Arcterex's Personal Journal

11/30/99

10:22pm
I just want to say that I'm not sure if it's Keating or Telus, but one of them can kiss my ass. Went to the client site today and sat till noon basically waiting for a call back from Keating (who does tech support for some of 3com's modems). When it finally came back they told me that the modem looked like it was set up properly, and that the 'drop the line when a call comes in' feature is on the isdn line, not the modem. Thanks. So I went back to the office and waited for Telus to answer the phone (though I can solve the problem of no music in my room simply by calling up Telus and going to try to get customer service... leave the speaker phone on and listen to the musak). After being shuffled around to (literally) 5 diff numbers/departments I finally got to the person who said well, we'll check and get back to you. Honest. RSN.

Buggers.

1:59am
Just got back from Vancouver.

Wow, so a whole lot has happened in the last few days. First of all, Friday. I came home from work and found a bunch of answering machine messages. The first is roomiemom saying "roomie, come here quickly but don't speed" with what sounded distinctly like a woman screaming in the background. The next 5 or so are all "congratulations". Yes, that's right roomie had his kid. Well, roomiewife did. So on my way to get catfood I hit MSA and visted them and their new little boy. The kid was... well, a baby. Small and noisy. Roomiefriend stopped by too and, as I was thinking of going out to a club somewhere that night anyway, we all decided that celebrations were in order.

So a couple of hours later, after hearing lovely tales of 20 minutes of labor and the afterbirth from a glowing roomie, me and roomiefriend (and roomiefriendgf) hit a club. Roomie decided that since he had been up since 1am the previous day that he was going to bed. Wimp. We had to celebrate for him. So we hit a local club, smoked a big cigar (as is tradition) and hung out. I was proud that I didn't get sick off the cigar. I think I did get high or something though, as I was a little lightheaded. There was booze involved too of course (roomiefriendgf was doing the driving). I discovered one of the secrets of not getting sick after smoking a cigar is movement. Keep on moving around.

It was a good time. Sadly, the only dance I danced was with roomiefriendgf, but it was still fun.

Saturday I went about getting guitar lessons from my buddy the guitar god. My fingers hurt, I can't change chords worth a damn, and when I do change them it sounds like crap. All practice though I keep telling myself.

Saturday evening was the Big Birthday Bash. People from all over came and we shot pool for a while at the local pool hall, and then we headed back to Iambe's pad and miraculously stuffed 20+ people in there. Listened to the guitar god play, sang some songs, eat wonderful munchies, and had a good time. Finally got home ~3. Sunday roomiewife was still not there, but I spent the day sleeping, vegging, and not much else. I had to do some work around the house and stuff in town, but it was a not that productive day.

Today at work was docs. Fun fun fun. Tomorrow I get to go off and fix a clients ISDN modem. Fun x 100. Hopefully it'll make them happy and then they'll never, ever call us again. Please? Pretty please?

Ohhh... had a good idea for a project. Have something similar to what finger.gimp.org was before it dissapeared, which will go through all the /home dirs on ufies.org and read their .plans and spew some other info about them to a page dynamically generated. I'd have a config file that the script would look at first to make sure that they wanted it visible, and what info was visible, and stuff like that. Maybe take only the first 200 chars for people with long .plans and stuff. Wonder if they'd like that. Might just do it anyway though :)

11/27/99

Ugh. Drunk. Had my 3rd cigar ever, but it is ok, it was in celebration of my roomie having his baby. A boy named Jesse and weighing 7 pounds something. Went out to the bar with his best bud mark to celebrate. I'm not feeling so hot right now to be honest.

And I'd forgotten how bad highlander II was. I think I'm going to bed now. All I have to say is the clug scene still isn't my scene and the only girl I danced with was my roomie's best friends GF. Ugh.

Sleep now.

11/26/99

I think I might have seriously screwed up my new system last night. Maybe. I recompiled libc6 with -shared, but I don't think I needed to. Then because of a fubared teTeX install the manual wouldn't compile (wee) and I think I forgot to prefix it with /usr, and it might have installed itself in /usr/local. We'll have to see. The bummer is that the pngtest that comes with libpng just segfaulted, no idea why. When I get home I think I'll either a) nuke it all and start again, using what I've learnt over the last 2 days as a guide, or b) just go through the system, nuking dupe files (if I did screw it up last night and install in /usr/local/ I'll have the correct files in /usr right?). Or maybe I'll go out, hang with people, have fun, meet millions of beautiful women and fall in love. We'll see how I feel. I'd like to get gtk and the gimp compiled though... :)

Could be an all night thing (both the building of the system and the falling in love... though the first option is far easier to accomplish).

Lately I'm wondering if I'm actually still part of the human race. I have no patience or time for people, work, fun-work, cleaning, etc. I just want to sleep for about a year and get my brain back to normal.

And I want to know why jack's checkurls is screwed up too (if you don't understand this just ignore it).

Oh yea, I've been meaning to bitch about this for a while. When you approach a set of traffic lights, in N. America anyway, there is a thing called yeilding. Now if you are turning left you yeild to those going straight through the lights.

Now, lets take an example. You are waiting to turn left to go to the college, there are a row of cars ahead of you also turning left. On the opposite side of the road there are other cars coming towards you but they are turning left as well.

Now do you

A) stop to see if maybe, just maybe one of the cars coming opposite is in fact going straight through instead of turning left, thus requiring you to maybe pause before you turn left.
or
B) just blow through the intersection because there is no chance in hell that someone on the other side is not doing the same as the rest of the people on that side of the road and turning left and therefor there is no need for you to check or heaven forbid yeild to someone.

Well lets just say that lately I've been slamming on the brakes and hitting the horn at the intersection outside my apartment building. Well, not really slamming on the brakes, cause I have faith that 99.99% of the human race are mindless fscking idiots and I regulate my speed accordingly. It's nice to wail on the horn first thing in the morning and see some half asleep college student heading to school off the highway jerk awake and go 'huh? oh, guess I should have looked before turning huh'.

"It's all right to be filled with hate, people are stupid" -- Solas, circa our tech support years

Aside: Ever have a moment in time when out of nowhere you are assaulted, bodily by a memory of a moment or an image and you can't get it out of your mind? Your existance, hell, time itself just stops as you get whisked away by some sweet rememberance. You're powerless to stop it and can simply sit there, eyes open but not seeing what is in front of you, mind months (or was it years) away from here, seeing and feeling something that may or may not have happened. Your body and mind are taken forcefully out of your own control by your memories and are only returned to you when they seem fit, leaving you with just the faint memory of her lips, maybe, or maybe not.

Well, neither have I, honest.

11/24/99

So I come home after 13 hours at work (not all that spent working mind you, there was lunch and dinner, but from the office from 9 to 10:30ish), the house is a sty, there's cat puke on the front mat and I have no desire to do anything but sleep.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, it's been just nuts. Seems all my free time is taken up, and when I do have free time, I spend it lazing about and wishing I could get out. I need a vacation I think :)

All I want to do is sleep... but first I want to start X compiling... 200 Megs of source code could take some time. BTW, the alanisdoingwhatsquizdidfirst project is coming along well. Most of the non-X apps and utils are compiled and installed, all with -O2 -march=i686 to optimize the smeg out of them. Now things like X and gtk and gnome etc are next. I've been without a non-console interface to the computer world (at least at home) for a couple of days now, and you know what, it's 100x faster. Try freshmeat on netscape and then try it with lynx, you'll see a huge difference. Not gtk vs. qt bs either. It's fun. Now to figure out why X needs imake but won't make it.... ARGH!

(yes, squiz, you did warn me....)

In other news...

I've still gotten minimul done in house hunting.
Local guitar doode Yohimbe has agreed to make me into a guitar god.
Big ass bday bash coming up next weekend... whoho!
Thinking a lot about the yet-to-be-got apartment, and interior decorations etc... neat stuff I think. It'll be nice to have a place where only I am responsible for making it a mess.

Sleep now.

11/19/99

Just a quicky....

Seems that our salesdude Gord has been in this office for a while.

Me: Sandra called for you
Gord: That's Shandra actually.
M: Yea, whatever.
G: From Enterprise Magazine
M: What, you going to be doing nude modeling for them or something?
G: Yea, if there's room
[gales of laughter]

Even if he didn't mean it, man, that cracks me up. Good on ya Gord!

11/18/99

Bed now, but I got the above wooden creation at todays LUG meeting. Raskal, you rock dude, sorry I missed you at it.

11/17/99

Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me...

Wow, what a day. I was overrun at work doing a system for our users so the sysadmin doesn't have to change their passwords for them (erhm, isn't a sysadmin supposed to do work like that?) and some other support issues. We agreed that the beforementioned B was not our favorite person.

A good day of work to say the least. Even got to have lunch before 2 this time! (yea yea, I was fixing a bug that was our fault...)

Went to the ArcterParents house for a birthday dinner and had a great time, got some neat and useful toys (oh but for the time to enjoy them!). Watch for a new bathrobe in the ArcterCam.

Aside: got a cd of Soul Miners Daughter from Iambe last night. It rocks, thanks babe. Too bad my car cd changer doesn't like the burn and it skips like mad :( Works fine everywhere else though... and in the car it's an on and off things... wierd.

And thanks to Iambe's column I was flooded with mail. Some of the cooler ones were from:

Raskal

What are you... 17 now??? (fscking pup!) :-)

Michael Saletnik <michael.saletnik@tfn.com>

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print pack('H*', "486170707920426972746864617921") . "\n";

and a host of others.

After coming home it was the User Friendly IRC party. I came in and was greeted with the following:

   [08:36pm] <=> Arcterex  ~alan@a2a00709.direct.bconnected.net  has joined #userfriendly
   [08:36pm] <=> SignOff: `Aries_  #userfriendly Ping timeout for `Aries_[itchy7-18-72.ionsys.com]
=> [08:36pm] Arcterex kills xchat
   [08:36pm] <=> SignOff: `Aries_  #userfriendly Ping timeout for `Aries_[itchy7-18-72.ionsys.com]
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> 1 sec.   everyone say Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> 1 sec.   everyone say Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  -m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  -m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARCTEREX
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARCTEREX
   [08:37pm] <cuvarack> Congratulations Arcterdude!
   [08:37pm] <Subucni> hippy smurfday, arc!
   [08:37pm] <Subucni> hippy smurfday, arc!
   [08:37pm] <Ardaniel> Happy Birthday, Alan!
   [08:37pm] MrMagnum wishes Arcterex a happy birthday (and many happy returns)
   [08:37pm] <cuvarack> Congratulations Arcterdude!
   [08:37pm] <Ardaniel> Happy Birthday, Alan!
   [08:37pm] MrMagnum wishes Arcterex a happy birthday (and many happy returns)
   [08:37pm] <elint> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <secrtbear> hb arc
   [08:37pm] <elint> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <secrtbear> hb arc
   [08:37pm] <Frostbite> Happy Birthday, Arc.
   [08:37pm] <Torval> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <Frostbite> Happy Birthday, Arc.
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> Happy birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <Torval> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> Happy birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <Henry--> happy b-day!
   [08:37pm] <Henry--> happy b-day!
   [08:37pm] <aryssa> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <aryssa> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <blindahl> happy birthday
   [08:37pm] <Icewraith> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <rynsey> hppy b-day arc!!!!!!!!
   [08:37pm] <blindahl> happy birthday
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <Enigman> Happy birthday Arc! 
   [08:37pm] <Tafkah> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <Icewraith> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <rynsey> hppy b-day arc!!!!!!!!
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <Enigman> Happy birthday Arc! 
   [08:37pm] <Tafkah> happy bday arc
   [08:37pm] <SEA> happy bday arc!
   [08:37pm] <SEA> happy bday arc!
   [08:37pm] <Shaken> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <snowdrake> happy birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <nuller> AARC!
   [08:37pm] <Shaken> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <KJoker> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <snowdrake> happy birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <nuller> AARC!
   [08:37pm] <Calculus> Happy birthday, Arc!
   [08:37pm] <KJoker> happy birthday arc
   [08:37pm] <D-Aliegri> happy birthday arc.
   [08:37pm] <Calculus> Happy birthday, Arc!
   [08:37pm] <Diskmstr> happy birthday arc baby
   [08:37pm] <D-Aliegri> happy birthday arc.
   [08:37pm] <Diskmstr> happy birthday arc baby
   [08:37pm] <tag-man> happy bday, ARC
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  +o Arcterex  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <tag-man> happy bday, ARC
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  +o Arcterex  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Morpheus|> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARCTEREX!!!!!!!!!!
   [08:37pm] <Cozit> HAPPY B-DAY ARC
   [08:37pm] <Mos^> Happy Birthday!!!
   [08:37pm] <ChrisL> Happy Arc Day!
   [08:37pm] <Babs> Happy Birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <ChrisL> Happy Arc Day!
   [08:37pm] <Mos^> Happy Birthday!!!
   [08:37pm] <nuller> wooha!
   [08:37pm] <Morpheus|> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARCTEREX!!!!!!!!!!
   [08:37pm] <Cozit> HAPPY B-DAY ARC
   [08:37pm] <nuller> wooha!
   [08:37pm] <Sanaya> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <Babs> Happy Birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <=> Aries-  ~aries@itchy2-19-73.ionsys.com  has left #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> Aries-  ~aries@itchy2-19-73.ionsys.com  has left #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Godmoma> happy birthday arc! :)
   [08:37pm] <Godmoma> happy birthday arc! :)
   [08:37pm] <_crash_> happy b-day arc
   [08:37pm] <Spark> Happy birth Arc
   [08:37pm] <Beowulf> Hppay Birhtday
   [08:37pm] <Sanaya> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <_crash_> happy b-day arc
   [08:37pm] <Spark> Happy birth Arc
   [08:37pm] <Beowulf> Hppay Birhtday
   [08:37pm] <nuller> TAKE IT OFF
   [08:37pm] <nuller> TAKE IT OFF
   [08:37pm] secrtbear humps arc
   [08:37pm] secrtbear humps arc
   [08:37pm] <BigT2> hb arc
   [08:37pm] <BigT2> hb arc
   [08:37pm] <Feste> Happy Birfday Arcterex!!!!
   [08:37pm] <Feste> Happy Birfday Arcterex!!!!
   [08:37pm] <greybird> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <greybird> Happy Birthday Arc
   [08:37pm] <BenK> Happy Birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <BenK> Happy Birthday Arc!
   [08:37pm] <MichaelJ> Happy birthday!
   [08:37pm] <gordonf> Apply Birthday (Mine's on the 5th! DEC)
=> [08:37pm] <Arcterex> holy shit
   [08:37pm] <MichaelJ> Happy birthday!
   [08:37pm] <FSPring> Happy birthday Arc!!
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to you!
   [08:37pm] <FSPring> Happy birthday Arc!!
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to you!
   [08:37pm] <Arcterex> holy shit
   [08:37pm] <gordonf> Apply Birthday (Mine's on the 5th! DEC)
   [08:37pm] <El_Tee> happy bday again arc
   [08:37pm] <elint> free blowjobs for arcie!
   [08:37pm] <El_Tee> happy bday again arc
   [08:37pm] <elint> free blowjobs for arcie!
   [08:37pm] <teleny> Happy birthday Arc1
   [08:37pm] <Bascule> Happy BIRTHDAY ARC!
   [08:37pm] <teleny> Happy birthday Arc1
   [08:37pm] <Bascule> Happy BIRTHDAY ARC!
   [08:37pm] <Kitarra> Happy b-day arc
   [08:37pm] <Grech> Schone Gebutstage
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to you!
   [08:37pm] Frostbite EYES SecretBear.
   [08:37pm] <BigT2> keep it on
   [08:37pm] <Kitarra> Happy b-day arc
   [08:37pm] <Grech> Schone Gebutstage
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to you!
   [08:37pm] <MisterE> Happy Birthday!
   [08:37pm] Frostbite EYES SecretBear.
   [08:37pm] <MisterE> Happy Birthday!
   [08:37pm] <BigT2> keep it on
   [08:37pm] <BigRagu> party times
   [08:37pm] <BigRagu> party times
   [08:37pm] nuller takes off his pants
   [08:37pm] <Cozit> TAKE IT ALL OFF
   [08:37pm] nuller takes off his pants
   [08:37pm] <Cozit> TAKE IT ALL OFF
   [08:37pm] <QuMa> Happy birthday!!!!!`
   [08:37pm] <QuMa> Happy birthday!!!!!`
   [08:37pm] SnuggleB gives up...
   [08:37pm] SnuggleB gives up...
   [08:37pm] rynsey gives you your b-day spankingsa
   [08:37pm] rynsey gives you your b-day spankingsa
=> [08:37pm] <Arcterex> jaysus h....
   [08:37pm] <watchstar> merry happy birthday
   [08:37pm] <watchstar> merry happy birthday
   [08:37pm] <pisstoy> HAPPY BDAY ARC!!
   [08:37pm] <pisstoy> HAPPY BDAY ARC!!
   [08:37pm] <Arcterex> jaysus h....
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> SPEECH!
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> ;)
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> SPEECH!
   [08:37pm] <Trumpie> ;)
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to arc!
   [08:37pm] <=> SnuggleB  snuggleb@208.0.21.203  has left #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Gogl> happy birthday to arc!
   [08:37pm] <=> SnuggleB  snuggleb@208.0.21.203  has left #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  +m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  +m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Illiad> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHAH!!
   [08:37pm] <=> FortyTwo  ~mp3rod@nl0492-stpt.coredcs.com  has joined #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> ok... thanks all
   [08:37pm] <=> FortyTwo  ~mp3rod@nl0492-stpt.coredcs.com  has joined #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> ok... thanks all
   [08:37pm] <Illiad> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHAH!!
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> arc
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> arc
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> 's what you get
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> 's what you get
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> for having your birthday
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> for having your birthday
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> continue :)
   [08:37pm] <RoundTop> continue :)
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> the same day as UF :)
   [08:37pm] <Kethryvis> the same day as UF :)
   [08:37pm] <=> urCh|n  irccock@210-55-36-92.dialup.xtra.co.nz  has joined #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> urCh|n  irccock@210-55-36-92.dialup.xtra.co.nz  has joined #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Iambe> #74 What is Mike's last name?
   [08:37pm] <Iambe> #74 What is Mike's last name?
=> [08:37pm] <Arcterex> this was illiads doing wasn't it?
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  -m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <=> mode #userfriendly  -m  by #userfriendly
   [08:37pm] <Arcterex> this was illiads doing wasn't it?

But I was wrong:

   [08:33pm] <RoundTop> When arc gets back...everyone say happy birthday to him

I'll kill our little Joey later :)

It was a good time, with q&a, trivia, etc. 125 people was the max I saw in channel. Wow. There are logs at http://ufies.org/txt/uf.log

I got a chance to play with php3 sometime in there, and came up with this test page quick and dirtily. Just to try it out I'm going to redo my homepage with php I think. Course, the main part of it will be new layout and gfx and such.

Now I think it's bedtime (or time to start pulling down slackware so I can have something to do the squiz thing (make my own super fast, super optimized distro using slackware to get the computer to a bootable point).

11/15/99

First of all, my appolagies that I didn't update sooner. Yes, I'm home, alive etc. The final day of Edmonton was cold, grey, and threatening to snow, pretty yucky. We didn't go climbing, but that's ok, it was my holiday and if recovery meant sleeping in longer and doing less, that's ok with me. The flight home, aside from being delayed by a half hour or so (half of which was made up in the air), was uneventful. Met by friends at the airport I wandered out to dinner at an awsome chinese food place in New West. Yummy. I got caught up on the latest scandals too (no, nothing I can tell you, but wow, I leave for a few days and look what happens!).

Then it was Monday. What a day. Let me tell you about my day.

First of all, someone (die die die) stole the silver "H" off the front of my car (H as in Honda of course). I wandered out and it was gone. And while my car was in the care of my parents the piece of trim that was flapping in the breeze was removed. Feh. Now my once beautiful 'lude is looking quite abused. I really should look into that '99 Prelude some more. Oh wait, I don't have $38,000. Now, if all my friends and relatives chipped in and got me just the downpayment for it, I could handle the monthly payments. Well, if I didn't need a place to live or to eat that is.

Then I spent half the day troubleshooting and finally arranging to go onsite tomorrow to fix a modem problem. I don't know what's wrong. He claims he didn't change anything, but you know how that goes. It just apparently stopped working. Without the system connected to the net it's hard to troubleshoot unless you're onsite though. So tomorrow I'll head to Surrey to do just that. If he's screwed with something and broken it I swear I'll beat him to death with a NICS Server. It'd better be a hardware problem or something.

So that was my morning. Then this afternoon I was charged with 2 simple tasks before getting onto the huge list of other shit I have to do. Do some work for a guy, lets call him B. B gives me bad vibes, lets just get that out of the way. The other guys in the office have a good relationship with him it seems but I don't like him, don't like the vibes he gives off, and would happily never do any work for him again.

Anyway, I'm charged with setting the ETIs on his ISDN modem to auto. This will eliminate the errors that BCTel/Telus/whatever they are called now is getting and stop their equipment from resetting and causing bad things like sloooooooooow connections and 40% packet loss. I'm also in charge of using a Windows laptop to run this control panel software from 3com (die die die) to set the system so it'll use both channels (something we can't figure out how to do using the AT command set), save the information to the modems non-volatile RAM, and connect it back to our system so that both channels will be used.

Pretty simple huh? In theory a half hour job. I started around 1:30, figuring I'd leave lunch till after (why not relax completely and enjoy my lunch instead of thinking about the work I have to go to right after right?). I go in, check the settings for the TEIs. They are set to 255 (the auto setting). Just to be sure I set them to 255 again, write (at&w) reset (atz, then atz! (to reset the modem itself)), and run it. Works fine, but that's not a real indication as these errors are not all the time. So I call Al at Telus and get him to check and he reports that since I made the changes (I didn't really) there are no errors.

Ok, no problem.

Next task. Connect laptop. Hmm.... the serial cable has the wrong size of ends on it. Damn. Stew, call the office to see if they have the right one, drive back, drive back to B's place (he disappeared off at some point in his silent way). Set up the software, connect to the modem, and run it. It probes for the hardware, talks to it... keeps talking to it... keeps talking to it...

Damn. Reset everything a few times but to no avail. Call the office and talk to the boss a bit, try some things, no go. So we'll just do it manually. Try more things. No go. We can get the second channel up but it's not really up cause the connection is about 300 baud through syrup. Reset things back to the way they were.

B wanders in and asks about things. I explain what's going on and he asks about if it's going to be fast or not (cause sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's slow). He's a really technical guy. No, he's a fscking moron when it comes to computers, but I'll get back to that. I try to show him how it's going ok now and all I get is busy, busy busy. His lame ass isp is busy. Who gets busy lines these days??? He says he has another account at another isp, should we try that. I shrug, show him where to change it should he want to again (writing it down in excruciating detail for him). Settings get changed, modem dials in, works great. "Will the mail work?" Well, no. Our system pulls the username/pass for the multi-drop pop from the isp info fields, so unless we change that you have to get your mail from either the same place as you get your bandwidth, or have the same account/password at both places. So I explain that he either gets one or the other. Ok, set it back. Ok, what's your username and password and dial up number? "I don't know."

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

Isn't it the clients duty to keep this shit and not mine to go off finding a lame ass absolutely no info webpage or calling numbers to find answering machines and guessing at what his password and login might be? I didn't think so. We finally figure it out though and I set it back. I assume it's working ok again. I only assume that because it's getting busy signals like before. I wasn't there the required 6 hours for the busy signals to have a gap in them so I could see if it connects. Hell, for all I know it's connecting to a pizza joint in Arkansas somewhere that just happened to be on the phone when it was trying to dial out.

As the final bits of this all was getting resolved B is standing there behind me talking to one of his flunkys and saying things like "I think I should take this computer here, and here, and here [indicating the NICS server and a couple of the other computers in the office] and put them on the road, and then drive over them with my truck." Right in front of me!! Thanks a lot you asshole, for insulting my product, my company, and me for something that's a combination of your lame ass ISP and your wanting to change something that was working fine. Not us, our product or anything it does. Maybe it has to do with the ISDN modem, but that's 3com's fault for replacing a good product with a shitty one.

I have much more to bitch about but I'd like to reboot and try out the new q3Demo.

Will someone please tell the gas station by my house that the gas price is 47.x and no 58.x? Sure it's an arco (the Microsoft of gas stations), but still...

11/13/99

1:42am
Just got back from dancing the night away. Today Darren amused me, showing me around west edmonton mall (really not that big a deal.... its just like any other 4 full size malls stuck togeather with a pirate ship, skating rink and amusment park inside) and around downtown edmonton. After a huge dinner at the Loan Star (mmmm... fajitas) we vegged back at the apartment (a nice one, about the size of what I'd like to get for myself) and then went out. We picked up a friend of Ks (N) and hit a place called the Iron Horse (I think).

It was a bustling place, with a few too many people, but a nice atmosphere and semi-ok tunes. We danced all night and had a grand old time. Now we're back home, D and K are asleep and I'm still rarin' to go. Well, probably read a little more of Snow Crash and then open a window (so I don't boil all night) and hit the uhm, couch.

11/12/99

1:25am
Here. Alive. Uneventful. Currently waiting for Darren's background to be uploaded to my ftp site so I can get it from home. Doing the email thing as I'm a little lagged due to the time change. Argh! Get a real internet connection you weenie! This modem thing is just not cool anymore! :)

80% done uploading.

Oh yea, better put ufies.org back to normal. I really must get off my butt someday and get all the changes I wanted to make actually made.... Now I think it's time for bed. Tomorrow I think Darren is amusing me, and we're going to a club in the evening. Saturday K is amusing me, or we're going to a climbing wall or something. Who knows, who cares... I'm with good friends and I'm in relax mode!

11/11/99

Remembrance day and all that. Updated ufies.org as per usual.

Slight change of plans for the trip. Seems the thought of me driving through mountains for 12 hours in horrible weather was too much to bear so my parents got me plane tickets! Whoho! This means I got to get things here organized a bit before leaving, doing cat food and litter and stuff. But in about 15 min I'll be leaving for the airport (in a round about way). I'll probably throw a 'I'm alive!' thing here when I get there, but the next 3 days or so will be otherwise pure fun and relaxation...

11/08/99

Well, the list of the weekend was almost done. I got the book read, the bathroom cleaned, samba working, taping done, etc. Stuff that wasn't done is ok, I'll live. Laundry must be done soon though. No DC page done, oh well, I'll live. This week was a re-run anyway. I did however find a new obsession. Alyson Hannigan who plays Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Hummina hummina. Could be I'm just attracted to the softness and... "humanness" in this weeks episode (head here and look for the "Wild at Heart" episode). I could become obsessed, (she's 25, but seeing someone.... just my luck) but not near as this guy. A hairstyle index? my lord...

Course, a little read through reveals that she's not the same type of person that she plays on the show (if the guy who wrote the page isn't full of it that is). Oh well, on to RL I guess

Argh. Got an install tomorrow. This means I have to get dressed in clothes that are clean. It also means I'm heading to bed early (again) as I have to go to the office in the 'wack before heading to downtown for a 10am install. Yuck. I just hope it goes nice and smooth.

Worked tonight on trying to figure out why our work system won't proxy cache ftp connections properly while my home system does. It's not the setup though, as I've tried the same set up on their system as I have on my firewall, which works fine. Blame the guy who wrote the firewall I guess <g>

11/07/99

12:37am
Ok, this game Homeworld is kinda cool. Too bad the demo stops just before you get to do anything remotly interesting. And my HD is filled up with this other game, Age of Empires 2. Course, I haven't played it yet cause I'm going to be RSN. 12:30 in the morning and instead of sleeping, or partying, I'm rebooted to 'doze and playing games. Kicking ass in Half Life etc.

This daylight savings time thing? You can shove it. I'm sorry, but I have no fscking desire to see the sun in the morning. The darker it is the less I have to squint my eyes and the less I squint my eyes the less chance there is of me falling asleep from having my eyes half closed. A week ago I was driving to work in the morning in the half darkness with the sun barely peeking over the mountains.

I was ok with this.

Now, after the time change, I drive to work with the sun way on top of the mountains, just low enough my sun visor does me no good and just high enough to be right in my eyes.

And due to this it means that in the evening it gets dark at 5 or something, so after work I'm running in dark. Course, I'm in the dark most of the time, but we'll leave that for another day.

Ok, since I'm in a bitching mood, I'll continue. So I'm about to take a trip to Edmonton to see Darren and K. My car has to be up to spec for the long drive. Perfect timing for something to go wrong right? Well, a lovely grinding sound from my front left wheel influenced me to hit a mechanic on my way to work on thursday and to make a long story a tiny bit shorter it cost me $260 bux. "Pretty bad" was the diagnosis for my left CV joint. Probably mechanic shorthand for "about to burst apart and kill you or anyone driving near you," so I'm not sad to have it fixed. Right next to pay day too, so it wasn't the worst timing in the world. Course, it was also right next to rent day so it wasn't the best either.

Went to Yohimbe and his web-diva wife's place for dinner tonight. Gooooood lasagna, good company, and cool ass tunes played by Yohimbe himself. Now I want to learn guitar, at least enough to play something recognizable at the beach in the summer or something. The man just rocks at it, I was very impressed.

Worked today too. Wee, great way to spend a saturday. Course, it's brownie points with the boss, a day in the perverbial bank as far as days off go (can we say 3 day weekend coming up sometime?). We did get some good code done though, so it's not like it was a wasted day or anything. Guess laundry day is gonna be tomorrow then huh? Along with (reading from list): put up DC update site (basically a cool (or un-totally-lame) logo and a page with the DC stuff I spew here there), redoing my firewall rules, finishing Louis L'amour's Last of the Breed, tape Ian Tyson (stole a CD from Brad, and taping the good stuff off it will nicely finish off my Old Country mix tape (with which I will torture those who don't appreciate good music)), clean bathroom, set up samba on fishbowl so I'll have a place to store stuff or something like that.

Hell of a Sunday huh?

11/04/99

Well I know it's been almost 4 days now since the last DC, and I still haven't put up a page. How dare I eh? Well, there was interesting stuff so I figure I'd throw it here, per usual, for those w/o their fix.

Seems the dude, the slimy one that's been hitting on Joey had a date with a girl (jailbait for him), and who should it be but Pacey's X, Andy! Joey tags along (uninvited, kinda like a bad dream where your little brother tags along on a date or something) to keep his slimy paws off him. After that she gets fired. This I think will cause some re-thoughts (maybe) in her 'getting on with her life' philosophy.

Eve, who is on her way it would almost seem, was living in a "borrowed" boat and apparently is in search of her mother, moving from town to town. Dawson and Pacey followed her to her boat, Pacey tailed her and Dawson rummaged through her stuff at the boat, finding just a picture of a lady in the form of interesting stuff. Later on, after Eve has retived the picture (leading to the previously mentioned line of "aside from the lying, stealing, and using sex to control people, you're ok") from Dawson and basically headed off to the sunset, Dawson sees the same lady in the picture at Jen's grandmother's house. Who is the lady? Her daughter (Jen's mom? I think so). This means that Eve is Jen's sister. This also means that Eve's going to stick around a bit longer.

Which is good, cause she's an interesting paradox. Kinda cool how she admitted (lying or not) that Dawson was the one who broke through the mask she put on for her foray's into small towns in her search. Geek gets the girl through geekiness? Maybe, we'll see.

11/01/99

Slightly Later...
This happened on IRC. Geez, some people eh?

<cuvarack> I've got quite a bit done... only 30,000 lines of code...
<James> 30,000 lines of code?
<cuvarack> converting xfmail to c++...
<James> In one day?
<cuvarack> heck no
< james: he's a super coder
<cuvarack> that was just tonight :)
< james: why do you think we hired him 
< LOL
<James> Ah :)
<James> heh

Earlier
Well a happy November to all my loyal readers. This I think is going to be a long update, as I've had a lot of things on my mind. Nothing earth shattering of course. I just hope I remember it all. Lots of travelling in the next while. Next weekend I'll be forgoing sleep (again) to head up to the interior to get away for a day or so. A nice three hour drive starting after work on a friday night? Sounds like fun to me! And I got the day off for the week after that so I'll be driving (unless westjet has a good deal) to Edmonton to hang out with Darren for a bit.

This came to me while running today. How do you describe describing something? Sounds strange right? Well how about this. I'm running along and stuff comes to me that I figure I should note down here. So I basically have a conversation with myself about it. In this little talk I describe describing it. "So while running I had a thought that I should mention here. This one in fact, except I'll have to wait till I get home to put it down."

Ok, so maybe someone was burning pot or I got hit in the head or something.

Last weekend was another one of fun and merriment, which of course included me not sleeping and lazing around my house. It did involve me lazing around my buddy Syphonius's house though. W & W were most accomidating in their inclusion of us to their house warming party. I vegged, watched DVDs and relaxed all weekend, it was nice. Nice to get home too, but still...

Something else that tickled my mind. Recently I was told that (in essance) my romantic views of life, or more specifically love, were just that, romantic views, unmatching of real life.

I disagree.

Yes, I give my heart and my love easily. Yes, I fall in love easily (I've done this a couple of times recently). Yes, I get hurt because of it (Yes, I've had this a couple of times recently). But what is the alternative? To not love? To not feel that feeling of falling in love, or being with someone (and I'm not talking physically here) and being around them and feeling that more-than-friends feeling? Is that what the alternative is? To get into some relationship where my partner (or I) doens't really love each other. To "settle". Be where cheating is something that "just happens". To not trust 1000%. To not know that the person I'm with is the person I want to die with, and that they feel the same?

I can't belive that. I know it's possible. It has to be. Otherwise what is the point?

If that's it I think I'll stick with my romanic views thanks. Personaly If living some stupid soap opera life based on views from things like country music and silly tv shows is what I have to do then I'll do it, and hope that the dream and vision I have of what the future will bring will come true.

I was going to do a DC update, and in fact a whole new page! But I think sleep is a better idea. I actually watched it today and there were many good developments as well as some great quotes "Besides the stealing, lying and using sex to control people, you're a pretty good person" being one of them (kinda paraphrased of course). I'll do my best to throw something up for ya'll sometime. I think I'll trim the archives tonight too.

Home