chaz720.net - journal

July 07, 2002

blecgh, just got home and my connection had gone wonky, modem just got tired and needed a resetting I guess.

Okay this whole Ready Hosting thing is getting really annoying. It's been something like two weeks and the oh so lovely PHP: Error parsing c:\winnt\system32\inetsrv\browscap.ini on line 6459 still graces the bottoms of all my scripts (indicating that the server is snafued) and my front page has reset itself due to disk space problems yet again. Enough already, I'm packing up my files and heading down the road.

It's been a while and I've done a lot since I last wrote, it's just as Hans said it best, when you work in front of a computer for 8 hours a day the last thing you want to do when you get home is sit in front of one any longer. Speaking of which, my current database project at work is essentially finished, all that remains is a somewhat arduous entry of data into said database (which I won't be doing all of I don't think) and some conversion of some word documents with reference material into html which I may let word do for me cause I don't feel like it. After that I think I have another project lined up but this one was the big one that they wanted done.

This weekend has been awesome, and it's length was much welcome after a somewhat mundane couple of weeks working. Wednesday night we went downtown to watch the fireworks and hang out for a while which was fun, they always put on a good show. Thursday night I went to a party in honor of John's 21st which was fun, we went to fridays for drinks and hung out with a bunch of people at the Hampton near Midway airport. Friday night I went to Champaign with Hans and David where we chilled and saw MIB-II. Oh god don't let anyone fool you, the movie was awful. The only good thing about it was that it ended abruptly and we only wasted about 80 minutes of our time. The whole movie consisted of references playing off the first movie's jokes and the only new jokes I'd already seen in the trailers. That coupled with the horrid and shameless advertisements for sprint and burger king made it all just an excersize in projectile vomiting.

But I digress...

Saturday night we went to greek reunion on john street in front of COs and Kams where the bars' occupants just kinda spill out onto the street and everyone tries not to look suspicious holding a beer with a "I'm 19" braclet on and there's a cop standing 5 feet from them. I rather enjoyed going to that because it had the same bar atmosphere but it was a bigger area with more places to go and a slightly lower density of people. You still had a lot of people but it wasn't impossible to move around, which is a plus.

While I was down there David threw together an mp3 cd with a bunch of his favorite music so I got some new cruisin' tunes to bang out my trunk. I tihnk it's funny that I occasionally drift off at work thinking about what I plan on doing for my next car's sound system. I think I'm going to go with something smaller, louder, and consequentially more expensive. A couple JL amps and a JL10W7 subwoofer, which would take up a lot less trunk and be about the same if not a bit louder than my current setup. win-win

I finally found a case worthy of storing my gameboy advance (yay!) It holds the gba, 4 or 5 games, a pair of earbuds and an extra set of AAs and it's no bigger than it absolutely needs to be to hold said items. One of those Neoprene case-logic jobbers that everyone has come to love. It's exactly what I was looking for in a case and caselogic makes it, am I noticing a pattern here?

I also went to a CART race a week or so ago at the Chicago motor speedway and that was a lot of fun until all the american drivers had engine problems or crashed so we left, ah well the price was right seeing as motorola paid for the outing, yay for perks!

July 08, 2002

So yeah after being told that I wasn't important enough to attend TAM152 because there were too many people taking it and GenEs and CivEs got prioriety over ElecEs, I had to go shopping for a different course. Bah, enjoy it while you can you dirty bastards. The class I plan on taking in it's place (with a little emergency schedule juggling help from Sarah McDougal the ultra-cool member of the ece advising office who can get just about anything done for you) is Material Science 200, which deals with properties of matierials used in building electric circuits. In the end this will most likely be more usefully to me anyway so I'm kinda glad. I have an updated course listing that shows all courses I have or plan to take in college, and which semester I took or plan to take it. The only ones that are absolutely definite are up through 5th semester (fall2002) because I can never be sure about course availability 2 years in advance. You can see it here if you're bored, or if you just want next semester's updated schedule, that can be attained from the lovely display that Diana is bringing down the aisle

Oh, I've reached the conclusion that the BMW 330xi = yes. Although it and the Audi A4 (and perhaps to a lesser extent the Lexus IS300 or Acura 3.2TL) have similar specs, I have to say I like the general styling of the bimmer better. Something about the back end of the A4 just doesn't appeal to me, I think it's too round or something. Not that this matters much as I won't be affording a car like that for a while, perhaps long enough for BMW to ruin what they've got, or Audi to improve on what they have. I don't have any loyalty to one or the other, I tend to line up the quantifiable statistics so they are a wash and then let my eyes and ass do the choosing, I doubt I'm alone here.

this post would have been here earlier if my host didn't chew.

July 17, 2002

Was an honest man. Asked me for the phone, tried to take control.Oh, I don't see it that way. I don't see it that way. Oh, we shared some ideas, all obsessed with fame says we're all the same. Oh, I don't see it that way. I don't see it that way. Raised in Carolina, I'm not like that. Trying to remind her, when we go back. I miss the last bus, I take the next train. I try but you see it's hard to explain. I say the right things but act the wrong way. I like it right here but I cannot stay. I watch the TV, forget what I'm told. Well, I am too young, and they are too old. The joke is on you, this place is a zoo. You're right, its true. As if she can't decide. I shake my head to say everything's just great. Oh, I just can't remember. I just can't remember. Raised in Carolina, she says, I'm not like that. Trying to remind her when we go back. I say the right things but act the wrong way. I like it right here but I cannot stay. I watch the TV, forget what I'm told. Well, I am too young, and they are too old. Oh, man, can't you see I'm nervous so please Pretend to be nice, but I can be mean. I miss the last bus, you take the next train. I try but you see it's hard to explain.

Yeah the site is gonna be kinda weird for a little while here. The server it's on is probably falling apart with some people on a siege trying to blow it up with grenades and machine guns while some poor sap is trying to defend it with his life for $5.15 an hour. That's really the only scenario I can come up with that would be more important than fixing something as simple as a damn server setting to get rid of the god forsaken parsing engine error that shows up on all my pages. That and the fact that the disk keeps filling up from other people that are on the server and I, being no where near my 500 meg limit, am loosing all the comments on the front of my site every week or so.

I should change the counter to read "this site has been disk read error free for __ views"

I would do that but no, I'm relocating to a new host instead because I am getting that annoyed. So, what this means is I'm going to get a whole slew of new functionality which I will code the new version of this site to use. And while I'm at it, the design and such is going to change quite a bit. I'm going to develop an almost entirely different way of doing the comments on the page in order to make it more secure. But, I am going to try and keep the mood of the comments system the same where you can still maintain anonymity when posting comments. I dunno, you'll see when I get to that. The only problem I run into is trying to find time to code for it. If I'm not at work then I'm playing golf or playing videogames at Hans's place, and then I get home and go to sleep. I'd code for it on the weekend, but I believe I've mentioned before how little I feel like looking at a computer screen beyond the 40 hours a week as it is.

Oh and I'd like to officially say "Fuck Yahoo Shopping". That's my statement, and I'm sticking to it. I'm not just talking about this one store, I'm talking about Yahoo shopping. I know what you're thinking "But ryan, I loved that commercial where the guy bought pillows and covered his trailer to protect it from the satellite." Well what the commercial didn't tell you is that he tried to order 10 big plain white pillows, but after not hearing anything from the store for two months while trying to get a hold of them, he called them up, found out the listed pillows were discontinued but they had more expensive ones. So he canceled his order and placed one with a different store, and then after a week didn't hear from them, then he called and found out that this store was out of stock on the pillows as well but what they did have in stock was a pillow package that came with a lens cleaner, an extra battery, another memory card, a case, and a mini tripod for an extra 200 bucks over what they listed the camera for on their site. Well I don't want your extra battery, I already have a bigger memory card, your case is a piece of shit, I already have a lens cleaner, and I'll tell you what you can do with your fucking tripod, you can sit on it for all I care, because I'm buying my camera elsewhere now, ya bunch a' jackasses.

July 29, 2002

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill, I could see the city lights. Wind was blowing, time stood still, Eagle flew out of the night. He was something to observe, came in close, I heard a voice. Standing stretching every nerve, had to listen had no choice. I did not believe the information, I just had to trust imagination. My heart going boom, boom, boom. "Son," he said "Grab your things, I've come to take you home." To keepin' silence I resigned, my friends would think I was a nut. Turning water into wine, open doors would soon be shut. So I went from day to day tho' my life was in a rut. "Till I thought of what I'd say, which connection I should cut. I was feeling part of the scenery. I walked right out of the machinery. My heart going boom, boom, boom. "Hey" he said "Grab your things I've come to take you home." When illusion spin her net, I'm never where I want to be. And liberty she pirouette when I think that I am free. Watched by empty silhouettes who close their eyes but still can see. No one taught them etiquette, I will show another me. Today I don't need a replacement. I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant. My heart going boom, boom, boom. "Hey" I said "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."

I have my camera now, so yay, finally I can stop putzing around with useless online stores. I like it a lot, it's got essentially everything my old camera had, plus a couple nice little changes, including the fact that it's like half the size and I can basically just throw it in my pocket whenever I want now. This will probably lead to an actual photos section on the new site so I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am.

I saw a few movies for the first time recently, some new, some having been around a while. The two I'd like to mention are Vanilla Sky and the new Austin Powers movie Goldmember. Vanilla sky I thought was a good movie, it reminded me somewhat of Memento. Some people complained that it was too hard to follow or that the ending was screwed up, but I disagree. I admit I prolly gave the screen some akward looks at times but by the end it seemed to make sense. I just liked the general style of the movie and I'm also probably going to buy the soundtrack. (I would already have it but best buy was sold out of it. Also, the song above is on it) As for Goldmember well, hmm. I thought it didn't do the other two justice at all. The movie seemed really jumbled up and not thought out very well. People were doing one thing one second and then randomly they just changed their attitude and turned into completely different characters. Austin's Father is in this movie and his role makes no sense whatsoever. I dunno, the whole thing just seems so much sloppier than the other two. Don't get me wrong however, this is a comedy and it had me laughing quite a bit, but be forewarned, I'd say about two-thirds of the jokes in this movie are referneces to the first twos comedic palletes. Oh, and in keeping with the Elizabeth Hurley / Heather Graham tradition, Beyonce Knowles = yes.

I've still been thinking over what's to become of the comments page and I've been receieving a lot of input, some sources more contructive than others. Basically I've decided that it will be one click off the main page, and while I will have an account system in place it will be optional so that if you want your name next to your post identifying that it is, in fact, you, you can do that (you can expect me to use this), but if you don't want to that's fine too. There also won't be a way of viewing the hosts on the nameless posts like there is now, so you'll really be getting more anonymity for your buc- ... well, for your nothing...

Finally I'd like to say that playing golf with clubs that need new grips on a day where it's a heat index of 105º and your hands are sweating is about as easy as nailing jelly to a tree. Having none of your shots actually hook or slice at all, but rather just go right or left directly every time you hit them makes you feel like someone is dangling a good shot right in front of you and then kicking you in the shins repeatedly as you try to walk forward to retrieve it. The moral of the story? When things get hot, you better have good rubber.

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