Friday Morning Raspberries

Another Friday starts and I'm not really into the world right now. The dogs barking woke me up about an hour ago and I lie in bed for a while, trying not to face the cold, and hoping to get out of helping to load up the car because I really didn't feel like moving.

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city lights
Wind was blowing, time stood still

My folks are going to my sister's house in Indianapolis until Tuesday. Well, hopefully, anyway. They're not leaving for a bit and my dad can have on of his famous freak outs and spoil my plans of solitude and a guy's day for the weekend. I'm watching the clock and looking at the door and hoping that the car is packed because I still don't want to face the cold.

Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close; I heard a voice

Tomorrow Evil Jim and Kevin are coming up for a real guy's day. Hanging out with pizza and video games. Fixing a light fixture that popped off in our kitchen. Downloading whatever they can find of interest with my AOL Sat Dish. Burning them to CD with my 16x (kickass) burner. Probably watching some sort of sports when we're not doing any of the above accompanied by, of course, the usual sounds and sights of a guys day. As long as we don't turn into Tim Taylor from the old show "Tool Time," we should be okay.

Standing, stretching every nerve
I had to listen; had no choice
I did not believe the information

Today I have a haircut at 10 then I have to go out to take my mom's paycheck to the bank and pay my Sears bill. I know, adventure, excitement, it don't get better than this. I'm actually looking forward to the solitude today. I made a choice to stick with my folks when they needed someone to care for my dad. Hey the rent is next to nothing and it's a pretty secure living situation, but they're on my nerves big time right now. With everything else going on I don't have a lot of privacy to deal or cope or whatever without having to explain the last three years of my life to them.

Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home

That of course leads to them explaining the last three years of my life to my aunts, then they pass it on to everyone else, then I'll walk downstairs to their part of the house and overhear an intimate discussion of my life between my father and some lady from the Internet. Jeez. I mean seriously, this is how it goes with everyone's parents but damn lol. I've learned to keep things from them ever since I was a kid because they tend to react at the extremes. They either don't care about it or they go over board and gush too much attention on it.

To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine

While that would be charming if I were a kid, I'm not, I'm a man and I really don't need to have my life broadcast to the entire family. Which is ironic since I'm sitting here broadcasting it to anyone with a web browser. Yah, that's whacked, I know, but hey, the amount of people reading this blog is far less than the amout of relatives alerted to the pimple on my forehead the other week when I made the mistake of not ducking out of a car ride with my mom.

Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Though my life was in a rut

I'm all for blocking relatives from e-mail. The last thing I need right now is for one of my crazy aunts to e-mail me wanting to know if I've popped that pimple yet. Let alone having them e-mail me about that same subject two years from now. A real definition by a moment with the short term memories there. I mean I still get questions to if the arm I broke when I was 13 ever healed. LOL. "Yah how is little Jimmy, is his arm still in a cast?" Oh dear god.

Till I thought of what I'd say
And which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery

I blocked my mom from e-mail. I really did. She abused it. She was sending me e-mail at my work account to tell me to take the garbage instead of walking up the stairs to tell me. After the first time I used mail controls and blocked her butt and I'd do it again in an instant. All relatives for that matter right now. If you abuse it (especially at my *work* account), then you're gone. Well, that's not true, I will not block my niece and nephew, but other than that -- see ya later alligator.

I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home

Okay so that's cold. But you know what? You have to take steps to protect yourself or it's going to drive you crazy. Parents, when you get older, are here to drive you crazy as payback for all the times that you drove them crazy as a kid. If you believe that, then I'm owed payback for all of the evils done by Bart Simpson, Dennis the Menace and the little kid from the "Home Alone" movies times ten and multiplied by the number of times John Lennon's song "Imagine" has been sung off key by someone trying to make a statement at public gatherings, high school talent competitions, graduations and the ever popular bachelor party. Hey, it's happened. Imagine that.

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette

As a Lennon fan I think that one day the world's gonna wake up and realize that John Lennon was just a man like any of us. He and Paul McCartney had some petty battles during the 70's (and Yoko still continues them to this day). If you can get past "Imagine" and actually listen to the rest of his songs and you'll hear a lot of stuff that will change your views. Along with "Imagine" he had a lot of vicious little songs dedicated to ripping a situation apart.They sure don't fit your image of peace, love, happiness, the hippie culture and everything else attributed to John Lennon as memories fade and people want to believe the popular view of things. But then again, there's more to all of us than what's attributed to us, for that matter.

When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see

Door closes. Two of them. Dogs growling and ready to bark. Car starts and ... back in the house for coffee ... car revs and ... back in the house for purse ... my dad looks impatiently ... back in the house for the bathroom ... my dad falls asleep in the passenger seat ... back in the house for CDs ... car runs out of gas and ... back in the house for -- you know, if my mom made a list and got her stuff in order before she said goodbye it would make leaving less of the 40 minute ordeal it is now.

No one taught them etiquette
So I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement

I think they're actually gone this time. I'm alone. The house is quiet. There's no pressure. There's no headaches (other than the dogs). This could be a good thing. Time to crank the music, go a little crazy, and see where life is heading for the weekend. On that note ...

I'll show 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

k9
("Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel)

Got a Case of the Blahs

Going out of my mind on a Thursday night. About to go into EQ for a bit to keep a promise to a friend. That's one thing that I do: I keep promises. I keep commitments. If I give my word then I try to stand by it to the end of the pact or until the other party breaks the deal. As slimey and as evil as some have accused me of being over the years, in my heart I'm an honest person and I keep my word to the best of my abilities.

Tonight I need to stand by a friend who is going through the most difficult time in that friend's life. I made a vow to stand by this person years ago. I gave my promise, I'm keeping my promise, and it hurts to be honest with you. I never imagined that by making a vow I'd be in a position to be hurt by keeping my word. I don't really know how to react. I don't know really what I should do. I mean a lot is changing and a lot is really screwing me up right now.

I'm pondering to myself if I should break my vow. I've never purposely walked away from a vow before, but between pain and vows, what's going to be the first to give? I mean I'm not sleeping. I fall asleep at 2 am and I'm up with a nightmare at 4 am. Back in bed by 6 am then up at 8 am. I'm not naping. I'm so hurting and so mixed up right now that I'm not going to be moving forward for quite a long time.

What's worst of all is that every time I deal with this person or just hang out with this person from now on I'm going to be in pain or reminded of pain. It's not hate, it's not difficulties or feeling weird about them, it's not anything more than pain right now. On the other hand I gave my word and I pledged a bond that I can't break. If I do I'm not a good person. I'm pond scum. I really would be. I'd be abandoning a friend who was up front with me, who was truthful with me, and who hurt me, but in hurting me took a chance that they might not ever have again. It's that serious.

So here I sit on this Thursday night, Survivor a fading memory. I'm weighing the consequences of both sides. I'm thinking about the pain and I'm thinking about the ease of walking away. I'm thinking about the hurt I'd cause and how bad both of us would feel if I went. I really don't know what I'm going to do. I've got to wake up and make up my mind and stick with whatever decision I make because it's been a week and I'm seriously messed up. I know that it's a decision that has to be devoid of chance or luck; I can't flip a coin, I can't draw straws to make it. I have to do some serious thinking and come up with it on my own.

That's the hardest thing of all.

k9

Early Tuesday

It's after midnight and Tuesday has begun. I think I missed an allergy appointment last week so I'm going to try to go over in the morning and see if I can get my shots. No big deal, just something lost when my visor had to be reset last week. I missed about 6 weeks worth of stuff, alas, since I had yet to put the visor software on the new machine, let alone hot synch. I kept thinking I didn't have to and it would be fine but, of course, I learned otherwise.

It snowed again today. Right now we have about an inch of wet snow out on the front lawn. I shoveled more in the past week than I've had to most of the winter, that's for sure. I'm also thankful that I brought in wood for my folks this morning before the snow hit. I wouldn't want to have to take our cart through the snow tomorrow. Ugg.

I don't know if I'll make it through a full night's sleep. To be honest, I haven't been sleeping that well since Friday. Last night I had nightmares about the strangest of things and ended up on the phone to Summer at 5 am my time (2 AM hers), just shooting the breeze because there was nothing else to do. That was after talking to Brandi for an hour before bed. Not regular calls, since we IM all the time, but good to hear voices as I slowly make my way past last week.

On that matter, it's the first day facing it directly. I'm being strong and hanging in there but it's hard. I won't get a chance to really be by myself until my folks go see my sister this weekend. So god knows it's going to be torture until then. I'm thankful for the friends who have asked me about it, but this one is something that's going to have to stay a mystery. I'll be okay and I'll probably whine about the recovery here for a while. On that note, this is my personal blog, this is my diary on the web. If you don't want to read about my stuff then thank you for reading but there's other places you could be visiting ...

Heading to bed.

k9

Sunday Morning

It's Sunday morning and I'm doing a bit better. I'm not as depressed as I was on Friday. I kind of pride myself on the ability to get over anything in under a week or over a weekend, but this one I really don't know when I'll be over. It's serious. So we'll see.

Avoiding work and trying to avoid the expansion of my headache. Had a volunteer bitch to me for an hour last night because I simply asked him to unclick the "send annoying e-mail when I post a new message" box when he posts a new message to our group. It's this simple: "No one wants extra e-mail. Getting e-mail that you posted a new message is annoying. Don't do it." He just didn't get it. This morning I woke up with an apology from him CC:'d to my boss saying how he'd never ever do it again. The irony here is that my boss has yet to join the group because he doesn't want any more e-mail. LOL. Got to love life sometimes.

On that note, I'm going to go try to get rid of this headache.

k9

Hours Later

It's now officially morning. I've been awake for about 14 and a half minutes. My day started with the doorbell going off. The doorbell is our emergency alarm for my dad. He wears a ringer around his neck just in case he needs help. When he presses it the entire house shakes as the doorbell rings, our insane dogs in the kitchen hear it and start barking their heads off (a sound that is best described as one of Dante's levels of hell in itself), and whomever is upstairs drops whatever they're doing and runs downstairs to help out.

This morning I was semiconscious. I was having a dream about taking a train. I hadn't yet gotten on the train but I had finally figured out where I was going when ... DING DONG ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF DING DONG ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF. I'm up, I'm up, I remember what side of the bed to get out of (unlike last week when I gave myself a black eye by smacking my head into the wall), and I fall out of bed. I look for some sweat pants to throw on, forget the socks, ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF. I'm up, I'm up, I'm running to my door, down the hall, around the corner and down the stairs and ... he's asleep. My mom is coming up the stairs. Oh my god, for the first time in months it's someone actually at our door.

This is when I stagger to the computer room and let her handle it. It turns out it was one of her friends wanting to drop something off or something. I then staggered into the computer room and started the day like every other day, turn on, sign on, now at work.

I'm still too asleep to do anything else.

k9

Saturday Morning Blues

It's after midnight here and I'm feeling incredibly old as I sit in the glow of my computer screen.

Got bad news today. Devastating news. News that just turned my world on its ear and news that hurt a great deal more than I was prepared for.

I spent the day in shock, putting on a face for friends and trying to salvage something out of the day, but really I'm sitting here alone and just not doing that great as I write this.

No one is dying.

No one is sick.

No one is fired or anything like that.

It should be good news, but it isn't, it's devastating. It's horrible. It means change and I'm not ready for it. It means giving up three years of emotions and dreams and everything that goes with them.

I thought I was okay at first. I really did. I thought I'd be cool about it, and I'm sure I will be cool about it after the shock wears off, then 8 hours later I started to think of all the changes and I nearly lost it.

14 hours later now and I'm a mess. I have no energy. I feel like I'm a million years old, and as strange as it sounds, I look that way as well. Thank god no one is near with a camera for this is one weekend I want to forget. I know I never will and that really is messing with me now.

I hate myself for feeling this way. I hate myself for not being happy about it. I hate the feelings I have right now and I hate that most of my friends are away so I can't vent. So I sit here and I wonder and I hope and I'm going to put my usual smile back on tomorrow and pretend that this isn't hurting me as bad as it is. I have to be strong and I have to be strong for someone during this and afterwards. It's something I dreaded, it's something I had nightmares about, but it's here and I'm dealing. Sure. Really. I am.

It's good news.

It's a dream come true.

I should be happy.

Then why do I feel so bad?

k9

The Great Experiment

Writing on the first day of spring as the snow falls outside my window and I've posed the question "On the Equinox, can you stand snowflakes on their edges?" to anyone who will listen.

I'm not in a very good mood. I have a headache and I'm still wondering what the hell TechTV's dreaded Powers that Be were thinking with the Screen Savers experiment last night.

If you didn't see it, here's a quickie: the TechTV jibcam revealed that they moved the screen savers to the TechLive studio. Worse yet, they put Leo and Patrick in suits and apparently were going for some sort of ESPN SportsCenter look for the screen savers. While it was an experiment, and it never aired, the TechTV community was upset with what they saw. They were even more upset when Leo posted something (hopefully in jest), essentially saying that he'd quit if they went forward with this format.

Many (myself included), turned to Paul Block's blog to express our disappointment with what we saw. We cared enough about the show to be pissed off and tell him about it. His response? Another blowoff. He wants us to "chill." He's already written off complaints as "there are some of you that might never be happy anyway," so there's no real point in complaining to him further.

I have this feeling that TechTV is a lot worse off than even what they're saying at fuckedcompany.com. I have a feeling that all the egos, torrid affairs, high school mentalities, and general "me first" attitudes are running smack into their first ratings period and people are freaking in management. I also have a feeling that the smart folks are playing an endgame strategy to get the heck out of there before the ship sinks and those who aren't are running around making stupid decisions and dooming the channel even further.

Can things turn around? Will they ever get a clue? Will Paul Block ever take his head out of his butt enough to see that we complain because we love the network and we don't want to see it die?

Probably not.

Does anything we say or do right now matter to anyone in management? Will bitching and writing and being pissed off change anything?

Probably not.

Then why do we care?

I really don't know anymore. I seriously don't.

k9

Back

It's Monday morning and I'm back from a business conference. I must say I had a pretty good time. I met the people I worked with for the first time. Since I work online I've known some of these people for 10 years now without actualy having a face or a voice (other than rare phone sessions) to put with a person. So it was nice for all of us to get together and just get to know each other.

The company brought all of us together and we even toured the main campus. That was pretty cool even though I pity the poor fools who work in the building. It's one endless maze of cubicles and the company store is pretty expensive. $56 for a shirt that I could have gotten for $10 at k-mart. The only difference? The company logo was on it. Oh boy ... lol. Cheap bastards! :)

One thing a lot of people had that I'm thinking of getting is the AOL Mobile Communicator. I'm not sure of the price but it's like a blackberry for AOL. You can get e-mail and IMs for it. Since we use AOL quite a bit for what we do, it's an awesome little thing and I'm considering saving for it so I can have e-mail and IMS when I'm on the road, or when I'm, oh, you know, all the way at a big conference and I've forgotten my laptop ... AGAIN. D'oh. Thank god they had a computer lab set up for us.

Anyway, about to go return the rental car. Blogging again soon.

k9

P.S. Yes, Rachel, Summer, Katie and Laura, I'm baaaaaack. Mama Sue and Laser Carol too. Didya miss me?

Got to Love It

Mid-Morning on a Tuesday, I have a blog in front of me as I'm in the middle of reinstalling my system. So far so good on that note.

I was able to get the old motherboard out. I removed the heatsink and the processor. The heatsink was pretty much coated in thermal tape residue so I had to get all of that off with some nail polish remover. It took a while to figure out the exact way to put the thermal compound on the chip and the heatsink, let alone get the both back on the motherboard, but I think I managed. Though I think Rachel, who was IM'ing me during the process, aged two years in the time it took for me to put the damn things in.

I half expected the entire system to blow up as soon as I got everything back together. Lets face it, you read this blog, you know what an idiot I am when it comes to hardware. So I took things slow, got the motherboard in, connected the cards, turned the power on and ... BIOS comes up. Seems to be running fine. Went through the Windows XP setup. No graphics card lockups like the other with the other motherboard. Now this worries me. I get all the way done with the installation, install all 4 versions of AOL and ... no hitches. I had to call Microsoft to reregister XP over the phone (you have to do it with a new motherboard), and that was essentially it.

So far, it's working. Don't know if it'll REMAIN working, but hey, it wasn't as bad as I feared.

k9

It's Sunday morning and I'm blogging again. I haven't blogged in quite a while and I'm getting back into the flow of things. It's been a big week around here and it all is leading up to tomorrow's pending disaster.

Can you hear them?
They talk about us
Telling lies
Well that's no surprise

Yes, yes, I researched my video card problems. To catch the non-Leovillians up, I've had problems with my motherboard and ATI Radeon cards. I have an old all in wonder and it's great as long as I don't try to play shooters with it. It runs the sims just find mind you, but umm, it sort of dies in Everquest.

Can you see them
See right through them
They have no shield
No secrets to reveal

Everquest isn't an addiction, but dammit, I want to play for more than 5 mintues without freezing or something screwing up. So I went out and bought the NEW ATI Radeon All in Wonder DV 8500. I thought that would solve the problem. Nope, it locks up the whole system after 2 minutes of being installed. I called ATI Tech Support and guess what? They don't know what the problem was. They had me send the card back for a refund or replacement. Guess what? I got the new card and the same thing happened. Freeze 2 minutes after start up, if that.

It doesn't matter what they say
In the jealous games people play
Our lips are sealed

So instead of calling Canada again to talk to an ATI Tech, I started puttering around the ECS home page to see if there were problems with my motherboard. Ta-da, the most common complaint about the board is that ATI cards have lockups. Ugg. No one really had a work around and no one had advice so me, being the genius that I am, decided that I'd replace my motherboard with one that should work.

Careless talk
Through paper walls
We can't stop them
Only laugh at them

So Thursday night I had the new motherboard on order. The guy at the store said it should work fine. He even found a board that would take my PC133 SDRAM and support the processor. That's when I started looking for guides on the internet on how to take a processor off of one motherboard and sticking it on another motherboard. I ended up at the AMD website and was shocked to find that I can't just switch the processors without a bunch of extra steps.

Spreading rumors
So far from true
Dragged up from the underworld
Just like some precious pearl

Yup, in the old days it was just pop one processor out of a system and throw it in the new system. Now the processor is take off a heat sink, take off the processor, put the processor in new board, replace the thermal compound, put the heat sink back on. Wait a second, thermal compound? I have no idea what that is so I ask the guys on Leoville. A nice guy named Wesley explained that I need a tube of it or else I'm going to blow up my processor. Okay, one more order from the web place ...

It doesn't matter what they say
In the jealous games people play
Our lips are sealed

So tomorrow I will have not one but two motherboards here with AMD Athlon XP 1800+ chips on them. I will have the new motherboard, my tube of thermal compound, and hey, I'll be good to go. Or so I hope. :)

Pay no mind to what they say
It doesn't matter anyway
Our lips are sealed

In other news, Laura Burstein's thread was the first thread on Leoville to break the 100 page mark on the new boards. I have this feeling that the thread is quietly plotting to take over the entire board. Either that or to get so large that he'll need his own server to handle it. It's been a short strange ride on getting to 100 pages and I thank everyone for the fun we've all shared in getting there. It's been wild, it's been crazy, and hey, gosh darn it, stop by and have some fun with a bunch of weird people on Leoville.

There's a weapon
We must use
In our defense
Silence

And yes, I do feel like a geek typing that. :)

When you look at them
Look right through them
That's when they'll disappear
That's when you'll be feared

On that note, I'm out of here until I feel like blogging again. Hopefully new strips up this week either during or after my business trip. To my three readers, cross your fingers, and I'll talk to you soon.

Hush, my darling
Don't you cry
Quiet, angel
Forget their lies

k9
Our Lips Are Sealed
(J. Wiedlin/T. Hall)