October 2002
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New Beginnings?
04 October, 2002 at 09:51 PM by Ren | Permalink
So, I'm tired. I'm tired of caring and tired of wanting to be noticed by people who seem content to just forget about me. I don't care anymore. I'm tired of it all. You win. I lose. I will continue on my merry way working myself into oblivion. Call me if you like, I'll answer if I'm not too terribly chained to my computer.
Blah blah blah, melodrama.
Enough. Like I said, I'm tired of it all. Someday, I'll finish some of those posts that explain more, but not tonight. Too worn out. Work is hellish. I've got like five websites to work on, and one that might snag me mad cash. I'm hoping that the mad cash website will seriously let me bring home the bacon. Ok, but enough about that, I don't have much to say about it right now, so it'll have to wait til there's more to say.
Tomorrow: Freaky and I are going to San Marcos to see Blue October in concert at Gordo's. I'm totally looking forward to seeing them. It's been about a month since we last saw them. Besides, the bass player totally recognized me at that show. I'm hoping that bass player recognizes me tomorrow and says "lets go someplace more quiet and like, you know, shag like the rotten bitches we are." To which I'll say "um, oK."
Hey, it's a pipe dream. I need to end this fucking drought sometime soon. Besides, that would kill two birds with one stone. I'd shag a budding rock star (fulfilling the "have sex with someone [relatively, at least in TX] famous" on my list of things to do before I die) and end the Gobi desert of a hot-monkey-love drought I've been suffering through for the last...oh, milennium (yes, RollerMog, I went there).
mmmmm, hot bass player.
*drool*
Oh yeah, back to my post. Sorry, I got a little distracted. Anyway, it sucks that I haven't posted, but no one sent me email so clearly y'all don't care. FUCK YOU! hehehehe Right. So, yeah. I'm back to spilling the not interesting details of my life for the 12 of you that read my journal. I wasn't gone, I just didn't feel like posting. I was tired of wanting people to care and all that, but it's somewhat better now. I'm just going to go on being classic Ren--the guy who doesn't give a rat's ass about anything and is perpetually happy. Yeah. That should work.
It's better than pining over what a sucky period my life is going through, isn't it?
Well. Last things. There's people in my life I miss. You guys know who you are. And those of you that don't, well, I miss you too. But you know what? If you dont' miss me, FUCK YOU! I dont' care. : )
Oh yeah, and if you happen to be this person (the bitchy looking one, not the short, fat one), I hate you. Straight up. Also, that picture of you with your shirt off. Toe up, girl. Toe up. AND FOR REAL, your mannerisms are "masculine/butch?" My asshole they are, you big queen. FOR REAL!
Ooooo, I'd better go, It looks like the bitter bus is about to make a stop at my house and I don't wanna ride.
Love y'all. Seriously. I do.
I am so tired...
06 October, 2002 at 07:35 PM by Ren | Permalink
I can feel it in my balls. Ask me about that phrase some other time. It involves a horrible person, but a funny story. Just not right now.
I must say that I still love Blue October. Their set at Gordo's last night in San Marcos was FUCKING AMAZING. I love them. . . especially one person, even if he barely recognized me. hehehe. They even did Breakfast After Ten FIRST! It was like first on their playlist! Woo!
The one part that sucked was how packed the place was. I swear, if you moved you lost your spot. And it sucks when you finish your fifth beer and realize you REALLY have to pee. I had to pee so bad I could feel it in my balls. Finally, about 4 songs from the end of their show, I broke down and went to pee. I swear, I was holding it in so long, it actually HURT to pee. That's just wrong. It shouldn't HURT WHEN YOU PEE. Anyway, the show was awesome.
The best part of the show is when like you realize that everyone in that auditorium or whatever knows the song, and they're singing along with you and the singer...and at some points actually cover up the singer. It's so cool to hear hundreds of people singing along. Really cool. Not so cool that you can feel it in your balls, but still.
Anyway, that was the weekend in a nutshell. I'll post scans of the souveneirs I took when I get to work tomorrow. My scanner here at home is not plugged in and would be a pain to plug it in. : )
I still got it!
07 October, 2002 at 04:48 PM by Ren | Permalink
I'M 122 PROOF. HOW DRUNK ARE YOU?
I dont' feel quite so out of touch anymore. I'm 122 proof! frick yeah!
Productive
08 October, 2002 at 10:11 AM by Ren | Permalink
Yesterday I was incredibly productive. I think i'm really starting to get the hang of style sheets.
I did this page using a style sheet layout. I was pretty impressed with myself. Just ask Gidge. I gave everyone and their dog the URL to see it.
I really don't have much to say this morning except that I'm tired, I'm hungry and I wanna go home already. But I did promise you guys souveneirs from my trip to San Marcos. So, here they are: my ticket to Gordo's and a piece of tape that was stuck to a speaker in front of Justin during the show. At some point, I'm going to get the tape off my car that Matt, the bass player, signed and scan it. Just not today.
Well, I've got about 12313241085 meetings today, so I need to run. I may talk more later. I don't know yet.
Return of the Bizarre Dream
10 October, 2002 at 08:35 AM by Ren | Permalink
Last night I had one of my crazy dreams.
I think it started when I was talking to my 7 year old brother, Eric. I was asking him what he was going to be for halloween and he said he didn't know. So I told him I wanted to be a Jedi. He said that he might want to be one too. I think that's what started it.
The dream started normally enough. For some reason Eric was starting a new school and I was taking him to the school. Turns out it was the school where I went to Kindergarten and 1st grade. My dad went there too. Anyway, we were going to this school to drop him off but before we went in we went to go see this parade happening in front of the school. My old high school band was there, but half the band was dressed up as drum majors, and the other half were wearing the uniforms they had when I was there. Tropical Pepto Bismol. I'll find a picture and post it someday.
Anyway, that was strange enough. Then the band played; then they marched off towards the stadium which was down the street. Just plain strange.
Then I started taking Eric to his classroom. I asked him where it was, he said it was downstairs and next to the cafeteria. It was the same classroom that I was in in 1st grade. With Mrs. Sevier (pronounced severe). She was mean. I think he even had Mrs. Sevier as his teacher. She must've been ancient by the time Eric got to her.
This is where the dream starts getting weird. Yeah, I know, its weird already. Well, we get in the building, and all the power goes out. Eric and I are too freaked out to go any farther so we decide to go back out cuz there's light coming from the outside. We turn around and see this shape move out towards the door. It was shadow colored and then dissapeared. It was just like in Signs. We both freaked, and I think I actually started saying things in my sleep.
Eric and I decide we're trapped (and remember, this is where I said it was going to get really weird). But we're gonna go down fighting, so we bust out our lightsabers. The Hell? Yeah, we had lightsabers, and were apparently some kind of Jedi or something. Suddenly there were like a bazillion of these shadow-y creature things attacking us. We break it down Attack of the Clones style and slice up some freaky shadow creatures. Eric has the mad Yoda fighting skillz. He's jumping up and down off walls just slashing through anything that isn't human.
Somehow though, we got overpowered and the shadow things were gonna kill us. That's when I woke up. I really wish sometimes that I had normal dreams like regular people. These dreams I have just get too freaky for even me.
Cool
10 October, 2002 at 11:32 AM by Ren | Permalink
I fixed my page so it renders nearly identically in IE 6 and Netscape 6 and up. Stupid me, I was setting an attribute to a style that it didn't need, so it freaked Netscape the hell out.
If anyone was wondering, the date box was sticking out into the blue navigation rail by like 15 pixels. Just enough to really piss me off. But I fixed it. Go me.
Time for lunch, talk to you later.
hee!
10 October, 2002 at 02:48 PM by Ren | Permalink
In my efforts to keep me from accomplishing any real work today I found this on The Onion: Snoop Dogg Goes Clean.
Work Drama
11 October, 2002 at 01:37 PM by Ren | Permalink
So the environment at work hasn't been the greatest lately. There's a lot of stress going on because we've been one person short for quite some time. One of the two writers in my department retired; that has left us short for about 9 months. While the writer who remained has more or less kept up pace with the important news releases, she hasn't had time for any in depth feature stories...and that sucks.
Well the shit hit the fan yesterday when Jules (a co-worker) was asked to approve a requisition for a new part-time employee to work on the schedule. For about $2000. I could farm out the catalog of courses online to a company in corpus christi for about $2500. And its something that would only be done once every two years. The schedule happens every semester.
See the big deal comes in that we have a staff graphic artist who is supposed to be doing layout on things like the class schedule. Not to mention we keep hiring part-time workers when we haven't re-hired the full time employee. It really sucks. Anyway, Jules wrote an email to my boss saying about as much. So there's stress. Much stress. My boss for some reason often has an inability to deal with interpersonal conflict; actually she deals with it mainly by not dealing with it at all. Which never really works. The problem never goes away if you ignore it--it just gets worse with the passing of time.
Stress. My boss just came back in from lunch and shut her door. I'm thinking she's mad. Oh well. It's her own fault. Deal with some of the problems for once, and don't let them just sit there. They dont' go away. They just get worse.
Updates
11 October, 2002 at 04:09 PM by Ren | Permalink
I just finished updating all the main pages to my site to a CSS based layout.
Go me.
Also, I'm leaving work early cuz I'm going to be a grown up and get Renter's Insurance! Doesn't that sound so adult? CRAZY! I got a deal on the insurance, so it was a deal I couldn't resist. It doesn't give me the satisfaction of a new pair of pants from the Gap, but shit, at least I'll be covered if my apartment gets broken into.
I'll continue working on my pages over the weekend. . .but the transformation should be complete sometime next week. Operative sentence in that word is of course, should. : )
I admit it
11 October, 2002 at 09:52 PM by Ren | Permalink
I'm a web nerd.
Since I finished the new template for the site, and I applied it to all the front pages, I keep staring at my website seemingly astounded by my own mad KrAzEe SkIlLz. : ) I know. It's nerdy. It's even a little self-indulgent. But frick you, it's my hot website, I'll do what I want.
Anyway, there's still lots to be done, and I'll probably start converting the picture pages (good lord that may take a while) to a more uniform template; one that uses a style sheet, of course ; ) and maybe I'll even start to finally fix my journal archives. They're totally disjoined and crappy the way they are--now that my website is top-notch, my archives should be much the same.
Well then, that being said, I have more staring to do at my website. And RollerMog, don't give me that look, I know you do the same shit when you redesign one of your sites too.
Laundering
13 October, 2002 at 09:08 PM by Ren | Permalink
You know, I really hate that I don't do laundry as often as I should. I mean, we're not talking turn-the-boxers-inside-out bad, but when I have to do laundry, *I HAVE TO DO LAUNDRY* ya know?
Maybe I should clarify some more: I don't just hate that it takes an act of Congress to get me to do laundry...I just hate doing laundry period. The sorting, the walk to the laundromat, finding enough quarters. The inevitable "I only have $6, one load will have to wait" drama.
The only upside to all this is how fabulous your clothes smell after they're clean. All Mountain Fresh or whatever flavor they call it this week.
I think I washed everything that I wear regularly today. Plus, all my towels. The bedsheets will have to wait til next week (and no not for that reason, dirty. Because they just need a cleaning.).
I spent 9 bucks on laundry today. I really need to do stuff like this more often. And then it takes all afternoon to do it all...oh and the folding. Don't get me started on the folding.
The worst part of it all is, the last load *never* gets folded. It just sits in the basket getting slowly used until its time to do laundry again. Don't worry too much though, it's just whites. But still, I'm so f'n lazy sometimes. I'm not going to do it again. Must. Resist. Urge.
Picture pages
14 October, 2002 at 01:22 PM by Ren | Permalink
The Picture Pages section is done. All the individual picture pages use a cascading style sheet to control their layout. It took me all weekend...but it's done.
Not much is going on today, pretty quiet on the work front.
If I have anything else to say, I'll write. If not, expect a rant on the evil puppy that lives downstairs from me soon.
F'n Dog.
14 October, 2002 at 03:14 PM by Ren | Permalink
I'm not sure if I mentioned it before today (and frankly, i'm too f'n lazy to check if I have), but I have new neighbors downstairs. Not a bad thing, really. Except for their dog. It's not a dog really. It's probably a puppy. I don't know. I've never actually *seen* the hellspawn; I've merely heard its demonic yap echo through my apartment building.
It can't be that bad, right? Oh, but it is, you see, because it starts barking at like 4 in the morning and won't stop 'til noon. I get to hear its incessant barking all night long. It wouldn't be so bad if all it did was bark. But no, seeing as how this dog is the mongrel of Mephistopheles Himself, after barking for, oh I don't know, 2 and a half hours, it realizes the barking is getting him nowhere fast. So it adopts a new tactic: in addition to it's barking, it starts throwing itself at the door.
I'm not making this up.
It barks, and runs against the door. How do I know this for sure? I hear it hit the door. The dog fricken hits the fricken door. And then presumably, it starts barking at the door because it hurt itself against the door. Then it throws itself at the door and barks some more. I hate that dog.
Even worse, I hate its owners. They're never home when I'm home, which is probably why it barks all night long and also why I can't be all neighborly and say something like "Hi, welcome to the complex; Would you please kill your dog? It barks a whole lot, mainly when I'm trying to sleep and I just hate it. Kill it before I do! Thanks! If you ever need anything, I'm upstairs from you guys!!!"
I just refuse to believe the owners would let that beast bark like that if they were actually there. It's really just lonely. The owners aren't there, and poor puppy has a nightmare or something. It just wants mommy and daddy to come pet it and give it a snausage or something. Of course, if they were there and they got tired of hearing it bark, maybe it's not throwing itself against the door...no, that's just mean. But I hate that dog, so it's not *that* mean.
But I don't care anymore. The dog must die. I'm starting to formulate new, creative ways to terminate the dog. Right now I'm leaning toward an overly elaborate dipping mechanism into a pool filled with sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads. But then I think, naw, it's been done before. So, if you have any suggestions...I'm all ears. Just hurry; that dog is going to drive me crazy.
It's going to be one of THOSE days...
17 October, 2002 at 10:20 AM by Ren | Permalink
I'm working on a new design for the University website...and I get this random person IMming me on Y!
This is that conversation:
adayang2001: hi~
AricDanyul: hi
adayang2001: i'm aimless surfing,and i find u
adayang2001: :)
AricDanyul: right.
adayang2001: so what r u doing there?
adayang2001: aric~
AricDanyul: i'm working
adayang2001: can i can u like this?
adayang2001: oh,really
AricDanyul: can you what?
adayang2001: sorry for disturbing
AricDanyul: ok
adayang2001: call,haha
AricDanyul: haha, No.
adayang2001: ok,c u~
adayang2001: :p
The rest of the day better go better than this lame ass conversation or I'm gonna be kickin' some ass. I mean seriously, lame. Use English much? And what's up with that "~" umlaut thing after every sentence? Lame. Lame. Lame. Ok, back to work.
MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!
19 October, 2002 at 10:54 PM by Ren | Permalink
It just finished raining here, and the f'cker who has his alarm set to ultra-freaking-sensitive apparently isn't here. So his alarm is going off, and off, and off.
The funny thing is, it's been going off for like an hour now. It's starting to drop pitch and go slower.
I hope his battery runs out. F'cking alarm. All noisy and shit. I hope it pisses off that damn evil dog too!
It's certainly pissing me off.
blah blah blah monday blah blah
21 October, 2002 at 10:18 AM by Ren | Permalink
Good morning.
I'm taking some time this morning to write about something that has deeply troubled me all weekend. The best band in the whole world, Blue October, is taking a hiatus from touring. This bothers me. I was totally looking forward to catching at least two more of their shows before year's end. See, I could live with that, if that were all that was happening with them.
But you see, as they say, it gets worse.
Not only are they taking a break from touring, but the lust of my life (well, 2002 anyway), Matt the bass player from Blue October, is leaving the band. YES. Leaving the band. Due to health reasons. I'm so sad. Who am I going to stare at now? Justin? I doubt it. Ryan? Like hell.
I know you dont' read this Matt, but I'm sorry to hear you're leaving the band. It saddens me to know I can't make up any stories about him anymore. Sadness.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the same day I learned Matt was leaving the band, my Palm Pilot committed suicide. Yes, it leapt from my loving hands and straight onto the concrete. Shattered the glass front. Ironically, it still beeps at me telling me when I have to do stuff; I just can't tap it to say "No Palmpilot, I've already taken care of it. You can go back to sleep now." Poor palmpilot.
Oh well. I guess I should actually get some work done now, huh? No more mourning. I will miss you though Matt. *sniffsniff* Sheesh, what's with the dreamboats leaving me this year?
Tee Hee!
21 October, 2002 at 10:39 AM by Ren | Permalink
This is too funny:
Crazy
22 October, 2002 at 06:34 PM by Ren | Permalink
Oops. Through a minor oversight on my part, I forgot to pay my phone bill. Fortunately, my DSL (provided by the same company) has not been shut off *crossesfingers*. Like a dumbass, I left my last book of checks at work too. So, oh well, the phone will be disconnected until tomorrow. Ewps!
Anyway, today was a busy, busy day at work. I got some new designs up and running, though, so at least it was productive. The ride home was interesting.
It's raining here in Corpus Christi. Lightly, but it's raining. Well, between Corpus Christi and Kingsville, it's POURING. Like, drive 20 miles or less because you can't see right in front of you pouring. Yeah, the ride that normally takes me 40 minutes to make took about an hour and fifteen today. I couldn't see past my bumper at some points; there was rain EVERYWHERE. It was crazy. Buckets of rain. Man, I don't think I've ever driven through such a horrific storm.
Crazier still, it's only sprinkling in Corpus. I'm just glad I'm home though. That rain was scaring the pants off me, but not in the good way. At least I'm home safe. Too bad I can't call anyone to tell them that though : D I'll have my phone back tomorrow. It'll be nice to not be found. I can probably get caught up with some work too.
Whee.
Holy SHIT.
22 October, 2002 at 08:26 PM by Ren | Permalink
So, I finally downloaded Winamp 3. I had been holding out on Winamp 2.61 or something; RollerMog kept telling me how this one was WAAAAAY better. It had an awesome equalizer or something.
I was all "yeah, whatever." But not to his face, so as not to upset the poor boy. I love him to pieces, you know.
Anyway, I made the plunge after he showed me this kickass skin called MMD3. See, winamp now has this awesome freeform skinning deal. It allows a skin to be completely free formed. So, you're not just limited to a predetermined size. So this skin--it's windowshade mode is f'n awesome. It sits across the top of your desktop, totally out of the way of your minimize, maximize and close icons AND! It has about 30 variations on the color.
That was reason enough.
Then I downloaded it at home. See, I have the same Altec Lansing speakers at home that I do at work...but when you're at work, you just can't break it down (break it down) like you can at home. People start complaining about how loud it is blah blah blah old people when you're at work. At home, all I have to deal with is that demon spawn dog. So I downloaded it at home and started listening to some stuff. I think I have to change my underwear. It's freaking AMAZING. It drowns out that f'n dog and his owners banging on the ceiling for me to turn down the volume, but you see I'm all like "is that freedom rock? WELL TURN IT UP!"
SO F' YOU EVIL DOWNSTAIRS DOG NEIGHBORS! and ROCK ON WINAMP 3!
Homecoming
26 October, 2002 at 10:25 PM by Ren | Permalink
Today was Homecoming at my alma mater/place of work. I didn't go. It's been raining buckets for the last several days, and most of the roads to Kingsville are fairly flooded. So, being the make-decision kind of guy that I am (yeah, right), I decided I'd be staying put today.
In a way, it sort of sucks; that's the first homecoming game I've missed at the Uni. since 1994. Oh well. There'll be plenty more I'm sure.
On the upside, I think the rain has finally stopped. This rain has been MAD CRAZY. I'm serious, one day on the way home it was all I could do to see to my bumper it was raining so hard. And the flooding. Good lord, the flooding. Poor Janet Ronessa Black was just not well for all that water. She told me so.
Ren: Girl, drive through that water.
Ronessa: what, and get wet?
Ren: you're a car, do it.
Ronessa: Bitch, you be trippin', I'ma get all kinds of wet!
Ren: you're a car. It's raining as it is, you're already wet.
Ronessa: nuh-uh baby, my underbody is dry, dry, dry.
Ren: why is everything a fight with you?
Ronessa: because. I'm fabulous like that. Besides, that water looks deep. I'm a car, not a hydrofoil.
See, normal people have a car without attitude. But of course, I am not normal, and I have conversations with my car and my car has attitude. I cant' wait for her to meet the right sedan, fall in love and have her very own baby cars. Then maybe she won't have so much time to fuss with me.
Anyway, the rain stopped, the Javelinas won their homecoming game, and hopefully it'll dry out before Monday. All this water on the road just isn't fun.
CURSE YOU REAL PLAYER
28 October, 2002 at 09:18 PM by Ren | Permalink
I'm freaking pissed at the Real Networks guys.
I had my Winamp all configured just the way I liked it. Then Real Player decides it wanted to play all my mp3s. F' YOU REAL PLAYER. It's my hot Winamp; It'll play the mp3s I want! So after about 2 days of fighting with Real Player and reinstalling Winamp, I finally got my file associations just the way I wanted them.
I hate software that thinks it knows better than me. If Real Player does this again, I swear to God, I'll unstall that ho like the cheap trick she is.
one more time: F! YOU REAL PLAYER!
In other news, I had to drive through more rain. I swear today, I think I nearly drowned Ronessa. In fact, her poor horn (which like most of the rest of the car, got seriously drenched) is sounding suspiciously meek. I think it's waterlogged. I'm sorry Roe. I didn't think there'd be YET ANOTHER flash flood today. I hope I didn't kill the horn. That's all I need, days before inspection month. Blah, it'll work tomorrow when it dries out.