sugardeath

9:28

Got to work fifteen minutes late (technically an hour fifteen, as I originally planned to be here by eight), will be leaving an hour early (which would be the normal time if I did get here at eight, though). Whatever. It’s my last day and I need to tidy my room a bit before Jacki gets here.

I’ve got a cricket in my room. I think this also happened first semester last year? It’s pretty annoying when you’re trying to sleep from 6:15 to 7:30 and the thing just keeps going and going and going. It was kind of ridiculous.

I wonder what good stuff I shall find on Wikipedia today.

I hate these v-neck undershirts… They feel funny, plus I have exposed skin. I am either going to go shirtless if I want to expose skin, or wear a full shirt if I don’t want to. Nothing in between thank you. I don’t have cleavage to show off or anything. Plus a white undershirt collar looks a bit better beneath a blue dress shirt than skin does.

I am so majorly screwed for classes right now, this is going to be fun.

The ubiquity of BASIC interpreters on personal computers was such that textbooks once included simple “Try It In BASIC” exercises that encouraged students to experiment with mathematical and computational concepts on classroom or home computers.

So true. My math books in junior high (and maybe highschool?) always had BASIC code in the back. It was pretty cool.

Dijkstra believed that computer science was more abstract than programming; he once said, “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”

Hence why I got out of CS… It’s all.. sciencey with it’s theories and math. I don’t want to spend days figuring out the quickest algorithm for something, I want to spend days programming something useful or fun.

Recently, a set of TCP/IP routines[3] for QuickBASIC 4.x and 7.1 has revitalized some interest in the software. In particular, the vintage computer hobbyist community has been able to write software for old computers that run the DOS operating system that allows them to access other computers such as on a LAN or the internet. This has allowed systems even as old as an 8088 to serve interesting functions, such as acting as a web server among other things.

Neat.

rubbermallet.org - for all your.. um.. web/irc server needs for DOS. Really neat stuff. I like that he’s gotten an IRC server written in QuickBASIC to run with “acceptable” performance on a 4.77MHZ 8088… with 640KB of RAM. Why? Why not. Nothing like good ol’ minimalistic programming. More programmers need to realize that..

The TSR has now almost disappeared completely, as multitasking operating systems such as Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux provide the facilities for multiple programs and device drivers to run simultaneously without the need for special programming tricks, and the modern notion of protected memory makes the kernel and its modules exclusively responsible for modifying an interrupt table.

Oh TSRs, you really were quite amazing.. even if the only TSRs I used were game trainers =P

10:17

Apparently daemon is a homonym of demon? I always thouhght it was DAY-men.. Hum.

“Random article” gives a lot of song and album related articles. Accept when it gives “Random (disabiguation).” How.. appropriate.

Hah. The bit bucket article contains funny phrases such as “write once read never,” “First In Never Out,” and “Write Only Memory.”

Neat, I didn’t realize there was a /dev/full device…

10:52

Did I just crash IE by trying to display a gigantic SVG from Wiki? Silly ActiveX controls..

12:01

Unix philosophy… unix wars…

Plan 9 has the cutest mascot.

12:14

WorldWideWeb (WWW) [the first web browser] was the first program which used not only the common File Transfer Protocol but also the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, invented by Berners-Lee in 1989. At the time it was written, WorldWideWeb was the only way to view the Web.

The source code was released into the public domain in 1993, thus making it free software. Some of the code still resides on Berners-Lee’s NeXTcube in the CERN museum and has not been able to be recovered due to the computer’s status as a historical artifact.

That is pretty awesome.

12:25

The 486DX2 66 MHz was the most widespread high-end 486 version. For many players of video games during the early and mid 1990s, towards the end of the MS-DOS gaming era, it was often coupled with 8 - 16 MB RAM and a VLB video card. This configuration was capable of running every title available for several years after its release, making it a “sweet spot” in CPU performance and longevity.

I think Dad had a 486DX? I remember reading 33MHz on the case sticker.. I could be wrong. He tossed the machine a few years back, I wonder did he kept the processor?

Windows 95 signaled the end of the 486 era due to its high memory requirements (16MB to perform as well as Windows 3.x with just 8MB). Many 486 users at that time were running eight 1MB 30-pin SIMMs leaving no available slots for expansion. As 4meg 30-pin SIMMs were still very expensive at that time, it made more sense to buy a Pentium rather than spend a premium on upgrading a system that was nearing the end of its service life.

Win95 WAS a bitch to run on that machine..

Huh.. Haiku, a free BeOS replacement, became self-hosting (the ability to be built from within itself) in April of this year. The project began in 2001. That’s pretty good, I’d say, as being self-hosting is a major milestone. I can’t find when linux became self-hosting, so it’s kind of hard to compare…

Apparently there are releases of Opera, Firefox, SeaMonkey, VLC, and Quake II and Quake III for BeOS. And they run natively in Haiku.

It is kind of sad that Be Inc. died when they did. I remember being interested in running BeOS years ago, as it looked pretty neat and certainly different from Windows. I think the reason I never got around to it was no longer supported or something and I couldn’t find any downloads (BeOS wasn’t a free OS, which is probably why)? Be Inc shut their doors on November 15th, 2001. Not all that long ago.

The default browser for BeOS, NetPositive uses Haikus as error messages. More programmers need to be creative like that.

12:40

I’m trying to take my mind off of Jacki coming in today. The less I think about it, the sooner it will arrive.

Huh, there was a new release of Wordpress today… and it’s a month ahead of schedule?

In 2004 the licensing terms for the competing Movable Type package were changed by Six Apart, and many of its users migrated to WordPress – causing a marked and continuing growth in WordPress’s popularity.

Damn straight.

13:00

Maybe I should eat lunch.

I wonder if anyone’s gonna be like “why was this guy surfing Wikipedia all fucking day?”

13:29

Huh, rediscovered Jyte.

wiki just has a lot of music related articles in general, wtf.

13:53

I think I was home for the Chicago Zombie Walk…

15:33

So close…

15:54

Here we go.

9:23

A whole day of nothing.. Same thing tomorrow, too…

11:04

[…]

11:39

[…]

12:07

Granholm is holding a hearing on September 3rd to see if Kilpatrick should be taken out of office? Is she finally going something good? Damn..

12:13

There are a lot of.. sounds coming from outside. Angry people yelling.. jets? The whole building just vibrated a little bit…

Today feels like a Friday.. If only it was..

13:26

Wikipedia is great stuff. Read about monorails, Maglevs, the People Mover, the El, the Chicago Flood, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (where I might end up working), gaps in the interstate system… Let’s see what else I can find, yeah?

14:40

X-Files.. Cigarette Smoking Man, Deepthroat, X, Alex Krycek, The Lonegunmen, The Lonegunmen (TV Show)..
Invasion..

Did you know:

Foreshadowing a number of conspiracy theories in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the plot of the March 4, 2001 pilot episode of the series depicts a secret U.S. government agency plotting to crash a Boeing 727 headed for Boston into the World Trade Center via remote control for the purpose of increasing the military defense budget and blaming the attack on foreign “tin-pot dictators” who are “begging to be smart-bombed.”

WHAT is with these jets?

16:03

In a tally of performances that include every episode, movie, and guest appearance made as the voice of Batman, [Kevin] Conroy has played the character longer than Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christian Bale combined.

..Somehow I went from the main X-Files article to Luke Wilson to… … to Batman.

16:28

FINALLY done with the X-Files article..

Cedar Point is the second oldest amusement park in the country?

Gemini [a racing coaster at Cedar Point] is known for the fact that either side may win the race instead of the usual predictable results on other rides.

Really? I think Brian and Dad tried to see which train won more often, but I don’t remember the specifics because it was quite some time ago.

I have been on Wikipedia for the past … five hours? askl;djfasl;jf So much stuffff. I’ll probably end up doing the same thing tomorrow too.

16:53

Just one short day left… I am so excited.

9:28

There are definitely donuts in the lunch room… I am definitely of the opinion that I should steal one or two.

10:10

Huh, my boss won’t be in for my last two days here.

Erm.. I should probably stop daydreaming at work..

11:43

Really need to stop..

Exit interview at… some point today.. Sounds like a fun time.

14:21

When the server is slow like this, both scripts take a nice.. forty minutes to run..

15:08

Exit interview was short and sweet. Jon says he’d be a reference for me if I never need it. Awesome. Though I doubt I should put him as a reference for this potential new job.. (I told him I am quitting because of school, so if he finds out I’m working at a new place during school… :/)

I have typed so little today.. Mostly falling asleep.

I hope HR doesn’t ask me to do full-on exit interview with them. I’ve only been here two months.

..apparently I look like Jon’s oldest son? ..weird…

OK.. now I really have nothing to do these last two days. The scripts are done, they work extremely well. The documentation is done, I think it explains it all pretty well. And there’s nothing else. At all. Yay… :/

I guess I could just keep clicking random article on Wikipedia or something.. for two days.. Uuuggghhhhh…

15:32

I should have really been on top of this (registering for classes || dealing with financial aid) stuff. Looks like these bursar holds are gonna prevent me from registering anytime soon… LOOKS LIKE I’M KIND OF SCREWED HERE

16:00

TWO MORE DAYS UNTIL I AM UNEMPLOYED

16:35

snoooooze

16:51

Hm.. Perhaps I can make up for my lack of writing by writing a ton tomorrow and Friday because I have nothing to do on those days.

17:00

TWO MORE DAYS UNTIL I AM VISITED BY JACKI

11:16

Ugh, somehow missed my alarm this morning. I don’t understand it, the volume was on full, the alarm was set for 7:15 (and not 19:15)… The only thing I can think of is that I was too deep in sleep? This is the first night in a long time that I’ve gone to bed relatively early (twelve something or so), so maybe I just slept through it? I recall waking up around 6:25 and feeling it was too early to get up, so I went back to bed, hoping for another fifty minutes or so of sleep. Well, I woke up again at 8:59… A minute before I had to be at work. Oh well. Got here at 10:15 and I’ll stay until 18:15. Not gonna lose any money on this last paycheck =P Because I’ll be getting off so late, I highly doubt that I’ll be able to get Center Court.. which IS open, despite what Theresa said. And since I woke up so late, Center Court was too closed for me to get any lunch on my way to work. I’m thinking there’s nothing wrong with Chipotle twice in the same day, eh? Though I won’t go for the hot salsa again..

Oh man, it felt so good to get a real amount of sleep, though. I didn’t wake up feeling terrible or anything.. I should really do that more often.

12:02

From Jon:

Tony:

Tomorrow and Thursday (if needed), please review all WRs assigned to you (currently 11 by my count).

All of them have at least one other tester assigned to them. Please review them with at least one other tester to make sure they are ‘up to speed’. Add any needed comments and don’t forget to point them to any relevant documents or Test Suites.

Let me know if you have any issues or concerns by end-of-work on Thursday.

Thanks!

Make sure they are up to speed? Most of those WRs have been there since my first week of employment and haven’t been touched.. by anyone.. since then.

12:14

Yeah, seven of of those eleven were basically “sample” ones that Mustafa and Conor were showing me when I first started working here… :/

12:43

I think I’m going to start reviewing my WRs after lunch. I’ve really got nothing else to do today.

13:32

So there’s nothing wrong with me getting Chipotle twice in the same day. Nothing at all. HOWEVER! There is something wrong with me NOT getting Jimmy John’s when it is so close to campus.

14:27

Well… that takes care of the handoff emails. I’ll look them over again tomorrow and send them out then. In the mean time………. I don’t know.

15:11

Why am I falling asleep? I got a normal amount of sleep last night..

They’re rebooting one of the servers.. I think the test server? Gonna be kinda hard to test my script when it can’t get to the site…

16:35

There’s some neatstuff here:
http://www.millenniumpark.org/parkevents/

17:42

I am dying. asdfasldkfjaskl;djf

17:51

Documentation is fun stuff to write…

18:00

Ugh.. Looks like I lost one of the Stargates on my keychain. The SG-1 gate, too.. I’d rather to have lost the Atlantis one. Well, I’d prefer to have lost neither, but still.

The main, gigantic keyring as well as one of the smaller ones is bent all out of wack… Is this from sleeping on them the other day, perhaps? Ugh. Lame. If it fell off outside the building, I bet it got picked up or swept up or something. If it fell off in the lobby of the building.. I probably would’ve heard it, also high bet it’s not there anymore. It could’ve fallen off in the hall outside my room… Probably got swept up, as the cleaning crew was there when I left this morning. If it fell off in my room, awesome, I just have to look for it… I don’t even know when it fell off… Bleh, just an excuse to get another pair down the line, eh? =P

My Zune has been on “Low Battery!” for almost an hour.. hour and a half? now. Quite impressive. Instead of the battery indicated having a white sliver of power left, the whole thing is red. I forgot to charge the thing last night.. though I hear it’s not a bad idea to run rechargeable devices absolutely dry every once in a while.

Oh, it’s dead.

Damn.

Three more days!!!

9:19

Pulled another all-nighter. My weekend sleep schedule got so screwed up. I was getting like three or four hours of sleep each night last week due to talking to Jacki every night. I’m.. I got four hours of sleep Thursday night, got up around seven or so on Friday to go to work, and then stayed up until… seven or eight or so on Saturday talking to Jacki. Fell asleep around.. nine? Slept until.. nine. Stayed up with Jacki until about six or seven again. This time I slept from noon until eight, which is a decidedly more normal duration, just not quite during the right time of the day. So to fix that, because there was no way I could’ve fallen asleep again until it was too late, I am pulling an all nighter. Probably the.. third time thanks to this girl? Fourth? I’d do it every night if sleep deprivation didn’t cause hallucinations and death and stuff.

One of the early episodes in season two of the X-Files deals with this squad from… the Vietnam War? whose members were surgically and medically altered so that they never required sleep. It was really neat. I’ve been on an X-Files binge lately. Started season one Thursday night, watched a bunch Friday night and Saturday morning, then again Sunday morning and more Sunday night. The reason I had stayed up until noon Sunday morning was that I had reached the end of season one and wanted to start season two right away. I believe I am on.. episode.. eight or nine of season two? I don’t know. At the rate I am going, I figure I could get to the first movie (between seasons five and six, I believe?) in a week or two, and then finish up season nine maybe a few weeks after that, and then finally be able to watch the new movie that just came out. I don’t know what started me on this.. Back in the winter and early spring I would go to Sci-Fi every night and watch, in order, an hour of Twilight zone and then two hours of the X-Files. It was good stuff. Most of the episodes stand alone quite well, so I never really felt lost or anything while watching it on Sci-Fi. Paul said that quite a few episodes in the early seasons sucked balls, but I’m not of the same belief. While there have been some episodes that don’t quite stand out as well as other ones, I still think they’ve all been pretty good.

I got some really nasty bites on my feet sometime last week. Thursday or so? Probably.. Got them after wearing a pair of white socks that I must not have washed in forever.. Bet there was something living in them.. kinda disgusting.. The bites are terrible because when I’m bare foot my pants rub on the top of my foot (where they are), and, since I work everyday, I have to wear my tight-fitting dress shoes. Can you say painful? I actually haven’t worn my regular tennis shoes in quite some time… It’s.. going to be.. comfortable, you could say, to wear my looser fitting tennis shoes again. It’ll be great.

I’ve five more days of work, including today (since it’s just started).

There’s less than five days until Jacki’s plane touches down at Midway. It’ll be four days come 5PM.

9:41

My breakfast this morning consisted of.. chips and salsa, at like six-thirty or so in the morning. I meant to not eat my muffin last night and save it for the morning, but that didn’t happen.

I recall Theresa, one of the awesome Center Court ladies, stating that this past Saturday was the last day Center Court was open. I went to put money on my card for laundry and saw that I have a brand new eight-some bonus points on my account. If I’ve got these bonus points but no Center Court to spend them on.. I am going to be very unhappy.

I moved into my new room last Wednesday and Thursday afternoon/nights. It was.. fun… I hate moving so much, and I just went from one hall to another. Going from one place of residence to another place of residence with a completely different address will suck even more, I imagine. Hopefully I find an apartment or something near IIT. Assuming I can find an apartment. I think I said this way back, but that’s my next major goal in life, get an apartment. Shouldn’t it be something like.. oh.. I dunno, do well in school? Get a good job? etc. Yeah, I guess, but that’s not what it is, so.. yeah.

I believe about half my clothes were clean, but I threw them all in the laundry at once anyway, bed sheets/blankets and all. All together it was four washers and four dryers worth of stuff. I don’t know of washer nine was being stupid, but I put my two blankets in there and they were still soaking after an hour and a half cycle. Granted, they WERE abnormally wet coming out of the washer, but.. hm.. I don’t know what could have caused either situation. The crayon blanket seemed the wettest, so I stuck that one in washer eight which had proved itself earlier with my dress cltohes, and put an hour on it. About four hours later (I forgot about it while talking to Jacki), it was perfect. Because I didn’t have enough money on my card to put the binary blanket in a separate dryer (I was afraid washing them together would turn out not well again), and because the TechCash site didn’t seem to have the “Make a Deposit” button at the moment (I don’t understand?), I ended up draping that blanket over Tim’s clothes rack and putting a pot under the corner of the blanket that was dripping the most. Hoepfully it’s done drying by the time I get home…

I do not look forward to folding all of my clothes or making my bed. I should really be writing this documentation for my scripts as well as trying to figure out why the script aborted when I ran the thing Friday night..

9:53

I finally shaved my mustache… I think it’s been like two months? It was getting pretty bad… and itchy..

Itchy itchy tasty.. I wanna play Resident Evil again..

I ordered a new mousepad from Newegg Thursday night. I forgot to order the video cables for my laptop at the same time. The laptop uses standard vga (dvi, maybe?), but doesn’t have S-Video out or anything else common, instead it’s got a nice little mini-RCA jack that does video and stereo sound together. It would be great if I had this cable, because then I could stream movies off of AndrAIa and play them on any TV on campus.

10:01

How palindromic!

10:12

I will receive a paycheck for $745 a week from Wednesday, on the twentieth. The day that Jacki leaves Chicago. The day before classes. The day before Phil’s twenty-first birthday. That’s a fair amount of money that will be nice because I’m sure I’m going to spend a lot of money while Jacki is here. It’ll be worth it.

10:27

[…]
10:34

[…]

12:32

1976: Lakeside Mall opens with four anchor stores: Hudson’s, Lord & Taylor, Sears, and J.C. Penney. The mall also features a movie theater and ice rink, the latter of which was eventually replaced with a water slide.

..water slide?

Re: Sterling Heights

As of the census of 2000, there were 124,471 people, 46,319 households, and 33,395 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,397.0 per square mile (1,311.6/km²). There were 47,547 housing units at an average density of 1,297.6/sq mi (501.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 90.70% White, 1.30% African American, 0.21% Native American, 4.92% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.34% from other races, and 2.50% from two or more races. 1.34% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Ancestries: Polish (19.0%), German (14.4%), Italian (12.5%), Irish (5.7%), English (5.0%), Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac (4.8%), and American/US (4.0%).

Jacki and I were bemoaning the.. prevalance and nature of Chaldeans this morning (’cause we’re racists fucks like that). Granted, it’s been eight years since the census, so a lot could have changed since then.

WHAT! Didn’t Mr. Suggs get promoted to Principal of.. crap, what elementary did Paul get transferred to (it started with a ‘C’?)? Wiki says that UCS operates twenty-nine elementary schools, but only lists eight… Browning isn’t on there.. but apparently Mr. Suggs is currently the principal of Bruce Collins Elementary.

I’m pretty sure Beacon Tree is that stupid huge one.. Bigger than Ford, if I recall correctly?

12:44

Why does MALOW get its own wiki page when none of the other junior highs do? At least all of the highschools have wiki pages.

The summer of 2008, demolition took place in the school to fix the walls and outdated classrooms to better the learning experience.

Many of these same modifications have taken place at the school’s sister school, Dwight D. Eisenhower high school, which was dedicated in 1972 and has the same floor plan. The buildings are so alike, in fact, that in the early 70s, the same lockers in both buildings had interchangeable combinations.

Interchangeable coms!? Hahaha, Wikipedia, I love you.

Hah, Stevenson calls Ford’s pool home. Take that.

In 2004, the school’s locally-famous circle drive was modified to make way for construction on the new Performing arts center on the Clinton River Road front of the school. The performing arts center dramatically modifies the aesthetic front of the school. It officially opened in the Fall of the 2007-2008 school year and holds 800 patrons featuring modern touches and state of the art lighting and sound systems. The new center debuted officially with the musical, Into the Woods, in the December 2007.

Locally famous, eh? Perhaps for the end-of-the-year senior circle that would back up traffic on Clinton River.. =P

Nicknames

---

Henry Ford II High School was known locally as “Suicide High”. Although the name is fading, October 22nd 2007 marked the 10th anniversary of a series of 5 suicides that took place between June and October of 1997. on October 22nd 1997, A 15 year old freshman was the last to take her life.

Henry Ford II High School also has many novelty nicknames, such as “H.F. Two” and “H.F. Deuce”, which are variations of namesake Henry Ford II

HAHA WHAT I remember when that.. Brian? kid took his life in October of 2002, my freshman year. That was a pretty weird day.

OH MAN! The school’s website has barely changed from when I used to work on it! And… the opening flash has a picture of.. !! Is that Poop-Pants?! Her name was.. Rachel something or other, I’d have to break out a yearbook but they’re all at home. Anyway, story has it that she pooped her pants at a party or something and thus transferred schools for a year or two… RACHEL SPICA HAHAHA I just remembered. =P And then Brittney from S.O. is in another picture. Weird… I think the girl sitting next to Poop-Pants is.. Erin Glaros? Looks kinda like her. Haha, I remember when she first transferred to Browning Elementary and David Shirley had the biggest crush on “Elmo Girl” as he called her, due to her Elmo backpack, I think? Oh, the good ol’ days, eh?

Oof.. not feeling too well after eating this turkey pita sandwich thing.. The hunger I felt did feel kind of off… but.. still.. I’d rather have food in me than not.. I just hope it stays in me.. I really need to get to bed early tonight.. If only to feel well..

Going to the bike shop today after work with Casey to get a new chain for my bike. Old chain was rusted fairly nicely, so.. off it goes. Next I need to borrow Joy’s bike pump and inflate my tires. Then perhaps I could ride to the lake and such!

14:06

Linux-ts is really slow today for some reason. Makes my tests take a lto longer than they should.. I’ve even had to stick afew more delays in the one.. I am so tired right now it’s not even funny.. I’ve done this before and it’s never been this bad… Right after the bikeshop I need to fold laundry, make my bed, and go to sleep right away. If Jacki’s on I should apologize to her.. maybe giber her one of the things I wrote? Probably. Definitely. She deserves something for me skirting (?) out like this…

It iwll be nice to have a new chain for my bike, but will I ever actually use my bike? Hopefully someone organizes like bike rides or something, that would be pretty awesome.

14:26

I just gotta keep myself doing something for the next two hours and twenty minuntes. I hope these last days of work go by quickly. Half the reason I’m falling asleep here is because there’s nothing to do.

I’m actually writing this out by hand at the moment. I’ve got AutoTester running through both scripts and that should take some time. I’m writing on the back of the Race Judicata information packet.

Besides, when linux-ts is slow, these scripts work flawlessly. I whipped up some quick documentation earlier today and that is just about done too…

14:36

[…]

14:46

[…]

14:56

Oh god, did I just get all poetic? I haven’t done that since… oh.. the eighth grade.

This is keeping me up pretty well, physical pen on paper action. It’s good stuff it is.

So this whole eight hours a day thing definitely ain’t that bad once ya get used to it. I could easily see this week flying (and it damn well better).

But the day may come when you got something to lose
And just when you think you’re done payin’ dues
You say to yourself “dear god what have I done”
And hope it’s not too late ’cause tomorrow may never come
Reach for the Sky
’cause tomorrow may never come

15:09

Ah it’s been too long since I’ve written.. like old-fashioned pen and paper. It’s a good feeling. I feel much more expressive (albeit slower..) this way. Too bad it’s all going to get typed up anyway.

For some reason half these ’search’ buttons are being hit… They get focused, but not hit or activated I guess the word would be. This is temporarily remedied by my hitting enter, but since this script is supposed to be automated while no one’s here, this is going to be a problem.

15:47

One more hour.

16:40

I think… I think I spent the last hour eighty-percent asleep..