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3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 04,May,2004 | MICROSOFT - [M]ost [I]ntelligent [C]ustomers [R]ealize [O]ur [S]oftware [O]nly [F]ools [T]eenagers |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 02,May,2004 | hey paro..wht the heck is this? ....i dont see the 'whole world watching us' ... its jus u here.....mann we need this. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,May,2004 | hi guys.. hw is everyone doing???looks like only baba is posting messages..(baba a.k.a parvez) Nthg much frm my side ..just work work and work...shifting to a new house next month.. got a java project to work frm next week.. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 30,June,2004 | Thanks for all the wishes guys. Hey Parvez, thanx for calling man. It was a ood attempt at disguising ur voice. Maybe next year u will be closer to fooling me.... ;-) Parvez, the proposed changes in entrance for Management courses will not be into effect from this year. Congrats to sriki and Akshay....Assi, its ur turn now....get out of that wretched place....see the world....Yes ..U can do it.. Had a nice time on my b'day. The computers were all down thanks to the virus...so we had the cake cutting ceremony in the morning, and at arnd 2 pm we left for lunch,movie and a cupla rounds of bowling.... chal guys, chill and have fun. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 29,June,2004 | Well we have relic now (reminds me of age or empires… 2nd year in MIT). Assi get out of that place soon or else people might catch you and put in some museum I have seen this movie 'Last of the Mohicians’ but don’t worry nothing comes close, to you, so don’t flatter yourself. And gouds how is Delhi. Can you find out how much it will cost(from delhi), to pack you and send you to Himalayas? Kishore when can we meet so that you can pay me up, He he he he he Guys where is this Ambala no news from him log time Guys let’s all meet during Mithuns engagement I hope u all will make it MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 29,June,2004 | .....Quiet..huh? ...Remember guyz...Silence is Golden...Well first lemme appologise to MY bro's Kau & Rosh for forgettin your B'dayz...Memory loss da.. ;-) ...Am bck in M'pal...guys have you seen the movie 'Last of the Mohicians'?...well itz an old movie & now am the lead actor in that plot -> 'Last of the TDH'!! M'pal...well what to say...it has changed..no..no itz evolved to a more capitalistic district.Modernisation has licked this small alma mater of ours in a big way...the only relic 'round seems to be me.. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 28,June,2004 | Hi all, Roshan and kau..am waiting for ur treats..dnt worry will come and take it frm u guys when i cme there.... kishore wakes up at last yo man ..we shld invite more people...only baba is posting blogs..looks like he doesnt have any work ...JK Gr8 stuff kau ...infy ka maths olympiad...hmm any guess whts the first prize...trip with parvez to mudabidiri(couples stay!!!!)..so u wana go for the contest LOL Assi has become quiet now... well thats abt it now... |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 28,June,2004 | HAPPY BIRTHDAY Guys!! Sometime since my last post here. I just met Kumkum and Johncie (I dunno how many of you remember, but they helped a great deal with Mnemosyne(now, do you remember that??)) last week. Besides that, life is very boring; what with Baba sending my own forwards back to me and only calling to ask about the cash I owe him! |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 28,June,2004 | First things first HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KAUSHIK AND ROSHAN Hey kau good luck on the math thing. Roshan is also a member of the team Roadrunner is him. Harish what was that some technical crap MAY GOD BLESS YOUR SOUL. AH well as far as taking party for birthdays we have stopped doing it. Hey Kau did u purchase all the DVDs. Roshan has purchased TINTIN CD collection had nice time watching them. I have purchased many VCD one out of them is “THE FOUNTAINHEAD” real good movie Kau, harish inform me when the CAT application comes out. One more thing what happened about the one exam for all collages and no applying for individual collages has it been enforced this year itself Good news guys Srikanth, Akshay have finished studding all years of MIT. In the sense they need not attend any more classes again. Congrats guys. Waiting to catch you guys in Bangalore |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 28,June,2004 | Hi all, First of all, Very Happy B'day to Roshan.B'lore guys, don't forget to take a treat from him. (Dunno whether hes a part of this blog)...... My weekend was great....got the DVDs of some Eng films..Pirates of Carribean,LOTR, Harry Potter etc. and spent some quality time watching them.......Other than that, I was hitting the CAT-Prep books..Maaan, its really hard juggling work and studies..... Hey, me selected for Infy maths Olympiad...nothing great actually.Screening test was a piece of cake..., but will be cool if I make it in the top three in the finals....due on 17th july.... CONTACTMAN seems to be talking stuff that sounds mumbo-jumbo to me....what with all the J2ee classes and shit....by the way, this year is the 40th anniversary of the Mainframe.. :-) I am so glad....Long live Mainframe..... Where are the rest of the guys??No messages from them.....c'mon people....Assi,Shriki,Mudgal and the rest.where are u guys??? Chao for now....will write again soon. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 26,June,2004 | Hi..looks like our blog space is finally kick started... Kau ur birthday..saala phone number nahi detha hai call karne ke liye tu.. u never call also .. assi and his conical boobs..sounds like u r still the same gay i used 2 knw LOL hope u nvr fantacised on me (thx gd).. all da bst for CAT..me also planning 2 give..hvnt started my prep..wil kick start soon.. CAT is very easy but the diff btw men and boys is hw many less mistakes u commit in CAT :) Things r gr8 here..have been the top performer in my team..now i knw the technology so just screwing my seniors (bcs no one knws tech here LOL)..i just work for 3 hrs a day ..rest of the time i need to shw thm that i am working ...i code very fast...man i dnt knw y we nvr used like coding in college...now if i join MIT...i wil do pracs in 20 mins geee... I am planning to write a c pgm to generate entire j2ee classes ..which basically mean that out of 44 developers (22 in india and 22 in USA) they wld need just me...run the script and u have the code LOL... we r hvng fun at work also on weekends... am cmg to blore on sep 5th...wi be there for 20 days..need to attend couple of interviews :)...there is a gr8 demand of j2ee guys now.. pay hike next mnth..hope to get some shares.. wel i met scooter scot last week..he drp at my office out of no where arnd 1 am..we did drink til 6 am and i was back in office at 7..lol was smelling of smirnoff ... hrd pooja gt engaged( any hrt brks).. thats abt me ..got to get back to watch the movie..passion of christ..gr8 one ... |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 25,June,2004 | Kau finally speaks. Well just before his birthday. Mudgal, Sriki have joined but reframe from posting Mithun though invited has not bothered to join Infy and good babes does not hold water GOD bless IIM-A B C Hey his birthday is on 29 and roshan’s birthday is on 28 He he ha ha ha |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 23,June,2004 | Hi dudes, My first post to this forum. I have been reading all the messages. Hey parvez, invite more of our MIT friends...what abt Mudgal,Mithun Sriki... Me having a nice time at INFOSYS. Great place to work...Some godd chics too... :-) Me giving CAT this year...IIM-A B C need some sharp brains ;-) Hey....Assi don't try to get all senti and all..... How are those conical boobs of urs...hope u've got a nice pair of bras fot them.... He he he.... Enjoy guys.....And don't forget my B'day like u did Parvez's chao for now....I'LL BE BACK |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 19,June,2004 | wasp guys...sorry for my late responses...will be more proactive... Things r gr8 here...social life has kick started ... I am cmg to blore on 20 vac n 3rd sep...my brthday is on 9th sep... Looks like assi is getting all emotional... assi if u c prasanna (archi)...plz beat him up 4 me.. Man saving $$ is the biggest thing i guess...all da time i thnk b4 spending... did any1 attend MIT alumni meet on june 20th... thats abt it..i am heading back to work |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 16,June,2004 | Hey Assi i called your number 04722866124 but no one picks what’s up why did u need the money ? Is everything fine? |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 15,June,2004 | Hey ASSI we are not yet sucked into the system nor will be anytime We are all there but where r you? When it comes to the time, we are all partners in crime When do you plan to start up the butcher business? Hey this is the list of people who forgot my birthday No Problem cause I myself don’t remember other’s birthday 1] Ambala 2] Bikku 3] Akshay 4] Harish Hey guys any one remembers, someone’s birthday post it on the website as the day nears by. So that other can see it and remember He he he he BABA |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 15,June,2004 | .......I still remember those tender moments when I have seen my pals of TDH at their weak moments...Parvez crying on that day in 8th block...it was funny to some extent...talk about humor (No offense ok Parvez? ;-) ).Then there was our pal Mithun breaking down on his b'day bump ceremony...that one wuz touching da....Sreekanth..hmm..never seen him crying...but his 'Chicken Sambaar' controversey sure did kick up mine & Ambala's pulse....Kauaa...he indeed was a treat when his face is mirrored with emotions...he was something akin to my emotional scales...Ambala the great man...he sure did crack the day when he was having his quota of drinks & smoke with Amit Shenoy that day in the blocks...he cried like a baby!.....I miss all these bastards badly man...so bro's wherever you guys are stuck up..take care & be there for each other! |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 15,June,2004 | 'Life seems to be a drag....same old faces...same old routine...resulting in the month end with a healthy ATM account...' Thats what my pal who's working in Techno Park told me.I wonder..is it the same with you guys out there? Are you people sucked into the monotony of the dread word routine...or are you going with the same vigour that used to pull you to the morning classes in MIT? Do chip in your mind faucets into this blog cabin & let me know pals.. |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 04,June,2004 | A friend sent me this forward last night. Thought I'd post it instead of emailing it out to all my twenty something friends. I wish I could take credit for writing this but I can't... so I won't. Kudos to the anonymous author who read my thoughts and so eloquently put to words what I couldn't. **looking forward to my 30s...I hear it gets better, especially when you feel more secure about yourself, and less accomodating to bullshit. 'Being Twenty-Something' They call it the 'Quarter-life Crisis.' It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now. You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you. You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender! What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out...... GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF US!!!!! |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 25,July,2004 | Hi all, Looks like people have stopped blogging. Well last few days have been too demanding...i hvnt slept ...have been coding without a wink... man we used to never code in college labs hehe... have written arnd15k lines of code in last 8 days... no am putting efficiency in the code... well some updates from my end...salim had called up last week..he is finally done with MIT...he is in blore now... watched Troy twice...amazing movie... Spider manII sucks... guys any one watched JULIE..keep hearing so much abt it... we got two huge company parties lined up.... Am trying to move to blore branch of the company..lemme see... kau,baba,dan,dreamer wake up and post something guys.... |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 06,July,2004 | 'There's more to this world than just people, you know.' -Hobbes 'Why should I have to WORK for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it!' -Calvin 'I think animals are alway so cute.' -Hobbes 'I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.' -Calvin 'I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.' -Calvin 'To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.' -Calvin 'You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.' -Calvin 'I'd hate to have a kid like me.' -Calvin 'I understand my tests are popular reading in the teachers' lounge.' -Calvin 'If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some!' -Hobbes 'Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.' -Calvin 'If mom and dad cared about me at all, they'd buy me some infra-red nighttime vision goggles.' -Calvin 'If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.' -Calvin 'Reality continues to ruin my life.' -Calvin 'What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?' -Calvin 'Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.' -Calvin 'I hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point.' -Calvin 'Girls are like slugs - they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.' -Calvin 'Do you hate being a girl? What's it like? Is it like being a bug? I imagine bugs and girls have a dim perception that nature played a cruel trick on them, but they lack the intelligence to comrehend the magnitude of it.' -Calvin 'Childhood is short, maturity is forever.' -Calvin 'If people could put rainbows in zoos, they'd do it.' -Hobbes 'I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway.' -Calvin 'True friends are hard to come by...I need more money.' -Calvin |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 05,July,2004 | do i love Maria Sharapova? does it snow in noth pole? |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 04,July,2004 | Ok here goes, first I post my snap on the blog and all shout that, I have slimmed down or rather try/pretend to. Well guys this came as a surprise I am trying to loose weight but then, I had no idea, I have lost noticeable amount. Gee thanks I am trying to patofy this girl who is thin rather should I say slim (don’t worry be happy she has right dimension, at the right places). I am loosing weight to match her up. Me getting her looks distant but I never say die. Ah you Mr. Kaushik Bekal you are getting wisdom and its corresponding teeth now. Me got both, long time back. Dude you know what I have been the principal of the school you studied in. HE HE HA HA Looks like Delhi is a nice place. But any ways BANGLORE is better at least when it comes to bird watching. Hey guys do you know this fact Please read on #################################################################### An Eyeful a day keeps the doctor away* by JONATHAN HAYTER Staring at women's breasts is good for men's health and makes them live longer, a new survey reveals. Researchers have discovered that a 10-minute ogle at women's breasts is as healthy as a half-an-hour in the gym. A five-year study of 200 men found that those who enjoyed a longing look a busty beauties had lower blood pressure, less heart disease and slower pulse-rates compared to those who did not get their daily eyeful. Dr. Karen Weatherby, who carried out the German study, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine: 'Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well endowed female is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics workout. Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There is no question that gazing at breasts makes men healthier. Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of a stroke and heart attack in half. We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years. She added that sexy stars like Dolly Parton, Heather Locklear and Demi Moore had proved to be especially good for the men's health. ############################################################# Happy bird watching. Looks like gouda is going to leave for long now (burdening Earth for long time) YA you Assi what the fuck are doing in manipal searching some obscured information on Egypt mummies and fuel for train GO BACK AND STUDY AND DON’T COME BACK TILL THE EXAMS ARE OVER Where the fuckin hell on earth do you get time, patience, interest, martial, energy for all this. Dude save it all for the exams and GOOD LUCK. Our Roshan Rao is shi these days should I say lot. He got lot of flowers for his birthday. Oh well from the fairer sex. But he would not let me click a snap with him and the flowers together. Not only that he is shy from posting to the blog also but is a regular reader though. ALWAYS BABA |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 04,July,2004 | Hi all, Gee kau am happy now.. Well bird watching hmm..hvnt been doing it for last 2 months..LOL was in malls on sat and sunday..some people frm blore had come here... I went to GreaterKailash(somewhr in delhi)...we had to pick some non veg from a place called Kareems(its more like City market of blore)..gee chics were amazing..i almost slipped and fell..Guys u shld come and visit delhi...man u wil stop watching pondi's.. Well friday was usual ..my team mates get and go to 32Milestone(its a hangout place) we did drink till 2 am ..lol bill was too much...then we went racing in da nite.. sat was sic..hangover..had to show some people arnd malls and delhi..we did some shopping ..then we left to Delhi...we were drinking in Ruby Tuesday(a pub in south Delhi)...we came out arnd 4 am ...man the birds were chirping when we came out... went to a friends place to have coffee and bath...some one dropped me home... my 2 housemates are moving to blore today..had to send them off.. well am in office on sunday at 8 pm writting this blog.. well thats abt it from myside.. Wonder baba can pose for some slimming ad LOL..:) guys please block ur dates on sep 9th.. salamat malaam :) Harish Reddy |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,July,2004 | Chums do read this exercept I got when surfing the net--> 'A small item in the September 27, 1859, edition of the Syracuse Daily Standard reads: “Egypt has 300 miles of railroad. On the first locomotive run, mummies were used as fuel, making a hot fire. The supply of mummies is said to be inexhaustible, and are used by the cord.” Dard Hunter’s Papermaking cites an informant’s report that “during a ten-year period the locomotives of Egypt made use of no other fuel than that furnished by the well-wrapped, compact mummies.” My italics. To repeat; for 10 years they used nothing but mummies as fuel for the railroad! |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,July,2004 | .....The relic stuff wuz the blues that hit me with such a ferocity when I landed in Manipal few dayz back...Itz cool dudes...& thankz pals, for your unwavering support. Parvez, when was that snap taken which you posted in the blog? I should say you have really kept a tight regime to tuck in both your tummy as well as rear.Hats off to Parvez for that.So howz life goin for yourself & Roshan, Parvez? Do you still run around that ventilating shorts of yours ;-) ? Anywayz take care & have fun bros.Will keep postin in the blog routinely..will see u chaps soon enough God willing... |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,July,2004 | Hi guys, First let me mention Harish's name.....Harish,Harish...Harrriiishhh... Now I hope u r happy my friend....I've mentioned ur name 4 times.... So CONTACTMAN, howz all the bird watching in Gurgaon goin'...i heard bird-watching increases ones life expectancy.....by now u might've geared up to outlive a crocodile. Baba is looking much leaner than he actually is.....pet ko andar lekar, saans rokke foto kheecha kya be? My wisdom tooth is beginning to surface (actually 3/4ths of it is already out)...so it's paining like crazy....have been taking painkiller tabs for the past 2 nights so that i can sleep peacefully....(Hey Parvez, if u r wondering whats a wisdom tooth, don't worry abt it...it accompanies wisdom...and it might take a while b4 urs surfaces.)....gee...just kidding dude.... Assi, whats this relic thing u r talkin abt? Its time u get out of Manipal man...Now or Never.....u've gotta pull ur socks up...u know we're all with u... chao for now....keep posting... |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,July,2004 | Hi guys...the blog seems to be rolling on well kau am pissed with u fucker... u never mentioned my name LOL :D u never answer the pings.. hw is shriki and akshay... assi the relic...there is a proposal to remove dr.Pai's sculpture from archi block and replace it with assi's LOL :D:D well baba ..u wana 2 send me to himalaya's #@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$@# k bye tc -hr |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 01,July,2004 | Me and chandru when he come to banglore june-17-2004 |
3,080,267 | male | 23 | Engineering | Capricorn | 05,August,2004 | Hey guys, been long time. Guess every one is kicking Good news our Website has a new address urlLink http://tdh.parvez.net/ Go ahead and try it out. If you don’t like the word tdh do let me know. It can be changed Just got a sms from Arun that he got PR. Congrats dude CAT forms are out. Srikanth and Akshay are in Bangalore. Assi has started going to collage you can reach him @ 9886008401 Mudgal has used the same bracelet used by Anil Kapoor and has become Mr India. These days he is not to be seen and become total invisible Heard that he died after fantasizes about some shit code. May God Bless his soul Kau by any chance did u find the bracelet next to his grave. Cause even u r getting invisible these days. |
4,091,350 | male | 26 | indUnk | Pisces | 30,July,2004 | Howdy, nice you came along, I'll blog python stuff here. |
4,091,350 | male | 26 | indUnk | Pisces | 04,August,2004 | Pyscan A little script offering a gui'ed tcp/ip portscanner, comes in handy and was fun to write. Game thougts I've played urlLink Aces High demo again yesterday. This was after I stopped playing urlLink Battlefield Vietnam for this evening because the spawncampers and bad teammates got on my nerves. I'm sort of a flying-nature in these games. Also I've seen a trailer of sorts for urlLink Call of duty united offensive . And I'm rememberd of my good old days of urlLink Operation Flashpoint . I like about these games that: Battlefield has a good working network-code for up to 32 players, and offers a broad range of different vehicles that are fun to play with and is graphicaly apealing. Aces high has a very good grade of realism what goes to flight physics and world size, also it's a blast to play on a server with 300 other people. Call of duty has a very fine hand at constructing good atmosphere, the sounds, the animations, the interface-feeling, everything. very fine atmosphere. Also their missions are intresting. Network works good but it didn't keep me playing realy. Flashpoint is in a way a perfect game for what it tries to archieve, enjoyed it a lot. What I don't Like about these games: Battlefield is very arcade like. It follows a 'downsize reality' patter of sorts. It makes every vehicle slower, planes never stall, they take off at 40km/h after 20 meters runway ( can land the same way ). The vehicles have little grip on the ground, they have no gears to switch and no motor to power-up, and so on. What I also miss are a whole lot more sprites, even Tribes 2 had more sprites then the BF-engine ( for explosions, shots, crashes, snow, rain and what no more ) Aces high has rather ugly graphics. One can say this doesn't count, you're high up anyway, but looking at the new Call of duty screenshot, I still miss the good graphics. Also, in Aces high there's the option on driving ground vehicles, which is in my opinion a pain in the arse as you're driving over dead-booring landscapes for ages. Call of duty has no vehicles to realy use. Yeah it's got these tanks, with an 'almost physics', but that's only limited to very specific missions. There's no general concept of avaiable vehicles, and you never see them online. I just love vehicles, they bring so much more fun into a game. Flashpoints troop-leading and command never quite worked right. The graphics was a little bettern then in aces high, but it was much more sprite-poor then Battlefield. But the woods worked very good. The vehicle-physics was for me a major bummer, as it felt wrong even after weeks of playing. Worst it was with planes and helicopters. But the one and sole reason to abandom it alltogether that it has no net-community. Flashpoint would have been a real blast if it worked network-wise as good as battlefield. But the whole network-issue was totaly neglected by the developpers until to the last moment, so naturaly at first is was crappy, and this way it stayed. With no good way of browsing servers, and games that crashed and got out of sync all the time. Was no fun at all to play in the net. The conclusion? I would realy like a game that would offer me the graphical finesse and briliance of Call of Duty, the good working network/vehicles of Battlefield, the reality-size of aces high and the tactics and handling of flashpoint. Add to that a little of the best other ingredients of these games, and perhaps a few role-play elements ( a bit more then in aces high ), and you got me hooked for years. |
4,091,350 | male | 26 | indUnk | Pisces | 03,August,2004 | You think help is a good tool, but it's a bit 'non interactive'? Well I had a little bit of playaround-time and the result is livehelp. It's a sort of help that works like a browser. It's pretty raw at the moment, and there are some gui elements that are just decoration, but I like it none the less. In fact I know of someone who's already putting it to good use by inspecting the runtime-state of his programm this way. You can download and tryout livehelp, be sure to save it as .py file so it can be imported. urlLink livehelp |
4,091,350 | male | 26 | indUnk | Pisces | 03,August,2004 | Ok, here's a controversial issue. There's a few changes in python 2.4 that are somewhat hotly discussed. Most of the features are rather okish I think, what I have a strong opinion about are the following. Buildin Set Objects This is a feature I'll love. I think sets are a quite usefull addition to the containers, in facto so usefull that it's legit so I don't have to write 'from sets import Set as set' and can write down set literals. I use them a lot and have asked myself since why it hasn't been adopted earlier. Two thumbs up! Generator Expressions It is a little strange at first, but I think it's a natural and powerfull complement to list expressions. There's lambdas which enable lisp-like in place functions. There's list comprehensions which can be used in expressions. And now there's generator expressions, which can not only serve as a short form of generator-defintion, but also this expressions can be used in expressions, for example as arguments to a function, written in place. I like it, it will make for some nice and tidy code. That's pythonic, two thumbs up. Decorators I've very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I rarely use function decoration as a pattern. On the other hand there's some rather large and liked frameworks, which do this kind of pattern extensively. I don't actualy know how many people work with this pattern realy, but I'd estimate that it's not the majority of users, perhaps not even near. So it's a feature only a small group of people will realy benefit. Alone for this fact, I think consideration should be very carefull if it's included or not. Then there's the story of the syntax. I can see that this a usefull pattern, once you start fiddling with it. I can also see that it's nice if a language supports a pattern. But imho @silly is no way to go. I have to type this sillyness everytime I want to decorate a function. For each decorated function it will be an additional @+funtion-name. And if I want multiple decorators nested, which is a nice idea, I will have to fill a line with multiple @. And this FOR EACH FUNCTION. Holy shit! If it must be that the language starts to support this kind of pattern ( of what I am not so terribly sure ), then please, with sugger on top, make it easy to read, nice to look at, and in a way that safes you a lot of typing. That would be like... the decorator block. Runs like this. class someclass: decorator require_int, staticmethod: def foobar( a ): pass def another( a, b, c ): pass def a_normal( self ): pass That's a form that I would actualy like, and it give you the power to easely decorate a whole set of methods/functions. |
4,091,350 | male | 26 | indUnk | Pisces | 01,August,2004 | I've had a look at pyxml, and Liked it, despite the rather clumsy interface to the dom-tree. It inspired me to write something usefull along the lines of purple, up to now I call it Dom-view ( it's a little more then that ). urlLink dom-view Have Fun |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 29,January,2004 | Since my return from England in July, more than a few of my tastes have changed. My brother has had a subscription to Nintendo Power since we were both in grade school, but when I picked up a copy of it after coming home, I found that I no longer respond to its Disneyfied tone and its low expectation for all things Nintendo. The age difference between its target audience and mine had become painfully obvious, and their high scores for well-known mediocre games (like Enter the Matrix) proved their reviews untrustworthy. Having been introduced to UK magazines like urlLink Edge and urlLink GamesTM , the typical game news/reviews seem self-satisfied and unvarying. True, there is a time and place for straightforward news and reviews, but I think we could use more of the game criticism featured in these magazines as well as the US-based urlLink insert credit . When I say these sources are more 'intellectual,' I mean that they scrutinize the game industry as well as individual games and provide not only overviews but also layered analyses. Edge (and GamesTM, who copied Edge) does this using editorials as well as a strict scoring scale -- a 5 out of 10 means average -- that highly favors originality. Liam does accuse Edge of being 'ever so slightly pretentious,' and I can't say I disagree. That's perhaps why I liked GamesTM's tone better, but I've only read one or two issues and have nothing else to say except that it's kind of like Edge. I don't know about the quality of Edge's stuff these days though, since my friend whose best friend who knows people who work there said that there were some controversy over an insensitive editorial as well as something involving Edge being paid to score a game better than it deserved, and half the staff ended up quitting. There's no magazine in the US quite like Edge and GamesTM, but my brother's friend Joe who also went to USC pointed me to urlLink insert credit , which has good writing and thought-provoking features like urlLink this one . It's an interesting site you can spend hours reading if you're so inclined. My one minor complaint is that the site is poorly organized (everything under one category is listed chronologically) so as to be unfriendly to newcomers. That and some of their articles could be a bit less urlLink verbose . |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 27,January,2004 | I hate being sick. That's what I've been doing the last four days or so. Walking around made me dizzy and weak, but lying down made my head hurt from being pressed against the pillow (not kidding). So I slept and sat on the couch and played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance when I felt a little better. I feel almost normal now except for a hacking cough that keeps waking me up at night. Conversations with God says that every experience you call into your life serves some purpose, so I wondered about the purpose of this one, as I always wonder what possible purpose a little fever or cold could serve. Okay, I can see that if you're stressed or making yourself too busy, getting sick would be your body's way of slowing you down and saying, 'hey, enough of this.' However, as I'm out of school with no car and no job, neither of those apply to me (and never really did, except when I had to write that term paper in high school). In any case, I've come to the conclusion that: 1) Once again, I take simple joy in feeling healthy and normal, as I'm reminded every time I get sick. 2) My mother does a lot more for the rest of my family does for her, myself included (she took care of me when she wasn't working). 3) I need to shift my focus from what I don't have (job, relationship, etc) to what I do have, right here, right now. I was worried about the slowness of my job search; I felt frustrated because I couldn't see my friends or go anywhere since I can't drive my dad's new manual Nissan (he's in Taiwan at the moment and can't teach me). But one day I was sitting on my bed and staring (because lying down gave me a headache and focusing too long on a book or my GBA made me nauseous) when I realized that this situation I am in now is perfect for bonding with my mother. With my dad and brother gone temporarily, we have some peace in the house and time together with none of the frustrations those two bring. She'll be working for most of tomorrow, but I can also help make this house (esp. my room) a bit more livable by cleaning things up, bathing my dog and taking him for a walk. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. I think I've been getting clues that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, but I didn't make a conscious connection until that moment. It was a feeling of 'I get it now,' like something clicking into place, and by extention, I felt that the job thing and everything else will come when the time comes. Well, neato, and I guess tomorrow's cleaning day. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 19,January,2004 | ...after a long day of playing Final Fantasy X-2, chatting with friends on AIM, and going through adventure-gaming websites, and an idea occurred to me as I pondered about making my own adventure game: why not make a Harry Potter adventure? Okay, so it's not really original, but what irks me about the official Harry Potter games published by Electronic Arts is that a) they are painfully mediocre and b) they utilize only a tiny fraction of the possible gameplay elements offered by the Harry Potter universe. In fact, when I took Intro to Interactive Multimedia back in freshman year, for the movie/book-to-game assignment I chose to do a Harry Potter adventure game. This was before the first movie and game came out, and although my design was not entirely groundbreaking (in fact, I had recently played GK 3 and had that on my mind), it would've made a far better game than the crap that came out of EA (I am mostly talking about the first game, not having played the second [slightly improved] one). What I want to do now is make an intelligent game worthy of the Potter name, albeit a small one. However, knowing me, this may never become a finished product. We'll see what happens. To keep going on this topic, I'd have to introduce a phenomenon I recently discovered: independent freeware adventures. That is, a community of adventure-game fans are developing their own games, since PC adventures are few and far between these days. They use one of a few freely distributed adventure game engines for this purpose, and more info on these engines can be found on urlLink Adventure Gamers: Underground . These games are by and large 2D point-and-click adventures, so don't expect any groundbreaking gameplay here. However, they do contain strong narratives and fun inventory-based puzzles and also provide creative outlets for writers and artists. Later I shall do another entry on the best of these adventures I've played so far. So this is what I'm thinking. I'm going to make a small game, since my graphics skills aren't that strong, and I'd rather work on fewer images and do them well. The story is not going to be Harry's story, nor will the plot follow any of the books'. I want to use either Hermione, Ron, (on second thought, they do enter the main stories quite heavily) or one of the minor Griffindor characters (a Neville Longbottom game!), and make him or her the main character. This allows me to make a smaller story that runs parallel to and occasionally intersect one of the books' plot. Now I have to figure where to get the background music from. Among other things. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 18,January,2004 | ...of many entries about gaming, one part of the eclectic hobbies in which I spend my free time (which is all the time at the moment. HAH! Well, maybe just a small hah.). urlLink Adventure Gamers just did a new urlLink feature on Gabriel Knight, an adventure game series published by Sierra. I happen to own all three games in the series and lament the fact that there likely wouldn't be a fourth. The series is notable for its deep, engaging storytelling that revolves around a historical mystery or legend (Voodoo [who do?], werewolves, and the descendents of Jesus). The third game, Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, was the first I played, and it made the biggest impact on me. It had a strong story and smooth gameplay, but what got me the most was the character interactions between Gabriel, Grace, and Mosely. Although only Gabriel's name is in the title, Grace is the other playable character and becomes controllable every other 'chapter.' She was also a playable character in the second game, though to be honest I only played the first few hours of it because of the crashes and bugs (one of which rendered my saved game unloadable, which really sucked). The third game, however, was perfect in my eyes. Despite some flaws, the emotions the game evoked in me was none I've experienced before or after. The dialogue, characterization, and excellent voice-acting combined to give the emotional intensity normally seen in novels or films. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's what it felt like my first time playing through it. Some notable voice-actors include: Tim Curry as Gabriel (in game 1 and 3), Charity James as Grace (also in Monkey Island 4 as Elaine Threepwood), Rene Auberjonois and John de Lancie (for you Trekkers out there) as minor characters, Jennifer Hale (Ms. Keane in PowerPuff Girls), and Mark Hamill as Mosely in the first game. A number of these voices can also be found in Knights of the Old Republic, oddly enough (ah, the wonders of IMDB). So in conclusion, if you're dying to hear Tim Curry talk in a southern accent, GK 1 and 3 are a must. Those of you who know me (and don't live on the other side of the globe. Or in another state.), I still have the games in my room somewhere (emphasis on 'somewhere') if you'd like to give them a shot. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 18,January,2004 | My blog is now searchable via the Google code at the bottom of the main page. All two posts of it. Yay! Why are you looking at me like that? It's called forward-thinking. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 17,January,2004 | I think that having seeing all three LOTR movies, and especially the extended versions of the first two before the third, I got back into the feel for high fantasy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien's writing is still slow--but a good kind of slow. Like sipping tea. There is a real love of language in his writing, which I can certainly understand, and the slow building and layering of atmosphere is best savoured and mulled over. Although I do attribute my patience for this slowness, especially at the beginning of Fellowship, to knowing and caring about the characters. Compared to Fellowship (and from what I've heard, The Silmarillion), The Hobbit is quite easy to get into and not bogged down by references to obscure names and places. After a 'leisurely' start, it does pickup as Bilbo gets himself into more and more danger, and to my delighted surprise I could hardly put it down. I'm about a third of the way through Fellowship now, and I can say it's much less boring the second time around (I tried to read it while in England, and stopped after 160 pages). The Hobbit is definitely a helpful read if a new reader wants to give a shit about the places and names mentioned in the first few chapters, as well as references to Bilbo's adventure. I do understand why I gave up the first time (it's STILL quite slow), but I'm glad I came back to it. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 17,January,2004 | I suppose it's fitting that I started this at the beginning of the new year. This is just a place for thoughts that pop up from the various stimuli in my newly school-free life, now that I actually have the time to write them instead of working on my next who-gives-a-shit paper. (No more papers! Woohoo! It's worth shouting out more than once.) So I will slightly organize my thoughts and have them live here from now on, otherwise they'd probably end up in Steve's Inbox and whoever else will listen. I'm currently sitting at home, playing Final Fantasy X-2 and going through thousands of job listings to find some place to give me money that wouldn't also drive me nuts. Oh, and I'm reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. More on that later. I do have to say, though, 2003 was a wonderful year for me, what with spending half of it in England, having the last semester of college, and including two wonderful guys in my life. 2004 has a lot to live up to, but I'm sure I'll find ways to make it worthwhile. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 29,February,2004 | As you may or may not know, I've been taking a life/health insurance prelicensing class all week. Yes, 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. I had a wonderful teacher, a funny lady who made sarcastic comments about insurance policies and laws. I swear it was her who made the subject actually mildly interesting. In fact, I was so interested that I went around asking to read my family members' insurance policies. Sure, part of my job will be to explain insurance contracts to clients, but it's kind of like figuring out puzzles, reading those contracts. A side bonus of taking this class was that I ran across a British restaurant called Brit's Fish and Chips. I passed by it while walking from the office where my class took place to Pasadena City College. The sign outside said 'best fish and chips outside Liverpool,' and, having been to Liverpool (tho not having had fish and chips there), I hoped, rather than believed, it would be authentic. The following Friday I went back there, taking Marianne with me as she lives close by (it turned out that her fav Italian restaurant is next door). We ordered fish and chips and a Cornish pastie, and THEY WERE GOOD. As in, I-could've-been-in-England GOOD. The fried fish was made of whole pieces of fish filet dipped in beer batter rather than fish patties US restaurants usually serve. That, if nothing else, was very impressive. I also had a glass of Blackthorn cider, which I last had in Brighton, for nostalgia's sake. They ran out of apple pie, but we had treacle pudding with custard. Mmm....custard. So if you're looking for good, authentic British food, I heartily recommend this place (on Colorado half a block east of PCC). Next time, I'm having bangers and mash. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 24,February,2004 | Today's insurance class was definitely better than yesterday's. We learned about different types of life insurances policies and the components of an insurance contract. WOOHOOO!!!!!! No, really. I was way more engaged than I was yesterday when we dealt mostly with definitions and words like 'principal' and 'consideration' which had meanings no normal person uses. I even participated more in class than I ever did in my English classes. I wonder what that means... And...tomorrow I drive my dad's manual Nissan Sentra to class. Considering how many times I stalled the car tonight...wish me luck. And expect a post about learning to drive stick, too. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 23,February,2004 | Today I sat in a classroom all day and learned about insurance. Yay. I may write more on it later. Right now I feel like shit. 9-hour days suck. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 20,February,2004 | Apparently the academic study of gaming is finally becoming mainstream. I say it's about time. This urlLink article linked from Games Slashdot talks about critical study of gaming that is cropping up around universities. I would so have studied this if USC had offered it a few years ago. Somebody named the study of games 'ludology,' which part of me hopes doesn't catch on because it sounds so damned silly. urlLink www.ludology.org urlLink www.ludonauts.com/ |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 18,February,2004 | From urlLink Games Slashdot today: 'Square Enix has officially announced the first U.S.-based Final Fantasy Concert. Entitled 'Dear Friends', it will take place in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this May 10th, and will feature melodies from the entire series composed and arranged by Nobuo Uematsu.' According to the urlLink announcement on Square Enix's page, the concert will kick off its presence at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and will be performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. I am so going to be there!! |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 17,February,2004 | I admit that I'm not the best journaler in the world. I have trouble keeping a daily routine in something that's not a necessity, though to be honest I haven't really pushed myself to do so. I do have pen-and-paper journal at the moment, and I jot down something in it every once in a while when something important happens and I suddenly remember to. Even then my entries are rather short and don't usually contain all my thoughts on a subject/event. This is mostly because a) I write slow and b) I journal at night when I'm already tired. So my paper journaling tends to be sporatic at best. I think I'd started journaling in Word once, but for some reason I just keep forgetting to return to it. Too lazy to open up Word, maybe. However, since I've started watching Oprah recently, I went poking around on her website and discovered an urlLink online journal section . It offers about four or five different types of journals (e.g. daily, gratitude, health, create-your-own, etc), the purpose of which is to provide direction and helps you reflect on different parts of your life. It's already working pretty well for me because a) I type way faster than I write, b) I put a link to it on my Mozilla toolbar and it's the most natural thing to go there while I'm online, and c) the guidelines give me something to write even when I don't think I have something to write about. AND it's searchable. Yay! Thank you, Oprah. I suppose some people might be worrying about the privacy issues of journaling online. No, the journal section is not on a secure site and any hacker with a little diligence might be able to hack it. But...what for? Sure, the stuff I write isn't something I'd let other people read, mostly because it's where I work out my thought processes and feelings. If someone I know were to read it (since I don't know why someone I don't know would even bother or care), I wouldn't be that embarassed about it either because it's nothing I wouldn't tell people if they had asked. As Dr. Phil said (I think it was him), 'People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.' |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 12,February,2004 | So I finished Fellowship of the Rings today, and it was...okay. There was a bit of trudging through here and there, but not too bad. The movie didn't do a bad job of following the storyline, all things considered, though the book did fill in some of the plot holes for me (like why Gimli didn't know all the dwarves in Moria died). And I must say, while there are some discrepancies between the book and movie voices of certain characters (i.e. the way they talk, words they use, etc), which are understandable aftereffects of adapting book to film, the characters of Sam and Gollum are just SPOT ON. I had no trouble placing the movie voices into the book characters at all, whereas I did with other characters. This probably has more to do with the way the dialogue is adapted than with the strength of the actors though. I just looked up John Rhys-Davies on IMDB. I KNEW I've heard that name somewhere. He played Professor Arturo on Sliders and Leonardo Da Vinci in a few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager . I loved his portrayal of both characters, but I didn't recognize him the entire time I watched the trilogy. Probably because he's normally twice as tall. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 11,February,2004 | Since I have a lot of free time these days, I've started watching TV again, mostly specific shows like Dr. Phil, Oprah, CSI, Gilmore Girls, and Pokemon. Even then, I still get residual crap through commercials for the local news and Entertainment Tonight and other shows about people I don't care about. I'm sure you've all heard about the Janet Jackson 'exposure' (whether you'd like to or not), and it even made it onto today's urlLink Megatokyo . I apologize for bringing it up yet again, but I'd just like to say that if it's a publicity issue, then it could be resolved by NOT banging the topic over people's heads over and over again (hello? who's giving them publicity?). If it's a breast issue, well, I hate to break it to them, but half the world's population has breasts. Get over it. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 21,March,2004 | Tomorrow's God , the newest installment in the Conversations with God series, was released this month, and I got my copy earlier than expected. As the seventh book in the series, I didn't know how much of it would really be new information. After all, the previous books already laid the groundwork for the philosophy. However, I wasn't disappointed; many of the themes in Tomorrow's God does repeat what went on in previous books -- but only because we keep asking the same questions. Instead of repeating what was said before, this installment expanded on the previous concepts and explained them in new ways that increased my understanding of it. For example, the first and foremost principle in CWG is that We Are All One. In Tomorrow's God , this principle is extended into the idea of serving Life first. In any situation which involves choice, if we serve Life first, we will always end up serving the greatest good as well as ourselves , because we are part of Life (which is synonymous with the words God, Love, Freedom, and Change). A good analogy of this would be having the hand feed the mouth. The hand doesn't directly benefit from putting food in the mouth, but that food feeds the stomach, which in turn feeds the hand, because they do not exist separately on their own. Tomorrow's God also proposed solutions to some of America's (and the world's) problems. Like education for example, which currently teaches kids copy their parents' thinking -- and their mistakes. I know my kids aren't going near public schools or even my Catholic high school (which, to be honest, I loved at the time, but today it would've driven me nuts). I'll have to take a closer look at Waldorf schools. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 11,March,2004 | Yesterday I went to Blockbuster's to rent Under the Tuscan Sun , which is actually a really good story about self-reliance and loving yourself before finding someone else to love. While I was there I was really tempted to rent urlLink Max Payne 2 as well, but the problem was that it would take away my reading time and working time (since I designate my own work hours) without contributing (much) to my ongoing education. So I decided, then and there, that I am giving up videogames until I start making $5000 a month (this might be confusing to those who don't know or don't understand what it is I'm doing. I will explain more about my job when I get around to it). Of course, I haven't played much videogames for about a month now, so it's not like I've had to suddenly cut down on it. However, this will prevent me from playing when I do want to. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 06,March,2004 | I have added a 'current readings' list to the left hand column. It's list of books I'm reading currently (because I'm always reading something or other), as well as a hint as to what I might be talking about (or are already talking about) in upcoming entries. In fact, I've already got several new topics in mind, I just have to get them sorted into a coherent manner. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 06,March,2004 | If you've seen Bowling for Columbine or read Conversations with God , you know how the local news, cop shows, and other violent programs feed into the culture of fear in America. Well, here's one more reason why too much news is bad for you. I'm currently reading this book called Your First Year in Network Marketing by Mark and Rene Yarnell, and there's a chapter on how to avoid depression and be optimistic about the future. This is an interesting anecdote: We are convinced that the old adage originally aimed at computers can also be applied to people: 'Garbage in, garbage out.' Because of our backgrounds in theology, both of us have participated in extensive counseling. Often we found that depression was the result of the garbage people allowed into their brains. One man, who showed up for marital counseling explained how he'd lost the fire in his relationship. In fact, his whole life was becoming increasingly more depressing. As is so often the case, as Mark recalls the incident, a brief evaluation of this man's daily activities told the tale. 'Philip was a forty-year-old computer analyst for a major technology firm who explained his days as nothing out of the ordinary. 'I get up each morning and sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper. Because I'm in a car pool, I either pick up my two friends, or they me, for the forty-five minute commute.’ “I stopped him with a leading question: ‘Once you’re in the car, what do you talk about?’ I wondered for an important reason. ‘Oh, you know, the usual small talk,’ he replied. ‘But we really only spend a few minutes talking; then we flip on the radio because one news station gives traffic reports every ten minutes which helps us strategize our commute. If there’s a serious traffic problem ahead, we avoid it. And besides, during that time, those who aren’t driving normally have business files to examine.’ “It was just as I expected. Philip then proceeded to detail his mundane day. He and his co-workers had permission to listen to the radio at work. ‘That breaks some of the monotony,’ Philip explained. When he got home from work, he first read the paper while sipping a glass of wine. He had dinner with his two kids and wife, during which they discussed their days. He spent less than two hours with any paperwork he brought home; then he and his wife curled up in bed in time to see and A&E program entitled Law and Order followed by the 10:00 news. He again emphasized that he led a reasonably good life, but nothing extraordinary. “At the end of forty-five minutes of reflective listening, I recommended that Philip go six months without reading one newspaper, watching one television show about crime or newscasts of any kind, and no radio news at all. Six months without news! Following two more counseling sessions in which routine marriage counseling techniques were employed, Philip and Nancy never returned. We bumped into them two years later at a conference and both beamed. Their marriage had taken a positive turn and Philip thanked me profusely. He made a point of mentioning that he really didn’t know for certain what changed, but something had surely improved his life. ‘By the way,’ he said as he turned to walk away, ‘except for the weekend edition of USA Today, I don’t mess with the news anymore. Not that that has helped a great deal.’” Wrong, Phil. The entire marriage turn-around could probably be traced right back to the elimination of those meaningless newscasts. If you are troubled by depression, read this next sentence three times: “No More News!” If Martians land anywhere in the world, you’ll hear about it within fifteen minutes from someone in your circle of friends. If a princess dies, you’ll hear about it even if you’re on a boat in the Caribbean. We did. And it goes on, but you get the idea. The last paragraph is quite true. I've actively avoided watching the news for a year and a half now, and it's really quite difficult to miss anything important that happens. (The night the US troops broke into Baghdad, I was at a home-hostel in Canterbury, and our hostess made us watch the news in her living room.) The way I see it, information is like mind-food. Just as what you eat affects your body's health, what you read/watch/hear affects your mind's health. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 02,March,2004 | I clicked on this blog called urlLink Tomato Family on the Blogger homepage because of its strange name. It's in a different language, but the dude whose picture is at the top is way HOT. I'm sure Marianne will appreciate it, if nothing else. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 02,March,2004 | The newest book in the Conversations with God series, Tomorrow's God , comes out today! I ordered an authographed copy though, so it'll take a few weeks to get here. In the meantime, I went to the library and checked out books on life insurance, network marketing, money management (stuff I need to know for my job), Life Strategies by Dr. Phil, Book of Dreams by Sylvia Browne, and some romance novels. For some reason I always go overboard when I'm at the library. I'm just compelled to read a bit of everything. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 01,March,2004 | Yesterday afternoon I went to my first urlLink Humanity's Team meeting down in Long Beach. Humanity's Team was started by Neale Donald Walsch, based on the teachings in his book The New Revelations , and their mission, in summary, is to increase spiritual awareness in the world by being an example. I'd been planning on going once I have reliable transportation, but somebody was one step ahead of me. Basically, I got some emails on Sunday from them, and after poking around I saw that they were having a meeting that same day at the Unitarian church in Long Beach (which I've been to once before). I was interested but figured I couldn't go because Mom was at church all day, and I still can't drive my Dad's stick confidently. Then out of the blue this guy IM'd me on Yahoo to ask if I wanted to go, so I told him my problem. Since there no one else at the group was from my area, he offered to come up here from Newport Beach and then drive me down to Long Beach. Goddess bless him. At the meeting we discussed mostly businessy things having to do with upcoming events and starting a new Humanity's Team center, but it was great just to meet people of like minds and have a hand in the beginning of wonderful new things. On the way there Keith asked me if I would be interested in starting a study group in my area, and my heart said yes, that is what I want (actually, it was more like, 'why didn't I think of this earlier??). So I've decided to have a space ready for my study group this Sunday. Even if nobody else is there, it will be a time set aside for me and God, and it will be good. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 26,April,2004 | I had been waiting to sign up for urlLink Gmail ever since I heard about it earlier this month. I didn't really care what features it had, mostly I wanted to pick an email address that I really wanted (like one with my name in it), rather than one I had to think up because your previous ten choices were already taken. I went to the Gmail site, but you couldn't just register as it was still in beta stage. Then I logged in to Blogger today, and what did I see? An offer to help test Gmail! Woo! Thank you Blogger. So I got a new email address (just my name. Kinda boring, but I didn't have any real neat ideas), and I have to say I was pretty impressed with Gmail's features. I'd heard about the 1 gig space and the 10 mb attachments, which I didn't particularly care about since my SBC/Yahoo DSL account gives me 75 megs in Yahoo, which is way more than I need. But what really impressed me were these two features: email conversations and labeling system. Email conversations group together the back-and-forth replies in one topic so that everything you and another person is under one 'thread' instead of scattered all over. Kind of like an online forum thread. I remember one time wishing that email did this, so it was a pleasant surprise. The labeling system is a different way of organizing your mail. Instead of dropping messages into different folders, you group them by labels, and each message can have more than one label. [added later: When you delete a label, the messages with that label don't get deleted. Yahoo, on the other hand, requires folders to be emptied before deletion.] I guess the usefulness of this feature depends on how you sort your own mail, but all in all I like their innovations. Good job, Google. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 20,April,2004 | I just finished making naan bread for the first time, and it was a success! Woo! Okay, it doesn't quite taste like real naan, but it has got chewy bready goodness. You'd better make it here this Saturday, Marianne, or I'm eating all of it. Today I went and handed in my admissions application at Rio Hondo College. I'm taking Accounting 101 this summer -- as a result of reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and its sequels. I'm too lazy to really sit down and write about the whys of it, but in short, Robert Kiyosaki inspired me to become financially literate, and taking this class will be the first step. I also turned in a volunteer application at my local Boys and Girls Club today, for a number of reasons. One, I wanted to help with a charity's fundraising to practice my sales skills. Two, it'll help me practice dealing with kids for when I have my own (not that I expect to any time soon, but I will eventually). And three, it beats sitting home and waiting for the Department of Insurance to tell me when I can pick a test date for my license. I have to admit, this move was also inspired by the Rich Dad books. Kiyosaki himself started out as a shy person who was a really bad salesman. He told this story several times throughout his books, but only in the last one I read did he say how he overcame that obstacle -- by doing fundraising phone calls for charity (and doing sales pitches at a much faster rate). I started out looking for any charity near me (Red Cross was the other close one), but chose the Boys and Girls Club because of the other challenge -- dealing with kids (if you didn't know this yet, I'm not real good with the kind that talks back). I say it's a challenge, but it's not like I'm nervous about it. Mostly I wonder about the right things to say and do when I have to resolve a conflict or something like that. Watching Dr. Phil has really been a lot of help, both in this regard and in general. I've watched him enough now that I can diagnose some problems in relationships around me (including my own), and that's pretty cool. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 09,April,2004 | I know I haven't blogged in a while -- not that I don't have stuff to say, I've just been lazy (and jetlagged). I went to Taiwan for a week for my grandmother's funeral, and switching back and forth between two disparate cultures is incredibly taxing. The 14-hour plane ride didn't help, either. The first few days I was like, 'god, I'm lonely and I don't want to be here away from my life.' And then we settled in and my mom's friends took us sightseeing and eating lots of good food. Then we came back and I was like, 'god, I'm lonely and I don't want to go back to real life.' Well, I guess it's good I don't have school or a 9-to-5 j.o.b. to have to plunge back into. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 27,May,2004 | Here's an interesting article about Pixar from Wired magazine: urlLink Welcome to Planet Pixar I like their philosophies, I really do. And based on them I'm not surprised Pixar has been so successful. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 26,May,2004 | As I have returned to my gaming habit, I decided to put up a list of the games I'm currently playing, which I may or may not talk about. Recently I've been delving into free online adventure games (in addition to the free offline adventure games), and I'll post about it some time. But at times like this I wish I had some 'normal' webspace so I can put up a permanent list of the games I've found. And upon further scrutiny of the sidebar, I realized what it was missing -- my links section! Doh! I will remedy that shortly. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 26,May,2004 | So I went to the Renaissance Fair down here in So. Cal. with urlLink Marianne last Saturday. See her post for some of the funny things that happened to us. I mostly enjoyed the sexually charged atmostphere and the fact that you can dress in anything remotely related to the Renaissance/fantasy/not-present-day era. It is amusing to me how any guy of any age can hit on you, and the first thing you see is their costume and not the fact that they're greasy old men. And even when you do notice the latter, you're not as creeped out as you would in everyday life. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 19,May,2004 | urlLink This is the chicken madras I made the other day with fresh coriander (cilantro) stirred in. I can't figure out how to insert a pic into an existing post, so here it is. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 19,May,2004 | Blogger just keeps getting better and better these days. They've teamed up with a company which created a software for photoblogging through its own instant messenger. I was very excited when I heard that the company (Picasa) hosts your pictures for free and downloaded its photo-messenger immediately. On closer examination however, it's not as flexible as having your own ftp space with no strings attached. The messenger (which plugs Picasa's photo organizer software) posts your picture with a caption as one blog post, and you have to go back and edit it if you want a longer post. You do not get a url for the picture until you actually publish it in a post. So to put a picture in my profile, for example, I had to first post it, get the url off of the post, then delete the post and put the url in my profile. A bit of a hassle, but I guess it's a different sort of cost. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 19,May,2004 | I made chicken madras yesterday using a recipe from urlLink Recipes for the Nation's Favourite Food , a British cookbook put out by the BBC (also a TV series). It came out really, really good, nearly restaurant quality (if I do say so myself). My dad didn't even use chilli sauce on it because it was spicy enough, which is kind of a compliment (usually when I cook non-Chinese food he puts that on). It was a relatively simple dish, too. The dish consisted of chicken, diced onions, can of diced tomatoes, shredded coconut, and spices. The garam masala took some doing since I had to find the spices that went into it and mix them together myself (some of them were whole spices which I had to grind up). Luckily I remembered we had a small coffee grinder in the house, so I used that to grind up the spices and the coconut as well. I took a couple of pictures, which will be forthcoming. One thing slightly pissed me off yesterday. The recipe called for a small handful of fresh coriander to be mixed into the curry, which I thought to leave off since I have never been able to find fresh coriander in supermarkets here. So I went grocery shopping for spices in the Mexican spices section, which had all the spices I needed at a third or a fourth of the price. They do come in plastic bags instead of fancy jars, but they do the trick just fine. Anyway, the packet for coriander seeds had the Spanish name 'cilantro' underneath the English, so I was like, huh. Then I went home, did a search, and found that coriander and cilantro are one and the same. Gaaahhh!! Well, it's good because I have access to fresh 'coriander', and bad because I didn't know I did :(. Actually, I remember smelling the coriander in a British supermarket and thought it smelled awfully like cilantro, but it didn't occur to me they were the same thing. Reminds me of the time I found out garbanzo beans and chickpeas were the same thing. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 12,May,2004 | Funcom, developer of urlLink The Longest Journey , is making a sequel called Dreamfall. The official website just came out at urlLink www.dreamfall.com , whichc has some screenshots and character profiles for the three playable characters. The main character is a new girl named Zoe, and April Ryan, the main character from the first game, now looks like a sexy goth chick with short black hair and dark makeup. I can't wait for it to come out! |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 09,May,2004 | As you may have noticed, I've changed my blog template to one of the new ones offered by Blogger. Blogger has its own comment system now, too. Unfortunately, that means the comments made previously on Haloscan won't show up anymore. Oh well. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 08,May,2004 | Yes, I have more fuel for my British/Indian food cravings, and all without leaving town -- that's right, I got them at the Ralphs closest to my house while shopping for Mother's Day groceries this evening. I didn't know they were there either -- just sorta wandered around and ran into them. Ever since I saw hummus on sale at the salad section in Ralphs, I had a feeling Indian food was going to catch on sooner or later, just as Mediterranean food has (the two are pretty prominent in British supermarkets already). And I was right. Woohoo! Granted, the curry sauces are given names like 'Creamy Coconut Curry' instead of 'Korma' and 'Hot Curry Paste' instead of 'Madras Curry Paste' (at least I hope it's madras), but hey, I'm not complaining (too much). I didn't get the korma because I had it recently with the other jar I got from Taiwan. Truth be told, I got sick of Patak's Tikka Masala and Balti while in England. They really don't taste good after you've had it several times, and they're not as good as real Indian curry to begin with. The paste I got will come in handy when I make chicken madras from my British cookbook (hence my hoping that it's madras paste I got). As for chocolate, I spotted them while browsing the candy section and squeezing a bag of marshmellows (they were above the marshmellows). I was a happy camper during Easter because they carried Cadbury eggs, but this is even better. Apparently Hershey's decided they might make some money selling Cadbury outside of Easter (they've got the rights to distribute Cadbury chocolate in the U.S.). Aside from the almond one I got, there were also Dairymilk and Fruit n' Nut. No hazelnut ones, but like I said, I'm not complaining (much). Ralphs is expensive as hell, but I love them for carrying good stuff. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 02,May,2004 | I mentioned googling for a (English) baked beans recipe in the last post. Well, I did find urlLink one . It's pretty complicated but definitely doable, since I have most of the spices required. I'm not surprised that in my short search I haven't found a British site that carried a baked beans recipe -- aside from more time and effort, you'd definitely spend more money making baked beans yourself than buying a 20- or 30-pence can of beans from the store. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I ate them all time while in Brighton. Beans on toast is one of the cheapest and easiest meals around, considering how cheap their bread is, too. I liked to get the higher-end bread with a crispy, golden crust -- for under a pound. Compare that to a loaf of nice bread here for what, $3.00? Dude, we're getting gypped (gipped?) somehow. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 01,May,2004 | I came across this French girl's urlLink food blog while looking for a baked beans recipe, and she inspired me to blog about my own cooking experiences (There was a link to Alton Brown's urlLink blog/site . Will check it out later). Wish I had a digital camera so I can take pictures of my food, but I guess that'll have to wait until my brother moves home for the summer. Last Saturday I had Marianne over for dinner (as hinted two posts ago) because I had a jar of Tesco korma sauce that had to be used. There are two stories in there -- I got the korma (a mild coconutty curry, if you didn't know) from Taiwan, where a Tesco had opened near my grandmother's place. Since it's a British chain, the supermarket carried Tesco brand food, like curries, pasta, baked beans, digestives, dried soup, etc -- many of which Chinese people do not eat (much of the store carries Chinese groceries, of course). As a Chinese person who misses British food, I was like 'THANK YOU GOD!!' On the other hand, I was really torn because I also wanted to eat a lot of Taiwanese food, which you either can't find or can't find it made correctly in the U.S. (Boba tea made properly tasted SO much better.) So I ended up getting a jar of curry, some packets of instant custard, and a few Kinder Buenos, not as much as I otherwise would've bought (my low supply of Taiwanese currency and the weight of jars and such had to do with it too). And then, the night I got home, my dad opened my curry, thinking it was peanut butter. I was like, Oh, my precious curry! Now I have to eat it instead of watch it sit on my beside table. (Well, actually it was more like, dude, can you READ?) It wasn't very funny at the time, but that was why I had to use it up when I did. Anyway, that curry was probably the easiest part of the whole meal. Cut some chicken, cook it in the pot, dump in the curry and cook some more. I made naan to go with it because I had time on my hands (found the recipe on allrecipes.com). I also made some curried spinach thing that tasted more spinach than curry. I think I'm most proud of the basmati bread, which was my own recipe inspired by online recipes, a basmati rice editorial on Amazon, and personal eating experience. I made it pilau-style by frying the rice with oil, butter, and spices (cumin seeds, whole cloves, and a bay leaf), then I dumped everything in the rice cooker and let it do its thing. It smelled better than I ever thought rice could smell and came out nice and fluffy too. I made apple crumble for dessert; it didn't look like it was supposed to but tasted okay. I made some of my instant custard to go with it, which tastes better made with milk than with water (understandably). I was going to make custard from scratch, too, if more people showed up. Oh well, some other time then. I did a little baking between then and now. First some bisquits that didn't seem to rise enough and tasted doughy. Then on Wednesday I made French bread dinner rolls (recipe curtesy of allrecipes.com) for roommate dinner on Thursday, which turned out pretty well if a little deflated (from the rolls having to rise in the oven then waiting outside while I preheated it). I also ordered a kitchen scale, which will make it easier (i.e. possible) to make food from British/Taiwanese recipes. Yay. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 24,June,2004 | I finally got to read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code after waiting on my library's hold list for months (starting out as the 10th person in line). It lived up to the hype for the most part, with brilliant multi-layered riddles grounded in historical evidence that makes you want to look stuff up. The book is centered around the idea of the sacred feminine and the theory that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, which has been suppressed by the Church but surfaces secretively in art and music. I was utterly fascinated by the analyses of the symbolism in relation to Mary Magdalene in several of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings (such as urlLink this ). I've already had some exposure to the Magdalene-as-Holy-Grail theory from playing Gabriel Knight 3 (which based its research on the same book), so I'm fairly familiar with the basics of the book, but not some of the other clues that the author presented, which were very interesting as well. It makes me want to fire up and play GK3 all over again. One of my favorite parts of the book is a conversation between the main character, Langdon, and his publisher, Faukman, about his book on the Magdalene-Grail theory: Faukman was still shaking his head. 'But with all these books written about it, why isn't this theory more widely known?' 'These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller of all time.' Faukman's eyes went wide. 'Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail.' 'I was referring to the Bible.' Faukman cringed. 'I knew that.' And there was another sort-of Harry Potter reference that was very intriguing. The 8th Grand Master of the Priory of Sion (sercret society which kept the secret of the Grail) is listed as Nicolas Flamel, who was in the position from 1398-1418. The time period seems to coincide with the other Nicolas Flamel, who created the philosopher's stone. I'll have to look him up some time. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 21,June,2004 | I recently bought a PDA -- a urlLink Dell Axim X30 with wi-fi and bluetooth. I decided upon it after doing much research (reading complaints on Amazon reviews) and visiting urlLink Aximsite.com . My Axim is working perfectly so far, with none of the hardware malfunctions some users have experienced. I now have a spiffy calendar/organizer that surfs the net and doubles as an mp3 player. However, there are downsides to having a spiffy computer-thing -- you want more stuff on it to make it even more spiffy. I bought a Kingston 128mb SD memory card for it before the PDA was even shipped. After I got it, I proceeded to download games, e-books, and application to enhance useability. That's when I found out how much the Windows Mobile OS really sucks. I won't go into detail here, because the list is endless, but suffice it to say that the software CD included with the Axim came with demos of applications that enhance the Windows Mobile interface. If that's not a clue that the interface is lacking, I don't know what is. And now, my latest quest is to acquire a GPS unit for my PDA, which can be upwards of $100-300. Why? Because I have a thing for navigation systems in cars, and I found out that with a good mapping software and a GPS unit, you can turn a PDA into one. Whee! |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 17,June,2004 | It came back to me! That is, the thing that I forgot in the previous post. I'd better get this down before I forget it again. Basically, I've been watching Dr. Phil a lot and reading his books. He says that the number one desire among humans is for acceptance, and conversely, the number one fear is rejection (hence the reason people fear public speaking over death). Kind of obvious if you think about it. But here's the thing. My 'aha' was realizing that this is one evidence of how We Are All One, and how, even though we appear separate, all we want to do is get back together again. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 15,June,2004 | Do you ever one of those 'instant revelations' where you all of a sudden understand the way some aspect of life works? You usually wouldn't write it down immediately, thinking you're going to remember it later -- except you don't. Well, one of these happened to me...some time in May. And I wrote the first sentence of this paragraph, thinking I was going to finish it the next day. Except I didn't. And now I don't remember what it is I had a revelation about. *sigh* |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 06,August,2004 | I actually did fire up Gabriel Knight 3 again and played it through (on my new laptop; the DVD drive on my desktop has trouble installing anything these days). It wasn't nearly as good as the first time I played it. I think the first time it was the story and the ideas in it that appealed to me so much. Now that I'm familiar with both, the gameplay and dated graphics alone don't do much for me. |
2,697,034 | female | 23 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 06,August,2004 | I hadn't realized I didn't post anything for an entire month! Well, let's see... in July my birthday came and went. Didn't do anything for it. My aunt and cousins came over from Texas and we all went down to San Diego, where we stayed in a big house on a hill with an ocean view. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool at the same time -- except when we went to Wild Animal Park, which was more inland and therefore hotter. Had lots of good food -- a given in my family -- and gained like 5 pounds (I've since lost some of that though). I'll be going on a 7-day cruise in October, and I'm kind of afraid of the unlimited food there. I know I shouldn't stuff myself silly, but I can't help it sometimes. |
4,282,867 | female | 27 | Military | Capricorn | 21,August,2004 | Now that I have totally fried my brain by continueing to research the web for my dream job, I am happy to report that the FAA is hiring Air Traffic controllers. The downside is I need to be on terminal leave. Note to self: I have nine months to build a kick ass resume, network, and research the facilities I am considering as a future employer. Now that the hard work of my day is done. I got to goggle at some young handsome men that just stopped by Base Operations. One tall dark and handsome, (who has been rumored to have a small penis, but that is info from a gay guy who got shot down),the other short and blond with bad teeth but a young strong body. I know, I Iknow, I shouldn't think the way I do, but I am single with no boyfriend, so I can gawk all I want. I wouldn't mind doing more but there are too many diseases out there and I've had enough sex in my life time. Probably more than a woman should have in her life. Anyways, I've got one hour left and I refuse to use it staring at the computer. Signing off- NC |
4,282,867 | female | 27 | Military | Capricorn | 21,August,2004 | O.K. Where did I leave off? Wait let me just set the record straight. As an Air Traffic Controller I do not, DO NOT, stand outside and wave flags at aircraft. I work in a control tower and communicate with the pilots all day. Right this second I am working as an Air Operations Duty Officer. Meaning I am babysitting an airfield. So back to where I was at. The military says that I am not physically within standards to continue as a soldier. I can pass all the physical tests such as the run and the push-ups and sit-ups. What I can't do, is conform to the military's required body composition standards. I am not a 32'24'36, so therefore I do not have the option of reenlisting. Because I have not lost the weight I gained after the birth of my son I am being pushed to the side so that other people can get ahead of me. I use to be really bothered by the way my upper chain of command has completely closed its door on me, but now I see it as they are the ones at a loss. They are losing a hard worker. An intelligent and mature leader who has always been willing and able to work longer hours, volunteer offtime to support the military's constant push to be recognized as a good will embassador. Here I am ten months out, I've decided that now is the time for me to take control for the life that I allowed to shelter for the past eight years. I'm ready to let go of the past and lift up my head to see what successes await me. So here begins my journey! Wish me luck. I still have three hours left in this office, so I'll continue to sit in front of the computer and search the web for where I should start looking for a job outside the military. |
4,282,867 | female | 27 | Military | Capricorn | 21,August,2004 | Well here I am. At work. On a Saturday. I am being punished for forgetting I had watch on the Fourth of July. Why the hell would I be assigned to a weekend watch like that anyway? You would think that seniority has its priviledges. Oh, well. So far things have been quiet here at base ops. The aircraft that crash landed, yesterday, has finally been removed from the runway so the clean up crew can begin sweeping the runway. Now all I have to do is sit and answer phones and take advantage of the free internet. Rob called this morning. He wanted to know when I got out of work, so that I could bring Brayden to his house. He's having a party or bar-b-que for his girlfriend, Tanus, because she graduated from RN school. Not only does he own his own lawn service, and work at a DOD job, he has a girlfriend who should soon be getting a great paying job, so why can't he pay child support? Don't get me wrong a check for one hundred and ninety eight dollars every other month isn't bad, and I have survived on my own income for the past three years, but it still feels like a kick in the gut. Child support was set for five hundred dollars a month. Enough about him. This is diary is about me and my last ten months in the navy. I had planned on getting out after my first enlistment but I got pregnant before I could divorce my ex. Why does sex have to have such consequences when you're having a good time at it and you know you're good at it? Especially when you don't want to spend the rest of your life with that person. So now here I am going on my eigth year in the military as an Air Traffic Control specialist. I have friends who say that the prospects are great in this field in the civilian sector, so I should get out while I am still younger than the cutoff age for FAA employment. I want to get out but I am really comfortable in my cushy duty station. If I were to stay in the military I would have to go to a ship. I don't want Brayden to forget about me for six months at a time and start to consider my parents as his real parents. It's bad enough his real father isn't in the picture. I am also getting out becuase the military body composition standards - I've got to go out on the airfield and help inspect the runway status. I'll write later |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 27,July,2004 | I find myself roaming the bookstores again..this time i actually read. I bought a copy of High Fidelity. Nick Hornyby is good. I saw a Dean Koontz book and i just stood there and stared at it for a while. I had a funny feeling. She loves Dean Koontz, i promised to buy her one for her Birthday. Odd thomas. I never did... |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 26,July,2004 | nothing much happened.Woke up, went to office. Answered phonecalls signed papers deliver papers asnwer more phonecalls etc. called Rini. *sigh*i should try not to next time. Started writing my project. 2 pages. not bad. needs tweaking. Home. shower. ate. smoked. might go to HRC later. will not get drunk. will not get drunk.will not get drunk.will not drink.will not drink.will not drink.will not drink.!!!!! |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 25,July,2004 | Yesterday was a good Saturday, sort of. I went to KL, got money and treated scoot and his friend at KLCC. just three guys hanging out checking out stuff and chicks. We had some beer(god i feel awful about that) at shrooms, checked out the live music and got drunk.Thats when everything gets fuzzy.It seems i called Rini, i blew all my credit on her.I cant remember what i said.I called her just now and she confirmed it but she said i didnt say anything bad or embarassing.I hope she's not lying.This is gonna come back and haunt me. I know it. I do remember us going to Uncle Dons later that night in Hartamas. There was this woman Scoot met on Frenster and she was nice and stuff. Scoot was like telling us, this girl used to be a model but the girl we saw well..lets just say she's not my cup of tea. We talked and joked and she was quite the conversationalist. Good company. But i got this vibe from her.She's like 28 and not married.complaining about the lack of good men around blah blah blah.She seemed desperate.I could almost hear her tell me her falopian tube is singing its farewell song before it dries up. tick tock tick tock.The guys told me later today that she really hit it off with me,and most eye contact was with me.They're gonna sell her my phonenumber...i'm apallled but somehow amused. I spent the night at Scoots place, damn his place is as clean as ever.Its so fucking homy.comfortable.With the 5ft tall Cure poster, those collectible action figures, damn i wish my place was like that.Mike the cat had grown considerably since i last saw him. He has a new fren, another stray Scoot adopted. Awww..I was lying down reading a book (High Fidelity, that made me laugh a lot) and he slept on my tummy. Went to sleep around 6 am. got up at 2pm, watched Tv and had coffee, went out to eat and Ali drove me to the lrt station. and here i am in Shah Alam again..yay..but it was a good weekend.Scoot was still the same, always reminding me my life is different from him, and not be him.He's like saying its too late for him and he's only 31.Stuck in a dead end job with no money etc. He's a happy chap but somehow i sensed regret and sadness in his tone when he says stuff about his life.But he's a good friend. Whats with weekends and clubs and bars? you see all these young middle-class professionals making so much noise. a futile gesture of defiance.Its when their lives are starting to disappoint them.'look at me!' 'i know how to have fun!' Tragic, good thing i learned how to stay home and sulk. I learned some lessons today, i was unhappy. i was in self-denial. first it was numbness, then silly optimism and then unhappiness. the phase i am in now.If not why would i need alcohol to have fun? Why did i drink? WHY. i swore i'd never drink again. I comprimised myself. I'm sorry Zul. i wont do it again. I need ballast. Too much ballast and i'll sink. no ballast and i'll float away.Amy was my ballast, now she's gone and i'm floating.I dont think its clever using relationships or women as ballast. I need things to do,details,clutter,people,to occupy me so i wont float off again. end. |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 24,July,2004 | i got some sleep. well..more like passed out.when i closed my eyes they were still playing poker. when i woke up they were still playing poker. Uncle was passed out, so was Bob and Zam, the other 3 strangers were still there.They had this desperate confused look on their faces. They really have bad poker faces. Hisham, now he was on a lucky streak. I could see like 600 bucks with him. I dont know what goes thru the minds of these shitheads.there doesnt seem like a limit for them.most of them have families and they are wasting money gambling.(sigh)I got 50 bucks. heh just to go to the office. its saturday(ija quit today). now what am i going to do? |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 23,July,2004 | i cant sleep now.Its been a long time since i couldnt sleep at all. Now i cant sleep..i want to sleep, i want to lose Consciousness, i want to dream again, its been 4 days. I'm going to the pharmacy tomorrow for sleeping pills. |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 23,July,2004 | I took an online pysche. it told me this Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition, it is the structural engineering role -- architechtonics -- that reaches the highest development in INTPs, and it is for this reason they are aptly called the 'architects.' Their major interest is in figuring out structure, build, configuration -- the spatiality of things. As the engineering capabilities the Architects increase so does their desire to let others know about whatever has come of their engineering efforts. So they tend to take up an informative role in their social exchanges. On the other hand they have less and less desire, if they ever had any, to direct the activities of others. Only when forced to by circumstance do they allow themselves to take charge of activities, and they exit the role as soon as they can without injuring the enterprise. The Architects' distant goal is always to rearrange the environment somehow, to shape, to construct, to devise, whether it be buildings, institutions, enterprises, or theories. They look upon the world -- natural and civil -- as little more than raw material to be reshaped according to their design, as a formless stone for their hammer and chisel. Ayn Rand, master of the Rational character, describes this characteristic in the architect Howard Roark, her protagonist in The Fountainhead: He was looking at the granite. He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint. He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky. These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn, waiting for the shape my hands will give to them. [The Fountainhead, pp 15-16] Many regard this attitude as arrogant, and Architects are likely, especially in their later years, after finding out that most others are faking an understanding of the laws of nature, to think of themselves as the prime movers who must pit themselves against nature and society in an endless struggle to define ends clearly and adopt whatever means that promise success. If this is arrogance, then at least it is not vanity, and without question it has driven the design engineers to take the lead in molding the structure of civilization....(hmmm...) I then took an online temperament test. it told me this. Rationals, are the problem solving temperament, particularly if the problem has to do with the many complex systems that make up the world around us. Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better. In working with problems, Rationals try to find solutions that have application in the real world, but they are even more interested in the abstract concepts involved, the fundamental principles or natural laws that underlie the particular case. And they are completely pragmatic about their ways and means of achieving their ends. Rationals don't care about being politically correct. They are interested in the most efficient solutions possible, and will listen to anyone who has something useful to teach them, while disregarding any authority or customary procedure that wastes time and resources. Rationals have an insatiable hunger to accomplish their goals and will work tirelessly on any project they have set their mind to. They are rigorously logical and fiercely independent in their thinking--are indeed skeptical of all ideas, even their own--and they believe they can overcome any obstacle with their will power. Often they are seen as cold and distant, but this is really the absorbed concentration they give to whatever problem they're working on. Whether designing a skyscraper or an experiment, developing a theory or a prototype technology, building an aircraft, a corporation, or a strategic alliance, Rationals value intelligence, in themselves and others, and they pride themselves on the ingenuity they bring to their problem solving. Rationals are very scarce, comprising as little as 5 to 10 percent of the population. But because of their drive to unlock the secrets of nature, and to develop new technologies, they have done much to shape our world. The Four types of Rationals are: Architects (INTP) Masterminds (INTJ) Inventors (ENTP) Field Marshals (ENTJ) i guess i was just trying to find an explanation for myself..dont we all? p/s today was a good day,despite insomnia. 2 girls told me i was handsome, and one wanted to screw my brains out. you still got it Zul. ;) |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 23,July,2004 | 2 minutes ago my sister sms'ed me. our cat is dead.got bitten by wild dogs last nite.received 25 stictches.he always sleeps outside.I could see him putting up a fight. That cat had spunk. I still have scratch marks on my arms from his claws while we were playing around.I dont know which is sadder, the cat dying or my grandmother losing a friend. She loved that cat. I remember her sitting at the living room, giggling and talking to the cat.It was her companion when everyone is not at home..Now that me, my brother and my sister moved out, she only has my little sister and my mom..god i hate dogs |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 23,July,2004 | i choose itzli because its the name of the Aztec stone knife god, the god of sacrifice. Why? Because there have been many sacrifices made these past years and many more to come. 3 days ago i had to make another one, i had to let go someone i truly loved. Amy was at first a friend, a very good friend and i cared for her. We were friends for 2 years and along the way somehow, she fell in love with me.But i didnt love her, not in that way. I was lost that time and i had no room for love or relationships. I was busy trying to get out of that hole i dug myself. But she waited for me.. in her own way I had a good streak last year, i found forgiveness from my family, i found absolution. I found hope. I found a job at a music store, i had a home, i had a friend i could count on. I started to feel good about myself and i didnt have to force myself to smile. I stopped wanting to run away.Then i met Rini, first i found her annoying but then her bubbly cheerful personality became contagious. I enjoyed it when i was around her and she enjoyed being around me. She was beautiful, radiant, energetic,intelligent. she was an art school girl as well..heh. I fell in love, could you believe that? But she was still in love with her ex.And she was afraid of my past. Man that hurt. hurt so bad i had to cut myself in the bathroom. that was stupid. Really really stupid. I stopped seeing her all together the day she told me. I was lonely after that, i was sad so i sought out Amy. I needed a friend. as always she was always there, always understanding and strong. she was my Sunflower. But somehow i could see she had changed the last time we met. There was something i recognized in myself in her eyes. It was sadness. she had been drinking and partying aggresively, and she was doing drugs. She cut classes and her grades were falling. Something wasnt right. She questioned her purpose for being in school, for having to do all of it. I told myself i would be there for her.I didnt want her to make the same mistakes i did. Everytime she looked at me, everytime she dropped those hints, i knew it, i knew she was in love, with me. Those sad eyes.. Then i did something unthinkable. I told a girl i didnt love that i loved her. I lied. I closed my eyes and i clenched my teeth and i lied. That did the trick, she got better,she went back to class, she was happy. I made her happy. it felt good.We took care of each other, we made each other happy, everything was daisy picture perfect.Along the way i fell in love, completely and utterly.Its when you close your eyes and you see that one special person.It was her face. It wasnt Rini's face, it wasnt Emma's face, it wasnt any others but hers.Then i remembered my task. My future, my life. I was broke, working at a music store and i had no future. I wanted to go back to Uni and finish what i started, get a career. it got to me, i began to worry again. It tore me up inside for not being able to give Amy things, sometimes i couldnt even afford to buy her icecream,the only thing she ever asked from me..But she never complained.Bless her.(never have a girlfriend if you are poor, NEVER)I tried and i tried but nothing came up. I was sad again but i didnt give up. I couldnt. Looking back perhaps it was my fault, i shut down on her and maybe thats what drove her away.She told me she only loved me for me. I didnt believe her and i was right.She wanted more and i couldnt give it to her in time. but i understood it,god i understood it though i wish i didnt and i could just hate her.. and now she's in australia doing her final year in pyschology and dating this guy who's studying art too. ironic isnt it. heh at least i achieved what i wanted in the first place, to make her better, to make her happy.i cant do anything for her now, its up to her to choose whats right and whats wrong and i believe she will do just fine. and me? i'm still here,alone again but i havent lost hope on myself yet. so here's looking at you Zul, good luck and god speed. p/s dear god please cut me some slack |
4,009,346 | male | 24 | Non-Profit | Taurus | 16,August,2004 | I spent 5 hours today drawing and writing. i wanted to pour down the running thoughts inside this skull, but i didnt have clarity. I ripped and burnt everything. I hate myself and i want to die |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 05,August,2004 | I have a friend who is sad. Sad and lonely. She didn't even feel like sewing. So I thought I would try an exercise with her with color -- colored pencils and paper to be exact. I find with this particular friend, she thinks better in images than words. I had her pick colors and then draw an object. We concluded that with the imagery she drew she was telling of what she was going through. I think it was successful. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 04,August,2004 | Every day it has been raining. Now, I knew it was going to rain when we moved here. I suppose it is still the residuals from Hurricane Alex. Just the sky is so dark. Makes it for such a brooding day. The rain coming down so hard it looks like a fire hose is on. A new development! My son lost another tooth today! :) That is always exciting. He said a carrot got it out. LOL. He has all these theories about how things work, how things are, how things come to be. Quite amazing actually. Little mad scientist. Well back to work. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 04,August,2004 | It's blogging time! That magical time of night when everyone has gone to sleep and I get a moment's peace to unwind and write. I have been keeping journals since I was 15. In my sophmore year in high school I had a teacher named Sophie Raven. Ms. Raven was Czechosolavkian and as an exercise had us keep a journal to record all our feelings, wants, desires, pretty much anything that came to mind to use for the poetry we had to compose in the class. I got published in the high school literary magazine and have continued to be published online and continue my writing to this day. I have over 9 volumes of journals that are hand-written and then I've started this blog. Being able to type in my thoughts and not worry about having to read my writing later has its benefits. Today, my mood emulated the storms and weather today. Hurricane Alex is off the Carolina's and we're getting these residual storms. The rain comes in fast and furious and then leaves again -- so to my moods, in and out fast. I spent most of the day listening to Sheila Chandra, an Indian artist that fuses trip-hop with melodic tunes and deep lyrics. She is very soothing. If you'd like to read more about Sheila Chandra, urlLink click here . As I sit in the dark, writing, my mind wanders again, my heart yearning to be close, to feel, to explore. I am melancholy but blissful with my memories. I feel like I am in a world of limbo -- not sure really where to go next. This move has left me feeling disjointed and lost, the support I had back in California gone, replaced with family, which isn't horrible, but it just isn't the same. The peers that I enjoyed are now three hours behind me and by the time I am ready to go to bed they are just getting started with their evening. This adjustment will take time getting used to. I feel like the lightening that ebbs and flows in the clouds -- darting about, making light and then vanishing. Over and over again, darting, looking, and then touching ground. Will I find my feet again? Will I find peers that are satisfying and worth hanging around with? I feel comfy on the East coast, more comfy than I have felt in a long time but I am lonely. And all I can think about is the Sun and how it feels on my skin, and driving by Stinson, and traipsing through Muir Woods, and hanging out at Laguna Beach, watching the surfers at Huntington riding the waves...I miss it. I think I just need to go out and explore the beauty that is around me and I will feel better. I wish my friend was here though with me, so that we could explore it together. Well, as they say, tomorrow is another day. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 03,August,2004 | This song by Sheila Chandra exemplifies how I am feeling right now for that special someone who is on my mind... Ever So Lonely, Sheila Chandra Ever so lonely Ever so lonely without you Ever so lonely Sink into your eyes and all I see Love is an ocean And you for me Sink into your eyes your eyes are all I see Your love is an ocean An ocean refuses no river Ever so lonely An ocean refuses no river Waiting for the time when we can be alone together Alone together Eternally The ocean, the ocean refuses no river The ocean, your ocean refuses no river ever so lonely ever so lonely without you your ocean your ocean refuses no river |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 03,August,2004 | It is like that Beetles song, 'Fixing a hole...' says: I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go I'm filling the cracks that ran though the door and kept my mind from wandering where it will go And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right where I belong I'm right where I belong See the people standing there who disagree and never win and wonder why they don't get in my door I'm painting my room in a colorful way, and when my mind is wandering there I will go And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right where I belong I'm right where I belong Silly people run around they worry me and never ask me why they don't get past my door I'm taking my time for a number of things that weren't important yesterday and I still go I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go where it will go I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go Seems that no matter how hard I try to concentrate, my mind wanders. It wanders to past experiences that I long for, it wanders to wishful thinking, it wanders to daydreams, it wanders to the special people in my heart. I miss them so much. I guess today I am really missing my friends. Especially some of them who know who they are. It would be nice to be able to see them, and give hugs and see smiles. That was perhaps the hardest part of leaving California, was leaving some of these folks behind and not knowing when I'd see them again, other than email and the occasional phone call. It is one of those days where you wish they'd invent a teleportation device already so that it would send you instantly to the location of your choice. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 03,August,2004 | I thought I would give some background of who I am and where I come from. God, where to start...I guess I should start at the beginning -- but it seems so damn boring. I was born in Illinois in one of the worst blizzard's in Chicago's history, January 1968. My mom almost didn't make it to the hospital. I grew up on the North Shore of Chicago until I was 12. Lofts were a big thing in 1979 and my parents decided they wanted to be city pioneers and get one in the South Loop. After a year of building we moved to downtown Chicago. This was actually a great move for me. I was able to be who I wanted without being judged, I had Chicago as my whole backyard and was really ready to explore who I was. I had many experiences that I loved, hated and vowed I would never repeat again. When I finally turned 18, I didn't want to stay at home anymore, I simply couldn't deal with my parents and some of the other crap I was going through. So I moved out. I ended up moving to Minnesota in 1987 and realized I should have gone straight to California. But it would be Minnesota where I would meet my husband (of 16 years), and give birth to my amazing kid, whom I adore more than anything else in my life. I married at 21 (going on 22) and my life began to 'normalize' -- the person whom I had been diminished and set aside...but always there, this dark and weird side looming, always wanting to be out. It is this side of myself that often gets me into the most trouble. It seems to feed on lack of control, hedonism, and self-serving. There is always a time and place for everything. In December of 97, we had the opportunity to move to California. My son was 15 months and we were to hit Northern California at the beginning of the internet bubble. We did the internet thing, but never really considered ourselves 'dotcommers' in fact we detest that label. We consider ourselves web pioneers. We started our web building journey back in 94, when Yahoo was nothing but a place to list your homepage and Netscape was still in beta. We enjoyed Northern California immensely but then job opportunities took us south to Orange county -- Irvine where we spent 3 years. It was a mighty interesting 3 years too. Met some incredible people, some of whom I miss intensely, others not so much. Not sure if I will get used to the fact that I am no longer a 'Californian...' but rather a 'Floridian' which in itself is a foreign concept still. So the big move to Florida. The weirdest thing is that I don't 'miss' California, in fact I barely think about it....but I still feel lonely. I want to meet people, and feel like I belong somehow. But when you live among Boca Babes and Alligators, the future isn't always certain but it can be judged by who did your pedicure. Giggles. Well I am exhausted. I am going to tie up some loose ends and get some sleep. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 03,August,2004 | In the middle of the night, my DH who normally isn't a mean person, turns to me and just got bloody angry. Saying how ungrateful I am of how hard he works and how I do nothing but chat and play with people. Well, gentle readers, I actually run my own company, Pregnancy.org ( urlLink http://www.pregnancy.org/ ) and I do my best to work hard every day. What prompted this was a benign comment I had made. He said that he works and works for me. I said no you work for all of us, to which he took offense because in his mind, he's making some huge sacrifice by working for the company he does now because he says, 'You don't work...' I wonder some days if I just got some job as a secretary somewhere on top of doing this it would get him to not wig...but who knows. In any case, DH's eye (which apparently has cysts on it that we're treating) started to bug out at about 4 in the morning. Whenever this man is sick or hurting he just lashes out. Oh did I mention that his parents moved 9 houses away on the same street? I think part of his crankiness is coming from that. But for one reason or another it is getting triggered by me. I am not sure what I am doing to him that makes him so resentful of me all the time. I cook, clean and try to take care of him the best I can. I try to make home peaceful and loving as best I can but instead I get insulted, told I am not good enough and that I am not doing anything. His mom says I should get a blue ribbon. I just want him to be happy. I don't even cheat on him or do anything that is unappropriate. I am sick of being chastised. I wish he'd just be happy. I think he's the one that needs Paxil not me. Oh well. Perhaps after he closes the project at work and doesn't have to deal with the unmentionable one (that is a separate entry all on its own...) then hopefully things will be better. So now I am tired because I was up in the middle of the night taking care of him, rubbing his back, getting him a warm compress for his eye even after all the horrible crap that spewed from his mouth. Okay it is now the end of the day, and whatever was bothering DH is gone now. So that's good. Whew. I hate it when he gets all wigged out. It is like having to walk on eggshells which sucks the big one. Was an interesting day full of tears but also full of resolve. We even got to meet a neighbor tonight, who has the cutest, tiniest terrier named Jazzi. Totally a purse dog. Okay enough for today. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 03,August,2004 | So what is a middle-aged (well 36) married female doing writing a blog? Being an insomniac that's what. Every night when everyone else is alseep, I seem to be the only one still awake at 1 am. Such is life. So this is me. These are my thoughts. Writing has always been cathartic. Like a painter, words have meant so much to me, helping me to describe my life, chaotic at times and dull and boring at others. My experiences have varied so much. Some of which I can share here and some I dare not. Well if I did, I might get into trouble. Blogging. I really dig this. Rambling to no one, pouring my thoughts out for anyone to read. Is it reverse voyeurism? Seems like it in a way. Today was productive. I seem to be able to focus on things and not drift off aimlessly somewhere...I am officially a Floridian now. Hard to believe having spent the last seven years in California. I miss California...something so magical about it. Guess it will always be that way. So now I am living La Vida Boca....'Rat's mouth' -- lovely. Actually West Boca Raton, where we live isn't really that bad. In fact, we're in a gorgeous house on a lake. It really could be worse. I am lonely though. Guess I will meet people soon enough. Not that I don't mind my own company but would be nice to have friends. I haven't had much time for exploring but that will come too. And I better get exercising again. Holy crap, the weight is creeping back...ack! My continual battle with bulge. I have 30 pounds to go. Was 15 but gained it back while we were moving. Ugh. I feel like a beached whale. And to make matters worse, DH keeps buying goodies....ahhhhhhhhh run away... Okay going to try and get some sleep. Goodnight my new blog. Such a cute pet. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 14,August,2004 | Charley -- third hurricane of the season, slams into Florida. Figures, we move from California and Florida gets the worst hurricane season in years. Apparently this year has been predicted to have more active tropical cyclones than previous years. Here is more information about Charley: The Associated Press Updated: 5:08 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2004 PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - Rescuers rummaged through a chaotic landscape of pulverized homes and twisted metal Saturday, racing to tally Hurricane Charley’s “significant loss of life” and help thousands left homeless by its vicious winds and rain. At least 15 people were confirmed dead. As a weakened Charley churned into the Carolinas and was downgraded to a tropical storm, newly sunny skies revealed its destruction in Florida, where emergency officials pronounced it the worst to wallop the state since Hurricane Andrew tore through in 1992. Twenty-six deaths were directly linked to Andrew, which caused $19.9 billion in damage. “Our worst fears have come true,” said Gov. Jeb Bush, who surveyed the devastation by helicopter. The Category 4 storm was expected to cost Florida “at least several billion dollars,” said Loretta Worters, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. Ten deaths had been confirmed in Charlotte County, said Wayne Sallade, the county’s director of emergency management, but no exact death toll was available. “It’s Andrew all over again,” Sallade said. “We believe there’s significant loss of life, he said, adding later: “I would hope that it would be limited to dozens, if that.” He said “thousands upon thousands of people” lost their homes. Hundreds were unaccounted for in the county, which includes Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, the apparent hardest-hit areas. Extensive damage was also reported on exclusive Captiva Island, a narrow strip of sand west of Fort Myers. One can't help feeling relief that our area wasn't hard hit. But what about what others went through? Their hurt, devastation and anguish? What can we do to help those in need? Give to the Red Cross? The Salvation Army? We are left feeling helpless by these intense 'acts of god' -- the acts that are out of our control. As I watched the clouds roll in, the sky grow dark and menacing, the wind grew still...and not a drop of rain came. We had walked down nine houses to go to dinner at my in-laws. The night was a little breezy, but otherwise calm. You'd never know that 4 hours due West utter destruction was happening. It makes you remember how small you are and how huge this planet really is. I put the plants inside, stacked the patio furniture, and prayed a lot. I can only pray for those now who are homeless and suffering. Think we all should. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 11,August,2004 | Today is Ezra's first day of school. Thinking we'd have plenty of time to park and leisurely walk in we left the house at 7:35. Wrong! OMG between the crossing guards, hundreds of cars and the parking nazis he was almost late to school. So, I dropped him at the corner, told him to wait, I parked and then sprinted to catch up to him and help him carry all his junk in. Good grief they make them get a lot of supplies. So we walk to his class watching everyone in their little uniforms (So cute!) and he sits down, I give him a 'quick-nobody-can-see-kiss' and head back to the car, hoping I don't get a ticket. I think tomorrow we're walking or riding bikes. We're not that far but it's hot out! After walking 5 blocks ya get all sweaty. Hm. Perhaps I could work that into my daily workout. Now there is an idea. But that car/parking situation was horrible. They didn't make the lots big enough. Granted it was the first day of school but OMG what a zoo. Enough complaining about that. I hope that the day goes well, he remembers to bring home his lunchbox and backpack and starts to make friends. In other news, I will start to be HAIR FREE!!!! Finally gonna get all that lovely extra facial hair taken care of. Lasered right off. SSssssssssssssizzle. Actually it isn't a laser, it is an IPL system (http://www.bocabodylight.com) and won't hurt like the ruby laser I had four years ago. Friday is my first appointment and I can't wait! Ahhhh to be rid of it is dreamy. Will take a few months but sooooooooo worth it. Smoooth skin. Noooo bumps. No stubble. No feeling like a man 'cause I have to shave. Ugh. Okay back to your regular scheduled program. And I have to go get my munchkin. Leaving early this time. And as if on cue there is the thunder. Sigh. |
4,120,089 | female | 36 | Internet | Capricorn | 10,August,2004 | What a great morning! Today was open house at Ezra's new school. So we drove over to school to meet his teacher and get acquainted with the school a bit. It is a really well-maintained school, with freshly painted murals of the ocean and its creatures, like killer whales, manatees and fish. The classrooms are shiny, bright and welcoming. I think that Ez will be in really good shape -- and he's so excited! Ezra's teacher is named Ms. Davis -- a very nice middle-aged who appears to be hands-on teacher. Very enthusiastic. I am going to volunteer in class again, this time for Math (Sunshine math). I really enjoy volunteering and getting to meet all the kids. We also had such a pleasant surprise today. Turns out that Ezra's friend from karate, Skye, is there in his class! Lisa, her mom came walking in and I was like, 'HI!' and she smiled so widely as I think she was just as happy to see me. It was so cool. Ez was thrilled that he has someone in both his karate and regular class that he knows now. Skye is a purple belt, so as long as she stays at the studio those guys could become pretty good friends! So tomorrow is the big day -- school at last, school at last! :) |
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