One way to find out

2004-05-04T21:55:00.000-05:00

The synapses are slowing. The heart rate is returning to normal. The tension is loosening. The sleep depraved eyes dimming. The whole world goes black. And yet, there is one light gently glowing in the darkness. Understanding is slow, but as the light draws closer the understanding begins to bloom. Until, at last, the petals unfurl, fully revealing their glory. The understanding is complete! I AM DONE!!!

2004-04-27T21:31:00.000-05:00

I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I'm almost done.

I just have to keep telling myself that........I'm almost done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111oneoneoneoneoneoneone

2004-04-21T23:40:00.000-05:00

Geez, I managed to ramble on. :p

2004-04-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

Despite "contemplate" being the first word used to describe this blog, it is usually the least used option in my posts. Part of this is because I feel that the written word, or typed in this case, is really a poor form of communication. There is so much that cannot be conveyed in the written word that we take for granted in our face-to-face communications. All of the little nuances of the speaker that we can't always put into words and yet we perceive. The facial expressions, gestures, posture, and delivery of the idea that we pick up on, but can miss in a written document or misinterpret the author's original intent. I have seen to many people scan through a document trying to find faults to harp on without ever trying to understand what is trying to be conveyed. Part of this is me and the way I operate. My friends know that I am usually the one to play the "devil's advocate." If everyone is coming down upon someone or something, unless I feel strongly the same way, I will try to point out what may have been missed or misunderstood as I want to make sure everything has been considered and evaluated before final judgment is passed. This could be due to me sometimes feeling as if I am the only optimist hiding within a pack of cynics and, thus, must take the opposite side at times to counterbalance the massive amount of negative energy put out by the cynics. Regardless, that is a thought for another here and now.

This brings me back to my topic of contemplation, well not really, but I am going to pretend it did. As I was sitting in the labs staring at the monitor's screen, I found my mind had been captivated, removed and thrown from my body to soar in an all-encompassing euphoria. It was gently returned 78 seconds later and I marveled. What could mesmerize me this way? What could disengage me from my boring shift, pounding headache, and worries of the day? The answer was simple and yet complex. Music. It wasn't some profoundly imaginative or even that great of a song that did this to me. The song is called My Coco by Stellastarr. I don't even know what the hell "my Coco" means, but that isn't what caught me up. What did me in came wrapped in soft strummings soon met by slight discordant clashes that served to remove me from this plane. I was then pulled along as the gentle strummings became more earnest and insistent. Their crescendoing a more than sufficient counterbalance to the drudgery of this world and I was suddenly flying. Gliding along with the rise and fall of the guitar I was lost to all, until the fade of the climax and the guitar slipped peacefully into the background of the song. Weaving its magic throughout the song, but never as overtly or with such abandon as what was just witnessed.

I will admit that I am somewhat biased. You see, what I search for most in a song is the guitar. I love it. There are few songs I enjoy that don't have some form of it nestled within. The guitar is the only instrument that truly sings to my heart. The contemplation I so blithely mentioned in the first two paragraphs, but never got around to developing, is this: Music. For as long as I can remember it has been a part of my life. The first thing I do when I get in my car is turn the radio on. The first thing I do when I get back to my house is turn my play list on. In fact, it is hard for me to imagine what life would be like not surround by music. What is it that is so compelling about it? Why is it the only thing that I can truly get caught up in, whether it is in worship or in leisure? From my earliest years, I have been fascinated with the guitar in particular. It was the only instrument that seemed to be in tune with and could fully express the way I felt. I remember being forced to learn the piano, but I quickly disliked it as I could never truly meld with it. The piano could never release me from this world. It wasn't until my first year of college, in Chicago, that I was finally able to take up the guitar and with it my first love. I can't say that I was as diligent at practicing as I could have been, but it was never a burden. By the end of that first year I was able to play pieces, though not being my normal style of music, I could lose myself in the playing of. Then I came here and in the daily grind I found that dust had settled on something that had been vibrant and alive. I had lost something. The sorrow of the losing somehow crushed the will of regaining. I would try to pick it up again, but always the sorrow of what I had lost would make the attempts seem pointless. Will the change from the busyness of college enliven my fingers again? I hope so, but there is only one way to find out.

For now, I will continue to pick out the soulful singing of the guitar from the interweavings of magic that the mundane call music. Allowing myself to be carried on the backs of others, but one day I may again be able to transport myself and maybe others on a journey strung with emotions almost overpowering and yet able to set you free for a time.

2004-04-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

Hahahahahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Ok new comic...prolly only funy to those who have read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga, but oh well.

2 1/2 weeks till I graduate!!!

2004-04-16T08:31:00.000-05:00

"He could visualize her face in front of him now, wisps of her brown hair twitching restlessly in the wind around the edge of her bright red ski cap, the smooth skin of her forehead stressed and wrinkled." from Manta's Gift by Timothy Zahn.

Your turn:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

from Amy

And yes I'm slow, I know.

2004-04-13T21:27:00.000-05:00

Ah! the fun preparations for life away from LeTourneau. I will have only one class left after this semester. The evil Physics II. Have I mentioned that I hate that class? By the way, I hate that class!!!! I will be taking the class over the summer to finish my degree. The only question is, "Where?" I am considering staying at my parent's house for the summer in Colorado Springs and take it at the University of Colorado. Who knows? Without the strict policy on drinking that this school has I can go to each classed buzzed and maybe that will make each class way more enjoyable. One way to find out! ;) mwaahahahaahahah...hahhaa...haha...ha

On another note, I'm tired and ready to be done with work. Maybe I shall take a discreet nap.

2004-04-05T08:37:00.000-05:00

Hahaha...I mean, poor oranges :(

2004-03-31T09:31:00.000-06:00

The latest song stuck in my head:

Angie Aparo - Wonderland

Take a piece of the sky
Make it rain cherry wine
Give her love give her life
Give her mine
She's a child young and willing
In a world that's unforgiving
That in time takes all the living
From your soul

I stand in the night with a silver sword
Killing her demons beating em off her door
Sleep baby don't you cry
Daddy's got a worn-out lullaby
And I live forever dark and damned
To see you spend one minute
In Wonderland

She can run free forever
Still our blood runs us together
I'll be there if she runs home
For worse or better

I know you like Adam knew Eve
Every tear you cry is a tear that I will bleed
Sleep baby don't you cry
Daddy's got a worn-out lullaby
And I live forever dark and damned
To see you spend one minute
In Wonderland

2004-03-30T21:47:00.000-06:00

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life greets it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.

Yes, I'm awesome!!!

I know I have posted 2 poll thingys in a row, mainly cause I'm kinda tapped out lately and just doing the routine. Nothing exciting to post. Didn't blow anything up, slash anyones tires, pour water down Shari's pants again...............prolly shouldn't go there again......usually ends with her swinging a 2X4 at me.

2004-03-24T21:26:00.000-06:00

You are Rerun!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not too shabby of a quiz ;) got me mostly right except for the part about loving learning...and ok maybe the charm part too.

LoL I just noticed the picture above Slick's bed in the comic below.

2004-03-23T21:26:00.000-06:00

...........................................................
Yeah that about sums up my morning.

I blame my roommate for getting me hooked on another great way to waste my time.

2004-03-22T09:23:00.000-06:00

Ah, Mondays how I love Mondays. Spring break has ended *sigh*. I originally planned on going to Colorado Springs to visit my dad as my family is moving up there, but my brother's friend, who was supposed to be driving us up there, had some problems with his vehicle. I think it was impounded or something. So instead of a road trip to Colorado, I spent my spring break relaxing at my apartment. It was a very restful week, I was able to put my mind on auto-pilot and kick back. After the second day of this I was extremely bored so I drove over to campus to see if any remained on the floor. I found a couple that were planning to leave, but hadn't left yet. As I was talking to Stu I saw someone walk in that I hadn't seen in awhile. Micah stopped by to visit. That was a pretty cool surprise as I was able to talk to him for awhile. Pete still needs some lovin' btw. My mind has decided that it is enjoying its extended leave of absence so I am still attempt to jump start it.

One other thing that I managed to do over Spring break, and I'm glad that I did, was to finally go see The Passion. As I had been told, it was a hard movie to watch, but a great movie. As loathe as I am to say I was "changed" by it, the movie was definitely an eye opener. I know the Biblical account of Jesus' death forwards and backwards. I have had it preached to me countless times with some preachers being as vivid as possible. I knew what he went through for me, but until I saw it on the big screen, with the sound slightly too loud, I had never truly been overwhelmed by it. I think that is what the movie truly does well. It brings you into the time, surrounds you with the sounds, and shows you the true depth of suffering our Lord went through for our sins. There was no mitigation or abstraction of His suffering. You are taken through all His pain step by gory step. I am not one that is prone to crying and especially not at theaters, but I broke down twice in the theater and once on the way home as it really hit home that I did this. It was my sin that caused Him to suffer. I still to this day can't understand what worth God could see in me to warrant sending his only son to endure that for me. Afterwards all I could think about was forgiveness. Forgiveness for ever taking my faith lightly, for ever taking his death and my sins lightly. I believe this more is more for Christians than for the unsaved. Christians have become complacent, but this movie shouts out to us, "How can we stay complacent, look what was done for us!" I am truly saddened that it took a movie to shake my world.

2004-03-11T18:55:00.000-06:00

Yay, the end of another week in sight. Only one more day then the weekend begins and not only the weekend, but spring break! But wait! What is this I hear? All of Dr. Baas' classes are canceled tomorrow...I have no classes Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAaaaaaahahahahahaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahaahahahahah....*deep breath*.....ahahahaahhahaahhahahahahaahahahahahahahahahhahaahahahahhahahaa ha haha ha hahah ha

I feel better.

On a more serious note, another group gave their presentations today in ethics. I kinda felt sorrow for one of the guys as he had to give his on sexism and equal rights. It did not go well for him. Not at all. He tried to make some points using biology and unfortunately we had the only to biologists at this school in the class. They ran him up and down about it and generally made his life difficult. I don't know it seems to me if you happen to be a white male you pretty much can't help but to get into trouble if you have to talk about sexism or racism. Unless you pander to the race/gender or politically correctness you are pretty much gonna piss of someone and they will invariably toss in the race/gender card and you will lose. Then everyone will laugh at you and you will end up committing suicide. Sad really. I think trump cards should be illegal in any debate style platform. The only time they get used is when the other side feels that their arguments are not stacking up and BAM!! they push the "I win" button and nothing ever really gets accomplished, but what do I know I'm a white a male and therefore racist/sexists and just plain wrong. :p

2004-03-08T09:55:00.000-06:00

Is it Friday yet?????

2004-03-02T22:26:00.000-06:00

What the crap is this? Age discrimination?!?! I get so sick of people trying to sue for everything they can think of. I would have told the 76 year old that he was too old too. Evidently that news "devastated" and unbalanced him. What the hell? Gee, next time some one pisses me off or tells me no I will sue them for causing me undue trauma and disturbing me mentally. You would think by the age of 76 he would have grown up and a pair of balls. Stupid people piss me off!

2004-02-25T09:09:00.000-06:00

I think I may have found a cure for my Daoc addiction, this cure is named Lineage 2. Only time will tell. The character picture at the top of the screen is random so if you get the hot dark elf chick...well...wahahah.

Oh...I think my coffee high is wearing off...must stay awake...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzz!

2004-02-23T09:55:00.000-06:00

Would you wear a grenade to a wedding? Would you dance at the wedding if you did? This person did.

2004-02-23T09:18:00.000-06:00

You know with as much money and effort that was riding on the Mars Rover you would think they would have incorporated at least some basic error handling into the OS. You also would have thought they would have given it the ability to delete old directories before launch as well. Glad to see that they hire the best when it comes to spending our money. Here the full story on the problems with the rover.

Song currently stuck in my head: Shinedown - 45

2004-02-23T09:04:00.000-06:00

Ok, I understand keeping track of who has gone to what chapels to make sure everyone goes to them. I mean sure Chaplain Carl is somewhat anal about it, but I can deal with it. What I don't understand is why he has been going through chapel attendance of the years prior to his coming to Letu and harassing people with any discrepancies he finds. They really didn't keep that much in the way of records at that point, so how can you tell if someone made it to all 38 with the incomplete information? Carl has been sending mail to Josiah's parents saying that Josiah only made 37 of the 38 chapels his freshman year and that there is a problem now. Josiah is scheduled to graduate in May, and Carl has been told by his higher ups that this is not a problem, but he is still being a complete smacktard about it. What the hell is wrong with some people? I mean come on! That really pisses me off.

2004-02-20T08:29:00.000-06:00

So yeah I was perusing through Fark and I found the most interesting story here is the headline: Farmer samples manure cocktail. You can read the full story here. Mmmm tasty! They have such interesting stories there :p

2004-02-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

This was taken from Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair

2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

The original site is here. Thanks goes to VC for pointing it out.

2004-02-18T09:03:00.000-06:00

Hahahahahaha

2004-02-17T23:55:00.000-06:00

Wonderful! Baas made our test a take home test. Initially that sounds really nice, but then I remember back to my last take home test from Baas. The average time it took for the class to complete, including the over achievers, was around 8 hours. The quickest being 7 and the longest between 10 and 12. Uhg! This shall be fun I say!

2004-02-13T08:58:00.000-06:00

Java!? Java! Java.

2004-02-13T08:56:00.000-06:00

Coffee!!!!!!! Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java, Java!!!!

I'm way to tired to be posting.

In other news, the first all-nighter of the semester has been completed with no real purpose for the all-nighter being announced. With the 8:56am news this is Damian Hoover signing off.

2004-02-12T20:55:00.000-06:00

Heh, you know the cleanup crew is bored when they make costumes out of trash bags and wear them around as they clean!

Yay for contacts! As in the wearable kind not my secret ones...I have said to much.

2004-02-11T22:33:00.000-06:00

Ah yes, another wonderful Wednesday night rolls around and I'm having all kinds of fun in the labs!! Well, not really. This has been such a wonderful rainy day. First off I wake up for work after only four hours of sleep. I then manage to trudge my way through my first two classes and succumb to sleep in the third. I am then introduced to a picture of a band member from Parliament wearing a giant diaper. Then I am shown an eBay auction of sex with a crippled man on Valentines Day. Upon finishing reading the details of the auction I then discover in my sleep deprived state I had left my car lights on all day. Needless to say my car would not start. I grabbed a friend to jump my car, when I discoved my jump cables were missing. Did I mention it hasn't stopped raining all day long? There is a bright spot to the day! I picked up a Bodacious hat for $2! *sigh*

I seemed to have misplaced my motivation along the way. I remember a time when my grades were all A's and B's. Then something happened, and I'm not quite sure what it was either, at some point that all faded away and didn't seem to matter any more. All I cared about was passing, not getting the best grade possible. All I know is that it didn't happen until I came here. Something about this placed zapped me I guess. I don't think I have ever felt more apathetic as I have in the past couple semesters. It scares me sometimes.

hehe so true sometimes.

2004-02-10T21:57:00.000-06:00

Looks like a wet fart to me. Maybe a little bit of constipation too.

For other interesting picture/sentences you can check out here. Thanks to Justin for *discovering* this...unusual language.

2004-02-06T09:48:00.000-06:00

Heh. Here are the places I have lived, though not as impressive as some.

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

My US travels have been a little more extensive and I have lived in most of these places.

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

To show your travels you can head over to here.
Enjoy!

2004-02-05T18:56:00.000-06:00

Ah! You just have to love brothers some times. Tyler somehow managed to tear of the transmission pan off my parent's car. Normally my dad would fix that, but he is in Colorado currently so my mom called me up and asked for help. Knowing that they are strapped for cash currently as my Dad just switched jobs and they are waiting for his first paycheck, I told her that I would fix it for her. I will be heading down to San Antonio this weekend to fix their car. I'll be riding with my sister as my car does not like long trips sometimes, not to mention the wonderful gas mileage it gets. :P Oh well. Unfortunately my sister isn't planning on coming home until Monday and is leaving here Friday. This means I will miss my A.I. class twice. Grr. Now I feel really bad about skipping on Wednesday!

On another note:

Word O' the Day: Shake it; shake it like a Polaroid picture!

2004-01-30T08:49:00.000-06:00

I like this one post in the schedule of topics for chapel this week:
"Evening Seminars on Helpful Topics, 6:30 -9:15 pm"

Hmm "helpful topics"...does that mean that is the actual title of the session, or is it because they have no idea of what they will be on. Well I will definitely plan my evening around these "helpful topics." Not!!!

2004-01-30T08:43:00.000-06:00

Eve 6 - Think Twice

When all is said and done
And dead does he love you
The way that I do
Breathing in lighting
Tonight's for fighting
I feel the hurt so physical

Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around come around no more
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around no more

She spreads her love
She burns me up
I can't let go
I can't get out
I've said enough
Enough by now
I can't let go
I can't get out

Wait till the day you finally see
I've been here waiting patiently
Crossing my fingers and my t's
She cried on my shoulder begging please

Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around come around no more
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around no more

She spreads her love
She burns me up
I can't let go
I can't get out
I've said enough
Enough by now
I can't let go
I can't get out

What is it you really want
I'm tired of asking
You come wasted

When I showed up and he was there
I tried my best to grin and bear
And took the stairs but didn't stop at the street
And as we speak I'm going down

Cause she spread her love
And burned me up
I can't let go
I can't get out
I've said enough
Enough by now
I can't let go
I can't get out

Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around come around no more
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around I'll let you feel the burn
Think twice before you touch my girl
Come around no more

2004-01-29T18:57:00.000-06:00

Here's a toast to all the Ho's makin out in chapel, and too the one mack daddy who had 2!!!

2004-01-29T18:51:00.000-06:00

Yeah...What?....Huh? That bout sums it up.

2004-01-23T09:59:00.000-06:00

Ah the joys of working with LISP. I was up till 1:30 last night with Nathan trying to get a simple recursive program to work. All it was supposed to do was go through a list and replace any items in the list with "X" except for nil's those were kept as they were. If I had been working with C++ it would have taken me all of 5 minutes to do. By the time I made it to Nathan's room from the labs I already had the whole thing mapped out in my head. Enter LISP. Nathan had been working with it for a couple hours before I arrived at 9 and we would continue to work with it for hours after I arrived. *sigh* The main problems we were having were an unfamiliarity with LISP and the damn formatting it has. I have never had to count so many parentheses in my life. At the end of the night all I could see were parentheses dancing around taunting me with their elusiveness. We managed to get it mostly working. We could handle any normal list filled with atoms or nils, but the nested lists were still not cooperating by the time both our brains shut down. Heh, it got to the point that we would see code and no longer see any point to it so we would delete it while trying to solve a problem, only to find later that there had been a point to it and we were working in a circle. Grrr I have never had so much problems with only four lines of code! ;( Then too top it all off I set my alarm for 8:30 instead of 7:30. I'm supposed to be at work by 8am. All I could here on the drive over to school was Dr. Baas in a deep voice saying, SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*sigh* I was so busy coding last night that I forgot to call my dad and wish him a happy birthday. This means I get to call today and apologize profusely. Hmm maybe if I promised to bring so of my *special* stuff he will be appeased. It's hard to believe that tomorrow with mark another year that I have been alive. Where does all the time go? Where did it come from for that matter? :)

Yay for leaning to far back in my chair as I was typing and just about fell backwards in front of everyone in the labs. Who were kind enough to all look at me as it happened. I think it's gonna* be one of those days.

*heh spellchecker doesn't like "gonna", it recommends that I replace it with gonad.

2004-01-22T19:16:00.000-06:00

Mwahahah tomorrow is payday. Money, at last I will have money again! It's great when you forget that your class is canceled and you make all the effort to go to class. Then you realize you carpooled to class and you are stuck there for the next hour and a half. Mmmm the weekend is coming up. I think I am ready for it.

Grats on 50 to Owauddyn!

2004-01-15T18:30:00.000-06:00

Ah, the first Thursday of the new semester rolls around. All the introductions to all the new classes are over and we can now get down to the meat of the classes...*sigh*. On the brightside, I realized that for the first semester since I have been here I don't have to work Friday nights!!! Woot!! Time to PARTY!!! Well prolly not, but it is a good thought ;0)

I think it is finally starting to sink in that this is my last semester of college. It will be interesting not having to worry about classes anymore. No more stupid papers or homework! Actually getting decent pay will also be a nice change. I just need to find someone to spend it on ;).

For some reason I liked these lyrics I came across in Perfect Circle's 3 Libras:
Well I threw you the obvious,
Just to see if there's more behind the
Eyes of a fallen angel,
Eyes of a tragedy.

The song then ends with:
You don't
You don't
You don't see me
You don't
You don't
You don't see me
You don't
You don't
You don't see me
You don't
You don't
You don't see me at all

I got the feeling that he was feeling overlooked.

Song of the Day: Perfect Circle - Orestes

2004-01-07T18:36:00.000-06:00

Woohoo! Another year rolls around and there are only six more days till classes start. The dawn begins to break on a new semester and I have this chance to reflect on how I will do so much more this semester, get better grades, do more work, and ponder on how large a time I have to put things of till later. ;) Not that I ever put off doing stuff till later...nope not me. I find it funny how used to having a connection to the internet I am. While I was at home I didn't use a computer and then upon comming back to my apartment I find the DSL is not working so I am still connectionless. With all my friends still gone at sit at home trying to figure out what I should do to pass the time. Can't surf the web, can't play any of my online games, can't talk on aim, can't download any new games, can't download the latest episode of my favorite anime series, and I can't check my web comics. So, I try to think back on my *youth* and figure out what I used to do for fun. I can't remember a damn thing I did other than hang out with friends and maybe play Starcraft. *Sigh*

To ease the boredom, I decided I would start work again early. I immediately received a full load of shop hours during the day and lab hours at night. The lab hours at night are the only way I get to experience life with a connection again. The second day at work I get loaned to telecommunications to help install new fiber optic lines, i.e. digging ditches. Let me tell you, I can dig a mean ditch especially when its this friggin cold outside, and when I say its cold you know its stinking cold out. Though, I did enjoy the whole not sweating while I work part. Woohoo less showers...I mean...I...shower...Yes I'm Awesome!!! ;)

Anyways Toad is now engaged. Another one bites the dust. Heh this reminds me of Beecher prophesying that none of the DAOC players would ever get dates let alone getting married. Of all the people on my floor that play/played only I am left minus a girl in a relationship of some form. Hopefully this means I'm next in line, and as you all know the best is saved for last. Wahahaha. *sigh* ;(

I saw Pete today when I went to Taco Bell for lunch. Apparently he is working as a flight instructor for LeTourneau, at least for the time being he says. Another one gets sucked back in. It sometimes discourages me when I see LeTourneau graduates still in Longview working at Walmart or at my bank. Oh well.

On a brighter note, lab 133 has all new computers and shiny new flat panel monitors, 18 or 19 inch. It looks really nice in there. It better seeing as I set them up. My fingers are still all dried out from all the cardboard. Speaking of computers, I finished all of my computer science classes two semesters ago and all I need to finish is mostly general ed. stuff. The funny thing is as I was flipping through the list of classes offered, seeing as I needed 5 more credit hours to make the 12 I need for my grants, I could only find one class that sounded like fun. That class being a Baas class. I think I may be losing it, but I signed up for the class any ways. It is his Artificial Intelligence class so it could be fun. One way to find out! Heh I get myself into so much trouble with that statement, others too. Wahahaha.

Hmmm spell check recomends Wahiawa* or Waxahachie* instead of "Wahahahaha". Funny that.

*Thanks to Google for the links.

2003-12-01T20:46:00.000-06:00

I'm still recovering from my Thanksgiving break. Great food + 42 hours of driving = ... well I'm not sure what it is equal to, but it is both a weird thing and a good thing...I think. I have come to realize that this is the first semester where the week before finals is not a crunch week for me. It is a wonderful thing. Having finished all my CS classes and having mostly Gen. Ed. classes does wonders for my free time.

My sister decided that she needed a dog in her house, so she now has this scrawny little mutt running around. Evidently while she was home for Thanksgiving they found a dog running around outside all by itself. The second day they saw it out there they decided to keep it in the garage until they could find the owner and return the dog to him. After a couple days of fruitlessly searching for the owner, my mom decided to take the dog to an animal shelter as she did not want another dog in the house, seeing as she had just gotten rid of... I mean the previous one died. Upon hearing this the tender female juices began flowing through my sister's heart and she decided to take the dog back with her and at least see if they would be able to co-exist with each other and her roommates. The thing is this sort of thing happened when our cat at home gave birth and that lasted maybe two weeks. I began betting on how long she would keep the mutt. She beat all my expectations when she gave me a call the next day and informed me that she was taking the dog to an animal shelter. She said that she wanted a dog, but not at this point in time. Poor doggy :( ...or maybe the dog is better off this way. mwahahaha. I asked her if she was going to get birds next. She gave me a funy look. Oh well.

Ok, I think the chick in the lab on my left is high on something. She has not stopped laughing in the past half hour. Other students have closed the doors to the lab she is in, but she apparently hasn't taken the hint yet. :p

2003-11-24T22:33:00.000-06:00

*sigh* the semester is finally drawing to a close. Thanksgiving will be a welcome break from the hum drum of this semester. I will be going to Pennsylvania to visit a friend who graduated last semester. There will be four of us crammed in a little Saturn for the 20+ hour trip. Yay for road trips!

The new links posted under the title "KoC Links" are for the game Kings of Chaos. I put them up for Jason and Spiff to have a quicker time clicking their links when going through the lab computers for extra men. They also go through and click my link while they are at it so I don't make out to badly on this deal. Mwahaha.

I luv it when God just drops stuff in your lap. Luckily this time it is good. Evidently my Dad mention me to a lady up in Colorado and she is very interested in getting my resume sent up to her. With one more semester of crap classes before finishing I hadn't really started looking for a full time job yet, but this sounds very promising. One way to find out. I will just have to dust off my resume writing skills as the last one I had to write is very outdated.

I can't wait till my parents finishing moving up to Colorado I miss the snow. Though with me possibly moving up to Colorado to work I may tire of it soon. ;)

2003-11-10T19:25:00.000-06:00

It has been awhile since my last post. The time is best summed up as a very low point in my life, and I don't think I'm quite ready to post anything about it. Hopefully it will be looking up as I have made some changes. One way to find out.

Stu was trying to get his daoc char up to 50 before Squeech does. Seeing as he is only 43 and Squeech has just hit 41 he has changed his goal from beating him to 50, to not conning red to Squeech. Slacker!

The song "Hush" by Angie Aparo is very sweet and has been stuck in my head for the past couple of days. It's one of the few songs I don't mind having stuck in my head.

2003-10-10T21:24:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wish you could just roll back the clock to a simpler time? You know, back in the days when you would wake up early for cartoons, or eat paper to amaze your friends. None of this crap with deadlines, work, homework, tests, or rent. Geez, I'm too farking young to be waxing nostalgic. I just seem to be a bit worn down lately. Everything seems to be coming down at once. After a great start, I find my self slipping back into my old ways. Searching for things to take up my time and take me away from reality seem to occupy a greater amount of my time than usual. *sigh* If the school would ever get around to giving me my f*ck*ng money I think a lot of my stress would disappear too. :P Mainly because I would then be able to say pay my car insurance, pay my rent, or maybe even have money for food. Who knows?

Heh, I was exposed to this last night. As a sad indicator of my current state I was absorbed by it for longer than I care to admit. In fact I had it running in the background for awhile too. Thank you toad for being the bastard you are! Then again I have done my fair share of exposing others to things that are far worse. ;)

Next Thursday IT is sending me to Dallas. Woot! I have a valid excuse to miss classes Thursday and Friday. Aaaaaahahahaahahhahhahaah *cough* not that I would ever, ever want to miss a single riveting moment of class. Nope, not me no way.

2003-10-06T20:05:00.000-05:00

Four more hours, just four more hours and the shift from hell will be over. Whether due to sheer boredom in Physics II or simple craziness I started writing a novel. I am not entirely sure why. I have never really had the desire to write before, but I have had several stories banging around in my head that I have finally decided to commit to paper. This will be entertaining at least. :) hehe. I think the title may be something along the lines of "Seeker's Rebirth."

I somehow managed to forget to eat before coming to work. This will be a long night.

2003-09-29T20:59:00.000-05:00

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! I just LUV Mondays! Six hours of work after classes is absolutely mind numbing. To top it off I forgot to sign my time card this morning which means no paycheck. Woot! *%*^*

*sigh* Have I mentioned I luv Mondays?

I seem to be plagued with fun games. Sometimes they seem to come out faster than I can beat or get tired of them. It's great I will start playing and before I realize it its 4am and I have a 9:20 class. Thbbbbbttt. The latest game would be Medieval: Total War. The sheer amount of depth to the game is surprising. The game not only simulates the medieval battles very well, based more on formations than individual units which is refreshing, but what you can do outside of combat is also refreshing. Your out-of-combat play is not merely setting up supply trains and trying to maximize your resource gathering and unit output, but you have to be aware of who is doing what and who you are allied to and who your enemies are allied to. There is an element of resource management, but that is not the end all as in games like Warcraft or Age of Empires. Each province you take over has its own sets of strengths, weaknesses, and loyalties. You can dictate what each province produces and which structures they build. Some provinces also have special units and/or upgraded basic units that only they can produce.

Diplomacy can play a large part in your efforts. This depends on play style, but few countries can stand on their own with out some form of alliances setup. Outmaneuvering opponents through diplomatic means is always a fun bonus. The large scale battles you take part in is just down right fun. Strategy plays a very big part in the combat. It is not a matter of who has the most troops or who has the highest level troops, but who can place those troops in formations and locations that take advantage of cover, high ground, flanking, and the always fun ambush! If maneuvered correctly it is possibly to beat armies three times your size.

Becoming slightly disturbed because the King's wife was popping out daughters faster than I could marry them off was also a little bit interesting.

Yes, I am more than a little addicted to this game currently. There never seems to be enough time in the day! Hehe my mom always says that, but more for the fact that she has so much to do while I have so much to game.

2003-09-22T20:17:00.000-05:00

Will the fun ever stop? I had three tests the end of last week and I have three more tests at the beginning of this week. *sigh* I managed to watch a couple of episodes of an anime series my roommate recommended called Wolf's Rain. It's pretty interesting so far. The basic plot being that a group of wolves are traveling in search of "paradise." Wolves in this series are mystical creatures that supposedly died out 200 years prior to the story. In fact, the wolves learned how to appear to be human to the human eye. Dogs are able to see the wolves as they really are. Wolves are also the only ones who know the location of "paradise." What paradise is hasn't been revealed yet where I am at in the story.

I went with some of the freshmen to watch Underworld last Saturday. It was a pretty good flick if you like the whole vampire/werewolf scene. The vampires came off as being a bit weak to me especially compared to the werewolves. Though the movie did mention that the only werewolves that remained were the most powerful, but there seemed to be quite a few very powerful ones left. There were a couple of things that they could have fleshed out more, but in consideration of time and budget I could see why they might not have done so. It had some very sweet action scenes, and several tense scenes that had the chick next to me jump out of her chair when the classic scare the audience parts came. On the whole, I found it to be a pretty good movie. Besides, how could you go wrong with a hot vampire chick in tight leather? The only real downside was the chick next to me. I believe she has a thing for vampires from the various comments she made during the movie. This theory was confirmed when she appeared to have an orgasm in the chair next to me at one point in the movie. I couldn't scoot far enough away from her in my chair, and the rest of the theater was full. *sigh* Stupid goth chick!

2003-09-19T22:05:00.000-05:00

Dang, I just noticed an interesting heading from the Camelot Herald

Oh, Isabel, You Hussy
from Sanya Thomas
2003-09-18 10:28:08

Apparently, they are having all kinds of fun with the Hurricane Isabel. I guess not having power, being able to flush toilets, or having running water would be some sort of inconvenience.

2003-09-19T21:52:00.000-05:00

And another thing, wearing wet pants at work isn't very fun. Apparently the jeans weren't quite as dry as I thought they were when I took then out of the dryer.

2003-09-19T20:50:00.000-05:00

Hmmm I just noticed that my description of the good things that happened took up exactly as many lines as the description of one bad event. Funny how that works. I guess it goes to show how no matter how many good things that happen to you in a day it only takes one bad thing (i.e. ass-wipe) to mess the day up. I didn't allow this to mess up my day, but it did cause me to reflect how easily our days can be destroyed in only a span of a few minutes. So to all the other ass-wipes out there stop messing up peoples days, else I will punch you. Right in the face! Maybe even twice.

2003-09-19T20:42:00.000-05:00

Ah, another Friday which means I am working late and I actually have time to blog. Today was a good day! There are three things that made it so. The first being my roommates birthday. His girlfriend and I threw him a surprise party. He just loves surprise parties! ;) The second thing is a quote from the floor chaplain, "There is nothing wrong with freakin' SEX!!!" This bellowed by him down the hall. There have been several posters made and posted on various doors down the floor. I had been in need of a good laugh. The final thing was a story I heard about one of our freshmen that may have just gotten him a new floor name. I won't go into to detail on the story, but the name he is being called is "Streak." You may let your imaginations go wild at this point. Waahahaa. I downloaded the Ray Steven's song "The Streak" so that I may play it next time I see him. Mwahahahaa.

The only thing to happen to day that wasn't super great was a new inductee to the Ass-wipe line-up. He may qualify as a re-inductee. This person, who shall remain nameless *cough* Maitland *cough*, couldn't find it within himself to help us in the surprise part of the party. My roommate was scheduled to arrive within 5 minutes when this person was walking past us. We asked him if he would stick around for 5 minutes to help us with our "surprise" and he told us no that he is going to racquet ball right now and will not wait a minute longer. This could be understandable if there was someone waiting for him, but the person he was playing with was standing right next to him and seemed perfectly fine with sticking around. He would have none of it. Though this didn't stop him from coming back later and partaking in the food, cake, and beverages that were provided for the party. Bastard.

Only one and a half more hours till I can terrorize a certain fresh now known as Streak. Woot!

2003-09-15T21:10:00.000-05:00

Ah, Monday is upon us again. No more sleeping in, no more staying up late without consequences, no more... ok Mondays just friggin suck. Wahahaha I have spread the evil plague known as MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) to yet another hapless individual. This one happens to be head of tech support. Wahahaha.

*cough* *cough*

On another note, I finally gave my speech today. This being the speech that I was originally was supposed to give last Wednesday, but the teach postponed until Friday, and then from Friday to today. I believe I did well. The chick that flashed me in the back row didn't help my concentration any, but I still managed to finish well.

I started playing this simple little web based text/stats game called Kings of Chaos where you get bonus troops and money if someone clicks your "link." If you happen to have 2 seconds or would like to try the game out yourself you can visit my link and click on the number it shows. If you decide to try it out, there should be a link to registering from that page. Let me know if you do hit me up and I will return the favor. Thanks.

Pic o' the day: Passing By

2003-09-12T21:04:00.000-05:00

I think I am finally getting into the routine of this semesters classes. After the confusion I went through when classes started on a Tuesday while I was thinking it was a Monday, I think may finally have it straightened out.

For some reason I started up my Daoc account again. Bleh! That game is way to addictive. On another note Bit Torrent is my friend.

2003-09-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

Dang, it has been a long week full of alot of busy work and not really much of note. I watched the Kenshin Ova (Samuri X) again last night. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed it. My roomate had mananged to get a copy with English dubs. I know the subbed version of pretty much any anime is alot more accurate than the dubbed, but I tend to prefer dubbed mainly because I have more time to enjoy the actual anime. I can focus entirely on the anime instead of switching between it and the subtitles. With subs I may gain more conversation wise, but I miss more visually.

I had also forgotten how much I luv the Anime Music Videos site. I picked up several dozen new videos over the past week. Several of those instantly made it into my fav folder.

Song o' the day: Chevelle's Forfeit
(and pretty much every day this last week)

2003-09-01T20:24:00.000-05:00

The beginning of the first full week of classes is upon us, and I actually did my homework. I made a quick road trip down to college station last Friday as my brother joined the Marine ROTC at Texas A & M. After the ceremony I toured his dorm which is in the separate dorms assigned to the corp. I found out that being a freshmen there had all sorts of interesting lack of privileges for the freshmen. Such as, the freshmen are not allowed to look out their windows, they are not allowed to listen to music in there dorm room, and they are not allowed to go to the restroom without an escort. Speaking of the bathrooms, the freshmen are only allowed to use the first stall. This stall does NOT have stall walls. They get to sit out bare assed for any passer-by's to see. There were a couple of other things that were also not "Freshmen privileges." After getting a couple o' laughs in at his predicament, I bid farewell and spent the rest of the weekend in San Antonio with my folks.

This also coincided with one of my younger brothers birthdays. For his birthday we went to play laser tag. I was, by far, the oldest person playing that day. Which means that even though there was a problem with my suit and I didn't get to actually play until about halfway through I easily came in fourth out of the thirty kids playing. My baby sister tagged along with me and I took her to this great sniping spot on the second floor where about 10 kids were huddling below us. They never knew what hit them...again and again and again. Heheh. The laser guns at the laser tag we went to also showed who shot you when you got hit. It was good to hear the name Blue Thunder being spoken in reverence every time they got hit.

(Overheard conversation)
"Crap I got hit by Blue Thunder.
Me too.
He hit me too.
Ack, he got me too. Where is he? Is he a ghost?"

Somehow C4 has managed to un-train himself from flippin the bird. I saw him in the hall way tonight and he pointed his pointer fingers at me like an un-holstered pistol. Duly, perplexed I gave him the double deuce and asked what was wrong. He informed me that being at home all summer caused him to un-train himself as flipping of his brother was a bad thing. Whahahah let the re-training begin!

2003-08-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

The joy that is registration has ended! Things can once again settle back down to some semblance of normality. My registration went smoother than it ever has before. I needed two overrides and both people I needed so see about them just happened to be in the same building. Woot! Now all I have to do is start chipping away at the massive backlog of work orders we have at IT. *sigh* Apparently I missed yearbook pictures again. Oh, darn. :)

In other news I managed to lock myself out of my apartment for the first time. Luckily, I had grabbed my cell phone and my car's stereo faceplate. More not sure when the grabbing the faceplate was lucky, as I had to carry it around with me all day after bumming a ride from some friends, but it is. I finally managed to get a hold of my roommate and he dropped the keys off for me. All I can say is a woman made me do it! ;)

Pic o' the day: Sunset.
(fairly simple pic especially the clouds, but I liked it)

2003-08-23T18:10:00.000-05:00

So today started off as a normal Saturday at work when people started pouring in from every direction. The entire labs were full! Evidently there was the Pact program meeting today. These are all the people that having decided to come back to college after being out in the real world. Most are middle aged+ but not all. Anyways today was to be the day that they all learned how to access Blackboard and their school email. For some reason, the blackboard accounts were not setup right so no one was able to log in. Wonderful. So the ladies running the show were scrambling trying to figure out how to get this working and making phone calls to various people who might be able to help. Upon spying me with my shiny IT name tag they decide I would be a good person to send out to attempt to appease the masses and help them get into their emails while they were working on blackboard. Go me. So I attempt to help the seething masses who aren't quite prepared to listen to someone obviously younger then them. I begin at the very base level of having them open Internet Explorer. I believe I lost 3 people on that step. I tried to help them but the masses were getting inpatient so I decided to come back to whoever was lost later. I proceeded to move on, but various people would get lost then distract the others with their angry mutterings. Luckily I was saved by the lady who actually handles this stuff and she took over and I fled the scene. Bah!

2003-08-22T20:20:00.000-05:00

Is this Friday yet???? Today has been a very long one. I have roamed up and down the campus helping the new students set up their network connections. The fact that it was frickin hot outside did not help much. The only bright spot of the day (besides when I get to go home) is when I got a call to help a student who couldn't find where to plug the network cable into her computer. Odd request, but I figured it would be a quick fix. On the way over there I realized that I had been called to that room yesterday. I then remembered that they had asked me how they (they refers to the student and her parents) should go about connecting their computer to the network. I had recommended buying a cat 5 patch cable as that was all they needed since the computer had an onboard network interface card. I also remembered showing them where to plug it in before I left. With this in mind I entered her room and proceeded to show them how to hook it up. I was puzzled for a sec as I was unable to locate the network plug in the back of her computer. I was sure I had seen one. Then I noticed something odd. The PS/2 mouse was plugged in the center of the back of the computer instead of where the PS/2 plug is normally found. I checked where the plug is normally found, and sure enough I found a normal PS/2 plug sitting there. I then cracked a smile. I unplugged the mouse from the network plug. How they managed to get it in there I have no idea. I then plugged the mouse into the correct location and the network cable into the network plug. To my surprise they both worked. I somehow managed to hold off laughing until I made it outside.

I managed to log 52 hours of work this week and I am ready for bed.

2003-08-20T18:17:00.000-05:00

Evidently responding to an email in tech support within four minutes of its arrival gets you the "so special" title from the sender. Here is the email I received after responding to a question: "You are so special Damian. Thanks so much for your prompt response." My other favorite response came from the coach here at college when I solved a series of problems for him that spanned 3 nights. It went a little something like this: "YOU DA MAN!!!!." I placed it all in caps as the coach was yelling this over the phone. I had to pull the phone from my ear or risk damage to my hearing. Wahahaa, no one says "you da man" like a coach can!

My mom gave me a call today as she was trying to figure out how to scan and fax my dad's passport to a lady in Colorado. Fairly easy thing to accomplish, well at least I thought so. First off I haven't used their scanner or it's software before, so I had to rely on my mom's to tell me what was going on and to describe the windows that pop up. That would be the first problem. My mom is great and I love her a bunch, but she isn't the most technologically adept. I believe it took us over 20 minutes to scan a page from the passport. The image that scanned would either have the top of my dads head cut off or part of the text at the bottom cut off. No matter which way she would move the passport to try and take a better scan, it would never be perfect. Finally after about 20 minutes she happened to mention a little check box that says "auto crop." I had her uncheck that and suddenly there wasn't an issue with scanning the page. This was just in time for the second problem. I attempted to walk her through setting up the computer to allow faxing. Turns out she didn't know where the XP CD was so I couldn't enable the faxing. That wasn't too much of a problem we could just email it to the person. Problem number three. She tries to scan the image to email. She then gets an error, and tries to do it again. When she gets the error again I stop her and ask her what the error was. She said it was something about Earthlink not having a connection. "That means you don't have a connection to the internet, which you will need to send an email," I told her. "Oh duh" was her response followed closely by an "Oh crap." When I asked what was wrong she mentioned that they were working on the phone lines so she didn't have a connection to the internet. We have two phone lines at home, so I told her just to plug the computer into the phone line she was using the phone on. She told me she couldn't because they were working on that line as well. When I asked how she was calling me, she clued me in to the fact that she was using her cell phone. *sigh* hehe.

My boss just stopped by to find out if I had finished loading Maple 8 onto all the computers in the labs. I had just finished last night and I told him so. He then pulled out a package and removed the contents. Inside was a shiny new copy of Maple 9. Evidently the Math/CS department had ordered it, but forgot to let us know. Terrific. I will be loading all 90 computers in the labs with Maple 9 this weekend. It will be great!!!!!!!!

School starts in six days. Bleh!! Can't wait to see old faces again, but I could pass on the classes.

Pic o' the day:

2003-08-18T20:53:00.000-05:00

It has been a very long day. I have been running to and fro fix this and fixing that. On the bright side, I have left a long trail of happier people because of my efforts, but as I wrap up my eleventh hour of work all I know is that I'm tired, dirty, and hungry.

I love days like this, and I have had one to many lately.

2003-08-16T14:58:00.000-05:00

The weekend has finally arived! Only three and a half more hours until mine can officially start. :( Stu finally had it out with the bitch he calls boss. He basically told her that he wasn't going to put up with the crap any more and left the PA job. Go Stu!

On another note, Tasberry left me some feedback so I stopped by her site. Heh, I particularly enjoyed her "Black Ass List." I have thought of creating such a list several times, but I think I will wait until I have a few more names to add to it. Granted I won't be able to call it a "Black Ass" list cause...well... I don't have a black ass. Though I guess if I grabbed a marker... ;)

Classes are coming soon. I view this occurrence as both a good thing and a bad thing. In one light I am excited because everyone is coming back and I am ready for classes. On the other hand, I know that within one week of classes I will be ready for them to end. This semester will also mark the first semester I will be living off campus instead of in the dorm. I know I will be missing out on a lot, but the lower cost and higher freedom is very attractive. Seeing as this is my last semester before graduating, I am view this as a partial adjustment to the real world as I have to deal with all the bills associated with not living on campus. I only live 5 minutes from campus so definitely won't be a stranger to the 1B Bandits. Wahahahaa!

I have been enjoying some of the pictures I have found at Lotus Art.

Pic o' the day:Snake

2003-08-14T20:49:00.000-05:00

I found out 5 minutes before work last night that I didn't have to work the evening shift. Woot! On the downside that morning I had the misfortune to find the deepest mud slick when I tried to cross the road back to IT. My foot sank into the mud down past my ankle. When I tried to pull my foot out of the mud, my shoe refused to come along easily. When I finally made it back to IT my shoes and the bottoms of my pants were covered in mud. After washing my pants and shoes off in the bathroom, I then worked the rest of the day with wet shoes. Needless to say by the end of the day my feet were smelling super rank. Joy. At least with the extra time that day I was able to pick up another DVD Rom. I am once again able to watch DVD's in my room without problems. Yay!

Today marked an interesting day. I showed up for my night shift and who should I see there, but Scholl himself. Who informed me that he was assigned to work with me tonight. He wench even sent us some white chocolate mochas! Bonus!

I was talking with my mom yesterday, when at the very end of the conversation she said, "Oh, by the way, we are moving to Colorado." It's great when you are up to date on family maters. ;P Apparently my Dad had a job offer in Kuwait, but then the day before the paper work arrived for him to accept the job he received the offer to work in Colorado. Wahahah I will be able to see snow again!

Pic o' the day: Sky Gate

2003-08-11T18:26:00.000-05:00

Bleh, it has been a long couple of days, days that are too full of busy work. I finally managed to find the time and the place to wash my car. It was in need of a good washing/waxing, but the apartments I live at don't have spigots that I have seen. I went over to my sister's house and washed it. Allison came out and helped me wax it. After cleaning the car inside and out, you just can't leave it sitting so we then took a trip up to Hastings. This apparently was the first time my sister has been to Hastings and she discovered the $1.99 used CD bin with a buy 4 get the 5th free sign above it. She then declared this was an evil place and began ransacking the extensive used bins looking for something good. After about an hour she found the 5 CDs that she wanted. As she came up to me with her CDs she realized that the $1.99 price was only on certain CDs. Which she then cursed me for a demon and began perusing through the stacks again as she wasn't going to pay more than $1.99 for some of the CDs she picked. Two hours later she was ready again. :P Meanwhile I had made my choices within the first 5 minutes and was ready to go. When we left she again cursed me as a demon and said to never bring her there again. I then mentioned that they had movies on sale too. I received an emphatic, "No! I will not look at the movies demon." Sisters are wonderful! ;)

I picked up the Chevelle - I Wonder What's Next CD and I am loving it! "The Red" being the flagship song on the CD.

We had a massive downpour today with very strong winds. I was surprised we didn't have tornado warnings. After work I noticed my car as I walked towards and just had to smile. Yay, my car beads again!

Song o' the day: Comfortable Liar by Chevelle
Pic o' the day: Melted Under Cellophane

2003-08-06T20:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, today makes it twice that I have almost been hit in the walmart parking lot. I don't get it. If you are going to fly through the parking lot and not follow the designated paths (as in driving through the areas designated for parking) at least pay attention. The first time I was with my roomate and we had just pulled into one of the lanes in the parking lot. I happened to notice a lady zipping through the parking lot doing at least 40. If I hadn't stopped she would have hit me, as the entire time she was driving through the parking lot she never once looked my way. I believe she was on a cell phone too. Today's incident was another lady zipping through the parking lot very close to the parked cars. This also happened to be at a very busy part of the day. I didn't notice her until she was one lane over and heading right towards me broad side. Luckily she saw me this time and slammed on her brakes. She also managed to cut off a truck on her way towards me. I guess it wasn't enough that she about caused me to pee my pants, but she then procceeded to yell and wave her fist at me! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To quote my grandfather, "Crazy women drivers!" Dipshits.

Hehe, I found something interesting on a bit torrent site to download. It was "The Idiot's guide to Amazing Sex." Woohoo, gonna get me some....ok not really. And no, I did not download it ;)

For you crazy women drivers out there you can now get your very own crazy women driver's thong! What will they think of next ;)

2003-08-05T19:27:00.000-05:00

The fun never stops in the labs. Apparently asthma suffers should be wary of the stuff they use to clean the carpets in Longview hall. A person was walking in Longview hall near the labs when she had a massive asthma attack. They had just finished cleaning all the carpets. The first I knew of it was when a student asked me what was going on out front with the cops. Upon going out there, I found out what had happened from our campus security.

I made a foolish mistake the end of last week and I jinxed myself. I mentioned to some people that Thursday and Friday had been so slow in the labs that I had been hoping for someone to call or email tech support just to relieve the boredom. Monday rolls around, and I find that Scott Case, who normally handles tech support in normal business hours, is on vacation. I opened the tech support folder and discoved dozens upon dozens of tech support calls and emails had all been saved just for me. Woot! Today has been about the same. Moral of the story is, "Be careful of what you wish for!" I was still handling tech support 20 minutes after my shift ended.

On another note, a few thoughts on integrity by sinfest:

Hear! Hear!

Thanks to D for showing me a new web comic Swordwaltzer it seems pretty sweet so far.

2003-08-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

Now that the summer camps are no longer with us saga has ceased to offer its "dollar buffet." At first glance that's not such a bad thing. Saga isn't know for its quality, but this is a case of quantity > than quality. The only days I eat at saga are the days I work twelve hours straight. I start at 8 in the morning and work my way to 9 in the evening. During the dollar days I would eat a decent amount at saga, as that would be the only meal I would have until after 9pm.

Well, today being the first day that saga wasn't open for lunch I went home and had a sandwich. A sandwich being my normal midday lunch, I didn't think a thing about it until 5pm rolled around. I was fine at first, but then something evil happened. The students of a late night class went on break. They all flocked to the break room right across the hall from me. I then noticed this delicious scent of butter popcorn drifting through the air. My stomach went into overtime growling. Then I noticed the next scent, pot roast! It smelled as if they were cooking it in a slow cooker in the break room. My stomach then felt as if it was enjoying tying itself into knots again and again. I am still in a nice amount of pain as I type this. Make the pain stop! Feed me! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!111oneoneone*

I have found myself to be enjoying a game, my roommate picked up, immensely. This game is Bloodrayne. Despite the obvious cheesecake factor (i.e. the incredible bouncing physics engine). The game has some great hack and slash addictiveness (the cheesecake being the bonuse not the main stay). Bullet time at will is a nifty feature that I make use of all the time. Go half-vampires in tight leather!

Grrr! Damn it! Another class is having a pizza party! Frickin A this night will never end! Ughhh!

*credit for the !!!!!!!!1111oneoneone would go to Shem

2003-08-02T14:28:00.000-05:00

Hehe, dontcha just luv those kinds of people.

Pic O' the Day: Skelly Walk (I think the skelly on the far right just saw gecko sneaking up on him naked)

Song O' the Day: "Path" by Apocalyptica featuring Sandra Nasic (the music vid is pretty good too. Where else can you see guys with long hair head banging as they play cellos?)

2003-08-01T18:29:00.000-05:00

Bleh, Friday nights in the lab. The only thing of note is the inscription on the chalk board, "Scholl Is A Teddy Bear" has mysteriously disappeared part way through my shift. It was there when i clocked in so it still makes it to its fourth day of being up.

Days Scholl's Teddiness Have Been Proclaimed in Chalk: 4

Song O' the day: Guano Apes - Open Your Eyes

2003-07-31T19:33:00.000-05:00

Short day long night. The past two nights the labs have been the slowest I have ever seen them. I am actually looking forward to someone calling in with their problems. Which is funny because I hate answering the phone at work. I don't know maybe I will get lucky and find a dead body underneath one of the lab desks, and I can get caught up in a big investigation. A good ol' cat fight sounds good too. I haven't seen a good one in way to long.

My mother is visiting for a couple o' days and we went out to Applebee's for dinner. The nice thing about my mom or dad coming for a visit is they always spot me lunch someplace nice. When my sister pops over I always end up spotting her for lunch. Funny how that works.

I helped my roommate sand off the paint from the hood, trunk, and top of his car in preparation of repainting it. Until we were run off by the married student RA (aka Dick).

In other news, someone wrote in big yellow chalk, "Scholl is a teddy bear" on the chalk board in front of the desk where I work. It has been there for three days so far. We shall see how long it manages to stay up. ;)

Days Scholl's Teddiness Have Been Proclaimed in Chalk: 3

2003-07-30T18:26:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the last song you can download, instrumental solo, is a rip off Dave Said's "Bob2." Dave has emailed them to see if they will remove the song from the list or give "Dave Said" credit. Dave also wants to find out if it was accidental or intentional. Either way, there may be a bandit road trip to tyler for a "Bandit Smackdown." Waahahah its been to long since the last road trip. I listened to all the songs and it was apparent that they could use some better recording and mixing equipment. The lead singer was decent, but could use some better mic skills (according to Dave and I don't see any reason to disagree). Jeremy definately enjoyed his wailin' time. :)

On another note, I found a pic of my next car. Lotus Elise

2003-07-30T17:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I managed to get myself up by 6:20 this morning to go running. I am once again reminded on how much I just "luv" running. :P

One of my friends, Jeremy, that I haven't seen in over a year finally got himself back online. I knew he was trying to start a band the last time I saw him and I guess he finally did it. The band is called The Squids. He has links to several of his songs as free downloads from mp3.com. I'm downloading 'em now.

2003-07-29T18:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes working for I.T. is great. You get to hear about all the stupid stuff other people do without having to take part in it. For example, today David K. (manager of physical plant) came into our office and said, "I would like to place a work order." All the people in the office turned and pointed to Scott Case who handles all work orders during the day. Scott asked him how he could be of service and David told him that there was a slight problem. It seems that the construction crew had dug up one of the old fiber optic lines and tried to pull it out of the ground using a back hoe. The only problem was that the lines hadn't been cut yet and were still connected to the two buildings on either side of it, the assembly building and the business office. These buildings are fairly cheap and old structures, and needless to say the optic lines cut right through them. The lines tore through the ceiling, through AC ducts, and through the florescent ceiling fixtures. It just so happened that there was a lady working in the assembly building at the time the lines started to cut through the building right above where she was standing. She had to make a mad dash to the door to be just narrowly missed by the falling light fixtures. She was rather shaken. David K tried to blame the problem on us, mainly because IT handles all the network lines, but failed to remember that the only lines we have cut are the ones that no longer have housing. The lines they pulled up were still securely encased in their housings. The whole of the IT office took a midday break to go look at the disaster. Waahaha extra paid break.

On a side note, I have somehow gotten myself into running very earlier in the morning with a couple of friends. We shall see how this goes.

Game o' the week: Clay Kitten Shoot - Mmm boy good fun

2003-07-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

Other than work, not too much happened today, though with twelve hours of work, rarely does anything happen outside of work. The only thing of note is mine and Gecko's new "project." The "project" is that of learning a new language, but we will each be learning a different language. Gecko will be learning Japanese while I will be learning German. Granted I have the easier language and only have 1 alphabet to learn not 3 (well one isn't really an alphabet, but a rather large set of symbols), but it should be fun. The end goal being Gecko and I getting together somewhere and conversing in our "new" languages and pretending to understand what each other is saying. ;) It should cause people to scratch their heads and wonder. Not to mention Texans will probably think we are talking in the same language. ;) I have found there to be 3 kinds of people living in Texas: Texans, those that will admit they live in Texas, and those that won't.

On a side note Gecko manages yet again to prove he is a crack head. The following is a remembered conversation from the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG at about 10pm last night.

(Note: I had just logged in and didn't see my chat until after he sent the first message)

Lygaar: Hey
Me: Hey (Me = having no clue who Lygaar is but hoping he will reveal himself or give me money).
Lygaar: So I have decide to go with melee but I am not sure what type of melee I will go with.
Me: Yeah melee is pretty cool I am working on unarmed myself .
Lygaar: Unarmed is cool, but I am thinking about going with either one handed or two handed swords.
Me: (figures he isn't going to reveal himself so tries a guess) Is this Gecko?
Lygaar: Of course!
Me: No, of course would be something like xii (Gecko always chooses roman numerals for character names).
Lygaar: I always choose numbers (response came less then a second after mine).
Me: So...what number is Lygaar?
Lygaar: what?
Me: well you said you always choose numbers so i can't figure out which number Lygaar is.
Lygaar: what?
Me: According to my screen your name is Lygaar.
Lygaar: I typed in Xiii.
Me: I am seeing Lygaar.
(pause)
Lygaar: Oh crap it is Lygaar.
Me: LOL.
Lygaar: I have to go make another character now.

Pic(s) of the week: 3D pictures Remember these?

2003-07-27T14:52:00.000-05:00

I got talked into working today which will make this a wonderful 7 day work week. Go me. Dinner at the Horseshoe casino last night was sweet. It was an all you can eat buffet that reminded me of a food court at a mall. They had several different spots to go to the Italian spot, the Chinese spot, and the rather large grill & and Southern spot. Not to mention two different spots for desserts. mmmmmm. There was also an impressive salad bar which I didn't manage to get to. Oh well. Hehe the only thing they didn't have was crab legs which was the whole reason D was going. He got over it by accusing Stu of being gay which he kept up the whole night. By the end of the meal I am pretty sure the waitress and the surrounding patrons were sure that Stu was gay as well. You could see the look of disdain in some of their eyes, which of course made Stu's night. ;)

2003-07-26T14:23:00.000-05:00

Another *busy* Saturday rolls around. Once again I have plenty of time to consider the vastness of time and space, to consider the complexities of people and relationships, and...why the hell I forgot to bring my book.

Oh well, this evening should be good. There is a planned trip to Shreveport to take part in an all-you-can-eat buffet at one of the casinos there. Heh, the only problem could lie in the attendance. One thing I have had to get use to since coming here* is that when some says, "Sure, I will come" that doesn't mean they will come. Evidently, that means that they are interested, but could change their mind 5 minutes before we plan on leaving. Bah.

I noticed the Official Spiderman 2 web site yesterday. The picture of Doc Ock's arms is down right awesome. It made me happy! (Note: you can click on the little picture to get the whole picture or you can download it as a background.)

Pic(s) o' the week: Metamorphasis

2002-07-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

I have been having fun with Photoshop as I am designing the web page for my digital lit. class. The project appears to be going smoothly. The sonnet I created for the page was easier than I thought ;).

2002-07-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

It has been nice having this four day weekend. A break from work was really needed. Not too much going on around here everyone is relaxing before the week starts again *sigh*.

2002-07-07T16:45:00.000-05:00

I guess this would be my first blog post. Not sure what to post :). Song of the day would be "Mouth" by bush.