Cheap Horror…

LoupOrange (10:50:00 PM): I thought of something to do at the cabin
LoupOrange (10:50:03 PM): It'll require a camcorder
juliebuttercup10 (10:50:07 PM): uhh
juliebuttercup10 (10:50:11 PM): what?
LoupOrange (10:50:21 PM): And no, it has nothing to do with you & Madge being girls
juliebuttercup10 (10:50:28 PM): thought not
LoupOrange (10:50:35 PM): Though, it may be you and me
juliebuttercup10 (10:50:36 PM): it's good that we're going..
juliebuttercup10 (10:50:39 PM): uh
LoupOrange (10:50:54 PM): I want to set up the cam to look over a table; small, like a square coffee table
LoupOrange (10:51:14 PM): And have two people (mebbe you and me, because of experience) have their faces floating on either side, so they're sidelong views
LoupOrange (10:51:26 PM): And let the ceremony commence:
LoupOrange (10:51:28 PM): "Bitch"
LoupOrange (10:51:30 PM): "Whore"
juliebuttercup10 (10:51:48 PM): hahaha!!
juliebuttercup10 (10:51:58 PM): i don't think i could keep a straight face
LoupOrange (10:52:09 PM): It's all in cheek control
LoupOrange (10:52:22 PM): Keep the cheeks relaxed, nothing tenses up into a smile
juliebuttercup10 (10:52:44 PM): yeah, i know
juliebuttercup10 (10:52:48 PM): i'm actually not bad at it
juliebuttercup10 (10:52:55 PM): you know that honey i love you game?
juliebuttercup10 (10:53:00 PM): i rock at that, but it's stressful
LoupOrange (10:53:08 PM): Is that like the newlywed game?
juliebuttercup10 (10:53:50 PM): uh, no
LoupOrange (10:54:01 PM): Then I don't know
juliebuttercup10 (10:54:18 PM): you just have to say that to someone, and they say 'honey, i love you but i just can't smile' back without smiling.
juliebuttercup10 (10:54:24 PM): harder than it sounds
LoupOrange (10:54:51 PM): People should try that too.
LoupOrange (10:54:57 PM): With guys it'd be quite the challenge.
juliebuttercup10 (10:55:09 PM): why?
LoupOrange (10:55:14 PM): I dunno
LoupOrange (10:55:18 PM): I think it'd be hard for me
juliebuttercup10 (10:56:13 PM): it would be, yeah
juliebuttercup10 (10:56:21 PM): it takes a lot of concentration
juliebuttercup10 (10:56:31 PM): something about knowing you're not supposed to..
juliebuttercup10 (11:12:19 PM): that would be a lot of fun though..
LoupOrange (11:12:36 PM): Shall I bring a camcorder too?
juliebuttercup10 (11:12:45 PM): always a good thing
LoupOrange (11:13:00 PM): All right, I'll see if I can get stuff for it together...
juliebuttercup10 (11:13:10 PM): alright
juliebuttercup10 (11:13:13 PM): make sure is charged
LoupOrange (11:14:27 PM): Oh, shoot, I don't have a way to carry it...
juliebuttercup10 (11:14:39 PM): hmm
juliebuttercup10 (11:14:41 PM): no case?
LoupOrange (11:14:44 PM): Nope...
LoupOrange (11:14:55 PM): no tripod either, so we'd be setting it on books
LoupOrange (11:15:19 PM): I should let my dad know his camera doesn't see much use because it can't get to use.
juliebuttercup10 (11:15:27 PM): aww
juliebuttercup10 (11:25:54 PM): are you a virgin?
LoupOrange (11:26:01 PM): yeah
LoupOrange (11:26:13 PM): Any particular reason you wanted to know?
juliebuttercup10 (11:26:24 PM): well
juliebuttercup10 (11:26:40 PM): it really sounds like the beginning of a horror film, right?
juliebuttercup10 (11:26:46 PM): but virgins have to survive those
juliebuttercup10 (11:26:49 PM): so.. we all live
juliebuttercup10 (11:26:53 PM): not a very interesting film
LoupOrange (11:27:00 PM): No. Not really.
LoupOrange (11:27:48 PM): But maybe two people do it, thus inciting the horror film...but then, it just becomes a cheap horror-porno. A horno, if you will.
juliebuttercup10 (11:28:06 PM): lol!!
juliebuttercup10 (11:29:04 PM): that was so funny...
LoupOrange (11:30:10 PM): All right, I'm posting that...
juliebuttercup10 (11:30:17 PM): good

The Big 'To Do'

I'm proud of how I've been spending this break. Little of it went to video games; I've had a little WarCraft 3 and Halo 2 with Damian, and I did buy and beat Mega Man X4 (took about 4 hours, and that story— holy crap), but it hasn't been like Christmas breaks past where a huge amount of time was devoted to creating a butt print in the computer chair...uh, for games, anyway.

I've found several wonderful time sinks, which I'll just list off here:

• From that side list of blogs on David's blog, I found BoingBoing.net, a blog of many, many, many wonders, including the fairly morbid bone church (follow-up article here.
• From Jen, the Acts of Gord, tales of great amusement from the owner of a video game rental store in Canada. He also has a few essays on the video game industry, written before and about the premiers of the XBox and the GameCube.
• While not actually a timesink, I saw the recording of André Rieu's performance in Cortona. This concert is breathtaking; done in an Italian villa's centre, with 3-4 story structures surrounding the stage, the Vienna Philharmonic playing (I may have gotten the group wrong), and Rieu playing while conducting...there's one song that has a soprano singing a beckoning song to her father that rips right into your mind; she becomes the daughter you'd do anything for. Oh, it's wonderful; PBS has played it before, they may again, but try to get the DVD, it's quite worth it.
• David recently (read: an hour ago) got JSP working on FE, so I shall sink a few days into refreshing my Java experience and throwing it online as servlets, getting some of that horrid working in VBScript in ASP out of my system. Theoretically, I'll be able to get XSLery comments working by the end of break, all supposing if I learn a way to interact with XML files through JSP by the end of break. Shouldn't be too hard, if work has a light week planned for me.
• Last, I suppose, I've been looking at several Jabber clients. I like including excerpts of chatlogs sometimes in blog entries, and I'd like to do it more, but I don't have simple ways to convert my chatlogs to something displayable on this blog. For those of you familiar with XHTML, or XML, take a gander at an AIM chatlog some time (just save a conversation). The markup is horrid! <body> elements control background colors, bold tags overlap other font tags, font tags are used period...writing up entry 300 was an exercise in the Find & Replace function. Well, maybe it doesn't bother some as much as me, but I don't like it. So, I've been questing for a Jabber client that works across Windows, OS X and Linux (or is written in Java; universality, essentially), and that has decent XML output. Results on that to come, I've been keeping a log.

I have ridiculous vacations. I don't think I've really had one for four years; so, it occurred to me a month or so ago to start keeping track of things I'd like to do once this Free Time rolls around next year. The list is pretty extensive; I think my 'vacation' next year will be pretty busy as well. Though, to assure I never run out (ha! Like that'll happen), I put this List into the wiki, so people can pile on whatever they want (like Leia did with Lemony Snicket, which I would indeed like to read).

One look at the list, and you may think I have no clue how to have a vacation. You're probably right. Well, let's see if I take a year without school well, or if I truly did forget how to live un-busily; come next year.

A Birthday Dance and Dinner (not the same)

A girl who (I guess) frequents the Tuesday dances in Oly had her [first] birthday dance tonight. It went OK, and the rest of the Oly dance was...uh...OK, as usual, I guess. I didn't dance so much, after I nearly ruined Damian somehow.

See, we were dancing with our partners on a fairly crowded floor. As was inevitable with me and a crowded floor, I backed into his Zone, and he stepped on my heel. This gave him a wholly unexpected Charlie Horse that put his leg out of commission; he had to stop the dance and limp off the floor, after standing their for a few seconds in a funny position, trying to fix what he thought was a cramp. It took him a half-hour to recover. I had no idea that was possible.

Anyways, after the dance, I was invited to donuts at Phillip & Bethany's place. Cool deal, so I went. I got to see a budgie be abominably cute by buddying up with a guinea pig, which almost made my night by itself. Then Phillip got a call from his sister, who was supposed to be picking up the donuts: Change in plans, go to Denny's. Off we went, where Julie threw an awesome dinner (at least, as awesome as Denny's can be). Jon (UW law student, graduated from WSU) was greatly impressed with the waitress, because she took down someone's order on her hand because she didn't have paper — above and beyond the call of duty. And she called someone "Hun," which he also thought was awesome. She got a great tip.

Another high point of the night: This dinner was free (except tip). The birthday girl's dad said he would pay for the dinner; he's in for a surprise, however. He thought it would only be eight people, but Jon, the wonderful crowd-drawer and charmer that he is, invited ten others. I think we had six tables at Denny's in a row to seat all of us. Oops.

The last high point of the night: Even though it was Julie's birthday dinner, she handed out grab bags for people, each with a card, a crazy straw, some candy, a mini-slinky, and a princess ring. My card even had a front scribed in glitter. Julie's an awesome character.

Though, she did keep us out 'til 1 at night. And Susan's trying to plan a DDR thing at 11 o'clock. ...That's in 8.5 hours. Better get to bed.

Scrambled Porn: But not Skinny-Max

The total cost of the brake failure I had a few weeks ago: Two hours of my life; a mechanic's bill; one missed SOGO board meeting; and one missed ride for a person to said meeting. That's what I thought the total was, anyway. Alas, there was another adverse side effect.

That day The Stickamajig spent at the mechanic's, Doug (the Honda/import specialist) made another change to my car. The antenna has been stuck in the upright position since before I got it; the little motor hadn't caught the antenna, but always tried anyway, causing a grinding sound that spooked anybody I happened to be giving a ride to. About six months ago, the motor died, much to my joy. It meant the antenna would just be up, end of story; until, that is, Doug plunged it in. Now it's just a little six-inch diddy standing up next to the trunk.

This has cost me NPR. Sadness has ensued at the loss of All Things Considered.

Driving downtown, I am made painfully aware of which structures block off my radio signals (the DSHS building, the Ramada Governor House, and railroad light fixtures, for example). This causes much fuzz in my most enjoyed Robert Siegell, with more woe ensuing.

Now, tonight, NPR had a story with a small musical interlude that caught my ear and gave me a chuckle, mainly thanks to Jim: A wa-wa guitar, strokin' a rhythm out, with funk-like drums. Yup: NPR did a segment on Porn, the Wave media technology rides (no pun intended, but heads up!).

After the guitar faded out, the report continued, eventually playing some audio from something big in the area of...interactive DVD, I think they said. "Mmm," a none-too-sub-PG-13 voice said, "My name is Breeohna Banx. Now...what do you want to do...to me?" a-HEM. Public radio, ladies, gentlemen and young children. Well, I was having a chuckle that during an interview about porn they decided to include some samples; for, uh, reference? Sure. I think the excerpt ended with another moan of hers, but I'd be hard-pressed for accuracy on that; for at that moment, I drove by the DSHS building.

"MmmmmfzfzfzZZffzzfzmmmFFZFZFZFZ" quoth my speakers. I was listening to a garbled femme-nubile. It then hit me, that I had gone a bit backwards in the adult technology front: I was listening to scrambled porn on the radio, instead of watching scrambled porn on the boob tube. (Buahaha, heads up!) Some may consider it retrograding; others may consider it beaming porn right into the place where the body is the second-most idle during the day (asides from sleep, but y'don't need porn for that, hyuk hyuk hyuk). I'm afraid to consider it the latter, but, that could become the case, as a fair trade for some services rendered for the good of technology.

It's funny how porn sometimes seems so...heroic? Defendable? Nah. Not unless you accept the thesis of multimedia stemming from a Good Dirty Picture. I'd look into that more...if only I could ever bring myself to discuss it in public. Maybe later.

*(3,(*(10,10)))

— Title is in prefix notation: I've been doing a lot of that lately. A lot. Haskell's functions are, by default, written in prefix notation, which has a certain aesthetic appeal; I may write about it some day, along with lambda calculus. Fascinating material.

Today, though, I dedicate my blog to itself, circling about for Entry Three Hundred, a number that I don't know if I should hyphenate or not. Don't think so. I recall entry 100 went to...uh, Leah's head and The Transformers, I guess, one of which is a cult icon with a far-from-but-maybe-could-be fanatical following. 200 went to FallenEarth and the girl from math, which was a cozily smaller focus target.

I hereby throw away dedications of areas I'm comfortable with: This is from Gentoo and for Schroedinger's cat.

With much help from Nicholas, and further inquisition for David (with some planned for Nathan, but he happened to be away whenever I need Linux help), I got Gentoo working on the 700 megaherter box. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I even braved several house-burnings to get things running:

…

RedDeno (12:27:03 AM): you can skip that locales shit too
RedDeno (12:28:35 AM): and don't do scripts/bootstrap -f, do the one in code listing 13 instead
LoupOrange (12:29:21 AM): Ah, you underestimate my wussiness: I did Stage 3
RedDeno (12:29:28 AM): dear lord!
LoupOrange (12:29:35 AM): Well, I wanted to sleep tonight
RedDeno (12:29:35 AM): I'm going to burn your house down

…

LoupOrange (12:48:41 AM): What's GRP?
RedDeno (12:49:03 AM): something you skip
RedDeno (12:49:06 AM): (binaries)
LoupOrange (12:49:25 AM): ah
LoupOrange (12:50:17 AM): Hmm. Looks like the end of that manual; I guess the next thing I want to do is install KDE. Where should I look for that? (I have the packages disc)
RedDeno (12:50:33 AM): use packages and I'll burn down your house
LoupOrange (12:50:55 AM): ...aww. I spent a CD on burning my house down.

…

I even managed to finish the emerge one night. Nicholas told me that after getting Gentoo going, installing the GUI would be great simplicity, if I would RTFM and let it go on autopilot. He then went to bed, and I talked with David about my accomplishments, and how I was so happy to finish my Gentoo installation, at 1 in the morning no less, that I was going to celebrate the first way I could think of: I was going to bake cookies! And they were so rewarding. But then, things took a turn, and I became a part of Physics Lectures manifest. I recounted the tail to Nicholas, but that was days later; that night, after the first ominous mishap, I had a minor nuisance shared with David:

…

LoupOrange (2:00:58 AM): All right, I'm just going to let that run 'til morning. Meanwhile, I'm going to go experiment with the adverse side effects of sleeping with chocolate chip cookies in the gut.
LoupOrange (2:01:00 AM): oh wtf...
LoupOrange (2:01:07 AM): um
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:09 AM):Hmm?
LoupOrange (2:01:12 AM): "
LoupOrange (2:01:18 AM): !!! Digest verification Failed:
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:21 AM):Cookies doing damage already?
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:01:27 AM):For the emerge command?
LoupOrange (2:01:38 AM): !!! /usr/portage/distfiles/X11R6.8.0-src2.tar.gz
LoupOrange (2:01:48 AM): haha that was a really well-timed pun error...
LoupOrange (2:02:01 AM): !!! Reason: Failed on MD5 verification
Chen Zhi Xiang (2:02:01 AM):Hmm, just delete that file and try again

…

I decided to ignore the possible connections between cookies, Gentoo, and Voo-Doo. One omen was bad enough.

Installing X (a prerequisite for any decent GUI) turned out to have an obstacle, inherent in my hardware. It wasn't until I saw Nicholas last that I realized Quantum Physics had entered my life, most definitely not for the last time…

LoupOrange (11:24:32 PM): Hello Nicholas
RedDeno (11:24:38 PM): Howdy Alex
RedDeno (11:24:46 PM): How goes the long haul?
LoupOrange (11:24:51 PM): Are you familiar with the story of Schroedinger's cat?
RedDeno (11:25:05 PM): I don't think so, no
LoupOrange (11:25:24 PM): It was the beginning fable of Quantum Mechanics
LoupOrange (11:25:40 PM): Schroedinger stuck his cat in a box with a cyanide capsule that would detonate at a certain time
LoupOrange (11:25:44 PM): or a certain event
LoupOrange (11:25:57 PM): The box was sealed, with no way of perceiving the interior
LoupOrange (11:26:15 PM): Once the box was closed, it was impossible to know what the state of the cat was: Alive or dead
LoupOrange (11:26:31 PM): In fact, it was both simultaneously (with a 50% probability attached to each)
LoupOrange (11:26:44 PM): And only observing the cat would determine what its state really was
LoupOrange (11:26:55 PM): Opening the box is what makes the cat's state declarable
LoupOrange (11:26:58 PM): Period.
RedDeno (11:27:07 PM): I see.
LoupOrange (11:27:07 PM): Now, why would I tell you this fable, you might be wondering?
RedDeno (11:27:19 PM): Well, I think it's relation to gentoo might be horrifying.
RedDeno (11:27:23 PM): its
LoupOrange (11:27:23 PM): Slightly.
LoupOrange (11:27:51 PM): Gentoo, after fifteen or so minutes of inactivity, goes into a Power Save mode that turns the screen black (but not off, as forum research showed).
LoupOrange (11:28:06 PM): Running "emerge kde" takes many multiples of 15 in minutes to complete.
LoupOrange (11:28:22 PM): Now, once upon an X-installing night, the Power save mode went on
RedDeno (11:28:29 PM): And froze
LoupOrange (11:28:34 PM): No
LoupOrange (11:28:48 PM): The computer was happily grinding away (or rather, putting every ten seconds or so)
LoupOrange (11:29:10 PM): However, when I pushed a key, any key (ctrl to be precise), the screen half-filled with text, output of emerge;
LoupOrange (11:29:22 PM): The Caps Lock and Scroll Lock lights commenced blinking;
LoupOrange (11:29:28 PM): And all activity ceased, save the fan.
RedDeno (11:29:30 PM): hahahahaaaha
LoupOrange (11:29:33 PM): NOW
LoupOrange (11:29:38 PM): X finally finished, after an hour or three
LoupOrange (11:29:42 PM): HOWEVER
LoupOrange (11:29:53 PM): emerge kde runs for God Knows how long.
LoupOrange (11:30:13 PM): And after fifteen minutes, the machine goes into Power Save mode.
LoupOrange (11:30:26 PM): I have no hint at all that emerge is yet running, save the occasional "blip" from the hardware.
LoupOrange (11:30:40 PM): More like a "MNriht"
LoupOrange (11:30:57 PM): However, if I ever wish to OBSERVE what is going on, the machine locks up, blinking madly.
LoupOrange (11:31:05 PM): This
LoupOrange (11:31:06 PM): is
LoupOrange (11:31:11 PM): Schroedinger's emerge.
RedDeno (11:31:26 PM): This is
RedDeno (11:31:29 PM): fascinating.
LoupOrange (11:31:34 PM): This will be
LoupOrange (11:31:36 PM): entry 300
LoupOrange (11:31:41 PM): on Forest-Shaded Howls.
RedDeno (11:31:46 PM): :-)
LoupOrange (11:32:01 PM): I plan to post it after you threaten to burn my house down again for a miswrite I had in tonight's car accident story.
RedDeno (11:32:27 PM): car accident who?
RedDeno (11:32:31 PM): *headng to FE...*
LoupOrange (11:32:34 PM): hehe
RedDeno (11:34:31 PM): sacrifices speed?
RedDeno (11:34:35 PM): it's on now beyatch

Luckily, an Exercise in AAA Use

Tonight, The Stickamajig decided to not break. But I mispell.

Coming to a already-slow stop at Custer & Capitol, my brake pedal stretched itself and touched the floor, something it one-upped me on. The only problem with that is I would be proud to touch the floor stretching; it would be a cause for much rejoicing. And I would only say "Oh, shittles," if something had gone horribly wrong in the stretch. As for The Stickamajig, it defaults to "Shittles."

Thanks to the wonders of engine compression (something automatic-trans. drivers miss out on) and the good ol' e-brake I could stop at the light without a problem. Getting somewhere out-of-the-way was the next challenge. One left turn away was a parking lot for a restaurant, which I happily rode into in all-controlling first gear, the Command Line Interface of driving (allows great flexibility, but greatly sacrifices speed). (Entry on Gentoo experience coming soon, will explain why I wrote that.) I got into the parking lot without incident; it did take me a second to realize that turn signals don't work with the emergency blinkers on, but the one guy on the road kept his distance as I got out of the way.

This was a truly straightforward road problem. I had my cell phone handy, I had a AAA card; everything went surprisingly smoothly, for a vehicle that lost its primary method of stopping. I am counting myself extremely lucky, that the brakes failed when I was already going slow; that the e-brake still worked; that I didn't forget my phone in another car or on the charger; and that a tow truck would come and get me with one call, sans hassle.

One thing I could've done without: The deeper-than-suspect puddle in the middle of the parking lot. When the tow truck arrived, we took turns accidentally dunking our feet in that thing; he grumbled "Oh, damn Lake…" Twenty minutes later, the car was out in front of our mechanic's place, and then it was back to home, where I stopped procrastinating my writing.

Damian, meanwhile, only knew that something had gone wrong (to put it in exact terms). I stepped into the house first, and assured him it wasn't a full-fledged accident, with imploded hoods, gnarled doors and the like; just a mild-mannered brake failure. He seemed relieved to hear me fill in the wholly unalarming details.

Then my dad walks in, carrying his shoes, dripping slightly. I blanked for a second, then remembered out loud: "Ha ha, oh yeah, the lake…"

Damian blinked with great might. "What the hell; your brakes failed, he ended up in a lake…and you're fine?"

Consumer Moment

I got another Controller S today. It had New Car Smell; it's currently sitting on the table in front of me. I don't buy things often, so this is a pretty exotic moment for me.

And now, Damian and I can play Halo II on equal grounds. Which means I will still have my ass blown away with most every weapon in the game.

This was written because I can't finish the entry on dancing that I've been trying to write for two weeks. Now I'm two entries away from entry *(3,*(10,10)), which will probably be its title.

Another random moment that exists for journal entries: I chatted with Anne (viola teacher) today about playing with Olympia Symphony next year, and what I would have to do (or even if it'd be possible; hinging on no overpopulation in the viola section). I told her that I most probably will not be playing with SOGO next year, because I'll have graduated and thus not be a student at the time, and I'll be 21, the cutoff age for group membership (that may change in a year; not for me, but St. Martin's students).

Anne: "...Wait, you'll be 21?"
Me: "Yup, in September."
Anne: "Gee. I guess that means I should buy you a beer."

Things are refreshingly laid back in Olympia.