welcome to my random post… yes, I’m still alive… school got… well.. busy to put it mildly. Then I flew home. ok, begin randomness… I flew first class… I’m not sure why or even how. I got called up to the desk and they asked if I was traveling alone. When I said yes, she ripped my boarding pass in half. I was thinking “oh great, what now?” and when I asked, she smiled and said, don’t worry, I think you’ll like this… is seat 3A good with you? so I shut up and got on the plane. drinks were served before we even moved. Lunch was great and even included a slice of very good chocolate cake. I talked with the pilot who sat next to me for a while. We both thought it ironic that they’ll take away fingernail clippers and nail files and yet they serve all first class passengers with a fork and knife, either of which is far more dangerous than a nail file. first class is fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if it was free

the answer the the quiz is, pinnochio, sebastian (both of those are on the island after they escape the cave of wonders), and the third one is the scene right after that one, when the sultan is stacking his little animals, if you look close enough, one of them is the beast from beauty and the beast pretty slick…

a prediction: dave’s favorite character from Spirited Away will be the gerbal/hamster thingy I laughed every time I saw him. everyone should see that movie if they get a chance… it’s pretty cool… it is a disney anime… and it’s pretty cool.

I found incriminating photographs of someone here at the house. I’ve been looking for them for some time now. They were hidden in with pictures from the memphis zoo and my eagle project. So, if I knew you back then, and you know of incriminating photograph of you and a mop that might be in my possession, you have very little time to persuade me against posting it here for the world to see

how many s’s are there in possession and does hamster have a p in it?

best buy has 40x cd-rw’s for $30. on a totally unrelated note, my parents now own a 40x cd-rw.

I’m reading Catch-22… it’s on par with Faulkner as far as how difficult it can be to follow, but it’s definately funnier than faulkner. speaking of which, I actually saw someone reading Faulkner in Boulder. for some unknown reason I got in the mood to read faulkner and I went to the library. They have 150 books about faulkner, but none by him. A week later, I saw someone on the bus reading A Light In August. It’s actually the book I was looking for, but before I could ask her whether she got it from the library or had it shipped in from oxford, she got off the bus… oh well.

wow… I just found a random picture of Matt Mikalos… (sp?) kinda odd…

oh well… it’s late, I’m tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow so I can go see Deedee so goodnight

holy moo cow! I’m not the only one allergic to cockroaches! There is another freak in the world just like me who is allergic to everything! But my question is two fold… did they do the quick check, or the full blown deal? I remember they laid out a grid on my back and did a scratch test for everything… and I’m absolutely allergic to it all… and second, did they have to coat you down in benedryl afterwards to keep you from blowing up? During my first test, they had barely gotten started when I reacted so bad they had people scrambling to get benedryl… they gave me like a double dose and then coated my arm in it

and as advice for someone considering allergy shots… sure, some people think they work… It’s all about building up an immunity of sorts to specific allergens (sp?)… for example, if you are allergic to cats in general, you still probably don’t have too much of a problem with your own cats because after about two weeks of solid exposure, the body adapts to that particular cat dander. Me personally… I had allergy shots for about 2 1/2 years… and then I started having allergic reactions to the allergy shots!! how much does that suck! oh well… typical

oh, and I guess no one wants a cookie… would it help if I said that all three characters are on the screen within 3 minutes of each other?

well, there’s several things I thought about writing, but I think I’m going to skip most of them. It would tick off several people, and it wouldnt’ help, anyways, so I guess I’ll have to keep all that to myself…

so… on to the point of today’s post… trivia and jokes…

joke of the day:

Little Johnny was in the garden filling in a hole when his neighbor peered over the fence. Interested in what

the little monster was doing, he politely asked, “What’re you up to there, Johnny?”

“My goldfish died,” replied Johnny tearfully, without looking up, “and I’ve just buried him.”

The neighbor smiled, “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn’t it?”

Johnny patted down the last heap of earth then replied, “That’s because he’s inside your damn cat!”

trivia question for today:

In the Disney movie Aladdin, you can see three characters from other Disney feature length animated films… name the three characters and when/where you can see them.

the winner gets a cookie… or something… Also, the Goofy hat doesn’t count…

Today I ran into one of the most Rude professors I’ve had this displeasure of meeting since I’ve been here. I was in the physics building, trying to grade scantrons, and the scantron machine is off away from everything else. Well, naturally I couldn’t get the thing to work since I was trying to grade sheets that didn’t have any answers marked… (just for attendance)… since I couldn’t get the thing to work, I decided to call the lead TA who knows how to work the stupid machine. Well since I was off away from everyone else, I just stuck my head in the office next to the one I was in and asked the professor if I could borrow the phone for a second… his response? “well, why the H*LL would you want to do that?” I tried to explain to him, but he continued cussing at me and saying I was disrupting his precious time and he was trying to concentrate. Overall, he spent about 5 minutes yelling and cussing at me… now… I left kinda dumbfounded… but after I regained my senses, it took every bit of will power I have to stop from going back over there and telling that guy what I thought… not only did spend more time yelling at me that my 15 second phone call would have taken, but like I said, he had to have the most rude attitude I’ve encountered since I’ve been here… The fact that this guy in no way is related to my work or my education just made it harder for me to not go tell him off… oh well…. I think I might just have to make it a habit to go by there every week now…

in other news… I’m debating doing one of several things… I recently aquired the skills and software necessary to burn VCDs… and I’ve already made a couple that have been worth watching… The Count of Monte Cristo and Signs… now, neither one has been DVD quality, but that’s only because of the movie files I had… Richard burned some music videos to VCD and the quality was excellent… So now I’m considering making more VCDs… I’m downloading high quality rips of a couple of movies, and maybe tonight or tomorrow I’ll see how good I like those… There’s also the possibility of burning them back to DVD… Richard is considering buying a DVD-R. That would mean I could either burn downloaded movies to DVD or just copy DVD’s straight to another DVD… hmmmm…. tempting…

If it turns out I like the quality of the burned movies, I might pop another processor in The Beast to speed up the conversion times from avi to vcd… currently it takes about 10-12 hours to convert a single movie in two parts… so another processor will cut down the times in one of two ways… if the process can be divided among processors, it’ll theoretically cut the time in half… if it can’t, then it will at least allow me to do normal stuff like browse the internet, check email, etc, while the other processor chews away at the movie… either way, it’s faster…

let’s see… not much else is going on… I’m bored… I have homework to do tonight… and I miss Deedee… yeah, I think that about covers it….

I’m alive… barely… I’m pretty sick. Kind of annoying… Couldn’t sleep for more than 10 minutes last night without waking up because of some problem or another… Finally, around 6am, I got up and carefully made my way to the store across the street where I bought lots o’ drugs… I came back, took nyquil, and slept for about 3 hours before I had to get up and go to class… Skipped my second class, came home, and then slept… couldn’t stay awake… kinda figures… can’t sleep when I need to, can’t stay awake when I should… I’m debating what flavor drug I’m going to take tonight… I have a couple to choose from… Nyquil or tylenol cold… the only difference is nyquil will knock my butt out… guess I’ll wait and see how I feel in an hour…

umm, other than that, nothing much is going on here… had to send my dvd player off to be fixed… same problem it had last time, which means they didn’t really fix it in the first place… pisses me off, but oh well… not much I can do about it… I also built some speaker stands for my home theater system. Pretty simple and yet spiffy for roughly $3 a piece. I screwed a 2×6 into a foot-wide circular base and then put a screw in the short side of the 2×6 to hold the speaker… ok, so I can’t really explain it, but the point is, it works, and it was incredibly cheap… no $70 speaker stands from best buy… I guess it’s amazing what we can be motivated to do out of jealousy… not that I’m jealous of my roommate’s system, I mean, mine is more powerful than his and all, but he found a way to set up his speakers where they’re supposed to go, whereas all 5 of my surround speakers just sat on top of the entertainment center… So I fixed the problem… Now my speakers go where they’re supposed to, also

no class tomorrow… geez, I wonder why… man, I can’t get started ranting about that, or else I’d be here all night screaming and hollering and no one would hear me… Suffice it to say that I hate stupid people, and I hate people who take advantage of a serious situation to further their purpose, which pretty much can be summed up under either wanting to make more money, or wanting to have more power… Pretty much everything that we see and hear tomorrow will be motivated by one of those two things… sickening…

Speaking of birthdays and such, I guess it is worth note that as of tomorrow, my blog will turn one year old. Just now, I went back and reread my first real post… Dad gum, was I really so poetic back then? Makes me feel kinda worthless now… Now I just type whatever hits my mind. Generally, I don’t write things like “and all I have is time to decide if it’s a premonition or the fancy of an idle mind” and “Time is the maker and unmaker of all things”… kinda sad…

You know, I really don’t want to get into this too much, but let me ask a question to make you think. In my first blog, I predicted change. I said I felt like things were going to change tremedously… But… Have things really changed that much? The “bandwagon of patriotism” has slowed down and unless you’re incredibly paranoid then you’ve probably been desensitized to the phrases “terrorism alert” and everything else the media uses in an attempt to keep the general public terrified. Airport security has changed, but does that really affect our day-to-day life? Well, I said I wouldn’t get into this that much, so I’ll just repeat the question and call it quits on this one… So… Have things really changed that much?

oh yeah, I fixed the comment system… been real busy… ironically, I’m not doing anything… but I’ve been real busy doing nothing… watched movies all day yesterday… just random movies… reading today… felt like rereading the 3rd harry potter book, and should be done with that after I get some food…. I’m hungry.

I have a cell phone… it’s nice… if anyone wants the number, email me… did I mention I’m hungry?

got the game started again up here… upon being told about the summer campaign, the group here has demanded a rematch against the memphis group… should be fun… they can’t do it for another 3 levels, but we’ll see man, I’m hungry…

got my work straighted out… I’m now working two jobs, getting paid LOTS o’ money… but don’t worry… I have lots more debt… actually have to pay for college this semester… how much does that suck?? hmmm… .hungry…

ok, I need food… .later

but first, this has to be the quote of the week right here… . 2 pts to person who guesses the author: oh, and I had to delete the lead in, cause that would have given it away….

“…religious debates make me horny” –??

come one, come all… vote once, vote often… no, scratch that… just vote once… for me…

voting will be held today.. You can vote by going here and scrolling down to the entry for Tuesday, August 20th, 2002. Please vote in the comment section. If Kris turns out to be the Supreme Ruler of the World… we’ll all know he cheated…

hurry… vote today…

the time has come, the walrus said

to talk of many things

of shoes and ships and sealing wax

and cabbages and Supreme Rulers of the World.

That’s right my friends, it’s time for the vote. I appologize for not posting lately, but after driving 20 hours to Boulder, I started 14 hour/day training sessions… 14 hours/day sucks… but I got a nice raise anyways, back to the subject at hand… the Vote.

I liked the idea from my future Lord High Chancellor of Information Technology that said set a date far enough in advance so that people who don’t read blogs every day can have enough warning to know when to vote… I propose opening the voting on Wednesday, August 28th (one week from now) and closing the poles Saturday, August 31st. Might be a little too much time, but it accomodates my challenger’s request for enough time for everyone to vote… sooo… the question is… how to do the voting… are there any volunteers for impartial judges? any other ideas?

in other news, my new job gives me 8 undergraduate TAs to torture, I mean, to oversee includes a pretty hefty raise, and lets me play with the new telescopes at the observatory AND I get to run the planetarium when I want to I need to invite everyone up here to watch a DVD movie in the planetarium care of it’s new awesome laser projector… all I can say is it’s sweet.

well… I’m thirsty… need a drink… more to come…

you ever been walking along and heard a massive, hollow THUD behind you, then turn around only to realize it was the sound a particular chapter of your life slamming shut behind you… ?

For those of you still keeping track of the campaign, my challenger continues to make valid points that I approve of… no pop up adds on the internet… getting rid of the stupid people of the world… no more racial identifiers such as “african-american” or “canadian-american” (can you do that?) I’ll even take that one a step further… no government forms will have a place for race on it… none… I believe I already abolished organizations such as the NAACP a while back… Any form that relates to getting a job will not have race, sex, or name… your name and sex will be on a separate form that is not used when deciding who gets the job. Questions such as “Can you lift 100lbs?” will be allowed if the job requires lifting 100lbs… questions such as “Can your urinate standing up?” will not be allowed…

As for the accusations that I tried to bribe someone… they are correct… However, I did not just use a box of donuts… I offered my challenger’s brother the position of Lord High Chancellor of Information Technology, AND a box of donuts… If anyone else can justify being appointed to a position of high authority, then let me know…

I’m also tossing around the idea of allowing workers to whack their bosses or other coworkers with notepads, books, papers, etc. if said boss/coworker does not listen… If you say to a coworker, “I am not starting any new projects” and he says back “Why don’t you start this new project for me so I don’t have to”, then you have the right to whack them with whatever you have in your hands at that time… (always carry something with you)… if you say to this person again, “I am not starting any new projects” and they say back, “yes, that is nice, but why don’t you start this new project for me” then you have the right to drop whatever you have and search for a new object to whack him with… there will be no repercussions for whacking your boss…

gotta do real work… more campaigning later…