Gerko's Weblog

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

I've been increadibly clumsy the last half hour or so ...

Mom called ... but was too late in picking it up. Called back, first dailed the wrong number (got a 'not available' tone), then, when I had my mom on the phone, dropped the thing on the ground. Little while later I opened a soda water bottle and sprayed it's contents all over my desk. A procedure I repeated about three minutes later. Another little while later I had to call mom back again, and again, I dropped the phone out of my hands ...

Clumsy Gerko !

Monday, October 28, 2002

*yawns*

It's cold. And I'm tired. I guess I'll go hit the sack soon. ... But first I'll continue on my last entry. Because I did a bit more that Saturday. I finished Super Mario Sunshine for the first time later that day, with 100/120 'Shines'. ('Shines' being the star-like thingies you have to collect in order to open up new levels and whatnot) It was fun. Guess I'll try to get to rack up a few more the following weekends. (Gamecube's at home-home) ... I still ownz0r my brothers at Mario. I had to make way for some FPS'es, but I still owz0r 'em at about any other game. Oh, well, aside from some RTS'es for the PC. Don't play those that much anymore. And they do.

That evening, I watched Fight Club on TV. I guess it was good. Bit weird, though. Had to explain the plot-twist near the end of the movie 2 times to my brother before he understood what it was about (or was too afraid to ask me to explain it again). Kind of a deep movie, but the very end was lame. Taped another movie, For Roseanna, which I watched sunday early afternoon. I really liked that movie ... Hmmmmmm ... *sniffles* ... It's been taped over again, though, 'cos my brother (Sheesh, he pops up a lot in today's entries, doesn't he ?) wanted to tape The Jackal. I guess I'll go see that one when I get home-home again. I think mom wanted me home-home wednesday ...

Oh yeah, my day at work today. Hum ... well, as I said before, the network is up and running now. Today I gave a go at getting the various programs I need to update/upgrade/up-whatever together on one PC. Not without difficulty. The latest version of the program isn't avialable on the net at the moment, but we have it laying around somewhere in the 'installed' form, but with an out-dated database. The latest update file needs a password to unzip, and the PC (not connected to the network) that's currently running the in-use version of the programs runs solely on DOS, and keeps eating my 1.44Mb disks. Gah ! ... problems, problems, problems. This is going to take a while.

Oh, looky, another written-in-the-train-entry. This time I'm heading home from work. "Home" being Vlissingen//Flushing, not home-home // 's-Gravenpolder. As I'm writing this, I have no idea wether or not they counted on me for dinner. I hope they did, but it wouldn't be disasterous otherwise. Can always pop a packet of noodles or whatever.

Anyway, Gerko's been a Good-Boy™. Well, Saturday, anyway. Got up early enough to be at work at 10:00, to get that network-thing installed. It works now. After that, I headed into town to get that much-needed haircut. It was too long, but I'm guessing it might be a little too short now. *shrugs* ... Oh well, it'll grow back. *g*
Then, I looked around in some stores to see if they had Timesplitters 2 for the Gamecube. I have no idea what the game's about, but my brother said it was good, and that he wants, no, needs it. So, I looked, but it wasn't out yet.
I dropped by at Pearl, too. Not sure if it's an international branch or whatever, but they do glasses. You know, the kind you put in front of your eyes and lets you see the world again ? It was pretty much an unplanned visit. (Oooh, Gerko was being impulsive !) And I got my eyes measured. 'Cos I need some new glasses. Stronger ones. I knew that. The people at Pearl know that now, too. But my current pair of glasses (Which for some dubious reasons had an odd-placed bi-focal piece, ) confused the poor folks, since I don't need that bi-focal part to see things sharply up close. They're still confused, despite my elaborate speech, explaining the how and why of the object. (" ... I .. uh, don't really remember... Had something to do with ... stuff ... *mumble* ... don't wear 'em that often ... *mumble* ... less strain ... *mumble* ... Yes, for my headache, but it didn't help for that ... *mumble* ), so now they want me to come back some time this week at about 9:00 to measure my eyes in the morning. I'm skeptical as to how that would clear anything up, but ... Oh well.

So anyway, I did stuff. More to come later tonight, 'cos the train's almost at the station.

Thursday, October 24, 2002

And again, I've been slacking. Bad Gerko ...
Hum ... nothing too interesting to tell, though, so I'll summarize some points.

• Super Mario Sunshine : for the Nintendo Gamecube. It's fun, I suppose ... SM64 was better, though. But I like it anyway ... hrmmm ... If I'm bored and feel like writing some time later, I'll write a mini-review or something.


• Work : I've been staying home a lot ... There's currently nothing to do at work, so I guess it's legimate. At least somewhat. I plan to go again tomorrow though, and saturday, in any case. Saturday they're going to install that network that I need before I can continue the stuff I'm supposed to do, so my problem of "not being able to do anything" should be over soon. That's good, means I don't have an excuse anymore.


• Ghost in the Shell : Pretty famous anime-film, I believe. Saw it (for the first time) last night. It's good, but I guess I wasn't really in the mood. It didn't really stir me as much as it could or should have. Wasn't much ... 'new' stuff for me, I'd gone over most of the subjects already, and somehow it didn't intrigue me that much. I blame it on myself though, because it is good. Very. ... Well, except for the dubbing/subbing. Borrowed the Dutch DVD version of it. With optional Japanese or English Audio, and Dutch subbing. The English dubbing wasn't too great. Sounded a bit cheesy, and the japanese sounded just a lot more 'round' with the rest of the visuals and background noise. However, it's nothing compared to the horrible dutch subtitles. Half-assed translations ("It's illegal to move programmers out of the country", subtitled as "It's illegal to run programs") and sometimes even skipped whole sentences. So for the most of it, I did it with English Audio, and no subbing. I wish the darn thing had a "Japanese Audio, English Subtitles" option, but it didn't ... Oh well ... Good anime.


• This Entry : I'm currently writing it in the train, heading home-home, in some notebook I made for rants. Handwriting was OK for a while, then the train started moving... oops.


• Elise : Had her initiation for some sub-group at her university-group-thingie last week. (sorry for my inability to translate) ... It was pretty rough on her, but she made it. Good girl :)


• June : Going through some swings at the moment. I'd feel bad if I'd simply label it "puberty", but I guess it's somewhat accurate. Also, she's being harassed on her blog by some anonymous replier. She felt pretty good today, though. Hope she keeps it up. ... Also, I've been calling her a bit more often. Maybe I should stop doing that. *thinks of phonebill*


• Doug : Hurray ! he more-or-less finished some flash animation in which you can kill your's truly in multiple gruesome ways ! Go Doug ! Kill Gerko ... Also, he's working on some new lenghty movie. it's going to rox0r !


• Myself : A bit down due to the not-doing-anything stuff again ... been getting out of bed too late. Also, I deperatly need a haircut again.
  

Saturday, October 12, 2002

And so I once more fulfilled my "Gerko does something out of the ordinary on friday"-thing ...

Not really sure where to start. Well, I guess I'll start with waking up today. I got called out of bed by a real-life™ friend, asking wether I was coming to another real-life™ friend's birthday this evening. And I had forgotten. Not in an "Oh, shit, yeah" way, because I know myself well enough for that. I'm horrible with remembering birthdays, and even worse at keeping track of 'em. (Elise's was the exception, but only for this year) They just don't stick to my conscious mind. Maybe I should keep an agenda and write all that stuff down there. Maybe. Anyway, I told him "sure", and that was about it. ...

I had set my alarm clock for 10:00, but overslept it untill my friend called around 2:00 pm. I'm not too pissed about getting up too late today, because I didn't go to bed untill about 5:30 am last night. I remember hearing the 6:00 'beep' on my watch, and I guess I fell asleep shortly after that.

... Looks like I'm going to write this thing down backwards. That's ok, though ...

What kept me up so late ? A phone call I made. To the USA. A phone call that lasted almost two hours. I'm not sure if I mentioned him before on my blog, but Brian Black (may have mentioned him as 'Locke Taelos' before) is one of my best on-line™ friends. He came on-line at around 2:45 am, at which point I was making fast plans of hitting the sack, but since it was this guy, and I hadn't spoken to him for a while already, I decided I could stall it for another couple of minutes. He directed me to some link for me to read, but since the DNS had blown out of the server (again), I couldn't display the page. After some trying, he sent me a copy/pasted version of it.

~sigh~ ... Well ... Someone close to him died earlier that week. Unexpected, and right in front of him. A father-figure to him, someone he really cared about, and the guy just collapsed right in front him, while talking.

And I can't help myself but imagining parts of it. And I can't help but being shocked about it. So I called, guessing it'd be a bit more personal than just text messages to and fro. The call lasted from 3:21 till 5:16. We talked about various things, though. Not just the guy's death. I'm certain the call was worth it. And, as I said earlier, as long as it doesn't become a habit, I can take a 'large' international call every now and then.

( After that, I made a quicky phone call to June (in Malaysia) to more-or-less apologize for not being that talkative on MSN. Just to let her know I wasn't mad at her or anything. )

Now I'm also a bit ... interested ? in the events that, for me, lead up to this. How I came to be still on-line at 2:45 am, even though I hadn't been feeling too well that day and was planning on going to bed a bit early ... How I just days ago noticed that phone calls to the US were low charge. How my personal ideas and feelings regarding 'death' ('random' but also just in general) had spinned through my head the last week. It seems like it all those little things converged last night. And ... I guess it's small things like these mild occurences that just make the existance of 'fate' just that one bit more plausible ... at least for me. I don't know, but it felt a bit set up ... *shrugs*

Anyway, guess I'm still a bit shocked.

Haven't eaten anything yet. Guess I'll pop a packet of crackers on my way to the supermarket to buy some real food ...

Friday, October 11, 2002

Updated some of the links on the left ... not sure if I like the look of it now ... might change it some more later.

Bored ... Wondering what to do tonight. I should start roleplaying again, I know, but I'm not really in the mood, I think ... There's some stuff on TV, but I'm not sure if I feel like watching that, either ... Hum ... And I'm still feeling a bit queasy. And down, and whatnot. Bleagh...

Continued reading "Toen Nora nog sprak met dolfijnen" again about an hour ago. Just finished it ... *sniffles*
Nice book ...

Still not feeling too great. Even a bit worse. Not sure why. Maybe because I didn't get up untill 1 pm again. Maybe because I didn't go to work. Maybe because a lot of people I know aren't feeling too great either and I'm sucking it all up ? I tend to do that, at times. ... *yawns* ... and I'm still tired. Winamp's playing in the background, but that's what it remains, a background noise. Bleagh .... just not having my day, I guess.

Oh, and I have to go clean something in the house today, and probably make dinner, too, since I'm quite horribly behind on schedule for that one. Oh well ... all I want now is something ( a shoulder ? ) to lay my head on for a while. .... ~sigh~

Meh, I'll be fine.

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Hum .... not feeling too great today. ... A bit down. Mostly just tired, I guess ... And I need a shower...

... In other news, I'm really, really starting to like the phone company. Not only are it's rates for Malaysia quite reasonable, it seems like it's rates for the USA are even less. For just 7¢ per minute, I can call all around the USA. Except for a couple of places, where it's just 5¢ ... seems like a sweet a deal ... Thank You, KPN (KPN being the phone company)

Well, third day at work.

And I was actually on time today. (9 am) Didn't use my time too efficiently, though, so far. Dad left last night, and won't be back for another 2 or 3 weeks. Not going to make it a long day today, don't really feel like it. Stayed here till about 8:30 pm yesterday. So ... *shrugs* Anyway, there's a couple of small things to take care off today, and then I suppose it's time for me to start working on that more-or-less major database updating. ~sigh~ Oh well ... Gonna go throw some stuff in the mail soonish, and pick up 'something' at the bank. Some papers, I believe. They called, and I believe my dad was supposed to pick 'em up 4 days ago already, but, being him, he hadn't yet. So I guess I'm stuck with it now. Not that I know what to do with it, but ... Oh well, maybe someone else does. Will ask around, I guess. *yawns* ... I'm not used to getting up early and do stuff in the morning.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

[writer's note : I actually finished writing this before the previous entry. Was originally to be put in the same entry, but just decided that it'd look better as a seperate one]

One other thing, though ... I made a promise to myself, and now to everyone who reads this or whatever. And to Elise in particular, ofcourse.

I will not take anything back.

It was real love. Genuine. I don't care how much it might seem like it wasn't. Or how appealing the option might look for me, I'm not going to delude myself and change history because it'd hurt less or whatever.

A lot of people do that. When a relationship, or interest in someone ends, they tell themselves (and the world) that it wasn't real. That he or she had been stupid, believing that it was love, while it wasn't. That they'd been deluding themselves all that time ... "It didn't work out, so it couldn't have been real". Covering up the past to make way for the future. ...

I promise I won't do that. It was real. And I'm not going to deny that. I am not giving up those 9 years. Strange how I'm writing it in past tense. Because ... for me to really stop loving her ? ... Doubtfull ... Some of it will always remain. Even if it's just the memory. She will remain one the persons I love. Untill I die, and, if such a thing is possible, beyond that.
...

( Heh, weird thing. I actually have teary eyes now while I'm writing this. Still no waterfall, but they're tears anyway. Guess I did bottle some emotions about it up ... Guess I could also blame the music playing on the background, ("I've got dreams to remember" by Otis Redding, I believe) which randomly decided to pop up on my playlist, and is, in part, spookily accurate at the moment. )

I won't take any of it back.

I could've written pages about this. Or would have. But I didn't. And I can't. And, sadly enough, I probably won't. It'll most likely vanish into some list of "things I have to do someday, but won't". This subject, is, mostly, that one big one that's been keeping me from updating. Writing anything down and feeling guilty for not writing down this one. There's a couple of more subjects that deserve attention, but this one ...

And yes, it's about Elise. Perhaps for the last time ... Well, probably not. But anyway ... I've given up on her. I let go of my last grasps of hope of ever getting together, and decided to move on. To let go of my love for her. Or, to put it a bit differently, change her 'status' from "The person I love" to "A person I love".

And yeah, this is a horribly shortened version. It's about the most basic summary, and the subject really doesn't deserve that. But I don't think I can elaborate that much on it for now. Not because it hurts too much. I'm actually doing pretty fine. It really doesn't hurt that much at all. I let go, and that was about it. Thing I think the reason why I'm having so much problems with writing this one down, is because I've gone over it all already. It went through my head, a lot ... and well, that's about it. Which could lead you to wonder why writing down how I love her didn't .... Maybe because it was, somewhat of an unquenchable, unsatiable thing. Not sure. That kept going through me head, too, but it wouldn't end.

But this ... it's a closure of things. I went over it with my thoughts, talked to various people about it (online only, though) ... and somehow ... it stopped. It was over. I let go of the subject, and it's hard to bring it all back and put into text. There's too much to say about it, and yet I don't have quite the same urge to actually say it. It's already been said, although not publically.

...

To make it really, really short :

For really the first time in my life, I am now officially single.

That means a lot, but I'm not really quite sure how/what.

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Update on the phone call to Malaysia : I got my phone bill ...

Type		amount		hr:min:sec	cost



Local		  12		0:49:49		€ 1.44

International	   1		0:09:22		€ 3.86

Mobile		  39		0:08:47		€ 3.63

					---------------

				TOTAL	:	€ 8.93

				TAX(19%)	:	€ 1.70

Well, here I go again ...
Not too happy with myself today, stayed in bed waaaaay too long.

*pffffffft*

Anyway, I'm not quite yet busy with updating on whatever's going on in my life, 'cos it's quite a bit and ... bleagh, I'm still not in mood to write it all down.

Anyway, I quit college. It's done, over, finito. Might start something up for the 2003/2004 school year again, but I don't have a clue as to what or where. My dad offered me a (temporary) job at his business, thinking I'm all computer savvy (Ok, I admit, I know how to handle 'em, but I'm not a PC Whiz Kid, by far) and asks me to update some databases and all ... Could take a month or so, not really sure. If I had been a PC Whiz Kid, I'd probably be able to find some way to update those databases automatically. But I'm not, so I'll have to do it by hand. ...

This should be a 9 to 3 job or whatever. Yesterday was my first day, and I set up some things, made myself a nice cozy user profile on the PC, ignored the porn my dad had stuffed on it, did some misc. stuff. (such as lunch and wasting company time chatting to some people on-line) As for 'officially productive' thingies, all I did was re-arrange and update some list with sizes. Originally, some guy had just entered it all in WordPad, using standard fonts and attempting to line up columns using spaces ... wasted about 1 or 2 hours trying out different ways to get it into some nice format, since the guy who originally made that list had done it in about the most ineffecient way possible. Then thought of another way to structure the thing and had the list ordered and ready for updates in 10 minutes. Updating it took about half an hour or so, and then I spent some time getting the printer to work, replacing cables and screwing 'em fast and loose ... On overall, it was rather boring, but not too bad. And I'm getting paid for it, too ... Even though I'm not quite sure what, yet. Have to talk to my dad about that. Anyway, today was supposed to be my second day, but I had some serious problems waking up, so I didn't show up. Wasn't too much of a problem, since my dad hadn't woken up till 2 pm either. Guess it's no mystery where I got my f'ed up sleeping schedule from. I should also be looking for some other jobs, I guess. Even though I guess this one could last for a while, it's not all that interesting, and it's not going to last the 6 months or so that I plan to
Besides, I'm supposed to learn stuff and going out and seeing a bit more and doing 'whatever' so I can find out what I do like doing. And I guess trying out a couple of different jobs should be part of that ... I'm also going to have to learn how to handle money. 'cos I need to pay the rent of my student-home-place-thingie.

Speaking of which, I don't really know how long I'll be able to stay here, since I'm no student anymore. If I'm really going to start again in about 10 months, I might not have to leave at all, but I'm not even sure if I want to stay here. Not that I don't like this place. Far from it. But I'm currently still clueless as to what or where I would go to on some new study, and if it's not at this college, I might be better off moving someplace closer. Also, I'm planning to make a couple-of-months trip to the USA in some time. But I guess I'll write more about that later ... (mostly just some pre-sketches. Only an idea for now, mostly.)

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

*groan*

My head hurts ... and pretty bad, too ... been a while since it's been this bad ... *grmbls* ... Oh well ... going to watch a movie downstairs now ...

*pfffffft*