I disagree with to really large extent, I'd just mark the fellow as "Bad Poster" and hir name would appear on the article list with different color. And, if there's someone I respect a lot, I'd just mark it "Good Poster" and that'd also change colors.

Currently, all I can do is score up a bit or score down a bit - both of which are fairly confusing because I don't want the "respect" to affect article sorting and automagical marking-as-read...

Maybe I'll just need to tune the slrn configuration. =)

15:49

Soon through this stuff.

Need to print some old excercises, then head home and code the damn thing through... and filter some small excercises into the side of the Reality. =)

19:04

...and guess if any of that happened? Catshit.

I spent the evening documenting and "improving" Schedulist. The bloody thing won't work! I'm starting to hate Perl references. And the debugger. Are there any better Perl debuggers out there?

[Note: My rant on Why Perl Debugger Sucks: I can't quite say 'l some/file/thatllbeneeded.pm' and then 'b whateverline' - I can only do that to files that are explictly loaded. I load modules through eval. So sue me. Feel free to flame if you feel it's a Bad Idea™.]

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Everything Quest 6: E2's Scrapbook presentation graphics
Updated:

I spent the day at home alone in celebration of Samhain. Gave the house a much needed cleaning and hung out with my puppy dog. Here's a few things that I learned today:

• My dog has a very complex personality
• There is always something to watch on television
• I should clean more often
• I have more trash than I thought
• I can peel melted wax out of my bathtub quite easily
• It is always wonderful to smell like sandalwood and patchouly
• If you run my dishwasher twice per load, the dishes actually get clean
• You can never listen to too much Enya
• It is easy to forget what day it is when you simply stop caring

Merry Samhain and Happy Tuesday.

Rude awakening:

**BLAM-BLAM-BLAM**

The preggo flails frantically, trying to fight the laws of gravity and advanced pregnancy which seek to keep her horizontal in bed...

**BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM**

Waddling towards the door, wiping sleep from bleary eyes... "Hang on a @#$%ing minute!"

Outside my back steps stands a large, muscular, clean-cut looking older man. Huh? I crane my neck out the back door, trying to keep my protruding belly from knocking me totally off balance. Hmmm... an unmarked Sherriff's Office vehicle at the end of my driveway... Corky tries to bolt out past me. Glad I already put his leash on him.

"Sorry about the wait, sir," I mumble. "I don't move too fast these days."

"Good morning. Are you Christina ******?" I nodded. "And is Patrick ****** your husband?" My head bobbed affirmatively once more as I cleared my throat. The man handed me two sheets of paper. "This is about your neighbor, George ***********. You two are supposed to appear as witnesses for the prosecution in the case against him."

"Sir, I called the State Attorney's office the other day because our testimony was going to be taken by phone -" I began.

"Well, ma'am, according to this subpoena you're both going to have to appear in court. You could try calling the State Attorney's office again, but either way you two have to testify." He left without further discussion. Swell.

I looked at the dates listed on the sheets. The case is slated - not yet assigned a docket date - to happen sometime between November 13th and December 11th. Friggin' splendid. This baby is due around December 11th and I'm going to have several obstetrics appointments between now and then. Besides, there's still my other son's needs to consider, plus tons of pre-newborn preparations still to be made.

All this hassle is because several of us saw that fucking idiot crackhead neighbor punch the cop who was arresting him. Grrrrr!!!

---

Happy Samhain and Blessed Be to all my Pagan Brothers and Sisters!!!

How could Halloween have been any cooler? Where to begin...

First, I watched about four hours of television looking for racial images for Reading Culture Signs 121.
Then, I wrote a three page Computer Ethics paper on how I would go about making a hypothetical descision.
(this is the good part) Then, I wrote a two page paper on comparing terms and ideas in two COMPLETELY UNRELATED articles that I paid $15 for!

Bah. Wasn't that bad I suppose.
Had a loooong chat with my sister on life and the other five people in our family. Also talked with Jason, he went to my old high school (CHHS) but now is in college in Australia. He's really a cool guy.

In E2 News, I leveled to Scribe (level 4). Woohoo! I'm a little behind on becoming a godhead in 10 days but I'm still going at it ;-)

This morning I finally made a lot of progression in solving one of the problems we have here at work with a scheduling program. Normally, a certain action took about 25 seconds. Since this has to be done hundreds of times every day, it would save a lot of time if we could speed it up. Also, the people who are using the program were annoyed by it, since they had to wait a while whenever they were working with that program. So for the past few days, I've been digging through the source codes, looking for a way to speed it up.
And I did it. It now takes less then 3 seconds for that certain action, which took 25 seconds. I removed some redundant pieces of code, but that didn't really make a spectacular difference. Then I found an SQL-statement which I thought could be a lot faster, so I rewrote it. The results were far from bad. The procedure is over 20 seconds faster now.

The rest of the day I've been testing it on the test database, to make sure it really really really works fine. And It does. Now all we have to do is wait for approval to implement it in the production database, which will probably be next Monday.

Around lunchtime, I received a phonecall from a friend of mine. She wanted to tell me a few things. First of all, she now had internet access at home (before that she always used to email me when she was at school), and secondly, she had a new boyfriend. I congratulated her, we chatted a bit more, and before I knew it, it was half an hour later. It reminded me that most women keep talking on the phone about all sorts of things, men don't say more then necessary. I'm somewhat blessed that my girlfriend has a bit of a phobia for phones. However, it would be nice if she called a bit more often.

Besides the above mentioned things, I haven't really done a lot here at work. I've been surfing the web a bit, read most of the new nodes here at E2, and listened to some cds. My music selection here at work for today is the Demons & Wizards album, Tool: Ænima, Krezip: Nothing Less, Blaze: Silicon Messiah, Helloween's new album The Dark Ride, and one the new discs by the Insane Clown Posse: Bizaar (one of the two new discs from their album Bizzar Bizaar).

I can't wait to go home, since I have a light headache, and I still have a few DVD's at home that I haven't watched yet. So I think I'll be watching a movie tonight, and chat a bit on IRC with a few friends and my girlfriend, then go to sleep to rest a bit. I've got a meeting tomorrow, so I have to be awake.

Exercise log:

• Pushups: 45 (I just can't break 50)
• Side-kicks: 40, each side
• Crunches: 35+10

Insomnia: none, but I had a bit of sleepwalking.

I'm chatting with the catholic schoolgirl while I write this.

I switched to crunches, because situps just take too long. With crunches, the burn settles in much, much sooner. I wrote it as 35+10, because I did 35, squealed in pain for a bit, and then did 10 more.

Still trying to come up with a good idea for our date this weekend.

I had a really bizzare bout of somnambulism last night. But it was connected to a dream I had last night, so I won't write about it here.

Another morning of jaded academic bliss. I miss having the DSL connection at home. I'm realizing now how difficult it is to concentrate in a computer lab full of students talking on cell phones whilst browsing the AOL webpage. I've heard that the internet is broken a couple of times in the last fifteen minutes and some lame ass professor tell the techs that all of the [computers are broken because his Word file won't open. I tried not to eavesdrop (partially because it's just too painful to listen to these sorts of conversation) but it turns out that the floppy he had was from like 1989 and was his thesis in Wordperfect. Yes, I will do research and archive and I will be happy.

Halloween was boring because I am boring. I realized when going out to eat last night that "casual" holidays are the very worst time to eat at a restaurant because no one working there cares. Why?

1. It's a holiday that is more geared towards parties that involve friends and beer as opposed to relatives and fruitcake. Being stuck at a sucky job waiting tables on a beer and friends holiday is even suckier suck.
2. Major holidays bring crowds in that tip well. "Casual" holidays don't mean anything to restaurant staff except a higher than normal ratio of drunken idiots who think they're funny and do not tip well.

   I found out from our server that employees of that restaurant were required to come to work in costume. Boy, oh, boy, nothing like a little mandatory wackiness to lighten up the workplace. All I could think of was the restaurant in Office Space.

So, I went back home and had to deal with snotty little beggars pounding on my door despite the fact that The fucking candy is mine! Get thee away from my doorstep lest I call the truancy officer!] and, of course, my porch light was off. The little cretins must have smelled my fear because they just kept pounding away on the door. I think that society may be building a race of super-telemarketers and canvassers. I finally just told them to go away through the door. I am getting old.

This is not the sort of post-Halloween hangover to which I have grown accustomed.

Last night saw me hunkered alone in the county attorney's office of a courthouse sixty miles from my apartment, frantically typing a fifteen page research paper which was due two hours ago. Meanwhile, my car sat in full view of vandals, egg throwers and pumpkin bombers behind the building. By some miracle, it wasn't touched all night.

Somewhere around three a.m. the stomach aches began. The bag of cheetos just wasn't cutting it, and the hunger mixed with roughly four hours of sleep (total) for the past three days probably didn't help my concentration much.

At five, I threw in the towel and drove home, acutely aware that my driving was inhibited by fatigue. I must have looked like a drunk driver, weaving across the center line. At least I was in good company, as the late-night partyers and early-morning hunters appeared to share my inability to focus on the road.

I crawled in my door at six, barely beating the sunlight to my coffin, and checked the day's schedule before collapsing for two hours of sleep. That's when I realized I had another three-page paper and an exam, both at nine a.m.

Sometimes you can't help but laugh to keep from screaming.

My day:

I woke up at 6:00AM EST. Got ready and left for school. When I got to school the library was closed so I couldn't get on to E2. (Lazy Librairians). When the library finnaly opened I had 10 minutes to look at my nodes and stats. Then the stupid "Proud To Be An American" warning bell song plays like it does every day.

During school I got a 58 on my science test and was really pissed. My science teacher (as nice as he is) is really making me mad with all of little detailed point deduction system. But he is nothing compared to my geometry teacher now she is an ass. After I got home at 3:30PM EST I went online and have been on E2 since then. My parents aren't home yet, but when they come home I will be working all night on my stupid homework.

Oh yeah halloween was fun. Candy is awsome, even better when free.

Japanese food is heavenly.

I haven't been going to my Social Psych class much lately. That being my only class today, I managed to stay in pajamas until mid-afternoon, playing with Zope and Wiki (that is to say, ZWiki) and registering my first .us domain, stargazer.pvt.k12.co.us, which is for a private school my friend Beth (marble) is starting. I discovered zoneedit.com, which appears to offer free DNS hosting. I can't figure out what the catch is.

All my clothes, all my sheets, everything is in the laundry. Sleep tonight will be a kludgey matter of layering blankets.

I killed a bunch of horrid writeups, and will kill some more now...

I couldn't think of what to node lately. So I was going through some old email, and a friend of mine had sent me old emails I sent him years ago in 1993. I was 14 years old then, and some of the things I wrote seems strange, that I should have felt those things then. And that it's very similar to what I still feel now. Maybe I haven't changed at all?

I wrote:

I just go on every day and put on my mask. The little bubbly, cheerful girl mask. Sometimes it's like the whole world is against me, like I'm the only one with problems. I used to think life was empty, depressing, just broken by brief moments of happiness.

I'm actually always depressed inside, but alot of the times I'm happy, too, and my happiness covers my depression. Make sense?

I feel out of control of my life. I feel empty, like I have no goals, nothing to look forward to. Sometimes I'm so scared I won't make anything of myself in life.

Just to think that I've always felt this way, it's scary, almost. Hmm.

Later...

Ugh. So I go to class today, and we get our midterm grades returned. 36% of the class turns out to have failed it, while one lucky person got a B, two got Cs, and the rest got Ds. I was one of those who got a D, after studying like mad and attending a number of study groups. Okay, so that sucks, right?

But then my little puny shit of a professor decides that he won't grade on a curve, but rather, if we have a problem with our grades we can go and talk to him about it. Alright, so some students go to talk to him about. One girl, who had a D, comes back with a B, while another comes back with a C, etc etc. Totally random. It basically turns into a game of Who Can Bullshit The Professor Best. I was totally stunned! If he wants to improve everyone's grade, fine, but don't do it randomly. What the fuck? Okay, so this test really meant nothing at all, I just want to hand out whatever grade I like best! Here, why don't you suck my dick?

I dunno what's up with that bullshit, why he would even think such a thing and why nobody even gives a shit about it. Don't people have morals or honor these days? Whatever. Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going in to talk to the guy. Or yell. Or scream. Or rant.

Today sucked. Honestly I don't know why it just did.

I woke up early and went to band. That was stupid. I spent the last two months enslaved in this organization. I hate it. They're are some cool people but it's not worth the effort and time and negative effect on my grades and morale. In the recent days i've been angry cause I believed the band director had thrown out my jacket and my friend's shoes. My friend confronted the guy and got his shoes back but I haven't gotten my jacket yet. I guess I was disappointed because it was going to give my friend and I an excuse to quit. Now he's not quitting so when I do quit eventually I'll just feel lonely. Oh well.

I actually did all my homework today so the academics went fairly well. I still hated every second of every class. English was boring. Stat..boring. History...very boring. Spanish...pop quiz, nagged by teacher because I don't try at all in the class.

I got out of gym to go to a meeting about the PA Governor's Schools. I thought this was going to be a good thing to do this summer since i had been told by my math and computers teachers that I should definitely apply since I could probably get in. It sounded cool but I'm too young. I realized that I'm too young for a lot of things. I can handle most of them but because my parents didn't screw each other a few years earlier I can't participate.

Chemistry was easy but once again boring. I didn't get any work done. I don't know why. I just couldn't put my pen to the paper. It was depressing to watch friend's whom I've tutored on this stuff finish long before I did. I also had a headache. I didn't bother with the nurse because it was too much trouble to fill out the necessary paper work to get out of class.

Today was senior cut day so my sociology class was pretty much empty and we didn't bother to do anything. I just sat and talked to Mojo Jojo about how crappy today was.

I came home and I asked my mom to take me to buy these three CD's which I hoped would cheer me up a little. She said no. I would have gotten them myself but I'm too young to drive.

Went on e2 for a bit and checked my mail. Nothing interesting happened there. Went to sleep. Almost called my friend to ask if he wanted to get stoned. Decided that was a bad idea because I had a lot of work to do and I needed to be coherent to do it well. Had Stouffer's Microwave Macaroni and Cheese for dinner. Now I feel sick. My mom is in Lancaster so she couldn't cook for me. She's visiting my brother who I wanted to see but couldn't because I have too much shit to do.

I also got angry about how many shit political ads are on. There isn't a single normal ad. Just crap about local and national elections. I don't really like any of the candidates and I almost wish someone would gag them. I hate politics. I just can't ignore them though because they have such an impact on my life. Sometimes I wish I were really stupid so I didn't notice what politics had to do with me.

I think my life has reached an all time low. It's weird too because I always expected something really bad to happen before I was this frustrated with life. Instead nothing at all has happened I just have lost any real reason too enjoy and look forward to life. The bad thing is that if I were dead I'd hurt to many people I care about.

Wow. A good thing has happened. I just got a compliment from a friend about something I wrote. Usually this wouldn't be important but for some reason it makes me feel better. I think I'm going to go do something useful while I'm still motivated.

Someone mentioned to me that the Barenaked Ladies would be playing in London sometime in the near future. I immediately dropped what I was doing to check bnlmusic.com, then aloud.com, the ticket site. And found the answer. They're playing tomorrow. And sold out, of course. D'oh. Oh well. I'm listening to Stunt instead..

I also found out about nodevemberfest - and since neither me nor nine9 can afford a trip to London, I suggested a Glasgow/Edinburgh e2 meet... It only costs £7 to get to the other city and back, and we're mostly at college/uni, so should a visit to a drinking establishment be required, there's a fine selection of students' unions in both cities.

/msg or mail me (e2@thegeek.co.uk) if you have ideas...

Jolly Rubber Karate Machine!

I love the Japanese Video Game Name Generator! See it at http://www.nationalgamereview.com/99.4.26/words/japan.html .

I keep thinking weird things in the car while I drive to work, but I can never remember them when I get to a place that I can type them. Most of what I think seems somewhat profound, or at least profound at the time, and I really should figure out a way to get those thoughts recorded while they are still in my head.

I'm avoiding thinking much about anything today, but that seems to be an exercise in futility. I think no matter how hard I try not to. Yesterday was a really rotten day. I woke up in a bad mood and remained in a bad mood for the entire day. Even the cute little trick-o'-treaters didn't bring me out of my funk. I ended up close to yelling at my boyfriend on the phone last night, but instead turned into a weeping, soggy mess.

My boyfriend is wonderful and all, but he's not perfect, and we've hit a roadbump lately. I've been resisting the urge to write it all down and slap it up in day logs since I don't think its really something that should be shared much. I'll just summarize it simply, and leave it at that. We aren't spending enough time together, and its really bothering me. I want to be supportive of his job, since being a professor is tough, but its hard when I never see him. When I do see him, it just doesn't seem like enough time.

I want to move in with him. This is a realization I've come to in the last month or so, and it surprised me. I've always been a very independent person. I have always valued my personal space. I still value my personal space. I just want to spend more time with him and really share my life with him, and I haven't felt that kind of a commitment before. I want to discuss this in more detail with him, but every time I bring it up it "isn't the time".

He's coming over tonight, and after my outburst last night, I think we are going to end up talking about things and hopefully working some stuff out so that we aren't quite so cranky around each other. Helpful hint for everyone else - it's a bad idea to start a new job at about the same time that your significant other starts a new job. You both end up tired, cranky, and generally pissed off at each other.

Driving a longer commute has made me a more considerate driver with regards to letting people merge in heavy traffic, but I am a lot less tolerant of completely stupid drivers who can't grasp the basic courtesy rules of commuting. I also think that big rigs should be banned from the freeways during the morning commuting hours.

I am sick to death of the election hoopla. I voted last week, since I have permanent absentee status, and the ballot should be sitting safely in the Clark County election's office. I'm ready for it all to be over so the political commercials will stop. The only political commercial I have found amusing is the Snickers commerical that has the guy going to the voting booth, and having a donkey and an elephant sitting on his shoulders arguing about who to vote for.

Elephant: I wear pants like my dad.
Donkey: I invented pants.

So yeah, I voted for the donkey. I didn't want to vote for anyone this year, even though I have a crush on Al Gore. I'm disgusted with the whole political process. But, I did vote for Al, mainly because of my childhood. I remember spending the Reagan 80's terrified of nuclear war. To me, republicans represent a scary time in my life, even though I can agree with a lot of their positions on issues now. I just can't bring myself to elect a Republican to office because it scares me to think of full scale war. Irrational I know, but I can't help it. I'm also pro-choice. And, I live in a swing state, so I didn't vote for Nader like I did last year. The thought of George W. "Dumbass" Bush in office scares me half to death.

It all disgusts me, and I'm glad its almost over. And, now my day is pretty much over, so this day log is over.

Nodes That I Wrote Recently:
none

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
DJ Icey - Essential Mix
New Order - Best of New Order
KMFDM - Naive - Hell to Go remixes
Various - Mindfield - Third Mind records compilation
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Hole - Live Through This
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar (Aries) - Work behind the scenes to promote your interests. Too much time on center stage may be counterproductive as Jupiter blocks the Sun. Don't betray anyone's trust with Neptune on the warpath. Emphasize loyalty and honor.

i know i promised more factual nodes. but after what i wrote in my sunday daylog, there's no way i can not node this.

---

Yesterday. Halloween night. me, her, my friend dave and her friend melissa all go to the AMC Glenn Lakes to see The Nightmare Before Christmas while it's in re-release. we were trying to get to the 7:30 but missed it and hung out and ate at Cafe Brazil until the 9:30.

after the show we all go back to her house. she lives near a park. we walked down to it. everybody else plays on the playground equipment but i'm not in the mood for it. i walk over to a nearby pond and just watch the water shimmer under the surreal orange glow only found in the skies of cities with phosphorus streetlights. eventually everybody else joins me. we walk back to her house. melissa leaves. mine and dave's cars were at my work so we head there.

i use my id badge to get us in to use the restroom. we end up just hanging out in my cube. she shows me how to do a cartwheel and draws a butt with a piece of broccoli sticking out of it on my dry-erase board.

1:30am. dave leaves.

Denny's? Sure

on the way to Denny's i decide that it's too wonderful of a night to be inside and just keep driving. we end up at another park. there are no swings so we end up just sitting on the tailgate of my truck, talking about nothing in particular. we end up both lying down, staring up at the cloudy sky. a chill wind starts blowing. it starts raining lightly. she says i'm going to get close to you for warmth and snuggles up against me. i put my arm around her. we keep talking. she puts her arm around me. we run out of things to say. silence but not uncomfortable or awkward. we lay there on our sides, facing each other. her head nuzzled in my chest. i feel her fingers rubbing on my back. i summon up every little bit of courage i've got.

Is this platonic?

her fingers stop moving.

she looks up at me.

a pause that's almost too long.

she rubs her nose against mine. and she kisses me.

Will the Night Last Forever?

we stay out in that parking lot untill 4:30. until i have to drop her off at her car and drive back to Denton just in time to shower and go to work.

Hooray! This is my first node written on a brand new Dell Pentium III. At last my old, suicidal piece of junk can be relegated to a lifetime of the one thing it does well- word processing. Even though I still maintain a dial up Internet connection it shouldn't be too long until I can convince my parent's to go DSL. Nevertheless, this will hopefully mean more frequent noding. Viva la guerra! Viva la revoluccione!

School: This stuipd student teacher in my Music Lit class won't let my listen to MiniDiscs or play games on my TI-83 during class, oh well, now I just sleep. I'm getting a D+ in history right now, that really sucks, but what's sadder is that I don't care. I gave money to fozzy to get some CDs which he didn't even do, but I had no cash for lunch. Luckilly Lauren gave me a granola bar and a piece of a soft pretzel, which was nice of her. We did a lab in Chemistry, chris touched the tongs we were using with the bunsen burner and got a huge welt between his fingers. The whole room was full of smoke and the resident stoners all had to comment on how Dr K. "hot boxed the classroom", morons. Was senior cut day as well, so sociology was no work.

Real Life: It was all saints day, and my parents wanted to take me to church. I stood my ground and they took my ethernet for a while. Then somehow we got into this huge argument over my views, my mom was so convinced that I was some kind of evil person, I'm really not. I figure I should just go to church, not going causes so much conflict that its not good. Chris had a good idea as far as church goes:

"If you can waste an hour jerking your dick to a screen covered in pretty colors, then you can sit in church and listen to some guy talk about god for an hour."

Then I had to do Beowulf summaries, I fired up my DEC laptop and got SparkNotes open and spewed a page or so of BS, should be good enough. Now I'm up in my room pondering a lot of things in my future, I think I'll sleep in silence tonight.

"And you don't seem to understand..."

Well, today was my second day working at the Gap. I'm rather amused by the fact that the entire staff, managers included, behave much like a pack of high school kids having lunch in the quad. I figure if I keep my mmouth shut and just sit back and watch, I'll be entertained for hours and get paid to do it. Not a bad deal, I suppose...

I still feel pretty weird working there, though. After all, my wardrobe is comprised almost entirely of stuff I picked up at stores like Pacific Sunwear and Hot Topic. The clothing at the Gap is nice, but I wish it wasn't so generic. But alas, I shouldn't complain. I can wear jeans and sneakers to work, the benefits are nice, and the boys are cute. If only they all didn't look the same....