Finally, today's regular blog

I think I had an amazing day off. Filled with philosophy, self-reflection, solitude, and tattoo planning. I woke up around 1PM, discovering that, now, after the work on the burst pipe, my room is, for the first time this winter, uniformely heated with the rest of the apartment (I've woken up completely unwilling to emerge from the covers due to the frigid temperature outside them). I bullshat on the laptop in bed for an hour, got up, peed and smoked a cigarette, grabbed a Mountain Dew, and started researching online and posting to this blog, which, in total, will be in 3 parts, consisting of 5 posts.

My new tattoo conceptualizing and researching, in the form of the first three posts, consumed my day, almost uninterrupted, from approximately 2PM to 11PM.

I then took a shower, and this picture, starting this post.

The tree is starting to show red branches. Here it is for yesterday:

And today:

Surely I should go to bed relatively soon, considering tomorrow starts my first Friday of weekly 7-3 shifts. I will, however, finish with one more post, describing, as promised, the deepest meaning behind my current tattoos.

Dream Logic: An Arbitrary Idiosyncrasy

As Phil got me up, around 6:30, unexpectedly at the moment, I desperately tried to remember what was just on my mind just before I had regained consciousness. And I had plenty of time to continue to regroup my rested thoughts, until, on the slow drive to work because of a heavy night time snowfall, a loud and obnoxious burst of sludge hit the car as a truck passed us on the highway, jolting my level of awareness once again. (note: unshowered and unawake, I was riding in to drop him off, as I was to go in later this afternoon, before he got off today.)

Through all this, the only thing I can come up with of my thoughts, is a merging conglomerate of visual ideas, none of which I can untangle. The one clear concept I can pull from this, however, is my first thought process of the day after sleep, which was something similar to the following, an internal monologue, with sound clips noted in parenthesis:

The brain (Waiting)! What was just in mine? What did it have to do with anything? Does it matter? It must, if I want to know so bad. Then what did it have to do with? Dream logic. Was it just a random firing of nerve endings? Swing away (Signs). God does not play dice (Einstein). What is the main difference between logic and dream logic? Working memory in a computer is random access memory. What is the main difference between a machine's logic and mine? Do all organisms think like this? Do all organisms think? Are rocks, and/or molecules sentient? Does matter react to other matter and its environment through a certain level of internal decision? Am I really acting through a decision process? If everyone/thing has minds, are they all capable of being creative? The brain (Waiting)! Natural selection. We are here because of the ideas we and those before us had. Artificial selection. That's it, ideas are only human made. Are they? Is mutation really random? Is nature really creative through chance? God does not play dice (Einstein). Does a formula exist to explain this phenomenon? Are machines we've created going to gain sentience and overpower us? Do they already have sentience, but lack sense? This game is bullshit! Should be same set of rules for everyone (Big Daddy)! If I'm spouting off quotes in my mind, am I really capable of creative thought? Immortality (Dr. Michio Kaku, from an interview I watched last night or so). Death. Sleep. Thoughts.

Life...

In all seriousness, and without one thought of a depressing nature, I think it's safe to say, that life itself, in being sentient, is an emotional phenomenon primarily described as solitude. There's always something missing, and it becomes our principal goal to find whichever we think that is.

Whether it be the search for God, a unifying theory describing ,

(At this point, I was abruptly interrupted by a maintenance crew of four or five gentlemen, all on phones at the moment discussing the situation with various parties, knocking on my door. They entered and swiftly bee lined to the back room in which I was seated quietly, where apparently directly underneath, a pipe had burst, drenching the apartment below. I had to move all my shit out that side of my room, which includes my laptop and desktop computers, the desk and chair, speaker system, and amounts of other furniture, clothing, and various other accoutrement, and since then, there has been banging and whirring, and several other individuals have come in to take looks and ask me questions. They all seem very puzzled, but I mean come on guys. I should really be the puzzled one here.)

Now as I was saying, some people's lives lack excitement (obviously not mines), certain others are hungry or can't pay bills, some are in search for love or family, some are trying to accomplish remarkable feats, but lack the tools or senses, and some people just want a fucking cigarette. If you don't want something, you're dead. Choose your paths wisely.

Here are some pictures of god knows what:

(I actually just googled god knows what and went to extra large image sizes.)

A pic of my face yesterday morning, when I didn't really want to go to work, and I was right to not want to, because it was really fucking dumb and long:

Yesterday's tree:

Today's tree:

Me after rolling out of bed at noon:

And after cleaning up:

My idol.

Friedrich Nietzsche.

(click)

Today's the day...

...in which I write this blog.

Phil and I saw Rise of the Lycans on payday. It was awesome; a really good prequel, I think. Cool plot. Picture the inverse relationship of violence to storyline: if Underworld 2 was a 10 on a scale from 1 to gore, and the first movie was a 5, the prequel was a 2.5 (not to say there weren't massive spears impaling heads, we're talking in relation to each other movie). Figure that paragraph out, fuckers.

Stop.

Break time. Click this link.

Now let's discuss my iGoogle page.

It's awesome. Here's the theme I'm using. Though I change it constantly, this one satisfies me for now, as it has a cycling, appealing design.

The latest gadget I added was Google Reader, and it was filled with blogspot blogs I was following, without my having to add them. Great. Now I have 'my myspace' and a 'blogspot blog.'

Anyways, then I've got gadgets for searching wikipedia, dictionary(and thesaurus and reference).com, and Google directions. That way, on my home page, I can search from where I want, from one page, as quickly as possible.

Then, there are ones for my gmail, to log into my myspace, a simple four day weather forecast, personal calender/planner, and dictionary.com's word of the day. Why not, I like to learn.

This is all visible, save the driving directions, without scrolling down. Upon doing so, I gain access to: top five digg's, customizable by category, etc; maps of the current moon phase, daylight coverage of the US, and the solar system alignment; a tiny preview of any info I could possibly want from my eBay account; three web comics I follow (xkcd, Cyanide and Happiness, Dinosaur Comics); and an Einstein quote of the day.

Now I just need a gadget that tracks my newegg wishlists. (*checks newegg wishlists*) FUCK! Now my motherboard is out of fucking stock! As has been the f graphics card I decided on, since I've f been f watching it, and the gd power supply, ffs. Those motherfuckers! Piss on my goddamn nuts and call me a bitch! Shitting out the window, and pissing out the window, are two, different, things!

I did, however, buy this router in preparation, with a decent discount (and it really doesn't suck):

In other news, the Pandora station I've been listening to with good results, has failed me for the last four songs. Thumbs down! By the way - Best Buy bought Pandora, and, adding this sentence after posting, I actually just got a little sound clip ad inbetween songs. Suck cock.

I'm too lazy to take a picture of myself right now, even though I look fucking amazing. Trust me. But here is a picture of me two days ago:

23rd Tree:

24th Tree:

25th Tree:

And lastly, when I went to grab the camera to upload photos to post, I caught Phil posing sexily, and made the most of the trip:

Day off blog again

Ok, so my whole bank bullshit is taken care of, and I get paid tomorrow, so I get to see if I made my promotion, blah blah blah, my bank's site is down and I can't check if I got all my refunds. Real comforting.

Been catching up with my good old friend Nate the past couple days, and decided to send him the power supply I plan on getting for my machine, as he'd helped me with hardware purchases in the past, and he's looking into some computer upgrading as well. He also showed me some sites (example) where I can save a little money on the same parts (even compared to newegg), etc, and gave lots of great advice that has/will help with the entire adventure of building the PC. However, after saving a little bit of money, I decided to upgrade my monitor to a 25.5 inch widescreen ASUS with DVI/HDMI/Component/RCA in, and I added a few components to the rig for heat cooling.

I can't decide between these two heatsink/fans for the CPU. Specs for fan speed, noise level, weight, and heat distribution are comparable, I'm now going on aesthetics and airflow direction:

I think the total machine, with Windows included, monitor, accesories, cooling and all, as well as a new router I'd wanted, will be about $2300. I've decided to order it bit at a time, starting with shit I can use right away, and finally ending with one huge order, including the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and graphics card (which I have to watch for since it's been out of stock). Together, the four things on the final order will cost just under $1000, but I don't want to be stuck with parts that I have no way of testing for defects, not to mention laying around the house teasing me because I can't use them yet. (And I'm considering my extended warranty options, another possible cost.)

I had lots of laughs while talking to Nate and remembering old inside jokes from going to school, bullshitting, practically living together, building shit, troubleshooting networks, and gaming until we couldn't breathe or think, a lot. But as I filled out the order form for his new PSU, I kept drawing a blank on his last name, and could only think of one of his gaming handles, and I wanted to put "gunner."

Oddly, I always imagined New York having cold water, or at least a limited supply of hot water, particularly for showering, and particularly in apartment buildings. And it's true for me; it's fucking miserable to take a normal shower if someone's just done the same. And I just did. And I'm beginning to think I have a real problem with beginning sentences with 'and' or 'but.' But I'm not bothered enough to try to fix it.

Charged the camera today, deleted the pics I'd already transferred, continued to edit and tweak my myspace and the blog therein, making a post there about a fucked up dream I had, and signed up for twitter, without reason or result.

I liked the way my hair came out after I took my cold shower and didn't brush it:

Here's me with a bad habit (that's a geek squad poster I nabbed):

Me as a fucking nudist giant (partial nip slip):

And the tree, taken a little late in the day, with like a million cars passing at once for some reason:

Don't make a fool out of me. I want my money, man.

In this life,

one thing counts.

In the bank,

large amounts

...So, upon getting access to my bank account, and finally getting in to make my deposit, I noted that I had a few $12 charges I was unsure of, and was advised to cancel my card and call the bank corporate office to dispute the charges...

I ignored that and went home, researching the company listed on the transactions, and found this, which points out that a lot of people purchasing plane tickets online got scammed and automatically signed up for what is advertised as a shopper discount program that saves you money or gives you rewards on purchases, but in reality just charges you monthly fees of generally $9-12.

I called the number, cancelled the subscription, and stayed on the line to talk to a rep, to request the previous charges be dropped, which was completely smooth and without question, and the dude actually informed me that I was signed up for 2 different subscriptions, only one of which I had just cancelled through their automated phone system seconds before. He cancelled the second, and informed me that I would be credited four $12 charges within three business days.

Being busy with work through the holidays and because my account was locked, I never noticed the charges from last month, which occurred around the time I purchased movie tickets online. Looks like this is an internet fraud that has no trace entering your local computer to be blocked by protection software, nor is it disguised as a web page that could be blocked by anti-phishing tactics. It's fucking brilliant, and it's not new.

Here's how it works, but I've got to interrupt and put this link in, which is both hilarious and awesome:

Software developers created an online shopping cart service with several aliases, and marketed it to companies that obviously sell services online. It's totally legit and professional software that works exactly as intended. The companies targeted just have to agree to include the advertised offer to sign up for the rewards program on every transaction, but the catch is, apparently customers don't have to agree to sign up. The ads can get contact and charge info from the shopping cart forms, which the consumer never assumes is even released from the same company as the ads. The biggest problem is, the monthly fee they charge for the "subscription" is never advertised. This means people will potentially consciously sign up, but on the flip side, it also means they can't legally charge you, which is probably why it was so apparently easy to get my money refunded.

Bang!

Also, I finally got Windows 7 to run, but had to use Virtual PC, and it's pretty slow and unexciting.

Here's a digg comment that I am proud of.* (Show Carrie):

*Please note that I was struggling to decide what to post in the seconds before I typed it. I've been wanting to use this response for a couple years, but I also had in mind a response to the same quote, "I'll try anything once," from Dead Poet's Society: "Except sex."

It's been a long post again. Here's another break with a similar video.

Here's the tree and my face:

I need to remember to re-trace the pencil mark of the camera position for the tree shots. The snow wiped it almost clean.

One more link for the road. Related:

Day off.

Got into my bank account finally. It's in the hole. Walked about a half an hour to the bank with the last paycheck I never deposited. They were closed at four. It was four thirty. People were inside. It was locked. It made me do that thing where you squint your eyes like -_- and you're all like, "PISS!"

So then I walked home and didn't do much other than reorganize my media drive on the laptop. It is now so much easier to find shit. I need to do the same on the desktop, but that's even worsely organized. And the drive there is a terabyte.

I just installed Virtual PC 2007 on said drive, after giving up on reburning and retrying to boot Windows 7. It's installing now through Virtual PC without a problem so far.

Loos like we went an entire week without taking a picture of the tree. Here are the most recent pics:

01-18

01-20

The scenery from right outside our door follows. Since we'd moved here I've wanted to take a photo of that view. I love the buildings in this complex, but that one in particular, and the trees and landscaping I think are remarkable. The snow was fucking gorgeous last night from two days of really good snow, which fell heavily, yet rested and stacked weightlessly, sparkling flawlessly on every surface, but the best qualities have melted away. You can see the beginning of it rested on the tree in the first pic. It was about twice that high on each branch surface.

Me on Sunday

And today

I'm serious

I'm gonna start ordering parts to build my new PC, starting with probably RAM, then board, then cpu, then graphics, then etc. I'll be purchasing Vista Ultimate x64, but the reason I post this is, I'm installing the beta for Windows 7 on my current desktop PC.

I didn't realize it was out in open beta. Apparently, it's open for download to the first 2.5 Million users, and will expire in August. I'll be installing 32 on my XP desktop, on an extra hard drive, and check it out on my new PC when it happens.

So far, hilariously, I had to plug in my DVD-ROM's internally, which have been disconnected and unused since I installed Age of Conan when it came out. That's probably like nine months now. I coulda had a fuckin baby.

Then, finally booting to the disc, it took for EVER, and I was initially paranoid that it wasn't doing anything at all, but then it came up with the familiar setup screen. I hit next twice and waited - it seemed like it was going to hang again.

Then it halted with, "Windows could not collect information for [OSImage] since the specified image file [install.wim] does not exist."

I'm re-burning it. I'll likely be up all night with this. Whether it works or not, I want to check out my newly downloaded Ubuntu ISO as well.

*Update: Failed again with the second disc. I'm installing Ubuntu now, and downloaded a new ISO burning program to see if maybe just maybe...

In the meantime, if anyone asks me at work, client to tech, about Windows 7, I'll continue to claim to've never heard of a new version of Windows.

pic unrelated

Also Also Wik:

I started fucking around with photo editing a bit for the first time in literally years, and this is what I came up with:

Fascinating! I've got a lot more ideas, too, just with that picture of me.

Then I decided to play with my hair.

It always poofs out like a damn squirrel's nest of apes' pubes, so I brush it every morning with my moustache brush, and at least keep it centered. Tonight I decided to expiriment with a little product in it. The results before this photo were slightly frightening, but in the end, as it started to form together and straighten, I thought I might try to braid it. But it was still very prone to entangle into one pubenest, so I herded it up into tails.

I kept those in for a couple whiles, and then I felt it safe to take them out. They did start to expand, but held their shape well enough to attempt the braid.

It turned out to be nigh- impossible, and even harder a task to fix a tie on the end. However since the braid did stick, for the most part, I felt partially satisfied, and paraded silently in triumph, for others were going to sleep.

It made me want to trim the shorter furls among the edges, though I stayed true to my month, and went on unshaven and uncut. We are officially over halfway finished with Just Grow it January.

Send Money

Ugh. Ok, so my raise was supposed to go into effect for the entire pay period of the last check that I got, but it hadn't, so the check was obviously less than expected. Not to say I'm out of funds or anything (hell this last check was the first I'd picked up same day it was issued since I've been here over six months - I never need the money on payday - I was just excited to see the new figure), but I'm doing more work, and it'd kinda be nice if I were getting properly compensated for it, as I was promised.

Next paycheck is already going to be the end of this week, Friday, Jan. 23rd, and I remember this, because I knew it was the same date that Underworld: Rise of the Lycans will have been released in theaters, because I'd planned on seeing it then, and possibly roaming the mall with my newly cashed bag of money.

By the way, Rhona Mitra is in this movie, and not Kate Beckinsale, though they bear a slightly eerie resemblance that I would have otherwise never caught:

Now, then, though, I have to wait to see whether the raise is finally reflected in this upcoming check, and whether the remainder of what should have been on the last check is also included. If I was writing a poem, I'd italicize around every other word, so stress was dealt in pattern. But I'm not, so I'll go on.

Knowing all this, I went to log into my bank account just now, and the fucking thing's locked, reportedly due to high attempts to log in, sometime since the 13th, the last day I'd logged in. So there's of course an option to be emailed a reset code (which is allegedly good for 30 minutes), but I just tried that three damn times and it keeps claiming that the code is expired. And the customer service hot line is currently after hours.

That's what happens, man. Where's my money, man? Huh? WHERE'S MY MONEY?!

I want to fucking build a computer, and I don't want to have to worry about blowing all my cash or whatever. Also, my student loans are being ignored. I'm being fucking American and it makes me feel sick and dirty. However, I am getting excited about the new rig, which will be roughly as follows:

Intel BOXDX48BT2 LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Motherboard
8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 RAM
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache CPU
1000W SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC PSU
Probably use one of the ATX cases I already have

BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Graphics Card, possibly something greater, with HDMI out
802.11n (draft) /g/b PCI Express Xtreme WiFi NIC
LG 6X Blu-ray 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA / 16X DVD±R DVD Burner
Probably a Raptor for the O/S Hard Drive, and throw my 1TB in for storage.

22 inch 2ms DVI Widescreen with HDCP Support 300 cd/m2 DC 8000:1 LCD Monitor

Bootable O/S's:

Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Mac OS X Leopard

Ubuntu

I plan on spending around $15 C (or MD, or 1.5K), and no more than 2 G's (or MM, or 2K), for the entire machine, including initial software, then on down the road I'll add audio equipment and iLife for Garage Band.

I also just upgraded my City of Heroes accounts to Mac Special Edition... I have the in-game items, an extra paid month of game time, and an installer for the Mac version, but I'm getting itchy to actually experience it on a Mac. And the one I build will be a fucking animal. People ingame have been noticing my new costumes (the new items are satisfyingly cool btw), and asking if I'm playing on a Mac, and it makes me feel, almost guilty not to be.

In other news...

To make up for my non-posting and non-picture taking, I'll follow through with a silly idea I had.

Most Popular Google Searches per Letter of the Alphabet, with Brief Critiques

1. Amazon, Apple
I've been using Amazon for purchases, wishful thinking, and even research lately.

2. BBC, Best Buy
Best Buy beat Circuit City by 70,000,000 hits.

3. Chase, CNN
borrring...

4. Dell, Dictionary
Fuck Dell. Dictionary all the way!

5. eBay, Express, Earth
I've also been using eBay for purchases, wishful thinking, and even research lately. And I'm glad people are interested in their home planet.

6. Facebook, Firefox, Flikr
meh, meh, interesting photos

7. Google, Games
Morons, you are USING Google!

8. HP, Hotmail


9. Images, iPhone, IMDB
Photos, technology, movies. I think I wins coolest search starter.

10. Jobs, Java
You're not going learn to understand java online, quit trying.

11. Kijiji
I hated Craigslist, I liked eBay, I'm happy for Kijiji!

12. Love, Lyrics
You're not going to find love online, quit trying.

13. MSN, Movies, Myspace
I hate searches FOR sites. type it the fuck in the address bar.

14. News
Wins N by a landslide, and I am content with this.

15. Obama
If Obama was also running for most searched O-word, he won that too.

16. People, Paypal, People Search
What the fuck people, be more specific.

17. Quotes, Quizzes
Sometimes I think these are what the internet is for.

18. Real Estate, Recipes
R wins for most serious life-applying search.

19. Sony, Skype
because your Sony item is in for service at the Geek Squad, and you want to find out the number of the service center, to call and complain, only to find out that they've posted an incorrect contact number. Also, the guy at Best Buy just told you about Skype.

20. Target
I truly wonder how many people had bows and arrows in mind.

21. UPS, USPS
U unexpectedly takes lead for mail-related searching!

22. Video, Virgin
Finally, concrete, undeniable evidence. Internet is for porn.

23. Weather, www.youtube.com, Wikipedia
ADDRESS BAR!!!!

24. XBox 360
Yeah, I want one too.

25. Yahoo, Youtube
Okay, fuck you. I'm done. Fuck Z.

Here's my face. Today (unkempt):

the 11th (mohawk flared):

the 9th (not a typical photo of me):

Also, I made a pretty big update to my myspace. Click the link, don't do a search for it.

I'm sorry... I've been completely fucking lackadaisical.

I don't think we've been following through with even taking photos of the tree daily, but here's what I've got to post, and what I found out:

I left off at the 5th. I'm missing a couple days (11th, 13th-15th), and some were taken at night, which I am pretty much deeming not worth it. So mostly, we'd forgotten to take the photos before work, and not bothered after work, because of the nightfall.

01-06

01-07

01-08

01-09

01-10

01-12