No, I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth. Thank you to all those people who noticed.

The full story:
Tuesday night. Gym. I am planning a cardio night - punish myself for 2 hours of constant elevated heartrate workout. Twenty minutes of bike later, I decide to help my gym partner, John, do a set of inverted leg presses. I wanted to maybe squeeze one set in myself, since I was nice and limber after the bike.

I grab the plate weight- 20kg, off the holding peg. I am talking to John, all casual. I notice the weight is moving...

Slipping

FALLING

HITTING MY FOOT


I knew I was in trouble - the weight bounced off my foot and clattered to the ground. It didn't hurt. Seriously, it didn't hurt. I look down at my foot (left). On my trainer I see three spots of blood. I am definitely in trouble. I immediately grabbed my ankle to staunch the flow of blood. HA! No blood, but I can feel there are problems.

John notices. He says "Oh shit - man, are you ok? I mean, I know you aren't, what do you want me to do?" I know that I am soon going to go in to shock. I say "Get the gym staff - I am going to sit down." I hobble over to the one chair and table in the gym itself and sit down.

Shock is setting in - I am occasionally dizzy. I know that it is now or never to get my shoe off - I very gingerly unlace my trainer laces, quite hard with both your feet raised on a desk. Next came the hardest thing - taking off my shoes without jarring my toes. I got them off ok.

Under my shoes are some (thankfully) clean black socks. I know they have to be taken off. Or else the blood will soak in to them and they will NEVER come off. I oh-so-gently and slowly peel them back and see the real damage to my foot.

DISGUSTING WARNING

My toenail had popped off my toe - it was hanging on by the right hand side like a hinge. The flesh underneath was already deep red with blood, and luckily clotting nicely. It isn't a pretty sight.

END DISGUSTING WARNING

By this time, the gym guy on duty has arrived and says "What happened?" I say "I have had a bad acciddent - I am going to go in and out of shock, so keep me talking." John has gotten an ice pack and the guy, Andrew is his name, starts to hold it to the bottom of my foot. Thank god - the only thing to stop me from fainting. Meanwhile, John sees a squat bar machine RIGHT NEXT TO where I am sitting - it has height pegs to set where you rest the bar. There is a guy wandering around, a big beefy guy. He wanders over to the machine, not worrying about me and pushes past me to use the machine! John, incredulous, asks the guy "Hey mate, can we use the machine - my friend here just hurt himself pretty bad and needs to elevate his feet." The guy replued "Nah I got another few sets to do." And then proceeds to continue his sets!!!!! OMFG!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the remainder of the gym staff arrive,a and keep me talking - thank god. They get me a drink - Powerade or some sports drink - the cool thing is:

Anyway, to keep me conscious they get me to fill out an accident report form, ask me who to contact, all the usual stuff.

Finally, they wheel me out on the chair to John's Volvo 740 (Turbo) Station Wagon - I drove one, once, myself, god I love those - and I drive the 320m to the Prince of Wales hospital.

Triage nurse grabbed me a wheelchair and saw me straight away - since I was not in huge amounts of pain, I was classified a "non-urgent emergency".

Fast forward: I ring people. Mum. Dad. Kirian.

Kirian turns up straight from work. Spent some time with me, kept me happy, gave me a newspaper and some Kettle Chips. X rays are taken - 3 big shots of my foot, god, it'll do wonders for my cancer potential!

Finally I get called. Of course by now I am a master of control of the wheelchair, but enjoy being wheeled around. Doctor Snow saw me. Nice guy, softly spoken. Thirty-ish. Shows me the x-rays - nothing broken thank god. I kinda knew that - I could wiggle my toe (before almost fainting from pain on the nail) and not feel joint or bone pain. So I am to have my toenail removed - 2 local anaesthetics and a 2 minute operation.

I HATE NEEDLES.

I had a wedge resection a few years ago (kind of a fix for an ingrown toenail). The moron of a local GP jammed the anaesthatist needle in to my BONE of my toe - the grinding sound I will never, ever forget.

So I tell Doctor Snow, he says "No worry, we'll get you nitrous." Oh yeah. Thank you god. I love nitrous. And not necessarilry for medicinal purposes only.

Doctor Snow also says "Do you mind if we have medical students watching?" No problem, the more the merrier! Two came in - I KNEW SOME OF THEM BY REPUTATION - nice people. So I get nitroused-up (oh yeah) and its done. Wrapped up tenderly, some Panadeine Forte (pseudo ephedrine based pain killers - oh yeah again!) is issued to me, and I limp out to meet Kirian and John.

I spent the next few days at my parents house. Free food. Clean beds. Mother doting over me when she isn't at work. Foot is really sore. I finally go to my flat in Maroubra, take another day off work - they really didn't mind - and watch the wound slowly heal.

The scab has finally hardened. The first and most crucial stage is over - skin is now growing underneath. It took me until the next Wednesday to dry though - that was the first day I could stand up for more than a few minutes at a time.


Thank you:
  • John - You were a star. You got me through it and proved yourself a better friend than I thought possible
  • Kirian - you were a beacon of support and encouragement through this REALLY embarrasing moment
  • Mum (and Dad) - Thanks for putting up with me
  • The guys and gals at the gym - Without your quick, level-headed actions, it could have been much worse

Sorry about the really long daylog - it is the last mammoth one for a while (I hope) - but it is a good few weeks worth!

My sympathy for Kalon. Ouch!

On this date:


The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade was from 8-11 Saturday night, and it was scheduled to launch at the Elizabeth and Liverpool Street intersection before heading down Liverpool and Oxford. Our apartment building is on Elizabeth St., very close to Liverpool St., and right behind the staging area of roughly half of the 175 floats.

We headed back from the office around 7, and saw that people were setting up, so we went out the front, walked halfway down the block to check things out, and were escorted to the end, because only parade officials and participants were allowed. Fine. We went in at the back, passing middle-aged men in provacative black leather ensembles, and went back to the lobby and on the street. This time we just sat on the metal rails next to the doors (of our building). We watched them put on makeup and set up their floats, and photographed most of it.

The parade didn't seem to start until 8, but there were three separate line-ups of floats, on Elizabeth St., Liverpool St., and the other side of Elizabeth. Those down Liverpool went first, and that included a large group of guys in American flag micro-shorts and red sequined hats who did a choreographed dance to Madonna's Music (a song second in popularity to Kylie Minogue's A Night Like This. Behind them were a large group of lesbians, who were also dancing to Music - if you call swaying with your thumbs in your front pockets dancing. The infamous Dykes on Bikes egressed from the other side of Elizabeth, but to see this we had to stand behind five layers of people at the corner.

We saw the delayed telecast of the parade on Sunday night, from 8-11. It was like a different parade from what we saw in the staging area. Most of the floats on our side of Elizabeth were at the tail of the parade, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show float and the 'petrol queens' in the Plymouth Fury convertible, who looked a lot like Poison. Some of it was half-assed and random-looking, like South Beach on a weekday, but a good part of it was fabulous, with the most far-out costumes I've ever seen.

My point of contention with the parade is that their theme was the family, but gay and lesbian parents seemed to be using their children as a media tool. Between 8-9pm, parents were pushing strollers down the street, and there were a number of children around eight or so walking as well. Parents said that their (older) children wanted to show their support for their parents and for the gay community. I don't care who you are - you shouldn't have your children outside, after dark, that late. Do you think those babies were showing their support for the gay community? Get a babysitter. Damn.

People involved with the parade have been complaining that it's becoming too clean, too family-oriented. But then their theme this year was the family (there's family as in the gay community, but they really meant rights as a family). They want to have their children with them in a stressful environment out way past their bedtime, and have simulated ass-munching and blow jobs. Um, okay.

I heard lots of criticism about the weather people today, but as far as I can tell, they called it pretty close. They said "Light snow, increasing to heavy during Monday pm.". Of course, all of the schools didn't know if pm meant early pm or late pm, so they decided to close.

Since the office was mostly empty, I was able to get a lot done, for a change. I struggled (successfully) with ssh keys and wrapper scripts. The T continues to run in Boston, and that is all that matters for my commute.

Meanwhile, my Mom may come to visit next week. Now, I don't mind at all, I'm looking forward to seeing her in fact. But this means I will have to clean up my bachelor pad, do my laundry, stock my refrigerator...ugh.

I don't remember if I mentioned I started the Atkin's diet about a week ago. So far I've lost 8 pounds, but I think it is due to water weight. I'm not sure.

I was interviewed today.

I've been running an e-zine since 1998 and I've seen many of my contemporaries get interviewed by other contemporaries. I've been interviewed by newspapers about my compositions and stuff but I'd never done a website interview. Now I have. This and composing two fine melodic developments is what my day consisted of.


1) you are completely correct in describing john bonham as "god". do you have any other drummerly advice/opinions that you would care to share with us?

Well, since drumming is what got me tossed out of the Berklee College of Music, my first instinct is to say "Don't do it."

Let me explain. I got every type of muscular disease a drummer can get after doing it for 11 years, non-stop. I won all kinds of contests, was world ranked a couple of times, etc etc. Because it was ALL I DID. I loved it and I still do but because I loved it so much it kind of side-tracked my music career for a bit.

As far as advice, I would say that any good percussionist should take lessons and learn to read lead sheets and standard notation, as well as piano lessons. You might think I'm kidding but nothing helps your feel and phrasing as a percussionist like understanding melodic construction.

Also, learn to play more than just the drum set, if you have the means. Learn marimba, timpani, latin percussion, african percussion, the works. Your local college should offer night classes in most styles of drumming.

Finally, John Bonham was godlike in the weight and groove of his playing. However, he also undeniably proved himself to be a total retard by drinking himself to death. People who are incredibly talented and very lucky should never be that stupid, but unfortunately many are.

2) what are some of the common bonds that connect the various participants of the site?

It's sort of like a "six degrees" thing. I went to high school with Tenth Day, Djuxtapose, and Space Boy. Tenth Day and Djuxtapose are brother and sister and Tenth Day is my fiance. Outlander, Graceness and Pumkinbomb I met playing UO. I went to Berklee with Princess, Harry Parratestes and Waylain just asked to be a part of things. Morgan is a politcal activist I met through some of Tenth Day's friends at work and The Subliminal Kid is a writer I'd wanted to work with for awhile, who I met out in California. Skoob I met while working at a coffee shop several years ago and he's our network admin. Hoffma is a high school friend of his from North Dakota.

Jesus I have a lot of writers.

They're all part of The BlackRage Organization because I asked them to be. In former versions of the site I loved doing it but being solely responsible for all the updating was a drag and having only my opinions expressed on the site kind of went against the grain of what BlackRage is about. It takes more than one person to hold up the giant fucking mirror society needs in order to see itself.

3) your "stop the morons" campaign is intelligent and even slightly poignant. how does one actually KNOW if one is a moron, what can one do to stop it and how does one keep from becoming a moron?

Many people misconstrue the "Stop The Morons" thing as being solely targeted at the webmistress or webmaster, but it isn't. It is targeted at the viewers who act as the enabling parties of the people who push nothing but subject matter which will garnish an audience. They aren't funny. They aren't creative. They are the proverbial mother bird farm feeders of the digital generation who push a button to get a response.

I'm not faulting them for what they do because many of them make a living off of their webpage, and who wouldn't want to do that? They simply provide access to death, porn, and death porn; it is the millions of viewers who attack this subject matter like hungry hyenas feeding off the lumbering giant mammals that are slowing down and dying. It is a pack animal mentality that is fearsome and most likely cannot be overcome. In this as in all things, the effort is of equal importance to the outcome.

You may be a moron if you visit a site or pander to a webauthor who has very little to offer in the way of creativity but instead publishes vapid updates consisting of mislabelled links to grotesque porn and crime scene photos. You may be a moron if the method and motive behind a website matters nothing to you, and you would rather fill your brain with anime bondage imagery than humorous or investigative original commentary on current world socio-political situations. You may be a moron if the Internet uses you to serve its purpose; YOU should use the Internet to serve some sort of purpose past shock value. Shocking imagery is wonderful if it makes a point; otherwise it is a base form of escapism no better than drugs, alcohol, web design, etc.

Don't get me wrong. I think porn has a place on the internet. People view pornographic imagery to become aroused, to appreciate the human form or to fulfill a curiousity. Pictures and videos of people getting hurt or in fact dying gruesome deaths also serves some purpose, I imagine; it escapes me but I am not the end all be all of morality, nor should I be. What I'm saying is this: if all you do is download porn from Stile and get snuff films from Archu and yet, you have no idea where you'll ever find all that information your research paper requires, you are a moron and you need to be stopped.

Creatively presenting shock imagery is also eons better than just making it a link and forgetting about. My man Tom Fulp at Newgrounds has a unique brilliance for humor and animation. Many of his cartoons deal with death, porn, and what would otherwise be considered tragic subject matter. He uses these images in a manner that is creative, that took years of hard work to perfect, and that utilizes humor to make light of the sometimes overdramatic seriousness life presents to us.

He's an artist.

You can stop being a moron by realizing that you fill your hours and days with meaningless things. If you can only get off by watching people get shot in the face with handguns, then get all the snuff you want. But if you do simply want to shock yourself, watch a sunrise, or hit yourself in the head with a clawhammer.

They will both have more immediately relevant impacts on your life.

3 1/2) is chubby nastygram somehow related to that evil "snuggles" fabric softener mascot of some years back?

No. The backstory on Chubby D. Bear is that he started out as just a cute teddy bear and somehow with the reinstatement of blackrage on the internet he became this dishonored ninja assassin. He smokes cigars and drinks whiskey, he beats a lot of ass and talks like a sailor. He's the teddy bear equivalent of a love child of Tom Waits and Bruce Lee.

Chubby became a mainstay of blackrage when iamhappyblue.com introduced Swash The Can Bear not too long after I linked them. Chubby began constantly threatening the life of Swash, and said he would be forced to kill Swash ninja-style if Swash didn't give unto Chubby the Holy Giant 10lb. Bag Of Blow Belonging To Ron Jeremy. The night of the deadline, I went out on a smoke run and tripped on something outside my apartment door. It was a ZipLoc bag filled with powdered sugar, addressed to Chubby in Swash-speak asking for mercy.

I'll have you know, that since I only get about 100 visitors a day, I was flattered and scared shitless all at once.

Now Chubby is a regularly contributing member of the writing staff but only when something really pisses him off.

4) it would be interesting to hear some of your observations about boston, a city which seemingly has no relevance to anyone who is was not born here.

Boston is a great town and also a cruel bitch-mistress. I hate the fact that the streets roll up at nine o'clock and going to a party in Allston when you live in the Back Bay and then missing the T totally blows, because then the cab ride home costs, on average, eleventy billion dollars. Boston offers a great deal of culture in that it features one of the best symphony orchestras in the world and a fabulous museum, an amazing ballet, along with a large number of community theatres, orchestras, and acting troupes. The venues to view these in are also amazing.

On the contrary, the Boston modern music scene eats the big one. The most entertaining night I had in a Boston club was going to see Nancy Mroczek, Ph.D. And that was just because she was so very bad.

I went to Berklee and to most people on the East Coast, Berklee is a joke. For an aspiring composer, Berklee is a joke. I also spent some time at the Boston Conservatory which is much like Berklee, only being more expensive(!) and actually requiring talent to get into. I still have friends there about to graduate, and Berklee can make you the best music therapist or synth artist or songwriter in the world. Other than that, its a sham.

Boston is beautiful in the summer and fall. If I never go back to Boston between November and March it'll be too soon.

The mass transit system and everything being so close to everything else is fantastic. Most people in Boston don't know what a pain in the ass it is to have to drive an hour to get anywhere, like you have to do in Texas.

For every amazing restaraunt in Boston there are 15 shitty overpriced ones. For every beautiful street in Boston there's a dirty one with some drunk guy decked head to toe in Patriots sweats screaming about how we was robbed. Foxboro is a great stadium but its bereft of soul. Fenway Park is a shithole but you can feel the energy and pride contained therein. You can ride a boat around the harbor for a dollar all day long but taking a taxi to the airport costs 30 dollars.

All in all, Boston is like my favorite Boston eatery, Little Stevie's House Of Pizza. (On Boylston street between the Berklee Bookstore and 1140 Boylston Berklee building.) The outside is dirty. The inside is uncomfortable. The pizza looks like it will hospitalize you but its enormous and its the best tasting slice you'll ever have.

5) i was very struck by your perceptive observation that there is little or no greatness in this generation. we seem to be "borrowing", "rehashing and "reinterpreting" more than ever. could you talk a bit more about this dilemma? and how does this contribute to one's status as a moron?

Not only is it rare to find true innovation or originality among our generation, when it does exist society does its best to quell it. We're a civilization of people who know shortcuts but not what is actually involved in the long form of the process. We know the easy, simple, fast and painless way to do things. Quick and dirty has more value than something which sports a rigorous attention to craftsmanship and detail and yet takes more time to create.

The problem is that while in earlier generations good craftsmanship was rewarded in almost every career or aspect of life, today no one wants to wait. If an idea is presented that the masses cannot instantly identify with or rail against, it is met with the deadliest of poisons: apathy. The artists living amongst us in our generation and the one preceding ours have made the mistake, on the whole, of alienating those who would otherwise not give a damn about what we're doing. We go out of our way to disclude the uninitiated from our club in hopes (conscious or not) that someone will be upset that they don't know what's going on and investigate.

The problem is that most of society doesn't care for anything past their own bills, bankbooks and interests; the creators and potential brilliance of our generation are starting to not care that society in general vists us only with apathy and general discontentment. It's a viscious cycle and it has to stop.

Slamming nails through your cock and video taping it is not, in my opinion, a form of art. Slamming bottles against the wall until they break, recording the audio, and then calling it music is not, in my opinion, art. Artists and creators have a responsibility to stay true to the intention and motive of True Art, whatever it may be. Doing things to freak people out or making a work so intentionally obtuse so that only certain people with certain backgrounds and certain life circumstances will "get it" is wrong. It is wrong, it is grotesque, and it does nothing but drive the Majority away from the message we are collectively trying to convey.

All art should say something. It should never say "go away." Art as a profession and a lifestyle cannot exist without a base of patrons. People have whined about this for almost all of the 20th century and of course what little of the 21st we have experienced. If an aspiring artist were to research history before the 20th century he would rarely ever see anything mentioned in journals about starving artists or potential artists complaining that no one understood them. You either were an artist or you weren't. Sometimes you paid your bills and debts, sometimes you didn't, but you were an artist because you simply could not be anything else.

If our generation were to discover this perhaps our greatness would emerge. We do have greatness among our ranks. It just has to get humble and get hungry.

How being a moron plays into this should be fairly easy to see. If you always take the idea that's the easiest to digest and you never look closer at that which you do not understand, you are a moron. If you, as an artist, make it your sole purpose in life to be as obscure and alienating as possible, you are a moron.

5 3/8) could you talk a bit about the concept behind the website's fairly stark black/blue/green visual presentation?

It's funny you bring this up. Originally, I designed what you see before you as a content-delivery device and little else. I didn't want a flashy design or banners or mad scripting skrillz on display; I just wanted something that would make the massive amounts of text we produce easy to look at.

I still feel that way but I got tired of the design we've currently got and charged Waylain with making us a new one. He's got a brilliance for graphic design and visual presentation that far surpasses my own, and I trust he will be able to keep our simple presentation's idea and mythos at heart while making it a little easier on the eyes, and maybe just a little cooler-looking.

Content is still king though. It always has been and until they pry the site out of my cold, dead hands it always will.

Regards, Beltane

AAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!

I've willingly participated in a sociological experiment of sorts, in which I am not speaking for an entire day. My communications professor, who set the whole thing up, calls this an Empathy project. At first I was going to hook up with a homeless person for a day to see how they live, but it's two weeks until the end of the term, and I'm sort of a weenie when it comes to meeting new people anyway, let alone someone who lives on the street. Call me a pussy or whatever, that's just how it turned out.

So far things haven't been too difficult. I got some crap from my roommate, who talked to me for appriximately ten minutes first thing in the morning before she even knew about it. It's truly amazing how one is able to keep up appearances for quite awhile without anyone realizing it. A nod of the head, a smile and afirmative look can get one far in terms of conversation.

I have slipped up, unfortunately, speaking my mind in my history class but once, and then after classes with my friends. I told my friend Beck what time it was without realizing it. Beck wants to do shrooms, but not just yet. At first,this game was quite entertaining in its difficulty, but the longer I do it, the less of a problem I have with it. It becomes an interesting, zen-like practice, a challange to communicate.

There have been an instance or two where I was thinking something, and a friend of mine would respond as if she had heard exactly what I was thinking. This of course was the cause of great confusion on my part, and jeering on her part.

As the day moves forward, so my silence stretches on. You get used to it after a few hours. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has had problems keeping their yaps shut for an hour or less. It forces you to listen.

Yes. Now.

However this situation turns out, it's time for me to know the truth...even if I have to go rummaging for it myself in back alleys and dim litted pubs. I know them at least as half as well as you do.

Chicken? Dishes? Cars?.....or bologna....and more girls?

Does it really matter at this point? We'll see.

And if I forget to tell you later...Run!

13:47

For a geek with no life or traditional hobbies, I have way too much to do these days.

My workday is usually quite short, and I spend my nights at home having virtually no social life beyond IRC. So one would think I have plenty of spare time in my hands.
Unfortunately not. First there is the "important" stuff, which at the moment mostly means studying for the universities' entrance exams. Then there are the important things, indcluding (but not limited to) music, graphics, self-studying Japanese, maintaining my anime and DVD addiction, noding... Not to mention I need a sufficient amount of sleep to be able to wake up at 8:00, a task difficult for a night person.
As a result of having tons of different things to concentrate on, sometimes I just spend the entire evening idling on IRC wondering on what project to take on. Soon I'll notice an another night has gone by without me doing anything constructive. That kind of days sometimes make me think I'd be better off being one of those not having the desire to be creative all the time.
All of my "projects" are of course voluntary, apart from studying which is driven by pressure from family members and society. Dropping one or two of the not-mandatory activities, at least temporarily, would not be the end of the world. But I love all that crap, damn it!

I have contemplated prioritizing and scheduling my activities, but it isn't that easy. As a person I am pretty much directed by impulses, intuition and especially inspiration. When I really get into some subject, I commit 110% of myself without even thinking of it. But if I try to work with the same thing at a time I'm not particulary inspired by it, I might as well bang my head against a wall. So strict timetables are out of the question, and what's the point in creating such a system when I can't follow it anyway?
The way I see it, my best option is to relax and "go with the flow", so to speak. In time, I'm sure all this will prioritize itself. The only exception to this being the studying part, which I have to schedule whether I like it or not. Unfortunately the schools don't hold their exams "June 15, or when break think it's a good day". When I'm the president of Finland, there will be a law to change that. :)

In case you were wondering.. Yes, my day logs are on a steady slide towards the extreme depths of sillyness and futility.

I had a very cool dream last night. I dreamt that I kicked my manager's ass. While we were fighting, we argued about firewalls.

My windows reinstall from this weekend was a success, if not a bit frustrating at times. All is well again, however.

Today, I shall be turning in my official notice of lease termination with my current apartment. I dislike this neighborhood very much, and I found a nice townhouse a lot closer to work. I will be moving in May.

Yesterday, I read about Astral Projection. I definitely want to try it, as it seems to be a very unique experience. I honestly doubt I have the will to do it, but I'm certainly going to try.

Lunch Log: Campbell's Garden Vegetable "Soup-to-Go!" cup.

I just reinitialized the Novell server so Ohio could get their e-mail. It's the first time I did it alone - yay for me! And it worked! I like this stuff. It's so much more interesting than hardware. And dealing with Tech Support Rules of Engagement. The next thing I'm doing is setting up my pc that just got fixed and checking on my SQL Server tasks that I set up this past weekend. Yesterday we were just too damn busy to do it - and I couldn't find any logs. I also need to truncate the log file, it's out of control, but I think I should do that at night when no one is on the system.

Tonight I am going to a spinning class. Yesterday I did Power Yoga - it's amazing how much more balance and strength I have now - I did stuff I never thought I could do! There was only one exercise, the Wheel, which I didn't even attempt. I could do everything else. I like the sustained stretches and the deep breathing. I think I may buy a book on it so I can do it at home, along with Pilates. It makes my body feel so much better, so much more flexible and healthier. I haven't been on a bike since the summer, so the spinning class will kill me. I've seen people come out of there just dripping with sweat. And tomorrow is my second belly dance class.

I think it's so funny when my daylogs get downvoted. What am I getting critiqued on, anyway? Grammar? Links?

This is really quite bizarre - I sit here, without any glasses on, and yet I can see (almost) pefectly.

The wonders of contact lenses.. I'm not sure why I didn't try them before. I guess I was just used to having people see me with glasses, and they'd think it a bit odd to get used to me without them. That and the fact that people generally laughed when I got a haircut, so any change of appearance would be a bad thing.

On the other hand, I am starting to get fed up of specs. I've been wearing them for about 12 years now. And without them, I'll no longer steam up when I get the subway. Perhaps it'll even increase my pulling power...

Now all I have to do is get the hang of putting them in quickly.

To Teiresias, Demeter, akf2000, jaubertmoniker and everyone else who has been complementary about my noding. Thanks, it really makes it worthwhile.
Other than that, things are the same as ever. Still doing degree coursework, still waking up too early for my own good, yawn.

Haven't reached Level 2 but I have the XP for Level 3. I am being discerning about what I write. I don't want to get Level 2 with a Daylog or some pointless NfN node, especially since my current style seems to be popular.

Anyway, back to work. I have been inspired to learn Perl by E2. I have just written a page with a form that lets you append text to a page. Familiar?

Later.

I'm having a strange couple of days...

Yesterday I logged on, to find that I had gained 15XP, but had a node killed, without any explanation. Is it just me, or would everybody prefer to be told why their nodes were being removed. I happen to think that becoming vegetarian would not have been better as a daylog because it isn't something that you do in a day, but it is something different. I wouldn't mind so much if I at least knew why it had gone... but no-one said a thing, and I didn't see it in anybody's Editor Logs.

Ah well, today I had to miss my only lecture due to a hospital appointment. Damn I'd forgotten how sticky ultrasound gel is, yick.

So now I'm sitting at the computer, where I'll probably be for the next couple of hours, until I go to an EGM for the society that I am/was President of. It's amazing how down infighting can make someone feel! I remember when I used to enjoy going to the meetings, whereas now I just don't give a fuck. It's too cliquey, the people trying to run it are mainly scene queens (aka clubkids/party animals etc), and it's not really friendly or fun anymore. I think I'll stick to being a happy geek with my friends rather than using what energy I have fighting people who aren't interested in what I have to say.

Wow. It really has been a long time since I've written one of these. I was thinking that it had been a couple of weeks but after doing a user search on myself - it's actually been more like a month. Time flies when you're going to school full-time, working almost full-time, playing music a couple of nights a week, and helping your girlfriend grade her freshman essays. At very least that sounds hyper-productive even if is mostly accounted for by habit.

Work has been the same old crap really. There is not that much excitement to be had (outside the inevitable confrontations with street crazies and whatnot) in the espresso pimping world. I get my ass kicked every day and somehow keep going back. Maybe it's all the espresso shots.

School has reached a fever pitch of tedium as it seems to at this point in the semester. I realized that I have four exams on the same day and two papers due the same week. Is this something that I'm paying for? Jesus.

The righteous fury of the rich white folks has arisen again. Another kid who can't deal shot up his school. Colorado will probably declare martial law. I'm considering the purchase of a Ken doll wig and a cheap suit to fool the lynch mobs for a little while.

I guess I don't really care about anything else.

I'm getting closer to becoming Level Three. Not that any of that matters or anything, if it did I would be autonoding Revelation Records' complete catalog or something. It's just a nice measure of how long I've been here. Unlike some of the other online communities that I am involved with, everything is something I got in on way late. I was not one of the charter members. November 13, 1999 means nothing to me. No one knows my name and I do not participate in the chatterbox. But it's something that I do for personal improvement.

Another fight, another stupid thing I have to hide from everyone. I should really be smarter about these things. Everyone tells me that I should leave him but if you've ever been in this situation you know that it is not as easy as it sounds. At least he has never hit me...yet...I should just tell him that I like girls too and that would kill two birds with one stone. But I'm not sure what would happen to me (or to him) if I told him I was leaving.

Ryan is going to read this writeup and worry about me. Oh, well, it's not like he hasn't before.

Time to leave for work - the 3 to midnight is a nice shift because everyone is so laid back. I get to dress like myself and act like myself and everything.

If I were to move anywhere, it would be to Denton, Texas. Even though the space rock scene fled, it's still a nice place and rent is cheap. The suburbs are starting to suck the life out of me.

Ok so today was a weird day at work. My line manager had called a meeting for 9am this morning which we were all required to attend (usually at least a couple of staff are unavailable). This was a sure sign that something was up...

I already had an inkling of what was coming as my manager had pulled me aside yesterday and asked if I was interested in basically trading some duties for new ones. I jumped at the chance. Now, for the next three months at least, I have responsibility for Service Database management, email administration and have been tasked to write documentation and implement improvements to our helpdesk. It also means that I don't have to go running round the countryside doing stupid hardware and software repairs. WooHoo!

But here's the killer... my manager has given one of my colleagues responsibility for workflow management, especially staffing allocation and prioritisation of incidents. This in itself is a good thing, but the problem is that he's given the responsibility to someone who quite frankly couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. But, the person concerned can talk a damn good story. Ho hum, its always the way, the people who're useless but can talk the talk get all the glory jobs.

There was a slightly stunned silence during the meeting and afterwards, at least four other members of the team came up to me freaking out because he'd been given the responsibility.

I suppose time will tell how things turn out, but we're prepared for a bumpy ride.

Well I had them most interesting, shitty yet wonderful day starting last night and ending at 6 something this morning. To start it off, I hung out witht this guy named Aaron, who I had been talking to for a while but never actually spent time with by ourselves. We sat in his car and talked for three and a half hours about politics. I am not really into politics but I do like having any kind of intelligent discussion. Then we went back to his house an watched tv and other things. He's not a very good kisser but I can deal with that because he is cute. It started to rain while I was over there, but I had to leave so I decided to brave the slippery roads. I was going too fast in a turn and hydroplaned and hit a wall, then I swerved to the other side and hit an embankment. Not knowing what else to do, I drove to the guys house and woke him up and had him change my tire in the cold, pouring rain at 3 in the morning. I had to stand out there with him and I've never felt so wet, cold and screwed in my life.

I thanked him and was on my way, and got incredibly lost. I got to a city called " Rainbow " and decided to turn back. My car was swerving all over the place and it was raining really hard. Just to add to my luck, three cops pulled my over because of my reckless driving. They said I had another flat tire and changed it with the spare in the trunk, which was the tire Aaron took off, but it was better inflated. So basically I changed my tire twice when I only had to once. One time by a guy I barely know and the other by three cops no less. I barely made it home, and by then it was 6 in the morning. I'm surprised that I made it home alive. I didn't go to school, slept all day and I'm still dealing with the consequences from my parents. The things I get into because of men.....

I'm being moved from part-time to full-time. I'm very ambivalent about the whole thing.

Positive points: More hours, a possible raise, and I get control of the stockroom. I can organize to my heart's content. Boss is pleased because sales have been up 31% each month since I've been reassigned to that section. The rest of the department is down, but my section is carrying it, so suddenly I am golden one.
/me waves figures in front of HR person evaluating me for raise.

Negative points: less time home, need even MORE quarters to catch the bus, and my friend was FIRED who had that spot to begin with. No one knows why and she hasn't called me yet or anyone else for that matter. Rumors abound. I was given her job and it's given me butterflies.

Today was a good day.

Japanese Fluency, Fast Approaching

As that balding guy with the chips used to say, "no, not really," but I did do awefully well in my Japanese class today. That is good, because usually I am just a stupid honky in a sea full of Asians. Now, with mid-terms fast approaching will I be able to hold on? Stay tuned.

A Perfect Time With the Girl I Love

This is going to sound piggy, but I think that hardly any man could disagree that this sounds nearly like an ideal way to spend a few hours with their girl: we go to lunch, thai food and she pays. We go to Barnes and Noble and look at books and study. She then says, "want to skip class and go back to my apartment?"

Much merriment ensues.

No Yoga

I halfheartedly wanted to go to Yoga tonight, because I can feel a few pounds coming back on and I think I am loosing muscle mass. But, I was tired and felt like slothing. I arrived home and ate some leftover Kim Chee Bokum Bap my girlfriend had made for me that weekend and was ready to go when mom pulled her back out by putting on her workout clothes. Getting old must suck.

I really don't like to go to those classes if I don't have somebody else there, so I didn't go.

Should Have Left Well Enough Alone

If there is but one moral somebody can glean from anything I write in this node today, it is just leave well enough alone.

I had this wonderful image of my girl as I left her this afternoon. I shouldn't have talked to her again until tomorrow and carried her warmth with me into my dreams, but I just had to talk with her again before I slept.

Her roomate was driving her nuts. Her roomate has bad habits like talking to herself very loudly and keeping my girlfriend up all night long by laughing and typing on her AOL instant messanger. Yeah, that is pretty lame I suppose.

Anyway, I am not sure if I did anything to help the situation and now I kind of remember her all pissy and such. I only hpoe that I helped to alieve some of her stress.

Today was a day of catching up at work for not being there yesterday. At least the day went by fast and I felt like I got a lot done. I still am a bit sick though. I went out for sudafed partway through the day because I was starting to feel like crap again (at least physically). I felt good to be around people again though.

I just got back from spending the after-work hours hanging out over at CR's house. I went over there to help him move his couch, but it seems that we got sidetracked by Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation. It's a cool game. Anyway, on my way back home I got stopped by a police officier for having an expired tag. DOH. I forgot all about it. Ugh. Oh well, $44 for a mistake. I've paid a lot more than that for much simpler errors before.

No word from Sara so far this week. I really had a great time with her and the gang on Sunday. I heard today that she will be coming along with us to Orlando at the end of this month. We'll be hanging out together the whole weekend. That should be great :) I should maybe give her a call or something tomorrow and she what she's up to.

I took the wife to see Matchbox Twenty last night. Not really my cup of tea, but she seemed to really enjoy it, and that's what matters.

The bands in order of appearance:

  • Lifehouse - Good sound. I'm not familiar with their songs, but for an opening act, they got a good crowd response.
  • Everclear - Very tight band. I recognized some songs from the radio. Should be a headline act themselves. They had a drummer and a percussionist. The two of them were very good together and they had a very driving and forceful sound.
  • Matchbox Twenty - As I said, not really my sort of band, but they did have talent. Their albums always sound overproduced to me. They were able to loosen things up a bit for a live show. I have a new respect for Rob Thomas. He gave a brief explanation for the reasons behind some of the songs and they really seemed to come from the heart. That dude can also whip up a crowd of women into a frenzy. I kept hearing girls scream, "I wanna fuck Rob". Like Rob said, "Not bad work if you can find it".

It was a good time. Had to drive home in the snow storm, but that just gave my wife and I more time together. Awwww.

Originally posted at March 7, 2001 before I decided to keep my daylog entries consistent with my time rather than the server's.

Just twisted out my back. Good Lord, it made a lot of scary popping noises. But it felt great. I'll probably pay for that habit and all my knuckle-popping when I'm old, gray, and too arthritic to move. Still, for now it's cheaper than going to a chiropractor, and probably about as effective. On the other hand, the latest news from my grandparents is that Oma is pretty much crippled with arthritis and on all kinds of crazy medication. Not very encouraging, that. But I digress. I really don't mean to ramble on about my personal life in daylogs, really I don't. If anything truly interesting happens to me, chances are I'll be able to make a decent writeup out of the anecdote. Occasionally I'll jot down some disjoint thoughts here, to avoid further cluttering the nodegel.

Today, for example, I decided to limit all my comments about noding to the daylogs, in order to better avoid noding about noding. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that resolution. Here's some more comments along those lines, to try to get the habit started:

  • I've begun to take inspiration from sensei's Node Your Homework! dictum, and it was fun, so I'll probably try doing that again sometimes soon. It's nice to be able to write with a semblance of authority, occasionally feel like I'm contributing potentially useful information to the database, and maybe even increase the signal to noise ratio a teeny little bit. (Then I go and write rembly daylogs about noding. Oh well. I'm learning.)

  • Who the hell downvotes song lyrics, honestly? I honestly think they're useful, though I've started worrying about the Everything Copyright Problem and related issues (so far I've only noded lyrics by artists who probably won't be pissy about it, but still... I'm slowing down). I try to explicate my lyrics, link to other related interesting nodes, include information about the song, as well as why I felt it a worthwhile entry, the occasional bit of personal meaning, etc., but it's gotten to the point where I don't feel safe submitting them without checking the Don't display in "New Writeups" button. Woo run-on sentence! I should get me some cheese with this whine, I know.

  • Anybody who wants to help me figure out HTML headers will earn my undying gratitude. Please? I've looked at E2 HTML Tags, and can't find any typos in my w/u, but they aren't appearing as I expected. I'm scared to sign up for mentoring; I've got too much homework what doesn't get done on account of this addiction as it is.

  • Gaining XP for voting feels like cheating, like I'm not really earning my bullshit. Yet I feel compelled to use all my votes every day. I think I take it as some kind of perverse challenge or something, and it does improve my node-fu, but still. Dunno what's up with that.

  • My highest-ranked writeup is a daylog. Wah. I feel like it somehow devalues the rest of my attempted contributions to the nodegel when my rantings about the trials and tribulations of my latest thesis draft (which is done, by the way, despite the fact that I didn't have enough results to really write, hence all the hell I gave myself last week, but I digress) get so many votes. But oh well. I'll get over it. Or I'll have that writeup nuked.

That's all I can think of for now. Felt pretty good to get all those out of my system, since really, none of them were ideas worthy of their own writeups (though a few of them are on my homenode)

.
Before heading to work tonight, I was watching TV while noodling around on my computer. I had the extreme displeasure of seeing Austin Powers on syndicated television.

Don't get me wrong - Austin Powers is a funny movie. But it was censored eight ways to Sunday, and badly, at that. A few examples:

  • Austin's Swedish Penis Enlarger Pump was changed to Swedish-made Enlarger Pump. Somehow, "penis" was declared to be taboo... yet the word was used no less than three times on the Drew Carey Show, less than an hour earlier, on the same station.
  • The villainess Alotta Fagina had her name changed to "Allota Cleavage" (Pronounced "Clee-VAH-jay"), which totally destroyed the crudely witty reference to the James Bond villainess, Pussy Galore.
By the time I got this far into the movie, I was disgusted, and turned the TV off. How is it that our society has gotten so twisted that any reference to sex (an act of creation, or at least pleasure) is declared to be more offensive than violence (an act of destruction)? Is our society so ass-backwards that we're now EMBRACING entropy, even unconsciously?


Then we get to the incident at Santana High School yesterday, where Charles Andrew Williams, a scrawny kid who was picked on by classmates, went on a shooting rampage, killing two students (Bryan Zuckor, 14, and Randy Gordon, 17) and injuring 13 others, including two teachers. Yet, unlike Klebold and Harris, the murderers in the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999, Williams didn't commit suicide at the end of his shooting spree, and even surrendered peacefully to the police. I look back at my own high school days, and think, "There but for the grace of God go I." But I don't think such a dramatic, drastic solution would ever occur to me. At worst, I wished that my tormentors would vanish, but I never had fantasies about killing them.

This incident is bad enough, granted - another example of a society that's decaying rapidly - but the principal of Santana made matters worse by blaming Williams' friends, telling them publicly, "Those of you who knew about this, don't bother coming back to school." (Paraphrased). How is this going to help matters? How can ANYONE believe that someone who is a friend is actually serious about wanting to commit murder? Not just murder, but a near-indiscriminate shooting spree? It's far easier to believe that he was joking - especially since he was known as a joker - than to believe he was serious. They carry enough guilt on their own, you don't need to compound matters. The fact that somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty people had been told what he planned to do, and none of them took him seriously enough to mention it to a parent or teacher suggests that nobody truly believed that he would ever do that. Society asks us all to make judgment calls every day of our lives. Second-guessing the judgment of these individuals after the fact won't solve anything.

The day before oral surgery... two days into my spring break and I'm already doing network stuff again. What the hell is my problem? Alexander is bound and determined to set up a linux server for his home network. That's what I get for telling him about a real OS. His 'server' consists of a K6-2/333, 64 ram, 8 gig HD, CD-ROM, questionable network card and a cuuute linux penguin. I want his little box to run and him to get aquainted with the good side of the internet (looking at it from a *nix environment.)
Right now it's grinning at me with an "operating system not found." I probably need to reinstall, but that will take ages over the 2x.

I also had the chance to talk to Laura and Carson on the phone, who I will be visiting over the weekend in their New Orleans home. That will definately be a blast, hella-looking forward to that. Then, when I get back to Atlanta I'll get to hang out with the one and only Jessica Pierce. Now I just have to save money for my roadtrip so I can dig up Bart's scary basement and have some tea with Dem Bones.

One day. Maybe

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