Holy shit with cheese. Again I was out of bed before 7am. What is wrong with me? I teleported to the post office and got myself a TV license for the TV I never use. Bought "Unforgiven" and "Good Will Hunting" on DVD.
Tori's new album, Strange Little Girls, is out September 17th. I have it pre-ordered from Amazon.co.uk at a shocking £9.99 as I expect the release to be prised at £18-£20 in the shops here. Discovered other major price differences between Irish retail and UK online shopping. (e.g. Operation Flaspoint being £44 here, and £24 online. A Palm Vx being close to £400 here, and under £200 online.) Ow, my poor credit card. In the heat of the moment I may end up raping it.
Did a double backwardsflip out of bed at 6.50am. Such energy. I posted the first revision of the FAQ for the Danish security newsgroup. If you can read Danish, find it linked in stuff.
Returned home from work at 7pm and went to bed at 10pm. The Spirited One said she would not be getting me an Apache AH64 attack helicopter for my birthday. Women. What is $18 million in a relationship?
Oops. Back on the horse.
Made it to work for 9am, got home at 7pm. Slept an hour-ish from 8.15 onwards. Ate at proper times. My plan is working perfectly.
The steps of change I decided to achieve today were all accomplished. Not bad for the first day.
I spent £150 today. I got Aliens Special Edition and the Sopranos complete series 2 on DVD, and I got various clothes.
You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun. Mama always said you'd be the chosen one.
I missed the 3 hour special on The Cure due to technical difficulties.
Oliver Stone created in "Any Given Sunday" the most fitting and most agressive use of music in a movie I have witnessed since The Crow. Al Pacino plays his usual hard-ball and disillusioned self. There is nothing to take away with you from this movie, but it is rocking entertainment.
I rented Memento on DVD. Pffft.
While browsing for references to support a point I was making, I stumbled upon an article in Salon.com, Coder on the cross, about a guy who lands a new job, and while I am not a programmer some lines really hit home:
While reading this, I remembered that there was a time, when I did not complain about my stomach several times a week, that I used to be able to get out of bed before 2pm without feeling like I had been fucked by a train, and that I used to be ten times more patient than I am today.
Bad things happen when you get so pulled in and wrapped up that you are unable to take a step back and evaluate why certain things are happening.
A change is in order.
Oh boy. No sleep last night.
And it's the Spirited One's birthday.
"Do yourself a favor - use CVS like everyone else; it's simple, reliable, ubiquitous, and rock-solid." -- Joel Spolsky
And people wonder why I preach CVS so much.
(Exciting and personal stuff, hm?)
Today went horribly wrong. I slept until 4pm which is totally unacceptable.
I do not understand why some people think I have problems being corrected when I am wrong or have made a mistake of some sort. Anyone will have noticed by now that I am pedantic by nature, and the reason for this is that most things that are worth doing are worth doing correctly. If I had problems with people pointing out mistakes I make, I would not be pedantic: I would be a moron.
There are of course appropriate ways of pointing out various types of mistakes, depending on frequency and severity. Someone who makes frequent, severe mistakes should be beaten and handheld until the quality of their work reaches an acceptable level. In contrast, someone who makes infrequent, minor mistakes should possibly only be the recipient of the phrase "Sloppy. Fix." said in a somewhat friendly tone of voice. Find your own middle ground.
Six months with the Spirited One. I am not sure how to feel about these things. In my logic mind, they seem trivial. It is just another day that we are together, and if I needed a reminder or excuse to take her out to dinner or whatever, I would not be worth dating. My personal view is that valentines day et al are Hallmark's way of saving guys who do not have a clue. But that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Whenever I get this trivial feeling, my god-only-knows-what-you-call-it side reminds me of a quote from my number two favorite movie of all times, The Crow. Eric Draven (played by Brandon Lee) has returned from the grave to avenge the brutal murder on him and his girlfriend. When an immortal gives you advice you listen. Ok?
Little things used to mean so much to Shelley; I thought they were kind of trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial.
Dave and I had a talk about women, and we agreed that they are hysterical and irrational beings from outer space that should never be trusted.
Kidding.
I briefly lowered myself to having a discussion/flame-war with a few absolutely insignificant individuals who do not understand what lies in the phrase "critical server". This established me as clueless on computer security in their eyes, with one claiming my site is "of interest only to forensic psychology" -- I tell you, my heart is breaking.
I made it home around 10pm and it is now past 3am. I had chicken wings in honey sauce for dinner with milk and coca cola on the side.
Lately I have found that frustration in work has crawled into my personal life, and lack of motivation has followed. I am trying to break the bad vibes by applying a bit of structure to my days and starting to work out again. Once I get in the habit of using some physical energy during the day, finding and going to a (Kung-fu?) dojo may seem less overwhelming. I studied Jujitsu for 3 years and eventually found it was not perfect for me (too much street fighting inspiration in my training). If you have a preference for a certain martial arts form, and you are able to articulate a reason for this, I would like to hear (read) it.
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway Do they still meet there by the Cut There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps Running before time took our dreams away Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground To a life consumed by slow decay The grass was greener The light was brighter With friends surrounded The night of wonder Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again Dragged by the force of some inner tide At a higher altitude with flag unfurled We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times The grass was greener The light was brighter The taste was sweeter The nights of wonder With friends surrounded The dawn mist glowing The water flowing The endless river Forever and ever
Forensic psychology. HA! The mental capacity of dead cows, I say.
Blurred.
Get a load of this:
From: Boris Köster <koester@x-itec.de> To: info-cvs@gnu.org Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 22:38:51 +0200 Subject: New system against SPAM Hello info-cvs, in 9/2001 you can download our QSP to protect you against any kind of spam with source and free of course. (for qmail only sorry) We noticed a lot of spam in this GNU list and QSP blocked them all without any problem. I think I should report this success to the list with a litte comment where to get the source of QSP soon. Further details at: http://www.x-itec.de/QSP WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST SPAM WITH INTELLIGENT SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------
Trying to sell spam counter-measures by spamming victims of spam. I have reservations about this approach.
I went to bed at 10pm last night. That is a 7 hour day. Impressive, hm? I had a strange dream. Very strange. I dreamt I was back in Denmark, in the little town I used to live in. An obstacle course for animals had been setup in what seemed like a circus ring. I was supposed to lead a rhino through this obstacle course, and I was the last on the programme. The second to last was an elephant. The elephant rushed through the course at top speed, breaking all sorts of records, but when the transport truck backed up against the elephant after it finished the run, it got scared or angry and started trampling any nearby humans. It almost got me too, and then ran out of the tent. Details are a little vague on what happened next, but I seem to recall that the police was called in to find the elephant. As I walked home later, I walked along a path with green fields on either side. There was the elephant! It spotted me, and came thundering towards me. I started running of course, and that is when I woke up.
If you know anything about dreams, and in particular know what it means when you are being chased by a mad elephant, do let me know. I had not been smoking drugs before going to bed.
Ugh. Slept for 12 hours. I got up at 3pm. The headache has been almost constant for the past days, but it is not as bad today as it has been. My cold has calmed down as well. It has been raining heavily for the past hour. It is an excuse to stay in bed, or something.
I have been meaning to write about Kung Fu. We will see if I get the energy.
The snot and headache from yesterday is still very much present in my head so I am home today. I heard on the radio that cleanup of yesterdays oil spill is still underway.
I woke up not feeling well so I decided to work from home. I spent most of the day sleeping so my productivity was less than optimal.
The Windows install which had infected my Playstation saw its last moments today. I performed a backup of some files and reinstalled. So far, this has proved successful. Games are running well, and I can even watch DVDs now.
I found a number of methods to record RealAudio streams, partly thanks to Mercur. In non-Alex related news: someone crashed an oil tanker and leaked 20 000L oil into The Liffey.
Hello. The Danish radiochannel P3 will be broadcasting a 3 hour special on The Cure on Saturday, August 25th at 2pm IST (15:00 CEST). The show will be available live over the net. Here are the details of the show. If you know how to record a RealPlayer stream I want to know about it. Now.
I drank 1½ L of iced tea on the train yesterday. My throat is now sore as a result. Bugger. I spent the idle time on the train working on Dancer. The old channel service support was a hack, so it is being rewritten so I can more easily integrate other channel services. Initial support will include Undernet and Dalnet. If you want support for other networks in Dancer 4.17, I need various details on how the channel service on your network operates.
I played the lotto while in Denmark but I did not win. I fully expected to win. Otherwise, why on earth would I play?
Every day is like Sunday.
Someone in Dublin won IR£3,320,243 in the lotto. Not me.
For various reasons, I will be in Denmark from tomorrow until Monday 13th. With any luck I will get the chance / motivation to update a few articles on this site, and work on Dancer during the 2 x 5 hour train ride.
Oh, when there is £6 million at stake in the lottery, you play. Ok?
"just paint your face", the shadows smile, slipping me away from you, "it doesn't matter how you hide, we'll find you if we're wanting to so slide back down and close your eyes, sleep awhile you must be tired."
Have you any idea how hard it is to type when you have played Quake for the last 2 hours? Your fingers are numb. They have become used to sticking to the keys and reacting quickly. We need mindcontrol devices for games!
As you may recall, I have had many problems with the serial ProLink ISDN T/A that I purchased many years ago in Denmark. I purchased a MicroLink USB which is now connected to my "playstation." -- I am sad to say this device has the capability of locking the machine complete during certain circumstances I have yet to track down.
I am not pleased.
The hep is outthere. If you do not believe me, take a look at my dirt page.
Seeing as how Microsoft failed (twice!) at delivering me a copy of their OS that I could actually use, I had to make my own arrangements. I am running Win98SE on the "playstation" as we speak, and I am only moderately pleased. I already had to reinstall the machine once tonight, but atleast now it knows that my ISDN T/A is used for calling other T/As, and so IP connectivity is ok.
It locks up completely regularly. I thought it was due to heat, but it only seems to happen when the USB hub is being stressed with traffic, or when I screw around with the DVD player. That still does not work. It has a thing for my display adapter it seems.
Screamer Rally and other games cause the machine to crash now. And here I was thinking Win98SE was better suited for games than WinME. Other than the suicide I had no problems with WinME.
I recorded a few intimate audio files which may make it online sometime this weekend. How do you feel about cows?
It is almost 8 months since I started this diary. How time flies!
If you read Danish, stop by the muppets page and read the 3 posts (and my responses) about writeprotecting a harddrive. Unreal. I want to know what drugs that person is on.