Marilyn Manson – Mechanical Animals

So I have the layout for wallaceandgromit.net pretty much finished… as soon as the DNS is all redirecting the site to the right place I should be all set %)

So it being the 15th the first Cracking Contraptions short has been released! YAY Wallace And Gromit! I watched it this morning, it’s pretty funny, also the trailer is out for “Cracking Contraptions” .. unfortunately they arent releasing a region 1 dvd, not yet anyway %(! Big meanies!!! Anyway, a new friend of mine (who lives in the UK, met her in #deep13, big mst3k fan) pointed out this morning that on bbc.co.uk they were having an interview with nick park! So at 10:45 this morning (3:45 there) I watched it. It was really cool, I even took a few screenshots so it’ll be like, my first real article on WallaceAndGromit.net!! %)

Last night we went out to CompUSA to get a powersource. R2’s old one was 250 watts, and we needed at least 300 for a p4 processor. Since I do have 3 harddrives we decided it would be best to get a little more than that… so ended up getting a nice 400 watt one (for $60, gah…). It’s nice and quiet %) not any louder than my 250 watt one, which is good. I should be getting my mobo, proc, and ram any day now… I’m very excited %)

So I am in a bit of a depressed mood, despite all this good stuff. I talked to my sister today (the 19 year old one) and she was like “it’s funny talking to people and telling them that I’m going to college… they are like oh that’s great I was worried you were going to be like your older sister… ” WTF? I hate people… just because I didn’t go to college I am all of a sudden a huge disappointment and FAILURE to these people?! I dont know who said that, she wouldnt tell me, but apparently it happens often. I guess I’m upset because these people have NO idea what I’ve done in my life… and I guess part of me feels like I AM a failure because all growing up I heard “if you dont get a college degree you will FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!” *haunting echo* Heh… I dunno, I have SEEN these computer science majors, they don’t know what they are doing… I doubt a degree would do any good besides getting me a pretty piece of paper saying I know what i do. I doubt I’d learn much besides some math I know I am lacking in… *sigh*

Anyway, I was in windows today (i know, bad habit) ’cause I wanted to watch wallace and gromit! And it’s released for quicktime only, no quicktime for linux. Anyway I decided to wander over to musicvideos.com (or launch.com? Or is it owned by Yahoo! noew? gah whatever..) and watch some videos because I havent in a while… and I saw this newish Korn one, and it was all about being an outcast in high school. It was in the top 20. Not this is very interesting, a song about outcasts and a majority of people like it, doesnt that betray the very roots of the song? I mean this happens quite often… Does everyone feel they are an outcast in high school? Will anyone ever actually admit they were a jock? or that they are popular? This one girl I know said that she was so lonely and so outcast… and then the next day she was going out with all her friends… and that she was getting ready for the prom and being SO “anti-prom” by wearing ‘goth’ clothing. WTF? Seriously, being a loser isnt fun. Eating lunch in the hallway with two or one or NO friends is not “cool” Not uttering a word the ENTIRE day in school is not something to aspire to. I know, I was like that in high school. I wasn’t picked on, or beat up, but I really was the kid in the class who didnt have a partner, I really didn’t have a lot of friends. And am I proud of this? NO! I still have nightmares about high school, I STILL get a dreadful feeling when I go into a school building.

Hmm this has turned into rather depressing entry, I’m gonna go work a bit more on my website I guess, that usually cheers me up. *wanders off*

Tool – Parabola

So Myk surprised me and bought that domain I have wanted for the past couple months (the one I wouldn’t tell anyone ’cause it was so cool that I could get it). He bought it for me last night, so I gotta wait around for it to be directed to us… and in the meantime I am working on design n stuff offline. And what is this new domain?:

WallaceAndGromit.net

Yep, my love for those little claymation guys Wallace And Gromit from the UK finally won out and I HAD to have this domain… I am not sure if it’s been owned before me, but I’m excited to have it now %D

Yep, so I’m gonna go back to working on it, hopefully I’ll have a moderately working site by this time tomorrow %)

So we went to a LAN party yesterday. We weren’t sure what to expect, and I for one didn’t know anyone there really (3 of the people were people from Myk’s work). It turned out to royally suck %D We got there and played some UT (ctf, yuck) and we were told that everyone had battlefield 1942 installed, but apparently they didn’t, and then the wanted everyone to get the v.1.1 patch… so it all took forever, finally some people were playing, but no one knew what they were doing, and it got sorta boring. This one guy showed up, you know the kind, COMPLETE loser in real life but doesn’t know it, so he’s loud, obnoxious, and annoys everyone but people are too polite to say so. I was the only girl there and he said (to Myk) “man you are SO lucky!” Myk said “huh?” and he goes “you have a woman who plays games! My wife left me ’cause I played games!” of course i chuckled and thought “oh i doubt that’s why…” Gah… he wasn’t the worst, around 8ish this guy sitting behind us got completely drunk… and started telling us about how bad his life sucked and how he had all these lawsuits out against things that happened to him (broken leg at a concert, passing out on the workplace because of propane, yes propane, very smelly, must be very stupid to pass out because of it)… then he started going into how he couldn’t pass algebra in college so he has to have crappy jobs (not passing algebra was not his fault either of course). And the neighborhood was creepy, we locked the Jeep each time we went from it to the house ’cause we were so paranoid… and inside the apartment it was hot and pretty cramped… and they had a BIRD (i have a bit of a bird phobia you see…). Anyway it all turned out to be pretty uncomfortable so we ended up leaving after talking to that drunk guy.

We got home last night and I was strangely tired, I don’t really know why.. it was only like 9:30. Ended up watching a couple episodes of MST3K we have on tape (Jack Frost and Prince Of Space), then wandered off to read for a bit. I am slowly getting through this DNS and Bind book, it’s all pretty interesting… and funny ’cause there was this one part in the book where they were talking about .edu extensions and they said “say your school is called Gizmonics Institute…” Now if any of you are MST3K fans you know what that is! Joel (the first host of MST3K) worked at Gizmonics Institute (completely fictional) before he was shot into space by Dr Forrester. Hehe, it was an interesting discovery anyway, and gives me that much more respect for the writers if it wasn’t just a coincidence.

Speaking of discoveries, when I was younger my parents had this strange movie player. I could never place exactly what it was, most people I asked about it just looked at me funny and said I was crazy, others thought I was talking about Betas for some reason… but this player had like, disks inside a plastic outer sleeve, you’d put the whole thing in the player, it would take the movie out, then you’d pull the plastic sleeve back out, empty. So I finally was thinking about this while a pretty smart guy where it comes to movies and formats is concerned was in #deep13. I asked him and he’s like “yeah those are CEDs” AH! Finally after a few years of being completely clueless about what they were I find out! See I wouldn’t care so much, but it was the first format I saw Star Wars on, and that’s pretty damn important! Hehee. Anyway he sent me to this site: http://www.cedmagic.com. Apparently people are still interested in these things, my friend said it was mostly because of the cover art of the movies… anyway, apparently this was the first movie format released with “special features” and such… pretty interesting. I just wish my parents hadn’t thrown out our player and the movies! Granted the player was broken… but I’d really like to have that copy of Star Wars (I can buy it online from a site linked from cedmagic.com, but I’d much rather not have to pay for it of course).

Star Wars CED… about the size of a standard vinyl record

Now remember all those problems I had with Network Solutions? Well they are VERY over now, I ended up transferring the domain ownership to gandi.net. It’s only $10 per year for registration (Netsol was $35! And even with special offers it was still expensive), and although it’s a French based register, we have some friends who use it and they are pretty happy with it. So we started the move to gandi.net on Wednesday, and it finished on Friday night, I was very impressed with how quick it was %) And that netsol didn’t deny the request (they have been known to do that, deny a couple times to see if you will really go, then finally let it through if your persistant… I guess they might have gotten rid of this practice after they got into a bit of trouble..). The whois is not completely updated yet, but the registar is all changed on it and stuff, I’m happy %)

I doubt we’ll do anything today… I’ve really been wanting a beer since like Friday. Friday night we were going to go out for dinner and get some beer, but since it was Friday everything was busy, so instead we went to a Whole Foods Market near our apartment, and picked up some rolls, swiss cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, then came home and made some hot chicken sandwiches, but no beer. We thought about going up to a beer store and picking up a case, but then decided we should save our money and get some really awesome beer, Myk said we might even be able to get some Lindemans Kriek (my FAVORITE lambic, cherry)… $120 a case. Ah just thinking about it makes me thirsty for it!

Anyway it’s after 2 and I’m still in my pajamas so I should do something about that %) *wanders off*

Frank Sinatra – As Time Goes By

We ordered my new motherboard, processor and ram last night from NewEgg.com! The total ended up being like, $451 … which isnt really bad considering what I got, the motherboard (asus p4s8x) was $139, the processor (2.0 ghz p4) was $159, and the ram (512 mb chip of pc2700 ddr) was $154. It’s crazy how the prices went up and down since I started looking a few weeks ago… at one point the ram and the processor were over $180! So we bought at a good time. I also could have probably gotten some stuff cheaper if I bought from more than just one site, but I think I’d rather get them all from one place… that way if something goes wrong they can’t blame another site for a faulty product %) And I bought Mushkin ram, which tends to be quite expensive, but I think it’s worth it.. Anyway, when I got the order together Myk was like “ok, how much is it?” I smiled and said “well the shipping is free!” Hehe, it really wasnt that bad tho, since this is my birthday/christmas present.

I got my books from bn.com yesterday %D! Finished Equal Rites yesterday evening, so they came just in time. And I have the equal rites review…

Equal Rites, By Terry Pratchett, 213 pages

This is the third book in the Discworld series. It tells of a girl who has been given wizard powers at her birth accidentally (they think she is a son), and as everyone knows… women cannot be wizards. I really enjoyed this book. As always with Pratchett the humor was clever and the characters were charming. Unfortunately I was disappointed with the end. While most of the book kepst a healthy pace, I couldn’t help but feel that the ending was a bit rushed, the resolution was a bit sloppy and I feel a bit cheated…

Yep, so I’m reading a new David Eddings book noew, as well as an old HG Wells book, The Outline Of History – Book 1. I must have picked it up at the book swap at the dump back in my old town (I got a lot of books from book swaps and flea markets because my mother had this strange hatred of reading that she tried to pass on to me… never liked it when I spent money on books, strange huh?). Anyway, it was originally written in about 1930.. the copy I have was revised and republished by Wells and a few of his colleagues in 1940. I guess I got it mostly because it was written by Wells, and at the time I was really into his books… but it wasnt until recently that I actually picked it up and started reading it.

See I find myself feeling very cheated by my education, and I am not entirely sure that is completely my educators fault. I honestly don’t *remember* being taught much of what I think I “should” know. But that could entirely be because I didn’t really care when I was learning it and so I didn’t bother to commit it to any sort of long term memory. So when I got into high school and finally did start caring about history, the teahers ASSUMED that we all knew the basics, so went straight into details, which without reference points on a mental timeline make it very difficult for me to remember. So I end up graduating high school with an A- average.. and not able to tell you when the Roman Empire began, what year the American Civil War ended or what CENTURY the Great Wall Of China was built. It’s very sad really… especially since I don’t generally thing of myself as uneducated. And then I realize that there are people who did much worse than I did in school that obviously don’t know any of this either and couldnt really care one way or another. I on the other hand, do care. So I picked up HG Wells Outline Of History and started reading. The first book (the only one I had at the time) begins at the dawn of time, of course from a 1940’s view, and progresses through evolution (again, must be taken with a grain of salt, as the book is 60 years old and we have learned much in that time), then into the rise of man, and through cultivation of civilization around the world… and I guess it ends with the rise of the Roman Empire. I’m about halfway through it, so in the last few centuries of BC. I’m reading it slowly so I can get a firm grasp on it all, trying to remember a lot of it so it’s not all just a waste of time, and it’s really paying off. I know so much more now, and I am already forming a quite solid timeline of events in the BC era, things I never even knew about.

So in light of this I decided to track down a copy of book 2. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I started my search at bn.com, and found out that they actually released a one volume book of it all, a huge paperback, in July of this year… for $45. EAK! I love books, and this book is quite good, but I wasn’t exactly prepared to spend quite that much on a book… So my search continued. I went over to Amazon.com and found that they were selling a $250 two volume set… they were nice, new hardcover editions, but if I wasnt going to pay $45 I CERTAINLY was not going to spend $250! So I sighed and followed the link to look at the used books they had on sale. And I found one! Just volume 2, 1956 edition, for $3.70 plus shipping! It ended up being like $7! So I got it in the mail on wendesday, it’s in good condition for a book printed in 1956.. So I am happy %) I know the books are old, but history doesnt change THAT much in 60 years does it? ;) So someday in the near future I will not be ignorant about history, YAY!

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pyang/flash/miniputt.swf

Flash Mini-golf owns you all.

Foo Fighters – Walking After You

Bleh… So about my last entry… I was in a bit of a lousy mood… had a headache from allergies that wouldn’t go away. Then I found out someone invited another lamer from scifi onto the server. I immediately banned him from all my rooms, the last thing I needed was him causing trouble. I had a bit of a discussion with one of my friends about what this kid had done, and it was all fine. So I come back on this morning and he’s unbanned from #brit-cit … of course I banned him again and then this ‘friend’ of mine gets all pissed ’cause he was the one who invited him here. GAH! Just yesterday I had made it clear that he wasn’t welcome, and he had agreed! I don’t know what makes people change their mind like this, it’s really frustrating. Anyway, I have this kid on ignore… he pm’ed me yesterday and called me a lamer… which just cuts him off the “second chance” list all together.


He’s stupid:


– bluefox83- hey you knwo where i can download slackware ?
-@PrincessLeia2- linuxiso.org
– bluefox83- well i’m getting kazaa and imesh =)


He’s insulting:

(while in a discussion about pirating software)


-@PrincessLeia2- i do illegal stuff on my computer all the time
-@PrincessLeia2- hehe
– bluefox83- cyber sex isn’t illegal :P
-@PrincessLeia2- wtf?


He’s annoying… once pasted a huge log into chat after someone said they didnt want to see it, and wouldnt read it if he emailed it to them.

Not even to mention all the crap that started this all… I told him that his bot was not allowed to be opped, and I deopped it, which of course led to his responce of deopping me and kicking me!

I wouldn’t normally go on like this, this kind of behavior is quite normal… FOR SCIFI! But I left scifi, and when I left I made it QUITE clear that I left (and I said this exactly) “because of people like bluefox”. Now I can’t even be comfortable on MY OWN SERVER because people choose to invite kids like this. And of course Yoshi (who is GREAT buddies with one of the servers we are linked to), intentionally made this all worse by saying that he was welcome to come on THEIR server… so giving him a global ban would only cause problems among ircops, and I don’t want that. So I just left the room; if they want a little mini scifi then that’s their business, but I won’t be part of it.

I know I shouldn’t take things in chat so seriously, it’s just I get so frustrated sometimes… I just want to chat and avoid lamers, and I am
consistantly finding it’s not possible, even on a server I partially own…heh END rant.



Anyway, enough about chat, no one really cares anyway, and I’m just upset… I won’t let it bother me for too long, I was getting too into chat anyway, I should decrease the number of rooms I’m in and focus on stuff I am working on more anyway. Like learning PHP, I was really getting into that and then just sorta dropped it… I mean I’m still interested in learning it, I just wandered off to chat, and wasted my time a few too many times % Anyway, yeah… I’ll chat less noew.

So I was thinking recently, after reading something in my friend Reichelle’s blog… she mentioned how she was 20 years old and still felt like she was a kid. That really got me thinking about how I’ve ALWAYS felt going into new situations. I recall when I was about 7 years old, looking up at the big high schoolers and wondering when I would “change” to be like they are… then of course when I was in high school being startled by the realization that I still felt the same way I did when I was 7… there was no cataclysmic change that took place to change me, it was gradual, and I learned a lot along the way to help me cope with what I was facing. Of course I was still terrified %) But I went through all sorts of experiences then that prepared me for the next, and each time, although I didn’t feel I was ready, I made it through. And now, when I look back at high school, I realize again how much I’ve changed… there are so many little things I can do now that I couldnt do then! And yet I still feel like a 7 year old in an “adult” world. I have caught myself saying “when I grow up” so many times it’s become a joke between Myk and I. I know this all is pretty logical and obvious to everyone, it’s just interesting that while there is a noticable difference between child-teenager-adult we are still the same person, and dont see that change. I think this is the reason for “this part of life” (18-25) being consistantly called the hardest. We are making a significant change in ourselves, learning to live on our own, trying to find our “place” in life… and it’s all quite scary O_O.

Hmmm… ah we were going to go to a LAN party this weekend… but I think we sorta decided against it. Apparently the place that is having it allows smoking, and people smoke A LOT %( I guess it’s at someone’s house, but still… I dont think I’d do well being around cigarette smoke for that long, since I’m sorta allergic. It’s a bit disappointing.. but I’d prolly just be all shy and withdrawn like I usually am around people I don’t know.

Anyway… I have decided on the motherboard, processor, and ram I want! I am going to the the ASUS P4S8X (i think i mentioned wanting it previously) Motherboard… it’s nice, but I am having a difficult (IMPOSSIBLE) time finding a place that sells it without onboard sound and lan… which are optional per the manufacturer, but no one seems to want to sell them like that. Which is strange… I mean seriously, if someone is getting the board for the fast AGP (slot for crazy wonderful graphic cards), do you think they are gonna want the crappy 6-channel sound that comes on the board? I don’t. But since it is so impossible to find one that doesnt have this I think I will just have to deal with getting onboard sound. There ARE ways to bypass it, hopefully I can do that in the bios so I can use my SB Live card (some cards require you to make software changes, others bios, and some actually require hardware changes with jumpers…)… but then I was thinking about it all, and realized how I probably wouldn’t notice the difference, since I have absolutely no ear for music. So if it comes down to it, and I have a TON of trouble bypassing the onboard sound I can just live with it, my speakers arent very good anyway and prolly arent utilizing the quality my card offers anyway. Moving on, I am going to get a 2.0 GHZ Pentium 4. I looked at prices, and that’s the fastest I can get without a $60 price jump. And I’m getting one 512 mb chip of pc2700 ddr ram… those cost about $150 (for good ram, not cheap stuff) … The board can handle up to 1 gig chips, but those cost upwards of $400 %o! I dont think I want to pay $400 for a ram chip… And so i figure I’ll get a 512 chip… if i want more later I can just throw another 512 in there and it’ll be very happy (there are 3 slots… so in theory i could get up to 3 gigs of rd ram in there %d!). Oh and I discovered I need at least a 300 watt power supply. I don’t know what I have now, but I doubt it’s that much. So yesterday I was wandering around looking for powersources… I want cheap, powerful and quiet… is that possible?! %) I read the reviews of some of the cheaper ones… one said “my diesel truck is quieter” I dont think I want that one..
Ok, it’s almost 11, I’m gonna go actually get some work done noew… writing has calmed me down %) *forgets stupid chat problems and wanders off to do some work*

Sometimes people suck and I hate them. %)

Pilot Fisch- Tarot Card

Well I FINALLY have total ownership of princessleia.com YAY!!!!

Registrant:
Elizabeth Krumbach(PRINCESSLEIA-DOM)

That make me so happy!

In light of this I finally took the big step of getting rid of php nuke. I have been wanting to completely redesign my page and make it all my own for a long time, since php nuke is just a template and site manager… So today I started from scratch and wrote a new index.php file, YAY! It looks a lot like the old site, I didnt want to make too many drastic changes just yet… and it has a nice little php counter at the bottom %D Yeah, so I will be changing stuff on it in the near future, working the format to make it more and more my own… but I am quite pleased with how it is turning out %)

It’s finally cold out, YAY!! We left the windows open and woke up to the apartment being like 50 degrees… i’ve been sneezing and coughing all day, maybe it was a mistake %) But the cold weather does feel really nice. Of course it’s the second week in October and it’s finally cold… last week we actually had the air conditioner on for a few days! Ah…

I have yummie expensive chocolates that Myk bought me last night ’cause we were at the mall paying a bill… they are tastey %d

Dido – My Lover’s Gone

I had french toast for breakfast it was yummy %d

This weekend was really great %) My friend Eric stopped by on saturday night with his boyfriend. We all hit it off really well, I was very happy. Myk really liked Eric, and we found out that his boyfriend is in the BioTech field, and is finishing his degree (or getting his masters… i cant quite recall) as USB, a college in Philly where PLUG meetings are hosted! And so he knows a few people from PLUG, and apparently his professors have been trying to get students like him to come to the meetings. We told him he should, he’s a really smart guy… and it was cool that we knew some of the same people. We ended up going to the Drafting Room, the same place I went on my birthday. It was really great, the food was good (better than last time I think), the beer was GREAT, and the service was good this time! Not to mention since we all got along so wellwe had a really nice time talking, and laughing, and Eric and I reflecting on the past. After dinner we came back here and talked and drank chimay til about 1 am %) It was really great seeing him, I missed him so much… and I was very pleased with how smoothly things went, since lately I’ve just had the worst luck with things I look forward to.

Sunday was spend mostly reading, and just hanging out around the apartment. I finished Book Six of the Wheel Of Time:

Book Six: Lord Of Chaos, By Robert Jordan, 1011 pages

I was a bit disappointed when I found I could not get into this book as easily as all of the previous. I can see why people claim this series begins to drag a bit. Still, despite the slower pace of this book, I really did enjoy it. Again Jordan does and excellent job of portraying each character, and continually building his magnificently real world. Again, startling discoveries are made about the Dark One’s and Aes Sedai’s plans, as well as a lot of speculation as to whom is working for whom, and what their underlying motives are…

I started reading Terry Pratchett’s Equal Rites. It’s quite funny… and although his books are short I think I will continue reading the Discworld series.. although I might consider going to a used bookstore instead of buying the books for $7 each when I’ll finish them in 3 days. Hopefully my books from bn.com will come soon, I got an email saying they were shipped saturday, I’m not sure how long it’ll take ’cause I usually order 3 books at a time, this time it’s 6 or 7…

Ah so this morning I dressed up my site for Halloween, yay! I should have done it on the first of october, ’cause that’s when we start “celebrating” in chat by changing our nicknames (I am PrincessEvil2 for October). I love halloween %) And this year Myk has off from October 26th through the week of Halloween, so a week off and we’ll be able to really celebrate halloween! It’ll be cool, I think for his vacation we are just going to hang out here… we’re going to a LAN party on the 26th tho, that should be fun, as they always are %)

Hmm, I really am determined to get some work done today since I’ve was really lazy last week, not getting anything done the entire week, ugh. And I am also sorta shopping around for a motherboard still, I know I was looking at the P4S333, but then Myk suggested I get a board with and 8x agp slot. So I started looking around… ASUS has the P4S8X .. it’s the first 8x agp board ever released (there might be a couple others now..) but it’s gotten pretty good reviews despite being the first of it’s kind. It’s priced around $150… twice what I was looking to spend on a
motherboard, but with the 8x AGP I think I will be really happy, I might be able to upgrade to a geforce 5 someday! Hehe. But again, even though the onboard stuff is optional, it’s difficult to find a store/site selling it without the onboard, arg. I will keep looking…

Right, so I’m gonna go do something productive now, fo’real.

I met Myk’s dad last night. He doesnt live too far away (about 2 hours) and he is in the area often I guess, but I never met him… I guess it’s a mix of the pretty neutral relationship between Myk and his dad, plus we are too lazy to see ANYONE more than once a month, hehe. He called Myk up to ask him for a recommendation for a good sushi bar to go to, then invited us to join him and his friend. We had a nice time %) I had some Sapporo (yummie japanese import beer)… and cheesecake for dessert %d and a tastey fish dinner… i love sushi. And Myk’s dad is a pretty nice guy, it was good to meet him finally.

I got ahold of my friend Eric yesterday afternoon. Arranged for him and his boyfriend to come here around 5 tonight… we’re just gonna go out to dinner and drink some beer and then prolly come back here and hang out for a little while. It should be fun, I miss Eric soooo much. It’ll be nice to see one of MY friends for once too, I mean Myk’s friends are great, and I guess they are my friends too, but Myk knew them all first… so you know… It’ll be nice to see someone from before I was dating Myk.

Bleh, anyway I have a bit of a headache so I’m gonna go take some advil and probably go back to bed for a little bit.. *wanders off*