A very good day; almost made up for waking up early.

First, went DVD hunting and actually found a copy of It's a Wonderful Life, which I've been looking for for weeks.

Second, refereed a fencing competition at Oyster Bay. It went pretty quickly, due to the fact that the visiting team was short two fencers and had to forfeit those two bouts each round. The Oyster Bay coach disagreed with a few of my calls, but I'm pretty sure I was right. The fencers I was directing all sucked anyway, which makes refereeing about ten times harder since no one clearly takes the right-of-way. But, all in all, definitely a good thing to do on my Winter Break.

Third, had baked ziti for dinner. Mmmmmmmm!

This was a quiet day. I progressed in the subtle art of slack-fu.
More napsturbation. I have decided that I am in love with Claudia Brücken, and I have added a little something to my home node.
The noding goes on. Today I wrote a large, meat-filled, WU on the beloved BLOCKQUOTE HTML tag. It was surprisingly well received, almost on the level of WUs about sex with household objects. I say this without any bitterness, because geekness is its own reward.

I take advantage of this Daylog to make a proclamation, that will shock some, amuse some, prompt some other to retreat to the cold quiet of a mountain monastery in Tibet and leave everybody else absolutely unchanged:

I AM THE LIGHT SIDE OF thefez

I finished the Children of Dune. Not much happens in the book. Almost finished Midnight's Children, where a lot of things happen. Embarassingly, I could not refrain from noding sissy maid. But then I cleverly noded "scotopic", in order to prevent the impression that I am a total pervert.
I want to create the impression that I am a total geeky pervert, and I like to think that I am doing fine.


Listening to Brian Eno's Music for Airports; it feels very good.
Today I indulged in vanity and noded "baffo". I don't know if it is presumptuous. But after all the glamourous ideath did it herself, and that is the reason why I did it as well: maybe I will become glamourous myself.

mibarra started noding. Cherish him, for he is good.

Bronze .oOo. Iron

today..

i think i can look you in the face for longer than i really want to.

everything will not seem so hopeless.

these thoughts that make my actions seem so hateful to you will disappear.

i won't run away

..ever again.

When I was sixteen, I was a member of a ‘day program’ at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, sixth floor, east wing. Survivors scattered around the Ottawa-Carleton region simply call it Six-East. There’s a lot of us.

The program was designed to assist and nurture under-18 kids who were in poor living environments, or had trouble coping with day-to-day events, depression, fears, and social issues. I went in for the day program under the recommendation of my mother’s psychologist, and they ended up keeping me for a few months. They didn’t feel that I was safe to let back out.

Most kids were supervised constantly, except for when they were sleeping, or using the washrooms. The unlucky ones were on a system called one-to-one, where they were constantly in the presence of one of the councilors. No privacy, at any times. Good behavior was rewarded with unsupervised cigarette breaks, increased autonomy, and kitchen privileges.

The kitchen was fairly bare. No sharp things to hurt yourself with, ice cream eaten with wooden sticks, and oven-ready mini pizzas. And brownies. Not from scratch, or from a popular mix, but from this industrial brownie mix that comes in white wax bags, used by caterers all over the country, and bought in bulk by the hospital.

The smell of brownies was overpowering, and ever-present. Only the occasional incense stick of a hopelessly depressed romantic trying to change the air and enjoy a bit of beauty before the nurses noticed, broke the pattern. Incense sticks, cigarettes and razor blades were the currency.

It was these things that came rushing back to me when I walked into the kitchen at work, intending to get a coke. Someone was making brownies. The same kind, from the same mix.

I knew that I was not in Six-East, that I was not at the hospital, that I was not a fucked-up kid with a problem and no social or coping skills. I wasn’t forced to stay here, I was only at work, I could leave anytime, if I really needed to.

I almost want to go outside for a moment, and breathe the cold air, just to make sure. I think I would, if I could trust my hands to stop shaking long enough to open the door, and my legs to not give out on me again.
Woo hoo!! A lunch meeting with the general at noon, plus another get together this afternoon at 3:00. I am the man! my stomach aches, but today has all the signs of being a very good day. It's friday, I have meetings with important people to talk about important things.

the man may come home today or tomorrow instead of the 20th, that would be quite nice.

Anyway, time to prepare for these meetings. Tra-la-la. More later...
11:06am

Wow, I'm actually writing a daylog in the morning.

I feel better today, but I've got a lot of work to do. I need to decide when would be a good time to call Sara and get a vocal conversation opened between us. We have talked quite a bit through email, but that's not personal enough. I need to be more personal if I am going to move this relationship further.

I get paid today, and I've got a lot of bills. I wonder if anything will be left. I've been broke for a week now, so I hope I will have some spending money this time. I really need to cut down on some monthly bills. I think I will cancel Netflix and find out what the gym at FAU is like. I could probably drop some services from my phone line as well.

Time to go to work. I'll be back.


6:16

It was a good day at work. We didn't do much today, being friday and all. Half the place was empty. We pretty much hung around and chatted with co-workers all day. Half of us left around 2pm, me and TC left at around 5:15. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of the day.


2:14am

I went down to Fort Lauderdale beach with my brother and walked around a bit. We then went to Hooters for some food, and came back home to watch X-Men on DVD.

Bright, white and blinding.

I tripped over a tampon sitting in the middle of the street. How can someone let it go so far? The least you can do is keep your tampons out of public domain!

My brother announced that he is getting married in Iceland in August. We have an Icelandic last name but we don't speak the language and none of us has ever been there except for my Dad. People from countries like England, Ireland and China must think that us heritage-hunting North Americans are insane!

I have 26 new Kanji to learn before Tuesday. This is going to be really tough as Ben is coming over this weekend. He gets mad when I try to work on school while he is here. I am supposed to stay entirely focussed on him constantly. I can see it from his side, since it is a four hour drive but I can see it from my side too; my school life is very demanding. If only I could spend the amount of time I wanted with him! We will probably try to skate along the Rideau Canal: The Worlds Largest Skating Rink! I guess it is marginally better than living in a city with The Worlds Largest Nickel! or The Worlds Largest Producer of Hot Dogs! or whatever.

Drove my mom to work in the morning. When we got out of the house, I noticed this green Eagle Talon parked a few houses over on the opposit side of the street. I pointed it out to her:"That's the car I wanted to buy, but my friendsdissuaded me...". My mom's saying that I'm to money-centered lately. Whatever. Anyhow I drove her to work, came home ate some breakfast and watched I dream of Jeannie. I rather like that show, it's entertaining, and the actress is sort of pretty. It's disconcerning to know that she's probably older then my grandmother right now. When I was leaving a house, a good looking chinese girl exited the house and went to the aforementioned Talon. I briefly entertained the idea of talking to her:
Me: "Hi, that's a nice car you've got there"
Her: "Uhhh ok...."
Me: "Yeah I wanted to buy one but I dont think I will, what do you think about it anyway"?
Her:"Well it's ok..sorta small i guess. I don't mind..." that's where she begins to look around, look at her watch
Me:"Cool. So how come I've never seen you around? Are you visiting or something?"
Her:"Yes. Boyfriend. Sorry, I gotta go"
This took me about half a second, as I was standing there and i decided against that(talking to her that is). What a chicken, eh. I hate myself.
Go to work. Working. Played foosball. Meeting Mike and all for a movie tonight or something. Free pizza and The Matrix on lunch.. Perhaps update later.
We just watched matrix. Everyone's walking around saying "there is no spoon.". it's quite funny. This was the the third time i watched matrix. god keanu reeves is a fool. also carrie-anne moss is very nice in leather pants. heh. pizza was good.

Leah in Germany - 12 Jan 2001

I ate a moose for lunch today. How much better can life get? (Correction, this is what Marc thought I ate, but it turns out it was just a deer. A moose would have been more exciting).

This morning I woke up. What a novel concept that was. After this, I went to the office. I stopped on the way to the office to buy lots of junk food. Somehow it does not seem right to be working at SuSE without some crap to eat. I also got a nice croissant with some brown sugar and nuts in it. I had some nice coffee and cigarettes with Marc and Edith at the office.

I have begun to notice that it seems Germans really like privacy, much more than in the US. For example, all of the public restrooms that I have seen have had either separate little rooms for stalls, or almost floor to ceiling doors. On the other hand, all of the offices on the third floor of the office (really, by US standards, the fourth floor) are glass walled. We were all trying to figure out today what would happen if people wanted to have sex on the desk in the office? This happens in all companies, but what about the ones with glass-walled offices? With the population of geeks here, there would probably be one of 3 reactions (according to Edith) from people walking by. Some people would walk by, have a quick look, get flustered, and pretend they didn't see it. Some people would walk by, have a look, and continue standing there, mouth gaping open. And lastly, some people would walk by, have a look, and run off to tell everyone else to come watch.

The rest of the day was fairly normal, except for the "moose eating". I had some nice wheat bier at lunch. I met Matthias Fruehauf, one of the PPC support guys with whom I am in much contact with. He told me to come smoke, in IRC, and thus I did. Later we discussed the new and exciting ways that MacOS 9.1 has broken the os-chooser script for yaboot.

Olaf left to go to a wild party with his Grandma, leaving me to my own devices. I hacked around doing documentation and crap. As the evening progressed, some of the guys decided it was time to have a wild Friday evening SuSE style, by playing a bunch of Irish jig music very loudly. I was invited to order pizza, so Marc and I ordered some pizza, so we could have something to eat before heading off the the discotek. Of course, it occured to me that I had nothing to wear the the diskothek, so after ordering the pizza, I dragged poor Marc all over the city in search of something interesting to wear. I ended up with a really fuzzy pink and black sweater, and a nice wool skirt. By the time we got back, all of the pizza we had ordered was completely gone. Que sera . . . Finally we left, and headed off to the company flat, so I could change. I did so, and then we hurried to meet Mario (Marc's friend, who also stopped by Oakland a couple times.) Mario is fortunate enough to live in the much fabled "red-light" district". We got to Mario's place, and I played with his big fat German cat for a little bit . . . The cat seemed to enjoy sinking it's claws into people. After much fun with the large German kitty, we headed off into the night.

We arrived at one of the biggest diskothek's I have ever seen in my life. We had a lot of fun drinking bier and not dancing. Well, that isn't entirely true, I went out and did some dancing, but Marc and Mario were too afraid of embarissing themselves. I think Mario must have remembered how much I was capable of drinking from the first time he was in the US, because he kept ordering four biers every time. Two for me, and one for him and Marc. I wasn't complaining, and I kept up quite nicely, I think.

We're going home on Monday (from Sydney) for a week, but I may not come back, so I tried to do a bunch of stuff. First I went downstairs to the Caffe for my usual flat white and raisin toast. There was a woman there, quite unattractive, wearing a bright yellow, short-sleeved, collared shirt with bright red roses and bright green leaves, over a tank undershirt. It was the same shirt on the cover of this year's Time Out: Sydney guide.

After breakfast I took a bus to Circular Quay for the SOLE mission of buying more postcards with Alfred Hitchcock holding a Qantas flight bag at the airport. I dig postcards. I really like that particular one. And did they have any? Of course not. It was part of an exhibition that I missed - but I have one of them left.

So since I was down there I walked over to The Rocks and stopped in the toy museum. The stairs to the second floor are 100 years old (really) and designed for midgets, I swear. You'd fall if you weren't careful. They had some neat stuff; some strange, some undeserved of being in a toy museum (like the Star Wars soda can). I particularly enjoyed Jocko the Drinking Monkey. He pours a drink, then pours it dow his throat. The liquid returns to the bottle and the action is repeated. They had some battery-operated robots, talking robots, Japanese repros of original robots (which I have at home), etc., as well as space toys. There was some good Disney stuff, like a rare boxed Australian-made Disneyville projector (Disneyville?), and a money box featuring Donald Duck before gloves. The animators found it very time-consuming to draw feathered hands, so Donald wore gloves from the 1930s. There was a Bush Baby featuring skin that wrinkled, which I really didn't understand.

I coveted the Navy code card game, circa 1940, and Charlie Weaver Bartender: a TV personality who shakes, pours, and consumes a drink. His face turns red, smoke comes from his ears, and his body sways. In the same vein there was Japanese Chef Cook, circa 1950. He sways, chews, flips and omelette and seasons it, as the stove lights up. Also of note is the 'Office Miss' collection of typewriters and phones in steel, tin plate, and plastic, from the 1940s. Man, did I want those. The plastic, lithographed Space Station Morse Code signalling set was cool, as was the Ned Kelly (colonial Australian gangster) doll, which looked like the "It's just a flesh wound" knight. There was an older woman with two girls, maybe 10, who were always within spitting distance of me. One of the girls saw some Yogi Bear figures and said "Wow, those must be centuries old."

Anyway, I left the toy museum and bought a vase for my mom at Object, in the Customs House in Circular Quay, then went to the third floor to see Fuzzy Prime Ministers, a large model of Sydney, exhibits about the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, and a film on the making of the Opera House, the controversy that it caused, and how it was built. They played this kooky 60s music during most of it.

By then I was hungry. Typically, I have breakfast, then go hours without eating because I don't think about it, or put it off. What happens is that I'll suddenly be very hungry and will have an incredibly short window of time in which to eat. If I miss that window, run. So I walked down to the Museum of Sydney cafe and had a salad, a flat white, water, and chocolate chip cookie while I regurgitated some inter-VLAN routing foo on my Badtz-Maru notebook. There were about seven servers, more than the number of customers, and service still sucked. This happens often.

After I ate, I walked over to Dymock's like a rocket (the coffee) to buy three more yellow legal pads. I'm happy with my black legal pad covers, too, and feel like a dolt for taking so long to realize that there was such a thing. Then I went home.

That night there was a team meeting at an Italian restaurant on Liverpool Street. I spent quite a bit of time talking with the vice president of something or other (well, she was on my left). Her husband has his doctorate in chemistry, and recently retired from teaching at Chicago. Hell, I would too. Her job got them a large pad overlooking the Sydney harbour. I also outlined some significant differences between private school and public school for someone who has three toddlers, all female.

To cap off the evening, I got jealous because of something that Y said.

This has probably been the greatest day I've had for a long time.

First off I didn't go to school today, I went to only one period instead of the normal six. That's because me and my best friend Michelle decided to go to the mall. I actually had money, I got a couple cute things, and they were on sale. I could not ask for a greater shopping experience. Then me and Michelle went to my house, and we watched cheesy soap operas and snuggled up in blankets. It was raining and cold outside, and I had soup for lunch. Quality. We got bored with the asinine acting, so I went and got a haircut. I figured that I might as well look halfway decent for the date I was going to have that night.

I was meeting the guy for the first time in person and he was picking me up which was a little weird. He was late, but he was really cute which made up for it. We went and got dinner, and then went ice skating, and then coffee. I completely lost track of time I had so much fun. We never ran out of things to talk about, and surprisingly most of our conversations were intelligent. He is the best guy I have ever come across so far, and he is interested in me. I cannot wait to see how things go. I had completely forgotten about my ex already, but after this he is vapor to me.

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