Others: [ solas | Pixie | Sonya | Alan Cox | raskal | SilverStr | Rynsey | Sillz ]

Worldly news. The "So you want to marry an multi-millionaire" thing that Fox did is turning into a pr nightmare and was, for those involved, a complete waste and a "man was I stupid" experience. I'm so shocked. When the hell will people become fascinated in something other that this crap. It seems like everything has to be bigger and faster and costlier and gorier to even grab people's attention these days. 90 years ago seeing a girls bare ankles was enough to give men heart attacks. It was the sort of thing that you talked about in hushed voices with your friends late in the night, saying that yes, you did see the entire ankle. Now you have channel 39 displaying what can be best described as soft porn (labeled as foreign films and "artsy" of course) at 11pm and re-runs of Worlds Wildest and Bloodiest X-Rated Commercials XIV competing with wrestlers finding new and interesting ways to pretend to wreck havoc on each other in the WWF on channel 14. No wonder the kids of today are so screwed up. I think when I have kids I'm going to move with my wife to the middle of nowhere in the interior of the NWT and ensure there is no electricity, cable, phone, or net connection. My kids will be amused by rocks and games involving pieces of string and they will never hang each other and tell me that they saw it on Fox's World's Wildest Police Sting Operations XXVII.

I'm finding that lately I'm not bothering to verbalize. I think maybe it's my brain not telling my mouth how to say something fast enough because it's working on other things. A couple of times I've used terms like "that thing that time" or "go to whereeverthatwasthatwewentthelasttime" or even "get that stuff done" "what stuff" "the stuff on the thing". I could stop for a second and figure out what I'm really saying, but in my desire to get the information out as quickly as possible I don't bother. And hey, if the people don't understand the first time and have to ask again I just look up with a dissapointed look, sigh, roll my eyes and slowly enuniciate what I probably should have said the first time.

You know, sometimes I feel like I'd like to just remove myself from the human race. Not life or anything, this isn't a suicide note or anything, I just think that I could deal with being away from all the people. I think 4 weeks would do quite nicely.

• Week 1 - Recovery. recovery from life, people, work etc. Not that any of these things are bad, but hey, recovery is recovery. I think I'd spend it locked in a room sleeping. Not near a computer, phone, fax, pager, cell, palm pilot, task manager, or answering machine. Yes, a week to sleep.
• Week 2 - Stuff. Getting all the things I haven't had the opportunity to do lately. Write to friends and family, work on websites (mental note: charge realtor people for their website) (mental note: done now) of mine that are outdated or need to be redone, clean up my mp3s, gfx, html, all that stuff. Start on some of the neat things I want to write (via code and not). Note that I haven't yet gone outside or gotten dressed yet. That comes in week 3.
• Week 3 - Face time. Maybe. Spend time with family and friends, hanging out with people who probably think I've forgotten about them, travelling around various places. If I win the lottery this'll include visiting friends in places like Austrialia, family in England, and a grand tour of Spuzzum (go on zoom out I dare ya!).
• Week 4 Reverse recovery... basically a week of mental preparation to go back into the world from my hiadus. Or however you spell it.

02/22/2000

Well, Cat5 didn't get American Beauty, but I think I did. That of course doesn't mean I totally can verbalize just how I got it, but I think I did. Gave up a bit of sleep to throw up a review too!

02/21/2000

Wow, it's amazing how almost-alive you can feel at 7:00am after 8-9 hours of sleep! Going to bed right after X-Files last night was a great idea. I even had a chance to read some of the Civ:CTP book and learn about disbanding units! X-Files by the way, was great. In a 150th episode special the episode was X-Files meets Cops. Very well done. It was quite hilarious to hear Mulder say things like "he just said [beeep], do you really think this is live?" and "and we're on national tv officer so cowboy the [beeep] up!"

I had another dream last night that I remember too (must be the excess sleep that brings it on). I don't remember a lot of the details, but I went to a movie called "how to play the piano" (for some reason I thought it had something to do with playing the guitar (which guitar dude hasn't call me back about yet btw (no, not Yohimbe, the other one))) at some theatre somewhere. We had to come down a service elevator from the carpark, I remember that... After some confusion from the doorman the guy sent me to the right place. After sitting down, whomever I was there with was struck in the neck by a vampire spittle infected dart. To make a long and (I'm sure already) boring story short, the people in the theatre were under attack from vampires with blowguns. I spent a fair amount of time with my collar pulled as high as it would go and looking around for these creatures which I never saw. I'm not sure exactly how many of the theatre patrons were infected by this long distance form of biting, but something happened eventually that saved us (or maybe just me). No idea what though. I had a fun time trying to find the right service elevator to get back to the car though.

Mom and Dad are back from holidays (again) yay!

And today is 2 for 1 mocha monday! Yay!

These good things all lead me to belive that today is going to really really really suck for some reason. I'm hoping not though, I don't think I could handle it somehow :)

02/19/2000

The first dream in a while. And a doozie too, which I'll share now (6:22am) before I forget.

Eary morning on a workday. For some reason I decide that I can make it to a star trek / anime / sci fi convention before work in maple ridge. So instead of going 30 min east to work I go 30 min west and think I can make it back in time. I get to the place (farmers market in maple ridge) and get in there to find it hasn't started yet. The janitor (a girl I think I recognized from high school (her face is pictured in my head but I can't think of a name)) tells me that things don't start till later (the hours are something like 3pm to 10pm or something weird like that). So I make a phone call or something and then head out, either to go to work or to just wait.

Now here is where it gets shakey. I see or encounter or something, some sort of crime. 2 young perpetrators. A police officer is called in (that's it, they are in a car racing around like mad men and I am in mine, watching them and then watching the cop car give chase). Finally the cop car has them and gets them cornered. Me and some other random passer-by watch on. I ask the guy "should we help" and he waffles maybe yes, maybe no. Finally I call to the cop "do you need any help" and he says sure. He has only 1 gun and handcuffs and there are two kids. Me and the guy (and I think a couple of others but I'm not sure) go over to help.

The cop goes to get back up or something and I take one of the guys and watch him. As luck will have it he decides that getting away would be a good thing. I manage to stop him and wrestle him to the ground a couple of times and keep him down while he struggles (yay for me and going to the gym). By now there are people around watching I think. Finally (and it seemed like a long time) the cop comes back and takes his sweetass time getting cuffs on these guys, or at least taking them away. After they are out of our hands we are congratulated and thanked by the cop, and told that we'll more than likely get a bit part (with superimposed backgrounds) on TV (on a cop show or something I guess). I'm thinking this one comes from the virtual tip of the hat on the static today. I remember one lady saying she recognized me from userfriendly and asking me what part do I play (since I'm not "visible" or something) and I tell her.

At this point we go out and start heading back. To get back out from where we are going (and the entire time I'm worried about the cop losing the guy I had) we have to cut through an Eatons. We go through it and on the ground floor there is a hot tub with 2 sections, separated by a tunnel like thingy and a wet floor. Go figure I slip and fall flat on my face in the water and do my best to make a joke about "I'm going to sue eatons!" after getting my shirt wet (but not overly wet (this is a detail I noticed ok, so let it go! :P )). Out at the car I think we say our goodbyes and final congrats and I start to head off. For some reason now I'm munching on a bbq chicken???? I notice in my car is a cell phone that belongs to Cyranth's friend Dirty D and I give this to cyranth (no idea when he showed up or why) and make a phone call into work as it's now 11:57 and I'm now half a day late. The boss is like "thanks for calling in" ("you little rat bastard I think is implied in his tone of voice"). And then guilt trips me about everything that I haven't done (work, support, everything he's had to do) and asks me when I'm coming in and why. I make some excuse about just having to pop into town before work (which is sort of true, it just was a town 30 min further away!) and tell him that I have a good excuse involving the cops, criminals etc. He doesn't seem to care and just tells me to get my ass into work. I start in, still munching on the chicken and hope I can get there in only 40 min and not the 60 I should take to get from where I am to where I'm going.

I think at this point I woke up and looked at the time, scared out of my mind I was late for work. A groggy bit later I realized that it is indeed a Saturday. This is why at 6:41am I am up and writing this in bad english and poor spelling. On a saturday.

I'm going back to sleep now.

02/16/2000

Would someone please explain to me why the cats will only eat out of one side of their bowl?

02/15/2000

Merry cheap-chocolate day.

Well, it happened again last night, for the second time ever. There I was, on the treadmill after a workout, trundling along at about 6.4 mph, happy, content, in the zone so to speak (and bored out of my skull staring at the ever-slowing clock and the weird looking guy running towards me in the mirror on the wall. Around 13 minutes into the 15 min cool down run I decided I was still feeling pretty good, not about to die just yet, and popped the speed up, if for only a last minute pump. Anyway, to make a long and potentially boring story short, the speed kept going up and I got one of those lovely endorpin highs. Too bad it was at the end of the run or I'd have just kept going for another 10 min (at increasing speed I'm sure). Ah well.

Hmm.... what else. Oh yea, I've made progress with firefly's horses. They have now deemed me lickable (or are they just trying to eat me gently?). This is cool and all but in the end all it means is I come out with a hand full of horse drool.

Oh! Oh! You'll be so proud of me. I single handedly assured that there would be no rain in the fraser valley for the next week at least :) I put some of that anti-rain stuff on my windshield over the weekend when it was sunny and I know that it's not going to rain over the next while just so I can't see the results. Didn't stop the sprinkle of snow last night though. Wow, that was unexpected... you'd think we were living in Edmonton or something.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...................... Mooooocha......

And! Mutt is no longer making me it's bitch! I discovered that when you compile it from source it doesn't look at the /etc/Muttrc file, only the /usr/local/etc/Muttrc, and the latter doesn't come with color defaults! Whoop!

02/11/2000

Well I get to either stay up a little longer this lovely friday night or should I get to sleep early (well, relatively anyway) and get stuff done tomorrow by waking up at a decent hour. I'm not sure where the happy median is. This weekend seems that it is going to be full of stuff. A movie saturday night, shopping etc during the day, possibly going to the gym in the morning, and then sunday going to hang with yohimbe and webdiva for a bit.

Happy Birthday Khensu.

I wonder if I can start boycotting any company that advertises with lines like "for the new millenium"? I think that would go far. Well, actually they probably wouldn't notice. But it would make me feel better.

So who go their gas at 42.9 before the lovely almost 20 cent jumps up to 60.9? Bastards. As my dear Iambe so elequantly put it "they're taking us alan they're taking us!"

Cable is back on. I guess when I said "I would like to cancel my rogers wave service" was translated by the morons at the huge-ass Rogers as "I would like you to make my TV go fuzzy till I call and bitch you out about it." I'd call them back and ask what the problem is but I probably just don't want to know. Not that I watch tv much though, the last time I did (or wanted to rather) was a couple of nights ago when I had a killer headache and wanted to just lie on thc couch and die slowly while listening to CMT or something. That night sucked.

The gym thing went well... some tall skinny dude who seemed to know what he was talking about... he did all sorts of complex math to figure out what my heart rate should be. Somewhere around (pi x (the average wingspan of an african swallow)) or something. We went through 1 set of each of the exercises to show me how it was all done etc. I'm not an idiot mind you, I've used a bench press before, but I let him go through his talk, just in case I was missing something. It was pretty good, but I'm sure that it might be different when I get to do the full 2-3 sets that's perscribed. We'll see how it goes.

02/07/2000

Long (yet productive) day at the office today. Got lots done and fixed and stuff. I should mention now too, I finally got a new monitor! Silv you rock man! No more squinting! No more fighting about if the screen is completely blurry or if it's just me!

Ok, I'll stop now :)

I finally got off my butt today and got a membership at the rec center down the road. Hit the pool for a bit and then relaxed in the hot tub. Upon reflection of tonight I feel I have to share some tips and tricks with others to make their trip to exercise more enjoyable.

• Spend a lot of extra time in the change room before going into the pool and after. This prevents the checkout people from knowing that the sum total of your exercise was 15 minutes.
• Bring a hair tie. Losing it on lap 23 sure beats stopping to swipe your hair out of your eyes at the end of every lap.
• Tie your shorts tight. Losing them is even worse than losing your hair tie.
• Stake out the place with your glasses on beforehand sure beats wandering and squinting through the whole center when trying to find your way back to the changeroom.
• Passing out is bad. Take it easy. Drowning sucks. Calling out "mommy" to the life guard is even worse (though if I was actually drowning mom did win swimming awards at one time... I think... is that right?)
• When leaving avoid mirrors. There is a reason that you are going to the gym. And naked men are not the most beautiful sight in the world.
• Try not to lose your key. Or ring.
• Make sure you know how to work work the locker before returning to it sans spectacles and with hair in your eyes. Opening it and closing it right away accidently and locking your stuff back in it is just so un-cool.
• When leaving, the door out of the reception area is a little more to the left, leaving by the correct side of the door makes one seem far less stooge-like.
• While attempting to measure your running route, having it say 12km at the end doesn't count if 10km was actually backtracking and trying in vain to find the route that you actually run.
• It's a bad sign when your cats bitch you out for puking on the carpet.

DC:
First watch in a bit. Pretty good too. A bit like the first one I watched when the main characters were all in detention at the same time and tempers flared and pasts were revealed. This one involves a party, some good lines, Pacey getting pissed and telling Joey and Dawson exactly how it is. Dawson almost gets lucky too... uses the line "you are beautiful in the way that beautiful used to mean when it meant something". Too bad she said "hold that thought" when he was about to kiss her and turned around to spew. So much for seducing drunken girls huh? Jen had a date with some weenie boy who sold blood to afford to go out with her and ended up quite the fool. She even seems to want to go out with him again. Weirdo. Who the hell gives a "hungarian red pinky ring"? Throw in Jack's X who just got left by her boyfriend who turned out to be gay (this mixed with Jack recently coming out the closet) was an interesting twist. Oh, and Pacey is in love with Joey. See, I told you a long time ago, you have to trade partners around in shows like this, as it's far too expensive to bring in new characters to act as dates to the main characters.

Like I said, an amusing episode.

Hmm... What's for dinner?

02/06/2000

Well, this weekend was a weekend of grand plans. I was going to go and do all these grand things, and spend a lot of money (being as the grand things involved paying bills and such), but sadly almost none of that happened. I got lots of sleep saturday, till 1 or so... actually got moving and doing things around 3. "Doing things" involved physical activity this time though, went for a run and then a workout. By the time I was back, showered and ready to go into town, it was 5, and in this sleepy little town, seems things shut down around 3pm on the weekends. Pah. The bank wasn't open so I couldn't pay off my Rogers bill. Nor could I pay the $20odd bux left on my house insurance. And future shop doesn't carry Clarion CD changers (and that is the only place I have a 3 months no interest credit card at) so upgrading my car cd changer to one that, well, works didn't work out. So I basically went into town and then came back.

Went out later on in the eve for my buddy Drew's birthday party. Kicked butt with Rover on those sports bar 'pick the right answer' electronic games. You know the ones I mean.

Today was a little better. Got up and around by 10, and was actually productive! I got the phone cord strung up on the ceiling (actually the wall right up at the ceiling level, as I found that the ceiling is just brittle and thin plaster... there is a tiny hole to prove it too. I considered punching a slightly bigger hole through so I could string the cable (this is for the ADSL modem.... the only phone outlet is by the front as you will recall), but figured that holes in the ceiling might make it harder to get my security deposit back when I leave (Jeff Foxworthy flashback: "but the pizza boxes were always stuck to the ceiling!").

Happiness is finding a gig partition you had forgotten about. I'm now in the process of moving mp3s out of my home directory and into a "real" parition that matches up with my current collection (and my /var/ftp as well). I had grand plans of finally giving up on rolling my own distro and just throwing my spare 13G drive into my box, replacing a drive and having lots of room again, but then I find this forgotten /home partition that I had kept for some reason and decided to fill that up first. Then more grand plans of getting work done on the new ufies site (did get some gfx and planning done though) were waylayed by X-Files and discovering that Civ:CTP can be more than one little guy wandering the map. Course, Civ is the sort of game that you look up and say "oh god, it's 4am", so I decided to cut it short, only an hour later that I planned to go to bed. Then raskal alerted me that I'd screwed up my httpd.conf and was 404ing on my home page.... so I decided to put up my words of wisdom for the weekend.

Awk. Deadline on Friday. Will we be ready? If Cuv's firewall works like it should, and I don't get called off on too many diff projects (I think tuesday I'm re-doing docs for our new version of gg), and I get the huge long list of "little things to fix/do" done.... maybe.

I'll need my sleep regardless.

02/03/2000

Wow, another month, another archive eh?

I found out today who was the true ruler of my household. It was when a large (and rather round) black cat used his claws to remove my hand from where he wanted to put his paw so he could drink my water that I came to the understanding that I am but a boarder in this little apartment.

Hence the huge $32 bag of catfood sitting in the kitchen. I got corny back though, and gave him a new collar (a very manly and cool blue) that he can't stretch out by clawing at it!

So what am I up to now? Wishing I was in bed earlier. I was going but got to updating ufies.org and trying out the new vmware 2.0 beta (details on ufies). I got kinda scared at one point though, when FreeBSD (the OS I decided to play around with) gave me the "we are not responsible for lost HD contents" warning. I thought that FreeBSD might have been smart enough to get around the VMWare virtual disk. But my main linux system is still running great and the /usr/vmware/freebsd/freebsd.dsk file is getting bigger, so I assume everything is going good. I gotta admit that the install is a little scary for someone who has no clue about the terminology. However the "complete novice" install option was a great thing. Just choose "auto" for everything, and then select the type of workstation packages you want installed (user, developer, minimum, everything). Very cool. When it's all done I might take a closer look at it. Wouldn't mind sticking it in a system for my firewall too, I've heard that *BSD is really good for security. Course, it's not that secure if someone who knows nothing about it (ie: me) sticks it on, so I'm going to evaluate it at some point.

Almost Friday. Yay! No clue what I'm doing this weekend. I got a buddy of mine who has a birthday (yesturday... *wave* Happy Birthday Drew!) and there might be something going on there. Other than that, sleep and clean up. I finally got the dishes and laundry done yesturday, so it's down to things like cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, and tacking the phone line for the ADSL modem to the ceiling so it doesn't run across the floor to the modem sitting in the middle of the living room. Seems that when these apartments are built they only have 2 phone outlets, one in the entrance and one in the bedroom. Neither near the computer on the other side. Oh well, a couple of long phone chords and some tacks to stick them to the ceiling will fix that up fast enough!

Hmm..... don't you hate it when you have a whole bunch you want to say but as soon as you sit down you forget?