MY LIFE - OCTOBER

Sunday, October 22, 2000

By all regards, today should just be a day to relax, not do a damn thing, and enjoy whatever free time that I have left before going back to work tomorrow. No cleaning, no running around, just simple relaxation with the idea of sitting on my ass.

And I succeeded until 3:30. That's when I finally woke up for good today. I know that I went to bed at 4:30am last night, but still, 3:30 is kind of pathetic. I would have liked to have gotten up at like 10 or 11, but it just didn't happen. I guess changing my sheets, washing my blankets, and cleaning for 8 hours made me sleep easy.

I'm glad that I cleaned up my room though. The cat fur was really starting to get to me. I noticed today that I didn't wake up with a headache, just the usual slightly stuffy nose. That was a relief. I hate waking up with headaches and I hate knowing that all I have to do is vacuum every now and then to avoid the headache.

But I'm lazy. Laziness fosters this kind of thing and that's why I'm always feeling like shit. But I don't like to vacuum and I don't like to move stuff around to vacuum. I don't like dusting. I don't like sweeping. I'm normal. But I have to those things every now and then otherwise I turn into everyone's favorite shithead. You can tell when I'm feeling like shit. It shows in the way I talk. If I go into detail on things, I feel all right. If I just give simple answers, I'm not feeling good or up to talking.

Anyway. I had to clean more today. So at around 7 I began cleaning up my bathroom. That is not the most pleasant experience you can have. Especially if you don't know what it is your scrubbing off the bathtub/toilet/sink. It can really make you squeamish if that kind of thing bothers you. Luckily, it doesn't bother me that much. Especially armed with a bottle of Soft Scrub with bleach.

That shit really worked too. Granted, all I had to do was scrub a little bit, but the soft scrub made it easier. I was able to get my bathtub completely clean and the toilet too. The sink was easy, it wasn't all that dirty anyway, but the toilet and tub were not going to be that simple. It took me a while, but I got both of them clean and now my bathroom smells like bleach, rather than nothing at all.

That's what strange to me. Aside from the litterbox giving off its special scent, my room doesn't smell like anything. Doesn't smell bad, doesn't smell good. It just, well, smells like nothing at all. I mean, usually you can walk through a room and notice a distinct smell. There's nothing up here, except right after I change air fresheners, which is like every six months rather than every month.

But it's clean now, so I don't really care. The only thing is my fingers smell like bleach from scrubbing my tub and toilet. Thankfully, I don't mind the smell of bleach.

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I've been checking out a lot of different web sites out there, trying to see what everyone else is doing and trying to find some sites that I'd be interested in linking to and checking out on a regular basis. Now, I'm not exactly someone who's picky about what I want to see in a site. I don't think my site is all that great and I know that there are some things that I can do to make it better.

But shit people, you can do better than what I'm seeing. Actually, what I'm seeing is what happens when there are thousands of providers willing to provide you with web space for free and with assistance on building the site. You get a lot of people who start, but don't do anything else with the site and let it rot and decay. Meanwhile, these providers list the site without giving you any kind of idea of how well it's being updated.

As I've gone through all these sites, they all look the same. They all use large fonts, an abundance of pictures that are from other web sites, and they all say that they'll be updating regularly. These people make me look like the best web author out there. Only recently have I been writing and working on this site everyday, yet these people make me look very good. There are some sites that haven't been touched since they were created. Six months ago.

Through all this, I've found some decent sites. Many of them are from college students or those who are close to graduating with a couple from younger teens. The ones that interest me the most are the ones that have some effort put into them. These are the sites that don't rely on templates or gadgets that clutter up the site. These are the people who just write and put up pictures that compliment the writing. Or vice versa.

But too many pages are using templates (which is fine most of the time), too many pictures of things that just take up too much space and time, and any number of gadgets and toys. I just don't like those things. It can be tough enough figuring out a site's content, but throw in all these toys and it gets really confusing. I just don't really understand it at all.

There's one thing about my site that I've noticed with America Online. My site looks terrible through AOL. All the fonts are too large, the links at the bottom are too large, and it just doesn't look right. I would suggest anyone who uses AOL and who views this site through AOL use an outside browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

Those at least make my site look like it's supposed to. AOL just seems make my fonts look too big and that doesn't look right. I'll put it to you this way: the copyright at the bottom is what the fonts are supposed to be like. The copyright is supposed to be two sizes smaller than it is.

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Feedback has been really good on my little experiment with the Simba entry a few days back. Most of you thought it was cute, if nothing else. I have to admit, I went back and reread the entry and laughed. I must have been really tired. Some of the things I wrote just were flat-out weird. I guess I can consider it a success. Look for more entries from Simba in the future, especially as he grows older.

The other thing that everyone still wants is a photo page. So I guess next weekend I might start working on scanning, editing, and uploading some new pictures, including some old ones of me, some new ones from my room, and maybe even my car, since I took some pictures of it today. But I don't really know how it's going to work or what I'm going to do with the layout. The last time seemed so clunky and didn't work too well, at least in my opinion.

So I need to work that out, plus how big I want the pictures. I'll probably really break the pictures up into several different categories, many more than what I had last time. This should work better since I've learned how to make tables since the last time I had a photo page. But it'll have to be worked on over a long period of time, so don't expect anything major any time soon.

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Not much happened today. The Browns were creamed 22-0 by the Steelers, but that was expected. The Yankees won again in the World Series.

My god, can anyone beat the Yankees with any consistency anymore? The last time the Yankees lost a playoff series was in 1997 to the Cleveland Indians. The time before that was in 1995 to the Seattle Mariners. Five years they've lost two series in the postseason. No wonder they've won three World Series titles since 1996.

Anyway, a slow day with me cleaning and talking online for a little bit. But Sunday isn't supposed to be exciting. It's my day off. I don't want anything too exciting to happen. Maybe talk to friends (but nobody calls me so that doesn't really work) or watch some tv. If Sunday becomes exciting, I may have to find another day to make my lazy day, and that probably won't be happening anytime soon. Chances are good I'm working.

So Sunday can stay boring for all I care. Nothing else is worth the time.