The story about Till piercing a hole in his cheek in order to make the video clip just right produced a strange effect on me. This is an essence of commitment to what you're doing. As for my job, I don't feel compelled anymore to lift a finger to make an extra effort - unless it happens to be fun, which is rare and unpredictable. (Oh and sure, going around with a cable in your cheek and a lightbulb in your mouth must be a lot of fun, yeah.)

I do care somewhat more for my own projects (software and writing) but I avoid any commitments, because as long as I treat them as amateurish and unessential, just a hobby to fill the spare time, I don't have to be afraid of failure.

I consider new year resolutions silly and cheesy, but this year I'm going to make one: find a job/occupation where I would actually care for what I'm doing. Preferrably something creative, but I'm open to any possibilities. The most feasible way is to utilise one or both of my main skills - programming and writing - if I work seriously on developing them.

A lot of people would kill to have my job, it sounds stupid to bitch about it all the time, but it doesn't matter. My life as it's now is not worth living, so it doesn't matter if I screw it up. I'm not setting myself up for failure, but I think that comfort/convenience must not be accepted as a proper substitute for doing what is right for you.

I'm drifting. I post entries here a bit later each day. Well, I guess I'm posting them earlier than I used to, since it's going on three o'clock in the morning, and I always used to post before. My internal clock is broken.

There was a bit of rain this evening, and now I keep looking outside to see if it's snowing. It's cold enough to snow. Snow would be nice, but only if it stays higher up in the mountains.

Oh, and I will never buy a frozen pizza from the supermarket again. I'll be after-tasting that revolting piece of crap for a week.

The subject line of this entry makes no sense and is still better than the entry.

Рассказ, который в свое время поразил меня.


Желтое поле колосьев, самое начало мартобря. Листики на деревьях потихоньку начинают краснеть, чтобы потом неспешно спланировать вниз к еще густой траве. Солнышко жарит, но не так сильно, как прежде, скоро будет холодно и на небе появится сияние. Мы идем по проселочной дороге в город. Дорога старая, разбитая, вся в трещинах и заплатах. Ее давно не ремонтировали, а быть может, и никогда вовсе. Она всю мою жизнь такой была. Мы не замечаем красоты вокруг, просто смеемся и говорим о пустяках. Мы — это я и Лагуз.
— Ты видел слоны вчера летели на запад?
— Вчера? Врешь, еще же рано!
— Ингуз, да спроси у кого угодно!— смеется мой друг.
— Но еще тепло, — буркнул я.
Мы с детства дружили, да и как не дружить, если мы в соседних домах живем. Сначала наши матери завели знакомство, когда построили свои дома рядом, а потом, когда у них появились мы, они брали нас вместе с собой и гуляли. Такая дружба, братская и действительно с пеленок. Конечно мы ссорились, Лагуз всегда немножко задирался, но мы быстро сходились опять, не вспоминая уже о былых разборках.
— А ты видел пару дней назад протапы с ярмарки приезжали?
— А то, и истории слушал!— ну ничем не удивить его.
— Правда? Расскажи хоть одну!
— А ты где был? Почему не слушал, раз знаешь, что они приезжали?
— Мне не очень интересно. Просто не знаю, о чем тебя спросить.
— Опять ты отнекиваешься, я же вижу, что хочешь послу…— он споткнулся и уткнулся носом в траву,—…шать!
— Ну ты даешь, растяпа!— я смеюсь ему прямо в глаза. Он недовольно бубнит в ответ что-то нечленораздельное,— хочешь, вернемся?
— Вот еще!
Повисло молчание. Он насупленно шагал позади меня и не хотел показываться на глаза. Еще бы, он-то всегда пытается производить впечатление самого ловкого и сильного во всей нашей истории. Но я-то знаю его, как облупленного. Совсем не такой, хоть и стремится к своему идеалу.
Пейзаж не менялся совершенно. Разве что где-то на дороге трещин было побольше да деревья краснее. А так все тоже поле слева и деревья справа. Когда мы пойдем назад, все будет наоборот, но при этом по сути ничего не изменится.
Я разглядывал небо и вслушивался в шаги Лагуза, который плелся следом, но уже пободрее. Видимо, его разочарование от собственного поступка поутихло. Небо царственно мерцало, но в одном месте мерцания почему-то не было.
— Лагуз, смотри, в том месте мерцания нет!
— Действительно, — шмыгнул он носом, удивленно таращась на матовый фрагмент неба.
— Будто оторвали кусочек. Как от одеяла…
Матовый лоскут стремительно мрачнел в красках и плыл в очертаниях. Мы остановились и неотрывно пялились в эту дыру. Становилось не по себе. По спине пару-тройку раз пробежались мурашки и выступила испарина на лбу. Испуг нарастал все сильнее, но я пытался держать себя в руках. Ведь гораздо интереснее то, что может сейчас произойти. А что могло произойти, мы и не догадывались. Из уже почти черной дыры слишком быстро летело что-то оранжевое и казалось, что прямо на нас. Резко стало очень жарко. Время непозволительно растянулось, объект приближался, а мы завороженно смотрели на него. Через каких-то две секунды мы опомнились и побежали сломя голову. Я все так же впереди, а Лагуз сзади. Мы не особенно понимали что происходит, зачем и куда мы бежим.
Я резко становился, вспомнив, что однажды говорил Отилия. Нельзя бежать. Когда на тебя летит что-то с неба надо стоять до последнего, потому что траекторию полета любого объекта нельзя заранее предугадать. Лагуз с разбегу врезался в меня. И тут нас накрыло.

I tried to update my satnav's firmware again, and this time it didn't stay stuck on 0% but went up. (Not monotically(?), but generally upwards.) And at the end, it reached 100%, asked me to disconnect the device to restart it, switch it off, reconnect it... and when I pressed "Done" after it had re-established communications, it said, "Your software is currently up-to-date."

So I hope that's fixed it.

Stella called this morning and said that Marek's values were good enough that they were letting him come home today!

They had turned off the cortisone last night, which apparently meant that the child was as good as discharged already, and this morning, they said he could go home. So Stella called me and asked me to come with Marek's car seat.

So now all of us are safe at home. And Marek is really quiet; he seems to be happy just lying there in his bouncer without being carried around or fussed with—just as long as nobody's jabbing things up his nose or in his foot!

I had a nice holiday chili relleno casserole (because I can't make real chiles rellenos and had failed to catch either elf or reindeer) and watched the feral cats romp.

It's still pretty cold out.

Maybe I'll enjoy the New Year holiday more.

Exmas.

My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas so it's a quiet day of rest. Nevertheless, a few things did happen. Shortly after 1am, I scored some Random Cr*p on Woot. I haven't managed to do that before because the Woot server usually gets bogged down whenever they post this sale. This time, however, they added a new twist by putting up a fake sale page with a link to the real sale in the text description. Judging by what went on in the discussion forum, dozens of regular Wooters missed that subtlety. I found the link and was able to place the order before it ran out for real.

TGI Friday's sent me an appetizer coupon valid on Christmas Day only. I thought that was odd because I'd assumed nearly all businesses would be closed today, but I called them and found out that they were open regular hours! So I went to their New Castle location in the evening and got takeout tostada nachos to add to our dinner at home. Dinnertime entertainment was The Secret of NIMH on Hulu. I spotted this title in Hulu's list of movies today and since I'd never watched it all the way before, I figured it was as good a time as any to see it.

( Friday Five )

You are trying to write a baroquish piece of background fluff. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT see how many ways you can reharmonize over the same cello line.

Love,
Me

( Executive summary: better )

---

After Amy and I left the hospital, we went for a walk in Meyers Park, basically "right next door", at Stella's suggestion. She also said there was a little pony... thingy ("farm" sounds wrong) where you could ride ponies for a small fee.

We saw two girls in riding boots ahead of us and figured they might know where it was, and it was just up the path a bit. And theoretically they were closed on Christmas Day, but they were doing a few rides anyway, subject to the number of volunteers present. So Amy got to ride once around the place on a pony, and was happy as could be about that. Afterwards, we looked at the horses and ponies stabled there.

Then we ate dinner at KFC, and finally came back home.

---

Unrelatedly, when I connected my satnav to the PC with the USB cable and visited the "My Garmin" Dashboard, it said there was a new firmware revision available. I told it to update, but at about 40%, the Internet connection apparently cut out—at any rate, the progress bar stalled at that position, and shortly afterwards, I got an AIM system message telling me I was signed in at two locations, which typically happens when the Internet connection drops and gets reestablished, especially when it's due to the router rebooting itself.

Now I hope the device isn't completely broken; when I clicked "Cancel", it warned that this may leave my device inoperable. It did act a bit strange after I disconnected and reconnected the USB cable (the display lit up and the battery level meter went away, which makes sense since it was charging and connected to an external power source, but normally it switches to external storage mode when you connect a USB cable and you can't interact with it any more), but eventually switched to storage mode. So... acting slightly weird, but I hope it's still basically OK. *knocks on wood.*

Time for the annual wrapping cat. Happy holidays!

Am silly, as well, always post at the worst of times! Who is even up at 2AM on Christmas? :D

I'm just too busy during the class quarter to think of anything that I can truly fill out posting, too exhausted in so many ways..

And I work nights so I'm usually most awake and aware right about now!

So, we've got a few spare computer parts laying around..!

Such as a motherboard, power supply, box, video card, a couple of gigs of ram.. all suitable for a Core 2 Duo or Quad or whatever else might be laying around.

So, we could do something like buy a cheap Core 2 Duo off of Ebay or a lower model on Newegg or the like for somewhere in the $50s-ish range easily enough, and pretty much have a working computer for someone who needs one!

It could be a big upgrade for anyone still on a single core chip, an old P3 or 4, or original Athlon or whatever, and I hate to see these extra parts laying around.

Anyone want such a thing, and want to work with us on it? Hell, it could even be a gift, I just want to see it all put to good use!

------

Update -

Here's pretty much what I could do -

Intel G31 Motherboard
2 gigs of DDR2 800 Ram
Generic DVD-Rom drive (IDE) (Could get a DVD-RW if I replaced the Media PC's one with a cheap Blu-Ray drive, which is ultimately planned anyhow..)
A 200 gig SATA or IDE drive, either or!
A simple case w/250W power supply (might actually have a better power supply sitting around, but this is a prelim look..)
A Geforce 6800GS 512 meg (also could upgrade either from the 8800GT, 8800GTS, or 4830 on one of three available computers if something more game-ready might be desired..!)
And I've got a spare Keyboard even, if that were needed! Could get a mouse for cheap, though might have a spare MS Mouse actually somewhere.. hmm..

See, all I technically need to get is the CPU, which on Newegg is anywhere from $50 up for a Dual-Core. For $94, it could be an E6500 at 2.93GHz, which would be plenty fast for most things for sure! But even an E3300 at 2.5 for $62 would be pretty solid, no?

I do have a spare VX924 Viewsonic monitor, but its backlighting is having a hard time turning on. No problem once it is on, just ought to be kept on! Or I have another one of the same which has no problems at all, but I'd want to get another monitor to replace that if it were wanted! Then I would get a second of the Samsung monitors that I have so they would be even, like it was before, if I did that.