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Time: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 00:27:59 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 667146 (2482 new since August 23, 2000)
Number of users: 18329 (67 new since August 23, 2000)
Number of links: 3210370 (48552 new since August 23, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.398 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.812 links per node
Link to user ratio: 175.152 links per user

New Nodes: [How to answer a telephone] [Dino Riders] [Stand by Me] [things I've learned about vendors from working for a dealership] [things have changed and we're both long gone] [Unoriginal material doesn't deserve to be cooled] [Sim Hang-over] [Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!] [Not everyone can give good blowjobs. Sorry.] [property values] [DMX-512] [Dear Stalker] [Unoriginal material doesn't deserve to be cooled] [the power of softlinks] [FM 22-5]

Users Online (41): [DMan] [Deborah909] [hamster bong] [Templeton] [Uberfetus] [Gamaliel] [whizkid] [baffo] [Jeeves] [ZamZ] [dolphinboy] [Roninspoon] [stand/alone/bitch] [tribbel] [simonc] [bonnet] [jeremy f] [Twiin] [Psk] [Wuukiee] [clampe] [ithron] [Byzantine] [lawnjart] [TheNastyCanasty] [{hojita}] [sockpuppet] [terse] [swifticus] [Torque] [lemuru] [Maldoror00] [windigo] [Girlface] [Shijef] [Deadbolt] [PhysicsChic] [sparkleface] [Flechette] [k_hokanson] [Fanb0y]

JeffMagnus node count: 4036 (0 new since August 23, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9527 (24 more since August 23, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.361 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.605%
JeffMagnus node of the day: http://slashdot.msn.com/

Well, the day of reckoning is upon me. While I'm at it, I might as well litter the rest of this WU w/ cliches. After four easy, short months of internship at Meijer, I am now a free man. Yes, no more toil of having to get up at the dreadfully early hour of 7:30, or having to work no weekends or holidays, no more $10.50/hr for writing on E2. Oh, its good to be free. (dripping with sarcasm)

I think I'm so happy to have things change that all i'd need to be happier was to get my wisdom teeth put back in, then promptly re-pulled. That would just make my day. Its been a week since I've had the operation, and since I'm a dumbass, I won't go easy on eating. In fact I think I re-opened my lower right wound a bit today. Wisdom teeth extraction does so much to improve your mood, I wish I could still take the codine they gave me.

My mother really confuses me. I love the lady to death, and its been a wonderful summer living with her, but I really don't understand her. I can barely understand how I'm related to her. She works for an advertising company, and she tries to solicit companies into letting her company put their logo on millions of items, so the company can use them for promotion. Her boyfriend, Steve, works for CenturyTel, a cellular phone company. Steve could sell a space heater to a man living on the Sun, and got invited to a charity golf tournament pro-am. Because of Steve's involvment, Governor Engler invited him and my mother to his residence, along with about 200 other people, for a little dinner/get together.
She declined, in favor of doing laundry, stamping prices on items for a garage sale, and watching Law and Order. After much prying, she tells me she doesn't want to go because "Steve would leave me in the corner alone anyway".

Regardless, she could, and should just go talk to people, say "Screw him", and have a wonderful time of her own, because she is an independent and capable woman. This could have been a big break for her career. Hell, even if it wouldn't help her career, it'd be fun. Hell, even if it weren't fun, you're in the Governor's mansion, how the often will that happen in your life? I just don't understand her, and am slightly mad at her for staying here tonight. I told her I would do the laundry, and the garage sale things, and pick up my sister from my Grandma's, but she refused. Grrr...

This will be the last day I spend in Comstock Park, Michigan. Tonight I'll probably sleep at my girlfriends house, just in time to drive two hours down to Albion, hand her over to thousands of eager men, and leave a basketcase. See: August 24, 2000. I've always hated the male gender for how simple minded they are in their selection of women, but now I hate it even more. My girlfriend has big breasts, a small waist, and a beautiful smile. She can't even go into a Meijer store without getting hit on by at least two guys. The more I think about how many guys she could have, the luckier I feel to have had her for so long, and the more scared I get that something bad will happen. I haven't gotten in a fight since freshman year of high school, but if I hear about any guy groping her at a party, his head is coming back to Ann Arbor mounted on my radio antenna. I suppose I would finally have a use for lifting every other day as a religion.

I don't understand how is it possible to trust someone so much, and love them so much, but be so scared that they'll forget about you? Its not every day that someone moves out of the house they were born into and moves two hours away, and as my ex-roommate Cliff O'Malley says, "Duuude, bitches, when they get in college man...freshmen and stuff, man... they're fucked UP."

Thanks, Cliff, have another beer. But seriously, most people know how much people change in their freshman year of college, and from talking to people, girls get hit harder than guys do. "You can change your mind, if you have one." - Quest for Glory 1, EGA version. Will she change so much that she's not interested in me anymore? I just pray to God not. For the reader's understand, yes, Pam is my first love, but so much more than that. In 10 months of knowing her, her and I have the connection that took 4-5 years of building with my best friend, we've got ESP, we've got each others timing, all the best parts of a cooperative relationship exist, and the communication never ceases to amaze me. If we fight, it lasts for maybe 3-4 hours, tops. My cat stays mad at me for longer than that.

Tonight I'm going to have to hug the frog that Pam gave me very close to try to get to sleep. Because tomorrow(Saturday), I have to set my love free, and trust that she'll return to me. I have to let go. I'd rather just hold her forever.

Today was pretty good. How many times have I been able to say that? Woke up around 8:30 this morning and got ready for work. Yeah, work. Best way to start the day. Started out by putting 20% off stickers on carafes. As I was placing one of the red squares on a Snow Village display, with only the clicking of my sale gun to keep me company, I heard a high-pitched voice say, "Miss, I would like to buy some dishes." I look up, and there is Jessica! She came to keep me company after working at the GAP. She followed me around the store as I made the price changes, it was nice to have company. But she was tired and needed to get some sleep, so I sent her home. The day wore on, I finished up one roll of sale tape and had to refill the gun (that's always exciting - I never know if it's gonna work). Had a lady come in with an inch-thick pile of coupons. When I told her you could only use one per purchase, she decided to mak a fuss. Sigh. Thankfully I got out of there at 4:30.

Schmoo and I went to Meyer Music to get a liar for his trombone. I had to use my debit card since neither of us had any money. I was half afriad, half wanting to see my ex-boyfriend working there again. I don't know why. My mind plays all sorts of cruel tricks on me.

Band camp wasn't so bad tonight, probably because I wasn't sicking up. There were a million mosquitos, which didn't do much for my mood. After we were dismissed, Schmoo and I drove around the parking lot blasting some Rammstein with all the windows down, headbanging away. Well, I was watching Schmoo do the headbanging, anyway. It's not nearly as impressive since he cut his hair, but he's still the master. Hopefully he scared some people (he seems to enjoy doing that).

Now I am at home, in a house devoid of any food whatsoever since my mom is in West Viginia on business. My dad doesn't know how to go grocery shopping. I don't have time to go. My brother is too busy fucking his girlfriend downstairs to think about getting some dinner. So I guess I'll sit here and be hungry. Goodnight.

work: Just had the weirdest day at work. So I'm working late and my team leader and the guy I don't like get into an argument. I'm just trying to get some shit done and the guy I don't like comes up to me and tells me my team leader just said "then why don't you resign". I'm thinking "fuck ya", but instead I just shrug my shoulders and go back to work.

fastforward 30 minutes: I'm just about done with the stuff holding me late, I'm just wanting to get out of the joint because they have been basically yelling at each other the entire time. The guy I don't like comes up to me and starts telling me what has been "going down" all i do is shrug and say "I don't know what to say". What I want to say is "maybe you should consider resigning."

Basically I've had problems with this guy since he started and I've considered saying something to my team leader for a while. (it's only been a couple months) I was just starting to calm down and be cool with this guy, but tomorrow I'm telling my team leader I'm with him, "this guy sux, give me a raise". :)

i wonder about the state of the universe
when i can walk and see such beautiful
things and think such terrible thoughts,
all directed towards myself as if i
deserve the self abuse, and i implore..
i am smarter than this. i can fix it.
it will just take some time.

I feel like I'm dumping all of my problems on you, a lot, but you're so good to talk to and it just spills from my head so easily. I just want to say, that if you ever get sick of hearing my crap, and just want me to shut up.. tell me please. I don't ever want to be an annoyance. Thank you for listening, it means a lot to me..

they talked about me at work today,
she said, her and friends, people
that i went to school with for most
of my life and she has now clashed
with that whole portion of my life.
it is more than strange but i think
that i like it. he.. used to make
jokes at my expense, little nothings
compared to the torment i endured
from others. he told her, today, to
pass along to me that he is sorry
if he ever made me feel bad. he
could remember the times they made
me cry at school.. it made me smile.
i thought i had been the only one who
noticed how horribly they treated me.
i was wrong, so perfectly wrong.
                 
               i've been invited to several
                  varying locations this weekend
               but may choose to bother with
            none of them, simply because i
               don't know if i'm strong enough
              to face possible confrontation.
            this is stupid, i know.. i can
                  fix it too. need more time.
It would seem that sometimes I can't articulate the thoughts, the cruel ones that is, that float around in my head concerning myself. I think this is because they are so stupidly false that they shouldn't even exist. I'll push them out, yet..

You, you always seem to make me forget.. you make me slip back into the somewhat logical portion of my thought'y matter. For this, I am grateful because I've been slipping lately, just a little more and more but.. undone it shall be, some time, I'm sure of it. I can't say, can't tell most people the thoughts I've been having or the way I feel towards myself because they wouldn't understand and I do realize that it is in my head, and only I can fix it.
           "only YOU can prevent forest fires."
Thanks, Smokey.

back | days | front


It doesn't matter

If there was a special daylog nodetype that didn't get votes or add to my node total, I'd use it. Votes don't matter. XP doesn't matter. Node totals don't matter.

Good Nodes Matter

Hmm, it will be ironic if someone agrees enough to cool this daylog, or vote it up. Therefore I ask you, "Please don't cool or upvote this node" If you like this daylog, or any other of my nodes, please /msg me or send me an email (address on my homenode)

I suppose I could be viewed as a hypocrite for taking a moral high ground over noding and XP; I've been complaining to nate and dem bones about discrepancies between the number of votes I get and the number of XP I gain. I started off from a purely XP seeking, selfish point of view, but now I want it fixed because it is exposing a bug in E2.

Bugs are evil, and should be stamped on.

8:10 BST

80 pence. 80 pence to travel about a mile on our new bus routes, as opposed to 30 pence before. I am so annoyed at our bus company right now. Well, at least the weather is nice. (ack! "Briton talking about weather" alert!)

Things are so hectic at the moment. We're preparing for the most important trade show of our year, and the managers are panicking. They keep running around saying obvious things like: "Have you got enough power cables?" or "Are you sure it works?"

I keep wanting to say "Chill dudes, smoke some pot or drink some beer"

10:10 BST

Muhahahahaaa! Our product manager is leaving next week, and his top of the range Vaio laptop is up for grabs. I suggested to our general manager that I should keep the laptop as a backup PC in case any of our PCs break during the trade show. He agreed! Yay for me! I get a really nice laptop to play with!

Ahem! :-)

11:50 BST

More from the much-too-long daylog of me! I'm trying to get socks5 working on my Linux box, tunneling through a Microsoft Proxy server... Why does Microsoft make their products just slightly different from everyone else's?

ICQ for windows NT 4 is 6.25 MB in size - why?

12:50 BST

My General Manager just blew up at me. We were walking towards our test room and I asked about taking a digital camera to the trade show. As we got into the room and closed the door, he started shouting at me! He said that I shouldn't have such trivial things as digital cameras in my mind, that I shouldn't have internet browsers up on my screen all the time, that I should grow up, that I should stop being so naive, that I am too wet behind the ears, that I'm not doing myself any favours, that I'm "a bright lad, but I need to be more professional".

I mumbled something about not realising I had annoyed him, but I was almost in tears. What is it about Sony's management culture that makes managers bottle everything up and then rip your head off? I'm a flippant, silly kind of person. I'm not about to change any time soon, and certainly not because some managers want my outsides to be more like their dead, zombie insides.


More later!

Day two, a monkey dropped a coconut on the generator last night, so I am writing this on my clockwork laptop...

Well, it's another typical Friday. Got up, bathed, got the tube.. Oh, something happened on the tube today. I travel from zone 3 to zone 5, which means I am going the opposite way to most of the commuters and travelling away from the city centre in the morning, so I usually get on a fairly empty carriage. My lass goes the other way and rarely gets a seat. So I boarded, parked my arse and got out my book. Then I noticed this bag, sitting on the floor a couple of seats to my left. It was a fairly large, paper bag that looked the type you might acquire when purchasing women's clothing on Oxford Street. The first thing that went through my mind was obviously, "bomb"

I looked at the other passengers and then the doors shut and the train set off. There were about eight of us in that carriage and three were sitting as close as me to Bag. Each one looked me in the eye as if to ask, "Are you concerned enough to do anything about this because I am shitting myself, but feel stupid making a fuss?"

I realised I was no more sensible than them and tried to ignore Bag while I read my book. However, at the next station the tube stopped for longer than usual and we started to feel more uneasy. Suddenly an employee of the London Underground came into the carriage, said to me, "I'm guessing this is not yours?" scooped up Bag and left.

Relief.

For the next eight hours I shall most likely try to look busy, altough I have almost nothing to do at work. The good bit will be filling my hard drive with stuff to take home because then I'll be able to spend the weekend checking it out and cutting CDs with my new toy that I set up yesterday.

After that I am off to meet my lass and her mate at the pub, have a couple of pints of Guinness and go for a Chinese meal at Local Friends. After that it'll be the offy and home to watch some DVDs and probably have a smoke.

Tomorrow is bank holiday weekend, so I will have three days in a row off work (and offline) for the first time this year. This pleases me.

Today I had a lovely chat with Jinmyo about foodie stuff. She reckons that I should node some food things. I'm on such a Japanese roll* at the moment that I don't feel like I'll be up for air for days.

Did some very satisfying research on the history and current state of the yakuza, noded it all, and kept filling out the Sanrio panopoly of characters. Felt really good noding Shintaro Tsuji, a man I have great respect for.

An upshot of all the yakuza research is that I now have in my possession the complete list of "designated addresses" for the 35 most dangerous criminal groups in Japan. I've got a yen to visit the Tokyo-based groups. When sharing this little story with Gemma, was told I was a bloody idiot, why would anyone want to visit the yakuza at their headquarters?!? I told her that they all the best yakuza HQ's had a t-shirt concession. She was horrified, and threw a dishtowel at me when I couldn't keep a straight face any longer.

Cooked a tasty Bolognese sauce tonight wth biodynamic beef, served it on artisan penne and with organic brocolli, sugar-snap peas, and fresh corn kernels.

It's Friday night. I really should get off this thing.

* a Maki.

science does not determine reality, reality determines science:
my best friend has told me that she wants to become a philosopher. I’m impressed. gives me a new partner in drunken existential angst.

my one piece of jumping-around-worthy excitement today came with the news that the cure is coming to Brisbane, Australia (reluctant home town) for the first time since 1978.

I’ve been miss morality queen for today and not entirely sure why. I can’t be bothered with most people anymore. I can’t be bothered liking them, so why should I be bothered hating them? people confuse me muchly. and I’m one of them.

prev daylog next daylog

This is going to be my last daylog for a long time. I'm just about done with preparations for my trip to the dolomites. All the bags are packed and I'm almost ready to go. I'm going on a hiking trip with my girlfriend. I've been outdoors like crazy in my life, but mostly it was in the army. I've never gone on a hiking trip, so I'm looking forward to it. It's amazing how little fits inside a 65-liter bag. You have to have a sleeping bag, sandals (trekking sandals which are also useful for showers, etc.), clothes, and various other tiny things. I've cut the original amount of clothes I was going to take to about half. I'm going on a 2 and a half week trip with just 4 pairs of socks, two trousers (one spare), and 4 T-shirts. It sucks that it's cold there at night, because warm clothes take up tons of space. I've also got to carry the tent, which gives me automatically about 3 extra kilograms. My girlfriend is carrying the toiletteries and first aid stuff.

Did you notice how the word 'toiletteries' makes it look like a poofy hotel trip, instead of a more rugged hiking trip? The first aid kit cancells that out slightly, though. (I won't mention that the first aid kit includes band-aids with pictures of animals.)

Silly unimportant things end up taking all the space, like shaving lotion. That just takes up too much space for it's very limited use. However, I am not about to itch for two weeks, so that kind of stuff has to come with us.

A funny thing happened last night. I'm meeting up with Rutger, an old friend of mine from Kenya in Padova on Saturday. He's from Holland, but he's there on a business trip, so it's really cool that we're both in Italy at the same time, and yet difficult to coordinate the meeting. Thank God for mobile phones. He called me at 2:00 am to discuss when we'd meet. My flatmate picked up the phone at the same time as me, both us having been woken up by the phone. There were a few furtive minutes of 'Hello?'s, until I realised what was happening, and told him it's for me. He was still half asleep, so he didn't really understand what I was talking about. I tried to explain some more, until I realised that Rutger was waiting to talk to me, and was calling me long distance. So I told Rutger to talk, and that my flatmate will realise at some point that the call is for me. It took him almost a minute until he understood that it was for me. I found that hilarious.

Another topic of hilarity in that conversation was my girlfriend's bladder. She went to pee when the phone rang, and when Rutger asked me where she was, I told him. Then she came back, and after about 5 minutes, she went again. At that moment he asked me if she had come back, which was very funny, and got us talking about Monty Python at 2:10 am. (We talked about how my girlfriend saw the Marathon for people with extremely weak bladders, and didn't understand why it was funny). There was more talk of girlfriends and bladders and so forth. It was the longest conversation we have had in about 2 years.

Yesterday I went to my step-brother's wedding. It wasn't too exciting, except that my mother made her whole family come, including my grandfather, who is 92. That pissed me off. Her husband's son is getting married. Who gives a rat's ass? So I sat with my granddad, and tried to make him a bit happier, while dance music was all around. He really didn't enjoy it.

A funny thing happened when I went to talk to my step-sister. I sat next to her, we talked, and the second dish was served. So we just ate it there, although those weren't our seats. I drank from the cups, etc., and then I thought "Wait, I am sitting in someone's seat". So I asked who's seat it was and was told it's my step-brother's mom's seat. Now I'm sure she would have loved to come to her seat and find her ex-husband's new wife's son sitting in her seat, especially with the love-hate realtionship without the love part, that she has with him.

And finally, on a note of annoyance (I hope my brother surfs E2 and reads this): my brother's going out with a girl who seems harmless enough. But she smokes, apparently. Well, my brother was all against smoking like a maniac until a couple of months ago. I thought we had taught him well. I was wrong. He smoked with her. I am sure he started because of her, and it's a pity for some girl to fuck up his life. I guess there's four ways out when your girlfriend smokes. It's almost impossible to remain apathetic, I think, but I'll leave that as an option. An easy one is to split up, but that's a last resort option. The two remaining options are:

  1. Start smoking
  2. Make her quit. It doesn't always work, but if you're not worth her stopping to quit over, she's not worth being with. That's my philosophy, anyway.
I chose number 2. with my girlfriend. He chose number 1. Oh well...

15:08 EET

Friday. The best day of the week.
And it's such a good day for noding, too. Most of the coworkers are stuck at a meeting for the entire afternoon, giving me the perfect chance to weasel out of anything important and node on. If questions of my unproductivity raise their ugly heads, I'll just go with explanations about some code related problems that have slowed me down.

Break - the hardest working person in the business!

Thanks to Dizzy about complementing my home node. How could *I* (apparently) be the first one with such an idea? The ASCII-picture will probably stay there even after I reach level 6. That will still take a while though, so I have time to come up with something interesting.
I also like Dizzy's idea of day logs nobody could vote for. At least it might decrease the amount of stupid whining - see my rant in yesterday's enrtry.

I still didn't spot any Hell's Angels while walking through downtown Hämeenlinna. Most of them should be arriving today, and according to estimates some 400-700 bikers will be occupying the nearby castle/hotel. I'll stay alert for any bazooka attacks. :)

3 more hours to the epic minigolf battle. I wonder if I should try to prepare myself with tibetian meditation or putting practice? Or how about noding?
I'd better visit a junk food place to keep my stomach content through the match of the decade. I'll be back.


To be continued...


Today's Writeups
Dream Log: August 25, 2000 | playing a record at the wrong speed | Roland S-50 | Roland S-330 | Roland S-550 | Roland SH-5

Last night very little got done. When I got off work, I simply went to CompUSA to pick some stuff up, and went home. I ate two hotdogs, drank 2 screwdrivers, watched the simpsons, and went to bed, now this morning on the other hand I did a lot. I overslept, I broke the land speed record, between Nacogdoches and Lufkin and still was 30 minutes late to work. I haven't stopped moving since I got here, until now.
Ya ever just know it's gonna be one of those days?
My first daylog.

My last day at work for three weeks. (Sounds of cheering)

Today I was complimented on the quality of my French by a Belgian. I never thought working in Tech Support would have such benefits. I'm unlikely to need my knowledge of Swedish any time soon, though.

On the other hand, my node about the topology of Everything was somewhat spoiled by my totally incorrect recollection of what was once one of my best subjects. The node has been put out of its misery.

Some of my nodes are skyrocketing and totally popular. Others seem to be downvote bait. I feel I am the target of systematic downvoting. I shouldn't care this much about nodes, but I do.

My birthday is approaching, along with two consecutive holidays with wonderful people.

I'm hoping that I come back to a different job from the one I've got now.
The online comic Sluggy Freelance turned three today. Soon the strip might even start babbling a little more comprehensively and ambling around clumsily. Congrats Pete!

If you haven't read it yet, three years of comics only takes about five hours to wade through if you're determined enough.

Driving to work: noticed that someone had been clearing land, cut down a tall pine tree, but not very intelligently had it fall toward the road. Not only that: they cut off the part that blocked the road, leaving only the portion from the stump to where it hangs on the electrical/phone lines, bending the lines down almost to the ground like a huge set of rubber bands...

Luckily some safety-for-all stuck a red traffic cone on one of the upper branches (so no birds fly into it?).

Random thoughts entered my head today, some bounced around before departing. One came from the memory of an article from a newspaper of many, many months ago. It was about an incident in Europe which, still depresses me to no end. A summary of the details which I recollect:

It was late night and the city streets began to fill up with nightclubbers who were getting ready to leave for home. It was densely crowded: there were over a thousand people roughly in visible range of the subway...
and it began to rain.

Approximately one thousand people (most of whom were young fit adults) simultaneously decided to head for the subway for cover.
What was an impatient shuffle became a hurried rush,
and what was a hurried rush became a frantic scramble towards the subway entrances...
To avoid getting wet.

Several were crushed in the resulting stampede. Over one hundred and sixty were injured. Over eighty died.
Trampled to death.
Most were young women impeded by footwear not meant to be run in. Many people were caught off guard. Several would not have made it regardless.

The subway platforms could barely accommodate half of those seeking cover. A majority were left outside, standing in streets strewn with corpses and the injured. For over half an hour after it had started, people were being further compacted by the momentum of the horde, which had yet to cease moving.

...

I keep trying to understand why it can happen. I keep trying to rationalise it... "It's a simple chain of events," I would think. Each individual is responsible for little more than some shoving. Each individual is simply following a narrow path of least resistance, step by effortless step, powerless to stop.

This is where I lose focus of the individuals, they blur and become one, a singular mob with the blood of several dozen on its hands. The qualities I once took for granted (perhaps due to sheer naiveté) turn out to be nothing more than a sugar coating of true human nature. And this is where I give up on thinking about it.

The larger the mob, the lower its collective IQ.

time to find something harmless to bury my mind in. 03:25(GMT+10)20000826

went to drink to celebrate myself.
today, i was nominated for the project manager of our next resarch project.
3G cell phone system.
i'll be responsible for designing the software archtecture for it.
cool...
we are going to implement the system using CORBA and Java, those are my current favorit technology 'cause it's pretty.
people who had ever been in my room knows how much i love java examing my java book collection.

anyway, i'm happy now.
i'll be get busy until march 2001 and the system would be deploied in 2003 in this country at least, possibly worldwide.
right now, i'm reading on the ITT standard document about 3G spec. which i have to read by sep. 1st.
damn. it's over 4000 pages long written in english and boring.
hell, i don't mind. i'm excited about this opportunity.
my team will change the world. hehehe...

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Ay, is it humid here today. I wish I could complain, but I lucked out and managed to get a room with a/c in my dorm. I've been designated a/c whore by my friends here without, but that doesn't make it any less hot outside. But I'm looking forward to the rest of the day, because I've been really productive this morning. I got a haircut, bought some school books (yay, finally having money again!), managed to see three friends I hadn't talked to in a while, and I'm going out to dinner and to the RHPS with a bunch of close friends later tonite. I couldn't be any more content =).

I've been awfully smiley today. I'm not totally sure why. I think it had to do with the fact that I got to talk to three friends today that I hadn't seen in a while. My friend Christopher, who's trying to finish off his courses here before he goes and gets a job; my other friend Kat who I know from ResNet here at school; some guy named David who is the friend of a friend that I met over dinner last year. Even though I knew him the least over the other two by far, talking to him made me much happier than talking to Kat or Christopher. I'm not sure why. Not that seeing Christopher or Kat wasn't good either. I think I just enjoy having really good interactions with people, and being that I didn't know David too well, being able to see him and have a good brief conversation was amazing in a very unexpected way. He's also awfully flirty and that tends to put me in a good mood almost regardless too. *blush* *mgrin*

I feel like I must put out some permeating aura depending on the mood I'm in. I was in such a good mood as I was trekking back to my dorm today that I couldn't help but smile. It was like I had this smile that was forcing itself on my face, and I could struggle against it, which made me look like I was grinning, but it was there. I couldn't help but smiling I was in such a great mood. I thought it was just an internal thing until I noticed a lot of people smiling at me as I walked past. Not just that obligational upturning of the lips that people give you when you make unexpected eye contact, but genuine smiles! It wasn't that I was smiling at people. Not at all! I was looking at the ground as I was walking. It was as if I was sending off these psychic happiness vibes towards other people and they were responding. *happy* *bounce* *bounce* If only I could make other people smile like that more often...

Despite a lingering migraine, a strange skin problem, and later falling down in the middle of a dark road, our nonsignificantly-numbered-month anniversary dinner last night was just marvelous. Village Cafe was super the second time around, we tried the gnocchi (stellar!) and the cannolli (MMM! I'm a big fan of cannolli now!), and talked with the owners for quite a while. Nice people. They gave us baklava to take home, just because they're cool. Frank Sinatra was on the CD player when we came in, and it was Greek folk music by the time we left. Last time it was bombastic Italian opera. Then we walked along the Alameda shoreline in the darkness and looked at the sparkling lights of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge. I could see lots of stars overhead---no fog for once. He asked me to run away to Japan with him. I laughed, and kissed him on the nose.



Today I can't seem to get started at work. I do not like working 9 to 5. It's just unnatural. God, I feel sorry for men who are doomed to this life from the day they are born. (I KNOW women are too now, and I KNOW that women who "stay home" do a HELL of a lot of work. Right now it's the deathliness of office jobs that I'm thinking about, though.) I must get my PhD or something. I couldn't do this for very long.
My frustration with work grows and grows. At least it's Friday. Oakland Chinatown Street Fair on Sunday!

i am fucking tired.

awoke this morning to find my ears were still ringing from last night. it's funny, the hearing damage that results from going to shows sans earplugs sounds oddly like bagpipes. maybe this is just my scottish heritage rearing its head, and my bruised eardrums seek out the sound of some lonely musician playing their bagpipes to soothe themselves. but probably it has more to do with little high-pitched vibrations stuck in my ears.

part i

awoke worse off than i was today, due to a not inconsiderable hangover. called colleen, because she has no alarm clock. went back to sleep for a few minutes, then cleansed myself. dressed up in ripped, stained punk girl clothes. i am a poser. done getting ready and it's 11 and no colleen. call her again and she's still asleep. i bring my garbage cans inside and read email while i wait for her to get over to my place. she comes, and i make a decision to leave my car downtown. (where i left it night previous due to my drunkness and some sober person insisting i couldn't drive. bah.) stupid, stupid, stupid. we head north around noon, stopping in south seattle to look at scooters and feel like ignorant morons.

part ii

i wake up and we're in the valley. within five minutes, the brooding, overcast sky has given way to sunshine. we stop at the community college where i used to work, but the office i need access to is deserted. contemplate ringing the doorbell of the radio station, but decide it wasn't that important. i point out personally significant landmarks and my old ghetto house, 910b. we go to the local goodwill and find numerous cheap records and a nintendo power pad. i restrain myself from buying bags'o'toys. we drive past the skate shop across the street from my chevron, and it's going out of business. we go in, seeking cheap skateboards, and scott, the owner is half-heartedly helping some frat boy try on snowboard boots.
the slant, which is the shop, used to be in this tiny building across from cenex (if you don't know, you ain't a redneck). scott and his wife lived in back with their daughter and you went in and it was like family. they knew me, knew my little sister, sponsored those of my friends who were talented. then one summer, the shop filled up with the football players i went to school with, and there was never enough room. scott didn't even have time to say hi when we came in. eventually, they moved. and not two years later, they're out of business.
we move on to my dad's house, which entails a drive down highway 11/chuckanut drive. we find him out in the woods digging a drainage ditch, which he is more than happy to show off. he gives us half an hour's worth of information about the stump he's removing and the forest fire he found evidence of in the color of the soil beneath it. he feeds us pizza and we converse about evolution and fleas. he sends me off with money for food and books, which i must not spend on a tattoo, or i'll feel even worse about taking it.
we make it to larrabee state park well before dusk, and it's totally perfect. the sound looks like chocolate - smooth but still seemingly thick, or rich. and all the clouds are golden as the sun begins to set and the breeze is perfect and the temperature's perfect and we climb over the rocks like i used to when i was small. high school kids parade past into the cove that's not part of the park to make out of smoke weed. we head north again at 8.

part iii

the show is at the show off gallery in bellingham, which is actually three peoples' house. we get out of the car and our hearts sink because, holy shit, we're back in oly. we know half the kids there, and the ones we don't would have no trouble fitting in with all the little hipsters. we find skrilla and his woman, laura, and dig our heels in. see five bands:
dive tasters: blah. we catch the end of the set. see mumbled lyrics and guitar-on-its-deathbed. spend most of our time outside smoking because though no one's dancing it's miserably warm and humid inside.
the gossip: made my night. i've already said it today, but beth ditto is a goddess. everyone's on their feet, shaking their asses. she walks through the crowd and gets people to sing along. she sings girls in black, which gives colleen and i the giggles. my new favorite hipster band.
teen cthulu: can't pronounce it, can't spell it, but i fucking well dig it. fight with myself over the wisdom of joining the pit. common sense wins out over nostalgia, and i help skrilla guard his girlfriend, who is freaking the hell out. we like to watch punk boys abuse their instruments.
thrones: one guy with a drum machine and a guitar, and a voice that's either soft and nasal or eerily like james hetfield. this must be that new-fangled ex-pery-mental stuff. the cherry on top is the sleepy eyed boy with the bad mod haircut who stands on the side of the stage smiling stupidly and swinging his arms.
murder city devils: suddenly, the show off is packed with people. and a distressing number of chicks with fake tans in tie-back shirts and leather pants. ew. a girl named mary, from portland, tells us how she's been following the band all over the country but hasn't yet seen them light their drums on fire. skrilla tells me that cody, the drummer, is the same cody who was in a local band named bland all so many years ago. people rock out, the pit goes nuts, it gets too hot to breathe. we see mary step outside and not a minute later they light the drums on fire. poor girl.

this is me exhausted and happy.
Been working in an internet startup long? How's it going? Good? Any layoffs lately?
How about an acquisition?
Hmm. Guess it's just me.

There are many mottos floating around the office, some of which are not doing a very good job of inspiring, such as:
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
or
Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!

I've found one that really makes sense:
Succeed in spite of management.

They will hate this. And you will look great.

Okay, time to go drink away my bitterness at Jake's down the road.
We're all going. It's team building, you might say.
Today I spent the whole day with a co-worker by the name of Jonathan Levine to clean up the Brooklyn College campus newspaper office. Actually, the work to clean up the office has taken a few days and it's still not finished. I have cleaned up the computers, which are old Macintoshes boxen, ranging from Motorola's 68030 vintage with the Macintosh Color Classic up to the G3 boxen. The work involved are to reinstall the MacOS, clean up the keyboards, and suggest upgrades for them.

I've also cleaned up the file cabinets and desks left by the old staff from the early 1990's. I've seen pictues of some ancient civilization in this office... An Earth Day celebration from some group of college activists (New York Public Interest Research Group), the campus in its worse days with peeling paint and whatnot, basketball games of years past, you get the picture. I've also found a picture of Cybill Shepherd which I guess is used in an article as well... All I can think is the idea that the campus paper was into people and things way beyond boring campus-only stuff... I should see Cybill when she goes to New York City...

August 20, 2000 approximately 3:00pm, I am sitting on my deck reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, thinking the long thoughts and soaking up the sun when a sharp sound rings out. Sounds kind of like ... a gunshot? Being a canadian city boy my gunshot recognition skills are kind of weak. I go back to reading and a couple of minutes later, I hear sirens - police, fire and ambulance (oh my!).

"Wow, that really might have been a gunshot!", I think to myself and remark on it to a friend when we are going to dinner.

Today at work, I find out that the sound that I heard was a local man called up the coroner and told him to 'come and get his body' from downtown Eufaula, cause he would be dead in a couple minutes. He shot himself in the head, near a cluster of oak trees in the center of town.

Now, I am a complainer by nature, I like to believe that I am a bitcher, rather than a whiner, if you get my good-natured-talking-in-the-cafe distinction, and I enjoy complaining about life in eufaula along with the computer consultant type people I work with. The more I think about it though, the more seriously I am starting to take the situation - that gunshot was not the action of a man who has any hope for things getting better. Though I don't know the particulars of his situation, I do know that he lived here, and this makes me more sure that this place is bad for a person, mentally and spiritually (insofar as this term applies to a secular sort of fellow such as myself).

What makes me feel really bad though, is that for me the situation is simple - I have the freedom to leave, so I go. When I look at all the families who are here, and all the older folks whose extended families have left, and all the poor people who could just make their situation worse by leaving - it makes that shot sound a whole lot louder.

Ginny is leaving tomorrow. I can't believe it. We've lived in the same house (a household, even) for so long (long to me) that this seems impossible. Was it some Star Trek episode where the wants-to-be-a-real-boy character (Spock or Data) realizes that friendship is becoming accustomed to a person to the point where their absence is upsetting? Have i made that up? Sometimes you have to invent your history in order for it to be true enough.

I guess i go through friendships smoothly, but not without intensity. Are there a billion precious people in the world, or do i meet all the right people? Or both, or both? At any rate, there are people i can't imagine not caring for. And most of them are so far away.

I can hear Ginny and Kathy washing dishes. I made them dinner tonight, and made them laugh, and that's the best i can do. They say they want to take me with them, but i am pointed in the opposite direction (west). The best i can do is enough for now. I looked sadly at the dishes and they insisted that i shouldn't do them. The kitchen floor is a maze of half-packed cardboard boxes.

Moving on is a natural thing to do.

Ten years ago today: that was the first a boy made me cry.

Granted, a half-truth; I had an big brother after all, and big brothers are mean. But this is the first time a boy boy (whom I liked liked) caused me to shudder, shiver and get pretty dumb. Jesus. Not that I knew him particularly well; he sang cowboy songs with his brothers at the fair, for money. His dad and my dad were buddies from long ago. And, in true prepubescent form, my cousin and friend made sure my silly feelings were known to the boy. I'm still embarassed; I'm still so angry.

I fell on the grass, laughing, and did my best to keep my legs together underneath my skirt (straight, short denim; yes, and acid washed too). Days later getting in line behind him at a snow-cone stand; my face, at that point, was so wet and swollen with jealousy, and he saw it, and he gloated. Seriously. Said, Boy, this sure is good, repeatedly, loudly, and this is a ridiculous memory, the sort of thing you trump when you start your first secret diary, don't allow your self to forget though frankly, really, it just wasn't that big a deal . But Jesus, though, really it's a memory, and it was spectacular and there were tears, and this is one of the things that made me who I am. That 10-year old person I was is not dead, not yet, though I vaguely remember her, and frankly, she comes back to humiliate me. I wish I would have been stronger then but I realizing my legendary self-love is now as conditional as ever - I have hair I actually like and play with, and I'm paying handsomely to get some nicer teeth, and I've grown breasts, and Venusian hips. I love my body, and never said I didn't. But I can still be broken, so easily; maybe, right now, I am broken, and this has been a bad summer for that, for solitude in too many doses, not unlike the summer of '90; go figure; it's cyclic.

I do believe my fear of myself, my fear of other humans might have begun that day, though it's a poor thing to commemorate. But baby, maybe it's time to drag out my diaries again and pay a little more attention to my younger self and my teddy bear. Maybe it's something I'm owed, a little exploration and then an explanation of my tendency to fall for spectacular dolts; all my nightmarish fantasies, after all, involve this kind of public humilation, and maybe then it isn't a craving but a really stupid habit,, one I can kick.
It was a very hot morning. I mean, too hot to wear a black t shirt, and hot enough to burn your fingers on the ATM keys weather.

So, of course, I was looking forward to going to Glasgow Green, a big music festival in the middle of the city. It's an almost third leg to the Leeds and Reading festivals, but not all the bands played Glasgow this year, being its first year.

I turned up about halfway through Eagle Eye Cherry's set, and after him we wandered off to the UK Play/ntl: comedy tent, where some Irish dude was slagging off the English. Once he was done, Phil Kay (the compere) introduced a great singer, who will probably be someone to look out for in years to come. She was sorta like a Glaswegian version of Natalie Imbruglia. The interval which followed was pretty good too, since Mr Kay kept us entertained by making the crowd do tricks in exchange for UK Play goody bags. One girl did a cartwheel, and then landed on one leg, in the pose of an angel, as Phil asked, and he gave her a whole bundle of the bags..

After food, Beck. Excellent. The atmosphere of the crowd still wasn't too great, though. I think they were still busy getting drunk.

We wandered around for a while when Paul Weller was on, but saw bits of his set, which was fairly good.

But things really hotted up for the Stereophonics, who were amazing. Immense. Fantastic. Brilliant live, and it was a great crowd too. The only minor problem was the rain, which was inexplicable. The only possible explanation was Fran Healy being in the house, since it was definetly Travis weather.

A pretty darn good day, though...

A Day in the Life of Ender02 the Movie
by
Ender02 (who else would write about my day)

Final Draft
August 25, 2000

FADE IN:
INT. DORM ROOM
CLOSE ON A FACE. A twenty year old college student, ENDER02 awakes rubbing his eyes. We HEAR a loud train whistle blowing in the distances.

ENDER02
Damn I really do hate that train


CAM ON BED. ENDER02 looks at the other half of my his bed.

ENDER02
Damn it was just a dream she’s not here


ENDER02 POV: Intermittently visible is a small desk with a new very expensive large monitor on it. Next to it we see a checkbook clearly in the red.
BEHIND OVER HEAD SHOT. ENDER02 sits down and boots his COMPUTER. A login screen is visible ENDER02 think for a moment then logs himself in. COMPUTER, A feminine voice comes from the computer.

COMPUTER Greetings Master. How may this most humble servant assist you?


ENDER02 with a few clicks of the mouse if up and reading everything2
ZOOM IN ON THE CLOCK ON SCREEN. we see time shift from 7:00am to 10:00pm. ZOOM BACK TO BEHIND SHOT. ENDER02 is still reading Everything2.
ENDER02 get ups and heads to bed. We once again HEAR the train whistle.
FADE OUT.
How bloody wonderful. Someone tried to crack my box today.

It all happened around 4:30PM. I was feeling tired for some reason, and decided to doze off on my bed. No sooner than I had just layed down, when macaroni (My little Linux box) beeped out of the PC speaker. At first, I didn't think it was bad; my friend likes to telnet in from time to time and wall messages to me. No problem, I thought.

I looked at the walled message, and it was from syslogd@localhost. All the message said was "localhost". I found this quite odd, so I decided to fire up IRC to ask questions while I went over the /var/log/messages reel.

Within messages, I quickly noticed a rather largish amount of ugly characters around the point in time where it beeped. Not cool, I thought to myself. Very not cool.

A quick trip to #everything, as well as explaining what was going on, got a quick reply from nutate. His basic response boiled down to his last statement: "Game over, man!"

A check in netstat backed this up. I suddenly had all these connections to places I had NO idea of. After leaving #everything with the very informative message "oh, shit", I yanked the ethernet cable that hooked me back to the outside world.

Running on nutate's advice that "your box is a playground", and getting advice from resc, I dove headfirst into inetd.conf and started whacking services left and right. No more login, shell, all that. All what's open is http and ftp. Not trusting telnet anymore. Looking around, I also killed off linuxconf, sendmail, and a few other choice juicy tidbits.

I should head off to xoom.com (Where the IP of the attack traced back to), see if I can find their abuse address, and send out the log. Someone needs to be shot.

ADDED TO THE MP3 PLAYLIST TODAY: 99 Luftbaloons, Nena (German version); Da Da Da, Trio (German Version); Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel. (Also downloaded 99 Red Balloons by Nena, but that's not in the list)

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