Month: June 2000

I hate the stupid Palm commercials on TV now. Especially because every Palm model except for the IIIc is backordered for three months (not that I’m buying one – it’s just ironic that you can’t buy the model featured in the ad – the Palm V)

Oh, and my CD-ROM drive at work is back in business – more MP3s for me.

The work atmosphere has been getting lighter as of late. Last night was a company drink / dinner night, which apparently there will be more of. (It used to be a regular thing, but got lost in the shuffle while the company was preparing to launch the site officially.)

The “Front Street Market” (glorifieid Dominion grocery store) has cheap candy-filled water guns in the bulk food section, for $2.99. I just bought one. It was pretty touch to get it out of the bin with the supplieed plastic scoop, but I eventually prevailed. When I got to the checkout the cashier tried to give me a bag for my water gun and chocolate bar – after a brief struggle, I gave the bag back and ran for my life.

I finally got confirmation from SimplyGames that they are shipping my Puzzle Bobble Mini cartridge out today! The Metal Slug: 1st Mission cart is delayed, though.

At the company dinner thing last night there was a live jazz band playing. The keyboardist looked exactly like my friend Cait from Guelph. Exactly. But then I got home and Cait was online, so it couldn’t have been her. I just told her that I found her long-lost twin.

Song: Amon Tobin – Stoney Street
What can I say, other than my sister has impeccable taste in music: this is a Ninja Tune CD.

Somehow ran out of time last night. Was relaxing etc, suddenly looked at the time and it was 9:35. Tonight have to write 3c589C documentation and put together a driver disk.

Got my marks from last semester finally. … Well, they’re not throwing me out, and I don’t think I’m on probation, so it’s still all good. I don’t think I can keep on living the myth of coasting through all of my classes anymore though. My electives are keeping me afloat.

Song: :Air – Casanova 70
I randomly found this CD in my sister’s collection, and it’s very very cool. Only 33 minutes long though. Looks like I might actually be buying CDs soon.

I think I would buy CDs if they had music videos on them as well. Until then, I’ll just go to sites like this for music. Yum.

Hopefully the cats won’t keep me awake tonight. Last night they only woke me up once (around 3:30am). The night before (my first night) they kept me awake ALL NIGHT. How, you may ask? They wrestle. And fight. Not serious fighting, just playing but they’re constantly running around and throwing each other to the ground. And occasionally they meow to me as if yo say “C’mon, get up and join the fun!” Grr. The whole problem is that they’re nocturnal. They sleep all fucking day, the bastards. I wish I was a cat.

Song: Radiohead – No Suprises (Live Frejus June 17 2000)
such a pretty house and
such a pretty garden
no alarms and no suprises
no alarms and no suprises
no alarms and no suprises, please

Well, I’m moved in to my sister’s place. The cats are cute (although they wrestled all night and kept me awake), my computer is in a very precarious position, but whatever.

Earlier this afternoon I was in the area of bpNichol Lane and I TOTALLY FORGOT to take a picture of the no parking sign. Oh. Maybe some explanation is in order.

Near my old high school is a street / alleyway called bpNichol Lane. It’s named after a Canadian poet. One of his poems is carved into the concrete of the lane. Anyways. Last wednesday I was walkign up the lane and happened to notice a no parking sign that someone had placed a “b” infront of the big “P” with a line through it, magicially transforming the sign from a piece of monotonous urban landscape to a part of the lane’s story. Which I guess is itself a part of the urban landscape. But it’s not monotonous. Yeah.

Song: Big Sugar – 100 Cigarettes
while I’m countin’ my regrets
I’m gonna smoke 100 cigarettes

Is is possible for me to drink too much coffee? No. Well, maybe: there was that time last year I was waiting in the Second Cup and drank four? extra-large Continental Darks, black. That hurt. Heh, I only did that because I was waiting to say hello to Mere before I went back home.

So many thing have happened to me in the past week.

Tomorrow I’m moving into my sister’s apartement for six weeks to take care of hers two cats. (They have no names – they’re usually refered to as “little guy” and “big guy”). I’ve done this before, so I’m cool with it, and it’s way closer to work for me (20min streetcar ride instead of hour-plus bus-ride-along-Sheppard-and-subway). But in this case I wish I was going with her, as she’s visiting my grandparents back in Yugoslavia. I haven’t been there since I was 16, and it’s really a beautiful place (although I’m sure it’s slightly less beautiful now since the United States decided to bomb the hell out of it last year). I should post the photos I took. Anyways. It’s also a lot of moving – a month after I move back home I’m moving back to Guelph for the fall semester. Not that I mind, but my computer is a rather large beast.

I get sick of living in the suburbs real fast. It makes no real sense to me, as everything I do is in downtown Toronto: work, friends, events, down to shops, bars, and pubs. There is nothing in Scarborough (except for Johnny’s Hamburgers, and Han River Sushi. Oh – and who can forget Mr. Wong’s Super Buffet!)

Last weekend was the play-testing of the Degrassi drinking game at my house. In Scarborough. This was very strange for me. None of my friends live nearby, so I can count the number of friends that have visited my house on both my hands (and yes, I have more friends than that).

My girlfriend Meredith has just gone away for the rest of the summer. We basicially had to break up on Wednesday. I really wish there was more time for us to be together, but there isn’t: by the time she gets back, I’m going to be leaving for Guelph, and she’s leaving for Nepal at the end of October. In a nutshell, this really fucking sucks. The first relationship I’ve ever had that I felt was really meaningful and, well,, just right, and something stupid like geography or school has to fuck up the whole works.

I will not cry at work.

I’m finally getting my UNNA idea off the ground. A Unified Network of Newton Archives has been one of my dreams for a while now, and I think it’s finally going to happen this time. A dedicated server has been secured thanks to the generosity of the community, and I’ve registered the domain name (unna.org). I’ve been collecting the current potpourri of archives and they’re all sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be unleashed. I’ve got 1.8GB of compressed archives lying around. Most of these are probably duplicates, but that’s a LOT of data.

I’ve got to pick out a new set of glasses soon.

Funny how people always bitch in their diaries. There was a note about that in the afterword of Kafka’s Diaries, but I don’t have it here right now so I can’t quote it.

On the list of “things I understand, but don’t understand”: people who shuffle seats in the bus. You know what I mean – if someone next to them gets up, and if they can put more space between themselves and the person next to them, they they’ll move over.

I understand the concept of keeping your own personal space around you, but I just think that it’s rude.

Gotta go. Maybe I’ll bitch more about this later.

Yes, well, it seems that it’s time for my semi-regular list of project I’m working on so hard that I don’t have time to talk to any of my friends!

• Still working hard every day at work (maptuit.com)
• Doing work on my Newton Resources site – currently I’m working on a page that will let people report and comment on bugs in NewtonOS
• Decided what I’m going to do with NewtDump – I’m going to scrap the VB I have now and do a total rewrite in Tcl/Tk (for portability mostly, also because I hate the “modularity” that VB uses, stupid VB errors, etc.)
• Speaking of Newtons, my Newton has been a little sick recently – I spent all night last night working on it to no avail.
• I should be working on things for various college governments back at the university, but I can’t find the time at all.
• This friday I’m moving into my sister’s apartment for six weeks to take care of her cats while she’s away on vacation.

This weekend some friends and I ahem playtested the Degrassi drinking game. IMHO, it passed with flying colours. (Jordan, send me the revisions again – I don’t know where I put them.)