Gerko's Weblog

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Alright.

Back home-home.

It's Queen's Day around these parts today, but I'm all home-alone, doing nothing. Well, actually, I slept most of the day. That's mostly because I stayed up past 5 am last night. For no good reason except that I was bored or something ... hum.

Anyway, I'm home alone. Normally, I wouldn't care about that. But today, for some reason, I actually feel kinda alone. ~sigh~ ... maybe it's the size of the house. Mom and my siblings are out on a mini-holiday to Belgium, and left yours truly here to take care of the cats 'n rats 'n gerbil.

Mom was kind enough to remind me that there wouldn't be much to eat in the house, and that I would have to do some groceries myself. She wasn't kind enough, though, to realize that I had no way to buy stuff here. I got home after closing time on tuesday, and most stores are closed today.

But I managed to scrounge together a reasonable meal. Found some macaroni, cheese, and an already-opened can of spam. Added some ketchup and turned it into a two-time meal. Ate half of it, will eat the other half later tonight.

Simple, self-made meals rox0r.

Now I'm going to defrag the D:\ drive. Wish me ... uh ... non-boredom the next couple of hours.

Sunday, April 27, 2003

I'm back !

Went like a charm, been busy (somewhat) with re-installing a bunch of things. Already got the Windows security updates installed, Office 2000, MouseWare, Winamp, WinRAR (I hate the icon it has, though) and DirectX8.1 (meh ... why go to 9.0 on this thing anyway ?) ... now .... hrmmm ... for the essentials, all that's left is some drivers for the Voodoo2 card (sucky thing that it is).

Then some misc. applications like MSN Messenger (*yeach*, not for me, though), Trillian (for me!), mIRC, KaZaA Lite, and other stuff. And after that, I'll split up the 'default user' into personal accounts and I'll be able to place back their personal files, as well as install some games.

But now, it's na-night for me.
...

Dang ! I forgot to shave today. Ooooops.

Saturday, April 26, 2003

Alright !
Countdown has commenced.

E-mails backed up ? check
Bookmarks ? check
MP3's ? check
Fallout windows theme ? check
Other Desktop pics ? check
Donkey-load of installation files for misc programs ? check
Personal Files, Gerko ? check
Personal Files, Mom ? check
Personal Files, Alique ? check
Personal Files, Michart ? check
Personal Files, Paulan ? check
Personal Files, Leanne ? check
Game Save files ? check
Cracked Games I can't reinstall ? check
Alique's crazy school training programs ? check
Windows boot disk ? check

and last and most certainly least :

Minesweeper hiscores ? check

...
C:\format C:, here I come !

Wish me luck !
If I'm not back by tomorrow ... I'll ... be back monday.

*grmbl*
Back home-home today. .... Oh, no, that's not what I'm PO'ed about. Once again, I'm pissed at my mom for using my razors. Now, she finally managed to abuse every single one here, messed up beyond use, and I need a shave, today ...

So, I'm going out to buy some ... In the rain. I'd let my mom do it, but she's away for the day and tomorrow is a sunday, with all the shops closed and all. ... So here I go. *grmbl* ... stupid mom ...

This evening, the bitch dies[*].

* [Please note that I am not refering to my mother in that last sentence. I am, ofcourse, talking about this computer]

Friday, April 25, 2003

Ok, so I didn't finish on those easter eggs. Made some good progress, though. Still, it's going to have to wait until next week, in all likelyhood. ...

Gonna have a shower now, and then sleepy time ...

Thursday, April 24, 2003

After about a day of working properly, The Order's board is currently broken again. The alternate, temporary board is still up, but there isn't a lot of activity.

June's not going through the greatest of times. Having just gotten out of the last thing, she falls into the next. High fever, painful throat, among other things. So bad, even, that she was on her way to the hospital when I called her ('Just to say hi') tuesday afternoon. 35 seconds later she hung up, and left me worried. From later phonecalls today I managed to piece together that she spent the night in the hospital, under SARS quarantine(!). They let her back out, though. So that's a relief ... She sounded a lot better this afternoon. Well, she sounded bad. Quite bad, with that sore throat and all, but that terror in her voice had disappeared ... That put me at ease.

In other news about people suffering from some illness, Elise had a busy-busy day today, and subsequently went to bed at 9 pm. Mono is nasty, but I'll have to say that she's recovering well. She has stood up against my attempts to shoo her offline and into bed a couple of times now, and in both instances it was well past midnight. If that's not a sign of progress, I don't know what is.

As for yours truly, there isn't much going on with me health-wise ... I'm certainly not in the best shape I've ever been, but there isn't really much keeping me down, either. Just "normal", I guess.

Partly on request of Elise, I started working on creating an easter egg hunt yesterday. It's taking me a lot of time, but it's fun to do. I'm not sure when I'll be done. I'd like to finish this tomorrow, but that's kinda unlikely. Friday, I'm busy. Rest of the weekend is a no-no, as I'll be re-installing the other PC at home-home. So it'll probably be delayed till 'somewhere next week' ... (I'll try for tomorrow, though) ... Yes, I fully realize it isn't easter anymore.

I'm going to get some sleep very soonish now. Looking at my to-do list, tomorrow's going to be a pretty busy day, so I'd better call it quits.

Monday, April 21, 2003

Bleagh.

Suddenly hit a bit of a moody low.
Finished typing a reply to June, about some rough stuff she'd been going through the last couple of days. It took me a couple of hours to piece together (including distractions and all), and I'm very unhappy with the result. The atmosphere's all off, I completely skipped over some things I wanted to mention, and ... well, whatever. I don't know. Finally gave up and just sent it out, though.

Mom hasn't been in the greatests of moods the last few days, either. (she wanted to "go and do something" with easter, but nothing really worked out.) So that's rubbing off on me, too.

I didn't get to re-install this PC this weekend either, mostly through my own fault. (I have since the last entry become in the possesion of those WinME CD's.) ...

Also, I have some horribly annoying paperwork I have to sort through before tomorrow morning. I'm heading back to my student-place-thingie this evening, but I'm hardly anticipating it. Got some half-assed paperwork-related appointment that morning, followed by some driving lessons I'm not exactly looking forward to, either. (Although I have no idea why not.)

...

HAPPY EASTER

... *sigh*

In not too exciting news, there's nothing really going on with me. I just got back online after some 12 hours or so, and the only thing of remote interest I could find anywhere on the web were 6 new comments on elise's blog.

In even less exciting news, I'm postponing the murder (and subsequent resurrection) of this PC to next weekend. Haven't done much of the preliminary backup work yet, it's getting a bit late, and Elise still hasn't found that Windows ME CD. (I did, though, find our old Win98 First Edition CD. But I'm not really too trustworthy of that one, to be quite honest. Also, I have a Win95 CD laying around, but that's a definate no-no.)

I'm so bored.

Inspired by a recent entry on Elise's blog, I'll share a little story about my personal views on zebra crossings.

... zebra crossings, I've grown to dislike 'em. Being a somewhat timid, laid-back, unhurried pedestrian, I have no problems waiting for the stream of cars to dwindle down to a less packed stream with large enough holes in which I can cross the street easily without disturbing anyone. I suppose not living in a busy city helps. I don't think this 'tactic' would work in large cities, but around here, it's become second nature to me.

Gently waiting for gaps fits my style. I like it. It is my style.

Zebra crossings cramp my style.

Take, for example, last wednesday. On my walk home from my not-too-interesting appointment that morning, I came upon one. One of those nice ones divided into two parts, with a little midsection, so you only have to pay attention to one side per half a crossing. There was no traffic coming from the left, so I easily walked up to that safe haven in the middle of the road.

There was traffic approaching from the right, though, and quite a lot, at that. Well aware of the rule that (I did start on my driver's license about a month ago, after all) one has to give right-of-way to pedestrians who show an incentive to cross a zebra crossing, I positioned myself on the far side of the mid-section. That line of cars was approaching rapidly, and I had no plans to make them wait for little ol' me. I was in no hurry.

The first car in line slowed down. No problem, that's good. Now the driver could see I was just standing here, waiting.

The car stopped. That wasn't good. It was outright annoying !

I didn't want that car to stop. I wanted to wait, let those cars pass and keep on walking, unhurried, as I always do. The worst part, however, was that there was no blame to be had on the driver in question at all. He did the right thing, followed the rules perfectly, up to the suggested hand signals.

I had no choice. So grudgingly, I took my bloody "right-of-way" and crossed the street. I grumbled some more for the remainder of the walk home, pondering about the unfairness of this world, messing with my constitutional right of practicing my own beliefs. And thus, I hardly ever use zebra crossings nowadays. Even if there's one just 10 meters, or heck, 5 meters away, I refuse to make use of 'em. Just let me wait for that gap and I'll be a happy pedestrian, contently participating in the chaotic mess known as traffic.

I remember a change in the law regarding zebra crossings, and how it used to be illegal to cross the street if there was one within a certain amount of distance. They scrapped it, and many people rejoiced. I was still too young to understand the full impact of it back then, but I'm glad for it now. It was the abolisment of a draconic rule. It gave freedom back to the people, to allowd them to excersize their free will to not make use of zebra crossings. It's just a small step, surely, but without this change all those years back, I would have been a traffic offender many times over. Maybe there is some hope left for this world after all ...

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Finally, after more than two months of waiting, I have come into the possession of some photographs. This is a time we all have been waiting for since february 4th.

Judgement day is upon me.

Some shorty updates. It's late, and I'm going to get some sleep soon.

June gave me a call today. Wooo ! That was nice. :D

Doug finally succumbed, and started a regular blog on top of his dream blog

Um, well not a "blog" as much as a "log" ... don't ask me what's the difference, though. (ask Doug, hint hint)

Also, look at those shiny new updated links on the side ... I added this one, and changed the names and order around a bit (again). I'm still not really satisfied, though ... someone think of a system that'll make it look good. Names only, perhaps ? (it works for other people, but I 'unno)

In other news, this PC here at home-home has been getting a trifle bit too unstable the last couple of weeks. And when I say unstable, I mean that I don't think it'll last another month unless I take some serious action. Which is what I'm sort-of planning this easter-weekend. Elise is nice enough to lend me her Windows ME CD. (What !? install ME on a perfectly fine Win98 SE PC ? ... Well .. thing is, I lost my Win98 CD, and this PC is far, far from 'perfectly fine'. And ME hasn't caused too much trouble on my other PC ... so ...) She kinda 'couldn't find it' either though, so she's waiting for her brother to find it for her sometime tomorrow. (I don't mind, I wasn't planning on starting today anyway)

Hrmmm ... now let's just hope I won't forget to back up anything.

Oh, I know. You always forget something ...
Alright, let's try that again ... Take 2 :

Hrmmm ... now let's just hope I won't forget to back-up anything important, like my minesweeper hiscores.

In other, other news, I managed to remember my dream from this morning. It was kinda nice, bit incoherent, but it still fit together a bit. Maybe I'll write about it tomorrow, kinda depends on how busy I'll be with operating on this thing, and wether or not I'm in the mood.

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Oh, and some misc. updates :

The Order's message board has been down for a while now, and it's annoying. My home-on-the-web is no longer there, and I caught myself searching for other forums to get my 'fix' or message board goodness each day. If that's not a sign of addiction, I don't know what is.

For those interested, a temporary board has been set up here, and may or may not work at any given time. (It's kinda slow.) Thanks to Doug for the link.

Also, I figured I'd install that Extreme Tracker thingie I'd seen on other people's pages. (Most notably Elise's) ... At first I was kinda sceptical about it, but I think I like it. Notice the button displaying a blueish sphere with a whitish, irregular ring around it at the bottom of the archive links, just above the "Powered by blogger" button. I'll see if I like it. I can always take it back out again.

Oh ... uhm. oops ?
[insert standard piece of writing regarding not-blogging]

I mean, seriously, I think that's about the thing I write most about, isn't it ? How I haven't been blogging. How stupid ... Oh well. No matter. On to the things I'm going to tell you about ...

Which ... ah .. would be. um...

Right.

Not really sure what to tell. There's too much to tell, and at the same time there's nothing that simply jumps out as a 'right-now' ...

Some really nice weather today. Sunny and hot. Weather's all effed up, though. Just one week ago it was just 6C outside, and now it's well in the twenties. It's going to drop again next weekend though. Perfect weather to totally mess up your immune system and whatnot. Oh well. Today was good. Not much else to say about that, I guess.

So, like, last night I was writing about how I started on my driver's license and all, but then my dad decided to start talking to me over MSN and trying to convert me to his evil cult, a.k.a. scientology. *groan* He finally 'gave up' around 2 am, after which I decided to reinforce my resolve against their 'Church' by getting my hands on some anti-scientology information online. I mean, I have enough common sense (and experience) to realize that it's a bad group, but I'd like for some specific arguments to counter his next 'speech' with. I found a site, but it was kinda lengthy, and 'sorta' kept me up until 5 am. Oops. And I had an appointment somewhere at 10:15 am. Double oops. I slept right through the alarm I set for 8:05. Triple oops.

Miraculously, at 10:00 am sharp, something 'popped' in my brain, realized the time and woke me up. It broke off my dream, too. It was a pleasant dream. Light-hearted, amusing, and kinda interesting. But that's the only thing I remember. The moment I awoke, all images vanished, and only left me with that 'feeling' of having that dream. I struggled recall some of it's contents, but alas, I had to get out of bed and hurry. Also, my mind almost instantly filled itself with thoughts about scientology again, as it had been the last hours before I went to bed. I was outside the house some 9 minutes later, and finally arrived on-location two minutes late.

....

So, yeah, incoherent entry. Single-topic entries tend to be more interesting. I'll see what I can do 'sometime soonish'.

Monday, April 07, 2003

*sigh*

I don't feel like blogging, even though there is a lot to tell ...

It's mostly about how I started on my driver's license ... and then there are // were some other misc. stuff.
And ofcourse, those dreams (I'm thinking about forgoing 'em completely now ... it's a been too long ? ... ... no, I still remember 'em) ... and then there's the "female oppression rant-rewrite" which should be interesting. Oh, and some stuff about how I was/am looking for a source of income or whatever.

Bleagh. ... I just don't feel like writing it down ...

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Heeeeey ... status.blogger.com says they solved the template-not-updating problem.
Lemme see if it's true.

[EDIT : Oooooh ! it is. It is true. It's all fix0red up. ... but now my previous changes are kinda outdated again.]

Also, sorry for not blogging lately. I've been pretty well, mostly. Aside from the last couple of days, when I was sick. But I'm mostly better now, so I should go ... ah ... blog something a bit more lenghty. Yeah, I should.