Thoughts for a Monday:
Only five days 'till the weekend--
Guess life isn't so bad.

It's crunch time here in coding-land, and the prospect of another hard week debugging line upon line of C and 68K assembly language has me thoroughly depressed. Plodding through your weekdays and living for the weekend is no way to live, my friends.

At least I can look forward to moving on to another project soon. That, and getting wasted on the weekends.

In other news, I'm getting quite good at playing (acoustic guitar) out of my girlfriend's Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes book. She came over this afternoon and sang along with me. And then she helped me in my new project: Node Your Toothpaste.

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool."

Well today I haven't done much, I stayed over at my boyfriend's house last night because I had an exam this morning for Abnormal Psychology. It was okay, it wasn't as hard as expected. I actually knew some of the answers instead of having to guess them. It was a multiple choice exam. After I got home I came on here and found my Depression is Universal node to be cooled for the third time. Which is cool. I found that out of all my nodes there was only one that was on a -1 total reputation (-2 now) and after a while, it started to bug me that I only had one shit node, so what do I do? I go about improving it!. Unfortunately I go about it the wrong way! I made the mistake of asking people in the chatbox for feedback on what I can do to improve the node. Of course this is considered nodevertising and instead of giving me feedback on what to do to fix what was wrong with the node, the node just got downvoted more.

However there were nice people like Abiessuand Error404 and another cool person that helped me the most but can't remember their nick (sorry, I think it starts with a `w' and has a `p' and a `u' and perhaps a `t' at the end?) who told me of my wrong doings and gave good recommendations that I took into account with the update that I did. It was suggested that next time I should ask someone to look at it instead of nodevertising in the chatbox. I'm a bit apprehensive to do this, just messaging some one out of the blue and asking them to look at my node and give me feedback. I tried it anyway, I got some help, but I really couldn't think of anything else I could do to the node to improve it, all I need now is for it to be exposed. With nothing else left to do, I left E2 to drive around my suburb handing out invitations to friends for my birthday party,went to the library to borrow James Patterson books for my boyfriend to read, went and got some sushi to eat for lunch, made a bet on the Melbourne Cup which is a horse racing tradition, ummm what else did I do? I had a pretty relaxed day, considering it is the last day of the exams, and I've basically finished my University course, I only have holidays to look forward to, FUN! FUN! FUN!

I finally made my way home to read a James Patterson book until it was time for me to pick up my boyfriend after he finishes work, we get to go to his place and have fun. So now, I'm on here, typing this, waiting for dinner to be ready and making a vain attempt to attract more attention to that node that is bugging me!

If people didn't pick up the pipelinks the node I'm referring to is Scratch My Back.

I realize that my day logs start off quite early in the day. Well, can you blame me for having to do this when my yin is not in my life?

Last night, I finally got around to watching Joan of Arc with Leelee Sobieski, the Helen Hunt look-alike. When she speaks, she almost sounds like her. I couldn't believe how long the movie was, over three hours. But it was worth it, as it was a spiritual journey, well-executed in every sense, especially the computer recreations of certain cathedrals and castles. Leelee's portrayal of her makes me want to be Christian for some strange reason. Perhaps it's because I am depressed and I've lost all hope for a meaningful relationship. But that's no way to live. I still believe in my "naive" ways that I was brought to this earth to do so much better. But being stuck in this cubicle seem to oppress each and every lively muscle in my being.

I always wondered why one of my friends all of a sudden became a Christian the instant he got married. They speak of God as if he was all that mattered. Being nobel is one thing, blindly following a figurehead is quite another. That is why I can't quite bring myself to going to church every Sunday. Sometimes it all seems like one big ruse.

Perhaps it's just my infatuation with Leelee or even Helen Hunt. I wonder how closely their genetic makeup really are. I feel a longing for something, but I'm not quite sure for what.

---

On the upside, I don't have dreams about her any longer. Tonight might prove to be a different story, but I hope not. I'll be through counting the days we're apart in due time.

---

I still have a bunch of her stuff in my house. I should charge her for storing her junk in our basement. That, or just donate it to the nearest Goodwill. Her guitar could fetch a decent price.

I just wish she would say something.

But it's different now, because I haven't done what I previously done in our other break-ups/fights. I usually write several letters to her for a duration of months. They were usually composed of spirituality that could "melt a woman's heart and make her fall madly in love with you". But this time, there hasn't been much chasing on my part. None at all even - only an initial protest to her action of leaving, nothing more.

I still cannot figure it out.
I will close this matter by not trying - since she hasn't either.

I give up.

---

Here's an afterthought:
If you truly believed that you were "smarter" in having the last word, then you are wrong. Coming to a conclusion based on hasty judgement has always been your flaw - and now, it has come back to judge you harshly.

---

I just came back from a squash game with Celene, my co-worker. It was one of the more exciting games we've had all year. This is what happens on Mondays - energy well-spent elsewhere than work! In a way, it's sort of too bad that she's attached. She's starting to seem more attractive to me. But alas, relationships in the work place must not be too good. But I need to say this (and I may be out of line, but I don't care): she has a nice body! ;-)

One week to go till our loft conversion starts. The scaffolders are booked for Monday and the crane (for the steels) for Wednesday. That's one week later than originally planned. One of my outstanding jobs beforehand was to fit a gutter to the breakfast room (new kitchen) bay window. So it's a good thing there was a delay.

Although, in the event, it only took about three or four hours to do - from setting off to buy the parts to completing the job. (Well, nearly complete - there's a couple of temporary bits that'll be there until we do the new kitchen.) I could have done it on Sunday.

I have to say, it looks very smart. I still feel like a DIY novice but seeing the results of simple jobs like this is really encouraging. And knowing that it's protecting my investment (i.e. the house!) is good, too. Just have to wait for some rain, now. (It's always the way; you want some and it's never there, need a dry day and you get a month's downfall in three hours...)

We're also finishing off the "before" photos. Again, the joy of getting a digital camera - it's so easy to see how far we'd got. We recently upgraded the 16M Compact Flash card to 64M - which makes things even easier when shooting at 3.1Mpixel. Fewer trips to the computer to drag'n'drop the pictures across. (Of course, it's a little late for the before pictures. We've done one room already and started others.)

Wow, another strange dream last night. Probably had something to do with shooting a Colt .45 at the range for the first time on Saturday. Over the weekend I went to see the new movie Monsters Inc., which was very enjoyable. That, a trip to the bar to see the girlfriends horses, dinner with the parents, and a nice long sleep before getting up way to early to go to the gym (for which I had no energy) made this last weekend not terrible.

I Hate Computers!

Getting into the office this morning I found that the server that I wrote had once again crashed, with no good debugging despite setting it up to log to disk, and run under the electric fence debugging libraries. It's now up and running under gdb, but unfortunately the crash that happens never happens right away, but always waits until the middle of the night (but never at the same time). Argh!

Monday Morning

Take away the fact that a lot of the noders on this site seem to be online 24/7 (Myself included), and leave open Monday. Just another Monday. I look at "Your fellow Noders" and low and behold there are 77 of us on. First thing in the morning none the less! Most of us are at work, or school, a lot of us are even at home.

Have we found the secret to beating away the Monday blues with a bloody stick? I think so!

Most Mondays, I find I am grumpy having to get up first thing in the morning, and get back to the daily salt mine grind. I am tired. Hungry, and would love nothing more than to go back home, crawl into my more than likely still warm bed and sleep away the day. Make Monday go away in good style.

Well, for most of us, I am sure this is not a possibility. So, what do we do instead. Get up, go to work, and deal. How do we deal? Simple. Log on to E2.

No one is grumpy (Least, not from the looks of it in the chatterbox). Interesting nodes pop up (There have been 17 new nodes from the time I logged in this morning).

So I have come to this conclusion. E2 is the answer to not only Monday's but all of life's problems!

/me hides now, for the oncoming landslide of downvotes

Today my whole body hurts. I woke up with the feeling that I had a thick shell of rubber around my whole body; I could barely move.

Mondays are my biggest day of classes, I start at 8:00 in the morning and go until 5:15 PM. I haven't gone to any of my classes yet.

A part of this is, I am sure, caused by the amount of stress that I have been going through lately. The way in which my live has become suficiently dynamic that I don't know where I stand any more. My head spins, or maybe the world does (Does berlin stop at this train). The worst part about being sick at a time like this is that everything is accelerated and you find yourself slowing down. I couldn't keep up with the rate at which things were changing when I was in good health and now I have gotten slower.

Wow.

It is Fireworks Night, the night of the year when I most appreciate living on a big hill on one side of London and having a roof that you can get up on top of.

I think I've just seen more fireworks going off in half an hour than I've seen in the last few years put together, sitting on my roof with a scarf and a pipe and a glass of red wine: A thousand fiery tongues of the city licking into the night, drumming the air in their crazy rhythm.
Whoosh! Bang! Boom!
crackle...
BOOM BOOM!

hooray!

Winter is almost here.

Frost any day now.

Today I saw a traffic accident. It was the second I have seen in my life. (The first one was in September 20, 2001.) This time it wasn't nearly as dramatic and unexpected. Today was the first day, when the roads were really slippery and icy, although it had snowed before.

I was in a bus at about 15.40 at the intersection of Sepänkyläntie and Keskuskatu in Asevelikylä, Vaasa. I heard a sound, which sounded like the bus had scratched its chassis to the platform at the crosswalk across Sepänkyläntie. But the sound didn't come from the bus. The bus braked and stopped, but then it went on. I saw how someone had driven his Ford Escort (or something looking like one) to the traffic sign at the crosswalk platform in the center of the intersection. The driver was walking around puzzled, examining the damage and scratching his head. There were no passengers. The car was badly damaged and probably beyond repair, because the repair would have cost more than the car. The sign had entered its front bumper from the left, crushing the suspension of the left tyre, breaking the bumper and damaging the chassis and the hull. The sign pole was bent.

I was upset the previous time, this time I was laughing and gloating at it, but realising how that can happen to me also. I was laughing exactly because it can happen to me. The previous weekend I had left the Tampere railway station at 18.00 in the train from Vaasa to Helsinki. Half an hour later, a locomotive collided with a train there. 30 people suffered minor injuries. I heard from this in the news. Is there some "god" trying to tell me something or what? I've never been as near accidents before this fall.

Probably no god bothers to do so, even if any of them exist. Shit happens.

I saw some dim and white aurora borealis in the night. They were so dim that if you hadn't seen them before, you would have thought they're clouds. Their nature was revealed when I saw them changing and self-illuminating, and how their shape was the one of a aurora borealis-type halo. They were changing slowly in brightness, little in shape. They were like clouds, but a little bit too uniform to be them. The geomagnetic activity has been high in these days. I saw some very bright, LED green, dancing and rapidly undulating aurora a few days ago.

Originally this was it's own node, but it got killed because it's noding about noding. Still a good thought, I believe. I swear tho, it seems like these editors/gods are out to get me sometimes.

People Downvote what they don't like (idea)


It's true. Everyone does it, or has done it, or will do it. Even I have done it, so while it might seem hypocritical that I'm writing this, I don't care.

But to me it just seems like more people downvote writeups that they don't agree with, rather than on if the writeup contributes something or is grammatically (in)correct or what have you. Far be it from me to try to impose anything, but I always try to vote (up or down) based on what the writeup offers rather than if I agree or disagree with the writeup in question. Personally I wish more people would vote this way, but I am just a lowly noder, so what do I know? ;)

Why Techies Don't Understand Love Unless It's Drawn Out for Them in Anime-Style

okay, so that's not really the title for this daylog, but you cold hearted bastards downvote me either way, so I may as well get my kicks in first. (evil grin) fire away.

The apocalypse is upon us! Poets and Artists will reign supreme in these times, as the once lordly starbuck drinking .com failures are standing in line at the unemployment offices, vainly clicking away on Monster.com, and licking our "artsy-fartsy" arses. Ha ha! Ho ho! He he!
Remember that fact next time you tromp on someones feelings.
Picha-Chu!

It was a lovely weekend. As all my weekends are down south. I was full of coffee and croissant and almost home. Made great time -- usually I had to rush into work directly from the car ride, but it looked like I'd have a half hour to chill out, read /msgs and spam. Nice.

There's a section of I-5 going into Seattle where everyone speeds up. After the I-405/I-5 interchange, the crowd of cars that was averaging a little over 60 mph start going 75. It's pretty weird. Not to be one to go against the crowd's wishes, I keep up. Plus, I'm not so paranoid about speeding when everyone else is with me. Of course, there's always someone that decides to enforce the 60 mph posted speed limit; this time it was a red sedan. So I, along with the rest of the people in my group, start passing the person. My attention while passing someone shifts from the 12-seconds ahead scanning to a more local, "who the heck is around me and where are they going," awareness. Looked good, so I put the car into the middle lane.

The middle lane had a rake in it.

One of those stiff steel rakes.

My car passed over the rake.

I heard two thumps.

My car then started to list.

Both left tires, popped.

Got towed ($90), got two new tires ($80). Got no more money in the checking account.

Hell.

Usually I don't like mondays. Today is an exception.

I got 100% on my chemistry midterm.

That's right. 100%. First year chem, in University. And I'm glad because I studied my butt off.

So now, if the desire to do so strikes you, you may call me the Queen of (1st year) Chemistry.

Ok, I'm done bragging.
I also got 2 other marks back, a 70, and a 79. And on the one I got 79 on, I forgot to answer a question. Arg, that bugs me. I'm such a goof sometimes.

I feel ok now. I'm not completely clueless, I'm fitting in ok. I can now breathe a sigh of relief. But only a brief one as I have two term papers due this month, one at the beginning of December, and midterms mid December.

Can you believe Christmas is less than two months away? I can't. CRAP. I have to start shopping. I love giving presents, which always seems to get me into trouble. I spend TOO much. And I'm still living at home so we give one gift from all of us (which my mom buys) to less close relatives. So I really shouldn't spend so much.

Tonight the Northern Lights were (barely) visible from where I live. I've never seen them before, but on TV they look very spactacular. This was just some pinkish clouds in the northern sky. Either way it was neato.

I want to see the Northern Lights in their full glory one day. And I want to see the ocean, better yet swim in it. (No, I've never seen it, not even from a plane.) I'd also like to one day go to each continent (except Antarctica, unless of course some sort of hotel gets set up there.) It'd be nice to say I've done those things, and have those memories and experiences.

my arse smells like listerine. yes, you heard me, my arse. why, you ask? because i am remarkably fastidious about my teeth and the little bottle of listerine and a toothbrush go everywhere with me. and yes, you guessed it, the bottle broke in my bag. fan-fucking-tastic.

so i decided i'd stop off at the bookstore and see how calli was doing, and she is well, which is good. i also got a not so subtle reminder that i'd missed amelinda's birthday. (yesterday, for you folks who care.) after a bit of bullshitting, i was on my way to buy groceries.

god damn me. i replenished all my staples, but i live alone, and i don't drive. thus, i walked some two and change miles with groceries, textbooks, and laptop. i managed to turn an ankle, sprain my back, and get a nasty neck cramp. finally, about four blocks from the house, i found a shopping cart in a church parking lot, which merrily and loudly bore my load until i overturned it in the alley, waking every dog in the neighbourhood. *sigh* can't go right all the time.

so, i finally got home, and made a big jar of pickled garlic. mmmmm..... (yes i'll node the damn recipe! back you vultures! back!!) made some goo for dinner, which could've been done better, and am now finally kicking back with a glass of amaretto and coconut milk. life is not that bad. i, unlike my topology prof, have not been mauled by dogs. i count myself among the lucky.

hacked out two more sonnets today, #s 21 and 22. feel free to read and /msg me with commentary on how i am so not shakespeare, and i shouldn't give up my day job.

---

i need to throw another mix. not a mindwired, this time, but a companion to lovetoaster and blasphemy in blue volume 1. something that'll properly compress all my thoughts on this one into one clean, easy-listenable, 80 minute volume. playlist to follow.

First thoughts upon waking (7:30 am):

"I hate morning radio."
"Still have to try to finish that half-assed homework."
"Oh, geez, it's going to be a long day..."

Get on the computer, find out my writeup got cooled. It's my first one. I'm thrilled.

I think, "Maybe I can do this day right."

Go to the library and fudge the rest of my electrostatics problem set. Go to the class, realize Mondays mean quiz time. Start to panic a little, knowing that I don't have a very good grasp on the material since I decided to go to an unbirthday party this weekend instead of studying.

Get the quiz. I think, "Hey, this.... Isn't hard. I can attempt to solve this. Wow."

The day speeds up. More class, run into friends. One friend tells me he's made a date with a girl I introduced him to at this weekend's party. Though I'm not sure if they're compatible, I'm pleased because I so rarely play the role of a matchmaker.

Go to work. I think, "Who would have thought working in a space research lab could be so boring?" as I test cable after cable. I think, "Maybe astronomy isn't the career for me." Start brainstorming for my next node.

Go to a friend's apartment because I promised to help her design a poster for her club's upcoming dance performance. My contribution to the arts this week. Produce something, not as nice as she or I want it to be. Can't finish because I have to run to an astrophysics lab.

Get to lab in record time. I think "I'm tired and hungry. I hope this doesn't take too long." The purpose of the lab is to plot the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of the Pleiades cluster. It entails going up to the roof of the physics center and taking pictures of the cluster with a CCD camera.

Get to the roof. The telescopes don't work right at first, so we wait while the lab TA gets the lab director to figure it out. This is taking place in Chicago, so I can't see much. I try to remember the constellations I learned when I worked at the planetarium, but there aren't enough stars visible to jog my memory. Then we see some glowing light.

I think, "What the hell is that? Light pollution makes the sky orange, not pink and green." It turns out the sun has been pretty volatile this week, and I am witnessing an actual aurora borealis! I have never seen one before, and I am astounded. I think, "Maybe astronomy is the career for me."

Today was my birthday. Yippedy-fucking-doo-da.

One year older, one year wiser, yadda yadda.....

The evening started out with a glorious repas at Pad Thai with my mum and my three sisters. I had roast duck pancakes to start, as well as a few nibbles from the seafood platter and green thai curry for my main course. Scrum-diddly-umptious I tells ya. I was too stuffed for dessert but sneaky old mum had organised a birthday cake, well, more like and upside chocolate pud with a candle in the top.

Everything went perfectly.

I kissed goodybye to mum and two of my sisters then myself and the remaining sister hit the town. We started off in Sheehans, where to my surprise, my old english teacher was playing some extremely funky guitar in a jazz quartet. I spoke to him during the break and it turns out he had a stroke two years ago and retired from teaching. He decided that life was too short and he was going to spend the rest of it doing things he wanted to do, so he started playing jazz again and he is also writing a film script. Incidentally, the guy had also had a small part in the film Educating Rita. Anyhoo, it was really good to see him again, he bought me a drink, the band played their rendition of Happy Birthday.

What a cool cat!

My friends slowly trickled into the pub from their various colleges and work places. It was a good turn out, and some people even came down from Dundalk to wish me well. I felt all nice and warm! Also in attendance was my sister's flatmate who I have a serious "thing" for.

Yay!

We stayed in Sheehans till closing and watched the end of the Jazz. I was fairly reeling at this stage due to the amount of hugs and Guinness. I was becoming more "loose tongued" shall we say.

We then moved on to the Capitol bar, where more Guinness was consumed followed by shots of Sambuca. Things were starting to become hazy, so I concluded that two large Long Island iced teas were needed to clear my head. Grand. Then my drunken slobbering turned towards my sisters flatmate where my chat up attempts were tolerated only through pity. Needless to say, I did not score. At this stage I am a mean drunk, and begin sinking some crazy shots called Flatliners, half sambuca, half tequila and a drop of of Tabasco sauce.

The rest of the night is a blur.

I remember having to picked up off the cobble stones in Temple Bar. I think I made another pass at my sister's flatmate, possibly successful, as I woke up in her bed fully clothed, two hours late for work.

All in all it was a really, really good birthday. I can now afford the flight for the monkey ride in London!