chaz720.net - journal

January 02, 2002

Never made it as a wise man. I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing. Tired of living like a blind man. I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling, and this is how you remind me. This is how you remind me of what I really am. This is how you remind me of what I really am. It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story. This time I'm mistaken, for handing you a heart worth breaking. I've been wrong, I've been down. Been to the bottom of every bottle. These five words in my head scream, "Are we having fun yet?" Yet?, Yet?, Yet?, no. no. It's not like you didn't know that. I said I love you and I swear I still do. It must have been so bad, cause living with me must have damn near killed you. This is how you remind me of what I really am. This is how you remind me of what I really am. It's not like you to say sorry. I was waiting on a different story. This time I'm mistaken, for handing you a heart worth breaking. I've been wrong, I've been down. Been to the bottom of every bottle. These five words in my head scream "Are we having fun yet?" Yet?, Yet?, Yet?, no. no. Never made is as a wise man. I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing. And this is how you remind me, this is how you remind me...

Hope New Years was fun for all and everyone had a good time, most people that were normally around here were out of town so this new years wasn't nearly as, well, festive as the last. Joel, Phil, Gim, Jason, and I got together and played pool, Smash Brothers Melee and Grand Theft Auto 3. We played Dead or Alive 3 for about 15 minutes, and while "she" does, in fact, "kick high" I don't think it had the same gameplay value as Smash Brothers and the others agreed so we went back to that.

My my my what a sad day for Illinois yesterday. A bad start got worse as the game went on against LSU and I actually started laughing through most of the game cause of the mistakes on defense. The only time during the game that I felt the "10-1" Illinois team was there was on the first touchdown drive we had where we drilled in a few nice long, clean passes to get some points on the board. But with LSU posting some 600-odd yards on our defense that game it was painful to watch.

Last night My sister Leandra and I teamed up against her husband Eric and my Dad to kick the crap out of them at Taboo and 25 words or less. And we even roasted some marshmellows. And winning at that game for some reason made me feel better about the whole Illinois thing going on in the background. Just hearing about the score changes was easier than seeing every single missed tackle and poor pass coverage/rushing by our defense.

Yesterday my car also decided to play the happy-fun-joyous game of "I'm not starting". It had been outside in the around 10� weather for a couple days without running so it could be a number of things. I don't think it's the battery cause we tried jumping it and it didn't seem to make any improvement in the sound it made before. It seems to be cranking just fine but it's not turning over. I gave it a some gas and it started coughing but it's just not catching. My current theory is that I might have some bad gas that had water in it that froze and that's killing it. But regardless, I pushed the car into the garage to see if it'll warm up tonight and I'll try starting it tomorrow. I got my fingers crossed.

January 09, 2002

Better than watching geller bending silver spoons. Better than witnessing newborn nebulas in bloom. She who see's from up high smiles and surely sings. Prospective pries her once weighty eyes and it gives you wings. I haven�t felt the way, I feel today in so long it�s hard for me to specify. I�m beginning to notice how much this feels like a waking limb. Pins and needles, nice to know you, good-bye, nice to know you. Deeper than the deepest Coustou would ever go. Higher than the heights of what we often think we know. Impressed that she who clearly sees the wood of the trees. To obtain a birds eye is to turn a blizzard to a breeze. I haven�t felt the way, I feel today in so long it�s hard for me to specify. I�m beginning to notice how much this feels like a waking limb. Pins and needles, nice to know you, good-bye, nice to know you. Could it be that it had been there all along? I haven�t felt the way, I feel today in so long it�s hard for me to specify. I�m beginning to notice how much this feels like a waking limb. Pins and needles, nice to know you, good-bye, nice to know you.

I feel like I fiend, I've actually bought 4 albumns in the past two days. I wonder if it will wash off...

The Shareholder and voting trust agreements of my dad are finally done and overwith so I have no more obligations prior to making my way back to school for class this upcoming monday. Supposedly Marci is getting into town sometime yesterday or today or god knows when along with her friend Brett so I'll probably have lunch with them or go downtown or something with them before I go back to school.

I hate sleeping for 14 hours a day and still being tired the remaining hours of the day. Am I not eating right? Am I not getting enough exercise? Am I sleeping too much for my own good? Do I have a asinus infection? Maybe all these are true and that's my problem. Am I going to do something about it? Eh, if anything the sleeping too much but beyond that I don't mind being tired all that much. While it does make it a pain to do some things I enjoy, I usually lose the tired feeling if I'm having fun, and, well, the rest of the time I feel like a martyr or something. Everything I do for others is at great expense to me because I am so tired all the time.

The new iMac was announced recently, and I must say I like the styling of it. If I were to buy a Mac, I would probably buy it. The idea of cramming the computer into the base of the monitor is a very cool one, and they pulled it off well. It has just about all the ports one would want built into it, and considering the hardware included, the price only sits at around $1300. Joel was running laps around his room at the idea of the new iMac, claiming it and OSX will be the death of Microsoft and more generally, the PC. I couldn't disagree more...

Apple has been releasing all kinds of new technologies and great concepts and yet the PC and windows market is still running strong. Why? A number of reasons explain why the Mac is not the computer of choice. And sadly, they have essentially nothing to do with Apple or things Apple has done. For the same reason the zip drive has succedded for so long where Syquest and Imation failed, and people still write cds in CDDA format as opposed to mp3 or another compressed format, and people still drive cars with internal combustion engines while technology like flywheel-turbine engines exist, people still buy and build PCs based on various windows operating systems. It's not fear of change, or just sheer stubborness or bullheadedness as most Mac enthusiasts I've heard claim, it's the logistical issues of it. Most schools and businesses use PCs because of the wider distribution base in the home. It makes a lot of sense for all machines people and their kids are going to use to all work together and be happy. Likewise software developers (most notably game developers) have a bias toward development on PCs. So what the hell did Microsoft do to get this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They got it by accident. Both companies started around the same time and niether made such a decisive move such that would warrent the kind of market share divide we have today. And no decisive design or marketing move is suddenly going to fling the table around. Sorry people, but developers and consumers (notably commercial and governmental) aren't going to flock to this thing because it looks cool and has really great hardware design and specs. I personally don't think that anything is going to revolutionize or drastically change the face of the computing industry until they perfect organic or quantum computers. Of course that's just me. Look I like the new iMac design, it's pretty and has some good hardware. But you know what, I own three PCs all running win2k professional and I can't think of anything I'd change about them. More importantly, I can't think of anything I'd gain by buying a new iMac besides just another computer. OSX? it's nice, but you're not seeing my hands go up in the air. There's just not enough there, there really isn't to get me out of my seat.

Besides, as an added bonus I like hand picking all the parts and building a machine myself. Call me set in my ways. Accuse me of lacking vision. But until there's a wholely better way of doing what I do, I don't really care.

January 14, 2002

I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so pass�. But today, If you think that I don't know about depression and emotional pain, you're insane. And you're a fool who hasn't paid attention to a word that I say. In a way, I can't help but feel responsible, I always knew that you were insane... With your pain. But I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so pass�. Heroin is so pass�. You never thought you'd get addicted, Just be cooler in an obvious way. I could say, shouldn't you have got a couple piercings and decided maybe that you were gay? In a way, I can't help but feel responsible, I always knew that you were insane... With your pain. But I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so pass�.
Heroin is so pass�.

Ah the first day of classes back at school...

I feel pretty confident about this semester already. I think that ece210 and ece313 are going to be the obvious chalenges but they don't look like they are going to be impossible. So far in ece210 I know it's going to be a course on signal processesing which in a nutshell means playing with radio waves until you get what you want out of them. We went through, briefly, the workings of a radio (not really news to me) and then talked about how we were going to break it up and explain mathmatically, and physically how and why everything worked the way it worked. I tihnk this should be an entertaining course if nothing else. Ece313 is going to be a class on probability theory which means learning why saying "flipping a coin will result in heads half the time" works, and all the implications expressed by said statement. Today we talked about gambling, odds, definitions of terms, etc. etc. all the usual stuff. My preofessor seems pretty cool and laid back, and even jokes a bit, so maybe that won't be as bad as I initially thought. The only thing peculier is that there are only about a dozen people in that class, that might tell you something. So far with music I have no idea where this class is going, cause all we did today was listen to a bunch of random stuff from god knows where and she asked us if we felt it was music, and then she told us why we were wrong. The textbook came with some music cds and some of the assignments are "listen to tracks 1,2,3 on cd 1" or something along those lines, and I almost burst out laughing given this class came immediately following my two ece classes. Now, when I say that I'm not ripping on music majors (that will come later in the semester :P) It was just such a shock in material change that I thought it was funny that I be sitting there, listening to clips of music, when what I was thinking about was how well the room was acustically designed, and the inordinate amount of static and distortion the speakers were putting out. But then that's just me. Physics I'll have tomorrow so I can judge it then, but for now I'm done around noon, not bad.

Oh yes, and today was a very beautiful day, only a slight breeze and it was around 45�, so my 300 mile hike out to the music building and back wansn't too bad.

Hans got a new Sony Vega tv and the fact that it is such better quality poses us with a problem, somewhere in our system there is a ground loop because we get this fucking line scroling up the screen. We narrowed it down to the cable line and we think that it is most likely the cable company's fault so sometime today I'll prolly run to radioshack and pick up an isolator to take care of that. Anyway, now I'm being summoned to play halo so duty calls.

January 15, 2002

I dig my toes into the sand. The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless. And in this moment I am happy... Happy. I wish you were here. I lay my head onto the sand. The sky resembles a back-lit canopy with holes punched in it. I'm counting UFO's, I signal them with my lighter. And in this moment I am happy... Happy. I wish you were here. The world's a rollercoaster, and I am not strapped in. Maybe i should hold with care, but my hands are busy in the air. I wish you were here.

So a Buddhist walks into a pizza place and says, "Make me one with everything."

I don't care if you are sick of the above song cause you rely on the radio for your music needs and it got overplayed, I don't, so I'm not you have the internet and are perfectly capable of having an mp3 collection (of legally obtained songs of course) I actually bought Morning View and may I suggest you do the same.

Wow, okay so I go to my physics class today, and not only did the only "cool and zany" demonstration not work, the rest of the class was in fact designed to cut the class size in half due to the class's seemingly endless complete and utter mindless banter. The class actually got me angry it was so boring. And of course only it would have the advantage of being 75 minutes instead of the usual 50, go figure right.

So you walk into a Meijer and you think to yourself hey, I need lettuce, a couple bottles of wine (id must be presented to cashier), cellary, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, two bags of bulk candy, deli meat, walnuts, brazil nuts, and some of virtually every food that must be weighed and have a bulk foods number at checkout. Oh, and you plan to pay for all this with a personal check (also need to be stamped and DL checked by cashier)... What do you do? Simple! you walk over to the self check-out line and- oh wait no you wouldn't do that cause you aren't a damn friggin' re-re like the woman I got behind yesterday. Who buys a cart that is not only more than 12 items, but each one requires cashier assitance, to the self check-out line. That's not self check-out, that's god damn stupidity pure and unfiltered. So what's my excuse for ending up in line behind this waste of time? I don't know what I was thinking, it was a busy day and there was only two people in the line, I failed to take the appropriate survey of her cart before making the fatal mistake of occupying a line with her in it, and I paid for it, paid for it dearly.

I got Waverace for the gamecube and it's certainly gotten a lot harder than the N64 rendition of it. I guess it's for the better as this way I have a goal of beating it or something. I found yet another new game to look forward to sometime in the near future Starfox Adventures. Which appears to be an advanture game (kinda like zelda 64) mixed with the standard starfox of old for a combination that will make for hours of great "damn I need to get to class soon... ...but right after this one part" time. As I always say, time will tell.

January 22, 2002

Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear. And I can't help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer. It's driven me before, and it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal. But lately I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel. Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there with open arms and open eyes. Yeah. Whatever tomorrow brings I'll be there, I'll be there. So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive? It's driven me before and it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around. But lately I'm beginning to find that when I drive myself my light is found. Would you choose water over wine.... hold the wheel and drive?

So yeah I was playing pool over at the union with Joel and Hans and took a shot without watching where my hand was in relation to the edge of the table. The edge of the table happens to be metal thus resulting in a chunk of skin on my right index finger getting squeezed between the cue and the table and me bleeding for a while, unpleasent both to feel and to look at as witnesses will contest. No big story, it's healing now...

So yeah, after Crisby's former host decided it would be a great idea to fuck up the works on their server he now uses my host for his website needs. Unfortunately this host doesn't do a lot of things the same as his old host did so there were some problems with the site but I got them worked out for now. I think this weekend I am going to try to get a bunch of coding done for some different things and maybe redoing his site to make use of the pcf backend will be on the list of things to be done.

So yeah Joel is 20 as of the 19th, everyone congradulate him on not having been killed yet.

Classes have been off to a pretty smooth start and I have no real complaints, just give me a week or two to develop some, I'm sure something will come up. I think at the moment I am just willing to accept anything to do because winter break was so wholely uneventful. This weekend was another case of parties finding us when we couldn't find them. Saturday being the most notable when about a dozen or so of Fei's friends showed up. Not bad considering like two other options had fallen through on us that night.

Indiana is retarded.

So the Bears lost on Saturday which was very disappointing. Shane Matthews must be kicked off the team immediately, he is awful... ...at everything. I'm surprised he was able to hand the ball off when he did.

The X-Box is hereby having it's name changed to the "Halo Multiplayer Box" because that is the only thing we use it for anymore. I can almost say the same thing for the Gamecube and Smash Brothers, but I still play wave race. Now we just need a copy of FFX for the PS2 so it can be solely dedicated to that 24 hours a day.

January 27, 2002

Well, Friday there wasa big party up at the Daves and they had three kegs, that was a lot of fun, there were a ton of people there some I knew, some I know now, etc. etc... yeah uh, party.

today was retarded, I woke up really late and got veryy little actually done. I did a bunch of work for crisby's site but kinda got stuck so went ahead and had dinner and wondered aimlessly for a while and ended up back home a while later. Hans and I decided to get some Halo cooperative mode in. So we start playing and we get pretty far, and then something that Tycho tried to warn the world about became all too frighteningly apparent.

Halo is ass.

We actually spent an hour and a fucking half on the same fucking level walking through fucking copied and pasted corridors with fucking copied and pasted enemies. It wasn't until we got to the fourth exact same elevator that We just said "no, fucking no." and turned the Xbox off. Slaughtering dozens upon dozens of guys who's main attack is "getting near you and blowing up" is only fun the first 27 identical corridors you do it in. I found my self wanting to go back to the begining of the game so that I could drive the jeep around on the outdoor level through great environments, you know, before it sucked ballhair, but I came down on the harsh reality that no matter how far back into the game I went it would still fucking end me up back here again

Even the multiplayer is getting old, with the same damn scenarios to play it's just plain not fun anymore. This game should definately remain confined to the Xbox demonstration stands in videogame stores, and it should kick you off as soon as you get to level three.

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