Saturday, December 25, 2004

Internet Reflections

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a perfect representation of why the internet is such a unilaterally horrid and nightmareish place: this is what happens when you think you're right.

Sigh. Holiday spirit apparently means to verbally abuse the first person who dares question your mighty and impervious logic. How dare they!

Stop the internet, I want off.

Maree Krismis

I'm feeling jollier than normal this morning, so Merry Christmas or happy holidays or whatever floats your boat.

(someone got a bottle of maker's mark from santa!)

Friday, December 24, 2004

I hate the internet so much

blah blah blah basically.

never mind. You don't care, you won't respond.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

holidays!

I saw my grandparents yesterday. They, like my mother, claim I've lost weight and that I look good. Finally, being lazy pays off!

The trip down here was quite long. Birds exploding, cars flipping over on straight stretches of dry highway, and excessive beltway traffic served to delay my trip somewhat. At least I had lots of phone company. Granted, I would have rather had someone in the car with me, but you take what you get with the 14 hour trips. I actually made good time, considering the delay in DC.

Planned for tonight, I don't know. Tomorrow, my mom will be making our world-famous allspice-infused spaghetti (the scots, they love their sauces sweet, apparently), then I guess we're going to church. Et cetera.

Saturday will be fun. Presents abound.

Sunday I go to Atlanta for the first time ever. Presents abound.

Monday I drive the rest of the way home (my brother will be flying out of ATL that morning). Presents abound.

Then I'll be home.

Any questions? Buy me beer.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

You got tricked by a squirrel?

so...

I'm done studying. I can only hope I do well tomorrow. I have three notecards now, which is good. I read over the chapters that are fuzzy.

I can also only hope that this exam takes longer than 20 minutes. Why? Then I get to feel like it was worthwhile for me to go to campus.

After all is said and done, I'm coming home to clean and then nap. Gotta keep the apartment clean for important people, after all.

This has been the crappiest blog update ever.

Friday, December 17, 2004

5:45

I woke up at 5:45 AM for the privilege of driving to campus at 6:40, parking and walking to my class (admittedly made easy by parking in Lot 5 and having my exam in Plant Sciences), and driving back here at morning rush hour... and, get this, my exam only took 20 minutes. 80 questions, 20 minutes. You know, I should be happy that all the people wishing me good luck made the exam easy for once, but I had to wake up at 5:45 and drive for the better part of an hour and a half to do it.

Yeah I know, whine whine whine.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

sorry I'm late...

... but I went to Virginia to buy milk duds.

[receipt scan soon!]

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

sweeeet...

Okay, so this means I found a program that actually operates with the blogger API, meaning two things: first, This guy and his program rule; second, I actually get to run a blog again.

Oh boy.

I made some promises the last time I wrote this, but in essence, I'll update at least weekly if not more, I won't pollute the web with the emotions of empty tin cans and descriptions of the cheeseburger I ralphed up upon realizing the state of humanity ("I don't have any" and "I don't eat those," respectively), and I'll try to work in some photography into my posts.

Comments are still up. Use them or don't.

Minor layout adjustments are ETA sometime tonight.

Now... I nerd!

testing!

hoooooooboy?

hold yer horses there

POST! Trying another new client, because I'm not going to continue using the web interface if it wants to eat posts

back in a minute.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Almost done

I have almost an entire song's worth of ideas finally worked out. The problem will now come in fitting together pieces in five and pieces in four. I need a keyboard. That and some free time.

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Oh yeah, and one more thing

Screw everything on TV that prods at my memory. I don't like being sad.

Sick days "rule"

That is, eventually they do. See, I woke up at 9:45 or so and ended up not getting on the road this morning until 10:15. That's all fine and dandy, ordinarily, but while I was waiting for Jeff to finish bathrooming, I read my email.



"I printed your schedule out for you. It's on my desk."



Shit, okay so now I have to haul to campus, haul from the parking garage, and then haul around key because I KNOW I will be late. Oh, and I didn't mention the best part: I slept in because I woke up at 8 feeling terrible. Sore throat, stuffed up, et cetera.



Yeah, long story short, 2 metro busses later, I didn't even get to campus and parked until 10:48. 10:57 and I'm in the building, that's 9 minutes from door shut/locks armed to Key, a distance of approximately CSPAC to the other side of campus. It's only due to my amazing and admirable skills in the area of "being a perfect employee" that I got any of my work done.



After that, things started looking up. There was some neat distraction somewhere along the line, but what's far more important is that my boss and I traded sloth and ended up switching our 1:45 appointments so that she only had to go do a retrieval in Susquehanna hall and I had to do a delivery in Cole Field House, thereby eliminating both her need to go all the way to Cole and my need to walk all the way across campus effectively twice at that time.



After that it was all good. Dream Theater in the car on the way back, stopped at giant for more soup, then ate said soup and additional, previously procured soup at the apartment. I've watched two Law and Order episodes (both of which I missed out on key parts of last night), played bass, and laid about meaninglessly. All I have to do eventually is go find ground turkey.



Sigh... still, too bad I have been moping about bachelor style.



"Bart, don't feed your sister hotels." - Marge

and...

pointless link

Monday, November 8, 2004

Speak of the devil

I opened blogger and was set to write about how angry the people around me make me feel, but then one of them sloughed off more work upon me. Go figure.

Saturday, November 6, 2004

Saturday? 10 a.m.? You know it

I woke up early but I guess it's worth it.



I have no idea what I plan to do with myself today... Maybe I'll go up to Towson and hit the guitar center. Maybe not. All I know is there's a Playstation in the living room that seems to be calling my name.



Oh, and yeah spret! Or something.



you know what? sorry you didn't read this, everybody.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Borne by the whim of the wind

You ever have one of those days where you don't know what to do with your own thoughts?



You know, when you are overwhelmed by stuff you ordinarily don't even approach thinking about?



I'm having one of those as of right now. Emotion hindered by rationality. Only bigger punishment is spending time around crowds of people. The problem is... well, yeah. I don't know, I'm fine with it for the moment.



All I know is I never thought I'd be happy to get a text message, nor that I'd be such a captive audience to one... nor that I'd be so focused on someone so far away.



What's worse, of course, is that I don't know how to write about it.

Monday, November 1, 2004

Ill-placed muse

I think my inspiration for participating in today came largely from the fact that I, having done the math, will be two courses away from fulfilling my major requirements at the end of next spring. After that, it's a matter of stupid classes, and I shouldn't need any more than next summer and a half-time next fall to finish and be rid of this god forsaken institution forever.



That being said, I should be happier than I am right now. I have a clear plan for the first time in my academic career. I'll be applying for in-state tuition and making the grade, so to speak, due to continuous leasing for the first time ever. My Terps just beat Florida State at football for the first time ever, which, all other losses past and future-potential aside, makes this season and Joel Statham's tenure as starting quarterback worth it.



What's the problem, then?



The future is scaring me for the first time in my life.



Ordinarily, where I'm going in life doesn't bother me at all. I know I'm marketable enough to secure a job without any real degree of difficulty. It's really, at this point, more a matter of finding a job I want to do. It would be pleasant if that were the problem; however, my more pressing concern is that of where do I want to go after I'm done here? I thought, prior to a few weeks ago, I had everything wrapped up and ready to go, but a sudden bout of induced depression seems to have caused me to doubt my prior ... well, admittedly amorphous plans. Whatever, though, I'll work where I go to work.



Then there's the other problem. People often complain about inspiration in their lives, things like "where is it? When will I know it's here?" I have, as cliched as it sounds, found inspiration many a time at the bottom of a bottle (meaning the nights I drink less), precisely when I don't have the facilities to do anything about it. The drinking isn't the problem here, though. The problem is that when I do finally get around to my inspiration, it's the inspiration to actually get up and do something, not creative inspiration.



It seems to me a pretty clear issue of a motivational deficiency, one that's been nagging me my entire life in many regards, to boot. I have routinely had problems telling myself to do things. Most of the time it's things I don't care about, like statistics homework or going to math classes, that I have the biggest problems with doing. It really bugs me when I can't bring myself to do things I want to do, though.



Not even that, though, is my qualm with motivation. No, it's the fact that I even have this issue.



All my life, I've had people telling me, "You can do better than this" when I pull in a C or "Practice more! We can tell you're very talented, you just need to bring your skill up to what you're capable of to be great!" when I would turn in a practice sheet that had less than two hours a week of practice time on it. Yes, that is correct, captain "all I do is play bass guitar" boy here used to loathe playing clarinet in an academic confine. [An Aside: I used the word confine here... this is probably indicative of something deep and troubling.] I guess my personal block to progress is being expected to make it. Without expectation, I'll soar as freely as I want; when I do that, I don't have to fear failure and rejection. I don't go to statistics lecture because I want to answer the professors questions; it's just that, when I do, he says "no" like I am the single most moronic peon who ever crossed his path. I hated practicing in middle school because my stepsister, a flute playing overachiever (by my standards... I wish I could have done as well for myself as she did) put an image into my head that I wasn't good enough to be heard. I would lie on my sheets, and when apparently someone found out about it, I was grounded. You don't ground me, as the ensuing four years of rebellion should have taught my at-the-time stepmother.



In a way, all that sort of problem is why I'm so happy I have the checkered flag in sight at long last. At this point, it means that it'll be the end of my being exposed to any degree of pressure outside of "do your job" which is, ironically enough, the only guideline I can deal with (irony here because it's also the most strict; I've been told time and time again that your GPA doesn't matter, all that matters is the piece of paper that says you finished). I make a great employee. Ask either of the bosses I've had. I worked at an elementary school as a volunteer for a year before I finished two as a paid employee, and I'm pretty sure that my boss named his son Nathaniel for a good reason. My current job... I've been here since October of 2000, my current boss nominated me for student employee of the year, I've been entrusted to run the place dozens of times before, I train, I troubleshoot, I am almost model. They don't know what they're going to do without me.



Nice to know I am appreciated, but it'd be even nicer to know what I'm going to be doing with myself in some concrete fashion. Maybe when I get home and get some studying for my stupid statistics class out of the way, I'll try to write a song again. Maybe I'll finish before I have to sell my effects pedal.

Monday, October 25, 2004

titleless title

okay so this program I downloaded... it was written after blogger changed the RPC codes... this means I can't use it

I SEARCH AGAIN. also, now i have to do a new stylesheet. ::cries again:: hopefully this happens soon.

been a while

found a program that might let me do my updates from my computer, no stupid web interface required

Friday, June 18, 2004

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

ThinkGeek :: PlusDeck



Once again, that is all.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

ThinkGeek :: USB Mini Desktop Aquarium



That is all.

4:45 am and no end in sight...

I have a serious sleep problem, in that since I work from at the earliest 2:00 pm to 10:pm every day, I don't wake up until 1 or 2 pm depending on the day, and I stay awake until 4 something or 5 something am every day. I'm getting a normal amount of sleep, for a college student anyway, it's just shifted off by 6 hours or so. I can't help but feel slightly useless everyday I don't get anything done, but then again, I guess that's why I have days like today and Tuesday to keep me on my toes. Tuesday's example, from an email I sent to my boss:



We may get a call from a <name removed> who will probably be breathing fire down your neck about how we didn't loan her the things she thought we did.



As I understand it, she called at some point this morning and spoke to Lundy about her class in ArtSoc 3217. Apparently, somoene in the art building told her our number and said "talk to them for stuff." She called here and asked for a VCR and projector and Lundy told her that wouldn't be a problem because we deliever to 3215 or some such logic (I only tell you because she tried to use it back on me, so I guess it'll come back again) and that if there were any problems we would call her back (also apparently; I wasn't here for that). Anyway, she told us to set up at 4:00 in the message or 4:15 when she talked to Josh, and Toby actually did take stuff up there at 4:15.



Now comes the fun part. Toby calls back to say "hey, there's already a class in here and there is no '<name removed>' teaching it. What should I do?" I told him to come back because it was for an EDUC class in ASY and that's about as unsupported by us as you can be. Well, 5:35 rolls around and Ms. <name removed> calls us to ask where here equipment is, asking for Toby. Toby didn't know what to tell her, so I talked to her and explained that her class is unsupported by our office and her only real recourse is to call OIT or possibly nonprint media. She regails me with tales of lesson plans and requests, and fills me in on the details of her conversation with Lundy. I am puzzled because I have told her we don't support her, and so on and so forth. I forgot temporarily about the fact that we had actually tried to deliever her stuff, and told her, I'm sorry, but there's really nothing I can do for you here. We don't have the resources for loaning outside our college. At this point she told me EDUC has their own equipment that isn't supposed to go beyond building walls and how she's scheduled for some other building, so on and so forth, then asks for your name and says she'll be calling back.




I was definitely having a Dante day, given that I bothered to show up first thing in the morning and half an hour before my shift started, thus getting me into that mess in the first place. Fortunately, my boss doesn't care tremendously much, and that makes me a lot happier.



Then today happens.



The world's largest thunderstorm decided to ravage and otherwise have its way with several of the buildings on campus, most notably my building and Skinner hall. The AV rack in skinner decided to start shorting out, as evidenced by Rice Crispies in the sound system, meaning it's never a good day when you wake up to Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Those smarmy bastards always looked like they were up to no good. Anyway, we also had one projector in the celing of Key 0106 and one of the old ones in the closet get water on them, and we're no longer sure that we should be using them. Always a positive feeling when dealing with over $15,000 worth of equipment. We had to rustle up OIT tech support, too, and that was fun, talking to all kinds of people who didn't seem too thrilled about dealing with flood damage.



I came home though to find a letter from Katy. She's doing well, survived the gas chamber. This was her first letter that didn't have a feeling of her not thinking she'd make it through BCT. Hearing that makes me happy; I know it's a lot easier to do hard-work-and-deprivation stuff like that when you believe you can actually do it. I wrote back my first substantial letter, which I need to drop off in a couple hours. (I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight, instead choosing to subside off naps.) The post office should pick up from me. And I don't mean my mailbox; I mean I want them to waltz up in here and take my letters from me when I have them ready. Lazy bastards.



Anyway, the real reason I wanted to write today is I can't think of any good birthday gifts to ask for from my parents. My birthday is in... 19 days or something. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to buy for my computer, all of which was related to music. But given my computer's dismal performance at track mixing and its simultaneous playback/record operation or lack thereof, I'm not sure I want any of that anymore. I'm having trouble deciding if I should ask for it anyway and just hook it up to a new computer when I get my loan money, or if I should ask for help buying a new computer and just get the music stuff later. I think I've decided on a powerbook G4 12", since it's a reasonable amount of power for 1400 bucks, and it has everything I need in a computer plus portability. I really want the portable aspect because I'd like to start working in earnest on teaching myself valid programming skill. Maybe then I can successfully get Gaim to compile. Filthy Gaim. Regardless, if you have any suggestions, I am open to them.

Monday, June 14, 2004

Newdow got slapped and Farkers are jackasses

From today's Supreme Court case on the issue of ELK GROVE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT AND DAVID W. GORDON, SUPERINTENDENT, PETITIONERS v. MICHAEL A. NEWDOW ET AL.



(No. 02-1624)

-----------------------------

from the concurring opinion by Chief Justice Rhenquist



I do not believe that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge converts its recital into a "religious exercise" of the sort described in Lee. Instead, it is a declaration of belief in allegiance and loyalty to the United States flag and the Republic that it represents. The phrase "under God" is in no sense a prayer, nor an endorsement of any religion, but a simple recognition of the fact noted in H. R. Rep. No. 1693, at 2: "From the time of our earliest history our peoples and our institutions have reflected the traditional concept that our Nation [*50] was founded on a fundamental belief in God." Reciting the Pledge, or listening to others recite it, is a patriotic exercise, not a religious one; participants promise fidelity to our flag and our Nation, not to any particular God, faith, or church. n4



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Footnotes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -





n4 JUSTICE THOMAS concludes, based partly on West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), that Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), coercion is present in the School District policy. Post, at 3-5 (opinion concurring in judgment). I cannot agree. Barnette involved a board of education policy that compelled students to recite the Pledge. 319 U.S., at 629. There was no opportunity to opt out, as there is in the present case. "Failure to conform [was] 'insubordination' dealt with by expulsion. Readmission [was] denied by statute until compliance. Meanwhile the expelled child [was] 'unlawfully absent' and [could] be proceeded against as a delinquent. His parents or guardians [were] liable to prosecution, and if convicted [were] subject to a fine not exceeding $ 50 and jail term not exceeding thirty days." Ibid. (footnotes omitted). I think there is a clear difference between compulsion (Barnette) and coercion (Lee). Compulsion, after Barnette, is not permissible, and it is not an issue in this case. And whatever the virtues and vices of Lee, the Court was concerned only with "formal religious exercises," 505 U.S., at 589, which the Pledge is not.





- - - - - - - - - - - - End Footnotes- - - - - - - - - - - - - - [*51]



There is no doubt that respondent is sincere in his atheism and rejection of a belief in God. But the mere fact that he disagrees with this part of the Pledge does not give him a veto power over the decision of the public schools that willing participants should pledge allegiance to the flag in the manner prescribed by Congress. There may be others who disagree, not with the phrase "under God," but with the phrase "with liberty and justice for all." But surely that would not give such objectors the right to veto the holding of such a ceremony by those willing to participate. Only if it can be said that the phrase "under God" somehow tends to the establishment of a religion in violation of the First Amendment can respondent's claim succeed, where one based on objections to "with liberty and justice for all" fails. Our cases have broadly interpreted this phrase, but none have gone anywhere near as far as the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case. The recital, in a patriotic ceremony pledging allegiance to the flag and to the Nation, of the descriptive phrase "under God" cannot possibly lead to the establishment of a religion, or anything like it.



When courts extend constitutional [*52] prohibitions beyond their previously recognized limit, they may restrict democratic choices made by public bodies. Here, Congress prescribed a Pledge of Allegiance, the State of California required patriotic observances in its schools, and the School District chose to comply by requiring teacher-led recital of the Pledge of Allegiance by willing students. Thus, we have three levels of popular government -- the national, the state, and the local -- collaborating to produce the Elk Grove ceremony. The Constitution only requires that schoolchildren be entitled to abstain from the ceremony if they chose to do so. To give the parent of such a child a sort of "heckler's veto" over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase "under God," is an unwarranted extension of the Establishment Clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance.

--------------------------



So not only did Michael Newdow get slapped around on his custodial standing, but Chief Justice Rhenquist actually slapped him around on the establishmentary nature of "under God." I can't say I feel sorry for him. His girl's mother filed a motion for leave citing her own legal custody of the child, which Newdow immediately turned around and dodged by saying "Well, I'm not really acting on the behalf of my daughter anymore." I find it somewhat amazing that the lower courts managed to ignore the fact that his argument essentially works against him by proudly pointing out that he has no legal standing in the case any more anyway. That issue aside, The issue of the establishmentary nature of the phrase is moot anyway because the pledge is not compulsory. The court ruled previously, as you can see in the footnote inline with the text above, that a school-led pledge of allegiance is unconstitutional if it is required. In that West Virginia case, if a student didn't participate, he was expelled for 'insubordination.' I think we can all agree that, in that case, the requirement was unconstitutional. However, in California, participation is optional. The consideration of the child's emotional welfare must come into question at some point, especially with regard to how much abuse the child takes due to his nonparticipatory stand on the issue. However, that too is almost not worth worrying about when you see the whole picture: lots of kids are made fun of for lots of reasons, and nobody presents a constitutional challenge for any of those. Essentially, if it's good enough for Rhenquist on this particular issue, it's good enough for all of us.



Farkers, however, don't seem to get this. Most of them say that the court dodged the issue; no, the court held to its constitutional duty to evaluate the case based on the legal issues that applied to it. In Federal cases, you have to establish standing in order to be able to argue a case; if you don't have standing, then the case cannot be judged one way or the other regardless of how coherently you present an argument for it. In one such case in Alabama, an inmate sentenced to death by lethal injection challenged his sentence on the basis that, if a suitable vein could not be found in his legs or ordinary insertion points in his arms, a procedure known as a 'cut down' would be used, involving making a two inch incision in his upper arm to find a vein to use there. This procedure takes place while the inmate is fully conscious and not numbed, and is barbaric and exploratory surgery at best. The justices agreed on that point, however the violation of the Eighth Amendment could not be addressed because the prisoner had already challenged his sentence in the same fashion and lost his case. Had he not, the decision probably would have gone his way. Nelson v. Campbell, 347 F.3d 910 It is clear that the courts must first ensure that the legality of the suit is intact before they address the legality of the issue at hand. This is not "dodging the issue." Newdow himself did that when he changed his stance from representing his daughter to crusading against the inclusion of the non-"religious" use of the word God. Why non-"religious"? Something you have to remember about the word religion is that it does not apply to faith directly; it only applies to the doctrine and observation of that faith. Establishment of Religion implies tying a specific observational system to the government and its procedures and literature. Indication of faith implies no such establishment, especially when you look at the rich and developed history of faith-based action in the United States and the agents of its government. Chief Justice Rhenquist's concurring opinion handily deliniates some important points in that history, should you feel curiosity's tickle (as well as indicating just how much times have changed: he cites an internet site for the lyrics of the "Star Spangled Banner").



In conclusion, the court decided correctly, and I for one applaud them in upholding their duty to act according to the law and not their own whim. The decision regarding the establishment should not have been included in the majority opinion, which would have established direct precedent. Even so, Rhenquist did well to write about the implications of the word God and its relationship to faith, not religion.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Yes indeed it's fun time

Every now and then I am reminded of why I hate living here. Right now there is a cat yowling wildly (we can only presume) in the laundry room because it's locked out of its owner's room. Jeff says this is why we don't get cats; I am inclined to agree. We like Trouble, but trouble is also much more self contained as he is "adult" and can be ignored. The kitten however is not in our intrest nor is it low key. Nobody upstairs right now has the desire or energy for it, and it only served to remind us that we want to get the hell out of here. As quickly as possible.



Which reminds me, I need to go talk to my aunt and uncle tomorrow about what I'm going to do with myself at the end of the month. So depressing.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Open Source

In an unrelated note, I embarked yesterday on trying to get mozilla Firefox and Gaim 0.78 to build on my mac. I failed miserably, but only because firefox won't build as anything but mozilla 1.6 and gaim has some serious problems with the international locales not matching each other or something. I'm thinking about contacting the maintainer of the fink-gaim package to see what he does to get it to build, but hell, who knows. Anyway, I figured that putting the list of packages I needed to put together to build GTK+ 2.4.2 and the preliminary dependencies for Mozilla and Gaim.



Open Source Software compile notes.



Build system information:

Power Macintosh G4/400 (sawtooth)

Mac OS X 10.3.4

Xcode 1.1 (gcc3.3)



Unnecessary compiles:

render-0.8: ok;

xrender-0.8.4: ok;

libxrender-0.8.4: ok;

renderext-0.8: ok;



Initial dependencies for GTK+2.4.2:

pkgconfig: ok;

libpng: ok;

libtiff: ok;

libjpeg: adjusted;

copy from /usr/share/automake-1.6:

config.guess;

config.sub;

pass into ./configure --enable-static;

build ok;

gettext-0.14.1: ok;

freetype-2.1.8: ok;

expat-1.95.7: ok;

fontconfig-2.2.2: ok;

libXft-2.1.6: ok;



GTK+-2.4.2 packages:

glib-2.4.2: ok;

atk-1.6.0: ok;

pango-1.4.0: ok;

xcursor-1.0.2: ok;

#note: can and probably should be moved to prelim deps.

gtk+-2.4.2: adjusted;

added line "#include " to

/usr/local/include/freetype2/freetype/freetype.h

#note: I did this on a backup.

build ok;



firefox-0.8:

libIDL-0.6.8: adjusted;

since GLIB 2.4.2 didn't install glib-config, I had to

copy this file over from fink.

build ok;

firefox-0.8: ok;

#note- used "--with-x" to configure

gaim-0.76:

aspell-0.50.5: ok;

gtkspell-2.0.5: ok;

#note: used --enable-gtk-doc=no to work.

tcl-8.4.0: ok;

tk-8.4.0: ok;

libxml2-2.6.9: ok;

libao-0.8.5: ok;

audiofile-0.2.3: adjusted;

may have needed --disable-shared then --disable static;

build ok;

esd-0.2.8: unneeded;

nas-1.6: bitch to build, going without;

O great and exalted potentate of stupitude!

Ren and Stimpy is on SpikeTV every morning at 2 am. Not the new crappy one, either. The old one. Where they said things like O great and exalted potentate of stupitude. I am tempted to adopt that as my official job title soon. Why? Because I can!



Nobody has stolen my house yet, thank God, although with each passing day I fear more that my car will be missing when I wake up. Oh well.



As for my government class, I talked to my professor and he seems to think I am some kind of troubled Genius. He says it's very typical of students like myself to make procedural errors while getting caught up in the creativity of the moment. He also seems to think I need to go to the counseling center to get advice on a good way to do assignments without being stupid about them. Moreover, I think it's great that A) I am recognizably talented and B) someone finally believes me when I say I need some kind of help. Well, there are plenty of people who believe me, however they're Jeff and Katy and that's it. All the rest of you are lying to yourselves or something. Anyway, they didn't accept my first paper so I had to redo it. I turned it in today, and my professor seemed more pleased with the fact that it was under the limit pagewise, so hopefully, that'll end well for me.



I'm a troubled genius.



I'm the great and exalted potentate of stupitude.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

In the Ghetto

Well, I am back in PG county.



My house has been broken into since I left, and I am afraid enough for my safety that I'm going to be sleeping with my 1/2 inch drive breaker bar next to my bed.



And to think... I never actually thought I would get the chance to use it as an implement of kneecap destruction.



<edit to remove misinformed anger... > At any rate, I am back. I start work tomorrow, and thursday apparently I need to talk to my government professor about my grade in the class. I am terrified because I dont' know why he wants to talk to me when I am pleased with the C I got (underachieving engineering student still guides my grade acceptance policy), but at the same time, he reviewed my appeals and my final. Scary, because it may become evident that I don't actually know anything. Well, whatever, I won't have to deal with him by requirement ever again should I be angry at him. But on the positive side, he did talk to my TA who I believe thought I was ... well some kind of star. I don't know, I just don't. Will keep you posted though.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Coding II

I finished the template editing tonight, I'm moving on to stylesheets. Please, for the love of God, someone suggest a better comment system. Edit:ESPECIALLY since blogger's default commenter declares boldly that you can't post anonymously despite the facts that (A) you can and (B) I have that feature turned on.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Coding

So I'm in progress but I am finished for now. I moved some stuff, added a blogroll that is, I realize, pathetically empty, but what are you going to do. I'm going to set out to look for a better comment system that maybe people will use soon, and eventually go through the code in the template and strip everything I don't care about and redo the stylesheet for my own personal good, that way I don't feel like I'm mooching off someone else's work. Unfortunately, blogger's code system appears to be eternally confusing what with its dollar signs and dd tags... I don't know. I suspect a large part of the problem is that I don't know what does what, and I hate it when that happens. That's no longer a priority though; I got rid of the dependencies on the rounded corners, so while I have a feeling it's uglier now, at least I can do what I will with the colors. Oh... yeah. Somebody like... post something or something. I don't know.

My Nose is Killing Me

The last time I was down here, I didn't have half this much of a problem with my nose acting up, and that was at the height of pollen season. All I've seen this week are lizards and bugs, to include the largest cockroach I've ever seen. I'm not sure if it was a palmetto bug or not, but regardless, nothing I would be allergic to. Maybe it's the dog, although he has never set me off before. Who knows.



Anyway, I'm enjoying myself down here, I guess. I'm not doing much beside telling the dog to lay down and stop being stupid. I'm going to attempt to work on my template tonight so I can get a real functional web page back up.

Sunday, May 23, 2004

The death of a Cicada (or, how my trip to florida made my butt hurt)

There I was, going over the new "mixing bowl" ramp from the inner loop to I-95 south, when SMACK and there's 'bird crap' on my window. I think to myself, great, I just hit a bird and it got its revenge upon me. BUT NO! I gazed at the floor to see how much damage the bird had done when to my surprise I find about 2/3 of a cicada wildly circling on the floorboard of the passenger side of the car. As it turns out, the bird crap was really a mixture of organ materials and her eggs. Needless to say, I had to stop at Dumfries to remove said mess from the car, but the cicada had worked its way into the back seat of the car where it refused to submit to my attempts to remove it from the car. I decided force would be the solution, at which point it seemed to decide that agreeing with me would be a better idea. I flung it into the road, where hopefully it died quickly.



After that, my trip was uneventful. I stopped for gas a total of three times, but I probably could have streched it out to two if I had someone else to drive with me. Arrived in Tallahassee one minute ahead of my Jacksonville-vintage ETA of 11:15 pm, which put the total length of the trip at just over fourteen hours. Not a bad statistic, given that I drive "like grandma" and "need to go faster." I guess that's only necessary if you intend to stop to hit bathrooms every 80 miles. Of course, I didn't really "eat" either, but hey, you get what you pay for.

Friday, May 21, 2004

GTK - The GIMP Toolkit

GTK - The GIMP Toolkit



So this is what I'll be working on from afar this week. My goal is to get GTK+ 2.4 to build on mac os x by establishing all the myriad dependencies and then building it after the fact. Hopefully it actually works this time, since I really don't want to use fink anymore as it tends to install 80,000 files (not really exaggerated at all) by itself.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Some Stuffs!

So comments... if you post anonymously, please leave a name or some other obvious way to tell who you are. Not that you comment anyway, but whatever. Also, I plan on doing a lot of work on the stylesheet while I'm drinking tonight, so if things don't work right, sorry, but in due time.

Someone broke into my house

So this isn't really "my" problem so much, but someone must perish, for my home was violated last night. I am thankful nobody came upstairs to look around, that whoever was here was interested only in Tim's motorcycle. Had I lost any of the stuff that was outside my room, it would have been my bass. That would have made me sad. Sadder than sad.



All the more reason to get out of dodge, so to speak. Anyone have any recommendations on where to fetch housing? Going north today...

First and foremost

I decided it was time to jump into blogger. Although I hope to change the style to my own after a few weeks time, I believe this is the first step in getting my jack ass to update my website more often. Yeah, and you thought it was rain. I need to spend the rest of the day dicking around with settings and try to get my old pages linked onto here so I can have some semblance of a functional website, but everything will have to happen in its own time.