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Time: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 00:27:50 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 670846 (1040 new since August 28, 2000)
Number of users: 18440 (38 new since August 28, 2000)
Number of links: 3290959 (23108 new since August 28, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.380 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.906 links per node
Link to user ratio: 178.468 links per user

New Nodes: [murder-suicide] [Fortune cookie says:] [Smokey And The Bandit] [Richard Sherman] [Robert Sherman] [Francis Scott Key] [Pentagram] [murder-suicide] [why don't you do drugs?] [submission is a gift, give it to your lover] [Howard Ashman] [Savior of the Frogs] [Catastrophic Earth Changes] [Dam] [Obedience to Authority]

Users Online (55): [Tem42] [Uberfetus] [themusic] [ophie] [ShadowLost] [Orange Julius] [thefez] [ailie] [Electricsound] [Wintersweet] [dann] [icicle] [Archetype] [Kit Lo] [7Ghent] [proj2501] [VT_hawkeye] [--OutpostMir--] [mcc] [tribbel] [TaintedTex] [stand/alone/bitch] [id1984] [srkorn] [StopTheViolins] [jeremy f] [Wuukiee] [perdedor] [derc] [Ater] [Ads] [slappyjack] [jes04] [lawnjart] [swifticus] [girlotron] [godling] [dharmaraja] [Whywait?] [Brain] [Crux] [pigpoo] [Sirius] [Chihuahua Grub] [Bob9000] [mikl-em] [nightcoder] [mistero] [wyv] [danlowlite] [Clone] [narzos] [TinCanFury] [knowledge_is_power] [MilTan]

JeffMagnus node count: 4040 (1 new since August 28, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9570 (2 more since August 28, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.369 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.603%
JeffMagnus node of the day: what will occur the day after Windows NT becomes open source

I've had better weekends.

My grandfather died last week, and his funeral was on Friday. This explains many things, including my return to Montana three days after coming home to Washington, how far behind I am in work, and that I haven't noded in about a week.

Strange, actually. Normally, depression encourages my noding ... I have come to realize that I node better when depressed, as sad as that is. But, in this case, I just didn't feel like it. I even came to Everything twice while I was in Montana (a somewhat frustrating activity, in any case - my parents' modem is sooooo slow), but I just had nothing to say.

I don't like it when I run out of words. Words are really all that I have going for me most of the time ... what if they desert me, too?

The Couch Adventure
Or, How I spent 4 hours with a dead pickup truck

no comply has this friend, and she has a loveseat sitting in her basement that she wants to get rid of. Her family is fabulously well-to-do, so this is a pretty nice loveseat. I have just moved into a house with 3 other friends who have never had a place of their own, and hence our decor has sort of a minimalist Salvation Army feel to it. Another couch would be A Good Thing.

So (technically) earlier this morning (12:10 or so), we're sitting and watching yet another rented movie because we don't have cable yet, when no comply calls me. The girl with the couch is leaving for college Real Soon Now, so if we want the couch, we should come over and get it soon. Like, right now.

"Do we know anyone that has a truck," I ask, knowing full well that none of us do, "because if we want that couch, we have to go get it Right Now."

To my surprise, my sister's boyfriend Liam answers. "Yeah, my dad has one. We can probably borrow it. Let me call him."

So he calls his dad, and his dad says that there's a few hundred pounds of bricks in the back, but he can empty them out for us. Right now. At 12 o'clock at night. Obviously Fate wants us to have this couch.

We get in my friend's car, and a couple of us drive over to the girl's house. My sister and her boyfriend meet us there in the truck. We make smalltalk, load the couch into the truck, say farewells, and get in our cars. We're about to drive off, when...

The truck won't start. Liam turns the key, the truck goes "VrrrRrr...rrr...rrrr." The lights dim. Nothing. Try again. "Vrrrr....r." Less than nothing. Great. It's too dark to see the batteries, so we call the girl from her driveway and ask her to come outside and bring us a flashlight. She does, and we hook up jumper cables. Still nothing. Liam calls his dad again. He directs us to spray some starter fluid into the carburator. We eventually locate what we think is the carburator and spray it liberally with the fluid that we find in the back of the truck. Not even a sickly "vrrr..." escapes the engine now, just a sad little click.

So we wait half an hour, and Liam's dad comes over. He's a short Irish guy who my sister refers to as "The Leprechaun". He climbs halfway into the engine of the truck, fiddling with wires and hoses and whatnot, and eventually gets the beast to spring to life. Finally, The Couch was ours!

We begin to drive off, when we notice the truck is not following. We drive a quarter-mile in reverse to where the truck sits, silent, with rapidly dimming headlights. The truck had died again, just around the corner from the girl's house. Liam tried to honk to let us know what was going on, but when he pressed the horn, the lights dimmed and the truck made a noise like a dying muppet - a sad, rattly honk that faded and lowered in pitch as the old truck breathed its last, in the darkness, beneath an old apple tree.

Dan calls Triple A to get the truck towed to my house, so I can get at least get THE COUCH. In my head, I hear it in capital letters. It's no longer just any ordinary couch, but some mythical cursed object, that heroes had quested for and died in its pursuit for eons. Its curse had claimed the life of the poor truck, but I'd be damned if I was going to give up on it now.

Triple-A sends out a tow truck, which is supposed to be there in 45 minutes. We pass the time sitting in the truck, sitting in the back of the truck on the couch, throwing crabapples at houses and trees and each other, laughing ourselves silly about out predicament. We start talking about the Blair Witch Project and get really spooked. Dan goes out for Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

An hour later, around 2:30, the tow truck arrives. Huzzah! We have defeated THE COUCH! We will finally get to go home and go to sleep!

"FUCK!" yells the tow truck guy. "I can't tow this, it's four wheel drive. I'll have to call a flatbed. It'll take an hour or so, he'll be coming outta Tewksbury."

At this point, I hate my life.

The tow truck guy is nice enough to wait by our truck for the flatbed. So I finally get to go home, but I have to stay awake another hour or two while the flatbed gets to the truck, picks it up, and brings it to my house. Luckily the coffee is doing its work, so I am up to the task.

Around 4:15, the flatbed and the tow truck arrive at my house amidst much beeping and flashing of lights and great consternation for all of my neighbors. Fuck 'em. They can answer to THE COUCH. The flatbed dumps the truck on the street in front of my house, and the two nice towing guys bid me good night. Somehow, through sheer force of will and blockheaded determination, I singlehandedly carry THE COUCH up my driveway, up some stone steps, across the walkway, up the stairs to my front door, and into my living room, where I place it amongst the other free furniture, and give the motherfucker a nice solid kick.

THE COUCH is beautiful. I hate it. It's 5 in the morning. I'm going to bed.

12:03 EET

ARGH!
The client for whom I have been doing slave labor for the last 3 monts did a 180-degree-twist once again. The whole project needs to be rebuilt from scratch! Two weeks ago they were perfectly content and happy about the current design, but not anymore.
Ok. I've taken a lot of shit from the assholes in that crappy company, but this is enough. And if my bosses won't get me a substantial boost in the pay I'm getting for this job, I'll quit. Even being unemployed would be better than being a slave for dumbass clients who change their minds about everything every 10 minutes.

Working sucks. Stay in school.

Pardon my French, but I'm a little pissed off at the moment.


23:47 EET

Ok, just a quick update here. My day really wasn't as bad the bit above might make you think. I got over the initial state of being angry-as-hell and accepted my fate. My best friend coming over and ending the night with a bit of herbal remedies isn't hurting either. :) I'm still going to quit if they don't make me a good enough deal, though.

Tom Arnold talking about Melissa Joan Hart's vagina on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Now I've seen everything.


Track of the day:  Iwao Junko - Sono Mama

Today's Writeups
Roland CR-8000 | Roland TR-66 | Roland TR-707 | Roland TR-727 | Sono Mama

Nodekeeping
Roland Jupiter-4

Well it's been three days since my last writeup... that was back in the good old days of August 25, 2000 when the biggest thing I had to worry about was that damned monkey...

Another normal day, but this time life is very different. I got up, bathed, got the tube and sat there thinking about the events of the weekend. We did indeed go to Local Friends, but it's not going to be easy to go there again. You see we checked out the pub first and only had a couple, but all three of us were quite tipsy by the time we ate. It seemed like a good idea to have the mandarin ribs for a starter, but we neglected to take into account my lovely girlfriend's clumsiness.

On the next table were a perfectly innocent looking Chinese family. A young lady of about my age and her two parents were well into their main course when it happened. My lass was tugging the last bite of pork off her rib when it 'just disappeared'. I thought I had seen something pass me on a rapid, family bound trajectory and my worst fears were confirmed by a shriek from Chinese Girl.

Yes, my lass had managed not just to drop her rib, but to throw it clean across the restaurant and straight into the side of Chinese Girl's delicate, cotton sweater.

Family left shortly afterwards.

The rest of the weekend was just as fun, but not nearly so embarrassing. We had a couple of mates stay on Friday and Saturday nights, drank copious amounts of beer and wine. I got some new games going on my PC as well as sticking a load of stuff onto CDs. We watched two films: Sleepy Hollow and Stigmata. I thought Sleepy Hollow was very poor and Stigmata was ok, but better with the additional opening scene and director's ending. Blah de blah... words words words...

So it would seem that the high point of my three days was when my girlfriend accidentally threw a spare rib at someone in a restaurant. It's not a big thing, but it was funny and I know I'll remember it for many years.

But now I am back at work with another empty day to sit through.

There’s just no room for sentimentality in modern life:
Even when listening to Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet. I’m feeling alright, I actually am. Consequently there is little need for reflection, as much as I like to force it sometimes.

Today was the first part of the core skills test for high school kids in Queensland, Australia and I was one of the unwilling participants. That’s all I intend to say about that.

Is it wrong that whenever I see that certain someone now all of these profanities pop into my head? Sometimes it’s somewhat hazy even which particular words my poor little mind is exuding at such an insane rate. “Y’ f_king lil’ f_ing *%it wh_e *&(* cow @#(& c_t”. Perhaps not ‘wrong’, but it’s not ‘me’. I’m not even particularly proficient at distaste for even her, as much as I achieve a very believable surface hatred. I even convince myself sometimes. *sighs* I amuse myself.

everyone keeps telling me i never talk

everyone keeps telling me i'm not trying hard enough

everyone keeps telling me i'm being reckless with money

everyone keeps telling me that i dont appreciate what they're doing for me

everyone keeps telling me that i'm lazy

everyone keeps telling my that i don't seem to care

 

i'm tired.

i'm hungry

i'm poor

i'm stressed out

i'm a little angry.

This morning I have a meeting with my ten biggest customers. This afternoon I get my performance review from my boss and her boss.

I'll add a summary of the review here this afternoon, unless of course the gist of it is "stop noding".

It was a Bank Holiday yesterday. Bank Holidays are normally good fun, especially in the summer. You can fly a kite, or go for a walk. Anything that's not the usual routine. Sadly, yesterday - when most of the country migrated south to the beaches, I was stuck indoors working on my University project. The Title, for now, is The application of formal methods to software interface verification and it's dull. However, in just 2 weeks it will be handed in, and I can relax a bit.

While not working on that project, I also have a job, doing software testing for a big IT company. Today we were delivered many copies of the product - boxed and shrink-wrapped. Boody excellent. It's great to see the thing you've worked so hard for actually exist, in a physical form that you can touch, bend or even install. It made me happy.

Lunch today was:

  1. Jacket potato with cheese, beans and two sausages.
  2. Can of Dr Pepper.
  3. Mars Bar
Yummy.
Now then, back to work...

back | days | front

Ah, work.

I'm in a rare, can cope with anything mood today. I've had Solaris server problems, rackmount PC problems, Set top box problems and application problems all thrown at me today. I've solved them all quickly and accurately, prompting a "what have you been taking? I want some!" comment from a colleague. Yay for me!

I am in control

This week proves to be a hectic one. (yesterday was a public holiday in the UK) We have to pack all the equipment for the tradeshow, continue testing everything and organise ourselves for travelling next week.

Mental Note: Hate is the easiest of emotions, but the least rewarding.

There are moves afoot to oust our project leader. It turns out that our two most vital engineers are considering a joint "Either he goes or we go" move. The problem with this is that the much maligned manager is a golden boy, rising star within our company; he has powerful friends...

Mental Note: Keep your head down

13:10 BST

Websites for your reading pleasure:

  • http://www.37signals.com/svn/
  • http://www.contenu.nu/nublog.html

17:30 BST

Our general manager is not having a good day... From his point of view, we have made no progress from Friday. In fact, it looks as though we've made a backwards step; what was working seems to have broken. His mood has not been improved by intermediate problems with the output streams - prolly caused by a ground loop thingy because of the different power circuits our equipment is on...

Don't ask me, I'm a software technician and that's a hardware problem! ;-)

Three more days of work left. Only 8 more days until school starts. I still don't know what to think about this. At least when school starts I don't have to get up so early.

As I walked outside this morning, the air had that special crispness, that certain smell. It's practically fall now. I'd love to be romping around outside, but instead I'm stuck in a cubicle. A big grey lifeless cubicle.

They forgot my cheque again.

I'm working on a rather mindless project right now, it's basically a find and replace job, makework. I'm defiantly wasting my time here. Hopefully I'll be learning things at college, although I strongly doubt it.

I thought about feigning sick today and then remembered that Jeff's hosting that jam session. He really wants me to show up there, but I'm reasonably sure I'm going to end up feeling useless. I don't know how to play an instrument. I'll probably just end up on the 4-track fiddling with the effects pedals. It might be interesting.



Today's music selection:

Busta Rhymes - Anarchy
Revolution Magazine, September 2000, both discs
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
Towa Tei - Last Century Modern
Beastie Boys - The In Sound From Way Out
Busta Rhymes - Extinction Level Event
Ninja Tunes - Funkungfusion, both discs
Portishead - Portishead

Because of yesterday's purchase of the new Busta Rhymes album (Anarchy) yesterday, I've given myself a rather rappy mix today, which is good. I need some upbeat stuff.
my first daylog. Cheers!


All summer the campus here at Hopkins has been a war zone due to the massive renovations plans. Its amazing that they've been working so hard for the past three months and the campus looks exactly the same, except with more holes in the ground. Construction is way behind schedule, of course.

Anyways, in the past week I've noticed that trees have started getting little ribbons around them. Some are orange and some are blue. There seemed to be more orange ones than blue ones. Why two colors? My suspicions were confirmed this morning as I approached the Biology building to see two trees cut to the ground - with bright orange ribbons adorning their trunks. Between them, unscathed, was a tree with the winning blue ribbon on it.

This is starting to bother me. Why are some trees better than others? It isn't the tree's fault that it was planted somewhere that would be inconvenient to plans ten years in the future. We have some blue plumbing tape in the lab that is similar in color to the lucky-tree blue ribbons outside. Maybe I should go around campus tonight and save the trees. I will be the Lorax of Hopkins!

See also: The Trees
Dear day log, human body is a strange thing.

No, I didn't look at my pants. I'm talking about muscles. Two days ago, sunday night, there was a TV documentary about Garry Kasparov where he jumped up and down. You know, like, duck-straighten and jump-duck-repeat, waving your hands meanwhile too. It looked like an interesting thing to do, so I gave it a shot and jumped 30 such. It wasn't really that painful or even tiresome, but it's been two days now and my legs still hurt. At first I couldn't even get to the Chi position. Well, then again, I never could.

ah, it feels good to ramble, day log is the best thing E2 ever had

I am so confused.

I went to my job interview yesterday. It went pretty well. I am pretty sure that they are going to call me today and offer me a job since they need people in a big way. I just don't know if I want to do technical support anymore. Bleh. I don't know what to do. I could use the job, but at the same time, I have a feeling I would hate it.

My boyfriend keeps saying that I am a closet republican. I'm starting to believe him. I find myself becoming more and more fed up with a lot of things that are considered traditionally liberal, such as welfare mothers and protesting at the WTO meetings. I don't know what to think. I detest all of the candidates in the presidential race, and Republicans in general disgust me because of their general intolerant views. Its a weird thing to ponder.

Being out of work is weird. Its nice not doing anything for most of the day, but at the same time, I hate worrying about money. I hope I find a job I like soon.

Nothing else to report... its been a dull couple of days. I'm still feeling sick from this cold. This damned runny nose won't stop no matter what decongestant I consume.

Nodes That I Wrote Today:
none

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
none

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar - Surprise! Anything goes as Mars opposes Uranus. This is one of the most explosive alignments in the astrological bag of tricks. Avoid actions that can result in accidents and drastic repercussions. Enjoy hobbies and crafts tonight.

The couch story above is quite funny, at least since I wasn't involved in it. I can empathize, though, having recently moved in. Driving down 880 with a large mattress and box springs poorly tied to the top (I knew I should have paid more attention in Girl Scouts) was funny if you weren't there, too. Too bad I was the one leaning backwards to watch it through the moonroof. Ow.

I am supposed to meet an e2er today! My first noder that I didn't know already. WHEE! How groovy. Obviously I want to meet some noders, since I'm willing to go to a microbrewery for this, eh? eh! If only I hadn't dressed so poorly this morning. It was chilly, though, and I haven't properly unpacked, so I just put on whatever looked warm. Fribble.
I me-et dw-yn! I me-et dw-yn! Ahem. Hey! I finally got to meet somebody. :) I spotted dwyn at the microbrewery right off. We then went to Berkeley to meet up with my boyfriend, and then to Crepes A Go Go, a favorite of dwyn's too (it turned out). No other BANoders were groovy enough to show, but oh well--dwyn was quite interesting and much fun. Hope I didn't talk too much (I think I did...oops...). I think I'd like dwyn to meet my best friend. Hm. I *do* think the SFers should get together regularly. What I want to know is, are the rest of you well-behaved enough to come to my housewarming, or not? (My mother will be there, see. :p)
The only word that adequetly fits today is suck. Why, you may ask? So far UMCP has been nothing but a nightmare ( ok not a nightmare, but its certainly turning into a dream that I can't wake up from )

First off, when I moved in, I found out that I needed to have my account activated before I could get internet access. The office was closed sunday and saturday. I got that registered, and found I needed my MARS ( some network thing they have a umd, don't ask cause I don't know ;) PIN number! Back to the office...

I get that done finally, and I decide to ride over to deathcubek's apartement. I get half way and my bike chain breaks. Ok. Things like that happen. I get there, and noone has pliers that I can use to fix it, so when I leave I have to walk the bike back to the house. Someone at the house has a leatherman that I can borrow. I fix it, but it breaks again when I test it out. I'll have to buy a new chain.

Then I have to buy books. Luckly my physics book is the only one I have to buy right now. There was no used one at the bookstore, so I had to buy a new one -- $75. Normally, this isn't too much of a problem but, just moving down here, I don't have a bank account with money in it, so I have to pay out of hand ( I don't like credit cards ). Now I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough money to last until I get my bank account transferred here.

Hopefully my college experince will get better.. maybe I can get a date? Or maybe thats just another of my delusions.

Thought of the day: If you KNOW they didnt plan the site out properly at the beginning, don't take the contract.
Slappy's Smkoe Log:
DAYS WITHOUT A CIGARETTE: 0
Smokes Today: 4
updated 1456 29 Aug 2000

dude, I'm never going to quit at this rate...

"EEW, Smokers are Gross!"" - Early 80s advertisement featuring Jordache girl Brooke Shields


I'd also like to thank the folks that did give a fuck and wish me a Happy Birthday.
I am loved.

List of Slappy's birthday presents:

Today was a very long day for me. School started back up again for me here at Texas A&M University. I thought last semester that taking 16 hours on only 2 days a week would be a good idea. And while I still like the idea of only going to classes twice a week. I don’t much care for going from 9:35 till 6:45 straight. It’s very long.

I discovered today that none of my professors this semester speak English. Would it really be that hard to find professors who speak English. I don’t like having to learn Romanian just to know what is going on in my Analysis of Algorithms classes.

On a positive note I did have a date the other night. Yes a geek with a girlfriend, more impressive me with a girlfriend. And before you wonder I already called and checked, yes Hell has frozen over. The date went well. I was able to get my roommate Cid Highwind out of the room for a good while. Needed that alone time. (draw your own conclusions here)

I got my major changed today. No more Computer Science! no more calculus and no more evil BAFH (bastard advisor from hell). I'm now a geography major. Why? because I'd rather do GIS work than sit in a little cube and code al day, and it would take me six years to get a CS degree at the rate I'm failing calculus classes. Now I just need to get the rest of my books...

Mozilla is getting less stable with every passing day. Maybe if I flood them with enough talkback reports they'll fix whatever's crashing it.

I also managed to hose my install of RPM. yay! I was trying to install a new rpm because the old one couldn't handle packages with a major version >3, so I could install Mesa 4.0, so I could build PDL, so I could build The GIMP. Instead I toasted the RPM database. blech. Gak. I hate Linux. (though not quite as much as I hate Windows 98 and MacOS)
Having your daylog voted down is like having your life voted down. Just out of curiosity, am I losing points for bitching about my advisor, for fux0ring my RPM database, or for not thinking Linux is the be all and end all of OSes?

<<   {hojita} Day Log Navigation   >>

*hack* *hack* *cough* I definitely have been coming down with something these past few days. I know a bunch of other people who are sick (*accusing glare at Duchess*) and either I've just caught what everybody else has or I'm spreading it to all my friends and that's how I know everybody who has it. *mgrin* *blush*

You ever notice how you can tell you're going to be sick? I had that feeling about two or three days ago. I wasn't feeling bad yet, but I had a little tingling in the back of my throat that said a sore throat was coming on. I don't know if this is a common occurance to everybody, but I attribute my "sore throat spider sense" to my experience back in sixth grade. During the sixth grade I had a routine of strep throat. It was almost funny it was so routine.

Day 1: Get Strep throat
Day 2: Be sick, stay home from school, because contagious
Day 3: Start Medicine
Day 4: Feel better, keep taking medicine
Day 17: Two weeks of medicine run out
Day 18: Yay! No Medicine, no strep throat!
Day 19: Still doing well!
Day 20: Nope, oh crap, strep throat again!

This routine literally repeated itself for almost the entire year until I had my tonsils taken out. That solved the problem, but to this day sore throats don't bother me hardly at all, and I have an acute sense of when they're going to hit me.

Other than that, class as usual, wasting my life away in perpetual class. Classes with bad teachers and dry material. It's not that I don't like learning...but I've never found anything that turns me off to learning more than some teachers here. More marching band practice as usual. We're trying to learn the entire half time show in two or three days. I should probably find the music for that *mgrin*.

Our anime club got hit by a deluge (or seeming to me) of people last night. It was our first meeting. We watched a lot of cool stuff (Orphen, Rose of Versailles, Kare Kano) but there were soooooo many people there. We normally have about 30 regulars (at most!) but there were easily 60 people there last night. I walked in late and just boggled at the huge crowd of people. Though that makes for a wonderful thing, it will make it even harder for us to travel to restaurants en masse *mgrin*.

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