A Call to Arms -Tuesday, June 01, 2004 -2:30 am-
One of my long-time friends is about to leave an abusive relationship. She is currently processing all the paperwork to separate her affairs from his and to prevent him from having contact with her or her daughter. Once the paperwork is complete, we will be doing a rapid extract from her current residence. We are in great need of movers. You shouldn't have to haul anything yourself, so vehicle size is irrelevant. There should be no risk to you because the extraction will be done while he is at work. I'm also going to arrange for a spotter and, if I still have the contacts, arrange to have a few professionals in the area should anything go wrong (yes I'm serious).
What I need are people to carry things out of the house and into the moving van. The complicating factor is that I don't know when this is going to happen. Those of you who can make yourselves available on short notice (as in drop what you're doing and come), please let me know and provide me with the quickest way to contact you. I'll provide you with a map to the house and let you know when it's time. Don't just reply to this entry, make sure you catch me in person on IM or on the phone.
See You Later... -Thursday, June 03, 2004 -10:53 pm-
what's your cowboy bebop theme song?
Lawful Good Human Fighter Paladin
Follower Of Tyr
Alignment:
Lawful Good characters are the epitome of all that is just and good. They believe in order and governments that work for the benefit of all, and generally do not mind doing direct work to further their beliefs.
Race:
Humans are the 'average' race. They have the shortest life spans, and because of this, they tend to avoid the racial prejudices that other races are known for. They are also very curious and tend to live 'for the moment'.
Primary Class:
Fighters are the warriors. They use weapons to accomplish their goals. This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.
Secondary Class:
Paladins are the Holy Warriors. They have been chosen by a God/dess to be their representative on Earth, and must follow the code of that deity, or risk severe penalties. They tend towards being righteous, but not generally to excess.
Deity:
Tyr is the Lawful Good god of justice. He is also known as Tyr Grimjaws, Wounded Tyr, the Maimed God, and Blind Tyr. He appears as a warrior, missing his hand. Followers of Tyr are concerned first and foremost with justice - discovering the truth and punishing the guilty for their crimes. They wear blue and purple robes with a white sash, a white gauntlet on the left hand, and a black gauntlet on the right, to symbolize Tyr's lost hand. Their preferred weapon is the warhammer. Tyr's symbol is a set of scales resting on a warhammer.
Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXX (6)
Neutral Good ---- XX (2)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXX (4)
Lawful Neutral -- (-2)
True Neutral ---- (-2)
Chaotic Neutral - X (1)
Lawful Evil ----- XX (2)
Neutral Evil ---- (-3)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXX (3)
Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Half-Elf - (-2)
Elf ------ X (1)
Halfling - (-7)
Dwarf ---- XXXXX (5)
Half-Orc - XXXXX (5)
Gnome ---- (0)
Class:
Fighter - XXXXXXXX (8)
Ranger -- XX (2)
Paladin - XXXXX (5)
Cleric -- XXX (3)
Mage ---- (-1)
Druid --- (-5)
Thief --- (-2)
Bard ---- X (1)
Monk ---- (-4)
Does anyone happen to know what all that means?
Daylog20040604 -Saturday, June 05, 2004 -3:24 am-
I had most of a good night tonight. I started with trying to go to the Arts Festival with Squish, Scarlet, Deuce, and Cassie. I got there, found a solitary Scarlet, then a solitary Squish. Briefly saw Cassie's head. As it turns out, Squish was moving at the breath taking speed of the Great Molasses Flood of Aught-Six. So Mich and I headed out on our own to look at the booths. I was pretty lame, really. Most of the work was unoriginal and self-similar. There was nothing I which I would have bought (and not just because of the prices!). There was one thing I would have hung in my house, had it been given to me. In the booth of the guy exhibiting prints from the Polaroid 20x30 camera, there were also a few collages of medium format black and white negatives. They were nice. Not great, not cool, just nice. And that was the best thing there. We finished with the whole site MUCH earlier than Squish and Scarlet, so we went to get sushi.
Later, we met Squish and Scarlet at Squish's house for booze and a movie. The booze was readily laid to hand, but there were provisions absent. We went to the grocery store. Scarlet was upset when Squish wetted her (Scarlet's) ass with her cold white jug. This led to two screaming college girls chasing each other through a desolate Kroger's lot in the middle of the night. Back home, we discovered the wonder that is Chocolate Thin Mint Yummmyness in Milk. Mmmmmmmm. The movie never got off the ground though. The four of us ended up talking for several house and making a rather good go of it. I was pleasantly surprised, as I wasn't sure of my standing with some members of the party and wasn't sure how it would go. All too soon everyone was tired and wanted to go home.
It was nice to have a night that mostly went well.
Wordswordswordswordswords -Tuesday, June 08, 2004 -12:57 pm-
So Squish is taking a hell of a beating over on her blog, and even getting lambasted on other people's blogs. I look at the stupidity of what's going on over there and can only sigh in familiarity. Everyone is yelling at her for what the wanted her to have said, not what she actually did say. This is how almost every conversation I've ever had with most of these people has gone. Here, let me explain.
What Squish said:
I don't feel like going to the Harry Potter movie. Oh look, the Arts Festival is free!
What everyone wanted Squish to have said so they could make drama:
I'm not going to the Harry Potter movie because I, as an artist, am above such things, as opposed to you mere mortals. By going to see a mass-media film, you all are confirming that you are but mere plebeians and not worthy of my time. So have fun debasing your simple selves at the alter of consumerism. I, on the other hand, will be expressing my superiority by going to the Arts Festival, an event which you could not possibly appreciate. Thank you all for electing me Queen of the Universe.
So, as you can see, there's a large gap between the reality and the prevailing conversation. Poor Squish was just doing something else and everyone decided it was time for a blanket party. For God's sake, let her be! If you want to attack someone for being a philistine, attack me. I think the previous Harry movies sucked in a most boring manner. This movie may, may, get a chance when it ends up at the fiddycent. Depends on if I want to waste 2.5 hours of my life or not.
Oh, and since this seems to be a common misconception: I do not think you're a bad person for going to see a movie I don't like. <super serious tone>The real reason I think you're a bad person is that you don't hold exactly the same views, opinions, and values that I do.</super serious tone>
Computational Thermodynamics -Thursday, June 17, 2004 -11:08 pm-
A week and 2 days ago, my AC went out. Again. For the third time this year, the fifth time overall. Management finally decided to give me a new condensor/compressor unit. I thought this would be a good thing. It really wasn't. It meant I spent a week and 2 days totally without AC. Now, think back over the last 9 days and remember the weather. Ick. I had to sleep on the couch some. When it gets humid, my heart rate and blood pressure rise dangerously, so I couldn't sleep on the top floor. This is also why I had to come home from Kentucky early. Sorry if I offened anyone, but I was starting to ahve trouble staying alive and it was making me cranky. I wanted to leave before I snapped at someone and pissed people off. I slept for most of the ride home and then for the next 14 hours. Anyway. As rough of a time as I was having, my server was also greatly stressed. The CPU was running HOT. Hotter than I've ever seen it, and I've run it without the heat sink on (don't ask). I had a thermal monitoring program running the whole time, with a script running to shutdown -h now the computer if it reached 55C.
The new AC arrived today, thank god. Once I had cooled off, I took a look at the historic graph of CPU temp that had accumulated. It cracked my ass up. The time scale in the first image is 7 days. You can see that when I tried to do a video import, I almost killed the computer. Then, you can see the day/night cycles as the temperature in the room rose and fell with the sun. Finally, you can see a crash in the temperature when the new AC arrives and starts working.
The second image only contains six hours. You can see a very clear downward trend when the AC starts to function and then a cyclical pattern as the house reaches its target temperature and begins to cycle the AC on and off. Finally, you can see the spike in temperature as I finally feel safe using the computer again.
Fritter and Waste -Wednesday, June 30, 2004 -2:32 am-
Well, I'm sitting in the ER, as I have been for the last two and a half hours, so I figure I may as well blog. This one is going to go back a ways, at least a week. The Saturday before last Michelle, Michele, and I met Mary at Momo. Michelle ended up driving Michele home so I had to drop of Mary on my own. As I was leaving her place I noticed that Mich's car didn't have much of any gas left in it. I stopped at the Marathon at Chittenden and Summit. As I was filling up, a major pimpmobile pulled up. Gold chrome hundred-spokes, purple velvet seats, little gold crown on the rear deck. The driver got out and went around to the passenger side. He opened the door and put something on the ground. I was thinking it was a small dog or suchlike. The driver walks into the store with a leash in his hand. On the other end of the leash was an alligator. About 5 feet long. The man walked his alligator into the store, bought some snacks, and walked back to his car. He picked the alligator up, and the damned thing stuck its nose out the window as they drove away. Only on Chittenden does that make sense.
In further car news, I went to ComFest on Sunday. It was... moderately interesting. I ran into a bunch of people I knew. Parking was a bitch though. I drove for 30 minutes trying to find a legal place to park. I finally came across a side street, well north of the event area, where there were no signs at all. I went up and down the street twice to make sure it wasn't marked as no parking. I parked the car and started walking towards High St. About 100 yards away from where I parked I walked past a gravel lot that was attached to a vacant factory building. As I looked, a car pulled in and parked. I thought about moving my car to the lot, but decided that it probably belonged to someone and I should be nice and not park there. I walked the mile and a half to the venue and stayed there for about 5 hours. Eventually, I hiked it back to the car. As I was walking up the street to where I had parked, I noticed that there were far too few cars and far too many cops and tow trucks. I approached the first cop and asked why they towed my car from a street not marked as a no-parking zone. He replied that the street was only 22 feet wide. "Well, good for it," I said. Glaring a bit he continued on to tell me that Columbus motor vehicle code forbids parking on streets narrower than 23 feet. Riiiiiight... I was supposed to notice the missing foot, less than a 5% difference, from a visual inspection. That also presumes that I was even aware such a crazy law existed. It was a two lane road with no signs, why in the hell wouldn't I be allowed to park there? Thankfully, Mich had just dropped Amanda off on campus and could pick me up. The next day I went with Jeff to pick the car up. He had to go since his name was on the title and registration (we also found out that the BMV still thinks he lives in Westerville). He also had to provide the cash. It cost me $126 to get the car back. A $70 holding fee, a $46 dolly fee, and a $10 ticket. Great.
The Columbus Impound Lot is west of High Street just south of downtown. If you ever have to go there, wear good walking shoes. It was a ten minute walk from the guard tower gate to the row my car was in. The lot had once been gravel but time and toil had reduced it to an ultrafine powder that stirred up from the ground with the least breath of air, hanging lazily, before covering every surface in sight. It was apparent that some of the cars had been there for quite some time, since before the last heavy rains at the very least. These resident cars were sunk into the ground. Abandon your conception of tires squelching ruts into the mud, these wheels had melted there. The ground formed perfectly flat against the tire, following its every contour. The ground between was flat and level as glass. There'd be no driving that riced out Civic with the broken in windows away without a shovel. As a final insult, the white serial number placed on the driver's side window will likely outlast the car.
In other news, Half Persians are the spawn of the devil. They're also incredibly interesting. HP is a bitch to start and a bitch to join. They are, however, extremely fast to make. From a mathematical standpoint, they're insanely great. Take an integer greater than three. Take a second integer that's less than the first. From these two numbers, a half persian can be built. The first number determines the density of the chain and the second number determines the chain's aspect ratio perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. It's pretty damn cool.
OK, we're moving somewhere, bye.
