Don’t tell me I’m the first daylog today! I feel all naked and exposed up here at the top of the node.

Got a letter from Segnbora-t today. That was strange, since I just saw her like two weeks ago. But she’s always been weird like that. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.

I have been pushing the limits of exactly how little sleep I can get and still function like an impersonation of a human being. I have pulled more than my share of all-nighters and so forth, but I still have always had an intimate relationship with sleep - less than 6 and I was a zombie. I could stay awake no problem, but I didn’t like it, and I would be surly and useless all day. A couple weeks ago I pushed it back to 5 hours, and then 4. Today I functioned with three. Still, I had to caffinate myself extensively so I wouldn’t be a rush hour statistic. And when I got home I slept until about an hour ago, just in time to go to sleep for work tomorrow. So this three hour thing isn’t exactly the best idea in the world.

Let’s see, today I’ve been called a racist, and idiot, and a homosexual on the Maxed message board for writing about Pat Buchanan, I saw somebody get "cursed" in the chatterbox for (gasp!) saying the wrong thing, God forbid, and I got bitched at for creating a nodeshell I don’t even remember creating (which is cool, because I’m sure I did, by clicking somebody else’s smart assed remark). All in a day’s work, true, but not exactly what you want to see right after you wake up. Damn. Can’t we all just get along?

C’est la vie. Tomorrow is another day. Insert cliché of your choice.
Went to the mall with my girlfriend today to make her try on these dress like things i always knew she would look incredibly cute in, but that she never wore. My girlfriend is sexy and doesn't know it. Also went into a lingere shop and looked around. Fun stuff.

Getting there was interesting. Car (Ford Expedition) had a quarter tank of gas. Well more then we would need for a few days of driving. However, on the way over to her house, we stopped to drop off some shirts at the cleaners, and the parking spaces angle down. So we pulled in, and the gas guage dropped to E as we lowered down the decline. No matter, its done that before, no big deal. However this time, the RPMs dropped off to ~250-500. The thing simply had no power, and then it stalled. It would start again, but it was becoming exceedingly obvious that we were burning what little fuel we could still pump on that decline. So after one more stall attempt, i got out and wedged my butt/back onto the bumper, and my legs onto the curb. Mom cranked the car, it gurgled to life, put it in reverse, stepped on the gas, and i PUSHED. It creaked back a bit, then came back forward, i guess i slogged some fuel into the pump, because then it roared to life and we were suddenly very backed out, and i almost fell flat on my butt.

Oh well, filled the tank up, and we were on our way. Later we (g/f & i) went to a concert in the park, we met friends there. It was Irish folk music. Very very good stuff. Excellent band. The Fenians.

Now i'm off the phone, out of ranch dip, and sitting on E2.

Morning!

10:29

I cleaned up the "things" directory on my home page a bit. Some pages I simply had not updated since 1997 or so have been removed =)

I also stumbled upon "dreams" directory and found two old dream descriptions I quickly assimilated into E2:

Speaking of dreams - dammit, I wish I'd remember more of them! I can't remember most of the dreams I see these days. Again, this morning I had some cool dream but I've already forgotten it.

16:01

Spent some time writing a reply to an E-mail message I received 'bout three weeks ago... well, better late than never.

First time in slashnet, first time in #everything. And so far no one has said a word. =)

* WWWWolf bows courteously.

23:44

So, nothing happened in IRC. Did whatever silly came in mind for the rest of the day. And I made corrections to one script of mine - it is one of those rare scripts that will possibly piss off Metallica, RIAA and Fraunhofer institute at the same time. Yes. It's a script that automates my process of CD-to-Ogg Vorbis. And the first album I used to vorbize with it was Metallica's Black Album.

I use current Debian's "vorbize", based on beta 1 apparently so it does 128 kbit/s VBR or something similiar.

Anyway, Black Album has a curious thing: Ogg files are bigger than their MP3 equivalents. Usually the situation has been just the other way around.

Perharps this was because the MP3s were encoded in March 1999, when I probably had Bladeenc or, worse, the ISO reference encoder. These files have no trace of VBR, anyway, straight and stable 128 kbit/s.

Some sizes:

The Unforgiven: 6193864 bytes MP3 => 6515171 bytes Ogg/Vorbis
Enter Sandman: 5304438 bytes MP3 => 5515087 bytes Ogg/Vorbis

Art of Noise: The Holy Egoism of Genius. Original track 8982804 bytes (LAME, VBR q=4), 7333736 bytes Ogg/Vorbis. (See: The Seduction of Claude Debussy)

(Interesting tune, BTW. Clearly shows that Claude Debussy (sort of) invented ambient music way ahead its time - or that's what AoN said =)

I don't usually mention anything about my node amounts or XPs, but this is an odd thing to see: You have 1 points until level 6... =) but a lot more writeups to go, I guess. =(

01:12

Oh yeah, guess what this does:

  # This may look a bit... weird.
  $file = join("-",
               map { $tmp=lc; $tmp=~tr| -.\'|__|d; $tmp; }
               ($artist, $album, $name)) . ".ogg";

Part of the previously mentioned script. =) map can be such a handy command, but I still found it odd that I had to use a temporary variable in that statement. Reason? if I just tr $_, I also seem to modify $artist, $album and $name. Don't ask me why this is so...


Other day logs o' mine...

What I noded today: Dream Log: May 31, 1999 Dream Log: February 20, 2000 Aimbot korpisoturi Ninetales

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow


OK, OK, I'm just another hypochondriac

9:40 BST

Just got into work from the Asthma clinic. Essentially I just have to take more drugs to keep my "mild" asthma under control. I hadn't thought it was mild, but apparently I take a lot less than some children half my age...

I don't want to be a good corporate bunny today. There's a lot of nice hacking to be done, but I have to do other, more boring, things first.

I'm organising a cinema and curry trip for some of my colleagues on Thursday - we're going to see the X-Men previews (It's not been released in the UK yet)

Therefore I'm running around collecting money from people and trying to note whether they're eating afterwards. It's such a hassle to organise engineers, rather like herding cats. None of the Alpha Geeks can agree on the curry venue and I don't even want to think about car sharing or other such logistical details...

13:00 BST

Our managers are too busy recruiting to keep their current staff...

20:20 BST

Just installed Windows Me, aka Windows Millennium Edition. It's... a total anti-climax. And my graphics card doesn't seem to be supported. And it overwrote the boot sector.

Microsoft just keeps reinforcing my contempt for all its products

Aside from that? Well, All this lifting and assembling of heavy broadcast equipment has increased my upper body mass. Not much, just enough for me to notice (and smile smugly :-)

Mental Note: Could narcissism be a step to self esteem?

prev daylog next daylog

I sleep with my girlfriend almost every night, which is good in a way, I guess, but also a bit bad. When it becomes a habit (which it has), you get to the point when not sleeping together is something you should avoid at all costs. This sucks. Last night, she went to pick up her parents from the airport. Now I'm not going to even begin to discuss her parents, because I don't want this to be the longest daylog ever. But she asked me to wait for her. This involved waiting up until 2 am. But then again, on Saturday I had a practice session with my band, and she waited up until 1:30 am. So what could I say?

The other thing that sucks is that I can never remember my dreams anymore. As you know, dreams fade away slowly even if you do remember them when you wake up. Today, for example, I woke up, vividly remembering a dream. And she started talking about my flatmate, asking if he's here and whatnot (that I do remember). All this time, my dream was slowly decaying, and I was fighting really hard to remember it. I REALLY wanted to write it up, as it was full of repressed feelings and other Freudian stuff and past references. I couldn't just say: "Look, I'm going to node my dream now. Just wait a few minutes." The morning is a very romantic time, you can't put noding before your girlfriend when you just wake up.

Moving on.... I just performed minor surgery on myself. I have an ingrown fingernail. The operation basically consists of digging around in the skin around the nail, lifting the nail up in the spot where it's starting to grow inwards, and shoving something underneath to make it grow upwards again. The something, in my case is just a bit of toilet paper. A bit of blood, a bit of iodine. Not too bad. I hope it doesn't get worse. As it is, it's just inhibiting my tapping, but not the rest of my playing, which is fine. Tomorrow I have a gig, and it's jazz, so no tapping there, just finger-picking (actually, tapping is really not important), but if it gets a lot worse, I will be in pain the whole gig.
And no, it didn't even cross my mind to give up a gig because of an ingrown fingernail. A year and a half ago, I had a big show two days after I had a sinus operation. Now that sucked. The smoke all around and the effort got my eyes watering, but this isn't an occupation where you can call in sick. If you have a show, you do everything to get there. It was quite good even, if I remember correctly.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Session Start: Tue Aug 15 00:27:09 2000
*** Now talking in #everything
*** Topic is 'my friend my friend he's god a knife.. a statement from his former life!'
*** Set by herbman on Mon Aug 14 03:15:52
<naked_ape> goooood night ;-)

So here I am again in the IRC, trying to expand my E2 experience. Conversation goes from “last cigarette” to “cars that shack back and forth when you go forward”. Things start to get boring when I decide to ask something innocent:

<naked_ape> are you logged to E2 as well?

Then, it happens.

<Snorker> what’s E2?
<burnboy> what?
<burnboy> Snorker: you joking?
<Snorker> no
<burnboy> www.everything2.com
<naked_ape> Ack! You lost experience!
*** x has joined #everything

As I am logged to E2, I make a search for Snorker

<naked_ape> Sorry, but nothing matching "Snorker" was found
<naked_ape> Of course, I could let you create a new "Snorker" node...

Snorker strikes back…

<Snorker> who knows I’ve never been here before
<Snorker> what is it LOL
* burnboy is away, mowing the FUCKING yard log:OFF
Then kanon enters the conversation, saying loud what many of us think: is Snorker an everythingian trying to pull our legs?

<kanon> he's kidding right?
<Snorker> nope not me
<kanon> whatever
* naked_ape returns from feeding the cats and Snorker continues to amaze the channel...
<Snorker> hahahaha gee thanks
<naked_ape> We urge you to visit E2... you'll be then TRULY amazed!
<Snorker> Im looking
OUCH!, the misinterpretation begins…

* kanon thinks Snorker is less than genuine
* naked_ape waits...
<Snorker> genuine what?
* kanon thinks Snorker is less than... truthful

A brief pause for another misinterpretation :-)

<CaptainSpam> Huh... Seems @Home won't let more than one computer on the internet at the same time through one network hub.
<CaptainSpam> Not even if they all have different IP’s.
<naked_ape> captain, how many units you have sent so far?
<CaptainSpam> units? Hm?
<naked_ape> are you talking about Seti@Home?
<CaptainSpam> No, no, the @Home Network. You know... shitty Cable Modem service?
<CaptainSpam> Becoming more like AOL every day?
The Skornergate continues…

<Snorker> whats wrong kanon?
*** Delivery_man has left #everything
<kanon> uh...i don't know you seem fake somehow
<Snorker> fake about what?
<kanon> faking the whole e2 thing
<Snorker> Well I’ve never seen the site before… what’s so important about it?
<naked_ape> Snorker: could I ask you how did you know about this channel? (hehe, sounds like questioning!)
<kanon> its odd that you'd be here
<CaptainSpam> What's so important about E2?
<kanon> and have no clue

And here comes the man with the truth, always so… convincing. Who wouldn’t enter a channel called #everything?

<Snorker> well I typed /list and this was one of the channels… easy
<CaptainSpam> Why, it's all important!
<kanon> nothing's important it just strikes me as odd
<naked_ape> WOW, then you arrived here by chance! That's great!
<herbman> heh. why?

kanon starts to realize…

<kanon> if I offend I ask forgiveness but I'm just a little jaded
<herbman> because we got a random visitor? :)
<Snorker> well explain it to me instead of saying I’m some sort of intruder… cause its all new to me
<herbman> Snorker, relax.
<kanon> sorry sorry
<herbman> Snorker, people just get worked up too easily
<kanon> didn't mean to frighten

Finally, everything starts to become clear…

<herbman> welcome to the channel
<herbman> we're glad to have visitors
<CaptainSpam> www.everything2.com... check it out.
<herbman> this is a discussion channel formed by members of everything, which is located at www.everything2.com
<herbman> its a huge cross-linked database of true hypertext.
<herbman> created by Blockstackers, Inc.
<Snorker> Thanks herbman
<CaptainSpam> Or everything.blockstackers.com, that's the old one.
<kanon> tis amazing
<herbman> just explore around a little.. you'll understand soon enough
<naked_ape> identity is an important concept of Everything
<herbman> if you make an account, you can create a home node, so that you can start to make writeups
<naked_ape> that's why we were, err, suspicious
<Snorker> well don’tt worry I’m a old braindead druggie LOL
*** kanon has quit IRC (Connection reset by peer)
<naked_ape> that's perfect for Everything, everyone is for Everything. But this is no sect, eh?
<Snorker> somebody told me slashnet is some hackers site or something... sounds good to me
*** kanon has joined #everything
*** renster has joined #everything

Then comes a bit more about @Home, DSL, permanents IP’s, CaptainSpam’s 404 pages in his website and finally I left the channel with a wish:

<naked_ape> I hope to see Snorker in E2, just noding Where did you learn about Everything? he would get lots of votes!!!!!!! Good night!!!!
Session Close: Tue Aug 15 01:10:52 2000

Driving north on steady white guiding lines. On our way to a hardcore show, the first time back at that venue in quite a while. Waiting out front early people lingering around moving talking overhearing our conversation to mention they are from the same city as we are, twice this happens. The show seems to be comprised mostly of people from out of town, not what I expected for Avail and Dilinger Four in a large city. Working out the way a nice show does, each successive group playing builds more energy frantically into the crowd, at the end everyone is wired crazy in a frenzy. It is completely absorbing, the motion and releasing tension, draining in just the way I need it to be at this point. It leaches the frustration which had been building at small scattered points, leaving a resulting even calm as we walk away drenched in sweat towards the car, on the way home. Considering what facilitates the passage of time easily through familiar terrain, as we drive south. The more often a path is traversed, the shorter it seems, as if repetition eases the passage from notice instead of inducing weariness and anticipation for the end. The lull of comfortable surroundings tend to have that affect on me, allow things to slip forward at an accelerating rate while my actions slow in inverse proportion. This is why it is necessary to travel, even if only for small distances, on a regular basis.

15:29 EET

I somehow managed to get myself out of the bed at 9:20, in an attempt to slowly turn my daily rhythm a couple of hours counterclockwise. Naturally the early arrival didn't make me work more, since both my current clients are (again!) late for material deliveries. So here I am, noding the day away.

Speaking of which, I'm running out of Korg stuff to node. Not a big deal, since there is still interesting equipment from Sequential Circuits and Roland, after which I could move on to Yamaha, for example. Thanks to the few who have even given my synthesizer nodes some credit by upvoting them or even complementing me on the chatterbox. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who is interested in synths.

There's actually one small work-related thing I'd like to finish today. Gotta get to it so I can leave for a well-deserved dinner.


Today's Writeups
Dream Log: August 15, 2000 | Korg PS-3100 | Korg PS-3200 | Korg PS-3300 | Korg SQD-1 | Things I've done on E

A good and bad day today.

I saw where my new desk will be in september. Open plan. Low partitions. Not good. I like partitions to be at least 5 foot high, so you can't see over them when you're sitting down. Well, these are less than 4 foot high. You can see peoples monitors across the room. Bad bad bad.

Having real fun playing with PalmAmp. This little piece of sex allows you to control Winamp using your Palm Pilot. I have mine plugged into COM1, and it's cool. I don't have to, urm, switch applications on the PC to pause a song, or change the volume. OK, so it's purely for the geek factor.

Please, someone, make a writeup for
Hey gang, let's do the show right here!

I got a new wheelchair and a new car in the same day! Other than that it looks like it is going to be one of those painfully boring days. You know, the kind that lead to sitting around and noding all day at work because you actually have nothing to do at work. Unless one of the servers bursts into flames I don't think there is going to be much work to do today. Oh well. I also have three more days to do decide what to do about some chick from high school (excuse me, young lady) who has a crush on me. This may all sound like complaints but it really isn't this is the kind of turmoil and uncertainty that I enjoy. "May your forehead grow like the mighty oak".

tuesday morning

wake up. smoke. shower. get dressed. walk dog. buy cigarettes (thank you, my love, for the $7 you tucked into my pocket). go to work. coffee. cigarette break. e2 daylog.

today will be a long day. today is an important deadline. i will do all of my work to the best of my ability. i am confident that i won't be the weak link.

today i talk to the pseudo-head-shrinker again. we shall see how that goes. it's been going fairly well so far (imho. given my recent outbursts my man may or may not agree).

today is the day to find time for a small vacation to mom's house. grab my dog, my bike, my art supplies and just go away for a couple of days. i love it. hang out in the hammock. chill with ma.



i was recently notified that there was some discussion as to whether or not the picture on my homenode is actually me. yes it is. it's just my way of saying hi.

Ugh....

Another day another hangover.
anm and his wife, came over to my house to drink with Allison and myself last night. I now realize that 4 hours of sleep doesn't give the alcohol enough time to settle before you go to work, it makes the drive and the job more interesting. Luckily my big boss isn't here today, so this is gonna be alright, especially since my 'boss' is anm.

I think tonight, I will simply stay home and play with JarJar Binks, who I might add got along very well with all the company last night, he's a good little kitty.

I´ve been very VERY angry today. This may sound like something ordinary, but is for me a truely unusual event.

I am now 25 years old. The last time I remember being really angry was in kindergarten when two of the other little girls were behaving really annoyingly for a long time and I snapped at them to shut up. I can still recall the amazed looks on our teachers` faces as they realized that something had made me angry. The other girls were told to be quiet at once, since something had made me upset the sum of the irritation they had accomplished must be waster than the teachers had first realized.

What made me furious this time was riding in a car with a person who totally lacked any sense for what´s right and wrong to do whan driving a car.

We were in Stockholm, the traffic was dense. Our driver didn´t look at the signs but instead tried to get out of town by finding out where the sun was, and thus which way led northward.

In this car ride from hell we drove against two red lights, managed to get in the lane where only busses may go and finally found ourselves facing the traffic driving in the left lane!

I truely feared for my life at this moment. And when our driver after having found the way to the airport after an other set of minor incidences said "Well, that went OK" my brain started to boil and a curtain of red was drawn before my eyes.

I shuoted at him for about five minutes, furious! My God if I ever meet him again I think I´ll start screaming immidiately!

Boy, did that make me feel good! I almost look forward to being angry again in another twenty years or so.

Factgirl's fact of the day:

The furthest distance between any two points on the Earth: about 13,000 miles

Time it takes for a signal to travel 13,000 miles across fiber optic cable: 70 milliseconds

Response time needed by Quake III players to effectively work the BFG 10k: 70 milliseconds

This is Twitch Time - now used in advertising to edit commercials to appeal to people under 30.

-it's a fact!

sources: Wired 4.10, Quakeworld, Advertising Age - May 1999

Back from vacation - I'll put the finishing touches on the P.J. Harvey lyrics later this evening. Not much actual work to do, so I skipped work for a couple of hours to go to the bank and apply for a new ATM/Visa card (since my old one got stolen whilst on vacation) and do some shopping as well - Use of Weapons by Iain Banks and a new belt. Did some shopping sitting down, too - ordered a new cellphone (old one got stolen along with the wallet).
Interestingly enough, I did not buy a new wallet. I'll have to check out the different types available - the new driver's license will be the size of a credit-card, thus allowing a smaller wallet.

Apart from losing my wallet and cellphone, everything seems to be working out according to plan.
Sadly, the original plans suck.
So new ones have to be devised and carried out - preferably in short time.

Identified a RL relative on E2...bizarre. I've known for some time that she has been on here, but I can't grok seeing someone from RL on here, though.

Paid a bill - I'm just jotting it down here for future reference in case they get mad about it not being paid in due time (not that it was paid in due time...) and all that.

Today's Soundtrack: Dirge by Death in Vegas.

Ophie's home node made me chuckle.

Who says chuckle? Am I the only one?

This is my weekend (I have today off of work) and I have done absolutely nothing except look around in car classified ads and watch CNN: a looping stream of sobbing Koreans, the Russians trapped in the Kursk, Hilary Clinton being annoying and kind of scary at the Democratic National Convention, the 83-year-old woman who drove off a 595 bridge in Ft. Lauderdale, landed in a swampy mangrove patch, and wasn't found 'til three days later....and the Montana fires. I should probably turn it off.

I took my car in to the garage yesterday because the window was stuck down halfway. Turns out that each window has a computer and it has to be replaced, of course. One of the back windows has been stuck all the way up for months now, and that has the same problem, but since it's $350 a window, I think I'll just do the front one for now.

i hate this car i hate this car i hate this car. But I found a mechanic to replace the bastards at the other place.


CNN has been terminated...at least in my apartment. I hate TV anyway. I watched it to see if there was anything more on the Russians, but they just keep rehashing the same info.

I'm going to tear myself away from this stuff and study.

After driving to work I realized that I've passed from being tired to a new level. I can't call it exhaustion; I guess you could label it drained. I don't feel tired, really, but I can see I don't have all my attention.

Examples: I hit this T-end intersection, and am waiting to turn right. There is a guy in front of me. If you look left you can see that there is no one, as far as the eye can see, and that is really really far. So I stomp on the gas and look ahead, only to find that the guy in front of me is standing still, thinking about making the turn. So I stomp on the brake. Whew.

Later, I didn't see a red light. I didn't see a guy on a bike. Luckily my passenger cried out, and I stopped before doing any damage.

Ack! You lost experience!
The world hates you!
You have 97 writeups left until Level 5
bookmark!

The power went out last night.

It happened in two spurts. First, I was on the phone, cooking dinner, and it cut out. "Hrmm" i thought. Looked around at the phone, it LOOKED okay, but it wasn't acting alright. Then I noticed a pulsing noise coming from my computer's speakers.

ohshitohshitohshitohshit

!!!!!!

Feared that a big bolt of lightning had hit my building, channeling directly through the powerstrip and blowing up my computer. God punishing me for having warez and mp3s and Gates punishing me for having linux.

And it actually appeared that way for a minute. No response to stimuli, except for the harddrive light turning on when it was plugged in. ohshit.

Then I noticed that nothing else in that corner of the room seemed to work. So I then reasoned that it was either a surge or a brownout. In any case, the two bedrooms in the apartment were powerless.

So I moved my computer to the living room, which still was fine. It booted... phew. Although the power strip seemed like it was dead.... but at least my baby lived.

Cleaned up the kitchen and sat down for a little FF8 action, and 20 minutes later BAM off goes the power.

I took advantage of the situation, grabbing a couple books and a bottle of Rolling Rock and headed out to the balcony. Personality-tested myself... I have been reclassified once again as an ISTJ. Appears I have changed from being a hard-core INTJ to a more practical ISTJ in the past two years. Oh well. Maybe my perception of myself has just changed.

The roommate got home and we decided to get out of the building, since it was dark and we have no candles. So, took advantage of the late-night open-ness of Border's and loitered hung out there for a few hours. When we got back, there was power. AMEN.

Headache log:
monday aug 14 2000
------
eaten:
	730am: poofs cereal, milk
	1145am: bbq chicken, salad, potato, roll, coke
	625pm: chicken breast, mac & cheese

headache:
	a very light one, surfacing around 10am, then
 staying slightly under the surface throughout the day.
  when got home from work (5pmish) felt bad, laid down

benaviour:
	typical workday, staring at computer screen most of the time
	after work went to the gym, lifted and biked.
	fine rest of evening.

treatment:
	1 excedrin approx 515pm, headache seemed to go away after that (working out had any affect?)

theories:
	eye strain/flourescent lights from work.

Ooh, the morning...

Had to wake up at unholy 7 am to do yard work for my mother. Had breakfast at her house, and apparently the food wasn't prepared well, but I didn't notice; I think being sick might have something to do with it.

Got to go to .. the dentist. I had a broken filling, over on that side of the mouth I never use, and I got that replaced. My face is still numb. The dentist noticed that my teeth on that side don't meet when I bite down. I don't think the original teeth are all there on that side though--I have an obscene number of teeth, I've had like six molars removed and still have a reasonably complete set. The dentist has some kind of weird pineapple-flavored anesthetic. Ick ick ick.

Got my hair cut. I no longer get to look like a rather fuzzy version of Wolverine from that X-Men movie. Oh well, it's better this way, I won't look too stupid when school pictures are taken in a couple of weeks.

Come back home to Everything2. Get the 'You gained experience!' message. Oo! Because I care, I dash off to my nodes list to see what. Someone seems to have systematically downvoted a large number of them. Hmm. Suppose it's my punishment for being a jerk last night about stuff and writing a couple of stupid nodes.

Does anyone else ever get the sensation that a downvote is like a slap in the face? Oh well...I guess I'm lucky my face is still numb.

Today is the birthday of one of the most influential people I've ever known. She is thirty-three years old today, or as she would say, she is in her thirty-fourth year.

Today is a day that was very important to me once, but no longer holds meaning. Nonetheless, I still have my 1967 quarter on my keychain.

There are 138 days left in the year. There is a lifetime of remembrance.

Happy birthday to you.

He talked to me. On the way into work today he started talking. He told me he was ok with my issues, and although he still hasn't really talked about my liking him, it has come up and he is thinking about it. And then, this afternoon, he started talking again like he used to, revealing little views into his world, showing me the things that made me fall for him in the first place. My frustration and stress has fallen away and I am melting in his presence again. Even if he decides I'm not the right one for him, he knows I like him, I've said it out loud, and, for a while at least, I can swoon away in his presence. I can stare at him during lunch and wonder what it would be like to be held in those arms. Maybe that's why I don't ask him for a response outright. Because I'm not confident an positive one will be coming. And if he says no I'll have to stop. Of course, I wasn't confident he'd be ok with my issues in our current state of affairs, so who knows.

Part of me is amazed. It's standing there stunned by him. Part of me wants to jump his bones. And part of me is hoping against hope that he'll tell me yes.

Last night I noticed that I couldn't hear out of my left ear. My first guess (aside from that disturbing scene from Mountains of the Moon) was that it was full of earwax. I tried several solutions to unclog my ear, including banging my head against the wall. No effect. The stubborn thing remained blocked.

This morning when I awoke I noticed some interesting things that a blocked ear does to your mind. The most obvious is that you feel off-balance and you can't hear very well. There are more insidious things, though. You talk quietly, and you can't hear people as well, which means that you miss subtle nuances in conversation. Did she not hear me, or did she hear me and decide not to answer? Did she mumble a quiet reply that I didn't hear?

On my way to work there were crowds of children playing, laughing, and generally making a lot of noise. At least, that's what I thought they were doing. The whole scene was very reminiscent of movies I have seen where everything slows down and gets quieter, right before something terrible happens. Everything was bland, soft, muted, like a thick snow had fallen the night before. Even colors seemed faded and washed out. People would talk to me but I didn't really hear them. I handed the clerk three bucks out of habit and took my sandwich without even listening to her. I may as well have been watching TV with the volume turned down.

I started thinking: this must be what it's like to be deaf in one ear. But no, if my ear was deaf, I'd hear nothing. Instead, when I talked, it was the loudest thing in the world. I was practically shouting inside my head, and people still had to ask me to speak up. The only input that my left ear is currently getting comes from within me. I can hear every breath with painful keenness. When I took a shower this morning each drop of water was like the beating of a drum, or more accurately, rain falling on plastic with a dull, thudding sound. Brushing my teeth with my Sonicare filled up my whole head with the non-music of the one note it plays as its bristles vibrate along unrelenting. I feel like I'm wearing a space helmet. Huston, I have a problem.

I don't know how to feel or how to act. My sense of social etiquette is numbed, my senses are dulled, my balance is off (I'm lucky I didn't fall off my bike on the way to work), and my head is sitting under a magnifying glass. Everything I say seems wrong, and people react to me as if one of us has said something inappropriate. I hope I don't have to talk to anyone else today. I just want to go back to sleep. I just want to curl up and read. I don't want to deal with the world today, with all its strange and alienating occurrences. All because I have a little wax in my ear. What a crybaby.

Wow, typing 2000 still feels very strange. Went to work today coding Java. Java's sweet and all, but when you mix threads, XML and servlets it starts to get hairy.

On the subway on the way to work, I saw something that will haunt me for the rest of my days. A woman was sitting there, acting normal, and I noticed she had half a fetus growing from the side of her head. I was horrified even though I'm a fairly tolerant person.

DAY 2 without coffee. Yesterday was... challenging... I endured about 5 hours of real headache. My eyes still don't feel like they open wide enough, but I'm not in pain anymore.
Lunch: chili. Mm-mm-mm-mmm-mmmmm.
I met D.- as I was pulling out of the street where the factory lives; he asked me for a light for his cigarette, then a lift to the bank (which was closed). I offered him $20 and drove him into Paterson to get a can of gasoline. He promised to meet me tomorrow at the factory to pay me back. Maybe he'll be there, maybe not. I don't make loans to strangers, just gifts that they can return if they want. I get to feel a little virtuous for a day.
Dad offered me his Lincoln Town Car last week; I officially turned it down today. There are a few rational reasons I don't want it, but most of all it's not my style. (I'm not sure what my style is - maybe an old Beetle.)
T is for Tuesday

T is also for Tea, as in Orange Spice. T is for Tomorrow, which will hopefully bring me a new job. T is for Terrible, which is what my job performance is lately.

Goofing off feels good. I’m sick of whiny customers who can’t think for themselves. I’m tired of having to kick Compaq’s ass because they won’t help people. It’s all a big ole load, and I’m glad that I only have 3 more days after today.

Started training Chris for my job today. This is interesting. I’m not sure how he will do, but if he falls down, I won’t have to worry about picking him up again. I’m trying to help him out so nobody can accuse me of setting him up for a fall. I’m going to do my best to get things cleaned up so he can work efficiently. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.

My brain isn’t freaking out about the Wellbutrin today. I still feel a bit scatterbrained and out of step, but its nowhere near how it was yesterday. I think I am going to call my doctor to get a prescription.

I still haven’t heard about the job yet at dad’s office, so I’m going to call them tomorrow if I still haven’t heard anything. My mom emailed me today and let me know that a headhunter had called her house with one of my old resumes to see if I was available for tech writing work. I will call that guy back tonight or tomorrow.

Time to pretend to work some more.

Nodes That I Wrote Today:
none

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
DeleriumKarma
Pete’s new songs

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar - The power of the Full Moon fuels your artistic ingenuity. Take revolutionary steps to make a name for yourself in the public eye. Listen to Ram musical geniuses of the past like Back, Haydn, and Rachmaninoff.

True end-to-end wire-free connectivity for the enterprise is within your reach.

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 23:58:21 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 653348 (1724 new since August 14, 2000)
Number of users: 17946 (48 new since August 14, 2000)
Number of links: 3002133 (25769 new since August 14, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.406 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.595 links per node
Link to user ratio: 167.287 links per user

New Nodes: [Problematize] [Cleaning Windows] [Drugs make people bad] [Things I Believed as a Child] [Able was I, ere I saw Elba] [If My Job Payed in Beer] [Straight but not Narrow] [And It Stoned Me] [masturbation] [Het Nutteloze Avontuur] [communication by side-effects] [Caring for dreadlocks] [The Gods must be crazy] [.uk] [Yuzo Koshiro]

Users Online (29): [ideath] [prole] [ophie] [ShadowLost] [ailie] [Gamaliel] [coffy] [binarydreams] [ism] [gnarl] [blaaf] [--OutpostMir--] [Muke] [tribbel] [Wuukiee] [Pyro] [Sputnik] [Cara*] [ninar] [rangek] [ReikiGirl] [lazyr] [abiessu] [shokwave] [Kurtz] [Xeno_Paradox] [DaveQat] [Infinite Monkeys] [ChildeHarold]

JeffMagnus node count: 4028 (1 new since August 14, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9454 (17 more since August 14, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.347 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.617%
JeffMagnus node of the day: July 19, 2000

Gorgeous sunset right now. Unfortunately, the worse the smog, the more colorful the sunset -- enough to make me dislike sunsets ... almost.

Tuesday was definitely better than Monday. The cat did not wake me up by pouncing on my chest, I got my cup of coffee at a reasonable hour, there were no major bugs in the system.

I talked to my dad today. Just a quick "how are you doing," but still, nice to hear his voice. It's funny how I used to cringe when I heard his voice on the phone, and now it is simply comforting.

Good night.

I saved 7 frogs from certain death. They were in my swimming pool and the chemicals would have eventually killed them. So I used a net to fish them out, and took them to a pond not far from my house. It left me with a good feeling.

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