Author: Brendan

August 2, 2003 /

We spent all of yesterday moving the entire world from Richmond and my old apartment into the new apartment with Maria. My forearms are killing me, and our living room is choked with stuff, but my room actually looks fairly good and my bookshelf is full.

I literally did move everything I own this time; I no longer have any possessions in Richmond, and only a few boxes in storage. There was a big ordeal with getting a moving truck (notice: when U-Haul says “your reservation is confirmed,” what they actually mean is “eat a fuck, shitbrains”), but Ian’s roommate’s family had one that was bigger than what they needed and they were kind enough to help.

So it all worked out eventually, but the process took so long that it was 2030 hrs by the time Mom could head back home. Needless to say, it was also a little late for me to go home and pick up the half-day of work I’d wanted. That’s why I’m in the office alone on a Saturday, putting together my presentation for the CEO ‘n’ company on Monday morning. The fact that I’m in the office is in turn the only reason I can post this, since we have no interweb at home for the moment.

Why isn’t there some source of free crappy broadcast interweb, like there is with TV? Ad-supported. Big networks. Come on, it would be so convenient for people who just moved in.

Also, why not make cell phone rings work like my cell phone’s alarm? It starts off by vibrating, then gradually makes its beeping louder and louder until you wake up. It obviously isn’t hard to do, and that would give you a little notice so you could go for the phone before it just jumped in at the same annoying volume immediately. I hate cell phones. I love my cell phone.

Probably no more activity until Monday at the soonest (although of course I make all my posts from work now anyway).

July 21, 2003 /

I’m pretty sure I’m not violating my NDA by writing this: I’m famous! Whoo! Six of the seven changes in our next point release, which comes out Thursday, were bugs that I FIXED!

This is actually not a big deal, since all the issues I’ve done are what Justin calls “five-minute fixes” (except for me they take about a day). Still, code that I’ve written is now part of a commercial software product. I feel like I should have a badge, or at least a button.

Meanwhile, of course, the eleven other issues I’ve worked on didn’t pass muster with Quality Control and have all been assigned back to me. It’s almost like I’m a real programmer. I would demand to get paid more than eight bucks an hour for this, if I actually worked hard enough to earn it.

July 21, 2003 /

Overheard from the cubicle next to me, just now:

“Oh, you know George! I say we kill him.”

Did you know you can make nachos in a pie pan?

July 20, 2003 /

Last night, DC and I were fortunate enough to host an exCentriate dinner party, and I was an adventurous cook! I made fajitas in the absolute minimum possible time: dinner plans were made at 1500 hours, and we ate at 2030. That included biking to the store, buying everything, making the marinade and pico de gallo from scratch, allowing said marinade and pico to refrigerate, setting up the table with the extra leaf and Foreman-grilling the steaks. I can’t claim to have done it alone, as DC helped with shopping and Alison actually fried the vegetables, but I’m still really proud. I mixed and matched ingredients from different recipes, and I even added ideas of my own (strawberries in the pico and Crazy Salt in the marinade).

And the amazing thing is it all turned out really good. We all ate until we couldn’t move; the only things left over were tortillas and pico, because the recipe I used made WAY too much (but now I get to eat fresh salsa on my nachos for a week). Afterwards we sat and talked about Centre people forever, the way Centre people always do, and Alison told stories and we played with Lucy (from The Yellow Dar) and it was really, really good to see them all again.

Jon said last night that it feels like it’s been a very long time since we graduated, and it does feel that way, even though it hasn’t yet been two months. We’ve all changed. For one thing, I’m suddenly this person who loves to cook, even as I’m still stumbling through things like the difference between pan- and stir-frying. Maria and I are making sweet and sour chicken later tonight, and I’m looking forward to it as much as I would to a game of Halo. Am I the same at all?

Well, yes, or I wouldn’t miss them so much again. I lived with Jon and Amanda for almost three years, really, and even though I love my new Louisville life, that’s not something I’ve easily let go.

July 18, 2003 /

A 24-exposure roll of film lasts me about a year, not because I take about two pictures a month, but because I take about eleven pictures in two spurts ten months apart. The roll I just got developed ends with pictures of the Chicago trip, and begins with pictures from the end of GSP last summer. In between are a couple of great shots from SETC, which I’ll have to post soon.

The one I want to put up right now, though, is a special treat for a few proud conspirators. Remember, those who understand this, that we are sentinels, templars, proud emperors of an age gone by. Remember what we did. Remember what we were. Remember, and treasure this in your secret minds, the single hallmark I left behind me in Rodes 2.

The DBC was here

July 17, 2003 /

Magically, ridiculously, I met Emma again last night. She appeared from nowhere (okay, from Meg’s apartment) and found me talking on the phone and doing laundry at like midnight, and seeing her again made me frighteningly happy. Wow. How many times do you think you can replay one encounter in your head before the tape wears out?

July 16, 2003 /

Yesterday I learned from Maria that if you fall asleep at a boring meeting, lecture, movie, ancetera, it means you haven’t been getting enough sleep, even if you think you have. If you really actually don’t have “sleep debt”–if you’ve been getting your statistical eight hours a night–you can’t and won’t fall asleep during the day.

Since that means I’ve been constantly in debt for a good six years now, that’s a little worrisome, but it’s also good to know. Hanging out with Maria is a process of continually finding out new things about biology and discovering that half the things I thought I knew were wrong. I guess that should be embarrassing, but really it’s pretty cool. My brain is getting bigger! (Inner Maria: No it’s not!)

July 14, 2003 /

The LeonardR writes:

“I made a doob-doob (http://www.crummy.com/2002/09/03/1) rendition of Xorph. I’d give you a picture, but I have no way of getting it to you.”

First, that makes me feel bad, since I haven’t updated Xorph in a long, long time. Well, no, first it makes me feel all tingly and flushed, as happens every time someone cool talks about my comic. Second it makes me feel bad. Third: Leonard has made fan art for Xorph; the fan art is made of paper; I have never seen this fan art; I have also never seen most things made of paper. The question this poses, obviously, is are all paper things I haven’t seen actually Xorph fan art?, but I kind of like it better unanswered.

July 11, 2003 /

So the design isn’t quite done yet, but here it is: NFD now bruises its news with some of the neatest software I’ve ever had the chance to yell at. The archive navigation is a lot different now, but one thing I’m actually pretty proud of is that all the old permalinks will still work–if I’ve done it right, there’s a little script that will redirect you right to the newly bruised entry.

I actually started working on this over a week ago, and once I’d started using NB to post I couldn’t go back (which is why there hasn’t been anything on the old NFD page for so long). Switching my journal software was like walking into a dealership with a wheelbarrow and driving out with a red Ferrari, so I’ve been writing, but in here instead. You can read like two weeks of the stuff starting on June 27 (although I think this next one is my favorite yet).

The front-page design has been trickier, since I wanted to finally have something on this site that was valid XHTML and built entirely with CSS. I think it’s pretty close now, but the design still looks better in IE than Netscape. I also tried to tidy all the old code in the conversion, but I’m sure I missed something; if you find broken links or funny-looking entries, let me know.

So enjoy the calendar, the searchability, the randomnymity and the category madness; pretty soon there should be something else up top, either a random quote or a Today in History feature. Expect entries to be rather more frequent but correspondingly shorter, as now updating isn’t such an ordeal that I feel I have to save up my material. Expect also at least two more of the secret projects I’ll be developing this summer, involving obsessions and imperatives.

I really do hope you like the new NFD (BC). And I’d love to stay and type more, but today is Blood Drive Day and I’ve gotta go faint.

July 10, 2003 /

Today on MSN:

Why carbs aren't all bad

Oh, right, because you need them to live.