Happy Tay Day!

The threshold of adulthood will be officially infringed upon this day. Over the past several weeks, I have devised an exact plan of action that shall take approximately two and a half days to accomplish.

First of all, at the stroke of midnight I shall arrive at a 24/7 gas station and demand my rights. I will order several cartons of cigarettes, a mile of lottery tickets, and one of every porn magazine available. When the attendant asks for some ID, I shall have no shame in presenting him or her with an official 18-year-old identification article.

Next, it's on to Family Video where I shall freely wander the adult only section and make rude comments loud enough for all to hear. After this, I'm off to Purple East to peruse the "tobacco" paraphernalia section without fear of being caught.

The next event will be to register to vote, enlist in the army, rent a hotel room, buy a lighter, and then I will go to sleep, secure in the fact that I am certified by the United States of America to take care of myself.

The next day, I shall venture out into the world of daylight and see what havoc I can cause to myself and others. I plan on getting a small tattoo on my left wrist, most likely some kanji stuff. It'll be small enough to cover up when needed, but big enough to know it's there. Perfect!

Since I already possess the ability to poke holes in myself with needles, I am not going to waste money getting something pierced. After my tattoo is complete, I am off to work to become a licensed cardboard crusher and truck unloader. I will spend the next five hours blissfully pushing the previously forbidden red button to make the cardboard squasher bend to my every whim.

This will most likely be the end of my lengthy celebration. I am open to other suggestions, and if any of you Ho-land Dawgs running around this crazy town have nothing better to do, stop by muh crib to say Happy Tay Day!

Conflict at E2 Resolved Peacefully

For the last few weeks, there has been a war a-brewin' between myself and Big Alba. It started when he mad a chatterbox comment that I took personally. Soon it went ugly, with nasty /msg's flying to and fro, and some public trashing of each other.
So last night, I asked him to come to Political Asylum with me and settle this like noders.

With the assistance (thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you) of the Wise and Benevolent Dem_Bones, we were able to talk.

And talk we did. I knew from reading his home node that we had common ground. By leaving the flames at the door, and talking to each other civilly and sanely, we realized that we were both at fault. So we said our apologies (BA, by the way, was kind enough to go first, smart enough to break through our mutual stubbornness) shook hands, and returned to E2 as allies.

I am sincere in my hope that there is a lesson to be had here. I think the availability of Political Asylum, and the willingness of Bonesy to mediate, changed a simmering hostility into the seeds of friendship.

I have a confession to make, and a request for assistance. I downvoted one of BA's writeups, back when this was a cold war. It is the only time I have cast a downvote for reasons other than the quality of the node, and I am ashamed to have done it.
So I would be eternally grateful if one of you could upvote Big Alba's writeup on Snowboarding. It did not deserve my thumbs down. It was petty and vindictive, and I will not do it again.

---

Update 2-24-2001 Snowboarding has been upvoted. Thank you, Dann, for helping me to atone.

Today was a good day.

First and foremost, I got into the computer science PhD program at MIT. I feel all hardcore. Yes, I'm bragging. Don't I have a right to brag?

So, my parents have, of course, decided that I'm going to go there. I'm still waiting to hear from Stanford and Berkeley, and I really really would like to go to California, plus Stanford is probaby my first choice. But they want me to stay on the East Coast, and think that MIT sounds more... prestigious? Which I suppose it does. Well, anyways, it's not like they'll be deciding for me. But, still, their opinion is important to me.

So, I'm going to visit MIT on March 10, and then I have to decide about when I'm going to visit all the other schools. Assuming I even get into the others.. I hope I will.

Other than that, my day was boring but not bad. My classes were relatively non-boring, I ate actual food, it snowed. You would think after 3.5 years in Pittsburgh, I would be sick of snow, but I'm still a Floridian at heart, so powdery white stuff falling from the sky is pretty damn exciting.

Oh, and my sister sent me email saying she wore Liquid Latex to a party. Is that even clothing? I mean, I can definately see how you would wear latex on top, but.. What about the bottom? Do you have to shave? Does it actually cover anything? Inquiring minds want to know.

A burgundy Cadillac with New York plates passed me on my way home. The plates read, "TUNA". It seemed to mock my own diet which consists primarily of Tuna and Ramen. Eatting tuna is a small part of my vain attempt to lower my body fat to 5% so that I may resemble a Banana Republic model. I realize this drive is fueled by media's portrayal of masculinity, but don't blame me, I'm a fashion victim and helpless against the reality of my own imperfections.

Note to Self: Do not use iron to toast Pop Tarts anymore.
Note to Self: Do not eat Pop Tarts anymore, they contain too much suger.

{boring_technical_daylog_entry}

A good day for simonc. I finally put aside the time to integrate my cool new Orinoco WaveLAN 802.11 wireless PCMCIA card into badtz, my Linux ThinkPad. After struggling for hours, I got Clue from the terrific wireless@samba.org list and grabbed the new pcmcia-cs package from sourceforge. Some fiddling and tweaking later, I'm now noding wireless at 11Mbit/sec with SomaFM's Secret Agent 128-bit stream playing in glorious stereo via XMMS. Man, I trust my ass chip to Linux.

{/boring_technical_daylog_entry}

Congratulations to Maayan on getting into MIT! Wow, what a coup. Well done, Maayan!

CS Grad Trying to Break Into IT Needs Help

Curses! After sitting around for 2+ months trying to get a job after getting a degree in CS, I suddenly have two really great things come up. Here's the dilemma: The first position is a Help Desk Analyst at some division of GE. It has a great location, it's freakin GE, pay is ok but I'm more interested in an actual programming position. It's a six-month contract position. It should get me into the field and help me get the position I want...after six months. I'll know if I got this position today by 12, and it will start on Monday. So, I get a call last night. There are several positions available writing C++ code in Unix, later switching to Java at AT&T. I'd have to say that's the perfect description of what I was really looking for. Problem is, they placement company can't guarentee anything, and I won't even know if I get an interview until next week. There's no way GE is going to wait a week. So, if I get offered the GE position, what the heck do I do? If I pass it up, and hope the AT&T thing works out, and it doesn't, I might be spending a few more months at a temp position (I'm working there right now as I node). I don't know much about contract work. I'm guessing it would be hard to sign on at GE then switch to AT&T. Especially since both positions are through a service. Oh, BTW, I live in the Greater Cincinnati Area. Not exactly a hotbed of entry level tech jobs.

So, if anyone has any experience with this sort of thing and has some advice feel free to /msg me.

Other than that, nothing exciting has happened. My car completely died. That's about it.

Fun with Food

Late lunchtime, at the Delaware Sub Shop on Mesa.

Hilarity erupts over by the prep counter. One of the cooks is showing off his find: "Look at this one!".

"Hey! That's a keeper!" the other cook exclaims.

A slice of capicola has two holes and a curved line, just like a smiley face. Soon, they are walking over to the register to show it off. I'm waiting for my cheesesteak, and I am afraid they are going to pin it to the bulletin board, like some relic -- the countenance of the Virgin Mary carved in pork.

"Wow, the whole stack is that way" cook number one observes. The spell is broken.

I don't see what they do with the first, miraculous slice.

Resume: In today's exciting installment, we are expecting the electrician (to finish the boiler installation) and the window fitters (to replace two windows)...

0730 - The sparks arrived. He actually asked whether he was too early for us, which was nice. We'd been awake since 0630 and were quite pleased he was early. With any luck he'll be done before the window people arrive.

0830 - Still no sign of the window people. We'll give them until about 0915. The electrician is still working. He's cleared out the electrics from the old central heating system. We're still not expecting him to be here much longer...

0945 - Well, the electrician finished about 0930 and the window people have just arrived. And they've arrived quite thoroughly. They approach the job like some military exercise - everyone seems to know exactly what to do, as if it's all been preplanned.

1115 - We reckon they'll be done by lunchtime. They've hit one or two snags but nothing that they've not seen before (we suppose...). The frames are in and the glazing units are being fitted downstairs. I think upstairs has been a little trickier (the plaster is a little loose).

1245 - Oh dear... Did I say "the plaster is a little loose"..? Actually the brick arch above the window has slipped. Again, this happens. (Had we not had the windows replaced in our previous house, seeing bricks dangling would have been nerve-wracking.)

1415 - They've been off and had lunch and their back, filling gaps between the house (which isn't as level as it could be) and the window frames. Oh, and it rained.

1800 - (Okay, so this isn't "as it happens", as it happens.) The window people finished about 1630, I guess. The new kitchen window looks great. The new back bedroom window looks a lot better than what was there. It needs some finishing (which we said we'd do) and the brick arch is still a little dodgy.

That's it. All done... until the loft people come in a month or so.

---

I'm reading through the Zvon Document Object Model reference guide. It's not going to be as easy to Everythingify as their CSS1 guide. I may decide to write my own using it as a basis. Well, it's gotta be done...

Made a Cd for Kristi last night:
Here's the track list. Does this date me or sterotypify me as one kind of person or another?

Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis) - Cowboy Junkies
If I Could - Phish
Searchin' For Love - String Cheese Incident
Put Your Big Toe In The Milk Of Human Kindness - Rob Wasserman, Elvis Costello & Marc Ribot
Lovin' In My Baby's Eyes - Leftover Salmon & Taj Mahal
Mood Indigo - Charles Mingus
Must Be Luff - Michele Shocked
Aging Young Rebel - Ken Nordine
Shelter From The Storm - Bob Dylan
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
I Will Take You Home - Grateful Dead
So Many Roads - Grateful Dead
Falling In Love Again - William Burroughs
Thanksgiving Prayer - William Burroughs

TGIF

Some people just deserve to be hated. Last night at work I decided that the way to make my life easier would be to convieniently dispose of my coworker. All he does is sit around and chat with customers, never actually doing what we're paid for. When it comes time to stack chairs at the end of the night, he follows everyone else around and moves their stacks. He constantly reuses what I'm assuming are bad catchphrases, like "Eeeeeeeasy loose horse". He thinks everyone likes him (except me) and always shows up late and leaves early. Sometimes he will sit down and do his homework while still on the clock. The only reason he still has the job is because his uncle is the boss. Is it legal for me to run over his foot in the parking lot? *g*

On a completely seperate note I realized that the rare occasions when I eat breakfast it is normally high quality crap like Doritos. The only reason I qualify it as breakfast is because of the time I eat it. Therefore, I will be taking bets as to whether I have a heart attack or a bad case of scurvey first.

It's just one of those things that you know is stupid at the time, but you do anyway. Yesterday, here in NYC, it snowed. Not that big a deal really, snows all the time, but it caught me by surprise and I didn't have appropriate shoes with me to get home from work. I had my little dance slipper style shoes, and no socks. What a dumb thing to do. So I got back to Staten Island with cold feet and discovered that not only would no taxi driver attempt to get up the hill near my house, but the bus that makes a run close to my house wasn't going to try it either. Eek. So I got dropped off 4 blocks away from my house and slogged up the hill, wearing my gloves on my feet to protect them a little, through about 3 inches of snow. By the time I got home the feeling was almost gone, yes, frostbite my friends.

Anyway, my fiance was really mad at me for not calling him as he was home, but I didn't even think about having him walk down with boots for me, it never even crossed my mind. It's just one of those things. My feet hurt.

The Internet has ceased to exist.

I have been using E2 for nearly a month and I just don't use any other web sites anymore. They just seem so pointless in comparison. Of course, I use Yahoo to find documents for research but I don't regularly visit a single other page.

I am still chasing that elusive Level 2. I have the XP but I am way short on writeups. I just can't find anything that hasn't been thought of.

Today saw the final deadline for a software engineering group project at university. I now have free time again (well, until Monday when the other courseworks come streaming out). Oh well, make the most of it while it lasts.

The silence is so loud, it's deafening.

It turns out that my sixth sense has scared me into being highly sensitive with the current situation. My brother-in-law, Richard Babcock passed-away last Saturday night due to high blood pressure. The fact is, when I heard of this first all of a sudden at 2am in the morning, I sensed the air for his presence only to find no response from his being. At first, when it was mentioned he was in the car, I pictured him disoriented inside, his head slung over the seatbelt. I really don't need more images. This scares me. And for reasons known, he is often in my thoughts as I take a tally of the things we could have done together, the things we'd said we would do, his own personal talents and the life he has led.

Which is why I'm not going to his funeral. I've explained to my family my reasons and they have accepted it. Being hyper-sensitive about a loved-one who passed-away is very difficult to handle. I can understand what my sister is going through because I'm going through it too (but probably not to a greater extent).

This whole week has been disjointed in behaviour. Monday and Tuesday exhibited traces of attention deficit with spurts of attentiveness. On Wednesday, I was completely "out of it" in terms of participating actively in our task analysis sessions. Yesterday, my brain was in hyperdrive. It didn't last as I find myself lagging again today after having cried over the whole ordeal last night.

There's not much enthusiasm right now in my work even though I am somewhat pleased that we obtained valuable results.

I feel like we haven't been brother and sister for the past five years because of my studying in Ottawa and her living apart from the rest of the family. This worries me. I keep thinking I must do something for her, but I can't. There is nothing to be done now or ever. Yes, no special skills are needed, but I'm thinking that just merely living and going about our daily lives isn't the answer.

Maybe, there are no answers.

I got back from New York last night on the Amtrak Metroliner. I was so proud of myself - I took a book to read, the kind I'm embarrassed to let others see what I'm reading, and I read it on the train! Of course, the whole time I was hiding the cover and half the pages with my arm, but I read it! I've had it for months and months and finally finished it.

Snow, snow, snow, everywhere - at least a foot. It's so beautiful! I had a nice business trip - the class was stimulating and useful, the teacher and the only other student very bright and engaging, I had fun. (Apparently two other students had to cancel even though they still have to pay full price.) And it was fun having my very own hotel room on 55th and 7th in Manhattan. Even though I had to move once because of the cold.

I am intrigued by what I have learned so far of SQL Server 7; it's possible that I may be a very good candidate for DBA, my next possible career. You can look at the tables and see the fields and figure out what they are for queries and extracts.

I didn't go in to work today - my daughter is very sick and it took hours to take her to the doctor, get the prescription filled, and take her home. I think she just has strep throat, but the possibility of mono is very real. So, since I'm home, all kinds of chores rear their very ugly heads at me. So far, I've fought it off, but once I sign off here - there's no stopping them. I have to do SOMEthing! And I'm tired of traveling and sitting and waiting, I need to do something physical. I'll probably do housework, as I'm about to run out of heat and need to keep warm.

Welcome to Bear's sick day number two. This is in no way shape or form like Pee Wee's Playhouse. Bear's been off work and on the computer or reading or coughing up stuff (no details given because many many peoples said things like TMI). Every now and then he wanders around his apartment looking for something that won't completely and utterly bore him to death. This hasn't happened yet, but boredom is akin to being sick in the first place and it probably has something to do with that peer pressure being practiced by parts of his biology being deemed personality traits. This in turn is caused by the fact that while being sick Bear doesn't think straight...however you define that one...

So. As Bear takes a deep (or rather as deep as he can) breath, and begins preparations for lunch...it is looking to be a lovely amount of French onion soup with the French bread and Swiss cheese...(and they are called neutral...they just don't like to fight...who really does when faced with bitter losses...oops there I go again...)

Wisdom of the day: Don't hit on your friends. That is, unless your lack of girl problem needs a no friends problem to keep it company.

Special, bonus wisdom: Try to avoid friends you have crushes on while hungover.

"oh in the terror of the moment,
which pounces as it open swings..."
--Robyn Hitchcock; "the speed of things"

my brother came to me in a horrible state of mind at about four this morning. he'd been trying to find me for a week. last sunday, apparently he'd broken up with his girlfriend. i wasn't sure what to say. 'thanks!' didn't seem right, nor did 'congratulations!' or 'finally!' i stuck to a good sisterly, "oh shit, ani! you poor thing! what happened?" and he told me all about how they had come to the mutual conclusion that things were going nowhere (i could've told them that two years ago!) and that they needed to just stop. so i held him in my arms and listened to him try to rationalise it all, try to tell himself it really was all for the best. he called me the best little sister in the world; i told him he was delirious. he declared himself an imperium, i said "hail caesar!" and we laughed. the end of the conversation turned to vespasian and caligula, as we tried not to wake VoidTyphon, who was zonked like the dead, in the room upstairs. i promised to lend him my copy of suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars, and i sent him off to bed, and went back to mine.

"i threw some earth onto your coffin
and thought about the speed of things..."
--Robyn Hitchcock; "the speed of things"

I am a smoldering wasteland of jealousy

Today is an awful day for me.

I called my girlfriend last night, after she hadn't for two days. She was about to go into the hot tub with some friends.

--

Darcy: "I was about to go into the hot tub with some friends."
> She's saying this dismissively to spite me for my recent announcement that I've neglected to spend time with friends instead of her. I haven't seen my friends for a while after visiting her all the time. She has been in my apartment for a total of 3 hours or something.

Me:"Cool, what friends?"
Darcy: "Jen, Joe, & Chris"
> I struggle not to make a comment to expose the obvious. Two weeks ago, Joe was "Some guy trying SO hard to pick me up at work. I shot him down SO bad." Oh-kay, Joe is a 33 year-old dotcommer who "does computer stuff." When I visited her on Valentine's Day, I walked in on him flirting with her and helping her close the store she works at. I said "Cool, I'm a webmaster, what do you do?" Him: "um, ha I don't know!" Perhaps he was nervous; I was obviously her boyfriend and he was obviously trying to cut in, on Valentine's Day, after I'd driven 3 hours to see her. He works out, and wears makeup. Darcy doesn't even wear makeup; she doesn't have to. Of course, she's thirteen years younger than Joe.
...
She couldn't call me for two days, but can hop into a hot tub with this sleazeball, Mickey Rourke wanna-be.
...
Darcy: "I get the feeling you're more interested in your friends, than with me."
> What an oxymoron. Contradictory, negating everything I've done for her since I've been with her at the expense of everyone else. I am so pissed to hear this; every day all I ever hear from my friends and family is, "Mike only cares about his NEW girlfriend, and just forgot about us." I have visited her every weekend for the last month, and called her every night. In a word, I am whipped.

--

She called me back at 2 in the morning. She's cheery, most likely out of guilt. I told her I was surprised and disappointed about the whole spend to much of my time on my friends thing. She acknowledged it was pretty far out of line. We talked for a while, I broke into a story about being accosted by a group of born-again Christians, and I guess i went on too long(I suck at telling stories). I realized there wasn't anything coming back from the other end, just dead air. I kept talking, thinking she might be fucking around or something. After about five minutes of me bulshitting and not hearing anything, I quit and hung up.
And, sleeping alone on my bed, I thought about why she was spending time with Joe, and whether she fell asleep, or just got sick of me talking and put the phone down and walked away. Gears of paranoia twisting in my head, I imagined this idiot holding her in bed, laughing about me, the deadbeat boyfriend who just didn't know how to take care of a lady. I felt isolated, unappreciated.
Focused on the blocks in between her and I. 150 miles, would-be friends who turn resentful when you find someone else, my having spent hundred of dollars just calling her on the phone, going out of my way to see her repeatedly, and her disinterest in reciprocating and coming to see me. I don't want to control her; I want to feel like I matter to her in the same way she does to me; that the things I do that are a sign of my love and affection, are not just taken from me and pocketed...

so my dog only looks stupid. every day before I go to work I put him in his crate -- with so much to do and me not around, he'll chew miscellaneous things up. he goes in willingly and lays down calmly, making no fuss as i walk out the door.

yesterday i thought it was a fluke. that i hadn't properly latched the door. so this morning i made extra sure to properly close the crate door before i left. it was closed. but again today he was right at the front door, greeting me as i came home. oh the horror, he has figured out how to let himself out.

as his owner, of course i'm a bit proud. i feel vindicated in defending him when my boyfriend would call him stupid. he isn't stupid, just goofy.

maybe calling him smart is an overstatement, but i don't know. see, in order to open the door you have to lift the handle and slide it to the right (or to the left, if you're inside the crate as cozmo is). the door doesn't quite hang right and so the latch is pretty difficult to push, enough so that i use both hands (one to lift the door slightly, one to slide the latch). But somehow he's doing it -- without the benefit of opposable thumbs.

i'm tempted to put him in the crate and see if he'll do it, but i don't want to encourage him to do this. i don't quite know how to remedy this, maybe a strategically placed bungie cord or a string to tie the latch closed.

good dog.