02:33

It's hard to be optimistic.

Ето некогда не работает!!!

- Uttered by a Russian spy in
"The Illustrated History of the Atom Bomb",
Game supplement for Trinity, by Infocom

Nothing seems to work these days. Well, at least I got the Schedulist web page to work (http://schedulist.sourceforge.net/), but the CVS is screwed. Totally. Beyond my abilities at the moment, at least...

File releases in sf haven't worked. IRC connection kept stalling.

NOTHING seems to be going like planned.

And worst of all, no one listens to me in IRC anyway. And I don't know anyone I could actually talk to now, and right at the moment, they're all probably sleeping.

Darkness depression? Perharps. But... I doubt anyone will willingly want to listen to me.

Aww heck, no one is going to read this anyway.

I just want to be happy.

03:03

...This not a good place for stuff like this anyway.

I wish someone would give me a hug, but I guess that's just too far-fetched.

13:00

Afternoon...

Well, guess what: I don't seem to be that depressed anymore. It definitely seems like darkness-related thing.

Time to go to Usenet...

16:16

I updated the bookmarks, and should be running bk2site soon again to update my home page...

I switched from gdm to wdm, and upgraded Mozilla to 0.7.

18:37

OK, any problems so far? Well, I really wish I would find the Zany Video Game Quotes page - the server that had it originally doesn't seem to be up.

Oh, I forgot to tell: They started showing Digimon in Nelonen now. My sister (who is not area where Nelonen can be seen) will probably ask for a review. Wellllll... The Digimon writeup says the dialogue is horrible. Now imagine that dubbed to Finnish by even worse actors. At least the company that did the Pokemon dubs for MTV3 bothered to get decent actors... =)

(...I was a bit dozy when I saw that in the morning, but I think the end titles music was in category "lyrics that sound funny to the speakers of some other language" =)

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Var'aq WDM Display Postscript

The weather was beautiful here in Boston today, snowing. I was early for the T, so as I stood outside I looked at the snowflakes falling onto my coat.

Having grew up in the south, I have never been able to look at snow very much. So it is still special to me. There is something different about looking at an intricate ice crystal than taking scissors in art class and cutting up paper into a poor imitation.

Some of the snowflakes were flat, others were 3D. These were pretty small. Later in the day, I noticed out the window that the snowflakes were getting larger. The air was causing some of these flakes to go around in swirling circles. A co-worker saw me looking out the window and commented, "Snow break, eh?" I smiled because while I hate the mush and mud that is also around this time of year, I am having a good time.

Dreadlock reactions...Round Zwei
Round Eins was yesterday

More of the same, more or less. The important people said the right things, the less desireables I don't give a shit about.

Highlights for today
• The school principal walked by, and did a doubletake. He stopped to say, "Wow, I wish I could do that." Then he asked me questions relating to dreadlocks in general. He surprised me by knowing alot about them. Crazy hippie.
• A classmate of mine made an interesting comparison of my hair. He said that my hair reminded him of some bud that he had in his stash at home. To that I said, "No Nick, I'm sorry, but you can't smoke my hair."

After a throughly reaming day of school, I wished I had some of those nugs he was talking about. Piss.

I got home to find that my new Canon camera had arrived. I sat around taking pictures of nothing (I have no film). I read the manual back to front, front to back ("Clubheads in the house causin a heart attack..."). With this cam, I basically overpaid for a lower model than what I had originally ordered, but the whiz bang power of a new toy is satisfaction enough.

I went to fencing practice. My coach was in a pissy mood (so what else is new? Type A personality, hardcore.) I made the best out of it, and had the best time. Adrenaline makes you euphoric.

So now here I am. Euphoric. Pleasant. A kinder, gentler me. It's kinda sad that tomorrow's another day. This moment should last as long as I deem worthy. And right now, it should last until infinity.

Ugh. I went to Langara today. I'm going to study there? Whatever. Fuck it. The weird advisor lady told me that she'll give me advanced credit for the Calculus I'm doing at OLA. But I have to give her the final mark by May 6th. My final exam is on April 21st, and rush marking takes 2-4 weeks. Lovely. It sort of hurts if I dont get in. That means another term wasted. At least I still get to work and earn money (if the company exists then, which is highly doubtful). We'll deal with this when we get there.

Another little delema. It's my cousin's wedding in February. We haven't seen most of our relatives for years too. My mom wants me to go. It's two weeks. Overall, with tickets to goddamn Moscow, time off work and general expenses there it's gonna cost me over 3500 bucks. Now I'm trying to figure out whether making my mom happy is worth a few toys that I always wanted to have.

In other news. I finally managed to install debian properly. Mind you, it took a lot of time. Redhat does everything for you. So after I installed bare-bones Debian I found that i dont really know how to configure everything. As a result I gotta load the modules for ifconfig manually in the startup file. esd doesn't load at boot at this point in time ( i know i know i'll just add it to init), and gpm was acting weird. I figured out how to mess up LILO though. Yay to me. I'm typing this from Netscape 4.7 in IceWM. Eww to Netscape, and WOW to iCewm.

I still gotta node a few things that occured a while back:
* road rage incident
* buble tea place
something i can't rememeber now. I knew I'd forget it.
Goddamn. Well back to homework.

Lately I've been feeling neglected, as if the world could give a shit I existed. My parents are never home and when they are they don't even talk to me. My mom doesn't even make dinner for us anymore and my dad only talks to us when he's angry or wants something. My sister, well she's pregnant so I have to deal with all the moods and stuff while no one else will. My cat is the only one that really cares for me, though she only comes to me for affection and food. The only real people I have are the ones on #everything, and even then I get some crap from them. Apparently bongy was using me to get to clearpebbles, knarphie stopped talking to me on the phone, jessicapierce made some comment about me, booyaa's never really on anymore, and clearpebbles, well I don't think she really likes me in anyway.

Though of course there are some of the #everything people that do enjoy talking to me, though I really know of only two, Saige and anemotis. And even then anemotis doesn't use IRC, and Saige, well she hardly is on.

So the whole point is that lately I have been feeling neglected. Maybe I need to stop.

Heinous in Germany - 10 Jan 2001

In the morning, I embarked upon my mission to take a shower. This time, I noticed, I had two pink towels. This confirms my theory about the girl and boy towels. They must have figured out by the panties and bra's I had strung everywhere to dry, that I was a girl. Fortunately, one of the towels was bigger. I couldn't remember if I was going to have to move to the company flat that day or not, so as a precaution I packed all of my things and I think I checked out. I handed my keys to the nice chain-smoking waitress, and she waved goodbye.

I headed off toward the office, again bewildered by the lack of homeless people. I found the Apotheke, and between me pointing to my finger and saying the word Infektioncreme (or something like that) I managed to buy some antibiotic cream. Now, If I can only figure out if the office has some sort of first aid kit with bandaids in it.

After reaching the office, I settled down, read some email, and managed to trade some of my pfennig pieces with Bernhard for some marks, so that I could buy some cigarettes. The cigarette machines only take Mark coins of either 1, 2, or 5. They cost 6 Marks currently. The interesting thing is, that when the price for cigarettes rises, they have to increase it by an entire Mark. What they do to compensate you, if the price increase is not completely the same as the price in Marks, is give you more or less cigarettes in a package. Most of the packages I have been buying have had 22 cigarettes in them, I believe. This morning, when I bought my pack, the package had 1 Mark taped to the front of it. At first, I thought I had won some kind of German cigarette lottery, but then I realized that this package only had 18 cigarettes, and the mark was to compensate me for the difference. How odd.

I went and had breakfast in the cantina again. I have decided not to do that again. It is not so bad, but they insist on putting mayonaise on the sandwiches, and I do not like mayonaise that much. I bought some milk along with my kaffe and sandwich. I again, felt very stupid, when trying to figure out how to open the darned milch container. After breakfast, I ran into Michael, who showed me a bunch of pictures from his trip to California. He has some very good pictures.

It started to snow this morning. My predictions are coming true. I told Olaf when I got here that the snow would follow me . . . It looks like pretty decent snow too, the flakes are not quite as big as they were in Pfaffenhoffen. (I like that word.) They are still kind of big, so the snow will be pretty wet.

Apparently I was correct in my guess that I will be in the company apartment today. Renate (secretary of the manager of all the techs) gave me the keys to the flat and tried to explain how to get there. I am completely confused, but Marc has offered to help me find it. Yeah! I should probably buy a map of Nuremberg, It would probably be quite helpful.

---

Went and had essen with Marc and Olaf at an Italian restaurant. I had some nice Chianti and Bruchetta. Not too bad. I got a bandaid for my finger at the Apotheke on the way back. This was good because I had not yet found any kind of first aid kit at SuSE. I looked in the kitchen, but all that happened was that I was surprised by how much the fridge resembled a cabinet.

After work, Daniel Bischof came by, wanting to go to the Greek restaurant for dinner and some biers. Olaf and Marc came along, as well as Edith and a bunch of other people. We had a pretty good time there, although Edith (a crazy woman who works in documentation) was up to no good. She was trying to set me up with Carsten . . . or embarriss him and me a lot. It was a pretty fun dinner, with lots of bier. Afterward, Marc helped me to find th e company flat. The company flat doesn't have a phone, but it least the one I am in has a kitchen, and a bath tub. I have never been so happy to see a bathtub in my entire life. The phone jacks here in Germany are very strange looking. I guess I expected them to look the same, like cat5 looks the same everywhere . . .

Generally one of the more pleasant mornings of this week.

Toronto is currently undergoing a change in our dialing habits. With a new area code on the way in March, people are now urged to dial a ten digit number that includes the area code instead of the standard set of seven. Listening to the Humble and Fred show once again, they did a bit to comment on Bell Canada's recording. It went something like this:

Humble: "Let's hear the recording when you dial just the seven digits..."

Woman's Voice: "You have dialed only seven digits for your local call. In the future, you will be required to dial ten digits that includes the local area code. Your call will now be completed. This is a recording."

Humble: "And when we dial the number again...well, let's see what happens.."

Woman's Voice: "You have dialed only seven digits for your local call. In the future, you will be required to dial ten digits that includes the local area code. Your call will now be completed. This is a recording."

Humble: Okay, so it's the same message as before. But listen when we dial the same number the third time..."

Woman's Voice: "Okay, you have dialed only seven digits where it requires ten digits to complete your local call. Please, remember next time to dial the ten digits that includes the area code, you idiot. Your call will now be completed. This is a recording.

Humble: "Apparently, the system detects the number you are dialing, and then switches over to the next message everytime you make the mistake. This is what happens when you dial the same number again for the fourth time..."

Woman's Voice: "You idiot! Do you know how to count to ten?! Did you miss Sesame Street? I'm not going to complete your f****(beep)ing call. You probably won't know what to say to the receiver anyways, you f****(beep)ing moron! This is a recording."

Of course, I'm guessing that wasn't the real message Bell would have on their system. But then again, it might be a good retaliation to many/certain customer complaints.

The radio seems to be making my day quite often. However:

7:29am EST
The clock radio goes off and wakes me up at this time, each and every morning. I decide to press the snooze button to get ten more minutes of sleep.

7:36am EST
I was gyped! The clock radio came on a few minutes before it was suppose to. I give a thought to complaining to Panasonic about it. My eyes are hard to open since my workload has been increased at work.

mostly.

mostly, i am tired, or breathing or sleeping or thinking, always, i am thinking of where to go, what i should be doing what i can do.. what you're doing. mostly, i miss you, too much.

usually, i am lost in thought. i long for little humans, new, neat ones or even the not so neat ones that just add to the universe as a whole, whether negatively or not matters little these days.

you seem so far away.. even more far away than you are, so busy.. i know, i do.

mostly.

i have a lot of things i don't want, and not many that i need. at least i have some things, at least i have the stars at night and cold wind to freeze my skin, to numb my brain and, i have you. and you, are my cheeseburger.. my yummy cheeseburger, i'll wait for yoo-ou, yeah, i'll wait for yoo-oou, yeah.. oh, i will wait for you. (he.. he..)

it makes me smile to know what is out there.. now i just need to get to it.

I decided today that I would be a good person.

I did many things that normally I wouldn't have the patience or motivation to do. I was nice to my brother, I went and got him dinner and helped him with his science project. My brother recently did something that caused me much pain and pretty much screwed up my life for a little while (he told my ex that I keep breaking into his e-mail account, which did not go over well AT ALL to say the least). But I decided to put that all in the past, and be nice to my brother. It's not worth it for me to be a bitch to him. I also asked my mom if she needed help around the house, I never talk to her, let alone offer her help.

I also am genuinely glad that my best friend is going on a date tonight. With my last best friend, I was always jealous that she had a boyfriend and tried to break her and the guy up because I was afraid of being alone. Now I want my new best friend to be happy, I don't have anyone romantically but I want her to have someone. I realize that I cannot have people all to myself and I cannot smother them with my own insecurities about being lonely. I hope it goes well for her...

I looked at Jesse today and saw his kissing his girlfriend that just took him back. I laughed at the absurdity of it all, and haven't talked to him since Sunday. I doubt I ever will. I am happier than I have been in a while because he is not in my life. I went into Mcdonalds to get my brother a Big Mac, and the girlfriend was working. She gave me a dirty look and one of her co-workers, my friend, gave me a look which made me think she said something about me while I was there. I hold no contempt for her at all, it's a waste of my time.

It's too bad that some people can't get past things. Life is so much easier and happier when one has no regret or remorse.

1:09am

Not much to write about today. I went to school, learned a little more hiragana. I went to pick up a parking sticker, but they only took cash or checks. I only had about $12 and I don't carry checks with me, so I'll have to go back on friday.

TC was very friendly today, she made me feel better after my situation last night (read my daylog from yesterday). I didn't really talk about any of it with her though; but when she's in a good mood, it puts me in a good mood. We went out for a snack around 5pm to get away from the boring day at work.

I stuck around until almost my normal hour to leave. All I did at work today was to automate the startup of a bunch of software on one unix box. I spent probably a sum total of about 10 minutes on it. I'm getting news that I may have to write some Java stuff soon though. Ack. I prefer to do everything in plain old C.

Which reminds me of a great tagline that was sent to me by our web developer. He wrote:

If you listen to a linux kernel close enough, you can hear the C.

I thought it was humorous, especially since this guy isn't really all that geeky, but to have found (or come up with) such a good line was cool.

I went to the gym tonight for about 1.2 hours. I accidently stopped the treadmill at some unknown point into my workout so I had to start over. I probably had been going for 10-15 minutes, so I started back over and walked an hour. That read out to over 700 calories, so I figure I easily burned 800 calories tonight. I'm feeling sore from last night though, as I expected.

I'm feeling better tonight than last night. I wrote Sara a fairly short email asking how she's doing and what she's up to. I gave her a link about the nature trail that we were talking about on our last date, to see what she has to say about it. I asked her how her classes going and stuff. Just trying to pry some more clues out of her. I kept it short to see if she volunteers any news or information. I'm still testing to see what's going on between us. I hope she's not playing games. I'm not experienced enough at this dating thing to play chase.

Anyway, I'm getting tired now. Must sleep.

This day smells like Tampa.

Or at least, it smells like the drunk night of anticipation I felt before I flew down there... Now it's the same excitement, the same anticipation, the same drunken revelry... and even the same smell of my room, the same smell of intoxication and dreamy expectancy. I've worked so hard to transfer to Loyola... what will happen to me when I get there? Will I find friends? Will I actually find a place to stay, a place that can act as my own? I... had a lover there once... someone who drove me, who made me feel as if I was complete... but they were a false impression, and although I love them dearly as a friend (You hear that? Yes, you really are a good friend, thankyou...), I couldn't keep smothering them, I couldn't keep acting as if I should mean something to them when I knew that I really didn't... But oh! This is my life, and I'm truly excited!

Even if Brendan made me run sobbing into the bathroom tonight... I love the boy... I always have, and always will... to have him offer judgement on me and some of my past situations made me sick to tears, and I couldn't hide it. Brendan, I love you, I really do. Please don't hold the "Aaron episode" against me like you do... and please, please, please forgive me. I have the most history with you... I love you... don't take sides, and get in the middle of this. It's hard enough as it is, and don't think that a night goes by where I don't think about how horrible I feel and how I wish that I had not been so cruel.

Brendan... once again...

I don't think I can put my feelings for you into words. We'll leave it at that, and hope that you can one day figure the rest out.

So today was nice, I didn't do much but then again I'm on winter break, don't go back till the 17th, and I don't do much these days.

But I meant to wake up at 9:30 but after hitting my snooze button for the 4th time, I turned off the alarm clock and fell asleep again. Wow, I have no self control when it comes to when I want to get up.
But I did get myself up around 11, which isn't too bad, jumped in the shower got breakfast and went to pick up my friend, who was wondering where I was.

So we headed off to our old high school, Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC. I had been back once this break but my friend had not, so we walked around and talked to a lot of teachers and friends who were still there. It was kinda weird being back, as it always is. But I'm only a freshman now, so when the bell rung, I felt the need to rush off to class. It really hadn't been all that long since I had gone there.

After we had gotten sick of talking to people and them asking us how we like where we are (I'm at Cornell), we went to lunch and then to a used CD store.

So that was my day, you can feel the excitment of it!
But now, sitting in my house, I'm thinking of the differences between my life here and that at Cornell, and I'm talking with friends from Cornell and friends from around here. It's hard to put a finger on the feeling, but it's strange.

In most ways I can't wait to get back, catch the end of rush week partying and get into my new classes. Last semester was pretty rough so in other ways, I don't want to start that work and stress again. Which of course, is understandable.

So only a week left till I go back. Am I sad? Am I happy? I don't know. It's weird, I feel like I'm going off to college for the first time again. I'm used to it here now, and even nervous about heading back. But then again I know once I get up there everything'll be fine, and I'll be comfortable. So maybe it's the transitions that are worrying me, even though I know I don't have a problem with them. Here I have family and friends, but it's a pretty quiet life, and there I have friends and am leading a crazy, fast paced life.

So the changes are strange, but interesting at least.

But that's enough rambling.....