Back 10 entriesFebruary 10, 2004 to July 19, 2005Forward 10 entries

Life
July 19, 2005
Time flies when yer on the run.

I thought I'd let everyone know whats going on in my life, but then realized that not much is going on in my life so it'd be a real short post.

I passed the three-year mark for living in Bloomsburg PA a couple of months ago. I guess it never really mattered to me much that I've sorta hit a cruising altitude with life at this point. Well, that is till I saw that my ex-girlfriend Sarah is getting her PhD from William-Mary this year. It kinda bugs me that life isn't more dramatic somehow, though I've noticed that drama tends to be of an unpleasant sort.

I'm still single, living in the same 3rd floor apt with no pets. I have rekindled some old hobbies however. I've been getting back into fencing and learning some heavier weapons. Turns out that 16-17th century rapiers can be a lot of fun. I bought one from a bud of mine up here. Maybe I'll post a picture sometime.

I am planning some fun things in the next couple of weekends. This weekend there's a local death/thrash metal band that's holding a concert on Saturday night, and Sunday with my ears still ringing I'll be going on a white-water rafting trip with some friends. It's been a dry summer so I don't know how exciting the raft trip will be, but I'm betting I loose my hat in the first 5 mins and get burned. What? No takers? Next weekend is a Breaking Benjamin/Staind/Three Doors Down concert on saturday.

Other then that, I've been spending more time playing pool in my local bar then playing video games at home these days. Trying to lose some weight and go to the gym, but I suspect that's gonna be one of those life-long struggles just to keep even. Welp, thats about it. I suppose I should stop slacking at work though.

Hastas
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07/19/2005 - Mels: If you want to expernece pets, come visit :P and I'd love to plant in the same place for a bit, looks like thats finally happening.

07/24/2005 - Sherri: *hugs* Yay! Miss the Bill-monster!


Laptop
June 09, 2004
Well, I did it. I broke down and coughed up the dough for a laptop. I imagine there will be some nice bennies to this laptop when it comes to LAN parties, and vacations at my parents place. Basically I'll have to make sure that there's a game I can stomp Ted at multi-player when I go down for Xmass.

Details on the laptop:

  • 3.2 Ghz P4
  • 1Gb Ram
  • 60Gb 5600rpm hard drive
  • 24x Dvd/Cdrw
  • Ati Radeon 9700 mobility

    • Basically it puts my current desktop to shame. Which turns out to be ok, since my desktop is not healthy. The sound-card finally stopped working on it the other day. I'll have to do something about that I imagine. I'm currently planning on setting it up as a Mandrake 10 box that will run Samba so I can store anime and music on it. That will let me plug my laptop into the TV, and watch anime stored on the linux box. Tres' Chic.

    Thats all for now. Hastas.

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    Vacation and Odd Journal Behavoirs
    May 31, 2004
    1. Grab the nearest book
    2. Open the book to page 23
    3. Find the fifth sentence
    4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions
    "He was alright, but he would be sore for a week."
    The Fifth Sorceress, by Robert Newcomb

    Right, now that that's out of the way I can tell you bout my trip. I went up to Boston to visit with some friends up that way. Ended up going Friday night to see Blue Man Group and then Saturday we spent the day at Six Flags. Twas a really good trip, and I'm glad I'm home. Fold out couches are just as uncomfortable as I remember.

    This next couple of weeks should be lazy at home, and hectic at work. I'll let you know how it works out.
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    Work work
    May 18, 2004

    Ah the glorious crunch time. For those who don't know, we've got a big meeting with some Naval contractors coming up. Hopefully they'll decide to land us a big fat contract. This could be a pretty big step in advancing this lil company I call home. However, there's a catch. The meeting is next week, and we'll be burning the midnight oil to get the product ready in time. Last week I worked about 50 hrs, and I expect I'll be working more this week.

    The Cicadas Are Coming! Apparently the 17 year "locusts" should be emerging this week. This should make walking to work a little more interesting, to say the least. There have been suggestions involving baseball bats and tennis racquets. I'll let you know how much of a deal this really turns out to be. I'm willing to bet it isn't much more then a nuisance. Of course, I'm not trying to grow crops.

    Lets see, what else is going on. Oh, I'm in the process of switching my group over to a GURPS(tm) game. Late 1800's technology with fantasy creatures and magic. It should prove interesting. I expect that any combat will be fierce, and very quick (in number of turns if not how long each turn takes to run). Someday I'll get to run/play in a Shadowrun(tm) game again. Oh yes. It will happen!
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    05/18/2004 - Sketch: So - let me know when that Shadowrun game is starting up and we'll move up that way. :P

    05/18/2004 - Sherri: *cry* Me wanna play!

    05/19/2004 - Mels: Last time the Cicadas where out I was 7. They covered everything in a sheet of insect bodies. Its not supposed to be as bad this time in this area, but it depends on where you are. The building here has killed many of them. Where you are its a diffrent story, have fun.

    05/19/2004 - Alison: Cicadas are coming..hell they are already here and they are so loud they sound like a freaking car alarm....thank god it rained today

    05/20/2004 - azimuth: I hear my first cicada right now. Can't wait until they're in full force - I think their singing is very relaxing.


    Aww Yeah. The Hot Asian Chick
    May 11, 2004
    O-Ren Ishii (Cottonmouth)


    You're O-Ren Ishii! Twisted and homicidal, you respect most people, but let them know not to mess with you. You have a talent for sensing danger, and keep only the most loyal and skilled people around you.

    Kill Bill: Which Deadly Viper Assassin Are You? (Vol. II spoilers)

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    05/24/2004 - Thomas: I'm Bill...no, wait...You're Bill...no, no...you're O-ren, and I'm Bill. That's it. What up Bill? Long time no see.


    Loans, and Books
    April 27, 2004

    Well, this morning I sent of the last payment on my auto-loan with NBC in Starkville. Which of course involves a story, cause nothing just works out the way it's supposed to.

    So Saturday afternoon, I get home from eating lunch and find two letters from NBC in my mailbox. Since my loan was supposed to mature this month, I guessed that one was notice of maturity and the other was my title!!! Unfortunately, I was in for bitter disappointment.

    Apparently through the misadventures of unemployed life, I missed a couple of payments. And rather then add the late fees to the principal and recalculating the monthly payment, they just added it to the sum. The plus side is I didn't pay interest on the late fee. The down side was that the auto-scheduler that I had set up would only withdraw a fixed amount from my checking.

    It seems that on April 5th, I owed $6.87 on my loan when it matured. So I was charged a late-fee on that $6.87, of $5. Now you might notice that $5 is 72.7% of the amount due, and remember, the first I'd heard there was a problem was on April 24th (they were postmarked the 20th and the 21st respectivly) one a polite reminder, the other a not-so-polite reminder. So I called NBC to figure out what the heck was going on, they explained the situation and removed the $5 late fee. So, today I bought a car for $6.87

    Thus continues the adventures of "Bill Getting Out of Debt". All that's left is that pesky student loan. I'm probably going to start adding my former car note payment to my loan payments. That should pull those down much faster.

    In Other News: I bought a big lot of GURPS books off of Ebay. It included a bunch of books that I wanted, and several I already had or didn't want. I'll post a list here of the ones I'm gonna sell. If you guys want any, lemmie know and I'll sell em to ya "at cost" ($4.6428571 + shipping)

    Hastas

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    04/27/2004 - scratch: Large lots of books from ebay are Evil.


    How Humiliating
    April 22, 2004
    You are Windows 98. You're a bit flaky, but well-liked. You don't have a great memory, but everyone seems to know you. A great person to hang out with and play some games.
    Which OS are You?

    I don't know what to say to this. I.. I think I'll just go find a dark corner to sob in.

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    04/22/2004 - Scratch: There, There...now we ALL can't be linux... Why don't you just freeze up or something? Maybe that will make the pain go away....

    04/22/2004 - azimuth: I am the blue screen of death. No one hears your screams.


    Birthday Madness
    April 14, 2004

    Well, I don't know if the word was spread or not, but apparently everyone I know locally got together and decided that I needed to be poisoned. They felt the best way for this to happen was to get me to a bar, and pour as many shots as possible down my throat. Meanwhile I was innocently planning a simple party with a small cake with candles and funny hats... really.. I was.. Damnit it! This is my journal! You get MY interpretation of events!

    So 4 hrs, somewhere between 7-10 double shots, and many beers later, I was contemplating the nature of the universe, and participating in some deep philosophical internal dialog. In between trying to force my colin up through my GI track. Much mocking and video taping of my coma-like-sleep and occasional hurlings resulted. Hell, if I can't make an ass of myself on my birthday, when _can_ I?

    Ultimately I think I had more to drink than ever before that night. I also learned _why_ I'd never had that much to drink. It will be a long.. long... longlong time before I'm tempted to drink myself into oblivion again.

    In other news. I'm finally out of short-term debt! My credit card is officially payed off! YAY! In celebration I opened up a savings account with by birthday ca$h and some extra I had stashed away. I'll be starting some computer-enforced saving soon. That is: I'll get my boss to put a chunk of my paycheck directly into savings.

    Ok, thats all for now. Back to your regularly scheduled static

    Hastas

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    Postage Due
    March 24, 2004

    I guess I've been a little lax in my posting recently. I'll try to do better. Now, lets fill everyone in on whats been going on in my life for the last couple of months.

    Mardi Gras: Well, what to say. It was cold, rainy and nasty. I had a blast as usual. The weather on Fat Tuesday itself was too nasty to do my full costume, so I just used some black hairspray (which didn't work well), and some rubber horns spirit gummed to my head (which worked alright). Somehow we completely forgot the obligitory group picture, so no pictures yet.

    Single hood: Back to the land of the single for me. My relationship with Heather ended. Was a good time while it lasted. Nothing bad happened or anything.

    St. Patty's Day: Drunken revelry! Somehow a religious holiday has turned into a day for consuming alcohol in large quantities. I think I can learn to deal with that. However, I discovered that Harry's bar is harder to get a drink when its packed then a bar on Bourbon during Mardi Gras.

    Sword-Fighting Club: I've managed to get associated with a sword-fighting club that operates once a week out of a nearby community college. My fencing skills are... rusty to say the least. There's an interesting freestyle organization to the meets. Basically you pick weapons and pair off. The foil is still my favorite, but Rapier is pretty entertaining too. I'm sporting some nice bruises today, but I think I gave as good as I got.

    LAN Party: Last weekend I through my first LAN party with the wireless net. Six of us played Diablo II for 6 hrs or so. It was awesome. Amazingly convenient for the guys with laptops and wireless cards. The desk-tops were just as annoying as usual to set up. Go figure. It's tipped me towards getting a laptop as my next real machine. Its just damn convenient to be able to wander over someplace and play.

    New York: This weekend I'm heading into tha Big Apple to hangout with Rick Frank while he's there working on a robot show for MIT. Should be a good time. We're gonna hit Rocky Horror Friday night, and I'll watch his show Saturday afternoon. I'll get home sometime Saturday night.

    Well, thats about out. As I said, I'll try to be more punctual with updates to try and keep everyone informed of the nonentity that is my life.

    Hastas

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    03/24/2004 - Sherri: Wow! You'll be in the Big Apple this weekend and I'll be in the Big Easy. *grin*

    04/08/2004 - Sherri: Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, Dearest Sm'ass!!! Happy birthday to you!!! HUGS N KISSES


    Illness
    February 10, 2004

    So, I got some kind of stomach bug over the weekend. Spent a very uncomfortable, and ultimately very whiney Sunday. At least this time I had someone I could whine to feed me. Heather was awesome, lets just hope she doesn't catch it. Course Aegir was saying he didn't feel good at work today. Might be my fault.

    I'm getting better though. I'm back at work, and 90% functional. My stomach is still giving me a little bit of trouble (Yay pepto-bismal). I also get to work this Saturday to make up the time I missed. Top it of with me screwing up at work yesterday evening, (forgot to e-mail the boss, so the release was late, not to mention that I broke the build accidentally.) and me still striving to get my sleep schedule normal. I'm not sure why I'm trying so hard, I'm just going to shatter it over Mardi Gras anyway.

    Speaking of which, all plans are still go. I have to pick up some devilish hands. I'm hoping the costume shop will have something or can order it. Yeah, thats me. Waitin for the last minute. If I can't find anything here, I'm sure I can get Scratch to pick up something if I promise to pay him back.

    Ok, thats all, hastas.

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    02/10/2004 - Sherri: *WHINE* I wanna go. It's not fair that I have to spend Mardi Gras looking for a job. *sniffle**pout* YOU SUCK! *Hug* Miss you!


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