i’ve stopped counting

The man confuses me. The man says piracy is bad and copyright violations are wrong. The man cracks down on file sharing and ftp sites. Then the man takes AOL Instant Messenger, one of the most widely-used chat programs, and adds a fileserver feature. It’s easy to control who has access, and it can run with or without the direct control of the host admin’s control. The man says all that stuff is wrong, then the man goes out of his way to give everybody on the planet more ways to go against the man’s orders. I am confused by the man.

I added Dan Bern’s Jerusalem to the lyrics page. Jeanette Lee is a very good pool player, and a good reason for ESPN2 to exist. And MTV is getting very desparate for material. Here’s a hint: …play music videos…

Here’s something they won’t tell you in MCSE training: you can start a broken power supply fan by sticking a screwdriver in it. Make sure the handle isn’t conductive.

I decided that I will program my arms off to stop feeling so bad about blowing my trumpet audition (pun not intentional, but i don’t care.) I will make available (as soon as I can find the necessary info) an ‘up’ button for internet explorer, one that would function as a WWW version of the windows explorer up button. I am also going to release updater 1.0. It will have far more options than anyone in their right mind needs. It will use the registry so it doesn’t need to go in its own directory, and it will add an Updater tool icon in the IE customizable menu. Oh yeah, e-mail stuff too (Randy). It will likely use the InstallShield wizard for install & uninstall. I will rule the world with this program. It will follow my every whim and destroy all who stand in my way. Lonely will be my updater.exe v0.4b as it sifts to the crusty riverbed of things i made, right between ‘Hello, World!’ and the IllegalOperation program. I had something more than ten servings of caffeine today. 4 coffees. 4 hot chocolates (conveniently located within the coffee). One medium rootbeer and a coke. That makes more caffeine than you can shake a nine-serving-stick at. My brain is angry now. Goodnight ftp.afn.org. Goodnight smtp.ufl.edu.

Okay, it’s been two weeks since my last update, so I guess it’s time for me to open up a can of update on everybody. Another good reason for this update is that I have a solid state circuits test tomorrow and I don’t want to start studying for it.

Tomorrow I find out if I made it into basketball band. Question: Hey, Eric-you’ve been in the basketball band for two years already, shouldn’t it be easy to audition and make it? Answer: No. Apparently my auditioning skills have been degrading since high school. My ability goes up and my audition quality spins around and gets sucked down the toilet. Perhaps I can just bet on the numbers and hope there aren’t twenty trumpeteers who did a better job than the guy who’s been playing for eight years and should have his act together.

If I could add some features to this earthly existence, I would. I would provide all class lecture information in some sort of stored format so I could risk burn-out and watch an hour speech in five minutes. I would also need a review button so I had a safety net for when I’m inc class (bored out of my mind), start thinking about girls (less bored), realise I’m in class (startled), and notice the teacher just gave an in-class assignment that he’s not about to repeat. I also wish the junior high thing note thing continued through college. You know - the shorthand retarded (yet infinitely more efficient) courting: “Hi, (name). What’s (arrow up)? Do you like me? __ yes __ no. XOXOX, (name).” And girls would give these to guys - that’s the strange part. In college, guys are old enough to have to be cautious about whether their flirting is crossing over the grey area into stalking. And there should be mirrors that have holes cut into them so I can brush my hair without having to stare at myself. And they’d be commonplace so I wouldn’t be known as the crazy person with holes cut in his mirrors.

Several weeks or months ago, I decided if I was going to do one thing in my life, it was to be happy. Being happy, although requiring a couple different things, mostly hinges on having a girlfriend/significant other/wife/whatever that I’m ecstatic to even know. The only good relationship advice I’ve ever been given is that I should marry someone smarter than me. I think I learned that when I was seven or eight. Anyway, I think that’d be a requirement for a (the) girl of my dreams. Also, I think she’d have to be terribly attractive. It would suck to be married and notice a girl that is more attractive than whoever I married. I don’t ever want to think I settled for second-best, even out of the entire population of earth. Of course, there’s the whole love requirement thing. I’d have to be able to tell her I loved her and mean it, and when she told me she loves me, I’d have to believe her. She’d have to be very determined in what she did and what she believed. I’m not sure I particularly care what those beliefs are, just as long as she knew them herself and wouldn’t take crap from anybody. Related to that last part is optional, but a big plus: the ability to beat me up. I don’t understand why I think that way… I think I’ll just leave that topic alone.

For the last hour or so, I’ve been playing columns. I broke 5,666 jewels for about 4.7 million points and I think I’ve nailed down why I haven’t been in the greatest mood lately. I’d bet that the any girl who could meet the above criteria probably knows she can do much better than me. So where does that leave everybody? That leaves the dozen or so possibly perfect girls I’d meet looking for the guys I could never be and it leaves me stuck here in not-happy-land.

I read about the faults of the government and views of unusual people. This is not for any class. I don’t really care about my classes right now. I may stay up all night for no good reason. Seven hundred and forty pages to go to see the reaction. Can the slow reader do it? Randy feeds himself with his hands and plays Columns in arcade mode with his feet with moderate success. I ask myself who is the oddball. I don’t know.