actuality.log

Hmm, I can’t help it. Since I saw an episode of the show, I’ve been re-evaluating how geeks (I) see and do things. Firstly, you really don’t care about a lot of things a “relatively normal” person will (I think) worry about. But then again, I’m sure it works the other way too. Point being, all is quite rational, until you realize hardcore geeks are a small portion of the population, and hence, will always “naturally be outcasts”?

But then, I’m not so sure of that either. I’ve always been one, and I don’t think I’ve ever been “not allowed” to do anything with other people in school or whatever citing this as a reason (explicitly or implied). It’s usually I who chose not to. Some people have more fun reading or whatever than throwing a stupid ball back and forth. It’s not like I’ve been picked on or harassed or things like that. I don’t know what’s different. The people on the show are being portrayed like poor losers who’ve had all sorts of bad things (like random bully breaking an egg on their head style things) happen to them just because they were, different.

(I would have said, smarter, more sensitive, funnier etc, but then again I’d have to say weaker, less dynamic, look dorky and a ton of other stuff that might have totally negated those few positive things, so I chose “different”. Sneaky.)

(Before I leave “the show” mode, OMG, thank goodness that 21 year old chap isn’t done with his PhD yet. I was feeling old enough already without knowing there are 21 year old PhDs out there. And did I use the word “chap�”)

I think society here is a lot, different. I guess in certain parts of the world it is kinda cool to be “smart” and in other parts it’s kinda cool to be a body builder? Just what is it? Is it TV? Are we that dumb? Or is it probably just the world us geeks (I’ve) made up in my head where we’re cool for what we’ve done/do and not judged on how unmodely we are? I don’t know. And I fear the answer.

I mean, like even the littlest of things. I do stuff like wear socks with sandals at times. I don’t realize it when I am doing it. When I’m out, I hear (but choose not to listen to) people (who take notice of such things) letting me know. Why? Because it’s something totally inconsequential and I don’t care how I look. It keeps me warm, and if you can’t handle that, don’t see them. It’s not like I’m asking you to ruin your “sense of style”, am I? On a similar vein, there was recently this thing on dining etiquette. Again, it’s something a geeky type couldn’t really care about. We’ll just make you feel uncomfortable? around us, probably, but will not change small things that don’t really matter.

But then again, during all this, I remember the ad for Crank Yankers, where this lady calls up this librarian? or some such and tells her mid conversation “Are you so angry because you realize you’ll never be with anybody hot?” (or something close).

Hmm.

Anyway, coming back to more real life events, got that test back. I didn’t do too well, as I had expected. But then again, nor did too many other people. (So somehow, it’s magically fine and like nothing happened.) I for one salute comparative (slacker friendly) grading schemes. :)

And I’ve been meaning to jot this down, but I don’t know, all sorts of “being PC” issues involved. How do I put this? Hmm. Ok, when “certain religions” dictate that the people who follow it shouldn’t eat between sunrise and sunset for a “relatively short period” of time. Now all that is fine. I guess the deal is to build some sort of restraint or something like that. But now, here’s the thing, “certain people I know” follow this perfectly. How? They wake at sunset, stay up through the night, and sleep at sunrise.

Kinda sorta defeats the purpose, “certain people” might feel. Sheesh.

Been at a library all day. It felt good. Not that that’s news in itself but it is pretty strange since I’ve not been to one in something like 4 months. Even to do something not entirely useful. Obviously, I am doing all I can to shift gears and keep them there.

Stared at a large pile of unanswered email today, and was too lazy to do anything about it. I don’t mean to be rude or seem like I am distancing myself from anybody, but I just don’t want to go through them, and take the time to come up with moderately sensible replies. I do care. I hope they get it. It’s not like they’re unimportant or anything, just, I have nothing to say. If I do reply, it’ll surely sound like something I did because I was obligated to, and I don’t want that either.

Found out today that my concerns over the MS were uncalled for. I met these administrative people (like finally) and found out that I’m “done” and will get one if I ask for it, but it isn’t necessary. So now it comes down to, whether I should fill up this form just for a certificate. Hmm.

The Indian Student Association, (a group of people I am not really “associated” with in any way) are having their Diwali celebrations some time next week. Very timely? I just HAD to find out why to mock them about it, and I did. Something about the room the wanted to rent being unavailable. Muahahaa. Mocking fodder.

Went to a “town hall” style meeting. Except I had no clue what one was because I’ve never been in a town. But, all was well, and there was free food. Which was why I was there in the first place. And I was drinking this caffeine free pepsi and it didn’t taste bad at all. I had somehow mistaken it for the diet thing (which IS quite bad) and got all excited for the 3 seconds before I peeped at the label. Ahh well, a little excitement (and sugar) never hurt anybody.

Spent a good deal of the evening fiddling with guhnew plot. It’s actually quite nice. Piped some random results from relatively complicated calculations into text files and figured out macros to make pretty pictures. (Not that numbers made too much sense now, but pretty pictures are, well, pretty.) Of course, this was no Mathematica, but then again, this isn’t some closed expensive thing.

Saw this thing in the paper recently and don’t know really how to describe it. I mean, it was this article with fairly detailed pictures, of.. things. It was describing, something, I forgot the name.. I think it was a romance party? Vaguely like a tupperware party but these women aren’t selling/demoing plastic cups, they’re umm.. women’s toys. Pretty odd, for a page size news article.

Saw average joe, the show, today. I mean, in bits and pieces anyway, Reno was on. It’s a) scary b) fishing superficial. Firstly, some of these guys are NOT AVERAGE damn it. If they are, I wouldn’t want to be labelled even lower. (But then again some of them, I have to sadly admit, were.) Secondly, this woman just, like one of the guys noticed, eliminated all the fat guys and the realllly sweet guy. Just because they weren’t tough? Come on, that dude who like totally lacked self confidence climbed up the side of a mountain (ok, small hill sized one) for you. Least you could do is keep him on for one more week.

It’s just a show, it’s just a show, it’s just a show …

And rats, I didn’t carry my camera with me today. Walking to class this morning (to which I was a tad late, not because I woke late or any thing like that, but because I was getting ready, “as usual”, and forgot that it’s winter and that INVOLVES MANY MORE layers of clothes and hence a lot more searching, sheesh.. now back to the main train of thought) when I ran into quite a sight. There was this, field? covered with grass covered with frost. Nice shiny white. Cool enough. There was this building right next to it, and in a little while, only the portion of the field in the shadow retained the frost and the rest was green. It was a pretty cool contrast, and it shifted sharply at the shadow/nonshadow interface.

BAH! I’ll just not forget to carry my camera and run into something like this some other day, I can’t explain any more.

Just returned from my aunt’s place where I had run off to for the weekend. I probably will buy myself some quick bake cookie thingies and quick make ravioli thingies in the future.

I’ve been sleepy all day long. Could barely keep my eyes open around 3 in the afternoon. I’ve managed to force myself to stay up so long. Why? No real reason, just so that I don’t sleep at 5 in the evening and wake at some 2 in the morning or some such. I need a routine. And I’m going to get one.

Was helped by a couple of movies. “Kate and Leopold” and “Meet Joe Black”, though I have seen them many times before. The first is undeniably “cute” and the second is easily one of the cooler movies I’ve seen.

(Oh her, and I guess I am a sucker for movies where fantasies set on premises that shouldn’t be able to hold, “just work out”.)

Also, been listening to Norah Jones, the same album cycling over and over, for most of my day. It’s interestingly different. And I’ve suddenly started liking it a lot.

And no, it’s not like I’ve crossed over to the dark side. I have the cool pro-Oasis line to prove it. Of course, it seems Oasis have become established enough to stop ripping off the Beatles… so now they’re ripping themselves off. And they’re damn good at it.

During this idle time, I decided to look into alternatives to power this site and blog. After some careful analysis (well, not really, more like choosing on a whim) I’ve decided whenever I do update it, it should be based on Drupal (for the seemingly involved and nice community behind it). And it should look somewhere in between Monologue and Hacker heaven (down at the moment). Also, need to steal/recreate (steal, most probably) Monologue’s script for auto coloring code, which is cool.

I mean it’s not like I don’t like the current scheme of things. It’s just, some portions are more complicated than they have to be? Like my life :)?

Been carrying my camera with me everywhere. Just for when something catches my eye. Nothing, so far. Right now, I NEED a tripod.

I really had a lot more to say. Something about how important I feel the early developmental years of a child’s life are (among other things), but I don’t think I can stay awake too much longer.

Been staring at the moon at different points of time over the past few hours. What can I really say?, it was a pretty eclipse. As pretty as lunar eclipses can be anyway. I just wish it wasn’t so cold outside, and could have gotten a better view. Speaking of which, it’s extremely cold. And the sun shining BRIGHTLY during the day is totally misleading. I peek out of my window, and it’s BRIGHT with birds chirping and all that. I step out with erm, lighter clothing than I should have had on, and had to rush back in to change. Sneaky sun.

(And I think I am going to stop prefixing my paragraphs with “And totally unrelated,”. I realized my brain doesn’t have to be muddled at the time to just randomly switch topics this way. That’s just the way it works. Or I guess it’s always muddled, whatever.)

I plan to drink at least 8 large glasses of water per day. Even if it freezes inside me and kills me. Even if it means I have to take more frequent breaks from whatever it is that I am doing. Let’s see how long I can keep it up. Water is good for you. Or so a lot of people have told me. They ALL can’t be wrong. Ok, they can. Now I’ll know for sure.

I’ve also decided to make “the ponytail”, my natural state. I’ve been testing out different configurations over the past week or so, and I think it’s workable. It’s just, I was wondering what the experienced “people with hair longer than a certain length and it NEEDS to be tied so that it’s not in their face so they can get on with whatever it is they do” do when they sleep. It’s odd, I am mostly a “sleep on my stomach”er, and assumed it wouldn’t be an issue. But I apparently like to flip arbitrarily, and this is a bit of a bother right now.

No it’s not long or flowy or spreadable enough to form a cushiony thingy that’ll help rather than hinder. Hmm.

Since it is Matrix time of year (well, when isn’t really), I’ve been going through some of the parodies and spoofs out there and decided this is just insanely funny. If this turns out to be more fun than Matrix:Revolutions, I am going to be one angry person.

Getting down to geekier things, finally got around to playing Halo‘s demo. It was, pretty sweet. It’s just, no, it’s not buy an XBox RIGHT NOW material. Or even scarier, maybe it is and that just shows how much PC gaming has trumped consoles over time. About Halo however, the dynamic music (like in NOLF) was cool. It was really funny too, but that was more like an ad for buying the real game. The physics sucked. It felt sluggish. Like playing UT in a viscous goo. As if UT weren’t slow enough I mean. And there was quite a bit of clipping nonsense that was going on. I could “see” bits of things through other things at a few points. But overall, it’s no Id game, but fun none the less. And much more than I would have expected for a demo.

Disclaimer: And yes, all that talk about other products was an OPINION. It isn’t necessarily factually accurate. Please don’t sue me.

A ton of stuff I bought earlier for my brother and that had got held up here might be reaching him some time soon. I’ve got relatives visiting home. And that’s a good thing, I don’t have to worry about buying him an N-Gage any time soon. He’ll be distracted.

Muahahahahahahah. I hope.

And speaking of extreme things, I know people like modding their PC cabinets, but this is a tad ridiculous. Fishies are cute. The lil colourful ones.

Why is it that whenever I hear the instrumental backup for “Nightswimming” by R.E.M I tend to almost cry, a happy cry?

You, I thought I knew you
You, I cannot judge
You, I thought you knew me

And I guess a lot of people were excited when HL2’s source was leaked. It’s just, sigh, it’s caused a long delay in release. And I can’t wait. I mean, look at it.

Just concept art, but still. Drool.

And what Gabe, one of the developers had to say “Important: Just to be clear, it’s ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we’ll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it.”

Ok, I’ve idled and tried to avoid this long enough, now to get back to.. documenting my days. I had this test yesterday and didn’t do entirely too well. I mean, I could see that it was extremely simple, for someone who’d prepared a bit. But not me. Oh no. I’m the one who’s above preparation and all that sort of jazz. What’s even worse, we were allowed to prepare this little sheet of notes to take into the hall, and I had decided earlier to go without one. Sheer brilliance. Half an hour before the test, I get a little tense and “prepared” this thing hurriedly on the bus ride there.

Needless to say it wasn’t entirely useful, or readable even.

What’s even more scary, every time I tried to get around to doing some work towards this the previous evening, I kept, I don’t know, I think it’s called wallowing in the past? or some such thing. Moments of “glory” related to previous exams and tests flashed, and I smiled (internally), and “realized” I could handle it, it’s me.

But no, obviously.

It’s like, I put in a lot of work at some points of life and then sort of “live off” that for as long as I can. My last real input was some time towards the end of high school? It’s payed off all this time. But I think it’s close to getting depleted (or already is).

It all makes sense now. That’s the reason for the rapid decline in efficiency in work as well. Things aren’t “magically obvious” anymore. I’ve tried to fight this sinking feeling while realizing I need to get my nose back to the grind stone.

Fish. It just all has to be obvious and come naturally, damn it.

But if there is a silver lining to any of this, I have been totally focused and been actually doing some real work since then. And there will be many more “tests”. Tests, bah!

And in all this confusion (and mild depression? I just hate admitting I don’t know, and having to work to know) I forgot one of the more interesting (well, more like pathetic, but interesting is the word I choose to use) events of the day. I met this person on the bus, again. The last time she happened to sit next to me, some 3 weeks ago, she’d just broken up with this person. The deal here is that this was her third break up, read been dumped, by the SAME person.

How do I know all this? Trust me, I didn’t really want to. She’s the one who went on and on to the nearest person who looked like (s)he’d listen, me. Of course, why would someone keep going back to someone who randomly decides to discard you when they feel like it? I don’t know. So anyway, on the other day, I guess she was (understandably) depressed, and it had dawned on her that she doesn’t need this any more? And weeee, lucky me had to be the one to hear her go on and on about her newly attained enlightenment.

It’s not like I don’t care about things, but random strangers? That’s a bit much. Needless to say, she looked totally fine today, and not a word was spoken, just the smile and nod. That’s all I need to hear.

In some unrelated site news, I realized the index of the main site has crossed 10,000 hits. Somehow, I’d assumed it’d be a more gratifying event.

And totally unrelated again, Adobe Reader, the fishing piece of software that it is, just randomly stopped running today. It’ll open and it’ll close. After 3 reboots and 20 occurrences of the event, I googled for a fix and found this. It fixed it, eventually. I mean, why should it be so brain dead?

And I hate to admit it, but this new found peace/focus/desire to actually do something, all related to a relatively simple recent realization, feels good. Which is strange because I rarely (never?) have positive feelings towards work.

Hmm…

Is it just me, or after one too many South Park episodes I’ve started talking like Cartman?

Aww god damnit.

Guess who, just guess who is on a spanking new 2.6.0-test9 Linux kernel.

Where the fish is my all hyped desktop responsiveness? Sure, it feels snappier than OS X, but then, it always was.

It doesn’t feel magically different. What gives?

I am not a happy man. I expect too much.

A couple of people have asked me about this and I’ve essentially typed up the same thing (for two moderately different questions). I paste it here because I’m a lazy slacker and I don’t see why a good 10 minutes of typing should be wasted, if people really care about my thoughts on the issue.

I just came to know about Redhat’s plan to stop support for the 7.x – 9 line and start commercial enterprise Linux! I trust you must be knowing about the Fedora project too. I have a question?

Given the uncertainity that distros typically exhibit (are exhibiting), does this mean LFS is the future?

Firstly, they are not “starting” their EL line of products just now. They have had it for longer than you know. That, and their other services like training and so on is what makes them money.

There will always be uncertainity about distributions until they figure out how to make money, essentially packaging someone else’s work. And there are other distributions like Debian whose fate is not “uncertain”. RedHat is just trying to switch to the development model followed by them. (Again, personally, I feel this might do a lot of good to their product. I know people who maintain rpms for software that is not part of the standard distribution. Now, people like them will have a place to officially “put in” their work, and many more will get to enjoy it.)

The community wants frequently updated and freely downloadable software. They don’t (I don’t) necessarily care if some odd package is broken. The companies want slowly changing, robust software, and don’t care if it’s not bleeding edge.

For right now anyway, Fedora IS RedHat. Just unsupported. (But it’s not like yout current free download of RedHat was “supported” by them, so it is not an issue.) The only thing different will be the lack of free up2date and other such services that lose them money (bandwidth, having to backport and maintain all this for free).

Like I said, it is worth their while only if their “commercial” OS and their “consumer” OS are close to each other. They will be doing it for the commercial one anyway so they can release patches to the public. Now the two products are diverging because the consumer one is being released more often, and more radical changes are going into each release.

So they let the “public who want it that way” handle that and support it. While they work on the slower (older) product for making money, which is what companies try to do.

I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to abandon them and rush to something like LFS. Firstly, that’s fun as a learning tool, but not terribly productive unless your job or aim of the exercise IS installing the system. Secondly, like I started, there are a lot of other distributions, and there always will be as long as people tend to think they can make money off packaging someone else’s work.

And personally, I’ve seen Fedora and it’s very polished. I don’t see the need to jump ship yet. Long story short, they might be behaving “evilly” now. But they have done a lot more good than I care to detail, and until all that built up positive karma is exhausted, I am not going to “abandon” the distribution.

Yes, it’s all just religion, and I think they know it and are counting on it.

In order to avoid the drama that was caused due to skipping sleep for a few nights before the previous work submission date, I’ve decided to start in a bit, and not wait for something like 1 A.M and stay up all night.

Or so I keep telling myself at the moment. It’s just, sheesh, I am not too keen about finishing before deadlines.

And hmm, how is it that India is the country of origin for the largest number of international students? Just who are these people ;) ? And why California? And just how is it that these poor souls’ (now) poorer parents cough up nearly $12 billion dollars towards the U.S. economy?

I wonder. Hmmm.

Nearly 75% of all international student funding comes from personal and family sources or other sources outside of the United States.

Sheesh.

And totally unrelated, I’ve been asking people whether folia(rson)age is like a decent name for our friend. And while they all agree it’s a half decent picture, they don’t see the humour or tremendous (well, not really) thought process behind the name and think it’s lame. I guess this means I am open to suggestions. I need a name before I can move it into the artwork page.

While on the topic of pictures, I just have to link to two of the saddest (as in depressing sad, not bad sad) works of art I have ever seen. And yes, they almost brought a tear. The first one is at deviant prints and the second one was a a piece I saw at the art fair here.

Vaguely related, I have been playing around with the new Blender. The GUI’s totally (well, almost) hacked and it looks sweet. Yes, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that you were one of the many responsible for coughing up 100,000 Euro for freeing the cool 3D modeller with a name that sounds like it belongs in a kitchen.

And getting overly concerned over the recent chaos about bad things happening to people saying things in their blogs, I have been working on the new disclaimer. Actually, right now it’s just stolen from another place and cheap hacked. But I’ve got the first (extremely rough) draft of one section of the thing ready. Yes, it isn’t too much different from the place I stole it from.

I retain the right to change this at any point of time, without notice. It is assumed you are reading this at regular intervals and your presence on the site assumes compliance with the terms below. Especially the bits about not using the information you read here to (or relaying it to anyone who can and probably will) hurt me in any way.

Personal relationships and privacy

Please do not assume that you know everything there is to know about me simply because you read my blog on a regular basis. Any judgements you make will be based on information I have provided, which is probably vague, incomplete or embellished. Whatever opinion you form on about me as a person, other people I mention, or our lives as a whole, is probably best kept to yourself. An obvious exception to this would be if I actually asked you for your advice or opinions.

Never contact me for more details on events or personal information than what I have already provided on the site. Chances are if the information you seek isn’t readily available, I have found it too personal or innapropriate to share. If you are close to me, I will eventually tell you privately, so intrusive questions are not necessary, just leave it alone. If you are meant to know, you will.

If you have a real life relationship with me, make sure I know that you read my site, especially if I did not tell you personally.

If I do not want you reading my blog, you should respect this and plese stop reading it. More importantly, never relay any information you gather here to others who might use it against me.

If I write something about about you and you don’t appreciate it, please let me know, in a calm and polite way. I realize that you are entitled to your privacy as well. I don’t use names when I have something negative to say, but if I do, and it bothers you, let me know.

People who have previously been cut out from my life should refrain from reading this blog. If the relationship has ended, there is no reason you should get daily updates on my life. If you simply can’t help yourself, do it quietly, and please don’t use what you read or use it to hurt me.

And now I really ought to get back to planning how I should convince myself to get back to work.

Just got back from Sarah’s place. A relatively fun filled 3+ hours of watching Simpsons and the rest of “laugh out loud” Sunday (with the oh so serious “tobacco is wacko” ads interspersed) on Fox with random people and drinking… dew. But that wasn’t the most interesting part of the evening.

I am not much of an animal person. I’ve never had a pet, or been close to people who did. So it was kind of surprising when I sat down and one of her cats decided to curl up on my lap. Totally freaky (yes, I am new at this, my first “animal experience” as someone pointed out) at first, but I sort of liked it as time went by.

Then at random points of time during the evening, one of these two would just decide to jump up, get comfy on your lap for a bit, and then when something else catches their fancy, jump off and move towards it.

No, it’s not like this is going to make me run out and get a pet. It’s just, this I think will make me not freak out when animals get.. close. It’s a good thing I decided not to quit braving the cold and the dark trying to find her place with that old torn map.

I need a new map. I could get one, but this one’s so trusty. It has like all my favourite routes and places and other bits of information like people’s homes and numbers all marked out in some weird code only I can read. (Not that that’s something I did on purpose. It’s just, I don’t seem to write very clearly while moving, and most times I write on the map is when I’m moving.)

I need to get a whole lot of tape to fix this map.

It’s not entirely not nice just to hang out with other people. I should do it a bit more often.

While I was out today, I observed the strangest thing. Well, it’s not really that strange, but it’s not something I haven’t seen in this country so far. I saw people WORKING on a new parking lot ON A SATURDAY.

The concept of removing a bunch of trees to enlarge a parking space seems quite, evil. But I guess it’s a necessity. The big deal here, for me anyway, was I’ve never seen this type of work going on on weekends (and nights and holidays and so on), when they are SUPPOSED TO, so they minimize inconvenience to everybody else. All that I have experienced here is all sorts of major things going on at peak times, and everyone getting irritated in the process. Why? Because people who work on everything need breaks and holidays at the same time.

Notice the clear ambiguity with regards to the exact location where the said “evil” events related to clearing “good” trees is happening. It’s, I think, a consequence of this new fad? that I’ve been reading up on at slashdot. People getting sued, fired and all that for saying “not entirely nice” things on their blogs? I assumed no one a) reads b) cares c) takes them seriously, except the poster.

I have a pretty good idea who does what at the rest of my site, but when it comes to the blog, I have very little information. (Being that it exists, quite sneakily, on a different server). And it’s scary I might just say something that offends someone who’s in a position to do something about it? Hmm, strangeness.

(Note to self: Consider non “intrusive and irritating” sign up options or related things to restrict who reads entries. At least for certain “special” ones that could get you screwed.)

And yes, it’s official; I have managed to lose my only functioning pair of glasses. Evidently, I am stupider and more forgetful than I would like to be. I have been forgetting/losing/missing loads of stuff during the past few weeks. And I’m sure the list is actually a lot larger than I think it is.

Like a couple of days ago, I missed this appearance by Mike Reiss (of producing “The Simpsons” fame) down at central. I really wanted to go. I love that show. But then again, doesn’t everybody?

It’s fun to make fun of things (and people who know me realize my personal favorite target is me). It’s even more fun when society is what’s being made fun of. It’s even more fun when it’s a TV show that doesn’t give a damn about being all nice and PC doing it. There are many that are very good, and have brought me to near tear (while laughing) states doing this. South Park, Family Guy, Futurama, … to name a few. But nothing comes close to the Simpsons. I don’t know of an episode I’ve missed.

So, what I guess I am trying to say is, if it means so much to me, I shouldn’t “just forget” things like this. (However, in my defense, I wasn’t near my computer for quite a while before this that evening. Or my trusty evo would have definitely let me know. I just know she would.)

I have this strange feeling all of this general (even more than usual, over the top) absent mindedness has something to do with some dietary changes which I have effected in the near recent past. Borrowing concepts everyone already knows, but now sounding cool because super hero types in leather jackets are articulating it, it’s all causality. There is no escaping it.

And I’ve, over the past few days done everything I can to be ready for the impending release of Matrix:Revolutions. I’ve seen both the previous movies. Read up on some of the comics based on the Matrix. Seen all the Animatrix episodes, TWICE, and know how some of them fit into the grand story line.

Interestingly (well, not really), I’ve gotten to know a little bit about Japanese manga and anime in general. Even more of a surprise (to me), one of the most awesome action/scifi/robot cartoon series of all time, the Transformers, was anime. And there’s this Peter Cheung who’s magically involved with the Transformers, the Rugrats! and responsible for an Animatrix episode.

For those who asked, Megatron and Galvatron are essentially the same character, and are extremely evil leaders of this evil group of robots, in the Transformers, called the Decepticons.

I will stop there. I need a life. I guess I better not say no to the get together while catching up on this year’s “Treehouse of Horror” Simpsons’ episodes at Sarah’s place.

Hey, it’s a start.

And totally unrelated, is it just me or are “salt and vinegar” flavoured chips the worst kind of chip, ever. Or even better (worse?), the worst food thought up by man? And why are the shelves in my kitchen filled with bags of it? And why is there nothing else?

GAH!

Fridays are usually sleep-in days. Not today though. For no real reason I was up at 4:30 A.M or so. Did I go to sleep early early last night? I have no idea. Anyway, spent quite some time at home catching up on some much needed cleaning stuff. It’s strange, it’s not like the roomies keep things “not neat” or any such thing. It’s just, if you walk into a squeaky clean home, and you aren’t responsible, it just means that roomies are having guests.

Am I the only one who cleans/arranges things because I like things that way? I mean, if these people didn’t have anybody else to, I wouldn’t use the word impress, just “not scare” away? would they even do their occasional bit? It’s a scary thought, but it’s not like it matters, as long as things get done at regular intervals.

Finally, after all this time harping on all these things they do that irk me to varying degree, I finally found one thing I did that bothered them. So, evidently, I not perfect be. Now, our answering machine is this arcane thing, and only I took the time to figure out how to work it. And I, don’t really care for the phone. I can only stand a) face to face communication or b) something like email that’s supposedly at the other end of the spectrum. I don’t know what it is about the phone. It’s like it takes away some necessary input you need to figure out what the other person “really means”, which is obvious when you’re talking to them face to face, and it also takes away this “think before you respond” period that email and such gives you, which sort of makes up for the “you didn’t really know what they really meant”, because you can plan and come up with something quite PC either way.

Bah, totally sidetracked. Returning to our central story, since I am not a frequent user of the phone, I figured no one else really cared for it as well. And the response on the answering machine I set was vaguely similar to “We aren’t near the phone right now, or are probably doing something more important. Leave a message l_o_n_g_p_a_u_s_e, if it’s terribly important, and we’ll get back to you l_o_n_g_p_a_u_s_e, if we think it is.”

Apparently people calling in don’t have a sense of humor, as they bugged the roomies until they bugged me to change it to something totally mundane. Moral of the story being, I can totally do stuff that bothers people around me too.

I think I’ve lost my glasses on the way to work today. My stupidity of course, and these were the functioning pair. As I was leaving, I picked up a cap hat, but then decided not to mess a half decent hair day and decided to carry it with me? Then I picked up my glasses, and instead of wearing them like normal people, I placed it in my hat which I was using like this pouch? Ok, so that was weird and stupid.

I reach work, and my glasses aren’t in the hat. Must have fallen somewhere along the way. Hmm… Unless, I imagined all of this and never really picked up my glasses in the first place, which is very likely too. I tend to not notice things/remember them if I do.

But the damage to my eyes shouldn’t be too severe, as, in a surprising? turn of events, the big tv in the hall spontaneously stopped working. I mean, it just failed. Must have been some power fluctuation or some such, or just age. It’s back to the little thingy again. No, I don’t know enough to even attempt to fix anything, and am too lazy (not strong enough?) to actually lift it and throw it out.

And coming to more pleasant surprises, remember this person who went missing? She’s back. She’s fine. And now a redhead :). And last night, on Insomniac, most streets Dave went to seemed awfully familiar? Yes people, Albuquerque doesn’t seem like a very large place. That and I guess cause he was walking mostly around the Hyatt? I’m pretty sure I spelt it wrong, again.

You know it’s time for a haircut.

When that’s not a picture of the back of your head.

Update: For those who don’t get it, it’s my “face”. Not the back of someone else’s head.

Today was quite decent. Got quite a bit of stuff done, for a change. And just as things are beginning to fall out of out of place, everyone’s favorite phenomenon is setting in again.

But I don’t mind. This intense need to do other random things is an inherent indicator that I am ok with the way the extremely important things are going along. I think. And anyway, I care about these other issues just as much. Or so I have to tell myself to justify slacking off.

With all this RIAA suing 12 year olds, MPAA attempting to warn innocent people, SCO vs GNU/Linux (and the rest of the sane world) and other such related madness, I’ve decided to make even bigger concrete steps towards a world where I use only freely available stuff. And I mean, free, as in speech. Most people who know the geeky me realize that I am a long time user, advocate and “attempt to shove down your throat whether you like it or not”er of Free Software. It is an important part of who I’ve become over time and now more of a religious rather than technical issue.

People like to share things. If you’re done reading this great book, and someone expresses interest in reading it, you give it to her. If the lady next door would like to know your recipe for chocolate eclair cake, you write it down for her. That’s an entirely natural sequence of events, the way things are supposed to be. If someone asks her for it in turn, she gives it to them, with her changes, as she’s most defintely made some. If you happen to actually like the music your obnoxious and loud neighbour’s playing, you ask him and he gives you a copy.

(This same logic can be applied to almost everything. Information is most useful to a maximum number of people if shared freely. Media reaches most people and artists get their ideas and whatever they wish to convey to the largest audience if it is shared freely. The same goes for software, as the more open the ideas and implementation, the more places it ends up at and more people end up benefiting.)

What is entirely unnatural however is me going, umm no. I read that recipe from this book copyrighted by blah person in blah year, and hence me giving you the recipe is a) Illegal b) Causing her to starve because no one is buying her book. Just as important, you also, as a result, won’t get to know any of my small (I feel enhancing) changes.

That’s just inherently not right.

I have had tons of arguments with people who are and/or will be writing software for a living about this, so I don’t plan to go down that road again, right now. Today, I decided to focus on something that’s as or even more important to me, music.

I’ve been doing a bit of snooping around to find places where music can be downloaded (in Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and other formats) or streamed freely. And legally. Here are some of the places.

For starters, please try Irate.

(Personal Favourites – Winamp’s Listening Party. When the band’s good. Like now, it’s REM. I have to warn you it’s highly addictive and you’ll most probably, if you are weak like me, end up buying the album. And Emusic, which is not free, as in cost.)

http://www.epitonic.com/
http://www.vorbis.com/music_links/
http://www.mp3.com/
http://www.peoplesound.com/

And suddenly, I’ve decided it’s a better idea (and easier for now) to maintain a meta list. I will try these sites slowly and move ones I find useful to my own list.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/22/02551/056
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/9/5/05113/70314
http://www.goingware.com/tips/legal-downloads.html

And even more suddenly, I decided to stop. This needs a lot more work/sorting to be moderately useful.

Sure, this is a very preliminary (and clearly not very useful) list but it should grow/improve steadily with time. Even faster if you help.

And sure, you won’t probably find the big-big name label backed “music stars”. But I don’t think that’s an issue really. These “stars” aren’t any better than most of the other insanely talented people out there. They just happened to get huge marketing behind them.

And on a sinister(er) note, I hope such non-backing of such “mainstream stars” will eventually lead to their demise.

*Pinky to my nose*
Muahaha. Muahahahahahaah. MUAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAAH.

You’re a meanie, you don’t care whether the poor artists eat.
No, I do care. And there are tons of ways they can more than support themselves.