Bah, 2:23am and I can’t sleep. Not sure exactly why, but foz always said that if you can’t sleep cause
youre mind is going around and around, go and do whatever it is that your mind
needs you to do, and then go back to sleep. I don’t want to be up late. I want
to go to the gym in the morning, and then I have work to do on many different
projects, people to call, things to do.
While I was lying in bed trying to get the right amount of duvet on top of me,
so that I had the comforting weight over me but I wasn’t boiling alive and
sweating in the heat, I started thinking about an entry I could possibly make in
the journal, perhaps in a couple of weeks. It would be the one when I am
offered a job and decide to go to Edmonton, and I’d make a list of the things I
was looking forward to and wasn’t looking forward to, and the things that I’d
miss and what I wouldn’t miss. It was one of the “wouldn’t miss” that got me
thinking.
I’m not sure if it’s one of my faults, winnings, or just plain wierdnesses, but
I can always see the good side to something. Kinda. I think it’s that I reject
absolutes out of principle. Someone says that “windows is the best operating
system out there,” and I’ll gently remind them that Linux is not that bad
either, and that while it has it’s faults it’s better in x, y, and z. If
someone were to say that “Linux is the best operating system,” I’d do the same
thing, pointing out the advantages of Windows or MacOS. It’s the same for
pretty much everything. If someone says that so-and-so is weird or annoying,
I’ll cite when they aren’t annoying or wierd, and put forward that maybe they
are only that sometimes, or in groups, but are quite sane one on one.
It’s in this that I get into trouble. When you are friends with two parties on
opposite sides of something, what do you do. Party A says party B did/said
[whatever], and party B says party A said/did [whateverelse]. Me, being who I
am will stick up for party B while they are run through by party A, gently and
diplomatically. Then when talking to party B I’ll stick up for party A. I do
this not because I want to take opposite sides, but because I really truely see
good in both sides. It is harder of course, when you are good personal friends
with all ends, and are so out of choice, not obligation, meaning that you have
to hear everyone be run through, sometimes more loudly than others.
Sometimes it’s just not worth it.
Lately I’ve been allowing myself to give up more often. I guess it’s partly my
stubborn German side that is to blame as well. When someone is insisting that
I’m completely wrong about [Concept X], or that Windows is the best OS,
or that party B really is a crack monkey, I’ll just stop my protesting and
arguing (be it out of principle or actual belief of their lack of crack
monkeyness), and nod and agree. Sometimes it’s just not worth it at all,
especially if it means me getting jumped on by a room of people about something.
I’ll know that they are full of shit even if it’s just in my mind. So I steer
the subject away, or conceed to some small point and hope to use jedi mind
tricks to make them forget I was taking some other side, and let them have thier
way. Who am I to fight other people’s battles for them?
Oh yea, a friend. Damn, forgot about that.
I think the other problem/fault/reason is that I have a habit of choosing
friends that are like me and are (stubborn) strong-willed.
2:43am. Damn, still going. This isn’t as bad as it has been in the past
though. I had an ok run this morning, so maybe getting down to work tomorrow
would be ok. I have other stuff I want to do as well. My Linux workstation is
having some strang font issues. Some of the fonts simply don’t show up as
anything but the default look of text, in some apps. I have also had a very
wierd problem to do with fonts for a while. So I’m thinking a re-install is in
order, as this box has been used and abused quite a bit lately. I am
considering trying gentoo just to try something
different. If I can get all my “non-system” data (movies, mp3s, fonts,
personal files, custom files, programs that I’ve bought, etc), onto partitions
where they can be safely hidden away until after the new OS is installed, then
I’m ok, and if I decide that gentoo doesn’t cut it I can go back to tried and
true debian.
The problem looks like this:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hde2 464M 117M 324M 27% /
/dev/hde5 9.2G 4.8G 4.0G 55% /home
/dev/hde6 9.4G 5.8G 3.7G 62% /usr
/dev/hde7 8.9G 7.8G 1.1G 88% /var
/dev/vg_1/lvol1 19G 18G 1.1G 95% /var/ftp
/dev/hdb1 39G 34G 4.3G 89% /var/ftp/pub/mp3
/dev/hde1 9.8G 9.4G 465M 96% /root/dosc
Not a lot of space to put anything. I’d like to move /var/ftp off to somewhere
else so that I can move from the linux LVM (logical volume manager) system to a
normal huge ass partition. Sadly, I don’t see much room for 18 gig of data to
be moved off to let me re-format that drive (/dev/hdf if you are interested). I
suppose I could just buy a huge-ass new drive (they sell 120G 7200rpm drives at
future shop for $399.99 ($299.99 after mail in rebate), and 40G drives for
$179), but oh yea, no money, I’d forgotten about that.
Speaking of money, be careful while doing internet banking that you don’t
accidently pay your credit card bill to your BCAA membership? While I don’t
mind being ahead for the next 6 years, at this point in time I’d rather have the
money in pocket you know what I mean? Not that I’d ever do that of course…
(it looks like the stop payment on that has gone through so I’ve got a bit of
money again… course, it being the end of the month and all, that’ll go quickly
enough… it could be worse though, much worse).
So anyway, to move stuff around I’m currently trying to burn off what I can to
CD, a little bit here, a little bit there, and hopefully I can free up enough to
shuffle stuff around. Luckily the aformetioned foz was kind enough to leave me some blank CDs
when he left town, so I have enough to burn to my hearts content.
3:06am. That’s more like it!