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Sep 00
28 Sep 2000 @ 01:56 AM

Wow! That piano is fun!! I can't wait to actually be able to play something. I was learning The Entertainer beginning part, learning it for 2 hands. Got it down pretty well, not that it's very hard. I want to learn the rest of the song, it's hard though just doing it by ear. But the thing is cool. I recorded The Entertainer > Chaos > Entertainer. You can make some fucked up noises with that thing. I sat at it for an hour probably and now my eyes are all blurry. I have to get glasses. I think I'm extremely tired too. As is obvous from last night's post, I didn't get much sleep. Passed out with my clothes on at about 1:30, woke up at 4:30 thinking it was already daytime and I had missed my dentist' appointment and all, but it was the middle of the night, I got undressed and went back to sleep.
Now I have waaay too many toys to play with. I'll never get anything done on anything of them. If I start focusing more of my energy on the piano and less on the computer, I won't be terribly disappointed. I can tell I'm very tired because I'm getting hot. Should try to get some sleep so I'm somewhat rested for Vegas. Boy am I going to be tired when I get back on Sunday. At least Heather is giving me a ride to the airport, that will save me a lot of time. I can come home, pack, rest a bit, and then go. And Denyse and I will have a couple hours to hang out at SeaTac before our flight.
I hope Oscar calls me back and we get started soon. I'm excited. Yay!



27 Sep 2000 @ 04:12 AM

These are some ass kickin headphones if I ever saw some! Boy howdy! Bikk my ass and call me nancy, I'm groovin like it was 1999. wait a minute...

so, yea.. it's tuesday night, and i'm a bit drunk. trivia will do that to ya. and then i managed to go out to the Triangle after trivia and get home at 1 in the morning. That's okay, since I have a dentist's appointment in the morning. I wonder if I should take a walkman with me. Guess it couldn't hurt. It's always nice to listen to my shit while they're drilling away. Let them do their thing while I do my thing. MAN, these headphones ROCK!!!

Mike is only playing one note, but he's playing it so well.

Oh what a beautiful buzz, what a beautiful buzz.

I want to marry theese headphones.



26 Sep 2000 @ 01:55 AM

Rats. It's almost 11 again. My how time flies when you're not doing what you set out to do. I did have a nice talk with Leen and reserve a rental car for San Francisco, blah, blah. Practical things, not much creation. I'd like to get back into the Perl a little. Haven't moved since I finished that first chapter.

I hated to give so much money to those bastards at Guitar Center, but I guess I'm as likely to topple my principles as anyone in the face of a hefty savings. Of course the principle not to buy things from stores where the employees are assholes isn't a very strong one. It's more of a rule of thumb than a principle. A principle would be something like, "Honor thy father and mother." No, that's a commandment. I don't like those at all. Principle. What's a principle? Never rat out your friends? That's a good principle. Nice and easy to live by that one.

Though I hated to give them the money, I'm psyched that I'll have a piano now. It was a weird step, just standing there while the guy looked at me, making a big financial decision. I had already decided that this was what I wanted to do though, so I went through with it. Now I have to call Oscar and set up a meeting. It will be great to start lessons and start making some progress. Practising piano will have to fit into my routine somewhere. It's getting pretty crowded in there.



25 Sep 2000 @ 02:06 AM

I may look young, but I still suffer from hot flashes and night sweats.

One of those non-showering days. Spent some time outside sitting in the sun though. Got a lot of work done on the *new* slapnose.com, though of course I'm still not exactly sure what the hell it is.

"Some men get the world. Others get an ex-hooker and a trip to Arizona." I bet the guys who get the world wish they had the ex-hookers and the trip.

I haven't written a Poofy Froofy in a long time. I should dfo that. Write something anyway. I'll try to get the new slapnose together in the next couple weeks, though I'll be pretty busy what with all the PHISH I'm going to be seeing!! I can't believe the story Dave told me about almost running into Mike and almost getting backstage passes. Amazing. It's hard to imagine getting that close to something you dream of for so long, only to have it slip away because you decide to drive instead of walk to get quarters for the washing machine.

Nothing but good news tonight. Shooting downtown, sexual assault at the U, and two die in a kayaking accident. Maybe the Olympics have beter news. No, of course they don't. They have lots of soft focus fluff though.



24 Sep 2000 @ 05:22 AM

September 23, 2000


This will of necessity be a short entry. It's 2:15 in the morning and my eyes hurt. I've been, surprise surprise, working on a complete redesign of slapnose.com. This time from the top down, concept first. Well, it started out that way anyway. I may have lost site of that. At any rate, it will now have content on the front page, with other stuff hiding behind. The primary purpose will be some kind of content driven thing. If I'm ever going to get anyone to come back to my site again and again, it has to have fresh stuff fairly often. This new design will make that relatively easy. Just what exactly taht content will be I have yet to decide. I may ask Paul and/or Erik and/or some other people to write stuff for it if they like. I lifted a lot of design ideas from misinformer.com, I hope they don't mind. I didn't use any of their content, just some basic layout ideas.

Saw Ralph Nader tonight at Key Arena. It was very interesting to be at a political rally. First time for me. By the end I was pretty pumped up for Ralph though. He definitely has the right idea. And one of them was mine!! He advocated a "none of the above" election reform that was almost word for word what I've been saying for years. Weird. A great idea, of course. On the bus on the way home I got in a rather public debate with a guy across the aisle. He seemed to be agreeing with me, but he didn't realize it. No body else really said anything, just me and him for the whole ride. Then we got off at the same stop. Pretty funny. It wasn't an angry debate, it was enjoyable. It's nice in a way to have a group of people around when I'm going on about that kind of stuff because it makes me think out what I'm saying a little more. One on one with someone, especially someone I know, I'll generally just let fly.



23 Sep 2000 @ 05:07 AM

My eyes hurt a alot. I can't do no more. Been doing graphics work (for no good reason, of course) for the past hour or so, and it's just too painful to continue. Must sleep. Or at least do something else with my eyes.

Mariners game tonight was fun, though a terrible baseball game. Always nice to get out with the workies (the work droids) and do some stuff. Saw Laura and some other people I rarely see, and that's always nice. Now Erik has signed in and I'll have to talk to his ass for a while, I'm sure. I kid, I kid, because he's a great guy and I love him like a veggie burger. He's got that funny smile and those cute little.. what's its.. I don't know.. something's cute about him though.. Everyone says so. He's some funny bastard.

So now I'm trying to talk to him and write dump my friggin core at the same time. Plus I'm tired.

Okay, done with that. He has a girlfriend, that bastard, so he had to go. Me? I ain't got shit, so I stay and do this. Woo! Not really. I'm done with this.



22 Sep 2000 @ 01:00 AM

I'm powerful tired. Just can't keep it up tonight. It's about ten, I think I'll go to bed early and read for a while. My back is really hurting and I can't stay hunched over this keyboard any longer. Been working on too many separate things tonight, so none of them really went very far. All very disjointed and haphazard. So it's best to call it a night and get some reading done.

I think it's those Totino's that make me feel lousy. They can't be any good for you at all. Just a big slab of crap. I've just felt restless today. When it's really hot and still, like it was at work today, it makes me feel really claustrophobic. I can't sit still or concentrate. I feel a little like that now; like I need some fresh air. Maybe I'll go for a short walk. Go up the 7-11 and get a Gatorade or something. Sounds like a god idea. I bet it's nice and cool outside. Off I go.

...time passes...

That made me feel better. Of course, here I am, back at the computer. But only for a minute. Ha ha.. always another minute.
It amazes me that people can work at a 7-11, seemingly 24 hours a day, and not go completely insane. That one lady, and the younger Indian girl, they're there all the time. It's absolutely incredible. I can't rembember the last time I went in there and they weren't both there. I think the older lady must own the place, so I guess one can see her motivation. But jesus, I just can't imagine. The music is so terrible. Pop top 40 crap just playing softly in the background, day in, day out. I'm surprised there aren't more killing sprees by convenience store employees.



21 Sep 2000 @ 01:58 AM

Wow, I hardly remeber writing yesterday's entry at all. I think I was even more drunk than I let on. Quite interesting to read what I wrote, not remembering writing it very clearly. It's like having a tape of yourself when you're wasted. Such brutal honesty does not belong in the sober world. Worlds colliding.

I've started my quest to learn Perl (again) and it's going well. Wrote a program that searches the perl FAQ and tested with the following result:


/home/ahecht/perl>./faqgrep.pl sort
perlfaq4.pod:
How do I sort an array by (anything)?
perlfaq4.pod:
How do I sort a hash (optionally by value instead of key)?
perlfaq4.pod:
How can I always keep my hash sorted?

"How can I always keep my hash sorted?" That is the eternal question is it not? I'm always mixing up all of my hash. Oh wait, I think they're talking about something else.

I managed to turn the TV off today after only watching for less than an hour. Good for me. Watched some Seifeld, a little Olympics, then turned it off and got back to work, more or less. I'm having trouble with the overlap in my writing outlets. I fear I have too many now. Between this and what I write in the mornings and Themestream and Poofy Froofy, I'm at a loss. I want to keep up with Poofy Froofy, but Themestream is cool too because it's a little, teeny, tiny bit profitable and it's more public. The problem, of course is that no one in the public will ever read it. The nice thing about Poofy Froofy is that I send it to them. They don't need to make any effort, which is good, because when asked to do so, they won't.

I'm starting to think this is the central problem in most people's lives, including my own. It's just so much easier for us, and more comfortable, to say no. To not do anything instead of doing something. "Yeah, that sounds cool, but... I'm not going to do it. Why? No reason, I'm just used to what I do now." It's a serious problem. We're a bunch of blocked up, constipated mutherfuckers, thinking it's enough to just entertain the idea, but to actually pursue anything out of the ordinary would be selfish or just too much trouble. I think this way as often as anyone, but I'm trying seriously to curb it. Because in fact it's too much trouble not to.



20 Sep 2000 @ 02:39 AM

It's Tuesday night, so of course, I've had a bit to drink. This is normal. Normal for me. A bit to drink. We didn't win any woney, but at least Heather made friends with all the people that run the quiz, so next time freaking Spiney Norman wins, we can bust them for having too many people on their team. Those bastards. No wonder they always win, they always cheat. Or so we'd like to believe.

Otherwise, I keep typing Ps instead of Os. I can't decide if I should use an apostrophe for that or not. I guess I didn't. It doesn't really matter does it?

Sometimes I really wish I was gay, because then I'd marry Dave. He's sucha great guy, Someone I understand, someone I trust. The only thing I look for in a woman that he doesn't have is being a real woman. Too bad. Damn it. If I could find the female Dave, or if his sorry ass would change sexes already, I'd be in prime position for a happy, rewarding, satisfying life. As it is, I have to deal with the women of the world. Woe is me. Either they're crazy or they're religiously virginal, one can't win.

At any rate, it's probagbl time for bed. I may take the day off tomorrow, just for the hell fo it, and to le let the quizmaster tema catch up on some bug fixes. One day without me will no harm do.

It's quite a struggle to write this with as few typos as I've had so far. You have no idea. I'll quit while I'm ahead, or at least I percieve myself to be ahead.



19 Sep 2000 @ 02:44 AM

This will take a little getting used to. No preliminaries, no set-up, no formatting, just open up the blogger and start typing. Yup.

The damn TV is creeping back. Watched Monday Night Football and then of course it just stays on for a while. Okay, it's off now, and I'm ready for bed. Can't over sleep like I did today. It is evident that I need to be getting more sleep. I'll be in bed before midnight anyway.

I'd like to devote at least a little bit of time each day, or as often as possigble, to going through these Perl and Java books. Just a few pages or exercises a day will go a long way. Tomorrow is Tuesday, always a write off in terms of productivity because of trivia. That's okay, it's good to get out and do something with people, though from time to time it gets a bit tedious. Not the trivia game or the people, I guess it just becomes another part of the routine, and the routine is what starts to grind and eat away at me. I'm not giving up on getting that piano either. The teacher wants to wait to meet with me until I have an instrument to practise on. That's fair, I'm sure he gets a lot of people who he meets with, spends time with,a nd then they don't follow through. People who teach things like piano to adults must see a lot of that. False starts. I will definitely need to rearrange things in here a bit to fit any type of piano. The space by the window is enough, it just needs to be cleared of all the stuff that currently occupies it.

I have twenty minutes, eighteen actually, to do my bathroom bid'ness, get in bed, read a little, and get to sleep. Need sleep. There just isn't enough time. I should do like Gordon and religiously get 8 hours of sleep a night. I could as easily make that a habit as anything else.



18 Sep 2000 @ 01:08 AM

Well, this appears to have worked. It's not exactly the way the other, "pre-blog" Core Dump was, but it's pretty close. At least it looks the same. The only think I don't think I can do is put a series of links at the top, the navigation I had on the old pages. I kinda liked that. And while I can keep the front page to only one entry, the most frequent archive setting they have is 7 days. So I'll be able to see the current post, but not have access to the previous 1-6 until the archive date comes up. I guess I can manually archive it each day if that will work. Maybe that will have to be the way to do it.

At any rate, it's working, and for now this will probably be the best solution. As long as I don't have to update what is now almost 20 files, and growing daily, everyday. It was getting out of control. Taking me so long to update all the pages with the link to the new page that by the time I got it set up and sat down to write my entry, I was sick of it and just skimped.

Okay, I think I have it all set up. We'll see how it looks after a couple of days. It has to work, really, because there's no way I could keep it up the other way. I guess I could work out a way to do it with Perl or something, but that will have to come later. For now, these guys have already done the work for me.

Anyway.. this has been a good weekend. Got some writing done, made some progress on getting Free/OpenBSD set up with a streaming server, and the weather was gorgeous. And only, lessee.. less than two weeks until the Phish fest begins. Vegas!!



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