One thing I have learnt about life is that really small insignificant things really give me pleasure. Take today for instance. It's a public holiday here in Melbourne which is in itself enough to make me smile. Yesterday, I visited Michaels camera store to get a photo print of a digital photo I had taken of a rose.

It was a macro (close-up) shot of the rose, not more than about 5 cm away from the flower. The luscious pink petals filled the entire lens while the greenery of the leaves were softly out of focus behind it. It was a very simple shot, but it looked fantastic.

Upon seeing the photo, the guy at Michaels (a chubby version of the talkshow host Phil Donahue) asked if they could take a second copy to display on their photo gallery in their store. They would add my name to it, the camera that I used (a Sony CyberShot F505V), and they would give me the second copy free when they eventually took it down. From that one simple gesture, my whole world took on a rosy glow (no pun intended) for the rest of the day. I cannot explain why - sure it was a nice photo and the Michaels staff obviously agreed, but it is just a photo. Still, my day has been great. Even now when I look at the 8x10 photo, I still feel good.

Such are the simple pleasures in life.

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 00:21:12 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_ssl/2.4.10 OpenSSL/0.9.4 mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 744585 (1327 new since November 6, 2000)
Number of users: 20311 (39 new since November 6, 2000)
Number of links: 2499837 (14069 new since November 6, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.659 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 3.357 links per node
Link to user ratio: 123.078 links per user

New Nodes: [holiday] [November 7, 2000] [The Village Idiot] [Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining] [End the War on Drugs] [Porno Person] [maturity] [Indrema] [Submissions for the Everything Quote Server] [death] [Little Wooden Boy] [The Everything People Registry : United States : New York] [The Benefits of Famous People Marrying Me] [Scyther] [Foreign Pets]

Users Online (57): [dem bones] [dannye] [tregoweth] [Dis] [Uberfetus] [yam] [CaptainSpam] [tftv256] [emil greer] [m1a9366b] [ToasterLeavings] [binarydreams] [stand/alone/bitch] [BelDion] [kamamer] [siren] [Girlface] [Stride] [junkpile] [7Ghent] [achan] [kaytay] [humanure] [Lethal] [Gorgonzola] [Tannor] [Roninspoon] [ril] [Mojo Jojo] [Luquid] [sockpuppet] [dwyn] [narzos] [bonnet] [ebbixx] [Frater 219] [Phyllis Stein] [wish23x] [CrazyIvan] [Belli] [b_o_leary] [vivid] [0137] [AntonZ] [LagMan] [tobtoh] [gkAndy] [godling] [Metacognizant] [BugDozer] [vladkornea] [Space Butler] [Ahab] [mailspd] [wh00t] [Pantsless Bob] [PopeFelix]

JeffMagnus node count: 4039 (1 new since November 6, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9656 (-7 more since November 6, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.391 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.543%
JeffMagnus node of the day: Everything 2 Civil War

I'm using the new computer - I don't think I like it. The keyboard is "state of the art," but I think that's computer-speak for the spacebar being too frickin' fat. It'll take some getting used to, I'm sure. Anyway, this new computer is supposed to be superior to the one we got last year, but I'm not too impressed so far. Perhaps I do not adjust to change very well. I am loyal to my computers, and having to transfer that loyalty at least once every twelve months is a little more than I can handle without feelings of guilt.

So what if it's got/is (a/an) 866Mhz CPU, 128MB RDRAM, 32MB NVIDIA TNT2 M64 4X AGP graphics something-or-other, 40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive, DVD drive, etc. etc. I don't know exactly what most of this means, although it sure sounds impressive. I do remember that back in the day, we had a 90Mhz CPU and that was considered top of the line. Scary how fast everything is changing.

Today was not too bad, being a weekday and all. I was up until one or so doing A.P. Psych homework, only to fall asleep on the concrete floor and dream of experiencing all states of consciousness semi-simultaneously. It was frightening. Turns out I'm sleep-deprived, surprise, and my dreams are crazy because of all the back up REM sleep I need. I thought it was the prozac.

During art this morning, I wrote my composition for French class which I had decided to neglect all weekend. During stats class, I did the exercises that were due last Friday for French, and the homework due for today besides the composition. I'm so sick of that language, but next semester have the 295 class, which is three hours a day every day. Bitch.

Lunch was long and lonely; I lost Stacy somewhere at Burger King, and ended up driving down River looking for her car. I found her at Taco Bell. For some reason I can't even go in there without getting sick, so I waited in the parking lot for her to notice me through the window. She brought her poisonous tacos outside and we ate while sitting on the trunk of her car (I had my trusty Burger King 5-piece chicken tenders). We were late getting back to school, but no one cared, least of all us.

When I got out of French class, I drove over to Herrick to use a computer there since both the computers at my house were down due to some malice between Windows98 and WindowsME. The d00d at the desk made me go back to my car and get my ID, only to tell me I was not 18 and could not use the internet without supervision. I was not happy, but tried to humor him - there's been some big issue with censorship going around Holland.

I got home at 2:30 and napped till after seven. By then the computers were fixed, and I decided to give the new one a try. It's starting to grow on me already.

And so the annoying week begins.

The three events, feared by all the peasants, have usually been separated. They fall one by one usually; handled with little difficulty with some teamwork and good planning. But suddenly, a shadow fell upon Tannorsville. Something was wrong. The streams flowed backwards. The sun didn't rise. The moon wouldn't set. The well dried up. Something was wrong.
The peasants began to worry.
What was happening? Could it be? The three feared events... were they converging on a single week?
And so, to prepare for the inevitable, the peasants planned what needed to be done.

The first event, a firestorm, was set for wednesday.
The second event, feard by villagers throughout the land, was the coming of the demons. The day would be thursday, in the early evening.
The third event, only experienced in some regions, was the tidal waves. The waves were expected mid-day on friday.
And so, early in the week, the peasants remained calm. There was some time. They played quake and Unreal Tournament between their tasks. There was time.

My god man!! who's idea was it to have a paper due on wednesday, a mid-term like test on thursday, and a lab due on friday!!!

/me enters the fray.
I call in to work at 4:20 pm. I tell them that my sister is in town, and I want to go out to dinner with her, this will make me an hour late for my shift. I ask if anyone else has called in, or if anything bad is going on. Everything is peachy, they tell me. Go ahead. I leave my cell phone number in case of emergency... and tell them that I will be in at 7:00 pm.

At 5:40 pm, I get a call. I am at the mall with my sister and her boyfriend. It is work. "Dave's on vacation," they tell me. There is no one to cover, except for Tina, and she doesn't want to do it. You need to come in at your regular time.

I have to take my sister home, then go to work. I am forty minutes from home. I tell them I'll be there ASAP. I take my sister home, then go to work. I arrive, and Tina is there, along with two other people, and the partner for my shift. There are two more people than normal, basically. There was no reason for me to hurry to work. Of course, nobody bothered to think about that before they rained on my parade. What is the plural of dufus??

Once again, considered updating terrible seething gimletchops, but can't figure out what a gimletchop is. Green jaw? Updated Lee Stories instead, with Before You Hear It From Someone Else and KKKill the Fetus, Part II. I think the next one will be the end, and any further Lee Stories will be less dramatic. I don't like rehashing this "friendship," but reliving it like this makes me less likely to make friends with another one of these types of people.

11:47

Oh god damn I hate this. Alarm clock rang at 9:00 or so. I got up at 11:15. Grrr. /methinks I should go to sleep earlier or something, and stop noding Pokémon at the night... =)

Well, at least it seems it isn't raining today...

12:54

I bought one book - "UML Distilled", by Martin Fowler. Seems like a decent book.

Onward, to the Usenet!

14:15

A random realization:

Real Web Designers die when they're 40 years 5 months (40.4 years) old.

=)

18:32

Time to panic!

Now, I'm supposed to make a review of a learning environment called Profiler and compare it to Telsi Pro, the thing we're using now for this digital media course.

The problem number 1: They haven't given me a password yet.

The problem number 2: Excercise deadline is in Thursday.

Well, I guess I need to just read the documentation and tell about the differences based on that...

22:08

Woohoo. Got the Flash plugin to work in Mozilla.

I read two chapters from the UML book. Cool. This is a cool book. Go read it. I mean it. =)

23:30

There are no black helicopters. Those are submarines. Don't ask me how they got those to fly, though.


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.:
Updated: Sushi-go-round

13:08

I'm simply drowning in work here. I've got one huge project on my hands, with a smaller one as well to keep me busy. And now one of the bosses wants to hand me 3 new jobs simultaneously with no chance for a raise. With all the PHP I hardly find time for noding or other relevant stuff anymore.
All this so I can spend 2 weeks in and around Tokyo a year from now. So this is what insanity feels like.

I'm pretty anxious to try out Escape from Monkey Island. If you've read my writeup on the subject written last summer, you know my expectations were initially quite low. They haven't actually improved either, but you never know.. Although The Curse of Monkey Island butchered the plot of the first two games, it was still fun to play. I just hate those cumbersome 3D controls they'll be featuring for part 4. Oh well, I'll see how it turned out tonight.

How do you like my current home node picture? Since they did such a fine job in getting photos of me last weekend, I though I should share my ugly face with E2. For a while, anyway.
That picture got taken in a real paparazzi style, btw.
Rexx: "Hey, Break!"
Break: "Huh?"
Camera: *FLASH*
At least I represented "High" Everythingians with pride and tradition.


19:38

What to do with 10 meters of blue neon light cable?
My room soon looks like a club from the 70s. But it's amazing how colourful lights, lava lamps and such can cheer you up when it's pitch black outside 75% of the day. Hopefully it will soon get cold enough for me to keep all the flashy devices on without melting.

I forgot to tell you the good news. Or the bad news for those of you who find me annoying. :P My home account is now on monthly charge, meaning I can node all night if I'm so inclined.
I feel so liberated after having to sweat over the phonebill for 4 years and 11 months. ISDN is still slow, but at least I get to use 2 channels at once for free. Ahh.. I feel a mad noding spree coming on..


To be continued.


Random Tidbits:

13:30
First of all it's my fiancees birthday today. Second, I'm supposed to meet her in 15 minutes. Third, I don't have a present for her (And no, I didn't forget, the present I was going to get for her just didn't work out, I found out about that 30 minutes ago.) And why am I sitting here noding instead of running around in shops frantically looking for a present? Well I'm at work, and cannot leave before a person confirming my order for a important order calls. So here I am stuck at work trying to figure out what I'm going to say to my fiancee. Just one of those days, makes you wish you hadn't gotten out of bed at all. I'll fill you in on how everything went later, if my fiancee hasnt killed me before that.

19:45
Well, end is well, all is well I guess. Just got home, my fiancee left to have dinner with her parents. (They didn't want me around, her father is ok, but her mother practically hates me. But that's another story alltogether and would only lead to a long personal rant, so I'll leave that to another time) Managed to cover for the lack of a gift by buying her a fancy lunch at a expensive restaurant and a bouquet of flowers bought about 10 seconds before I met her. Turned out to be a pretty nice day after all, against all signs, just proves that you shouldnt get depressed if things go wrong. After all EVERYTHING can't go wrong, just keep trying and eventually SOMETHING will work out the way you want it to.

Now I'll just see how the elections in the states go and see if more things go they way I want them to...

13:23 UTC

So I never went to bed last night. I found myself getting really engrossed in some coursework for uni that I couldn't figure out; before I knew it (or at least, finished with it) it was 6 o'clock in the morning. Lecture at 12 - so "not much point going to bed" I thought. So I didn't.

I did little bits and bobs, went out to a shop when it opened at 9ish (what an odd experience), and eventually went to a lecture. So now I'm jittery with caffeine since I drank tons of coffee and I've been off coffee for a while, and on a sugar high because I needed to keep up with life as well as be awake. I can't stop moving now!

17:05 UTC - 30 hours and counting

Well, I made it, in a good impression of wakefulness, to a lecture and tutorial, but just missed another lecture because I was typing this node. Grr...

I think I'm getting drawn deeper into e2. Today I've put in a couple of longer writeups, and improved some writeups... I'm contributing more. Still not as much as I'd like, but there you go.

I hate Windows 2000.

No, actually, that's not true. I love Windows 2000; for the past 18 months, it's been nothing but wonderful. No crashes, very rarely a reboot -- I've had uptimes as long as a month (before having to reboot to, say, let someone borrow my hard drive).

But today I hate it.

I bought a DVD drive; I installed the software; I rebooted; I ran the software...

BSOD

The Blue Screen of Death. The first one I'd ever seen, mind you. But then the Troubles began. I couldn't boot to uninstall the offending software. Even when I attempted to boot to the command line recovery console, it BSOD'd on me. And here's where a more unix-like philosophy would have been appreciated -- with everything shoved in \WINNT and/or the Registry, how am I to know what the offending software is? I'd like to mount the drive on another box, remove the badness, and be merrily on my way... but no.

Flash. Perhaps here's an idea -- install a new copy of W2K in \WINSUCKS. Take a directory listing. Install the bad software. Do it again. diff.

We'll see how it goes.

"How to write a day log and be interesting without trying too hard."

Today I miss my pal Danny. It's just managed to get cold here in Texas, and the fact that it is cold reminds me of when I lived in Boston. My roomate at Berklee was a guy named Danny. He's a songwriter, he looks just like Elton John, he's gay, and he comes from a mormon/army family that totally doesn't support him and has only fucked him up.

Danny's innocence when I arrived at Berklee endeared me to him, although he didn't much want to be my pal. We ended up being friends, but at the end of the spring term I left Boston and came home to nurse my hands.

He was left pretty much alone, wasn't mixing well with our old group of friends, and eventually retreated into self-deprecation. Danny was afraid of being gay because his upbringing taught him that Jesus would hate him and his life would be horrible and that he'd burn in hell. He only went after straight men because he knew it wouldn't lead to anything. He wrapped himself up in the Mormon church and hated himself for no good reason. We've lost touch now .

He wrote really great songs.

German augmented sixth chords resolve down. I learned how to apply that five part writing last night. Go figure.
Even though most everyone on this site and I differ about how to do it...

VOTE


If ya don't vote, you better not be griping when the person you don't like makes it.

I will be there ready to place a bid on my favorite candidate.

Another cold West Texas morning. Not your typical morning, though. I awoke this morning (at 6 o'clock, no less!) to find a fresh blanket of snow covering the ground, and wind throwing tiny particles of ice through the air, stinging my face, numbing my ears. All this I experienced just by opening the front door of my Residence Hall!

I arrive at work to find a note on the dry-erase board telling everyone, "I pitty the fool who don't vote!" What a perfect way to remind me that I'm not registered to vote in this county. Ah, the life of a college student.

And the day has not yet begun. I still must venture out into the tundra this campus has become. Striving to make good grades. Hoping to make that 2.5 GPA so I can assume my role as Resident Assistan next semester here at Texas Tech University.
Exercise Log:
  • Pushups: 45 (I did them slow and carefully, so they were a little harder)
  • Side-kicks: 30, each side (again, slow and carefully)
  • Crunches: 60 (ow!)

I'm only going to make note of insomnia when I have it, since it seems to be going away on its own, despite rampant caffeine consumption over the weekend.

Vote! Even if you agree that the options are stupid, that your vote doesn't count, or you really don't like any of the candidates, show up at the polls and cast a blank ballot. Hell, at the poll I went to this morning, there was a guy there that had walked eight miles to be able to vote. Don't be a lazy fucker, go scribble in some circles. Or don't. Leave them all blank. Just go to the polls and do something that puts a ballot in the machine and earns you a checkmark by your name.

In other news, I'm trying to get another date with that girl I like, but she's in the middle of hell week for a production she's working on, so it might be a while. Maybe she'll bring me to the cast party or something.

This is my first day back in a long while due to many complicated circumstances most of which I will not even attempt to explain.

Anyone have a pancreas that they don't need? Mine is about ready to die. I am officially on the organ donor waiting list so that I might live to see thirty. My doctor (the general hospital is what I'm stuck with for the moment) told me that my test results are pretty negative and chances are that I'm a candidate for regular dialysis this coming year. Hooray for diabetes and for having major organs fail when you're 28. I haven't really left my house much for the last couple of days. It wasn't exactly the news that I was hoping for. On a strangely positive note, I am in the running for a free insulin pump which works sort of as an artificial pancreas. It's a pretty simple machine but I'm vaguely enthusiastic about my initiation into the cyborg legion.

It's voting day. I will go to the church near my house and poke random holes into a ballot. I do not vote for any candidates - just ballot measures. At very least, most measures are in quantifiable terms and recorded in real live printed matter. I will most likely poke the hole that says "Ralph Nader."

Another night without sleep. I am more worried now than I think I have ever been in my life. Internal failure. How fucked up is that? If someone had told me five years ago that I would be on a list for an organ donor I would have laughed myself silly. BTW, if you've never considered filling out that card at the DMV (or whatever the process is in your state or country) think about me when the opportunity presents itself. I have a lot more freaking out to do.

A Request for Consistency
Just a little request: If you're going to downvote factual nodes please add the missing information in your own write up. It's a little pointless to just diss a write up that someone did a little research for without improving on it. I don't give a shit about msging the author or whatever. Contribute to the database!

wake up a bit hung over from a friend's 40th birthday party. get gas, coffee, and cigarettes and head back to maryland. work long enough to check my mail. head to the elementary school to vote.

i am unsatisfied with the presidential candidates, but i gleefully punched in my votes for local officials -- i feel that they do more for me and how i live within my community. i am still wearing my "I voted" sticker.

so now i work from home (and write this to take a break). i am anxious about the elections -- it's a close one this year. i will be watching the returns.
i am running out of room for my plants -- at home i don't get a lot of good light so i have an area with a grow light. i will be rooting some wandering jew cuttings in water and planting them as a ground cover in a big planted pot with a dracanea (dragon tree). the dracanea is very leggy and i will try air layering some of the long branches as well as directly cutting and rooting others. i want to train a jade plant for bonsai, but i am having difficulty finding information about how to properly prune this specific plant. i still haven't identified my cactus. it did not grow for so long and recently had a growth spurt after being moved to appropriate light -- so i don't know if it is a misshapen barrel type cactus or a small column type cactus. i would like to cut the top healthy green portion off to propagate it, but until i know the genus i don't know if this would be successful.

being fall/winter, all the plants are growing fairly slowly. it's just as well, i can learn more about pruning them before spring comes.
hopefully my apartment will be painted today. there is a lot of work being done on the apartment, a new roof is in the works now, i may have new windows (i heard from the handyman that many people have complained about the windows and that about 90% of the complex will get new ones), and soon i will hear if i am to get new carpet. i hope i get new everything. rent just went up to $1100. a price i would expect to pay for a brand new three bedroom instead of a ten year old two bedroom.

i desperately want a place where i can paint the walls and put up crown moulding and build in shelves... put down the floor tiles and counter-tops i want. ugh. apartment renter's frustration.

back | days | forth

I used to feel exposed, vulnerable and reactive to the world around me; no longer. Safety in numbers isn't the excuse, nor am I using another as a mental crutch. The realisation that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person, was, I think, there from early on; The courage to act on that has been longer coming, instilled in me by the trust and love being shared with me.

I would imagine that other men in my position would have run away with their toenails on fire by now. I wonder how any could run from such totality, such openness and beauty.

Some, maybe most, will accuse us of moving too fast; I would reply that when you are that sure, that certain of the mutual beauty existant in a relationship, well, moving fast can't be quick enough. Why wait for the future? Why sit idle, never telling someone that, really, you think they're pretty damned cool and, by the way, would they like to join you in your world domination plans?

There are barriers. I will take great pleasure in breaking them down, climbing over the obstacles that circumstance have thrown in my way. I know that I've never been too good at obstacles, I've tripped in the past and fallen helpless. Eventually I've got up and continued by myself, or perhaps with a helping hand from another. I think of the things that my sweetheart has overcome and I am awed to in the presence of another's strength; I'm also overcome with love when I'm asked to help.


I asked Katyana to marry me, and she ACCEPTED!!

Election day in the US of A.
The fux0ring post office didn't deliver my application for a mail-in ballot in time, so I don't get to make my statement in the presidential election. I was planning to vote for Ralph Nader, but shrub is going to win Texas by a landslide anyway. Al Gore needs to be taught that he can't take the liberals for granted; we *will* vote for a third-party candidate if the democrats decide to straddle the fence on certain issues. A vote for Nader is a vote for a better democratic candidate in four years.

I think I'm going to move to an underground bunker somewhere in the Yukon with 6,000 GB of disk storage and a T-3. I'll mirror everything controversial, illegal, or DMCA violating, and archive it there, so The Man can't touch it. Then when we manage to elect a government that isn't hell-bent on selling the souls of it's citizens to corporate interests, I'll put it all back up on the internet.

20:06 UTC
Before I forget, all y'all Texans out there should check out DEUM (Dallas Everything User's Meeting). It's going to be cool.
Wow! Blow your mind
That’s a truly Everything story:
It is quite difficult to decide where to start, because this is a very circular story… I suppose everything started when I wrote a story about E2 at barrapunto. It seems that one journalist from a national newspaper read my story and decided to wrote himself an article for the newspaper El Mundo (edited in Madrid, Spain). In the article, he mentioned that some Spanish users had already been caught by E2 (he originally said dazzled), and he mentioned your very naked_ape.

I knew nothing about that until I received a message from another Spaniard that joined E2 because of my barrapunto story. He mentioned that I had triggered the commentary in the newspaper, but as I don’t buy “El Mundo” (it’s mainly a Madrid newspaper, and I live in Barcelona, 600 km away) I had no way of checking the article and inflating a bit my ego, (and the online edition of this newspaper has a crappy search engine...) and today, while I was checking the new entries at Everything Quest 6: E2's Scrapbook I discovered that legbagede had posted the URL of the original article of El Mundo, now online…

I love when Everything makes me happy!

Dizzy has made me happier than I have ever been before.
I find comfort in his arms, strength in his words and, love in his very being.
The music in his heart searches inside me more deeply than I have ever known.
He is the first thing I think of when I wake up and my thoughts find him in the darkness of the coldest Michigan nights. Although we are worlds apart, we stand on common grounds. The paths are complicated. The water is wide. But I will swim the oceans to him if there is a place he will hold for me. Anthony is home to me. He is where all my journeys end.

There is nothing that would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life getting to know him. I see growing old with him. I long for more time with him. We have time and we will take it. We have found love. It is the most precious of all gifts. Your love and support has extraordinarily touched us. I hope you all may find the happiness we have. This community brought us together. Forgive us if we seem rash. We, ourselves, would warn against such hasty romance. Anthony is the love of my life. Love is for the bold. Passion is powerful. I make no excuses for loving him. I want to live as if only love matters. I love him. I would offer him my pulse. When he asked me if I would spend the rest of my life with him, I could only say yes.

Yes, yes...   Yes, yes...   Yes, yes.

I burned a cd last night to see if it would play in my car on my trip to my parents house, and it seemed to work well. I used a cheap CompUSA CD and set it up and let it burn as I went to sleep. I didn't expect it to work.
So I had the day off from work, to go up north to visit my cousin I haven't seen in 18 years. Last night, as I was lying in bed, I decided that since it was Tuesday, and since I would be passing by anyway, that I would visit Kawana, who I apparently have a crush on. I sleep.

At about 9:30 this morning, I am woken up by Mom's voice on my answering machine; she wants me to call her as soon as possible. I wasn't ready to wake up until 11am. I grumbled a bit and went back to sleep.

I woke up again at around 10:50am and checked the answering machine. She had left two messages, so I guess whatever it was must have been fairly important. I call and get ahold of my dad (my mom was out voting). He tell me that my name wasn't listed with the registered voters, so I must have been transferred down to my address.

I went to the apartment office and asked them where to go to vote, and they directed me to a nearby church. Is it just me or does something just not seem right about a major government function happening in a church?

I go vote. I had a hard time choosing between Gore and Nader, but I had to vote Gore this time. I will have to show my support for a third party in a future election, when I won't have to worry about someone like Dubyah winning.

After voting I headed over to the club to see Kawana. She was as bright and cheerful as always. She recognized me as soon as I sat down and came over to sit by me. We talked for a little bit while I had a bite to eat. After 7 minutes of conversation came the inevitable silence, so she asked me if I would like her to dance. I was suprised - she doesn't usually ask. I had to ask her last time, and that was after a very long period of silence.

After a couple of songs, she cuddled up next to me real close and we talked about random stuff for a little over an hour. I am obsessed with her. I pay her to dance, but I would just as well give it to her for sitting there, all dressed, with her arms around me and her head on my shoulder. I know that I probably have no chance at all of ever getting to know her outside work, but she really makes me feel very special for a little while, which is something the rest of this cold world seems to be unable to do for me.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a possibility. She tried to meet someone over the internet last weekend and said that went horribly, and then shortly after asked me if I had a girlfriend. She says that most of the people there don't seem to be interested in her. She's asian, and has a small figure (most guys seem to want blondes with big boobs), but she's perfect in my eyes. I scoff at her remark and tell her she's beautiful. She must really not make very much there since she also works at a nearby video rental store. I wish I could have met her under normal circumstances.

I must really sound pathetic.

We talk about movies, politics (I think she's somewhat conservative), music, and of course computers. She insists that I see the movie "City of Angels", and after she finds out that I hadn't seen "The Green Mile", she insists that I see that instead.

After some silence, we were looking at each other directly in the eyes for a little while. She kisses me on the cheek. She tells me if I close my eyes, she'll give me another kiss. I do so, and she plants one right on the lips! *sigh* (/me does obligatory cartoon effect).

After I had been there for about two hours, she had to go freshen up, so I decided it was a good time to go. I almost forgot to pay her for the last two dances. I was wondering why she was just standing there - duh, but I just stood there and admired her. Finally she gave me a hint, so I paid her and she gave me a big long bearhug and another kiss on the lips. I know it's not real, but damn, it makes me feel good.

*sigh*


So I get to my parents. My cousin is already there and I recognize her, despite not seeing her in a dozen years. She has a boyfriend who seems even more introverted than me. We talk for a while, then drive to a nearby museum. The museum was just closing, so we went to the beach for a little while, studied some large tree trunk that washed up on the beach, and collected some shells. My parents are taking in a foreign exchange student who came along (I forget his name now), but he just sat at the vacant lifeguard station the whole time.

We drove back to my parent's house and had a thanksgiving-style dinner. I set up the 17" computer monitor I gave them to replace the 14" they were using. I actually intended only to let them borrow it, but they assumed I gave it to them, and I probably won't use it anymore anyway, so I just let it go.

After a while, I was sleepy so I tried to catch a few Z's, but it was difficult with all of the commotion. We then had dinner, and began watching the election coverage. My cousin and crew headed back to Orlando shortly after, and I stuck around until about 11:30 to watch how the election would go.

After California kicked in for Gore, I decided that I would head home. Mom gave me some leftover turkey and stuffing in a ziploc bag. I gathered my stuff and the leftovers and then went home.

I hate driving. I had just remembered that I had cruise control on the last 2% of my trip to my parents, so I remembered to use it on the way back. It is more comfortable to not have to keep my foot on the pedal, but it also feels somewhat odd to not have my foot on the pedal.

Finally, I spent about an hour doing this writeup, despite it already being November 8 at this point. I should figure out how to be less verbose.


Wow, I seem to have gotten more personal than I should have.. oh well that's what this is all about - getting my real thoughts out in the open.

Dance class in the morning. Oh boy, the moves are getting more complicated. My timing is rather horrendous. At least I know the footwork for the salsa and cha-cha pretty well now. Nw I can actually dance to that music I listen to. I've been on a salsa binge lately. We learned a bit of swing and a fun move, not sure of the name, but it's based on a four kick (but it's not the four kick). Class actually took up all its alotted time, a first.

I went to the polling place with my sister. The polling place was our old elementary school. It brought back a few fleeting memories of innocence long lost. Now we knew what the world is really like, and were about to try and make an impact on it. I cast my votes according to my conscience and couldn't be happier.

Of course, some people gave me shit about it later. Some people that are very close to me, and that hurt. I voted for who I wanted to win, not against who I didn't want to win. Voting out of spite, I feel, is not the way to go.

Funbets activity on Gore had been fluctuating wildly. As Bush's sell price was at 99.99, it wasn't worth taking a long position, so I shorted 300 shares, playing it safe. The amount I'd lose was equal to the amount I'd win, depending on which way it went. 50-50 was good to me. Gore's sell price was at 80, and the ask was near 70, so I decided to short 10000 shares. I could cover quickly if the prices started to rise and take a small hit, and the possible profit was worth the risk. Turns out I was right, and I was able to make a good chunk of change. Now if only the stock market was this easy.

So what did we learn today? Well, we learned that it's stupid for Democrats to try to beat the Republicans at their own game: God, social conservatism, family values, and tax cuts.

There's been a disturbance in the Force. I can feel it. I can feel. There are constantly disturbances in the Force, this is nothing new. I can feel it, though, that is what is different. I got turned back on. The sleeper has awoken. Thank you thank you. Electricity is all around us, especially in the city. I have never felt in the city before. That is not true, I felt the vibe the day I moved here, and it was so overwhelming it crushed me. But now I have come back around. Perhaps fitting that I voted in the projects today? Maybe. I am sending signals out all over the place, my antenna has been raised, I am intercepting signals from all over, and random people are calling me on the telephone. What is going on? (I would say if I could ask a question).

Mom picked me up to go back home to vote. I would've just filled out an absentee ballot but I don't entirely trust them... On the way home we stopped and ate at a resturaunt. While waiting for our food, all of a sudden this lady next to our table starts to talk a few decibals louder than she was before. Naturally I couldn't help to tune in...

"I've always wondered how the rain knows where to rain freshwater and where to rain saltwater. I mean, how does it know? It rains saltwater in the ocean and some lakes but freshwater in others! Haven't you guys ever thought of this?"

She was in her late forties, her husband in his fifties, and an elderly couple was at their table too. I was just about to inform her that it rains freshwater everywhere, and the salt just stays there when she really started to kick her rant in gear.

"I can't believe noone has ever thought of this before- I mean people just take these 'scientific facts' for granted without really knowing what they're about. I mean come on, it rains saltwater in the ocean while raining freshwater only a few yards inland! I for one..."

This made me think, she did have a good point. People do just naturally assume anything labeled scientific is right. Though her argument is easy to explain, the other people at the table obviously couldn't answer it. Moreever, anything people see on TV that's filmed with a video camera and unknown actors is assumed to be real. I was completely duped by the Science Fiction Channel's special on the legend of the Blair Witch. It was a complete phony documentary- no where did it say it was real, I just assumed so. I probably fell so easily because of my habit of inhaling anything on the History Channel. A few weeks later I stumbled on an article about MTV's Road Rules and the hacker who managed to get on it. Abe told how it was all rigged, their whole life is basically scripted- with a few exceptions and fights. Now MTV has two new shows Fear and Jackass. My roomates love it because they naturally assumed it's real. Well, it's not. It's all acting and scripts. Jackass does have some "real" moments in it, just like Tom Green once in awhile does.

But those are bad, or rather unfair, examples because they do make people laugh/scared. They entertain you. So what if they're real or fake? It is pretty underhanded to make them appear "real" and "raw" though (but not beneath MTV mind you).

Hmm. Um. I suppose I got a little off topic.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2000 - Tampa, Florida, USA

Morning

I woke up at a friend's flat wondering where I was... The television was on, and talking heads were babbling about Gore this and George 'Dubyah that. "Oh wait, I'm supposed to vote right?" I raced to the polling place at USF to find it packed with fellow college students, and remembered one important fact: I had registered to vote to late and thus had no place in the current election. "Oh well," I thought, "my vote wouldn'tve made a difference in this geriatric state anyway..." Off to work I went, and the election was out of my mind.

Evening

Even before I walked into my friend's flat and saw the TV and heard their discussion, I knew something was amiss. Florida - the state that until recently was just home of Disneyworld and Miami Beach and more senior citizens than you can shake a Medicare bill at - had become the focal point of news coverage, and was too close to call! Wow, my home state was the final battleground of the first presidential election of the 21st century. Needless to say, few of us got much sleep.

History was being made, and was truely on hold that evening. We gave up on NBC and TV in general after the anchors ran out of useless quotes and just kept pointing at Florida on the map mumbling about "25 electoral college votes" and so on and so forth. We figured the counting would be done, and because the numbers showed Bush so far ahead that Jeb!'s bro' would have the presidency. Imagine our surprise when we returned to see that Gore had indeed conceded! A few went to sleep at this news, convinced that a right-wing conspiracy was in power (their words) and that was the end of the story. The rest of us stayed up and chatted while the muted TV was kept on to provide light...

None of the rest of us got any sleep. Gore retracted his concession and George W. Bush might not have won the election! Oddness indeed, we said. Florida's voters, not including myself, were deciding the election in the end... And all I could do was watch.

Epilogue

We'll see how it all turns out... Looks like it'll take awhile to get it resolved. Either way, history hangs in the balance - quite literally.

My toddler got sick the night of elections and could not be consoled, even with my “I voted” sticker. All night she was feverish, heavy lidded, moist looking around the eyes. I would hold her and she would moan or mumble in her sleep, heart pounding under her t-shit. She struggled with her clothing, had to be coaxed to sip water with Echinacea in it, and would not take food. She wanted milk, but I wouldn't give it to her because of the fever. Her curls were matted in the back but she wouldn't let me brush them. She wanted a bath, then screamed that she hates baths. She would cry, a high whiney noise that pierced the air and made my heart beat way to fast. I could not do anything for her but hold her when she asked, wipe her nose (when she wasn't wiping it on my shirt, the blanket, the couch…) She would not stay asleep at night so I was on constant call. I tried to remain patient. We built a huge house of Lego blocks. I read her Walter the Lazy Mouse twice in a row. She wheezed in my arms and will not let me lay her down. The baby wanted my attention as well, as he needs to nurse, but on the whole he was very mellow and didn't seem to mind spending much of the day in the Exersaucer, or on his Papa’s lap.

We watched the election results, disappointed. Like Katie’s’ fever the election would swing one way, then the other. I stayed up until two in the half light of the television as Sam Donelson, Peter Jennings, George Stephanopoulus and Cokie Roberts pointed to a map and tried to come up with something more to say about the numbers on the screen. I switched to Dan Rather and basked in his bizarre metaphors, “Melting away like ice-cream in a microwave” and others witch escape me now but really made me laugh at the time.

Outside the wind was whisking the trees, whipping leaves around and breaking off minor branches. New boxes, showing tornado watches and warnings joined the television screen. I tried to keep the mood light; to be the rock of my household, aware of how tired I will be as soon as I am allowed to indulge myself with sleep.

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