o/` Vangelis – One More Kiss Dear – Blade Runner Soundtrack o/`

So you work for certain things in your life. You strive to meet goals, and so at the end of the day you can look at what you did and be proud of yourself. But what happens if one of your most vital roles is hit with a blow that makes you feel utterly useless? You realize that all the work you have done in this area is completely worthless, all the time you spent, all the frustration you’ve endured, not only are you unappreciated, but you now feel that no matter how hard you try, you will never be. *sigh* Sometimes things suck.

The webpage job is going good. I think I have a good design finished for the site, and I spent a lot of time yesterday browsing other real estate sites, deciding what I liked, making sure I didn’t duplicate what I disliked, and it was very productive. I began working on the php and mysql backend this morning, it’s going well… and as with every project, I am learning a lot %)

I took some Benadryl yesterday afternoon. I really didn’t want to, but my allergies were just *so* bad, teary eyes, stuffy nose, cough, and a headache was coming. So Myk came home, we went out and did some grocery shopping, came home, had some Boca Burgers, and sat down (on our bed, the tv is in the bedroom) around 6 to watch the News. Well, not surprisingly, I fell asleep. I woke up at 9:06, looked at the clock, didn’t *believe* it was 9 pm, and went back to sleep. I woke up again around 11, said to myself “fuck, I missed the west wing… hey where is Myk?” (apparently he had gotten up). Then I fell back to sleep. Woke up around 5 am, completely awake. So I got up. 11 hours of sleep! Gahh… stupid Benadryl, I really should find something that doesnt put me into a coma, hehe.

So I rediscovered my hatred for Netscape and Internet Explorer. Netscape (4.7x) just sucks because it’s old and doesnt support a lot of good tags, and it’s to be expected… I just have to make sure the site looks presentable and is easily navigatable in Netscape, I don’t expect many people to use it. Now IE… IE is the big problem, why does IE care about the spacing within the html document itself? I wanted to make my code look all pretty, but *spaces* in the code were causing me trouble. And why does IE only accept the td valign tag when it feels like it? Ugh. And why are heading tags so huge? I would define all table things in CSS, but then I’d have serious issues with Netscape. I hate browsers!

Well I am going to go back to work, need to keep focused on it so I don’t start getting all stupidly depressed *wanders off*

o/` Bel Canto – In Zenith o/`

Well I had that meeting with the guy for the webpage yesterday, and things went well %) I started on the design yesterday. It looks a lot like their letterhead, but I wanted to keep a consistant look to their stuff of course. It’s coming out quite nice, I’m really happy with it. I’m probably going to buy the domain name tonight, and hopefully today I will finish the basic layout for all the pages, woo! The difficult part of course will be the “back end” … which is php and mysql which will allow the “owner” of the site to update real estate listings himself.

I discovered the coolest thing this morning:

http://www.rocketsnail.com/chat/penguin/chat.htm

It’s chat, with dancing and snow-ball throwing penguins… requires flash 5, but the ‘good’ flash 5 that works in linux %)

I spoke to my mother the other day. Apparently my sister has been suspended from school for two days. Her crime this time? Calling the vice-principal a “dickhead.” She’s 14! And calling authority figures “dickhead”! To their face! Ugh… she is so horribly immature %( Hopefully she’ll grow out of it SOON. This time my mother said that her time home wont be any fun, “no tv, no phone, no internet” Hmm, right… she claimed she would have her sister in law come over during the day to make sure these rules are enforced, but somehow I doubt that. Annette will find a way to make a vacation out of these two days, like she always does.

So there was a thread recently on the GrrlTalk mailing list (part of linuxchix) that started with someone asking if anyone had a tux cross-stitch pattern. It morphed into writing a cross-stitch pattern creator program for linux, it was extremely amusing %) And it’s what I love about that list! So girly… yet computer related %)

Hmm, I hear a cricket. It’s not my music… the windows are closed…

Yeah, so I am going to go work on this site now *wanders off*

o/` Naked Eyes – Always Something There To Remind Me o/`

I feel, odd.

Slept horribly last night. It was one of those nights where I couldn’t stop thinking of *things* … I go to my “happy place” in my mind, to try to relax, and as soon as I stopped focusing on that I’d think of webserver hosting! Or getting a job! Or my parents bugging me about visiting… It sucked, I was tired when I went to bed, but it still took 2 hours to fall asleep %( Then tossing and turning all night *sigh*

I woke up fairly alert this morning. Worked on finishing up the mplayer how-to. Then just on a whim I did a search for keybindings in opera. I had heard people say that binding vim-keys in opera was hard (or impossible?) but I just decided to look, and lo! I found some help, eventually figured out myself how to do it. It was simpler than I thought *shrugs* maybe it was older versions of opera that people had trouble with? I dunno, so then I went to the plug howto site, and grabbed the Mozilla howto for vimkeys. And put them all together on a Vim-Keys How-To site. I also did laundry, dusted and vacuumed the apartment, and took a nice relaxing bath %) It was a productive day.

I got a call from the guy who is working out the webpage stuff with me, he said I got the job! Woo! We worked out some figures on to how much it will cost, and he agreed. And we set up an apointment for him to drop by the apartment tomorrow morning %) YAY! I guess I’ll be starting the design and such tomorrow %)

Um, yeah so now I’m having a strange “lost” feeling. Getting a lot acomplished in the morning turns my whole day upside down %) I think I am very very tired too, I am sure that doesnt help any. At least my allergies arent as bad today… I am trying to hold off on taking any Benadryl ’cause it makes me so exhausted. Actually, yesterday after I wrote that entry, I crawled back into bed with Myk “for a few minutes” and then woke up 3 hours later… that’s probably part of the reason I couldn’t fall asleep last night.

Anyway, I am going to link these how-to’s to my main page, probably change the sections of the main menu a bit, I’ll post the links here firs tho %)

Debian MPlayer How-To

Using Vim-Keys In Other Linux Applications

*wanders off*

o/` Depeche Mode – Blasphemous Rumours o/`

Well we didn’t *plan* on doing anything yesterday. Myk went into work for a bit, when he came home we headed over to N-Tropy‘s house. Had pizza and we were going to watch Riverworld on scifi, but after about 10 minutes we realized it was just going to be another crappy scifi channel movie and turned it off. Then N-Tropy popped in his DVD of Red Dwarf. I had heard about it before, I guess they showed it on the scifi channel for a while *shrugs* It was pretty funny %) N-Tropy said he’d rip the episodes for me if I wanted, YAY!

I also learned more about the wallace and gromit game that is coming out late this year (I hope). Gamers.com has a “preview” of the game up, woo! Wallace And Gromit Game Preview. Looks like it’ll be interesting. And it’s good that I was able to find this article, since my “News” section on WallaceAndGromit.net has been neglected for two almost months %)

I helped a friend of mine install mplayer today, and it was successful! I used the how-to that I “sorta” had written, and it worked well, so now I think it’s ready to be polished and placed on my website %) In reality, my friend helped me as much as I helped him, he got mplayer installed succesfully on Debian testing, and I got to test out my how-to! I think the biggest issue is hosting the 17 mb codec tar file that I use for the install (it includes win32 and quicktime codec’s in an easily installed format). I guess it wouldnt be so bad, I mean how many people will actually use my howto? Hehe. Now to silence Naru_Chan‘s constant clamoring about xine, I asked this friend who I helped install mplayer today why he didnt use xine, and he claimed that it poorly, or just failed to, support some file formats he wanted to use *shrugs* Seems that once you get past the painful mplayer install that it works great %) Yeah, so tomorrow I’ll try to get some work done on that How-To.

It was rather amusing how I got this person to ask me for help… I seem to be quite an advocate of mplayer in #goddess, so now when people have problems they keep coming to me! Gah! Just two months ago I was ready to give up on poor mplayer, and now they are thinking I am an expert, heehee. I’m glad I could be of help tho.

Bleh, allergies are already driving me up the wall, it seems to get worse every year. I took some Benadryl this morning, and now I am feeling quite tired %) Benadryl in the spring/summer, NyQuil in the winter, it’s amazing I ever acomplish anything %D Heehee.

Now, I must take a moment to tell you the story of the “Girl Who Cried Love” … there is this girl I know. She’s in her mid-teens, and is fairly transient with her relationships… but each time she dates someone, she “falls in love” with them. She comes to me to talk about it, each time it’s the same “I’ve never been so in love” and “He is so perfect” an “I want to be with him forever” … but every time (obviously) something happens to end the relationship. She’s hurt for a time, but the cycle just begins again. How do you deal with someone like this?

At first I thought she was just really unlucky, but this has happened several times, and each time she INSISTS that it’s different… this time she even claimed to have made marriage plans, but again, her boyfriend now feels she is distant, she doesnt see him much anymore, and things are just *dying* between them. I believe she thinks that the beginning infatuation that you generally have for someone you are dating is “love” … I think she’s just not old enough to understand that EVERY relationship loses a bit of it’s primary excitement, of cou
rse things arent as wonderful, you get to know a person, know their flaws, get used to their presence. But how would I explain this? I guess all I can do is continue to listen to her, I know she won’t listen if I say that it’s just infatuation, she’ll claim I don’t understand “true love” … I just feel bad for the guys she hurts, ya know? Many are older than her, easily burnt by someone like her, they think forever means forever.

< / gossip >

So I was on Livejournal yesterday evening, very bored (Myk was at work, and I was having trouble concentrating)… so I did a search for the interest “linux” to see if I could search some sites of people who share my interests, maybe read some interesting web logs. And you know what I found? Most people who put linux as an interest are people who “once saw a screenshot of something linux and thought it was neat” … or who have dabbled weakly in a linux install and gave up… or just script kiddies who think it’s “leet” to put linux as an interest. It was quite disappointing. I did find a few interesting ones however %)

I also found that most of the web logs had some reference to the “war” in Iraq. I am glad to hear people have interest in this conflict, but it got a bit dull, maybe I should remove war-talk from my web log, since it seems to be a well-covered topic. Hehe, nothing I can say at this point will be original.

I will however recount something interesting I saw last night. We were coming back from N-Tropy’s house, and I saw a couple of american flags flying at half-mast. One was outside a car dealership, another outside of a store. When I saw a third outside of a chain restaurant, I got suspicious and asked Myk to turn on the news radio station, maybe something had happened? Nope… still the same old war. Why would these flags be at half-mast? Is it a war thing? Is it a protest? I find it hard to believe that a company would take a stance like that…

Eh, anyway, I am going to go take a shower, and attempt to wake up more %) Damn allergy medicine! Oh well, at least I can breathe. *wanders off*

o/` Sade – No Ordinary Love o/`

I love keybindings, I never touch my mouse unless I’m surfing the web, it is much happiness.

Didn’t really do much yesterday, it was very dull %) When Myk came home we took a nap… I dont know why I was so tired, maybe it was just because I was feeling crappy. Woke up and had a big salad for dinner, it was yummie %d … Then Myk went out to the store and got some M&M’s (and creamer for the morning coffee). Mmmm m&m’s … he’s so good to me %)

I am feeling much better today.

We probably won’t do much this weekend.. probably will finish Speaker For The Dead ’cause it’s such an awsome book. I don’t know why I didnt read it faster, I think I just havent been in the mood, stressed out maybe, stress usually makes me more inclined to play games and rot in front of the televison.

Next weekend is the lan party, woo! It’ll be a nice change from all these uneventful weekends, hehe.

Anyway, I guess I don’t really have anymore to say *looks at the entry* god I’m boring %) *wanders off*

o/` A Perfect Circle – Orestes o/`

So after reading about phyx‘s fun (or lack thereof) with mplayer and svga, I recalled that you can use links (the web browser) in console with svga. What I didn’t remember is that it requires framebuffer… so when I compiled it with graphics enabled yesterday I was frustrated that it didnt work. Hmm, so to get this to work I’d need to recompile my kernel with framebuffer support *ugh*. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but do I really want to recompile my kernel for the novelty of graphical links in console? Probably not. I can see graphical links fine in x of course…

Not that I have an obsession with this new haircut (I fear I have sounded very girly during the past few entries havent I? Heehee). I guess it’s just because it’s such a big change, I’m still not used to it…

I am feeling pretty crappy, that test they took yesterday at the doctor’s office ended up causing me to bleed more than expected, I called the doctor’s office and they said it was “rare but not unheard of” but they said I should take it easy and “take tomorrow off of work if that is possible” Heh, well that’s more than possible! ;) It sucks tho, I don’t like pain. And today is cleaning day! Myk said “relax, and don’t clean tomorrow!” Rar… days like this make me feel like such a bum… but I guess it’s for the best.

So concerning the war, without getting into strange details, what is with all the media attention to “how children feel” during a war? I remember the first gulf war when I was, how old? 9 or 10? I dont think the images of war ever scared or bothered me, at that age I could barely grasp what was going on… honestly, how could children be badly influenced by this? I think it’s just adults who feel that children are only pseudo-human, the kind of adults that speak down to children, the kind of adults that kids HATE. I’d rather be honest with children, they will understand, and if they don’t, they will when they grow up… and appreciate my honesty. Even if it’s a war, everyone deserves to know what is going on, children are people too.

So that got me thinking about Mr. Rogers. I wasn’t feeling good yesterday, and I was sick of war coverage, and I stumbled upon his show. I watched for a few minutes, HE knew how to deal with issues with kids! Watching it now may seem like he is silly, but when I was little it felt good to have an adult talking to me, and although his explainations of things shielded us from the gruesome reality of life, he opened the door to understanding, and did it without talking down to us. I guess it all comes down, AGAIN, to parenting. Should 5 year olds be sitting in front of the tv watching war coverage while mommy/daddy is gone? Of course not, but there are ways of explaining issues to children, even if it’s a simple explaination like “Saddam is a cruel man, and we are going in to make him stop hurting people” .. but completely shielding a child from reality does not help. Bleh, I wish more people remembered what it was like to be a kid.

Anyway, I am going to go look for some things to work on *wanders off*

o/` The Police – Every Breath You Take o/`

It has begun. I could write 5 paragraphs about what I saw last night on the news, but somehow it just doesn’t appeal to me.

I went to the doctor today for that coloscopy, and let me tell you, what an AWFUL thing it was. I felt like I was going to be sick after, horrible cramps, and bleeding *sigh* They hurt me! Bleh.. I just hope I wont have to have another one done for a long time %( I should go back to bed, but it’s so boring… I’ll probably read for a while after writing this. I wish I had a laptop so I didn’t have to sit in a chair and write this, hehe. Anyway, I was weighed while at the doctor’s office, and the hairdresser wasnt kidding when she said all that hair was about 3 pounds! Hehe… the “hair salon weight loss program” … not that I needed to lose weight…

After the appointment I was feeling kinda crappy so Myk took me out to eat at Friday’s for lunch, we got there right as it was opening, so it was pretty quiet, the service was good, and the food was surprisingly good. I got a chicken sammich and then some chocolate cake, mmm.

Talked to my mother last night, she called after I sent her the photos of my haircut, in total disbelief like I knew she would be, hehe. I talked to her about how I probably wouldnt be able to visit for a while and she understands (as much as a parent can). I’m glad she’s not being a nag like my father, even if I know that is her being the “good guy” to my father’s “bad guy” role *shrugs* oh well, it’s good to have one more relative off my back about this.

Hmm so about this 1U mount rack servers, I was going by prices of them used, ones I looked at on ebay… I will probably end up buying one from ebay *shrugs* I will look around tho, this is a big purchase, and I have a lot of time to shop %)

Yeah, I am going to lie down now, hopefully I won’t be horribly sore for too many days *moans slightly and hauls herself off to the bedroom*

o/` BOA – Little Miss o/`

Anyone have a 1U rack mount server they want to sell to me for real cheap? Please? %)

Looks like I’ll probably get this website job, woo! They are wanting a php and mysql backend (well, they will need one, based on what they told me they want) so they can update “listings” of the real estate business, which is cool… all the work I have done recently with the journal, and even my guestbook on my website has prepared me for this, I can do it! %) And I have a few months to find a “home” for it other than the cobalt (that goes away in august), and I have a few ideas… anyone know any place that does webhosting with php, mysql and a decent amount of space and bandwidth? I am considering getting a 1U and going in with some friends to colo them at a nearby ISP… the monthly costs wouldnt be bad, s’just buying the 1u that is sorta out of reach right now (for what i am looking for they tend to be $250 – $400).

So I went to get my hair cut yesterday. The hair place was *really* nice, I had honestly never been in a hair place that nice for myself before, apparently the haircuts are usually something like $45, gah! Hehe, so I get there, and the woman cutting my hair asked how I wanted my hair cut. Now it was all quite uncomfortable, I don’t know how I want my hair cut! I had never really worn my hair any different than long and straight, so I asked her what she thought… so I sorta got some layers *shrugs* not much, still pretty boring %) Anyway, when I got there I was nervous, I was cutting off 10 inches right? The hairdresser showed me how much 10 inches was, and I realized I was really prepared to get rid of more than that, honestly… if I cut off 10 inches no one would have noticed! So I showed her how far I could deal with cutting it, and guess what? 18 inches! Yeah, I was surprised they could take off that much and still have it pass my shoulders.

I guess I was a little upset, I didn’t cry … and Myk really likes it %) I changed my pic on here to reflect it, I took these pictures in the mirror this morning so I could send them to my family (it was the only way they’d believe me).

It’s really weird tho, brushing and washing my hair is completely different! And it’s not as messy all the time, and I can wake up with morning hair now! Hehe… I think I like it, maybe I’m still in shock ;)

I need to lay off the caffeine *pours out the rest of the pot of coffee*

Um, I don’t know what I’ll do for the rest of the day. The morning was pretty much spent trying to mess with the digital camera (I didnt have the driver installed in windows, and the USB is really crankie), then talking to the guy about the web design thing, bleh, where do the hours go? Oh well, at least I have the prospect of a job now, even if it won’t pay a whole lot, I really should get around to getting a real job to.. *sigh*

iI discovered WinSCP today. See, I was thinking, how is this guy going to move images from his computer to the webserver? FTP really isnt an option, it’s not secure enough, and teaching someone to use icky old command line pscp? Ugh. Apparently WinSCP is a lot like Cute FTP, it easily allows users to upload images via scp, woo! I will have to go into windows sometime and test it out, hopefully it’s as easy to use as I hear.

The temperature outside has cooled down a bit… we ended up shutting the windows last night because it was just so cold, currently it’s not even 50 out, it’s nice to not have to turn on the heat. It’s a bit chilly in here, but completely acceptable, as long as I don’t try to make more coffee to “stay warm” … maybe I should make some non-caffeinated tea, mmm.

So now that I have these pictures of my haircut, I think I am going to put together a small locksoflove.org
promo thing on my website, including pictures. After telling a few people about this program a couple said “I wish I had known about that when …” it’s really ashame that more people don’t know aobut it.

This entry is getting horribly dull… *wanders off*

o/` A Perfect Circle – Brena o/`

I am torn between my pacifism and the fact that the UN made a decision last fall and if they don’t stick to it then they open the door to more people who think they can fool them, and possibly cause worldwide problems. *Sigh* So what are my thoughts on the upcoming war? I don’t know, I am so exhausted with caring.

The trip to the outlet mall yesterday was… interesting. I didn’t really have a wonderful time, the place was about an hour and a half away, I didn’t shop at all, and I was fairly uninterested in most of the shops we went to. We went out for lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, which is an ok place, we each ordered a mixed “fruity drink” it was like a strawberry daquari, but with amaretta instead of rum, and vanilla ice cream instead of so much crushed ice. Boy it was yummie %) I didn’t even *feel* the alcohol, but the redness of my cheeks completely gave me away %) We even had a yummie chocolate cake dessert that was so big that the three of us had to split it. Then we went shopping, never walk around a huge outlet mall when you are full!

Anyway, it was nice to get out, and I like hanging out with Nita, her sister is an interesting person, but it’s always entertaining to watch them together. Apparently her sister is having a wedding in May 2004, and the outlet mall trip was to plan wedding stuff. Ah! After that trip I *know* that my wedding someday will be small %) I just dont have the talent (or money, egads!) to put together a $10k wedding, thanks. I don’t think I *know* 200 people! Maybe 100 (including family), and I certainly don’t want them all to come to my wedding, hehe.

I am going to get my hair cut. I was thinking about maybe just six inches or so off, when I mentioned this to my friend Nita, she said that she knew a place that would take six inches, and you donate it to help children with “medical hair loss” (like on chemotherapy) get wigs. Wow, neat. I did some research online, and discovered Locks Of Love. Minimum hair donation? 10 inches. Gah! 10! My hair would still be past my shoulders, but ahh! I talked to Myk about it because I just wasnt sure, and surprisngly he thinks it’s a really good idea. So 10 inches off. I have had long hair forever! The last big hair cut was in forth grade, where it was cut to a little past my shoulders to even it out with my grown out bangs. 4th grade, that was 13 years ago, over half my lifetime! It’s for a good cause tho, and it’ll grow back, why waste six inches, when I can cut off ten and make some child happy? Yep, so this afternoon Nita is taking me out to get the free haircut that comes with the hair donation. Oy %\ I am nervous, but it’s a good cause… yes, and hey, I might look good with shorter hair.

When I brushed my hair out this morning and washed it I cried, I mean come on, this is my hair! I will just need to keep telling myself that it’s for a good cause and it’ll grow back, yes, it’ll grow back, it’s for a good cause, it’ll grow back.

While I was out yesterday I got a call from the real estate agent (yeah, real estate agent, I was mistaken) who wants a webpage. The message is on the answering machine and I will call him up this morning sometime. We worked out a pricing scheme last night that seems resonable, we’ll see, again I am not getting *too* excited, they could end up going elsewhere. I do have to admit being nervous tho, what if I don’t do what they like? What if I am just not good enough? Then I remember that they are basing this hiring after viewing the sites that I did design, so they know what I an do. *sigh* I shouldn’t worry.

Of course this did get me thinking, this is a REAL business deal, no under-the-table payments here, ah! I don’t know how to run my own business! I don’t know how to file taxes on this! I don’t know anything about it! I should figure this all out quickly %) Anyone have any pointers?

S
o I downloaded Teamspeak recently. It’s a program that was apparently developed so people playing games could talk to each other over the net… but it works great when you want to do an online chat with fellow linux users, or people on win32 systems. So I set it up, and tried the local test thing. No worky. Hmm. I checked my mic settings, they are turned on, I checked with people to make sure that the sound card drivers were all I needed to make my mic work, yep. So what is wrong? I didn’t know, so I forgot about it for a while. Then on sunday some people in #goddess set up a teamspeak server and I finally decided to see what was wrong with my mic. I booted into windows to test the mic, since I had never actually made sure it worked. It works fine. So I boot back into linux and express my frustration, and then: “Oh, that local test thing doesnt work, just join the chat, we will probably be able to hear you” ARRG! Why didn’t the people who recommended this software to me tell me this sooner!? KILL KILL KILL! Hehe… so yeah, my mic works fine in linux *rar* I guess it’s my fault too for only using that one piece of software to test it, but I really don’t know much about recording software in linux…

Bleh, I shouldnt have coffee on mornings when my stomach is feeling weird, bleh.

Anyway, I am going to give this guy a call about the website job, wish me luck! *wanders off*

o/` Fisher – Breakable o/`

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

On my Disney Days calendar today there are some of the green army men from Toy Story. The irony is not lost on me. This can’t be a good omen.

So I met this horribly mean german woman today in IRC. Apparently she is offended when people “assume” that things in the United States arent available in Europe. I was having a conversation with someone about shopping online, and was pleased with the selection in online shops, but since I primarily shop in the US I mentioned that I might have trouble if I lived in Europe because of high shipping costs to Europe. She told me “We have online shops in europe, we even have christmas trees, running water (hot and cold) and cars.” Erm… I honestly have no specific “pride” concerning being an American, I simply assume that since we can’t get everything from Europe in the US, that they can’t get everything US in Europe. But apparently this woman has a history of absolutely no tolerance for Americans. She ended up getting into an argument with another person in the room and leaving soon after. I expressed my concern at upsetting her after she left, and luckily the rest of the room assured me I shouldn’t worry about it.

So what is this with so many Europeans having this intense hatred for Americans? I can understand a healthy adversion, but completely alienating someone because of their nationality? It seems a bit close-minded to me, and really ashame for her, because by not giving people a chance she will miss out on meeting a lot of cool people. *shrugs* And it makes me feel bad, I hate it when people dislike me, even if it’s invalid…

So I’m going out with my friend Nita today, and her sister. Just window shopping, I need to get out for a while %) And I don’t exactly have money to do anything *but* window shop.

It’s so nice out… we had the windows open yesterday and kept them open all night, woo! I had a great night sleep last night, nice and cool %) Anyway, I need to go do a few things before I go out… *wanders off*