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some classic doug. he suggests that tark, he, and i go out for steak.
tark and i decide doug should pay since he's making the big bucks.
then his debit card is declined. so i pay for it. actually doug offers
to give me cash, but that's ok. i had a 32-ounce t-bone. it was pretty big,
and doug didn't think i could finish it. the last pieces seemed grisly,
so i had bits left. went to the gentleman's club. had a $40 couch dance that was nothing special. i should try the $60 vip room dance, but that's pretty pricey. i think i have some type of summer cold. sore throat, sneezy, runny nose, cough. i got the license plate registration sticker, but my mom never put the month sticker on. i hate that i have a reason for cops to pull me over any time. people judge according to their interpreatation and expectation, not usually an objective method. 1st become a good person, then solve the other problems in life 'why?' can be a bunch of different questions. people want guidance, some criteria that will make sure they decide correctly, to make them happy. i had a dream snippet this morning that i looked up and the clock said 10:58, when it was probably more like 12:00, making me think i had an hour more time. wishful thinking. i had been repeatedly looking up at the clock before that. that mosquito escaped, by dropping down away from the ceiling. almost took a picture, but the battery was about dead. where does the time go? it's like i skippied a week, i doesn't seem like anything happened the past week. just killed a mosquito. it was flying on the ceiling. swatted it with a t-shirt an smooshed it on the wall. made a spot, but it came off witha little water. i got a bunch of chigger bites from picking blackberries on fathers day. theyre especially annoying because they don't go away, while mosquitos bites on me go away in a couple hours. at d&d, the last woman (a petite brunette) remembered me, but i didn't remember her. another single song with her, but there were some other girls too. and it was pretty nice dancing with andrea last week. some dude said he liked my wig(?) do i have clown hair, i wonder now i need a picture it's getting long and curly. i didn't drink anything before. but my back started hurting and something under my left collar bone and i took a break got something. i've been spending way too much time reading the intp mailing list. a couple folks got booted. and i've been sending messages for one of them to leave. maybe as an example of how it is to kick someone. if started reading a book on consulting. the consulting companies charge a lot and hire total newbies, generally for low pay, and they lose the experienced people. i guess it explains while doug with 6 months experience has a management job for (what was it?) $70/hour. desperation. but it works, i guess, because its competitive, and it's ok as long as everyone is as bad. i wonder if there is a thing where real competance is punished (maybe by overwork, peter prinicple, or something else). anyway you can do pretty steady stuff as a programmer if you're very good, but with specific skills for the contract. i need to get java prog certified. our first client paid, and i negotiated with bruce to lower the rate to $65/hour so we can get more business. (i get half, which is pretty good). if we do get more business, we can charge more, if we want. actually, i think i am pretty skilled in general, but i'm gonna need to study a lot more. i did hear somewhere else (some web page for indep consultants) that companies prefer to go with the big name consulting firms for the reliability, so it is actually pretty hard for the little guy to get work. which turns out to be really sad, since they use underpaid, overworked, inexperienced folk. i doubt they have very good product. and yet they get the business. scared little bunnies needing security. cf. microsoft. we need to get some system together, then install it and customize it over and over.
i finally saw austin powers: the spy who shagged me. it was
shaggerific. not quite so funny as wayne's world, i think, a little
too low-brow, but it had some nice bits besides the comedy. it was
just fun to look at (i just love go-go dancers) and what's her face
felicity shagwell is just strikingly sparkly. i really liked the
music (two versions (i think they played the original) of "american woman"
but i really like the new lenny cravitz one, which they play on the radio)
and personally, i think it's worth the price to see burt bacurac (no idea
how to spell it) and elvis costello playing at a sidewalk cafe.
generally, i don't like time travel fiction, but this is a spoof, and i
really think it needs to be made fun of.
i went to a tear jerker festival at davedavedave's house in millington.
i saw object of my affections about unrequited love with jennifer
aniston who unluckily loves a gay. i wasn't too impressed, i guess.
and sayonara with brando and red buttons(who got best supporting,
the guy who owns the tape thinks his was the best supporting job ever,
i don't know) it's in japan and seems a little cliched to me. has a
double suicide. bfd. manages a happy ending (give me a break).
everyone else left and dave and i watched stepmom. big-toothed
julia and susan surrandon (i prefer sue blane). actually
dave fell asleep about a half hour before the end, and i don't
blame him. it wasn't touching enough
to just deal with the problems of being a stepmom, they had to throw
in cancer. way too contrived. and it just got really really slow.
come on, die already. and something i had trouble with, step mom
just throws this 10 year old some money to go buy some food. in new york.
and he gets lost. duh. am i supposed to believe anyone would be that
stupid, then again, is a photographer on a photo shoot going to be tied up
for 5 hours solid? don't they have to change sets and clothes and things?
i've also started on popper's logic of scientific discovery.
skepticism, i read in an article in science last week, is true.
you can't prove anything based on experience because you need an infinite
stack of premises. but that's not the same as relativism--that all statements
are equally valid. or nihilism, that there is no truth. some statements
are true are false, but they can't be proven based on experience.
the question, though is how science can claim to build knowledge.
criticism is the key. i guess not having doubt is a way to judge truth.
maybe i'll find out from popper.
hmm, well, i got andrea's phone number. she's actually from norway.
i'm supposed to call her to go dancing tomorrow. she really is sweet.
suzanne got my resume to the engineering vp. why are women nice all
of a sudden?
fireworks, done properly, are not a fire hazard.
emotions stay around for a while. this may be needed to get them
into long-term memory. the meditative practice of letting feelings
and thoughts go immediately when they arise allows one to be free of
their influence, possibly even disconnecting some attachments.
bruce talked to me about giving me more money for this consulting stuff.
hmm. he gets $100. i get $25. yeah, that seems
real fair. then again, i'm not real worth it to him to be there at all.
reb asked for a discount, too. i said it was too much.
i need to get some certifications.
they postponed the mensa meeting. so no folding, stapling, or mutilating,
and no cute chicks. bummer. and nothing back from the match.com babe
that's dropping by memphis. grr. looks like another lonely weekend.
went to the itec show. a computer industry convention. lots of
consultant people, and i'm gonna need to send out some resumes.
and i actually sent one out (yay!) to suzanne at cortelco. it has
been a long time.
people like to think that there's gonna be something quick and magical
to make everything better. god's true name.
so, i heard that denim & diamonds used to be a gay place. there are some
dancing guys that might be gay. and these women may be thinking that
i'm gay. harumph.
for every light on broadway there's a twitching frog.
suzanne was telling me that women like to hunt for bargains when shopping.
i know its some response from something on my website (maybe something
about hunting or stalking), but i'm guessing
it's something i wrote several years ago. she was actually nice enough
to fix the poor word wrap on my resume when she printed it out.
overall very nice. and she cooks. the good ones are all taken.
but the bad thing was, that she used the word "money" and got dumped
ino my spam folder.
so tomorrow there's a fold, spindle, mutilate party. maybe i will see
aimee and see if she wants to see austin powers, or if i missed that chance.
and i can just fold and spindle.
and from nowhere, somebody from match.com mentioned that she's coming into
town. maybe i'll go see her. but first i need to look up which one
she is.
the check program i wrote stopped working. and i don't think it was my program
itself that stopped. it still has a lot of debugging display and it
shows an sql command that gets sent out but doesn't execute. that means
that it's microsoft's fault. i think. or maybe sun. grr.
the exercise seems to help
i had a nightmare about gangstahs. drug guys. woke me up so i had
trouble getting back to sleep. wanted to take control of me
the guy who said my dancing sucked was at d&d, and he lost his glass.
at some point he was standing in front of them and i picked them up
for him.
maybe i should study, or do, some bioinformatics. there is a plan
on that at stanford.
at the mensa meeting, davedavedave brought his progressive reloader and we
loaded 45 auto. it got kind of spoiled when we let a little kid do
some, and he put in a double charge in one. i think we caught that one,
but we weren't sure about the others, and we spent, maybe a couple hours
at the end trying to weigh them (300 rounds) to see. it turns out that
the variation in weight of casings made it hard to tell. i personally
got really familiar with the machine, and i was thinking of getting one,
and mike has one he needs to set up and i might help
i think ive built up a tolerance to the beer. i guess i should quit
if it isn't doing anything for me. before i get addicted.
and i did talk to andrea about how i dont believe in privacy. its
for rich people. she said its different for women. i dont know.
im going try to get certified as a java programmer. i got, like, 6.5/7
on the sample test. i need to also try to certify as a developer,
but that requires a really mean bit of server networked, multithreaded
code. the java architect stuff, i only got 4/6. its weird stuff.
maybe i can read the stuff or book or whatever.
i cant get the freakin' ppp working in linux. i'm getting quite annoyed.
i even tried to get help on irc #linux. the error is in communications,
packets tx with errors.
i'm reading
it's more than a yes/no thing
i missed how beautiful all the women were when i hated them so much
helping is sharing the work, not doing it for someone else. that's serving.
the force metaphor comes from body pressure, like fingers pushing. when
we push, the thing pushes back, which we feel. it's just a description
of a process in human terms.
everyone is doing the best with the pieces they have
time is not linear.
everyone stands in a similar relationship to the universe (for a suitable
meaning of similar).
our reaction is our own
what is the sum of all reactions?
there is more dead guitar talent than live, it seems
i am nothing.
bruce wants to get into computer consulting, but i'm not sure he has
customers, or any vision of what he wants to do.
just haven't felt like writing. too much time playing defender and solitaire
and freecell. and i was trying to get linux up again on my computers.
installing ppp on the laptop isn't quite finished. i had to get a new
kernel to handle the pc cards, and ppp itself isn' too nice. right now
it doesn't seem to set the default route, but the modem does connect
to the provider. on the desktop, i have a new hard disk, so i have to install
from scratch. i have redhat 5.0, maybe i should upgrade that. and the
xfree driver doesn't work, and it looks like my ethernet card might not
get supported. with luck the plug and play stuff will help it out.
the metrox system didn't recognize the mouse (maybe that was the default kernel's
problem) but at least brought up the configuration screen but now that i have xfree
on it, rpm doesn't want to install metrox. i guess i can uninstall xfree
i really don't like the command line rpm. i'm getting too used to windows.
i finally got some little notepads to keep in my pocket, so i can
write stuff down now when i think of them. i just haven't been moving
them to the journal.
i didn't realize in _star wars_ that padme and the queen were the same
person (or at least that it was the queen that was hot for annakin and
not the handmaiden.) actually i think it'd be better if annakin hooked up
with the handmaiden. and i'm still not sure who actually cleaned r2d2.
and that lord siddeus was senator palpatine. that meant that the whole
situation was completely orchestrated to put palpatine in position to
take over the republic and become emperor. i saw it for a third time
with this knowledge, and i realized that it just didn't matter to me.
that intrigue and plotting stuff just doesn't appeal to me, or it doesn't
sound convincing or something. maybe i didn't buy it all. maybe i don't
think individuals are all that significant.
somebody interviewing with david gergen about some history book.
hew said that what kept the u.s. boys (and they were just boys) together
in the winter in belgium in the cold trenches was the company cohesion.
they didn't want to let their buddies down. not any great moral feeling
or patriotism. just a very close comraderie. and their greatest fear
was that they would be afraid, and then they got into it and everyone
was afraid, and they just had to learn to deal with it.
there was a show about aging on pbs. it had some weirdly contradictory bits,
like an experiment were inactive flies lived longer, but they go on an on
about the importance of exercise. happy rats living in a rich active environment.
and exercise not only increase blood to the brain (and thus oxygen) which
i had heard, but they also found some evidence that it increases some type
of nerve growth factor, so now i have a better reason to exercise, and
i think i will exercise more. i have been doing stuff more since then.
every day makes sense. only three times a week and it's too easy to
just quit. it's like quitting every other day, it makes it hard to
start up, and it doesn't seem to become a habit.
and you've got yer oxygen and free radicals that vitamins c and e are
supposed to capture, so i'm trying to take the vitamins again. also,
glucose causes collagen and proteins to cross-link, hardening arteries
and such, but they've got some unlinking drugs they're working on.
they really look like they might be able to significantly increase
lifespan pretty soon. and then it's a matter of making it to the
singularity. if only they hadn't given me kidney damage. and recently,
the doctor said it was slightly getting worse.
i also haven't been studying the german like i wanted, or drawing.
but maybe i'll get back to it.
one of the companies i was working for is closing. i should find something
else, but bruce seems strangely happy with me staying there. i'm not
sure if he's being nice or what. there are a few things left to do,
i guess.
i've started going to the mensa meetings (called "temperance") around
the corner (next to platinum plus, actually) on fridays. all of them
are gun people. i guess a group will wind down into some core group
with some particular common interest. one guy seems pretty sure civilization
is about to fall. i'm not sure i would disagree, but i'm not sure that
we aren't gonna have something else rise pretty quickly in its place.
me believing that machines should take over things.
and there's this cute thing (she used to work as a model) (but she's
married to some guy who's trying to get into medical school, now
an emt) (i don't
know how it came up, but married people don't have sex very often,
and she was saying she was once a month. i just think there's something
really wrong there) who said the place she works
cortelco
is looking for engineers.
she gets a $5000 bonus if she finds one. it sounds rather boring,
and it isn't a java thing. it's a telecom thing and it's like c or
something. so it doesn't sound exactly right for me, and i've noticed
how people really key in on that. but i should give it a shot.
i guess i should really try to get some kind of engineering job.
and i'm thinking they want experience too.
i've got me a rope now, with knots tied in it spaced a foot apart. now
i've got something to climb with. but it isn't the best rope. 5/16"
nylon with #360 max. i'm not sure how much to trust it. i think it's
solid. i had bought some cored stuff that i definately don't trust.
it's not the same as real climbing rope, but hardware stores don't
have a great selection.
a society must strike a balance between freedom, equality, and fairness.
if it is fair and there is freedom, then those who are more successful, and work harder will
not be equal to the others. if there is no freedom, society will not
flourish, because improvements will not be tried. inequality, though,
will cause unhappiness in those who are worse off than others (a quirk
of human emotion). and then there is the overall issue of getting
people to do anything. equality ends up being a sticky bit. and
it was pretty revolutionary. america has opted for a weakened government
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