Life is good.

I got a call on my cell today at work from <randomguy> from the Sun asking me if I was a subscriber. I replied with a hushed I didn't do it I swear to GOD! <click>. I like to make other's lives a little more surreal ya know?

There were other things I was thinking would be equally fun to say. "Oh my god, how did you find this number, they said that I'd be safe under this name! The phone book? Shit, there's been a leak... I have to go." or something like that. [Insert segway to next ramble here]

The new building managers are in. Wee.... they sent around a lovely letter to all the tenants, basically saying, in a most brisk and rude way, "we are the lords of this manor and you will do everything we say." They sited things like cars having to be parked facing in, and only in their assigned stalls, no noise, laundry only done between 9am and 10pm, no pets ("no pets are allowed here, and we have no paper record for any pets allowed here, if you are one of these people please come to see us immediately"), and other stuff.

See, when I moved in here, Wayne, the way cool manager was here. I said "I have two cats, is that ok?" He said, "are they inside cats?" "Yes." "Then that's fine, as long as they don't bother anybody." That's my permission.

I was thinking though, if they did come and bitch about it, a few deep breaths, fierce, hard clutching of my fists, and a strained voice saying:

"<deep breath> Well, the doctor said that it was either <deep breath> get a cat or go back on the <deep breath> medication for my temper. I guess if you want to make me <deep breath> get rid of my pets I can go back <extremely strained breath> on the medication <obvious clenching of fists or clutching of coffee cup>."

If they could arrange to come when I'm sharpening my knives (call out to BradwhomustthinkImdead!) that'd be perfect!

Iambe says that booting someone out (or making them get rid of pets I assume) is against our constitutional or human rights or something. So I'm not worried. I haven't seen hide nor hair of the new managers anyway, so as long as they don't bother me, I won't bother them.

Random Thought for the Night:
Happiness is knowing that you went for a workout the night before so you can sleep in that extra hour in the morning.

09/25/2000    -{ 6%!?!? }-

I wanted to go for a work out this morning, I really really did, however a night of configuration left me with the mindset that I might be better to go after work.

That and the dreams.

I was at a british bording school, and they were trying to feed me milk for breakfast. Except that the milk was 6%! I basically laid it out to the person in charge there that this sucked and I wasn't going to drink it, and in fact was almost sick because I thought it had gone off. We finally struck a deal and I wrote out a check. Not long after I was wondering through a museum (they were doing restoration to the display pool, and the rest of it which had been put in the wrong spot) and decided to buy a cell phone. I decided on a CanTel Mike phone. They look really cool, however in reality (well, my dream anyway) they sucked. Bad input (two) multiple screens, and the numbers move around the buttons very oddly.

I'm wondering if when I write the story of my life I can include all these or if that'll move my book from the "People" section in the bookstores to "Horror" :)

09/18/2000    -{ Two are always better than one. }-

7:35am
Dual head rocks! I now have kernel 2.4.0-test8, framebuffer optimized for Voodoo 3 and DRI modules, XFree 4.0.1 with dual heads going. It's schweeeet. Screenshots to follow RSN (when I get home and have a chance to arrange something on my desktop that doesn't consist of simply viewing pr0n or something....

The only things that I've found that suck so far are that I still can't play quake :( Just bails. Bah. GDM is broken too, but I have a feeling that's just a config change (though I don't know where). Looks like it's executing the wrong command for the new X4. I've adjusted the second monitor's screen res to 1024x786... well, actually it's 1024x1024, to match my main monitor in virtual height. So I have to scroll a bit. Things start off in the middle of the screen too, which is sometimes annoying. Windows handles two monitors a bit better, starting everything on the main screen, as normal, and letting you drag things over to the second one. I'd still take this over windows any day though :) Mucho thanks to Iambe for lending me her (my? Squiz's?) Matrox Millenium to use for the second video card too!

... and in dream news...

Vacation, downtown LA. I was there with a girlfriend, and my dad, and we went to a bar/cafe for some reason. While waiting for dad (no idea where the GF went to), and sitting in this dark, dank, grimy bar, I decided to order a drink and a bite. As soon as I got it dad arrived and we chatted for a bit, and then we left, saying how awsome the place was (live music and such... I was tempted to step in with a maraca to help the girl singing "American Pie" but decided not to emberass myself). Leaving the building we stopped because a taxi was blocking our car from getting out. Looking around we heard voices and suddenly a guy ran past us (we were off to the side peering in a window so he didn't notice I don't think). I looked at him and said "He's got a gun" as sure enough (this was LA right) the guy had a huge automatic pistol. The dude was followed closely by 4 or 5 security guards. In real life of course I would have rushed into battle without hesitation *cough*, but in my dream I took cover behind a table and a large pane of glass. We watched as the guy proceeded to fight off the guards, even after one of them grabbed and twisted his balls in a most painful looking manner. After that, for whatever reason he stayed loose, perhaps taking a hostage, or demanding one? My GF (whom I have no idea who it was) showed up and I was sure that when he demanded a young woman as a hostage that it was going to be her he picked (even though I was still cowering behind the table). For some reason though, he didn't, and there was much rejoicing.

So how was my weekend? Well, pretty crappy actually. Friday I came down with a cold, so I basically had 2 days of sneezing, sniffing, and feeling like crap. I'm feeling a bit better now (I think I passed the cold off to Engel), but was woken up at 6am by a lovely headache (though part of it might have been trying to remember the above dream!). Pitched the cat a couple of times for licking a plastic bag too.... why does he do that?? For some reason my alarm got louder too, I haven't figured that one out yet. I had it on the "Annoying EHN! EHN! EHN!" setting and when I went to hit snooze it got louder! I spent a while trying to figure that one out (instead of just hitting snooze, but hey, it's the early morning) before finally getting up. I suppose drug'll do me well for today huh? That and fluids. Wonder if my mocha is considered a fluid?

Oh, and in other exciting news (as I run out the door), I got more underwear! Yes, I can extend my MTBL (mean time between laundry) by 3 whole days now! 6 if I turn them (surprisingly comfy Wal-Mart $4.98 boxers) inside out. Ok, maybe not.

09/14/2000    -{ That done yet? }-

7:12am
Something had to be done at the strip mall with the bookstore and laundry mat that I went to for dinner with my folks. There was some wrong that had to be righted. What and how to do it? Had some guy impersonate Jesus Christ to piss off the Christians and use that as a diversionary tactic. I didn't know the gameplan (or if there was one) when I got down on one knee and said "Help us Jesus, help us". Not loud enough to be convincing (or noticeable) though, because I didn't know what was going on. In the end all was well however. I was also able to take my laundry (which for some reason also included some magazines of disreputable nature) to the dryer in the laundrymat a couple of door down.

This is all happening after leaving the house with my parents (the house happened to be our salesperson's new house) and driving there. When we left I had an apt-get upgrade going and was wondering where netscape went (I determined it was killed off in the middle of the task-gnome upgrade). We left the door open and I left the house with one shoe on. We walked to our car a block down the road (north) and at that point I remembered I had to get the laundry. Good thing too because the front door was wide open and I really needed my other shoe. I did a handstand/handwalk of impressive magnitude to keep my socks clean on the way back though.

And my cousin says I'm mad.... buahahahahahahahaha

09/13/2000    -{ Dennis, Dennis, Dennis... }-

Sometimes I wish I could get rid of the voices in my head.

09/12/2000    -{ The Life And Times }-

I'm beginning to understand more and more why... well, why I'm not understood. I may be so bold as to include all geeks in here, and I'll use that wording, but I am not going to try to speak for anyone but myself (though I do think that it's true...).

People don't seem to understand us at all. How we work, how we function, what we feed off of. Why can't people just get that as a geek I enjoy work. Not work as in stuff that sucks, but....

I think that's it.

To "normal" people, work is what they do when they go to the office at 8am, and don't do at 5pm when they get home. A dentist or doctor doesn't bring his stuff home with him, and an iron worker or miner I'm guessing don't bring their work home. Geeks on the other hand, go to work and hack/code/tweak/modify/play, then come home, and continue on with the same type of thing. It's because the geek culture is one where we have the unique ability to have a job where they pay us to do the things we do anyway. Not exactly the same... I took a sick day today and spent the majority of it playing Deus Ex. Same actions though, sitting in front of the computer and doing, experimenting, fixing, breaking, taking apart and examining. Now it's 11pm and what am I doing? Sitting in front of my code from work and tracking down a bad-ass segfault in init_attacks(). Experiment, break, examine farther. Sound familiar?

So because I enjoy "work". Like I said, not work that sucks, but work that is fun. And strange as it sounds to the outside world and normal people, tracking down segfaults is fun. I'd explain more, but I have to fall back to an old adage from a climbing book: "The resons, whenever stated, never sound quite right, and only matter to nonclimbers anyway.". Turn that "nonclimbers" to "non-geeks" and you've got it.

Anyway, all I want to know is why can't people understand that my idea of a "fun day" may consist of sitting and coding be it for work or one of my own personal projects. Sometimes I have no problem being alone. Hell, I enjoy it a lot of times, and wish I had less face time... just a weekend with no people, calls or human interaction. Let my batteries recharge or something. I guess some people work the opposite, they can't stand being alone and need to "recharge" by being around people. I guess everyone is wired differently.

09/11/2000    -{ Me 'n Jackie Chan }-

Another up for your perusal and incredularity. No doubt influenced by my trip with people to the Vancouver Fringe Festival yesterday.

I don't remember a clear starting point, but I (while living at my parents house), received a phone call and answered with a "what?", to which the caller said something and I said "who is this?" Man, Bruce Lee was pissed when he heard that. I guess I'd forgotten he was living in Vancouver. I was (and told him) how honored I was that he'd consider me a friend and call me on the phone.

Iambe had just gotten a job down on node 36 or so (of Everything2) and a bunch of people trucked on down there. There was a disturbance though, seems like node 35 had been taken out recently. The people there were bad men. Jackie Chan showed up and he and Bruce Lee were going to check things out. I figured the three of us could handle it as (and I told this to them) we were some of the most famous Kung-Fu fighters ever. Myself less than Bruce and Jackie of course, but...

Later there was a play of Romeo and Juliet that we watched, waiting in the audience (though close to the stage) for something to happen. It was interesting to watch as the play started out with R&J lying down in the water, and me thinking "they should be more polished than this," as they had no announcement or whatnot. There was a big screen across the way, and we were waiting for something to happen on that in the twighlight. No idea what, but it never happened becuase my alarm went off.

Other disjointedness: A cat being shot at one point or another. A train ride, still with Jackie Chan and/or Bruce Lee. That's about all that I can suck back from my fading memory. Kinda cool to be a Kung-Fu master though, even if I never got to fight!

09/09/2000    -{ Rip-off }-

Well, today I attended the third auction I've been to. The first I was with Cat5 looking for stereo equipment. He figured it'd go for cheap, it went for expensive. The second one was helping Firefly get the bounty of her families purchases of things worth lots more than what they paid for them.

This one was kinda a waste. Cat5, Firefly and I went. The auction was from 11:30 to 6 or so, and I'm glad we went early. People were bidding far to much on systems that they didn't know what was in. A "Pentium i.i.i. cpu" item was not quite that. In most cases they were a case with a motherboard, and (if you were lucky), a cd or floppy drive. People who didn't see this ahead of time were bidding $500+ or more on these systems, thinking they were going to get a Pentium III system! Fools! If it had been a full system they would have gotten a good deal... course, I would have been bidding on them at that point too. One guy is now the proud owner of a $225 empty case. Empty. Buahahahahah. Oh, and don't forget that all prices have 10% buyer fee plus 14% gst/pst tacked on.

I did pick up a nice motherboard (the start of my new second system). Cat5 got some tables for LAN parties and Firefly picked up a chair. Still, when you are paying more than retail price for a hard drive or DVD driver, you really shouldn't be there. But I guess the auction guys won in the end :)

Now I just more parts and I'll have a nice gaming system that I can do my windows stuff on if I need to, and have it there for game playing when people come over!

09/06/2000    -{ An IDE will never rule over Vi and GCC }-

I just wanted to let you know that I was going to run tomorrow, but as it's 10pm and I'm bagged, I'm not, and am going to get 9 hours of sleep tonight! Muahahahahahahahahah!!!!

.... but before that I must share that my drive home with Engel and Tig consisted largely of questioning things such as: What Jesus would do if he came back to earth. We figured the modern day equivilant of a carpenter might be (other than a carpenter) a construction worker, one of those guys who holds the stop/slow sign (molding people to his will, protecting them from danger^Wevil, reaching out to the common man). Would he wear birkenstock sandles or the rubber flip-flop kind? Would he walk a lot? If not, what sort of car? Sporty? Fuel efficient? Would he have $1,000 suits or would he shop at the Salvation Army?

The questions are endless....

Of course, that's all hypotetical, as we already have the SoG among us....

09/05/2000    -{ Jeff Foxworthy is my Hero }-

Later
I dropped off my car today to get it's bump fixed finally. They say they'll have it done by Thursday or Friday night (I'm guessing that they mean this week, but I'm not sure). I told them that if a repeat of the last fiasco where a 2 day fix turned into a 9 day fix I would be... "most dissapointed." The courtesy car that I got, while a Hyundia, didn't totally suck. It had all the instrumentation that one comes to expect from a car (unlike the last loaner I had from a body shop which didn't even have a tripmeter), power everything, etc. I'm not sure where the clutch is yet though, it seems to shift gears for me automatically, which I'm not sure I like or not. What is my left foot supposted to do? How do I slow down around corners? Why do I have no power and am afraid when trying to accelarate while going onto the freeway?

Just as a note. Never watch a movie that involves the police when you are with someone who works for or with the police. All through Die Hard all I got was "the radio calls aren't like that," "that is the dumbest Sargent I've ever seen," "you'd think the FBI wouldn't be that stupid wouldn't you," "they don't do that," etc etc etc.... Remind me to have people over for Cliffhanger one of these days....

Earlier
So my wonderous and amazing plans laid out for last weekend didn't all work out. Enough so that I didn't feel totally unproductive though. I'm back in C-land at work, jumping through hoops I didn't know existed to try to get the local IP of a system. 1 line in perl, a whole lot more in C. Though my current line of thinking is leaning towards a combination of uname() and gethostbyname().

Random link: http://www.catsarefrommars.

Some nice random weirdness happened last night. Somehow, over the 'net my cousin from across the country found me! Wh00p and *wave* if you're reading! I hope this page meets all your expectations *cough*. Anyway, I'm pondering taking my holiday time and heading on a cross country journey in not-the-worst-weather (before winter that is) to visit the eastern ArcterFamily. That'll be cool if I can pull it off (fingers crossed).

Drink summary for today:

• Mocha: 1
• Coke: 2
• Nestea: 1