Are all our base belong to them? Who are them, anyhow? I tried to node the confusion in Has EDB gained consciousness?, thinking that this was an internally-controlled prank... but the more I hear Uberfetus' panicked voice, the more I think the only option is to nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure, after all...

Seriously, this is a weird situation. The wee turtles, as dannye calls our precious daily allotment of (real) newbies, will be confused, and more than likely turned off entirely. Maybe we didn't lose much--but maybe we lost another sensei. What's even worse is the pollution of the nodegel with these troll nodes... it's tough enough for our editors; they're always one step behind by the nature of their job (reactive defense), and now they'll have a backlog... if any of them get discouraged and give up, it just gets worse.

I don't know who DMan is, or was, or thinks he is, but he posted one really weird writeup near the beginning that had a nasty edge to it. A really nasty edge, not just a cute, Natalie Portman hot grits petrified immaturity. I've heard rumblings in the cheddarbox that he's compromised a god account and is wreaking revenge on those who pissed him off while he was still here... if this is true, he may stop when he's tired of toying with it, or he may wipe out everything2 as a last act of capricious fuck-it-all malice. What a sad thought. What a fucking immature way to show your animosity. for shame.

Well, I've pretty much put my head on the chopping block if the current person running the show is indeed feeling malicious. But if they're going to wipe out E2, I think I'd rather not be around to hear the death rattle. I'm going to watch the sparks as long as I can, but if this thing starts falling apart around us, hey, it's been fun.


"This is Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo... signing off."
well, I am awake a lot earlier than expected. "Why," you might inquire, "is that?". WELL actually, my neighbor from the room beneath me, a person who I hae never met before, apparently went to a party last night and on her way back got off on the wrong floor, a decision which caused her to mistake my room (with me slumbering inside) with her own one floor down. Hence, this morning at 8:30- a scarce three hours after having gone to bed- I am playing good samaritan for my neighbor, who has an empty beer bottle in one hand and a styrofoam cup in the other. Apparently there was a party on the second floor (the much-dreaded Japanese floor) yesterevening where many libations were imbibed by said neighbor, who then managed to find my room and pass out in front of it at 8 in the AM.

Last night I went to my friend's house and watched a horror movie called "Ring 2", the sequel to a movie where a devil woman in a video tape killed everyone who watched the tape within a week of their having seen the tape. Unfortunately, we put the wrong VCD on first and ended up seeing the end before the beginning. After that I came back to my dormitory and played mahjongg from 8 to 1 AM, which was 2 AM because we had to switch the clocks yesterday. I am going back to bed.

Call this a wild-ass guess, but I think the gods are having a bit of fun with us poor noders. Does it seem likely to anyone else that on this date, April 1 2001, the gods and other powers-that-be decided to pull an elaborate stunt and make it seem like our beloved EDB was getting fucked by the likes of the one and only Jay Stile? It seems that way to me...

Please don't take my XP for being right... please...

11:32

Hello...

Uh, I replaced my home page today with something weird. I thought I should replace that again today with "I got arrested for posting something unfunny in April 1st." Then I thought it would be even less funny. =)

::sigh::

Time to see what the world thwaps me with today... I don't expect an enjoyable day.

Well, at least I can comfort myself that the chain letters that ended up to my mail box today can, once again, seen in the light. (Probably not a good time for the scammers to run about - people may get strangely sceptical.)

14:16

You know, I wished I would be an E2 editor, but no one listened.

A couple of trolls came here.

Now I'm in killing rage, now I would be needed, but noooooo... all I can do is watch crap crawling past New Writeups.

I hate this.

I hate it when bad things happen and I'm powerless to help. It has happened to me so many times before recently...

14:22

I had 110 votes this morning (I think), and now I have 75, most went to downvoting the drivel. =/

I HATE THE APRIL FOOL'S DAY.

I want to cry.

14:58

...if I have to think positive things, I think here's one: Some places of the world need to suffer from April 1st even longer than Europe... =)

Down to 70 votes...

15:21

Thank you for collateral damage.

=(

[ Some people apparently looked at my new nodes and at first thought "it's l33t speak, and you know what I think of l33t speak" - and in some seconds, downvoted it without realizing that it wasn't my idea.

Reminds me of something in Spede Pasanen fan page: "Did you know that sometimes Spede makes practical jokes by filling the footballs in Speden Spelit (his TV contest) with Nitroglycerin!" ]

15:39

If there's anything positive to say, the form submission seems to work. Seems. Too bad XEmacs' HTML editing mode blew up when I installed the new sgml-data package...

17:04

...and now the connection problems continue and XEmacs still won't work.

Life isn't good.

21:31

You have 6 cools left today.
You have 44 votes left today.

Woe! Gone are the days when I thought downvotes were not needed... Stuff was either decent or great. Now, I spent around 60 downvotes on crap.

Like life in the war zone.

I don't care if it's a simulated troll attack or not. If it's crap, it's crap. It's that simple.

Yes, I knew the trolls were going to stay for only the day. It was still fucking annoying. I mean, "Ooo, go troll there in April 1st and everyone will think it's a joke." Come on! Try something creative! I guessed something like this will happen ages ago! Try something actually fun instead of simulating a troll attack!

Besides, simulating a troll attack is like... well, pretending to commit a suicide and tell the last minute that you're joking. That sort of fun we're talking about here... You may find it funny. I don't.

22:38

(I agree with break below, too... )

Gods - you know, there still are tons of Webster writeups with mysterious showing of &hand;s. If pranks like this are cooler than fixing actual problems like that one, I can only wonder.

Aww, no one is going to read this anyway. =(

23:01

(Aw hell, no one cares of me, either.)


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: (Too many to mention for recent days...) Aurora Borealis lzip Hello

Updated: (More than anyone can remember or even guess...)

Gee Boy Howdy, a lot of people sure are getting sucked in by these April Fools' Day pranks, aren't they? You'd think that they'd stop being tricked after being told what's happening, but nope! If there's one thing I've learned from the Internet, it's that people are dumb enough to fall for anything.

I thought the pranks were pretty funny, especially with all the people getting so uptight about them. If you were taken in by it all, take a deep breath, relax, and be thankful that it's all over. Until... NEXT YEAR! HAW HAW HAW!

If you didn't think the E2 April Fools Day Jokes were funny, just click on the little minus sign up there. It means "I have no sense of humour". Go ahead. Click it. You know you want to.
15:48
This is pretty fscked up right here!
I just returned from a weekend getaway full of bad movies, lots of herbal remedies and the other usual stuff that goes on in our gatherings. It was not a wild party by any means, but I had fun. No complaints were heard from others either. While we didn't get Norev and Card to show up, Jope, Typo, Rexx and Deee were in the house representing Finnish Noders. Way to go, guys. :)

So, today I get home. I sit down, relax, and switch on the PC to see good old E2 for the first time in days. And what do I see? Trolls, childish trolls, infantile trolls, vegetable trolls... fake trolls. As it wouldn't be enough for a practical joke, the whole system is filled to the brim with incredibly annoying April Fool's jokes that struck me as being funny for approximately 0.3 seconds.
I don't have anything against such pranks per se. But usually you only have to be the target of a singular April Fool's joke once per single source. Now it looks like I'll have to look at l337sp33k, parc sdrawkcab, bad fake trolls and all that trash all day long if I intend to node anything.

ARGH!

I am probably so overly fustrated by this simply due to being tired, dirty and hungry. Perhaps my sense of humor will grow back after taking a shower. But until it does.. I'm outta here!

oh god make it stop
 
20:34

The chaos has apparently calmed down a little, which is nice. For the record, I do appreciate the effort to create such an extensive joke on all of us, but I myself didn't find it the least bit amusing. There were some real new users who visited the site during the "fun", and will probably never be back after seeing nothing but troll and l337 writeups. I myself would never look back if I stumbled across a site that looks worse than your worst AOL nightmare. Who knows, maybe the deal scared off a potential future Sensei? I hope at least the new would-be Finnish Noder I spotted lurking around in the middle of it all will return to see the true Everything. Or what's left of it.
But whatever anyone thinks of the scam, at least it was successful. They managed to trick many of us (including myself) for a while. All the other plots I've been tried to fool with today have been simply pathetic.

As I suspected before, the shower did the trick. Not only has my mood improved, but I am also energetic as hell and actually getting important stuff done. No idea on where the adrenaline is coming from, perhaps an unusually large amount of it formed and collected while I was sitting around stoned with my pals? :)
Actually, I should create day logs more often while in such a state. Most of the 6 people who read this probably have mistaken me for a bitter whiner who does nothing but bitches and moans about everything he doesn't appreciate. At least in my own opinion, I am actually a quite positive and happy individual. But while my desire to write day logs is fueled by emotions, it comes more naturally for me to node what pisses me off. When something positive happens, I'm usually too busy enjoying it to sit down and type. But in a situation where something has gotten me angry, sometimes all one can do is complain about it in public.
Time to stop this and hit the book again. Only a few months til the entrance exams!
*panic*

Today is one of the worst days of my life. A few hours ago, my computer might have gone an died after days of tweaking, moving, and everything else to make it work.
  • CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon processor - Thunderbird model running at 1.1GHz (I planned to make it run at the 133MHz FSB instead of the original 100MHz).
  • CPU cooling: I'm using a Global Win FOP38 heatsink/fan, slathered with Arctic Silver like it's butter on toast.
  • Memory: 256MB of memory made by Crucial Technology, made in good ol' Idaho.
  • Hard disk interface: A Tekram DC390-U3W controller provides the SCSI interface for everything I use.
  • Storage: One IBM Ultrastar 9LZX hard drive, one Pioneer 303S DVD-ROM drive (I made this one region-free!).
  • Graphics card: ATI Radeon with 32MB Double Data Rate memory.
  • Case: I'm using the Cyclone 5000 from CoolerGuys (http://www.coolerguys.com). Lots of fans all over the case, that's for sure.

I've gone through lots of bugs in the computer since I've assembled the computer. One was the motherboard's ability to lose its CMOS settings. The SCSI controller starts scanning all of the devices twice followed by a dead stop. This morning, I went to clear the CMOS settings again, and the computer can't power up. I can trace this problem to the motherboard or the power supply.

Right after work, I'm going to send the computer off to a computer shop to diagnose the problem. Is it the board? Is it the CPU, is it both? No one knows.

Most generations have some kind of momentus event where they can vividly recall where they were and what they were doing at that moment.

Some people can tell you where they were when MAN WALKED ON FUCKING MOON!

Others can tell you what they were doing when Challenger exploded.

Some day in the future, I'll be able to sit down with my grandchildren and tell them where I was during the Great E2 April Fools Prank.

*screen wobbles in a twilight zone manner*

Scene opens on an old man sitting by a log fire, dressed in a smoking jacket, holding a large leather book PDA. A few children are sat around his chair.

Child: Grandpa, tell us a story! Tell us a story about trains!

Old man: I'll do one better, I'll tell you a story about a mongloid invasion. It's got good people, powerless to stop the onslaught. It's got a monster and trolls, out of control, eating people willy-nilly.

Children: Tell us tell us!

Old man: I can remember exactly what I was doing at the moment I found out about the invasion. I was sitting at my computer, I had logged onto E2 and my spidey-sense was telling me that something was not right. Then I saw them, TROLLS!

Children: *Gasps!*

Old man: They were everywhere. The catbox was infested, the EDB was on some ravenous crusade. I tried to lose them in the nodegel, but everywhere I turned I saw gibberish and l337 sp34k. It was like some hellish landscape with no way out.

Child: What did you do grandpa?

Old man: Well, there wasn't much any of us could do, the sane ones stuck together. Prayed to the gods to save us, but it seemed like the Gods themselves were powerless! Eventually I think I must have blacked out, when I came to the trolls were gone, but the mess. My God, the mess.

*screen wobbles some more*

So, maybe it was all a prank, a very unfunny prank if so. Things get distorted over time, and in a few months who'll even remember the exact details. It makes for a good story though.

Suggestions for E2 April Fools Pranks


I would like to add that although I'm sure by some people's standards, this is an average node, I'm very happy with it.

That's why I'm slightly anxious about adding this afternote.(The downvotes are sure to follow).
As you can see above, I'm OK with the prank. What I'm not OK with is the attitudes of many people now that this is all over.

I find the "hahaha! we fooled you! it was funny. now keep quiet and if you don't like it, go do something else" attitude very unhelpful. Like it or not, this has had a huge impact, trying to sweep it under the rug isn't good enough. I was very disappointed to see some users' writeups being nuked, and people being borged, just because they had 'dared' to be offended.

I would like to thank WickerNipple, N-Wing, Demeter and discofever for at least hearing what we had to say, even if we were bundled into another room out of sight, out of mind.

/me disapproved of April Trolls

I guess I'm the april fool...not to mention the BDay approachig...

Everyone and their brother wanted to do something with me today...NOT! No one finishes plans...as if calling ad talking is too hard...

Brunch was interresting...an hour of time, whilst she wisks across town to "go to Pikesville" again then spend time with others...just not me I guess.

Yes...that's bad for my hopes...and no one wants to confirm this...they all want me to cling to my pipe dream and wrack my wretchidly undernourished heart...

Whah...poor me...

I guess dependability is out...especially on a day like today...

Boy, do I feel out of the loop.

I just got back from spring break today, and while I was home, slow dial-up connection, later replaced by slow and flaky cable modem kept me from being particularly involved in the E2 universe. Although I managed to write a few nodes, I didn't really hang out much.

And now I'm happily back on campus, and I log on and see that I missed all the fun.. :-(

Oh well. I also haven't written a daylog in almost forever, so let me give a quick rundown on my life for anyone who might care...

So, as anyone who has been following my daylogs knows, I am in the process of deciding which graduate school to go to. Basically, this involved bouncing around the country, talking to zillions of people, and trying to pick among a bunch of great choices.

The first school that I visited was MIT. This was three weeks ago. So, I was at MIT on March 10th and 11th, then back in Pittsburgh for almost an entire 24 hours. Then I flew out to California to visit University of Southern California. I was there from March 13th to March 15th. Back to Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon University's open house for the Robotics Institute was on March 18th and 19th. Then I actually went to class for a few days, before flying to Atlanta to visit Georgia Tech for 2 days. Then I flew from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, spent 5 hours in the airport and then flew back down to West Palm Beach to go home to Boca Raton. And since then, I've been sitting in the sun.. And as I mentioned, I am now back in Pittsburgh to continue going to school.

Oh yeah, and I found out while I was in Atlanta that I got an NSF Fellowship.

And I went and checked my mail today and found a weird packet of papers from Stanford. As my faithful readers know (not that I expect to actually have any), I got rejected from Stanford, so I was a little surprised to get a big envelope full of papers asking me if I was planning on accepting their offer and if I require financial assistance. Huh? And then I continued digging through my mail and found a letter of acceptance to the Masters program. But since I want to go into a PhD program, that's not actually very helpful. Maybe I'll call then and bitch and moan for a while.

So now the big question is, which grad school did Maayan decide to go to?

And the answer is.... Probably Carnegie Mellon, although USC is still in the running... I should make up my mind, shouldn't I?

Regrettably slept in past noon, which in conjunction with a new transit strike resulted in missing this year's real-life April Fool's Day Parade along the False Creek seawall, this year with a "Foolympics" theme. Somehow I'll have to find another way to fill the water balloon quota of my life.

Speaking of the Fool's Parade, I feel it pertinent to refer here to our grand prop/set piece two years ago - a Smith-Rite dumpster filled with watered-down horse manure and over $500 of real cash, bolstered by donations collected from unwitting audience members (including $20 from my roommate, thinking his donation would fund further activities of the group) just before the grand mixing.

That prank maxed out when audience members began following the Fools and jumping into the muck in sincere hopes of snatching some shit-smeared money from the murky mire, like some twisted version of Double Dare in Hell. Suddenly it ceased to be funny and transcended mere humour entirely, becoming something else entirely, half-outrageous and half-pitiable.

To those who feel that the japes played on this site were to excess, consider that your irritation reflects the care and value you hold this unique site and its fragile community in - how glad you are that it's only like that one day a year rather than every day, and remark how sweet-smelling you remain after your real feelings were surfaced. Compared to the persistant reek of shit some folks willingly took on for the small sake of their greed, I'd say you got off almost scot-free.

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...

Well, last day of spring break... it was fun while it lasted.
With bob the cow and other family, I went to the Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for a week.
So, obviously had a great time, a little too much sun, though. I am now sporting a nice sunburn but hopefully a little tan.
I also tried, for the first time, sun-in for my hair, and it is lighter, although not blonde. More of a lighter dirty-blonde (a little lighter than I was before).

So, spent the whole week in the sun, swimming in the ocean and the numerous pools that are in the resort. We didn't meet anyone famous but we heard that Michael Jordon and Dustin Hoffman were there. We had met some ladies before and it turns out that they had met, shook hands with, and got a picture with Dustin Hoffman but we couldn't find him...

So, only a couple more hours of freedom and then back to school... although only a few more months of that too!

I am spending these precious hours with Everything2 and listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on tape (actually on winamp: we downloaded it).

I also watched The X-files, the first new episode for a while!! Yay! Oh, happy April Fools Day!

"April Fools" Takes on a New Meaning.



I wish I was talking about the troll attack.
I wish I was talking about something on the internet, something intangible, something that is just a few zeroes and ones being cast into a sea of zeroes and ones.

No, this is worse, this is actual people, not handles on a website, not names we give ourselves, nothing like JayStile, this is actuall people with veins, and nerves, and brains (presumably they have brains, but I'm not so sure sometimes).

I guess I'll dig into the story telling and quit my bitching.

So I go out with my friend, and munch some mushrooms, not many, just about a quarter between three people>
Me, my friend Lindsley and Sean, a guy who we both know and has always seemed cool enough.
So we go to a local place that shows The Simpsons on a big screen, and Sean just sits in the car.
We go in and leave him alone, it bothers us that he's all alone in the car, just tripping out by himself, but there is really nothing we can do about it.
So after The Simpsons, we go to the car and drive to Seans house, and he's really spun out, he can't even talk, and I want to go home, Lindsley wants to go home, and Sean can't move or talk.
(Note: We all are still tripping, not hard, but hard enough to make this very surreal).
So we go by Seans house, and drop him off, and before he gets out of the car he mumbles something, then gets out.
We all notice that his pants are soaked as he walks away, and Cela (a friend of mine who we met earlier, who was sitting next to Sean in the back seat) is wet.

If you can't put the peices together, you must not have much experience with dead-beats.

So Sean pissed himself, and my back seat.
We all go into a craze as I drive away.
I begin tripping out about if my parents find out and go berzerk about some guy pissing in the car, so we all just kind to stumble our way to the solution of going to the store, getting some pet stain and odor remover and cleaning the back seat out.
(That may seem like an obvious solution, but keep in mind that two out of the 3 people were tripping on mushrooms.)
So we clean the car out and I bring eveyone to their destinations.

I've realized that the car is evil.
I don't like driving.
I don't like the nature of going places, I like being somewhere, instead of being in transit.
The car just signifies my not being satisfied with something, and it has become a metaphor of unhappiness to me because driving means going somewhere else.
I like being in my home, a friends home, the coffee house, the movie theatre, I love being at work, I just hate the buffer zone between these places that is my car.

Today was the most interesting day I've had in a while. I finally gathered up enough courage to set foot in the mall. I got my head shaved. I had been wanting to do it for so long. As I walked out of the barber shop my dad went to go pay for my haircut. My cousin works at a little shop just outside the barber shop and she and my other cousin that was there commented on my new hair cut. My other cousin not the one that works at the store told me that his parents were saying that they'd let me go live with 'em. FUCK YEA.. The one thing I have been wanting for such a long time...to move out of this house. The chance finally arrised and I'm gonna take it. I'm so damn happy. Thank the stars.... I hope to hell that I can move in with them. FUCK YEA!!!

I spilled soda all over a customer at work today.

" April Fool's! " I cried sheepishly. I felt like an ass. The money to pay for the toys we gave the kid is coming out of my paycheck.

3/31/01 Pacific coast time...4/1/01 server

E2 was awash with trolls today. /Me thinks it twere a joke. /Me HOPES it twere a joke. Nodes were written backwards... gobble de gook in other places...lots of general nastiness...had the incredible urge to hug them tightly and squeeze the nastiness out...kill them with kindness and exceptional friendliness...I must be crazy...still had no urge to waste my votes on downvoting....even on the trolls....too many good nodes needing my pat on the back...Wishing I was with the other everythingians at Porkyland...should have had AElien (HOW DO I MAKE THAT SYMBOL?!! ARGH!) kidnap me...I would have given him grapes.

I returned to whacked out e2 after watching a movie. Hoping two hours gone by that trolls would be bored and gone. No such luck. Today has given new meaning to e2 has gone crazy! Before it was merely in-fighting, now it is...

Dogs and cats sleeping together! Mass hysteria!

(ok, I exaggerate!) Still, not exceedingly funny anymore. Maybe an example of what e2 is like unmonitored mayhaps? Without rules? An example of what it would be like if e2 REALLY went crazy? Note to self: Ignore the trolls

Also, I was Acked in the epicenter for using up all my votes. Since I did it positively and was whipped soundly does that make me altruistic? Nah, 'cause I would have received XP, which I keep telling myself I don't care about. I expected to benefit from my good deed. Hmmmm, I feel a node idea brewing... I must thank the crazy pot stirrers...

4/1/01 Pacific coast time

Logged on to find that it was INDEED a massive practical joke. KUDOS to the pranksters! /me applauds you! I did not do too much to acknowledge general mayhem other than to write on my home node and to message dannye.

/msg dannye ...If it's a joke, laugh....if it's not a joke, still laugh...I'm too tired to figure it out...

Or something to that effect. For some reason, I thought he would be having a fit over the whole thing and sought to reach out to reassure him? Mayhaps to lesson his anger? Who knows, what my motivation was? Not I. I don't always question why I do things. Sometimes, I just react. I'm a sucker for caring.

Others tried to stop the mayhem and protect e2, despite the fact that the trolls would probably do something nasty to them. Altruism at an everything level. I basically hid to save my arse. Hmmmm. Self-preservation won out. Yikes at me! I have not lived up to my expectations of myself yet again! Now I am questioning why. There is definitely a node coming... more self-referential fluff? We shall see. E2 is one great little place to study human behavior. Every day I discover something new about myself and others through observing interactions here.

Ever feel like a lab rat?

This isn't about the April Fool's Hack

It's about what happened while I was going back home

Around 19:00 local time (that's 07:00 PM, to any yanks who may have wandered in), I got off my bus home. I wanted to go to the shops, so I got off one bus stop early. The bus was fairly crowded, and it's a busy commercial street.

About 10 seconds after I got off, the bus turned to leave the stop...

...and a tyre blew out. Note: At the time I did not realise this. Mentioning it here completely destroys the dramatic tension of the story. But some things are more important than dramatic tension.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind my readers that I live in Jerusalem. And these days, making a very loud noise near a bus is a great way of getting attention.

It was very loud, but it wasn't enough noise for a bomb on the bus, I thought. But I've never heard one; how am I supposed to know how much noise a bomb makes? Or perhaps it was a bomb on the bus just ahead? Maybe I was just dazed?

For a few seconds, people just stood there; people inside shops went out to see what happened. Then my brain got back into gear; I started thinking. I was intact; no blood. People next to me were the same. Glass shopping windows were likewise intact. It had to be either a blown tyre or a small bomb or a larger bomb further away. But people were pointing out a small cloud of smoke above the bus. Of course, the bus had just been leaving the stop; some buses emit clouds of smoke when they start picking up speed.

The street was quiet, I realised. There probably weren't any wounded nearby.

If it's a blown tyre I should just walk away. But suppose it isn't. It could be a failed explosion. There could be another device just nearby (in the past, purposeful "double explosions" have been used by terrorists). And what was I doing standing there thinking while completely exposed? I still had line of sight to the bus!

At last I knew my first order of business: Nip around a corner so I couldn't see the bus (shrapnel travels in a straight line; you don't want to see where it comes from...). OK, now I could think some more. Why are those people gawking where I'd been doing the same? I manhandled a few around the corner; some more followed.

Suppose there's a second explosion now, a big one. I'm standing next to a glass shopping window! Which way will the glass break? Should I go into a shop? I decided overpressure in the street was more likely than underpressure, so I stayed outside.

At last I felt able to think rationally. It couldn't have been a nearby bomb -- not enough noise during the BOOM, no shattered glass, and not enough noise afterwards. So there was no point in trying to help; there couldn't be any wounded nearby. The bus down the street had driven away; it hadn't been involved in anything. My bus was still standing there, with passengers getting off. So it had to have been a tyre blow-out. I waited for word of mouth to filter up the street to me; when the blow-out was "confirmed", I decided to move on.

15 minutes later I reached home and made myself a nice cup of tea. And then I performed my only responsive action: I made some phone calls to parents and friends, letting them know I'm all right. I didn't want them to hear a partial newsflash: "Reports are coming in of an explosion near where ariels lives; we are not yet sure if this is another a terrorist attack, or if there are any casualties".

Had my fencing tournament in Beloit, Wisconsin today.  Went pretty well.  I went 3-2 in my pool round, but I should've gone 4-1.  Did well in direct elimination, well enough to make up for my poor showing in the pools.  Ended up placing 4th out of 30.  Go me!

Went to some dingy Italian restaurent in Beloit for dinner.  We were starving, and the food was good.  Yum yum.

I ended up driving the whole way home, because Rebecca was tired and wanted to go sleep in the back seat.  It was actually my longest stint of highway driving ever, but I got us home in one piece.

Sleep.

This morning someone I knew killed himself

I didn't hear about his death until Monday when everything April foolish was over and done. It was perhaps better that way to hear it from a friend rather than to listen to the voicemail I received. I though that he was like most others who commit suicide: Lively and energetic and almost without a hint of the oncoming abrupt end. I've known him for almost two years and I can't recall his last name.

He sent out a bulk email that amounts to about three printed pages where he gives away all of his possessions and wrote personal notes to his closer friends. I was lucky in that aspect to not receive an email. I spoke to one of his closer friends on campus, an aborted romantic interest yesterday. She'll need to speak to her Professors and Class Deans, things are still out of hand with her.

Now that he's gone, he'll be perpetually young in my memory. He won't have the opportunity to age at all, or for me to imagine a future for. That's the problem with dying young.

As of the time of this writeup, this was the best day of my life. I spent the day at Universal Florida with the most beautiful woman in the world. She was feeling much better today than yesterday, and she really warmed up to me. She held my hand while we rode the roller coaster. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I put my arm around her through one entire attraction. I gave her backscratches and she gave me some as well. Every time she catches me staring at her, she smiles at me with the biggest, most beautiful smile I've ever seen.

She is so beautiful in everything she says and does, as well as how she looks. I am so lucky to be so close to her. I just wonder how far this relationship can go. She is so shy and afraid of a committment. I think she feels like it will get in the way of her college work. Even so, as long as we can keep our relationship at this level I will be ok with it. I would love to progress further, but if that can't happen anytime soon, then I will just have to be content with what we have now.

I Love her.

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