August 2002 Archives
Time again for a little self-indulgence where I publicly babble about what's going on in my head. But hey... it's a blog and it's barely read, so everything's fine.
When I first read this article, I was a bit concerned. Parts of it sounded far too much like me. But we, as a society, too often tend to try to make the symptoms fit the illness instead of the other way around. There are things in there that sound like me (having a hard time staying focused while I'm reading, having a hard time paying attention while people are talking to me, needing new things often, poor organizational skills), but there are a lot of things there that sound nothing like me at all (hyperactivity, performing poorly at school, having a bad memory). And I can come up with various other explanations for such problems. I try to think back to when I was a kid to see if I can remember ever being like this. I was always great at school until I hit high school and things fell off a bit, but I still managed to end up 13th out of around 250 in my class. When I was really little, I was always in the advanced reading sections, but I also remember taking all day to read The Neverending Story when I was in the 4th or 5th grade.
I do wish it was so simple that you could just stick a name on it and it'd solve everything. My adult life has been a muddle with repeated failed attempts at learning new things and starting new hobbies.
Maybe I should see somebody about this stuff. Or maybe all of you should.
Posted on August 1, 2002 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
O.K. I could SWEAR that I pre-ordered the Lord of the Rings DVD coming out on Tuesday. I even remember telling Sarah that I might as well get it since the extended edition was so expensive and not out until November (though I ended up pre-ordering that one last month anyhow) and I wouldn't have to switch discs to watch the whole movie that way.
Unfortunately, a large amount of my mail was eaten by Netscape recently and I no longer have the mail I keep of non-shipped orders. I've also checked my usual haunts and there's no record of that order there.
Maybe I'm hallucinating. I've gone mad, I tell you. Mad!
Posted on August 1, 2002 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It sucks when the shoddy business practices of a company like Encore Special Events can mar an otherwise beautiful occasion. I'd definitely recommend steering clear of them for your catering needs.
Posted on August 2, 2002 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Shortly after I watched and reviewed Red Beard, I read this Washington Post article about the AFI exhibiting all of the Kurosawa films that Toshiro Mifune was in. This is so cool. I hope I can make it into town to at least see all of the movies I haven't seen yet. I especially want to see Throne of Blood, as it looked very interesting in the clips they showed in the Kurosawa documentary on PBS.
I encourage anyone interested in movies to check it out.
Posted on August 4, 2002 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I just wanted to do a quick, random update.
Work's been really busy lately. With the school year starting soon and people being out sick or on vacation, I've had a lot to do. Hopefully everything will get done before the kids return, though I'm not feeling all that hopeful about it. Ah well... I'm doing what I can.
Apparently, my credit card number was stolen. I noticed a couple charges from ibillcs.com on my bank statement and it turns out this is some kind of Internet billing company. Some guy apparently subscribed to adultupskirt.com or something like that with my credit card number. His e-mail address was rather odd. Luckily, they said they'd refund the charges and block my credit card. I should probably call my bank and have them give me a new credit card number for my check card. I have to wait a bit for one charge to go through, but then I should be O.K.
I've upgraded my home machine to Windows 2000 to try to fix the problems I was having. I probably could've just reinstalled Windows 98 and it may have fixed the trouble, but... it might not have. It's probably time for me to enter the new century anyhow, so I figured I might as well. Everything's working great so far and the problem I was having vanished. The install went pretty smoothly. I had to reinstall a couple programs, but it wasn't too bad at all.
The MP3 of the week will be late. I haven't really gotten to use the computer much today and I won't get to for long tonight, either. It's almost time for bed anyhow... :P
That's all. Sorry for the long, rambling post, but I had to keep anyone interested updated.
Posted on August 11, 2002 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well. That was fun.
Sorry I've been out of it these past couple weeks. After getting Windows 2000 installed and finally getting all the kinks worked out, I decided to get a new hard drive, since mine was getting fairly full. So I saw that Best Buy was having a $110 mail-in rebate offer with Western Digital's 7200rpm 120 gig drive. Looked like a good deal, so I bought it.
It takes a long time to copy 30 gigs worth of stuff.
During the process of installing the new drive and making the old slave become the new master, I noticed that the two 7200rpm drives were extremely hot. Like I felt my fingers burning when I was taking them out. This didn't seem good. Since my old case didn't really have wonderful air flow (though it was decent if I figured out how to get a couple fans into the fan slots) and it didn't really have a good way to cool the drives, I decided to get a more modern case. I opted for the Antec SX635, a pretty sweet little mid-tower with a 350W power supply, a built-in rear fan, and two optional fans, one of which blew air right across the hard drives. So I bought the extra fans and everything went pretty smoothly. The case seems a lot cooler now and I think the drives will be much happier.
So... now I'm back, hopefully. Next week at school should be interesting as we try to get everything set up for the start of school on the 27th. It'll be a busy busy week, I can tell...
Posted on August 17, 2002 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
This weekend I went to see Throne of Blood at the AFI Theatre in the Kennedy Center. When I got there about an hour before the movie was to start, the line for tickets contained only about 10 people and I noticed about a dozen or so people milling about who'd already bought tickets. About a half hour later, the ticket line held about 40 people and the line for ticketed people stretched the entire Hall of Nations. Needless to say, the small theatre was packed.
The movie itself was very entertaining. The quality of the print was excellent. I'm definitely glad I went. It's too bad I probably won't get the chance to see any of the other movies. Things at work are heating up, as classes start on the 27th. I can see late nights and weekends in my future. Yeehaw.
In other news, I've applied to take a Japanese language class. The class size is pretty small with only 8 people per class, so I hope I can get in. We'll see...
Posted on August 19, 2002 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Well, today at school was service day. This is a day when all faculty and staff go off together to do some sort of community service. It was actually pretty neat and rather informative. My group ended up being put to work by the Washington Area Gleaning Network. We had to sort out the bad corn and put it in bags to be taken to local food banks. There was a LOT of corn. But it was fun and I got to talk to a lot of the people I'll be working with over the coming year. It was definitely a cool thing for the school to do.
Posted on August 21, 2002 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well... life's been hellish lately. I've been working 12+ hour days, including the weekend, and I've generally had little time to do much else. A friend came down to visit this weekend and I barely got to spend any time with him. Ah well... at least we got to play some multiplayer Halo.
Anyhow... this'll be short. I'm exhausted. I can't wait for the weekend...
Posted on August 28, 2002 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)