Winter of 2002 in Review: Jan - Mar

January 23rd - 9500 hits!

Well, It's 2002.

I am glad 2001 is over. It's probably going to take me a while (at least until late Feb) to sort it all out. It sucked, and not just for me, but for everybody. I mean, yeah, Christine broke her ankle, I hurt my back, my cat Oreo died, my computer fired, CR had to get foot surgery, and I lost my website, but at least I didn't know anyone killed on 9/11, and I still have a well-paying job that doesn't look like it's going away soon. I have had friends who lost loved ones, who lost jobs, and all kinds of bad, bad juju. My heart goes out to them. There are some awesome people out there having a miserable time.

Also Hissyfit, a board I was one for the last few years, died. The moderators Wing and Glark couldn't spend time on it anymore, because they have so many web sites, and jobs are picking up for them. So the majority of us went to a site with the titilating title, "Three Way Action," which so far has proven to be a fair substitute.

I saw "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring," finally. Not bad. Not bad at all. I really liked the Vagina-er, Eye of Sauron and the effects Frodo sees when he's wearing the ring. The effects are amazing without being too overdone, like Star Wars. Which brings me to the Episode II debate. For the record, I like Star Wars, so I will go see it. But I don't take the movies so seriously that if it sucks (which is is showing the same weaknesses that fans hated in Episode I), I will go, "Oh well." I see Star Wars for the emotions and the light show. I don't see it because it will fulfil some basic need or make me think. I don't expect it to be "a masterpiece," I mean, come on, even the orginial series was a bit campy. But campy is good. You need to escape. Now will all you fanboys with your panties in a wad in your crack shut the hell up? Never before have I wanted to slap some people and ask them to snap out of it. If it upsets you, don't see it. But don't make a big production about how you "won't see it." I mean, I won't see horror movies because the scare me to death. You don't see me getting upset over not seeing them. I am not going to make a big point about not seeing them, and then get all mad when someone mentions them. "Siddown kid, it's only a movie..." - Ham Salad, "Hardware Wars"

This year started with a new server. Well, back to an older one. See, years ago, Silverdragon caught fire (literally a power supply fire cooked the Sun 3/260), and I went to Chaosart. Well, Simon moved, and then Comcast decided it wanted to change IP addresses on him over and over. He couldn't keep a Nameserver or a Webserver up for long. So he asked me to move, and he dissolved all his sites, except Toad.net. The years I spent on Chaosart were almost flawless, and I want to thank Simon for his help, trust, and just being an all-around good guy. Brad, who has been my friend for over ten years, is now hosting my site again. We met in the comedy group Prune Bran. Despite that, we remained friends. :) He got Silverdragon back up, and it's now on a Sun Ultra 10 connected to a T1 line. Yay, Brad! He also taught me how to do Virtual Domains with Apache, which will add to my ever-expanding job skill base.

In other news, we got a new car. We thought for over a year that our next car would be one of those neat-o keen VW Beetles. And trust me, they are awesome cars. But my stock portfolio has been sagging for the last 15 months, and I didn't want to sell more than I had to. This is the time to buy, buy, buy! But sell I must, since our old Saturn Wagon was getting up in mileage, and it was our only car. Not anymore. We now have TWO Saturns. Why did we choose a Saturn over a VW? It wasn't easy. In fact, we didn't think about Saturn until a week before we chose a car. We boiled it down this way:

What did we want a car for?
- Second car so I could start driving
- A car that was in better shape for the long commute Christine has
- A car with great mileage but low upkeep

VW Pros:
- It looks really, really cool
- It had great handling.
- My friends with Beetles and Jettas rave about them.
- Roomy interior. Really, it's a lot roomier than it looks from the outside.

VW Cons:
- It's a bit pricey for a compact
- The insurance, repair, and theft rates are higher
- The mileage is good, but not as good as the Saturn
- The dealership was full of slimy, slimy squicky people
- Stereo system sucked
- Controls were very counterintuitive
- It's a foreign car, which means my money doesn't support American workers
- 8.5% financing. Oh, come on!
- Teeny trunk
- Keys are these matchbox-sized switchblades that are VERY expensive to replace
- Didn't have the color we wanted (Graphite Gray)

Saturn SC2 Pros:
- Cheaper in cost (in fact, fully loaded was several thousand cheaper than the Beetle)
- We know Saturn. We own one. So do 6 of our friends. We love Saturn.
- Cheaper to maintain and insurance rates are lower
- Keys are not extremely hard to duplicate
- GREAT mileage!
- 3 doors. No, really, not a hatchback. The driver's side has a second door that swings the other way, allowing for easy access to the back seat. Chez cool.
- No squicky dealership. Everyone there knows us (we get our tune-ups there)
- 3.9% financing! Wow!
- Much better stereo
- Big trunk... almost the size of the Wagon's rear cargo bed
- Tuneup plan that was very competitive (we know, we used it for the other Saturn)
- Better warrantee

Saturn SC2 Cons:
- Not as nice handling as Beetle
- Not as cool and Beetle-y looking as the Beetle (but it has it's own sporty look)
- Smaller cabin space (but, it's really for just one driver 90% of the time)

So, we decided to go with the Saturn, and with the money we saved, we're going to get some much-needed things for the house, like new furniture for CR, blinds, drapes, and possibly replace some carpeting.

But this leads to another issue: driving. I haven't driven in years. I have an essay waiting in the wings about the whole sordid saga of my driving.

In other news, I have picked up a new book distributor! Mystic Station Designs is going to pick up the remaining copies of my first book, and possibly help with publishing my second Punk Walrus book. I have done illustrations, and now all I need to do is get it formatted for printing and then decide where to go from there.

I think this will be a good year. But this year, I am going to scale back a bit. Last year was way too busy. I won't be at too many cons this year. I will stop working on the Katsucon website, and focus on just pre-reg. I will try and be more active in writing and my family, and try and spend less time at work. I have a lot of vacation time coming up. I will try and rest more this year, since last year, I nearly worked myself to death, and did a lot of less-than-perfect work. This site will probably overgo a major rennovation. It's like to make it all CGI-enabled, making the content more dynamic, with neat but non-intrusive special effects. Some essays need updating pretty bad. The Links section is REALLY overdo for a major rennovation. I am sure half those links are dead by now, if not more.


February 4th

Well, I have some sort of Martian death flu as I type this. It started over a week ago. It started Thursday the 24th while I was suffering some cluster headaches. My doctor changed my migraine medicine, and I thought I'd get better. But by Sunday, I was feeling mighty low. I got a fever that went up to 103.8 by Tuesday, but the doctor said that it sounded viral and I should just ride it out. By Friday I felt somewhat better, and I went to work. Then by Friday night, it really hit me. The weekend was a blur and my body's thermostat stopped working. My temperature went up and down like a yoyo, and I spent some of Superbowl weekend in a delirium. By this morning (Monday), I could barely breathe, my lungs were clogged and when I breathed, I creaked and whistled. So I made an emergency visit, and they said I had acute bronchitis. I am really, really sick.

So if you have been trying to reach me, I have been half dead. I'll be better later.

In other news, Katsucon is coming, and I will be doing more this year than last year. I can't say what yet, because part of it is a secret. I really had more to write here, but the phone keeps ringing, I am high on cold meds, and I forgot why I went and re-edited this diary. Since I seem to be making spelling errors every other word, maybe I should stop.


February 9th

My Martian death flu is no more. It's been upgraded to pneumonia. One of my lungs just simply shut down Tuesday night, and by Wednesday, I could barely breathe. They did all kinds of X-rays and tapping. I am on more meds right now than I have ever been in my life. A major antibiotic, two steroids, two inhalers, and codeine. I have also been on a machine called a nebulizer, which for some of you other asthmatics out there is a familiar word. For those not in the know, they hook your face up to this noisy thing that makes you breathe in medicine and salty water. I can't walk more than a few feet without serious wheezing and choking. It winds me to even do simple things like dishes or making the bed. And let me tell you, I am sick of being in bed. Right now, this is the first time I spent time in my den for two weeks, and after a while, I'll probably have to go back to bed. I have no idea how I got so sick. When I was a little walrus, I used to hate the fact that I almost never got a cold or anything. I wish I was that healthy again. I am only 33 and have to deal with heart problems, back problems, arthritus, migraines, asthma, and going deaf. That's it. I am upgrading this old body for a newer model. Hello, 1-800-CYBORAGNICS?

I have missed about 2 weeks of work, plus the Katsu registration, which I will be doing today in full force between gasps of oxygen. Housework has gone to hell, and I live in squalor. I am behind on nearly everything.


February 19th

In the words of actor John Astin, "But I'm much better now..." I have almost fully recovered from the pneumonia. I think I am a little tired, my lungs are bruised, but on the whole, I have recovered, as I knew I eventually would.

Of course, things still continue to be bad. I am really getting sick of all this bad news I keep getting. On top of everything else, two large bombs dropped in the last week. First, my sister-in-law Debbie had to have emergency open heart surgery. They removed three lumps they found *inside* her heart. She's okay now, but we were scared there for a while. Debbie is Christine's oldest sister, and is over 50, so this was no small feat. Then, I just found out that FanTek, the group that made the Punkie everyone knows and loves ... is folding after 20 years of good times. Castlecon will be Bruce's last con. This means my two main social events every year, Castlecon and Evecon, will be gone. I think I'll lose half my friends in one fell swoop, because what will bring them to the DC area again? This is heartbreaking. I know Bruce's heart isn't in it anymore because he's beginning a new chapter in his life. As his friend, I support that. But this is just too much for my brain. Did I mention our brand new Saturn is having problems? Already? We have to take it in and get the brakes looked at as well as the fog light switch has shorted out (they stay on all the time). Thing has doesn't even have 1000 miles on it yet. Yes, it's covered, but still.

Okay, it's not all bad news. There was Katsucon. I had two major duties for the convention. First, I did their pre-reg. There were anime clubs snafus. There were refunds, exchanges, and a flood of last-minute corrections. Yes, some people don't tell me until the day before the con that their name is spelled wrong. Twelve, as a matter of fact. On top of this there was the pneumonia, and I was a staff of one. But, damn everything if I didn't pull it off on time. I was still laminating the badges Thursday evening, but when I got to the con that night, I had a stack of pre-laminated badges as well as an alphabetical list of everyone coming. And we only had three minor problems at the con that required my assistance. So most of the con I spent in our hotel room, resting. Since Christine is Katsumom, we got the Presidential Suite on the tippy-top floor. What a fantastic view of Baltimore as far as the eye can see! Our bedroom had a huge bathroom with a Jacuzzi, too.

The second thing I had to do was host a Dean Martin style celebrity roast for my friend Richard "Pocky" Kim. I was approached by Christian (head of video games) and Keith (Katsu CEO) about 8 months ago, and I must admit, I was nervous. I am not a Don Rickles kind of guy, and I never like to insult anyone. I shrink from conflict. But I must admit, roasts are damn funny. So I watched some Dean Martin roasts as well as a streak of New York Friar's Club roasts playing on Comedy Central. I learned how comments were made on a basic one-two punch formula which works on the basic "unexpected result" premise at the base of comedy. And while I had ideas, I never wrote much down until the DAY I was expected to host it. That's okay, half our guests didn't even know until the same day. I spent about three hours writing some of my best material. And you know what? I killed them. I had people rolling in the isles, and even though I don't like to boast, I really topped myself. The guests were stunned. I actually stunned Steve Bennett to silence. How rare is that? By the time it was over, people were congratulating me, and they hosted a replay on Sunday night (I had to go home after the congratulatory dinner, I had work the next day). Pocky was also a good sport through everything, even though he was suffering from massive jet lag (he lives in Japan). Some of the guests were funny, too, especially my friend Andrew Iwancio, who didn't know Pocky that well, so he made up some of the funniest crap I have ever heard. That man's talented. It was a great time for everyone.

One last story for Katsucon: my art auction. While I did auctions for FanTek, I have rarely been on the bidding end. When I was, I usually lost to someone with deep pockets. Art Auctions depressed me, which is why I made a good "bitter auctioneer" for FanTek. While I spent only a few hours down at the con (I only had one working lung until Saturday afternoon, and thus was winded by even light activity), I managed to spend some time in the merchant's room, where I only bought a Forest Spirit and Red Elk stuffed sculpture from "Princess Mononoke." I also got some teeny Totoro window knick knacks for a buck each. But when I got to the art show, I saw two pieces I really liked. One was a clever "Goth Captor Sekura," a goth version of the popular Card Captor Sekura. The other intrigued me. It was the Buttercup and Blossom from "The Power Puff Girls," but dressed as the Sandman and Death from the Sandman series. My wife is a great fan of the Sandman series, and I like the PPG series. It was a hand-painted cel, and done very, very well. The bid started at $5, and it was at $15 by the time it went to auction.

Now, I made time to go to the auction, which was very, very late. It was supposed to start at 1pm, By 3pm, the previous Charity Auction was still going on. During this time, I was burning with agony. It wasn't a war of money for me, but a war against my attention span. By 3:20, the art auction finally got started. It was so late, that Pocky only had 40 minutes to finish it by Closing Ceremonies. So he ran the fastest auction I had ever seen. But despite his blazing speed, I was so anxious, minutes dragged by like hours. I was pacing the isles. Finally, by 3:41, it came up. Let me tell you, the frustration had built up like a tidal wave. Behind my fury was 17 years of losing art auctions, end-of-con mania, and the fact I had been waiting impatiently for the last 150 minutes in the ballroom. Goth Captor was going to be my "fallback," in case the Sandman PPG went to high, but it came before PPG, and went for $90. I realized I really had to commit now, if anything, for justification. In five seconds it went up to $60. A few more seconds weeded out the not-so-serious, and it was just me and one other guy past $90. No matter what he did, I slammed him with my voice of resonating confidence. I said, by my mere voice and the fact I was standing and rocking back and forth, that I would never back down. He did. He backed down at $145. Good thing, too, because my "crazy limit" maximum bid was $150. What I didn't know was that my wife was in the back. I was worried that she would get upset, but she was just the opposite. She told me if I had backed down, she would have continued as far as she could (she has her own spending money). She was very happy. The crowd was in awe. After I got the piece and paid for it, people kept saying, "Oh, hey, you're the guy who got it!" with reverence and amazement. Since I left right after that, I didn't know mine was the highest bid for anything all day. On top of this, a lot of people knew the artist, and suggested I meet her. She was in Artist Alley, and her name was Diana Sprinkle, and she even has a website. I also found out that she did a version of the PPG all grown up as women that I liked last year. She already sold it on Ebay for a mere $35. Ugh, missed again... and for so cheap! But what a sweet person she is! I thanked her and everything. And now that the dust has settled, and I am looking at it hanging up in our bedroom next to the closet right now... I still think it was worth it. It's really, really well done.


March 5th

Not to keep some of you in suspense, but a lot of things improved. The car troubles were fixed. My pneumonia is gone, but I still am having problems with weakness and breathing. I have had a head cold for about a week now, which my doctor says is probably a result of the damage done to my immune system plus allergy season picking up. Debbie is fine. Bruce decided that he's probably going to continue the conventions.

I can't believe that spring is only a few short weeks away, and we only had two snows. Only one accumulated, and melted the next day. This global warming sucks.

Some of you may recall that last year, on the way to Nekocon, Christine broke her ankle. We got a packet in the mail that not only had out Nekocon 4 ("Flash") badges and program books, but pre-registrations for this year's Nekocon 5. Wow, how cool!

In other news, I have had to deal with some people IMing me and asking (out of the blue) whether I think Osama Bin Laden has nuclear weapons. I blame the panic on the news media. Okay, for those of you who don't know, you can't just make a nuclear bomb as easily as you make a car. I don't care how many plans you have. I know vaguely what's involved, and the chance that one of those desert fleas has a working nuclear device is pretty remote. First, you have to get weapons-grade plutonium. Then you have to refine it, and you can't do that from the back of a van or out of a tent. You have to have a pretty sophisticated facility with highly-educated scientists manning the place. Now suppose you made a bomb or stole one. It can't just sit in a cave somewhere like a super mortar shell. These things have to be maintained or they go bad. Ask Russia. They had many go bad because they couldn't afford to do all the upkeep during the cold war. If you want to worry about WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), worry about Pakistan vs. India. Both have working nuclear weapons, they are next to each other, and they hate one another. I would not be surprised if one launched against the other soon. Of course, under the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) rules, if Country A fires on Country B, Country B fires back (if they can). Let's say they only have two bombs together. The initial blast could wipe out close to 500 million innocent people (India is crowded!) right away. But that's just the beginning. The fallout is far, far worse, and knows no geographical boundaries. Radioactive ash will first drift into China, all of the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe. Then, depending on the winds, will drift all over the globe, and create havoc. Radiation sickness will wipe out half the Middle East in the first year. Moslems and non-Moslems alike. Certain foods will become scarce, notably meat and dairy products as the radioactive iodine seeps into the animal's bodies. Europe and Asia, innocent bystanders, will be crippled agriculturally and medically. All because probably some 5000 years ago, someone stole another's goat. That's how these stupid wars start. Territorial issues. Some countries in the Middle East have been fighting so long, they don't even know why anymore, and when you ask them why they hate Country A, they say the A people eat babies and slaughter innocent women or some such nonsense. Now they have WMDs, and everyone could pay for their immature ignorance.


March 7th, 2002

What's the term when you hold onto some past meaningless conflict, and relive it constantly in your online musings? Ah... it rhymes with "doozer?"
From http://www.crunchland.com/ubbs/Forum1/HTML/001940.html

"Among the notorious Crunchland Citizens we've had the pleasure of enduring, one man, a would-be writer of fiction, who didn't seem to be a bad guy face-to-face, but whose online "gimmick" was to compose a long, convoluted tale of woe, with himself playing the lead. It's open for debate about whether his misadventures were real or imagined. He left the confines of Crunchland voluntarily, when other users began to see through his veil, or tire of his mindfucking."

This is a quote about me made on Crunchland a few months ago, by the moderator/owner. It's been over three years since I was a member of that community, and when I got the letter informing me of this post, I was kind of surprised and amused. Of course, I was also annoyed.

It's been a while since I played "mind games" with them, as they put it. As I recall, members of their little BBS group sent me very long e-mails from bogus accounts about how I was sad, a pathetic loser, I needed psychiatric help, yatta yatta yatta. I mean, these letters were more than just flame mail, but they were written... well, not unlike that quote above. Unstable attempts at passive aggressive statements, broken by shards of swear words. Of course, they said they never wrote those letters, followed by snickering. Then I proved it, and even got two people's servers shut down (from Universities). Then they decided to send threatening e-mail to all my friends on my "Friends of Punkie" pages. Back and forth this went until we called it a draw. I was working 12 hours shift at midnight at the time, and had no use for this kind of nonsense. So I left. The letters still came from time to time, petered off, occasionally came back in bursts, and now I think the last one was somewhere in fall of 2001.

I did some searching for my name on their forums, and found I was quite to topic of conversation. Mostly snide and smarmy remarks about where they last knew I worked, and generally I became a legend. The proof is I am still on their "Legendary Users" page:

Punk Walrus - A long time user, Punk Walrus (aka "Punkie") claimed he'd received several threatening, anonymous emails. He presumed, based on the message content, that they originated from someone linked with Crunchland. Unfortunately, he was never able to produce proof of these messages, so the culprit (or culprits) were never tracked down. Punkie left the community voluntarily, since several people questioned the veracity of his claims. In fact, an amateur writer, Punkie was always known to be capable of spinning many tall tales. He was last sighted elsewhere on the net, spreading stories about how mean Crunchland people supposedly are. We wish Punkie all the best, wherever he is.

Aw, how sweet. Like slapping a child and then giving him chocolate so he won't tell. The master of backhanded compliments, the person who wrote that. It's like I have my own little secret fan club where people talk about me when I am not around. It's weird, kind of thrilling, and kind of disturbing. I have made such an impact on Crunchland that they can't be rid of me, even though I have done nothing to them. It's obvious that there are some subconscious guilt issues. I know SOME of the people that wrote those letters, but not all of them. Now, if I may project for a moment, I would think that if I never harassed anyone, and been accused of making up letters that harassed someone, I would have said, "What a nut," and forgotten about it in a few weeks. I see it happen to about 99% of the time on message boards. But these guys... they have something they need to work out, apparently. It wasn't enough that I "accused" them of dastardly deeds, why, they have to poke at my effigy they apparently still have hanging around. I have become part of their own social subconscious. That's not an honor to be taken lightly.

Of course, they are a small group, getting smaller by the week. In fact, I was a bit surprised there were recent posts. What used to be a thriving community of intelligent thinkers has become a dried up oasis of in-jokes and bitterness. So their comments are like inbred children, mutating the original gene pool of creativity and doing the same things over and over, kind of like the language that twins make to each other. What a lot of ex-Crunchlanders said was true: When Tom left, Crunchland took a mortal blow. Tom was "Captain Crunch" himself, the founder of the board, but became disgusted with the infighting and the pettiness, and sold the mess to Dave, the new sysop, who used to go by "Dope Smoking Fiend" (now just DSF). But isn't this the story of a thousand BBSs? I could write this stuff in my sleep.

Those two quotes really capture the essence of the writing style of the letters I got. It's like you get mad, but can't explain why. Take Dave's first quote up there (I am assuming he wrote it, unless he claims otherwise). "Would-be writer of fiction." I guess that's his attempt at a taunt there, like I am going to scream, "I do too write fiction, you, you, dummyhead! I'm telling MOM!" Man, that undermines his whole premise. If I was such a bad writer of fiction, why make up stories and tall tales? Are they not fiction? I guess not. "Not a bad guy, face to face," I am. Why, thank you, I will stay for some tea and crumpets. Oh, but I "compose long and convoluted tales of woe...” Impossible! My status as a fiction writer was downgraded to "would-be!" (Oh, hush, Punkie). "It's open for debate about whether his misadventures were real or imagined..." wow. This is classic passive aggressive style. Oh, excuse me, Dave, "mindfucking," as you French would say. My tea is getting cold, Dave, and no one in the room is speaking. Or how about this, "it is open for debate whether or not you wear women's panties. No matter what anyone is saying about you, I'll be on your side." Now he springs for the jugular with, "He left the confines of Crunchland voluntarily, when other users began to see through his veil, or tire of his mindfucking." Oh. Ow! I am so wounded, and now cold tea is all over my new suit, you cad! What wit! What rapier words and dreadful comeuppance for this sly rogue!

Honestly. How sad.

Maybe if he wrote this a few days or weeks or even a month or two afterwards, yeah, I could see he's hurt. But three years? He's holding on, holding onto something. But both quotes show the style of letters I got, and while he claims innocence, I might add when I sent him the letters, he claimed he never got them. Yeah. Uh huh. I'd pick apart the second quote there, but I am getting bored. If you are interested, why don't you do it.

I think for about a year, I was mad. Whenever a user they didn't like got on their board, they assumed it was me, and I had returned under the cover of another alias or something, like I had nothing better to do. They thought I was users with names like Titan, Kmart-Dolly, and Alan Corvus. I'd get mail, "Give it up, we know it's you..." from some open relay mail port bounce. Dave would triumphantly claim he captured my IP address, and had proof it came from my previous company... except I wasn't working there anymore. Bzzzzt. Well, the important thing is HIS people believed him. It took about a year and a half before I had the gumption to post to another message board. Would it happen again? Not so far. I get some hate mail, which I put in my fanmail sections, but they are not related to Crunchland, as far as I know. Usually my punk page. I get a lot of positive fan mail, though! Wheeeee! How much you get, Dave? Okay, that was a low blow. I admit it. But I owed you one with that "would-be" writer taunt.

Where was I? Oh yes, people holding onto things for a long time. Now, for a while, I ignored their prattle, but I figured if they are holding onto hating me for three years, the LEAST I owe them is some sort of response, right? Consider it done, Dave, as a favor to your and your fans.

You are a dummyhead. I'm telling mom.

There. Can we get on with our lives now? You know what I've done since I left Crunchland? I got a house, hosted a roast, handled my grandmother's death, got several raises, learned how to program in several launguages, changed jobs twice (promotions each time), and a slew of other day-to-day activities with my friends who also consider you a dummyhead. What have you done? Hey, you have that Pencam thing going for you, why not pay more attention to that little project? It has a lot of potential. I'll even link to it, because I think it's cool. I hear you got married to another Crunchlander, that's cool! I won't even make the obvious message-board inbreeding comment tie-in running gag. See? We can be adults here.

[Poor Dave, he has NO idea whether I am being passive-agressive here, even though my friends know I would never do such a thing...]


March 11th

Well, my stint at the celebrity roast was a hit, as I mentioned before. But it's not ending there. I have been asked to moderate a form of "Politically Incorrect" at Balticon this year, during memorial weekend. This should be fun. I also hope to get my second book out this year (the second Punk Walrus one, that is), but we shall see if I am all talk and no walk. :-D

I also pulled a 26-hour day last week. Here's what happened: A senior VP wants a machine that tests international phone numbers from our lab in Virginia. But this is easier said than done, because a lot of the numbers are in remote areas where it's hard enough to get a phone line working, but a phone line from the US? A *data* phone connection from the US? I built such a beast, and found 1 out of 30 numbers connected (on a good day). The trouble is, some of the phone numbers are designed not to allow connections outside their country at all (for security reasons). And then there are city codes. Some countries have numbers like "(0) 123 45678" where "(0)" represents the city code. In some countries, you must dial the city code number. Some you only dial if calling from outside their country. Some only if you are calling within the country, but outside the city. And I had 128 countries to dial. ARGH! So I waffled on this for a while because it was a pointless project destined to produce errors that might not actually be errors if the phone number is dialed properly within their own country. But then we got a directive that "it has to happen by this weekend," so I had spend 26 hours straight working on this stupid thing (and nothing will connect). Well, I got it to work, but even days later, I am still tired.

So I am taking my first week off at the end of this month (if approved). Much deserved rest. Luckily, where I work, we get 4 weeks of vacation a year, plus I get another week I didn't take last year. At this rate, I might get as much rest as a Swedish citizen! I also plan on three trips this year. The first is we're going back to the Hatteras Coast this year! Yay! We took a year off, and we missed it (of course, we went to Vegas, I went to Sweden), so we're going back. I am bringing a Game Boy and a ton of sun cream, because last time, I got sun poisoning. Not fun. This year, it's the usuals, Jenny and Brad, plus hopefully some new people, Travis and Dave.

I am going to try and learn Apache web server in the next year. Why not? So far, I have been working on learning everything there is to know about the Internet world. I am really deep in this stuff. I am learning PERL, managing LINUX, Apache, Visual Test, Visual Basic, Tk, AmberMUSH, and a whole lot of other things.

I am trying to build a new computer. I say "trying" because it has been trying. I got some spare parts to take my ailing AMD 800 Athalon box, and make a new P4 1.8ghz box. So I order from Alpha International Business, which was a Yahoo shop recommended by a friend. Well, they sent me part of the order right, but send me 478-pin chip with a 423-pin board and the wrong power supply. And they overcharged me. So they said, Send it back, we'll look at it, and IF we think it's wrong, we'll credit you and send you the replacement parts. We shall see. Meanwhile I am out a new screamin' computer.

I also got a weird warning that stated that I seemed "too serious" and "upset about money" by many people, some of them long-time friends. The person who said this did not say this in a mean-spirited way, but sort of as a warning that my place in fandom seemed to be losing focus. I am not sure what "friends" of mine she was speaking of, but I took this comment very seriously [ba dum TSHH]. I'd like to respond to that person in the same kindness it was said.

It's true. I do spend a lot of time thinking about money. I am also a CONSTANT worry-wart, and have been since I can remember. I think that to defend my positions would require me informing you that I am not perfect, and I am in a constant state of flux to try and change myself for the better. I have a constant state of mind about becoming more financially secure. Part of this was that I spent two years with no job, unable to support a family. I never, ever, ever want to repeat that. But be that as it may, I don't want to become Ebeneezer Scrooge, either. When I was just 12 years old, I played Scrooge in my school play. While being the top billing was cool, I also learned a very valuable lesson that year. I learned that money can corrupt. I am constantly reminding myself of that. After all, the phrase, "You can't take it with you," is true. There is a fine line between being sensible and being stupid, far finer than most people imagine. Some people are penny-wise and pound-foolish. Some become "Big Hat, No Cattle" (as they say in Texas) by living a lavish life... in debt. I am in very little debt. I don't finance what I can't afford. I don't depend on the future for anything.

I want to be rich. Really rich. I want so much money, I won't know what to do with it. Well, that's a lie. I will know what to do with it. A small part will go towards my meager family and entertainment expenses (which is a finite amount), and the rest will go to charity. But not just any charity. Good charity. The kinds that give hand-ups instead of handouts. The kind that teaches a man to fish, so to speak. And I will do it all locally. Because you can't fix the world unless you fix what's in your own front yard. I also have a lot to do, so independent wealth income and a great financial manager will keep me focused on my own goals. But if I do any of this at the expense of my family and friends... it won't be worth it.

So don't worry. I won't become one of those condescending adults. I won't hang around people who think they are better than others simply because of what they have. That is so against how I feel, I would rather die than be one of them.


March 27th

I am typing this during my week-long vacation from insanity, with only one real big struggle. Okay, two. The first is that I am still sick. They don't know what's wrong with me, but they are still chalking it up to a massive head/chest cold. I am on antibiotics again (even stronger ones), plus a new inhaler, and they are now doing blood work.

The second is I hoped to be typing, "I am typing this on my NEW computer I built!" Okay, I *am* typing this on my new computer, but I am not proud of the results. It crashes frequently. It refuses to play games that change the screen resolution. I don't know why (yes, I know, "Get LINUX," ha ha). It always blue-screens with a "Fatal exception at OE." Whatever OE is. The installation blew out two (old) video cards. I am scared of my creation.

Ants have taken over my house. Luckily, not carpenter ants, but those little teeny black picnic ants. We had the Orkin guy come out, and he was this strange but nice Jamaican man who had nothing nice to say about where he was from, and loved the US with a passion. Now I have a lot of dead ants along with fewer and fewer live ones. I have now seen many pest control people in my little life, and I am convinced none of them are sane. They should get more employees that way: "Are you insane? Too weird to get along with anyone in an office? Can you have long conversations about weird and tangential subjects without a clue when to stop? Do you hate bugs? Start a new career with our pest control company..." I think the weirdest ones have to be with those who hunt large game, like mammals or geese. Yes, I said geese. Our building's landscape is having a massive goose problem, and they hired this guy to come by with his dog, and the dog chases the birds and pees on everything. It seems to work. The guy explained it all to me one day while I was waiting for a ride. I am not sure if I would rather have ants in my house, or geese eating my lawn and pooping on it, but luckily, I never have to make those choices. God (or whatever) does, and I think God is also insane.

My goal to see more movies this year is starting to take off. Mostly DVDs, but I recently saw "Ghost World," (strange and complex, but scarily close to my own life), "Oh My Goddess: The Movie" (good, but different voice actors than I am used to), and "Love Hina" (which was great). I also went out and saw "Blade 2" and "Queen of the Damned." I am officially sick of Vampire movies. Blade 2 was slightly better, but some lines and plots were so cliche that I had to stop laughing out loud. Queen of the Damned had some stunning visual effects, great backdrops, but the plot lagged, and the editing was done poorly. It tried so hard to be Goth, it overshot the target and landed about 2 lengths of Jim Morrison past Goth. I think I could hear the backmasking screaming, "Look at meeeee! I am so Goth! Please believe me! Goth Goth Goth! Look, I am black AND depressing! Me Goth!"

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