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Time: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 00:27:45 GMT
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JeffMagnus node of the day: C!

It's the end of the summer. For me, at least. Today, I had the dubious pleasure of dealing with two unpleasant truths.

First: My best friend is cheating on his girlfriend. Not only that, but I'm her friend, too. Made even more difficult is the fact that I found this out yesterday, the day after I'd returned from Iowa, where I visited the "happy" couple, only to have dinner with the other party in the cheating, and discover that my best friend didn't trust me enough to tell me this. What does this mean? Am I untrustworthy? Is the fact that we've had six long, interesting, more-or-less happy years together simple that, a fact? Does it mean nothing to him? Does it mean that I look into things too much, and need to get a life?

Second: I leave for school again tomorrow. Returning to the misty bosom of Washington for some education. My younger brother is entering college for the first time in a few days. And I've had to deal with the fact, today, and recently, that I'm not as "good" a person as he. He's more honest, more likable, more hireable, and in better shape. My mother, and others around the homestead, listen to his ideas more willingly, react to his jokes more, and generally consider him a better investment of their time than I. Does this mean that I have to meet up to a standard set by my *younger* brother? Does this mean that, although I'm more "worldly" and experianced than he is, he's somehow more valid? Dealing with an obviously stupid inferiority complex is not what I had in mind for a three day train ride.

This morning I've come to some surprising, semi-drunken realizations about romance in my life (or finding Mr. Right and why it has not yet happened). Thus, contrary to my common belief:

  • I do not know what I'm looking for
  • I will not know it when I see it
  • In the mean-time I'm damn lonely and
  • not about to waste more time with more losers

Thank you and good night.

back | days | front

7:55 BST

Good Morning!

I appear to be in an uncommonly good mood this morning; this prolly has something to do with the 12 hours sleep I got last night after the hard day's work yesterday.

I woke up to a slightly cold edge in the air; it certainly seems that Autumn is edging in. I love autumn. Besides the obvious benefits of kicking up huge piles of golden leaves and playing conkers loads of cool (heh) stuff happens in autumn: Dressing up warm in fleeces and scarves and gloves, cuddling, cold faces with warm bodies and finally lip balm.

Don't ask me why, but I love lip balm. Especially the orange flavoured ones. Maybe it's lipstick for men or something :-)

I think I've put my finger on why we've all been happier at work: our bastard project leader has been on holiday for 2 days. Maybe he'll accept some of my holiday and leave us alone more often?

12:20 BST

Another day, Another person leaving Sony. This time the person leaving is our product manager, who is a great laugh and an all round good guy. He will be sorely missed, considering that he's essentially been responsible for all the sales of our department to date...

I got a really nice /msg from a fellow noder about these daylogs. He shall remain nameless, but thanks a lot matey! It really means a lot to get some encouragement, especially when daylogs can be a little stigmatised due the vote dumping that sometimes goes on.


Do I have to mention that there'll be more later?

12:40 EET

I don't understand wtf is going on in this firm.
One minute they're saying they've got an 8-month project for me with a substantial salary. A minute later they tell me the only thing available is some XSL coding. Next I'm told this would be a great time for a vacation.
Vacation?
Yeah, that's exactly what I need with less than 1000FIM on my account in the middle of autumn!
Maybe I really need to quit, since this company obviously can't find use for me. Then again, with my (lack of) education, experience and expertise I can't do any better either. Am I going to be stuck in two-bit firms like this for the rest of my life?

Great, they got the business cards from the printing company today. At least they will make nice roach carton.


16:36 EET

Due to some divine intervention perhaps, I managed to code some PHP stuff that actually works! Sure, it was very simple and my code probably looks quite bad, but still.. At least I have a feeling I did something worthwhile at the office.

My backup project is now complete!
The trigger happy editors can destroy it all now, if that is what they think should be done. At least everything I've written is safe with me now.

Time to leave out to the rain and get some junk food at good old Carrols. Mmm, hardening arteries...


To be continued...
The lightning were seen everywhere from the eighth floor of the central tower of Torres Cerdà, the place where I am working now. I arranged everything to get out quickly. The sky almost had fallen on us and I didn’t like the idea to drive under a strong storm; drivers put themselves nervous and make stupid things when it rains, and I hate the idea of driving when the pavement of the freeway becomes a mirror. Strangely, my short trip to Santa Fe (of the Penèdes, not of New Mexico) was fantastic, there was little rain, the fast lane was free most of the time, and I arrived in forty minutes. Sometimes I am a lucky commuter, although I prefer to be a Rodríguez.

When I arrived at Santa Fe the light was wonderful, the weather forecast having just said on the radio that the storms were general in all the country (yes, I live in a small country). Our little town had to be the centre of the storm, because everything was calm. The light was incredible, leaking through the clouds with that orange-reddish tone of the dusk. When I arrived at the house the horn warned Sonia of my arrival. I manoeuvred the car to face the doors that give entrance to the garage and few moments later she opened the door.

" How is everything?". "a pair of power cuts, but everything is fine now." "There are storms throughout, they will be here soon too".

We went upstairs and we sat down, as she’s on holydays and I am working, we had to take advantage of the little time we spend together, so we started to chat. Suddenly, the lights went off.

Cal Ferret, that is the name of the house, is a big house of three plants that dates from the XVII century, and although is partially reformed, doesn’t have all the comforts of a modern house. In spite of that, we still depend on electrical energy, and a power cut means that there is no music, no TV, no computers (we have two!) nor water (the water pump is electric). While Sonia was lighting some candles and I was rolling the first joint of the day, I began to think that bringing all those household-electric devices here, we have turned the house into another mousetrap for humans dependent of electricity. Although I am already used to the telephone absence (but not to the absence of Internet), since the omnipresent cellular telephone accompanies to us, a blackout always is a good occasion to reflect on our dependency of the electricity. But also, a blackout is perfect to have a conversation without distractions. I tend to make too many things simultaneously, like reading the newspaper, watching TV and speaking with Sonia at the same time, so we enjoyed of the powerless calm of the house.

Outside, the lightning flashes were more and more spectacular, it wasn’t raining above us, but the wind was so strong that rain fell laterally from a big, nearby cloud. The cellular phone rang. Sonia went to the backyard, to have better coverage and a new and powerful lightning illuminated the dying dusk. It was so violent that we loosed the communication and we had to reset the phone, because it hung! We continued chatting calmly, enjoying the moment. Watching the candles, it seemed to me like a scene of Barry Lindon, everything was so calm that it seemed unreal. We had been without light for one hour and a half . We began to think that we had to cook, that the umpteenth repeat of Star Trek: The Next Generation was about to start, and other thoughts that demonstrate how slaves we are of the current of electrons we call electricity. However, the tranquillity won over us and nothing seemed to matter…

Then, light suddenly returned and both jumped and shouted like mad: yeah! well done! cool! I turned on the TV set, still lacking five minutes for our favourite program, we ran to the kitchen… and the enthusiasm bewildered again these incorrigible electric boys...

Today's Olympic scandal is that FIFA (who are apparently the world Soccer governing body) visited the Canberra stadium where the soccer heats are to be held. This is the stadium where after seven years notice, the local government has miserably failed in getting an acceptable playing surface of turf ready in time. Anyways, the firm that won the contract to supply the turf was not a local company, rather a Far Northern Queensland specialist in tropical turf. Canberra, one hastens to remind the local authorities, is thousands of kilometres south of FNQ and is still gripped by winter frosts and sub-15C days. The turf, once it was flown down here from the 40C FNQ Cairns prompy died.

Cut to today, two weeks later. The local govt, for a fortnight, has been assuring the local Canberrans, SOCOG, and FIFA that the turf wasn't dead, it was just pining for the fjords, and it would burst back into life at any moment.

Nope. So, today's the big inspection day. The press and officials turn up. What had the govt operators done overnight?

They'd painted the dead turf green and hoped no-one would notice.

They're getting caned in the media, and the locals are livid.

Went to SYD today for a couple of hours, traffic and airports and everything worked surprisingly well. Met with The Big Web Portal's new local marketing director, San Franciscan woman 2.5 weeks in .au so far but says she loves it here (oh, don't they all, and then they just break our hearts...) I think we did a damn fine presentation, and she was impressed that I've been a subscriber of one of her firms offline publications for some 11 years... Found out we won the account for The Big Financial Portal which was cool, but the place is still pretty frosty...

Indian food for dinner, Gemma is studying, Molly is asleep on my foot. All is well at home.

G'day...

15:25

I woke up late. Mostly because I had such an interesting dream and I tried to put all of the pieces togheter before posting it.

That dream raises a lot of questions. Just interesting, interesting... =)

I've shown Wolf's Dreamworld around, but people (non-E2-users) have been saying "The font is too small!" "Your writeups are buried under others!" and so on... I've told them "Create account and change theme to classic, then" =)

Must use another of the free movie tickets today (it'll expire today). Romeo Must Die, right?

16:07

Dunno, but recently, I have had the feeling that... well, let me put this way: People make mistakes. People behave idiotically. People are Not Good Citizens. Good People complain. High-ranked people complain.

And I, while I'm not related to the whole equation, think it applies to me.

For example, every time I browse the editor logs, I think "dammit, is my drivel worth anything"? Someone says that your average citizens are not coding and contributing - I code, I contribute, but is it worth anything, dammit?

Am I good enough to live?

::sigh::

16:22

Total existentialistic chrisis! Or not.

The big, big question: I write a lot, but do I even make sense?????

21:10

Well, I saw Romeo Must Die. Way enough to amuse. =)

Excuse me for indecent language, but I dropped the fucking cell phone to ground. The fucking display is broken. And I fucking hate deadlines. I really do.

(phew) OK, now back to our probably-a-bit-more-decent language after that word from our noder...

21:34

No one even notices me, I guess. They just nod... If you look at my webcam now (http://wwwwolf.pp.fi/yiffcam/), you'll see one depressed wolf. =(

::sinks even deeper into the depression::

And Quake doesn't work 3D-accelerated yet so I won't bother trying it. ::Sigh:: Funny, every time I get depressed I get this funny urge to draw stuff. Art must be therapeutic or something.


Other day logs o' mine...

New writeups by y.t. during last few days: xconq pringles TrueType FreeType fuck

Today: Dream Log: August 31, 2000 GNU Chess

My last day of work for the summer! I've been interning with Compaq this summer, and today is my last day!

Things to do today:


After that, it's back to school at SPU for me.

Update: 23:44 Thu Aug 31 2000

Okay, so my perl scripts didn't get quite working. When I went to pack up, everything that fit in my bags on the trip over no longer fit. Funny, what a difference a couple extra perl books can make . . .
I went to watch the train go over the tracks with two friends of mine. We know the guy who runs the train, and he lets us put things on the tracks (like coins) and flatten them. :) It's very funny when my friend holds something up and goes, "Can I put this on the track?" and the guy, Bill, goes, "I don't give a shit".

Then I went to see Nicole. Ugh. What was I doing? I know she has a thing for me, but I'm in love with someone, and even though they aren't here I'm going to be loyal dammit! I just wanna be friends with her, but our sexuality gets in the way too much. I had to go see her on her birthday. Ugh. Help me!
Work. Transbay bus worked surprisingly well. Guy across from me sitting in meditation the whole time. Cool.

Must write up my magical lavender shirt.
Okay, this is a knit shirt with horizontal lavender, cream, and plum stripes, and a sort of turtleneck. It's just this side of cropped. I always thought it fit me pretty well, and yesterday a rare in-person client told me she thought it looked really nice on me and brought out the color of my eyes. That was cool. Then later in the gas station this well-dressed black guy almost bumped into me, and said, "Excuse me, baby..." ... (eyes lingering on my chest) ... he purrs "Babyyy...how are you?" It was pretty funny. That kind of thing doesn't happen to me. I wasn't offended, it was somewhere between amused and flattered--definitely didn't want it to go any further, though! so I just smiled vaguely and paid for my gasoline.

This power must only be used for good! ;p

N. B.: Feminists/women (all women should be feminists, but go figure--we have a lock on Uncle Tom-types)--ahem. Feminists/women who are afraid of/insulted by being admired by men are just afraid of being themselves, and how feminist is that? Not very. The guy wasn't creepy. Trying to hard to be a player, but since I wasn't going to buy into that, what did that matter to me? SO I took it as a compliment, without either encouraging the guy or going off on him.
On my walk from work to the station, there was the usual line of Greenpeace canvassers. I'd stopped for one once before, and had got to the 'what's your age' section of the form before finding out that under 18's may not sign up to donate on a monthly basis.

Since then, I've decided not to be rude and walk straight past, but rather stop for a moment to explain why I won't be donating to their cause.

This afternoon, I was asked if I could spare a few minutes of my time, to which I responded "I would, but I'm under 18." The girl's response was "Oh, I'm sorry", as if it were so bad to be 8 months short of the mark, and I was in terrible suffering.

It made me laugh, and I was somewhat cheerier on my way home

The cute-when-she-smiles-chick I saw on the train on Tuesday was back today, and it seemed that she had a bit of a spring in her step too - pretty noticable when she hopped onto the platform. :)

Today was an excellent day in my practical joke history. It all started with a pair of speakers hidden behind a bookshelf and attached to a linux box here at work.

Before you can appreciate the joke, you must understand its mark. His name is Dan and he hates it when we play music. One day, I guy asked Dan if he could hear the music he was playing although he was actually not playing any. Dan, in his efforts to keep music at bay in the office replied that he could in spite of the fact there was not music at all.

That was almost a year ago and now the time for revenge has arrived! I hide the speakers were Dan couldn't see, but in close proximity to his desk. I was able to control the mp3 player via a telnet session to the linux box.

It was time to play "Jammin'" by Bob Marley. Dan hates reggae. Subtlely at first, and Dan can't identify the source. He asks other employees if they can hear the music (they're all in on it of course), but everyone claims they hear nothing. Some even reference the past experience were he said he heard music which wasn't being played. I stop the music for a bit, then come back with it at a slightly higher volume. This time, "I shot the Sherrif." Dan goes bonkers! He can't figure out where it's coming from as we all erupt into laughter. Dan is had.

The best part, however, it yet to come. Dan has to come in alone to install a new switch. None of us will be around. I setup a cron job to start playing MP3s when he arrives and gradually increase the volume until it's at it's max around an hour later. The best part, it's Bob Marley.
scribbled on a couch

Everything's a production
when you're late - run around,
"Go get that signed", jump and jog, "Pick up her scrawl."

Nothing flows like it should,
no one's present where they should,
sometimes I could...
just scream. Wake everyone.

Because in this play
the players've forgotten the lines,
the props are gone and the
scenes are a mess, the reviews
aren't back but I know what
they'll be, so I don't bother
bitching about the details. "Man," they'll say,
"Man, your life is drama."




pathetic obscure notes

Chem prof down, three to go, and two would have been if I was agressive, on bastard pills. I need a break, not from work, but from fucking up.

I was almost killed by spacemen who kidnapped me and gave me an anal probe...

B and I are driving down to Vancouver from our home in Nelson. It has been an uneventful trip, but I have felt ill all day, like something wasn't right. I thought it was just nerves because I was about to move into an apartment I'd never seen before.

Due to my nausea i've been drifting in and out of sleep the entire trip down (I wasn't driving :) Around 4PM I wake up and see us swerving. Oh whatever, thinks I, just a bit of fish tailing. We then spin 180 degrees and slide into the mountain. Spin again another 180 degrees and end up facing the right way. The front end, drivers side catches the bank and flips us back up onto the highway, we land on my side of the car and then flip over upside down and land on the windshield. Fun fun fun.

A: shit
B: are you ok?
A: yes, you?(I really had no clue if I was ok or not, but I could speak, and I took that to mean nothing was seriously wrong)
B: yep

It was at this time I realised that we were in the middle of nowhere and it would be a good long time before someone came with the jaws of life to get us out, so I tried to open my door (not entirely aware that I was upside down). Door doesn't open, go out the window. My window has been crushed and is now half the size it used to be, I'm not entirely sure I can fit out. I get my head and arms through. That didn't work. At this time I realise my seatbelt is holding me in and unbuckle it. I try again to get out and am successful. Outside I see... LOTS OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN! I'm serious. There is something comforting about crawling out of a wrecked car and seeing a bunch of pretty girls who stopped to help. They tell me I'm in shock and to sit down. What I really want to do is see if B got out but I'm in no mood to argue so I sit.

B gets out of his car and is a little freaked out because I'm not visible, I'm actually sitting on the road on the otherside of the car.

An RN who stopped to help checks us out, cleans our wounds and leaves a pretty girl to watch over us when she's satisfied that we're all right. Her husband took a picture of B with his wrecked vehicle. Our injuries, despite the damage to the car are rather trival: I got road rash on my forearm, from when my side of the car bounced off the highway, and B had a scraped up knee. The pretty girl stays with us until the tow truck arrives. We get a really freaky tow truck driver, a real country bumpkin. He just happened to be driving when he saw us. He's BCAA so we let him help.

While the tow truck driver was flipping the car back on it's wheels, someone in a little rollerskate car comes whipping down the same corner and does a few 360's before slamming into the cement barriers on the otherside of the highway. He stops for a minute, then starts his car and drives away.

The tow truck driver tows us to the nearest town where we makes some phonecalls and arrange for someone to pick us up and bring us to our destination. It wasn't until we were in a car on our way to Vancouver again that I realised how close to being killed we really came. If our heads were a few inches further forward they would've been between the dashboard and the highway, and that would not have been pleasant.

Calling my mother to tell her about the accident was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. How do you tell your mother that you were in an accident that very nearly killed you? The car got towed back home to Nelson and I really hope she doesn't go to look at it.

Drive carefully
btw, I say "almost killed" and not "almost died", the injuries I received were not life threatening so I was not close to death, but the accident could very well have been fatal if not for a mere few inches...

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