8/18/97

Bloody hectic day. Actually managed to sleep in till 9:30. Called a lawyer, and the only appointment I could get right away was at 10:30. Called Brian (my taxi), but his phone was busy until 10:20. Called ICBC and got an appointment for 3:30. Basically the lawyer doesn't deal with the car, just the personal injuries (and takes 1/3 of the settlement plus tax). I don't know if I'll use a lawyer, I'll see how I feel when we get back from Calgary. After the lawyer, we hit the doctor, and Brian made an appointment, and I found out that he wasn't taking new patients :-( After that we hit the police station, and they said basically, "we don't care." So much for that. I found out that ICBC can tow my car in, so I just went to the appointment without it. Brian noticed a sign in the adjusters office that said Thinking of calling a lawyer? Give me a chance first! I thought that was kinda funny.

I signed a thing that said basically if they determine it's a write-off they can junk it. So after ICBC we headed back to Brian's to take out the deck, CD-changer, amp, and all the other little bits that I'd accumulated throughout the years. If it's not a write-off it's gonna be hellish to put the car back togeather :-( My neck feels better though, not as sore as yesturday. I just ate too, for the first time today. I guess being in constant motion from the time you get up to the time will cause one to forget about food.

8/17/97

Warning, rant ahead. And no, my day has not been going well!

On August 16, 1997, I was driving my good little Mazda 323 up towards Abbotsford to get a video. My two friends, Brian and Darren were in the car. Brian was in the back seat, Darren in the passenger seat. At about 7:30 I stopped as a light turned yellow. I was stopped for at least a couple seconds when I was hit from behind by a Ford Truck. The impact knocked us into the intersection. Now that I think about it, we're really lucky we were not hit by anyone using the cross road, or hit a pedestrian crossing the crosswalk.

After making sure everyone was ok, I took a look at the damage. The rear end of my car was now much closer to the backseat than it was before. This is not good. Finally the driver of the other car got out. He didn't even ask if we were ok! I started talking to him by saying "are you guys all right?" Which obviously they were, as they were in a huge new Ford Truck! The driver was an eighteen year old weenie driving his uncle's truck, with his cousin with him. I wonder if they were thinking "did we kill someone", or if they were considering running for it. The driver said that he was busy checking his mirrors to see if there was anyone in the other lane (obviously to pass us and blow through the red light).

Minimal damage to the Ford appears to have been done, this being a slightly bent bumper, and a crooked liscence plate (bummer!). We limped the car back to Brian's place to wait for ICBC to tell me if it's a write-off or not.

Brian was feeling pain and twinges in his back, we took him to Emergency, and were there for several hours (they are badly understaffed). They gave him some drugs and sent him on his way home, saying "you'll hurt tomorrow" we went home.

I tried to call ICBC and the RCMP, but ICBC was not open, and the RCMP simply said to talk to ICBC. So that is that. Tomorrow I'm going to get a lawyer, and talk to ICBC. I've already taken most of my stuff out of the car, just the radio, amp and cd-changer is left to get out tonight, just in case ICBC takes it, says it is a write-off, and I never see it again. This really is not good.

I also just put four new tires, new headlights, and this is the first time I passed aircare! Go figure.

So, how was YOUR weekend?

Ok, that was yesturday, this is today:

Just so you know, we did call the police. They, however didn't deem it important enough to come out unless there were serious injuries. What do they want, blood and decapitations???? (speaking of decapitations, just saw The Relic, excellent movie).

Last night when I got home I called my parents for advice about insurance, lawyers, etc. You know the first thing they asked me when I said I had an accident, and need some advice? "Are you in jail?" ... thanks dad :-)

Anyway, today they came out, looked at the car, took me and Brian out to lunch. I got all my crap from the car (except what is bolted in, namely the deck, CD-changer, and amp), just in case it is a write-off. These things just have to happen on Saturdays, when nothing is open for 2 days. Got my film developed, with the last picture being a shot of what was once my car. I'll have it online in a couple days. Went around to a couple used car places today, just to have a feel on what I'm gonna be out. Unfortuatly, being a Sunday, there were no salespeople about :-( Shame, I wanted to laugh at them and their selling techniques.

Came back, vegged, went out and watched a vid. Felt my neck. Gonna take some ibprofin (sp?) and head to bed now.

8/1/97

TGIF! Only 5 hours more till I get to go home, (hopefully) find my GF, and relax. Until then, I get to answer more questions on the phone. I've been quite delightful, even though I was told (again) that our system sucks (see here for more info). But I can deal with that, I have been, so there! In the alt.tech-support.recovery FAQ it says that the average burnout time for tech support is 18 months. I've been here for three years or more, so I'm in trouble!

I have my computer at home setup so that when I'm online, I'm at redpoint.dyn.ml.org This is using the free dynamic DNS project at www.ml.org, a great project! You can (when I'm online) ftp, telnet, or surf there. Soon I'll setup a page for this, with more information about it. Next on the list of projects is to setup diald, which is a linux program to keep you online when you want basically. You can set times when it keeps you online, and if you are offline and try to connect to the net, it dials in and connects for you, then disconnects after a certain time period. Also I want to get procmail setup to d/l my mail to my local server, where I can do that mail thing with it. Re-doing my web page is also on the list.

Any other computer based news..... oh yea. I killed IE4b2 off my system... because of this:

When I selected all my cache files (trying to save disk space), with CTRL-A, I watched the status bar, and it counted the files it was selecting, and also calculated the disk space they were using. A cute feature, but on a P75 with 16 megs ram, taking 20 seconds to select 1000 or so files is too long. So I switched directories.... and watched the number of files count down, and the disk space count down!!! I reselected the files in my cache dir, and it did the same thing. I deleted the files and it sucked so much CPU power doing the calculating for "disk space freed" that it crashed the computer!

Let me repeat that in case you don't understand. IE4b2's explorer calculates the number of files it selects as well as calculating the space used by each in every operation! If you don't get it, just take my word for it that this is a slooooooow way of doing things, and (obviously) a crappy one. Another example of Microsoft shafting the user with a cutesy upgrade that just slows down the computer more.

Speaking of which, have people forgotten that computers are for work? What about people who aren't netting (is this a new word? should I copywrite it?) all day? People do actually use computers for things other than the Internet you know, though you wouldn't know it from the software people are putting out. Hey Microsoft! How about making Visual C++ faster and better, instead of adding a bunch of Internet/ActiveX stuff to it. Ditto Borland, et all. Fix the bugs, make it faster, then add new stuff. Anyone seen any software get smaller lately? no. Anyone seen any software get faster lately? no, unless you buy a new processer.

I'm looking for a webfilter like the one that linux has, that blocks any information from certain IP addresses (ie: ad.interlink.net). This means no more banners. Wish I could find a win95 equivelant though.

I'm alone at work too, which means I'm bored out of my skull. It's a Friday so the calls are at a minimum, and there is no one to talk to. My news server is down too, so I'm doing this update :-).

7/30/97

Went climbing yesturday up at Sumas (a tiny crag near us). Darren, Trevor (pali), and I went. Unfortunaly, when I say small, I mean small... probably only 4 or 6 climbs (two of which I helped put up thankyouverymuch). We did 3 of them, then it was heading towards darkness and the mosquitoes were out in full force. Anyway, it was good to go out and get bitten, scratched and tired. Watched ID4 after, over pizza. I had pizza for supper last night, lunch yesturday, and supper the night before. Go figure, I'm having it for lunch today (yech).

8 hours sleep in two days... not good.

Pam's kittens are running around now... still scared when taken away from the mom, lifted high in the air and snuggled, but they'll learn. Roomie and Pam were laughing at me about the fact I killed my fish :-(... cats are hard to kill though. For some reason I'm really wanting a kitten now... course, the plant I got for christmas is pretty definatly 99% dead now. It was left on a windowsill for about a week (I put it there to get sun, then forgot about it. The bonsai is doing great though, overflowing in fact.

7/29/97

Well, so much for my last entry's high note. Being Friday didn't stop my car from breaking down on the way home (one of the apparently important hoses decided to die, leaving me with nothing in my radiator). So my Friday was spent putting water in the thing, and putting a temporary hose on there, and Saturday was spent finding a '87 323 in the Wreakers, pulling it off (ripping skin off my arm in the process), and putting it in my car. Seems to be working ok though.

Yesturday was nice.... picked up Pam after work, went hiking up to a place called Cascade Falls... hiked up there and vegged in the river. This was followed by a movie (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and pizza. Picked up Independance Day for $8.99 too. All in all a nice day. Today after my half day of work I going to head up to Sumas mountain to do some climbing with Darren and Trevor (Pali from #north). Hopefully Pam can find a sitter for her little brother and she can go to.

I've been riding my bike every day since I brought it out... my sore butt can testify to that. On the advice from a friend Mike from Calgary, I got a gel seat. He suggested either the gel seats or the seat covers. However, the covers were $30 and the whole seats were $20, go figure.

OBRandomQuote: "You are not my brother, you're just some git I met once"

-- The guy who played Hugh Grant's deaf brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral

7/25/97

Well, things seem to be arranged for the Abbotsford Gang's trip to Calgary. We'll be leaving on the 21st or 22 or August, and coming back the 25th or 26th. Ok, so not totally arranged :-). I am going for sure, as is solas. My SO Pam still has to get the time off work. We'll be visiting all the people that we know from the IRC (#NORTH), and some other friends that various people know in Calgary. We were considering stopping in Bannf for a night, but it's really expensive, and you get fined for sleeping in your car.

I brought my bike out from my parents house yesturday. I got up about 10 (it was my day off), went up to the gym and said to myself, "why am I sitting here in a small, boiling hot room, when I could be riding around outside in the sun?" Well, the reason was I have no room in my apartment for a bike (at least in the part that I rent), but I went and got it anyway. Who needs to get access to the closet anyway? I never got a chance to ride it yet though, because as soon as I got home I went to pick up Pam from the mall, and we went shopping a bit, I got some shorts, she got a hat, then we went to the park and blew bubbles for a bit, before getting some people togeather for Chinese food buffet in town.

Ok, another rant coming up. Advertising on the net. It sucks. I hate it. When I started on the net there was very little (2-3 years ago). Now it seems every page has some stupid animated .gif, or ad for some sort of link exchange. Now they seem to be putting them in a non-resizable frame at the top/bottom, so you can't just scroll past them. Have I ever clicked on one? NO. Thank the heavens for lynx. No huge images, stupid frames, or lame animated .gifs. Of course, you get the morons who don't give a crap about those with text browsers, who put no ALT= tags on, no <NOFRAMES> sections, and make gratutious use of tables... but that is all I expect from the idiots out on the net these days. Oh for the ARPAnet again.... It seems like nothing is safe from advertising anymore... well, almost nothing. I'm still waiting for books to come out with "this page brought to you by Nike!" or "this romantic chapter brought to you by Sony." Hell, why not, seems everything else is. Watched TV lately? I don't hardly anymore. I can't even drive down the road without seeing thousands of huge ads. Sometimes I wish that the only advertising that could be done would be is plain, the same, and in a big book, sorted by subject, company, and name of product. No flashy advetising allowed. It'll never happen, but it's nice to imagine driving down a country road w/o looking at the shit that is all over it now.

Ok, how about some good things to talk about.... uhmm....

Ok - end rant. As for IE4... it's got some cute features, and if anyone knows how to display the news messages in Outlook Express in Courier Font, please tell me :) Uhmm... 95 is a toy, NT is cute (haven't used it enough to tell), and Linux is still king.

My god people are so fucking stupid. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's 12:40, I'm bloody hungry, and I've been on the phone for the last 40 minutes with some stupid woman realtor who is... well, stupid. She has no compter skills. I ask her if she put in her login codes, she said yes, but forgot to mention that she didn't press the (she just said "You must be so patient" ... thankfully there is a mute button on the phone so she can't hear the things I'm saying about her). I just explained to her the concept of scroll bars... anyway, the end result is 50 minutes of frustration and hungriness for me.

7/22/97

Well, I installed NT 4 over the weekend. Works nice on my P188 with 32 meg RAM. I did crash it this morning though :-). My DE200 NIC died over the weekend though... so I was late this morning because I was trying to read manuals, change jumpers, and see if the little light on the back would come on. It was quite annoying to tell you.

Went shopping with my girlfriend last night (1 year, one month, 2 days as of today btw, thankyouverymuch). I got a new pair of jeans, she got a whole new outfit, shoes, etc (and oh man did she look good!)... anyway.

Thinking of going to see Jackie Chan's latest movie, Operation Condor again tonight.... it was so good when I saw it opening night, I have no qualms about seeing it again. It was (as far as I understand) a re-release from '91 or so, but was still an awsome movie... might even buy it when it comes out on video. Speaking of buying videos, I got Sneakers over the weekend, still a good movie. Now I just have to get the other geek movies, like The Net, Hackers, War Games, etc.

Did I mention Realtors are bloody idiots? I just got a call from a lady trying to get information on a complex. She said she's only getting one unit coming up, unit 54. "What information did you put in the search?" "I put xxxx, blah street, and unit 54...". I hope I sounded angry enough when I said (yelled) "Well, obviously if you put in the unit number you'll only pull up that property"*click*.

7/18/97

Well, I finally got around to redoing this page a little... how does it look? The logo at the top, and the background gradient were whipped up in photoshop while at work. Speaking of work, it's been slow here lately... kinda nice. The realtors are either slowly dying off (a fantasy of mine) or going on holiday (more likely).

Brian got NT4 installed, and says he'd never go back to Win95... I'm considering doing the same. I'll be getting a Maxtor 3.8G in the next couple days... now to decide whether to switch it with my Fujitsu 1.3G or my (slightly slower) Western Digital 1.6G. The one I switch will be going in my 486 Linux box (with a 32 day uptime thank you very much).

My partner here in the tech support department just installed VB 4.0 Pro. It doesn't recognize the VB 4.0 non-pro projects he had before, and just GPF'd when opening a .BAS file. I find it funny... what else would you expect from B-B-B-Bill?

Hmm.... rants.... I can do that. Voice mail. Is it my imagination, or is the chick (no offense intended) on my voice mail laughing when she says "You have more than 20 messages"? Anyway... just had another thought:
Idiots: I do tech support for realtors. I'm sorry, but they are stupid. I don't mind that they don't know computers... I enjoy teaching people new things, and I know that there are areas in life where I am an idiot (though I strive to be perfect in all aspects of life). But it is the fact that they don't want to learn that I hate. How many times do I have to say "press ALT-S to go to the setup menu.... yes, the ALT key, right beside the spacebar.... no, no, no, 's' as in 'sam'.... no, you have to let the keys go, that's why it's making that clicking noise.... press the ALT key, tap the 'S' key and release them both". This happens at least a couple times a day. We handle 80-100 calls a day, while the other real estate board handles about 20 between 5 people.... now come on. Anyway, like I was saying, I hate talking to people who are to stupid to learn.

Here are some quotes and thoughts that I've heard and had. And yes, they are all real. Honest... I wouldn't make up shit like this :-).

• I have an SVGA computer.
• What sort of a modem do I have? I don't know.
• Do you have the Internet?
• What? you mean that changing my password in program X doesn't change it in program Y?
• [a thought from me]I will now read you the section of the manual you failed to comprehend.
• [Realtor] I can't get pictures with the listings!
  [Me] Did you download the listings?
  [R] No
  [Me] Well, you have to do that
  [R] How do I do that?
  [Me] Press the "Download" button
  [R] oh... ok. What does that do?
  [Me] Download the information
  [R] oh.

  (yes, this happened)

• [Realtor] I have a listing on the internet [all our listings go onto the net] but the picture is wrong.
  [Me] ok.... (about to ask for the address)
  [R] It's on the [other] real estate board site
  [Me] Ok... probably a good idea to call them then *click*

• Why can't people remember the error messages that they get?
• Half the time I "help" a person, I just read from the screen.
• Do I need search criteria to search?
• My normal position while doing support is with my head resting on my desk, trying hard not to hit it loud enough that they can hear it over the phone.
• OBRandomThought: Thank God for the mute button on headsets that they can't hear... that way I can say "Yes sir" *click mute* "What a smegging idiot"
• Why can't people use logic!??!? If something worked one way once, chances are it'll work that way again.
• Why can't people try some things by themselves? They call as soon as something goes wrong, without bothering to try it again, reboot, or whatever.
• I'm not a computer expert, why can't you talk to my [brother|sister|etc]? [person then gives me to someone who invariably tells me "I'm not really a computer expert, ha ha ha"].
• How do I find out what my modem is?

Ok, that's enough for now... I'll rant more later.

5/9/97

My Siamese Fighting Fish died yesturday :-(. Don't know why, he was really perky the night before, and I cleaned his bowl a couple of days before that. Now I'm down to two goldfish.

On a slightly happier note, Pixie (Monique, a friend from #north) has been out here, and Darren, Brian, LLau and I met her and showed her around Vancouver. On Tuesday we showed her the sights in Vancouver, and yesturday we took her climbing to a gym called The Edge in North Vancouver. It was good fun, though it was such a nice day I was very close to just saying "screw 'em," and going to Squamish to do some real climbing! I was good though, and survived. I just hope that the weather holds till the weekend... Monique is... well, really cool. A great person who I am glad to have met in Real Life(tm). She is going back to Ottawa today, and the Abby peoples wish her a good trip.

5/5/97

Ok... it's been a while. I moved my homepage to my new provider, as my Mindlink account runs out soon. Going to try to get people (the millions that visit here every day) used to the new address.

Uhmm... my car got broken into again a while ago, here is what was put on my homepage this time:

OK, this is bloody ridiculous. I was woken up at 5:45 this morning by a cop knocking on my door... my car got broken into again. Luckily, the only things that got stolen were a couple of old speakers, which were found and returned. However, the lock on the drivers side door got popped off, and I doubt that I'll get dick all out of ICBC. Do I have to go and live in a cave? or is it possible to be "safe" in one's own neighborhood? I'm pretty sure that the other 10 people that got ripped off last night in my SECURE UNDERGROUND PARKING are thinking the same thing. Well, to the assholes that did it - if I ever DO catch you, or find out who did it, I will HAPPILY remove your slimy, worm infested brains from your caved in skulls and feed whatever worms are in there to you. And I though I don't advicate beating one's kids, I certainly wish yours would beat the living shit out of you (after I'm done)
(that was at the top of my homepage in the largest possible font).

Other news... well, one of my 4 fish died :(. It was a goldfish that got some sort of itch infection, was moved out of the aquairum (into a mesuring cup), and died probably from the shock of the move or something. The other 2 goldfish are doing well, though one is floating a lot. The gimped looking one named Igor, and my Siamese Fighting fish, unnamed, are doing fine. The SFF (or Betta as they are sometimes called) seems to enjoy his newly cleaned tank.

3/23/97

A couple of random thoughts... http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/3105 is a funny site. Visit it :)
Laundry. When you are young it seems so complicated... Sunday morning you watch mom collect it all, put it in thousands of piles and then do all sorts of magic on the washer/drier with the little knobs and dials, and a few hours later clean laundry appears! I admit, before I moved out at 20, I did the laundry maybe once or twice... now I do it all the time (out of need of course), and have no troubles... it's really not that bad. A pile of whites/greys, and a pile of blacks... throw 'em in and go away for a while.

Can anyone guess what I'm doing today? :-)

Also, replaced my deck yesturday. I also realized that ICBC screwed me royally. The money they gave me could only be used on similar things.... so the $50 for the amp has to be put in on an amp.... and the $125 for the stereo has to be put in on a cassette stereo. Feh! So I can't "upgrade" like they said really.... also, my $100 deductable takes away most of the money I get back. That's ok, I'll just spend money I don't really have... who needs to eat?

I did get some work done this weekend though... and X-Files tonight was awsome!

3/16/97

I took off the message I put on the top of my page yesturday:

I hope whoever broke into my car last night dies a slow, horrible, painful, death which involves body parts falling off, and rats gnawing on the bleeding stumps until all that is left is their eyeballs, on which I will happily jump on in steel toed boots while they are still consious and aware of what is happening. Before this though I will shove the stereo and amp which they stole up various unmentionable orafices of their body.

I felt all shitty after that and canceled the camping trip I was going on this weekend too, and spent all weekend sitting around and brooding. Feh!

3/14/97

Got up this morning at 6am, got ready for work, my carpool buddy came at the normal time (6:45), and we went into the secure underground parking lot of my building. Lo and behold, my car passenger door had the window pulled down, and the lock opened. My $300 stereo, $100 (el cheapo) amp and possibly more was gone. I didn't have time to look at that time as I was late for work. The police said I had to bring the car to them, and I had to go in carpool buddies truck (it was my week to drive. Now this pisses me off, and rightly so. My car I don't believe had theft on it, and of course I don't have the serial numbers to the stereo equipment. None of my tapes were taken, and my school bag was still there too. I'm really glad I didn't put my climbing/camping gear in the trunk like I had planned last night! So I'm screwed... I don't know if I'll go camping to Squamish like I planned this weekend... my car is less than secure, and I'm pissed off. I also have a lot to do as far as getting this whole thing worked out, and homework etc. I was planning to just take a break with the homework, but now I don't know if I can take the break with my car fubared.

I really hate people.

2/24/97

Well, lately a whole bunch of stuff has been flying around relationship wise, luckily none of it has been happening to me. Some of the splatters have gotten on me though :-(, prompting the following thoughts:

With each passing day life continues along. Today might be bad, yesturday worse, and tomorrow better. We never know what will happen. Each day we fight demons, our own, other peoples, and each night we must come back home to nurse our wounds. Some people need others there, some don't. The people that don't and that can't handle the wounds will call out into the night. The people who don't need other people and who can handle the wounds will lick them clean, hope the scars are not too obvious, and hope that tomorrow the pain is gone. If the pain isn't gone then that night the whole procedure is repeated again. Sometimes though these people still need a human touch to still the pain. These people are the survivors. We are the survivors.

1/8/97

Well, a couple of little things. I almost got in a heated argument with one of my co-workers over a comment he made which totally conflicted with my personal 'live and let live' views. I resisted however, as I like (ok, need) my job.

I heard a good friend of mine is going to do something stupid. I hope she, or her parents come to their senses soon. It is gnawing at me like you wouldn't believe. I have a couple of poems brewing in my mind, but nothing is out on paper yet. Soon though.

1/3/97

Happy new year!
My pages seem to have gained popularity, resulting in my account being filled by the log file, resulting in 'local storage charges' :( So I've moved this section to my other web site.

12/11/96

Haven't updated for a while, and this is just a minor one anyway...
I'm almost finished exams, but unfortunately, instead of studying economics and java and things like that, I'm playing with Linux (the coolest OS in the world). Soon you will be able to access my home computer from this page! Very cool.

11/29/96

Well, more hell in my life as far as relationships.... I guess I should be used to it by now. I have had about 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, and man am I screwed up. At work (where I am now), I just keep on sucking down the hot chocolate and coffee and wish I had an alarm on my watch to wake me up after I fall asleep at lunch :)

Learnt about client/server stuff in Java last night - very cool.

11/18/96

Well, my birthday was yesterday. It was OK I guess. Another year, some more stuff, and now I can drink legally everywhere. unfortunately, I don't drink that much so that is inconsequential.

Got a C+ on both my English essay and presentation. A B- on my midterm. Not bad, I guess. Better than I thought.

Oh yea, put another poem on my poetry page

11/15/96

Just put another pic of me on my "about me" page. Hope it doesn't scare you :-)

Tooo much work :( School, job etc. I'm heading for burn out on a rocket slid on rails... or something like that. Actually it is kind of nice to have the stress back -- it's like an old friend.

Spent a lot of money I didn't have a couple of days ago. But now I have a P100 with 24 meg RAM and a Mach 64 PCI video card. Old technology I know, but still. By the way, my network card (ne2000 compatible) doesn't work anymore. Does anyone know if a Sound Blaster Pro can share IRQ 7 with LPT1? Please tell me.

Someone looked at my page at school a while ago and laughed at the way that people just open up and tell the world anything and everything about their lives. I wonder why we do that? Is it a sense of importance? Is it because we think that if we do it will make us seem more important... better people. I'm not saying opening up is bad, but I am wondering why we computer geeks do it to people who we don't know and will never see.

Whoops, almost forgot. I'll have a new pic of me (like you want to see MORE of me) soon. A friend took one in class last night with one of them funky digital cameras and mailed it to me the same night.

11/3/96

• Well, I am "officialy" single again. Don't know what to think about that.
• My parents came back from Mexico yesturday. I had the joy of picking them up from the airport (1 hour drive). They brought me back some nice T-Shirts and an awsome Mexican Blanket.
• On Tuesday I'm going to meet one of my IRC-friends. A few of us live in this area, and she is coming here to visit. It will be interesting to see what these people are like in RL.