chaz720.net - journal

January 01, 2000

01-01-00 <-- Damn that looks cool. It looks like it's in binary or something.

What's really funny is; I was reading some of the early entries in this journal and I realized how wrong I was about life sucking then. First we will start with the good news, or what there is of it. We had the dollar game today at work and I won $105 off of it yeah...

And that's about for the good news, so if you are already deppressed I suggest you stop reading now. First of all, I didn't get any sleep last night, as I figured I wouldn't, so I ended up having to work the ten hours with no sleep. Next, Tarak, the other guy at my counter, took a two and a half hour lunch at like 3:30 and essentially screwed me out of any form of break for the ten hours. Next, I realized about halfway through the day that I was so delerious that I had been talking like Jim Carey in Man on The Moon to everybody, but no one said anything. I assume they were at least kind enough to laugh behind my back. Now I get home from work and I crash on the couch. I am told to leave because they want to watch a movie there and I am in the way, so I go to my room, ten minutes later my grandma shows up and said she needs my room, so I figure I'll sleep in one of the beds in the guest room, but no, those are both taken as well. So right now I have a sleeping bag and a pillow and I need to find a nice place to crash. I was sleeping on the floor in my room but my sister is bugging me to make CD's for her right now. In fact, in that last sentence, she interupted me to tell me that I should be converting her second CD to WAV files (how selfish of me to not be)

To make matters worse, I found out that I am sick. I can't breathe through my nose and I can feel scrtchy noises in my throat mwhen I do breathe, I can feel my pulse in my forehead and I think my eyes are swelling shut.

So to recap, I am trying to make up for 48 hours of not sleep, 10 of which were spent working straight, but I can't sleep because I don't have a place to, I am very sick, and I keep getting woken up every five inutes to do a trivial task., and I have to work tomorrow too. I think I just might be inclined to call in. But hey, at least I have an extra hundred bucks.

January 02, 2000

I didn't go to work today as I had predicted because this morning I had a fever of 102 and I couldn't open my left eye. I think that's grounds for a day off. I feel much better now after my day-long NyQuil-induced coma.

Welcome back to town Marci, hope you had a great vacation. And as all good things do winter break comes to an end, ever so suddenly. I had almost forgotten about school all togetther and look at the next five months as merely an obstical in the way of my going to college. I just really hope I don't end up letting my grades go to shit because I can't stay focussed. I would like to remain as good a student as I have but we will see as time rolls on.

I just got done with some homework that I found in my bag and had completely forgot about. No major stuff just some little things for english. That is one thing I won't miss from High school - having the first semester end after winter break.

I have made a decision; I am going to buy an AMD athlon 650 MHz proc. my celeron 500 just doesn't cut it for 3d gaming. I can tell that it is bogged down by the 66Mhz bus speed and that needs to be corrected. I am buying the chip and board from AMD's retail proffesionals website for $199 plus shipping. and i can get 128MB PC100 memory from a place on price watch for $121 plus shipping. so for around $350 my computer will become a small god. I can then burn little candles around it and sing songs of warship and you will all do the same if you know what is good for you.

My sister's car got hit today. Some guy was in a jeep wrangler with a stick and was moving out of a space and he let go of the brake too soon and rolled onto my sister's car... ...oops. So my sister needs a new hood and front bumper. And now it also doesn't want to start for some reason, I think there may be something wrong with her radiator but we'll have to see. It's a good thing that she doesn't work this week because she sure as hell wasn't going to get my car.

My other sister and her boyfriend left today so I get my room back and I can finally go to sleep to the sound of my computer's drolling fan noise again. Horay! I don't know what it is, but once you are used to falling asleep under certain conditions, it becomes difficult to sleep outside of those conditions, so beleive it or not, the computer fans actually help me fall asleep now. Regardless, it's kinda late now and I need to get up before noon tomorrow.

January 03, 2000

I think I'm going to be sick. I am listning to loveline and there is this guy who has a condition called (hypo-spay-dia), no idea how to spell it, anyway it basically means that the urethera does not come out the end of your penis but rather out the bottom around the middle of the shaft. What the Fuck. How fucking messed up is that. This is why we you don't drink when you are pregnant, your son will have a malformed cock. Well, I just had to get that out.

Today my chemistry teacher only told a couple people in the class that we were meeting in the lab and the rest of the class went to the classroom. We waited for like 20 minutes for a teacher, the labs were locked and I didn't really see anyone in the labs. But then another teacher comes along and tells us to go to one of the labs because our teacher is pissed. So we get there and there are two people in the lab and pretty much all of the time has been used and our teacher basically told the whole class (with the exception of the two people) to go screw themsleves. What a nice teacher, what can I say.

I love how my dad over-simplifies everthing about computers. He hands me a fat stack of documents and tells me that he needs them in word format by tomorrow on a disk, and it's like 11:00 pm. Given, i have a scanner, but that still takes a little while to do all that scanning, not to mention that I have to check errors because the document looks like it has been faxed about 30 times. So I told my dad I would get him a scanner from work. So he is going to have me get an HP 3200C. And I also have a copy of textbridge pro he can have down at his office to see that this doesn't happen again.

I had an interesting day at work today, I sold 7 replacement plans due to a new point that was brought to my attention to a customer; the manufacturer's warrenty never includes shipping, you have to pay for that, and usually that ends up costing more than the replacement plan. So it is technically a good idea to buy them, I never would have figured.

We have been getting an obscene number of different cd-recorders lately but HP has been dragging their feet to get us more of their burners. Even though HP is by far not the best CD-R out there, people seem to be completely biased toward their drives. I had one person buy an HP over a Yamaha solely based on brand name, when he can't burn to anything except high-grade discs I'll be laughing my ass off.

I'm kinda bummed with the whole AMD thing, now I can't place an order until the 12th because they aren't allowing the retail pro people to order until the senior and master retail pro people get a chance. I am going to be very perterbed if they run out of stock before the 12th.

Anyhow, I have to get scanning for a while and then maybe I'll get to my homework.

January 06, 2000

Okay, I need more sleep. I have been a walking zombie for the past week. I have been doing nothing but going to school working and sleeping when I can. I have done no homework of any kind, I have played no unreal tournament, and I have watched no TV. This is really starting to suck. I need a weekend and I need one really bad. Unfortunately, my schedule is all fucked up again thanks to the holiday, I am working on Saturdays now instead of Fridays, which really sucks because I need a full day off once a week, it's just something I need. Mainly because I like to go shooting on the weekends and that usually takes a big chunk out of the middle of the day, but it is also kinda nice to sleep in and go out too. This is perfect for saturdays, but noooo, Mike G has to suck.

Subject change, I got a haircut today. I was having trouble getting it to stay so I figured I'd teach it a lesson. So now I have very little hair. I like it this way, I requires a lot less combing, all you do is dry it with a towel and almost as if by magic my hair is all set. I got a song today that goes way back and I've been playing it ad nausea since. The song is called lake shore drive, you can search for it on napster and get it but it'll take you a few tries, it is the most awsome driving song I've heard, and It's definately going on a CD the next time I go to U of I.

Whoa, that's wierd, Winamp seems to be performing an illigal operation every time I play a song, but If I just ignore the message completely everything works just fine. Well, that's what I get for using windows 98 without restarting for six days.

On tuesday I forgot to put my parking sticker in my window and I got a ticket but I talked my way into the cop tearing it up, I just have to not do it again and I'm all set.

The compUSA christmas party is coming up on sunday and I hear I get to see all the managers piss drunk, We get free food and drink, and they will be giving away a whole bunch of free computer shit. Hell yeah, count me in.

Today as I am pulling out of the Fremd parking lot, ready to go home, I get the greusome threesome running at my car in the parking lot (that's hans, bill, and gim btw) apparently they forgot that joel was on a field trip and was in no way capable of giving them all a ride home. I don't mind or anything, but next time try to execute a little more forethought.

As I said I haven't done any homework all week and by today I think it has to at least some extent caught up with me. I have a paper to write for economics, a few homework assignments to do for statistics, and a lab write-up to work on for chemistry. Despite a fear of sounding like joel, I am tempted beyond restraint to say, 'later kiddies'

January 09, 2000

I can't promise to myself that I will write everyday during the week 'cause I just get home way the hell too late. I will work backwords from tonight.

Tonight was cool, I went to the CompUSA party at the bowling ally. Mike G layed down a can of whoop ass on everyone, he very rarely didn't get a strike and he never didn't pick up the spare. In my opinion, not a fun way to bowl at all. I'll tell you how bowling is supposed to be done. You pick up a six pound ball, palm it (cause there ia no way you can get your fingers into those damn holes) and chuck the thing as hard as you can in the general direction of the pins. I got several strikes that way, and any time I had just a couple of pins still up I would just take out a 14 pounder and layith the smack down on the pins.

Speaking of WWF quotes, I made a fun program for the TI-89 called GigaHans. it has a little health and happiness meter along with a little smiley face that react to you talking to it, feeding it, beating it with things, and driving it places. You can save your Hans and continue at a later time, or finish it to the death. It is essentially one over-elaborate inside joke that will proably only remain funny for a short period of time, but what the hell, it's gigahans, I mean c'mon, how awsome is that.

Today I got another hundred bucks in the TAP game along with about forty yesterday, this is the only way to work, I love it.

The last two nights I spent at Joel's house where we basically sat aroung and didn't get anything done. Except we all beat each other up and retained my title as most struck (I'll be a cold day in hell before I say stricken) person in the group.

Yesterday I got woken up at around a quarter to 7 and it's my sister who wants me to take her to oak lawn, which is like a 45 minute drive each way, and I had work at 8:45 so we had to leave like right then, I'm like damn, give some warning next time so I go to sleep before 3 the night before.

I got a new keyboard that has a bunch of shortcut and internet buttons on it which is kinda cool 'cause now I can type a lot faster and not hurt my wrists as much tdue to the much loved wrist-rest that my old keyboard was lacking. I figured out that someone was messing with my winamp output plug-ins and it got set to directsound. Which, in it's current iteration, is really slow and shitty and causes the song to skip every time you load another program, so now it's back to normal and I can use winamp while burning CDs at 8x, mucho gusto, when I get my new Athlon chip and board, I'm gonna have to do simulate a bunch of times and just push my rig to see how far I can go without buffer under-running the drive.

I have an act to read of hamlet and a lab to write up for chem so I need to get at least some of it done before I go to sleep.

January 10, 2000

I just love it when the customers come into the store and assume that I am a manager or owner or something, and I am in charge of all pricing, policies, and product ordering decisions. I got three people today alone that said that they looked at our web page and found sometihng in stock in our store and for a price that we have never sold it at. I mean honestly, our own in-store inventory computer has a hard time remaining accurate on most things how good do you think that they can keep track of things from Dallas.

I got (or so I hope) my first non-bullshit excuse from flashcom today. I found out for the fifth time that there was a problem with the line speed and my distance. They said that they would have to use a slightly slower service (the very same one I had working for a couple days which was fine by me) but now for like $20 bucks less a month, which plops it right into the price range I was looking for to begin with. So I have a small amount of hope that I might actually get mine working before the 27th which is the day that hans is having his cable modem installed.

I am probably up pretty soon for a raise and I have been selling more TAP lately so I am looking very optimistically toward this review. Stefano is now trying to sell the P-II 300 I sold him because he had a change in plans. He is going to buy hans' P-III 450 w/mb for 200 bucks, and then hans is going to buy the athlon 650 chip and board deal for the same 200 bucks. The funny part, the athlon deal is available to stefano too, so he is basically buying hans a new chip and motherboard. What a lucky little punk, you know some people actually have to buy there computer parts legitamately not resell, or abuse replacement plans all the time. Maybe I'm just lame for having a bit of a concience some of the time, cry me a river.

My journal won't let me edit it in notepad any more because it is too big, It gives me an out of memory error message but it's just a stupid limitaion of that program. Wordpad fixes the problem quite nicely but I don't like how the font shows up in here nearly as much, oh, and in case you have very low levels of deduction, I have changed the background color. This is because not even I couldn't even take any more of that swirly orange shit I used to have.

January 11, 2000

Today I watched GO. I recommend you see it if you haven't already. Which reminds me... ...fuck, I have to bring it back, later.

January 12, 2000

Okay, today I called in swamped at work and stefano was pretty cool about it. Yesterday I had to fudge what should have been an entire semesters worth of notes, orginaization, and project accountability sheets for my electronics class, also, I caught up on statistics homework and now I understand it completely. And I even studied for my chem final just a little bit. So now I feel very caught up on just about everything and I feel much much better about not having done any of the work when I should have. I suppose that isn't really a good thing, but who the hell really cares when you are coasting towards college anyway?

So Rocco calls me up and he needs a CD-Burner installed in his friends computer, and of corse I agreed, because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my life than install computer hardware, right? no, because I'm a nice guy. I hate being a nice guy. When I am around people that I have known for a while, I screw with their heads by cocking off, or acting like a idiot, but when I am around people that I haven't met before I can't act naturally. I'm not really shy nor do I have any fear of public speaking, but there is somthing about acting like a jackass in public that doesn't come across as appealing. I suppose there is a little bit of conformist in all of us.

Well, I'm not going to lie to you, This is actually thursday morning not wednesday night, and right now it's about 7:02 and it is time to start getting ready to go to my daily waste of 8 hours, becase all we do in these few days approaching finals is review stuff that we should have learned during the corse of the semester. Normally I don't complain about school being worthless, but for these few days, I'll make an exception.

January 13, 2000

Today we (my english class along with Mr. Wyman's other English class) watched the 4 hour long version of Hamlet. And it was actually a very good movie. The plot was retarded but it is in the play anyway. However the characters are great and they develop so well in the film. I suggest you watch it for some reason you have an extra 4 hours to spare out of your life. Besides, if nothing else I got extra credit out of it because I brought in an amplifier and speakers so that we could listen to the movie as well as see it.

Today I finished my chemistry lab and I got my unknown right on the first try, thus assuring my grade for the quarter and the fact that I am not going to study for that final. Tomorrow I have my Economics and my Statistics test. While I am not terribly concerned about either of them individually the two of them together seem to pose a great threat. So alas, I have to study for my tests and that is esentially all the homework I have tonight so I will need to get to that.

I recieved my green transparent cover for my TI-89 today, It looks pretty cool, but what would be even cooler is if you could buy the entire casing and move the inerds of your calculator into the new case. This would most certainly cause warrenty problems and thus wouldn't be carried out unless it was by a third party company if at all.

I have to work tomorrow, I haven't worked in three days, I think that is a record for me of some sort. I just assume go all out and not work until sunday, but alas, I am working on a favor to kelly, who, honestly, has never done anything for me in my life, but why should that stop me, it's as good as any reason not to help someone. If you never intend on getting a favor returned then why do it? to be nice? isn't self-promotion what drives the world today. Who has the right to just be nice anymore?

I was walking down the hallway through a crowd and a girl dropped her compact on the floor and it rolled into the traffic of people. I picked it up and handed it back to her in one movement and it was met with a kind of surprise that told me that chivalry was going out of style. Maybe people don't expect others to be nice to them. Maybe we have become so self-centered that when others step into our lives for the sole purpose of making it better we don't always accept it well. Maybe someone has yet to do it for me.

January 14, 2000

I worked MXP today which was both very easy, and yet very much a pain in the ass. You see, most of the time I spent sitting there, just inside the tech shop looking at the MXP desk waiting for customers to show up. The rest of the time was spent dealing with customers that really went out of the way to see how far they could go before I snapped and started yelling at them.

This one person had his DVD-ROM drive in to be replaced. On the service order it said that he was having trouble with choppy playback so warrenty replaced the drive and the hard drive. He would not leave until he saw his computer work in every possible way with every possible disk that we had (and didn't have). First he wanted to play a DVD game in the computer. And I asked him if he had any. He said no and that I should get one and install it. I explained to him that A) we are not allowed to just go out on the floor and tear open games just to appease him and B) that would severely break copyright laws, and while so many people do it without getting caught, not many major stores do. So he says, I don't want to copy it I just want to install it. I'm just like, it's the same thing! Finally he gives up, but now he wants me to play a DVD movie, this I don't mind cause this is what we fixed so I get Debbie to get me a copy of good will hunting.

I pop it in and hit play and I help two other customers. After which, I go back to him and he is about 16 minutes into the movie and he isn't convinced that it worked. I said, "sir I'm sorry but this is a computer store and not a movie theater." So he's like fine, but I want to see an Audio cd work. Okay, I go grab an audio cd and pop it in to play it. It loads up and it plays. I turn the volume up all the way and it is blaring out of the speaker we use, and he is just like, 'I don't hear anything', And I said It's playing, and the other customer next to him confirmed this, so I just said, "if you can't hear it I don't think there much I can do for you." (He probably never heard me) But I'm ure I was not making fun off the handicapped because I was able to carry on a conversation with him without yelling so I think he was full of shit. He then proceded to have me try the audio cd in all of cd-rom drives with three different audio cd player programs each then run a Data CD from each drive to make sure that worked. I was ready to take the speaker and jam it up this guys ass. I'm like, "sir, if at this point there is something wrong with it, I think there's a good chance we would have found it by now." Finally he reluctantly walked away. I mean, damn.

Then later I get this customer who comes in drops the SO sheet on the counter and says, this is my computer, I didn't get a phone call but I suspect that it is done. What does that mean? How do you suspect that your computer is done? Does this guy have a telekenetic link to his laptop so that they share each others occurances? sure enough the laptop was in the D36 cabinet (which means it's in progress) and it didn't even start up. So then he had me call debbie so that he could complain about why his laptop wan't finished yet. When he told her about his feeling that his laptop was finished, debbie just gives me this look like, 'Where the hell do you find these people?' above all the guy never got out of hand and remained calm so I do have to give him credit for that. We have had people throw things before and get generally unpleasent. But at least I didn't have to do any stocking while customers breathe down my neck and a huge line forms like at upgrades. I think I like MXP, I might try a little harder to get moved there.

It sucks to be hans right now. On thursday, he practically failed his calc test and so he parents are going to yell at him, he got home and discovered that AMD was out of the Athlon deal so he was stuck working at compUSA until he could get the next deal, and later that night he broke up with Marci for reasons I won't get into here (see [12-04-99]) he said he was thinking about going outside just to make sure that the ceiling didn't fall in on him. I guess it goes to show you that things can get worse.

January 16, 2000

This sucks, I hate using wordpad because wordpad sucks, but ever since a few days ago notepad decided that the file was too large for it to work with. Fih!

We didn't have our usually weekly TAP game today so I was unable to earn any signifigant amount of extra money today. Hans has officially renamed sundays as turbin-day. Mainly because there is this weird thing about indians and saving money and all of our sales on sundays. However, unfortunately, they're the least accepting of how stores do in fact run out of things that go on sale... ...especially when said things are free after rebate... ...and no we will not give rainchecks on items that the manufacturer's rebate makes free because that would result in you walking out of the store without paying for them.

So anyway, today, as most sundays are, was busy and was therefore painful and annoying. Hans wouldn't know because he got there at 1 after all the really pissed off people left. I ordered memory yesterday for my new board, 128 MB PC100 for about 135 after shipping, not bad. Sure beats paying CompUkraine's outrageous prices for it. I feel like shit today, what started out as a caugh this morning has turned into a stuffy-nosed, sore-backed, achey-headed, pukey-feeling kinda day. I don't wish to have a day like this in the near future. And to make matters worse... I think at some point in the skirmishes with the women of the group, I re-fucked my back by twisting it the wrong way (this is why I was laying in the living room on the couch by myself for about half an hour). But now I have a heating blanket on it and it feels like I should be okay in a few hours, I shall see.

I have become somewhat indifferent about my DSL which is a bad thing because it ain't getting fixed, once again, I'm sure you all don't really don't care any more but if you do, there you go.

Oh, I heard a really good quote from my sister today, 'Light travels faster than sound, that is why a person can appear bright until you talk to them.' I thought that was cute.

January 17, 2000

friggin school tomorrow...

You know what, I really don't want to drive to krispy kreme. I had to get my sister at the airport and then drive her out to oaklawn to get her car. And you know what else... ...It took four fucking hours! It doesn't normally take one when there is not a lot of traffic.

I have finals this week, just like most of you out there that read this. And just like most of you that read this, I don't give a shit about my finals, they aren't going to do jack to my grade (with the possible exception of one, i'll see tomorrow) so there is not a lot of motavation for me to try real hard on them.

Did I mention I didn't want to go to Krispy Kreme?

So anyway, I'm not going to bore you with a lot of CompUSA stuff anymore, I guess I found out how most of you feel through joel's little evil play. But I have to go off on one good note. A guy bought an external HP cd-rewriter and put an old internal cd-rom drive in it's place. He then resealed the box and returned it. The mopes up at customer service didn't notice that the box weighed practically nothing, but when i was facing the drives i picked one up and it weighed around 8 pounds, and then I picked the next box up and it weighed around 2 pounds. And I'm like, oh now what the fuck... yeah, that's the story...

I don't remember if I've said anything but i really don't want to drive anybody out to Krispy Kreme.

January 18, 2000

Why can I just not bring myself to study? This situation better clear itself up for next year or (or so I am told) I am going to be screwed in college. Maybe it is the fact that something deep inside my head keeps chanting... This doesn't mean anything anymore. And as much as I like the thought of guilt free non-studying sessions, I can't keep the thought from my head that I should try to do real well on these tests. Maybe studying isn't for me. The only things I have ever studied for are history and spanish. In other words only things that require hard-core fact memorization, nothing but studying can save you in these situations, but When it comes to topic-based application of knowledge, or did-you-read-the-book? type tests, I know that short of paying attention or learning the material on your own, there ain't nothing you are gonna do in one night to make you do any better on the test than get a good night sleep.

Unfortunately, Maximum PC decided to pick this time above others to have me recieve my copy of Maximum PC that has a trial version of Macromedia Flash 4 on it. So naturally I had to try it out and see how easy it is, While I don't think I will be creating works of art, or online games where you can kill celebraties in the near near future, I can add a little bit of fun moving text without having my page turn into what it was (a nightmere for anyone short of a T3 line). So for now I will probably try to study and not really accomplish anything and if you are reading this before your finals good luck and do not let the pressure get you down.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, I had an interesting turn of luck today, I had an orthodontic appointment at 2:00 so I had to leave school at 1:30. It turns out that we had an english test today that I was by no means prepared for. My teacher wasn't about to make me take my test (which was huge) in 25 minutes. Therefore, I had a chance to finish the play, and review the study guides for it so that I might do somewhat well on it. I hope that I continue my luck through the rest of the week (knock on wood)

January 19, 2000

Another day, another entry...

Happy Birthday Joel! Hope you enjoy your new stereo and good luck on your first day of work at Baker's Square tomorrow.

Well, today went by without a hitch, my statistics final was difficult but not immposible so I think I got at least a B which was all I needed. I took that English test today and although it was long none of the questions were really hard, it was all quite straight foreward and since I read the book I think I did fine. My chem test was almost funny. I walked away from it and I said to James that was a waste of my time, he said yeah well there was that one section that was kinda- and I cut him off and said, no I meant the class. It was a waste of my time, I didn't learn anything, I didn't do anything that couldn't have been duplicated by a second grader, and I didn't even meet new people. I guess my theory that all classes, as seemingly worthless as they may be, have some value is wrong. That was a completely worthless class. But I knew that going into it so I guess it's all okay.

I got a lot of sleep this afternoon. Tomorrow I only have one final and is electronics tech one which is going to be an even bigger waste of my time than was chemistry. At least it is in the morning so I will have the rest of the day off to do other things. Matt just got his motherboard from AMD so I guess they don't check to make sure you are 18. So that's good, I should get mine in the not too distant future.

Today it took me 45 minutes to get to work when it is only supposed to take about 10 minutes. I have no abs or traction control so basically I drive a sled with an engine. Oh yeah, and a stereo. But regardless, it was fun to drive home from work 'cause there was practically no one else out on the road so I did a power slide into my neighborhood from 45 mph. Fun! I also got to watch an ambulance haul ass down roselle road going south in the northbound lanes and see all the cars swerve out of the way so that the ambulence could get through. I would laugh so hard if they were just doing that to be goofs. I think if I drove an ambulance that would be something I would do when the weather went to shit.

Is it me, or did I.D.O.T. get really lazy this winter and decide not to plow any of the streets at all, whatsoever. I don't think it's just me.

January 20, 2000

Well, that electronics test was even easier than I thought it was going to be.

I had a fever again when I got home from school so I apologize to hans to whom I apparently spoke to at 12:57 this afternoon, although I couldn't tell you what was said. I am two different people, asleep ryan, and awake ryan. The awake ryan is the one that most of you know. The asleep ryan will do or say anything that will result in more sleep. It's just that simple.

I finally got around to scanning all the pictures that I needed for my friends page so go up and look at it so that all the work won't be in vain. I also learned some more about flash 4, like variable loops, sound, and control statements. In otherwords, expect to see more interesting little movies at the homepage when you first get here. That is of course assumingg that you have my main page bookmarked and don't go directly to this site. In which case you are missing out on a lot.

I suppose if I am going to study for any of my tests, economics is going to be the one. So alas, I have to cut this session short so that I may study (sleep) for my econ test and try (who cares) to do well tomorrow.

January 21, 2000

Today was kinda cool, I took my Econ final which I'm not too sure of how I did on but I only need like a C to keep an A and I think I pulled that off.

Hans, Joel, and I watched Army of Darkness, that movie is just plain messed, but is very funny regardless. The whole evil dead series were probably some of the better low-budget horror films I've seen.

We Had the Hot tub party tonight instead of tomorrow 'cause otherwise there would have barely been anyone there. I think the hot tub and the steam room are going to result in gatherings at my house more often but I probably should have seen that one coming. It was all pretty fun and I have only the regret that I had to get up early this morning to drive my grandmother to the airport, but after much complaining about how I was kinda tired of driving to the airport with a bunch of idiots in the snow she got a limo instead, poor baby.

So Hans chalks up another absolute, complete, makes me want to wretch luck-out story. I told him, one of these days he isn't going to be lucky and he should watch his driving from now on but he said he is one step ahead of me. I apoligize to Jason for tonight he didn't look like he was having much fun, but you guys are all welcome back if you like.

Oh, and I am noticing a computer program that I have that is not entirely Y2K compliant. I guess I must have an old version of Bullet Proof FTP because when I tell it to list the files by date it messes up the order of all the files modified after Jan 1, A far cry from the end of the world but a pain in the ass none the less.

January 22, 2000

Hans wants the combination to my safe in which I keep all my really high powered weapons of mass destruction.

What started out as a sequal to yesterday ended with a slight plot twist. I will spare you the details, but I can't gaurentee that Hans will. He is quite upset concerning the course of events that has progressed over the past few weeks, and is ready to make a stand. I have removed all sharp objects from his availability so that no one will be killed but I can't hold him off forever.

So anyway (queue subject change), I made an ID today so that I can come back into the school after 6th hour so I will have two consecutive lunch periods (yea!). Oh and, I dropped a line to media one and if things go as planned I might end up with a cable modem instead of a DSL line as I had once planned. But hell, it's cheaper, It downloads faster, and damn, maybe it'll fucking work once every two fucking months! FUCK YOU FLASHCOM!, you can suck my nuts before I pay you anything to cancel my order to go with cable if I can get my grubby little hands on.

Okay, I think maybe that's the third Ryan surfacing, the broadbandless Ryan. Later Kiddies (yeah, I know, but I don't really care any more)

January 24, 2000

Well, how are we all tonight? There is a guy who comes up to the upgrade counter to pick up his laptop. So I go and get it, and set it down. The guy instantly picks it up takes the modem out (mind you we had fixed a software problem) and then says, "hey, you guys broke my pcmcia card door." So ask if he was sure it wasn't broken before it came in. and then he starts randomly swearing at me, he even made up some new swears out of random parts from other swears. So I call over Stefano and then Stefano just basically has to talk him down in the fashion that one would somebody from a 50th story window ledge.

Finally I told stefano after he left that the guy went right for the little door as soon as he got his hands on the laptop, and stefano just says, 'so'. and then I asked him how many customers check the modem door on their laptop first thing when the computer was in to have software work done. And stefano is just like, 'what an asshole.'

So, a new slate is opened for the second semester in school so nothing that has happened so far means anything anymore. Which is both good and bad depending on how well I was doing in a particular class, but hell, it all ends up in the same place: the wastebasket of the college admissions board at U of I cause they basically said all I have to do is graduate.

I am sick, yet again, or maybe I was just never well. I ended up crashing over at hans' house cause I was too out of it to drive home. My parents took it rather well. Hans is driving himself to school this week, so I hope he is a nice guy and gives Joel a ride. Which means that it will be Marci, Erin, and I for lunch. Eh, maybe I will go over to Hans' house after I drop them off and say hi for a half period or so. Vee shall see.

I have to take my hand to my mouth to cover my cough every three seconds so it is really annoying to type and I actually have to look at the keyboard when I put my hands back on it so it really pissing me off. So this entry is getting abridged here.

January 25, 2000

It appears as though the effects of the weekend's mishaps are going to be about as long lasting as I had predicted. The moral of the story: In life we make choices both unconsciously and consciously, some may endure, some we may regret, but if we choose never to do anything, we will never get anywhere. Sure, some ties can get strained, or maybe some people will get pissed off, or maybe the world can end; but you or I worrying about it isn't gonna make a damn bit of difference in the end. And not worrying is a lot easier on the mind.

If you be yourself than you will attract the people that you truely want to be around. As long as you don't try to be fake, than if anyone dissaproves of you or you dissaprove of anyone else, than you can say so and maybe get that person to slowly adjust what they want to be and their actions will follow. The worst thing you can do if you have a problem with something is sit in a corner and whine about it, or find ways to get others to do your dirty work.

Anyhow, I think that is enough philisophical drivil for one entry so I will move on to a lighter subject; I actually managed, despite my unrelenting complacency, to procure all A's this semester, which makes the upcoming semester seem even more inviting. 84 more days of high school for me woo hoo! I also tested out (used) my fake ID and it worked without a hitch, except that it is falling apart and I need to rubber cement it back together again. I could really get used to this whole hour and 45 minutes of lunch every day.

Oh, and as this is the first day of the semester, I have been notified that my standing in student council is officially non-exsistant. They finally figured out that all I really wanted to do was AAG, and after they ignored my suggestions about who should MC and then basically discounted about 11 hours of my work, I wasn't really in any mood to put up with the organization any more. So I stopped going. Fih on them!

January 26, 2000

Well, I kinda sorta accidentally ditched Marci and Hans for lunch today... Sorry! I waited for an extra five minutes after the bell rang and since I figured I was a little late and that Hans had a car, that they had already left. I don't know why they would but it seemed like a good reason for me to not stand by the freezing cold doorway and get in my car. Besides, i spent most of the time reading my government homework, so you two didn't miss much.

I got my case for my soon to be completely pimped out system, complete with athlon 650, 128Mb ram, 7200 rpm 27.2GB hard drive, and a creative annihilator. hell yeah! sorry I think that was the computer dork ryan coming out (or the awake ryan I'm not sure, oh well, same difference) so I owe hans 80 bucks for the case, but I already got the money from my mom because I am using my old case to build her a computer out of my old parts that have been accumulating ever since I starting upgrading my rig. Which pretty much accounts for a whole computer, all i need is a floppy drive, a sound card, speakers, and a monitor, and voila, a secondary computer, it will have celeron 500, 8.4 GB hard drive, 192 MB ram, and a vinilla TNT video card, good enough really.

I had a guy at compusa that I was talking to about hard drives, and a black man (you'll see why i specify this in a sec) comes up to me and asks me real quick where digital cameras are located, I tell him and he starts to walk directly to the counter and I tell him that he needs to walk around the video game counsole section and that he can't get through that way, he thanks me and goes on. The guy I'm with then says, and I quote, 'Let him find his own way, fucking nigger interupted me.' I'm like, okie dokie, sir I belive you left your hood here last time when you were burning crosses in parking lot. Well, okay I didn't say that, but I really really wanted to. It's people like that that give Jesse Jackson credability. Not that Jesse is a bad guy, but he seems to want to portray all whites as being racist. And altough this obviously isn't true (I'm not racist, I have a color tv) I don't think people like our little friend tonight are that uncommon, they just need a bit of education. And some much better things to do with their spare time. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

January 27, 2000

I suppose that by the time you get to be a senior, you start not really minding going to school, and you associate missing school not with missing work, but having more work when you get back. I suppose this is why, if I have to miss a day of school, I just assume have it be thursday. At least that way you don't have to worry about doing two nights work in one night. Which is not to say that I always do one nights work in one night, but still the thought of having to do it is just as annoying, but I digress...

I stayed home today because I had (still have a bit) a really sore throat that hurt a lot to cough, a stuffy nose, and a bit of a fever. I feel a bit better, but not 100%, I'll go to school tomorrow.

So Hans got his cable modem today, and as he has been is continuing to rub it in my face, now I am officially the only person left in our group without broadband (those who don't have it at their house have it at their respective colleges). This makes me sick, I am sick of even hearing about it from everyone. So from now on, if you are around me, don't talk about how cool you are cause you have a cable modem, or gee how fast those mp3s downloads, or how low your ping is, cause honestly (and this applies to other areas as well) just because you have the ability to buy or use something, and somoone else doesn't, doesn't really make for an acceptable reason to make fun of someone because they can't. Most people wouldn't sit next to a homeless person and comment loudly how good the steak dinner was the night before, that would just be rude. Like wise, most decent people don't walk out of a store behind a crippled man on crutches and complain how slow they are moving, and that it's not that hard to walk *cough*. So I think (although I admit it is on a different level) you don't go rubbing it into someone's face that your new cable modem is damn nice and it's such a shame that flashcom eats dick. I tried not to bore you people with my flashcom situation but a select few of you can't seem to let this go, but now I am just rambling again.

Right now Clinton is rambling on too. He is giving his state of the union address. He is naming a few interesting plans/goals, but most of them (as my government teacher cleverly pointed out) are completely unattainable from his position. But I am not in a position to change most of the goals he sets so who am I to talk. Right?

I have added a cheesy legal disclaimer which I thought was kinda funny to the top of the page, so you might want to read that, I am actually making fun of the license agreement from GLQuake, which is basically unreadable unless you have been branwashed in to conract-laywerdom. Here is the document so you can look at it if you so choose. Also, I made a page of Tips for various types of people so you might want to check that out.

Whoa, those href tags just wore me out, I have to rest for a while.

January 28, 2000

Okay so I lie, it is actually the 29th because it's 2 in the morning but that's a damn shame because the 'stuff' that I'm about to say happened today... ...I mean yesterday.

This is something I've been trying to get my hands on for a while, I recieved it as an e-mail attachment a long time ago back in the day of AOL and AOL decided that I didn't need it anymore and deleted it... Assholes. Anyway Here it is. Yes I am aware that the links are barely readable with the current background, but all you have to do is click on them and lo and behold, they change colors.

Well, it turns out that yesterday wasn't the best day I could have chosen to miss. I had a physics quiz today (which was easy but that's because I'm just such a genious), and I was supposed to have an english test today, and a government test yesterday, but I get to take them both on monday cause I'm special.

From the untrained eye (in other words, the one that doesn't see much of anything) it would appear as though the group is recovering pretty well, and everyone is moving on with their lives. I do realize it will take time before those awkward moments that arise when certain combinations of people are alone together disappear, but I say hey, if you can't change the past, just try to remember it differently. Look what that theory did for christianity, so far it seems to be working out pretty well for them.

So we sat at Jason's house and watched mall rats. This, I suppose, is one movie I don't mind watching over again. And since Hans bought it on dvd, this is a good thing, 'cause this ain't the last time we are going to watch it for a while.

I love how this journal started, it was me coming home late after playing chess, and my parents left me a note that said I was in trouble, and tonight I come home even later than I was that night, and no one could give two shits about where I was. I am having a hard time telling whether or not my parents even earnestly care anymore. I don't want to take advantage of the situation by staying out late every night if they really don't want me to, but as the law of rational expectations states, as one trys to predict the outcome of an act, they will often act in a way that will negate the purpose of the orginal act. So in other words, if you are one step ahead of someone, and you try to counter what someone does, you will fuck up the works.

I guess the works aren't fucked up yet, but my spider senses tell me it's a matter of time. I guess the only thing keeping me from coming home any later than I do is the fact that, well, frankly, everyone else has stinking curfews. Why does everyone's parents have to be so controling over them their senior year. It probably has something to do with the fact that next year, they will have very little control over us and they just want us to be like kids for the last year that we spend with them. We can't blame them, it is in their nature to be concerned. And as we grow older they get the feeling like we are slipping away and they are losing part of who they are.

Speaking of slipping away, I think I left my train of thought back at changing the past thing, and it resulted in wordpad wrapping the line to the next one, let me tell you, that doesn't happen with many of these entries, so I better stop this before I get out of control.

January 29, 2000

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-hey, my oh my what a worthless day. The preceding 24 hour period contained such a bunch of worthless events, I don't even want to bore you with them. But for the masochists out there I will write an entry anyway.

Basically it snowed all evening and it was kinda fun to drive in, I did a 540 in evergreen on the way to Katie's house to watch the faculty, it was an okay movie, but the world could have done without it.

Don't use Window Blinds they only rob your system of resources and they get old real fast. Don't go to New Grounds all there is there is the witnessing of random blood and gore.

So communication is kind of on the fritz in our group, and like I said there is some needless tension between certain people. I think we would all stand to gain a lot by spending more nights as one big group rather than splitting off into little groups and then making commments about what we think the other group is doing. It just dawned on me now that we never visited/called Marci at all so she probably thinks that I/Joel am a bastard for not saying anything, sorry Marci. We were on our way out the door when Jason and Katie showed up, we would have come over but Katie can't handle Marci's cat.

Now that I think about it, tonight sucked. I think I might be one of those people that would welcome the apocolypse, just because it was a change of pace. I had an invite with Ricky to go to see next friday but passed it up to hang out with the group, maybe I should have just seen the movie and said to hell with the group. Oh well, hind sight is always 20/20.

January 30, 2000

Today marks my 50th entry to this journal, and this has gone on a lot longer and has been apparently more interesting that I thought it would have been. As of the last entry it was 101461 bytes and contained 19645 words. Imagine having to write that for an english paper. That's like a college thesis. ah well, it has been a little over two months, and I have pretty much stated everything that has happened to me in that time, why? eh... ...it seemed like a good idea at the time, and now I just do it out of habit.

So today went by okay. I got my second hook up for another quick few bucks today. I fixed some guys keyboard cause all the pins in the connector were bent to hell cause he must have tried to put it in wrong or something (I wonder how many urologists get that kind of story, OH! but seriously folks)

I got screwed out of a lunch once again today by alex who at this point is probably gonna end up fired if Mike G finds out, which is a shame because Alex is a cool guy, but a horrible person to have to work with. I didn't even watch any of the superbowl (gasp, why not ryan?!?) because we spent most of it at Hans' unfucking his computer after he tried to install windows 2000 over windows 98 and microsoft basically threw up all over his hard drive. So boys and girls, don't try that at home.

Why does my drier have to suck? why is it that when I set that thing to auto dry and throw in my quilt it feels the need to think that it is dry when the middle part is still all wet and I have to let it air dry hanging from my shower head? no-maintainence maytag my ass. It's dry now but yesterday I slept in the cold cause my room is controlled by a heating system whose thermostat is located in my sister's room which is located right next to the room with the furnace. Which basically means that the only time the heat is on is when the sub-arctic air from my room finally cools her room down through the wall and makes the thermostat kick over. Which is really funny because I am the only person even living on the second floor anymore because my sisters are both in college.

Theoretically everything should be set up on this floor to make me comfortable at the expense of the completely vancant rooms. Maybe I'm just selfish but I hope I am more important then empty space (don't say it and don't even think it).

Hans's formatting of his hard drive is actually good for him. It will teach hime the proper ins and outs of cable modem ownership, and as Joel mentioned, he will now have the latest releases of things that he didn't even know was on his computer. If anyone knows how the hell the shuffle algorithm on winamp works please give me a click and tell me.

Oh, and I almost forgot, any of you who think you are misrepresented on the Friends page 1) need to read the TOS at the top of this page a little better, and 2) need to keep in mind that i wrote that about a month ago, I am not updating that on purpose, just so you know.

January 31, 2000

You know, I understand that I work in the retail business and that as a 'salesman' if you will, I am supposed to act in a formal manner... ...however, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

I was shelving some iomega jaz drives and a man came up to me and said, 'excuse me.' and I turned around and said, 'yeah?' you know, a friendly welcoming 'yeah', not be any means repulsing, or in any way disrespectful. And he comes back with, 'Yeah?... ...Yeah!?!, uh.' and then walks away. I'm like, 'okay apparently friendly conversation is below him and only his wife and kids can address him with out saying, 'sir what is it you need sir?'

He comes back in a few minutes and asks to speak with my manager. And although I get this strange feeling Mike G would have sided with me, I just started to apoligize and he cuts me off and says, you'd better apoligize... ...I mean "yeah"?' At this point I was about ready to throw a jaz drive at him. Turns out he was looking for an overdrive chip for his skank ass slow computer, and I told him that we didn't have the one he wanted but perhaps he could try back after friday when we would probably get them in.

I never really considered myself a disrespectful person, and I don't know what this man went through that day, but somehow I get this feeling that guy came into the store with the thought, 'gee, I'm going to snap at the first person I talk to. Maybe I can be a huge asshole to the employees who don't look like they want to be here anyway... Yeah!'

So the rest of the week school doesn't start until 9:20 which equals an extra two hours of sleep, yay! which is duely needed at this point 'cause I'm feeling kinda deprived.

Note to everyone out there: If for some reason one of your friends/aquantences says or does something that puts you down or makes you feel bad, don't try to pretend you don't care, just say that you don't find it funny, and that you'd rather they stop. I think we are all adults in this world (except for that yeah guy today) and we can all accept having our jokes shot down if it means that we don't ernestly piss anyone off. There is a fine line, but if we enforce it, no one gets hurt.

I took an English test today which I don't feel too confident about, and I have another one tomorrow, I can tell right now that Wuthering Heights is going to be the death of me. I already dislike that book, it reminds me a whole hell of a lot of A Tale Of Two Cities, and I really dispised that book. Other than that, my other classes are running smoothly, and I have some time tomorrow to catch up on my homework.

yeah, you thought it was rain

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