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08.01.02 :: 09:39
How is it August already? Where did July go! Oi oi o.O;
Took the Shark Port 2 to the mall yesterday to see if they could replace the PS2 boot disc that wasn't working. (The center of the disc was warped. No way it'd work). They swapped it out and the Shark Port 2 is working like a dream now =) Mwahaha. And speaking of h4x0ring things. This article talks a bit about using a Dreamcast to hack firewalled networks.
08.01.02 :: 21:07
Here's another interesting gaming link. It's an article talking about how gamers can enter an intense state of concentration / mediation that is comparable to that of Buddhist monks and professional athletes. I think they're on the right track with this line of thinking because I've experienced it. Like when playing Tetris, I can get so into the game that it practically plays itself. I'm not even really thinking about the next move, I'm just *doing* it.
I did a bit of work on the gaming portions of Centra Garden this evening. Uploaded Shark Port 2 save files =D Now I need to scavenge my friends' cards if they'll let me so that I can expand my collection ^^;;
I also found out today that the people who might hire me (that I interviewed with a couple days ago) were "highly impressed". [grins] I've been told that they want to hire me, they just haven't made an offer and they haven't assessed my technical skill yet. But still, continued employment, wai!! (Though, if Microsoft or Nintendo Power want to make me an offer, I'm still quite willing to consider it ;)
08.02.02 :: 07:46
Elf and I watched the first 4 episodes of Princess Nine last night. He was dubious, especially after encountering Izumi ^^; I also didn't realize that he didn't know many of the rules of baseball ^^;
I'm sorta maybe kinda ready to go to the wedding. I have to do a bit of running around after work to pick up all the things I need (like the tux I rented and socks). Then we'll be hopping into the car and driving for 8+ hours along windy coastal roads to get there o.O; [Must remember to pack Dramamine!] Yeah, so I'll be gone for a couple days. No blog entries until I return late Sunday or Monday =]
08.04.02 :: 19:32
Note to self for future reference: Overnight driving for long trips sucks, don't do it. That's the lesson Elf and I learned this morning as we returned home from Adam's wedding. We left at around 7pm - 7:30pm-ish and didn't arrive until 4am o.O; Half the problem is that I didn't know *how* to return except for the general "we need to go north". ^^; I also didn't know for certain what roads were closed due to wild fires. The route we took ended up being a jig-jagging across northern California :P We took highway 20, 101, 299, 3, and finally I-5 for the last 40 miles :P
At Eureka (along 101) I asked if there was an easy way to cut to I-5 from there. The service station guy gruffly said that I could try taking 297 from Crescent City, but he didn't know if it was closed or not. When going through town I spotted a sign that pointed the way to Redding, which is along I-5. So we took that route knowing that we'd eventually hit the Interstate. Along the way we stopped at a rest area to stretch and saw a map that pointed out Highway 3 to us. We figured it'd cut a good hour off the trip 'cause it met up with I-5 further along the way. (There was also a sign there warning about scorpions o.O; We didn't stay for long).
Another note for future reference, avoid Highway 3 o.o; That was the most twisty, winding, can't go faster than 10MPH 'cause of the 180 degree switchbacks it makes, road I have ever driven in my life. I can't say this for sure of Elf, but with it being pitch black at 2am, that road scared the living shit out of me.
Anyhow... About the wedding itself, it was great ^^ It was held at a botanical gardens on the coast, very pretty. Mare looked gorgeous *_* I can't put into words how great she looked in her dress. Adam was also looking rather dapper himself, but he's one of those people who can look cool wearing a bathrobe if that's all he had. I hadn't seen Adam's mother or sister in a long time, nor had I ever met his biological father. So it was a treat to get to see the family again :)
Random footnote: When I spell checked this entry "jig-jagging" wasn't in the dictionary, so it offered "jackasses" as a correction :P
Random footnote 2: This month I'm counting viruses from *all* my mail accounts, not just my main one. Watch the virus count go through the roof, baby...
08.05.02 :: 04:50
I had a kind of neat dream just now. I dreamt that I was qualifying to go to the Olympics, but I wasn't going in the event I'd done in previous years (ballroom dancing.. I did it because I knew others wouldn't and it'd be easy to get in). I was going to try to qualify in the short story writing event.
LeVar was driving me there. He'd qualified to go in some other event (I don't remember which). There was this 5-year-old who had already qualified for the short story writing. He was a protege. We were late to the testing and the 20 minutes I was allowed to write were almost up, but I wasn't worried. Sean was also there trying to qualify for a spot.
The proctor for the test was like, "So you're the famous Greenbeans, eh? I still want to see what you can do. Grab a pencil and sit down." He didn't give me a topic to write on like he'd given the boy and Sean. Just 20 minutes to go for it. I wrote about how I had to take this goofy test just to qualify for the Olympics. I hated the pencil I was using to write with. (I've used mechanical pencils since high school and using normal ones annoys me unless they're *really* sharpened).
Anyhow, after the test he took the single sheet from me and pulled out a pen to begin to shred it. (Sean and the boy had come up with a couple few pages each). When he was finished my story was no longer a page, but a half page (he crossed out a lot). He then handed it back to me and said there was potential and that I was in. The boy was already accepted. Sean had breezed in as well without the proctor even looking at his story. (How did Sean get in *that* easily? He must've had connections).
It was a shame I had to wake up... I was going to the Olympics in the event of short story writing... :)
08.05.02 :: 07:20
Woot! I love my brain's ability to resume a dream if I'm really interested in it ^^ Yep, I plopped back into my Olympic short story dream a bit after where I left off. The competition had already taken place and we were waiting for the results. I found out that there were 1200 entries from the US alone, so I wasn't holding my breath. I went to hang out in the athletes' quarters and more or less ignore the closing ceremonies.
The president of the US team was making some comments about the short story competition amongst talking about more important things like swimming. He gave the US props for having so many entrants, and then gave me props in particular because I'd won the bronze medal o.O! I didn't even know it until I heard his comments. Apparently there wasn't a medal ceremony for us, but they still gave us medals.
When I woke up this morning I had a big ass cheesy grin on my face ^^ It was definitely one of those "in your dreams" type dreams, but it was still good.
08.05.02 :: 08:28
Today is going to be a heavy blog day, I can tell already ^^;
When I was walking into work from the back lot today a different person stopped me this time to have a few words with me. It was an old woman who lived in the apartments behind the lot. She asked me if I knew who owned a vehicle that had been in the lot over the weekend. I wonder if I look like a lot boy and just don't realize it? ^^; I advised her to speak with the building manager if she was concerned. Speaking with me wasn't going to get her very far ^^;
I was promoted to a moderator on Final Evolution yesterday =] I'll try to do the job well. [nods] Right now I'm hoping / trying to keep a thread from turning into a flame war on Final Fantasy Mages. The webmaster of a site that shall remained unnamed stole some content from FFM's webmaster and then he went to the forums and has been mixing it up with the members. I just posted a long message to remind them to not feed the trolls ^^;
08.06.02 :: 13:02
I slept entirely too much (no, not really, but still)... I called in to work today and then went back to bed and slept. I was like a rock for 12 hours, woot. Irresponsible of me, yes, but... Oi... I'm irresponsible at times. Why do I always have to be the one to be responsible? I've been asking myself that a lot lately. Must think on it s'more...
08.07.02 :: 10:01
I'm slightly annoyed (actually, a lot) today. Hollie scolded me for missing a phone call 'cause it's "not PJ's job to do it". Well, last I check, it *was*. B'sides that, I'm glad to know that such troublesome ideals as 'co-operation' and 'helping each other' are being firmly stomped out. I shouldn't be sarcastic since it's not Hollie's or PJ's fault that they were told to not co-operate. I just tend to think that such things are silly.
My tech interview is tomorrow... and I'm having a hard time caring about it. I have to work all day Friday. I knew it was going to happen (had a feeling it would) so I'm not bothered by it. Hollie says she usually goes home around 3pm on Friday, but that doesn't mean I will. In fact, I'm probably the on call tech this weekend which means I won't be finished until 8pm. Blech. No wonder I'm so lethargic about work :P
I discovered yesterday just how *easy* it is to pass myself off as my mother to Qwest. (I wanted to take call waiting off the phone line to the house that I never use and my parents won't let me cancel :P ). Anyhow, I was doing pretty well on getting what I wanted until the guy asked me for the last 4 digits of my (mom's) SSN. I don't know that ¬.¬; Hehe, so I demured and said that I really didn't feel comfortable giving my SSN out, but was there any other information I could give him instead? Giving him my address was enough to convince him and he transferred me to the lady who took the call waiting off. Idiots :P
I shouldn't be hard on Qwest since I've done the same thing to Charter as well. When I ordered cable Internet it was as my mother. When the installer came out to set it up he asked where she was. I fed him a line about my parents being out, but leaving me behind to greet him. So I signed for it instead of her ^^; I figure as long as the companies get their money each month, they don't care where it comes from (or that all the checks have my name on it and her account number).
I would change the accounts over to my name, but I'm not willing to go that far yet. Not until I'm absolutely certain that she'll never come back. The day I take all of the accounts out of her name is the day I've given up hope that she'll snap out of it, y'know?
Which HP Kid Are You?
08.07.02 :: 16:42
Ha! Medford is in the Onion. And gee.. how did they know about Pepper...
Family Dog Barking At Evil
MEDFORD, OR—Spraggles, the Reid family's terrier, was barking at evil again Monday, his canine instincts detecting the presence of an unseen sinister force. "What on Earth is he carrying on about?" asked owner Ed Reid, watching Spraggles bark at a hall closet. "There's nothing in that closet but Grandma's old wedding gown and a hammer." Spraggles then headed to the backyard to bark at more evil, this time in the form of a newspaper page swirling in the wind.
08.08.02 :: 07:54
Why is it that the one day I can't go out wearing a cap is the day my hair decides to defy gravity and stubbornly stand on end? I was nearly late to work because of my efforts to beat it down and "look good". Usually looking good isn't a problem. Since I'm a naturally cool person it naturally does cool things ;) (just kidding). In short, I had to take the beat down comb to my hair today before it'd behave.
I was having a hard time remembering the command line for using ff8find.exe last night (it's a program that let's you extract the movies off of the PSX FF8 discs) so I went to Google. The top 10 sites that it hit upon were in Spanish, Japanese, and French o.O; Uh, I'll take Spanish for $200, Alex. Actually, my ability to read Spanish isn't that bad. I can get by at the very least and I learned some interesting things from that site about quirks with ff8find and PAL format discs ^^ (North American ones are NTSC so it doesn't affect me, but it was still informative). Then I stuck around for a bit reading FF8 fanfiction... then I realized I was being a goober (I don't read many English FF8 fics, why was I reading a Spanish one?) and skipped off to use ff8find ^^;
Elf's probably going to end up being here until Sunday or so =/ I don't mind him staying (he doesn't pull energy from me like most other people), but I feel bad that he's been delayed a week in returning home. I was going to take him home on Friday since I usually get off at 11am, but I have to cover for Lincoln... I won't be finished until 8pm =/
We've been making good use *cough* of his time here. We watched most of the Princess Nine DVDs that I have. (We stopped after the first episode on DVD 5 since that wraps things up nicely with no cliffhangers until DVD 6 comes out). When I'm at work he's been spending a fair amount of time playing War Craft III. He got his 100th win yesterday. He thought it'd give him a new icon, but it didn't. You should have seen the perturbed look on his face when he found out that he needed *250* wins for the next icon o.O He's stubborn enough that he'd do it too!
He's also played some 10-odd hours into FFX. I won't say that he won't get far 'cause I've learned by now that Elf will darn well do what he pleases despite what anyone tells him or the game designers intended... but it's going to be a long game ^^; He wouldn't give up until he won the game against the Luca Goers. He played in Blitzball tourneys with the Aurochs (he refuses to recruit anyone else, not even Shuu ¬.¬ ) until he won Wakka's Attack Reels. Now he's terrorizing the monsters of the Mi'ihen Highroads until he has enough money to pay O'aka and the Crusaders guard $10,000 gil each. I feel sorry for Sin. Sin should fear the Elf that's coming after it.
08.08.02 :: 13:18
The interview went pretty well. We spent about 20 minutes discussing my education and experience, then we played 'pepper' for another 20 minutes or so. ("What would you do if the customer had this problem?" "What steps would you take to speed up a slow connection?" etc.) They didn't ask anything that I couldn't have rattled off on my sleep. I breezed right through that part ^^v After that we spoke about random things. The entire interview took around an hour, not too bad.
If I get the job I will have to commute the 30+ miles a day, but their earliest shift starts at 8am. I could probably sneak in an extra half hour of sleep ^^; Also, one of the guys that interviewed me is a fan of Final Fantasy ^^ And the only one he hadn't played was VIII :P
I almost thought it was my lucky day at Jack in the Box today. I went there with dad and there *wasn't* a massive line of cars outside the drive through. We pulled up to the window and I ordered 3 cheeseburger and a large fry. When I go to the window the woman tried to hand me a large sprite. I told her that I wanted a fry, not a sprite. She muttered a bit and went to get the large fry. After handing the bag to me she told me to read the little screen to confirm my order. I suggested that she leave the order up on the screen long enough for someone to read it before hitting the total button. (I do read the screens so that I can confirm that they noted to make my burgers plain ¬.¬ ) But she'd clicked it to the total screen before I could read to that line. Oh well. A cup + Sprite costs them about $0.07 (if that much). So they didn't lose much by the mistake. Especially since I'd wanted a product that was close to the same price. One of these days I'll get smart and stop eating there :P
08.08.02 :: 14:31
Because of some recent encounters with ill informed customers, I feel the need to rant on a couple matters. First and foremost: THE INTERNET IS NOT FREE! Or, more precisely, your $~20 a month that you pay for a dial up account or $~50 for a cable account doesn't even *begin* to cover the cost of your Internet service. Want to know how much those services cost for 1 person (just for the dialup line, we're not talking electricity, equipment, or personnel to maintain it); around $1500 a month.
Yep, dial up services work financial because of the concept of *sharing*. The average dial up customer is only online for about an hour a week total (really! It surprised the heck outta me when I looked through the server logs). The same goes for bandwidth. I think people with cable are a bit more mindful of this one because of how it's allocated. If one person in the neighborhood is sucking it up, than everyone else is going to have a slow connection. (I think college students living in dorms understand this concept *very* well).
So why am I ranting about stuff people already know? Because there are people out there who apparently *DON'T* know it! The City of Ashland put in a cable network; a pretty cool idea IMO, but people abuse it. I spoke with a man yesterday who bragged about running a dial up ISP via his cable modem connection. The city hadn't capped his upstream because it was a community resource. (Well, they *hadn't* capped him until the found out he was abusing it..). So he's paying $25 a month for his cable service and making who knows how much from people who want to dial into the router he set up. His connection certainly didn't *COST* $25 a month. That's just what he was charged because he's sharing it with other cable modem customers. And because he's sharing the connection with people who *aren't* chipping in, he's not only profiting off of the people who dial up through him but stealing from his neighbors. If he lived next door to me and I knew he was doing that I would've been on his doorstep demanding that he knock it the hell off.
Can you just imagine how his neighbors must have felt. Getting a really slow connection on their cable modems when there's only a handful of people on he node. They could call the city and ask what was wrong and the city would say that they're using up their allocated bandwidth. And then they find out that it's really the 5 cable users plus 100 dial up users... I'd be furious --; (Those aren't the actual numbers, mind you, but you can see what I mean).
But that's not the only hording of resources I've had to deal with recently. A customer's mail account was put on hold when we found out his was sending 10,000 emails twice a week. Despite trying to explain to him how this was spam, he didn't see how it was "hurting" anyone. Let me give you a list:
- It bogs down the server so that *other peoples'* emails don't get sent out as quickly (or at all if he overloads the server and the queue has to be cleared out to get the system going again).
- Anti-spam mailing lists see that his address is at @ourdomain.com and add that entire domain to their blocking list. Then Joey's grandma can't send him emails anymore 'cause his ISP subscribes to the blocking service that added @ourdomain.com to their shit list.
- I sincerely doubt that every one of those 10,000 people he was mailing twice a week knew him personally. Thus he was mass mailing. Thus when you get into that high of numbers with mass mailing list you can assume there is a percentage that *doesn't* want to be receiving messages from him. Thus he's spamming.
- There have been recent studies posted up on News.com about how much money companies lose annually to spam (and the employee time lost because they have to wade through it). If any of those email accounts are work ones (a safe assumption that more than one of them is), do you think their employer appreciates losing money because of him?
Email is not free and spamming is not cheap. Only for the spammers is it cheap because they don't have to pay for the consequences. I want *THEM* to pay for all the hours I've put in over the last 3 years explaining to people how to block their crap. I want *THEM* to reimburse me for the number of times I've had to hit the delete key just to separate the wheat from the chaff. I want the ISP I work for to be compensated for the bandwidth that has been wasted on propagating the sludge they've passed through our pipes!
Anyhow, the point of this rant (and yes, I do have one) is that I'm tired of people being inconsiderate of my time, my share of the bandwidth, my money, and, in short, being a bunch of selfish pigs. Just because you pay $20 towards something that starts at $1500 does not give you the right to abuse it however you wish. Sure, everyone's going to download some MP3s or movies from time to time, but you don't have to do it 24/7. And even that's better than selling bandwidth that DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU!
*ahem* Now I've probably offended all my friends who have cable and have downloaded lots of anime ^^; I don't know any of you to abuse it to the degree that I've seen some customers do it ._.; But when going on downloading binges, please be considerate of the people in your node. Don't do it during the evening rush hour. Queue it up and do it during off-peak hours y'know? You'll save some poor techie a few calls, eh?
08.09.02 :: 07:37
Elf and I watched the Parasite Eve movie last night. Heh ^^; Y'know it's bad when Elf stops whapping me for making smart ass comments and starts making them himself before the movie's half over. After the movie Elf was having a sour stomach. Hehehehehe... I kept making comments that were in reference to Mariko's plight and he'd turn pink ^^; I was definitely doing some heavy teasing last night ^^
When I got off work yesterday I went down to my mom's shop to tell her how the interview had went. Dad showed up and we all went to dinner =] I learned some good things and some bad things from talking with my folks. And I scored a s'mores pie. All and all I'd say it was a good thing.
This morning there were a bunch of hot air balloons in the air. I especially liked the panda head shaped one. It was cute :)
08.10.02 :: 00:54
Pepper's on crack tonight, there's no other way to describe her behavior all evening. When Elf was playing FFX she insisted on laying on my bed. The second we stopped doing that she followed us out to the kitchen. She's been coming to sit by my chair (and I assume Elf's as well). She's been asking to go outside every 5 minutes (no joke. I'd let her out and 5 minutes later Elf would let her out 'cause she was sitting by the door waiting). I played with her for a bit. While we played it was the most intense I've seen her, and I was kinda wondering if she'd take it too far and bite me. Then just as quickly she mellowed out and sulked off to Elf for more attention. I've done everything short of whapping her upside the head with a mallet to make her chill out. [Watches her come flying into the hallway then screech to a halt and lay down by her door.] Uh, on second thought, lemme go get that mallet...
08.10.02 :: 12:04
I got a lot of sleep o.O; Like... yesterday I got off work and then went home and was planning on laying down for a bit before doing the first round of tech calls... 3 hours later I woke up and tech hours were nearly over. I'll have to do a lot of apologizing today ^^; Then I went to bed at 1am last night and woke up at noon today.
I know I dreamt a lot last night, and I woke up several times with cold sweats, but I'm not sure *why*. None of the dreams I had were intense or scary. If anything they were mundane. I'm wearing the same type of pajamas that I always do (jammie bottoms and a t-shirt). Same sheets and blanket... Maybe it's Pepper that's making me hot or something. She's *still* sleeping on me. I kick her off and next time I wake up she's cuddled right up next to me again.
I taught Elf how to make English muffin pizzas last night. They're pretty easy to make and there's a low chance that I could kill myself with it or anything =] We have a movie to watch tonight. Some kung fu flick called "Shaolin Soccer" or something like that. Elf's seen it before and says I should as well.
08.10.02 :: 19:46
W00t!! I binged on FFX this afternoon / evening while on call. (It works out nicely, hit pause when a call comes in and keep going after the customer's taken care of). But almost no one called today. After 4:30pm I didn't get another call and I was on until 7pm =D
I have some new thoughts / observations about FFX after spending way too much time going around trying to capture monsters for that ungrateful sloth in the Arena:
- Rikku is a teenager. How come she's never gone up to Cid and whined, "Daaaad! It's so laaaaaame when you say "Yeehaw! Here we go!" when you go some where. Won't you cut it ouuuuut! [stamps foot] You're making me look stuuuupid in front of Yunie and her frieeeends!"
- I still haven't figured out Magic Urns, 'cause every time I *do* think I have them figured out they 'break' the pattern ¬.¬ I think I've at least figured out part of the order 'gifts' are given in: Phoenix Down, Elixir, and Stamina Tablet.
- I think that if you guess right the first time, then Flee, the next time you fight the Magic Urn it will start off with the next 'gift' that you can get. So over the course of 3 battles you can get the Stamina Tablet. That or it was completely random and I'm on crack.
08.10.02 :: 22:41
"It's the awesomest movie!" Elf's told me repeatedly. 'Awesomest', when pronounced with that certain dubious tone of voice, could mean anything from 'cool' to 'I know this will break your brain into a million little pieces.' Shaolin Soccer is both of those extremes and everything in the middle.
The people who created this film realized that no one was going to take it seriously and so they didn't either. It isn't Loaded Weapon type of humor, but that's the closest thing I would compare it to. My favorite part of the movie was when the striker for the Shaolin team (after being beaten to the ground by the opposing team) was crawling around.. and then bullets started whizzing by him.. and he put on a helmet.. and he picked up a gun and started shooting.. and then he was snaking under some barbed wire.. and then his coach smacked him to snap him out of his daydream ^o^
08.11.02 :: 16:55
Yay, Sunday! Sunday's one of my favorite days of the week because I get to rest ^^ Hmm.. naps ^^ Wathcing sports (NASCAR) ^^ and playing video games (FFX) ^^
Anyhow, I was woken up this morning by the sound of the lawn being mowed o.O; I got up and discovered that my dad had come over to do it. This is extremely surprising because he *never* comes over to mow the yard unless I've been nagging him to do it for at least 2 weeks prior. I hadn't even started to ask yet. The yard could have used a trim, but it wasn't *that* bad. Could have gone another week or so without one, but he just up and came over to do it ^^
He said he came over to watch the auto race and mowing the yard was his justification to mom to get out of the apartment ^^; I'll probably be seeing more of him over the next month 'cause the next 4 races are being broadcast on upper channels that he doesn't get at mom's (she doesn't have cable). He has to come over to the house if he wants to see 'em ;)
I seem to be offering a lot of computer advice today ^^; I hope it helps. I continue to be jaded when it comes to answering the on call support questions (on call tech today). Don't these people realize that a *person* checks the messages? Another living breathing human with feelings. I bet people wouldn't say half the crap to my face that they're perfectly willing to spew on the message machine. Y'know what the calls that I like the best are? Name, phone number, brief description of problem. That's it. I don't need your account history (I can look it up), I don't need a rant about how I never return calls (I do. Do they ever check their messages?), etc. Blech. People are stupid :P
08.12.02 :: 09:10
Oi, last night was not pleasant. I went to bed early enough (before 11pm), but I didn't sleep. I kept tossing and turning until 3:30am or so. I tried resting on the couch with moderate success. Every time I would start to doze off a jolt of crampy-pain would shoot through my legs. I don't know what that was about. It didn't start to do that until midnight or so and then kept it up whenever I'd get comfortable.
Anyhow, between the tossing and turning I did manage to wedge a dream in there. I dreamt that I was in a gymnasium like the one in my grade school (carpeted floor). I was sleeping on the floor with a pillow and a sheet. I woke up and was like "Huh? Why am I here?" I leaned up and saw my brother sitting in the bleachers with some of his friends. There were several other people in the gym puttering around and trying to get some rest. I asked my brother why he wasn't sleeping and he told me that he didn't have any bedding and wouldn't soil his clothes by sleeping on the floor. I pulled out a sleeping bag and pillow and offered those to him. He still didn't want to stretch out on the floor and sleep, so I offered the pillow to someone who needed it.
It was then that I finally took notice of my surroundings. The people who were in the gym were just common folk. I got the feeling that we were all in this gym because we were refugees from some disaster. But there were also police at the doors, and they wouldn't let anyone by. We were as much prisoners as refugees. Then a large group of officers came in and started roughing people up. They pulled people out of the gym to search them. There were women crying, children screaming, etc.
I tried to ignore them and go back to sleep. Two officers towered over my piece of carpet and demanded that I stand up and be searched. Alright... I got to my feet and it was like an aura of power was exuded from me. I WAS NOT afraid of them and because of that they were afraid of ME.
They sprayed me down with this stuff and then pulled me aside to search me. I knew both of the officers as casual acquaintances, so that's the tone I maintained during the search. I pulled out all the stuff in my bag and let them look through it. Then I carefully laid out the contents of my pockets: 2 8-piece strings of Subway stamps, a pocketwatch, a wristwatch, and miscellaneous other things. One officer counted my Subway stamps and somehow I'd ended up with 23 of them. I lightly commented that I must have had more than I thought. He then asked me to hand over my wristwatch, which I did before realizing that it was already laying on the floor. Now two identical wristwatches were laying next to each other.
This search wasn't boding well for me. Y'know how the dryer sometimes eats socks or things just up and disappear? Well, the people in the gym were having the opposite problem. They were finding a missing item multiple times, which was causing a paradox. There was no way I should have two identical watches or that many Subway stamps.
"You know this isn't good," one of the officers whispered to me in an undertone. He didn't want to 'take me away' (he still feared me). "The watch will go away," I assured. "It won't!" The other answered. "It will if you let it," was my response. I woke up at that point scratching the back of my head at such an odd dream ^^;
08.12.02 :: 21:43
Oi... Went to bed early, trying to sleep, but I'm too hot and Pepper won't stop snoring [kicks her off the bed]. I'm keeping you in my prayers, Sean. I hope you recover quickly and aren't in pain for too long =| Pisces6 made a couple nifty LJ icons for me to use. W00t! =D (And she taught me a couple Photoshop tricks of how she made them ^^ I'm becoming a smarter bean!)
 
08.13.02 :: 09:29
Pepper and I need to have a serious talk about sleeping arrangements. [sleepy bean] She cannot take her half of the bed out of the middle! And I am *so* not sleeping with a dog who snores ¬.¬ I know that there were coyotes outside last night. How do I know that? Because Pepper's snoring woke me up, not their barking and howling, her snoring.
08.14.02 :: 08:48
NOTE: This post is *all* FFX. So if you don't care you can skip it ^^;
Swoooooooooooons. Hot damn I like that dress ^^; And no, just because I like the dress doesn't mean I'd wear it. I have enough fashion sense to know what I wouldn't look good in and that dress is one of those things ¬.¬; But damn Yuna's hot *_*!!
I've been spending a lot of time piddling around with the FFX save game lately (the one that I finished the game with that I had the characters built up in). When I started messing around with it, the save was at 65 hours and the characters were beefy enough to go through the last dungeon easily and finish the game. Anyhow... I've been piddling around doing the side quests that I didn't bother to do in the first place (unlocking the Ultimate Weapons, finding some rare items, capturing monsters, etc). I've come to a couple of conclusions:
- The Chocobo the lady gives me for racing sucks. I think it has a bad foot or something 'cause it keeps swerving around. I want *her* bird to race with... ¬.¬
- I make a damn good lightning rod.
- Kimahri can be his own sissy-man if he expects me to chase any more butterflies on his behalf.
- Cactaurs are little pricks that won't let me touch 'em. (A complaint that sounds really bad unless you know the context ^^; )
I should thank the Cactaurs. They've helped me refine my video game insulting technique. "I'll shove your "Loser's Sphere" where you'll never find it again you little green menace!" *Finishing* the Cactaur challenge isn't that hard. I just need 9 spheres; be it the ones you get for beating the Cactaur or the "Loser's Sphere". But I don't want to lose to the Cactaurs, so I have to keep reloading ^^; I can get a Friendship Sphere out of the lil buggers if I bring back 8 or 9 of the named spheres. I don't really *need* a Friendship Sphere -- I've got a few already -- but it's the principle of the matter!
I also don't need to be playing this game :P I've already beaten it to death, but there are still things that I can do ^^; I'll probably never get the Ultimate Weapons unlocked... But that doesn't stop me for going around trying to get every character every type of Overdrive charge. Currently I'm trying to teach Yuna the Hero charge ^^; (I already taught her Warrior and Slayer). She's not likely to use *any* of those charge methods when I'm playing 'for real'... but just the idea of my healer having the ability to charge using the 'violent' methods tickled my fancy ^^
I'm also well on my way towards sending every character all around the Sphere Grid. None of them have 9999HP or 999MP yet, but I'm getting pretty close with Auron and Yuna (respectively). Kimahri flat out sucks, even this far into the game and after all the building I've done. Lesson learned: Don't try to be cute and send him down Lulu's track first. He makes a horrible black mage ^^; I wish you could feed the characters extra Power / Mana / Speed spheres like you can to the Aeons. That's probably the only way I could fill Kimahri's stats out :P
My Aeons are also looking quite beefy. I've been feeding them a boatload of spheres. I've gotten so many while kicking around Bikanel(sp?) Island chasing Cactaurs. Oh! I also noticed that the FFX guidebook tells you to go to Sanubia Sands to do the Cactaur side quest, but that's just a hidden area. It's the Island that you want to go to. Yeah, I know they're right next to each other so it's no big deal, but it annoys me that the book has it in this big header and it's the wrong map location ^^; My 'correcting' of the FFX guidebook is coming along nicely as well ;) If I ever sell it back to the game store I should ask for twice the standard price 'cause of all the extra information I've written in there. Even Elf was making use of my notes 'cause the book left important things out (like how to get Valefor's second Overdrive when you're still in Besaid).
08.14.02 :: 16:19
I found this article today that was interesting. It talks about the Media Giants (AOL-tachi) and who really controls the web. At the very least, read page 3. I found it inspiring ;)
08.14.02 :: 20:44
I try to be a community minded bean. When it comes to my purchasing habits I purposefully try to buy products from local merchants first, then national chain merchants with stores here (since the store may be a franchise with a local owner), and finally, if I can't find it anywhere else, I'll look on the net. But sometimes it just doesn't pay off o.O; I wanted to get 3 DVDs (Love Hina 4, Mini-Goddesses: Skuld Files, and Hellsing 1). The only place here that sells anime is a national chain (Suncoast). To get them from there it was $90. I went to Suncoast's website and looked up the same DVDs. It was $70.49 for 'em, plus no shipping and handling.
Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just give up on my anime habit. I dunno, it's like... I don't feel like I'm getting enough value out of the DVDs y'know? Like paying $25 for a DVD that I'm going to be the only one to watch (likely once or twice). I get more value out of games for the money... The series that seem to get watched the most often (by me and my friends), oddly enough, are the really cheap ones like Battle Athletes Victory and Princess Nine. I've seen BAV all the way through 3 - 4 times now (usually in binges ^^; ) I dunno... maybe I'm greedy or I expect too much, but I'd like to be entertained for more than 2 hours for $25. Even going to the theatre to see a movie is cheaper than that...
08.15.02 :: 07:50
Here's my dream from last night:
I dreamt about a country in which the ruler had recently died. It was a theological-esque ran country since the ruler was primarily a spiritual one. There were 5 acolytes who went on a pilgrimage to become members of the new ruler's court. They all felt it was part of their destiny to serve the new ruler.
It worked like this: each one of them had an animal they were training to 'be like'. When they got to the end of their journey they would perform a ceremony where it would be determined what animal they would actually become. The animals represented different desirable traits like wisdom, courage, etc. So by having the power to become that animal it was believed that they'd also have that trait, thus making them perfect for the court. There was no guarantee that they'd attain the goal of becoming an animal or turn into the animal they were studying for. If they were extremely lucky (or, perhaps, unlucky) they would turn into the new ruler. Yep, this ceremony is also how the ruler was chosen. Instead of turning into an animal, the person would have the Uber Powers, which included a spell that could Forever Change The World.
Of the acolytes, the only animal-type I remember clearly is one wanting to become a wolf. And when they became the animal it wasn't in a true shapeshifting sense. It looked more like they put on an animal costume with a place cut in the hood for their face to stick through ^^; Anyhow...
The personalities of the acolytes in my dream were complete arch types. There was a fox-like clever one, a really violent aggressive one, the devious scheming one, and the sweet and childlike-innocent one. And of course the devious one did something to knock the innocent one out of the pilgrimage because he knew that she'd become the next ruler even though the other 3 didn't see such leadership qualities in her.
It ended up that only those 3 other ones made it to the ceremony to see if they'd become animals. They were all transformed as they expected, but none of them were the ruler. The devious guy was still lurking about and was going to transform as well. Then the spirit of one of the previous rulers appeared to the innocent one and told her that she didn't have to be at the physical ceremony site to actually do the ceremony. She could do it where she was. So she did and turned into the ruler with the Uber Powers. The spirit told her that she had the power to Forever Change The World. Did she want to use it? She considered it and weighed what sort of threat the devious one was to the rest of the world if he was allowed to run free. She decided to use the powers.
The girl transformed and then zoomed around the locations in the dream (everyone got to see her in all her glory). During this zooming around the spirit explained that the power to Forever Change The World worked a bit differently than you'd expect. It allowed the ruler to go back into time and *delete* a single day from ever happening. Meaning, entirely delete it, like from the calendar (perhaps that's how February got to be so short? o.O ) The girl deleted the day that the devious man was born from ever existing.
The consequence of using this power is that everyone had to go back to that point in time and repeat life, in short. (They didn't realize it, of course, but that's what was happening. They were replaying events only without the guy there). When it came to transforming and the pilgrimage, the girl didn't turn into the ruler the second time around. Why not? Because it wasn't her destiny to be the ruler. There's no such thing as destiny. But there is such a thing as rising to the occasion during a crisis. That's how she'd been selected the first time.
08.15.02 :: 11:04
Money-grubbing, frivolous lawsuits tick me off --;
This may be terribly insensitive of me, but some things deserve mockery... What on God's green earth do the 9/11 families think they're going to accomplish by suing Saudi Arabia, the bin Laden family, etc.? Do they really think that bankrupting bin Laden's family is going to stop *him*? How is it *their* fault that their brother is a terrorist? And for a trillion dollars?! Are the families off their rockers?!
While we're blanketing the 'blame' let's sue Boeing for making airplanes in the first place. There could have never been a 9/11 without those! And let's sue the hospitals that delivered the men who grew up to be terrorists. If they weren't born, they couldn't have committed those horrible acts!
Y'know, I think Canada should sue the US for misrepresenting it as the 51st state. And Europe should sue the US for allowing the explorers to bring tobacco over from North America. Tobacco related illness has undoubtedly cost them billions of Euros. Let's blame every person for every problem that we can even vaguely tie them to and see how much we can squeeze out of them!
08.15.02 :: 21:00
I know that I've said this multiple times in multiple places, but I think it's a point that can't be emphasized enough: The Bible will mean whatever you want it to mean. And that *does* include cynical people who go dredging through the histories looking for every unsavory tale they can find to "prove" that Christians are evil. Well, y'know what, history is full of bastards and that includes Christian history. So, go ahead, feel good about yourself for knowing the 'truth' about how 'bad' the Bible is. Congratulations for going to the bother of sorting out the 'evidence' you needed.
Now how about we get back to the point. The Bible is a book of history, but it also a book of principles. Many of the principles discussed in it are from 2,000 years ago. *GASP!* You mean Christians aren't allowed to grow over 2,000 years? Well then, let's apply that standard to everyone else, eh? If we did that then the people of the US from this generation should still believe that blacks should be enslaved because they're animals that are too stupid to take care of themselves. Hmmm..? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't seem to hear anyone expressing those opinions except for a few morons who haven't grown up yet.
Yes, I fully admit that the Bible is a violent, sexist, and racist book. But so is history when you look at it. I don't believe that Germans today still think that Jews should be slaughtered like they were during the Holocaust. I don't think it's fair that cynics say Christianity is a 'bad' religion because of its history. History is where you've been, and I'd certainly hope that after 2,000 years we still wouldn't be there.
08.16.02 :: 21:19
After all the ranting I've done over the last couple days I'm left with little motivation to blog today ^^; It's been an all around waste of a day. I don't think I took 3 calls at work today. (I was trying to catch the phone but Nick kept beating me to it and when I did get it they wanted to speak with him anyways :P )
I took a 4 hour nap this afternoon (I hadn't slept much last night and had seriously considered just staying up until I got off work today). Let's see... I've also been rereading BSSO. I've been feeling somewhat nostalgic about fics that I really enjoyed reading. (All of them came out years ago ^^; )
08.17.02 :: 01:10
This amused me greatly. Thanks for sharing the link Pixle. As someone who interacts with customers on a daily basis and a game lover, this was great ^^ (It also distracted me from getting any fic written tonight, but it was worth it ;)
08.17.02 :: 03:33
I installed Trillian, some other minor programs, and signed up for a MSN Messanger account. Now that I have the AIM tied in with ICQ, no excuse for me to not have it open if it all loads at once, right? :) A good chunk of tomorrow will probably be spent resorting my contacts list ^^; Too tired to do that right now.
08.17.02 :: 22:57
It was a surprisingly productive day. I woke up around 10am and then went into town to run some errands. Went by the Sprint store and rattled their cages about the crappy reception my cell phone gets. They had me call *2 and update some thing or another. Bah, I'm doubtful this will work, but whatever. After that I went grocery shopping and then got my car washed. I've been meaning to track down a church group doing a car wash for about a month now and finally found one when I happened to have cash on me ^^;
I called my folks again and asked 'em if they wanted to go see xXx with me. (The first time I asked they wanted to know why I wanted to go see a porn movie ^^; ) *ahem* They said not today and so I hopped in my newly washed car and drove to kfalls to see it with Jeffy. (Thus the layer of bugs the church kids took off this morning has been replaced with a fresh coat. Woot, I'll have to go find more church kids now ^^; )
xXx wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it wasn't bad either. I can see it as becoming the next 'James Bond' genre film. A spy series for our generation; where cool is defined not by tuxes and martinis, but tattoos and loud music.
After the movie Jeffy and I chilled for a while, talked, and exchanged our recent anime finds =D (He made me FFU CDs and I hooked him up with some .hack//SIGN). Now I'm home again and feeling overwhelmed by Trillian ^^; I'm recalling that there was a reason I didn't like to be connected to more than one network at a time [swimming in messages]. Of course, it is also the weekend, now's the time to chat y'know ^^
08.18.02 :: 21:49
Today was spent sleeping and writing fic. Woot! =D I wrote around 8k of Seedfic this afternoon before Sean broke my mind with an unsavory Xu fic :P Y'know, reading fics like that motivates me to write more so that "good" stuff it on the net counteracting the "bad". I know I'll never get the "good" ratio to match the "bad", but I can darn well try :P
I just remembered that I start a new work schedule tomorrow. I now work 7:30am - 4:30 five days a week (not counting on call time). I guess that works. Whatever keeps their boats afloat and continuing to give me pay checks on a regular basis ^^;
08.19.02 :: 23:11
When I got home from work tonight I fed Pepper and then laid down for a nap. A couple hours later I was woke up by the sound of someone coming in through the front door. I scurried out of bed to find Justin standing in my living room petting Pepper. Stupid dog hadn't let out so much as a half-hearted bark to announce his arrival (not that I was expecting him ^^; )
We went to dinner at a Hawaiian place and then went back to my house to play DW3 for a while. We unlocked a character, got some weapons, your usual ownage. We were trying to unlock the really cool female secret character. I thought I had all the requirements met except for one, but I didn't =/ (While I've played the game through twice with Sunshine, she wasn't the 'lead' character, so it didn't count =/ ) I'll have to sit down and do that tomorrow or something.
08.20.02 :: 09:50
This is a sketch of myself that I did late last week. I don't pretend to have any real artistic talent, but I liked the expression on my face (the whole "doh!" thing going on). The picture isn't a very good self-sketch. My jaw's very narrow, not rounded off at all. But it's like, a stylized self-sketch, yeah! I mean, that's why there are only glasses showing with no eyes behind them :) I also tried to represent me wearing my favorite summertime over shirt. It's a long button-down, hooded vest (it goes past my butt) and is made of light fabric.
Soooo... if you see this picture on the side of a milk carton, well, I doubt it would help anyone find me... but it might just be funny looking enough that it causes some kid to snort milk out his nose ;)
08.20.02 :: 19:04
Whoa, I wrote an amazing amount of fic (for me) today o.O! 14k ba-bey! [does a happy bean dance] Though I must admit that not all of it was written today. I tend to pre-write scenes, either entirely or in very detailed drafts. Once I hit a spot in the story where one of those scenes goes I can insert it and then smooth things out :) I need to go back and add in a few more paragraphs in a couple spots to make it flow better, but I'm pleased with how well it's coming along ^_^
This is the biography for my bro (playing William) in The Worthy Master of the Law. Everyone has to go look now [clicks the link for people in their browsers.] [Proud of her brother ^_^]
08.21.02 :: 07:57
Happy berfday Helen even though it was yesterday and I've already wished you it ^^ (Forgot to blog it ;)
I've updated the release dates on the Games Hit List. There were once three games come out on one day, now they've all separated to being a week apart (which I expected). Usually whatever date you're originally given is just a guestimate unless they go out of their way to advertise it (like Square did with FFVIII. It was released on 9.9.99). I'd expect the GTA: Vice City date to be pretty firm, as well as Kingdom Hearts. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the others jumped around some more before their release. If any of those games were from Working Designs, I would automatically add 6 months to any release date given :P
My sleep was odd last night. I'd gone to bed at 9:30pm with a bit of a headache. I woke up at 11pm really hungry, so I got up and had some ramen. I then stayed up and worked on my fic s'more ^^; I wrote another 2.5k after I'd backed everything up for the night. (I'm a paranoid bean. I do not go to bed without my fic drafts being in at least two different places.) When I did get back to sleep I had a dream that Sean was in, but that's all I remember about the dream ^^;
08.21.02 :: 13:07
President Bush will be visiting Medford tomorrow. Even though they say there won't be much to see, some of us at work are thinking of going out to the airport to see Air Force One. I know I don't have a chance of seeing the Presidential motorcade or the President himself. At least I can get a glimpse of the plane, right?
08.21.02 :: 20:02
I suspect that I've acquired a cat whether I wanted one or not. For the past month there's this cat whose markings are much the same as Pepper's that is always hanging out in my yard. I thought it was one of the neighbor's cats, but when I asked around about it no one would claim it. When I let Pepper out this evening I saw the cat drinking out of Pepper's outside water bowl. Yeeeaaahhh ¬.¬; Good thing Pepper's never had an outside food bowl, else she might be fighting a cat for it :P
08.21.02 :: 23:06
It's been an absolutely pissy AIM day. Jackie-tachi, you're the only reason I stick on this network, I'll have you know. First a person from FFM warned me because I had the audacity be *away at work* when he wanted to chat with me. (He was bored). I'm not a babysitter, dammit. Then tonight 3 bored pissants decided to screw around with me, grilling me for a password but wouldn't tell me what password they wanted (not that I hand those out to begin with). Make that 4 pissants... In short, the little fuckers raised my warning level to 35% and I haven't done a damn thing to them. 40%... fuckin' pricks --;
08.22.02 :: 10:34
Well, Bush is here, I think. I'm not sure. I went outside and saw a Coast Guard Blackhawk flying around and then it zoomed off, but no Air Force One. I was robbed ;_; This article from Fox News does a good job of explaining the disputes behind the wildfire issue. We all agree that having the forests on fire is a Bad Thing, but opinions vary greatly when it comes to how to prevent it from happening again (or even if it should be prevented at all).
Hrm, still at 13% warning level. Bastards --; The current k count on the last part of Sowing is 88k (about 25 pages). Not there yet but I'm definitely getting close =D I really hope the DVDs I ordered come in today. I'm in the mood to plop my butt down in front of the TV and watch some anime tonight. Hmmm.. Hellsing ^^
08.22.02 :: 22:56
I have a lot on my mind right now, so I'll try not to be too disjointed when writing them downs. First thing's first, President Bush. I watched his speech on TV this afternoon. (I later found out that I could have bought tickets to it at the Red Lion, dammit) *ahem* I was split between saying "No shit" and cheering him on (mostly the latter). He said some things that *need* to be said, like how litigation is being used to keep good laws from going into effect. Now that he's said it I hope that he'll *do* something about it. Few things get under my skin more than when the voters pass a law and then 1 group who disagrees with it keeps it tied up in courts forever. That is most definitely not letting the people have their say!
I liked one of the comments that the president made that describe Oregonians to a T. He was introducing politicians who had come out and got to Representative Greg Walden. Bush said that he knew a lot about Oregon because of Walden -- Walden wouldn't stop talking about it ^o^ Yep, yep, guilty as charged.
Of course, I realize that part of making a speech like he did is to use hooks like that to connect with the locals. He did a fine job of that, but his words were inspiring as well. See... Most Oregonians, conservative or liberal, will agree on at least one thing: we love our state and its natural beauty. Most of our bickering results from when we try to figure out the best way to preserve it. And we *most definitely* do not want folks from the east coast tellin' us how to preserve our lands [insert vast distrust of DC politics here].
Bush scores points in my book (and probably many others) because he didn't come in here like an easterner telling us how we should solve our problems. He acknowledged that we already *had* a solution all worked out, but it hadn't been enacted into law because of frivolous lawsuits. I like how he didn't once suggest throwing more money at the issue. No, instead he offered to be our champion to get our ideas through the gauntlet of political squabbling. We *KNOW* how to face the problem of wildfires -- we've done it for generations -- we just need to be allowed to.
Bush didn't lie when he said that it would create a lot of new jobs to maintain the forest's health. Clearing brush is a helluva lotta work --; And with all the fires lately, I'm not sure they'd be so keen on using the controlled burn method of clearing right now either. That means a lot of man hours doing it by hand. People are willing, but not able to legally. (Hell, because of Clinton we can't even *GO* on some of the mountains that we used to. Grrr at him and his natural reserve "shove it through before he leave office" grrr). Will hiring people to do this work cost money? Yeah, but I'm pretty sure it'd be less than the 1.5 billion spent on the federal level this year fighting the fires ^^;
Anyhow, enough about Bush (and more about me ;) My job situation is up in the air right now. Hopefully everything will be settled down nicely by September. My parents have been giving me advice on that score. It's sensible, so I'll probably be doing as they suggest.
I also think my dad invited me to dinner with a friend of family from when we lived in San Diego... I don't remember the friend and I don't remember if it was this Saturday or the next ^^;
Chaos has returned from the long lost! I'm so glad that I got a chance to speak with him tonight. I was wanting to ping the latest draft of Seedfic off of him and he asked me for it before I could offer ^o^ [wuvs on Chaos] I'm excited about what suggestions he might have on how to make the fic better. He can almost always find a way for me to improve my writing (okay, that's probably not a hard thing to do, but still.. ^^; ) Half of having a good pre-reader is having someone that you trust to give meaningful suggestions. Chaos is one of those people that I trust in that way.
08.23.02 :: 21:12
Well, since I'm now on the wrong side of employed, my mother offered to hire me part time at her print shop until I find another job. She even said that she'd match the wage I was earning. It's a kind offer, but I won't accept it on those terms. I don't really *want* to work at a print shop... We had that meeting of minds (locking of horns) when I finished high school. A tech's life is the one I want, not working in a print shop ^^;
I burst out laughing when she said she'd offer me the same wages. It was the impolite thing to do when she was being nice, but the work she'd have me do isn't worth what I made ^^; I couldn't in good conscience accept a salary like that from her. A lot of the work I'd be doing for her is mindless grunt work that any person with two hands and half a brain could accomplish. Minimum wage type stuff, y'know?
But despite all that, I am tempted to go down there and work some. If for no other reason than to keep myself busy. I have to psych myself up for 'vacations' as much as I do for large get togethers (like cons). I'm not ready to go into 'lazy' mode for the next week ^^; I could cover the shop for her while she goes and makes her morning deliveries. I'd just have to answer the phones and make change for the college students who come in and make photocopies.
She did ask me to come down to the shop tomorrow and work if I wasn't busy. She says she has about 8 hours worth of photocopy jobs that need to be done. I could do that easily. Mostly it's just a matter of making sure the machine is loaded with paper, pulling out finished jobs, etc. There's an old 166 set up near the copy machine. I was thinking that I could sit there and read fanfics while the machine did its thing. That would work out really well for me.
I'm reading a pretty interesting FFVIII fanfic right now; Liberi Tenebri by Mithrigil Galtirglin. The story goes along the same plot line as the video game. What makes it interesting is that all of the characters have had their genders reversed. The Squall characters is a woman named Tempest who plays the role to the hilt. I never much cared for Squall because I had a hard time understanding him (even when much of the plot was introspective). I'm having an easier time understanding Tempest and I'm enjoying the fic a lot more.
I found the story on the Final Fantasy Online forums. I tried to find it at FF.net and Google-ed for it, but wasn't able to find it anywhere but there. (Which is a shame, IMO). If anyone is interested, let me know. I'll email it to you. FFOnline also has a healthy Xu community (which I get the feeling is in part because of this fanfic :) Wai, fellow Xu lovers. We'll get along just fine ^_~
08.24.02 :: 00:04
I just got off the phone with my brother (well, 20 minutes ago). We had pretty intense conversation about some family matters. Oi... I really do love my brother, even if I don't always show it as well as I should. I'm glad that it's something he knows and returns in kind.
08.24.02 :: 16:10
I didn't end up going to mom's printshop today. Oh well, there were other things to be done (like napping ^^; ) Pepper's been acting like a psychomutt lately. She has been for the last few days. I'm really starting to worry about her =/
08.25.02 :: 13:01
Time for another entry of my weird dream theatre ^^; I remember most of the dream leading up to the end, but it wasn't very interesting so I'll skip it. In the last part of the dream I had accomplished my goal of becoming a sitting judge. I worked on the small claims level (bottom of the stack, in short) and was overseen by about a half-dozen other judges who were my mentors.
My first case was a woman who was suing the police department for $300 for wrongful detention or something like that. (They'd arrested her and she was suing them for doing it, in short. I doubt a case like this would be heard on the small claims level, but try telling my dreams that ^^; ) When I looked at the evidence presented by the woman, it would appear that the cops had harassed her and wrongfully detained her. But I *knew* there had to be more of a story behind it than what was officially presented to me. The cops hadn't even bothered to send a lawyer down to defend them (not that there are a lot of lawyers on the small claims level ^^;; oh boy.. too much divorce court as a child :P )
So I went to one of my mentor judges and asked what I should do. The *presented* evidence would cause me to rule in the woman's favor, but I was certain that I was only seeing half of the facts. Did I ask the cops a series of questions to ferret out more of the truth or order them to present facts on certain aspects of the case. In short, did I pursue ultimate justice or did I simply stay within the realm to which I was appointed? I woke up before I could find an answer to that question.
Anyhow... Pepper ran away again last night --; She was gone for about a half hour or so. You're right, Sean, she may be pissed at me. Or, at least, *I'm* starting to get pretty pissed at her and her antics.
I had a long, fruitful brainstorming session with Chaos last night :D That man has the other half of my creative mind, I'm sure of it. What I had of the SeeDfic was solid, but it was all 'backbone' plot -- no flesh on it to make it more juicy for the reader. Chaos saw the same weaknesses I did and offered countless suggestions on how I could flesh the story out and make it more appealing. Many thanks him ^_^
08.25.02 :: 21:03
Pepper and I have been battling today --; When I put my glasses on I discovered that she'd gone rolling in manure last night. I took her to the bathroom to give her a bath and she scampered under the toilet. When I put my hands back there to get her out she started growling and snapping at me. Finally got her out without any bites and tossed her into the tub. Gyah --;
Today has been a complete waste. I've been grumpy and anti-productive. I should have spent it writing or at least refining the brainstorming Chaos and I did last night into outline notes. I'm only recently gotten started on that and I'm still easily distracted. I've honestly spent most of today sitting here listening to music. FBGT2 showed me how to make html pages of my Winamp play lists. I think I'll start posting those as well in the sidebar (more useless info!)
I'm going go work at mom's shop for a while tomorrow while she does deliveries. I think she's still sore that I laughed at her offer to pay me ^^; Bah, my own mother doesn't know me that well. If she did she'd realize that money isn't what motivates my actions. If I wanted money I could have found ways to be rolling in it by now, I'm not stupid. I'd rather do things that make me happy / that I enjoy than do things solely for the financial payoff. (Not always the wisest way to look at life since I'm sometimes strapped for cash, but I don't see myself changing).
08.26.02 :: 15:21
I went to mom's shop and worked for 4 hours. My tasks included: calling customers to tell them that their jobs were ready, walking jobs to the customers who were downtown, calling the collections agency on the customers who hadn't picked up their jobs in a year's time, working the photocopy machine for some nice fogeys, updating her software and doing maintenance (okay, that wasn't on her list of things to do, but it was on *my* list), file old job tickets, and call the paperhouse. Now you see why I won't accept a technician's wage for the type of work she has for me, eh? ^^;
Calling the paperhouse was fun. It's not every day that you get to place an order for 68 reams of Liftoff Lemon 65# paper =D (Translated into English that's 34,000 sheets of that gawd awful bright yellow paper that's 'cover' stock weight. Not the thickness of a sheet that you'd pull out to write on, but like, you'd use for a report cover). The paperhouse, of course, doesn't have that much on hand, so they're delivering what they can tomorrow and will get the rest in ASAP ^^
My DVDs arrived today! [dances] As soon as I'm finished blogging I'm going to pop in the Hellsing one and watch it dubbed. Jackie's sent me some .wavs of the performances and I'm curious to hear them for myself. AE has moved to http://www.psyche.nu/board/.
08.27.02 :: 20:29
Working for mom today was as it was yesterday, mostly dull ^^; And I didn't even get to send anyone to collections or make large paper orders. I guess that's reserved for the first day to show how 'fun' the job can really be ;)
The Hellsing dub was, I'm happy to report, pretty good. I like Integral's voice actress. Very well done ^^ I like how the extras have British accents as well. It's nice that they tried to keep the voices in character with the location of the story :)
After that I put in the Love Hina DVD I got. It made my ears bleed. Well, more exactly, Mitsune's voice actress made my ears bleed. She is *SO* not a southern belle --; I've ranted on this before, I know. And I've been thinking about the different ways companies have tried to compensate for the Osaka accent. Mitsune ended up with the southern drawl. Kero-chan got stuck with a bronx accent. The best interpretation when using an accent (and staying in character) was Ichino from Battle Athletes. Hum... Well... I'm not sure you can count "angry" as an accent, but it fit her very well and made her voice distinctive from the other characters.
I'm still puttering along in my fic writing. I've almost broken the 100k mark for this chapter =D And I haven't written much 'new' material since speaking with Chaos. The last 12k or so has all been expanding on scenes and cleaning them up. I'm excited to see how this chapter will turn out ^_^
08.27.02 :: 23:44
Woohoo! I just picked up the Tape and Boogie on the first try. And I tagged all the copters in a single try as well =D Okay, those who haven't played JSRF will just be shaking their heads now. The first time I played through the game I didn't get the tape, I had Austin catch Boogie, and the copters took me over an hour. This time I accomplished those 3 things in under 5 minutes. Is there a learning curve involved? You better believe it, and this bean can be taught! ^^v [victory dance]
08.28.02 :: 19:06
Just for the record, Rokkaku-dai Heights is my turf. I own it, I own it hard [covers it in her graffiti and skate marks.] I want a new JSRF game. I've beaten this one to a bloody pulp already ._.; Need more levels. Need more places to tag. Tokyo is a big city, right? There's gotta be more places where I can leave my mark! ;_; They can pump out those awful Army Men games like there's no tomorrow, let's up the production on JSRF games already!
I've had a killer headache most of the day. I woke up and my head was throbbing. Took some aspirin and went back to bed. Three hours later I woke up again and felt a bit better, but now the crushing pain is back. I'm bored out of my mind! Eh... I don't think it works that way. I unplugged the air scent freshener thingy that was in the living room thinking that it probably wasn't helping and then took more aspirin.
I didn't go work for mom today, she didn't have much for me to do. She wanted me to do some computer work, but I always get bristly when she asks for it. Like, she wants me to swap the floppy drives out between two machines because one is "broken". I've looked at the machine, I'm pretty sure the drive isn't broken just that the cable inside isn't plugged in all the way. I don't like it when she tries to diagnose her own machines and then dictates solutions for the problems that aren't appropriate. How about ya let me do that mom? I've got more experience, y'know?
My next interview is tomorrow around 1pm-ish. Oi oi, it should go okay. I'm confident in my ability to not make an ass of myself in front of #3 man of this company. If all goes well I'll have a job. Woot, though if I have to go for a 4th interview (and there really isn't much higher I can go in the corporate food chain o.O) I'm going to be dubious about how serious they are in offering employment...
I broke the 100k mark on the SeeDfic chapter last night / this morning. And I still haven't gone much into new material ^^; When I said that Chaos buried me in ideas and suggestions for improving what I already had, I meant it!
08.29.02 :: 16:36
There have been a rash of fires around town lately (and we're not talking forest fires o.o). The other night a downtown warehouse burned down. Dad said part of Eagle Point high burned down yesterday, but I can't seem to find anything about that on the web. I don't know if he misheard or if it's just not up yet. I'll keep my eye out for news on that.
The third interview today did involve a job offer ^_^ I'm to go in tomorrow to speak with their Human Resources person and give her my answer. They offered me $.50 more than I was making and full benefits (medical, dental, eye, vacation, sick, and a 401(k) plan). If I accept I'll begin working for them on Sept. 1st. Yes, that is a Sunday, but since I do weekend tech support they'd start paying me for that. That'd be nice, I've never before been paid for the extra time I spent doing that ^^; There will be the commute involved. That's the only real downside to this job. I figure the raise I'm getting should just about cover the extra cost in gas I'd have in getting there and back every day ^^;
The #3 guy was pretty nice. He even offered to pay me for the time I took away from my 'vacation' *ahem* to come talk with him and his HR person tomorrow o.O He also told me that I'd done really well during the tech interview. They'd compared my results to their department and decided that I'd made a solid addition ^_^
I should be able to turn this job into an excellent opportunity. I'll be starting as a tier 1 technician (grunt level tech support) and working my way up. I don't mind, I knew I'd have to start at the bottom of their corporate structure. I'm hoping that I can slide my way into system administrations or something more interesting than telling people how to configure their email.
08.30.02 :: 02:27
Dad was right, there was another fire, but it was at the junior high and not the senior high. (I didn't attend either school, though one of my uncles did). The pessimistic part of me wonders what will be on fire tomorrow. If it isn't the trees around us then it's the buildings --; (This story actually made one of the quick hit stories on FoxNews. I couldn't find it in the local news before that :P )
I've been playing Kessen most of tonight. I'm marching through the game just like I did through Kessen II. The second game is definitely the better of the two, though it's an almost novel idea for Koei to do a non-Romance of the Three Kingdoms themed game :P Anyhow, the holes in the game are pretty easy to find. There's a laughable overhead map where you can sort of see how the battle's going, but not really. Most of the time I'm not even sure what's gone on other than one of my blue units is beating on the red unit next to it. How close my units are to the enemy commander I couldn't tell you until I'm there rapping on his helmet with my spear :P
I'm hungry. I think I'll go make some ramen...
08.30.02 :: 21:48
Today was a busy day, so let's dig in! First off, Bob had given me permission to swap out parts from my computer at work as long as there was still a reasonably well-working computer that the other Bob could have afterwards. (I could give the other Bob a 200Mhz machine and he probably wouldn't notice the difference... ^^; ) Anyhow... so I dragged Yggy down to the office and spent the early afternoon swapping parts around to make Yggy better and make the other machine more suitable for Bob. (I didn't have a floppy disk in that machine, for example. I think he'd want one of those ^^; ) The base Yggy is the same (same motherboard, processor, memory, etc.), I just added goodies like a Zip drive and optical mouse =D (And a webcam, though I haven't set that up yet :P )
In the midst of my geeking it was time for round 4 of interview / initiation. The Human Relations lady (Jennifer) was very nice. She brought us all goodies ^^; A coffee cup that looks solid enough to bludgeon someone with and a nice shirt. Not a tee shirt, mind you, but a nice buttoned, collared, company logo embroidered on the breast, type shirt. I also noticed how their letterhead was printed on linen paper (as were their business cards) and their basic newsletter was two color with lots of screen work on it. In short, from a printing point of view, they've been spending a bit more than most businesses do on their materials. (I would have boggled if they paid for embossed business cards, that's almost overkill, but what they have wasn't cheap either).
We went through the employee manual, filled out paperwork, etc. There was good news and bad news in the manual regarding style of dress. The good thing is that techs are allowed to wear jeans any day (not just Fridays like everyone else). The bad news is that I wear too many tee shirts and those aren't allowed on any day ^^; I brought all the insurance forms home with me to have dad look over them (I trust him to be smarter about such things than I am ^^; ) The portion of the premiums that the employee pays is pretty good. I also like their vision plan. Every 2 years an adult can go in and get an exam for $10 and then get lenses and frames for free *_* Too bad I got new glasses earlier this year :P I'm set for at least a year I figure :P
After all that stuff was taken care of we returned to the office and I kept working on Frankinyggy. Once I was satisfied with where things were (I wasn't finished, but I could finish up quickly enough on Tuesday) I cleaned up and went home. I dropped off my computer and then went to mom's shop to talk to her. After that I went to the comic shop. Then dad, mom, and I went to Grants Pass for dinner. Along the way there dad insisted on pointing out where the cops like to hide, never mind that I've been driving for nearly a decade now and I already know where the cops like to hide :P
On the way there I got a call from Lincoln telling me that CyberNet's service was down. He wanted me to monitor it this evening once I got back into town. Services came back up again around 9pm (so they were down for 3 hours). I know it affected websites and email, but I don't know if it prevented people from getting online. What I got from Lincoln is that something happened with Sprint and that the problem could be traced as far back as Tacoma. Heh, that's one problem with the Internet, if a key piece fails it takes everything downstream with it --; There was nothing Lincoln or I could do to speed along the repair the process, just sit and watch to see if it was done.
When I got back into town I went to the mall to flesh out my fall wardrobe >.> I hate clothes shopping, I really do. I wandered around for an hour with a dazed look on my face. I found a pair of cargos and four shirts. (That, with the shirt I was given, will get me through a work week :P ) Along with some new undergarments the total was over $200 o.o; Uh.. oh well.. You have to spend money to make money sometimes. I hugged my credit card for affording me the ability to make money and then I beat it for letting me spend money I don't have :P Then the nice cashier lady pointed out that this was their Labor Day weekend sale and they were having sweet discounts on just about everything. That knocked $80 off the bill and I ended up spending $150. Woot!
And now I am home with a fair amount of homework to do. I need to fill out the insurance papers, clean my room, do some more work on Yggy. And I have to beat Kessen and finish writing the SeeDfic... Yeah, I'll be busy this weekend ;)
08.31.02 :: 00:20
I set up the Quick Cam tonight. I started playing with it. A grainy visual tour of my room resulted. Now the world can see that I really do need to clean it! =D (PS. I really like the picture of Pepper. If it were larger and not grainy I think I'd make it my wallpaper ^^; I've already emailed it my brother and then called him to tell him to check his email :P )
08.31.02 :: 15:00
My "WTF?" moment for the day: A man just came up to my door and asked me to *give* him the beat up GMC truck I have in my driveway. Um... No. Geez. There's no signs on it, it's never been up for sale, it's just sitting there. What's worse, this isn't the first time someone's come by wanting to just buy a vehicle off of me. When I still had my Sprint and it was sitting under a tree off to the side a guy came by wanting to buy it. o.O; I dunno... when I go looking for cars I go to car lots, not random people's houses who have beat up vehicles that I want to scavenge.
08.31.02 :: 19:51
I unexpectedly beat Kessen this afternoon. The (final, though I didn't know it) battle started and I saw that a couple of my units happened to be close to the enemy commander, so I took a couple pot shots at him with my cannons and then went to beat on his wall of defenses. What I hadn't noticed was that doing that had completely frazzled him, knocked him down to about 1/3 the troops in his unit, dropped his moral in the toilet, and sent him on the run. I'd set up an ambush unit and then forgot about it (I don't mentally count them when playing. If they happen to come into the frey, great). And he ran straight into it. Usually I wouldn't expect an ambush unit to do *that* much damage... but it managed to completely destroy his unit o.O; Not 20 minutes into the battle and it was already over and the credits for the game were scrolling by ;_; I won too quickly!
I started a new game playing as the other side and am stomping through that as well. There was this one annoying battle where a 1/3 of my forces wanted to defect or wouldn't get off their butts and *do* anything. It took me about an hour and a half, but I managed to win without them. Buggers ¬.¬ I also have female ninja units! And part of their scene when they're attacking an opposing unit... one of the ninja girls looks like she's cutting out one of the male unit's jewels with her knife. Mwahahaha! I have treasure stealing female ninja units! >D (And all the men reading this blog cringe ^^; )
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