October 12, 2001

Today is the day that I end my 21st year. It is now legal for me to go get drunk out of my mind, just as long as I don't drive, or beat anyone, or do anything too stupid. The only thing I can think of that I am still prevented from doing, by virtue of my age, is being President. I suppose that might upset me, if I had any plans towards world domination. And, of course, I can no longer eat off of the children's menu (tho some restaurants are rather nice about that, if you prefer the smaller portions of simpler food..), I no longer pay children's rates, I am no longer allowed by society to be childish and simply call it my right. However, I am still (I hope) childlike. That's my goal. Child-like but not childish.

For the first time since this whole "being a grown-up" thing started, I don't feel like I'm playing grown-up. I supposed this means that I maybe really am a grown-up. That's scary, in and of itself. Oh well.. Yes. Today I turn 21.

Today I celebrate the birth of my love.

I will wake up this rainy autumn morning and feel the warmth of his body holding mine.
He makes me feel safe when the world makes me insecure.
I will make him a cup of PG TIPS tea.
It's the little things he wants.
I will make him dippy eggs with marmite solders.
Just like mum used to make.
I will read to him while he takes a bath.
I like that he takes baths instead of showers. It's the time he needs.
I will give him my meager presents.
I hope he likes them. I can't afford much.
We will make love.
His touch is more present than I could ever ask for.
I procured other goods from England.
To give him a piece of the land he left for me.
We will go out to Mongolian BBQ with good friends.
To celebrate the man that he is, and how glad we are to have him.
I couldn't be more proud to call him my husband on his 27th birthday.
Thank you for spending your life with me.

Happy Birthday Dizzy

   Last night my best friend sent me a picture of her. Reality cannot capture how beautiful she is, much less a picture. Nonetheless, the best attempt at rendering her on film still leaves me catatonic and crying. I have not seen her eye to eye in over 2 months. It wasn't that I had forgotten how beautiful she is, it was that my mind cannot hold the sheer overwhelming beauty that she so fully embodies. I drown in her eyes, perhaps that is why it hurts when I look into them. I cannot breathe, I cannot look elsewhere for fear that she is but an angel. But angels themselves have long to go to equal her. We have been so close, not ever physically but closer. Spiritually I have drowned in her sea countless times and every time I look at her picture before I go to bed I realize.

My Ocean is in Minnesota and she's going to marry someone else.

I don’t know what to say. I have a test in C++ in about 12 hours and I don’t know jack. I have spent way too much time on Everything during the past couple weeks, and not enough time on other things, like studying. And even though I realized that I did not have the time to spend, I have spent it noding. This evening, even, I noded when I should have been studying. I have three weeks worth of material to learn in a matter of hours and I am noding? I have all this to learn in a few hours and I am working on my day log?

I know that this is all ridiculous – I have no one to blame but myself. Still, I didn’t realize that Everything could be this addictive. I though my book habit was bad, but books only cost money – they do not take up this much time. And if I had spent the time doing better nodes, I would feel less guilty about it. I have learned what it takes to do a good node, and I manage to pull it off a reasonable percentage of the time, though I would like to do it more often. There have been a few really good nodes, but I just have to wonder if it is worth the time that I have put in on it?

Everything has cut into the amount of time I spend on a lot of other things that I really care about. I have spent less time with my friends, and less time making art, and less time just relaxing. I have received some good from this, but I am just not sure if it is worth it.

This weekend, I am going to see if I can schedule my time so that I can do everything that I enjoy doing. It will mean cutting back a little bit on Everything, spending less time trying to find books, and less time just randomly surfing from node to node.

Hopefully, I can find a way to continue noding at the same rate as I have for the past few weeks. I know that I can’t just cut down a little to save some time. If I can’t figure out how to fit it in my time, I will still node some, a quality node or three a week. I just don’t know if I can find a way to make it all work. Hopefully, I can.

Another week at it's end - ugh, and what a week. School sucks, as usual - good thing I only have, oh, 8 months left until I leave my home sweet home to become a combat vehicle commander in the swedish army. Woohoo! LAN party this weekend too, and we'll probably play a few games of airsoft while we're at it. I will make them fear my Colt M4A1 Carbine, oh yes! This winter, if I manage to save up enough money, I will try and get an M203 grenade launcher for it - then it will start owning massively. Now don't think I'm some kind of gun nut, I think of airsoft deathmatches mainly as a healthier alternative to sitting in front of the computer all day.

Oh anyway, this being my first ever daylog, I might try and actually tell about what I've been doing this week: School (obviously), tried to get my boss to donate another Dell PowerEdge server to a worthwile cause (my basement), fought some more with Priss, been waiting for my copy of Windows XP to arrive in the mail, watched a lot of anime .. and been idling on IRC, of course. What a life! Things should brighten up soon though, weeks 43-45 are nothing but a big holiday (although the teachers at school expect us to work on some meaningless project during those weeks .. hah!) I am hoping those weeks will give me time to work on my websites.

As a grand finale, here's my current playlist:

• Robert Miles - Princess of Light
  
• Apollo 440 - Carrera Rapida
  
• Phasio - Dive
  
• Dune - Electric Heaven
  
• Scorpions & Berlin Philharmonic - Hurricane 2000
  
• Scorpions & Berlin Philharmonic - Big City Nights
  
• Phasio - That Style is My Style
  
• Zero Gravity - Neutral Deception
  
• The Crystal Method - Name of the Game
  
• Hampton the Hampster - The Hampsterdance song
  
• The Orb - Toxygene
  
• Happy Hardcore - Miles Fun
  
• Christina Millian - AM to PM
  
• Iketeru Futari - Fall in You
  
• Faith Hill - There You'll Be
  

Byebye!

I did have something in my wee mind for the day log just before Programming II practicals but let's see if I can recall it.
It had something to do wiiith.. Aye, I was looking forward to get home and do some coding! I had this feeling I've never have before while "working" (i.e. browsing through the web and noding) at the department.

I know it's Friday and I'm young and I'm healthy (well, mostly the flu is gone) but instead of having an appetite to get intoxicated, chat up birds and do some marvelous things like those I wanted to go home writing C++. And aye, it does scare me.

Fortunately I managed to do most of the work during the practicals as I wrote the pseudo-code for the BigUnsigned data type there. Now I have whole weekend for testing and it hardly takes that much time. I also lost the appetite of coding now when the real problem solving is already done and now there's only boresome and self-restraing teasing part of C++ implementation left.

Maybe I just go and rent a film called "something .. something .. And Two Barrels" made by those who were involved with Snatch. I've tried couple of times to rent it but the first time it was already gone and the second time they couldn't figure out what was the film I meaned because I couldn't remember the exact title. I did wonder aloud why they had a computer system in the store in the first place if they couldn't make a simple search like that. Well, I should investigate the plans of brother who seems to be in the control of television set.

Lot of changes in my life recently.. I got a reply from my running coach after I suggested that my name should be erased from their list but he said I should carry on despite the fact I don't have time for running; not that much I'd need to make progress. This cursed MSc. ... "Who needs qualifications.." I should skip more lectures to maintain some stability with my daily cycle.

Okay, I notice this starts to get really pointless. Luckily there are also positive changes in my wee life and I'm going to meet one of them next week, followed by the long weekend in Strasbourg.

I also notice that I'm little bit curious over the match Taleban vs. USA -- I've tried to avoid all news since beginning of the month; a wee psychological experiment to see the effects of avoidance of mass-media. I'm planning to carry on the refusal of news for the rest of the year. Probably newspapers are writing just similar crap, comparable with the events in Kosovo, practising self-censorship in the real chomskian sense. I only knew there was an anti-war demonstration in the city centre on Monday but I missed it due to severe flu.

Thou shall not kill.

I saw something amazing yesterday.
It was a british TV advertising selling a product to help to give up smoking. And at the bottom of the screen were these two words:

Willpower required

Can you believe this? In an era where brain abilities are underestimated in favour of technology this comes as a novelty.
It almost shocked me. Advertisers by definition treat us like children whose every whim can be realised instantly with money. Nothing seems impossible provided you take the right pills/buy the right car/drink the right soda: being sexier, more successful, or freer (I'm sorry but I can't help laughing on that last one). And there was these words saying: "Sorry mate but on this one you are pretty much on your own. We can help but in the end this is your life. It's time to start willing things".
Could it be the beginning of a new area of marketing? I doubt it. But for a short while it reminded me that, in the end, I only get what I fight for.

I first found E2 when I was searching for a topic on Google, many moons ago. I don't remember what the topic was, but I remember that one of my search results pointed me here, and the writeup about it, as well as the format of the page, roused my curiosity. So I went to the front page, clicked on some of the Cool User Picks, and got more and more intrigued by the smorgasbord of topics covered, and the skill of many of the writers. By and by, I noticed the text at the bottom of each node which said "Y'know, if you login, you can write something here." Cool, that's good to know, me says to meself. Eventually I came to a node that I just had to add my 2 cents to. So I went to the Everything FAQ and Everything University, learned my shit, created a username, and thus began an addiction that plagues and delights me to this day.

This would be impossible now. Google no longer has a cache of Everything, and doesn't search our pages anymore. Don't believe me? Just do a search on the exact phrase "strength crushes enemies." It won't point you here. This makes me sad for three reasons. The first simply relates to convenience; it used to be I could search the entire text of E2 pages (as opposed to just node titles). This, along with our very own search, helped me make sure I wasn't creating redundant node titles, and helped me find interesting stuff to read. The second reason relates to pure and simple vanity. I used to be able to pretend that my nodes could be found by anyone surfing the web, and that someone was bound to be blown away by my writing and offer me a multi-million dollar book contract. (Not really, but it was kind of exciting to think that what I was writing was being put out for anyone to see.)

The third reason for my sadness is, I believe, the most relevant. If we can't be found with standard web searches (aside from the front page) it's almost like we exist in a vacuum. This seriously stems the number of potential new users we can attract. While I admit to a certain queasiness at seeing the number of fellow noders shoot up to somewhere around 100 at peak times (I can remember when it would be no more than 60 or so), I think a steady influx of fresh blood does us good. And while new users sometimes add trash, or worse are sometimes trolls, I think the management does a commendable job of getting the best out of each and every one of us.

I don't know why most of our pages can no longer be found on web searches. I guess this is my electronic prayer that one day, our pearls of wisdom will once again be aired for all the world to marvel at.

I slept until 3 today, but that was all right. I had allotted my day off to being a day of rest, since tomorrow is going to be hell (as if working 9-5 isn't bad enough, they decided there's a 7 AM meeting, so I have to go in two hours early, attend the damn meeting, begin my shift, and run the stupid Pokémon League).

Strangely enough, I had a dream that I was being pursued by a foreign government, and that the U.S. was cooperating with them to let me be captured. (I think they were going to use me as a weapon or something.) For some reason, though I am not a fan of Pokémon, I had my own Pikachu in the dream, and he was hiding elsewhere relaying images and suggestions to me as if by satellite, telling me where was okay to run from the people chasing me. But he had something in his eye and he was having trouble seeing. So he wasn't very useful. Stupid Pikachu. I got away by skimming down a staircase to purposely leave a scent for them to follow, then flying away to leave the scent going nowhere. (Don't ask me how they were tracking me by scent.) I would make an entry in the dream log about this, but I don't remember enough of the stupid dream to make an interesting node.

Last night I met someone who'd been trying to contact me for six months. Long ago, he saw one of my AOL profiles on a name I only use for storage space (but was dumb enough to make profiles on anyway), and had e-mailed me but I'd never answered, probably never saw it. (I go there once a while to delete the porn that builds up, either I accidentally deleted his mail or it was there so long it expired.) Then yesterday, while I was deleting porn from my superfluous names, I saw one mail with a subject that didn't look like ad or porn, and dared to open it, and it was from a guy saying I should be friends with another one of my screennames if I wasn't already, because we were so similar. Heh. I wrote him, told him to mail my main screenname if he actually wanted to get in touch with me, and he checked out my homepage and found he'd been quite right to choose me to talk to. We talked online for a while and then decided to meet, late last night, and spent several hours talking. I've met many people from online but I was his first. I was pleased because he seemed to really listen to me and be interested in what I was saying, and to have a VERY high regard for me in general. It was nice to talk to someone who thought I was interesting, nice, and smart without also judging me because of the things that make me weird. I think part of the reason he was so tolerant and interested in me was his background in psychology. So I'm looking forward to starting a new friendship. :)

Last night I found a "CLEARANCE!" balloon in Wal-Mart. It was only partly full of helium and kind of reluctantly floated around, and began following me and my friends, so I took it with me around the store. I took it in the bathroom there, and left it out, and when I came out it had drifted into its own stall. Weird! When I took it home, it drifted into MY bathroom. It's still in there. Very strange thing.

Two things keep building up: E-mail and dishes. When I clean out my sink or e-mail box, I vow to not let them fill up again. And then I do. Usually at the same time. I have an "excuse," yesterday I was entertaining a guest and we did some baking, so of course e-mail built up while I was offline and dishes built up as we baked and ate, but dammit, now I'm pissed. Maybe I'll go play catch-up now. (Incidentally, we made glazed apple bites.)

This is a postcard from October 8, 2001...

Louisville
One of America's most livable cities

Well, you asked for it. Here is your postcard! I'm in Detroit, but this postcard is from my home town. I haven't found one here. I must be crazy travelling by air nowadays.

I hope all is well with you.

See you around,
Edward H.
E2 -> novasoy

Ths year's "City Livability" award from the U.S. Conference of Maoyrs confirmed what residents and visitors already knew: Louisville is a great place to live, work, and play. But don't take our word for it - come see for yourself.

My car has needed some work for quite some time now.

I bought all the necessary items to change my oil a few days ago, but just got around to doing it this morning.

I pulled the plug and let all the oil drain out of the pan. When it looked like it was done, I put the plug back in and moved the drain pan out of the way so I could change my oil filter.

As I'm unscrewing the filter, I'm suddenly met with a face-full of motor oil. I managed to get out from underneath the car and away before it got in my mouth and eyes, but some of it went up my nose. For the rest of the day, all I could smell was oil.

I do believe I have learned a very important lesson today.