12/30/98...Just about my last chance at a shot at an update before this year is gone. Kind of a muddle-head today.Santa brought me a crash for Christmas and I'm not the sharpest egghead in town.It happened about 10 days ago (I think) when I thought I'd hang a Sidewinder gamepad on this critter.When I attempted to load the driver from the CD I got one of those irritating "ILLEGAL OPERATION" messages.I could click on by that though and access the files on the disk.Having no luck getting a response that way I went to the Microsoft site and downloaded a driver file from there.That was no use either,so I tried the disk again and got at least some kind of stuff happening.It didn't act exactly right but I tried a game and while I was prompted to configure the gamepad,the game had lost it's audio.Fine!So what to do now?Go get a sound card driver at Ensoniq.For some reason,I know better,I was using MSIE 4.0 to do this.I probably used it because that nazi Microsoft guy always demands that I allow cookies and I know how to turn them on in Explorer without digging too deep.I seem to have lost the cookie switch in Navigator.So I'm getting a driver for the soundcard and it seems to load okay but when I have to reboot I get one of those lovely bluescreen Fatal Exception messages and Windows is out to lunch.Safe mode will run and line-by-line quits at "Load Windows drivers?" I've had one other big crash (due to Explorer encountering a bad EMBED tag) and have done a Windows reload,so that's what I try after I pull myself together.No luck.Try again and don't keep any newer version files this time,still no luck.I break down and call Tech Support at Quantex:"Hmmm,sounds like a corrupt registry.Rename the windows file when prompted during install." Well,I'm rattled and I don't know what this means (it's simple,but not easy to pull off and a whole bunch of stuff gets messed up doing this) and I run to the store to buy a miracle cure.The guy talks me out of it,says I need to reformat the hard drive.I go to another store to get a book that will explain how to do that.I just don't get it.I still don't know what a startup floppy is for,or how to reconfigure CONFIG.SYS or deal with AUTOEXEC.BAT. After some time trying to figure out who to call or where to take it via taxi,I dig in again and after three more renamed rescue operations,and finding lost goodies and tossing out others,I am basically at square one again now.Things are working.I had a heck of a time trying to get the modem configured,as usual,and after fighting with login prompts I find out my DNS addresses are out of date,that's the third time in a little over a year they've changed 'em.Anyway that's working,too.Whew!Some fun,eh? None of that compares,of course,to the upset and relapse I experienced after two or three very tense and confusing sessions with my case manager.I have no idea why I have a case manager or what I can expect from him except that it seems to go along with being classified SMI (severely mentally ill).He comes with the package,as well as prescription drug coverage.So,I try to show up and be compliant.If nothing else it is documentation in case I am ever brought up for review,which is LONG overdue.In my paranoid ponderings I think they must know something they haven't told me,like:"You know those atomic tests in Nevada we were doing when you were born?Well,that day we had an unfortunate shift in the wind and,well,the results speak for themselves.Sorry 'bout that.Don't rock the boat and we'll give you a below poverty income and you can just ponder your life away." So how was your Christmas?

12/14/98...Yes,I'm still here. and back. this is the easiest place to do updates.I am in poor condition and unwilling to do a bang-up job for my thousands of fans,but here goes:nothing has changed,nothing is new. I have been to hell and back at the hands of healthcare providers and am totally exhausted.I have big plans for updates and a general redesign,but you're going to have to wait 'til I can come up with the energy.Say a prayer for me and I hope to bring things up-to-date soon.

11/1/98...Man it's late!I am in the process of moving over to Xoom and content is going to begin to be different between the two. First of all,I hope you had a swell Halloween. The new URL is members.xoom.com/zorak2k I just can't take the intrusion anymore.That watermark that bobs around in the corner was what got me moving.That and the letter from the company that I don't qualify as desirable anymore.I still am not positive as to their reason.I just spend too much of my time being irritated trying to work over here. So,gang,it's been fun.They have no on-line html editor yet,and I am struggling with ftp,but it's a relief to not have my eyeballs twitching trying to scroll geocities pages and swatting at popups searching for content.If you are like-minded,check out a nifty ftp utility called:Whisper FTP Plus at Download.com.It transfers files back and forth AND has an editor.It's a bunch of new stuff to learn but if I can log onto the www and figure out colors,I can do this. We'll leave a light on for you.Later.