So it turns out that the apartment which I was going to rent is a shit
hole. Instead of renting there, I'm going to save a few hundred
dollars and just commute for the whole summer. This, of course, means
that I have no high speed internet, so blogging is and will be very
limited for the rest of the summer. Bah.
On the bright side, I finally got a hard drive for the ol' laptop. So
I've been playing with that for a while.
I saw Phish for the last time. They played at Deer Creek a couple
days ago. The show was incredible. It kinda makes me wish I was
going to VT for the last show, but I simply don't have the money or
the time. Or, in some ways, the desire. It's going to be a festival
show, so it's crowded, and it's going to be filled with moping phans.
I can think of better ways to spend my time, though it would be nice
to see their very last show. Oh well.
More later, maybe.
Only For the Weak
It looks like I'll have an apartment in town for the rest of the summer, which is a huge relief. Living at home would have had a few advantages (viz. saving money, being closer to Monroe friends), but the advantages of renting far outweigh the costs.
*Geek Stuff*
I did a cosmetic rewrite of my frontend for ffsearch, modeling it after everyone's favorite search engine. I gave in and actually put up a graphic, but it's small and pretty. I got rid of a lot of the needless clutter that I had put up mainly to serve my own vanity, because I simply wanted to prove that I could write it. I'm done with that now. Then I did a bit of research on MySQL's fulltext searches. Fulltext is designed to quickly search through huge amounts of text (articles, etc.) and match human-readable search patterns. I thought it might not work too well with ffsearch, but I gave it a run for its money. For my frontend, I'd been using searches similar to what the original site had used, with "WHERE FileName LIKE '%search%';" which is ridiculously slow. Fulltext gave me a speed increase of an order of magnitude. Searches that used to take almost 10 seconds are done well under a second. It's hot. And not only is there an insane speed boost, I also eliminated a lot of the complexity in parsing the search string. I used to have a rather complex and ugly recursion-based parsing function, now I simply split the words and plug them into a fulltext match. I'll probably end up putting wildcard matching back in, but it'll only be for *.??? queries. It'll probably be something like:
$query =~ s/^\*\.(...)$/$1/"
That will give me what I need to match it up against the file extension column in the database. So it's won't even be real wildcard substitution. But it'll be fast, because even fulltext takes a good 5 seconds or so to sort through a "mp3" query, and because I haven't bothered to figure out how to cache search results, that delay and cpu maxage happens every time someone checks the next page of results. I also (finally!) looked at the source for google to figure out how to have the input default to the search box on page load. I had to use javascript, but it is so worth it. I think that after I refine the new look and put in some of the functionality that comes with the default interface, I'll see if the guy wants to take a look at it and maybe include it in the package or something.
*End Geek Stuff*
So it turns out that as I was completely engrossed in the computer stuff mentioned above, I completely forgot about the movie that I was going to go to with Rhiannon and one of her highschool friends. I don't think that it was a big deal for them that I wasn't there, but I had wanted to see the movie. Damn it all to hell. This isn't the first time that this has happened, though. Programming is really the only thing that can make me get in the zone like that, but it happens pretty much every time I sit down to hack. I'm still second guessing my decision to drop computer science. But whenever I start seriously thinking that I chose wrong, I remember just how easy the decision was when I was actually in CS. But the other issue that keeps cropping up is the money. If I had stayed in CS, I would have pretty much been guaranteed a well-paying job for the rest of my life. Now, it's not so sure. Oh well. I'll take happiness over wealth any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
Happiness is an interesting thing. I mentioned in a previous post that I've been happy since the beginning of spring semester, but I didn't know why. Well, I finally figured out what started the good mood. Over Christmas break, while I was working at RadioShack (again), Dave Gruden and I were talking. He was telling me about how he had decided to go back to school, and a few other thing that had been happening in his life. Anyone who knew Dave from before knows that him going back to school was pretty unusual. Then he told me that the main reason that he had decided to do it was because of me. Not because of any particular thing I had done, or any particular thing I had said, but just because of who I was and how I acted. I didn't realize it until just recently, but that moment was when my good mood started. It sounds pretty sappy. And it probably is. But really, before that moment, I didn't have any reason to believe that I mattered at all, or that I had made a difference in the world at large. Dave revealing to me that I had changed his life in effect changed my life. After that conversation, I had a purpose. A telos, if you will. I have proven that I can leave my mark on the world. And even if I fail to do so ever again, at least for one part of my life, I really mattered. If it hadn't been for that conversation, spring semester would have gone by much the same as fall semester. I wouldn't have gotten out much, I wouldn't have made too many friends, and I would have been, for the most part, not happy (not unhappy, but not happy). I very much doubt that I would have had the courage or the will to pledge. Life would be dramatically different. But I am where I am. And I'm happy.
*Geek Stuff*
I did a cosmetic rewrite of my frontend for ffsearch, modeling it after everyone's favorite search engine. I gave in and actually put up a graphic, but it's small and pretty. I got rid of a lot of the needless clutter that I had put up mainly to serve my own vanity, because I simply wanted to prove that I could write it. I'm done with that now. Then I did a bit of research on MySQL's fulltext searches. Fulltext is designed to quickly search through huge amounts of text (articles, etc.) and match human-readable search patterns. I thought it might not work too well with ffsearch, but I gave it a run for its money. For my frontend, I'd been using searches similar to what the original site had used, with "WHERE FileName LIKE '%search%';" which is ridiculously slow. Fulltext gave me a speed increase of an order of magnitude. Searches that used to take almost 10 seconds are done well under a second. It's hot. And not only is there an insane speed boost, I also eliminated a lot of the complexity in parsing the search string. I used to have a rather complex and ugly recursion-based parsing function, now I simply split the words and plug them into a fulltext match. I'll probably end up putting wildcard matching back in, but it'll only be for *.??? queries. It'll probably be something like:
$query =~ s/^\*\.(...)$/$1/"
That will give me what I need to match it up against the file extension column in the database. So it's won't even be real wildcard substitution. But it'll be fast, because even fulltext takes a good 5 seconds or so to sort through a "mp3" query, and because I haven't bothered to figure out how to cache search results, that delay and cpu maxage happens every time someone checks the next page of results. I also (finally!) looked at the source for google to figure out how to have the input default to the search box on page load. I had to use javascript, but it is so worth it. I think that after I refine the new look and put in some of the functionality that comes with the default interface, I'll see if the guy wants to take a look at it and maybe include it in the package or something.
*End Geek Stuff*
So it turns out that as I was completely engrossed in the computer stuff mentioned above, I completely forgot about the movie that I was going to go to with Rhiannon and one of her highschool friends. I don't think that it was a big deal for them that I wasn't there, but I had wanted to see the movie. Damn it all to hell. This isn't the first time that this has happened, though. Programming is really the only thing that can make me get in the zone like that, but it happens pretty much every time I sit down to hack. I'm still second guessing my decision to drop computer science. But whenever I start seriously thinking that I chose wrong, I remember just how easy the decision was when I was actually in CS. But the other issue that keeps cropping up is the money. If I had stayed in CS, I would have pretty much been guaranteed a well-paying job for the rest of my life. Now, it's not so sure. Oh well. I'll take happiness over wealth any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
Happiness is an interesting thing. I mentioned in a previous post that I've been happy since the beginning of spring semester, but I didn't know why. Well, I finally figured out what started the good mood. Over Christmas break, while I was working at RadioShack (again), Dave Gruden and I were talking. He was telling me about how he had decided to go back to school, and a few other thing that had been happening in his life. Anyone who knew Dave from before knows that him going back to school was pretty unusual. Then he told me that the main reason that he had decided to do it was because of me. Not because of any particular thing I had done, or any particular thing I had said, but just because of who I was and how I acted. I didn't realize it until just recently, but that moment was when my good mood started. It sounds pretty sappy. And it probably is. But really, before that moment, I didn't have any reason to believe that I mattered at all, or that I had made a difference in the world at large. Dave revealing to me that I had changed his life in effect changed my life. After that conversation, I had a purpose. A telos, if you will. I have proven that I can leave my mark on the world. And even if I fail to do so ever again, at least for one part of my life, I really mattered. If it hadn't been for that conversation, spring semester would have gone by much the same as fall semester. I wouldn't have gotten out much, I wouldn't have made too many friends, and I would have been, for the most part, not happy (not unhappy, but not happy). I very much doubt that I would have had the courage or the will to pledge. Life would be dramatically different. But I am where I am. And I'm happy.
Piper
Do you know someone who seems to have lost all pleasure in the internet? Do they seem listless or melancholy when you send them a link to a good news story? Have they given up and accepted that pop-ups are simply the price of looking at porn? Tell them that it's not their fault. They have a disease. And there is a cure:
Friends don't let friends use internet explorer
Friends don't let friends use internet explorer
To Curry Favor, Favor Curry
I don't know if anyone is curious about this, but it's been a while since I mentioned it, so here it is: I hate thinking up names for my posts, so my standard operating procedure is to simply use the title of whatever song I happen to be listening to when I start the post. In this particular instance, it's a song by PDQ Bach (a.k.a. Prof. Peter Schickele) from the opera The Seasonings. If you have never heard anything by PDQ, and if you enjoy classical music even a tiny bit, I would recommend listening to some of the stuff. Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice (an opera in one unnatural act) is an good starting point, though maybe The Unbegun Symphony is a bit easier to digest at first. Anyway, go to it.
I got Kurosawa's Ran and Petersen's Das Boot (the director's cut version) from the library. I felt like watching some films in color, and I've heard good things about them. Again, reviews as viewing warrants.
As I was typing this, I suddenly had a strong desire to have Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream. It's time for a quick trip to Walmart.
You know, as nice as it is to be able to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's on a whim and not worry about getting fat, I really do wish that I weren't so skinny. I'm not saying that I want to be body-builder buff or anything, I just wish I had a little something to show off every now and then. I suppose that that little bit really wouldn't take a whole lot of effort on my part, but I have neither the self-discipline nor the courage to actually start working out. Damn it all.
After thinking a bit more about Touch of Evil, I saw a connection between President Bush and Orson Welles's character. It is widely believed (and almost certainly true) that the President exaggerated the threat of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to muster the political support for an invasion. Nobody denies that Saddam Hussein deserved to be taken out of office (at least, I hope no one denies it), but our invasion was illegal by international law. Hank Quinlan (Welles's character) plants evidence in order to catch a Mexican who planted a car bomb and killed two people. It turns out that the Mexican was guilty after all, but bringing him in based on the false evidence was still illegal. Both Quinlan and President Bush are people who are so sure that they are right they they will fabricate facts and ignore law to make sure that their version of justice is carried out. In both cases, their version of justice is correct (both Hussein and the Mexican deserve to be deposed/imprisoned), but in both cases, the execution of that justice was flawed. And of course, Orson Welles (as fat and ugly as he was by that point) was far better in front of a camera than President Bush is.
When I talk about "their version of justice" in relation to President Bush, I'm referring solely to the deposing and capture of Saddam Hussein. I'm not referring to ancillary events stemming from the invasion of Iraq, such as the prisoner abuse scandals. Those are most definitely not right or correct. However, I disagree with people who try to pin the prisoner abuse scandals on President Bush. I don't remember the specific quote, but I saw something which said essentially that the abuse was occuring because the guards were frustrated with President Bush's policies and the invasion in general. It neatly pinned all the blame for everything that went wrong in the prisons on President Bush. That is bullshit. I'm by no means a Bush apologist, but come on people, that's absolutely ridiculous. The people who committed those atrocities, and their superiors who turned a blind eye are the ones to blame. I mean, it's true that it wouldn't have happened if we weren't in Iraq, and we most likely wouldn't be in Iraq if it weren't for Bush, but at that point you're just tracing blame, which is an exercise in futility. Why not blame the whole scandal on George H. W. Bush for not raising his son to have proper respect for international law? Probably because George W. Bush is a grown man, capable of making his own decisions and taking responsibility for them. But by that argument, so are the guards who committed the abuse. They were perfectly capable of not abusing the prisoners, and weren't under orders or duress. Or if they were, the orders were not from President Bush, but rather from their immediate superiors.
In similar news, some people in Kalamazoo were recently charged with some crime (it may have been involuntary manslaughter) for providing alcohol to a minor who imbibed the alcohol, then went driving and ended up killing someone. Unfortunately I don't remember the specifics because I was drunk when I read the article. But it's a similar thing. How the hell can you justify charging the people who provided the alcohol? It's just tracing blame again. That tracing should stop at the first person who is capable of making reasoned decisions. In this case, that would be the kid who drove drunk, not the kids who provided the alcohol.
Or maybe I'm way off base here. I know there are people who advocate societal responsibility over personal responsibility. I haven't thought that over enough to really have an opinion on that matter. But even so, it seems that the Kalamazoo case is still trying to pin the blame on individuals. Oh well, I'm done with that whole thing for now.
Actually, I think I'm done with this whole post.
I got Kurosawa's Ran and Petersen's Das Boot (the director's cut version) from the library. I felt like watching some films in color, and I've heard good things about them. Again, reviews as viewing warrants.
As I was typing this, I suddenly had a strong desire to have Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream. It's time for a quick trip to Walmart.
You know, as nice as it is to be able to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's on a whim and not worry about getting fat, I really do wish that I weren't so skinny. I'm not saying that I want to be body-builder buff or anything, I just wish I had a little something to show off every now and then. I suppose that that little bit really wouldn't take a whole lot of effort on my part, but I have neither the self-discipline nor the courage to actually start working out. Damn it all.
After thinking a bit more about Touch of Evil, I saw a connection between President Bush and Orson Welles's character. It is widely believed (and almost certainly true) that the President exaggerated the threat of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to muster the political support for an invasion. Nobody denies that Saddam Hussein deserved to be taken out of office (at least, I hope no one denies it), but our invasion was illegal by international law. Hank Quinlan (Welles's character) plants evidence in order to catch a Mexican who planted a car bomb and killed two people. It turns out that the Mexican was guilty after all, but bringing him in based on the false evidence was still illegal. Both Quinlan and President Bush are people who are so sure that they are right they they will fabricate facts and ignore law to make sure that their version of justice is carried out. In both cases, their version of justice is correct (both Hussein and the Mexican deserve to be deposed/imprisoned), but in both cases, the execution of that justice was flawed. And of course, Orson Welles (as fat and ugly as he was by that point) was far better in front of a camera than President Bush is.
When I talk about "their version of justice" in relation to President Bush, I'm referring solely to the deposing and capture of Saddam Hussein. I'm not referring to ancillary events stemming from the invasion of Iraq, such as the prisoner abuse scandals. Those are most definitely not right or correct. However, I disagree with people who try to pin the prisoner abuse scandals on President Bush. I don't remember the specific quote, but I saw something which said essentially that the abuse was occuring because the guards were frustrated with President Bush's policies and the invasion in general. It neatly pinned all the blame for everything that went wrong in the prisons on President Bush. That is bullshit. I'm by no means a Bush apologist, but come on people, that's absolutely ridiculous. The people who committed those atrocities, and their superiors who turned a blind eye are the ones to blame. I mean, it's true that it wouldn't have happened if we weren't in Iraq, and we most likely wouldn't be in Iraq if it weren't for Bush, but at that point you're just tracing blame, which is an exercise in futility. Why not blame the whole scandal on George H. W. Bush for not raising his son to have proper respect for international law? Probably because George W. Bush is a grown man, capable of making his own decisions and taking responsibility for them. But by that argument, so are the guards who committed the abuse. They were perfectly capable of not abusing the prisoners, and weren't under orders or duress. Or if they were, the orders were not from President Bush, but rather from their immediate superiors.
In similar news, some people in Kalamazoo were recently charged with some crime (it may have been involuntary manslaughter) for providing alcohol to a minor who imbibed the alcohol, then went driving and ended up killing someone. Unfortunately I don't remember the specifics because I was drunk when I read the article. But it's a similar thing. How the hell can you justify charging the people who provided the alcohol? It's just tracing blame again. That tracing should stop at the first person who is capable of making reasoned decisions. In this case, that would be the kid who drove drunk, not the kids who provided the alcohol.
Or maybe I'm way off base here. I know there are people who advocate societal responsibility over personal responsibility. I haven't thought that over enough to really have an opinion on that matter. But even so, it seems that the Kalamazoo case is still trying to pin the blame on individuals. Oh well, I'm done with that whole thing for now.
Actually, I think I'm done with this whole post.
Hell Yes
All the apartment deals fell through, so I'm probably going to be commuting from home for the rest of the summer. This pretty much sucks all around. The gas costs will be lower than renting costs, but the wear and tear on the car and the inconvenience of a two and a half hour drive every day negates any monetary benefit. Damn it all.
The odd thing is, even this can't break the general good mood that I've had since just about the beginning of spring semester. I mean, I've been annoyed, or worried, or slightly sad, but I can't think of a single instance in the past five months where I've been really unhappy. The eternal optimist, that's me.
That brings up a point that I've been debating for some time now. Pretty much everywhere you turn nowadays, you hear someone say "be true to yourself" or "just be yourself" or something along those lines. I've been mulling over this for a bit now, and I've decided that it's actually not good advice. In fact, it is for the most part total bullshit. At least, for some (most? (all?)) people. I'm a perfect example. If I were to just "be myself" all the time, I would probably have very few, if any, friends. I'm an total asshole. Ask some of my closest and oldest friends (especially Welling), or people who have seen me extremely drunk. I can be a complete dick sometimes. That's actually me being true to myself, me saying the first thing that comes to my head. But the me that I try to be, and the me that I am most of the time, is a much nicer and more socially acceptable person. This doesn't mean that my niceness is insincere. What it means is that I have to think about being nice. I know that I ought to do good things. Just because doing them isn't my natural inclination doesn't mean that I'm a fake person when I do do them. The "ought" is just as important as the "is." I know that I ought to be a good person, so I try to be good. If I tried to be true to myself, I would be a bad person. So for anyone who is by nature a bad person (which, according to my particular religious beliefs, is everyone), "being yourself" is actually a very bad idea. Don't be true to yourself. Be true to what is right and good. You will sometimes fail, but occasionally failing at being good is better than succeeding all the time at being an asshole. Of course, now there are all sorts of questions to be asked about what really is "right" and "good." But that is outside the scope of this miniature rant. I'm done with it now.
I've also been thinking about secession of the southern states just before the Civil War, and whether or not they had legal grounds to do it. But I don't feel like typing that one up, mainly because I haven't decided where I stand on it. Of course, typing up the argument would probably clarify the issue in my mind, and lead me to a conclusion, but I simply don't feel like typing any more about philosophical matters.
12 Angry Men is a great movie. Really, I think that the 12 characters are prototypes for just about any other character in any other movie ever made. The blustering smartass, the hateful bigot, the thoughtful quiet type, etc. The screenplay was fantastic. I mean, the entire movie takes place in real time, without any flashbacks or anything, but you still have an incredibly clear picture of what happened the night of the murder, simply through the dialogue (and one diagram). Additionally, the cinematography is top-notch. You can feel the rising heat and temper in the room. I didn't notice it myself, but when it was mentioned to me later I realized that as the movie progresses, the camera moves lower and lower, which added to the tension as #3 got more and more furious. So yeah, go see it.
Touch of Evil was also very good. I don't have as much to say about it, because I just watched it and haven't had a chance to digest it yet, but I was impressed. Go see that too.
That's pretty much it.
The odd thing is, even this can't break the general good mood that I've had since just about the beginning of spring semester. I mean, I've been annoyed, or worried, or slightly sad, but I can't think of a single instance in the past five months where I've been really unhappy. The eternal optimist, that's me.
That brings up a point that I've been debating for some time now. Pretty much everywhere you turn nowadays, you hear someone say "be true to yourself" or "just be yourself" or something along those lines. I've been mulling over this for a bit now, and I've decided that it's actually not good advice. In fact, it is for the most part total bullshit. At least, for some (most? (all?)) people. I'm a perfect example. If I were to just "be myself" all the time, I would probably have very few, if any, friends. I'm an total asshole. Ask some of my closest and oldest friends (especially Welling), or people who have seen me extremely drunk. I can be a complete dick sometimes. That's actually me being true to myself, me saying the first thing that comes to my head. But the me that I try to be, and the me that I am most of the time, is a much nicer and more socially acceptable person. This doesn't mean that my niceness is insincere. What it means is that I have to think about being nice. I know that I ought to do good things. Just because doing them isn't my natural inclination doesn't mean that I'm a fake person when I do do them. The "ought" is just as important as the "is." I know that I ought to be a good person, so I try to be good. If I tried to be true to myself, I would be a bad person. So for anyone who is by nature a bad person (which, according to my particular religious beliefs, is everyone), "being yourself" is actually a very bad idea. Don't be true to yourself. Be true to what is right and good. You will sometimes fail, but occasionally failing at being good is better than succeeding all the time at being an asshole. Of course, now there are all sorts of questions to be asked about what really is "right" and "good." But that is outside the scope of this miniature rant. I'm done with it now.
I've also been thinking about secession of the southern states just before the Civil War, and whether or not they had legal grounds to do it. But I don't feel like typing that one up, mainly because I haven't decided where I stand on it. Of course, typing up the argument would probably clarify the issue in my mind, and lead me to a conclusion, but I simply don't feel like typing any more about philosophical matters.
12 Angry Men is a great movie. Really, I think that the 12 characters are prototypes for just about any other character in any other movie ever made. The blustering smartass, the hateful bigot, the thoughtful quiet type, etc. The screenplay was fantastic. I mean, the entire movie takes place in real time, without any flashbacks or anything, but you still have an incredibly clear picture of what happened the night of the murder, simply through the dialogue (and one diagram). Additionally, the cinematography is top-notch. You can feel the rising heat and temper in the room. I didn't notice it myself, but when it was mentioned to me later I realized that as the movie progresses, the camera moves lower and lower, which added to the tension as #3 got more and more furious. So yeah, go see it.
Touch of Evil was also very good. I don't have as much to say about it, because I just watched it and haven't had a chance to digest it yet, but I was impressed. Go see that too.
That's pretty much it.
Live In A Hiding Place
The disadvantage to having several weeks' worth of music on your computer is that it's damn near impossible to give all of it the listen it deserves. My solution to this is to dump every mp3 I have into a playlist, set it on random, and never turn off the music. But problems with having too much music keep cropping up. Case in point: I was doing random listen just now when I some song I had never heard came on. Now this is far from a random occurence, but it gets better. The song that came on was by some band I had never heard of (rarer, but not uncommon), and it was really really good (that is pretty rare). I kept listening to it over and over (that's only happened a few times). (That's why it's the title of this post.) Then I tried to think back to where I had gotten this stuff by "Idlewild." I have no idea. I want to thank whoever recommended this to me, but I really don't know where it came from. It may be from as far back as two years ago. Fucking annoying. It's also annoying that I had never heard of this band before just now. I hope the rest of their stuff is as good as this one song. We'll see.
So it turns out that I have two spare GMail invites. If you're out of the loop, that means that I can invite you to get an @gmail.com email address, so you can use the best email service ever to grace the internet. If you want one, send me an IM or something. First come, first serve. Well, not really. I'll hand them out at my discretion, but if you're not a complete douchebag, I'll probably give one to you.
*Geek stuff*
So it finally happened. I found a better window manager than fluxbox. I feel ashamed to say it, but it's true. It's called waimea, and it is awesome. It's customizable to the point of being ridiculous. I think that with enough time and elbow grease, I could probably make it look and act like any other window maanager out there (with the possible exception of piewm). So I made it look and act like fluxbox, so I have all the familiar comforts, but a ton of new advantages, like an awesome theme engine, SVG graphics, and and awesome xml-based configuration system. You have to edit the xml by hand right now, but someone with a bit of know-how would be able to program a kick-ass gui configuration tool for it. I can't wait until freedesktop.org's xserver stuff gets to the usable stage. So awesome...
*End Geek stuff*
So yeah, I skipped out on the whole rant about the religion quiz and the philosophical musings on religion. Maybe later. Probably not.
Well, I've been listening to the rest of the Idlewild stuff while writing this post. Yep, it's all pretty damn good. I'd recommend giving them a listen.
So it turns out that I have two spare GMail invites. If you're out of the loop, that means that I can invite you to get an @gmail.com email address, so you can use the best email service ever to grace the internet. If you want one, send me an IM or something. First come, first serve. Well, not really. I'll hand them out at my discretion, but if you're not a complete douchebag, I'll probably give one to you.
*Geek stuff*
So it finally happened. I found a better window manager than fluxbox. I feel ashamed to say it, but it's true. It's called waimea, and it is awesome. It's customizable to the point of being ridiculous. I think that with enough time and elbow grease, I could probably make it look and act like any other window maanager out there (with the possible exception of piewm). So I made it look and act like fluxbox, so I have all the familiar comforts, but a ton of new advantages, like an awesome theme engine, SVG graphics, and and awesome xml-based configuration system. You have to edit the xml by hand right now, but someone with a bit of know-how would be able to program a kick-ass gui configuration tool for it. I can't wait until freedesktop.org's xserver stuff gets to the usable stage. So awesome...
*End Geek stuff*
So yeah, I skipped out on the whole rant about the religion quiz and the philosophical musings on religion. Maybe later. Probably not.
Well, I've been listening to the rest of the Idlewild stuff while writing this post. Yep, it's all pretty damn good. I'd recommend giving them a listen.
Particle Man
The last two days have been great. Gilbert, Craig, Jason, Mike, and others have been at Jason's cottage, which is on a lake about 20 minutes away. Both days after work I head out there and we boat around, water ski, watch movies, and when the sun goes down sit around and smoke cigars and play cards. Today we did fireworks and watched the lightning. Gilbert will probably have some photos up on his blog in a couple days. We got some good shots of the lightning.
I got 12 Angry Men and Touch of Evil out from the library. Reviews as viewings warrant.
The current "Carl's Top 5 Songs of All Fucking Time" list (in alphabetical order):
"Geek USA" by The Smashing Pumpkins
"One" by Metallica
"Reba" by Phish
"Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits
"Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies
The changes from a month ago are the different SP and B&S songs, and the elimination of the Pink Floyd song for the incredible "One." Seriously, words cannot describe the awesomeness of this song. Or any of the songs on the list, really. So I won't even try to describe them, but instead I'll recommend all of them, and let the music speak for itself.
I took some random "what's your religion?" quiz that I found in a friend's blog. It nailed me pretty accurately, but I have a number of complaints about the wordings of the questions and answers. I wanted to post about it now, but I really don't feel like working too much right now. I'll probably crank it out tomorrow, along with other various bits and pieces of my thoughts on religion in general and Christianity in specific. We'll see how handy the stuff I remember from Western Religion 101 will be. Could be interesting. Or could be a complete waste of everybody's time. Much like this post has been. Yeah, I'm done.
I got 12 Angry Men and Touch of Evil out from the library. Reviews as viewings warrant.
The current "Carl's Top 5 Songs of All Fucking Time" list (in alphabetical order):
"Geek USA" by The Smashing Pumpkins
"One" by Metallica
"Reba" by Phish
"Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits
"Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies
The changes from a month ago are the different SP and B&S songs, and the elimination of the Pink Floyd song for the incredible "One." Seriously, words cannot describe the awesomeness of this song. Or any of the songs on the list, really. So I won't even try to describe them, but instead I'll recommend all of them, and let the music speak for itself.
I took some random "what's your religion?" quiz that I found in a friend's blog. It nailed me pretty accurately, but I have a number of complaints about the wordings of the questions and answers. I wanted to post about it now, but I really don't feel like working too much right now. I'll probably crank it out tomorrow, along with other various bits and pieces of my thoughts on religion in general and Christianity in specific. We'll see how handy the stuff I remember from Western Religion 101 will be. Could be interesting. Or could be a complete waste of everybody's time. Much like this post has been. Yeah, I'm done.
We're Not Alone
This weekend was busy. I took Friday off and went home on Thursday so I could make it to Dave Gruden's wedding. Then it turned out that Thursday was my old high school's graduation. So Gilbert, Dave Welling, and I went to that. It was long, boring, and a waste of time. But I'm kinda glad I went, so I could watch a few old friends graduate. The poor bastards. After that, we bummed around for a while and did nothing in particular. On Friday I woke up at noon and sat around until it was time to get ready for the wedding. I rang the church bell for it. Danielle was crying for most of the service. The weather was beautiful, and everything went off without a hitch. Except for Dave, who got hitched. (I should leave the puns for someone with wit, but I can't resist.) My dad's sermon was short and sweet, and we got out of there in half an hour. Then we (my parents and I) went to the reception. I really should have driven separately. Some old high school friends who graduated with me were there, and it would have been fun to drink with them, but I didn't really think it through before I left. As it was, I got to visit with the old RadioShack gang, and say hi to the highschool people. After we ate and the cake got cut, my parents decided to leave, so I congratulated Dave and went home. I should have stayed. Oh well.
Saturday I went to a few parties. First was Craig's graduation party, which was at my church's hall, and as the parsonage is next to the hall, and as I live in the parsonage because my dad is the pastor, all I had to do was roll out of bed, pull on some clothes, and stumble out my back door to be there. We (Craig and various other Monroe friends) sat around for a while and shot the shit, then when his party was wrapping we all headed out to another friend's party. We basically did the same thing there. I made my first audioblog from there. (Those will be fairly rare, as I have no cell phone, and no long distance on my dorm phone.) Then we went to Mike's, for his first party since he's been back. We swam for a while, then I played some ping-pong with Welling, beating him 6 times in a row. Then it was just sitting around the fire with marshmallows and so on. Partying with the Monroe friends is fun an all, but not having alcohol is really a drag. Not really even getting drunk, but having a beer around that bonfire would have been perfect. Oh well. After a while I went home. Today I did absolutely nothing. I got ready to come back to the 'dale, then went to Welling's to hang out for a bit before I headed out. Now I'm back.
On suggestion from Dan, I'm going to link to various other people. This is basically going to involve dumping the contents of my "blog" bookmark folder into the template. Bookmark folders in Firefox are nice because all I need to do is click on "open in tabs" and every bookmark in that folder starts openning. With so many bookmarks, it really bogs the machine down for a few seconds, but it's too convenient to pass up. Anyway, I'm done.
Saturday I went to a few parties. First was Craig's graduation party, which was at my church's hall, and as the parsonage is next to the hall, and as I live in the parsonage because my dad is the pastor, all I had to do was roll out of bed, pull on some clothes, and stumble out my back door to be there. We (Craig and various other Monroe friends) sat around for a while and shot the shit, then when his party was wrapping we all headed out to another friend's party. We basically did the same thing there. I made my first audioblog from there. (Those will be fairly rare, as I have no cell phone, and no long distance on my dorm phone.) Then we went to Mike's, for his first party since he's been back. We swam for a while, then I played some ping-pong with Welling, beating him 6 times in a row. Then it was just sitting around the fire with marshmallows and so on. Partying with the Monroe friends is fun an all, but not having alcohol is really a drag. Not really even getting drunk, but having a beer around that bonfire would have been perfect. Oh well. After a while I went home. Today I did absolutely nothing. I got ready to come back to the 'dale, then went to Welling's to hang out for a bit before I headed out. Now I'm back.
On suggestion from Dan, I'm going to link to various other people. This is basically going to involve dumping the contents of my "blog" bookmark folder into the template. Bookmark folders in Firefox are nice because all I need to do is click on "open in tabs" and every bookmark in that folder starts openning. With so many bookmarks, it really bogs the machine down for a few seconds, but it's too convenient to pass up. Anyway, I'm done.
Mass Pike
During my bored-as-hell surfing, I stumbled across an interesting(?) fact: I share a birthday (January 12th) with my two favorite radio personalities: Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. The entire list of movie stars who share my birthday is pretty interesting. Quite a few porn stars. Yeah, I'm that bored. I keep complaining about this, but still haven't started reading anything that I've said I would read this summer. Oh well.
*Geek Alert*
I got the (my?) laptop working today. The harddrive is shot, but I booted a from a live CD that had drivers for the wireless card. So I plugged in my wireless router, and voila! A working laptop! I'm using screen, ncxmms, and centericq to run my desktop remotely. Yeah, it's nerdy, but a good type of nerdy. Once I replace the laptop's harddrive I may just set the desktop up to run without X and just be a http/smb/ftp/ssh server. With the WAP, i could run everything from anywhere in my room. Hmmm...
I think that writing a ffsearch plugin for drupal may be the way to go. I'd have to use php instead of perl, but if I do it right it could be usable by a much wider audience than just... well, me. While a minor thing in itself, I want to turn this into the launching point for my larger involvement in open source and so on. I want to give back to the community and so on. I need to sharpen my coding skills, but I think it could be done. If I just get off my ass and do it.
*End Geek Stuff*
Money is burning a hole in my pocket. I really want to go see a movie. Both Troy and Shrek 2 have been recommended to me by a various and sundry assortment of friends, acquaintances, and passers-by. I think I'd rather spend my money on Troy, but Shrek 2 has been lauded by such a diverse (VERY diverse) group of people that I can't help but think that maybe it's the way to go. Suggestions are welcome.
Really, I just want to get people to comment. Mainly because I'm curious. Actually, let's conduct a small experiment (for my benefit more than anyone else's). If you read this, leave comment. I don't care if it's anonymous or not, or if it says anything of any value at all, I just want plain numbers. Or if you don't even want to leave a comment, send me an IM (aim: expfclucas) letting me know that you read my blog. I want to see if I could make any money from advertising. (Just kidding.)
Anyway, I'm done with this post. I was done with it a few minutes ago, but I let it live to its last agonizing gasp, not having the courage to put it out of its misery. Oh well.
*Geek Alert*
I got the (my?) laptop working today. The harddrive is shot, but I booted a from a live CD that had drivers for the wireless card. So I plugged in my wireless router, and voila! A working laptop! I'm using screen, ncxmms, and centericq to run my desktop remotely. Yeah, it's nerdy, but a good type of nerdy. Once I replace the laptop's harddrive I may just set the desktop up to run without X and just be a http/smb/ftp/ssh server. With the WAP, i could run everything from anywhere in my room. Hmmm...
I think that writing a ffsearch plugin for drupal may be the way to go. I'd have to use php instead of perl, but if I do it right it could be usable by a much wider audience than just... well, me. While a minor thing in itself, I want to turn this into the launching point for my larger involvement in open source and so on. I want to give back to the community and so on. I need to sharpen my coding skills, but I think it could be done. If I just get off my ass and do it.
*End Geek Stuff*
Money is burning a hole in my pocket. I really want to go see a movie. Both Troy and Shrek 2 have been recommended to me by a various and sundry assortment of friends, acquaintances, and passers-by. I think I'd rather spend my money on Troy, but Shrek 2 has been lauded by such a diverse (VERY diverse) group of people that I can't help but think that maybe it's the way to go. Suggestions are welcome.
Really, I just want to get people to comment. Mainly because I'm curious. Actually, let's conduct a small experiment (for my benefit more than anyone else's). If you read this, leave comment. I don't care if it's anonymous or not, or if it says anything of any value at all, I just want plain numbers. Or if you don't even want to leave a comment, send me an IM (aim: expfclucas) letting me know that you read my blog. I want to see if I could make any money from advertising. (Just kidding.)
Anyway, I'm done with this post. I was done with it a few minutes ago, but I let it live to its last agonizing gasp, not having the courage to put it out of its misery. Oh well.
An Attempt to Tip the Scales
Once again, the entire ITS staff is out except for me. So I sit here and "answer the phones," but of course they sent out a faculty/staff email yesterday, saying that they would be out of the office. So there hasn't been a single call, and I have to resort to looking up the latest Harry Potter rumors on the internet to keep myself falling asleep. And blogging. Blogging keeps me awake. (Does my blogging keep you awake, dear reader, or are you nodding off just reading my rambling?) Speaking of meta-blogging (a.k.a. blogging about blogging), the previous post was my attempt to expand my horizons, so to speak. I sat down after getting back from Walmart, and decided that the experience deserved to be recorded. As I started writing, I realized that it would be quite easy to turn it into a humorous post. So I did. I don't know how well it worked, but I had fun writing it.
*Geek Stuff - Skip if you don't get it.*
I've just discovered the genius that is GNU Screen. I start screen on a terminal in the morning, then start centericq. (Which is an excellent ncurses-based AIM/MSN client that has a built-in RSS aggregator. If that's not one of the hottest things this side of the Mississippi, I don't know what is.) After setting myself as away, I create some new windows and update fluxbox, gaim, xmms, and mplayer from CVS and start them compiling. Then I detach the screen session, lock the computer, and head to work. I sit down at any computer I choose, ssh in to my home computer, re-attach to screen, and there are my programs, just about done compiling. Centericq is just where I left it, and I'm free to chat at will. It's awesome. If it weren't for the school's firewall, I could pretty much run my desktop like I normally do from any computer on the planet with an internet connection and an ssh client. As it stands, I'll have to settle for any computer on campus. What I really need now is a console-based email client that can handle html. Mutt is awesome, but the site with the thing that can get lynx to work as an embedded html viewer for it seems to be down, and I'm far too lazy to keep looking. I'll just have to settle for what I have at the moment. Oh well.
*End of Geek Stuff*
On the music front, I've been listening to some new stuff recently. Gilbert introduced me to Brand New the other day. They're sort of a pop-punk emo. Fun to listen to, and they have a couple great songs (Jude Law and a Semester Abroad, to name one). A couple weeks ago I was listening to Anthrax, which led me to look at some other thrash bands. The giant in the genre is, of course, Metallica. Now I had never listened to Metallica, because right when I started listening to music (freshman year of highschool), they were coming out with Load and Reload (which were terrible records), and when the whole suing fans thing started. These two factors were enough to make me avoid Metallica like the plague. But then I heard that their earlier stuff had not only been good, it had been REALLY good. So I *ahem* got ahold of the first few albums. Holy shit. "One" (from ...And Justice For All) is already in the legendary "Carl's Top 5 Favorite Songs of All-Fucking-Time" list. They have some incredible stuff. It really is too bad that they kept making music. Oh well. Beyond that, I've also been listening to some more Modest Mouse, which I got from Dan. It's so damn good. Of course, the XMMS playlist (along with all ~11000 tracks in it) usually stays on random, but when I get new stuff I'll tend to play straight through everything, then go back and listen to individual tracks that I liked.
Well, it's getting close to lunch time, so I'm going to wrap this up. I'll probably get bored again in the afternoon and post more.
*Geek Stuff - Skip if you don't get it.*
I've just discovered the genius that is GNU Screen. I start screen on a terminal in the morning, then start centericq. (Which is an excellent ncurses-based AIM/MSN client that has a built-in RSS aggregator. If that's not one of the hottest things this side of the Mississippi, I don't know what is.) After setting myself as away, I create some new windows and update fluxbox, gaim, xmms, and mplayer from CVS and start them compiling. Then I detach the screen session, lock the computer, and head to work. I sit down at any computer I choose, ssh in to my home computer, re-attach to screen, and there are my programs, just about done compiling. Centericq is just where I left it, and I'm free to chat at will. It's awesome. If it weren't for the school's firewall, I could pretty much run my desktop like I normally do from any computer on the planet with an internet connection and an ssh client. As it stands, I'll have to settle for any computer on campus. What I really need now is a console-based email client that can handle html. Mutt is awesome, but the site with the thing that can get lynx to work as an embedded html viewer for it seems to be down, and I'm far too lazy to keep looking. I'll just have to settle for what I have at the moment. Oh well.
*End of Geek Stuff*
On the music front, I've been listening to some new stuff recently. Gilbert introduced me to Brand New the other day. They're sort of a pop-punk emo. Fun to listen to, and they have a couple great songs (Jude Law and a Semester Abroad, to name one). A couple weeks ago I was listening to Anthrax, which led me to look at some other thrash bands. The giant in the genre is, of course, Metallica. Now I had never listened to Metallica, because right when I started listening to music (freshman year of highschool), they were coming out with Load and Reload (which were terrible records), and when the whole suing fans thing started. These two factors were enough to make me avoid Metallica like the plague. But then I heard that their earlier stuff had not only been good, it had been REALLY good. So I *ahem* got ahold of the first few albums. Holy shit. "One" (from ...And Justice For All) is already in the legendary "Carl's Top 5 Favorite Songs of All-Fucking-Time" list. They have some incredible stuff. It really is too bad that they kept making music. Oh well. Beyond that, I've also been listening to some more Modest Mouse, which I got from Dan. It's so damn good. Of course, the XMMS playlist (along with all ~11000 tracks in it) usually stays on random, but when I get new stuff I'll tend to play straight through everything, then go back and listen to individual tracks that I liked.
Well, it's getting close to lunch time, so I'm going to wrap this up. I'll probably get bored again in the afternoon and post more.
Straight No Chaser
The previous post was an accumulation of two days of nothing happening before I could come up with even the slightest pretense to post. But a 20 minute trip to Walmart, and here I am with a wealth of material with which to present to you after carefully weaving my leftist political agenda through it. (I'm kidding. Or am I??)
I realized yesterday that I had forgotten both of my towels at home. Anyone who has ever read anything by Douglas Adams knows just how bad this is. But I didn't panic! Instead, I toddled over to the cess pool of stupidity, incest, and great sales that is Walmart and wandered up and down the aisles with a confused look on my face, hoping that an employee would offer help. Of course, while most of the people who work there are inbred to the point of it not being funny anymore, they do have a certain inborn cleverness when it comes to sneaky and shifty things, like accosting small mammals, and avoiding doing work wherever possible. So every time I walked by an employee, they were in the middle of doing something, like tying their shoe laces or restocking clothes or opening and closing doors. Being the nice person that I am, I didn't have the heart to interrupt them, so I continued valiantly on my quest for an employee who would offer me help. Then I saw him: someone who was too oblivious or too stupid to realize that there was a customer about. He was just walking down the aisle. I looked at him hopefully. Then I realized from the way his mouth was gaping, from the rivulets of saliva that were running down his chin, and from the vacant look in his eyes that he was indeed to stupid and oblivious to notice that I was a customer, and that he was also probably too stupid or verbally incompetent to answer any question I might pose to him (though, for the record, this was through no fault of his own). Dismayed, I did the first thing that came to mind and stared openly at him as he shuffled by. Then I began to think a bit more carefully. If I were an employee in a non-commissioned, dead-end job on the graveyard shift, I would do all within my power to avoid talking to customers. The most obvious way of doing this would be to do what the other ones were doing: namely, pretending to be busy as soon as a customer walks by. But in this situation, you're always in danger of being bothered by people who aren't as kind to them as I am. So instead, the best thing to do would be to act like a complete retard, and if anyone asks you for anything, gesticulate wildly, pointing in all directions, while uttering guttural phrases and handing them a copy of the Disablities Act which makes it illegal for you to be fired because of performances like this. Yes, this guy has it all figured out. Obviously, he was a notch above his co-workers. Or he was just retarded. But I repeat myself.
After I found a towel (MY towel now), I also found a can opener. Upon purchasing it, I doubled my food supply. I have a ton of canned food, but until I saw a can opener on one of the endcaps at the store, it had simply not entered into my mind that I actually have a lot of food beyond ramen. Oh well. I headed to the checkout line with my can opener and my towel (whew). I got in line, and afforded a casual glance around the area, to see if they were going to get me. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the fact that every other person in a 20 cubit radius was an ugly female. And not Meryl Streep ugly. We're talking chicks who can and do grow a better moustache than me. That's scary. And as I realized that I was surrounded by the heavier half of a Weight Watchers chapter, I reflected that the midwest seems to be the black hole of ugly. Everywhere else that I've been (not too many places, I'll admit, but I have been all over the east coast, lots of Ontario, and various parts of England), the ratio of ugly to hot has been smaller than most people's attention spans. Maybe it's because they keep getting distracted by the hot chicks. But here in the midwest, we put up with humpback whale conventions at Walmart checkouts, and think nothing of it. I'm not saying that all the chicks in the midwest are ugly (the two Hillsdale townies whom I know are hot), but even with all that hot, we just ain't makin' up for the ugly. I have no idea why this is, but it really does suck. Maybe all the beautiful people move to the coasts, where either the weather is warmer, or there is... culture? That's probably what it is. Oh well, I'll live with it until I'm done with college.
See, a 20 minute trip, and two paragraphs for the blog. I really should get out more.
I realized yesterday that I had forgotten both of my towels at home. Anyone who has ever read anything by Douglas Adams knows just how bad this is. But I didn't panic! Instead, I toddled over to the cess pool of stupidity, incest, and great sales that is Walmart and wandered up and down the aisles with a confused look on my face, hoping that an employee would offer help. Of course, while most of the people who work there are inbred to the point of it not being funny anymore, they do have a certain inborn cleverness when it comes to sneaky and shifty things, like accosting small mammals, and avoiding doing work wherever possible. So every time I walked by an employee, they were in the middle of doing something, like tying their shoe laces or restocking clothes or opening and closing doors. Being the nice person that I am, I didn't have the heart to interrupt them, so I continued valiantly on my quest for an employee who would offer me help. Then I saw him: someone who was too oblivious or too stupid to realize that there was a customer about. He was just walking down the aisle. I looked at him hopefully. Then I realized from the way his mouth was gaping, from the rivulets of saliva that were running down his chin, and from the vacant look in his eyes that he was indeed to stupid and oblivious to notice that I was a customer, and that he was also probably too stupid or verbally incompetent to answer any question I might pose to him (though, for the record, this was through no fault of his own). Dismayed, I did the first thing that came to mind and stared openly at him as he shuffled by. Then I began to think a bit more carefully. If I were an employee in a non-commissioned, dead-end job on the graveyard shift, I would do all within my power to avoid talking to customers. The most obvious way of doing this would be to do what the other ones were doing: namely, pretending to be busy as soon as a customer walks by. But in this situation, you're always in danger of being bothered by people who aren't as kind to them as I am. So instead, the best thing to do would be to act like a complete retard, and if anyone asks you for anything, gesticulate wildly, pointing in all directions, while uttering guttural phrases and handing them a copy of the Disablities Act which makes it illegal for you to be fired because of performances like this. Yes, this guy has it all figured out. Obviously, he was a notch above his co-workers. Or he was just retarded. But I repeat myself.
After I found a towel (MY towel now), I also found a can opener. Upon purchasing it, I doubled my food supply. I have a ton of canned food, but until I saw a can opener on one of the endcaps at the store, it had simply not entered into my mind that I actually have a lot of food beyond ramen. Oh well. I headed to the checkout line with my can opener and my towel (whew). I got in line, and afforded a casual glance around the area, to see if they were going to get me. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the fact that every other person in a 20 cubit radius was an ugly female. And not Meryl Streep ugly. We're talking chicks who can and do grow a better moustache than me. That's scary. And as I realized that I was surrounded by the heavier half of a Weight Watchers chapter, I reflected that the midwest seems to be the black hole of ugly. Everywhere else that I've been (not too many places, I'll admit, but I have been all over the east coast, lots of Ontario, and various parts of England), the ratio of ugly to hot has been smaller than most people's attention spans. Maybe it's because they keep getting distracted by the hot chicks. But here in the midwest, we put up with humpback whale conventions at Walmart checkouts, and think nothing of it. I'm not saying that all the chicks in the midwest are ugly (the two Hillsdale townies whom I know are hot), but even with all that hot, we just ain't makin' up for the ugly. I have no idea why this is, but it really does suck. Maybe all the beautiful people move to the coasts, where either the weather is warmer, or there is... culture? That's probably what it is. Oh well, I'll live with it until I'm done with college.
See, a 20 minute trip, and two paragraphs for the blog. I really should get out more.
Slave to the Traffic Light
Now this is incredible. I can't even imagine the kind of will power that this would take. I had trouble poking myself in the finger with a tiny lancet for a blood typing lab in high school, and here is this lady giving herself a succesful C-section. It defies comprehension. She's now on the list of people whose hands I would like to shake.
Being on campus in the summer is very different. Especially this summer, with the new buildings being started and so on. Some examples of the differences: All the rooms in the dorms are emptied out and thoroughly cleaned, so when going to and from my room, I have to dodge mattresses, dressers, and the occasional cleaning lady. Outside the dorm, they've been cutting down some trees, and trimming the branches off of others. It's loud and annoying. At work, the student email server goes down for hours at a time, but there are no angry calls, and we don't have to explain that yes, we know it's down, and yes, we're fixing it as fast as we can, and yes, your bitching at us will only make it take longer. Ah yes, it's great. The cafeteria is officially closed now, so I need to fend for myself 3 meals a day. Luckily, I have enough ramen to feed an Ethiopian village for a month. Or me for a week. I should probably get more food. Other changes on campus: the construction of the new classroom buildings is a big deal, of course. The bit of road in front of Central Hall is closed for at least 18 months, so that will suck when school starts and I'm living in the house. I'll have to walk around the whole construction zone.
I think that no matter what happens to be going on in my life, I'll find something to worry about. When school is in, I worry about the reading I'm not doing, the notes I'm not taking, and the papers I'm not writing. I worry about them, but I don't do them. Now that school is out, and I really have no responsibilities except those which I place on myself, I still feel anxious about all the things that I told myself I would do, but haven't yet. I told myself that I would read a lot of books, and rewrite the ffsearch frontend. Instead, I browse the internet, bored to death, or I play video games which really hold no interest to me at all. And while I do these things, in the back of my mind I have this nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. When I give it any thought, I realize that I should be reading or coding or otherwise expanding my mind. But I keep doing all this pointless shit. Why? I'm so confused. And confusing. Oh well. I'll start all that stuff tomorrow.
Being on campus in the summer is very different. Especially this summer, with the new buildings being started and so on. Some examples of the differences: All the rooms in the dorms are emptied out and thoroughly cleaned, so when going to and from my room, I have to dodge mattresses, dressers, and the occasional cleaning lady. Outside the dorm, they've been cutting down some trees, and trimming the branches off of others. It's loud and annoying. At work, the student email server goes down for hours at a time, but there are no angry calls, and we don't have to explain that yes, we know it's down, and yes, we're fixing it as fast as we can, and yes, your bitching at us will only make it take longer. Ah yes, it's great. The cafeteria is officially closed now, so I need to fend for myself 3 meals a day. Luckily, I have enough ramen to feed an Ethiopian village for a month. Or me for a week. I should probably get more food. Other changes on campus: the construction of the new classroom buildings is a big deal, of course. The bit of road in front of Central Hall is closed for at least 18 months, so that will suck when school starts and I'm living in the house. I'll have to walk around the whole construction zone.
I think that no matter what happens to be going on in my life, I'll find something to worry about. When school is in, I worry about the reading I'm not doing, the notes I'm not taking, and the papers I'm not writing. I worry about them, but I don't do them. Now that school is out, and I really have no responsibilities except those which I place on myself, I still feel anxious about all the things that I told myself I would do, but haven't yet. I told myself that I would read a lot of books, and rewrite the ffsearch frontend. Instead, I browse the internet, bored to death, or I play video games which really hold no interest to me at all. And while I do these things, in the back of my mind I have this nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. When I give it any thought, I realize that I should be reading or coding or otherwise expanding my mind. But I keep doing all this pointless shit. Why? I'm so confused. And confusing. Oh well. I'll start all that stuff tomorrow.