My so called blog

I thought of that name today, probably more fitting for this blog than the lame one I came up with on a moments notice some months ago.

Anyway, last monday was my birthday. Lots of people didnt know, if you didnt dont feel bad. I dont like talking about the fact I have a birthday comming up, especially this year. I didnt blog about it till now because there was really nothing to say. I didnt go out the entire weekend before (or after for that matter) and my day consisted of studying for a computer security midterm, taking the midterm, then getting home to a sleeping family as usual, having the 1st peice of my birthday cake and opening my card-gift at my desk in front of the computer. To 'liven things up' I pounded a few beers, the first I've had in awhile.

My diet has also gone to hell, tho I figured my birthday and thanksgiving would do it. Lost about 10 lbs, gained about 3 back, not bad. Ill probably resume in a week or two. One thing about this diet is I dont want to shock my body too much, or the body will resist loosing the weight. (for those of you who dont know me, I swear I'm not a fatass, just keeping myself from becoming one before its too late)
Thanksgiving of course came with my now traditional bottle of Wild Turkey 101, being a vegitarian, its the only kind of turkey I can have.

Ya... in case you cant tell, I've been down lately. Looking back on it I think I'm often like this this time of year, which makes no sense because I love rain and cold. Just when I think I'm out of it its back. If youve been trying to call me and arent my client I'm sure you noticed my absence. Im comming up on that big final stretch in school. Where all my lagging necessitates (what, you havent figured out I cant spell yet?) a big final push... and this semester I seem to be out doing myself.
My attention seems to swing back and forth between computer security and Japanese, and the past few weeks computer security has really been winning, to the suffering of Japanese. Winston asked me why I dont just give up computers and concentrate on Japanese. I'd love to, problem is computers feed me, and honestly they are something I'm also quite interested in, so I dont think I could ever really give them up.
Of course between these two, math gets NO TIME (I've missed the last 2 tests entirely) Though if my syllabus math is correct, if I ace the final (I aced the midterm) and ace these last 2 tests (last one is optional) I still could even get a B!
Miss 3 out of 6 tests (not counting the optional one) and get a B. Now thats my kind of math class.

The house is too quiet without Willie. My mom put a bell on Harry, I think to make him sound more like Willie, but it was taken off. Harry should be allowed to hunt just like Oscar!

On a bittersweet note, looks like my X is getting sent home early from China. Finally I can get Disgaea and my Tenchi Muyo DVDs back and be done with her.

Links of the day!

wow these are piling up, I gotta post more. Im going to dedicate this to a news story that many of you may not have heard yet (though its quickly becoming internet legend) A girl had her mom killed. Whats so big about that you ask? She had a blog, making it into a phenomenon.
First, the news story
The murderer, Rachelle Waterman
The victim, Lauri.
The blog, which is now LiveJournal members only because of the ENORMOUS ammount of comments and other crap that it generated. Also, because evil places like livejournal and xanaga will do anything to get more members.
It should be noted that she didnt actually KILL her mom, she had 2 24 yr old 'ex boyfriends' do it. Kowaiso.
EDIT: seems good old Rachelle deleted all her recent posts yesterday (how did she do that from jail?) its also friends only for commenting, but it seems that anyone can view it now.

Inu ga shindan desu

I wanted to find a pic I hadnt really put on the web before. I find I really dont have that many pictures of Willie.

Our family has always had a bit of a love hate relationship with him. He was never properly trained (we were too young to do it and my parents took no interest) and especially as he got on in years he cared less and less, as a little yelling when you've heard it at least once a day for years doesnt really matter anymore.

With the remodel of the house, Willie started getting 'contained' upstairs, out of most of the bedrooms, to limit his damage. Over the past couple months however, I've started letting him hang out in my room all day, at least when I'm home. (being a contractor I'm often home) He sleeps in my moms room which over the past month or so means she gets up 2-3 times a night to let him outside so he doesnt crap in their room. To which I always told her she should just let him walk around upstairs, afterall he craps there durring the day.

Last nite she told me she was going to let him out, for reasons I wasnt sure of. I picked him up and put him on my couch since he cant really jump anymore. It was obvious he was having difficulty breathing, but didnt seem to be in any pain, just tired. He slept almost all day yesterday and the day before in my room, causing me to wake him up occasionally to check on him.

As I went to bed I put him on my bed to sleep with me, but he soon got up and struggled to move his bowels. (under my desk...) Tried to go outside my room to do it, but made a wrong turn and ended up lost. (my room is not that big, hes just senile) I put him back on my couch and went to bed. I decided I would spend the day with him today since it was obvious he didnt have much time left.

In this house my whole family gets up and leaves the house before I'm conscious. Its ok, as theyre all unconcious when I get home from school at 10:30. Today the fuss was about Willie who was sleeping on the couch at the foot of my bed so I was in and out of consciousness. My mom decided to take him to the vet. I wanted to protest, I think I even might have a little, but I knew it wasnt easy on her either.

I knew what the result would be. Turns out his kidneys had failed and his heart was going. Which of course would mean a nice natural death of old age, but thats not convinient.

I got a call from my mom at about 10:30 this morning that they were going to put him down. This time I DID protest, but once again I didnt want to hurt her. She asked if I wanted to be there, I couldnt answer right away, but ultimately I didnt like the idea of him being alone. He wasnt in pain, he wasnt rabid, he was just old...

About 20 minutes later I called the vet, he had already been put to sleep.

My father will probably remember him for all the money on cleaning products (and the recarpeting that is sure to happen soon now) he spent.

My Mother will remember all the time she spent taking care of him, and all those weekend mornings hed sit staring and barking at her while she ate (this dog was famous even among dogs for gluttony, more evidence coming)

My sister might remember the time we came home from church on sunday (wow mustve been long ago if I went) and this tiny dog had somehow managed to knock an entire box of dougnuts off the table and eat the WHOLE THING.

My brother will probably remember the first half of his life when he slept in his room, until he went off to college.

I know Adam will never forget that time he made a microwave burrito, put it on the coffee table and got up to get a drink, never to see that poor burrito again.

Ill remember throwing the tennis ball up on the hill and into the pool for him when he was younger, and giving him the rawhide treats he wasnt allowed to have and hanging out with him in my room all day in his last days.

I dont know his exact DOB right now, I will edit that in later. He was 14.

Monday is my birthday. Something I already didnt give 2 shits about. I even have an essay midterm on computer security that day. Looking at the calendar on my freshly formated XP computer (why I was up late enough to spend time with Willie last nite) I'm pretty sure its someone elses birthday too. But shes half the world and oceans of emotions away.

BTW- Dont call me. Im not hangin out this weekend anyway, and I smashed my phone against the wall across my room (actualy glanced off the ceiling too) after the vet phonecall. I dont know when I'll get around to checking to see if its broken. Hope my clients dont need me today.

Links of the day!

to hell with them

Is this thing on?....

Lets see if anyone actually reads this.. (or at least geeks)
Been looking for a couple things and I'm hoping for some input.

1. With my now living Ipod, I would like some utilities for both Windows and Linux that dont depend on the OS (run from their own directory and dont require an install)
Mostly I'm looking for tech-support and trouble shooting stuff. Already got several things from sysinternals including a very reudimentary protocol analyzer, but I truly wish ethereal worked T-T
So far no linux apps, as I suck at the Linux. Which brings me to my next question.

2. Been wanting to get deeper into linux for awhile. Played with lots of dists over the years, and now im fairly fond of Fedora. (watches the true Linux geeks die) and Gentoo really interests me. But I failed at an install at the begining of summer, just refused its first boot...

However, for the purposes of learning (and for a possible stupid blog trick) I want something thats going to install and give me a decent configuration in a day (overnight is ok) and Gentoo doesnt really fit that bill. I like having a GUI, (preferably KDE, maybe gnome as a 2nd, not really ready to play with anything else) and while im not afraid of a Gentoo type install, debian and slackware annoy the heck out of me with questions (that I usually dont understand) if I do a custom install.

So... ideas? theres a comment button below.

On the election front (the last I swear) I promised to do this, and I want to get it out of the way (hell even I am burned out on it) so here goes as quick as possible.

I had
Bush: 275
Kerry: 253
Giving Bush New Mexico, Colorado, Minesota, and Alaska he has 255.
Giving Kerry Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampsire and Hawaii.

I was wrong. It ended up

Bush: 286
Kerry: 252
Kerry got MN and Bush got Indiana and Nevada. (CNN still has New Hampsire as a tossup, not sure if thats just because they quit updating tho.)
So I was wrong on that (but not the outcome) and a cursory glance shows I cant add either. Oh well, as I said, I'm more than over it.

Last thing: kitch, youre a lucky girl, you got a ticket, not all do. Now get on the train before it leaves the station.

Links of the day!

Spamer goes to jail! (I'd prefer hell)
The new internet standard, Infinate Monkies!
Now that my Ipod is back, someone buy me this

The SCREW ATKINS Diet!

Im a bit plump for my tastes, not really FAT yet, but I can see myself moving in that direction. (im 6' 192lbs, broad shouldered build) So I'm going to dust off a diet I used a few years ago and got great results off of. It's a rather boring diet, but what works works.

*DISCLAIMER: If you die because you used my diet, well theres one less idiot in the world, its not my fault*

The basic plan is to eat a lot less, and the easiest way to do that is to restrict what I eat to just a few things. The plan involves me 'eating breakfast' (something I almost never do regularly) and using that to fuel myself thru the day, rather than my usual custom of eating a BIG meal in the middle of the day (usually 2-5pm) and then snacking all night. SO..

BREAKFAST: a can of tomato juice and one of those 2 for 99cents bags of Planters peanuts, to give me energy for the day and make sure I get protein.

LUNCH: 2 white bread single slice cheese sandwiches, sometimes with a little butter or mustard.

DINNER: well not really dinner, the idea is to eat a peice or two of white or wheat bread with a little butter if I'm hungry.

At first I'm not going to 'work out' other than maybe play some ddr or go on walks to raise my heart rate. After I loose about 10-15 lbs I will begin doing pushups and situps, because I do know that I will loose muscle on this diet, but thats alright, my muscles arent big but I'm still quite strong anyway.

I actually will loose lots of carbs doing this tho, because I'm going to limit my beer intake to the weekends :P Tho last time I did this I switched to Sake for the evening calm-down and that seemed to work well ^_^

So why screw atkins? Because I'm a vegitarian, I'd starve on Atkins. :P

The overall goal is to get to about 175, I dont think thats too much to ask. Then the trick becomes changing the lifestyle so I dont have to do it again in another three years. But isnt that the answer to the $10million question? ^^

Links of the day!

And I thought those late 80's wrap around Oakleys were ugly!
Lesbian cows? we have a winner!
These are the only things that make the Oakleys look cool.

Post election... and actual real life!

Was hoping to make this the last election blog, but I want to square away my numbers I predicted a few blogs ago, and I can't do that until the final numbers are in. I know I was wrong. Part of my error was I was just concentrating on giving Bush the bare-minimum to win. Turns out he did better.

On other political news, I'm breaking this story. a friend Zain online found in another chanel this link A CNN news site from Netscape.com What makes this interesting is the URL of the picture of Bush and his wife: if you right-click on the picture and go to properties, you see the image is called Asshole.jpg. Unfortuantely as I write this
I see that they have changed it. I should have took screenshots. Anyone who believes ALL media is not biased to some degree is fooling themselves. You can say its the act of some lone web designer, but thats what editors are for.

Last thing on the political front, at least for now is this link fromCNN on voting stats divided into categories. It's quite interesting, especially when you look at income, education and age.

In real life- heres what I did yesterday ^_^


Smoked a Padron 1964 Aniversary, the most expensive and best cigar Ive smoked in my life at $45. Anyone want to buy me a box? ^^
It was a spur-of-the-moment buy at the place we went to on Sunday for my Mom's birthday. It was worth it, perfect for clearning the election crap out of my head.

Other than that I literally havent done ANYTHING lately, including putting off school way too much and not finishing the re-arangement of my room. As it is, I have a Japanese 2 chapter test today and I missed the last two classes, Thursday because I was lazy, and Tuesday for the election stuff. So I should be doing that now.

I think I'm going thru the 'mid-semester blahs' right now, that time of the semester where I fall behind, neccessitating the big push to the finish a few weeks from now. Theres other things too tho, I've been a bit lonely and there are other things that I cant talk about with anyone, not even here. But life goes on, or so they say, after my birthday I hope things to get better.

In other personal news, I had a long conversation with an online friend last nite who I found out had been shot a few months earlier. Hes ok, but may never be perfect- so hey, I guess I should stop whining so much.

Links of the day!

Here's something to take your mind off of just about anything- a pregnant MAN.
Or maybe a dancing hippo will do it for ya.
If all else fails, give yourself a seizure.

4 more years

Well, screw my cinicisim of the other day. its 9pm PST and I'm calling it for Bush. Seems some news organizations are already doing so, but I'm just looking at the #'s on the web.
Bush has 237 and Kerry 188 according to the abc news link I'm using.
Giving Bush New Mexico, Colorado, Minesota, and Alaska he has 255.
Giving Kerry Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampsire and Hawaii he has
253.

So its not coming down to Florida afterall, its coming down to Ohio.
Ohio is going pretty solidly Bush, giving him 273

Bush 275
Kerry 253
We shal see how my predictions hold. New Mexico COULD go Kerry, but its not enough to matter.

Election Day

On this election day, I would like to make an appeal you will not hear just about anywhere else.
In a Democracy, participation IS key. People SHOULD go out and vote. However its not the only key.

So, if you havent been paying attention, if you get all your 'news' from Rush Limbaugh or your union meetings or even the same nightly news broadcast everyday, please dont vote.

Democracy depends on INFORMED VOTERS. Lets look at that. Everyone imediately sees the 'voter' part, but ignore the qualifier. Thats why the mentally retarded arent supposed to vote, they cant reasonably be informed. Its the same reason why the founders of this country made it that only white land-owners could vote- because the assumption was they had a stake in it and so they would be informed. Im not saying to go back to those days, but use your concience- decide if u actually KNOW anything first.

Politics is a haven for idiots. In every category, from one wing to the other to the moderates to the apathetic. But I think the biggest idiots are the ones who go off to vote because of what someone told them. From 'there will be a neculear attack if Kerry is elected' to 'Bush will re-instate the draft' to 'my friend told me ____' to 'Rush said ___'. If those are youre reasons, please stay home.

Of course I'm not voting this election, so maybe I am an idiot too. I consider myself fairly informed, however as I have said before I need something to vote FOR not just against. Thats probably what annoys me with Kerry voters, they mostly just seem to hate Bush, Kerry would probably get more votes if they changed his name to 'not Bush' on the ballot.

Links of the day!

Another thing youll have trouble finding today- NON ELECTION STUFF!
If I wasnt so honest I could make a lot of money using these ^^
Targens web comic should allow anyone to rest their brain power for awhile.
In my constant search for blogs lamer than mine- heres Barbies!

Pre-election wrap-up

Well, it looks as tho things will go solidly for Kerry, all the sane and insane predictors seem to be saying so. This would keep in line with my theory that this election will NOT be nearly as close as the media (ratings = $) would hope, But who knows. If it still comes down to Florida, its anybodys game.

For insane predictors, lets look to sports:

Since the late 1930's there has been 16 elections, all of which predicted the election with the Washington Redskins' last home game. If they win, the incumbant party retains power. If they loose, the chalenger wins. They lost to the Green Bay Packers, Targens favorite team, 28-14. However, the Patriots 22-game-record-win-streak was also broken yesterday, so maybe that could be seen as a nullifying factor?

Also when the Boston (Kerrys home-state) Red Socks won the World Series a few days ago they did it in BUSCH stadium. Wrong spelling to be sure, but you get the point.

As for at least semi-sane predictors:

The site I use most to follow the actual election stats is electoral-vote and he has Kerry up quite a bit. All he does is average the polls done by all the pollsters and make predictions, and he still believes its anyones race, so he seems to provide a very unbiassed view.
Interestingly, he revealed himself today and besides being the creator of Minix (precursor to linux) it turns out that he, himself is quite biased. I could debate his arguments, but instead I congratulate on being at least seemingly very fair to both sides and reporting honestly.

However he also points to electionprojection who has it completely opposite. He does think he has a decidedly Bush tilt, but does not argue with his meathods. So still- who knows.

As for me, well my insane predicions are mostly about the election.

All though statistics seem to be on my side here, I seem to be the only one who thinks that this will NOT be that close. It is anybodys game and it all depends on that "snapshot in time" that the votes are actually cast, but I think when its all said and done it wont come down to one state. You can tell this will be true on election nite when the spinmeisters and even real news people start talking about multi-state combinations. If it is close, this could be strange. There is a record number of absentee ballots this year in many states and they might not know for days or even weeks if its too close.

My sane predictions are mostly about the next four years.

The economy will grow. Thats just the bussiness cycle, few years up, few years down. I think its fairly rare that a president has a major influence in the economy more than if people are confident in him or not. I could even see a mini dot-com like bubble grow if oil prices inspired America to go to hydrogen. But the details I'm bad at, I just think it'll go up. I give both candidates equal footing here.

Iraq will be a success. The only ways Iraq will fail is if we 'cut and run' or we make some HUGE tactical mistake. I dont believe its another Vietnam, but being slightly too young for that whole mess I both dont know vietnam well, and NEVER WANT TO HEAR IT SPOKEN OF AGAIN. (Seriously, Vietnam was like the 1 place we got our ass kicked ever and we just cant get over it, what are we- French?) Things take time, Bush was silly to declare victory so early, but things will stableize when we get them to the point where they can be their own police. Thats pretty much what we are at the moment, except the 'gangs' there have stuff like RPG's and missles. And you thought the LAPD had it bad.... I give the edge on this to Bush, they both will run this war through advisors, neitehr one of them REALLY knows jack about the military or the middle east, but Bush has got experience under his belt now, and Kerry is more likely to cut and run.

Because of these two reasons, you can see it pretty much doesnt matter who will be president in probably the largest two issues facing the country. I guess part of me wants Bush to get credit for what he started, but I really dont want things like national healthcare either. (btw I am uninsured)

Links of the day!

Not today, theyre all in the text above.