Wassup peepz? Yeah...I did it again. It's been nearly 7 months. Not a record or anything, but not bad. No updates to this page in that time. What can I say? School keeps you busy, along with the pc. Lots happened of course in the meanwhile, but that's a whole other story. The important thing is I'm updating some. Say thankyou. There you go...

On the school side, I should be done in another couple semesters, as far as my first degree goes. I got another 4.0 last semester to match my first 4, but am not sure how this one will go. You'd have thunk I would've dropped some with 3 friggin' english classes, but I managed pretty dern well. :) I only have one english class this semester coming, african american literature. The others are either electives or required, including Biology (don't get me started on the ploy that befell me disenabling my taking of physics), Spanish, Western Civilization, Social Diversity, and anything I forgot. No math. I probably won't be taking anymore math at the current school since they don't offer Calculus on my stupid campus. That's life I guess. :(

Again, the magic Pell Day is looked forward to. This time around moreso than the last semester, since we had pc issues. At nearly the end of the semester our pc died, mainly from cruel heating conditions. We ran it far too hot and was punished by that evil she-demon we might call the Goddess. That, or the miniature soccer players that everybody knows are the real cause of CPU cycles. I think we killed them from malnutrition or something. *sigh* Worse yet, my mom's box also died of the same problem. It came at a bad time, but we managed. One of our classes was Internet based, so it was especially evil. Our hardware (other than the cpu/motherboard seems ok), though I later screwed up our harddrive. I doubt I can fix it, and will have to reformat, but there's a reason for everything honestly. To knock us down a peg most likely...

So, for months we have been using this 133 mhz box (again), the downstairs all-in-one GateWay pile of crap, and various other systems we come across. I had a cheap yamaha wavtable card working in it, but only if I installed two of them, if that makes much sense. Either one of them alone would flake out, yet both work fine on their own in newer boxes. Strange shit. The important thing is I figured out something that works. I've got the 133 sitting holding the Iomega ZipCd (4x burner), an internal 100 mb ZipDisk drive I got working, 2 gb scsi hdd, the 540 mb ide hdd, 24 mb of ram, and no sound. I had a Reveal soundblaster pro in the box, but it made my scsi card go nuts without even a hint of conflicts. So...for sound I have another system, a Compaq 486 (66 mhz) dino, stacked up on top of the the 133 beast. In it is the offending sound card, a 240 mb ide hdd, a 560 mb ide hdd, external 100 mb ZipDrive, and 8 mb of ram. I actually have decent mobility, considering the 486 is ps2 keyboard, and the 586 (133 mhz) is the oversized dim plug. I use different mice for each, though I NEED the trackball back. I'm missing it like a rabid sea otter. I can burn off files, audio cds or whatever on the 586 as long as I have no other apps open, make sure Windows 98 has been rebooted recently, and keep enough space free for the caching and so forth on the 2 gb scsi drive. To test mp3s, work with some minor audio and do tracking, I have to move the files via zipdisk and then go from there. There's a good chance I can get the Sony cdrom I've used in the 586 in there, but there's no room in the small Compaq case for the second hard drive AND the cdrom. Plus, I'd need to configure the isa controller card or risk frying the reveal card again by running the cdrom through it. Yeap, I did do that once already to kill an older, low-end 486 motherboard. LOL

As you see, computer issues have kept me busy. I had an assload to deal with at my mom's. Between getting her new box going, making sure her 333 was ok, the local network/lan 'Dragonlink' was up, and so forth I was quite busy. I also recently looked over some other friends' pcs at varying consumption of time. Most were not bad, however I did take a long time to get a friend's hand-me-down overclocked Celeron package going in our old case. He only needed to buy a 250 watt power supply and a 56k modem, then he was set. The system is cool, a bit odd, but cool. It works. :) The problem was not as much the jumper settings being different than expected, or even Bios settings to need altering, but the fact that I really needed to be sleeping as opposed to working on pcs at that moment in time. It took me thirty minutes just to figure out I left the protective strip on the new mouse's underbelly. That's just how tired I was. :/

The specs for our new box are unknown. We're looking over case kits and part lists until just before we get the cash infusion. We're looking to possibly get a new burner since they're so reasonable, a cheap dvd drive, of course the case kit, some more fans/cables, some nics, a hub (we have an extra isa combo nic for the 586 and the 486 has one also), and whatever else fits into the equation. The idea is to get a good box ready for the ati in-in-wonder pro card, and its obvious dubbing chores. I miss being able to edit video and do my graphics mostly, though Laura most misses playing the Sims upstairs. :( If we can manage to get a network going, then everything will definately be gravy, and solve a few problems we currently have with the old boxes, and of course the time old one. How can two people get on IRC at the same time?

Just 6 months ago I was pissed for not updating this page in 3 months, now I sit looking at fossil aged documents brittle to the touch. I can't really find any good excuses, so I'll list some lukewarm ones. School has kept me occupied a nice amount, and my grades show it. I'll be at around a 4.0 for my first semester back after my imfamous 4 year Net break after highschool. My math class ended well, as did psychology, sociology, programming, and english. I think my 99 in english was the highest numerical grade of the classes though. This next semester I'll have 3 english classes, public speaking, political science, and precalculus. As I sit typing this I am enjoying my 3 week break between semesters, awaiting the magical Pell Grant day when I can buy my books, and find out how much is left for the rest of the semester's activities and supplies. Oh for that magical day to arrive.

My deeply mistreated Bomberman site has been getting more attention the past 6 months as well. A new revision is online, and I've been working on items offline to post. Of course, no vacation from literary duties would lack social activities. As of late, our campus has been attempting to get a branch of the national english honor society chartered. We worked on a christmas float for the local Cheerwine plant as well, alongside the art club. I'm looking forward to future projects as they appear, especially joint ventures with the art club's members. Outside of school activities, I've been working on my nonexistant guitar skills, and reading whenever I have free time. The new update for the Sims, Hot Date has also taken some time from my life slowly as if a bloated leech.

Finding worthwhile topics to rant upon has also become a key issue. I have so many worthwhile issues to wander, however so little of my time is spent worrying about them in actuality. If I really pondered these issues in reality for overly long I am sure I could be diagonosed as obsessive-compulsive. Which, as of yet has not occured. These tangents should be seen as mere musings of a tangent or ranting nature. Morphing sons of bitches...

So, the world is finally getting a refreshed, two toned taste of magic and lore? It took years of faithful Tolkien dedication, and a line of insanely popular junior wizard books to grab our society back from the clutches of cheesey Net horror stories. The Matrix, Swordfish, and all the rest are dead for a piece. In walks Harry Potter, and rightful ring bearer The Fellowship of the Ring from J.R.R. Tolkien. I do not know why it took so damn long for a movie of this fine piece of writing to be made, but here it finally is. Animated movies were nice, but such lore cannot be limited to glossy hues of an animator's stroke. Maybe we all need a bit of magic to forget what a bad world we live in. So says many past and present when looking at Tolkien's work. It's a fond escape, a place some would give anything to tread within; so long as their souls could be away from this time. War is war, but war with elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, wizards, wolves, eagles, and more all makes it more consumeable. It's a fond dream that lets us sleep as our neighbors are raped, and our long distanced allies murdered. It's bliss, filling rapture, and release.

I have no comments on our war besides it is as any other war. We brew them, and then we fight them. That must be why Bush is so afraid of clones. He knows they'll come back to kill us for the dogs we make them become. It's natural. No matter how many lives clones could save as walking organ bags, through reasearch and development, and revamped technology, they are EVIL. Atleast to some. However, there are answers in plenty of places, and still we hear little of chakras, or glandular functions in regards to our astral form. It's not that we don't know, but that so many of us are blind to anything but the brand of clothing we wear, the slop we eat, or the car we blindly consume gas for in order to make it to a job. A job we hate to admit we can't do the way we want to. Unless you're management, and then your job is to belittle your subordinates and tag every skirt that happens to smile at you once. Boy, I can't wait to get into the job market. Oh me, Oh my...

How about IT? I still haven't looked online or picked up a paper to see if said gizmo was actually what Wired.com proclaimed. I guess it isn't really that important to me after all. I'll look at the pretty pictures, and the propaganda. I'll smile, giggling to myself because the robot looks so happy lifting a 400 lb man up the stairs. Ok, so I probably won't do quite that. Unless it looks like some oversized ROB or hella cool mockup of some foreign tomy beast. Ahh, the possibilities. I shall leave you with the warm thoughts of metal death. Sleep well.

Man, I can't believe I haven't written anything here in over 3 months. Pretty sad if you ask me. But I have been busy friends, how busy you ask? Not very busy, I mean, very busy indeed. Check this out if you don't believe me. That there is covert photography at its' best, if in fact I myself had caught the crime on film. No, the devils' work was caught with a camera by a watchful reporter of The Valley News of Fulton, Ny. They used the cover story of advertising for some kind of fund raising activity but I highly doubt any money went to the truly needy individuals of Fulton somehow. First off, my stance on scooters is simple...they are evil, and ample tools of the devil. Just because that picture shows 2 priests riding them, it doesn't condone the act. In fact it lets us know that the devil is in league with many agents in high places, and of course shakes my idea of whom to trust. I'm kidding everybody, just don't go by the church near the Tops food store by the kinda one way dead end street or your kids might accidently be sacrificed to the dark lord in a guise of a new kind of communion..... Did I say I was kidding? Let me check.

Onward I go, always onward. With the scooter talk behind us I shall speak of the summer. A time for barbeques and of course undelivered plastic pools. I know several people falling into the influence of these travesties of air filled form, and it makes me sad. I can't exactly tell them they are letting their pool based activities take place in a glorified life preserver, but you always wonder what they think. Get it out of the box, blow it up, and have the pleasure of finding out it doesn't fit the picture you had in your head after seeing the commercials, or the box photos. Not only that, but you may actually have a drunk father trying to fix his own drink holder to the thing after he realizes the $30 Wal-Mart special doesn't include one. Poor susie wading her june away as daddy comes around the bend of the house with a chaulk tube, a piece of shredded plastic formed into a hoop, and an evil look in his eye. No therapy will save her people. Stay away from these pools if you can help it. I know they are nice if you want to deflate the fun before the grandkids arrive and take a dump in the water, or make pee soup, but really isn't there a better way and place for older adults to skinny dip? Yes, and that place is the YMCA, skinny dip away all you old people. If the youngsters start getting irate about seeing old man testicles or old women breasts just pretend you can't hear them and shout "WHAT?!" and they'll stop trying. One worry though, if you have a prostetic of some kind, be careful the pool chemicals won't corrode it away. :/ Swim safe!

On the pc/job side, (the merger seems adequate since a job enables me to buy pc items) I have a temp job at Goodwill. I dunno for how long but it'll be decent for any amount of $ I can get into the bank. I start classes next month at a local school working for an associates degree so I can transfer to yet another school. I've began re-evaluating my programming, past and present. I intend to see what I actually know and what I need to brush up on. I do know I can draw a Bomberman in QBasic though so it's all good I say. :) Ah well, I just finished the last of my cup of Grape soda so it appears the night is over.

Wow, it's April already. Slap my face and call me Verly. Ok, that's not relevant to the main agenda I guess, but space is. That's right, hold your breath no longer world, we actually have massive space. Compared to the pittlesome amount we had before anyway this is HUGE. We got a 40 gigabyte, 7200 rpm Western Digital harddrive this week, and of course a cheap 56K modem to replace our even junkier one. We've been installing items tonight mainly, the Sims (again), The Sims - Livin' Large update, and of course the Sims - House Party update. Between the pc addins, and general birthday excitement, I dunno what to say. Ok, I do. WAHOOO...

It's getting so warm here in North Carolina lately, though the rain has been nasty as well. It makes me want to run and all that fun stuff. Though I can settle for tennis really. ;) Speaking of green balls, what's the world coming to? I mean, really, what the hell is wrong with everything. Are people so happy with the day to day grind of the metal cog upon their backside? I walk around places and everywhere I look I see disappointment, anger, fear, and lost desire in people's eyes. Strangers I never will talk to, for an instant crossing my path and sharing with me the sadness in the pits of their dark or clouded eyes. It makes me feel worse than I already do, and most days, I would rather just stay home than experience it. Lest I intake and injest the dark matter of their displeasure and fall drowsy with the dew of unsurpassed guilt. Why do I feel guilty? I dunno. Partly because I know the world is more than most see, so much less we will ever know or remember, least of all me. I'll know so little, and experience so much less. But, then you remember that is projection and will create like experiences. So, what is the answer? Maybe if you listen to some music and think, listen to the patterns of your mind screaming, or just hit some speed burst and get out of just one rut holding you back, maybe then you'll find the road to your own end of more than ample joy. I'm getting closer ever day, and I can't be happier when I wake up with breath in the morning, though knowing I am not chained to any physical manifestation for to long. Tis the story glory. More babbling, tired rambling, a true tangent in the making. Long remembered thoughts of old. Truly frightening, but with sleep the words fade away...

Wahoooooo, finally updating pages again as you see. The scooter threat is still something upon this mind, but I think the trend may slack off some when and if someone sells turbo skate sleds this summer. I can only hope some keenly adept individual will market street sleds so youngsters can tow behind cars about town and really cause trouble. Well...maybe not. I just want to see the tv at Wal-Mart, their tv station playing about the store, going into detail about all the accidents overshadowing those horrid scooters. Maybe then people will sway their interests to a truly amusing hobby, like destruction derby go cart racing. YEAH!

Oh boy, you wouldn't believe the system I'm on now, compared to the last one anyway. I built a box for my mom, and got paid in parts, as well as salvaged some orphaned and or thought dead for sure pieces. With those, a bit of cash invested, and some of the insides to the 133 bawx I used forever, we managed the bawx we have now. Easy specs include 800 mhz athlon, 128 mb ram, soyo motherboard, etc.. I managed to save and or fix the Iomega cdrw after multiple reburns of the flash bios, a bit of swearing, some time alone in the penalty box, and retransplantation into this new box. Whether it was just tired of being sworn at, or likes our box I dunno, but it actually works wonderfully. *hugs case* It'll burn at 4x, and that's fine by me. You can't beat free, and we didn't have a burner of our own until now. Though, going over and using my mom's new 12x plextor feels like cheating. shhhh Don't tell the Iomega. :/ I'm using my old 540 mb ide harddrive, and the 2 gb scsi harddrive I was given by my friend Envador from irc. He's got these awesome cpu cases you should check out. Especially the barbecue one, though the pvc ones are coo also. He builds them for fun, and for occasional Quakecons there in texas I believe. Allright, besides the lacking storage space, I also have the slowass external zipdrive, and a whole lot of energy. heh I got Dos sound setup today, and it sounds way to noisy, line noise wise, but it'll work. I can actually use Impulse Tracker again, which rocks my nads! :D

Yeah, so Napster is royally getting the ass job, it was coming for a while. I still grab mp3s like a mofo when I am online. Still use napster servers, just not Napster. The rest of the time I use other means. The problem is government can never close all the open holes to free music, software, or anything. Music execs don't understand that free anything to people that wouldn't have bought it anyway only increases their opinion in people's eye. Free music from bands people never knew much of just gets them more exposure. Do I buy music? Of course, but most of what I want isn't distributed properly or completely, so why bother most of the time. Buy a cd for one song and suffer through the rest? I don't think so. The quality of the pirate versions isn't always as good of course, but the ability to get exactly what you want and not all the bloat and shit is wonderful. Do I burn cds of audio? Hell yes, and I enjoy having the ability to put songs from 15 different albums on 1 cd to skip the whole process of playing 1 cd for 5 minutes and switching. Maybe someday it won't be this way and music will be better catered to the user, and be more cost effective, but until then don't blame me when I download an assload of music and actually enjoy it.

That's a good sized rant, I better upload everything now. I know I'm talking and typing myself here, but atleast I feel better. *cranks up the music and smiles* Expect work on the bomberman site to continue on a better schedule. Laters.

Ahhh, tis a new year. A new chance to ramble onward of topics few think of as much or little as myself. Also another year to pass before I get further along in the old run for cover called life. I'm sitting here thinking of what I wish to convey and all I am getting is the mental image of the cheese puffs I ate but twenty minutes back. Yeah, they were really good...

So, with the new year brings resolutions you forget about, or plans you later slide on. What are mine, I'm not really sure. I can't wait for it to get warm again so we can go play tennis every night like before. It's been said we'll mix in some other good stuff also such as soccer, and volleyball but we'll see about that. I used to love playing both but now seldom see it being played by my hands OR feet. Pity. Oh well, more later, but off to twiddle with the guitar for now. :D

*yawn* That task had been completed. I played around some, I don't know how to play yet. But, I sat there and such, so I guess it counts. ;) Wait, let me go play the keyboard. HMMMM...

This will be the first rambling per say of the new year. I thought it would fit to have a topic page on here with the rest. Somewhere I could vent or bring up a topic, etc.. I don't honestly care if anyone is reading my words, or looking at my pictures, or even reading my poems. I get it out, and that's all that matters. :) I hope you all had a wonderful new year and keen holidays besides that. Well, let the rambling begin...

SO, what exactly is it with Iomega drives anyway? I never had heard much bad or good of them so I had my mom get one for her system last year. It worked from spring (around march) until the middle of december this past year we're so sadly leaving. It just won't burn anymore and has "buffer underrun" errors out the living ass. It won't even get past the leadin writing stage, so it sux0rs. I tried the firmware update, and I tried swearing at it, but to no avail. Sweet talking didn't work either. *sniff* I gotta see what the techs say now about it. If they won't replace it or find a fix it's a new one to purchase. I can't seem to find a ton of cdr models listed much anymore. I've heard they're less flakey than cdrw, so we'll see. I might just get a Plextor or a Sony. They advertise "technology" to help prevent the error I think this ZipCD is getting, but it's all a sales ploy really. ;) Either way I CANNOT live without access to a burner, no way jose, no farkin' way. It will be the first device added in the specs to our new system, even if it's a laptop! :D

Ok, how exactly did the scooter fashion hit again? I mean, I remember those awful things from the eighties and they really sucked. You could blow the tires out so easily, and of course they were so UGLY. They looked like oversized roller skates on crack streamlined by a blind weed head with arthritis. I really disliked them, can you tell? :/ SO, this xmas I see them all over, every corner there's kids trying to fit their fat feet and curling toes on these small ass mofos for speed of some kind. Maybe they're so small to compensate for the previous versions? :/ I've seen several brands in the store, and even Aldi's has a "cheaper" model they sell for the poorer kids whose parents can't put stuff on layaway without calls to the authorities. :| I think it's just another sign the world's coming to an end, scooters are death. Believe you me, scooters are death... Look at the way they sneak into your life with their shiny arms and legs and smiling teeth to gnash you with, that's right...fear the scooters! :( And with that I shall hide under the covers and wait for a scooter disease to befall the evil warlords of chrome. eek!