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The Tangent At Hand
.......... This is the part where I pretend that you are in the room with me and I'm just talking out loud. Free flow thought. Rambling. Ranting. Tangenting on my own tangents. Y'know, stuff. I may update this page as seldom as several days at a time, or twenty times a night depending on how wired or bored I am at work. You get the really good quality tangents when I'm hyped up on supercaff. In fact, I think I'll go get some right now. That'll force the creative juices for sure!
.......... Beware! The author of this page does not condone the use of subversive thought, antidisestablishmentarian ideals, Marxist economics, or anything Ford makes. Read the following drivel at your own risk of understanding me.

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19:49EST-WED-2/28/2001

So, I was talking to a friend of mine on AIM when I had the greatest idea. How many times have you been chatting and you misspell a word or phrase and don't catch it until it is too late (if at all)? This is a constant occurrence. In fact, you get used to seeing misspelled words and bad grammar night after night after night after... that you start overlooking them because you are so used to seeing them and knowing what the person -meant- to say that you start reading over typos and not even realizing that there had been one at all. This is -not- a good thing because you will stop being able to proof-read your own stuff and you will become one of the worst spellers on the web. The laughing stock of IRC channels and web clients alike. What was my great idea? What can possibly safe us from this horrid fate? Eating more carrots! No, actually I was just playing around with Word 97 for the first time ever (I'm a Notepad man myself) and I was loving the interactive spell checking feature that pointed out bad grammar and spelling errors on the fly and allowed you to select the right choices. It even replaced the pesky 'i before e except after some other letter' words automatically without prompting you to change them manually. Wouldn't it be great to have a chat utility that helping you with your typing on the fly just like that? To solve the whole problem with porting to your favorite chat app perhaps I can develop the program to run in the background and just help correct the spelling on whatever window you had active. I could also offer an expansion pack with updated dictionaries that include such things as technobabble, stoner, G-homie, and l33tsp34k.
(*update* DCALCODA has something which looks very similar and I'll test it out this weekend and let ya know. 3/9/1)

2:34EST-WED-2/28/2001

For those of you who remember and loved Populous (who doesn't like a game where they play a god?) then GET A LOAD OF THIS!

1:55EST-WED-2/28/2001

A great place to look up geek jargon, along with Dictionary.com, and What Is means you can look up and figure out just about anything anyone ever says to you in geek speak. Enjoy!

20:59EST-SUN-2/25/2001

I have been reading a ton of news stories about Napster and their new pricing plan as a result of bargaining with the entertainment industry. I have read about subscription packages, pay-per-download plans, and everything in between. I do not think that would be a viable option unless music download standardization goes several steps further. How many times have you downloaded a song and found out that it was ripped from a scratched CD or that the download was trunkated and the rest of the song is missing? Don't you just HATE that? I know it buggs the living shit out of me. Especially if I don't catch it in time and I burn a track to CD. Then as I'm cruising down the road to work fending off road rage, I am horrified that the kick ass song I was listening to just then suddenly stops mid-note and starts on the next one. Argh!!! This happens a LOT because not everyone knows to put the check in the box telling the program to delete partial transfers and it's not set by default in the install. Once it's been partially downloaded, it can be uploaded by someone else who’s computer thinks it is a full file. Don't even get me started on scratched tracks or songs ripped at an insanely low bit rate so its quality is no better than a tape that has been left on your dashboard for a week in the sun. I'm not going to pay money for that kind of service. Also, I can't even find the song(s) or artist(s) I'm looking for half the time. Unless they have a FULL database of every artist and song that the record companies in the boat with them offer and offer them in the bit rate of your choice, I don't think it will be a viable option. Fin.

18:40EST-SUN-2/25/2001

Oh my... This was an exceptional weekend. The party was loads of fun, even if it didn't have the numbers that NYE did but those that did show up and I didn't kick out for not wearing a costume had a blast. Everyone at the party now has a very firm understanding of how neat a bottle of Ice 101 can be. We had almost all the fun people show up, more booze than we knew what to do with, and there was the return of the rogue dildo. Nobody was safe. You have no idea how much fun these things can be at parties. Nobody demonstrated felatio with it this time (awww...) but there were several assaults. I would like to thank everyone who came, I would especially like to thank the people who took the abuse I dished out when they showed up without a costume to the costume party and then still came back. Others were more easily dissuaded. I would like to thank the weather for being too unpredictable and causing the weather services much aggravation and embarrassment. Predictions said that it would start raining around 2pm and continue until the end of time. It didn't actually start raining until well after 2am and as such gave us plenty of time to play around a burning picnic table. My project for the day is to get all the pictures uploaded and posted on here but once again, I have run out of web space so some sacrifices are going to have to be made. I only have a little over half the pics uploaded, however, here are the ones I do have here: An action photo, another action photo, sitting around the bonfire, casting out the devil, a choir girl, another commie, women plotting someone's destruction, innocent bystanders, being pillaged, exploration, the cast for the next Wizard of Oz movie (A doctor who has no Benz, a bear with no honey pot, a psychic with no infomercials, and a hippie with no luv), Fat Tuesday, G.I. Verge, and the lead singer for Godsmack, debauchery, Caleb helping Captain Morgan DJ from MP3land, Tiny also helping the Captain, Miss Cleo is a drunk, foreign gypsies, socializing, DJ Captain Morgan as Juan Valdez, a white LaMount Sanford, women licking booze off of one another, often, bonding, more debauchery, yours truly, an attempted undead invasion, white ninja, superwhiteguy, falling victim to over-partying, the landlord, with his electric leaf blower of death, enjoying conjac after a hard days work, at least nobody got sick, the remove new hardware fairy, spelling errors, samurais, get all the chicks, unless you are a Scott everyone loves to socialize and occasionally 'wrassle' even Team Evil showed up to cause mischief at our modest venue and everyone loves penises. The pictures were in no real order at all. If I don't have a good picture of you (Zak) I'll find one later.

21:08EST-THU-2/22/2001

Wow, for the first time in my life I have a true understanding of how arduous server maintenance is. I always used to just figure it was pretty boring or whatever, but it's more than that. I actually enjoy it. It's small, trivial, but something I can get really anal about and feel good about when I'm done. Problem is that I'm never done. There is always something else that needs to be fixed, or another thing to be improved. :::sigh::: Next thing I know, I'll become an asshole and erect a shrine to The Bastard Operator From Hell.

2:42EST-THU-2/22/2001

All your base are belong to us! Someone set us up the bomb! You have no chance to survive make your time.

23:41EST-WED-2/21/2001

I got to have a religious discussion today while at work. It was very refreshing. Definitely more fun than answering questions about email or computer viruses. The conversation touched subjects like baptism, Catholicism, agnostic stances, and Hinduism but the conversation was primarily about Buddhism. He (James) is becoming a believer in Buddhism but I think the prize at the end of that race is disappointing. On a lighter note, I just found pr0n for geeks like myself who have some struggling network traffic issues. Ain't it purdy?

21:53EST-WED-2/21/2001

I'm not special. I remember when every time someone said they worked in the computer industry, the other person would be impressed at how smart the person is. How talented they must be. What a dork. Now, it seems like you tell someone that you work in the computer industry and they aren't impressed anymore because they know a total idiot who has the same job. You are already perfectly aware of this because they work with you. They got the job because a second idiot works in the HR department and hired them. Likely, the first idiot will become your boss when they decide they aren't technical enough and try to become management. I missed the window of geekdom. I keep trying to become more computer literate by learning how to use alternate operating systems (read: *nix type systems) in hope of gaining status, respect from other geeks, and a fatter paycheck. So far, this has only led to my neglecting more guns or car stereo equipment in favor of more ram or a newer processor. I don't meet a lot of women who are like "Oooh! You have a dual Athlon box running an SMTP and HTTP server? Take me now!". Perhaps I should have played football in school and gotten a job in a tanning parlor or something. Never mind. That sounds like hell. Maybe I should get involved in the theatre again. After all, playing with Roscoes and gaffing tape is still a lot of fun. Oh, wait... That's right. I forgot that I was perpetually broke when I did that, but boy was it fun! I guess I'll just stay an aspiring geek until I top out and become management. Imagine me being in charge of people! Scary, huh?

21:06EST-TUE-2/20/2001

I was just thinking about nursery rhymes. How bizarre they are. Rain rain go away. Come again some other day. But you'd better not come back this Saturday or I'll kick your ass! Just when it finally began to get warmer outside (read: tollerable) I get the bright idea to incorporate a bonfire into the party this weekend but NOOOOO. According to Weather.com there is a 70% chance of rain this Saturday (and no other day). This doesn't mean that there is a 30% chance that it won't rain, it means that it will rain 70% of the day. Oh well, there's always liquor and the chance that a cute girl might think I'm cute (HA!).

0:57EST-TUE-2/20/2001

I'm going to be rich. I can tell. Like my father before me, I've got schemes and plans. One such scheme is to be the first person to develop and deploy vending machines that accept pennies. Why? How many pennies do you have in your pocket, purse, car, or wherever? Tons, right? I keep throwing my pennies in those add-a-penny-take-a-penny things at gas stations, in the donation boxes in the drive through of fast food joints, or just throwing them at people for fun. How many of you do that too? I'll bet that most of you said that you only throw them at each other instead of giving them away or just stockpiling them in big plastic piggy banks in case the world ends and copper becomes a commodity. The joke is on you, because there isn't even that much copper in them. It's mostly Zinc. Worthless! However, if you were strolling along and noticed a vending machine that sold you a tasty beverage and accepted pennies, wouldn't you take that opportunity to use up all the pennies you have on you in exchange for a tasty bev? Remember, it will take normal coinage too so it's not like you would have to dish our a hundred pennies for a 20oz. If you had a hundred pennies, wouldn't you rather have a (insert favorite beverage here, or just submit to the powers of my mind and drink Dr. Pepper)? I thought you would. Send me your pennies and I'll start production. Wouldn't it piss you off if I set the cost to something funky, like 99 cents? Every time you bought a drink, you would get a penny back. HAHAHAHA! And thus, the cycle begins again... I'll put bunches of them in front of Wal-Marts and charge funky prices like 82 cents per bottle just like they do.

16:57EST-SAT-2/17/2001

Have you ever known someone that whenever they talk to you, you are forced to smile and nod for the sake of being polite but you know it is unimportant and can't wait for them to shut up? My greatest fear is that I am or will be one of those people. Worse yet, I was once told that I was by a girl I was dating at the time. Not in quite those words, but the meaning was still the same. She would always cut me off mid sentence or interrupt a story I was trying to relate. When asked why, she said that she felt whatever I was talking about was unimportant (before the point of the story had ever had a chance to be made). Later I found out that she was cheating on me too. I guess that's why it was unimportant. Speaking of women, Patrick forced me to watch High Fidelity when I got home from work this morning at 6am. Convinced that I would fall asleep midway through it, I agreed without much arm twisting. I was in awe. That movie is really good. I'm scared by the amount of musical knowledge that the writer has. Afterwards, Patrick dropped some knowledge on me that stunned me. He said; 'it's like a chick flick, but for guys'.

0:46EST-SAT-2/17/2001

AAAARRGGHH!!! I just heard the worst idea ever (and yet strangely amusing) from Sydney. He wants to come to the costume party wearing a wizards hat. When I looked at him quizzically, he said he was going to be the 'Add New Hardware Wizard'. I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted to hurl large unwieldy furniture at him. I explained that he would get mugged if he did that considering who else would be there. Bad computer humor is still funny but automatically warrants a beat-down.

19:53EST-THU-2/15/2001

YES!!! I found a VNV Nation cover of a Front 242 song! I'm in heaven now. I've smuggled a small CD player into work and have been listening to the latest goodness I can glean from the last days of the Napster we know and love. While installing BSD the other night I noticed a port of Napster and it almost brought a tear to my eye. I thought about the different options I could try but realization hit me. I'm not l33t enough and I don't have the patience to become l33t as long as there are other things around to distract me. IMs, tweaking my video card, reading P.A., or those pesky things with XX chromosomes I hear so much about.

5:28EST-THU-2/15/2001

While I'm not a fan of the Whos' yo daddy line of sex talk, I am enough of a geek that I can be amused at the idea of being called Root in bed. 'nix geeks can appreciate that one too. It'll never be as good as Batman though as far as I'm concerned (interesting story) but that's just me.

0:54EST-THU-2/15/2001

"I just want something I can never have" -Trent Reznor
There is no greater pain than loving someone who does not love you back and knowing it. Well, slamming your hand in the car door hurts worse but it goes away relatively quickly. Plus you can take a half dozen Tylenol. For that matter, I guess you could take some kind of drug to alleviate the emotional pain of not being loved but I've heard there are only so many times you can take ecstasy before you go insane. Wait a second, that might be the permanent cure... Never mind. I'd rather just slam a car door on my hand a few times first.

0:13EST-THU-2/15/2001

Mmmmm... Lasagna! I don't know about anyone else, but a good lasagna will balance out a bad day. Most people I talk to say the same thing about ice cream or their favorite candy. Is it weird of me to prefer lasagna to a Nutty Buddy or Snickers?

19:49EST-WED-2/14/2001

It's here!!! I got the priest robe today but it's more like a canvas pirate captain coat. It must be Catholic. I love it. I love it lots. It fits perfectly and once I get a couple of other items (which are already ordered) then my outfit will be complete for evenings of partying, clubbing, or weekends of role-playing. There was just one small flaw with it in the form of a small sewing flaw where a seam has begun to come undone already. That's easy enough to fix and I'll sew it back together tonight when I get home. Aren't I manly? Of course! How could I not be? Time to check that poll again just to make sure. The FreeBSD box is coming along nicely. Now all I need to do is smack around X11 until it complies with me. I guess it would help if I knew the limits of my video card and the monitor I was using as a test-bed. There's a reason why I've had this card laying around forever being unused. I mean, c'mon, it's PCI! Far better than ISA, but what can you expect from an original run of the ATI Mach 64 chipset? I can manually remove the Bios if I got spunky but I don't have a ROM burner and wouldn't have the first idea on how to improve the bios on it short of downloading one written by someone in the know (i.e.: not ATI) and flashing from within DOS. There, now that I've totally bored everyone except for the truly geeky I'll leave you all on a more universal note. How come Valentines Day is such a big national holiday? I mean, c'mon! It only serves to drive the economy in a favorable manner for flower companies, and teddy bear manufacturers. No other industry sees a great deal of additional revenue from this holiday so it's hardly worthwhile when you consider the overall detriment of the holiday itself. ***Warning: I'm jaded so here I go. The following opinion is mine and although anyone is free to share these feelings, anyone claiming to be able to rebut them is in for a fight from more people than me*** Valentines Day is a depressing day for 71% of our nation who are single, divorced, separated, or widowed. This figure includes just about everybody I know and after celebrating the 5th consecutive St. Valentines Day party, I realized that the concept itself was at fault. Why should the majority of the population be forced to endure a day of focusing on their failures as significant others just for a chance that people who are happily dating may have a chance to empty their wallets in the name of "love"? Money doesn't have anything to do with love (since it's so expensive most of us can't afford it). People who are alone don't want to be publicly humiliated by the fact. People who are together already have a time when they can celebrate their love for one another and it comes every single day of the year. It's called Bed Time.

1:13EST-TUE-2/13/2001

Thank you to everyone who kept emailing me reminders. I have finally vacuumed my car. Thank you for all the email and support it has taken to finish (begin actually) this tremendous project. Of course it only took two minutes to do, but forty-five minutes to find my vacuum cleaner, disassemble it, mess with the bag, run extension cords, and find suitable Vacuuming The Car music on the radio. Thank you, thank you very much. You're all beautiful!

0:32EST-TUE-2/13/2001

Speaking of Patrick (who is now a 25 year old grumpy old man), he's invited me to go with him to D.C. when he goes to visit his father next. I wasn't into it until he reminded me of the Smithsonian. I don't know about the rest of you freaks, but I rather like going to museums. We could see all sorts of groovy things that can 'wow' you. Certainly more than anything found at Sharper Image and I'm not talking about some cheesy little P.O.S. scooters.

21:38EST-MON-2/12/2001

Patrick is the man. We always seem to be there when the other one is in need and this week it was my turn to need. Remember all the fun I had at the computer stores? This afternoon when I woke up, I found that I had gotten a package. Oooh, package! It was the T-shirts I had ordered from Penny Arcade that I had forgotten all about. I tallied up the cost of that, the two hundred dollars I had pulled out for lunch money (I like lunch) the two hundred I spent on freakwear, the four hundred dollars I spent on computer stuffs and realized I was in the negative. Patrick saved my ass with a fresh crisp hundred-dollar bill. Now as soon as the IRS realizes they owe me money and act on it, we'll be square again. Either that or I'll get my next paycheck or sell a kidney. At least I'm not going to be sucking dick for cheeseburgers or anything. The taste of penis would probably spoil the flavor of the cheeseburgers afterwards. I'd rather not find out. Please don't write me and let me know.

4:42EST-MON-2/12/2001

OH! One more thing. The other day I realized that the 24th (the day of the costume party) is also when Mardi Gras starts. As such, now when people ask me what the theme for the party is and I tell them "generic costume party" I can actually give them a better excuse than "I want to wear a costume, have some friends over, and get wasted". Come to think of it, is there any better reason? Really? Didn't think so.

3:51EST-MON-2/12/2001

Praise "Bob", can I spend money! My weekend was great! Step one was getting paid a wonderful paycheck that was well over seven hundred dollars. Step two was having NO BILLS to pay for from this check. Step 3: was suicide. Specifically, I would up in CompUSA and then Best Buy. Oh, the carnage... After spending over two hundred dollars at Hot Topic buying neat-o gothy stuff and then buying lots of other geekstuff, I have outdone myself. I purchased a replacement 300watt ATX power supply for my server (which has been broken since two hours after I got my hands on it) a new mobo/ram/cpu from Lucas (traded a video card for it) a kick-arse CDRW that has been rocking non-stop ever since I finished installing it and figuring out how to use Nero. Oh yeah, I also bought the Big Box of FreeBSD. 10 CD-ROMS and an 800 page book. I'm in love already. Anyway, that was my Sunday. Saturday started out pretty lame and consisted of Ramen Noodles (which I didn't burn -this- time) and playing Unreal Tournament and ripping my whole CD collection again (100+ cds that I keep in my car) for the downloading pleasure of everyone else on the web. Argh! Me is a pirate! Argh... So you like me peg leg, do ye lassie? :::The following tangent has been circumvented in the name of human mental stability and the Dr. Pepper corporation::: Sorry about that everyone... I'm feeling much better now that I have my wonderful frosty mug of The Greatest Beverage Known To Man and a red cheek from where Patrick slapped me around until I settled back down. Heh heh... So, Lucas and I got conned into going to a rave in Knoxville. Apparently there was a group consensus that driving down to Atlanta for all the good raves was a pain in the ass and since that is pretty much an overgrown college town, why couldn't they get one started on their own? Well, that is what they are trying to do and once they get some more finances to further supply the events I'm sure it'll be pretty cool. I will have to have more friends with me next time I go though. Music aside, there's only so long you can stand around smoking cigarettes, drinking rum and coke and watch underage kids roll. On that note, I think I'll go back to downloading more VNV Nation now.

22:03EST-FRI-2/9/2001

I think I may have realized why I've been so much of a prick as of late. My job. One of the main functions of my job is to get escalations and be abused by people who someone else has fucked up and pissed off. They call me and bitch. A lot. Some of them can bitch for up to 4 hours. I get an extra fifty cents per hour for this joy. I do more apologizing for the actions of others than I do actual troubleshooting of computers. On the plus side, not working on other people's computers all day has revived my interest in my own computer. Still, you spend ten hours a day kissing ass and apologizing and then try to tell me how to keep it from getting to you. I keep trying to take it easy and not care. I try to keep it from getting to me but damn. I'm beginning to think this is why I'm not the bright and happy person I used to be back when I had no responsibility like working for Dominos. That was fun. Didn't pay worth a shit but damn, it was fun. No, I'm not going to get a job working at a drive-through burger joint, buy a 1972 Pontiac Firebird, work out, and get shot by an ex-marine. I just need to find a job where I don't deal with the worst part of the public again and I can regain my sanity. I hope.

6:23EST-FRI-2/9/2001

Presently, in my car stereo's head unit, I've been listening non-stop to a couple of CDs that Heather made for me. She now part-time DJs at a couple of clubs down in Tallahassee and was good enough to burn me a couple of mix CDs with all kinds of groovy stuff I haven't had the pleasure of hearing before. You would expect someone like me who spent so much of his time in Goth clubs to have heard some of this but typically I was either drinking and playing foosball, drinking and making friends outside, or not drinking and trying to get into trouble. I even knew the DJs that have spun for the past three favorite clubs and I still hadn't paid much attention to it. Besides, there appears to be a -big- difference between the musical styling of the Tally Goths and the K-Town Goths. Atlanta? Who knows. There's a club beside every other sushi bar it seems. That's a lot of clubs, and an ass-load of sushi but I digress...

3:10EST-FRI-2/9/2001

ABSOLUTELY NO GUEST BOOKS!

I used to think guest books were great fun. I used to marvel at the code and the wonderful possibilities contained therein. I used to imagine trying to start a make-your-own-story type thing that you could read through just by choosing your way through the various threads and adding a new leg wherever you thought it would be most appropriate. All my grand ideas were dashed by the crude realization that something like this would only be possible if the people who come to my site(s) would stop smoking crack. My first guest room was full of loud mouthed bantering (always fun), tons of asses, pop-ups, banner ads for pr0n, and infighting. It wasn't pretty. You will notice a distinct lack of forums, guest books, pr0n (sorry), and other annoying stuff. In fact, I was wary of even putting on a survey like the one near the bottom of the page but I started to think about how upset I would be if it were abused. As you can tell from the choices, it's really hard to upset me with your vote. I am, however, slightly surprised by the tallies to date. Uh-oh, I'm out of Dr. Pepper so I think I'm going to get another one and then go home. G'night.

2:42EST-FRI-2/9/2001

Should I? I've always wanted a preacher's outfit and this looks like it would be a good start towards one. It would certainly go well with my dark elf costuming as well as a few other things I can come up with. Mischievous? Hell yeah! *Note: I went ahead and ordered it. Should be here next Friday*

1:17EST-FRI-2/9/2001

Other than my not being able to tell you enough how much you should really really go check out SinFest, I haven't had a lot to say recently. I've been thinking about a lot of stuff and burning tons of brain cells in the process. I had a short spat with Stormy today but managed to keep from getting any speeding tickets as I drove rather violently to work right after that. I hate arguing. Anyway, thank you again Heather. Those CDs you mixed for me kick ass! I need to devise a way of listening to them while I'm here at work. Rah! I've spent a lot of energy trying to create a Lexicon of Gibberish that will explain a great deal of the inside jokes and terminology that I use on a semi-daily basis. I've asked several of my closest friends to try to help me with ideas to add content and now I implore the masses (all 20 regular viewers) to help me out as well. No, I haven't spell-checked what I've written in it yet. I did the rest of the site but I tend to wait until I'm done with a page before I spell check it. Especially if it's a constant work in progress like this is. Very early stages right now but you can tell what I'm getting at. I hope. Oh well, check out SinFest. Slick is my new hero.

21:39EST-THU-2/8/2001

I always knew AOL was up to no good. Check out this "news" article for a good laugh.

5:44EST-THU-2/8/2001

OH HELL YEAH!

0:04EST-THU-2/8/2001

A funny thing happens when you post your dreams, desires, and goals online. People who read the site start trying to help you out. McBee sent me the answer to my Atari 2600 quest. I'm all about it. In fact, several co-workers are also interested too. It's not as cool as MY idea, but it will have to do.

2:42EST-WED-2/7/2001

Have you ever noticed that when someone enlists, right before they go into boot camp, they get engaged to their girlfriend and promise to get married right after boot camp? I understand why. It happened to me (yes, a nihilist like myself was once engaged) and it's happened to just about everyone else I meet who was dating someone when they joined the armed forces. I can go into the whole detailed explanation of what I think is the cause of it since I'm fascinated by things like this and should have taken psychology classes or something but I think instead I'll just stop writing now. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there an actual name for this proven by some psychologist somewhere? Oh well.

1:32EST-WED-2/7/2001

RANDOM LINK OF THE MOMENT! You can thank Julie for that one.

00:00EST-WED-2/7/2001

Rock on! This software is designed to stop your browser from continuously throwing up pop-up adds all the damned time. I'm going to install it when I get home because I've found that even Hotmail throws up a pop-up every once in a while too. Grrr... Even this afternoon while I was trying to talk to a co-worker and show him Pulp Phantom, the moment we closed the window we were confronted with three separate pop-ups with women sprawled all over the place being all turbo naked and stuff. Having that kind of stuff on your monitor at work can easily get you fired, even if it's just in your cache. Displeased is a mild word. Good thing I wasn't the one logged into the computer! :::insert childish mocking laughter here:::

21:02EST-TUE-2/6/2001

Party! It's been decided that the next party we're going to have will be on Saturday the 24th. This was the one weekend I could find that didn't have too many conflicts, like Solar. If you are invited, start planning your costume and stockpiling booze.

2:00EST-TUE-2/6/2001

Flavored condoms. Did you know that they make this stuff? I thought it was just supposed to be a joke that I didn't get the punch line to or something but at a recent trip (to the beach in fact) I found a machine that sold them. Curious, I felt that seventy five cents was a fair price for a novelty and especially since one of the four available flavors was banana! Oh, the hilarity! I didn't want to be in the same room as anyone who opened up one of the vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate condoms because the flavor was probably 80% olfactory and horribly replicated at that. Actually, on second thought I wouldn't want to be around when someone busted out one of the banana flavors either but I wanted one just to be funny. Just take a second to imagine the sight. Would you -really- want to eat it? What is the advantage of this? Safer oral sex that doesn't taste like you're chewing on a dog toy? If I was so paranoid about catching something then I wouldn't be there to begin with. I keep the package in my car right next to my smiley faced pirate ball. I have no intention of ever using it. Occasionally I glance at it and laugh. Best seventy five cents I've spent in a long time.

1:31EST-TUE-2/6/2001

I like our house. I was walking down the hallway some time last week or so and I noticed a bare spot on the wall and a Britney Spears milk add that had been torn from a magazine. The add showed her with a -really nice- pair of leather trousers, milk mustache, and she was flailing the bottle of milk around leaving a spectacular tail all over the place. I got my electrical tape out and plastered the add on the wall. The next day I had a flash back to Billy Madison and with sharpie in hand I started to compile the wall of people to kill. Billy Madison is on it. Everyone who comes over is invited to add a name or two. I listed Miss Cleo, hostess of the psychic tarot reading for white trash infomercials. I swear that it's the only commercial that comes on after 3am no matter what channel we have on. I'll be working on my computer and I will hear her come on and I can't help but turn up the volume on my headphones to try to drown her out with Front 242 or whatever else I have playing while I work. Lucas listed Mancow and Howard Stern. I know he listens to them secretly so I can't complain. I don't know if Patrick listed anyone but everyone else who comes by is more than happy to help list people. Zak, for example, listed the three of us. Figures. Anyway, how often do you get a chance to have such freedom over your surroundings that you can randomly paint your room a different color, knock out a wall, burn the carpet (oops), write on the walls, shoot guns indoors, or play darts?

00:38EST-TUE-2/6/2001

This is awesome! Well, at least I think it's kinda cool. I think Chuck sent it to me but I can't -quite- remember since it was a while back but it seems like the type of random cool stuff he can come up with when he's not busy trying to make everyone think he's a supreme prick. What a guy! Anyway, this is a quicktime show that praises the days of the legendary Atari 2600. I think it would be kinda cool to build a handheld device capable of playing all the old 2600 games. Wouldn't that rock? You could probably put every single game they ever made in one single ROM chip too so it would be a hell of a lot better than any crappy old gameboy. I can already tell that half of you don't understand. Sigh... Those of us who grew up on such great games as Space Invaders, Combat, and Berzerk know what I'm talking about. The only people more old skool than us would be our grandparents who would no doubt be all about telling us how much fun they had with all those spring loaded toys made from stamped tin or worse yet, a lump of coal. No wonder they liked working so much. Playtime must have been a real drag.

22:59EST-MON-2/5/2001

Check it out, I was tinkering around with Alxnet and found a cute fully customizable poll generator. I rather like the interface but I'm having a hell of a time getting the poll to come up. Maybe it's just my proxy. I'll keep working with it and see if I can beat it into submission. If you have an idea for a poll then just let me know and I'll consider it. I'll probably do it just for a chance to mess with the code some more but you never know when I might get lazy again and pretend to have mono or hepatitis B or something. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Don't get me wrong, most of the time I feel pretty productive. Then I go home. I tend to leave my productivity at the door when I walk in. I might make my way to the computer or I may not. I might pick up a book, I might play Armored Core 2 for a bit, I might burn several packs of ramen noodles until I make one that is edible and enjoy that for a while. Sooner or later, I make my way to the computer and either play a game, chat with my ever-growing buddy list, or fuss with Napster. That reminds me, I need to bring in the rest of my CDs so I can rip the 50 disks I have in my changer. That should either double or triple the library I've already ripped with the CDs I have laying around everywhere. You'll recognize my username when you see it. Simianjihad.

18:31EST-MON-2/5/2001

I can't believe I went bowling. Worse yet, I seemed to have gotten a lot better at it during our brief time there. Believe it or not, the place wasn't full of middle aged redneck guys with beer guts and league shirts. Then again, we were also there for what was called Galaxy Bowling or something. Around 8pm, a DJ started playing requests, a disco ball fired up (yeah!), black lights took over the task of the florescents, strobe lights, lasers, and just about anything else that could blink or flash was turned on. It reminded me of a disco but with less dancing and more hurling of eight pound spheres. I glanced around and was horrified to recognize two people I work with show up throughout the evening. One of them said he was a regular and the other appeared to be on a date. Instead of being full of beer guts and league shirts, the place was full of 14 year old teeny boppers. I kept expecting to find Courtney pop up somewhere. Anyway, Lucas thoroughly trashed Holly and I at bowling and then we went to rent a bunch of movies. Boiler Room is a kick-ass movie. I highly suggest it instead of our other choice of Me, Myself, and Irene. We now understand the controversy that surrounded this movie. Oh, speaking of the DJ at the alley, remind me to kill Holly. She requested that he play Bombs Over Baghdad. Now, the chorus is stuck in my head and not even the smurfs theme song or hampsterdance can save me. Death...

3:42EST-SUN-2/4/2001

Ah, today was a pretty groovy day full of relaxation and good fun. I woke up at 7pm and ran around with Lucas for the evening. We went to see Double Take and were impressed with the plot twists in the movie. Very nice. The only thing that would have made the evening more relaxing would have been having some really good BBQ. I don't know why, but I've been craving BBQ for the past hour or so and I am not one to ignore trivial cravings. If having something you want when you want it makes you happy, then go for it. I have random cravings all the time. Powdered donuts, a tall glass of milk, filet mignon, chicken parmesan, fish, ramen noodles (Beef flavor, of course), etc. This isn't limited to just foods, of course! If you want something else that would make you happy and you have a means of getting it, then by all means do so! Drive a little bit faster, say "hi" to someone cute, take a nap, hike, camp, go to Six Flags, rent a random B movie, go somewhere you'd rather be, whatever. Yes, I've become quite a hedonist since I was in the hospital and I've been a lot happier ever since because I've realized how much control over my own happiness I have as opposed to just about anyone else. Wait for something else to make you happy and it will probably never happen. Instant gratification is the name of the game. Don't like me or my philosophy? If disliking me makes you happy then my all means go right ahead.

0:37EST-SAT-2/3/2001

OH GOOD GOD NO!!!

19:32EST-FRI-2/2/2001

Living like kings in a rat-hole. I sat down and did the math this afternoon and realized that the three of us in the House of Free Luvin' (misnamed) make $5000/month in combined income. We pay $350 a month for rent and split everything three ways. After paying our cable modem, electric, water, and phone bills we typically have a couple hundred dollars left. Well, maybe a little bit more but not much. We've been living quite fat considering. I've talked before about all the modifications and improvements we have done to the house and we have grand plans for much more. We eat like kings, drive better than average vehicles (with the odd exception of Patrick who just keeps buying more and more $500 pieces of junk and then parking them all over the place or loaning them out), and spend money like we were hemorrhaging. Lucas is the only one who actually saves money. Patrick has collection agency assassins after him and I blow it all on trivial things like spontaneous trips to Hawai'i and new computer hardware. What with all this wonton spending, I have realized that we are yuppies. Young urban professionals. That's us. We don't drive beemers though, we prefer Toyotas. The TRD catalogs are our porn. I suppose that I might as well start my stock portfolio now. Well, maybe after repainting my car...

23:54EST-THU-2/1/2001

THE SOUP KITCHEN CHILI CONTAINS NARCOTICS! Well, maybe not but by the definition of the word it technically does. Shortly after enjoying a huge bowl of their spectacular chili (with chips and cheese of course) I can do nothing but lounge about rubbing my tummy and anxiously awaiting my next opportunity to enjoy this awesome meal. This urge typically lasts me for a day or more and it consumes all conscious thought. This destroys my productivity but restores my fervor and conviction to various things besides. In fact, I've stopped buying it in single servings. I always get one for then, and one for later that day when I invariably want it again. I had my two bowls yesterday and it's been well over 24 hours since my last serving and that's all I want again. I can remember when I just had one bowl a month or two and the desire to have more kept getting stronger and stronger. Soon I was having several bowls a month. I am now up to two bowls a week and my ferocious craving will probably rise to three bowls or more within the next week if I can't maintain self-control. Surely there is some kind of support group for freaks like me. Isn't there? Help...