Whew, I'm either humiliated or respected after today. Today was the high school's Academic Olympics, held in the small Auditorium, a trivia competition for Spirit week. Simply put, there are four teams, for freshmen, sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors, each with 4 players from that class. The faculty reads the questions from a card at a podium, and the first team to buzz in answers, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Since I am Vice President of the school's varsity Trivia Team, (sounds like such a figurehead) role, I had to choose who would be on the team. Nobody offered to be on the Juniors team, costing some Spirit Points for their apathy. Anyway, I managed to bring a friend and sit in for the Juniors team. There was one problem, we were only 2 people versus teams of four, but my friend said that she'd rather I answered most, too shy, and only really good at English, she told me.

Well, we sat down on the stage and started the match. The first was Seniors vs Juniors. Originally the Seniors took the lead, going for the Math and calculus questions. I managed to answer some tricky science questions, which suprised some buddies in the audience. Once the category of Math ran out, and my team was behind, they chose a Biology question (but the hardest to put us out of reach of an answer). An important question like this could swing control over to our team, where my Literature major friend could outanswer anyone for her category. Hands on the buzzers, just needed one correct answer right now.

The Question:

What does a polyorchid man have more than t---"

I buzzed in, then instantly regretted it. I knew the answer, but I had to heasitate. You see, the answer is Testicles, but I had some reservations at yelling it out in a crowded room, right answer or not. Wait, what if it's wrong? God, how mortifying! Who put this question in the pile?

After making absolutely sure in my head twice that it was the right answer, even struggling to find the root word in Latin, I cringed, and said

testicles?

It seemed to take an eternity for the teacher slowly flip over the card, register a suprised look, and say "...That's correct." Whew.

I slumped back in my chair, as everyone in the audience gave me this look of "How the hell did he know that?" followed by a standing ovation of my friends in the 2nd row. I want to say it was gratifying, but I was too releived thinking of whether I'd live something like that down if I was wrong.

After we had control of the board, the topic moved to English Literature. There were a number of tough ones that my companion answered, some the Seniors just knew better than we.

Then, another question popped up:

What Russian author was famous for writing Crime and Punishment?

Nobody buzzes in. Seven seconds go by. Just before the timer runs out, I reluctantly buzz in. I'm pretty sure I know the guy, but how am I going to pronounce this guy's name? Know it, anyone? Fydor Doystevsky.

Of course the room goes quiet when I speak (does wonders for my ego), and I pronounce "Fye-odor...Dos-toy-ev-esky?"

An even longer pause, as the announcer turns over the card, and registers an even bigger look of suprise than the previous one. "Correct!"

The audience, mostly freshmen and a few teachers, all emit a collective "Whoah." In case you didn't know, you never hear of this guy until college, which is why the name boggled all the 14-year-olds' minds.

And that was the game. We lost by about 3 points for the Opening lead the Seniors had. But let me tell you, when I got off that stage, I got applause from everyone. Not only because of the questions, but the fact that I managed to nearly tie with 4 seniors. Not to steal the spotlight, but my companion only answered 2 literature questions, relying on me for the rest. People asked me the rest of the day how I knew such really farfetched answers. That made my day.

It's always a fantastic day when all of the stress just melts away. This is what happened for me today. I had deadlines and design reviews that all happened today. Basically, a lot of stress had been building, and today there was a major release.

I have a course in Mechanical Engineering. One of my projects is to build a car powered by a mousetrap. There was a design review for work done in the past month. However, I had procastinated and didn't start until a few days ago. Another project that had been very far behind just happened to work today. Now the project is basically finished.

Apart from ending the stress, the results from the projects made me feel smarter. Turning in my course request made me think that I had a bright future. I had a lot of time to relax today.

The one problem is that the person that I really love is in love with someone else. Oh well, life must go on. Tomorrow will be a better day (just keep telling yourself that).

It is somewhat amazing how little I did today.

Every evening, I try to translate my day to my kids, since I am the one who tells bedtime stories. We (meaning my children) find it easier to enumerate our day, and this ritual is called "numbers," since we've been doing it since they were too little to understand the idea of an ordered list.

Every evening, I'm able to tell them something positive that I've done - how I've helped someone, or learned something, and so on. How I've tried to help the good guys. Tonight, I really had to think hard to tell them what I did today.

Basically, I sat in my office and got nothing done, as I said. One of my workstations was down; and I flipped back and forth between one that was working, and the dead one, trying to prove that it was indeed a bad hard drive and not in fact the figment of my imagination. Got distracted by how screwed the bad one truly was. Sometimes, my friends, you've got to just bring the hard drive to the help desk, get a tech to prove that it's truly dead to the manufacturer, snag a good one and go on. But partially loading your machine multiple times only to be stymied repeatedly by schizophrenic hardware is just no fun.

Went to lunch, had an aggravating conversation instead of doing some writing, and hell, I don't even remember the rest of the day.

Sigh. It sure was nice coming home to the family, though. I am a lucky bastage who just had a "do squat" day.

i placed my trust and eight dollars in the hands of a stranger today

Along Grand Avenue, on my way to Whole Foods, biscotto in hand, i encountered today a man asking for help. He detailed his sad story of having had his money stolen and running out of gas. He said he was a truck driver from South Dakota, and he just needed to get enough gas to get back to Albert Lea, where he had money or friends or company or something that would help him get back home. He asked me for eight dollars, and said he'd mail it back to me in the morning. I think that most people would dismiss him as a smooth-talking panhandler, but i was tempted to believe his story, so i pulled out my wallet, as he told me that his wife had just left him. I then proceeded to give him not one or two dollars to "help him on his way", but the entire eight he asked for. He's going to mail it back to me, right? Maybe it was an experiment in generosity and trust, or maybe it was an experiment in foolishness and gullibility. I grabbed a random receipt (cash) from my wallet and wrote my address on the back, leaving out my last name and just using the box number instead, to at least obscure my identity somewhat. James thanked me, and we went our separate ways.

I'll be watching my mailbox closely in the next few days. I think i'll be getting eight dollars soon.

I've become very aware lately of how much my username sucks.

I first logged on to e2 on a whim. I had read about it in some magazine or another, perhaps the Earthlink mag, and it sounded interesting. It was late at night. I created an account, didn't feel like coming up with some clever name, and just typed in my full, given name. No spaces. No caps. Didn't think much about it.

I did a few WUs. Then a few more. Then a few more. After a while it got to the point where I'd be abandoning quite a few groovy things if I were to start over again.

So I'm stuck with an absurdly uncreative name. I thought of the name "brundlefly" the other day while watching the Cronenberg version of The Fly. It's a good name I think, which I (sniff) shall never use. I hope somebody uses it someday.... as long as they thank me for it in their homenode.

This could well be the node that never ends. It may go on and on my friends. It may amaze you! With 1000 elephants!

I spent ages hugging my friend, and talking to her, while tears streamed down her blotchy face. What could I say to make her loss better? The day the scientists create cures is too late for her.

It's been absolutely amazing.

I went to the Russian ballet (a mix of the Moscow Classical, Russian Classical, St Petersburg and the Bolshoi)and it was spectacular. The programme was

• 'Pas de Deux' Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky)
• 'Festival of Flowers' Jensano (Kholstead)
• Act II Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky)
• Harlequinade (Drigo)
• Gopak (Soloviev-Sedoi)
• 'Esmeralda' after Notre Dame de Paris (Puni)
• 'Dying Swan' (Saint-Saens)
• 'The Walpurgis Night' Faust (Guno)

As it was one of those things that are so beautiful that it would be ignorant to try to describe it. So against all instinct, I'll have a go. It was like the dancers absolutely floated, it was surreal. The 'Dance of the Cygnets' was adorable, the 'Dying Swan' beautiful and 'Gopak', a one minute display of strength and agility was absolutely amazing. I'll stop now, but I'll never forget.

The Rhort. What else can I say?

I found out my closest friend is moving away. All my close friends, yes five of them now, have moved away. Am I jinxed? I don't know. I'm going to miss you.

I never knew how much I'd missed sailing, the wind in my hair, the waves, the dolphins, the power of the sea, until I began training again. Bliss.

I went to a french teacher's house pick up a French Speech award, last Friday night, and as I went, I suddenly realised I had to speak in french. Argh. I got kissed on the cheek lots, and won a cool french book. I pulled the average age from 50 to about 45. Ha! In other language news, one of my friends won a scholarship out of the whole of NZ to spend 10 weeks in Berlin!

Ever had glass rain down on you, seen people get tiny cuts all over their face, and because they're head wounds, seen blood pour? This is what happens when one of your friends throws a ball into the common room lights. The deputy principal, my cruisy history teacher, could only laugh.

Headaches. Lots of them. Is it the lack of coffee fueling my caffine addiction, now that I'm back at school? I don't know, but it's getting painful. Ahhh, school. Yes, exams, in two, TWO weeks. Big exams, big, major, important, scary exams. Someone slap me please. Thanks. Right. Left. I found out that the Secondary School Yachting Team Racing winners (my friends at Westlake Boys) beat Australia 11-2, so they're going international. Great stuff, guys. Good luck. And back to school, a quick whinge about study leave. We're supposed to get a week. In reality, this is two and a half days. Grrrrrrrr.

And of course, I read lots of books, even though I'm supposed to be studying! Can somebody please tell me the name of the William Blake poem from the Tomb Raider movie? I'll be your slave for a while.

Derval's revenge of the grass-flavoured chicken weasels (mmm, tastes like chicken, but then, doesn't everything?) will prove to you the Jedi induced Cruel Intentions of climbing the moon and eating the stars, yet your own true insecurity lies within the manic depressive scenario of your dream cavity, and pencil case tasting sessions tell nothing. This is my truth, tell me yours. And what a week it's been. I'm still remembering you...

And yes... the night was as black as the inside of a cat...

Today, three of my writeups were nuked, only one of which was done deservedly. There are now two nodeshells which previously were not empty, and actually were quite informative.

Editors: fuck you. There's better work for you to do. I think Spiderman said it best: "With great power comes great responsibility." Of course, in this case you'd have to consider editorship on a two-bit website as great power, but we'll stretch things a bit for the sake of argument.

I have done nothing but contribute to this database, and this was an anonymous slap in the face. I don't write any of the emotional, insipid tripe that Everything2 is overflowing with, which constantly floods Cream of the Cool. I am an informative writer, a scarce resource here. I would very much like to hear the reason why my writeups were deleted, but I know that won't happen because whoever has done the deed is a coward.

I am considering requesting the deletion of all of my writeups and moving to another, better encyclopedia database, which I'm sure most of us have heard of by this point. I hope, but doubt, that this will be another stake in the elitist coffin that is Everything2. Now, perhaps I will join the ranks of DMan and the nameless others that have moved forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

Fuck you, you super villain assholes.

11.09.01 :: 03:16

routing problems...i can get a line out to phoenix and dallas, but i'm losing the line at that point. i can't get a goddamn thing except my isp and (for some sick reason) unc/chapel hill. i can't get e2, i can't get globaldominationsystem, i can't get 1211...something large has died, and its smoking carcass is in my fscking way. i can't get any of the other local isp's either. i called the only help i can get at this hour, and the damn tech is in the john. i think i might be able to get a route-around if i go out through the university, but i'm not sure that technet has a solid line out yet either. unfortunately, the university changed its slip dialin number since last i checked and the old ones are giving freaky responses that indicate a certain lack of usefulness. i started mapping sprintnet off of traceroute responses, just to alleviate some of this sense of impending doom. i have this distinct fear of terrorists vs. the telecommunications network ever since qwest locked databeast in a concrete bunker during the september incident. man, you can blow up my homeland, but stay the fuck away from my information network. fucking with the data is an outright declaration of war. but anyway, it's prolly just a server hiccup that nobody noticed because it's 3:30 in the fucking morning and their goddamn sysadmins are sissies and nobody's up watching the damn thing! AAAARRRRGGGHHH!! y'know, it's things like this that make me want to dropkick someone.

talked to the tech at the pod. no routing problems as far as he knows. apparently i *do* have line #s right, but i guess they only take ppp, and i have no config data for setting up ppp to the uni. i'm gonna dropkick something.

wild guess, and i'm in. i wracked my brain until i remembered the ip of the nameserver for the university, and now, ladies and gents, i am finally back in. fuckin' a, that sucked. you never realise how jacked in you are until someone pulls the plug.

You don't want to know about installing Microsoft Windows XP. Sadly, it's all I'm going to cover in this w/u. Please proceed to the next w/u at your leisure.

The install routine worked and worked very quickly compared with Win98 (see recent experiences with that). Installing over Win98 appears to have retained most of the installed software and settings. I think WinXP identified a few installed programs it didn't like (all toys that came with hardware). It also recognised the sound (SBLive5.1) and video (Geforce3) cards okay.

However, USB HCF modem support is sadly lacking. Our Diamond SupraMAX 56K USB has the what must be the most common USB HCF chipset (Conexant), so I guess this is going to be a common problem for people upgrading. (Heh, if you manage to get a USB modem that supports the USB ACM modem standard, it'll probably work fine - and you'll have the bonus of a USB modem that'll work with Linux.) So we're online with a (slightly slower) serial modem.

Now, our Brother MFC-760, which we thought had native support, hasn't. It installed okay from the driver disk, though, without complaint about unsigned drivers. How odd! Even odder - it completely failed to print. The Brother website insists it's supported, WinXP insists it isn't. Oh goody...

We tried Windows Update. First it claimed to have downloaded 19M in a couple of seconds. Then it said it had an unexpected problem communicating with Microsoft Support Centre. Sigh!

More news, as it happens..!

---

I'm back, baby!!!

Amazing how just 12 hours of living changes everything! I head home and get ready for my meeting last night. My cousin came from California for a short vacation, seeing some of her friends as well. We talk a bit and I find out her brother's got a red Cobra Mustang convertible! He won third place at some car show. Pretty good for a young'un.

Afterwards, I head to this business meeting. I still have the preconceptions that it's going to be like that AMWAY ruse I attended about three years ago. It wasn't. A guy I know from my car club arranged the meeting, and tells me about a whole line of these industrial strength cleaners and such. I was intirgued by the actual substances and wondered the whole time who made these things. I'm guessing 3M, or maybe even the two chemical factories everyone depends upon.

Anyways, I'm in the business, and hope to start making my share. The best thing are the tax breaks I'll be getting when I buy the products. It's all in the up and up.

I head back home and log in to my internet personals site. I find that I've received a smile from a 6-foot tall Asian girl. Not bad, but she's not my type. She called me a "hunk". Yuck! I browse some more and find more single women on the listings. I figure, okay, it won't hurt to send smiles all around in the people I'm interested in. I've got nothing to lose.

Fast forward to this morning...

I drive normally to work, not expecting anything to happen. It's 40 kilometres worth of highway, so it's quite fast. But halfway through the commute, this happens:

I'm driving my Ford Focus ZX3, going the long stretch of 407. I see a black BMW 5 Series (2002) tailing me a long way back. This was when "it" didn't start yet, but builds IT up. Heading onto the 427 ramp, it begins with me taking the lead. The BMW driver of course is an older guy in yuppiedom. So I'm flying down 427, totally "unintentional", when all of the sudden, the BMW-5 starts to play with me by tailgating extremely close. So I punch it into 4th gear at 120km/h, and start weaving through traffic nicely, and smoothly. He keeps shadowing about one car's length back as I make numerous moves. I needed to get onto an off-ramp and it was coming up really quick. I was at 140-150 in 5th gear. My last chance was to try to lose him by either going on the right-hand lanes or sticking to the left then veering extremely to the right. I chose the latter and punch it again into 4th, and then punching into 5th. He goes right and punches it. I see him the entire time in my rearview and side mirrors. I'm heading 160 now on the left lane and once I cleared all the traffic in the middle lanes, I head onto the ramp at the "second last" minute (not the last because that would be a stupid move). And as the traffic clears, the BMW-5 is two-three bus lengths back.

Kill #1! :)

He catches up to me and starts flailing his arms at me saying WTF?!?!

I snicker, looking at him in the rearview mirror. We head onto the off-ramp and head to the traffic lights where we're suppose to turn left. I try to make it into the right lane, but he accelerates ahead. I give him the finger and he slows down. Then I gestured to him, "Oooohh..I'm so rich, I drive a BMW 5-series, I'm speeecial..yadda yadda..." He sees this of course, in his rearview mirror and gets pissed off.

So as we turn through the intersection and I'm behind him, I slow by staying in 3rd gear. I figure I want to have at him one last time. He's three car lengths ahead by now, so I punch it in 2nd gear. He sees me punching it and does so himself. He's in the center lane, I'm on the right lane. I accelerate towards him, and he tries to slow me by cutting me off/veering into my lane. I go headstrong into the my lane gap, and pass him after shifting into third gear. At this time, I'm near my rev limiter (6500 rpm, rev limiter is @6800rpm), but I never hit it. I make one last swerve to avoid traffic, and he's 4 buses back!

Kill #2! :D

We stop at another light in the left turn lane, and he follows me, stopped behind me. He keeps signalling, "I'll get you next time.." and I'm like YEAH RIGHT!!! And then we head off to our respective workplaces.

And through this time he's calling me an asshole! I guess I AM. I'm an asshole that WHOOPED HIS SORRY YUPPIE ASS!!!

***

I swear, I've never been so intense about something like this for a long time! I know I was risking getting caught, but doing speeds that everyone else does from time to time masks the activity entirely. I suppose the authorities will have to get better surveillance equipment. But I won't push it.

The activities in the last 12 hours have changed my perspective drastically. My inadequacies in my financial and emotional aspects are beginning to become fulfilled. While I know it will take a while, my inadequacies made me want to do something about my fucking inadequacies.

I have returned!

Have you ever done it with someone you weren't attracted to?

A friend of mine came up to me at a barbecue and said that someone I knew was interested in me. Well, I did know her, but I didn't know she was interested in me. I wasn't exactly interested in her that way, but I enjoyed hanging around her. She wasn't ugly, in fact, I know a few guys who are attracted to her. I just wasn't one of them. She just lacked those qualities that usually spark my interest. But I had about a six-pack in me, by this point. So I sidled over and struck up a conversation.

Damn, she was cool.

So we talked and flirted for a few hours. Munched on some burgers, drank a little, talked about going skinny dipping later on. Time marched on, and the affects of the beer began to wear off. I was enjoying spending time with her a lot, but as the evening wound down, I found myself less and less attracted to her physically, and my flirting was becoming obviously forced. I was about to stop the proceedings by delivering the spiel that so many people hate hearing - "I just like you as a friend."

Then I stopped and thought about it for a second.

My first thought was how much I hated hearing that bullshit, and began looking for an alternate way out. (I just broke up with someone... not ready for a relationship - blah, blah, blah).

My next thought was about how for my entire life, people have been trying to tell me that true beauty lies on the inside. Beauty is only skin deep, after all. You can't judge a book by its cover. You get the idea. I saw Shrek, and I'm planning on seeing Shallow Hal this weekend. I know how this goes... Even so, I've always been extremely picky in the people I go out with. Now, before you go and get all indignant, I don't go out with someone just because they have a pretty face, or a svelte body - much of that pickiness is reserved for things like sense of humor, intelligence and overall personality. However, physical appearance is on criteria list, and can sometimes tip the scales one way or the other.

Anyway, it hit me. Here I was having the time of my life with this woman, and I was about to call it off like a goddamned idiot, because she didn't look like what I typically like looking at? Duh! I excused myself to the bathroom, and while I was ridding myself of even more affects of beer. I decided that I would not put a stop to what was happening out there. In fact, it was time to step it up a notch and see if I could take this woman home with me.

So we did it.

At the risk of sounding like a pig, I have to say that True Beauty is indeed on the inside, if you know what I mean, and the way someone looks has very little to do with the enjoyment you can get from being with them. It was something of an epiphany, and I think that physical appearance dropped several notches for me on the importance scale of potential mates, and the ability to make me laugh (to really make me laugh) went up.

We spent much of the next day together.

Nice breakfast, a trip to the mall. Generally hanging out. Well the weekend was drawing to a close, and it was time for us to go to our respective houses and prepare for another stinkin' Monday when she hits me with it.

"I like you as a friend".

Irony sucks.

Quote of the Day:

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
- Arthur Koestler

News and Views:

• The BBC reports that the Northern Alliance has captured several strategically important positions. Taleban troops are reported to be fleeing towards Kabul.
  
  
• President Bush has refused to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the grounds that Arafat is not doing enough against Middle-Eastern terrorists.

Nodes of Note:

• September 11 Attacks and the War Against Terrorism Metanode, a well done index node to some of the E2 content about the new War. (Let's not forget that indexing information is almost as important as creating the information itself.)
  
  

This place needs more actual content. Let's begin.

Oh Happy Day

I finally fixed the 'too many files open' bug that's been plaguing me for the last while... apparently when you fork and then use a socket in the child of that fork, that socket has to be close()ed in the parent as well as the child. With RSA's SSL-C library anyway.

So I happily went around fixing all my old code, adding the one little "close( s );" line and making problems go away. Today is also Friday (arguably the best day of the week, it's a long weekend and the bug that our QA team has been working on has been fixed. My system at home (which my last daylog entry mentioned it had blown up) is being slowly restored. It has a new name, Phoenix (after the quote from SAL in 2010 about it meaning something "... raising from the ashes...."

If things continue on this way, I'll win a million dollars, have a node C!ed and get to sleep at a decent hour tonight. Of course, on the flipside, with so much good karma around me today, something terrible is bound to happen (flood, famine, and downvoting no doubt).

Ha! Even as I type this another bugzilla bug has been verified as invalid (stupid tech error) so that's one less thing I have to mess with!

Watched the season premiere of The Tick last night.

I feel the same about the guy who plays The Tick (Patrick Warburton) and Scott Bakula in Enterprise. Of course, it's just my personal opinion, but I don't think that either of them quite *gets* who it is they're playing yet. I think after the characters develop a bit we'll see some improvement (unless The Tick gets cancelled; I have no such worries about Enterprise).

Right now Warburton is delivering The Tick as if he's really caught up in how cool he's being. He's kind of squinty-eyed a la Clint Eastwood. What I expect from The Tick is a child-like innocence, a simple, wide-eyed infatuation with the idea of JUSTICE.

I've got exactly the opposite idea about Bakula as Capt. Archer. He's the one who's got the wide-eyed kid attitude going, and when he's not doing that he's acting wishy-washy. Nobody wishy-washy would get to command the first Earth starship. Right? Can somebody back me up on this? I mean, sure, this crew is supposed to be less Utopian Superman (i.e. Star Trek TNG) and more human (read: American) but 'ol Scott often looks as confused as he did in Quantum Leap. That show worked great for him, because I would be perpetually confused, too. But now.. hm. Please put in an order for a backbone, and quit squinting for Chrissakes.

No other complaints about The Tick, really, except for maybe a lack of budget. I fear that unless the series REALLY takes off, we're going to see a lot of "Look over there, off-camera! There's something really amazing and terrible going on over there! Let's focus the shot on this chimney!" The thing I find really promising about the show is that it's finally being aimed at the correct audience. It really never was meant for children. In that context, it's just another dumb superhero comic/show. Where it really shined was as a highly intelligent, character-oriented story that at the same time was a hilarious sendup. Now that they can include some of the more adult themes, like Batmanuel and Captain Liberty's love-hate (read: have-sex-then-beat-each-other-up) relationship, I think they finally have an opportunity to let Ben Edlund shine.

Why do I get the feeling some comittee of Fox dumbasses is going to squash this show just like they squashed the <