o/` They Might Be Giants – I’m Gettin’ Sentimental Over You o/`

Last night in IRC (I wasn’t there, just read the buffer) some people in #13thHour were talking about how “in love” they were. This got me thinking this morning about all my previous relationships. It’s quite obvious that I have learned a great deal from each, to the point of taking the next relationship to some sort of extreme so to avoid previous mistakes. But with each relationship I was “so in love” with the person I was with. Of course I was, in any serious relationship the person you are seeing is a direct reflection of yourself… people see who you are with and, right or not, they make judgments about you… so of course you want to promote and “show off” this person. I guess going any further into this issue will debate what love “really is” and how you can love someone differently, or more, or less than another person. What this is all leading up to is that each serious relationship you have is different, and there is a point (if you are lucky) where you get into a relationship that makes you happy, comfortable, and completely open… and I believe I have found that. Now just for my own entertainment I’d like to reflect on past and present relationships.

Boyfriend #1
I was 17, a senior in high school, and pretty unpopular. I was quiet, clumsy, and just a mess… so I get online in september of 1998 and meet Rob. He’s 27, but infinately sweet… we can talk, we laugh, we share an interest in science fiction. Despite him living in Michigan, we decide to start an online relationship. As the months passed my interests changed, I started really getting into computers, while he just wasn’t interested. I had this desire to learn and grow, while he was settled in his job as an airport mechanic. He wanted to settle down while I wanted to run off and be crazy. We were “together” (met twice in real life) for about 9 months, I broke it off the summer I was in Phildelphia (that’s the LAST time I broke things off, we were ‘separated’ a couple times before that). I guess I basically learned that I NEEDED someone who shared my interests, and who wasn’t ready to lie down and have a boring life just because he thought that was what was supposed to happen.

Boyfriend #2
I must backtrack a bit. Rob and I cut things off for about a month ago before I graduated so I could “think about what I wanted” (I know what you are saying “damn women!” hehe). During that time I spent a lot of time with my online friend Dave. I met him in real life, and although the relationship wasn’t very serious for me (I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back and be with Rob), it was for him. Dave was 25, and he absolutely WORSHIPPED me, in a very unhealthy way. He had some issues too, very very depressed, rough family life (still lived at home with his mother), and although he was a smart guy, he just couldnt cope with reality. I took pity on him, and seeing what a great person he could become I tried to help him out, tried to show him how special and wonderful he was, and of course he took that as some sort of attraction. He visited me in, um, I guess it was April or May of 1999, he was the first guy I ever kissed… heh. But it was short-lived, I talked out things with Rob and we agreed that we’d continue to try to work thinks out. From him I learned that I couldn’t spend my life taking care of someone, I couldn’t be the person who kept him out of his depression, he had to do that himself.

Boyfriend #3
This is when I took a sharp turn for the ‘opposite’ of what I had before. I met steve online while I was dating Rob… he was into computers, and little naive me thought that was cool… we shared an interest! It turns out we shared a lot of interests. From the beginning it was all me showing off to him, and him not appreciating me. Why did I see that as good? Because we shared interests, he was young (16) and still wanted a silly crazy life before settling down, and I noticed that he could easily live without me (so it seemed).
We did have a lot of fun, we tried to teach each other a lot, but deep down there was this problem… the relationship was based on me being perfect, and him taking that for granted. It got to a point where he treated me badly because he saw my flaws. I started hiding parts of myself from him that I knew he’d ridicule. I was living with him and I was forced to become more and more of a stranger to him. Obviously this all led to the relationship breaking up 2 years after it began, we just didn’t know each other anymore, we weren’t happy.

Now
With Myk I guess I went to an extreme again. I had known him almost as long as I knew Rob, and had met him in real life a few times the summer after graduating, we were close friends so I knew he had similar interests, I knew he was still a lot of fun, I knew he was his own person who could hold his own without me… but this time I wasn’t going to hide who I really was. I had aquired this realization that I couldn’t even begin to imagine spending the rest of my life with someone I couldn’t share everything with, someone I couldn’t tell my deepest secrets without being laughed at. I was very upfront with Myk. From the beginning he knew some of my more quirky tendancies, and I made it quite clear that I wasn’t going to change. And to my surprise he loved me for it. *Start of mushy stuff* I am finally able to be completely open with someone. Completely honest. I can tell him the silliest little things that I do, I can have beanie babies all over our bedroom without him complaining, instead he finds it indearing. I don’t feel the need to avoid certain subjects, or put on a “mask” for him. I can get in bad moods, I can be at my weakest moment and let him inside, I can become excited and he’ll be right there beside me encouraging my every step, I can even disagree with him and we can equally argue our positions without actually fighting. I could go on for pages, but I’ll spare you. I am finally happy!

*blushes slightly* I’m done %)

I was playing with my /etc/profile file today. It’s along the same lines as the bashrc stuff, in fact, the context is the same… and I think I could probably put the same stuff in /etc/profile that is in ~/.bashrc (I have to becareful tho, so one doesnt override the other and make things weird). Anyway, besides editing how my prompt looks I started playing around with aliasing.

alias lm=’ssh lyz@minute’

That makes it so in a terminal when I type “lm” it does ssh lyz@minute (minute is a box on our lan where our webpages, mail, and irc sessions are, so I use this often). I also wrote one that make it so when I type r2m it does ssh r2d2@minute … r2d2 is my ircbot, and has it’s own user on that box. Fun stuff %) (I put my whole /etc/profile file on my site, complete with pretty gvim syntax highlighting! /etc/profile

I was reading my World History For Dummies book last night, and it really is amazing how far mankind has come in the past couple hundred years. It’s all something we take for granted for the most part I think… I mean when I wake up I can turn on CNN and watch what’s going on in the world, it’s always been like that. Imagine being a ruler of a country and not being able to get communication to the other side of your country in under a day! Let alone foriegn policy. 500 years ago one half of the world didn’t even *know* about the other (that could be debated, but I don’t want to get into it, I’m generalizing)… Imagine having no idea what your world looks like, or precisely what your country looks like. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past couple years, and it never ceases to amaze me.

In the same catagory as that is talking to people from around the world. My father used to tell me about when he was a HAM radio operator in his teens, and he could communicate with people all over the world, and how cool that was. And now, anyone with an internet connection
can do the same, and so much more. It’s really a cool time we are living in…

I guess that’s about it for today

See which Greek Goddess you are.

*wanders off*

o/` Jimmy Eat World – Cautioners o/`

Yesterday was fun. Nita picked me up around noon, we went out to the King Of Prussia Mall and decided to grab some lunch… went to Houlihan’s, which Nita described to me as “Like Bennigan’s” … a comparison completely lost on me because I had never been to a Bennigan’s either, but I looked at the menu and they had a chicken sandwich so I was happy. It was a good lunch, the waitress was awful, she was this tall black woman who mumbled everything she said so I could barely understand her, and she only came to the table when she absolutely needed to (take orders, drop off food, give us check). Luckily the food was great, and I didn’t really need anything. Anyway, while eating we were talking about computer stuff, yay! Apparently her and her boyfriend are getting really into svcd creation, going through a lot of crap to get it good and have their dvd play nicely with them %) It was some really interesting stuff, especially coupled with Myk’s new interest in creating a digital VCR. We also talked about people who use linux and know less than us, hehe… I’ve been using linux for about a year, Nita has used it on and off for a few months, and we both agree that it’s really cool when people believe they can learn something from us. I guess it makes us feel better about our knowledge too, I think it just gets to a point that you take knowledge for granted, cant imagine *not* knowing it… so you tend to forget there are people out there who have never used/done things you have.

The King Of Prussia Mall is HUGE… I believe it’s two separate buildings, and so big that a few stores are in more than one place (two Electronic Boutiques, two Bath And Body Works’…), they even have maps printed out! It’s nice going shopping with Nita because neither of us are mall fans, and like I’ve said before, the only reason I go to malls instead of shopping online is for social interaction with a friend. But to make an afternoon of it we did lots of window shopping. I went to Bath and Body Works to buy some bubblebath and candles (the only things I actually *planned* on buying yesterday), and I was convinced to wander into Victoria’s Secret … so many nice things there, so expensive though… but valentine’s day is friday! So yes, I bought things *grins* … didn’t spent *too* much though. We also wandered into Hot Topic … I was looking for new shoelaces. Right now I have cute rainbow brite ones, but I wanted to see if HT had anything cooler *shrugs* they didn’t, they did have Chocolate Penguin Mints tho! I hadn’t tried them yet. So I bought them… the guy at the counter was obviously insulted by my preppy looks (when I came in and he asked to help I asked where the shoelaces were, he told me, then said the spongebob shoelaces and stuff was in the back.. wtf? I HATE SPONGEBOB, ty.). Oh! We also went into an FAO Schwarz store, I had never been in one before %) It was cool, YAY TOYS! Hehe. We went to a couple bookstores too, just window shopping really, I miss buying books at stores, but it really is cheaper to buy online.

It’s nice to actually have “a life” to write about… I should get out more.

We left the mall around 4:30, and Nita drove me home. Myk was home when I got there of course (he gets out of work around 3:30), I had a yummie turkey sammich for dinner (Myk had eaten ’cause he wasn’t sure when I’d be coming home). Spent the evening relaxing and trying not to fall asleep too early, hehe. I am reading Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards! … funny book, Pratchett rocks.

Around 9 last night my Aunt Elaine called me (the one I lived with on a couple occasion
s, we are very close). Apparently she spoke to my 13 year old sis Annette recently, and things aren’t going so great with her. I guess Annette has gotten 5 detentions since new years, and one of them was for calling a teacher a “bitch” to her face, ugh! I was always very good in school, I can’t imagine acting out like this… she is so unlike me. Well the biggest thing was that Annette is really into sports, and previously the want to play sports made her keep her grades up, but now she apparently just doesnt care. She was kicked off her sports teams until she improved her grades. I guess Elaine was very upset about this (obviously) and got rather stern with my sis and told her that she needed to start taking things a little more seriously, Annette got mad of course. Bleh. So Elaine calls me to tell me what’s up. I had no idea her acting up had gotten so bad… I mean I knew she was bragging about all her detentions (“of all my friends I have the most detentions, I WIN!”), but I didn’t realize it had gotten as far as her not being in sports anymore.

The problems with Annette are so frustrating because we used to be very close. She called me “Bethy Mommy” for *years* and I had a crapload of guilt when I moved away from home, because I knew that she’d be a bit lost… especially since my parent’s divorce closely followed. But I learned to deal with this guilt feeling, although I had acted like it for Annette’s entire life, I am NOT her mother, and I should never have had that responsibility. I guess my mother just stopped punishing Annette because if she took something away from her she’d “bug” my ma til she gave in … what kind of parent gives in to a little whining when their child doesnt get their way? Looking back I realize it was really my father who kept rules when my mother consistantly became too tired to do so… apparently my mother’s new husband has no part in raising Annette (which I can understand and mostly agree with in most situations), so Annette’s punishments are insufficiant, and she’ll just keep breaking the rules. I guess another big part of it is that my mother hated school, and so she never encourages, never helps, and never stresses the importance of education onto Annette. Again, growing up it was my father who did that. I realize that all these factors are going into how Annette is acting now. She doesnt care about school, she acts out because there it’s fun, “cool” and there is no punishment.

I was reluctant previously to critize my mother, but last night Elaine told me that my mother said “I wish Beth were here, then Annette wouldn’t act out” … Where would I succeed where she failed? It’s NOT just a sister thing, it’s purely because my mother *knows* she is doing a poor job, and knows that I would care and work so much harder to see Annette get on the right track. Of course my mother would never tell me to my face that she wished I was still there for Annette, but it bugs me that she even thought of that as a “solution” to her problems. I have my own life now, and I can’t go back to ‘fix’ things. My mother is apparently unhappy in her marriage too (hardly a surprise, she is never happy), I have no doubt that is another part of wishing I was there… she always confided (complained) to me, I am a good listener, she could trust me… and I am sure she misses that. Bah! Family!

Anyway, Elaine wants us to visit her *sigh*. I already promised my family in Maine/New Hampshire that I’d make it up sometime in the near future, traveling is just so hard to do, especially since Myk needs to work around work schedules, and probably take time off to do that. I would love to see her and my cousin Chet, but I just can’t plan any trips right now.

Bah family!!! *grumbles*

I am quite surprised with the increased number of hits on WallaceAndGromit.net, I have been getting 2-5 per day, which may not sound like much, but it is more than in october, when I was lucky to have one in a week. It’s still not very high in the google search (I’ve looked th
rough the first couple hundred hits in the search ‘wallace and gromit’ no luck), so I assume most of these new hits are either directly from princessleia.com or from guestbooks I signed maybe? *shrugs* either way it’s cool, I love my wallace and gromit sitey! *hugs it*

So an aquaintance of mine, knowing that I have experience with apache, recently asked me if I’d help him out. Sure! Why not? Apparently he’s frustrated with his inability to find a good, free, webhosting place for his little site, so he figured he could just host it at home, and instead of buying a domain name (he doesn’t have any spare money for that) he thought he’d just send people to the IP. Now Myk does all the name stuff for our sites, so I am VERY inexperienced with that, and I never actually have set up a public webpage, but I have worked a lot with apache on our home lan, so I know “in theory” how should work. So I start helping him out, gave him some pointers on installing PHP and suggested he also install MySQL just in case he wanted more dynamic content without relying on a bunch of txt files. I didn’t log this conversation, but I’ll reproduce from where it gets interesting ;) … PL2 = me … nick = guy I was helping (nick as in nickname *to protect the innocent*)

-PL2- MySQL is nice, and it’s fast enough with smaller databases so even on connections like my slow cable connection it doesnt take away from page load time
-nick- that’s cool, I’ll really need it to be fast because this is on dial up
-PL2- what? you want to host a page on a dialup connection?
-nick- yeah, it’s just a little site, and mostly text, people will just have to deal with it being kinda slow, I don’t mind
-PL2- right, that and all the other problems aside, dont you have a dynamic IP?
-nick- yeah, the dial up connection IP changes, but since I am behind my router my computer’s IP stays the same, neat huh?
-PL2- ok, your network IP stays the same, but that is not the one people will need to connect to to get to your site
-nick- yes it is, because I’ll be hosting the site on my computer
-PL2- people can’t access your internal network, if they tried to connect to your computer’s IP they wouldnt get there
-nick- why not? I don’t think I understand

This went on for a few minutes, I *think* he finally understood what I was saying, but he sorta wandered off after that and didn’t ask me for anymore help. I didn’t mean to insult him, but it just was amazing to me that someone who had obviously set up their own network (granted he is VERY inexperienced with Linux) would be so completely clueless as to the difference between internal and external IPs, and what you can and cant do with each. Maybe this falls into the category of “knowledge I take for granted”? In any event, it was an amusing exchange.

Great, so now anyone who wants to ask me to help them is going to be paranoid that I will make their experience public in my web log ;)

Honey. I love honey, and hadn’t eaten it in over a year… but then Myk suggested getting some for our tea (we drink a lot of caffeine free tea in the evenings). Sure! Besides, we both have allergies and it’s said that if you eat honey from a local place it helps you build up immunities to some of the pollen in your area. Coincidentally Myk’s friend mentioned in IRC recently that he gets his honey from a guy near here… a bee-keeper who sells his honey for *very* reasonable prices. So Myk emailed the guy, and he said he’d ship out a couple jars of his honey, then email him with the cost so Myk could send him a check. Amazing! A guy who is trusting enough to send his product to someone he doesnt know (or only knows through another person) without assurances that it’s been paid for. It made me feel good that people still exist in this world. And ever better to know I’ll be getting lots of yummie honey!

Uh, this entry has been long *poeks the people that fell asleep while reading this and quietly apoligizes.*

I should find something to do today *wanders off*

o/` System Of A Down – Spiders o/`

Ah, so last night I didnt do much. We went grocery shopping, finally broke down and bought a humidifier for our bedroom (it’s SOOO dry in our apartment). I can’t really say I feel better this morning… I am sure it takes a little while for my body to get used to being hydrated, hehe.

Yep, so today I am going out with Nita, it should be fun… I think about things too much though, last night while I was falling asleep I spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out how I was going to break a 20 before lunch today! So I could pay for my half of the lunch (Nita usually tries to pay for it things while we are out, about half the time I pay and half the time she pays, but there is always a fight for the check). I am so silly. I need to relax %)

Hmmm, I just looked at this quiz on tim123abc‘s web log, and since I haven’t done one of these god awful things in a while… eh, sure why not (please forgive me).

0. Starting time: 8:20 AM

1. Your name: Elizabeth

2. Nickname(s): Lyz, Beth, Lyzzy, PrincessLeia2, Leia, PL2, “myn”

3. Birthday: September 29, 1981

4. Age: 21

5. Eye color: Blue

6. Hair color: brown

7. Height: 5’5″ish

8. Weight (optional): 130 pounds

9. Grade: Grade A! *grins*

10. Locker number: don’t have a locker, and I’ll be damned if I can remember my high school one

11. School mascot: I don’t think we had a school mascot, but all our stuff had portland head light on it, so I’ll just say “A Lighthouse” to be funny.

*Your Fav’z*

12. Food: Pizza, Sushi, Chocolate

13. Restauraunt: Hibachi Japanese Steak House (and sushi!) I don’t eat beef, but I do love the sushi, and Ricetta’s (a pizzeria in Maine, I miss that place more than I miss my family, hehehehe).

14. Fast-Foot Restauraunt: Not a big fast food fan… does Subway count? Sure, subway.

15. Cd: It really depends on my mood *randomly picks a favorite* Peter Murphy’s “Deep”

16. Football team (College): Don’t have one, I don’t like sports

17. Basketball team: (College): Don’t have one, I don’t like sports!

18. Baseball team: I SAID, I don’t like sports!!!

19. Soccer team: I HATE SPORTS!!!

20. Store: Barnes and Noble… and the Disney Store!

21. Drink (Non-alcholic): Cherry Pepsi

22. Drink (Alcoholic): Chimay, Duvel, Chouffe (Yay for Beligan imports! I wanna move to Belgium…), I’m also quite fond of Myk’s “fruity drink”… ice + vodka + strawberry daquari mix (vodka is my hard liquor of choice you see…). I could go on, but I won’t %)

23. Brand of clothes: *looks down at her clothes* I dunno, I don’t have much of a preference as long as they fit and feel good… I guess if I had to pick I’d lean toward Old Navy though, just because I fit nicely into their men’s 28 34 khakis.

24. Brand of shoes: oooh I HATE shoes and shoe shopping, so I definately don’t have a favorite, in fact, I cant even tell you what brand my current ones are without looking *looks* ah, Vans… *shrugs* they are nice shoes as far as shoes are concerned.

25. Television show: Hmmm, maybe Law and Order… or The West Wing *shrugs*

26. Movie: Star Wars (ep 4) … I could go on for half a page, but I will spare you.

27. Actor: Johnny Depp! *grins* Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Norton.

28. Actress: Catherine Zeta Jones! (she’s one hot chicky), Carrie Fisher (starwars era)

29. Singer: Hmmm, again, with all music questions this is a mood thing, I’ll just go with Katharine Blake (Miranda Sex Garden) for balance.

30. Band: I’ll just say Nine Inch Nails and be done with it.

*Dis or Dat*

31. Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi

32. Moutain Dew or Sprite: you spelled “Mountain” wrong… Mountain Dew

33. Party or Stay home: Depends, probably party

34. The mall or The movies: The Movies! I *HATE* malls

35 Sandals or Flip-Flops: No shoes!

36. Hat or Visor: I don’t really like either, but a hat is the lesser of two evils

37. Nike or Adidas: If you showed me a pair of each I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference

38. Swim or Tan: Swim! Why would I want to
cook myself?

39. Hot tub or Swimming pool: Hot tub!

40. Winter or Summer: Winter

41. Valentines or Halloween: No contest, Halloween

42. Phone or Computer: Computer!!! I HATE PHONES!!!

43. Aol or Yahoo: what kind of question is that? As mail? As a portal? As an orgainzer? As an ISP? As an instant messanger? Bah! NEXT

44. E-mail or Snail Mail: Both, depends on the situation, getting a real letter is cool (I still get them from my penpal) but when I want to ask my sis her telephone number email is really the best.

45. R&B or Rap: Yuck!

*In da past 24 hours have you…*

46. Cried: No

47. Hugged someone: Yes

48. Kissed someone: Yes

49. Held Hands: Yes

50. Talked on the phone: NO!

51. Said a “dirty word”: No, I’m one of those people who *can’t* swear, people laugh when I do, it doesn’t sound right coming from me

52. Showered: Yeah, my hair is still wet

53. Gotten drunk: Not since friday

54. Gotten high: Not since 2001

55. Lied: No, I’m one of those people who can’t lie, it’s painfully obvious when I do and usually ends in an embarassing confrontation

56. Gotten your feelings hurt: No

57. Got into a fight: No

58. Had sex: Yes

59. Ate: Yes

60. Drank: Yeah, water *points to the glass on her desk* who can go 24 hours without drinking? Oh… did you mean alcohol?

61. Put on makeup: Nope

*Questions about da guys* (guys reverse this to girls) ?

62. What do you look for in a guy: intelligence, humor

where is # 63?

64. Long or Short hair: Short, but scruffy looking *grins*

65. Cologn on a guy: It usually makes me sneeze, but if it’s mild then it’s cool for special occasions

66. Body spray: Wouldnt that be sorta gay? Heehee

67. Tall or shorter than you: Taller

68. Dark or light hair: Dark (mmmm italians)

69. Glasses or Contacts: Doesn’t matter

Eh no 70 or 71?

72. Hottest guy you don’t know(Singer,Actor,ect..): Johnny Depp!

73. Shy or outgoing: Doesnt matter, as long as I get a lot of attention from him (do you think I’m joking?)

74. Fancy or Casual: Casual.

75. Expensive or Average: Expensive? Do you mean rich? Are you talking aobut clothing? This quiz is so silly… Money doesn’t matter, but generally I go for computer geeks, who tend to have at least a bit of money to support their habit, hehe, so it’s not really an issue.

76. Skinny, Heavy, Medium: I’ve dated all three, and although I am not terribly picky I guess I do prefer (in a perfect world) someone who is of medium weight (just like my Myk!).

77. Dark skin or light skin: Doesnt matter, I’m as pale as a bleached skeleton so I really cant complain about the skin color of my significant other

78. Older, younger or same age: I would really like to say “age doesn’t matter” … but I’m 21, and guys younger than me tend to be confused and immature, sorry guys, I’m saying “older”

*Jus sum questions*

79. What time did you wake up this morning: Um, around 6, but I didn’t crawl out of bed til 7 (it was cold!)

80. What time did you go to bed last night: 10ish, I didn’t get much sleep sunday night, I was exhausted.

81. What did you do last night: Read, watched some CourtTV, spend some “quality time” with Myk (see #58)

82. What did you do today: Woke up, ate a bagel, made comments in web logs, took a shower and started filling out this stupid thing (what do you expect? It’s only 9 AM)

83. What are you doing tonight: The same thing we do everynight! Try to take over the world! … no wait, probably read.

84. Are you sleepy yet: No, it’s 9 fucking AM! *grins*

85. When do you have to go back to school: Quite possibly never, unless the college tutition fairy comes out of the sky and grants me 3 wishes.

86. Do you dread going back: No, I want to go back.

87. Are you getting ready for this to be over? What, this quiz? Naw, I did it ’cause I was bored.

88. What is the background to your computer: A pink rose on a black background

89. What is the screen saver to your computer: Don’t have a screensaver, this is the year 2003 folks! We don’t need them anymore!

90. Do you have any pets: Besides my computers? Nope

91. If so what are your pets names
: R2D2, Clockbot, Minute, Second, and Hour

92. What are you doing tomorrow: the same thing I do every wednesday.

93. Are you doing to send this out to anyone else: I’m just posting it to my weblogs, they can take it from there if they want

94. Dude, where’s my car: Huh?

*Your luv life*

95. Your Boo: My What?

96. How long have you two been dating: Ah, I guess you mean “significant other” Uh, Myk and I have been dating since September 28, 2001

97. Do you love him: Yes

98. Is he sexy: Of course

99. What do you like most about him: his sense of humor

100. Have you two kissed: *acts like a 14 year old who is apparently the target audience of this quiz and giggles “YES!”*

101. Held hands: Yes.

102. Hugged: I hug everyone, it’s not a special occurance

103. Do you have a crush: No, that would be called “cheating” even if it was just in my head.

104. Do they know you like them: STFU

105. How long have you liked them: STFU!!!

106. Do you think you two will ever get the hook-up: Dude, what about boo?

*Ending*

107. Did you enjoy this survey: besides the fact that it was apparently written for a heterosexual teenage girl, by a heterosexual teenage girl who can’t spell “mountain” … sure, it was better than flossing my teeth

108. Are you glad it is over: It’s not over yet, I see more questions

109. What was your favorite question: #63

110. What was your favorite section: I loved them all too much to choose

111. Any last words: fuck you %D

112: Ending time: 9:10 AM

*wanders off to play with her neopets*

o/` Flock Of Seagulls – I Ran o/`

I made a pretty screenshot: Screenshot! … it has mplayer playing a quicktime movie, irssi, a wterm, opera, and the gimp YAY! I just hadnt taken a screenshot it quite some time.

Last night we watched Taxi Driver … I am not quite sure what I think of it. Unfortunately I am leaning toward “dislike” which is sad. Don’t get me wrong, I understood the point and direction of the movie… it just bored me. I felt myself looking at the clock a lot and moving around in my seat a lot (both of which are signs I am bored). I really do like DeNiro, and the movie had it’s moments, but on a whole… bleh.

I went to bed around midnight last night, took forever to fall asleep while I thought of 45345 things to write here (all of which I forgot, of course, hehe). I am still tired, but it’s monday, I never get around to doing anything on mondays anyway.

My friend Nita and I are going out tomorrow. Going to the mall to buy some bubblebath and candles, yay for valentine’s day gifts! Sorry to anyone who doesn’t share my valentine’s day enthusiasm, I remember how v-day used to suck for me too. I think the only thing worse than v-day when I was single (a teenager) was my birthday… and not by much. Anyway, it will be good getting out of the apartment… Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather just shop online and never set foot inside the evil mall, but I haven’t seen Nita in about a month, and social contact is good! We’ll probably grab some lunch while we’re out too.

So I checked my email this morning and “Birthday Alert!” … My “mail on birthday” script seems to be working nicely %) Good thing too, ’cause I would have forgotten KServo’s birthday tomorrow, hehee. Anyway, I am very proud of the little script *hugs it* I’m glad I finally got it finished.

So I got drunk friday night. Nothing terribly unusual. Luckily I stayed far away from the computer most of the night (popped in once to embarrass myself in #goddess by saying

-@pleia2- mmmm brrt!
-@pleia2- Beer@
-@pleia2- Beer!

But that is not nearly as silly as I usually am… and at least I didn’t post to my web logs (sorry, must point this out, i despise the term “blog” …) and say strange drunk things while pretending to be sober, or go into IRC and tell everyone I loved them. Anyway, like I said in a previous entry, I had a hangover the next morning. And despite not coming online and saying “i am so sick *complain*” … it was fairly known I’d be feeling pretty crappy. And so I got the usual lectures from people about how I shouldnt drink. Well damn why not? “it’s bad for your liver and brain.” Ok, I understand people being concerned, but I’m 21 for godssake! Bleh… I’m allowed to have fun, it’s legal, and if there really was some sort of immediate health threat I’d stop. It’s not like I’m an alcoholic, I just like to have fun, and at my age that sometimes involves inebration %)

I dunno what I’ll do today… hopefully something besides chatting %) Maybe I’ll get around to writing a letter back to my penpal Lucy… She should be having her second child any day now! Yes… maybe I will write her. *wanders off*

o/` Something Corporate – Konstantine o/`

WallaceAndGromit.net officially got it’s 600th hit friday night, YAY!

I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday… just being lazy I guess… Friday Myk stayed home from work of course ’cause of the snow. We had a nice relaxing (lazy!) day. My father called around 4:30, we only spoke for a few minutes since there is only one phone at the rehab clinic and so he needs to share it with like 30 other people, but most of the conversation was about how my life is going. My father, 50 years old, in rehab for alcoholism, divorced, a shame to his parents… I love him but he has absolutely no right to judge me. The first three questions when I answer the phone? “Do you have a job yet?” “Are you going to school?” “What do you do all day?” *PL2 answers* Dad replies, “Aw, well that’s ashame, the longer you spend without a job the worse it’ll be for you to get one in the future you know… it’s hard to get far in this world without college… blah blah blah…!” I am so fucking sick of it. I am happy, I am healthy, I am financially secure, which is more than he was for most of his life. Sure, a guy takes care of me, but it’s not like I’m eating cookies and watching soap operas all day! It’s not like I am making absolutely no intellectual progress just because I don’t have a job. I am learning a great deal, why should I feel the need to justify that to him? It’s not fair! I understand that he is disappointed that his eldest daughter with the “most potential” is not running out into the world and building a sucessful career, but there is a point where his love for me should counter this disappointment! Does he think I am completely unaware of these things he tells me? I’m not stupid. Does he think that voicing this disappointment will help me? It only pushes me away further. I steered the conversation away from that, and he told me about a book he had just finished reading that he enjoyed, Swan Song, it sounds pretty interesting, I put it on my bn.com wishlist, maybe I’ll pick it up next time I am shopping for books.

After the phone call with my dad I was feeling reasonably depressed. Came into the computer room and just hugged Myk and told him. I just sighed and sat at my computer to watch the last episode of “The Office” that I had to cheer me up. It was funny, I felt a bit better after that, I shouldn’t let what my father says get to me, he really is just trying to help… I am sure he doesnt realize how much it hurts.

Later that evening we ordered in Indian food, and against our better judgement bought a case of beer as well, YAY! The indian food was excellent like usual, beer was great. Myk also rented the first two DVDs of Six Feet Under (HBO series, season 1.. just released). I had never seen any episodes before since I haven’t had HBO in *years* but I was pleasantly surprised. We sat there drinking beer (polished off half a case!) for 7 hours watching both dvds. Made me really want to buy it, since it was only a 2 night rental and so we wouldnt have time to watch the extras and commentaries, which I’d really like to see sometime. It was about 2 am when that was finally over, I was pretty trashed… wandered to bed *ZzzZzz* It was a good night.

Not terribly surprising I woke up with a hangover the next morning, not drinking enough water before I went to bed *oops* .. it was ok though, I can’t complain, it’s my fault… and at least it was just a headache I havent gotten sick to my stomach from a hangover in months. I chatted a little yesterday, then read… for some reason I was exhausted, maybe my sleep wasnt as restful as I thought? I fell asleep twice yesterday afternoon while reading! I took a bath and then went out to blockbuster to get another 3 eps of Six Feet Under (and bought a box of whoppers, yay for hangover munchies)… came home and I was still tired! Bah… made chicken and
stuffing for dinner and we watched the movie. I really wasn’t in the mood for drinking, Myk was tho, it was fun. The DVD ended around 8:30, at a cliff-hanger, after cursing myself for not getting the next dvd I got dressed (i was in my pjs by then) and went back out to get it, heehee. So I got home around 9 and we watched the last DVD of the season. Good stuff! I definately recommend it to anyone, I had watched OZ before (another hbo series)… and it was awsome, never seen The Sopranos, but I am sure that show is quite good too… I imagine these series’ are the only thing saving HBO, and they do an excellent job. Anyway, we went to bed a little after midnight. It was a great night.

Ah so it’s Sunday morning *looks at the clock* ok, afternoon %)

My mplayer install apparently didn’t go as flawless as I had hoped. I went to apt-get install imagemagick, and that’s fine, I go through with the install like normal… then a window pops up asking me about my mplayer config?! GAH! Paranoid I cancel the install and wonder what the heck was going on. MPlayer was working fine, what did I need to configure now? Maybe it was having trouble because I didn’t install the old mplayer from apt? I had never encountered anything like this. So I decided to grab the howto that I made up and try to figure out what happened, no help. I try to apt-get install xchat this time (i use irssi, but xchat is cool to have for testing things sometimes), same problem… and I notice that the mplayer version it is configuring for is the correct one on my system, so that was comforting. I went through the two option config (only one question really, about video output), I sorta guessed, assumed I could get back to it later if I fucked it up. And now everything works fine. I apt-get installed imagemagick and it worked… I have so much to learn still! Like why didn’t that config screen come up when I first installed the mplayer deb package? Why did it wait to scare me into thinking I had broken my system? Hehe.

Anyway, I have stuff to do today.. *wanders off*

A buddy of mine in #goddess sent me 6 episodes of this english comedy “The Office” This is a screenshot from one of the funniest scenes… these two guys who had desks near each other werent getting along, one put the other’s stapler in this jello, hee, great stuff.

No work for Myk today %) It’s nice… sooo much snow! YAY! The roads are pretty clear now, we might go out and grab some pizza or something for dinner later %)

*wanders off*

o/` What A Good Boy – Barenaked Ladies o/`

I don’t really have much to say today… I’m fairly tired. Last night we watched “The West Wing” and “Law and Order” (like usual) … PLUG was last night, but as normal lately it was badly planned … the last time we tried to go to a badly planned meeting no one showed up, that’s not worth driving 45 minutes in traffic.

I don’t know why I am so tired lately, I have always gotten 5-7 hours of sleep a night… Maybe it’s the placement of that sleeptime? Maybe 5-7 hours of sleeping in the daytime is better for me than 5-7 hours of sleeping at night? Bah! Maybe I’m just getting older ;) not so resiliant.

I played with mplayer today, was frustrated because taking screenshots of mplayer was seemingly impossible, until I RTFM *grins* I spent the better part of the morning playing with taking screenshots of pictures on mplayer… makes me sad that I put my stupid, old, slow dvd-rom drive in another computer, but it was either keep using the 24x cd (8x dvd) rom drive or use my new 48x cdrom, and since previously I barely ever used my dvd-rom it was a good choice *shrugs* it would have been cool to get screencaps from movies I have on dvd though.

I played with .bashrc a bit this morning… a friend of mine in #goddess was helping me out. It was kinda funny ’cause while I appreciated the help, it was all stuff I am sure I could have figured out once on the right track, I kept saying “thanks, i am sure I can figure it out now…” then he’d keep going *shrugs* it was nice of him anyway, I really do appreciate it, I understand so much more now.

Anyway, I’m prolly going to just go wander off and spend the rest of my afternoon chatting, yay for wasted time *wanders off*

o/` Sarah McLachlan – I Love You o/`

Install Adventures

09:18:29 -@PrincessLeia2- i should really install the new mplayer
10:06:50 -@PrincessLeia2- there is an mplayer in apt o_O
10:07:13 -@PrincessLeia2- but it’s not the one with quicktime support, it’s the one i already have
10:30:01 -@PrincessLeia2- hrm
10:30:09 -@PrincessLeia2- some things that mplayer needs are “not installable”
10:30:25 -@PrincessLeia2- mplayer-386: Depends: libdvdnav1 (>= 0.1.3) but it is not installable
10:30:41 -@PrincessLeia2- that’s not happiness
10:30:54 * PrincessLeia2 sighs and just reinstalls the old mplayer
10:33:08 -@PrincessLeia2- ugh, i shouldnt even have tried to get the new mplayer, i knew i’d screw everything up %(
10:33:56 * PrincessLeia2 tries to fix it
10:43:41 -@PrincessLeia2- ah, there… back to where i started
10:43:43 -@PrincessLeia2- heh
10:44:01 -@PrincessLeia2- i dont need stupid new mplayer anyway

This was this morning. Reading this from start to finish is actually quite funny… It took almost til noon to get my old mplayer reinstalled properly (/etc/codecs.conf had disappeared and didn’t want to come back when I tried to reinstall, I figured it out eventually…). So after this failure I mentioned in #goddess how much trouble I was having, and how I was giving up. Lucky for me my friend grifter was around and willing to help me install it, yay! It was an insane install %) Took over a half hour of stuff that he told me to do *ugh* … and almost none of which I would have known to do, I even made my own deb package instead of using one I downloaded %D … Now I can watch quicktime movies in linux!!! YAY!!! No more dependency on windows for that *happy dance*

I also got around to finally installing Open Office properly. For some reason I installed it only for my user, I am not sure what I was thinking, but that was obviously stupid. So I finally got around to getting the apt location for OpenOffice and apt-get installed it the right way. Luckily that went perfectly, I have absolutely no problems with it. %)

Fun stuff, I am so excited to have nice mplayer playing everything noew! I saved the log of everything I did in a txt file that I should edit later into instructions, I’m just having too much fun playing movies right now to do that %)

In other news, I got an email yesterday with the subject ‘help’ … now I get anywhere from 0-3 emails a month from people visiting my website, usually it’s “I can help you with completing this section…” or “I have a question about some subject on your site, can you help?” and most of all “I saw an mp3 on your mp3 list, could you send…?” … so I just assumed this email would be about something like that… I couldn’t have been more wrong. About a month ago I posted a section on my site called “Verbal Abuse – A Personal Account Of What I Went Through, it was basically talking about the crappy relationship I had with an ex boyfriend of mine. I didn’t try to draw special attention to it on my page, I even had the page created for quite some time before I linked it to my main page (a mix of laziness and reluctance to share it I guess). Anyway, at the bottom of the page I give my email address, as I am always willing to help people out of who have been through situations like that. The email I got called ‘help’ was from a woman who basically laid out her story for me (about 2 pages worth) and then asked me if I thought she was over-reacting, asked what my advice would be. The letter brought me to tears. Her verbally abusive boyfriend had many of the same tendancies of my ex, and I could see in her writing EXACTLY how she felt, and the memories just hit me. I spent almost 2 hours writing an email back to her, picking apart her mail and sharing with her my similar experiences, even all embarassing stuff (much more detail than I put on my website)… Anyway, she mailed me back this afternoon telling me she had kicked him out, YAY!!! She has much more strength than I did… I told her I’d continue email coorespo
ndence as long as she wanted, forever even… she seems like a really sweet person, I hope she’s able to get out of this.

Anyway, it’s getting late in the day *wanders off to do some laundry and read*

o/` Supreme Beings Of Leisure – Nothin’ Like Tomorrow o/`

I finished a book last weekend:

Pyramids, By Terry Pratchett, 323 pages
This is another book in the Discworld series. It takes place mostly in an “Egyptionesque” kingdom of Djelibeybi, where the new young Pharaoh Teppic (a trained assassin despite his royal lineage) has a few problems, among them being that his Old Kingdom is now a Lost Kingdom. As always, Pratchett’s characters are entertaining, while the story pokes fun at culture. I found this book to be a bit slow at first, and I wouldn’t say it’s one of Pratchett’s best, but it certainly was fun. I was greatly entertained by the camel.

I am about halfway through reading the third book in the coldfire trilogy. I can usually tell a good book when I can read 100 pages in a row, without paying attention to the page number… I did that with this book. It’s definitely worth pushing yourself through the first book, they get much better as they go along.

Yesterday Myk stopped at home during his lunch break to pick up a Debian CD… decided to take me back with him so I could take the Jeep and go grocery shopping (ugh)… I guess monday around noon is shopping time for old and disabled people, the store was full of them! Maybe some sort of bus dropped them off… I didn’t see one, but it was crazy. I got the shopping done though… I hate shopping!

It was really nice out yesterday, if I hadnt spent my afternoon grocery shopping (then leaving to pick Myk up from work at 3) I probably would have taken a walk. I never checked the *actual* temperature, but it must have been somewhere around 40. Today it’s all cold and rainy, no walks %( Anyway, it was a nice break from the cool weather.

So I recently downloaded the woody deb package for yahoo!’s official instant messanger. Apparently they recently changed their protocol, so the apt-get version of Gaim no longer supports Yahoo! .. I didn’t really care much at the time since I was all *anti-im* for a couple months, but now I want to use them again. Anyway, I had tried the linux version of Yahoo! Messanger last year, and it was pretty basic, not terribly stable, and I really didn’t like it… but since it has been a whole year I decided to give it another chance, it has not disappointed! Better email alert system, tabs for weather, headlines, mail, calendar, just like the windows version, and I looked in the preferences, and there is an option for skinning! I will have to explore that later. It’s been very stable as well, which is nice obviously. They still call this version “Beta” … I doubt they will ever get to an official stable release since it’s probably like, 3 determined yahoo! programmers working on this as an independent project in their spare time, hehe. Anyway, you can see a screenshot of my unskinned ymessanger here: Linux Yahoo! Messanger.

I was going to spend yesterday working on a mail script for irssi, so it can alert me in the statusbar when I have new mail (like bitchx does)… and then I discovered on the bitchx site that it had been done already! So I downloaded the script, it’s pretty nice. The only thing I don’t really like about it is i had to add another status bar for the mail section, and so now when I have no new mail it’s just blank *shrugs* I’ll get used to it… but when I get new mail it looks like THIS… yay %)

So there was a post to the Lan List yesterday… and a few of our friends are planning a lan party for February 15th, YAY! I love lan parties %) The day before is valentine’s day of course, and Myk and I are going out for sushi %d mmmm sushi, I can’t wait.

Anyway, I am going to go see if there is anything I can find to work on today, maybe I’ll add some useless new sections to my website ;) *wanders off*

Where do you fall on the liberal – conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla

Conservative? I must be getting old, hee.

I will be crushed by a giant duck!

How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test

This explains my fear of birds! *grins*

Which OS are You?

I *told* a bunch of people the terrible results of this quiz, hehe, but never actually posted it…