February 2003 Archives

I found some more (just mouseover happy tree friends and look at watch episodes) plus another short byte!

Holy crap, I definitely just bought the Happy Tree Friends DVD off BestBuy.com for 15 bucks! No shipping costs, and it's the funniest show ever!

Spork.

PS - go watch the episodes they've posted online, and then look at this!

If you have not yet, read this.

So, I need to do some serious updating. But I dont' remember everything that happened to me since ... monday, but I'll try my hardest. OK, I can't, sorry.

But I do remember this weekend. Friday, I get up at 6:30, and I'd be late for school except I wasn't going, I was off to Chicago! Get my cd wallet, books, both cameras, film, hoodie, everything is ready, get it all in the car, and an hour later I realize "I forgot my jacket." Hmpf. But it ended up being ok.

Anyway, we got to Evanston (north of Chicago, location of Northwestern) at about 12:15, didn't need to be at our information session till 1:15, so we decide to stop and have lunch at Leona's (this really famous chain italian restaurant in chicagoland area). However, our food doesn't come till 1:00, so we stuff our faces as fast as we can and high tail it to NU. I walk into the Information Session right at 1:15 and they'd already started.

Well, this chick, the lady that did the information session, was obviously School of Speech/Communication grad because she was the most insane public speaker ever, simply because she WOULD NOT STOP SMILING! I didn't realize anyone could talk and smile at the same time. I've tried since in the mirror, and it doesn't work. I also end up getting really bad jaw cramps. But this chick had an ear-to-ear, lemon-slice smile and literally kept it the entire 45 minutes without breaking it. My dad later was quoted to say that he wanted to go up and hit the woman just to see if she'd stop. Anyway, that was a VERY boring Information Session. All the lady did was talk about Northwestern's six schools and what majors they offer.

After the Info Session was the tour, and it got rather boring rather fast. The girl first of all cut the tour in half because supposedly you can't get through the whole thing in the hour they provide, it's actually a three hour tour, so we didn't see the whole campus. Then, she didn't really talk about anything ... interesting. She had that ... I'm a rebel look, but played the I'm a ditz gig. I didn't quite understand her, but she kept saying "yay" a lot when people didn't have questions and when they did she had no answers.

I spent the tour taking photos for my Jerry Uelsmann mimic roll for photo class. Then I left the tour at the last stop, deciding not to walk back with the group so I could jet over to the Tech building and meet my cousin Amy. She showed me her lab, and all her graduate friends, and we went walking to the lake shore and I took a few photos. Then we went into Evanston and went everywhere from Borders, to Starbucks, to Jamba Juice (I've literally never had as good a smoothie as the "Strawberry's Wild with a Vitamin Boost" ... it literally was the best I've ever had), to shoe stores, urban outfitters, and a printmaking shop.

Finally by five, after wearing ourselves out, her friend Liz comes and picks us up and we go downtown to Chicago and shop some more! We hit J Crew, Nike Town, Virgin Records (Where I discovered the new Supergrass, the new Flaming Lips, and the new Theivery Corporation (decided to wait on actually PURCHASING these, knowing most would have them here at home to copy)), and finally met my brother and father at "Cafe Spiaggia" for dinner. There, I had some really shitty ravioli that cost 25 bucks (which is really horrible, because I love eating, I love eating good food, therefore I love eating expensive, and when a 2 dollar can of Chef Boyardee kicks the shit out of some 25 dollar ravioli from pseudo expensive restaurant in Chicago, I want to cry). Of course I didn't want to order the ravioli, but the waitress was pressuring me into giving my order (I was undecided) and I wanted pasta, and that was the dish she truly recommended (being the special of the night). Pissed me off. It didnt' taste bad, it just ... had no flavor.

Anyway, we leave Amy and Liz, and the next day go to South Bend. We get to Notre Dame, and while thankfully I had survived all day in Chicago with just the hoodie (it was 50 degrees all day), this didnt' work the next day when it dropped to 30. So getting out of the car at Notre Dame, I throw under my hoodie and on top of my two shirts, my Dad's sweater he'd worn the night before, and we go to the information session. This was a LOT better.

This lady reminded me of just any random friend's mom, and she ended up being the mother of a teenage senior (not applying Notre Dame, felt it was too close to home). She gave a very convincing session about the school, and how great campus life and the education was, and she didn't bother going into what schools and majors Notre Dame offered (I guess Notre Dame was smart enough to know that anyone applying to Notre Dame is going to know this by now (and that anyone who DOESN'T isn't smart enough and shouldn't be applying)). The session was promising ... they said SAT-II's 600+ are nice (all three of mine are), a good candidate will take 4-5 app classes (I'm taking 8, 4 just this year), they'll be in the top 10% of their class (we dont' rank, so usually they see a 3.8 and assume that's high) and have a good essay (this is the only place I can't be certain on, but my parents liked it).

Then, we had our tour, and I love the campus. Football, Rudy, basketball, dorms for everyone, great food, intermural sports, laundry service, two lakes ... a fuckin' grotto! All this, and it was snowy ugly overcast all day (oh, and I survived with my hoodie and sweater). Tim, our guide, was very cool, turns out the drinking policy at Notre Dame is this closed door/open door deal where basically they know we'll drink so they don't try and stop it, but by law if they see anyone under 21 transporting it to dorm rooms it's a violation. But as long as it stays in the room they're cool. No hard licker anymore as of recently, it has to be 11% or less, and they ask you register any parties with estimated number of guests so they can keep an eye on things. By keeping it really responsible they haven't had any major violation supposedly in nine years. That's cool. Lastly, one thing I liked, you dont' declare what school you're in till sophomore year, and you don't declare a major till practically junior (I think actually end of sophomore). That's nice.

Anyway, came home, and went to Marc's for some Bourne Identity goodness. I wanna be buff like Matt Damon in that movie.

Srk.

Another day, another dollar

So once again, the server was down. I'm sorry, but I finally gots it workin'! Basically, SQL Server out of nowhere decided that it didn't want to be called "local" anymore, even though that is its name, and decided it wanted to be called main just like the entire computer. So, even though it had always worked under the name local, I finally in desperation tried accessing it in my asp code as main instead of its real name local ... and main worked! Dont' ask how, but I'd already reinstalled asp.net, frontpage, sql (about ten times) trying to fix this whole thing. Iain said switch to linux, but this sort of thing isn't necessarily something that linux wouldn't have issues with as well.

So, that is that. All the pages should be working again, let me know if you find any errors.

Adm.

Okay, well I think I'll post a review of the Mindless Self Indulgence (hereafter referred to as MSI) show I saw at Tek World last night.

Arriving at around 8:45 for a show that started at 8:00. lots of the typical Tek World crowd around outside, smoking and standing around looking goth. I've never actually been inside Tek World before, and well, it really... sucks. As soon as you walk in there's a room filled with CDs and crappy posters and stickers and patches for you to buy, all overpriced. The tickets were $15 since it was a popular band, but man, that's still high for such a crappy venue. (Pandamonium was never over $7/show.) But so we get inside and I guess the opening band has finished and they're setting up for whoever is next to play (3 bands total, I think.) I walk around and stare at all the goth/punk/other kiddies. Wow, I mean... they're trying way too hard. I guess they're trying to make up for the fact that they're about 5 years too late for the whole goth thing. Not to mention the drunk rednecks, woohoo!

ANYWAY! the next band to play (I can't remember their name) kinda sucked. No, they DID suck. It's bad when the best mosh pit your band can start is with someone else's song (cover of a TATU song.) And some drugged up guy who looked like an Abercrombie model started a fight with anyone who looked at him, I helped people hold him back a few times until he got kicked out. That kind of sucked.

SO now the second band is done, everyone is milling around waiting for MSI to show up. Lots of cigarette smoke, nothing interesting happening. I get right up to the front of the crowd area for the show. Oh, they're playing the worst music ever through the PA, I mean it SUCKED. ANyway, the lights go off and MSI gets on stage and the crowd just SURGES forward and it's like... wow. I'm wearing a hoodie in here, big mistake, since everyone is so squashed together. You seriously can't move. And all these short girls are in between really tall people, I don't see how they can breathe. The band plays, and honestly they aren't too bad for what they are. The singer is better than some and he likes to take off clothes... eh, not for me, but the goth girls seemed to enjoy it. And the guitarist was like a hardcore skinhead. The drummer REALLY sucks, though, she's only hitting one drum at a time and it sounds like the rest of the drums are sampled. She's not even good looking. ;) Whatever, I guess they need a drummer on stage. I get knocked over when the crowd sways to one side and trampled, WOOHOO HARDCORE, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. Then they finish and the lights go up and my group leaves.

So lets see... back to the hoodie, I am SOAKING WET with my sweat (and I'm sure other people's, as well...) and when I take the hoodie off you can't tell that I'm wet because my whole shirt is soaked. Gross. And my jeans are halfway soaked with the floor slop. Even more gross. But whatever, I guess that's Tek World for you.

Overall it was a pretty fun experience. The music wasn't as bad as I was expecting, the venue sucked but I already knew that. Wasn't worth the $15, in my opinion, but hey, just stick your hands in your hoodie pocket and walk right through the door like you've got a wristband and no-one will check. ;)

--Fiend

OK, Joanna did this one, so I'm gonna give it a shot for lack of good content ... update to what I've done since I fixed the server --> Canceled my joe millionaire party cause everybody is supposedly trapped in.

1. If you could be instantly fluent in one other language that you currently do not read or speak, which would it be?:
German

2. If you could have the starring role in any film already made, what would it be?:
Wow, if there were a guy version of Amelie, that WOULD be cool ... but I'd definitely have to go with High Fidelity

3. If you could receive one small package this very moment, who would it be from and what would be in it?:
Apple sending me my iPod, or Dell my labtop

4. If you could own one painting from any collection in the world but were not able to sell it, which work of art would you select?:
Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

5. If you were instantly able to play one musical instrument perfectly that you never have played before, what would it be?:
the guitar

6. If you could possess one supernatural ability, what would it be?:
Telepathy, Jean Grey style (so basically telepathy with a hint of telekinesis)

7. If you had to choose the most valuable thing you ever learned, what would it be?:
I could be cheesy and say something like "to love" or "to think" ... or to program ... I dunno, maybe to drive or to take photos

8. If you could have only one piece of furniture in your house, what would it be?:
I agree with jo, a bed

9. If you could read the private diary of someone you know personally, whose diary would it be?:
once again, I'd like to agree with joanna and say parke here ... but maybe instead ... MARC FARRIS ... ehehe ... or matt schauer ;-)

10. If you could have one person you know as your slave (well-paid and cared for) domestic laborer for one month, who would it be?:
Well, seeing as Fiend already is my slave, I'll go with my brother jimmy ... just to have one month without his music playing

11. If you could choose the way you will die, how would you want it to happen?:
OK, am I supposed to say stabbed from behind? or shot in the lung or something? I mean who DOESN'T want to die in their sleep? ... although I did know a guy (brandon merrill, goes to trinity) who wanted to die in a war by age 40

12. If you could wake up tomorrow to learn that the major newspaper headlines were about you, what would you want them to say?:
being rich (jo's answer again) WOULD be nice, and seeing as nothing else would be practical (like I couldn't say that I scored a record deal, cause I have no musical talent) ... that's the only answer I have

13. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do?:
Upgrade my slow ass server, then upgrade my slow ass desktop (as lame as that may sound, most of you have faster computers than me and I'm supposed to be the computer guy)

14. If you could choose the music at your funeral, what would it be, and who would play it?:
Probably either Radiohead, OK Computer, or Portishead live in NY

15. If you could take away the vocal cords of any person, who would it be?:
Sheryl Crow

16. If you had to describe your idea of the perfect mate, how would you do it?:
Jennifer Connelly

17. If you had to have a personal friend redecorate your house, who would you pick to do it?:
Marc Farris, because he wouldn't change it much

18. If you had to choose the worst home you've ever lived in, which one was it?:
The Overlook

19. If you could have prevented one thing from happening between you and a friend, what would it have been?:
Dating? I mean isn't everyone going to put fighting? So I'll put dating.

20. If you could learn the total number of hours you have spent in your life doing one thing, what would it be?:
I'm with jo ... how long I've spent on the computer

21. If you had to describe yourself as a child in one word, what would it be?:
pudgy (I mean I'm pudgy now, but I'm better at hiding it (I think) ... that and I'm talking SERIOUS bowl cut

22. If you could own a single prop from any film ever made what would you choose?:
The one ring would be nice, jo didn't specify which LotR prop, so I don't think that's cheating ... A bar of soap from fight club would be nice, but knowing me if I ran out of soap in the house I'd use it out of desperation

And I'm spent ... My dog's been chasing this racoon around outside for half an hour now ... he chased it up a tree, it got stuck there, so we threw snowballs and ice chunks at it for a while, and it wouldn't move regardless of the beating it took ... so finally we came inside (so I could finish this survey and watch Joe Millionaire's season finale, which is where I'm going now ... ciao)

Spork.

Sorry guys, the server was down yesterday ... I was having Grant do some updates to his server so I could work on a client's stuff for Correct Design, and then told him to update with this security patch ... well, turns out the security patch was already installed on my server through windows update, but when I ran the patch it didn't seem to mind, installed again anyway and when I reset and came back up, sql server was fugged beyond repair. I had to reinstall it entirely this morning to get it working again ... I swear, I wish I'd been using SQL Server way back in the day so that all these errors could have been rooted out by now. I'm going running, ciao.

Spork.

Alright, well, Paul was getting bored with the snow and ice and not being able to get out of the house, so he asked me to update. I actually meant to update anyway.

Friday our Photography portfolios were due. OH MAN. So I randomly decide to grab some pieces from the stuff I keep here at home and bring them to school. Thank god, because I ended up using this massive picture of this clown. Anyway, Creative Writing we worked on our posters (they're these pencil traces of each of our bodies, and then we paint them in). Foster's class we went over the chapter, while I worked on Humanities homework. Then we made valentines. Humanities was awesome, because I had Diya show up 10 minutes in to get me out of class. She had this blue piece of paper, and I thought it was a note forged as dr. morehead but when we went outside her piece of paper was just an NHS Hours sheet that she had grabbed from Cheever's mailbox. CLASSIC. So I went to the photo room to work on my portfolio some more. Physics, we didnt' do anything so I VNC'ed into my computer and played around, showed Yuriy how VNC works and how I can take over my parents computer. It was fun.

After school, Devin and I were supposed to meet in the photo room to go snowboarding, but it's raining and warm in paoli so we decide not to go. So I work on my portfolio for a while, and I finish by about 3:30 and Joanna still isnt' done. Well, Curtis had to leave AT 3:30 to get the stuff out of there, but we wait for Joanna, and then Curtis asks if I can take the portfolio's in my jeep because of the rain, and Devin doesn't care, and so we take them over to Geen's (spelling?) at Male HS. Curtis shows up 20 minutes or so later with Joanna's portfolio. Well, Devin and I wanted to do something, but EVERYBODY was busy, so we finally just pick joanna up from church at eight and go to applebees where quite sadly so many couples were there for valentines day because they're CHEAP! Well, right as we're paying for the checks, everyone from the basketball game shows up (paul, joe, linlee, marian, sarah, ellen, and more). So, we said hi, then left. Joanna was extremely tired, so I took her home, then i took Devin home because I was extremely tired, then I went home and nearly fell asleep driving. Not cool.

Yesterday I woke up at one, which was fun, and then stayed in bed till two watching Finding Forrester. Then I ran 3 miles, took a shower, messed around, and soon it was time for the newstadts. Went to the newstadts for about an hour and a half. We played a little Cranium, ate a little pizza, then it was getting too icy outside and some of us went home. I went home and watched the last castle for a while, then decided I hadn't seen Requiem for a Dream in a long time and felt like a good depression. I CAN'T BELIEVE STILL, for the fourth time seeing it, how good that movie is. Not only is it insanely mind changing, a great anti-drug statement, etc, but Aronofsky (I dont' think i spelled that right) did an insanely good job directing it. It's just so well done, all the way down to the last camera angle. Then I went to bed.

Spork.

Alright, sorry for the long week with no entries.

Saturday was a ton of fun. Iain and I were gonna do something bright and early, and promised to call the other when the first one woke up. So I get a call at 10:00 (after being up so late Friday night) and find out he can't go out because he has to do homework. Depressing, but relieving all the same because I got to sleep till noon. I woke up and ran, and then took Jimmy to Charlie's around 2:00. On the way back, I was passing Tizzleberry's neck of the woods, so I gave him a call to see if he'd go take pictures with me. Sadly he was off to Camblesville (sp?). So I tried Iain again and he said he was finished with homework and only had to finish cleaning up some tools to be able to go out. So I take a shower when I get home and we go out with our cameras at about 4:30. With no more than an hour and a half of good light before dark, (I may have my times a little off) we go down frankfurt till it hits story, but keep heading towards River Road. We pass some industrial sites and decide to turn in there, but have to turn around first. Well, we have to go ALL THE way to River Road to turn around, but when there we see the Heigold House facade and get lured in.

We get out, and see a building off away from it, and I decide I really want to go in because all its windows are boarded up and it's old. Going around back, we find a huge stack of white pages. We've no idea where they came from, but it was awfully odd. There were two large stacks of them. Anyway, going around the side the gate is open! No idea how or why, plus the fence had barbed wire everywhere so this was a bonus. We walk right in and go into the house. It was old and everything broken apart, and I'm sure either in the morning or high noon the light might make some better pictures. But I did get a nice silhouette of Iain.

After many pictures here, we go back to the industrial site and grab some shots there, and finally drive down river road to purple parking lot where I take two more cool pictures of mr. fiend (here and here). It gets dark, and so we call Jo and she's with the infamous kat. We meet them and go to Rafferty's, then rent Virgin Suicides and have fun with that movie eating two different kinds of ice creams and three different chocolate candies.

Monday after school, I was working on recreating this piece for my portfolio and I had reached my final stage. All I had to do was glue my top piece to the bottom. Well, I fucked up. Glue got on the underside of the lithograph, and I frantically pulled off the matt to wipe off the glue with kleenex's, and then I get glue all over my hands, glue all over the TOP of the lith (no idea how) kleenx's start sticking to the matt, and I'm CRAZY frantic, and it took a long time for curtis to rescue me, and we cut a huge hole in the cardboard of the bottom piece, and then five minutes later I realize we glued it on upside-down the second time! So I pull off the matt, pull the lith off the matt, and throw it in washer. Mr. Curtis seemed more frustrated than I was from the outside, but that was just because I was keeping quiet because I thought he was mad. I kept wanting to say "I'm sorry" but every time I thought about it, I remembered that ... it's my piece, I should be apologizing to myself. But still, he seemed peeved, and I was too.

Tuesday night we went to Tizzleberry's house and watched the three amigos. GREAT MOVIE. We also played plenty of pool and ate plenty of food. Plenty of Dewskies to go around.

Yesterday, I went snowboarding with Eli and Brett up at paoli. Lots of fun, great snow, great weather, not a cloud in the sky, perfect temperature, and I gashed my knee on a rail. I could not hit the rails all day! My jumps weren't bad, I touched my board twice off a jump, didn't have enough air to do a full grab.

Today I worked on finishing my photography piece that I messed up, as well as making the three prints of Iain shot saturday text pieces for an assignment. I also went to Parke and Krista's show and it was awesome. Everybody there was awesome. And now I'm ripping Baraka for the folks going to Vietnam/Bambodia.

Spork.

go to my site: absenceofdesign.com

OK! Finally a dream post! I think this is going to be an interesting post worth reading. I'm excited, are you all? Too bad I don't think this will actually be as exciting as Joanna's dreams or ... actually, she's the only person I know who posts about dreams. Alright, well, first a little prelude ... One, I hate my keyboard, because I typed a lot past the world prelude just there and somehow it randomly control-home keyed and deleted the text, and I couldn't undo. So to retype my dream ...

First a little prelude. Wake up at 6:00. This is normal. This is also before the dream. Turn on the TV, BAM! 2 Hour Delay! TAKE THAT BITCHES! So I get up and reset all the alarm clocks placed strategically around the room to prevent oversleeping. I set them all two hours forward (the word "forward" was used according to marc farris, thank marc), of course. I then go into my sister's room to wake up my brother (fucked up, isn't it? see Jimmy likes to sleep in those silky, flowery, girly sheets ... and he does it nekkid). The conversation was as follows:

John: JIM!
Jim: UGHBAOWIRE! (that's the noise he makes waking up) WHAYEAH!
John: GO BACK TO BED THERE's A TWO HOUR DELAY!
Jim: OK!

So I get back in bed, but have trouble falling back asleep because a cold and that I'm worried about Government and Politics homework. I want to use these two hours to do the homework, but decide to sleep a little. So now, the dream (I don't fall back asleep till about 6:30ish, and wake up at 7:15, so this isn't a long dream)

JEEZ, so that was that. I sorta lay in bed for fifteen minutes dozing on and off, and then get up at 7:30, shower, etc. This is half hour early (if I'm on the 2 hour delay schedule I should have gotten up at 8) and I'm like all ready by 8:00, so I wake Jimmy up when I'm all packed and ready to go to school (I wanted to let him sleep) and decide to do the government. But instead I just play on the computer and download The Walkmen - We've Been Had. Everyone will recognize this as the Saturn Ion car commercial song where the kids are playing in the city and they leave childhood, but turn around.

I gotta end this post, it's getting massively long. We go to Doll's because of the extra time, and I buy donuts for creative writing. Then school, we did SHIT in all of my classes because of the delay and pep rally. Creative Writing she read two poems aloud and it was time to go, Foster we blew up baloons, Cheever's we watch Mulan, and Albright he passes back our tests. Pep rally was lame, and after school we go to Starbucks (Erin Finger, Tyler, Marc, Paul, and I). Then snowboaring (fun, I did some rails again, but I was sucking the jumps tonight), and now I'm home and ready for bed. Maybe I'll have another messed up dream.

OH! Psychology people comment on my dream, please! Or anyone! Someone psychoanalyze me and tell me I'm weird or sexually opressed or something!

Spooooork.

54 votes on the poll, wow! I think that might be a record. I was totally rooting for Marc on this one, but too bad. Of course, I knew before I even put up the poll that I probably wouldn't do any of them unless by chance one of the blog.thespork.com's worked. Oh, and as promised before, I'll do the evangelist thing if somebody talks to me about that and gives me a layout for it etc. It is amazing though that Schauer won! Not really, never underestimate the female masses, I guess.

So yesterday was somewhat boring, I was going to run but instead fell asleep for an hour and a half and then got up and ate/watched Shallow Hal (made me happy until he lost his "vision" and then I was just disgusted). I hate cheesy romance flicks, especially when someone gets hurt. Like Never Been Kissed? I can't stand that movie because of the humiliation that Josie aka Drew Barrymore goes through. It literally can sometimes make me cringe and I have to turn it off. I hate movies where someone is just seriously made fun of, I don’t know why. My skin peels up or something. But I can totally handle grotesque uncensored graphic and utterly gut wrenching violence. That's fine with me. I've been desensitized to it all since child birth.

Anyway, after that I started homework around eleven, but off and on was actually doing it. I worked on the "big project" which is almost nearly complete! In fact, the secret is practically out, but still, SOMEBODY has to be surprised when it comes to school in full force. Be excited though. Even if you don’t know what it is. But yeah, so I finally left the computer trying to finish the reading but couldn't cause I FELL ASLEEP (bastards, why do they make couches comfortable?). So I went to bed, without having finished the reading nor the math homework. But I got both done by the time I had the classes today. Other than that, in photo we watched some slides and during the aiding period they had to watch the same slides, so I went and fell asleep on the dark room table (literally, I was sprawled out with my head resting on the cutting board and my feet dangling off the edge). When I got up and snuck out the emergency door to go to the bathroom, I was covered in red sleep marks, my feet had no feeling, and nor did my right arm (I had my head laying on it). Oh, and I think the cutting board was a little moist with drool. HEHE (:-D). Then, I kept working on recreating my Scholastics Gold Key and I'm almost to the gluing stage.

Spork.

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hi, i havent posted in god knows how long, but tahts beacuse i have been busy with my own shit, u know how that goes..

well i just wanted to give john a pat on the back for keeping all the server running all the time, u are the man john!

yea, so shit, oh yeah i know why i was gunna post, basik is dead, absence is alive. go to absenceofdesign that is my new shit, i am about to release a new update too, so get ready folks.

peas.

PS, john can u change my name to 'absence' instead of basik? and whats the dillio with matt schaur-> i think john found a prom date.... :)~

Alright! So, quite a day, quite a day. First, you can read here about how I almost didn't run, but ended up in the end yesterday. So while I'm taking a nap from five to six, the internet goes down, and right before Joe Millionaire I call and they're like "I don't see a probl... oh wait. Can you hold?" Long pause while probably talking to supervisor, gets back on "Are you running a SQL Server?" ... pause ... "uhh, yeah, why?" ... well, there was this virus and you were infected and you need to call this number cause your server has done some bad things. So I call, leave a message. My internet is shut down for the second time in its history for running a server.

Anyway, they call me back during photo, and Mr. Curtis yells and I'm like "I'm expecting the call" and didnt' realize he cared, and supposedly he called me a mother fucker ... and I just went off into the back of the room. Well, I'm about to answer to Insight and he's like "you've got twelve seconds" and Im like "can I call you back?" and he's down to like eight and I can't hear what they say so I ahve to say "excuse me?" and he just goes "oh jeez" but I get off the phone and that's that. They called again at 2:20 and I handled them pretty well, I knew just as much as if not more about the virus and the sql server itself then the guy I talked to, who was cool about it all. They set me back up, I've removed the SQL server from external connections, it can only be accessed locally by the server, so no more viruses through that hopefully.

And, everything is back and running. Sorry for the downtime. Tonight was the photo awards thing at the KCA and it was fun. Ballard guy DID NOT DESERVE the awards he got. Some of it is good, but man. Unbelievable, it was an outrage. Absolute outrage. GRRR! And Annie so deserved a gold key for actual art (not the half ass art we make in photography, I mean real art with like paint and stuff). Alright, well, Joanna fatted me up on dumplings like the link above (or technically also below) says. So I'm gonna go ... drive my brother to basketball. And then walk the dog, and maybe after some homework run on the treadmill? Probably not, but I'll pick back up tomorrow.

S

The only thing truly worth mentioning about yesterday is that I ran. Not outside, like I should have, but inside on our new treadmill. Had I realized how nice the weather was, I would have ran outside, but alas, i did not. The treadmill is nice though, it's a "True HRC" for "Heart Rate Control." Basically, this badboy has this thing you wear around your chest that measures heartrate and adjusts your workout up or down based off of that heartrate. Pretty fancy stuff. You can workout up to a certain heartrate, say 160-170 and then hit cruise control and it'll adjust your workout up and down to keep you within that heartrate level. Anyway, the way I see it, is supposedly (according to Marc Farris, according to Joanna's website (but I just did a search and can't find it)) supposedly marjorie is getting in shape for vietname ... for matt schauer. And I imagine so is Joanna. So why not me? I mean I need my fair chance to compete, right?

I'm gonna go run now.

Spork.

PS - Question --> When you're Matt Schauer ... do you KNOW you're Matt Schauer?

Alright, it's midnight and I haven't done my homework! (that exclamation point was for Joanna [supposedly my posts are really enthusiastic]) I just used nested brackets! woohoo! (again, trying to be excited for Joanna)

So I worked on thespork.net a lot today. Assuming today will still be sunday when I finish posting. But I've seven minutes to get this bad boy up before it becomes tomorrow! CRAP ... ok, so I worked on the site, and redid the start page for logged in users. Now, you've gotta be a SporkOP to be able to view users. But hark, you say, wasn't that always the way it was? Technically, but now I've created a new user permission called comments. That's right, this is for me to give Spork.NET accounts to people like Bigg Dawg or Eli (who, actually, has stopped posting ...) who are kind enough to make comments on a regular basis. This way, they don't have to keep signing their name!

I might create a sign up page and just let people sign up themselves, I'm not sure, but either way it goes I'll have to first authorize the user (basically, if anybody just came here and signed up for a new account, it'd have no rights temporarily, not even comments, and I'd have to go in and give it comments if I can validate the user).

I'll talk about my day today tomorrow, I'm going to bed.

Spork.

Yesterday, I get to school and math is a free period (hurray, started off well) but I had to study for English's AP Writing. So I did that with all my kids in math, vinita, devin, diya, and then second period is DO the AP writing. I dont' think I did absolutely terribe, but it was just a bastard and a half to write it. The process was a pain. And plus I write so poorly I still have to worry about my grade now.

Then off to photo, and at the end of the whole period I didn't have a single working print of my stuff! And I need three for thursday. (ha, that sounds like five for fighting, except three for thursday). Then, fourth period, BACK to collesano's class for a one blue wall workshop. Which ended up being a lot of fun. The freshmen did very well with it in that class, I handled them well. They first had to write the worst poem in the history of the existance of the universe. And, quite interestingly, we got some very good poems! People wrote poems mocking love poetry and others, and this ended up being really funny! Then they had to take a fairy tale and write it with a twist, and some of these were good too! This kid with an incredible southern accent, wrote this poem called Cornbread and had him and his girlfriend "Grettle" (Although wasn't grettle the sister?) go to this old lady's house for some cornbread. Another poem had a spin on cinderella which was REALLY clever (all the poems we tried to hint should be "modernized" and set in the present day, which made this one very good).

So yeah, that took almost all period and then I filled Dr. Morehead in on it for the last twenty minutes of school and a little longer. Then went back to Collesano's a third time to talk to her about it and we tangented to Tess of the d'Urbervilles and then Dave Eggars. Then went to the photo lab and Robbie shouts to the room if anyone wanted to go skiing, I said yes (because my church bailed cause of rain and warm weather) and when I talk to David he's all shady, cause I didn't get why he'd have Robbie ask the room and then when I get on it turns out they're leaving in TEN minutes and I couldn't get there in time. So he says call Fenzel, and I did, and when I finally get in touch with him turns out they're beyond a full car. So I was still just going to drive myself up seperately, but ended up getting in a semi-fight with my mom over it and didn't go. I went and played Trivial Pursuit and Paul's house with Marc and Tyler instead, and Tyler and Paul win with an incredibly lucky guess of Frank Sinatra at the very end. The question in no way implied Sinatra or even man or female, Tyler finally gives up and says "ok, any singer ... Frank Sinatra" and we lose (Marc and I).

Today was Dare to Care, that was fun, and I might go get some Indian food tonight. Jimmy's at Charlie's house till tomorrow and my parents in Florida till next sunday. I got the place to myself for the night.

Sp.